2026-3-17 Board of Education meeting

001Good evening. It is 7:11 p.m. and I will call the Germantown School District Board of Education meeting to order um here at the Performing Arts Center on March 17th. If you're able to stand, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. A brief moment of silence. >> To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. >> Item 1A, official meeting notification. >> Public notice of all meetings has been given by communication from the superintendent's office to the public to those news media who have requested such notices and the Milwaukee Journal, Sentinel, Northwest Now, Express News, and the Westbend Daily News. Public notice has also been posted in schools throughout the Germantown School District and on

002the Germantown School District website. >> Thank you. Uh 1B roll call >> here. >> Brown >> here. >> Barney's here. Loath >> here. >> Pollock >> here. >> Hen Botham >> here. Very >> here. >> Approval of uh item to approval of the agenda. >> Motion to approve the agenda. >> Second. >> Mr. Voyer with the motion. >> With the missathan with the second. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Hearing? None. That passes. Item three, reports, district administrator update. Dr. Reutder. >> Yeah, I just a few updates this evening. First, I'd like to thank uh Mr. Eric Brown for your service on the Germantown School Board for the past three years. You've served as chair of the personnel committee and vice president as well as numerous committees. Um,

003and you've had a value ad to our school district. So, Mr. you were and I would like to thank you formally. >> So if if if people don't know um this would be his last sitting full board um meeting. So that's this evening. Uh next month he'll join us for committees run his committee. Hopefully he'll show up and then uh there'll be a transition to uh whoever wins that seat. So good luck to them. And Eric, thank you very much for your three years. Appreciate it. >> Thank you Mr. Brown. Congratulations. >> Thank you. Come on. uh being a school board member, you probably know in your three years here in your your term, uh there's a lot of work that goes on beyond just these board meetings and we are truly grateful for your

004service. So, thank you. >> I appreciate Thank you very much. I'm honored. Thank you all for the opportunity. >> Yeah. Awesome. Um all I have tonight is we have some guests here. Uh, Miss Sefeld is here to speak with us a little bit about our food and nutrition program and an update this evening and Mrs. Garren's here with some of her awesome students and staff from Kennedy Middle School to share some of the great things happening at KMS. Uh, additionally, I put in my uh, update March Madness because it is madness, right? We're we're getting to the the the point of spring break and we uh congratulate all of our um student athletes who are are finishing up their winter sports season as well as as we transition to spring and we look forward to

005spring break and uh like we just had the other day. You never know what's going to happen in March. We had a snow day yesterday and Friday we have professional development day and our teachers will be fully focused on on the great work to ensure that they're um improving their their craft in order to improve the student outcome. So that's it for this evening. >> Um Dr. I don't have a president's report on here. I'm going to put you a little bit on the spot. >> Sure. >> Uh personnel, we talked about seems to be a hot topic and I have a lot of guests coming up. >> Can you give a brief update? I know it's on the agenda for further discussion, but just what happened at um personel on the front end. >>

006Sure. And I'll I'll defer to Dr. Castro when I need to, but uh personnel uh committee this evening met. We discussed our preliminary staffing plan. Um, contrary to what's been posted on social media by a group not affiliated with the school district, um, we are not reducing FTE at this time for Kennedy Middle School or any of our music programming across the district. Um, that's for future discussion. Dr. Castro will be meeting with the uh actual music department on Friday to discuss what actual face-to-face communication time looks like with students versus lessons and the other responsibilities that our music st has involved. Um so um we are not cutting our music program or or taking away any funding from our music program. >> Yeah. And I think it's important and just to to piggyback on

007that real quick. uh it's a fabric of our community in this in this district. It's one of the cornerstone programs we we have in this school system. Uh so while the communication and some of the information in the packet people can interpret one way, I wish they would they would reach out and seek the appropriate information um um before misunderstanding or jumping to conclusions on that. I received some communications as why didn't the board explain this beforehand? The board didn't meet on this yet. They met a committee met on it earlier tonight and the full board's meeting on tonight. This is our discussion around that topic. Um so I look forward to hearing what you have to say. I'm assume there's a lot of support here for that program. I think everyone at this table

008shares that support and enthusiasm for that program. Uh the Spain trip, all these types of things that that come for uh before us uh generally receive our fullthroated support. So >> yeah, I would I would I would echo that sentiment. Um, the probably handful of emails I've received from community, I've I've reiterated in my first sentence, we have one of the best music programs in the state. That's clearly defined by by the performance of our kids by the performance of our kids and by the the great instruction by our teachers. And we are not looking to cut anything. And I I I will be the first to apologize. However, there's misinterpretation that's put out by social media groups that are not affiliated with the school district and interpretation. To Mr. Eward's point, the board cannot

009act or discuss until we have a public meeting and we posted that meeting this evening as well as our personnel committee and Dr. Castro has been in communication with our staff about that conversation. So, we can't discuss that until we actually meet and reconvene. So, um, I know there's a lot of people in the audience and I'm glad you're here because you should be supporting what great work we have going on in our schools and we have great kids doing great work for our schools and we should be very proud of that. >> Thank you. Uh, and we'll have a little more detailed update on that when the personnel committee presents. All right. Thank you. Uh, moving on. B student representative report. It's a little larger audience today. Yeah, >> I know. Um, I'mma senior

010class president. So, um, for Amy Bell, this week of March 2nd will be their read across America dress of week. This is always a fun way to celebrate reading and spark students' excitement for books. Be sure to watch for information from teachers about the daily themes. Our monthly Belfast took place on March 13th and focused on character trait of cooperation. We love highlighting the ways our students work together, support one another, and help make Amy Bell such a positive place to learn and grow. One of our most anticipated events of the year, Dinner with the Arts, will be held on Thursday, March 19th. We are excited to welcome our families and community for a delicious dinner while enjoying our students' beautiful artwork. The evening will also include raffle baskets and will conclude with our students

011shining on stage during the talent show. It is truly a way to bring our community into our building and celebrate our students' accomplishments. It has been an exciting month at MacArthur Elementary School with many celebrations of learning and student accomplishments. We wrapped up our February focus on honesty, and it was great to hear the way our students practiced it in their everyday lives. Students shared stories about being honest, about unfinished homework, turning in lost items, and bringing eagle tickets they found to trusted adults so they could be returned to the right person. Small choices like these help build the kind of school community we are proud of. Students also completed our heart scavenger hunt challenge which included a series of activities focused on caring for others and strengthening our Mac community. To celebrate their success,

012the kids earned the opportunity to turn Mr. Jacobson and Mrs. Hollander into snowmen. It was a fun moment and a reminder of how much joy the students bring to our building each day. As we turn the calendar to March, our schoolwide focus shifts to cooperation and working together to accomplish great things. We also have forward assessments for our grades 3 to five students and conferences on the horizon. Thank you as always for being such strong partners in this community. Hard to believe, but we are already beginning the sprint towards the finish line in June. County Line continues to focus on strengthening teacher clarity, ensuring students understand clear learning targets and s and success criteria during instruction. Staff are engaging in professional learning and classroom practices that emphasize clear I can statements and success criteria so

013students know exactly what they are learning and how to measure their progress. We are also celebrating positive student behavior through our comet code celebrations recognizing students who demonstrate being safe, respectful, and responsible throughout our school community. This month's theme is on courage, highlighting students who show bravery in their learning and try new challenges even when it's hard. For Rockfield, this month's focus is cooperation. One way to think about cooperation is working together to reach shared goals. As we work through what cooperation looks like and sounds like, we reflect on the many ways we practice it in our daily lives. An important part of being a good friend is learning how to work together towards shared goals. That's cooperation and action. Cooperation is also closely connected to developing leadership skills. The leadership skills we are building

014include positively influencing others through what we say and do and role modeling what it looks like to be a helpful, responsible member of our class and school community. As our students continue growing in cooperation and leadership, they will soon have an opportunity to showcase these skills. Later this month, students will begin preparing for their studentled conference materials. This is a time for them to shine by sharing their progress toward their learning goals and reflecting on their growth. We look forward to partnering with you and seeing you on March 26th for conferences. Looking ahead, spring brings exa exciting opportunities to celebrate another important part of our school community, music. We have a few important dates to mark on our calendar. On April 14th, our fifth graders will sing their hearts out at our bi-annual Germantown sings

015concert at the GHS fieldhouse. Then on May 12th, our first, second, and third, and fourth graders will sing loud and proud at our annual music concert at the PAC. More specific details will be shared soon. At Kennedy Middle School, we continue to see strong engagement from students, staff, and families as we move into the spring months. In March, students are participating in the Wisconsin Forward Exam, which provides valuable data on student growth and helps guide instructional planning. Our school remains focused on recognizing positive student contributions. February students of the month were honored for demonstrating responsibility, kindness, strong work habits, and leadership aligned with the KMS values. We had a very successful career day for our seventh grade students. We had over 22 different careers represented. Special shout out to Becky Whitman for her work with

016this. Thank you to all who contributed to this wonderful event to move our career readiness forward. Students also continue to take advantage of a wide variety of academic and extracurricular opportunities, including clubs such as math counts, science club, key club, best buddies, student council, and the multithnic student association. Our FBLA chapter recently participated in the middle school state leadership conference and homework club has been a strong support for students with more than 500 assignments completed through the program this year. We are also preparing for several upcoming milestones, including parent teacher conferences, the end of third quarter, and spring break. Looking ahead, planning has begun for our eighth grade promotion activities in June. Overall, Kennedy Middle School continues to focus on academic growth, student engagement, and strong partnerships with families and the community. As the high

017school transition from winter to spring sports, we again get to celebrate the engagement from our students in a variety of ways. Our students continue to find success in the classroom and in their respective clubs, extracurriculars, and sports. Thank you to all of our students who engage in these meaningful opportunities and to our coaches and advisers for supporting our students both inside and outside the classroom. Our freshman to juniors will be taking the pre-ACT or ACT this coming March 19th. This is an important test for our students as it not only provides data to the school to find more ways to support our students but also provides insight into current academic performance. We encourage seniors to use this day to continue with their academic and career planning work by visiting colleges, applying for jobs, and researching

018possible careers. While we are saddened at the fact that we enter our last quarter with our class of 2026, we are excited at everything we can still accomplish in that time, as well as all the great things this class is destined for after graduation. >> Thank you, Mr. President. >> Are there any questions? >> I think you covered a lot and all of it very well. Thank you very much. >> Thank you so much. >> C Kennedy Middle School presentation. Principal Garin and all of your friends. >> Hello and thank you for having us. My name is Jessica Garin and I'm here as a principal and here to support the FLA and introduce some really cool kids for you. We have also here Mr. Brandon Cole who is assistant principal, Mr. Hagenbach who's our dean

019student, Miani and Miss Rodie who are FBLA advisors. So I'm excited to introduce them. I see a mom, I think, trying to record back there. Would you like to come up here and be able to record the student instead of their backs? It's up to you. I just figured I'd extend the the courtesy. No pressure. >> You can embarrass your child. It's okay. >> This is no specific mom. It's just a mom >> or anybody that would kill up. >> It's a little awkward with the back. >> Okay. Thank you, Mr. >> Thank you. >> All right. I'm excited to introduce this group of students who have truly represented Kennedy Middle School with excellent through their work in FBA. As you know, FBA stands for Future Business Leaders of America, and that's definitely what they

020are. This year, we doubled our members in this great club thanks to some enthusiastic students who recruited others to join this awesome program. In FBALA, students prepare presentations, speeches, take tests surrounded surrounding business concepts such as multimedia and website development, marketing a product, community service, business ethics, career research, critical thinking, exploring business issues. They perform in front of judges and against other middle schoolers from across the state. Throughout the conference, students have the opportunity to participate in workshops and challenges with peers from different competing schools. Each student also took a test on topic of interest such as financial literacy, business etiquette, digital digital citizenship, FBA concepts, exploring computer science learning strategies and more. But the exciting thing is that we are very very proud to say that the KMS FLA chapter achieved an incredible milestone

021by earning first place at the regional competition along with multiple top five finishes in both tests and presentation. super super great. It was it was super cool to hear that. In addition, they competed at the state leadership conference where they continued to showcase their skills and represent our school in the Germantown community with pride. As a team, KMS earned numerous top five finishes at state and several teams advanced to the final rounds in their events. Overall, this is a fun interactive experience for all our students utilize many lifelong skills. We are very proud of their efforts and hard work and are representing KMS and Germantown school district so well. And now I would like to have a few of our awesome FBA students tell you a little bit about their experience. Can I take this

022off? >> Hi, my name is Nirvan Hera. >> Hi, my name is Dishwini. We chose the we our presentation was exploring coding and programming. >> To accomplish this event, we had to code a video game, create a presentation about that video game, and we present that presentation the video game and the code in front of a panel of judges. >> An honorable moment that we had during our presentation was that we got second in regionals and state for our presentation. Another memorable moment of this event was being able to code this video game and learning coding. FBA helps me in my life now and in the future by teaching me how to be a leader, being respectful, and helping me with my public speaking skills. FBLA helps me in my life now and in the

023future by teaching me responsibility, time management skills, and also learning other things that are not so well covered in school such as financing. >> Hi, my name is Arab Bora and I'm a sixth grader at Kenny Middle School. For FPLA, I competed in two events. My first event was exploring business concepts which was an objective test. For this event, I learned about different business ideas, vocabulary, and concepts and then took a test to show what I learned. I earned first place at regionals and third place at state in this event. My second event was exploring website design. In this event, I created and designed a website about a local art gallery. I had to think about design, organization, and making the website easy and interesting for people to use. I also earned first place at

024regionals and third place at state for this event. One of my favorite parts of FBLA was getting to compete and see all the different projects people made. It was really fun to meet new people and learn new skills, especially during the presentations. I also enjoyed how you were able to choose what event you would like to compete in so you could pick one that matched your interests. FLA helps me in my life now and in the future by building my confidence, encouraging creativity, and teaching me how to clearly share my ideas with others. Which is why I'm so thankful for this experience and to my adviserss, Mrs. Yoni and Mrs. Broie, because this opportunity would not be possible without them. Thank you for your time and I hope you have a great rest of your

025evening. >> I'm Juliet Flowers. I'm in seventh grade and I competed in the dig digital citizenship test. We had to answer various questions about digital citizen citizenship from vocabulary to actual situations. There was a scavenger hunt which was probably my favorite part. FBLA helps me in life both now and in the future by teaching budgeting, marketing, and price strategies. >> I wasn't in the program. Sorry. Your middle school dean of students. Do you have any questions for our students? >> I don't have any questions, but I'd just like to thank you for presenting. We approve uh field trips like this and so on. And um I don't know, maybe I'm the guy that always asks for a presentation and I I say not as a punishment, but just so the board can, you know, find

026out what the results were and what happened. And um I usually add that uh at your age I probably I would have been scared out of my mind to speak and uh to the board. So I I can see that you've all practiced uh what you were going to say this evening and you all did a great job. Thank you. >> I'll just echo that. Yeah, you did fantastic job speaking and presenting, which is probably why it showed so well when you went to competition. Uh, fantastic work. Uh, thanks to your adviserss and the staff that support you. And thanks for giving us kind of a window, a glimpse through a window of of what this program means to you and how it helps you. It helps us inform our decisions and make our decisions

027a lot easier up here. So, thank you very much for coming. >> I agree. Great. Thank you, Miss Yankee and Miss Roie. >> Thank you so much. D we are moving on to food and nutrition report. Welcome. >> Good evening. I'm here to do a quick food and nutrition update. Um the first thing on the agenda um that we are going to talk about is the whole milk for healthy kids act of 2025. This went into effect January 14th of 2026. It allows schools to serve whole milk, 2% milk in addition to what we already are, the 1% and the fat-free. Um, if this is something that we're going to incorporate into our program, we will need to recalculate all of our district menus. Um the milk is no longer longer counted towards saturated fat,

028but it does include the calories, the sodium, and the sugar into the overall nutritionals. Um the act does not apply to school breakfast or summer feeding. It is lunch only. Um, we did do a district-wide survey to parents, um, taking a look at our options for the 2627 school year and Miss Sultanorf is going to speak to that. >> Sure. Uh since our last uh committee meeting when we did uh were notified about the whole milk uh act, we did reach out to all our families to ask uh what kind of milk their students drink at home, if their students currently do take milk when they do eat lunch, if they are eating hot lunch or if they are eating cold lunch. And then we did get a response um if we did provide the

029new types of milk or all four types of milk, would their families be interested in um taking those milks? We also the last month provided 2% milk at the high school for an option for students to take. Uh we do see that the majority of our students that do take milk take chocolate milk and chocolate milk is only provided in 1%. So the majority I believe we have excuse me um 82% of our students in all levels take chocolate milk. Um 11% take 1% white milk and then the other one the 7% since we provided it at the high school 7% of them did take the 2% milk that we did provide. We did not provide whole milk at this time um for this um I guess trial that we were doing uh due to

030the fact that whole milk costs more than the other milks. Uh so that would have to change in the fee that we c we charge for milk. So uh we will take the feedback and we will decide if we are going to move forward with this. I think we're going to continue to tr with the trial of the 2% milk at the high school level to see if it increases. Um, sometimes the elementary school kids are just like, I always take the pink milk, so this is the milk that I'm going to take. Uh, so we might try to roll it out into the other levels just to see, but we did want the board to be aware that if we do add whole milk or 2% milk, we'll have to do a lot of

031work behind the scenes like change all our menus and then it is also not provided at breakfast and um, summer feeding. So, we wanted the board to know that we are looking into it. uh we are taking it into consideration and if we do roll out with it, it would be in the next school year, but we'll still continue the trial at the at the high school. >> Perfect. >> Next, um >> I just want to ask one question. Just clarification on on the work that has to be done behind the scenes. When you talk about adjusting the menus, does that mean smaller portions around some of the other items will offer due to what what that milk count would be? >> A whole numbers game. When you look at it becomes a whole numbers

032game. Um when you look at you know whole milk it's 150 calories where you know 1% milk is 110. So, we have to put that all into a menu system and kind of take a look at what we need to switch out to be within that calorie range. Um, at the elementary school, we only have 550 to 650 calories per meal. That includes your milk, it includes your condiments, your your entree, your fruits, your vegetables. The entire meal has to be between that 550 and 650 calories. At the middle school, it's 650 to 750. And at the high high school level, we have to be between 750 calories and 850. So to be able to incorporate it in at a high school level is a little bit easier because we have more calories to play

033with. So, elementary level, I mean, we're going to have some tweaking to do and it'll be a numbers game. >> And that does that adjustment come whether they take the milk or not? >> If >> No, it doesn't. >> So, regardless if they take the whole milk, the rest of the menu would be adjusted >> to account for the whole >> We put all of the different milks into that menu software and it will tell us whether or not we're compliant, whether we're over in sodium, sugars, calories, and what we need to adjust. I have confidence you will fully educate us on all of that in the future. Thank you. >> When we do do the calculation, we also have to take into cons I mean we take into consider everything but you also have

034to have so many red vegetables, so many orange vegetables, so so many scoops of vegetables and fruits and those type of things. So those things aren't necessarily going to be removed. If we were going to have to increase the calories of milk, we would probably take the, you know, the the dessert brownie that that the kiddos, you know, probably enjoy at the lunch time. So, we'll take those into consideration and we'll keep educating the board as as changes might be made. >> Thank you. I'm sure when it comes to to running the software, you'll you'll run various situations in there. Just taking a look at plain 1% milk. Calories are for plain 100. Once you add the chocolate and or strawberry, it shoots up to 150 to 170. And that's for the 1% milk. Now,

035the reason they added flavoring to 1% milk was to get kids to drink more. And over the last nine years, that's really all we've been offering. However, the other thing I think the software will take into account is for 1% plain milk, it looks like there's 12 grams of natural sugar, which would be lactose. Uh, the chocolate milk and strawberry milk add 12 to 14 grams of sugar, actual sugar on top of that, which is not good for kids. Sorry. So, there there's there's trade-offs there. And it's not just what kind of milk are they drinking. The whole reason to Mr. Low's point earlier this evening that the previous administration took whole and 2% milk away was for supposed health reasons and all we did was put in milk that's missing vital calcium nutri nutrients

036and added milk with a lot more sugar just plain sugar in it and there's pages and pages of stats so I assume that the software will take a look at that and we'll be running >> it it will >> okay >> it will >> very good thank you uh I'm sure you have more for your presentation. >> Yes. >> Thanks. >> Okay. >> And then next, um, the equipment study and assessment. If this is the year that something's going to break, it is. It seems like every time I turn around, there's a piece of equipment in the kitchen breaking down. Um, so I reached out to Belter Equipment and Supply and I had them come into our our district. They did an assessment in every one of our kitchens. They went in, they took photos.

037They wrote down the models, the serial numbers, and with that information, they were able to provide us with the age of the equipment in addition to what that replacement cost would be if we needed to purchase a new unit. Um, I was hoping that the man they would be able to give me a life expectancy report. Unfortunately, they said no manufacturer will give you anything over 10 years. So, um, in your board packet is a detailed report of all of the kitchens. Um, but this will help for future planning and budgets as we look at replacing equipment. Next is the summer food service program. Once again, we're going to be offering the free breakfast. Um, this is the fourth year that we are offering this. It will be at Kennedy Middle School. It will run

038from June 15 to June 10th or sorry June 15th to July 10th. Um it'll be from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. and it will be available to all children in the community under the age of 18. And what is new this year? Um the menu system. I know I talked about a few of these things back in October. The menu system, Healthy Pro. Um, we recently had two separate programs and we bought a healthy pro and condensed it down to one. Um, it's a huge timesaving in the office and that's where the nutritional software will come in and help us um, greatly. Um, then we also have the hydroponics. We have the 11th farm. So, we have 11 farms in there. We're still continuing to grow the lettuce um, all the for all of the

039schools across the district. um including we have peppers and we had the tomatoes and the cucumbers. So that's been very successful. Um we did implement a card system at the elementary school. We did away with the fourdigit pin number. We went to a little tiny card and it has a student name and it has a barcode on it. It is a much smoother operation, much more efficient and we're able to get the kids through a lot quicker. in manufacturer taste testing at Germantown High School. Um, this is a win-win. Um, we when we can get our manufacturers to come in and bring in their food and it doesn't cost us anything, they set it up, they do the taste testing and we get instant feedback from the students as far as, you know, whether or

040not they like it versus, you know, us purchasing two cases and we put it on the line, the students hate it and now it sits on the shelf. So, um, so that I'm going to try and do a little bit more of that. I would like to bring it in at Kennedy Middle School as well. Um, we did get some new staff uniform tops and we have a new menu display at Germantown High School. The only thing that the software, the Healthy Pearl software did not do for us is their menu board display was not compatible with our TVs at Germantown High School. So I worked with our tech department and they actually came up with a program. So we can actually do a background. So what you see the St. Patrick's Day every day

041we can change it to something different. We can do a seasonal theme. Um we can do anything from the sports, you know, you know, anything for football, basketball. So it's been a lot of fun to be able to play around with that. And lastly, what's cooking in the kitchen? Um, we're always cooking. We're always looking for recipes. We're always looking for ideas. Um, this is just a list of the few a few things that we're doing. Um, we brought in just recently roasted corn nuts at the high school and actually it's a little packet and it counts as a half a cup of vegetable. So, that's pretty interesting. Um, Miss Alton Altonorf had the opportunity to taste them and I actually have some for you when you go into your close session. So, I would

042love to get some feedback from you. Um, I won't go through all these. I'll just highlight a couple things. Reuben's we did Reuben's today at the high school. Um, we try to, you know, look at holidays and themes. So, we did the Reuben at the high school and then at the elementary school, we actually did a Lucky Charm yogurt pack and the students were super excited. It was actually one of our highest lunch count days. So, um lastly, um on that list, um which is a big one for me, is the Big Daddy pizza at the elementary school. Um, when I started here last year, I would go around to the elementary schools and I'd ask the students, "Is there something you want to see on the menu?" And I was I would always hear

043Dominoes. Why can't we have dominoes? And you know, as a school nutrition professional, you know, I just it's I cannot see sourcing to a fast food restaurant for meals to serve our students here in Germantown when we can actually find a better quality product, cook it in our own kitchen, more coste effective, and it tastes better. So, um, we did find a a pizza and it's one that we serve at the high school and the middle school all the time and the students see the students really seem to enjoy it and so now we have incorporated that into our elementary school. So, we have replaced dominoes with Big Daddy's. So, >> do you have that question >> in the back room also for us? >> We have that too, Jill. No, I thought about it

044though. But I do have some cookies for you. >> Unfortunately, they're whole grain and low sodium, low fat. >> That's right. Do you have some whole milk to dunk them in? >> Some whole milk. I'll give you some 2%. >> Good enough. >> Do you have any questions? >> I just want to commend you on everything you've done with the food program because it is it can be such a waste and it is such great fuel for our kids if they're eating good food. So between the hydroponics that is feeding the district healthy, you know, lettuce and vegetables actually taste like they're supposed to and just the kids enjoying it and getting fueled every day. I think that's such a great aspect and you've brought a lot to the program. So I appreciate it being

045done there. >> Great. Thank you. >> I've got one. It's not a question but a comment. Uh looking at the equipment, I was just looking at the ages of the equipment and I eventually found one that I recommend that you not replace. It's the at the high school the planetary mixer by Hobart 1969. >> Correct. >> I don't I don't think we want to replace that. It'll probably never wear out for it age. Yeah. That's all I have. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanks, >> Joe. Thank you. >> Okay. Item four. We're going to move into citizen comment. I do have plenty of you signed up tonight. I do have a little statement we have to read and then we'll >> leazison report. >> Oh, sorry. I did skip visual the village

046the Germantown leaison report. Um Mr. Pollock with parks and w >> I'll keep this one quick. Uh February 18th, the park and recck commission met at village hall. We had a number of different updates uh around Fourth of July planning. If you want to volunteer, please reach out to the village. Uh fire station one remodeling update, their capital improvement projects. You wouldn't know by the last couple of days, but the summer uh season is right around us. they they started uh making the announcements for music at the pavilion and also we provided a po positive recommendation to the village board for the summer 2026 program fees. We were scheduled to meet tomorrow however that session has been cancelled. >> Thank you. Jeff Foyer, economic development. >> Yeah, so the economic development commission did meet on

047March 10th at 6 p.m. Um we are currently in sort of a restructuring phase potentially adding two more people. So, I do not have anything to report at the moment. >> Uh, and then myself, uh, planning commission, uh, we've done a lot of work with the planning commission. We've met, uh, March 9th. I'm not going to go into the big specifics regarding that as far as their impact to the school. But I what I do want to share is some of the communications the village is sharing out in regards to development and how our uh, roofer's report is being utilized, our input, and our studies that have been done in regards to student pop. So, uh, if Dr. operator can scroll down. This is for Sutton Farms and you could see that we're highlighted here.

048They're they're taking into account uh impact of school enrollment um as as well as some financial impact. Um that's something that's forward facing to the village and community members. Uh the sheet that's on the screen now, if you'd scroll to the next, these are two slides from u village staff. Uh so the staff is including um our data and our studies into their their report and presentations out to the planning commission and the full board. So here you'll see um in regards to this particular presentation uh the development they were anticipating of 54 just a little over $54,000 per year uh uh uh revenue uh in in regards um to that project to the school district along with 30 a little over 36,000 to the village. Um, so they're going to continue continue to um

049utilize that information, uh, present it to staff. Uh, go ahead, you can scroll to the next one. It's just more examples of of, um, how they're utilizing the MD roofers report there. Uh, student pop versus development uh, ratios. Um, not only are we seeing that from the village, which is fantastic, right, that the relationship has really grown and matured over the last last year or so. Um but we're also seeing that the the presenters for um the the um planners and um builders are coming forward utilizing not only the roofers report but also just in general taking in to account what student impact they could be driving as well as revenue uh that they could be driving within the district. So we're really seeing some traction and some some change in mind thought mindset and

050conversation. just want to thank the village um for their willingness to participate in that for the members of this board uh willingness to understand some of that information that's going back and forth. But really that that relationship is really starting to mature and grow and take stride as you see communication start coming out uh to all the citizens regarding it. Um and it's all I have for planning commission at that time or at this time. Uh now we'll go on to citizen comment. So, I do have a a little bit longer list than normal. Um, I'll read a quick statement. Bear with me. It might take longer than most your comments and uh then we'll get to it. I will call up um presenters probably about three at a time and just line up at

051the mic down here and uh feel uh we'll start. You'll each have three minutes. Uh committee members and residents of the Germantown School District are invited to share their questions, comments, or concerns with the school board. When speaking, citizens state their name and address for the record. The presentation time frame shall be determined by the board president once an indic indication of the number of people wishing to speak is made. Speakers should keep comments to three minutes or less and to allow for others to speak. Uh Wisconsin law authorizes the school board to receive information from members of the public. Where possible, the board may answer factual questions immediately or may provide a written response if information is not available. If a response would involve discussion of board policy uh for for discussion which might

052be of interest to citizens not present at the meeting, the board may place the item on future meeting agendas. Comments that may be interest to school district personnel or other individuals uh will not be allowed. So with that uh we should be able to get to this full list. And like I said, we'll just have you you line up here at the front here. So, we'll have Cassie, Aiden, and Gavin be the first three, and then um Zoe, I believe Madison, and Chloe will be following. I think there was a group that wanted to come at at once. I think that's all of them. Maybe that's a couple more then. Hi, my name is Cassie Zarter. Um, I talk here all the time. So, um, for my address, do I just say it like, um,

053W153 North 111640 Kurt Drive, Germantown, Wisconsin. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So, good evening members of the board. Again, my name is Cassie Zarter and I'm here tonight as a student representative. I want to begin by making one thing very clear. The group of students speaking tonight was not organized by any music teachers. This was organized entirely by students and parents because this matters to us. We are here because of the proposed reduction for the music staff from 3.4 to three teachers at the Kennedy at Kennedy Middle School. Because that's not just a number that point4 represents a real person, a real program, and a real impact on these students. The point four is how we keep face-to-face lessons with a professional each week a real thing. The middle school band lessons supported by our

054high school band teacher are absolutely essential. These lessons give students the face-to-face time they need to build proper technique, confidence, and skill. Without that support, students don't progress at the same level, and it shows. Right now, we do see the results of the system working. When middle school students come into the high school program, they are prepared, they are confident, and they are successful. That's that preparation is a direct reason why our wall of sound placed second at state this year and was invited to perform in one of the biggest parades in Madrid, Spain. By removing this position at the middle school, you're not just cutting time, but you're lowering the standard and success of one of the strongest programs in our school. Thanks. >> Thank you. Uh, so for the record, my name is

055Aiden Dishop and my address is 3938 Woodridge Court, Colgate, Wisconsin. Hello members of the board. My name is Aiden Dishop and I'm a senior here at Germantown High School. I have been in the band program for seven years now and I was a student leader in the wall of sound. I have participated in many musical after school activities including middle school jazz band, pep band, and the wall of sound. I've also been involved in the theater program at the high school for eight shows throughout my high school career. I'm here to talk about how the foundation of band and music inspires students to keep music in their lives and enables them to grow as students and musicians. In middle school, students are exposed to the world of band and choir for the first time. When

056they join these programs, they join a family of hardworking and diligent students and faculty members. In class, my band director uses a work good fun diagram to show how if you practice more, you get to play better music, then you have more fun, which makes you practice more. I believe that this is especially true in middle school band, where practice is one of the makeorb breakak causes of students staying in the band program. Frequent practice, where they get to be face toface and receive immediate feedback and encouragement from a professional, is the best way to learn and get better. And as they learn and improve, they play better music. They have more fun and stay in band. Even with the CO 19 pandemic making it difficult for myself, those inperson in-person lessons are key to

057growth and potential to students. These people who find success in middle school band go on to high school band and show off their talent and skills to the community in the region. Band and music students are great ambassadors for the Germantown School District, keeping the community involved with ghs. I would like you to strongly consider keeping these in-person lessons readily available as the teachers and faculty members are instrumental in keeping the fun and enjoyment of the program alive. Thank you. >> Thank you. Hi, my name is sorry my name is Gavin. I live on 3242 Upper Woodland Drive in Colgate, Wisconsin. Hello board members. My name is Gavin Chapen. I've been playing percussion and trombone in the Germantown band program since it was first introduced in sixth grade. As many other band students and I

058can attest to, we have known that the high school band directors even before high school. For a lot of us, this is due to the one-on-one band lessons that the high school band directors provide to the middle school band students. During these lessons, a middle schooler will will play a piece for the band directors and will be immediately met with high quality advice that helps these younger musicians grow into even better musicians. These lessons help prep middle school band students for the different instrumental skills that are used and develop by high school band students today. However, musical skills are not the only thing that these middle schoolers attain throughout these lessons. They also build connections with the high school band directors. These connections are extremely valuable to these middle schoolers because they can be carried

059all the way from the first lesson when they graduate six or seven years later and even later in life. As a former middle school band student, this connection helped a great amount during my transition from middle school to high school that would have otherwise been very stressful. It gave me the confidence to try new things, branch out, join marching band, and have many more friends that that I would never have made if I didn't make those connections. In middle school, that every connection counts, and one with the high school band director is the key to the confident students that this district knows so well. Thank you for listening. >> Thank you. >> Um, next up we have Zoe Madison and Chloe. Uh, hello. For the record, my name is Zoe Greo and I live on

060W140 and414050 Country Air Drive. Hello. My name is Zoe Greo and I'm a senior at the high school. I am the current vice president of Triam, our school's national music honor society, an organization that works to provide various volunteer opportunities for students and works towards a betterment of the music department as a whole. This past fall, I was also given the opportunity to work as a low brass section leader of our high school's marching band. I wanted to talk to you today about the physical benefits that can be reaped later on from the lessons provided at the middle school. In 8th grade, I auditioned for the WSMA's honor project. The Wisconsin State Music Association is a prestigious organization that works to run the marching band season and assemble various honors level ensembles such as honors

061choirs, orchestras, and bands. Only from the toutelage received from the one-on-one time granted during middle school lessons was I able to be accepted into the honors orchestra. Furthermore, WSMA works provide various scholarships, opportunities, and connections for their students. Currently, I have a younger brother in sixth grade who is making his way through the middle school band program. If the lessons given at the middle school are taken away, then kids like him will lose the opportunity to join highlevel groups that I had the privilege of being a part of. They will be denied the opportunity to access the various scholarships and connections that these groups provide. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. >> Hello, my name is Masa Machesky. I'm a 101 Cheyenne Court and I am a senior here at Germantown High School.

062I have been a floutist for eight years, a member of of our wall of sound for four years. I have sang for almost all of my life and I have been in our theater department for 11 shows over four years. All this is to say that I am very well diverse in our music department here at the high school, but also at Kennedy. A question that is always asked of the band is what brings the wall of sound to the level that it is? The answer to that that is the backbone of music education that started at Kennedy which translated to the high school music program that is praised every time that we perform. Our wall of sound has become a staple of our high school mu high school music program and has been successful

063due to the fact that our music school instruction middle school instruction has prepared us for the challenges of high school music. By teaching us the fundamentals, we are able to achieve the great things that allow us to be able to play so well at the state WSMA marching band champions championships in the past. By cutting away that lesson time that helps build the fundamentals, it makes it harder to advance the standard that we have today in our band programs. I hope that the various perspectives and points put by put forth by my peers and I allow you to look at this situation in new light and show just how important regular one in one- on-one contact is for music students in Kennedy and beyond. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Thank you. >>

064Hello. >> I apologize. My name is Chloe Rhyr. I am from 3055 Sherman Park Circle, Jackson, Wisconsin. I'm here today to discuss the impact of how lessons affect how my journey in music and how I chose one instrument over another. At the beginning of my music journey, I played an instrument called Inovo. It's a high woodwwind instrument and I played that during the co time when we had online school. I did not like playing my instrument. I did not enjoy doing music. And I had no contact with my teachers. We weren't even allowed to play in class. And that made my love of music go down a lot during that time. In the on December in December in 2021, I decided to make the change to the instrument called the tuba, which is the big

065metal flashing one. >> Yeah. And in doing so, I at this time we were now in person. In-person lessons and 101 time was once again introduced into our program. And I was able to connect with all three of the of the middle school band teachers, including the person who's from the high school to help me learn and understand this new instrument, which was so different to the one I had before. Nowadays, I am a member of Triam. I've been playing the tuba for over four years now. I love this instrument. I'm looking forward to my senior year in Wallace Sound and I would not trade that decision for the world. the the difference between my love of obo or the lack of it and my absolute glorious love of the best instrument in the world,

066tuba, is that that I did not have any time to learn and understand instrument under oneonone guidance with with members of Kennedy and GHS. If I had the um if I had the assistance and the guidance perhaps today I could have been an obo player instead of a tuba player. However, due to not having anything due to co I music wasn't it wasn't good. It wasn't fun and I chose something that I believe was fun and help and due to the one-on-one time and help from my teachers I was able to achieve it. So, the foundation for what everything we do in the high school and the success and the fun we have in school is due to the one-on-one time we have of our teachers. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> We've Hannah, Sarah,

067and Andrea. Uh, I believe I'm at Sarah. Andrea. Uh, sorry, Hannah. >> Hannah. Hannah's first. >> Hannah. >> Sorry. Thank you. >> Did Hannah step out? Okay. No, that's fine. My name is Sarah Kudson. I live at 3247 Willowgate Pass in Colgate, Wisconsin. Um, I am currently the president of the Warhawk Band Boosters organization here at the high school. Um earlier today um like was already brought up, we saw misinformation going out after the packet was sent out earlier last week about this meeting. So I wanted to make sure that we as an executive board put out the invitation for parents and at least one family member to come to this committee meeting or this board meeting to get proper information. We recognize that social media can be a blessing and a curse to all

068of us. And we wanted to make sure that if parents were feeling that misinformation was being presented that they had an opportunity and a civic responsibility to come and get that information from those that actually had the information for us. So that is why I'm here tonight, not just as the president, but as a concerned parent. I wanted proper information as well. I don't have questions for you exactly tonight. As you can see, I have wonderful students behind me that we support as parents that did a great job presenting their needs and desires. And I think that's enough said, but I just wanted to present this as you can see the lovely people that answered the call that we sent out earlier today. They want to make sure that they get the proper information. and

069they don't want to be condescending or rude and they want to make sure that the information is what they can vote on and count on you to follow through on the things that they want the music program to be in the school because it has meant so much to us and our students. So, thank you for your time tonight and I'll turn the time over to Andrew. >> Absolutely. Thank you. >> Uh good evening. My name is Andrea Breen. uh W125 N10954 Straw Grassrass Lane, Germantown. Uh I am a parent of two high schoolers who have been in the band program since their sixth grade. Uh and I'm also a volunteer uh at various activities through the school as well as being a band volunteer and a board member of the band boosters. Um I

070was very heartened by each of your um comments earlier as we kicked off this meeting and clearly the support that you have for the music program uh in the community and I really want to thank you for that. Um, I would like to echo Sarah's words that again we are looking for uh, you know, clear and concise information. And as I was preparing some comments for this evening, um, I did find one article that I thought was uh, of particular note and I thought that you could use that in your consideration in your future discussions. Uh, this is a study from August of 2022. the effect of vertical alignment on elementary, middle, and high school music programs. The gist of the article is that there's a direct correlation between that vertical alignment and that support

071from younger grades into the older grades. Uh, as it pertains to retention in the music program. As vertical alignment decreases, the number of students who wish to continue in those programs tends to decrease. Uh and you know as we sit here in our beautiful facility, we know that we as a community have come together to support uh the PAC and and the buildings program that we have. And I think we all know that in order to continue and to feed that program, we need to have the support from lower grades into the older grades. So I just submit that for your consideration and I do appreciate your time. Thank you. >> Thank you. Do do we know did Hannah step back in the room? If not, we'll keep keep moving. Alexa is next and finishing

072off with John Bell. We Oh, here she comes. I'm Alexa Tucker and my address is 478 Whispering Ridge Court, Wisconsin. Hi, I'm Alexa and I'm a sophomore attending Germantown High School. I've been in band for almost 5 years and during those 5 years, I've truly found my passion for what I love in life. The only reason I found that out is because the time the band teachers took to make sure that I actually enjoyed it. And if I did, they helped me improve and I ended up developing a love for music. It's not just music I love, however. It's the entire community. I've made some friends that I've never thought I'd make. And I'd like to thank all the band teachers for that. I'd also like to thank them for their commit and countless hours

073to make them to make everybody better musicians and people. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Thank you very much. I came here. >> Good evening. I'm Brandis Sarter. I was listed with my daughter in the first position. >> I apologize. >> That's okay. Um, you want my address again? >> She lives with you, I'm assuming? >> Yes. >> There we go. Thank you. Um, I obviously I came in today kind of ready to fight a little bit with what this was. Um, I do want to say just from the standpoint as a general community member here, a lot of times people come in and they don't understand or know how to access this information. Uh, a big part of how we get that information is what's shared with us. And I want to

074point out that the statements made about what is being shared through social media can be misleading. But upon also delving more into that, what is being shared is being taken from the documents that you guys are sharing. I think the presence of the board on social media and responding is very refreshing to see and I agree that this is generally the better place to have this discussion. But at the same time, I also believe that there needs to be a better sense of forthright information coming from you guys if you choose to have this discussion with the community. Um the question that I struggle with is while you guys post things to provide the information and say this is our preliminary what we're going to vote on. It was on the schedule to approve the

075prelim preliminary budget staffing counts for this next year. When people say are are talking about reducing that 3.4 to 3.0 0 that is somebody's position. They didn't increase what was at the high school. It was still listed as 2.6. And I think the big part of what I wanted to bring up is where is the due diligence in asking the questions before we present these changes? Because if all these people didn't show up tonight, you guys could have approved it and we could have had a very wellrespected, talented individual who would have been forced to leave to find another position. Um, being cut from full-time to part-time, going from 1.0 to 6. So, I think the big part that I want to say is I respect and I appreciate where you guys are all coming

076from with your support of the program. I think there's a lot of information that needs to be discussed still and I appreciate your forthright honesty with hey, we need to address this more later. But there are also a lot of aspects that coming in talking about the changes of we're reducing what you know she had introduced about that linear growth from elementary on. Your report also talks about reducing the coverage for elementary schools and their specials which includes music and art and what they get within the their elementary level education as well. Um, going back on a lot of where we're talking that if we are only going to go in a direction of making changes, I mean, I sub within this district. I've worked within this district. I am a graduate, a second generation

077graduate of the Germantown School District. I'm a community member. I have two kids within the district, one at the middle school and the high school presently. And we are talking about aspects and changes that are going on within the district beyond just the employees of things that are not necessary to be addressed. Things that do not need to be fixed, things that do not need to put in be put in the signs, the refreshing of the Germantown School District office. I've been in these buildings. I mean, as far as signs for an elementary school, who doesn't use a GPS at this point? And who cannot visually tell the difference between a school and a barn or a house? We don't need fancy signs. We don't need to spend almost $120 thou 120,000 $17,000 on signs.

078Okay? So, I just I really really request that you guys take this into consideration because this is money that can be spent elsewhere. We're talking about a school district that is struggling to maintain part-time employees in dis in within departments that need it like our special education department. I know you guys are going to address the increase in wages for the many aspects of the staff within the district for the upcoming year and I appreciate that. But at the same time too, there's a lot of other spending that is happening that is not necessary. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Hello, my name is Jonathan Bell, 191 Knobill Drive West, Colgate, Wisconsin. I'm a resident of the Germantown School District. My kids attended Amy Bell Kennedy Middle School and graduated from this high school. I

079am also one of two Germantown High School band directors and have presented to this board many times over my 26 years in Germantown. Tonight, I'm here for some history and some context for what's been said. In the band classroom, we have a dual curriculum. We teach two subjects. The full ensemble teaches the students how to play in band, the teamwork it takes to make great music, and for every note a single player plays, these are some of the things they had to think about. the pitch, the length of the note, the volume, articulation, do they match the person next to them? Do they match the people in their section and blend with the entire band? Are they melody, harmony, or another aspect of the music? Are they playing in the correct style? A march is

080played very differently than a corral. Then they have to do that for the very next note. And then after that, thousands of decisions they need to make on how they play when they play in their full ensemble. In the lesson program, they learn the physical needs to do that. How to breathe, form an amisher, how to articulate tongue to note, how to play in tune, how to play loud, how to play soft, how to control to play one note very steady for a long time, and the dexterity it takes to play very fast. We have all watched a musician play and been amazed at the skill they demonstrate. As students develop, their individual needs change and become more varied. In sixth grade, a new musician learning one note can be in a larger group. Whereas

081when they get older, eighth grade and high school, those groups need to be smaller. And in our 10th through 12 groups, they are individual lessons to meet their needs. The lessons also allow us to retach concepts and differentiate at every level, including working for things such as the WSMA Solid Ensemble Festival, which we hosted last week. In Germantown, we have a sequential curriculum that addresses all of that. The KMS bands use published lesson books at the high school. We have created our own program based on the needs of the bands that they are a member of. The band lessons very rarely address music that is played in concerts. They teach the skills needed to play band music. The skills is applied to the different needs of the full ensemble. I have our teacher versions of

082our lesson program here tonight. And when we meet with Martino on Friday, we'll also have them and share them with him. But without developing the skills to play an instrument, the band will not reach the high standards we are accustomed to at Germantown High School. Now, for some history, I was hired in the fall of 2000, and as I'm reminded many times, I'm old. I was hired as a point4 teacher at the high school. The next year, I received a full-time contract teaching only at the high school. We had two full-time teachers here at the high school at that time. Matter of fact, KMS had 2.6. The 6 person taught eighth grade band, seventh grade lessons, and a guitar class. The 2005 and six school year, that position was eliminated, and I became the traveling

083teacher for the eighth grade band lessons. Taught freshman band and 10 through 12 lessons. In 2016, Jim Barnes retired and I took over that position. and Andrew Stone was hired and he took over the role as the eighth grade band director, freshman band and the and taught the high school lessons. The second person for the eighth grade band program has list has existed since the year 2000 and has been filled by four different teachers. We also have non-performance classes that have been added since I started at GHS. Mr. Stone teaches a music theory and technology class and I teach class called music soundtrack of your life which is a high school general music class along with Miss Lawson's AP music theory. These are our only classes available for someone not in band required. It is

084our not giving those students with an interest in music to learn more and become better musicians themselves. In February, I presented to the board on our fantastic trip to Madrid. On February 25th, there was a high school band concert right where you're sitting now. And the next night was a middle school concert. March is music in our schools month. And during a resource period here at the high school, we had performances by our concert choir, Win70 pep band, and Soultown. There have also been many resource parades led by students in the band to celebrate high school athletes and that have earned state recognition. Our lesson program is the foundation of everything we do in the band program. It gives those students the skill to perform and exceed the way they do. And I'd also like

085to say I'm humbled by the people behind me tonight. They are a fantastic group of students and parents and I'm proud to be associated with them. Thank you. That concludes our signup sheet for uh citizen comment. Uh we will move on to item five, consent agenda. A, approval of February 17th, 2026 meeting minutes. B, approval of teacher resignations. And C, approval of donations. >> Move approval of consent agenda items A through C. >> Second, >> Mr. Barney with the motion. Mr. Miss Higmath with the second. Any discussion? >> Yeah. Can I get a highlight of the donations, please? You >> sure can, Mr. Barney. Uh, thank you to the Warhawk band boosters for $2,110 for two new French horns for GHS band. Gell food and beverage, $1,000 to the high school robotics team. Excuse me.

086Schmidt's readymix, $1,000 to the Germantown School District supply drive. An anonymous donation of $250 to the deaf and hearted hearing deaf blind account. Blifer lumber uh lumber and mis miscellaneous hardware for $2,954.93 to our tech department at the high school. County Line PTA, $1,376.98 for a field trip for County Line. Acro Automation Systems, $500 to our robotics team at Germantown High School. Germantown Athletic Booster Club, $4,8.95 for awards, numbers, bar, stars, and other uh items. Germantown Booster Athletic Club, $1,141.65 65 to our high school soccer team for training vest balls and cones. Germantown Athletic Booster Club, $3,000, $500 for each. The Germantown High School robotics club, hockey, girls basketball, boys cross country, girls golf, and girls soccer. And again, the Germantown Athletic Booster Club for replacement of cryo compression units um for our athletic training

087department at approximately $3,800. >> Thank you. It's again another amazing month of reporting. >> Yeah, I think that's close to $21,000 in donations. That's outstanding. >> Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? I >> Any opposed? Hearing none, consent agenda passes. Item six, teaching and learning committee, Miss Higinbot. >> The teaching and learning committee met on March 3rd at 5:00 at the district office. It was one of our shorter meetings as we only had a couple items on the agenda. The first item was in reports and updates. Jake Mizak, the director of teaching and learning, gave an update on the February 23rd PD day. The focus was formative assessment and teacher clarity. Teacher clarity is focused on clarity and student learning goals. It is a collaborative conversation to ensure that all classrooms share the

088same goals in learning and what we want the students to learn and also use the same measurements of success. Formative assessment is a gathering of real-time evidence and data while a classroom is in session. It leads to more responsive teaching as teachers can identify what students are understanding and where there seems to be gaps in understanding. Teachers can then come up with the best next step to lead to better outcomes for our students. The process of formative assessment has been applied to professional development days. Data on the impact of PD days was historically gathered at the end of the year. The district has changed to conducting a survey at the end of each PD day and includes four questions. Professional development provided meaningful opportunities for collaboration with colleagues. The professional development was aligned with student

089goals. How can I can apply what I learned to PD to improve our PLC practices? and the professional development will lead to improving student learning outcomes. By collecting and analyzing the data collected through the survey and comments received, administration and principles can continually improve the PD days and model them to the teachers needs, which ultimately impact our student outcomes. The other item of business on the agenda was found in new business. The committee discussed Bridg's third edition transition kits. The addition of the Bridges curriculum has played an important role in aligning math cross district. Students have continued to see improvement in both achievement and growth throughout the district. Bridges has published an update which enhances the current edition which was based on feedback from teachers and other users of Bridges 2. It includes clear and

090explicit learning goals for each unit, preassessments for each unit, formative assessment tools and enhanced problem designs which give better flow for questions for kids. Each teacher will receive a new binder that is user friendly and highlights the significant revisions. This cost reflects $500 per classroom. It is moved forward with a positive recommendation to the finance committee. >> It comes forward with a positive recommendation. Does not require a to finance. >> Oh, went to finance. Sorry. >> Yes. Yeah. >> We'll get it from finance when Mr. Dol comes back. >> Yep. >> Thank you. >> Are we We're finished. >> That's it. >> Okay. That's right. You only have the one item. >> Thank you. Um buildings and grounds. Mr. Pollock. >> Thank you. Uh we met March 3rd. uh went through a handful of different

091updates. Uh per the usual, we we received our work order completion report for January and February highlighting the the various activities and updates and maintenance that has been done around uh our buildings and grounds. Uh since we have a an audience, let's let's go through a little bit of detail with that. We we in buildings and grounds, we basically have three different things. We have work order completion reports. Those are the ongoing day-to-day tasks and maintenance and updates and fixes that go on. So, we got that. The second piece we also got an update on was our operational expense projects. Uh these operational expenses um are lesser capital projects, contracted services, uh maintenance projects that are a bit bigger in scope as classified in our facilities conditions assessment priority level one crosswalk. So, this was

092our first quarterly update. Uh, I'd highly recommend everybody take a take a look at what we have here because ultimately what what we're presenting are are these different uh different items that we're we're needing to work on and update and improve. We're highlighting what we were able to do within the district versus having to outsource. And some things we can we can work on internally, some things we will need to hire out. And so what we're trying to do is is give a perspective of cost overall or at least the estimate. and if we were able to do it in house uh in effect what we were able to price it at internally rather than than uh hire out and and kind of the a little bit of a savings versus versus having to go

093out. So this was our first quarterly update um and we'll be trying to improve the the report um in future uh in future discussions. We also got an update with with regards to the Rockfield entry cabinet heater. So this is the area right when you walk in the building. Uh basically was just in need of a replacement and some descriptions as far as um the environment as it stands currently versus what why we need to improve that. We also got an update with regards to the Germantown High School batting cage revamps. Uh basically uh this was uh kind of prompted by a donation from three and two last fall as well as some additional future donations from that same organization. So we're looking at removing the existing grass and organic materials. Excavate to the required

094depth install and compact the base pour and form and pour concrete pads. Supply the installation of commercial grade athletic turf. Paint it. replace any sort of nets and frames as needed. This will be an internal B&G department uh project with regards also or with uh help from the tech ed staff, students and obviously some outside contractors as well. We had an incident at the main gym in 212 with regards to uh during some football throwing drills. Um football accidentally struck a sprinkler head. Um, so those in the audience, if you're on TikTok, you may have seen the video. Um, uh, so fortunately, uh, it was B was able to be acted upon pretty quickly. Water turned off, minimal damage if any. Um, so we we've also because of the incident, we've we've looked at how

095those sprinkler heads are positioned. So, we're going to take a look at that and maybe do some or not maybe we'll do some adjustments with regards to how those are set up. Fortunately, as I mentioned, the the no permanent damage to the wood floor at all. Um, thank you to everybody who acted quickly, swiftly to uh uh to turn off the water and also to help expedite the drying process. As far as uh some actions that the committee took, I not ironically enough, we talked about the main gym floor and its need for being resurfaced. This was actually part of our 202526 capital improvement project uh or excuse me, the 5-year capital improvement project for this this year. Um, so we're going to be sanding the floor, installing new game lines with the Warhawk logo

096that currently appears in the fieldhouse, seal and finish, do some other work with regards uh to to the work itself. proposals were request for proposals were sent to four qualified and competitive flooring contractors and the buildings drones committee did take action moving forward with a positive recommendation to our finance committee to uh to do this project as part of our improvement plan. And lastly, uh we discussed uh we were asked to consider the pro moving a project forward with regards to our elementary monument signs. This would be to have monument signs installed at Rockfield, County Line, Amy Bella Elementary Schools, and also the district office. This would add some consistency because all of them would would look very similar, uh, if not exactly the same, to the MacArthur Elementary sign, which was installed during our

097referendum. Uh, currently, Rockfield does not have a sign located on the road. While the other locations do have signs, but they're small, hidden, dated, or lack curb appeal as a representation to our district. We did take action to move forward with a positive recommendation to the finance committee to proceed with that monument sign installation project at Amy Bell County Line and Rock Rockfield Elementary Schools. >> Thank you. Those will come through on finance. Uh moving on to personnel committee, Mr. Brown. Yes, we had a personnel committee meeting a little earlier tonight in BAC here which began at five o'clock. Uh seeing as we just had it, I won't get too deep into the details, but I'll move quickly through it so we can get down to pressing product um pressing topics here. Um first order

098of business was teacher resignations of which we had four teacher contracts. We don't have any new teacher contracts. And for the staffing update, we did uh fill the special ed uh aid position over at Countyline School. For new business, we brought forward spring coaching contracts. There's two new coaches and two new adviserss. And those come forward with a positive recommendation to the full board to approve the spring coaching and advisor contracts. >> Those come forward with a positive recommendation. Do not require a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Hearing none, those are passed. >> And the next item of new business was the preliminary 2026 2027 teacher staffing plan. We held the personnel committee tonight on the 17th. It was originally scheduled to to be on the March

0994th docket. However, this time of year, there's a lot of moving pieces that the human resources department and everybody needs to submit so we can see what the student levels are, what the class levels are. And with the inflow of information by March 4th, that information was not available. So, we moved the meeting to tonight. Now, we do have to release the agenda and what's on the agenda for the public to see. However, we would then have a committee meeting where you can listen to us discuss it. because that got moved to the 17th, the same night of the board of education meeting. We're in this position where data came out, nobody's had a chance to discuss it yet, and you're hearing it for the first time at 5:00 tonight. Now, we're in the board

100meeting and we're going to vote on it. So, what I did yesterday afternoon after speaking with Dr. Castro, our director of human resources. Um, he had met with members of the music department and we feel we still did not have an accurate count as to where the FTE for travel for the music teachers and the lessons come in. And that's why it was reported on Friday as just three as opposed to 3.4. We don't want to report preliminary numbers until we have an accurate read on it. And tonight was the first time that we could have looked at it. However, after that meeting Monday, uh, speaking with Dr. Castro, he felt there needed to be one more meeting which will take place this Friday during the teacher inservice. And after that, we will hopefully have

101better, more accurate ways to account for the FTE. So, we'll dive into that a little more. I'll let Dr. Castro dive into that a little more. But I'll move forward with the recommen recommendation. It says, "We will move forward with PO positive recommendation to the full board to approve the proposed staffing plan for the 2026 20227 school year with the exception of the K through2 music department and to issue 277.02 teaching contracts." >> Comes forward with a positive recommendation. Does not require a second. Any discussion? >> I'll add one point to that and director Barney pointed this out. is the number of teaching contracts. The 277.02 does include just the FTE as it's counted right now. That may have to be adjusted after Dr. Castro's meetings on Friday. And we will have a committee meeting

102April 7th, a personnel committee meeting where we will then discuss the preliminary music numbers and then move to the full board for final approval later in the month. Dr. Castro, >> thank you. Appreciate that. Um, so I want to provide some clarification. So I I completely understand that when those numbers come out, the initial uh thought and reaction to it is exactly what people see. Um, so I acknowledge that that's new to people when they see that, knowing that my approach may be different than my predecessor's approach. When you're doing FTE, as I'm working through FTE, I really look at it from the lens of h what are our direct classes with students and it doesn't take into account like you mentioned travel and also the lessons. I think an important piece to note about

103the elementary level is you see a reduction in elementary FTE within the music department solely because we're reducing three classes at the elementary across the system. So it wasn't a reduction that kids were getting less. It's just that we have three classes less which would be six actual music classes. So that's where you see that reduction of FT. And I would just interject because we have less students coming in >> at the elementary level than are graduating because Washington County birth rates are the lowest in the state of Wisconsin and we're seeing that in our enrollment trend. We have less children coming into our school system than are graduating out. >> Yep. So when you look at that elementary FTE um just once again some more context is we have three music teachers full-time music

104teachers that cover the four schools. I think that's important to note because once you include that travel time that 2.87 once we know what it is will increase above that three like that's just naturally going to happen because you count travel as part of those sections. So then moving forward when you look at the middle school and high school um the number as we were working through staffing at the high school the number has been 10. we'll just say that's what the number is because it's like you teach 10 classes like actual classes directly with the students that would count as a full-time FTE. So, as we're working through that, obviously the lessons are another uh piece that needs to be calculated and needs to be collaborated across or aligned so that we are accurately

105accounting for those lessons. at that time of getting this out, we don't have those or we didn't have those directly. And that's why we're meeting on Friday to do some of that alignment to say, okay, how do we quantify lessons because once again, as um Mr. Bell explained to us, that's that is a piece of that programming that's different than what your ELA class may look like or your math class. So, we have to quantify that. And you quantify it because both ways it tells you what your numbers are. But if eventually we get to a point where our numbers are so high, we want to have that quantified so we can accurately look at it and say, "Hey, we may need more FTE based off of your numbers." Right? So that's the work we're

106going to do on Friday. But once again, I I understand why when people see that initial piece, they're just going off of what they see. Um, and hence the reason why Eric and I did a lot of conversations over the weekend. I reached out to a handful of our um members within the music department and we got to the point of hey let's meet meet on Friday to see if we can look at this. I think another important piece to mention is um one of our our citizen comments mentioned the alignment of K12 music. That's exactly why I invited the full K12 music department. whether it's our general ed music teachers in elementary, it's our choir teachers at the middle and high school and our our band teachers. Um so that's the intent behind that

107because once again it's looking at it to say how do we quantify this at some of those spots where lessons are a critical piece because in elementary it's real simple. It's the number is 1,380 minutes. That is what quantifies of a 1.0 FT in elementary. some of the other ones when you start adding lessons we need to quantify it because if we don't quantify it now then down the road if our band program keeps growing as it it appears that we will continue to do that um we don't have a way to quantify it to say hey we actually may need more at one point in time so I think those are important pieces to mention um at no point in time I mentioned this during the personnel committee I'll mention this again right now

108we aren't reducing any staff like our music department they're all still going to be full-time here um it's just helping to look at it at a K12 system to say, "Hey, where might some of those shifts happen?" So, that's some context. I hope that's helpful. I do also appreciate people came here to get that information uh because I rather provide it. I wish I could have provided all that, but we were working through those pieces. >> Very impressed time. And despite all that, the presentations that everyone gave tonight on that was invaluable. So, appreciate it very much. >> I just have a question for you, Martin. Um could you see a scenario where it stays at three or four whatever the number happens to be and then we quantify lessons and drive time in some

109other format other than FTE knowing that that FTE isn't directly tied to a one-on-one uh personnel hiring or minutes um just to qu to quantify it would it be appropriate to continue quantifying that in FTE and it may be right or is it better to quantify in some other realm given the amount of less lesons and stuff that goes on in the background, you might have a more in-depth document you could break out that goes beyond the FTE. Is that is that a potential that we could see come forward? And then if if we were to see that presented, um we should also not as a community take that as staff reduction. It would still be to your point all staff is status quo. We're just quantifying the work they're doing maybe in FTE and

110some other form of document. >> Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's that speaks to where that initial document um has some of those initial numbers. But if we're able to break it out so we see it, whatever that work may be, it's going to be much more cleaner. And once again, it's going to help everyone in the long run so that we know exactly, hey, here here's how we're measuring how we have an FTE or how we essentially have the numbers to calculate it. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah, you're welcome. >> Any further discussion? >> So Dr. Reutder may remember that one of the things that I've said to him is that since we're a school district doing in the business of education, there's times when we as a school board also need to

111educate these people who we represent. And I wanted to take a second because I think this is an important case study for us because on the surface people freak out. Totally understandable. We tend to get at least the preliminary idea of what's going to be on the agenda in the packet as early as Thursday. Miss Timberman does a great job of of getting whatever she can out to us as quickly as possible. And we've made a change from a Monday meeting to Tuesday so that number one, we have a little bit more time to go through the material. Sometimes there's quite a bit. But number two, for us when we have our own questions to generate them, send them off to whoever the administrator is so that they don't have to necessarily try to figure

112it out over the weekend that they have Monday as a business day to do whatever they need to do. When people see these type of things, email one or all of us when you see it. Ask what's going on here. In this case, Eric's the personnel committee chair. He can go ahead and meet with uh Martin and say, "You know what? You need to spend more time on this. Look at what we're getting. Look at the questions that we're getting. Look at the phone calls we're getting." And then we can go back to you and you can help us spread the word. They're going to talk about it more. I've asked this question. He said he's going to talk about it more on Tuesday. So that the anxiety that's felt by a lot of people,

113clearly a lot of people going, "What the heck's going to happen? This person's going to lose their job." No, we're going to talk about it. So let us let us have that opportunity. It was brought up earlier. This is our first opportunity to be able to speak to it without violating rules. So we we always trying to to, you know, find that lane where we're in compliance with everything. So, we have some limitations imposed upon us, but if you have questions, if you have concerns, let us know. Give us some grace to try to find out that answer. We'll either be able to give you an answer, or we'll be able to say, "Hey, Martine, could you speak in detail about this?" Because we're getting some questions, we're getting some concerns, or whatever the topic

114happens to be. We're not trusted a lot, but that sort of thing will allow us to build the trust in this community when you guys say, "We have some concerns, we have some questions, and we actually follow through with it, and the people who work here, the experts, can spend the time to explain exactly what's going on, the reasoning behind it. I think that will help all of us move forward in a positive way, in a trustful way, and you guys can start building some confidence in us that sure we might not always deserve, but maybe, just maybe, you guys can start building some confidence in us. >> I think and just to add a little bit to it, I appreciate those thoughts. Um um to the one comment regarding vertical alignment uh we challenge

115this administration and these administrators to teach us which allows us to teach you in conjunction with that. Mr. Miziaak can explain to you um at breath and in length regarding cross district and vertical alignment and Miss Higin Botham's teaching and learning committee has done that on multiple occasions and sometimes we take it for granted that you weren't there for that discussion with us in that journey. Um, but we do have these meetings recorded. Um, and we hope we can provide some of that information. But to your point, there's studies regarding vertical alignment with every every subject that's going on in these schools. And we're working very hard to to uh to curate that and push that moving forward. That drives a lot of change and thought and change regarding cross district and vertical alignment. And

116it's not just the music program. It's every program that's run. Um, those conversations happen. It is very easy for us because we live this constantly. I know I do. And the amount of hours we put in um in regards to these discussions. So, it is easy for us to overlook um making sure that comes up because we think we're being intentional about asking this administration to teach us and use these meetings as a teaching point to help explain things out to to the public. It's hard when social media wants that answer on Friday for a meeting that's happening on Tuesday. And that that's that's life, right? and we're going to continue to work through that. But I I just ask along with Mr. Pollock, ask ask us, reach out to us. We're available via email.

117My phone number is on the website. You can ask many citizens. I pick it up. I'm the guy that picks up the unknown number. I do it to myself, but it it's because I know it's probably a citizen calling, right, and asking a question or has a question or clarification. Uh so we're here for that. That's that's part of our role. uh but you got to give us the opportunity to do it uh in that manner and I agree we can always agree that communication and explanation can be better. It's just a matter of to what degree can we do that and and manage everyone's time and responsibility in an appropriate manner. So we're going to always have that and when we see levels of this this support come out we're going to take the

118time to read that. Uh Mr. Brown explained why the meeting was tonight. I can tell you when when when when these gentle when this board elected me as president, we moved these meetings intentionally to separate committees and and the full board minus finance because a lot of you could see the committees tonight recommend things to finance and finance then recommends it to the full board for expenditure. Um, we do that because it allows two weeks in between really to give a the community some time to take in the information that was discussed, us to take in the information that they've taught us and be able to reflect any of your input that was provided to us back out to the administration for further fleshing out then come to the full board. Uh, this one for

119reasons and justifiable reasons, it was compressed. Um so so if if that was a source of strain I apologize for that but I think it was the right call in regards to the organization and the meetings um to keep board business efficient. Um I don't know if anyone else has anything further regarding >> Thank you. tonight's meeting was uh was compressed and actually I had said the next personnel committee meeting is going to be April 7th when we're actually going to discuss the FTE for the music department. Uh that is actually April 14th. So >> the full board. >> Nope. The committee. >> Oh, that's right. We have the election. >> It's it's an interesting. >> So yeah, one month there's the election. >> The committee meeting will be April 14th that we >> go

120preliminary numbers. >> Either way later, >> there'll be further discussion. >> Just want to get the right information. >> Thank you. Any further discussion? Yeah. One thing I guess just for the benefit of the committee that's here that may not be familiar with motions and approvals and things like that. The motion that's on the floor is to approve the staffing plan for next year for all departments except for K through2 music which will come through personnel next month. >> It's a preliminary staffing plan which means it can be adjusted as growth enrollment changes staffing needs arise uh further study dictates. Right. So with that motion, Mr. Barney, uh, and Mr. Brown, that means there's no change to the current FTE and we're not cutting music and we're not reducing any teachers in the music program.

121>> You are correct. >> Thank you. >> Any further discussion? I will go ahead and repeat the motion though. It's been a while. >> Thank you. Motion with a positive re recommendation to the full board to approve the proposed staffing plan for the 2026 2027 school year with the exception of the K through2 music department and to issue 277.02 teaching contracts. Thank you. That came forward. Uh any further discussion? Nope. >> Hearing none. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Hearing none. Preliminary staffing plan is approved. Thank you. Uh I believe that wraps up personnel. >> Yes. >> Uh nine, finance committee. Mr. Losath. >> Yes. Well, if you think personnel was interesting, now we're going to go into finance. >> Oh, stick around. >> Finance is fun. >> You guys can go

122home and do your homework if you want. >> What? What? No one don't take a break for finance. >> Look, thank thank you very much for your words. >> You can sure clear a room. >> Was it something I said? >> Give it a moment. Is do we want to take a quick break for a >> No, we got to wait. >> You're going to be here till midnight regardless. >> Just let's keep going. >> Power through each. >> Power through. Let's go. My service. >> My My feet are numb from cold or sitting too long. I'll tell you that. >> They're gone. >> Okay. >> Finance it is. Let's call them. >> It's finance. All right. uh finance committee met earlier this evening here at the PAC at 5 we started at 5:35 p.m.

123Uh finance is gets to go last of all the committees because it's the proper position for finance to be just before the board meeting. Um full board item 9A committee meeting update. Uh we went through vouchers and uh Britney answered a few uh questions about vouchers and we approved the vouchers. Um oh sorry about that. Uh we had the uh GSD financial series number four uh CISA number one grants and that was given to us by Sarah Vera of CISA 1. Uh Britney went through her variance report, something that she does every month. Um it's a good one-page read if you're interested in reading the material. Since we're doing the Cliff's notes version here, I am not going to read it again. Next item I am going uh to go over uh just mention uh

124item full board item 9G. This was WISNP agreement and uh this had to do with a cooperative that we're joining for uh better pricing on uh food and nutrition items. So motion to move forward with a positive recommendation to the full board to approve the agreement with WISNP to join the Wisconsin School Nutrition Purchasing Cooperative. >> Comes forward. The positive recommendation does not require a second. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes. >> Okay. Full board item 9B, 2025 2026 Chromebook lease refresh. uh we bring forward to the board of education with a positive recommendation to lease purchase Chromebooks from BDJtech and finance the lease purchase through a 4-year lease agreement with First American in an amount not to exceed $46,720 with an annual PNI

125payment not to exceed $19,442. $2.99 as presented and charged to the appropriate capitalization and lease accounts in the general fund. >> Comes forward with a positive recommendation does not require a second. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor? I. >> Any opposed? >> Hearing none. That passes. >> Okay. Uh full board item point of order. >> We got to make sure those doors stay open. >> Oh, those are open over there. We're good. >> Oh, okay. >> Yeah, we're fine. Okay. Full board item 9C, library Chromebook purchase. Motion with a positive recommendation to the full board with a positive recommendation from the finance committee to approve the purchase of 180 touchscreen Chromebooks, corresponding Google licenses, and six charging cards from BDJtech for the amount not to exceed $75,75 using common school library aid. comes

126forward with a positive recommendation. Does not require a second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? I. >> Any opposed? Hearing? None. That passes. Okay. Uh full board item 9D, exterior monumental signs. Uh this was already covered by uh Tracy Powick uh in building and grounds. So we will go forward. Motion to move forward with a positive recommendation from the finance committee to the board of education to proceed with Lindberg signs for the monumental sign installation project at Amy Bell Elementary, County Line Elementary, Rockfield Elementary, and the district office in an amount not to exceed $117,47624. comes forward with a positive recommendation. Does that require a second? >> Any discussion? >> Yes. >> Um just so the board's aware, there may be additional cost for this project which would be to run electrical to the

127signs and that will go through uh finance committee when the pricing is available. Is there any concern amongst the board in regards to approving the sign project before knowing the the electrical cost? Miss Alton North >> during P during finance committee I asked if the motion wanted to be altered to include pending electrical cost being approved and it was decided that it wasn't going to be. So, I believe that the board could approve this portion. I will be bringing the electrical cost back in April. If the electrical costs aren't approved, the signs would not go through. >> Okay. So, the construction wouldn't start till after we have the full. >> Right. >> Thank you. >> And Britney, can you stay there for a second? >> I'm going to ask for a point of clarification. >>

128Yep. >> Uh the funds used for the signs, what fund are they coming out of? >> They're coming from the general fund. >> General fund. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor? >> I. Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes. >> Okay. Next. Next uh is full board item 9E uh GHS main gym floor resurface. Uh motion to move forward with a positive recommendation to the full board of education to proceed with the GHS main gym floor resurface project using Schmidt flooring as part of the 2025 2026 capital projects within the 2025-30 5-year capital improvement plan for $89,875 funded out of the fund 41 capital improvements budget >> comes forward with a positive recommendation does not require a second any discussion hearing none all in favor I >> any opposed >> hearing

129none that passes >> okay next item is full board item 9F bridges third edition transition kits this is uh for the math program in uh kinderg kindergarten through grade five. Uh motion with a positive recommendation to the full board to approve the purchase of bridges transition kits. >> Comes forward with the positive recommendation does not require a second. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Hearing none. That passes. >> And uh the finance committee adjourned at 7:02 p.m. this evening. That's it. >> Thank you. U took care of G on the front end of that. Correct. >> G is on the front. >> Okay. Just want to make sure. >> Yeah, I took them in the order of finance. >> Yeah. Appreciate you. Yes. Uh 10. New business. A

130discussion action to approve early college credit program and start college now applications. Dr. Mr. Mizaki. So many doctors. >> Sorry, J. >> This is the second batch of applications that I'm bringing to the board. Uh the reason why we do this in the spring is purely to allow our high school students the best opportunity to uh access these programs and make sure that uh the college that they're applying to uh you know that they have the best chance of admission to it. So, the early college credit program statute allows Wisconsin public or and private high school students to take one or more courses at an institution of higher education for high school and or college credit. Um, so for early college credit program, we had three students submit paperwork to attend an institution of higher

131education uh for the fall of the 26 27th school year through the ECCP program. Uh this second batch included students who are looking for German grammar and practice. Uh accelerated pathos psychology and accelerated health assessment theory. All paperwork was submitted before the March 1st deadline. And then second part of this is our start college now applications. And we had a second batch of students who applied for the fall term here. We had 10 students submit paperwork to attend Wisconsin Technical College. Two students submitted paperwork for emergency medical technician and intro to operational tech. And then we had eight additional students submit paperwork for the certified nursing assistant program. Uh which brings the total for our fall um up to nearly 30 students who are looking at that. So as Mr. Barney had requested, this is

132uh something that I'm looking into. There are several high schools in the area that offer a secondary program and there's some ways that we could potentially do that in-house. So, I'm researching that as an option going forward for our students. >> Thank you. Appreciate that. >> I'll entertain a motion. >> Motion to approve the early college credit program and the start college now requests as presented. >> Second with a motion to miss Higinbath with the second. Any discussion? >> Yes, >> I have a student represented in these applications. So, I will abstain from voting. >> Thank you for that. Clear transparency. Any further discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Hearing none. Abstension. One >> abstain. >> Thank you. That passes. B. Discussion action to approve overnight travel request. Dr.

133Reutder. >> Thank you. We have one request this evening for overnight travel. It's one that we have annually. It's from County Line for their fifth graders. They're already planning forward for next year's fifth graders in the fall and their annual trip to Uppam Woods. As many of you that have had children go through county line know it's a fantastic trip that our fifth grade teachers um and and staff over at county line put on for this 3-day camping trip which offers exploration discovery and some environmental education. So, they're projecting approximately 91 students and 15 adults and looking for that approval for next October 14th through the 16th of 2026. >> With that, I'll entertain a motion. >> Motion to approve the overnight chopper request for County Line School in October 2026. >> Second. >> Mr.

134Barney with the motion. Miss Higath with the second. Any discussion? >> Yeah. Let's hope they have some great weather because October can be iffy. >> You never know. You never know. >> The Upper Woods trip is a right of passage for the students at that school. It is and I think it's heavily uh uh funded through PTA donations. >> P I I believe they they pay for transportation and part of the cost of the field trip as well. Yeah. >> Greatly appreciate that. Uh it's a tradition there as much as the the band program is for the high school and middle school. >> Exactly. Exactly. >> Uh any further discussion hearing? None. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? hearing. None. That passes. See discussion action to approve certified teaching staff wage increase for

135the 2627 fiscal year. Dr. Castro. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, so to give you a little uh background, so to date, the Germantown School District Negotiation Committee as well as the Germantown Education Association has met on five occasions. Um, Dr. Dr. Reutder initiated the first contact back on September 5th because we wanted to start that process early. Uh to date we've met on November 10th, December 15th, January 29th, February 12th, as well as February 26th. During these meetings, we reviewed our negotiation ground rules. We identified our comparable districts um those being similar to the ones that we did our comp studies around as well as confirm that January 1st of 2026 would be the snapshot date of the pool when we're looking at that CPI portion. uh we did confirm at that point in time

136then CPI was confirmed at 263% and then we exchanged during that process our initial offer followed by um another discussion around some secondary offers as we came through. Uh at this point in time, uh we are bringing it to the board with the offer that is listed in the background here that for the contract year beginning in July 1st of 2026 and ending on June 30th of 2027, an increase of 2.63 63 to the total base wages paid to contracted employees or teachers. Additionally, I'd add that um conversation has stalled with the GA um and as part of the negotiations team, we are looking to move forward with this recommendation from administration this evening. You'll see in our in the packet in the information provided shows a wage increase of CPI um at at a

137base pool wage of 2.63%. It additionally shows the um positions that would also receive additional compensation outside of the CPI increase for adjustment from market value. Um, as well as this document I'm projecting right now shows total compensation over the last four years that this board has approved, whether it be through wage adjustment negotiations dating back to to the current as well as our compensation model that was approved two years ago and close to half a million dollars that the board has invested in additional pay for certified teaching staff. uh totaling almost three a $3 million investment over the last four years um for teaching staff. So I to put that into context um we we are looking and you can see in your board packet that um not only is there CPI increase but

138you'll see highlighted um positions throughout the district that will also receive an additional salary enhancement in this recommendation to build their market value to adjust their market value with their peers within the district. So you can see some people range from a CPI increase almost 50% of the staff population to those who are receiving upwards the highest I believe is 25% increase on their 26 27 salary. >> So we're looking at the salary increase listings. I don't know if you can >> get you want that bigger. >> Can you Well, we'll go back to this but can you project the salary increase listings? >> Yep. Just so people have a a point of reference, each one of these lines is built u is is representative of an employee. We obviously left their their information off.

139We did leave their buildings on because we wanted to be transparent with um the diverse investment across the schools. We talk about cross district right and vertical alignment. Uh if you use that conver concept in this process, um every school is touched and it's not one building favored over the other anything like that. Um it is following um a pattern in which we have conducted ourselves over the last couple of years in a tiered approach and that is to bring um our lower-end staff up in regards to a percentage that they receive um and get them closer to the peers around us. Um, if you notice the far right, it it it not only is going to discuss the total increase, which would include their their CPI or their their percentage adjustment as well as

140their fair market adjustment if the employee has that. Um, but it also so it totals the total increase for them as well as their percent. Um, Dr. Martin, do you know how many are receiving above the CPI um market of 263? >> Yeah. So that from at CPI of 263 and above it is 46.5% of our staff. >> So 40 you said 45.6 >> 46% of the staff. Sorry. Thank you. >> So 46% of of this is just keep in mind for the public that's paying attention. Uh this is certified staff only that we're discussing right now. Um and that's in regards to what the negotiation standpoint can be under the current laws we operate on. Um it's really important to understand that that some of these are significantly above CPI but through that uh

141negotiation standpoint we're coralled into negotiating uh as far as wages go a maximum of the CPI market CPI uh which is 2.63 63 as a as adjustment to the pool as a whole. And then within that we have the liberties of dispersement and in order to to um target the lower end which our comp models studies have suggested we should address uh we we've taken this approach once again uh to enhance those ends. Um but as Dr. Reutder said I think we have upwards of 25%. 25. >> Yes. >> Uh that's a significant dollar amount and and you can go through and and and um >> rotate through. How many employees are going to receive uh market fair market adjustment? >> Um it'll be 26 >> 26. >> So it's about right under 10% of

142our certified teaching staff. >> And then we do have uh multiple tiers to this. The last tier being 90,000 or above. Correct. >> Yes. And that is going to be capped in a sense of this this portion of what we're discussing. We will have another discussion in a few minutes on another topic. >> Those employees are not receiving nothing. >> Correct. >> It's just going to be addressed in a different way >> outside of the CPI negotiation. Yeah. >> In order for us, the district to apply other funds that they can't leverage in in the negotiation standpoint because it would increase over the 2.63. Yeah, that's correct. And I think another important part to mention is there are two staff members within that 90 and above that will receive that internal market adjustment as well.

143>> Even though they're above the N, they'll still receive their fair market adjustment. >> Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, because when we looked at it, we looked at it from the lens of internally benchmarking them internally and they were those individuals were below so we needed to correct that. So taking that approach and and discussing how we earlier uh in the evening uh the information is presented and if we don't have the discussion and context around it appears as if anyone above 90,000 will receive no raise. Is that would be a fair general if you didn't have this discussion. >> That's correct. Yeah. >> Um and we do have a topic later in uh then very next one D stipen and that is going to be in regards to those employees. Yeah, that's correct. And then

144I did want to just mention that that 2.63 once again is based off of that um total pool. So then that pool of money ended up being 515,498 and 58 cents. So that's that money that's divided amongst those categories that you saw or those groups. >> Thank you. Um so yeah, I was going to ask you Dr. R if you could pull this up. So the those items that we'll discuss in D would probably fall in the compensation model um portion of non-negotiated wage increases um that this administration is recommending to the board and the board's taking in consideration in regards to a fiscal management standpoint. Yeah, I I would say that you can see here in the compensation model, these are on top of salary what our certified staff are eligible for for payout

145on top of salary. So um any teacher only teachers have personal day payout um that the that um if they do not use it's $100 per day. So um the first year of that was 2425. You can see that we've paid out approximately $25,000 um on top of salary. Um teachers who maintain an overload at an overload is $3,000 per section. So we paid out in the 2425 school year 90,000 this past year, $130,000 on top of salary. Uh national board certification is approximately 12,000 to $13,000 annually. um teachers who hold certifications that we identified in our comp study. We've paid out approximately $25,000 a year. Master's degree, we we add to base salary. It's not on top of, but it's on it's built into base salary uh onetime bump. You can see that we

146had a huge payout in 2425 um and this past year was 4500. And then longevity pay, something that is not common in school districts in the CISA1 region. Um that also goes on to their base pay. Um for long-term pay, uh we've paid out over the last two years almost over $150,000. So that totaling from just the compensation model is close to half a million dollar over the last two years with 2627 unknown because we we calculate these dollar amounts at the end of our fiscal year. >> Sure. So we we we'll know that at the end of our fiscal year for 2627. >> Uh but it's not an incident. It's a half but basically it's a half million dollars over the last two years of non-negotiated. >> Correct. >> What ultimately comes into it

147as a wage increase in an incentivation program. Uh, so if we're talking a master's degree or a certification, as long as it's within their field of teaching, yes, >> or one that they may move to, >> discipline that's ultimately approved by Jake's office and Martine's office with working with that teacher. So, if I'm an elementary teacher, I get a my reading specialist license has direct impact on what I'm doing with kids daily. or I'm a high school science teacher. I get a master's degree in science or a field that I teach. Um once it's approved by administration and then they've complete the credit accreditation, then that is added uh to their base wage. >> Okay. uh they're large numbers, but the thing I look at is the incentivation is working because if we have uh

148teachers seeking that higher education within the fields that they're educating our students in and they're they're they're cha they're pursuing that that um pay uh incentive. uh ultimately we're going to have more more educated, more professional staff members better prepared >> to do what they do daily, >> right, with their students which affect student outcome. Um and I think we're starting to see that uh through it. So the incentivation program is working from what I can see given the dollar amount and that's there's not a cap on that right now, >> right? As well as certification uh and national board certification. So you look at certification stipen, it's a one-time payment. However, we have teachers who are credited that they teach a course that allows for college credit for our students. So, it's burden that's

149taken off of a parent because their child took a math course that might lead to college credit or they get college credit and we're going to give you a one-time payment for thanking you for doing that work and and which is already your discipline that we've asked you to teach and contract you for. So I I think that does a really good job of um capturing the totality of the investment over the last several years this this district administration uh intentful work around compensation study uh knowledge of the staff staff pay range uh the study Martin and Dr. Castro's done over the last several months uh in regards to getting to know each individual employee and their circumstances, their their uh background, their expertise and and that really comes into the market uh fair market

150adjustments. >> Yeah, that's correct. So, I went through all personnel files to ensure that our internal comps based off of years of experiences of our of our staff, not just here in the district, but years they came in with were appropriately accounted for, which is why you see some of those internal adjustments. >> My understanding is was not just an administrative approach. Uh the building uh administrators were also involved in >> Yeah. Dr. Castro then shared the his findings with district or building level administration to get their feedback as well that this is people that we want to retain and we need to market adjust based on performance as well. >> And it's not just about longevity or I've been here but I'm I do a quality job. >> Uh with that I'll take a

151motion then we can entertain board discussion as I'm assuming there may be some >> motion to approve a 2.63% 63% pay rate increase for certified teaching staff as presented for the 2026 2027 fiscal year effective July 1st 2026. Second >> Mr. Voyer with the motion Miss Barney with the second. We also are going to have a resolution that goes along with this motion. Uh after the motion >> correct after it's approved then then we'd go to the resolution. Okay. um discussion if there is any or did we cover it all? >> Kim's not as Yes. Mr. Love, >> I'd just like to thank uh everyone on the uh negotiations committee. Um, you know, it's a it's a tough job and uh if this is approved this evening, I will thank uh everyone involved uh on

152behalf of the business office because this way they're uh these pay increases will be in effect by uh July 1st of this year and there won't be any need for putting out uh back pay checks, you know, if this doesn't go through this evening. So, if it goes through this evening, we're all set for uh the next school year starting July 1st. I'm thankful for that. And I believe the business office is also Yes, I'm getting a yes from Britney. And I I believe the whole business office >> and I I think to your point, Mr. Lo, the HR department is thankful too because when they issue contracts, they'll be accurate with pay. >> Right. Right. And um you know I've I've seen some of Dr. Martin Castro's work on this and uh he's done

153an excellent job. So thank you for that Martin. I mean it's you've really really done a good job on this. So all the work you've put in. >> Thank you. I appreciate that. I think another important piece to mention is that as we're working through that internal adjustment to make sure market adjustments to make sure our staff are aligned. The benefit of that too is in the future as we make hires, we're hiring staff appropriately within our system. So we we want to always make sure that we're keeping that aligned as well. So that was another important piece of this versus hiring someone and saying who are we benching them against? It it makes it much more cleaner which is a benefit for all I believe. >> Thank you. Uh I I actually extend a

154thank you to the GA in the process in regards to the multiple meetings we had to discuss individual topics at each point that helped uh really shape and build in to the point of understanding what CPI was the pool uh the time frame understanding uh getting this done earlier than later um is a responsible action of this board in regards to a budgetary process and a finance management process because as you're going to see with our next item item. Um, we had a surprise ask for Britney in regards to a little bit of this, but uh, we'll keep that moving forward. I I know we're at impass on this as far as is the the the district and board are concerned in regards to this. Um, but it but this is really a positive um,

155in regards to the contract. If you look at the nuts and bolts of what's what's in this, the distribution and what's happening for the staff and the employees, there is a ton a ton of positives in this. And no one's left out between this and our next item. Um, no one's left on the curb holding nothing. Um, it's just a matter of and how we break it down and what we do. And I can understand um some of some of the the concentation on their end and the final um resolve of this. But uh the state laws are what they are and we're allowed to come to impass at this time if was the recommendation at hand. So if there's no further discussion, I'll entertain. Well, we have the motion. Seeing no further discussion, uh

156we're going to do a roll call vote on this. >> Yeah, good call. >> You ready for that? Yes. >> Eert. >> Yes. >> Brown. >> Yes. >> Barney's a Yes. Loath. >> Yes. >> Pollock. >> Yes. >> Higen Botham. >> Yes. >> Ber. >> Yes. >> That passes. >> It passes. >> U. Following that, we will have a resolution of the board of education, Germantown School District, March 17, 2026. Whereas representatives of the Germantown School District and the Germantown Education Association have been engaged in negotiations for the 262nd 27 collective bargaining agreement between the parties and whereas the district last proposal of the union for the 2627 school year was a total base wage increase of 2.63% 63% which aligns with the consumer price index CPI as you heard us discuss and represents the

157largest increase in total base wage the district is permitted by law to offer the union without a referendum approving greater increase whereas the union has not agreed to the district's last proposal and the union has indicated the to the district the union does not intend to present any additional proposals to the district whereas Whereas based whereas based on these representations of by the union and the district has the district has determined that the parties are at an impass in negotiation over the 2627 collective bargaining agreement. Therefore uh be it resolved the board of education the Germantown school district at one. Board declares the parties are at in pass in negotiations over 2627 collective bargaining agreement between the district and union and two the board last board's last offer to the union for total base increase

158of 2.63% be implemented for the 26 27 school year. >> Motion to approve the resolution as stated. Second, >> Mr. Barney with the motion. Mr. Pollock with the second. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. >> Roll call. >> Eert. >> Yes. >> Brown. >> Yes. >> Barney. Yes. Lo, >> yes. >> Pollock, >> yes. >> Higen Botham, >> yes. >> Voyer, >> yes. >> That passes unanimously. >> And we will move on to D. discussion and action to approve certified teaching staff one-time stipen for the 2627 fiscal year. Dr. Castro. >> Yes. So, tonight the administration is recommending a onetime stipen of $750 for certified teaching staff during the 2627 school year with a base salary of 90,000 or greater. This stipen would be issued as a one-time payment on June 30th of 2027. and the

159stipen is separate from the base wage increase approved for the 2627 school year. >> Thank you for that. Uh we I kind of frontloaded this conversation. Obviously, this is reference to any of the 90,000 and above in regards to a stipen payment to ensure uh additional funds could be uh leveraged for uh our staff members outside of the laws uh required uh maximum of CPI. So with that, I will entertain a motion. >> Motion to approve a $750 stipen for certified teaching staff with base pay salaries of $90,000 or greater for the 2026 2027 school year to be paid June 30th, 2027. >> Second motion uh by Mr. Pollock with the second. Seniority has its parts. Um, any discussion? >> Hearing none, I will entertain a roll call. Once again, Eert, >> yes. >> Brown,

160>> yes. >> Barney is yes. Loath, >> yes. >> Pollock, >> yes. >> Higenotham, >> yes. >> Voyer, >> yes. >> Motion passes. >> Thank you. >> E. discussion action to uh to approve professional technical support staff and administrative wage increase for the 2627 fiscal year. This would be the non-certified staff uh which is a large representation of our employee group. >> Yes, >> Mr. Castro or Dr. Castro. >> Yeah, that's correct. So, tonight the administration is seeking a pay increase for professional technical uh support staff and administration group excluding the district administrator in amount equal to the 2.63 63 over the individual's 2025 2026 wage. This would be into effect on July 1st of 2026. Uh that comes forward. This is a non uh this is a would be the best way to describe

161this. It's a non-negotiated uh entity or representative bodies or employees I guess would be the best way to say it or the worst way apparently. Sorry. Um, it typically comes right around the same time, sometimes before, sometimes after, but we like to get this information out to these employees as soon as as we can, and we try to keep it in line as best we can with what we're doing for certified staff given the hard work these individuals provide in ensuring a responsible uh learning environment for our students. >> Yeah. And uh just wanted to also put in a note in there that in regards to all these employee groups, we are also working on ensuring that all employees get a total compensation statement. Uh once again, that's just to make sure that employees know

162what is fully invested into them even just beyond salary because that's a piece of big puzzle. >> Um maybe the full board isn't aware of this, maybe they are. I can't remember if this has been discussed. What Dr. Castro is discussing is every employee of ours is going to receive a digitalized copy of their compensation um to highlight and notate multiple things. I saw a preliminary of it. I'm very excited for them to be able to receive these and understand what what they will be at in the following year. I think it's very vital and once again just another professional approach uh that's coming out of our new HR office uh that's only going to help build understanding and transparency with our employees. So >> yeah, and then um part of that too is also

163making sure our employees understand what is that post employee benefit that they're allotted depending on what tier they're in based off of our structure. I think that's important piece of the puzzle as well. >> Absolutely. Is this a template that you created? >> No, we're working with a uh company that has created them. So there's a number of other districts are heading in that same direction. Once again, just so people understand what's that total investment, >> there'll be some automiz try to use the words. It's a long night here. Uh yeah, automated automated process uh in regards to pulling the data from our back end to create these sheets. It'll also ensure accuracy when we're not going to tie up uh the director of HR with filling out each one of these sheets individually for

164our hundreds of employees. >> So it'll show your postemployment benefit's contribution. If if if you have life insurance, if you take the district health insurance, if you don't, it's not just salary, but it shows total compensation. >> Yeah. And I think that's important because that post benefit, not all employees where they're at in their career may be looking at it from that lens depending on once again where you're at in that phase. But that's a nice piece for them to say, oh, that is there. Because once again, we have that listed on the website somewhere. But for them to see individually, what does this mean for me if I continue here and retire here? I think that's great for them. >> And that speaks to the earlier conversations of making information easier to find. >>

165Yes. >> And usable. >> Yeah. Definitely comes from some of the conversations we've had compensation model that how can we get this information out more accurate and more personal to each individual employee. And this is a this is the exact step that needs to occur. >> Uh with that, I will hear a motion. >> Motion to approve a 2.63% 63% pay rate increase for professional technical support staff and administration excluding the district administrator as presented for the 2026 2027 fiscal year effective July 1st 2026 >> second got that probably with the motion with the second um any further discussion >> I I have a question uh do we have a number for how many uh employees we have in this category M >> for professional technical >> and and support staff. >> Not off the

166top of my head. No, >> I would say it's it's approximately 46 48% of our workforce. >> Okay. I was just wondering how it compared to the number of uh teachers. >> Almost half and half. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um I would ask in the future if we could get that breakdown. I know we have it available. It's just not in the >> background because that would just be a little more transparent not only to them but also the public at large. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Uh any further discussion >> hearing? None. One more roll call vote. Mr. Barney getting put to work tonight. >> Yes. >> Brown. >> Yes. >> Barney yes. Loath >> yes. >> Pollock. >> Yes. >> Higenom. >> Yes. >> Motion carries. >> All right. >> Yes. >>

167Sorry. Motion still carries. >> Swing B there. Uh if we're going to enter into close session, I do have a note in here. A possible reconvene and open. Is that >> to approve uh any preliminary >> notice of Yep. All right. So, um item 11, close session A. Board of Education will entertain a motion to go into close session pursuant to Wisconsin state statute 19.85 85 sub1 subc to consider the employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any employee. A consideration of preliminary notice of teacher non-renewal and B discussion of employee discipline. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Roll call. >> Eert. >> Yes. >> Brown. >> Yes. >> Barney's yes. Loath >> yes. >> Pollock. >> Yes. >> Think about >> Yes. We will enter into close here at 9:34 p.m. Thank you.

168Board of Education will meet uh reconvene into open session at 10:21 p.m. March 17th. And with that, I will hear a motion wrong side. Uh regarding discussion, uh sorry, item 12, uh open rec discussion action if needed based on close session business. I'll make a motion to approve issuing the preliminary notices of non-renewal to the two teachers as discussed enclosed. >> Second, >> Mr. Barney with the motion. Mr. Voyer with the second. Any discussion? >> Hearing none. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Hearing none, that passes. I'll entertain one more motion. >> Move to adjurnn. >> Second. >> Mr. Vot with the second. Any discussion? Hearing none. All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? >> Hearing none, that passes. We >> 10:22 p.m. We are ajourned.