001it is 702 I'm calling the Germantown Board of Education meeting to order if you'll please join me stand if you're able in the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence official meeting notification yes public notice of all meetings has been given by communication from the superintendent's office to the public to those news media who request this notices into the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Northwest now Express News and West Bend Daily News public notice has also been posted in schools throughout the district and on the gsdwi.org website as well as cable access Channel 96. thank you Bronco Medved here Barney here reinemann here Soderbergh loaf here Borden is absent excused Pollock here thank you approval of the agenda motion approve the agenda second any discussion just for reference under 3A the student representative report she's not
002able to make it so we will press that one a lot and you've heard the discussion see you've done all those in favor aye that passes reports we're going to 3B Amy Bell School presentation yes I'm going to introduce their principal um Mrs Cole and they have some second graders that are going to talk to us this evening we'll see if this works good evening everyone I have some of our second grade students here to talk to you about a service learning project that they did in January so I'm going to turn it over to RaeLynn and to Annie to explain to you about their project hi we're raylen and Annie from Amy Bell Elementary our school has a little lending library we started it after learning about Martin Luther King Jr and how he
003helped the communities we started it because not everybody has a lot of books and people get to find new books and first we got the donations then we stamped them with a little lending library stamp after that we made posters then we had more books to stamp then we put the books in our little lending library kids can bring books power borrow books and keep the books we get our books at lunchtime and we can take one book a day they don't have to keep the book but they can um do you guys have any questions you guys did an outstanding job we appreciate what you're doing here we like having our students come before us and tell us what they're working on this is a great project you guys put together and it's much
004appreciated we like the fact that students get a chance to read more that's a good a good outcome for you guys so thank you anyone else if yeah I was gonna say it's probably if anybody has any books that they would like to get get rid of can they still donate thanks send them to Amy Amy I'm wondering how many books did you collect thank you we're always looking for more fourth and fifth grade level books we don't get enough of those all right great job ladies thank you thank you thank you thank you [Applause] okay moving on item C leadership Germantown Germantown High School Green Space Greenhouse project yes um I'm going to introduce Miss Jamie Ludovic she's part of the leadership Germantown and happens to be on the same committee that I am
005and she's planning to talk about the the project I think you have the there was the handout in the packet um as well so there you go yes thank you for having me so as you are aware the superintendent is actually a participant as well this year in our leadership Germantown group so there is a report in your packet I'm not going to recap it for you but we did just want to come here tonight as representatives of leadership Germantown to make sure that you were aware of the work that we were doing and that it's consistent with I know you had had some prior discussions at the building committee when the greenhouse was originally presented to you and as we've been getting into the project a little bit we have taken a step back
006and really wanted to plan the full scope and the full budget that we feel like this project will really take so on Wednesday there is a master plan that is being put together with a representative of your committee because we talked early on that one of our goals was to make sure that you as a board had good information had all of the information and were able to make an informed decision about what that space looks like going forward so we are planning to have that meeting on Wednesday night and then following that meeting either the superintendent or one of us will bring that back to the building committee and kind of the results of that as we put forward a plan for making that green space accessible so that is sort of the status
007of where the project is at but wanted to make sure it was on your radar and if you have any questions about the project or the work that we're doing as we go along we're able to answer those for you so I know I'm here and superintendent's here and we'd be happy to answer any questions if you have them now or look forward to making this project a success in full disclosure to that representative is me yeah and that meeting's on Wednesday with Excel engineering and they're you know part of in Phase One the board approved kind of the concept and like a lot of things there was many um smaller important things that had to be done before you can just put a greenhouse there from acts from you know things related to code
008and access and drainage and all those things so that's that's what part of the the plan is and I think one of the pieces as far as being leadership Germantown is that we we're hoping for kind of line by line item of of things to go for example like uh all the Shrubbery and trees tree old trees need to come out of that space so instead of paying someone for that we're look hoping to leverage people in the community to do those things so it's truly Community project versus just a school project just for further reference can either one of you describe what leadership Germantown is for those at home I know most of the school district gets an opportunity to go through leadership here in town but just for the people out there that
009don't know what you guys do huh yeah and I wrote this in the report in your packet no now you're putting me on the spot that was a couple weeks ago um I guess the way that I like to think about it is you know leadership Germantown I think has a couple different emphasis emphasis um one is education so it takes potential Talent local talent and puts them through a program that educates them about the community so there's a school district day there's a county day there's uh we've been at JW speaker for a day we were at Gale Foods so you really do the history side of it was really interesting so you really do kind of get that full immersion into the Germantown Community which is something that I live here right while
010I live in Richfield but my kids go to Amy Bell or go to Amy Bell you just heard from my daughter and we really haven't gotten that type of information because we didn't grow up here so there's the education then there's the there's kind of leadership training piece of it every week or every month we get that get the leadership training within our groups and then kind of the third component which is really the community project with the idea that we're growing the leadership talent and the networking community of Germantown to continue to give back and to serve in leadership capacities like the school board or like the July 4th committee that's the village is organizing and you're drawing that local Tale in your community so I know the school board has been a tremendous
011supporter both by sending their leadership through the program but also I know the school board members do the program and I I think it's it's really great and I know I'm definitely referring additional people from the county where I work and also my friends into the program because I really think it shows a need for volunteerism in the community that you might not otherwise see very good well you didn't need notes for that thank you yeah you're welcome thank you thanks okay item D technology department update yes Mr Baumgartner is going to present a few items related to technology all right thank you I have a number of items enough data is what is going on with technology in Germantown School District it's been a pretty busy year for us uh I'd like start off
012with Smart Boards um we have uh the smart boards across the district are aging uh the oldest one that I found a purchase order for was from 2008 and I think it's possible that that one is still in service today um and so what I would have been looking forward or trying to do is create a replacement cycle to get something that's a little bit more sustainable a lot of these old boards are 4x3 display so they don't even match the widescreen displays that our current devices have been having for the last decade we do have 67 new displays most of them were put in via the referendum so these would be the new like touch screen television style displays as opposed to the projector and like mat board that is uh um up in
013place now we do have some PT involvement to help us accelerate uh replacement of these smart boards but I would like to focus on the district providing these teaching tools to the teachers on a sustainable cycle some sort of program where we are budgeting for that and putting them in place despite their never being a replacement cycle budget before doing some research I had initially expected the new touchscreen TV displays to be more expensive but that's not really the case the aforementioned 2008 po the entire package with the projector as well as the mount and the board itself was pretty close to three thousand dollars which is about what a current display costs and we also had the additional cost of roughly three to four hundred dollar bulbs that went down in price over the
014years that did need to be replaced every few years so there were additional costs that these these televisions displays won't have we went through a gallery walk in October where we invited a multitude of vendors to come in and you know show us their particular brand of smart board well and it wasn't it's not smart but it's interactive display the smart brand ultimately was the one that we chose for the elementary schools despite it being more expensive part of that is quality control part of that is integration with some of our existing software a lot of our elementary teachers use Smart Notebook which is a proprietary program that interfaces directly with the smart brand interactive boards and then I've also been beginning talks with the high school department by Department about what sorts of devices
015are appropriate for what they're teaching because it might not be an interactive display and we want to put the appropriate teaching tool into place there so I've been working through as I write my budget for the next year I'll be hopefully being able to write in some more replacement for some of these uh smart displays district-wide Elementary all the way up in school and then be able to provide some sort of sustainable year-by-year budget year by year replacement of these devices in the class room I don't know if you have any questions on that particular item all right as a part of this um one question how many uh how many of the smart boards are we looking to replace we have a total of all of the different models including the new TVs we
016have a total of 229 of those devices district-wide we're looking to do them all at once or no um we had 67 of those are currently displays we have through some building funds and through some PTA participation we'll be replacing another 11 this year and then uh uh roughly double that looking next year between what I'll be able to contribute for my budget as well as some additional PTA dollars okay it is entirely possible that we will need to try to find more budget in order to get it onto a replacement cycle that would be sustainable estimating for the life cycle of these devices we're looking at trying to replace them one every 10 to 13 years if we were to replace them all every 10 years every device in the district we're looking at
017about ninety thousand dollars total yearly so there'll be an annual expenditure for a 10-year replacement cycle okay thank you you're welcome as a part of this particular process looking at alternative methods from just a touchscreen TV was brought up and so we looked at a regular display you know commercial style display within like an Apple TV and an iPad so you still would have the touch capability and what that does is it allows the teacher to move around the room they're not tied to either their computer or standing in the front of the room they can be standing in the back they can hand the device to a student Waukesha school district has about 900 setups like this in place Julia Leeson and I went and visited one of their middle schools to see it
018in action and talk with the teachers it's a very interesting model and we have three setups like that that will be coming into the district later this spring or for the the beginning of next year so we're going to try to Pilot that in a couple of different places and you know do some targeted professional development and see how we can integrate that into the classroom it does come in at a more budget-friendly cost the cart and TV and Apple TV is about 2 000 and then you have the cost of an iPad which is about 300. and while the iPads you need to replace a little more regularly that still comes in at the less than the about 3 200 that a whole smart display comes in installed in the classroom the biggest advantage
019of that in my opinion is that different mode of teaching whether the teacher isn't just standing at the front of the classroom but this is something that I would like to get in the hands of teachers and get feedback from them on before we try to Institute you know some sort of wide scale program um the next thing up uh is just an update we have our Chromebook refresh this the current group of Chromebooks that is going to be going back on our lease is also the same year that we bought all of our kindergarten through fourth grade devices as well so while our normal Chromebook Refresh on lease is about 650 devices a year for Fifth and ninth grade this one is 1520. so this is our largest point of time in the lease
020so we do so I went out I wrote the RFP and I've got all of the bids back from that and my next step will be going back out and getting lease quotes from leasing agents for that we did take the opportunity to talk to the kindergarten through fourth grade to make sure that the devices that we're putting in the classrooms are appropriate that we're spending our technology dollars in an appropriate fashion for what is being what is happening in those grades we are doing some minor tweaks that's you know putting in some more iPads instead of Chromebooks at the lower grade levels and then actually more Chromebooks in some of the second grade rooms instead of iPads so we're making a little bit of change in some of those areas and that's pretty that's
021budget neutral is the way that those changes have been orchestrated another large-scale project that's been on is our phones our district-wide phone systems need replacement we have an iwatsu system that was put in 12 or 13 years ago iwatsu hasn't sold telecommunications equipment in the United States since 2015 and at our elementary schools the phone lines are on their plain old telephone systems so copper lines which is the FCC said the companies can start sunsetting those in 2017. so we're moving towards a district-wide unified phone system so instead of having to dial a full number in between buildings it will all just be extensions and it's a single telephone system that RFP went out in January I just had a vendor walk through from interested vendors on Thursday that went very well I had a
022lot of good questions I've got five vendors that I've been working with that I expect to see quotes in from them by April 1st so I have an April 1st deadline for that RFP um you know this is a project that is projected to cost somewhere between 160 and 200 000 I worked with Brittany to make sure that we have the budget dollars associated with that for the future and so then I'll be bringing um those numbers and those bids to the board in the future the rest of my timeline so I have April 1st by 2 pm is the deadline for the RFP we'll be conducting vendor interviews after that with the intention of choosing a proposal to bring to the school board on the May 9th board finance committee looking to approve that
023at the future at the May 23rd board meeting notified the vendor start installation of the system this summer with a July 22nd completion date so then we should be able to start the school year with our new phone system in place as far as a change goes for the staff it's mostly going to be just a strict upgrade dialing extensions in between different buildings there will have to be some extension extension changes because of that but for the most part it's a phone system and pretty much any modern system is going to be doing what Germantown is looking for it to do I don't know if you have any questions about that yes sir have you considered and I really don't know the terminology I think you probably know more than I do but my
024company we dumped all of our our landline phones and went internet-based IP addressable and we're using teams everybody's got an extension I can make phone calls on my computer on my smartphone Etc and that would cut down mobile phone charges going forward as well and did you look at that absolutely so most of those cloud-hosted systems charge by line and because we have a phone in every single classroom that ends up not being particularly cost effective for us you know the return on investment is uh you know we would be spending our that entire budget in two to three years I do have one of my five vendors is a cloud hosted system that does charge by concurrent call load so our projected concurrent calls district-wide is about 60. that would be going outward and
025so this is the only Cloud hosted company that offers something similar to that it does come as at a fairly significant increase in cost and I don't have any bids in hand yet so I can't do a direct cost comparison but from the estimate that I have for from them versus the estimates that I've done we'd be looking at a negative return on investment starting in about year seven and we've been using our existing phone system for 13 years so it does come with some advantages such as a consistent cost year over year rather than every X number of years replacing the phone system at a rather large expense but all of that is going to be end up cons will be considered when we uh look at the different bids and choose a vendor
026but yes okay thank you anyone else all right next update is print and copy in the fall the school board requested a look into print and copy and you know kind of do a deep dive into that and it has been a very interesting year in print and copy for for us we've had a lot of changes from last year we went from two copy centers down to one so you know we're running half the production machines we have half the Staffing there we've also had multiple changeovers in staff so you know we went we didn't have retain any of our copy staff from last school year we had a new copy person in that started in August and worked for essentially one month until the that employee moved into a new position and we
027have had a second employee in since then a factory fire in Japan limited toner supplies so there were significant periods in November and December where our production machine didn't have any toner and all of the printing had to be done from walk-up copy machines and so since that time teachers have had unlimited printing we had been restricting their printing to a print budget every single month I opened that up when we didn't have production machines to print off of and then monitored those overall print numbers you know continuously from that time just just kind of see where are we at you know does does printing increase and what I found is that the overall printing didn't increase we did see an uptick in color printing particularly at the elementary schools and then a couple of
028weeks ago I did a deep dive into all of those numbers and to see you know what what is happening with the teacher printing I spoke in the fall and talked about the math textbooks how we don't we aren't really using math textbooks they're printing out worksheets and they're doing they're creating their math textbook on the Fly and so out of my top teacher print users the vast majority of them were the math department as I kind of would have expected something like that the question ended up being you know with the technology that we have with the Chromebooks why have our printing costs not gone down and that's been for a variety of reasons uh one of those reasons is uh you know we we're we got a delay on our bridges workbooks for
029some of our grade levels for some of our schools so we are printing all of those worksheets that we normally would have purchased paper workbooks for um other areas of concern are you know just you know what what did what are we using these paper copies for and so when I kind of dove in and I looked and I saw in the top 10 of my print users I had two of my best schoology users so two of my best Chromebook technology users were among the highest print users in in our district and I was like well that's interesting why why might that be so I went and I talked to them and I found out what they were printing um so you know one of them is chemistry equations and you know our Chromebooks
030don't have touch screens you can't draw on them you can't write on them and so when you're balancing chemistry equations a Chromebook is not an efficient device for doing that for doing that kind of work another one was a social the other one was a social studies teacher and some of you know and they're drawing graphs and again the Chromebook isn't really an appropriate device for drawing graphs other areas are printing out of packets where you know it'll be on page one is a sheet that they're reading and then page two is a worksheet that they're filling out and so to be able to flip back and forth in between you get multiple tabs multiple screens between the Chromebook and a piece of paper pages one and two are on your Chromebook but page three
031is a piece of paper in front of you and then back to page four on the Chromebook isn't an efficient way to run a classroom and so when I go when I went and I did this deep dive and I talked to these teachers a lot of it is really very Justified printing which I thought was very interesting to me and that's kind of sparked some internal conversations in the department about where we need to go with the technology are there software programs are there other technologies that we need to look into and so we'll be investigating that but when I did this dive into what our teachers printing they're teaching they're printing very appropriate materials for their classroom and then I had the opportunity to speak with Mr Varney and kind of give him
032kind of that deep inside look into that yeah I was one of the most vocal people the last time we did a paper purchase just wondering why after having a device in every kid's hands we weren't seeing any reduction in number of pages and maybe it was bad information given to us maybe it was just bad assumptions maybe on my part or other other people but I kind of thought well if we have a device in their hand we don't need to print as much but it I appreciate the the Deep dive that you did on this and we're seeing yeah it's a lot of worksheets whether you're working out chemistry formulas or working out math problems you're not going to show your work on a screen it's it just has to be done on
033paper I get that so I appreciate it you're welcome um we do have one more year left on our print contract and I do plan on kind of trying to revamp How We Do how we handle print budgeting print allocation in the future and you know what is the right print structure for Germantown and that will come with a full RFP for printing on school year I don't know if there's any other questions regarding print copy excellent um just some some notes uh looking forward for some of the the future projects that are on our plate uh we'll be replacing the wireless access points at Rockfield County Line and ghs next year um those are starting to age out and reach the end of their life those are wireless access uh for connecting the Chromebooks
034and teacher laptops too so that is an e-rate purchase that I'll be bringing to the board in April administrative laptops will be up for Renewal as well we have a new thing is multi-factor authentication is a cyber security initiative largely by the insurance industry so we'll uh at we'll be having to implement that in some fashion and I'm working with them right now to figure out exactly what that looks like for Germantown I do know that at the very bare minimum like our administrative staff and anybody that has access to secure data is going to need to have some form of multi-factor authentication involved in there so we're working on implementing it at the highest level in the very near term and then that will figure out how far down we're going to have to
035go with with the MFA in the future um and then so not on this next year's budget we'll have a the secretarial computers which we bought out last year and we're getting two more years of use out of them at least are going to be up for replacement as well as some of our normal student laptops and then the other large project that I was made aware of that we're gonna have to do is we have a 112 hike vision cameras in our security camera system and genotech which is our camera management software will be no longer supporting that brand of camera starting in 2025 so we'll be having to replace those 112 cameras by 2025 and so that's another large scale project that I'll be digging into more this summer in terms of how
036that's going to be structured and how we're going to get those replaced in the coming years and that's all that I have any further comments questions appreciate the update yeah nice job again on the paper digging in the how we're using our paper that's very helpful we appreciate you digging into that for us no problem thank you okay moving on to item four citizen comments we have quite a few people signed up tonight um we will go with the three minutes tonight as well um and just a reminder a friendly reminder that comments may not be harmful to school district Personnel or other individuals that will not be allowed um I will call the first name and the person on Deck Scott hepley and then Ellen godrey Scott hopley Germantown time as usual three comments
037today first of all budget feel Deja Vu like I did last year when I knew we had limit ability for Revenue we had costs and now the costs are increasing it I don't want to say an exponential amount but inflation has come you know rearing its ugly head so you know we had a balanced budget last year it was balanced I think everybody agreed on that then we started adding things like a PE floater and now we're adding Athena students these are all costs for adding on that were unbudgeted for that going forward you'll have to figure in the budget how are you going to make that happen in the budget when you're facing a deficit 1.5 1.6 2 million whatever it is last year I think we did about 2 million in reductions do
038we want to do that again it looks like we're going to do that again why 13 open enrollment seats I remember back in the day there was 25 or 30 maybe even more now we have 13 no special ed ads maybe it's budgetary I don't know those are Revenue that we're not we're not seeing that Revenue coming in it won't but our schools are the largest they've ever been the most capacity they've ever been but we're not adding students we're waiting and hoping that the state fails us out I would not wait around for that I wouldn't count on that so I know it's early million and a half million two million you know we took we gave we gave the staff a raise out of fund balance which we can't do again and you
039know what this staff deserves a raise if anyone deserves a raise it's the teachers what I would have done is taken the money we're spending on it feeding the students and give the teachers a raise okay and they deserve three four five percent whatever we can give them they deserve because they've been forced to learn how to teach differently they've been learned they've been forced to learn how to Virtual teach which they never had to do they've they faced a lot of adversity and we deserve to reward them as much as we can that's that's that's the first part curriculum I did watch the candidate forum for West Bend a number of you were up there and they talked about the 2016 listening sessions that happened in the high school I was there I listen
040to everything guys that was 2016. we're talking about the Germantown way six years ago we still don't have anything to measure the Germantown way and I know Tracy's working on it and I know Chris is working on it but six years is a long time to wait to not have any answers about what path we're going along so please find a way to get on a path and I'd hope for a report from Chris or Mr styles on every month hey this is what we're working on I'd really appreciate if we got a report from Mr lamb once in a while what are you working on I think everybody deserves to know and that includes baselines for performance measuring staff baselines for the district the final thing I'll say is I was really happy to
041see leadership Germantown up here presenting a project which I think is tremendous I've been involved with leadership Germantown this will be my 13th year I went through the class 20 years ago one of the first people and a number of you almost all of you have been through the class two and it's a tremendous asset to the community thank you thank you Ellen and then Gene Mary hello Ellen goldtry Germantown I'm here to speak in regard to the new principles contract that you will be voting on today for KMS I currently have a son that attends KMS and two kids that will be attending KMS in less than two years so I feel like I have a vested interest in this topic I have taken a close look at Jessica's resume and there are some
042pretty significant red flags that I feel simply cannot be ignored more specifically Jessica is the current Avid teacher and site coordinator for instruction for to 7th and 8th graders at North Middle School in Menomonee Falls she also notes for her resume that as part of her instructional leadership she created implemented and led staff trainings and professional development in the areas of equity and Avid instructional strategies and engagement she has also attended Abba training attended the Avid National Conference and organized and facilitated numerous Avid related strategies in the school in fact Avid has mentioned 19 times in her resume Avid stands for advancement via individual determination as part of my own personal research I came across an avid professional development and learning session that was presented to teachers at an in-service and I can say with
043100 certainty that Avid is nothing more than another buzzword for CRT and SEL it states that Avid has developed two culturally relevant teaching strands for educators to participate in culturally relevant teaching is abbreviated as CRT in the presentation the first strand is culturally relevant teaching transforming educators this strand is designed for Avid administrators site coordinators Avid elective teachers and site team members who are ready to work with their sites to conduct self-examination and address issues of race class gender sexual orientation and accountability through a growth mindset The Strand will provide a framework of effective methodologies that validate the cultures of all students in the classroom and on the campus these research-based strategies will enhance the site's curriculum and help students make relevant learning connections to increase subject matter comprehension after attending this strand participants will
044understand how to create multi-dimensional lessons while incorporating rigor for various learning styles come ready to engage with colleagues in community building activities and critical conversation around race gender class sexual orientation ability and language as well as other culturally relevant topics all designed to equip participants with practical strategies for transforming Educators in our classroom schools and districts the second strand is culturally relevant teaching empowering students it states that the cultural ethnic linguistic diversity of our students brings value and assets to our classrooms and communities this strand brings Educators together to explore strategies and lessons that help Empower students through examination validation and celebration of their own and other cultures this trend welcomes all students and District staff and provides a forum for everyone to collaborate around equity and culturally relevant practice and support of our students
045I could go on but I think you get the picture many of us here have fought tooth and nail to keep CRT out of our schools and I implore each of you to decline the contract for Jessica Guerin as she is not the right fit for dream or tone we the parents do not want a woke CRT activist leading our middle school thank you for your time thank you Gene and then Carol Mary Jean Mary Germantown I've learned that we now have another concept with which to contend it's called Avid Advanced advancement via individual determination which appears to be largely another wrapper for CRT and SEL among its goals the Avid website lists cultural Equity social and emotional learning and creating social justice Warriors it also appears to push college at the expense it would
046seem of students who are not going to have a university education we do not send children to school to be indoctrinated politicized or become social justice Warriors our goal is to have future Generations educated that means a solid focus on academics so when we hire teachers and administrators does someone make sure that the goals of those professionals are in line with the goals of the parents of this District the community and the taxpayers does someone make sure that the training and past experiences of those candidates reflect the values of our parents and the community it seems to me that would be the first and foremost qualification for any new hire if anyone applies for a position in our district with a resume that does not resonate with parents wishes that suggests one of three things
047they did not do their homework and will face an uphill battle if hired they have been assured they can ignore that what parents are desire after they are hired or they intend to carry out their agenda of indoctrination surreptitiously none of those vote well thank you Carol and then Cheryl redlick good evening to all of you my name is Carol Mary I live in Germantown I'm also a County supervisor and a good part of Germantown is my district I just wanted to say that my wife and I've been coming to your meetings here for probably about the last year or so we've heard a lot of discourse here a lot of conversation you've been talked to a lot you've been screamed at a few times a lot and I can't imagine what you get for
048emails or telephone messages in your own personal systems but the one thing I haven't heard enough of is this public and the people who write the letters and the people I'm sure who communicate with you they don't say thank you and so tonight I just wanted to come as one elected official to another elected official on behalf of the citizens of Germantown thank you could thank you you're welcome [Applause] Cheryl and Kelly Beckler Cheryl Rutledge Germantown Force policies like masking quarantining and testing yet the Wisconsin State statutes and federal laws our legislatures never gave them this power along these same lines I'd like to address student fees yes you have a board policy that states the board can Levy certain charges to students to facilitate adequate appropriate learning materials used in the course of instruction
049however no school board policy can be in violation of Wisconsin State statutes or its Constitution Wisconsin Constitution Article 10 Section 3 grants students a free education and Limits The Authority to assess fees except under limited circumstances State statutes Grant the school board power to purchase textbooks and sell them to students at cost you are also granted the power to purchase necessary books stationary equipment school apparatuses and materials it's been about 48 years since student fees have been addressed in case law so case law Board of Education versus Sinclair in 1974 the court concluded that public schools may sell or charge fees for books and items of a similar nature when authorized by state statute without violating the rights to free education the court also concluded that any course that is credited for graduation or is
050even or is not required for graduation must be provided without charge and user fees if permitted by Statute are constitutional the Attorney General concludes that article 10 Section 3 does not prevent imposing reasonable fees or charges such as expenses not included in the definition of tuition and this is important if authorized by state statute the court also concluded that similar items not specifically contemplated in but the same nature in the sense of being individually used needed to be furnished free such items as gym suits and towels and band instruments would fall into this individual use category and that pens pencils and eight notebooks and paper customarily furnished by students from their own use in pursuing a course are not within the free Provisions the court stated that school boards must take great care to ensure
051that any user fees are legally authorized per DPI fees when permitted by Statute must be supported by the actual cost of the provided service for example a general fee like registration of 55 or 75 dollars per student to cover miscellaneous school supplies would not be legal however if the evidence supports that such child receives at least that amount worth of school supplies that would otherwise be provided by the parent the fee is allowed I'm not buying specimens for honors biology or anything like that when I asked miss altendorf this fall what was included in the registration fee she stated consumables I asked for a spreadsheet with the associated cost and she stated she didn't have that this is unlawful when I acquired with DPI they worked with Brittany and after having to provide the exact
052classes my kids were in she still took several weeks to provide a simple list and some without cost regarding Elementary thank you I'm not done yet a recorder for all fourth graders um was not included she stated that high school has other fees this is very important technology fees according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction are unlawful if a district requires students to require and use technology then such fees should not be permitted under the current law per DPI Chromebooks and any other software would be considered a teaching apparatus and thus by State Statute must be provided without charge per the State Financial Services team um I recommend that you go back to allowing a high school supply list that parents can buy the needed items Germantown is assessing fees on 45 of their
053non-ap courses Menomonee Falls Mequon things feels Sussex Hartford have zero course fees I challenge all fees that are not explicitly granted by State Statute and ask you to ensure fees are within the authority granted to you by State Statute before you vote on them tonight thank you Kelly and then Sarah Larson good evening Kelly betcher Richfield um so I haven't been here for a few months life kind of happened as all of you know I chose to pull my children from Public School this year because of all of The Strife that has gone on in the Germantown School District so after the last year of fighting for no CRT for all of the things that we fought for I was incredibly disheartened to find that the school district was even considering entertaining a candidate for
054PR for principal that was a proponent of all of the things that we have so vocally fought for the last year I'm pretty sure we have all sent a very thorough message as to what we would like to see happen why I mean do you guys like to fight I I don't understand why this is even being entertained because we are we're begging you to not bring these into our schools month after month yet we continue to bring it back I would love to be able to put my children back into public school and not have to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year but if they're going to get a better education outside of the public school that isn't going to indoctrinate them then I will do that because that is what's best
055for my children I will make the sacrifices necessary to do that but please stop bringing these people into our school district we have been very clear as to what we want and don't want our tax dollars pay for this because our next fight is going to be to make sure that the tax dollars follow the student to the school that they're in and after already losing at least a half a dozen students this year if that happens Germantown school district is going to even have a harder time balancing a budget [Applause] Sarah Larson Germantown I'm just here to revisit my message from the last board meeting about the urgency for the transition of the ad hoc curriculum committee to a standing committee and really focusing on curriculum and educational accountability I don't know if you're
056aware of the situation in Eau Claire where they happen to make national news based on their professional development where they felt that parents didn't have a right to know about the gender identity issues of their student this is creeping in from all avenues and I'm hoping that based on that news someone within an Administration has done some research to make sure that we don't have those professional development materials we are a community of local control and parental control that's what this whole past year and a half or two years now since covid has opened up we are very much parental control regarding the candidate for tonight I recognize that a lot of this garbage spews down from the federal government as well as the state and so to try and find an untainted candidate in
057any position is probably extremely difficult but I ask that the committee who does the interviewing do some due diligence and do a dive on what is on their resume in terms of professional development or training things that they've participated in because as we found everything has all of this in it and it I think what was really disturbing about the Eau Claire situation the tactics of that professional development is the equivalent of what sex traffickers use for grooming their children and it is directing the child on whom they should trust and providing a mechanism for isolation from others so that that it can be really put upon them and controlling their thoughts and that brings me to the SEL where it had the website that you could quickly click out of to try and keep
058it from parents and so I think there has to be the higher level of awareness and that's where we need the urgency of that standing committee thank you and then Alex Hardin good evening Vonda Doms Germantown in light of historical problems with curriculum and program transparency here and other Public Schools I spent quite a bit of time on the Avid website trying to understand concerns that might come up with a staff who supports that especially administrative staff on the website there appears to be a lot of good history about the organization they list a lot of wonderful goals like high expectations High student achievement College attendance but there's no details as to how these valuable goals will be achieved it's just like my 18 year old son remarked I was mentioning this to him and
059um he's not in the Germantown schools but he said yeah but Mom that's how they do it they always make it look real good so that's a big part of the concern the devil is in the details but there were a couple specific concerning details the term activist in the program's recommended references teachers as activists when activists are in a battle vulnerable people get harmed in that battle humility is necessary I think we'd all agree for any authority to claim that they clearly see and understand a vulnerable person's need and our children are vulnerable persons we as parents are here to protect them that's our job our children need teachers who are experts in subject matter like English math science but humble about what they know about our kids they need adults who will collaborate
060with their parents not Warriors who secretly undermine parental influence while claiming to have special powers of social influence another term used on the website Justice their definition of justices in question here it's not Justice to disregard an individual's uniqueness and demand our acceptance of some academic authorities prescription for who we are and how we think social justice as we've seen it today is no justice it takes a person's competence and exchanges it for membership with a contrived group with labels it encourages victimhood and shaming rather than encouraging competence and community it puts the social justice activists in the spotlight at the expense of our kids I encourage you to pause this higher and can you continue your work to make Germantown the most transparent school district in the state of Wisconsin thank you Alex and
061then Jenny Hetzel so good evening Alex Hardin Colgate so despite Brett and I being the good good buddies that we are I did not receive an invitation either to opine on the the candidate that was picked and the first I heard of this person for for principles actually last Thursday and when I saw how passionately that she she advocates for Avid I was alarmed as well so everyone a handful of people have gone through in detail what Avid is but just to summarize it is a so-called equity-based set of programs that purport to prepare kids for college but it really is designed to equip teachers as quote social activists that's their words not mine and it helps schools treat kids based on their race rather than their individual achievements or attributes or or whatever and
062I mean I seem to recall learning in like third grade that that was a kind of a bad thing to do but it is 2022 and we have an Ascension board for president so I may behind the eight ball now so the candidate being presented for the contract uh is does appear to be an Enthusiast of habit I'm not going to assume any intentions but as as was just said it seems at least prudent to to pause or or probe a little bit further what's going on here because as as Ellen said Avid appeared what 19 times in in her resume Brett included Avid in the the recommendation to the board twice I mean it's it's all over the place it appears to be a favorite of this individual now of course and as a
063handful of you have accurately pointed out thankfully the board has made policy changes that prohibit the sorts of things that are in Avid from being used in in the school but I would ask why even take the chance of inviting something that's prohibited into the school it just seems like we're asking for trouble I mean it also seems likely that on on this initials first day in her first role as principal she's going to be you know ready to make her mark on the world and is going to want to pull out some tools from from the Avid toolbox I mean that's what I would do so I just it doesn't it doesn't seem right and so allegedly Brett's going to have to sit down with with this person on day one and say hey
064remember all that Avid stuff that you really like forget it we're not doing it here it frankly it doesn't seem fair to the candidate I mean she clearly likes this stuff which is her prerogative we don't allow it here so why why let you know why give her the impression that she's going to be able to do her her thing I'd be fairly upset if I were hired for a job and didn't find out until day one of my employment that I can't use some of my favorite tools or Technologies or whatever it just again it doesn't seem right so again I just I think I think you're asking for trouble and frankly a foia nightmare if if you hire this person um so please please reconsider it thanks thank you and Jenny Jenny Hudson
065Germantown um I did not know much about it went to the website quickly found it is in alignment with SEL SEL standards Avid and scl and action just some of the headings breaking down the barriers develop SEL related skills barriers of access and Equity create an equitable environment Avid works with schools to examine their data through an equity lens and again the candidate you're looking at has mentioned multiple times in her resume that she is a proponent of it besides Avid talking about technology and the Incredible cost that it brings to our district and balancing the budget just want to make a comparison we pulled our kids they're in private school our oldest daughter is still in Germantown she has the Chromebook she gets articles It's All Digital it is so easy to just kind
066of peruse it and go hey Google what's the answer to that's her learning that is my experience with her learning on the Chromebook our younger three at Trinity have textbooks they have to actually read it they have to answer questions they're learning how to study for tests it's just such a deeper learning and so when I look at the cost of that compared to and I get textbooks aren't cheap either but the quality of Education I'm seeing it's night and day different which is very it was surprising to me I thought Germantown had high academic standards and I'm not seeing the comparison Trinity Trinity seems higher to me just my one year as far as tax dollars go we have to ask for foyas for everything we need that's wasting tax dollars that's a position
067if someone has to fill those like that needs to end it's ridiculous I filed one and I got pathetic response so that's it thank you thank you Adam five approval of the minutes February 28 2022 board of education do I have a motion so moved second any discussion see none all those in favor opposed let us says building committee Mr Paula thank you uh earlier this evening we had our building committee update as always uh for all of the true details the Deep dive I would recommend once the video is available for everyone who's interested to uh to take a look at the report um generally speaking though we did have an update from GSF we had a few gentlemen in uh to provide to get an introduction to a couple of the folks who
068are who spend their time in the district managing the staff they are fully staffed right now uh as far as the issues Trend it continues to decrease which is a good thing uh and conversely we're starting to see more compliments so or good jobs so that that's a nice thing to hear uh since we had kind of the the rocky start uh training is a big thing for them upcoming since they do have some newer staff since the beginning of the year they have a plan in place for continued training they've also rolled out a it's an app or tool for them called beekeeper which is an internal communication tool which allows the managers to be able to send messages and communicate with everybody working in the district and it it sounds like it kind
069of could solve some of the communication issues they noted actually that uh if the manager sends a message in English if one of the staffs native language is Spanish it actually translates that for them so even you know I'll say minimizes any sort of language barriers that might exist upcoming they have their their planning for summer cleaning this will be their first full summer uh planning so they'll be giving us an update in the future on that as well as the green seal certified process as well and lastly Mr Erickson gave us uh our building updates uh he changed it up a little bit we were trying something a little new as far as reviewing what is upcoming and trying to get a sense of prioritization and some of the balls in the air that
070he's gotta to juggle as things pop up those items that are completed and then he did offer if the board the rest of the board beyond the committee if you're interested in having a link to that Google doc that kind of gives that overview of all the different things that are are being worked on let him know let me know whatever the case is we can get that link to you that is it any comments questions oh thank you for that I was sitting in the back when the blue committee was going on and a couple takeaways I know in the past we've had and there was some email traffic on this on having a full board tour of the buildings is that still in the works are we planning that in the near future
071I hope uh so yeah it kind of goes back to uh Mr Holly the new citizen on the building committee and I did the tour of all of the buildings over the last few weeks um if there's interest in in a full board tour uh let me know I'll reach out to Mr Erickson and we'll obviously coordinate it with regards to public notice Etc all that all the fun stuff I would welcome that and support that not not just for the board it'll be open to the public but for our constituents too because last time we did this three years ago maybe and Kobe got in the way we had a whole bunch of um you know moms and Dancer they just wanted to see the buildings that they're paying for so I would welcome
072that and then second uh I was I guess I was kind of surprised with the lengthy list that Miss Erickson had on issues so I think that really for me it reaffirms that we I need to be back in the building to see the behind the scenes that we used to do three years ago so I would I would welcome that so sir thank you and uh the email I wrote about the board tour there was no confusion on my part I wasn't conflating your tour Chad Holly with the full board tour but in previous years uh before the last tour we used to do these tours on weekends and it's a little bit easier for us to do because you know most of us are off on weekends but the last tour we did
073do during the school day and we hit all six schools and you know the order worked out pretty good that we could get it done we ate lunch at the high school so we ate the school food and it was actually pretty good um but it was much better being in the buildings when the students were in there just to see interactions and that sort of thing so I think it's probably something we need to um schedule now probably maybe sometime in May I think most might be most practical kind of go from there yeah if you want to throw out some dates and let us know what you're thinking that'd be great even I think if you broke it up into two days do like an afternoon hit three of the schools and then
074another afternoon hit three more or on a weekend you know something along those lines so we can do it both ways whatever works pretty good much appreciated we'll do okay moving on to finance committee Mr love yes the finance committee did meet earlier this evening just a little bit of history when the little kids come in and speak to the board like they did this evening usually right after that is when finance committee would would take place and you know so everyone's wean and eyeing over the little kids you know because they're so cute and then I would say if you think that was impressive we're now going to talk about Finance so we're not going to talk about Finance that that's humor just in case you know anyone was wondering all right um we
075did uh we approved vouchers earlier this evening we went over Brittany's variance report and she did a really good job it's on video so I'm not even going to try and give it the Cliff's Notes version here but it is early in the video that was recorded uh next item is the 2022-2023 budget um the CPI consumer price index for next year that is the 2022-2023 uh school year is 4.7 percent so on two days dollars today's labor dollars um if we had to provide a pay increase of 4.7 percent that would be 1.4 million dollars an increase in labor costs so our show our shortfall is in the 1 million to uh somewhere around 2.6 million at this point in time and we've got some work to do between now and October of this
076year uh we will be working on that trust me the next thing we talked about was uh student fees and I think I I don't know if you've been through it already or not Brittany but based on one of the speakers this evening we should make sure that all of our fees are are legal you know I'm pretty sure they are but I think we should just make sure that they are and with that said we bring finance committee brings forward to the Board of Education with a positive recommendation to approve the 2022 2023 student fee schedule with the yearbook fee as discussed okay that comes with more of a positive recommendation does not require a second do we have discussion yeah um I learned more about student fees than I probably ever wanted to
077learn and I want to thank that constituent for sharing that information it was a definitely value added for me I would just like to I'm looking at the fees right now and I have no problem with these fees but in the spirit of transparency I'm looking at a fee for wood designs for you twenty dollars what am I paying for I'm just wondering if for that class if we have a breakout of what that twenty dollars includes what the cost of that is so that in case of mom or dad asked for some information well here's the information on what the costs are hopefully we can quantify that and if we can't quantify that I would be concerned then why are we charging the fee why is why is it 15 hours of ten dollars
078because this is supposed to be a break even for our moms and dance kids so so that's all I have thank you Renee we verified that all of these costs and fees that we're assessing are legally able to be charged I don't know if he's up there oh there I am um so when we did get the question from this parent we worked with the state we worked with DPI and DPI did it require us to send because per state statute if we are asked if if a fee is needed or Justified we do have to provide that information to the parent that's why we had to ask which classes her student was taking so we did reach out to the state reached out to me in which in turn I reached out to the
079teachers of the courses that her students are in and they are Justified all the courses are Justified and with the registration fee or the enrollment fee that she quoted at the elementary and middle school level that aren't connected to a specific course we are actually below what our expenses are so in reality we could increase our fees to justify the expenses on the other end but that makes sense yeah another question like our free and reduced lunch program do we have the ability to offset fees for families in need so yes we have a process that the family has as the registration every year comes up and then you go into Skyward and you um answer if all the information is still accurate there is a button on there that you would click if you
080are requesting a fee waiver which is connected directly to the free and reduced status so if your income is at a certain level per federal guidelines and you qualify for free we waive all the fees and if you qualify for reduced lunch we um 50 of your fees would be owed thank you one more question Brittany is there a is there a cap for per family on fees I believe there is a cap per family for athletics or activities okay it's Athletics okay all right thank you any of the comments questions seeing none all those in favor aye opposed bad passes okay and then the uh the last item was for landscaping fees cutting the grass and the finance committee the motion is to approve with a positive recommendation from the building and grounds committee
081to award Evergreen Property Services a three-year contract not to exceed thirty six thousand sixty dollars with an addition of four thousand dollars to cut the area around the gravel lot on the south side of Willow Creek Road for a total of forty thousand sixty dollars funded from the building and grounds fund 10 as presented that comes the board with positive recommendation does not require a second do we have discussion see none all those in favor all right opposed by passes and that was it thank you we're not an old business discussion and possible action regarding the Germantown virtual Charter School yes thank you so we have members of the German Virtual School Board as well as Miss Julia Leeson and Cindy Collins who've all been involved in the development of the charter school we've had
082several meetings in the last couple weeks some with DPI Brittany has been included as well looking at finances and part of the conversation was also the feedback that we received from the board after the last after the last board meeting and so we're going to kind of turn it over to to Russ and um I think in your packets you have kind of the the track changes that would have been made to the contract and and again this is similar to last time it's a conversation about specific items within within the contract so just to start this off we asked for this to come back in front of the board today as a continued discussion from last time the contract that you have in front of you has not been reviewed or approved by the
083governance board and that is could potentially happen Thursday so it's taking that in we're looking for more information or feedback from you ultimately what happened through the meetings that Brett just discussed was a shift in what the district and quote unquote afford as far as the teaching services this virtual school would provide the fundamental shift being from the in-teacher Germantown teachers conducted in a training they're teaching to an online format only similar to what we're purchasing through Keel right now the difference being Keel uses a the Florida um virtual school which it limits the content that we can use when which is the where we purchase the content through in this version opens the door to several other versions or more curriculum basically the big difference in that is control as far as standards of
084teaching obviously if you use your own teachers you can control and you understand what the expectations are here we'd be at the mercy of what these virtual platforms are providing us as far as qualifications of those teachers that's a big consideration for both boards to take on from the information they were able to provide us it sounds like that is the only way the district can afford to do it though did you want to go in as Britney here so we ultimately what was provided to us was the district could afford up to 33 students to take six classes each semester and I believe it's 250 278 dollars a class that funding coming from the funding the district would be receiving back in from canceling the Keel program that if you're following me on that
085that would be in District students only so any monies you would come in from out of District students enrolling we would need that same dollar amount to purchase their curriculum but the remainder of what would come in through state aid would stay in District as a positive quickly would you would you be able to explain the breakdown on how we got to the 33 students at six classes oh sure um I don't know I'm sorry I missed that part but the 120 000 is what he's referring to currently for this school year we moved 120 000 from our open enrollment budget to what um I will label as the Keel budget so we are spending a hundred and twenty thousand dollars or up to on the students that are enrolled in our Keel program this
086year the charter school would hope to replace the Keel program so to start off the school year we can move the hundred and twenty thousand dollars from that account line to support the new Charter School just that makes sense yes thank you okay otherwise I can do the math backwards so it was so much money per course I don't know if you went through this part or not um gorgeous thank you it's a 278 dollars and 18 cents per course so depending on how many courses each one of the students enrolled take so if they would take six classes take the 278 18 multiplied by six you'd have 33 students that could be enrolled to keep the budget flat otherwise if they're taking five classes you multiply that you can have a Max of 40
087students so tonight and currently additional cost to open this this program or this school next year the budget can move from one spot to another spot what about the grant funds then the grant funds for our understanding cannot be used for the class funds because it's a reoccurring fee and that was misunderstood in the Grant application process so are the grant the grant funds if I am remembering correctly cannot be used for technology either correct with the grant funds we would be purchasing all technology equipment as well as outfitting the two classrooms and various other things but but we can't use it to purchase that 278 and 18 cents per class because it's a reoccurring fee we can use it for the eight thousand dollar fee to join when in this manner that's a one-time
088fee so it would be used to cover the full cost of when for their teachers not ours we're using their teachers correct the 278 18. but it it per class the grant cannot cover anything that's recurring the grant cannot cover recurring whether it's through when or our teachers no matter what the grant cannot pay for teachers the grant can pay for everything else but it cannot pay for teaching no matter what and that was from day one of the Grant application that hasn't changed I just think it was misunderstood or not communicated so so yeah ultimately the Grant application process took place with the prior director of teacher and learning as well as the uh superintendent right so they outlined what the school is to look like in that process while applying for the grant
089on board the governance board posts the grant be awarding and that is the mission we were tasked with outlying and building out that's why you got the initial proposal to use Germantown teachers that's how they had it worded in the grant process so this would be a fundamental shift in that it's not that we can't do it it's that is this the program we want to offer on both sides financially it sounds like it's the one you can afford to offer is this going to attract students from outside the district to bring in Revenue to assist the district if we are only using in-district students that's fine we can afford up to 33 of them and it would probably have to be that version because they would need five and a half credits I'm sorry
090five and a half classes per semester so if you limited it to five they would never meet the requirement to graduate so is that number 33 is that our break even point yes with with what's being obligated to the Q program that you guys use this year yes so if we had 33 students we could break even so 33 in-district students yeah would be Break Even anything you bring in from outside the district is positive about 3 300 or so for you and here's something to consider about bringing people for people for Charter School Main in the fall and if we do not stick to the vision that we wrote the grant with we are not much different from any of them we are offering what they are offering so something to consider perhaps is
091why would they come to Germantown when they can stick to their own District when it's no different than ours that's probably a good question for any Virtual School really right so what made up different originally with our grant was that we built and designed an entire project-based learning aspect to it with internships with local businesses Capstone projects we have rubrics ready to go we were tasked with building a school based off of the grant that was written in July and August not knowing that it wasn't feasible until just like last week two weeks ago so our program that we have ready to go is very unique compared to the other 60 and would be interesting for other people to come into but well it sounds like you're still very marketable so remember that my my
092dilemma I'm facing right now is if we're looking at budget cuts or what we need to do like to add something more I I don't know I would like to see actual numbers real numbers how it's working what it would look like in a budget tangible well that was the discussion that was had over this year the 120 000 just flipped over and we could have a Max of 33 in District students only so think of it how the 4K program was described you correct except for the cost the loss cost the first year wouldn't be there so if we break even with 33 students the first year or come positive with cash because we bring in outside students you're already starting ahead for the first year right but if we don't have those 33
093students then where are we then you're not spending all the money you spent on Keel and you'll have those funds available to whatever you need to use them for if you had 10 students we would use 10 students times that 278 dollars per class we are you would you would have more money interested even marketing and the majority of them are not of the 19 students we have that have already expressed interest the majority of them are not from in District we are not taking 19 students out of the high school and moving them over to GVS or the middle school we have students from out of District we have students that have work live in Germantown area but have registered in other districts because of their virtual schools so I realized that we haven't
094done any marketing it's an interest form it's not scientific proof but the indications are this would be drawing more money in than as if you're just switching people over from our current schools at least the early indications that's what it is so are you able to cap it at 33 indistrict students but allow potentially an unlimited number of non-district students if discriminating between in District and out of District so it would go in let's say you had 37 kids we'd have to go into the the random draw process for who would and we have a lottery system drafted and it has been approved by our board um but it was at a Max of 50 because we had the understanding that our Max was 50 this whole time so it would just be changing the
095words to 33 but legally it would have to be a lottery system you cannot discriminate in District or out of District to make more money or less money so as far as the landscape goes for virtual schools the McFarland offers a virtual school their enrollment is to the point where they're bringing in about 25 million dollars to the district obviously that's probably through some highly marketed as well as being some of one of the first full-time virtual schools on the market I don't see this getting anywhere near that and I wouldn't want to see the predatory practices that would have to occur on stealing students away from other districts to to make that happen um but the potential is to grow this in a way where it's financially viable as far as starting it out
096we might have to run at small numbers but the point being you are dealing with these other districts that are opening and I would fully anticipate losing students to those districts if we're not offering something that'll be clear the budget that you're presenting and the 33 student maximum you're going to run the school the way that you originally wanted to run and this isn't going to be no you are going to change it because oh I'm sorry our plan was to have Germantown School district teachers and also that would Aid in our Capstone projects and things like that right now with the 33 students what the district can afford this next year we won't be using any in-house teachers we will be hiring that out in the curriculum that we can purchase has a lot
097of cool electives but none that would be partnering with JW speaker that will be partnering with Gail and getting our kids into the workforce getting into internships for credit all those things would be somewhere down the line maybe years three through five we would have to go back to the drawing board for two things one our whole Grant application has several pages of talking about these Capstone projects and things so we have to go back to DPI and just make sure that's okay and two we wrote seven performance measures to measure how well our charter school is doing three of those seven have to do with Capstone projects projects based learning using local businesses as teachers things like that so we would just have to rewrite those as governance board and get them reapproved by
098DPI I checked into it we can do it it's not a no it's just a what are you replacing them with so if we do choose to do a charter school that's just strictly when they have their teachers we would have to come up with okay well what do those performance measures look like for us then because we wouldn't be measuring local businesses Partnerships anymore and that was sort of our special sauce that we worked with so what do you think the risk is of losing the grant if you don't have things like the Capstone project in there anymore we no we would not lose the grand we can choose not to use the grant anymore if we want to so if the board decides that we'll just stick with Keel and do what we're
099doing we don't have to accept the grant I've already talked to them about that we can just call it quits we haven't spent barely any of our budget yet which Speaking of a timeline we really need to we need to we we are going to have to draw a line in the sand very soon in order to be feasible to open a school in Fall there's a lot of Technology purchases that need to get made and there's a lot of wait time on those I know Justin has been working on it has rfps and things ready to go but we have I got a quick question when we had this conversation two weeks ago last board meeting there was some uncertainty in terms of your what Your Staffing model looked like do you have more
100clarity on that you can share I mean having a teacher because when then I think it was the conversation led to well if you could get above a certain threshold another teacher will be provided that's based on our policy but that's going to impact Mike and his Staffing model in terms of hiring teachers for the fall and we don't we're looking at again unfortunately cost reductions and I appreciate you want to be unique and I applaud that but do you have some clarity you could share right now in terms of how many teachers do you need is that a yeah that is a tricky question without having enrollment so it's kind of like Staffing a school without having students yet we wouldn't know exactly how many kids per grade um likely Julie and I talked
101about not needing very much for the middle school because of the curriculum for the online curriculum for sixth seventh and 8th is very not there's not a lot of electives they would just take sixth grade math sixth grade social studies sixth grade science and kind of move on from there the Staffing for the high school we discussed in higher level electives either paying when for the teacher or telling the kids that you have a teacher on record at the high school and it's more of an independent study where the teacher would be building relationships with the kids and checking in one thing for Best Practices with virtual schools is still building a relationship and so having Germantown school district teachers who have a classroom where kids can come in and work and get help and
102it's not just Googling the answer on my Chromebook to get my credit and making it a real robust education is worth something I don't know if it's affordable but it is worth something with a Max of 50 kids we wouldn't expect having that incredible amount of staff what does that what does that mean it's hard to say because I we don't know what classes they're going to take I don't even know what grade they're in are you looking at and I'll just I'll just add there's like Watertown for example we talked about their e-school or we met with um their school they have 160 or 190 kids that are part of it at some form it could be hybrid where they take three virtual classes and they take three other in-person classes they don't they
103use a platform as well they have three different platforms the kids choose from and they have teachers on record and so they pay each teacher a hundred dollars per student but they're not those teachers aren't teaching the course they're not providing the curriculum they're just there as a resource if the if the student needs it but because part and the kind of the feedback from them was like the kids don't access those teachers that much to begin with because it's true the idea on a virtual Charter School a virtual school is that there's this Independence that happens with it so there's not a lot of necessary support and um so it wouldn't be our own staff and that's why if you've got kids taking all these different courses we can't staff it because there's been
104way too many and that's why you go with a platform yeah and then provides that to start out and you know the desired state of where we want to be three to five years from now is still that model but our students still could access work study programs they could still access internships just like any other kid in our high school can do right now so that wouldn't change if if a student is in a place credit wise or they could do that and they'll get some some credit for for work study or whatever they still have the same options that they do now with those apprenticeship yep so what you're saying the 100 per teacher is that part of your model no could it be part of your model we are open to on
105Thursday we have a meeting addressing what is being said today and adapting what we've worked on okay and then another question would be um why can't we still do Capstone and JW speaker why can't we we would need a teacher to do that why we cannot hire when to teach that so when is why can't we use our our counseling staff the bridge that Gap say it again I'm sorry why can't we use the student counselors to bridge that Gap or our student counselors do not do projects with the kids they um Place students and youth apprenticeship and things like that but the model would be that there is a teacher in the building that connects kids as part of the curriculum to local manufacturers and businesses and one will not provide that what they
106provide is the curriculum and then a teacher somewhere in the state who will teach that correct what about hiring just maybe one FTE to be whatever it would be a great place to start and and you take baby stops and yeah go forward with that and especially if we only have 33 Kids 6 through 12 it would be something that would be willing to at least work with so in this current contract that's sitting in front of you it allows per you to decide when a FTE would need to be or could be assigned so if you chose and I could see it happening sooner in the Middle School levels just because the courses are condensed as far as volume of different courses you could take you could see nine kids in the same class
107versus the high school you could see nine kids take nine different math classes right well if you have nine kids in one class I could see an ft being involved in that but you wouldn't use nine ftes across nine classes got it okay and I and I agree you want to be unique you don't want to be a cookie cutter like everybody else because why would I want to go to Germantown then would it be helpful I had conversations with Fred about this would it be helpful for our two boards to get together and hash this out so that we can get further into this discussion and bring Brittany along and bread along and figure out what we can manage that would have been well it'll be fantastic to do that now but it would
108have been fantastic to do it in December she was explaining earlier is we are running to a date where we would have to say the governance board can't pull this off and get this school open sure uh this meeting was initially going to get pushed to the 11th April in a committee meeting we don't have that luxury of time that's why we brought it to you before even our governance board looked at what's in front of you or discussed what's in front of you now so you've got several based on our conversations I had several potential options what is the 33 uh and you're sourcing everything out to somebody one is what Brett talked about one could be just hiring one FTE uh to start off with can we start crunching some numbers on that
109and then maybe to Brian's Point get the boards together because we definitely need to resolve this can you go to a microphone please so sorry I was just saying times of the essence so right now other virtual schools already have enrollment open so we're already behind so we need to quickly here make a decision yes or no yes do we go forward what does that look like both sides have to agree of course and sign off on the contracts or we get together and say no thank you but no thank you for the grant because we just can't you know make this happen I think we all understand that and respect that completely but this is a very big decision with a money here so I don't think this is rush let's get it through
110and then we come to find out like this isn't what we planned or this you know we want to make sure everything is in the right order and done correctly but we couldn't agree more I think we were under the a different understanding up until so we've been working really hard behind the scenes and this is all kind of coming to light now this is a surprise to us too you know we weren't part of the original Grant so some things were agreed upon that we didn't realize either as far as what we're kind of learning the last couple weeks so we're all both playing catch up so we couldn't agree more right but I think I agree that we need to sit down sooner than later to help you guys but we all need
111the right information the right in understanding all of the numbers everything in front of us so we can make the best decision for our school district would there any be any benefit going to a 9 through 12 versus the 6 through 12 to get this going um I have a talk to we have Partners at um works it's called they're also paid through the grant that kind of help us constantly so we say empath and we did discuss that I meet with him weekly his name is Nick he came and talked to you I we did discuss it this week that another option would be to minimize the grade level if we have to shrink it even further I will tell you that I get emails weekly from people asking about the charter school and
112so does Julia and they are sixth graders coming into the district and I I feel uncomfortable by saying no to them and I feel more comfortable as a community member doing our best to make it work with 6 through 12 if we can but yes that is an option we can do that so your board meets on Thursday right yeah we meet on Thursday we're virtual um I think what so what I'll put on the agenda for Thursday is the tears that we talked about 33 straight out to when 33 with maybe a 1.0 FTE and by Thursday I think we can probably get some numbers for that and then um we will have to go back to the drawing board on our performance measures which I can start working on and um I don't
113know if Russ maybe wants to take a triple quadruple look at that contract for the 100th time and see what else would need to be changed if we do one of those two models are there any proposals for any other models besides that okay so I think that I'll bring those two models back to them we'll discuss it um Russell take a look at the contract and Marine for the hunter time and just kind of circle things that need to be changed and then maybe we can all get on an agenda as soon as we can Brett have we need 72 hours or 48 hours to post for a meeting 48 48 why can't we post it and then those board members that are available Thursday we participate and have a joint meeting and we
114can make a decision at that time yeah the other the other option that we had talked about was on the 28th most of the board is getting March 28th is getting together for different reasons expulsion hearings but to meet before that or after that so it'd be like a kind of like a four o'clock meeting or a eight o'clock meeting as an option I'd be fine but we can still post the Thursday so any board member could join oh so when does this thing have to be done if we can have it don't say yesterday I mean several months ago if you want to honestly yeah I know I get it um right April early April would be great to have a contract signed so we can we can't do anything until we have a
115contract signed and we have a lot ready we haven't I promise we have been working hours and hours and hours on this so if we have a joint meeting next week sometime maybe if it if Tuesday next week is spring break oh there you go I'm in Florida yeah okay I don't think anybody has turned one I think if you guys can hammer out a contract at your next meeting this week um we can work out something for the 28th and do a final approval there that'll give us plenty of time to review it to go through it we can all you know have our chance to look at it at least and then we can come back on the 28th and so I guess I would ask in the current changes that are highlighted
116in the contract City in front of you are there any questions to those changes changes but I do have a few questions that maybe I missed last time um one being our nursing staff how will you utilize our nursing staff is that going to be for like if we have students yeah so by Design our students can come take classes internally while on campus if there's a necessity for the nursing staff that that fall on them yeah okay um when you guys discuss the curriculum and vetting it just curious if you have the when who how what and will to develop and adapt and modify the curriculum so if we take on the all online version of it we would be purchasing the curriculum as well as the instructor through them we could audit the
117class but we would have no say and you need to have this or don't have this if we found something in those manners we would have to decide not to take that allow that class or course into our catalog and that's some of the education committees we have already working on share it has the links to descriptions of everything and we vetted it but anybody can benefit it's we didn't purchase anything yet it's just not written in stone it's penciled in ready to go one more ready to go do you have the uh MSA from that third party that you're purchasing curriculum from the master Services agreement and it's a uh one size fits all or can you add some language in there to support Germantown School District policy because if you put that language
118in there at least you've got it in there now whether or not they follow it that's another that's where you're going to be auditing forever radio sure that Jenny think if you were purchasing their personal ity you're like purchasing you're purchasing a content you're purchasing U.S history content that gets pushed through our LMS be no different than purchasing a textbook right right unless you're ripping Pages out you're not going to audit it I mean without a teacher I work for an LMS company in the past and we had a massive service agreement that we would present that basically said you're taking everything as is but you could upgrade right which would give you the control over removing sections and everything else now obviously that's that is not a K-12 it would be if we had
119local teachers to do that that would be an option but we would not be a pain our teachers we are at the mercy of a teacher in Baraboo teaching our kids U.S history so there is a third option in when that it costs more but the buy-in to the program itself then allows you a member seat on their Board of governance the when board I don't know exactly what that gets you other than a voice in a room of however many voices paid for that seat so it could be completely neutralized right but there's I think it's about three levels that you can purchase into one just the kind just the curriculum which is what we were going to do and then use Germantown teachers to use it two also includes their teachers and then
120three that next level where you could purchase basically a seat on the board not stated that way but ultimately that's what you're doing all right I've got a couple questions about the contract I got it from you so I'll address my questions to you and you'll go from there um so page 713c talks about a Statewide teacher I'm assuming in the current version or Vision that's a When teacher yeah okay and then page 16 sorry page seven number 16. Were Striking activity fees I'm just curious why if we have a virtual student that could attend no no we I think we changed it to that they would follow they would follow the same uh fee structure that all of our other kids follow so let's say they choose to take an art class and art
121class is a 10 fee they would incur that cost yeah but I'm thinking what if a virtual student wants to play a sport yep they have to yeah yeah so it's in line with the with ghs fee structures the language is set to follow anything your regular students would follow I think the families would be obligated to pay for that the wording is in there in that manner okay thank you and then um specific determination maybe this doesn't need to be in the contract but I would hope that if there's an issue on either side that before someone drafts a letter and submits it and says we're terminating the contract there's some opportunity to remediate that issue whether it's arbitration or something you know I'd hate to see one side just say we're done with
122it without a chance for the other side to potentially remediate it you're talking between our board and the GPS correct yeah I think it's in good faith you you do that and but I think there's there's things where the the power comes with this board to say they're not they're not meeting a certain standard and so we would end it but I think in our in our the spirit of the board would try to work through those things okay thank you Okay so back to the beginning are we okay with the 28th if we can pull this all together by then I mean I guess that's the best we can do I would look at the April 1st as a drop dead date okay me personally obviously I'm bored so so but I said at
123least a forum on the 28th I think we can make that day work so and if there's anything that comes up at your meeting that gives us a little time to go back and forth do some revisions we can hammer out the details hopefully this we can pull it up sounds good thank you thank you much thank you I have a general question though um because if you're I think you'd I forget sorry I forget who mentioned it that you might add an agenda item to this coming Thursday's meeting to discuss or or you already have one whatever the case is if we because it's open to the public I know that for a fact um what kind of problems do we have to be concerned with if we all have some time and we
124decide to join to listen in uh you know because I I think I personally I don't know if I'd be able to join but I think I'd benefit from hearing some of the things they may talk about so and we can we can post it as that board members might be present um listening there's no action from this board right because they're that board might have action but it's no different than when school board members go to the wasb State Convention they're going to listen and learn and know decisions are being made by this board so we can post it as such then you're covered right yeah that's a good idea yep let's go we've talked about a lot of things what does the 1.0 full-time educator get us do we still would we be
125able to do Capstone with a full-time teacher so this is just thinking off of my head since we haven't discussed having one full-time educator but I would imagine that full-time educator would serve as a liaison between the parents the students the district serve as a liaison to the administrator and to when so they would be onboarding and getting kids set up and in charge of getting them their classes even though they're not teaching 9th grade history they would still be that liaison and then they would also be part of the curriculum building for the Capstone projects for the local manufacturers and businesses I have committed businesses already that are excited to work with their virtual students because of the flexibility they can work a shift they can work eight to two and then do their
126school from two to six or whatever so we have a lot of really excited manufacturers in the area but that one full-time FTE we could get a job description together we have a draft kind of and get back to you on that exactly but they would have quite a few responsibilities I would imagine and if Britney uh fully loaded FTE is what seventy thousand seventy five so we estimated now thank you okay thank you and just as a reference Watertown has they staff a room all day but they staff it with a support staff and really just to help facilitate and make sure students have are on Pace and on you know on track with their with their work and that's that's just what Watertown does and that's yep I get it well could I
127you know we this does this is discussion on potential uh action um is the board okay with one FTE to move this forward so that they can discuss it on Thursday and possibly close the deal on Thursday I'm not yet no I don't think yeah 120 000 of class so now we're adding another potentially ninety thousand dollars to it okay okay I'd love to see it I mean I think that would be the ideal but I I again it's probably not in the budget and we're already looking at a budget deficit yeah so I guess I would ask for that that 120 000 that was spent with Keel this year is that factored into the current budget that was talked about earlier this evening or is it factored into what this proposal was the 120
128000 regarded what you guys were discussing earlier is that money's so the 120 000 is in this current Year's budget so not to incur any new costs that the 120 000 can be allocated in any way they would want to allocate it if they want to and I don't know what what what it all entails if you want to work with the community and roll out that portion of it and you think that is your key point of it and it will bring more open enrolled students in if you want to take 90 000 of your hundred and twenty thousand and hire a person that's going to roll that Port out you just took you have 30 000 left for so you could have 10 students I don't know but then more students may open
129and roll in the the trouble is you don't know how many students are going to come open enrolled in compared to you know putting one FTE in there so that's the yeah let me ask a question a different way the draft budget that you're preparing does that include the same 120 000 that's in the current budget correct the hundred and twenty thousand dollars that's in our current budget is allocated next year for the charter school yeah it's built in there it's not new it would just roll over if you if if for some reason the charter school didn't roll off next year that hundred and twenty thousand would reduce from the budget if we want to use that twenty hundred and twenty thousand dollars it's already in there for this or for something else if
130we only had 20 students you'd have 13 students worth of finances coming back into them I was just going to say something that we can discuss on Thursday is if we only have 33 students we might not need a 1.0 FTE we are happy to you know have that discussion on you know if we get 33 in their in-district students you know we'd have to talk about what that would look like we aren't headset on 1.0 ft we're just trying to get at school opened and we've all put in so much work personally I would I would be fairly worried in regards to teacher would receive a hundred dollars for an unknown amount of students to Shepherd quote unquote through this program I don't know how you would budget for that and maybe nervous to
131find a teacher with the willingness to walk into the unknown Waters in that manner as to what the responsibility is on top of their current responsibilities and classes as well as something and some of the other stuff that's been brought before you guys in other meetings it would make me fairly nervous if they weren't dedicated to the school that's why we came back with a full virtual teacher platform versus some form of hybrid version of that and keep in mind that's just to kick it off right so it's a five-year contract and this contract can be updated throughout so if the first year proves that it works and we're starting to see those enrollments out of District enrollments come in then I think you could look at maybe year two opening up to some more
132in-person teaching or the how the finances work out right so it's kind of a prove it contract um at any time it's updatable by either partner we could offer a suggestion for an update you guys could offer a suggestion for updates on it it's not set in stone for those five years obviously you want to have a good base there but and the grant also we have 800 000 to spend and some of that money can be used on our own curriculum development so we can pay teachers to build an online curriculum and then we own that curriculum we would not need to purchase it and that will eventually it's part of the plan but it's not going to happen first year we got to get some virtual teachers some teachers that are interested in
133it and if they build their own curriculum we own it we would not have to be purchasing it from anybody ever again something you think about so the online delivery tool does that have course building applications in it to your point if we build our own we keep it so is that part of the the well it's just it it's the LMS of our choice if we choose to build the curriculum in schoology we could do that do you envision that if we started with the remote virtual that you could build this and continue to trans you know work it into the system where you can make it a Germantown only system in three four or five years it would be a dream to have a Germantown complete virtual system a charter school where we
134don't have to purchase it from anything and everything is in District that's a charter school right you know that is catered to our community I sat on the the old ad hoc committees and all those we know what the community wants I mean it's a matter of getting there I wouldn't say three to five years but maybe five to ten years okay but you can see a future where that can transition I think it would be very cool but and that's a goal our board would prefer that to be the goal right to work back to that we understand the finances are where they are but if we have to start this way we'll have to discuss and see if we're okay with it but the goal being to work into what the original vision
135for this was correct okay and it just might be a process and some time thank you I think I would just ask that any scenarios presented and discussed is on paper because sometimes numbers are hard in our meetings I recorded the audio is posted too so we will do miss Larson did you have something to listening to the discussion knowing that Mr Meyer at the high school runs the office Co-op program and already has those relationships with the building with the different businesses my son was in his class and knowing what the class size was then why couldn't he manage some of this Co-op and business opportunity for the students because really he should have a class capacity of at least 30 students anyways I think he maybe had 12 when Ben had the class
136and he perhaps could also manage the Capstone projects as well or divvy it out and then just give him you know he might not even have a total equivalent FTE load where you might not need additional compensation or look at doing then a stipend for perhaps one or two teachers but really it's not like you're looking for a teacher to actually teach it's more managing that process so just a thought we've got that resource who already has some relationships with the business community if if I can um I I was thinking that same thing earlier as we go through Staffing sometimes with departments smaller departments like business there comes a situation where we might be at like 1.6 teachers in which case adding you know a 0.4 to someone's schedule rounds it out that kind
137of thing is I think a little bit of what Ms Larson is talking about or it was running through my head that those are some of those scenarios that could help us as we look at things would that be okay for the uh your board we don't know that now I'm going over to the high school on Wednesday to look at numbers in terms of what course selections are showing us but you know yeah we wouldn't likely need to be like hiring a brand new position it would be rolled into the FTE of the middle school or the high school depending on numbers fill out and interest we certainly don't want to like tell Mr Meyer this is his job if it's not going to be his passion we have a lot riding on it
138and we want to make sure we do it right which is part of the reason we're all here today is we don't want to do this without putting all of our passions and hearts into it and making it the best it can be so totally for a conversation but yeah would be perfectly fine we do appreciate your hard work thank you so when does spring break start next Monday yes so if you iron out the details on Thursday is it possible to have a meeting on Friday it is but we won't have a lot of time to digest what their you know any changes that they talk about in their meeting I think March that March 28th or even that week March 31st still gets us prior to April 1st I would fully expect what's
139sitting in front of you to be fairly close to what would be coming back after Thursday Mike you're going to have a conversation with that with that with Mr Meyer right you figure that out if if he's a perfect fit boom we're done right we're done right that easy it's that easy I mean I would love it to be I'll keep it simple yeah I mean if this is the contract you heard a couple comments from our from our colleagues here yep and 99.9 it's there if you add that into it we're done is that accurate or no it would help us keep yeah it would help us keep the Capstone project to stay unique and okay yeah cool appreciate it okay good luck all right we're gonna move on thank you thank you moving
140on the new business discussion and action to approve dean of students letter of employment Mr Noah thank you district and ghs administration reviewed applicants and interviewed five candidates for the newly uh ghs dean of students position we are recommending David Smith as the candidate of choice David has served as an English and Leadership teacher in the Elmbrook School District most recently he has taught engineering I.T and media strands in Elm Brooks launch program which provides students with project-based learning experience that is centered on working collaboratively with business and Community Partners David completed his Master's in educational leadership from Concordia University in June of 2017. we ask you to approve the hire of David Smith as a Germantown High School dean of students and provide him with letter of employment for the remainder of the 21-22
141school year at a prorated salary of seventy thousand dollars thank you I'll entertain a motion I moved to approve the higher David Smith as the Germantown High School dean of students to provide him a letter of employment for the remainder of the 2122 school year at a prorated salary of seventy thousand dollars second any discussion yes what is this fully loaded cost it's prorated this year of seventy thousand but what are we paying him no does it be a quarter of that so it's based on it right so it's a good lab less than less than whatever's left in this this correct now I'm going to address the elephant in the room we had a lot of discussion earlier on about budget are we gonna turn the clock forward a couple months we start looking
142at Cost reduction opportunities are we doing a disservice of this response and that's not fair to him I I'm happy to speak to it I I can say that this was something throughout the beginning part of the year and you know December ultimately is when we committed to moving in this direction we felt a very very strong need for it that I don't think is going away there's also some added pieces to this relative to academic and career planning that are woven in now quite honestly there's some fits to what we just you talked about for a number of minutes so okay yeah I think that Rick kind of the work that Rick Roadhouse did many years ago was like when he left that wasn't replaced and then it fell on teaching and learning and
143um it's a way for that that academic career planning to still happen but not be on the plate of teaching and learning which is you know District decides usually has two people uh like a Elementary in a in a 612 and we have one person so it it helps allows that position to continue to do what it needs to do yeah if I remember correctly this wasn't a disciplined position this was a discipline to help take some of the casework off the others it was also uh ACP stuff because we need somebody if I remember we need a designated person to manage that process and I feel like there was maybe one one other responsibility that was highlighted so yeah like the the AP testing all the coordination that's what it is if required testing
144thank you any further discussion see you again all those in favor all right all right opposed that passes Item B discussion and action to prove administrator contracts Mr Noah I'll take that one so the um the middle school principle was um position was open and we interviewed well we had 32 applicants we had screened 12 we brought in four four in-person interviews about that four there was two people that definitely stood Out Among the four we had 25 people on the interview committee made up of a board member Administration District Office Administration staff parents support staff and after day two of interviews which also included a site visit by each candidate um the the group recommends Jessica gearen as the next principal for Kennedy Middle School I would ask the board to approve her higher
145at a rate of rate of 14 000 starting in July 1st 2022. thank you I'll entertain a motion I'll make a motion just to get the discussion going approve the hire of Jessica guren as a new principal of Kennedy Middle School with a two-year contract in employment to commence July 1 2022 the salary for the first year of the contract will be 114 000. second any discussion I'll start um I'm going to be a null this evening on this and if more board members will join me on this it's over it's nothing personal against Jessica or the group of 25 people you know that interviewed the final candidates it's just that um there was enough information that I've checked on myself and enough that was presented this evening that I cannot go forward this with
146this with a clear conscience the other thing I would accept is if we table it and I don't know if we can do a closed session with Jessica so that the board can get to meet her and talk to her and find out what's going on or if we can do a closed uh you know the board alone it doesn't matter to me either way but I think with the candidate there it might be better you know that we can discuss some things whether and go from there so right um turn the clock back I believe it was March of last year we had a conversation in the auditorium our cafeteria in the county line on CRT and some other initiatives and this board voted 7-0 um and then if all this stuff happened and
147I think we learned a valuable lesson at that time that we need to what we're appropriate we need to put the pause button on and during that time every Everybody saw The Firestorm Firestorm that happened on both sides of the argument and there was a petition out there when I was still the board president to get me to resign and I signed it 20 times that I'm still here but I learned a valuable lesson that I think we just need to learn more so I would support Mike's comment about tabling it because she may be a very good candidate we just got the information of the hire last week in an email and then the email started flowing and I do appreciate the due diligence that our moms and dads do and others on doing
148deep Dives on items of Interest so thank you for that but this particular matter I had no idea what happened is or was so I've got some more research to do and what does it mean to not only our staff but also our our students even though we have policy in place are we at risk by bringing somebody in um that has this and I appreciate the gentleman when he said is it fair to her that this is my passion I've been doing this for so long and now you're telling me I can't do it I appreciate that but you know we all make choices and if that is put on the table for discussion with that individual with this individual that we will not be going down that path well she's got to make
149a choice or not but I would like more time to review the candidate possibly bring her in for a closed session like we have done with other candidates um but also I think this is an opportunity for us to look at the entire process um and maybe there's opportunities for improvement there too maybe have the board be more engaged involved in the final three candidates and have those closed sessions with the board before it goes out there in public that this is the candidate and we're putting all of our eggs in one one basket so so I would recommend tabling it for further conversation and due diligence this is Bernie yeah I mean we're looking at hiring someone who has made Avid their life's work and uh thanks to some of the resources that the
150community shared uh 20 things I can do to be a more Equitable educator from avid.org number 18. I will acknowledge my role as a social activist well we pay teachers to teach math and reading and history not to be social activists and I would expect our principals would support our teachers that are teaching math and English and history and not be social activists so I too support putting Applause on this because we need to do a deeper dive to see if there's any issues here that we need to be concerned about I was the one that was on the interview committee so I spent the six hours something like that during during the the couple weeks ago uh and just to give the board and give the public a bit of perspective as far as
151what what some of the focus was on during the interviews discipline visibility to all parents and staff and then generally speaking relationship building I think one of the things that that some of the Middle School staff teachers have kind of brought forward was was relationships and having having those conversations and and um so those were the the real focus of it because those were some of the the concerns that I think bubbled up from from the information gathering uh in the end without sharing too much because you know I don't recall the details but generally speaking the the the 25 folks who who made up the committee uh it was a clear majority who the candidate was that we as a collective prefer I did a little bit of research because it did pop up
152and in uh one of the things too that that was brought forward during the process that I think uh and I don't want to speak for I don't speak for everybody in the interview committee but I think at least a couple of people mentioned I'll call it a surprise or almost a shock that that she was she brought forward and passed out to us I don't recall if it was a 90-day plan or a 120 day plan but she'd actually kind of laid out obviously somewhat generically because she doesn't have all of the details about the staff the school the students Etc but she had actually handed out to us for our review kind of a a time frame as far as here here's what I would be doing July 1st and I think she
153actually even shared at some point that if if possible she would make an effort to come in and at least make a couple more visits to the school so generally speaking the interview committee uh had a very positive view I think once again take this for what it's worth because it's flowing through me uh the the staff felt that they could work with her and develop those relationships generally speaking once again flowing through me I think the parents of which I I served kind of a dual role there I was a board member but I also have currently two students in the middle school and then one will be there in a couple years from the parental perspective there there was a sense that we'd be getting more from her um not to be too
154critical but currently there is a little bit of a lack of communication from from the Middle School to current parents so I appreciated that um in the end I I be fine tabling it if that's if that's ultimately what the board um fur I I'm just I I'd vote as a board member but I also feel like as the as kind of the board member who was able because of my schedule I was able to make these sessions I I also feel a bit of an obligation to represent the interview committee and their voice um but if if need be I would I'd be comfortable with tabling the issue and giving the rest of the board the opportunity to discuss and and ask some questions and try to find a level of comfort it's a
155couple just a couple things on Avid and I've never been in an avid District so I don't I don't know what it actually means and it's usually a program means more than what you read in online um Chris has been an avid District Britney's been in an avid District Mike's been an avid District we've hired multiple people prior to me that came out of avid districts our number two person in the interview process is at an avid District number three person is in the Avid District though the point is it's in a lot of places but you have to subscribe to the program and pay for the program it's ten thousand dollars or more that's something that we aren't going to do as a as a board so um and after those first two candidates
156there's a there's a huge drop off and and as Tracy stated my perspective there's a lot more to this candidate candidate than than training that she had in one area and tonight I can't speak to Abbott as it as it happens in a district because I haven't experienced it but I know others who are here have to do we know of Elmbrook yes if I could briefly I to my knowledge Mequon Thiensville westbound Menomonee Falls Elmbrook Waukesha Muskego Oconomowoc and I can say with absolute certainty they're not going this route um if it didn't provide them with high quality professional development specifically around Reading Writing inquiry um as well as high quality development for students and note-taking in organization that's the driver without question um there is a relative to culturally responsive teaching those were
157just strands were strands that exist but the focus is on professional development in these areas with Avid students at the center but ultimately with the entire school school and District at the center as well so there's far more there Brett are we at risk of losing this candidate if we um if the board wants to table this for the next board meeting my assumption is she's here for a reason she's interested in the job for a reason it's an opportunity for her to grow I would hope that she would uh appreciate the concern and and also that the board would like to have a meet and greet with her I think I mean if we're saying the April 11th or April 28th or 25th meeting I said that that's I can't predict but if if
158I'm her then I'm going to go back out looking if that's what she wants to become a principal so um when's the next board meeting well we can have it we can call it whenever we want but um you know if we do on the 28th if we pack in the um the GVS you know with the expulsions we could be that could be it um otherwise April 11th we could have one which is our we have committee meetings that that night um so we can we can call it whenever you know we can call a closed session whenever as well yeah again I'll stand by my comments earlier I want to press the pause button because I need personally I need to do more homework on Abbott and I would welcome the opportunity to
159have a meet and greet with Jessica I'm sure she's a wonderful person you know she'll be a rock star over at Kennedy but I think I would like to do some more due diligence on her I think if we have this meeting with her I think it needs to be a precedence that she will not be attacked in this meeting that there will be no aggression that she will not be undermined because of a training that she's had like this is a respectable adult who you know is obviously if she was the top Contender for 25 people in our district that's saying something so if we are now saying those 25 people man we don't really trust their judgment then what are we really saying so are we gonna rehab everything now and think I
160mean you guys have all been provided the opportunity to sit in these meetings and given the information so have you read it did you go through it I mean I get that questions come up later trust me I get it and I get pause buttons I get it but I just don't want to do a disservice to our middle school kids by putting the pause button on and losing her I guess the question I have is during the Q a with her uh was of the 25 people was Avid ever brought up on what it is no the focus you answered my question yeah I think the focus was on those three main points I I guess I don't as you know they collect all the questions and our notes so I don't recall all
161of the different questions I think there were there might have been a couple on Special Needs um like I said I think the uh the exercise that they did was how they would handle a situation with a parent reaching out with some concerns about bullying and the steps that they would take and how they would approach that etc those type of things so um like I mentioned those three topics Rose to the top um I I don't most people if they've probably paid attention uh no or at least probably could guess I try to think about a lot of these things from a number of different angles to see if I'm missing something or if I have a different thought and during that exercise you know knowing that after having done the you know honestly
162a minimal amount of research on on Avid when I saw it had those concerns or assumed that those concerns were going to to Bubble Up at some point and the where I kind of felt was she was open she was honest she she's in a district next door to us and so uh I can't imagine I don't know this for sure but I can't imagine that she hasn't heard stuff about Germantown school district and what what we've gone through in in what our stance is having those CRT discussions having the SEL discussions and going down that path and ultimately saying you know what not for us um so my fear potentially is that other candidates who might be interested in this watch this meeting and go well if it doesn't work out I'll just make
163sure I leave that stuff off they'll never know they really are going to have to dig you know we're going to have to direct admin to make sure that you have to ask this list of questions so I mean it's it like I said it's one of those things where where I try to think about all these different from these different aspects and and try to kind of gameplay you know that sort of thing so that that that is a concern um you know it's the other thing is is that what if there's high quality teachers there that might come aboard whether it might be interested more interested that whether or not they were involved in Avid or not you know put that aside um you know what what kind of uh what's the potential
164there for for people to go well I've done this thing it's it's whether whether I was kind of required to regardless of my personal beliefs you know do we have to start going on the path of a lot of what if questions you know what if this is just a stepping stone what if this what if that so you know I'm hopeful uh let's put it this way I based off of sitting in front of 25 people twice and having gone through the school and and talking to Heaven only knows how many different kids and staff sitting in front of us and having a discussion might actually not be as big a deal as sitting in front of 25 people staring at you so um but but those are just some some thoughts that I
165throw out there for us to consider with this candidate but also going forward you know that's kind of the the fact the fact of the matter is we we will have more hires to make at some point in time and and it's due diligence is important but it's also in the context of things and it's also the the fact that you know if I were to leave my job and go somewhere else I probably would learn about that company in this case I'd probably learn more about the district and what our you know what are some of those requirements of my employment and what's the ramifications if I don't follow it I mean it's regardless of whether or not we had folks email us and speak to us about their concerns tonight we have eyes
166we have a lot of eyes all over the place as far as trying to to sneak some of this in you know I don't I don't know if you guys recall when when this first bubbled up I think it was shared with us that there is a Google doc somewhere out there for people to report CRT or SEO that's occurring in the school so I don't know if like I said I don't know if that's still out there but but I don't think anybody would who wants to be a principal would take the take the risk knowing of knowing what he or she is is stepping into and take the take that chance but I I'm I'm fine if that's the way we go like I said I'm perfectly fine with it because it gives
167everybody else the opportunity to to ask the questions and hear it from her perspective Tracy I I guess uh and and I thank you for your comments um I still think that based on what I personally went through uh in April was CRT uh and and the criticism from colleagues on this board on not doing due diligence from a transparency standpoint and learning more about the topic um and especially if Avid was not discussed with the candidate by anyone of the 25 people and properly vetted because I would ask a stupid question what no Abbott I've never heard that before what is it and do a deep dive on it and maybe that could have been properly vetted at that time and not at all being critical of the 25 people because that's a lot
168of heavy lifting and you guys did some great work to get the candidate here but I would welcome the opportunity just to have a conversation like we did with uh our person over there and we had a wonderful conversation closed session in the board took action and so I would welcome that conversation um I need to learn more about Abbott even though we're not teaching Avid here even though we've got policy that uh restricts certain things we put a cap on CRT I think only two classes so I would welcome the opportunity and Jessica I'm she's probably watching tonight and you know you're a wonderful person but I I would personally like to have him meet and greet with her they have a conversation so I get to know her better not doing anything that's
169going to discredit or all the hard work that the 25 people did but again I think that we need to look at the process too the committee can still vet people but I think the board should be maybe looking at the final two candidates out of hours he excuse me uh probably the people at home couldn't hear that maybe repeat the question so so to summarize um basically the question was is how are the parents who uh participated in the in this particular interview committee but but to Ellen's Point uh the other committee for director teaching and learning selected and I'll be honest I I don't know I I the actual selection none of us participated in that um I obviously I got a separate invite or or open invitation to to attend so I
170honestly I can't speak to how that process once you've submitted okay but I don't know what I I show up to a PTA meeting on occasion but I don't I don't participate in Mr style slim can you answer the question well no I mean the PTA we asked the PTA to give us it depends what if it's two two parents to sit on a committee or three parents they are they are the leadership parent leadership body of a school so if it's an elementary principle like when we hired Tony we asked the PTA to give us um two parents two to three parents to sit on the committee so that's and then how they vet and what they do that's can we change that going forward so that parents can put their name out and
171we random draw them because they should be open to all the parents I would think rather than having select people that pick their pet favorites the the parent hold on Chad hold on the the parent teacher Association is of anybody can show up and not pay a fee so it's you can just show up and participate I there I'm I'm sure you know based on bylaws or whatever else that might be applicable and there might be things that they can or can't vote on or you know I don't I'm no PTA expert but anybody can show up to the PTA meetings and participate in some way for free there there's the fee that they collect too like I said that might Grant certain benefits or whatever so um I mean it's I don't I have
172no idea how it was determined to go through the PTA or anything else like that but um you know okay and I agree and I think we will look at that how the selection process goes so Mr love I think there are no there's a limit to the number of board members we can have on this interview committee right otherwise it becomes an open meeting that is correct we can't do that so what is the number three three three two or three two two or three okay I I didn't volunteer I wasn't asked after seeing uh Jessica more than once just oh okay I I might have missed it did it come in via email or yeah okay um maybe it was the time of day in the nurse something that I I wasn't didn't
173do it but um anyways the when the uh when I got a copy of the resume I looked up this uh Avid thing and uh Everybody Knows by now that I'm a technical person I have good technical English but I'm not necessarily a um a Avid or a CRT English person so two years ago if I had read what was in Avid it wouldn't have meant much to me but on this day I know some of the buzzwords that are related to CRT and so on and so forth critical race Theory and I'm I'm reading what Avid is online and I'm I'm getting all these buzzwords and I'm thinking oh no oh no so anyway I'd like to thank all the citizens that spoke this evening you are very respectful in my opinion um I
174don't think you or any of us on the board have scared the candidate away I think we do need we would be nice to have a closed session and I I think I'm sure she's tough enough after working in a middle school as a assistant principal to handle questions from the full board in a closed session so I think I think we'll be fine with that and kind of go from there okay if we are going to try to find a date to interview this candidate I think it's prudent on us to do that as soon as possible you know if she has visions of becoming a principal somewhere and she turns out to be the right candidate for us we don't want to miss that opportunity anybody have availability even later this week we
175don't know if the candidate would but just to try to I agree with Tom like Wednesday work that was for me yes I can do any specific time six five six I know we're not supposed to look at our phones but can I pull up myself Wednesday at six would be good for me um yeah that's fine yeah we'll check with the Canon I'll get back to all the board Wednesday at six I think it'd be at the district office I think we've been put in another impossible situation and uh I think talking to the candidate is our prudent move at this point um unfortunately we can't control what goes on in other districts and if we end up with a litmus test that anybody who's involved with any curriculum or training program or anything
176that has to do with things we don't like we would have to fire everyone in the district and not be able to hire anyone we would be put in an impossible situation moving forward I don't I unfortunately didn't get to go to the interviews because I was on vacation otherwise I would have been there and hopefully some of this could have been alleviated um but that didn't happen and we're here tonight because of it um I'm hopeful from all indications that I've gotten from people that I've talked to that have met the candidate we have a potentially outstanding candidate that we could be bringing into this district and I don't want to risk losing a good candidate um so as Brett's saying we need to get with her as quickly as possible and hopefully you
177know we can understand what her view is what her point of view is and what her interest in coming to this District really is so that's my hope moving forward so I will table this until we can set up a meeting hopefully Wednesday so we've got a motion on the table to um and we have a second so I don't know what we need to do to untangle that do I need to withdraw my motion no I think you can just you can defer it until you know what I mean still table there second okay so then we ignore the original model I mean it could be a friendly uh I was I was for all my motion it's okay I think that's the way to do it at the table withdrawn table okay any
178discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed that passes we're tabling that and hopefully we can set this up as quick as possible moving on to item C discussion and action to approve teacher retirement I think you had a um very recent uh retirement submission Jill Sweeney special education teacher at Germantown High School is requesting that the board accepts her decision to retire at the end of the 21-22 school year uh Joe's taught special education at Germantown High School for the past 15 years prior to her current position she taught at Saint Francis Borgia Catholic School in Cedarburg for one year in Lincoln Nebraska for 10 years we ask that you approve the requests for retirement the conclusion 2122 school year for Jill Sweeney and thank her for her years of service to our district
179I moved to approve the request for retirement at the conclusion of 2021-22 school year for Jill Sweeney and thank her for her many years of service to our district second any discussion all those in favor aye aye opposed that passes moving on to item D discussion in action to approve Early Childhood credit program eccp start college now yes that's going to be Chris writer hello everyone I'm coming to you to seek approval of the early college credit program and start college now both statutory required for board approval so that our students at ghs have the opportunity to attain college credit and um or through Star College now attend a technical college for certification or the early college credit program The District incurs 75 percent of the cost of the college credit for a college courses
180for courses that exceed our course selection we this year we have one student that applied for set eight courses an English course that is beyond um P at the high school level and then seven economics courses that does not mean that the student will take all eight courses next year as they apply for multiple courses and we'll look at College catalogs in order to select possibly up to one of those courses the state will pay for 25 percent of that we pay for 75 percent per state statute and the Stark college now program is um working with Wisconsin technical colleges we pay for 100 of courses that students apply for and if a student is to pass the certification exam from said courses then we receive up to a thousand dollar reimbursement per student so
181we have for the start college now program we have 18 students who have submitted paperwork for the CNA certification and two students who have submitted paperwork for multiple welding program advanced welding programs as well as advanced graphic design courses any questions I'm glad you clarified the seven economics classes because I thought it was a typo no yes it's um in previously I've done this in other districts um students are real goal getters will apply for everything and then once a College Catalog comes out they see what and their High School courses are selected then they see what they can fit in usually it's at the beginning or end of a school day where then they'll take usually up to one class at three credits or less they have to provide their own transportation as well
182so that taking a course in the middle of the day wouldn't yield the results of being able to take ghs classes as well okay thank you you're welcome I'll entertain a motion okay move to approve the early credit college program eccp and the start college now request as presented second any further discussion see none all those in favor all right opposed bad passes either me discussion In Action Group 2022 Summer School courses yes and we are that time of year already planning for our next school year which is summer school we forget that zone entity um and we're looking to approval this evening of new courses that are outlined as well as I've provided other information that outlines kind of the next steps upon approval of courses as well as the previous courses you've approved
183in um past years as well as then on the locations for our schools our summer school courses and then an estimated budget the budget is estimated because we have not opened enrollment according to the timeline we would publicize these courses tomorrow in Residence students and families could start on Wednesday the application process and once we determine total enrollment around each course then we can determine how many sections we're going to offer and of course as we'll run or not and then from there we determine class size that is feasible so that we're making a profit on summer school and not losing money so I looked to look back at last year's summer school budget and pre-covet summer school budgets and estimated with with cost of the courses that are running new courses that salary would
184be upwards of two hundred thousand dollars with materials around fifteen thousand again estimated for grand total of 215 000 dollars part of a statutory requirements to come back to you at the conclusion of summer school usually the first board meeting of the new fiscal year to provide you a what transpired from Summer School from there I could have a clear Financial picture of Revenue gain from summer school as well as total FTE and student enrollment any questions make a motion to approve the summer school courses new courses and proposed budget for 2022 as presented second any further discussion yep um so I had asked two of the new courses that are listed in in the big list of of offerings I'd ask for more information on and and thank you for uh for providing it
185whoever's teaching the courses but also Mr reuter for following up on it those two items were everyone else looked so sure of themselves and space to breathe on the surface what was provided to me is basically an outline of what's covered mental Wellness understanding thoughts coping strategies improving self-esteem managing conflict uh on the surface I think that this is a helpful both of these could be very helpful courses for parents to to choose to have their students participate in uh I'd still like to get a little bit more information regarding Source material that might be used handouts Etc like I said on the surface I I think there there is absolutely a subset of our students who would benefit probably from from both of these courses however I do think we'd need a little bit
186more information I'm not sure what the best way to go about it if we keep the motion as is knowing that we have probably a couple of options whether it be something similar to what we do with the the two courses in the high school where there's kind of a parental sign-off yes and we know that some of this material Etc or at least in theory um you know canceling the course Etc we have a couple options but I I would just throw that out there like I said I don't know what the best thing to do moving forward but I personally I'd like to get a little bit more information than than just the general outline great thoughts need Brian thank you Mr Pollock for that I almost forgot that I saw these two
187courses in there and Mr reuter did I pronounce that right writer okay um these these two classes sound a little bit like what we were looking at when we did not approve SEL for the middle school and so I think we can leave them in there but let's get the material like you've asked for and just look it over so this is the verify but trust and uh you know method of doing business I think I think it's a good idea I can afford to the full board on the information and Mr Pollock asked for over the weekend as well as either self-select classes they're not Universal so a parent or student would have to sign up to take the courses as well but I will get that information to all of you and then
188work with the teacher who did submit proposals for these two courses yeah Doterra was quick I'll say that for sure so very good yeah I just forgot I didn't write any notes when I was looking over the material and missed it this evening so thank you okay any further discussion seeing none all those in favor aye opposed that passes I'll entertain a motion move to adjourn discussion all those in paper all right we are adjourned at 9 48. thank you all for coming and drive home safely