2021-12-20 Board of Education meeting

001it is 7 10. I'm calling this meeting of the Germantown School District Board of Education to order if you would please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance and the moment of silence one nation under God official media notification Mr stileslin public notice of all meetings has been given by communication from the superintendent's office to the public to those news media who've requested such notices into the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Northwest now expressed news and West Bend Daily News public notice has also been posted in schools throughout the district and on the gsdwi.org website as well as cable access Channel 96. okay roll call Medved here Barney here reinemann here Soderbergh here hello here Borden absent excuse Pollock here thank you item two approval the agenda do I have a motion motion to prove

002the agenda any discussion see none all those in favor aye aye opposed that passes moving on item three reports item a student representative report yes we'll have Hannah De Grace from the high school we'll do the school report welcome Hannah all right Amy Bella continues to empower and Inspire every student to success the PTA raised money and donated new playground equipment to students in addition the kids were rewarded with a popcorn day on the third on December 16th the first graders students had their music concert line hosted the snowball Friday December 10th they loved it they held a school spelling bee and winners will move on to the regional B in February they celebrated winter arriving with pajama day and now the students patiently await winter break Rockfield continues to focus on character development students

003and staff are spreading kind messages around the school a token of kindness that the school did in December included the Capco toy drive everything collected will go to those who need it most in our community MacArthur has been focusing on empathy with its students and they will continue to practice this skill throughout the year with the holiday season approaching students will participate in spirit days the fifth graders continue working on their G Talks by exploring how they learn best the school-wide spelling bee was on December 16th Vision screenings were offered to all students on December 13th and today December 20th the staff and students at KMS continue to work diligently in and out of the classroom the forensics team Ski and Snowboard club and woodwind choir best buddies basketball and wrestling are all in session

004on December 14th students were invited to attend a lunchtime virtual author visit with Steve Shinken the one hour to author talk included with a workshop on code breaking anyone who loves history explained spy stories or code breaking enjoyed the presentation and the spirit of the season of giving the junior Key Club gathered gift cards for local families in need through December 17th as we approach the winter break the staff and students at KMS which everyone a safe and healthy holiday season Germantown High School has been busy with the upcoming holiday season student council held their annual winter wish week to get everyone in the spirit of the holiday season complete with gift giving decorated hauls and holiday music finally a Spanish Honor Society has been collecting toys for Casa de Guadalupe and boys and girls

005basketball are in session thank you I always love hearing what's going on in the schools you give a great report and we appreciate it thank you Hannah of course any other questions comments yeah okay thank you thank you again moving on Item B Title One funding report Mr thousand yes so the title one funding report is a report that by DPI we have to give every year to the board and and typically the director of teaching and learning does that and I see Mrs O'Brien was back here and we she has uh you'll find out later but as has moved on to a different District but we want to thank her for her time and all the stuff she did for nine years for um for our district it's appreciated and missed so the title

006one Grant um couple things the critical elements of the program It's A needs assessment plan design there's parent involvement there's services to students enrolled in private schools as well it requires you know high quality teachers and parent Professionals coordinations of Service Coordination of services for homeless students in a focus Title One focus on priority schools and a comparability of schools and growth the there's two Germantown schools that are eligible for Title One funding this year MacArthur is a school-wide which means every it's a everyone in the um the school must follow um and try to meet the same achievement standards and then targeted assistance which is the Kent is Kennedy Middle School and targeted assistant means that title one services are provided to a select group of children those identified as failing are most at

007risk of failing to meet the state's academic achievement standards the goal of a targeted assistance program is to improve teaching and learning to enable participants to meet the challenging State performance standards a school with a targeted assistance program is one that receives Title One funds is ineligible or has chosen not to operate a title one school-wide program um we received 89 000 596 dollars of Title One um and and of that 853 uh goes to private schools and there is an agreement um with parents in the school the of schools that are that receive funds for um for any of the title money Title One two or three and title two funding um is based on 20 on enrollment and eighty percent on percentage of students below the poverty line um the law does require

008that led A's um follow have the following priorities to have all teachers fully licensed to appear professional training that meets requirements and to support professional development of teachers people service personnel and school administrators to increase content knowledge or develop teaching skills and dispositions our title t two funding um and for for us it's the majority of the money is focused on literacy writing training also money goes to a training for mentoring TR teachers conferences for social workers psychologists and counselors our total allocation is 53 000 of that 4400 is set aside for for schools and that's the title report okay any questions okay thank you are we now item C state report card in act data report Mr thousand yeah so um last end of last month the the state report card data was released

009and our district had a score of 79.2 um which is exceeds expectations uh the the state report card is broken down into four areas achievement growth targeted group outcomes and on-track graduation and I don't know if you could see the upper right hand corner the pie chart shows the percentage of of how how each of those areas are weighted um a couple years ago was just it was 25 25 all the way around you can see achievement has 36.4 percent in growth 13.6 percent in the another 2 or 25. a couple of things to note um with this is that our score was the same or higher than 91.6 percent of all districts in the state so we we had a 10 percent um jumping in growth uh you know according to to the way

010they they do the state report card um and then if just to get a comparison of um the last several years there was no data in 1920 um you can see the the breakdown of the scores um obviously darker green is better um kind of the medium green is exceeds expectation and you don't want to be in the orange or the the yellow one thing that historically and I know there's a couple of board members that can speak more about it in just a second but historically Germantown hasn't focused a lot on test scores and and the state test is a snapshot it's a kind of a one-time one-time score and um you know I think we we think that we are are more than that one-time test score and that it's it's about um

011our student engagement and other sometimes non-academic pieces that as well and um and I don't believe we've ever taught to the test over the last um 10 years I think I can say um but something that the data can do for us and the map data can do this and and there are pieces of the of the state exam the forward exam that can at least help guide our instruction it doesn't have to tell us what we you know we're not teaching to the test but I put this snapshot on Julia Leeson our Tech person uh kind of disaggregated this this information and this is an example from sixth grade math and if you you look at it you can see the categories that our students are asked to have an understanding under and the

012the bottom left um that's in blue where it talks about expressions and equations geometry the number system ratios and proportional relationships statistics and probability and so our job is to make sure that our kids are having exposure to these areas along the way and make sure that that is in our our curriculum as we as we move forward and and all the information you see on the right or the actual questions that the kids were asked how they did on those questions um you know the percent correct and if we wanted to we could dig into those to see what type of questions they were asking um the the kiddos um another piece of information that's that's out there that we we do look at and we use as our ACT scores and you can

013see um act these were mandated back in 2016 and every 11th grader in the state of Wisconsin would have to take the ACT exam um you know our and and I would say similar to every District in the state went down in their in their um scores we had some of our our lower scores were normally our composite is in the 22 range um we were below that a little bit I think we'll a lot of factors but I think we'll be back in the 22 range once our kids test again this spring and just some other information on on data is that we do do the measure of academic progress or the map test grades three through eight we have cognitive the Colgate the cognitive abilities test um Running Records at the elementary level

014we're doing on-demand writing that's something that's new um that it's part of our writing program and next year all all teachers will be doing the on-demand writing so they have a pre and post on the work that they're doing of course they have some other informative assessments forward exam which you just saw those results we have ACT Aspire which is a predictor on how the kids are supposed to do on the on the ACT and then of course if a child takes advanced placement class or an AP course they get tested on that as well so questions um data yes it's just two general comments um I think it was great to see from a state report card perspective that every one of our schools was either exceeding or significantly exceeding because if you look

015back at the previous three report cards we had at least one school that was in the meets expectations so we've definitely come up in that level and then as far as the ACT scores I kind of expected that we'd see a little hit because we didn't have the kids in school every day now that we do I hope to see that return to the levels that we've seen the past few years yeah I and I I we're that's what we're expecting as well and um and you know every year is a different batch of students as well you know it's a snapshot of that particular class Bob Brad thank you for doing this and I agree with Mr burning it's nice to see a very a good school report card that uh the bar was

016raised and we I think we met the challenge uh act I would like to see um going forward what our action plan is to get those scores up and I know there's a lot of I guess thoughts and opinions in terms of why we took a step back everybody took a step back and I I know what I I have my own reasons for that why but I think we owe it to our constituents on what our action plan is going forward to address specific areas and what possibly what our targets are about Milestones I'm not saying at all I don't Advocate teaching to the test and this board and previous boards made a conscious decision not to do that and as such we got in some hot water with DPI and even the department

017of the U.S Department of Education uh we're looking at us for not advocating that students set out a particular test which I think we set some Communications out which was the right thing at that time to do because we were focusing on the whole student we pivoted away from Common Core the first district in the state of Wisconsin to do that to create our own standards and we're still going down that path so it's great that the iic is back in in place and we're focusing on that but I still think we need to focus on the ACT which the domino effect will be the school report card Etc so but I think this is good information thank you for sharing this from a transparency standpoint but hopefully in the in the near future we

018can create some action plans specific to the ACT scores so and I'll also add the if anybody wants to see each of the schools breakdown so each each like the district if you go to DPI state report card it will quickly take you to a page where you can select Germantown and you can look at the district report card which is about the detailed one is about eight pages long or you can click on each partic each school to see their their breakdown of how they did in those four categories and kind of an explanation they break it down by demographics as well Tracy uh I'm I'm all for more data because I do believe when you peel back a couple of layers of the onion you can start to see patterns and I think

019that's where we can either improve upon uh the you know what's happening in the classroom because you will see patterns and also on the positive side too if we should start to see patterns as well in what we might be doing well so we want to make note of that and and see what else we could improve upon as far as the the report cards um I I wanted to point out two things specifically one uh one is more nitpicky I think with the X exceeds expectations the state didn't make a change let's be honest here they dropped a low score from I think was 73 down to 70. but also to note though the last time MacArthur uh scored the ahead of meets at 72 and and they did cross that 73 barrier so

020they they do deserve that exceeds KMS improved but using the old standards from from any time prior to this year they're still a little bit short so it's it's perfectly fine that we label this as exceeds that's good but also let's let's keep things in somewhat context where we did see Improvement which is good but I'm still in my head where I'm still using 73 so can I have it I just want to remind everybody things happening in every child's life right so again I'm not the biggest fan of this is who you are on this day and this is why we are this way we have to remember that so especially at the middle school level there are it's just Mass amounts going on in in our young students heads so um I know

021they're raising that bar and we can hope that they continue to but some things to remember we have had these conversations about DPI and the report card and the ACT scores for many years and I'll reiterate some of the comments that I've made in the past the report card changes every year DPI decides what they want the criteria to be so they can dumb down the report as necessary to make their failing school districts look good so it it can be used as a slight tool to compare districts if that's what you want to use it for but to say that a district is performing an or meets expectations or whatever metric you want to use I don't think it's that helpful for the district to be able to move forward and come up with

022an action plan I believe there are metrics that we'll be able to come up with and that's something Brett and I have discussed and moving forward we'll have a bigger metric that we'll use to compare the district on ourselves to see if we're being successful and or not as far as teaching the test and the ACT there are if people want to do their own homework there are many many books written about the problems with the ACT test including the fact that it doesn't it is not a good predictor of college success or life success there's a lot of issues with it and there's books written by people that have been in the testing industry for decades that will tell you what a useless test it can be so I don't put a lot of

023credence in those scores and the comment I've made in the past if we provide a quality education for our students and we teach them Reading Writing arithmetic and grammar and spelling and all the things that we need to do and we do it well they will perform well on any test that we put in front of them not all kids are good at test taking and forcing them to take a test on a certain day certain students will not perform well and that's just a given so that's my two cents worth on the Act and the metrics from DPI take it for what it's worth but I've done a lot of homework on this and spent a lot of years researching it and this is what I've found to be the truth so anything else

024okay moving on to item D KMS and gsh discipline report yes we've talked a couple a couple meetings ago about the um some of the increased behaviors that we're seeing and I've asked Mrs climber to be here and I know that the high school admin team is here as well if there's specific questions and the the data you see in front of you is the Middle School data and if you look there's the year obviously and then students the number of students referred and the number of fences so um like for and this is from September 1st to December 13th um so if you look at students referred there's 78 students number of fences so they're averaging just a little over two offenses per per student now looking back the 20 20 21 makes you

025think we should just go hybrid because there's only 14 14 kids were referred for 22 offenses um but even even going back further the average referral per student was under two and again sometimes you have one kid that's they all they get is one referral other times it could be they could stop depending on what the what the offenses are um the next slide this is the high school for their constituents and froze watching on TV can you explain what students prefer means and offenses referred means sure the so the student referred is the number of individuals different different students and then the the types of referrals and I'll if Susan can correct me if I'm wrong but the referrals can range from someone who's have excesses excessive tardies to swearing in class to cell

026phone violation to pushing a student or it could be a fight all those fall under referrals and and the one thing um is and we're okay presenting High number of referrals because that means we're addressing that many many issues and I know through our districts who don't like to present their data or they make it look better for them we're okay with the way the data is that it is what it is and and we we do go after the little uh what I would tell some of the little offenses because it matters in in the in the larger offenses but we we have seen an increase in the type of referrals meaning more aggressive more defiant I guess I would say you know it's not all just tardies multiple tardies it's it's hit a

027different different level um and we will talk a little more about that in the in two slides but but offense is referred what does that mean because there's a big gap there students referred yep social offenses yep so 78 between 78 kids different kids got a a referral and all those 78 kids they equated for 181 got it offenses thank you thank you and then um this is the high school's numbers and you know from 1718 they've doubled their and again this is from September 1st to December 13th um and if you look at the the students referred you know similar time frame in um you know 227 kids in 1920 247 different kids in in this year but 607 offenses and um and what we're going to talk about later under new business is

028is that Dean position and and again 1920 you had four office people working on those 500 offenses this year this time you've got three working at 607 offenses so um and it's an increase we didn't um predict we we also know it's not just Germantown it's very reflective of what is happening in schools not even around this area but around the country and it extends um to me where the the country is or the world from airline travel to I mean you see it everywhere um unfortunately that behaviors are are increasing and you know the I think I don't want to quote this because I don't know exactly the number but I know the murder rates are surpassing all-time I know Milwaukee has 200 more cars stolen than Chicago you know not not per capita

029but just flat out numbers and it's just we're seeing this this everywhere but I think the the messaging is we are still addressing all the the referrals and all the issues and that's what we feel is necessary and we have I believe we have some of the strictest rules for high school students you know they don't but not that they don't carry cell phones but they can't have cell phones out in school and that's that's not the case in a lot of places but again it's the little things that help minimize the big things before you move on and this is excellent information and I'm sure you well of course you track it year over year but of the offenses referred of the 600 and if you have if you haven't done this I'd ask

030that you do it can you do some more data mining to find out um I'm sure you could break that down by different segments from a is egregious that type of thing I like to find out you know what percent you're over here uh are you know class one class two class three whatever we call it sure so the big level of what level right yeah and I don't know if if high school has a general idea right now I know Mark does a lot of the data mining but if not if not now that's fine so it's good areas of its support coordination this year foreign yeah and I would ask that you add percent like a 20 increase year over year because that would be very telling for me so thank you very

031much for that so our general theme I would say Mr Lerner that year over year you're seeing more but you're also seeing maybe a little bit more severe no and and before you speak you know perhaps you're spot on and thank you for doing this I think everybody sees this not only in our in our district but in in peer districts in the community and throughout the United States it's been a roller coaster of a ride this past year and this is a direct reflection of the end result of what we're seeing in our own backyard so uh if you hold on to the question for Mr Leonard I just want to go through a few things when you have an issue and I appreciate Mr Salzman talking about um in my time here and

032working with administrators and board members we don't we're not going to hide behind these numbers we address these things and you know we're part of the greater Metro conference and I know that there are schools that don't want to deal with the smaller things we'll have they may have smaller numbers but I just wanted to kind of explain the why because if the Y is important for these types of things not excuses but reasons as to why we're seeing some of these things so Mr stileslin stole a little bit of my thunder as we talked earlier today so he stole my info but just I just want to reiterate this is not this is not a German Town high school or Kennedy Middle School or District or Washington County issue we confer often with other

033colleagues and this is a wide-ranging problem as Mr Southland said if you look at the global thing you have murder rates in 20 cities that have exceeded where they've been before you have car thefts you have a 300 percent increase in issues at airports and airplanes you have Tic Tac postings encouraging school students to damage and steal school property and then the most recent to incite violence that's the stuff we're dealing with that comes into the schools and I mean not just us everybody these are inappropriate behaviors carry over social media is brought back to us and how we have to address it then so when I met with my team in August he said I've done this for a little while as have they I think years 13. 15. I just said we're bringing

034everybody back it's the right thing to do we're bringing everybody back but be ready there are going to be problems and I want to explain a little bit of that part of it is we returned and we articulated over and over we're returning to our pre-covet expectations last year was there were challenges you know we let kids wear backpacks attendance was done differently and we made this really clear okay we're back to school we're going back to these things and we're going to hold the line on that so that's partially why you have some of those things when we brought everybody back there are some students that had not been in that environment since March 2020. and even the ones that had been in a hybrid model or been back they came back to us

035different I hope you can appreciate that it wasn't the same there was wide-ranging impact on these kids and it's unfortunate Mr stausum talked about a little bit but we're in the greater Metro conference we meet a the president of the group this year so we host and that first meeting was in October and we had candid conversations about what everyone was seeing I won't say the name but a colleague of a very successful High School spoke about the issues with 9th and 10th graders and he said our 9th and 10th graders are all like freshmen because the sophomores never had that transitional year like they normally would and the freshmen are coming in so we have two sets of freshmen not picking on them but there's a learning curve there when they brought are brought

036into a high school environment I thought that was somewhat insightful uh the uptick in referrals are partially due to upholding these expectations we focus on the smaller things not a Germantown High School rule that you need to be on time you get a job and you're not on time you're going to get fired we hold the line on that after three first hour consequences begin nobody else in the greater Metro no one in the North Shore that we're in does that but that'll be noted in those numbers some of the schools don't want to fight the battles like the cell phones they gave up a long time ago actually several years ago they're contacting us like what did you do and he said we got out ahead of it in 2007. good luck but those

037types of things we focus on because we believe them to be distractions this goes way back to eliminating distractions cell phones fighting bullying drugs and alcohol are distractions to why kids need to be in tool and what we're supposed to be and as I said before you know what these numbers just like when we've talked with the board about in the past with expulsion hearings we have more expulsion hearings as a district in my time here than probably all of the greater metro schools combined times 10 and you have stated we want to hold them to an expectation we want them brought in front of us for these things and we've held to that so what does this mean it has led to the imperfect storm so first the things I explained the cutting of

038the dean of students position it couldn't have come at a worse time it's not you know not a blame game just saying it could not have come at a worse time we reduced the student monitor positions from three uh four to three we've been functioning with two for the last two months one was moved into another position it's been posted on a weekend zero applicants so we've been down to two there was a reduction these are all budgetary cuts there was a reduction of teaching staff which has led to 27 overloads I was an English teacher I if you ever want to come to my office I'll tell you what an overload does to you that means about 30 percent of our teaching staff have overloads we have not been fully staffed one time for

039one day this year due to many things family medical leave illness won't go into detail but in the last week we've had seven teachers who have lost parents or parent-in-laws they go on leave for a day or two I get it but these are just reasons why the attendance has been that way so due to the overloads 30 percent of our staff should not be filling in is an individual period sub which makes coverage extremely difficult and some of the same people have to do it day after day after day teachers on call and the HR department for us tries really hard they're trying to fill positions too but it's not the same to have a stub in the in the classroom and that increases potential disciplinary issues as the issues of social media where

040students had not been here or many of them have not been here and maybe post things about others that they may not see to their face and now they're faced with these people I would say that some of the more significant fights that we had were our school resource officer had to go Hands-On twice and she only had to go Hands-On once in her previous 12 years we're linked to social media and things being said outside of school that get brought in and then we deal with it and it's unfortunate finally the mental health issues are significant if you ever want to come and spend a day in student services and see the revolving door there it is so Mr stalsa knows this that starting in January 2021 I advocated to try to keep that

041Dean position and try to do budgetarily you know my part with the teaching positions in that to try to keep that for seeing that there would be issues when we brought everybody back and don't get me wrong again I want to reiterate bringing everybody back was absolutely the right thing to do they need to be in school on January uh January 24th 2022 I'll get to celebrate or limit my 19 years in the district coming up and I think most of you know because there's been a turnover and board I try not to ask for too much but I did ask for this Dean position in 2018 that did go to the board in August of 18 and a decision was made to increase the school resource officer at Kennedy to full-time and that kind

042of cost us the dean position but that was absolutely necessary to happen for Kennedy they needed that as well our former super antenna Jeff Holmes kept it on the docket and eventually we hired a dean of students in November of 2019 so we had a Dean for what would be four months of a normal format and then the shutdown and then a semester of hybrid and then one semester in person with a virtual only option so we never really got to where we wanted to in terms of the functionality I believe later so I don't have to come back up here Mr souslin will talk about the dean position and also it being hybrid with academic and career planning we need this assistance and academic and career planning coordinator is part of that ACP is

043a state mandated program and of all the state initiatives this one's actually a good one no one has formally staffed that since Dr grothouse retired in June of 2019 though our now former director of teaching and learning had added that to her plate and I just I wrote down on this too when you're talking about school report card it's my understanding that the academic and career planning piece and students in the workforce will become part of that report card that is my understanding in going forward we haven't had an ACP coordinator I don't know there's not a high school in our conference that does not have one I actually asked for job descriptions from several of them Mr saslin is proposing that we have a split position it could be a very different skill set

044but we're I'll take some versus none of a dean and an academic and career coordinator so in order to uphold the expectations at the level the community the district the school and my team expects we're hoping to advocate for this position to help with this and the other things we Ed talked about so thank you and I know you may have some questions about data for for Mark and Jen first of all thank you thank you to you and your staff to everyone that is working tirelessly tirelessly throughout the year and last year um we are fully aware of what's going on in our district we get the emails we see the parent concerns you know we're we're getting the same feedback that you're all getting but I know a lot of times you're not

045appreciated for all that you do and you can just verify this for me but anytime that we get a threat against the school whether it happens in school or on social media or you get a report that is investigated as quickly as humanly possible and I just want you to verify that that's true yes and when we did the school safety Grant several years ago the district was we prior we required to send multiple staff to threat assessment training Mr seiderberg may know very well about this because he does or had done this for a living so there are many of us that went uh through training through the Department of Justice and our School Safety Committee which Mr letter is on went through all this training there's been FBI training and so that answer

046is absolutely yes having a school resource officer in the building and going through that process for the most recent ones I directly you know called and talked to the chief process through our partnership with the Germantown Police Department in Washington County is amazing and also unique not every school district has that and that's a great asset to us so absolutely yes we take very seriously you know I think of this people say do you have any kids I say well yeah I have 1340 of them and I've said that since I've been an administrator and so yes we take those things seriously the challenging part is we can't discuss the outcomes and I know you know Mr sales I'll just I'll do it in a tactful manner but students with for example students with a

047disability we are responsible to educate them through age 21. the idea of you expel them when they're gone forever you can't do that and so in some cases if we have students with disabilities who make a mistake either drug alcohol fighting or threat based more egregious things we are responsible for their education so do you want the Education team the counselors social workers administrators superintendent to decide a program with them or do you want to send them off-site at a cost of twenty five thousand to eighty five thousand dollars per kid per year and that's where there has to be trust in us that try to accomplish the same thing have them not necessarily legit in a general student population but being cognizant that we can't afford to send 10 kids off site at a

048cost of a million dollars have you had any discussions one of my biggest concerns right now we talked about the health and safety of our kids and that's always been a priority of ours since I've been here and there's a lot that included in that and right now for me one of the biggest issues I see is mental health we have mental health issues in the community in the state in the country in the world I think collectively as a as a society around the world mental health is in Decline and I think it's an issue that needs to be addressed I have no idea how we're going to address it but have you had conversations are we working on these things is there ideas out there I'm I'm looking for help I mean because

049it's everywhere and it's everybody you know I see it in my in my family I see it in in relationships and people I know everywhere well I mean I'll just gives you a lot of Hope because we're working with a student who his family was trying to make an appointment for mental health two years two years wow yes and you know and as a school that's not our expertise we have people that can help so we can help manage mental health but we can't I don't always think that we can make it better right we're not trained to to do some of those things but we can we can help manage the environment for students but it's it you're spot on it is a real issue okay and school counselors are not licensed to give

050Psychotherapy sure I know that there's sometimes that expectation School social workers on the other hand they're helpful with that we try to place them with resources the best we can but like Mr souslin said there is that issue yeah it's the amount of students and this isn't just trying to get out of class legitimate you know issues at home family issues and that um has grown 100-fold uh for many reasons you know I I go back to the March March of 2020. that's kind of my timeline for right now oh we know what the stresses that families are under we're not going to only imagine how that relates and translates down to the kids at some point um it's affecting everybody there's no doubt about it um go ahead not Joel and team thank you

051so much for all you do and and I think everyone is aware of of what you do it's totally different than what others do so thank you for that um a couple questions I have and a couple comments of the number of offenses preferred and hopefully you know there's a lot of reasons why but I think it's more because of the environment and less because of Staffing and hopefully we'll focus on the Staffing piece in the near future or tonight but we've seen a lot of stuff going on this year and last year and I guess one question I have before I've got some comments for you would be you know and I don't know what steps we have in terms of progressive discipline is it one strike two strike three strikes you're out depending

052on the offense should we be should we revisit that and look at that because of the environment presently and possibly pivot and be a little bit more strict to send a message to the kids that if you do it this is what's going to happen so here's the balance just like I said with the board wanting to see students most specifically for drug drug and alcohol issues I think we all agree that that is 95 of what this board has has seen there's a balance here and you know I'll let Mark and Jen talk about it too but there's a balance between having a policy and policy board policy for our procedures and looking at each individual kit and part of that has to do with like what I explained to you before you have

053a student with a disability who we know reads at a XYZ level we're gonna have to educate them anyway you want to spend five grand to take them to the board maybe they expel them and then the next day they're back in a program because by federal law we have to educate them so there is that balance uh I think Mark would be probably the best talking about Progressive discipline yes we that's absolutely what we use but there's certain things obviously drug and alcohol has come to you guys um physical confrontation if I can just say you know typically a fight active participant in a fight first time State Maximum for uh suspension is five days we put them out for three they get a citation for disorderly conduct uh if they're 17 or 18

054the fine is significantly higher they go to court the assistant principals and school resource officer in court if it happens again they're out for five days it goes to pre-expulsion that's just one example um if you ask other schools if they do that they act I you know I I just I'm trying to give a comparison absolutely not no um just being at other districts because I've been here for three years now um we the reason one of the reasons why I came here was because our rules are more strict and we have high expectations for the kids not saying that other schools don't but um we do follow through with whether it's the pre-expulsions the expulsions the extra needs for our kids and stuff and so I do think our bar is still up

055here compared to a lot of districts I mean and I have been to others besides just here so I've have other experience with them so and one's close by so I just I just want to say that from a different perspective than being here forever and not know I mean that's not actually being a part of it I do still think no I was I know I'm taking that back but I I just wanted to give you my experience from being a part of Elsewhere I do think we're still setting it high so I think a short answer to your question Mr souderberg is the the level of expectations is still there it's just we're seeing much more of it um we're seeing we've had a significant number of pre-expulsion hearings this year for example

056that were all part of our standard practice we're just seeing more of them because of student behaviors great and now now I'm going to do some commentary and and I love the student representative report when she commented in our schools that they're focusing on empathy being kind being nice and I know at one time we discussed about launching something like the kindest games to make a big deal about treating people the way you want to be treated hopefully we can do more and more and more of that because that 607 number we got to drive that down um and everybody knows what happened last year this year with the the passionate discussion on Virtual versus in person Mass verse no mask and I'll just say the hate emails that we got the pathetic stupid social

057media posts by moms and dads of this District and if they're saying that I guarantee you their kids are feeding off of that which is sad I've there's live Tunnel right now I don't see that anymore which is good and encouraging but from a mental health standpoint my company we track metrics on Mental Health both for self-harm and domestic violence and we are seeing triple digit increases year over year so we do need a solution on the mental health side when the tragic school shooting that happened in Oxford Michigan which was right next to my home in Clarkston Michigan and we had one student that was involved in that and she passed away and I know the sheriff there so we've been communicating there's a lot going on with that but one thing that I

058see as an opportunity is the mental health side we do a wonderful job here I see something say something so we're getting the information but for that kid that is in Dire Straits that needs help I welcome furthering the conversation and I know there's an app out there called Talk space that you could get on your smartphone and you could immediately have instant access to therapists to talk to people and just by having that conversation could avoid something last comment will be on the tick tock thing and Brett I want to thank you for pushing out that communication to the moms and dads that was news to me I know what Tick Tock is I it's very interesting but I find it very interesting I think Brett you mentioned that we had a couple hundred

059kids that didn't come to school that day here and I think 150 at KMS 170. or two or 200 to or 209 yeah at the high school in the like 170 at the middle school and I'll bet you that the moms and dads are allowing those kids to have that stupid Tick Tock app on their phone to this day and last comment I'm very sad and disappointed that turn the clock back when we had very passionate moms and dads on both sides talking about Mass versus no masks we had our department of justice and the FBI send a letter out focusing to all their agencies focusing on the moms and dads for speaking for for doing the right thing and talking I did not see anything from the Department of Justice or FBI in the

060stupid Tick Tock thing and how many and this impacted all schools in all 50 states I know what we did in our district I know the cost associated with that I know the costs associated with what others districts did in shutting down schools and Assad that they allow that to happen I'm done I do I actually do have one recommendation on this topic speaking of mental health the one recommendation and Bob touched on it a little bit my one recommendation for everyone would be to get off of social media and especially for our kids get your kids off of social media there's nothing good happening on social media anymore it's horrible it's damaging to our kids it's damaging to their psyche I've been off of social media for over a year and I can honestly

061admit that that is the best thing I've done for my own Mental Health is absolutely the best thing I could have done and I would highly recommend it for everyone including and mostly for our kids the longer you can keep them off of social media the better off you are and hopefully they never get into it I know people that are not on social media and I respect that I think that's the best way you can live your life go talk to people go get out in the real world get off of social media and you will be so much better off for it it's funny you mentioned that our director of well what is Julia's title technology currently technology learning technology learning she brought in we met and she brought in a forensic expert

062from the University of Wisconsin works for the Department of Justice younger guy we um when we did the referendum planning for the PAC part of the reason we wanted it to be at the number of seats it is because you could fit two classes of students in so we had an all school assembly for freshmen and sophomores and then the next hour all school assembly for juniors and seniors and this gentleman spoke about the dangers of tick tock and the facial recognition information that China is maintaining it was a it was during our resource period and I was in attendance at both and our freshmen and sophomores pretty good Juniors and seniors they kind of scoffed at it yeah right I'm not getting rid of that and so all you know what I said was

063you've been you've made and made aware and so just to your point about you know things we try to do he spoke and did an awesome job we could not we weren't allowed to videotape that before the reasons of the Department of Justice did not want that happen and then there was a parent session at night that she had so trying to get the word out there but it's a tough battle to pull that away but I agree with you I don't use it at all I think we need to spread the word I really do thanks thank you um I actually have another one more slide to that that part um again just more information um around the behaviors and you know we've had 11 pre-expulsion hearings I didn't have 11 all of last

064year and it's only December we've had three manifestation hearings that's that's for um those are for students with IEPs and you have a manifestation hearing to find out if the behavior is a manifestation of their disability we've had two scheduled expulsions and those families moved districts once we scheduled the expulsion hearings we've had three alternative placements and as Mr Farren said when we ultimately place a student it does cost us um some money and we look at the cost benefit of that and on these three it's um we feel it's it's in the best interest of the all the other kids in our in our schools 34 citations at the high school 14 of those were disorderly conduct bus referrals we've had 22 referrals that hit action to them last year there was 22 total

065there is as Mr Fair mentioned the sub shortage unfilled positions less people equals less supervision and in general is a decline in customer service and it's not that they don't greet people with a smile anymore and are Pleasant it's saying that it's taking with that money referrals it's taking longer to get back to parents and it's taking longer to you know work through all the situations that they have and and that's not been our norm and we're trying to get back to that Norm and something else is is it was mentioned you know budget cuts we made a lot of cuts last year you know 1.6 million two million dollars worth of budget cuts and there are some things that have been cut or adjusted that we haven't felt the impact of and there are

066other things where it has and one um example is the other one is we just approved adding uh an additional lunch supervisor at KMS in one of the lunch periods that's had continues to have some issues around and it's mainly in lunch and so we're looking at where are these critical areas and then how do we support them as a as a district and um but I said there's other places where you made Cuts where they were the right cuts to make and and we'll continue to address when we know here's a critical space we'll we'll work to address those so so okay thank you any further questions comments okay moving on I'm me Performing Arts Center update and this is so much more pleasant than Behavior data and and Heather's so much more pleasant

067than Joel and Mark so uh and Heather uh she's obviously she's the owner of the Pac and runs the Pac and everything else that goes with it but she she presented um two weeks ago now to leadership Germantown a little bit about the Pac and did a fabulous job and and I think the information that you'll hear tonight is um mainly for the community it's it's really the PAC is a community space and um and she's making it even more of a community space so Heather thank you that's let's jump right on in I'm going to try and Blaze through this as fast as possible so um for those at home that uh haven't seen any of our rental information yet if you have owner of a business or looking to have events we are

068we are open and taking rentals um I will say that May and June uh right off the bat pretty much fully booked but any other time of the year come see me we have top of the line theater everything I'm very blessed to be in charge of such an incredibly uh well equipped space um so that's just some information about there you can find all the information about our uh capabilities on the PAC website online this is just some of the stuff that we've been doing basically anything we can we can manage so that's great you can jump ahead a little bit um this is a little bit more about uh breaking down what we've been doing we do event ticketing here obviously there's a lot of seats so you don't have to worry about

069doing that yourself and it has great capabilities for automated social distancing limiting how many people you want to be here of course we are back to full capacity so if you want to do that too that's also open and masks are optional within the district but as a renter if you want to require them I always say if you want to make people wear pink tutus when they show up that's none of my business you can do that so we have all those options and we're being very flexible with our renters as we kind of transition through this time of what do we do with large events skipping ahead a little bit I I just want to oh go ahead I know one thing though because it looks like we just made a hundred and

070forty thousand dollars oh you know that just means that they've processed that amount so let's say a dance recital comes in they've paid us a rental fee um of let's say it's eight thousand dollars and then they processed maybe 15 000 for that particular recital so it just means that that office back there has process of tickets yeah we're we are a third wheel in the um running of all this ticketing so when you get those check requests for tens of thousands of dollars that's not our money it's their money that they made but we are making money on the rental as well um so just a heads up uh over break I'm going to be publishing more about this but we do have free movie Nights here at the theater coming up um this

071is just free to anybody that wants to show up uh we sell concessions to benefit the piano campaign we have lots of great kids movies coming out and that's going to be Friday nights in January some other events coming up if you want to go to the next slide so this is the next play they're doing The Importance of Being Earnest it's a very witty uh elegant comedy a classic so that's going to be great as well tickets are on sale for that the choir Cabaret back in full action uh we haven't been able to do it very much because of the pandemic but that is a fundraiser for the choir the ghs choir and they pull out all the stops so I do recommend that one as well um and Mamma Mia tickets are

072not on sale for this yet but keep an eye out they will be and I guarantee you that show is going to sell quickly and then we will have kids from Wisconsin back this summer so we're very excited about that as well and that is a fundraiser for the band boosters they sponsor that show some new projects we've been doing at the PAC if you've been outside this hallway back here in the lobby we've been doing a featured Artist Series so every couple months I've been getting a new local artist to display their artwork just because that's what we should be doing we're fine arts here and you can see that lovely gallery that was a partnership between the Pac and the ghs art Department who also features their art in that lobby at the

073end of the year but right now you have a artist that has the workup it is for sale so you can contact her or me if you want to purchase any of it and if you are interested in and have your own artwork that you want to have something up I do have slots open for next year so contact me youth summer camps is a new project we're going to start this summer been wanting to do that but because of covid not really a good time to kick that off but we are going to look at doing that this summer for some of our younger kids as like a week-long program there'll be more information about that later in in the spring and we'll have you know a show at the end of the week

074with all the kids that participated in that moving on and the main goal is to start doing more professional events so keep an eye out for those these are not School related things these are professionals coming to our community and doing real shows so I'm very thrilled about that keep an eye out for those going on sale as we go through the rest of winter and spring piano campaign we've been working on this piano campaign for a couple years we took a little bit of a break during covid but we're back in Action so far we've raised about six thousand dollars the goal is 30 to 50 so we're about 20 percent of the way there we do have a piano it has been here for over 50 years though and it's reaching the end

075of its life so we are on a campaign to get a brand new piano that will be taken care of you can donate directly on our website there are also keys outside that you can purchase just go on the website you'll learn more about that we are launching a practice-a-thon so the kids can join in that is going to be happening in February through March we're going to send more info out and that is a way for the kids to it's kind of like when you run a marathon and you get sponsors this is practice time on their instrument and they can find sponsors and help contribute a little bit to the campaign this is the plaque out in the lobby if you haven't seen it if you donate 500 or more you get to

076engrave one of those keys which I highly recommend we've already got a few on there and that's if we fill up that board we will definitely have enough for this piano so uh if there's businesses out there or individuals it's open to anybody if you make a contribution this is the end of the year it's the time to do that can at least tax deductible that kind of thing send me your questions or just donate online and I'll reach out to you and you can write anything you want on those keys we have an engraver at the school we do have a new website along with the rest of the school district so you can kind of see there we laid out some things so it's easier to find that menu bar up in the

077top a lot of people miss it but that's where you can find out more information about volunteering our rentals and other archives of shows we've done here and that buy tickets links right up to any event we have here that has tickets being sold whether it's rentals or fundraisers for the school you can still stay on Facebook for business purposes uh totally up to you but uh so this is where you can find out all the latest information about our events as well as on our website but if you if you uh tend to forget things you'll see notifications from us um and you'll find out exactly when tickets go on sale for events and get to see all great pictures from shows and things like that like us follow us that'd be great I

078have reopened walk up box office hours Monday through Friday from noon to 3 P.M the select days that that's not open are posted on our website but I try to be here every day so I can talk to community members and sell tickets for those who aren't comfortable buying things online which is perfectly fine and that that is everything I have so far any any questions we knew this was going to be a best-in-class venue not just for the district but for the community as well what we didn't know was going to do about it so we needed to find someone to run it and manage it and I have to say that you are a rock star uh you're doing you you met and exceeded my expectations and I just want to thank you

079I know it's not just you you've got a whole team of volunteers of students moms and dads that support you but you're doing a wonderful job you keep up the good work thank you I just I just got one thing um the uh the lobby out back here is so nice that after after board meetings a lot of citizens gather and kind of hang out there and a lot of times I stand around and just listen in to what's going on and it's Heather that doesn't chase us out unless we stay way too long they're they're yeah the other the other individual was just raising her hand she actually chased us out one night it was it was kind of funny but no it's something Heather doesn't do so I thank you heather for letting

080us in the citizens hang around for pretty much as long as we want uh but I know at a certain point in time you might start turning the lights off when it becomes obnoxious they do that on their own oh they do okay so yeah that's her sign when it's it's time to head out but anyway thank you for your patience and uh the lobby is a fun place to hang out you know it's well lit uh open Airy uh and it's just a great place so thank you for that it is and we rent the lobby as well so if you have something smaller and you want to have like a little meeting it's beautiful with all the windows and stuff so right okay thank you moving on item F semester graduate update Mr

081selfless yes we have this is just an information item but we have two students that are graduating at semester and that is um unique Mao and Emma Rayne so congratulations to them and best of luck in their future excellent nice job item G return to school update Mr stencil yes just a couple things here um the the first thing is there are these unknowns of 20 22 that are that are coming in and even though they're unknown we're we're preparing for them and and kind of in two big areas and one is weather snow days or cold days and and you've seen um some of the documents uh early on when we talked about like what would happen um if we had to go virtual for covet reasons and that's the other big bucket and

082um we've we've been in school for about four months and we have not had to to close a classroom or a grade level because of high numbers a couple of situations that were very close where one we flipped to hybrid where parents could choose so the teachers still taught uh kids that came to school as well as if they they stayed home each School seems to have taken their turn at having numbers increase the you know one of our elementaries this last week was at about 2.4 percent but in in general we're we're hovering on the average of about 0.3.4 percent of of positive cases but we we do watch that the principals are in constant communication when their numbers start to rise and you know some of the questions set or the answers they

083know that I'm looking for too is like is this all in one class is it spread out is it you know a couple kids in each class and sometimes there's five kids going out but two kids returning and so it's those are all the things that we look at when we have these numbers and we don't know what new variants will do to us um second semester but um and we don't know what the weather is going to do so far so good with the weather but if if families go out and we'll send this to but this link um to our our website shows the um this is what it looks like so if you can go to Virtual learning day expectations and over on the left hand side it just talks about either

084inclement weather weather or significant number of students absent and what we didn't include there is if we also have unable to fill staff that are out that was our issue last year so that is another could be another reason for this but if a family is going what is my expectation for my student or what's the teacher's expectation in the high school they can click on the the drop down and it talks about how they're learning will be presented to them and it's it's also there for middle school as well as grades three through five and k k through two because those are are different expectations around those so we are ready if we need to to jump to one of these days and um you know part of me like the first snow day

085or cold day I want to just call it a snow day because we live in Wisconsin there has to be one perk for for our kids but also knowing that we can always go go virtual if we if we need to so um and then any questions on okay um just recapping our numbers as we always do you'll see um I'm sorry that says November 12th up there it's uh would be December 17th um you know numbers have gone up and they've gone up um collectively in all the area schools as well but again our our main focus when we're looking at numbers it's not what's out in other places it's our own our own data and um you know if you you look at um this last week our district-wide students you know we

086were sitting at point six point seven percent um you know one day ahead of one percent but if you look at the buildings you can see Amy Bell was our is the school this last week and a half that's been peaking and a couple weeks before that it was County Line and it was MacArthur and so we but we do monitor all those um every day so any questions on that I don't know if peaking is the right word I would just say that it's they're increasing I mean our numbers are very very very good so yeah I think I'm not as concerned at this point and I think this new variant from all the data that we're seeing currently is that it's a very mild version and if people are getting it they're not

087getting anything other than cold symptoms which is a good good news if we can build up antibodies with just a cold to help us in the future I think that puts us in a good place of hopefully taking care of this virus that's my hope at this point as this is just a report item tonight I just want to let every know we have no intention of changing our policies that are currently in place and we will continue on until further notice and we have new information that we have to go on to be able to change things so just an update on that as far as the snow day um I'm hopeful that we have a couple of snow days based on our mental health as well I think our teachers and our students

088I mean I have very fond memories of snow days when I was a kid and I think most people do I'm hoping we get a few minutes we'll take full advantage it's built into the plan exactly so anyone else okay we are moving on to citizen okay before you go to Citizen Commons can I just make it's this is not on the agenda but for my colleagues on the board uh third week of January if you haven't already uh let Billy Joan or that you want to attend the Wisconsin Association of school board's annual meeting downtown Milwaukee let her know I will be the Delegate for the meeting on January 19 and if you haven't received this in the mail of all the resolutions we'll get that to you and if you have thoughts concerns

089about a particular resolution please let me know all right thank you rob thank you for doing that um and I have one other announcement before we move on um we have a a announcement about our superintendent Mr Southland will now forever be known as Dr stallison he uh I don't do surgery yes he has received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin in education leadership policy and Analysis so I'd like to congratulate you and uh doctor [Applause] okay we had a couple of students sign up so we're going to let them skip ahead because I think we're getting close to their bedtime possibly Sam stocks and Avery O'Brien come on down foreign over here okay hi I'm Sam stocks and I'm Avery O'Brien well Sam and I are here today because we would love to

090help fund new basketball hoops at County Line School my friend Ava and I came up with this idea how we can raise some money for new basketball hoops I'm not sure if you notice but the rims are double room which makes it really hard for shooting there is also no backboard Square so you can't aim your shot when you shoot the metal makes your shot bang off the backboard the Nets are also really bad so when you make this shot the ball goes through the net and into a puddle of Mud or you have to go chase it we have noticed that all the all the other some of the elementary schools like Amy Bell in Rockfield all have their new basketball hoops we would love to see the same for County Line Elementary therefore

091we are starting a fundraiser to help with the cost for new basketball hoops the cost for an installation and possible cost that would be associated with new with the new lines on court on the court if the school board would support our basketball hoop fundraiser we would greatly appreciate it in the playground they look more appealing if you are interested in hearing about some of our fundraising ideas and some of the research we did on cost we would be happy to share them with you thank you for considering our proposal thank you for your time in listening to the ways to make our playground a better place I think knowing this community um I think you got a pretty good much of a done deal I think we'll be able to make that happen so

092keep doing your fundraising and come back to us with some proposals and I think we can help you out [Applause] okay next we have James canisterra hi James my name is James conestra I am the ga representative for tonight's born beating um please let me know if you have any questions and I will try to answer them if I can or we can bring them back to the GAA leadership for a follow-up okay thank you Scott happily on Dex we on Deck we have Alex Harding thank you for the time uh just a couple things a night one short thing uh early in the year I asked I asked if you guys would do bios on board members I still don't know where half of you work what your interests are anything I think in

093the interest of transparency I don't know if it's a lot to ask but having a bio on each one of you I know that almost every school district around does just even tiny ones three four hundred kids they have a bio on school board members what your interests are how long you lived in Germantown whatever your job what do you do for a living I know some of you but not all of you and I think the community would want to know you know I don't think it's too much to ask so that's just the short one the longer one I know we're talking about uh the dean of students and as a finance guy I look at it one side where I want a balanced budget and we were given that through some hard

094Cuts right as the son of two retired Public School teachers 35 years plus both of them I look at that side of it too okay it is never easy and I I appreciate the administration team up here saying we got problems in the schools behavioral problems and they're multiplying and I get all that okay but there still has to be a balance I heard about the problems they're dealing with I heard about kids did not hear one word about parents okay parents had to deal with all this and navigate all this too we're not we're not even talking about the parents we're just talking about kids and what our admin team deals with now you're going to be voting on Adidas doing something we took out of the budget we don't have budgeted I don't

095know if you're going to add it or not but I am based on what I'm hearing you can put an ACP position and attach it to that or whatever you're doing that person will have no time to do anything ACP with the behavioral problems we have in school that is my one concern we'll hire a person if you don't have it budgeted yeah we'll move money around from other funds okay and that person will do nothing but disciplinary things nothing they're not going to do academic career planning they're not going to have time to do grants they're not going to have time to do any of this stuff so here's what's going to happen that I foresee I could be wrong but I've seen it happen before we will hire Athena students they will come

096here and say all I'm doing all day is helping out with all these problems but we're fixing them and then we're going to want to hire another person to handle ACP you don't have the money to handle to to hire two people in my opinion I don't see in the budget you guys know I study the budget I don't see it so while I see the point if you want to hire Athena students to help with the behavioral things that's what you're doing they will not be doing ACP I don't see it thank you thank you Alex and then Amy Martin Hello Alex Harden from Colgate I just wanted to touch on and kind of recap into the year sort of thing the what I saw is the major the major issues or the key

097key issues of 2021 um I think it's worth recognizing that the community and subsequently the board addressed a number of these pretty early on kind of before they took the national stage throughout the summer and it was It was kind of cool and and there were viral videos going on and all that we were we were really on top of it I remember at the at the April meeting the the first one I got involved in the kind of that big meeting I talked about the the Marxist nature of of critical race Theory and this was before the teachers unions were getting on board with pushing teachers to put this stuff into the classroom even if parents don't want it and even if boards tell them not to it was before Merrick Garland the appointee

098of the man of impregnable wit and utmost character Joe Biden told all of the the National Security apparatus of the United States that people like me and some of the folks behind me are are domestic terrorists you know it was before in Waukesha just a couple of weeks ago we had teachers being encouraged to teach political material regardless of what the board said or what parents wanted so again we were on top of this but this stuff this stuff is going on all over the place uh not to say you know not to say that it's happening in Germantown but but it's out there we're on top of it and I think we need to stay on top of it so if that didn't come across as a positive that was a positive good job

099and please please stay on top of it um you know Germantown is doing well they're reviewing material that previously I don't believe would have been reviewed some of the things put forth by um some people who used to work here and are even pausing pausing the implementation of that material and I think that's a really good thing so on to masks and the and the covet response in general all I'll say on that and then some more things after that is that the proof is in the pudding um we're many many months into not having masks and we we see what's happened you know nothing's happened we were told that kids would be you know just short of spontaneously combusting while walking through the hallways and bodies would be stacked up to the ceiling if

100we didn't have masks and that's not what happened even five weeks ago there was some hindering about hand ringing in here about removing the unscientific and discriminatory language uh regarding our quarantine policy but again look at the data nothing has happened you know we're doing it just fine and I believe we'll continue to do just fine please stand firm on this frankly I I would honestly I would suggest just ending all of the covet theater immediately it's it's do it's doing nothing why why do we keep on talking about this when when do you think this will end so I don't that if you logically think about that question there's no reason to continue what we're doing especially with what what Brian correctly said about this this new variant so again I'm optimistic about where

101this is going um I'd like to see more bold stances like the ones Mike Mike has taken um but progress is certainly being made so thanks a lot and Merry Christmas Merry Christmas Merry Christmas Amy and then Alyssa Powell break into song but that won't be good for you or my ears so I'm Amy Martin I'm a second grade teacher here in the district and I want to treat you a letter that was signed by many of your Elementary staff to whom it may concern we are writing to ask you to consider teacher work days for your Elementary staff these days are work days that involve no student hours and no professional development they are important days for teachers to work in their rooms to catch up on paperwork unpack new curricula and plan for

102their students you may or may not know that the number of student contact hours for elementary students is less than those for middle and high school in fact elementary students need 1050 instructional hours in a school year this calculation includes 30 minutes of recess and does not include lunch this translates to 168 school days for our students our elementary students exceed that number by 7.5 days these are 7.5 days your elementary teachers can use as teacher work days are already come in place in many area districts such as Menomonee Falls Whitefish Bay Elmbrook tosa and MPS to name a few teacher work days have long been recognized as a way to help teachers do their job successfully teachers have time to create collaborate and communicate this is happening less and less with our current schedule

103this is also a simple way to boost staff morale and show the staff that you care we are asking that teacher work days for elementary schools be on the calendar for years going forward and also that you consider it for the remainder of this school year ideally this would be approximately one teacher work day per month we are not asking for days off we are asking for days that enable us to work effectively and you have all the signatures in the email that was sent to you earlier thank you thank you thank you Alyssa and the Richard being Alyssa Paolo Germantown um so I want to address the DPI report card um I'm going to start by reading from something that was released by representative Jeremy these felt who is the chairman of the assembly

104committee on education the Wisconsin State superintendent Jill underly and DPI manipulated the 2020 to 2021 district report card in ways that were misleading to the public the department altered four of the five accountability rating categories to make it easier for schools to receive a higher rating the minimum score range for four of the five categories was lowered by three to five points across all the categories this is equivalent of scoring a touchdown at the 20-yard line instead of reaching the end zone students do not benefit from the manipulation of these numbers and they think it's really important that when I emailed this to all of you with the credit to Tracy who is the only person who addressed it tonight when we were reviewing the DPI scorecard and I'm a little disappointed that when the

105notification went out from the district from the state superintendent when we were praising our scores that we were not transparently identifying that the ratings and range was manipulated and when you look at the old rating Kennedy Middle School fell from exceeding expectations as it's currently reported they're only meeting expectations using the old scoring criteria so while for the elementary schools and for the high school we stayed on par or did or improved that's good but I think again this speaks to the broader transparency issue we're not telling families and parents unless they're willing to go and dig into the work and thank you again Tracy for bringing this up but again this is why we need to have an in-house quality metric that we are using to evaluate how we're doing and reporting that out

106to the families and the stakeholders through a quality report we cannot solely be relying on deep API to do the work for us because they're not being honest and how they're doing it thank you Richard and then Sarah Larson hello everyone I'm gonna have a hard time speaking tonight sorry anyway I'm concerned about transparency I looked through the board of Pretenders for the past several months and I found lava a very brittle that would uh inspire um you know citizen garment you you pick up from the agendas what the school boards we're gonna talk about but the meetings are going to cover um you know it was kind of boilerplate stuff which makes me wonder about topics discussed Beyond those in those closed sessions you know it's like the uh the um thing uh statue

107their closing sessions all right or to discuss personality issues are there other topics discussed in those closed sessions sometimes we can only discuss what's on the agenda based on what the topic is so we list we have a personal issue we need to discuss you know we are like an HR department we can't air the dirty laundry of some of our employees we have to be able to go into closing we only follow the rules of what load session allows and we're very diligent about not going off topic we don't discuss things that are outside of the agenda okay so you are very focused on Personnel issues only from those closed doors it depends on what the will will state the reason for the closed session and that's the reason we go into closed session

108that's the only thing that we discuss so it can vary depending on what the issue is it's not always Personnel it could be a legal contract it could be a lawsuit it could be something and that's what we go into closed session to discuss something that's not privy to the public and we are elected by you to be able to do those kind of things it just seemed like things must be happening that we in the public are not aware of besides that you're saying no everything else that we as as the public needs to know is here correct in front of us you got it well that's good to hear thank you Sarah good evening Sarah Larson Germantown first a couple Kudos Brittany you have been amazing and you've done a yeoman's job since

109you've been here and you the skill that you bring to your position and what you've done for the budget and planning has been tremendous and I think very reflective when people look at their tax bills and just where we stand today so thank you you really had a big undertaking and you've done it fabulously uh and then echoing Bob uh boy Heather has done an amazing job with the utilization of this facility and that too is Another Blessing that we've had brought to our district um the data for the school report card I think we all know is a joke and to say that a 70 percent anything in the 70s is exceeding expectations we know that that is a very faulty curve and that is why we are where we are today is the

110dumbing down of things because we don't want to hold people accountable to achieve and someone's feelings are going to get hurt if they don't achieve and so that translates then into Behavior you've heard that phrase we're from the government and we're here to help well when you dig into PBIS that is a product of the Department of Education founded in 1998. look at what has happened to Behavior now over the course of time and you see the underpinnings of the driving of entitlement and that reward or trophy for merely doing what's expected and this is punishing the good kids because the teachers are trained under this system to be dealing with those students with the behavior problem and looking to see if they're doing something positive and then rewarding them and so you have that

111other student sitting there saying I behave all the time why aren't I getting rewards for acting like a decent human being and it so I think you see that translate in how people are treating one another because well if I'm not going to get a reward why should I behave why should I treat someone well you know what's my incentive to do it and I think that's at the root of our behavior problems and it also puts the teacher at a disadvantage because do they want to be sending students to the office all the time and they're now in a position of negotiation of what kind of reward am I going to come up with to try and get this person and not be such a disruption to the classroom I think we really need

112to hunker down and get rid of three strikes and maybe take a stronger stance on discipline and so another kudos to the high school team because I have no doubt that they are doing what they say and walking the talk I think we need to roll back and start applying this at the middle school because I think the middle school is coddled and if Ray was here tonight I'm sure he could speak to the issues of discipline and things that have been historical at KMS and I think if you start getting those students at the middle school age and teaching them how to be respectful citizens that then would reduce the amount of incidents that you're seeing at the high school I think a lot of things get swept under the rug at the middle

113school um and okay yeah thanks [Applause] thank you okay item five approval minutes November 15 2021 board of education do I have a motion motion to approve November 15 2021 Board of Education minutes as presented second Bob second any discussion see none all those in favor all right opposed that passes item number six finance committee update from December 20th 2021 committee meeting Mr Lowe yes the finance committee did meet earlier this evening just before the full board meeting all board members that are seated now were at the finance committee meeting so I am going to give the cliffs notes version here of the important things we discussed or discussed um the uh if I've gone over these things too quickly for those at home you can pick up the video of the finance committee meeting

114uh started prior to the board meeting first thing we did was we approved vultures for November and December there were just a few questions on that next item was Miss Wendy Unger of Baker Tilly gave us a financial audit report most everything is in order I believe I don't think there's anything to comment about some of us do need to review the report a little bit longer or more I think it was 54 Pages it's good reading I I'm sure next item was the November variance report and that is Brittany's report to the district for where we stand this year as compared to last year and we're in good shape this year next item is what my wife and I call the our Christmas present from the district and that's the tax bill you know

115comes from the village and what I want to point out here spend a just a little more time on it I was serious when I said I took a beating last year for the tax increase mostly at work but also via phone maybe not So Much by email so anyway I thank everybody and I'm sure the rest of the board has been showered with emails and phone calls and in person thank yous for the uh 2.6 percent decrease in taxes this year so you're welcome for to all that have called me especially those that were pounding me at work last year the next item was uh the our Moody's rating and so you look at that and you say it's a A3 and I just punched that into uh you know a search engine and

116found out that uh it's equivalent to another organization's rating of a a minus and it turns out where are we on the scale there's uh six positions lower on that scale than a three and there are four positions higher so in other words the way this scale goes for Moody's is if we were at an ee2 we would be one notch up so that's where that's where that goes and then Brittany gave us a fairly long discussion on Esser dollars and that's an elementary and secondary school emergency relief we have sr1 dollars s or two dollars and Esser three dollars that we have to spend appropriately and Brittany is working on that with outside Auditors I believe to make sure that we spend that money correctly and one other item we approved a plaque for

117a score scoreboard donations were given I believe about 7 500 from I hope I'm pronouncing it right the koth family in memory of a former germaton student that was killed I can't remember exactly about two years ago in a shootout in in a shooting in a I believe it was a Roundy's Warehouse possibly in Pewaukee or Pewaukee okay and that's it that's all we covered okay oh uh Bob yeah thank you Mike I just want to um follow up with a couple comments I made during the finance committee and what Miss Larson stated about you Brittany I mean we had a lot of tough choices to make this past year from a budget standpoint and we heard of representative from our audit group talk about the audit report you did a wonderful job on the

118reporting out on the variance report we heard about Moody's and we're still at invest investment grade and also the tax bill so a lot of good things financially are happening in the district and I just want to thank you I know the board had to make some tough decisions but you brought those recommendations to us and uh we were going down the right path financially so I just want to thank you for that thank you anyone else okay thank you Mike you're welcome moving on to new business item a discussion and action to approve resignation thank you Brenda O'Brien has submitted a letter of resignation effective November 26 2021 Brenda was hired in August of 2013 as the Director of teaching and learning in the Germantown School District we ask that you approve the resignation

119as noted I'll entertain a motion a move to approve the resignation of Brenda O'Brien thinker for her years of service to the students their families and to the Germantown school district and to approved posting and filling the vacancy I'll second any discussion yes I just want to say uh I I too want to thank Brenda she did a lot of wonderful things at our district in her uh tenure I wish her nothing but the best but I do have a question on backfilling her how many candidates do we have the timeline Etc yeah um uh Mr stausel doctors have been uh working in that uh uh quite a bit over the last week uh today we're up to I believe 43 candidates um not all of those are are high quality candidates relative to qualifications

120nonetheless we've we've looked at all of them and we've begun the process of doing some initial screening our hope is that we'll continue screening through this week and that in early January really upon return we'll kind of move into a next level of deeper screens with a with a bigger group which followed by our typical sort of panel interview with involvement from sites and board members and as many people as we can reasonably have we're optimistic there's some strong candidates in there that we think will be a fit and as you know it's a process to um help them understand about as much of the district as as possible so that we get a candidate who wants to be here and Embraces everything that we're yeah not we you know when we posted it we

121didn't know what we were going to get mid mid year and we didn't know if we would look to hire a just a limited term person but I think we'll be able to get a full-time person out of this and um you know we'll add some parent reps on our larger committee so we've got um right now three board members that expressed interest in sitting on on that committee um we'll have teacher teachers from each of the buildings you know at least one of them will have um like an elementary administrator Middle School administrator High School administrator and then some of our district office Personnel on there so the committee will be 18 19 people when it's all said and done um and we have our goal is to get that first round of interviews

122with the large Committee in um the latter part of January and if we can do it in one interview we can if not we'll bring like we did with Elementary principal we'll bring our finalists back for a second round and uh and part of the interview is a performance task as well as straight interviews so um yeah I would just thank you for that I would just add that I appreciate you mentioning that you're going to add parents to the committee because based on our uh I'm not going to say unique environment that we're in I I I appreciate our parents asking the tough questions that maybe others would not ask so I applaud you for that and my last comment would be the board is fully aware of the the burden this has on

123the administration in terms of a key um a director leaving us at this time we understand the pressure that's going on right now and everybody juggling on a boss so thank you for that thank you I'd also like to publicly thank Brent O'Brien for her service I got to work with her through the curriculum committee for the last nine years pretty much her entire tenure here and the conversations that we've had over the years we were able to implement the quality teaching and learning that came into this district and I know mistakes were made at the end and I know things happened that became very public and she became the target of a lot of people a lot of people's angst that's not the brand O'Brien that I knew and that I worked with and

124that the work that she had done she had worked tirelessly in this district for many many years and she did the work of three people and I think Mr Southland can attest to that as well she did an incredible job for us and I appreciate all the work she did I think she got a little burnt out because we may have overworked her a little bit and I understand that she's going back into the classroom which is kind of her real passion and I wish her all the best so I anywhere else okay oh I'm sorry all those in favor aye opposed that passes moving on Item B discussion in action to approve teacher contracts Mr Noah thank you we have one limited term contract to bring forward tonight uh Kelsey Bayless school psychologist who's

125being Rec excuse me recommended um Kelsey's being recommended for the position as a result of resignation of Edmund Campbell this is a limited term 106 day contract for 35 240 we ask that you approve as noted I'll entertain the motion motion to approve contract is presented second any discussion see none all those in favor aye aye that passes item C discussion in action to prove high school dean of students Mr stelson thank you this got talked a little about a lot actually in um the information section and just a couple things you know we've the rationale for it is you know it is we are finding this as a need and we're also finding the ACP portion of of what um Rick Roadhouse used to do several years ago um and it's a state requirement

126with ACP and and we thought the majority of the the ACP work and the community connections are connected to the high school even though there are some Middle School elementary connections as well but the majority is at the high school and um we wouldn't be bringing the position forward if it wasn't if the money didn't exist in the budget already and so there was money encumbered um when we had a shuffling of tech people and we we knew we wanted to hold that money because we didn't know what the new tech people might request or what they might need so we held that money and we're still there and we would just be moving that money over so it is in the budget and we just like we added the lunchroom supervisor is we're seeing

127we're seeing a need um and and also kind of going back to the the new teaching and learning position part of my job has to be is how to structure that that position to be a manageable position the people because it's like the Platte River right it's a mile wide and an inch deep and we need more depth in in these big bucket areas and so we have to um or I have to make sure that we structure it appropriately so my recommendation is to um to post and fill a Dean position at the high school okay I'll entertain the motion I'll make a motion to hire the high school dean of students position which will accomplish three main areas student discipline behaviors ACP and data testing I'll second that okay any discussion yes I

128do agree with one of our constituents that spoke tonight that um if I don't think even though it says this it'll say this in the job description right now there is a for me anyway a higher priority is is to take some of the burden off of the high school staff in terms of discipline and so that we see the numbers go down and once we get those numbers down I have full confidence Mr Fern that he's going to do the right thing and pivot and and focus on other areas even though there may be time in the day to focus on all these areas and maybe we'll find time but right now I would rather focus on student discipline behaviors based on the data that we had tonight and now I would just add

129there are actually some State requirements with the ACP that just have to get done so there it'll be no choice and like our freshman this year is the first they're the first group that have to have like a first part of their portfolio their career portfolio has to be finished and so that position is going to have to ensure that all the kids have those so there are some things that just will just about uh a few questions or comments um with the it encumbered money have have has that group been have they had that discussion do they need that money because one thing that in theory at least could happen is okay we've held the money in a couple months from now now they need somebody and so it's it's you know we're kind

130of stealing from here to pay over here and that sort of thing so so they I mean the the tech group has come with a couple just in the last three weeks with some ideas and they're good ideas but they they don't need to happen right now and we can as we because we haven't started building next year's budget so if that's something that we see in an extra budget we'll make sure that it's it's there and so it's that again the shuffle game if we're saying look we need x amount of dollars for this Tech position because we see the the need and the value behind it and um I believe Britney would agree with me on that is that we you know we will prioritize Staffing this spring as we build the budget

131for next year if that's something it can can be part of it the the other thing is you and I had the opportunity to speak with Mr Farren on Tuesday so I could get a little bit of a a cheat sheet ahead of time for tonight's discussion and in it from what I heard it's it's obviously we have some things to address we have a backlog of things that need to be done and processed and those type of things but when I also look and it kind of goes to Bob's concern and Mr heffley's concern is the ACP program and the community outreach with the different area businesses and what we can do for our students with regards to internships externships all these kinds of things as well as the managing the testing piece my

132concern with this is is probably similar it's these are also very important items that we need to do because some of these kids need some help when it comes to career playing they need to kind of talk through it and and figure things out and they will have very important decisions to make in two years three years four years as far as do I want to go to college or do I want to go into the trades or you know whatever the case might be and so while the discipline piece is obviously very important and the fact that Mr Ferron said it tonight he said Tuesday that you know it's some of these things other districts might not be doing they might not push tardiness they might not push some of these other things as

133much as we do I certainly as a parent if I can speak for a moment on that I appreciate that and I don't want that to change because sometimes we need folks outside of the house to help with that I could you know speak until I'm blue in the face to my 13 year old about how important it is to not be late to get your stuff turned in on time to try to work ahead and all these other other life skills and it'll go in when when you're out the other but if a teacher says that or or person in leadership says that he's all ears so those type of things so that I do have some concerns with balance I think is what I'd call it there are other things that Mr Farren

134mentioned that has to be addressed as well it was mentioned during public comments it this we're viewing this a little bit as a high school issue I do think from personal experience There's issues in the middle school that we need to address and I do think ultimately it has to be a more holistic kind of approach in general not necessarily with this position but it is true if if there's issues in the middle school that that aren't being addressed as much or as well it does us no good to have someone in high school they're going to catch it anyway then because it's not being addressed in middle school so um I'm I'm in the middle because I I understand what the the high school needs are and with the assignment to this position of

135ACP and some of the other work it does free up to your earlier point about the depth that we need at teaching and learning it helps that it helps take some of those things off that person's plate so I think that's at home I don't have any questions or other comments okay thank you um I think I was not in favor of eliminating this Mission and Joel and I had a conversation and I I saw the need for this position before we eliminate it but I also am in a position where we have to live within our means and we have budget constraints we have to live with and so unfortunately that position got eliminated I see it as a as a high potential for fixing hopefully some of our issues um I'm a firm

136believer in fire prevention rather than fire fighting if you can actually start to take care of some of these issues that are happening in our high school or middle school and then you can start working on the mental health issues and and morale of the teachers and students that maybe these problems start to go away and we can focus on other things that have more to do with teaching and learning and we have a better school district all the way around so that's my hope so I'm I'm all in favor of this and I will support it anybody else all right all those in favor all right all right opposed that passes the Board of Education will entertain a motion to go into closed sessions oh I'm sorry I crossed it off item D discussion

137and action to approve donations yeah thank you and before I jump into this I just have to say we sometimes forget I know we talked a lot about the poor behaviors in their school but again think about there's 1100 kids in the high school that don't have one referral yet and we have we do have a lot of really good kids who are doing the right thing on a day-to-day basis it's just our that we've seen an increase in in some of their referrals we still have way too many I'm not way too many we have just a lot of kids that are doing great things so um and it's part of what you hear in the reports from from Hannah but we we're well in the majority of kids doing the right thing so

138we can't forget about those kiddos and Brett I just want to follow up to that I just want to applaud my colleagues we've never had this discussion before in my 10 years on the board and we've never had the the questioning of of Staff about this or that on discipline so I want to thank everybody here because I want I like that I want that to continue hopefully the numbers will be down to where we don't have to have the in-depth conversation but I just want to say thank you to my colleagues on the board so thank you okay donations um we have seven different donations the first four all 250 each and they're um to direct it towards the bowling program and the first one is 250 from Rosenthal Associates uh 250 from Scott

139Brittany and Brittany Metcalf uh 250 from WFA LLC disbursement and 250 from Weissman Automotive again those are all towards the bowling program the next three donations are all to support the greenhouse project 250 from William and Suzanne gay eight thousand dollars from the Germantown High School environmental club and three thousand dollars from the Germantown High School student council we'd ask that you would approve these donations it always amazes me the donations that we get it's much appreciated I'll entertain a motion I'll make a motion to thank the donors for their generosity and approve the donations as presented second Amanda second any further discussion I just want to make note that the high school environmental club and the student council I think it's a great opportunity or great just amazing that our students are actually seeing

140that they can give back to the school that they came from so it's pretty empowering to see that so thank you to our students for making that decision all those in favor aye opposed that passes thank you the Board of Education will entertain a motion to go in the closed session pursue into section 19.851 F to discuss Personnel the board may take action in closed session if necessary or appropriate or entertain a motion to reconvene in an open session to take further action if necessary and appropriate and to entertain a motion to adjourn the meeting I'll entertain a motion movie go into closed session pursuant to 19.851 F second roll call Medved yes Barney yes reinemann yes Soderbergh yes loath yes Borden absent Pollock yes we are in closed session at 9 10. thank you

141all for coming and drive home safely