BOE 4 12 2021

001good evening I'm calling this meeting the Germantown Board of Education order at 701 pm and I ask that you join me in standing for able to say the Pledge of Allegiance and for a moment of silence thank you official meeting notification Mr stausel yes public notice of all meetings has been given by communication from the superintendent's office to the public to those news media who have requested such notices into the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Northwest now Express News and West Bend Daily News public notice has also been posted in the schools throughout the district on the gsdwi.org website as well as cable access Channel 96. thank you roll call Mr Bernie sanderberg here Medved here loath here Borden here I'm here reinemann here Larson here okay item number two approval of agenda move to approve the

002agenda second discussion no discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed to that motion carries moving on to item three citizen comments we have three folks signed up will joletta Durbin please come forward good evening and welcome me I'm glad to be here before Scott um side note I know the K kids are gonna talk in a little bit and I just wanted to say Mr Krieger is an amazing asset to the K kids to the Kiwanis that club so I just want to give him a little shout out my name is juletta Kirkman thank you for the opportunity for me to speak tonight my daughter Jacqueline is a seventh grader at Kennedy Middle School and a graduate in amigo the other day I mentioned her and I know it's not on the

003agenda tonight the possibility of the middle school and the high school riding the bus together next year she was she had very strong feelings especially worried about the younger kids I told her she has an outlet to tell people about her feelings and she chose instead of standing up here to email the board but something tells me at some point she will be up here before she graduates uh she emailed the board Sunday we received one response thank you from the Transportation chair Mr Borden and I think just as parents we want our kids to be heard um so I'm very proud of her in making this effort and I just wanted to read it in case you didn't get to see it again seventh grade kid writing this my name is Jacqueline kirpin I

004am a seventh grader at Kennedy Middle School I've been riding the bus since kindergarten every day to Amy Bell and now Kennedy Middle School I ride the bus currently from 6 45 to 7 30 in the morning every day for 45 minutes and for 30 minutes on the afternoon bus it's a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes a day recently I heard that the School District board was considering combining the middle school and high school buses I am not particularly fond of this I'd like you to keep some things in mind first the buses would most likely have many sixth graders and at least probably a few 11th and 12th graders that range age range is between 11 and 18 years of age hence before not even a teenager to an adult riding the

005bus secondly for myself personally I would not be sure how comfortable I would be with kids several years older than me when I think about the conversations I would have as a 12 year old versus a 16 year old conversation it's a huge difference thirdly combining these age groups would make a bus driver's job even harder riding the bus could be a difficult thing for some kids when you were younger did you ever not want to be on the bus even with kids your own age I have felt that way being a sixth grader a new kid at a new school is tough enough but to be on the bus with kids who are way older can be stressful also if I was an older kid a junior or senior I wouldn't like the idea

006of riding bus with the younger kids thank you for taking the time to read this email and have a good day Jacqueline kirpin seventh grade at Kennedy Middle School thank you for your time thank you thank you thank you Scott Heffley good evening and welcome [Music] my comments aren't on Transportation so just a couple things I feel like I always come up with negative things to say not always but tonight I have something good to add and a couple things I'm concerned about um I know the last meeting I wasn't able to make it but I did watch it online because I do that and um I am concerned about you know I know we're trying to find ways to fill the budget or fix the budget or whatever it is and this this e-school

007idea with Keel was a total shock for me wasn't on the agenda didn't know anything about it but I know work was done on it and apparently a lot of work looking into that so I look around because I'm a curious person and I see that they've had it for a long time but there's only a few kids in it I mean that's fine but we're talking about a school district whose measurables are far Far Below ours okay if we believe niche.com right the school Digger and these places that rank schools I mean Germantown we're 16th in the state you know that's pretty high right I won't mention where Keel is but it's very far below that and the measurables are way below ours so I don't know why we would do that no disclaimer

008my youngest graduated this past year from Germantown but I had two kids go to the school district I can assure you because this idea was presenting me when they're in school I would not be in favor of it why would I want my kid to get education from a school district that's nowhere near ours as far as measurable proficiency I would not want that so I say we wait and see what the plan was all along if we get those grants we're talking about and we look into doing it ourselves let's do it ourselves and do it right I don't think a stock get measured does anything but confused parents and I don't want to do that and I'm sure you guys don't want it so that's my point in that the 4K idea I

009heard that talked about during this election cycle um I moved here in 1993. okay that's almost 30 years ago they were talking about 4K back then and I know that's before any of you are on the board but somebody like Sarah has been in the community longer than me they were talking about it in 93. they were talking about in 98 they were talking about in 2005. we are literally one of the only districts to not happen so I don't know why it takes 30 years to come up with a 4K program when everybody else has it they seem to be it's a revenue generator it really is so I think seriously we gotta look into that and I know there's talk about it we will but I think that's a tremendous idea I mean

010Push It Forward if you can I mean I think we have the space we've improved the schools let's find a way to do it 4K let's bring some money into the district that's my idea so the last two things first one is um we talk about you know I know transparency communication fiscal Conservancy these are recurring themes I'd like to throw another one out there accountability okay if you like crazy acronyms like me here's an acronym called fact fiscally conservative accountable communicate transparent that's fact so accountability is easy to say who's accountable who's not accountable but accountability you wonder who who's accountable no you can say that the board is accountable to the taxpayers I agree with you right we voted you on so when we say we got to fix the budget and we're

011going to make the district accountable well the question is who are you accountable to I guess us but that accountability has to go all the way down and all the way up we all have to be accountable for what we're doing on a board in our lives work whatever accountability is important everybody likes to pass the buck is the way of the world but accountability is important and the final thing I'll say I know two of you are missing last meeting but I did make a statement I said and I see it in the papers we have to quit blaming blaming the pandemic for the budget problems okay we had budget problems before the pandemic the pandemic accelerated it but we had problems before the pandemic it didn't cause the problems it did not I

012feel in the word research I've done that we overpowered spent on our fund balance and that's where we are and now we're talking about selling off one time part-time you know assets that are paid off and doing other things you know it's in your hands but I feel like I have to say something and so like thank you thank you uh Adam Johnson [Music] good evening and welcome my name is Adam Johnson I'm a social studies teacher at ghs and a member of the Gea executive board a few weeks ago I requested that the Gea seek more relationship building opportunities with the school board considering that we already have a ga member attending all the school board meetings I recommended that we share some brief thoughts during the comments section on a more regular basis

013it's my hope that these opportunities will increase the report between the Gea and the school board as we collectively strive for the best teaching learning and Leadership opportunities for our students staff and school board and the community uh with that in mind there are two areas we wish to share thoughts on just briefly first I'd like to mention the success of the catch-all day is being used at the middle school and the high school while some members of the community may not understand the purpose or the value of these each one has I believe helped staff successfully build relationships with the students who are virtual we've had increased opportunities for communication with parents and Guardians it gives us additional help for struggling students by refocusing their attention uh and helping them build a plan for

014Success without waiting until the end of the grading period And while we may never be able to eliminate every drf in the district it is in this unusual Academic Year a great benefit to have these catch all days we thank the administrator's efforts for arranging this schedule and we thank the administration and the board for providing for their continued use second the ga would also like to share the support for the creation of the advocacy Council on Equity we think this is a set an essential step towards creating a school district that reflects the cultures of all students dismissive comments that have been shared on social media and during conferences only further emphasize the need for this group to help Drive our future curricular decision making understanding that the possibility that some teachers May face

015backlash from parents Guardians and members of the community as we evolve our curriculum to be more inclusive we hope that you will consider the involvement of the Gea at the council meetings to observe and to share insight into the current efforts taking place in the classroom thank you very much for your time and I hope the ga and the school board can continue these brief opportunities for communication on future meetings thank you thank you Adam and I think what you're doing is great so keep it up appreciate that would anybody else like to speak tonight okay moving on to item four approval of the March 22nd 2021 Board of Education March 22nd 2021 closed session and April 7 2021 closed session minutes entertain a motion move the April 7th closed session minutes second discussion no

016discussion all those in favor please say aye aye oppose that motion carries moving on to item five reports and information items Amy Bell school report Mr stausel yes we're going to have Mr Krieger is going to bring in some of the Amy Bell students and they're they have a short presentation for you thank you good evening everyone good evening this is um first of all I'd like to welcome all of you here to Amy Bell School tonight we're going to be sharing some things with you in regards to K kids for those people that do not know who I am I'm Mr Krieger I've been actually a part of Germantown school district for quite some time actually probably more than some of you have been around I started as a student uh we back when

017so I've been around for about 57 years so but I've been teaching for Germantown in different capacities for 39 years and one of the things that I took on about 25 years ago with one of my former principals was the K kids and tonight we thought we'd share some of the things that the K Kids uh are involved in here at Amy Bell and so we brought along the officers and before they ran for office I told them that them that somewhere along the line they might have to do some public speaking they're used to talking to the kids they're used to making announcements but they've never had to go in front of adults and talk so this is a wonderful experience for them just because we're trying to build leadership skills and this is

018one of the great leadership skills that they can work on so one of the reasons why I've been involved with K kids for so many years is because you know what within this building and the walls there's a lot of things that go on a lot of teaching goes on but also there needs to be a lot of other things that go along with that one of those things is learning how to communicate how to do service to our community and then also building those leadership skills so tonight I brought the four officers and they're going to share with you what we are we have been doing at Amy Bell as K kids so we're going to start off with our first young man Hooper if you'd like to come up Department writers hi hi

019my name is Cooper Jansen and I am the current president of Amy Bell K Kids K Kids is an elementary school leadership group under the sponsorship of Kiwanis in our Germantown Community K Kids is a student-led community service organization that is made up of fifth graders any fifth grader can apply to be part of K kids when applying each student needs to fill out an application answering questions about leadership once students apply and are accepted to be a k kid they participate in group activities that that develop a positive self-esteem and listening and speaking skills K kids also helps to develop respect for school community and our country this year we have over 20 members in our K kids each member can run to be an officer we have an election to decide who will

020be president vice president secretary and treasurer as an officer we run our weekly meetings K Kids meet during our recess so we have to give up our recess time to organize activities as a group we brainstorm ideas that we want to do to benefit our community our community in school we vote on our ideas and plan our events for the year we try to plan one main activity each month we would like to share the different activities that we've been doing with this year with you thank you hi my name is Luke Schroeder I am the Secretary of K kids after we have decided on the activities that we are going to do the real work Begins the K Kids decide how to promote the projects many times we create posters that hang around the

021school explaining our projects then we share the project with the students by doing announcements or by going to each classroom to do a speech that shares the importance of our project we design containers to collect the items we are asking the students to bring as the as the items come in we collect them organize them and prepare them for delivery lastly we share with the students their success in getting involved in the project one of the activities we did this year was a toy Joel The Giraffe was called kids to kids toy jar we worked with Capco Corporation students donated new toys that were given to families in southeastern Wisconsin through the Salvation Army and two dozen other non-profit organizations about kids two kids to toy drive helped teach students the value of giving we

022collected almost 200 new toys to give the families a need wow that's great [Applause] hi my name is Amelia slots I'm the vice president of the aim of LK kids we organized a spirit week for Emeryville students to project participate in we organized it during Dr Seuss read Across America week so that learning and reading and learning could be involved the K kids decided what fun days would happen all week long we didn't miss bash crazy hair day dress alike amiibo wear a day Google meet day where students were in staff were former clothes on top and in pajamas on the bottom class Choice day and Dr associate a committee of K kids were able to judge class Choice J deciding which classes were the most creative hi my name is Haley Sadowski and I'm

023the treasurer of cake kids the K Kids decided to help the Germantown Recreation Department by filling Easter eggs for the animal annual Germantown Easter egg hunt filling filling Easter eggs benefits the Germantown Community and would bring joy to kids in the Germantown we had to separate the eggs by color then fill the eggs with candy we donated some of the candy we filled three large bins or we were probably almost 2 000 eggs wow the K Kids decided that donating food to those in need wasn't very important what better way to get students involved than coordinating a food drive with the Super Bowl what involves coordinating a food drive with the Super Bowl we organized the Super Bowl challenge with students studying in cans of soup it was super for each kid donated the student

024could vote on the team that they thought that what would win the Super Bowl we collected over 300 cans of soup the soup went to the local food pantry in the Ronald McDonald House where families can stay when their child is at Children's Hospital thank you our big fundraiser for this year is the money collection drive this year we will we will be doing a coin Drive called coins for kids each class will have their own jug to collect their coins we will collect the money each week and let the school know how well amyville is doing in pastures we have collected close to two thousand dollars in coins this year we will be donating into two organizations they are called you are the hero which is a local non-profit organ which is a local

025non-profit organization that works with terminally ill children you are the hero and to views the terminally ill children about what types of heroes they want to be then designs a comic book with the child as the main character the second organization the K kids will be donated to is the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin we will be setting a goal for the students and have a fun reward for reaching that goal this month the K Kids is making kindness a priority we are running a donation drive to make kindness bags the kindness bags will include personal care products each period level will donate a specific necessity items being collected are toothbrushes first soap deodorant toothpaste shampoo conditioner and hand sanitizer we will collect the donations and make kindness bags donating the kindness the bags to the

026local food pantry we will emphasize that together we can make a difference foreign kids will do is in June is collecting used markers we will be asking students to donate their old used markers to be recycled the Crayola Color cycle program takes hold markers and turns them into wax compound this wax compound can be used for asphalt to build roads roof shingles to build houses and to make out electricity that can be used to heat homes cooked food and power vehicles not only can markers be donated but dry erase markers and highlighters we'll be using recycled coffee cans to make collection containers what a great way to help Mother Earth so from the projects and activities we presented tonight you you can see we have tried to do things that make a difference in our

027community our school and the world we appreciate the support of all the Annabelle families who made our service projects a success the K kids are thankful for to the Germantown Kiwanis to for their support as well our goal to make a difference in our in the lives of others thank you for giving us the time to share our activities with you tonight hmm [Applause] [Music] thank you very much well don't go away yet kids you did a wonderful job um I knew about K kids but I learned more about K kids tonight and making a difference in our community that's an understatement together we can make a difference I think you kids are rock stars you're awesome keep up the good work wonderful work that you're doing colleagues yes I thought all of you are

028on your way to being great public speakers your presentation you all had wonderful eye contact you worked well together as a team I I wondered what else you were going to pull off the cart it was like the rabbit pulling stuff out of their hat and most importantly the skills you're learning on how to give back to the community really very impressive and you should be very proud and hopefully this is going to be a lifelong habit that you have congratulations on showing us what true leaders are in the community you guys did a great job yeah did a great job public speaking by now the whole board knows that in fifth grade I would have been terrified to speak in front of a group of adults like this but thanks for mentioning um Dr

029Seuss the brought me back to I'm sure your age or younger reading gold dog goal catnip Cat in the Hat and green eggs and ham they used to just stare at the pages into crazy drawings wondering how he did them you know where did all that imagination come from that he had so anyway great job and thank you yeah presentations like this is exactly why I love as a board member being able to tour the schools just to be able to learn about things like this where they're not only impacting their school but the community as a whole it's outstanding work exactly I think you guys did an outstanding job keep up the good work one of my favorite things as well is to see our students in action in front of the board and

030you guys just do an unbelievable job and we're impressed every time we get to see him thank you yeah congrats great job guys and Mr Krieger thank you so much for your leadership thank you and for your 39 years of service that's wonderful thank you let's have a round of applause for the kids [Applause] thank you moving on to Item B uh student representative report uh we will not have that tonight so we're gonna move on to item C the district health update Mr stausler yes I'm going to have uh nurse uh Tammy maniac present do I really do I really have to go after those kids I mean really that was pretty awesome I don't know anyone who could beat that no I think I just moved this might like don't follow me thank

031you um so I'm gonna give a couple updates so what I had on the health aids dude for me today is give me a couple different numbers so I have the amount of cases positive student cases that we had in March for each building and then I had them go through and do the same thing for April so I have the amount of cases we've had for March and April so far for each building plus the amount of kids that we had to quarantine in addition to how many positive kids came out of those quarantine situations so for example Amy Bell in March had zero student cases positive cases in April we had four so far out of those four we had actually only had to quarantine one person and unfortunately that was our building

032administrator but other than that no other quarantine for Amy Bell Rockfield we had zero cases in March in April we've had two but those also happened over spring break so we did not have to do any contact tracing for that so that was really well County Line and March yet two we had to quarantine 10 students from that zero positive cases came out of those 10 students that were in quarantine MacArthur again zero cases in March we've had one in April so far again that was over spring break where we had to not do any quarantine for that KMS however we've had nine positive students in March which came out to be 155 student quarantines and three faculty members out of those 155 students that had to go in quarantine we had only four students

033that came out positive when I talk about those four students that came out positive does not necessarily mean that it happened because they were in contact in school a lot of times what happens is because they had contact outside of school so I just want to make that pretty clear so far here in April at KMS we had two positive student cases zero had to quarantine because again those happened over spring break ghs the high school in March we had nine positive cases we had to quarantine 68 students no positive cases came out of those 68 students in April so far we've had five positive cases 69 students had to quarantine and only one positive case came out of those 69 students that had the quarantine again it was not probably because they were in

034school it was most likely outside of school that that positive happened not sure if that was even because they were together with that positive person or if that was an outside situation that just happened to correlate so in addition to all of that um I just want to state two that I also received the weekly respiratory report from DHS that doesn't just talk about covet but it talks about all respiratory illnesses including whole influenza pneumonia all those things and so far your flu season actually starts October 1st and runs through the end of March in this flu season we have had only 68 cases in the state of Wisconsin for influenza we have had zero in Germantown school district of influenza in the entire nation there has been only one pediatric death in the entire

035nation on average we have over 180 kids that diet flu every year we also have had no stomach flu which is the Norovirus we've had a couple kids throw up have a lot of vomiting but not it was not related to a stomach flu or a Norovirus so what that's telling me is that the mitigation measures that we have in place are working the kids that do end up testing positive is not because it's coming from school it's because it's coming from outside of school even when you look at our activities outside of school as in our Athletics Band Fire all those things we are not seeing a spread throughout those we did see a couple different things that might have been us broad within but you have to look at what that activity was

036and how close and interactive those individuals were there were some situations maybe in some basketball or wrestling but you didn't see anything in volleyball you really didn't see anything in soccer you didn't see any of those kind of cases in those activities where people were more spread out it was more where they really had that close body to body contact within that I'd say even closer than two feet so that's really where you would see more kids from an activity would have a positive situation than you would in anything else um I also wanted to tell you that our vaccine rate is actually really really well as of just a few minutes ago when I looked we have 539 staff members currently that have at least one vaccine most of them have had both of

037their vaccines already but that's just how they filled out the Google form that I keep track of those that are post two weeks of their second vaccine do not have to ever quarantine again originally it was they got 90 days to not have to quarantine after their second vaccine but now CDC updated their guidelines to never have to quarantine again two weeks post their second dose so we're pretty close a lot of our staff members are pretty close to that area we have had to quarantine a couple because it was within a few days of getting that second vaccine or it was within a few days of getting their first vaccine so unfortunately they didn't fall within those guidelines so we did have to quarantine them but it's becoming very rare that we have to

038do that so keep up the good work staff get in those vaccines because the more we get those vaccines the less we can do this stuff that we're doing um CDC also did quite a few updates very recently so we talk a lot about that three feet distance versus at six feet distance so what that means the CDC said students in the buildings can be within three feet of each other that's allowing schools to bring in more kids into the classroom you can see almost any kind of research article that you want to look at there is no spread in schools really but that's because of the mitigation that we have in place it's not because they're six feet apart it's not because that it's because of the masking it's because of the hand washing

039because you can see our kids are not six feet apart our kids aren't even three feet apart and it's really because we have the masks we're doing the hand washing we're keeping our younger kids in the pods and things like that so that's really what's working and what's keeping our schools not just Germantown but everywhere open and doing a good job um with that three feet CDC did say that their quarantine guidelines does not change it's still a six foot radius in order to be with that quarantine um Mr Southland and I are looking at about maybe changing some of those things but that won't be happening right now I'll be looking more towards fourth quarter um let's see for The Masks I have to say that our students are doing still I mean we're

040in April now I can't believe how well they're doing we have no really no issues with masking our kids are very very compliant the compliance rate is extremely high we really have had no complaints about them if we do see something we ask them to put their mask up right away and they do they follow those rules we have prom coming up we have forward testing we have AP testing we have spring Sports coming up all of those things can happen and can continue to happen as long as we keep our masks on and even when you look at all of the research even at CDC DHS no matter where you look that is the most important tool that we have to stay open and keep everybody safe it's even more important than the hand

041washing it's even more important than keeping in pads it's really our number one thing that's keeping everything together right now all right that's all I got watch es you got for me wow a lot of good stuff you just shared a couple questions yeah I would also suggest that in addition to the mask it's it's the the awareness that we didn't have before if you're sick stay home and I think that correlates with the numbers of the the lack of numbers and influenza which I think is wonderful in the state yeah you're sick stay home oh and and reinforce that very very well I think yeah and the parents do a really good job they call in even if a kid's sniffling they call in and like no my kids definitely they're just gonna stay

042home all right awesome yeah yeah and we've been dealing with this thing for way too long and um it's not sustainable I think we all agree with that I love the numbers 539 uh what percentage of that of Staff he has about 89 89 that's more okay I had 82. okay 89 yeah I got my two shots so uh I didn't know uh what you shared about quarantine so I think that's great uh I don't have to do that uh which is wonderful uh question on the 60 plus kids at the high school quarantining are we did we did the CDC pivot from the 14 days to 10 days yeah and we've been doing 10 days oh my gosh for a month I think now already so it they did they went from a ton

043from a 14 day to a 10 day and the reason they did that is because if you look at the average for a person who's been actually exposed to a positive case the average amount of time that a person would actually get symptoms if they contracted it and started an infection is between days six seven and eight so that's the average of when symptoms start so that's why they really went to the 10-day quarantine however you still can develop symptoms and develop an infection all the way up until day 14 but it's not the closer you get to that day 14 the less and less amount of probability is that you will actually receive an infection so we have been doing the tending quarantine for quite a few months now and the other piece to

044that too Bob is that if you get tested on day six or seven you get a negative test result you still have no symptoms you can actually return to school or normal activities on day eight so you actually can reduce it even three more days well you set my next comment up perfectly well so you know 16 or 60 plus kids knocked out uh is not a good thing no it's not good for their education certainly not for their psyche what can we do as a district to shorten that and I'm going to put this on the table for discussion have we thought about doing our own antigen testing I have not thought about the rapid test 15 minutes negative for positive that type of thing remember we thought about that yet I'm going to

045be very pointing I have not thought about it I have not had time to think about it I have not had time to research it yeah and this may not even be a topic of discussion in the fall because again we're learning we're maturing you don't have to do this you know will we be wearing masks I really hope not well I know I'm telling you I hope not so it's uh interesting what's going on comments yeah I've received emails I'm sure the rest of the board has as well from parents saying that we're doing long-term damage physically and mentally to the kids for wearing masks what's your medical Prof or you know opinion on that I don't I don't want so much the masking is causing that to be honest with you I think

046it's the entire situation in general it's the quarantine it's the unknown it's the oh my gosh I have to do virtual today oh my gosh am I going to be able to play sports oh my gosh am I going to get my assignments in my computer is not working what's I think it's not just Mass I think it's the entire thing in general this whole and it doesn't just affect the kids it affects everyone you know my kids sick my grandparents are sick so and so sick I think it's it's not really a mask issue I think it's an everything issue I don't think the masks I mean there's there's people that wear them all day long it's a huge thing in healthcare I wore masks almost an entire work day eight hours I wear

047my mask almost entirely the entire day now even when I'm alone in my office because it is an Airborne it's in the air so whether I'm in my office alone take off my mask and have someone walk in it's in the air regardless so I wear my mask almost 24 7 while I'm in the buildings I rarely take it off and I don't the more I wear it the less I even think I even have it on so that's my professional opinion and I have had a couple research articles that I have read on my own time about that and it is more the isolation that the research is showing versus masking all right thank you would data support um you know for the younger kids like in Amy Bell and we're more than likely

048going to talk about this later on in the agenda on return to school about wearing masks or not wearing masks or make it optional uh younger kids aren't getting sick and if you know we've got 89 percent of staff that have at least their first inoculation relatively low risk as long as we follow all the other mitigation six stay home um that type of thing what are your thoughts on that I say no and I know that's not what everyone wants to hear and and there's a couple reasons behind that number one we still are only at 89 with at least one vaccine so not everybody is fully vaccine and number two we still have 20 percent of our staff who are not so that still gives us a pretty big number in our kids

049we our kids can still mean not necessarily have an active infection where they develop and have symptoms but they still can be carriers and can still spread so it's really that concern about okay my friend Johnny over here we don't have masks on but he's breathing all over me could be an asymptomatic carrier and have a positive case give it to his neighbor and then that neighbor goes home to Grandma and Grandpa we don't know if they had the vaccine we don't know if their parents had the vaccine and that's what we need to be cautious of yes our kids are not getting it as much our kids do not show active infections however kids younger kids are now starting to Trickle and starting to see more and more infections in younger kids but not

050as Extreme as we do in adults but we are starting to see that trickle down effect and that's why I say no but we're not seeing it at the Germantown School District though we are not with our kids but it's still we don't know could they bring it home to the people that they live with and that's where my concern lies yeah what about it if I'm just in my classroom and but if I go out in the hall and ride the bus I wear my mask we make that we still have a child next to you that's less than three feet away well we're having that right now what was that we're having that right now in our schools I know and they have masks on right and they need to keep their masks

051on gotcha yep and even even within that three feet it's more important to have your masks on The Closer you are to that student or to anybody else the further you are away I mean if we were able to have all of our kids be six feet apart I would say yeah maybe but we're not our classrooms are packed jam-packed I've seen them those kids are pretty tight they really need to have those masks on so when do you think there's going to be the paradigm shift with it I was hoping this summer I'm not gonna lie I'm really hoping why why the summer why the summer and why not because we're going to have more people that are able to be vaccinated the more people in the country that are going to have that

052vaccine the less spread that we will be able to have the more people are protected and then everyone should be able to start to take them off and throw them in the garbage we are only at about one in four adults right now in the country who are vaccinated and we need to get that number higher to take these be able to take these off got it cool thank you any other comments very good thanks Tammy thanks thank you thank you thank you moving on to item D 4K update Mr stauseland yes I want to have Mrs O'Brien talk about 4K sure let me get your slides thank you do you want to go to the next slide please so the proposal that we are working on is to implement a half day 4K program

053beginning with the 22-23 school year so the benefits of having a 4K program can really be summed up in this Slide the research tends to support the longer term benefits of 4K and by longer term benefits I mean for students to be able to be more proficient or more likely to be proficient in reading by third grade more likely to graduate from high school and attend a college and more likely to succeed in the workplace the research tends to be a little bit more inconclusive regarding shorter term benefits of how well prepared they are for kindergarten however the shorter term benefits of preparedness for kindergarten is more conclusive regarding income levels and as you can see on that statement on the bottom the research suggests that students from lower incomes who would have a high

054quality 4K program tend to be better better prepared for kindergarten so the updates um as to where we are to this evening is that there is a stated board goal of having a 4K program it was advertised in the community for Early Childhood providers and current 4K programs in Germantown we met with several providers to discuss possible Partnerships or those who would want to partner with us to also offer a 4K program in there building and we also created a draft of a partnership agreement and what that might look like for those organizations who are wanting to partner with us and we did hold our first meeting for the 4K steering committee last week where staff were invited to come I talked about all of the updates so far and we started to form some

055subcommittees of some work and some areas in which we want to make sure that we are doing early on and then also created kind of a timeline for the work that needs to follow next slide so the logistics that we're thinking about as it stands today is that we are offering a tuition-free half-day program we are considering five days a week either having an AM or a PM session again those time frames are just considerations we would follow the school district's calendar in terms of dates as of right now we do have space in all of our buildings for 4K however I just want to make note that we don't have enough space to accommodate all students at all of their home schools right now we have the most space available at MacArthur so not

056all students may be able to attend their home school for 4K we also don't have space to accommodate wraparound care at this time and this is where some of those Community Partnerships could come would be beneficial for our families and we do have transportation that would be provided to and from the 4K program right now we're in conversations with the following Partners we have Camp minakani who is really close to Amy Bell School actually they are part of the YMCA they are interested in having a nature-based 4K program based on where their property is and also a possible partnership for a 4K program they are also interested in offering wraparound care momentum Early Learning is also interested in a possible 4K and wraparound care Willow Creek is interested in wraparound care and Bethlehem Lutheran may

057be interested in a partnership I talked to them most recently they might be interested in a possible partnership so just I just want to clarify first of all thank you Brenda for doing all the work since I don't know July when we started talking about this and um I think the just so people understand the one take example momentum um you know possible interest in 4k interested and wraparound care that means we we would potentially have the half day kindergarten at that location but it would be our teacher our curriculum and then if let's say it was the morning in the afternoon a parent could keep their child at momentum uh to be there as daycare correct correct okay correct and we would actually that partnership agreement that we've proposed would work out the Staffing

058as well as the curricular piece for that thank you and I just put together a timeline again the steering committee for the subgroups is going to meet again before the end of the year I would like to have marketing promo and promotional materials available in November I would like to register students beginning in January of 2022 with the possibility of registering with our current kindergarten class and holding both registrations at the same time and then 4K opening on September 1 of uh well whenever that first date of the school year is decided in September of 2022. thank you you're welcome any questions for for Brenda Brenda one of the questions that had come up during the campaign from one of the candidates was wondering given that the Declaration of a 4K you can do that

059I think up until like May 1st and they were wondering why we wouldn't be embarking on starting 4K in the fall and so could you just maybe describe some of the maybe the in the weeds planning stuff as to why you can't just in April decide you're gonna have 4K in Fall sure one of the biggest pieces is obviously the curricular piece and making sure that we have quality programs for our 4K program I would like to do some professional development around developmentally appropriate curriculum as well for those staff members who are interested in teaching 4K so those are the two big pieces obviously promotional materials and making um families aware of this would be an important step in this process and again for Staffing and making sure that we have registration and everything to

060make sure that that happens in a timely manner so that we can start the hiring and Staffing um as as well as making sure that our partners are making sure that they have a commitment and knowing and communicating with them their expectations responsibilities things like that as well as being able to promote some of that wraparound care or any of the programs that they might be interested in so really this is not simply just we've got classroom space let's put some teachers in there and teach 4K I would like to make sure that it's a quality program yes yeah just wanted to make that clear yeah and to that too is you have to outfit the room with the proper correct furniture and that all has a has an initial cost but it's it is

061a it does it's a positive in the end when you have the the bodies um FTE and I do there is a grant available as well for this I thought it worked in the same way that the charter school Grant did however it as actually is that May 1st deadline so I would be applying for it at this time next year it's already filled out it's ready to go um so I would just change the date for making sure that it's next year and then that we would be able to take advantage of some of those funds that our startup costs for 4K um Brenda real quick the curriculums that you are looking at are they play-based education absolutely that's what I started with um I I when we had the staff meeting I said

062that we would start with the play-based understanding and social and emotional learning as big components and cornerstones on which we build the curriculum great thank you Brian question um is 4K then required if we offer it for parents or can they opt out of it that's a great question it is it is not required um can uh attending kindergarten is required before first grade but 4K is not required Brenda I've been on the board going on 10 years we heard comments that about 30 years we've been talking about K4 we've been talking about K4 in my 10 years why are we finally going down this path why haven't we done it before I mean the testing here is very very good within the Germantown School District especially with younger kids so why now there's no

063time like the present that's a good good response I I want to think that we've got great moms and dads at home that read stories to their kids in bed at night time and they teach them how to add they teach them how to spell and when they get into kindergarten they're wonderful kids because testing supports that [Music] and I would say too just like I presented with the research I think what's important is that making sure that all students have an opportunity for high quality education prior to kindergarten and that would be that would be a focus as well I would agree with that any other questions comments yeah to president zadberg's Point yeah we've been talking about this for a long time I think you've done great work so far in in this

064little short amount of time identifying how the program is going to look all the things that are needed to go into it and I I understand why we can't have it ready for next year I mean we want to do it right and it's going to take a little bit extra time but I think seeing the dates we finally know it's coming so that's great okay thank you any other comments okay thank you very much moving on to yeah before we get to the enrollment update since we're doing updates because I just read a statement regarding Transportation wonderful perfect right so in regards to Transportation changes in the start and end times are 20 21 2022 school year we've been receiving some questions so I wanted to clarify a few items the transportation committee met

065on February 22nd and March 23rd to discuss multiple options Go Right Way develop regarding maximizing bus routes for the 2021-2022 school year moving forward at the March 23rd meeting the committee approved the concept with the understanding that Administration will recommend start and end times to the full board before approval from March 23rd until April 26 next week or two weeks Administration will continue to communicate with psych principals and staff regarding families and students Human Resources will re look into regarding the traveling teachers we'll also be communicating with park and rec regarding before and after school care and activities we'll also be communicating with food service regarding breakfast and lunch needs and also Right Way regarding pick up and drop off times comments and questions and concerns are going to be reported to the full board

066on April 26th so an informed decision can be made at that time and I just want to clarify there has been no decision made yet just so that's transparent great thank you Mr Borden thank you moving on to item e enrollment update Mr stausel yes that's Mr nawak past as we look at it as they would call a little different this year than the previous years and that we've spoken two versions in we feel comfortable with most all of our in-person classroom enrollment numbers there are two areas fourth grade at Amy Bell and fourth grade at Mac that are sort of pushing the envelope but they're still within those limits of where we would change so in terms of where we are in the school year and how classroom situations have been managed as we

067talked about in an early agenda item we feel pretty good listed as well are the virtual numbers you know and those have changed a little bit over the years but we feel comfortable with where they're at this document sets the stage for our staffing plan which will be presented likely at our next meeting what isn't known really at this point is those incoming kindergarten numbers those are always a bit of a mystery relative to how enrollments are coming in at this point I would just add that some of the where some of the classes have crept up is that kids who have been who've chosen virtual for the semester uh needed to come back in for a family situation or Reason either the child care person had to go back to work or the grandparent

068that was around is no longer around and um so but we've there's at several schools some other parents have tried to or asked their child to come back and we just we we can't we're Plum full and that was part of the reason of asking families to make the commitment that semester but we have when there's been accentuating circumstances tried to accommodate when we can and we do have if you remember a fifth grade at MacArthur where the teacher um not to because we would have gone over if those kids came back when they made that choice of the semester where she has some kids in person and she's also doing the virtual at the same time and um to again to try to try to make that work and we're really kind of holding

069on for the the next two months um you know with our numbers in a couple couple spots but we're those ones that are at 27 we just we can't add more to that and if if kids move in we've had actually three kids that just moved into Amy Bell this last week that we're figuring out their their placement two of the classes not an issue and and one it keeps it tight so okay okay any other questions comments okay thank you very much before we go on to item six building committee I just want to add something to the reports and information items and as you know we had an election um a week ago a week and a half ago two weeks ago whenever it was and uh my colleague to the left will

070be transitioning off the board and Sarah has been on the board for the past nine years um and through those nine years we've done a lot within the Germantown School District I think you came right on the heels of Act 10 and all associated with that and the the savings associated with that we've been through pivoting away from Common Core and yes we are still pivoting away from Common Core we're not embracing that um we heard comments tonight about the fund balance of the improper use of the fund balance which I totally disagree with this is a three-track school if we didn't take money out of the fund balance which you were a part of uh this would be still be a two-track school we purchased land across the street for a septic field we

071expanded the building here not just here but in Rockville we paid 1.2 million dollars out of fund balance which you were a part of for the tech center at the high school we purchased two buildings two homes over at MacArthur to improve parking lot safety which you were a part of you're part of the wonderful school report cards exceeds expectations we just heard from our superintendent that we've had people moving into the district I chatted with a lady who moved in here to Amy Bell from Hartford in February because she likes what she sees in Germantown you were part of that for the last nine years so I want to personally thank you for all that you've done for the Germantown school district and I wish you nothing but success in your future endeavors but

072before I let you go there's a certificate here I'd like to give you from the Wisconsin Association of school boards certificate of commendation is presented to Sarah Larson in recognition for your service to the children in Wisconsin Public Schools April 2012 to April 2021 and is signed by their president and their executive director so on behalf of the Wisconsin Association of school boards at the Germantown Board of Education and also myself I want to thank you for always putting kids first so thank you thanks Bob thank you it's been a great nine years and I'm very proud to have served the community and had such great colleagues congratulations to my opponent Tracy pawlik he's been Faithfully attending the meetings and I'm sure you're all going to welcome him on board and start with the next

073chapter Mike yeah you're here it's been a pleasure serving with you Sarah but I did want to mention something about Amy Bell school here the referendum was to have taken the school to a two-track school and the reason being it was a septic system locked so we spent the money to put the septic system across the street which I affectionately say one day will be called the Mike Loth Memorial septic system because it was my idea to do it but as a result of spending that money and expanding this school to a three-track school because that's what it took to do it outside of the referendum there's now room on this side of the road to expand it to a four-track school and it's very likely with the growing population in Richfield that we're going

074to need that so while the fund balance is constantly criticized it was money well spent and quite honestly we couldn't be talking about K4 right now if we had let this this school fall to a two-track school you know so let's be happy we spent the money we have room for four tracks here not today but with an expansion and we can do 4K I believe here and at Rockfield and also at MacArthur MacArthur was actually part of the referendum but Rockfield was not so that's that's it and sorry for shooting off a different direction Sarah but it has been a pleasure uh serving with you and and you will be missed I'm sure the new guy will do a good job also so we'll we'll go from there thank you all right thank you

075everyone moving on to item six building committee yeah yeah Mr madman yes we did meet early there tonight um correctly if I'm wrong but we are recording and taping all of our committee meetings now so I'll make it brief we do have one actionable item for tonight we bring forward to the board with a positive recommendation to award the Germantown High School track resurfacing project that described to Athletic Field Services in an amount not to exceed 91 000 for sealflex lr6 thank you that's coming to the board of the positive recommendation doesn't require a second we have discussion Mike the it was brought up in voting committee but I checked it is part of the 10-year plan and I thought wow this 10-year plan is already coming into effect you know how time flies so

076it's it is for the 2021-2022 school year there was a little more money budgeted for this than the 91 000 so I was quite happy to see where the number came in and all in all it looks like a a good deal we're gonna have to finally have the track resurfaced further comments discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye opposed that motion carries and that we all very good question comments for Mr Medved okay moving on to item seven ad hoc curriculum committee update Mr bedbug yes we did meet earlier as well um we have several action items to bring forward tonight first we have a motion to the board with a positive recommendation to approve the Second Step personal safety materials updated there is no cost to this approval that's

077coming the board of deposit recommendation doesn't require a second discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed stop motion carries we did have several other conversations if I may I will turn it over to miss Larson she has some motion she'd like to present okay the first one we bring forward with a positive recommendation that the use of the n-word or any other racial derogatory Language by any race even used regarding towards their own race will result in suspension and restorative practice is supported through the guidance Department with escalation upon repeat offenses and as a side note the administration will craft the language and bring that back to the board for approval okay that's coming the board of the past recommendation doesn't require a second discussion and I will just say to frame

078the conversation this is coming from an incident that happened at the high school um unfortunately several weeks ago and we need to move forward with this so that all students know the expectations of what is right and what is wrong because what happened in the cafeteria during lunchtime was wrong and unfortunately that word is used far too often it's used by permission it's used unfortunately by a lot of people and it's wrong and it's not accepted and within the Germantown School District when Mr spouse and myself sat down with two of the three students that were involved in that manner we learned a lot which was the domino effect for the ace committee coming around which is a wonderful committee and all the other good things that are happening but this is just one step

079of many steps in our Equity inclusion program that we need to do very important first step further comments discussion seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye opposed that motion carries okay the next motion is we bring forward that an assembly will be placed on the calendar within the next three weeks for both ghs and the Middle School addressing the race situation and how to properly interact and behave and treat people like human beings and that's coming the board of the positive recommendation does not require a second discussion again getting back to our conversation that we had with two of the three students that Mr Slauson myself had again we learned a lot and we listened to them and we asked the question what do you want done and they had a wonderful

080idea they said let's have a school assembly let's talk about it and that's what we're doing we want to go that next stop again the very critical step one of many more steps that we need to have within the Germantown School District that will support our Dei program diversity Equity inclusion for their comments seeing none all those in favor please say aye aye oppose that motion carries the last motion that we are bringing forward revolves around critical race Theory and um based on the ace committee and the work that we're looking to do within the district really critical race theory is a political agenda not really helping the marginalized groups and really wouldn't be fitting to the lasting change that we're looking to achieve so I make a motion that the Germantown school district will

081not be employing critical race Theory content or pedagogy in curriculum delivery board with a positive recommendation doesn't require a second we have discussion looking for I'm I'm part of the ace committee I'm looking forward to the collaboration the content that's coming out of that committee not just today but six months from now a year from now because we could do better when we sat down with the students when they said that they don't feel safe well guess what they're not learning in our school and we want the kids to learn so I'm really excited about what the future holds for the ace committee with the assembly with all the other things that we're doing Germantown has always been a thought leader we've always been a Visionary we've done a lot of things thinking outside the

082box with common core and other things so I support what you're saying Sarah I support your motion further discussion saying none all those in favor please say aye aye opposed that motion carries and I think that's it for you right I think okay Mr Mudbug okay we had a couple of other updates but those will be coming back to the board at a later date so I'll leave it for them okay questions comments for Mr budbud all right moving on to item eight unfinished business discussion and update on possible relocation of district office and property sale Mr stosselson yes several months ago we had at the board level had talked about the possibility of selling or looking to sell the district office and um in the land and we could and it stemmed from we

083had someone approach me way back in August and so it started this conversation of well what's its value what's its worth um what would happen if if it did sell and so from that last meeting uh myself and uh Miss altendorf were kind of tasked with if we had to move is there room for everybody everybody in the district currently that's in the district office and the the truth is if we absolutely had to we could find find spaces it wouldn't be ideal what we could find Space some of the question though was also around the maintenance building that was there and there's possible options for that you know again if a tornado came through and wiped out all the buildings could we find a space the district office people we could again not ideal

084and um the the sentiment um kind of after looking at the spaces was you know at this time we should just leave leave it alone um keep keep the building we know we have an option in the future possibly if we if we get you know to that down that road there's some unknowns in our district as far as growth as well um you know so we we have those five acres that the the site sits on um as well so at this point um the sentiment was we we just leave it as is okay questions comments Michael yeah I think testing yeah at this point um I agree we shouldn't do anything it's an asset I was actually surprised when the utilities and future near future maintenance costs are added in the building is

085actually much much lower cost to operate than I expected and I'd like to reiterate we were approached by another party it wasn't the other way around and it's really had nothing to do with a budget shortfall so I intend to work with Brittany and I'm sure the rest of the board does also to do everything we can to balance the budget and it does not necessarily include selling you know the district office so it's an asset I'd like to keep it at this point and I think that's the end of it for the next probably few years I'm guessing yeah and again thank you for bringing that up the history you know someone knocked on our door to purchase the property not just one person but two people did and then you're thinking you're putting

086your business hat on and this again this has nothing to do with the budget because we will have a balanced budget we have a strategy in place for the budget we have a strategy in place to replenish the fund balance so I feel extremely confident that we will succeed in that but when someone asks puts an offer of a million a million too on the table you got to think back and say okay what's the right use of that building can we put staff in other buildings that I think at that time the quest the answer was yes we could so then you're thinking okay why wouldn't we sell it it's no different than sitting on property over at the kinderbrook park on donors Bay where the community did not have an appetite to build

087a new school we didn't want to be in the land business so we went down the path of selling 15 16 acres and I'm pleased to see that there's two basements being built right now so there's homes coming in there yes we didn't get the price that we wanted but there's issues associated with that and I could go into reasons why that happened but again we got out of the land business so um and they're you know we don't know what you know six months from now a year from now um what that building holds maybe K4 will be in there who knows um I doubt that the community has appetite for a new school I would I would rather to Mr louth you mentioned this could be a four-track school here yeah that's probably

088going to happen before we build a new school so this comments for Mr stelson okay moving on to uh item nine new business discussion of possible action regarding return to school Mr stausel yep so just our um our twice a month report on the um kind of where we're at again these the numbers are just to give us an idea between the two weeks you can see that in all categories [Music] um the Burden rate has has gone up and again that's that's a trend uh in the in the area as well as um you know the every time we hear reports on covet numbers from the area superintendents as well is that they've just again uh February was low uh start of March was low then it started to pick up with with case

089numbers so it matches what we're seeing across the communities um this is our this is on our website the covet dashboard it's updated each week um this is what uh Tammy was talking about as far as kind of the our pupil counts with quarantine numbers um I know it's pretty hard to see from there but again it is on our on our website and it gets updated daily um so and then just a couple things you know to note Elementary the cases continue to occur Middle School cases continue to occur um and kind of repeating some of the things that Tammy talked about but you know at our our high school and in our Middle School we have spring activities that are becoming in full bloom and from everything from AP testing to to proms

090to um what else we have going on graduation is coming uh as well and the more we can keep our our kids safe and they can participate in all these events that's our goal with this and I do have Mr Farren here um if you would like to talk about anything related to some of these activities and and yeah we'll go from there different font today so uh as Sandy mentioned in those numbers the last three days have been the days that have hit us pretty hard so when those conversations about the mask come up I don't I don't like wearing a mask either I'm fully vaccinated I never got quarantined and now I'm not able to get quarantined which is awesome so because they have my two weeks beyond that but those numbers are

091going up and I just worry about especially you know we have the Aspire test for freshmen and sophomores on Wednesday and some of those kids got quarantined of course got off to a lot of the meat to try to make this list and the list is getting longer for the main update manageable yeah they can always opt out if they need to AP if we run into a major quarantine problem for that to be disastrous for those kids and they pay for those to get college credit so um do you want me to speak about events yeah okay so one events well one General comments I just got this an email to find out so at the end of semester one we're at 35 of our students who are virtual only and um more and

092more I think fell off at that time some for athletics at the beginning of semester two or 21 we just ended third quarter uh Wednesday started fourth quarter on Thursday Thursday and we were down to 17 virtual only so that number is trending in the right direction one of the things I want to make the board aware of and I talked to Mr stylson about this and I'll just be real Frank and honest this is a very disappointing thing that I want to share with the board I'll share it publicly because people know about it um last March April May we received emails from parents the class of 2021 about prom and they thought we should have still held prompt during pandemic we all long said we want to do right by this class we

093want to be able to do these things so Cindy Collins is our prom advisor I'll just speak specifically to the prom issue and has worked with the River Club in Mequon and so we had another date of November 14th of 2020 sleep not able to hold it at that time they held our deposit continued to move forward we what March 14th was the next day didn't meet that deadline so now we the prime committee had organized two props so for the administrative team and for the members that work it's a busy weekend we have Friday night is to be at the River Club with the class of 2021 because they didn't have their prop and then the next day so in the process of all this working through the financial piece and the River Club

094of Mequon has been awesome to us in dealing with them so I guess it would have been what is today Monday late last week we found out that there's a parent group of seniors since last 2021 that don't want to follow the provisions of masks distancing and have attained a location to run their own prompt um that's their prerogative but here is what I received from Mrs Collins in regards to the impact of that we have to meet a threshold for the amount of tickets sold the amount of money that is spent on that right now the sales because of the Friday night prom um aren't very high we won't meet that threshold uh they want to go do their own thing fine um I have all the emails in a folder of complaints um

095and my responses they responded every one of them about how we wanted to write by this class and they found a location Mr salsa and I was alerted who is and probably going to address that to make sure that they understand that this is not a school-sponsored from that they're really no liability to The District in regard to this if um and you can chime in because you know the you have email too if we're unable to meet the the threshold of students for a combination of Friday and Saturday it puts the Saturday problem the class of 2022 with Jeffrey where we would not be able to have the financial amount to do the uh so I'll be honest it's a public meeting it's unfortunate I believe it's selfish it's putting both classes in Jeopardy

096after all the work that went into trying to do this for both of them because they don't want to wear masks they don't want to socially distance they're making that choice but the impact is great to many others Mrs Collins has a meeting with the event manager from the River Club we've asked them to bend over backwards 20 times and they've been great she has a meeting on the 20th to discuss this we're in what what did I how many tickets have been sold like just a like under um yeah like 15. well so far yep um so this unfortunately has had a great impact and again they've decided to do it on their own I don't know yeah and tickets tickets sales and this this week middle of this week right um you know

097if it's stays where they're at I mean that the senior prom will go away for sure yeah that one is definitely in Jeopardy and I'll just there's a lot of bullet points here and Mr thousand has this is the board's interested any reported to them if you like but the second last bullet point is probably um the most pertinent that okay so some sign up for that and we aren't able to run the Friday we asked them if they want to go to Saturday now Sinners don't want to be with the Juniors like I thought we would offer that but here's the problem in order to host a standalone Saturday event the minimum would remain fifteen thousand dollars not including the gratuity and approximately 275 tickets will need to be sold to meet the cost

098for the night so originally we wanted a lower number we're going to be you know um it's important when we're officer board is there you know the venue um the dancing One's Gonna be outside and we had a perfect plan set up for that and so we're gonna limit you're using primes three to three ten and we're going to limit that so we would go higher 275 without a crystal ball I don't know how we're going to meet that amount so um we'll know more but I just want to make the board where this the severe unfortunate thing um a lot of work went into trying to to do this for both classes and it came out of our control in the sense that someone else went ahead and and wanted to do this so

099I don't know I'll Stand I think it's really disappointed I don't know if it gets feel bad for the adults that have worked on this yep no I'm just to the point we we did speak to the venue and let them know that this isn't and I that this isn't sponsored by us and I've also sent a letter that went out today to them so they're so they're aware um if it's okay and would ask Mr sales I would forward you this this is from our Prime advisor you'll see the details of it in here and he's you know it can become very quickly a PR nightmare because we had a plan in place personal choices any questions yeah well thank you for providing that Clarity when is the prom schedule what were the dates

100May May 7th and 8th yeah so it's okay we're going back to that and I'll just add this you know the greater Metro conference meeting in February it was it was virtual and I'll be honest because you know it's people know this um the conference principals knew that we would probably be the ones to to prom you know and they're all kind of and the same thing happened I know the Grafton principle from our time the North Shore conference and he said he had a similar experience in our short meeting like you guys really gonna do this you know and he said yeah I mean our community wants it just like ours so we conversed and they're actually doing the exact same thing next weekend Friday and Saturday so hopefully the weather will be fine

101for them but they're doing the same type of format I haven't connected with them recently but we did work with them they had some good ideas on how to do pod related things with the tables we had some ideas on how we had done things both at the River Club so they're going to do that as well so um we thought we had a good plan on place and we do have a good plan in place this was kind of an unforeseen time today so if if the parent group decides to do their thing that's beyond our control um then I think we're forced to combine both into one is that what you're saying yes and I don't know that we still would have enough what what is the gap what is the gap how

102much money are you looking for significant well we don't mean we don't know until the they sell the tickets but hey Bob can I make a suggestion I mean I've been involved with the problems for 14 years I went Mr farron and I were actual dates sometimes but I would make I would make a suggestion that uh Mr Farren and Mr sells and keep a surprise what's going on and this board would do everything they can to get this to go on in place and if we have to we'll take the money on a contingency fund and I don't care what the public says about that because a lot of this going into this is a lot of work and the behind the scenes and for this not to happen because the selfish group out

103there chose to do something on their own is not fair to the rest of the kids yeah and I agree 100 uh we're like-minded there and you got kids have to have problems and just like we had graduation I think again we were forward thinking on that we got it done uh got it done successfully and we could do the same for prom and what do you need to know when does your vendor need to know um by the 20th I believe the 20th and we have one more board meeting no 26 we do but you need to know beforehand you need to know that but we also have in place we also have in place that we if it's under ten thousand dollars they don't need it doesn't need board approval so I'm just

104wondering though ticket sales ticket sales end on Friday yep um all right you know I I'll he's been a part of the the process because of how it played out so we can continue yep yeah but what I'm what I'm getting at and I think Mr Ward will support this um because you need to know now we you can't wait for the next board meeting right now this is rather Broad in terms of return to school discussion and action we're we we're going to be talking about masks coming up soon but we could certainly entertain a motion for the prom kids need to have problem and if it's possibly capped at a a dollar amount it's not we've got precedent for doing this with other groups within District why not for the prom so I

105have two questions so are we talking ten thousand dollars and isn't there a class activity fund for every grade and so if there is why wouldn't we tap into then also supplementing with some of that senior class fund to offset since that was a decision that that class made um so yes they fundraise the major fundraiser starting freshman year is is for the prom if in your one gets canceled on Friday they'll lose their deposit of two thousand dollars class funds do not thousand dollars they typically have enough to pay for prom money for their senior bank but when their seniors and then they make a donation back to this so the amount I don't know the exact amount of how much class has and it's not that so the minimum for Friday night event

106is the Ten Thousand so seven seventy five dollars you know um a couple right so that was calculated to do that with you know with gratuity and then the minimum for Saturday night event because Saturday is just like the weddings are more expensive thousand so I can't I can't look at this and say how much we're going to need I can't I can't because we don't know how many have been sold you know if you're if you're at 20 kids that sign up for prom on Saturday we're not gonna have a problem with 20 kids so um I think some are waiting to see how this is going to play out I'm not engaging with the parents that organize this I just choosing not to I don't I I know the name of one it

107was more you know but I think they have they have to make a decision too right I think that was part of it is what we're told later today so um I just wanted to make you aware that you know more work is being done we're trying to do everything possible but you know Mr salzer wanted me to bring this up because it's really throwing the wrench of the plans of what we have for these students so I don't know you know I'm not sure what motion or you're going to get uh Clarity this week right yep okay um would next week be too late because I would have no problem having a board meeting next week I think what Mr Borden was saying is that if it's if it's Financial it's under 15 000

108it doesn't need to come to the board so I think what I'm hearing is that we would keep monitoring it and make some type of uh Common Sense decision perfect on on the on the prom and again if it's 20 kids that not but if we're if we're good number of kids are are attending then we'll make it happen okay and I'll just make a comment about the parents that are going down a different path and I don't want to judge them um I mean we've been dealing with this for the last year and with all the Sheltering in place um remote working with your kids next to your spouse next to you your dog barking a lot of things a lot of interesting things happen all you got to do is look at social

109media uh the outright hate that you see on social media that you see today the lying the misinformation that is spread um I think we just need to be nice to each other treat people the way we want to be treated um people want to wear masks people don't want to wear masks you see people wearing masks in cars you see people wearing masks cutting the grass you know when will that change summertime who knows you know so a lot of things going on there's a lot of stressors out there and we all do things why we want to do them and I just don't want to it is what it is you know I don't want to judge the parents on that I do have another question so what would the cancellation be or

110the fee for both canceling Friday and Saturday night I think it's two thousand and four thousand right 2000 Friday it might be 2 000 for each one because they they've helped they've allowed us to you know we we can't ask any more of them they've been great I understand and they could they could have said we you know we're gonna book a wedding you know and so they've done that so I can I can get the information of Mr Stylez on it you know Mr soderber dude to your point I'm not I'm not asking to be judgmental I'm just saying that the the problem is that this impacts will perform understands and when it impacts kids this is a building principal I understand I understand well and so that was my follow-up to that then

111if we're talking of either four thousand or six thousand for the cancellation fee then for the students who had wanted to go and have a prom could we do something at the PAC where even if we just order in pizza and they put on Tunes or do a movie or something you know so that those who truly wanted to attend a prom could still dress up and it's obviously not going to be the same but still give them some experience and we you know we we haven't had those discussions but that would be sort of The Next Step we're still remaining hopeful you know I'm not ready to give up hope yet it's Monday yeah until Friday um but yeah I'm hoping there's something we can do for them it's just we had you know

112the the kids are a problem committee they you know they work with the advisors on this and um we were excited about the plan and care you know that two nights in a row we had to work from 5 to 11 o'clock at night I didn't care you know I wanted to do this because you know they've missed out on it so um it's just become a lot more challenging in the last four days well I'm confident that like you've always done you always put the kids first and uh your team will come up with the right solution for the kids so thank you just wanted to make you any other questions nope okay so um a couple couple more things on this report and one the there there's these Ester dollars which is Elementary

113secondary emergency relief funding um right as of now um we're expected to receive about 1.1 million so far and I don't uh Miss altendorf has talked about it during her um the financial meetings and there are restrictions on what you can use that that money for the first round of Esther dollars we had about seventy five thousand dollars that came in and because of certain percentage goes to the private schools we end up with about 71 000 of that money the next round that has been publicized and it hasn't that have its official vote on it yet but we should get um roughly about 1.1 million that can support anything kind of covert related so that's that's good news uh for us the the second thing is um and my percentage is off after hearing

114Tammy's latest numbers of staff that has at least one shot we do we still are seeing positive cases you've heard that City still CDC is still recommending mass and as of today we've been in school about seven and a half months which back in August I thought we'd be shut down in September and that that didn't happen and there's literally 43 days of school days so we've we've come a long way and it's uh it's due to the support of our parents the support of our staff and our and our kids that got us to this point so that's all I have thank you um getting back to the um the dollars that were anticipating to receive the 1.1 million um that I'll send this link to the full board um but there you can

115see that when you look at the schools involved for all the schools in the state of Wisconsin are getting some dollars but um when you look at um schools like Milwaukee Public Schools are getting 795 million dollars don't quote me on that uh Racine Green Bay Madison are in the multi-million dollars and you look at Germantown that is five days in person those schools districts are not I've got a concern with that so I asked Mr stafflin a question last week should the board draft a letter to DPI I believe it's DPI um voicing Our concern and asking the question why why what's the rationality of justification on how you could give almost 800 million dollars to Milwaukee Public Schools when they didn't do in-person schooling and their kids are taking five ten steps back

116whereas Germantown we did in-person schooling of which is the right thing for the kids I want to know why and I would just ask this board to authorize a letter that all of us would sign and it would go to DPI are we okay with that yes yes yes yes I would support that Bob because you know what they that equates to per student that Milwaukee was getting like eleven thousand dollars per student the to provide failing education and I think for our district that amounts to like maybe a hundred and twenty three dollars a student so we delivered and they didn't and they're getting eleven thousand dollars a student I agree which I'm concerned about so I mean I don't get me wrong I welcome 1.1 million that's good news but I just want

117to understand what's the why and in the question so yeah okay thank you uh before we move on I would like to have a conversation relative to masks there's been a lot of um I guess data out there a lot of emails that came in on should we continue with masks and Tammy did a wonderful job on your presentation uh I get it but I also support the data too the the younger kids aren't getting sick and if we've almost got 89 percent of staff that are inoculated when will it be the two shots will it be two weeks it will be the full 89 two weeks from now or 30 days from now when will that be happy based on the data that I have most of them have more than the one shot

118they have two things you didn't complete this is not in date in the data that I have so that's my cause I have to resend out the link but that's 15 minutes okay thank you and I'm not saying that you know we need to Pivot at the high school or the middle school because I think that would be cause a lot of problem sir but I would like to have a discussion on the K-5 and the elementary schools maybe making it voluntarily certainly within the classrooms when you're in the Halls wearing a mask on the bus wearing a mask and if I don't feel comfortable I wear my mask so and if we don't want to have that conversation that's fine but there's been a lot of folks that don't want to wear masks the

119data supports that possibly you don't need to wear a mask but I just like to have start a conversation on that so well I'll float a motion to get the conversation going in it Tammy thank you for the information and I before the meeting I was looking at the totality of the year and where Elementary levels have been and so I would move that we approve making masks optional in the K-5 classroom but still utilize it in the hallway and on the bus effective May 3rd that way it would allow staff the opportunity if they did not have their second vaccination that they would have that and it would be optional whether the students or the teacher would wear the mask within the classroom okay drive a second all second debt okay discussion I have

120some questions here do we still have in our elementary schools for gym like the kids commingling in grades or did we not do that so like usually in gym class you have two two classes together being taught Jim right so you have four four grade class fourth grade by themselves they're all by themselves okay yep um my question to that is what is the difference of not wearing masks in the classroom but wearing them at halt in the hall when it's an Airborne disease because if they're wearing them in the hall but they're not wearing them in the classroom they're still putting it out in the air because they're not having their masks on well I guess they were a more controlled environment within your classmates maybe that's me I don't know but if they

121have their masks off in the classroom and they're putting them on before they're going out in the hallway then they aren't putting that out in the I understand that there's a ventilation system but even still okay they if masks theoretically work then if they're wearing their masks in the hallway yeah you know we just trained our K-5 kids to learn to wear masks and then now we're going to confuse them in the last 43 days to take it off and then we have an airborne disease we've changed the social distancing from six feet to three feet and we just came off a spring break I think we're going down a disaster Road I I think you know I would love to get I hate wearing them I absolutely hate wearing them I would love to

122get rid of them but I think right now we need to move forward for 43 more days until we get more of the people vaccinated um before we move this route just my opinion I think we were going to see numbers increase even more if we do this you know and then we're going to infect all these other people I just I just don't agree I think that's a that's a step backwards where we're trying to move forward and we're trying to get more people vaccinated I mean researches is now the studies are out there they're doing the trials for kids vaccinated for 12 and above we're having very good promising that it's actually almost 100 effective versus like an adult it's 94.5 and 95 effective that in kids it's actually showing 100 effective in

123that age group we have a huge amount of kids in the high school that are currently getting vaccinated for 16 above my health aide there is already keeping track of that records I just think that that's a huge step backwards and like Ray was saying we're going to start seeing a little bit of a spike now the thing with that is is kids that do have it don't necessarily have severe infection but again that doesn't mean that they can't spread it and it is Airborne so regardless if you have masks off in the classroom but you have them on in the hallway it's in the air regardless that air moves that circulation moves that air is going in in the hallway it doesn't matter either it's all or nothing it's got to be in that

124classroom those kids are jam-packed in there they're breathing on each other you know they're doing all of those things and a lot of the kids why they get it it's because their parents have it then the kids get it and they don't even know and then you're sending the kids to school that possibly have it and then you're starting it to all those other kids I just think that's a huge step backwards but we're not seeing the numbers though we're not that they were you we got to keep the masks on the kids like he was saying as well we did so good in all year we have 43 days left Why Stop Now I mean these these these little K5 kiddos that they do so good so good what let's not change their routine

125let's keep it as is it's a routine these kids thrive on routine let's keep that going and then let's revisit it before school starts next year because even our medical advisor I had multiple conversations with him hopefully by July July is what hopefully we're looking at more and more people are gonna be vaccinating kids hopefully by 12 and above maybe then by that time you're going to start doing uh trials with kids under 12. and maybe even by by fall we will have kids under 12 vaccinated and we won't need them at all for anywhere um Mr stelson do you have a sense from the schools of how the teachers would respond if we took away Mass I mean I'm hearing we're having trouble filling some of our substitute positions I wonder if that would

126get even worse if we didn't have masks at elementary level I mean I can't tell you for sure but I I don't think they'd be very happy I can tell you they're not going to be happy and um you know for some that was the knowing that we were supporting the mass all year is what kept them coming to work um I guess other piece is that we don't have data from parents saying I don't want my kid to wear a mask I don't I'm not we get I've had two people reach out um that don't want their kids to wear a mask and that's the same people have reached out all year since September where I've had more people especially when the governor's mandate was being lifted I had a lot more people reach

127out worried about that we would um you know that we would lift lift our our guidelines on that and um I just I don't I don't see the reason to remove them at this at this point and um you know especially at the elementary our teachers are very good about giving the kids mask breaks when they need them they're outside on recess they don't they don't need to wear them so they're it's not like they're on their face all day obviously when they have snack um it's often lunch so um again I just I'm not we're not getting a push from anywhere to remove the masks outside of two people so yeah well I'm getting a lot of emails a lot of calls um and again I'm a firm believer and following the science the

128data and I would agree with Mr Borden you know 43 days left why pivot now but I'll get back to the conversation that we had if not now when and you said summer I said okay why is summer why is that the magical time you know again we're going to have a higher percent that are vaccinated the more the vaccinated people we have the less the spread the less infection the more we can get rid of all these mitigation measures and we're actually further in our vaccination process in the country than I thought we would be to be honest with you I did not think we were going to be this far so that is huge and Wisconsin we are number one in the state for how we distribute our vaccines or number one in

129the country excuse me for how we distribute our vaccines and how quickly we get our vaccines and getting them in the arms of people so we are doing fantastic I just asked give us those last 43 days let's keep going as we are let's get past this at the end of the year let's throw them in the garbage and move on and be ready for fall I know there's been a handful of school districts in the state that have pivoted already yeah and it'll be interesting to see what happens in those districts Brian yeah I'm willing to wait the 43 days I have no interest in taking away the mass at this point I think we can hold out at least that gives us the opportunity that anybody who wants to be vaccinated by the

130end of summer you'll have the opportunity to be vaccinated and then you can open the floodgates as far as I'm concerned but let's get to that point first Mike May 3rd is not 43 days I don't know what the number of days is but it's not 43. yeah from today so it's not 43 days it's 43 school days for 33 days it's 25 I don't know I haven't looked at the calendar but it's not 43 days the other thing Tammy you said uh that a parent could have coveted and then send their student to school with it wouldn't aren't the parents uh quarantining their children when they get it themselves and they're not sending a lot of times is it take it know that Corvette's there so your most infectious time frame is 48 hours

131before symptoms even start so that's your most infectious time frame so if you have a parent who starts developing symptoms on a Friday their most infectious time is Wednesday and Thursday so in the most spread is within their own household so those kettles have been really exposed to those parents that whole time and especially those 48 hours before the parents even started symptoms so say the parents didn't even start symptoms till Friday night those kids were exposed Wednesday Thursday Friday parents started to get sick on Friday then they developed like really deep symptoms on Saturday got tested on Sunday still didn't know they had covered kids are still okay at this point because again from the time of exposure it takes six to seven days to actually develop symptoms to know that you have an

132infection those kids probably went to school on Monday because parent probably could have thought I'd just have a cold or it could be just the allergies or whatever well now the parents after test results Monday or even Tuesday when symptoms started last week Friday and they were most infectious last week Wednesday or Thursday so those kids were in school for almost a full week while they were exposed so that's where that all comes from and how that works so that's why those kids are still in school could be developing the infection nobody has a clue and then could possibly start develop symptoms themselves Thursday and Friday because that's been about a week since their exposure and that time frame they were in school exposed to everyone else on that Tuesday Wednesday when they were most

133infectious and nobody even knew it was great discussion and you can't have discussion without a motion on the table so uh a man will learn to pull it back if you'd like yeah I wanna I wanna hear from all the board members because there's a lot of passion associated with this I you know he you know I I don't want to wear a mask but uh I I do it I don't try to judge people I'm very respectful of that um but you know and I applaud these school districts for going down this path and I think more and more schoolers that do that I think you're going to see a paradigm shift in our in our our state in our nation not unlike what you're seeing in return to return to work in in

134the business World um it just takes that one person to go the next step and so I I'm not going to criticize for those school districts for going on that path but I welcome the conversation here I welcome everyone's opinion it's uh Mr board 43 days I get it I understand amen I feel the same way I mean we are so close to the end right now would the kids like to get rid of it yes would I like to get rid of it yes but quite frankly it's working let's just finish the school year out where everybody's healthy and if we're truly up here for the kids then that's what our job is to do make sure they are safe and healthy in the classroom so they can enjoy their summer great Mr Barney

135yeah we need to get we need to get them to the end of the year I mean we're we're right there um and if keeping the mask on is the way to do it you know I don't like it either but I think that's the best way to keep them in the class um and to those districts that may have removed the mass mandate I think a lot of those did so because they were specifically linked to the state mandate so once a state mandate went away so did their school mandate for us it's been based on risk mitigation and CDC recommendations that's why we still have it and along with that I mean what are their class sizes what are their school sizes right are those small rural areas and and we have large

136class large schools we have a lot of kids in one building so we have to keep all of those kids and staff safe yep Michael yeah again it's not 43 days but um you know we're discussing this with an engineer you know who knows math so it's not 43 days but um another item is is it takes a second to truly discuss the issue you know it's not just the first it's a second otherwise it dies so that's why I made the second um and I believe the motion was for optional so my understanding is is in the schools where uh it's optional many of the students are still wearing the masks so I think uh most students probably would wear them K through five and and there would be just a handful of students

137which of course we couldn't control but there would be just a handful of students that would not wear them let's say those that just can't take it so I don't know that's that's all I have yeah thank you the motion was for K through five and it doesn't appear that there's appetite to Relax The Mask requirement so Mrs Larson I'm happy to rescind it there you go all right again thank you for the conversation uh I think we needed to have this conversation for the benefits of Staff our students and our parents so that everyone knows where we are at in terms of at least for the next 43 days of the school year so I sure hope that you know and you know the summertime that's where a lot of the work gets done

138uh you know what's going to happen when we have these conversations we're not there yet we're not there yet so let's hope let's hope we are there let's hope we're there so but again Tammy thank you so much uh for for presenting eloquently like that you are a true professional so thank you very much thank you I appreciate your time thanks guys okay thank you Mr stausel and anything else on return to school nothing are you sure I'm positive okay next topic all right Item B discussion and action to approved ordinations Mr salsman yes I'd ask the board to approve the donation of 200 from Abigail and Scott Schmitz to the high school environmental Club entertain a motion so move it second thank you discussion yes yes discussion yes sir um it was the environmental

139Club presented at uh County Line school and they did ask for donations at that time and um part of what they presented that evening was re-roofing using students to do the work so they were buying the building materials and uh Mr staholiak and students were going to do the work so this is really the best type of education uh there is you know Hands-On work so that really there's a question though I have it's been a long time since I donated to the school system other than you know serving on the school board um how does I see Abigail and Scott Schmitz have stepped up possibly they have a student in the environmental Club how how does a citizen donate in this case two hundred dollars to the environmental Club yep good question so really

140we'll take anybody's money anyway right so if they if if they you know reach out to the the specific teacher they could donate or they could um get a get a hold of myself or Jane in the district office and say we'd like to to make a donation to this group and then they they bring in a check and then we we bring it to the board if it's over uh 200 it's um it's brought to the board for approval it's also they need to come in or just mail it in they can mail it in they could call that they're sending it or they could just send it with a note and we will make sure it gets to the right location okay okay good good question further discussion saying none all those in

141favor please say I I oppose that motion carries uh item 10 closed session the board of educational energy and a motion to compete in closed session persuade two sections 1985 one F to discuss a student issue entertain a motion I move we go into closed session for the reason stated second uh discussion no discussion we'll call please Amendment yes those yes boarding yes myself yes reinman yes Larson yes sadderberg yes we're in closed session at 901 and thank you everyone for coming and have a wonderful evening and be safe