3/20/23 Regular Monthly Board Meeting

001if you find the time of the United States of America under God indivisible with liberty and tested throughout thank you Lynn would you take the role please here Lori Allen here Diana Johnson here Tina Johnson present preview the agenda do we have any changes we need to make no uh we do have a presenter who hasn't shown yet um so we may have to move stuff around but they did confirm so I'm hoping that it's just traffic or something all right then this brings us to public input this is one of two times on the agenda where members of the public either present here or online can address the board is there anyone who'd like to be recognized at this time no anyone online no all right then we will move to announcements and recognition

002slash communication I don't believe our student board representative is here is he online no no all right then we will move right on to our candidate introductions for the spring election and the first up is my ticket thank you and I did not prepare anything so but I am here uh first year was a world where I remember Dave uh talking about it a year ago saying that his first year was nothing but learning and he was not wrong so uh nothing but learning but it's all been great and I really appreciate everybody's support all right thank you Fred ready on next thank you Mr President I'd like to thank the Board of Education and the Unified School District for the opportunity to speak through tonight my name is Fred yon and many of you

003already know me I'm a former board member in the current treasurer for the Watertown Family connections board my wife and I have lived in the community for almost 20 years and raised three children in the district the youngest of which is a junior at whs as I stand behavior before you today I want to thank you for the opportunity to potentially serve as a board member a member of the Board of Education it was a privilege to work alongside dedicated teachers and administrators who are committed to providing the best education possible for our students and I believe it is the board's responsibility to clear the obstacles for them to do this I believe we need to address the issue of literacy not an unknown quantity for the board or the district however there's a concerning

004decline in literacy scores as grade levels increase there needs to be an issue of focus rather than taking on the much larger task of race and literacy scores unilaterate cost all grade levels I also believe that the continued decline in student populace must be researched and approached to something not for the district to correct on its own but is one part of the larger Watertown Community only by working together with our elected officials community and Business Leaders and citizens can we halt this decline finally as I prepared for tonight I thought about Watertown the school district what we offer and more than anything I kept coming back to opportunity I believe that every student has the potential to achieve great things and it is our responsibility as a school board to provide them with the

005tools and opportunities to do so I believe that is a goal that we can all get behind I asked for you about this election and I'm confident that together we could continue to make a positive impact the lives of our students and our community thank you all right thank you Diane you're next I did prepare a statement just just me you got me um I'm Diana Johnson I'm the mother of two high school students and have been married to my husband lived in Watertown for almost 20 years I'm a retired teacher with over 25 years of classroom experience spanning elementary middle and high school kids are my passion when I became a board member last year my goals were simple and straightforward to choose the best candidate to fill the role of superintendent and to

006ensure that the district was held accountable for the goals that they established well we hire the best possible candidate as our superintendent Dr Burke believes that we can and will be one of the top districts in the state under his leadership he will set clear and attainable goals and he will ensure that those goals are met we have some work to do first we need to provide rigorous and relevant learning opportunities that challenge every student this means providing multiple levels of learning in the daily activities so that all kids are challenged at their level in terms of innovative instructional practices we're well behind many other districts across the state I will continue to work to bring forth ideas and opportunities for instruction and Innovation so that teachers and students are given the best learning opportunities

007possible second I believe that we need to focus on helping our children become better readers across all content areas additionally I also believe we need to do a better job teaching students how to think and reason mathematically students with a strong background in math reasoning and in Reading are not only more successful in school but they also have greater likelihood of success in adults we're facing some difficult times right now students are struggling more than ever not just academically trying to recover from the shutdown of America but mentally and emotionally as well we acknowledge and accommodate students whose needs we can see those who may need additional support because because of a learning disability who struggle to focus due to attention issues or who pose behavioral challenges we also need to acknowledge and support the

008struggle we don't see those mental and emotional struggles I will continue to be an advocate for the whole child as a nation we're facing some difficult times financially as well as a farmer and business owner I understand the necessity of a balanced budget and we need to think creatively when times are lean I will continue to work with the district and fellow board members to ensure we're doing the best we can for kids and what's best for the district academically and financially I bring a unique Viewpoint to the board given my background in education not only am I able to understand teacher language and help decipher teacher acronyms I'm also able to see things through a different lens which is beneficial in helping the board make good decisions and as I reflect on my past

009year on the board I'm excited for the progress that was made and I'm hopeful for the opportunity to serve for another term thank you all right thank you and then we also had a registered writing candidate welcome Dan Bowman [Music] I am Dan Bullman this is my wife Kathy I'm 43 years and I taught the district for 30 years and I enjoyed every minute of it and I also should say I enjoyed all 43 years of being married I'm the owner operator standing also for over four years so you can see the watertown's been very good to me my family and Kathy sub in the district for over 25 years and I sub several years after retirement it was there that we learned much about the district and met some great teachers if I had

010to do it over I would have taken a leave of absence and sucked because I got so many great ideas from all these other teachers um I try to make decisions based on a Christian worldview I believe strong families make strong communities and strong cultures Kathy and I discussed a run for the board in the past but having been encouraged by several community members the timing seemed right now not perfect timing or I wouldn't be writing Academy that combined with a certain person's retirement was the impetus I believe in hiring great teachers and letting them teach top-down programs often handcuff great teachers in the classroom this board knows Watertown better than Washington or Madison I would like to see more opportunities for students who don't plan to go to college and are interested in the

011trades and there are several other districts that have great programs out there including economowoc and Wauwatosa with great plans and I did need someone while I was campaigning who teaches at w WCTC and she said there's a program for juniors and seniors and they get their degree and so forth all we'd have to do is plug them in and having talked to several contractors in the area they are on board with uh having the kids available to them for longer periods of time than just one hour a day and they would be the teacher she wouldn't have to hire a teacher they've got licensed practitioners teaching them and when I mentioned that to people on on the campaign Trail they live up this is a blue collar top and I think we need to look

012at it that way thank you thank you foreign our next item is the board of canisters selection and the meeting date again the board camera service has a goal in reviewing the ballot counts and certifying the result for the Board elections uh obviously people who are running can't be on that [Laughter] but those who are not so I'll be happy to put myself on that we need three other names we need four for that board of canvassers who else is willing to travel with me Dory David and Tina great thank you is it specifically on the 10th just gotta check the calendar before I agreed totally know what time in the new date yet beginning at four o'clock well I'm really not good at this make sure I want to miss the meeting all right

013the Amazon we have under that item that's it I understand great thank you this brings us to our strategic discussion for this evening and the first is a presentation about our other District placements and we are going to in that over to oh straight over okay you want to do an introduction please I guess yeah so this is a Brunel Donuts she is our district attorney who supports Us in factors that relate to the special ed expulsions um just a person that we use a lot to bounce things off of and Renee is here to explain a little bit about how decisions are made for students that are placed under District yeah do you have anything you wanted to say or my way of introduction materials hello everybody this is a copy of just some

014statutes and other legal documents that she's going to be kind of referring to um how did this conversation come about uh um saw that there was an area of kind of increased programming that's been in that area and so they were wondering a couple questions how do how does this programming benefit students and how do how are students place in this programming you know what kind of oversight does the school district have when students are placed outside of the district and then as it comes to other policies related to approvals of contract and so on um how does how does what we have support this programming and or not and if there may be some suggestions changed so that's where we are and so we just wanted to make sure that the board had all

015the information available to make a decision so I'm here to provide some information chat with you do an overview legal requirements but then talk really about the proactive implications of that how it works in practice not only in Watertown but in District across the state and then answer any questions that you might have um I really subscribe you after retire to enjoy the opportunity to collaborate with the administration here um really appreciate the work that the district is doing I haven't seen that all the time but but really working most directly with Jenny and with Aaron um have appreciated what all of you are doing for children and see some extraordinary things that I've mentioned to both of them I sometimes talk about in presentations on a Statewide basis um because I've been so impressed

016by some of the staff and the administration that you have here here so um I've got a brief handout it's pretty dense reason it's dense is because I'd like for people to see what some of these materials are but again we can real quickly shift to some practical questions that you have in Practical explanation of this but in the materials you have in front of you um I mentioned first just a little bit about Our obligation under the law to provide a Continuum of alternative placement now this is a law that relates to children with disabilities the individuals with disabilities education acts and the regulations say that we have to provide a full Continuum placement so every time we talk about a Continuum replacement we start with here in Watertown we start in regular education

017courses we start with as much time as is possible for an individual child in that setting and then from there we move from regular education to special education to more time in special education lots of different actions and Aaron and Jenny if you want to you want to talk about some of those sure so some of our students might require to be in the special ed room more than we typically would do and a lot of that is based on different things it's individualized some might be based on behavioral concerns safety concerns or low academic concerns and we go through the IEP process whenever we're looking at changing the students programming so on that IEP team it's a whole group regular Ed staff special ed staff parent often the student maybe a counselor psychologist sometimes

018there's outside people that come in depending on the involvement of the students and because we're poised with educating them in the least restrictive environment that may look differently like for student a and student B for me it might be that I my most difficult time of the day could be the start in the morning so we might look to a more restrictive structure for that very beginning part of the day to try to judge my regulation to see what the rest of the day is going to look like we do have some students that are on what we call a reduced date and that reduced day is is not frequent it's more infrequent I would say and part of that is the Department of Public Instruction really governs why you can reduce a student's day

019and when you do that what are you looking at to see if you can increase their day after maybe some benchmarks are met or after they have proven some success if we are dealing with a student that has County involvement we have had some situations where we receive students from another District where they were placed out of District due to some very extreme situations those are very small percentages I would say one to two percent of our students in special education would fall in that category but if we receive a student from another District that's been placed out of District of course we review that we look at you know the why and what has happened and how is that student doing and in the end what in trying to determine what is the least

020restrictive environment we have looked for out of District placements in some of those cases for reasons that will be good for that student and for our teachers and for our other students about it and there's a category in which we can receive funding back called transfer of service I'm sorry high cost transport the transfer of service and so we are like high-cost students as sort of for short but yeah yeah so we do go through that process and what we find as we typically receive above the Third of the cost back to have a student be placed out of District so if they're transferring in the student we do have some means in which we could look just to surprise or Provide support I will tell you that our administrators go Leaps and Bounds to

021try to keep our students all students safe including perhaps student aim using myself as the student that is the regular brick and mortar building just isn't working so we try we've added extra staff we have looked at alternating their start time and their end time and putting different resources in play for a student and really the administrators in the building are the ones that should get the accolades for that because they are we are altering what we're doing to try to support a student but there are some cases where we're just not able to provide in our environments the most appropriate educational path path for that student under Faith pre-appropriate public education and idea and we take all of those decisions very seriously I will tell you that we have had an increase in the

022number of students that we are seeing placed out of district and that's not just water tone I mean when we talk to all other people that are in these roles across our state it's happening at a higher number of students than we've ever seen before we do look at can those students return to the district so while they're placed out a district we still have a case manager that that student is still part of their caseload and the reason being is we're still considered the Lea so we still maintain them on our rosters we still are getting funding for them but we get weekly very detailed reports and attendance reports and behavior reports and academic reports and the schools that we partner with we're very in tune to what they're doing academically and behaviorally so

023if we see that we are able to bring a student back we have done that and it's done again on a very individual basis me being student a we may recommend part days at their out of sight placement and part days back in our district and we work on that and we see how that goes and that might increase whereas if I'm using Josh as student B this trend transition back could start full base so there's no way to predict I can't give you like this is what we always do because it's very student specific and again I will tell you it's a very heavy heart when we go to make these decisions it's it's hard for our Educators because they really have tried to do everything they possibly can it's extremely hard for the

024student and it's hard for the families to be going that different pathway one of the pieces that adds an extra expense to this of course is transportation because we are obligated to transport when students are placed out of the district so we have all different scenarios we look at and we always look at the dollar amount and what is the most economical and how do we make that work for a student I will also say that when we go through the expulsion process which I know is that's not an easy process for you as a board or for us as a school district but sometimes it's the right Next Step that we need to take and if a student has a disability we are obligated to educate that student even if we're recommending expulsion for

025them due to Faith and idea so the students that we expel that have special ed we often look to Alternative placements for them because we're obligated to educate them and we have talked about you know the cost of a teacher and the cost of Paras what makes more sense and quite honestly we're hard-pressed to find staff that we could hire that are willing or or still teaching in that way if I can say it to you as plainly as that there used to be a period of time when there were teachers that were certified in the category of EBD emotional behavioral disability and we don't have that anymore all special ed teachers are certified as cross-categorical teachers so finding the staff is really a difficult Challenge and impossible in many cases then you have to

026find where would we house individuals and there was before Jenny and I were in these roles there was a period of time where they had a room in this building where someone from the students were educated we had a period of time where there was a room at the high school where students were educated that were more challenging for for due to their disability couldn't be in the typical environment and there were some successes and there were not successes um there was a period of time and Dave you would remember this I think there was a sisa II person that came here from Janesville that worked with this the the part that kids challenging there is is that whole piece of idea and Faith where we can't like say meaning me we're only going to

027give you a teacher two hours a week or three days a week for two hours because that doesn't give them access to a free appropriate of public education even though they're a more complex individual so that's kind of what I would share we try and do everything we can yeah yeah and that's what I see I mean this is a Statewide issue right where you have a lot more students who are in need of more and again the starting point is all the types of things that Aaron has been talking about and Jenny's got a lot of examples too um including things like conducting functional behavioral assessments to figure out you know what is it that we could do within school to be able to help a student self-regulate so that we don't have behaviors

028that could potentially be dangerous for example lots of types of things that we do but and I can get back to some of this too but please say it's a Statewide issue and they're open and rolling out of our district and everybody's going other directions where are they going who's taking up the slack if we're going to take in some but we're open and rolling them out and you say Aaron we have one to two percent that are we're picking up out of district am I right and are you what you want to do yeah they're not necessarily open enrolled kids into us they're students that may move into our district or maybe placed in a foster home in our district so they're they're part of our um we go through What's called the best

029interest determination meaning to determine what's in their best interest of the student and that involves the district they lived in and if they're in foster care and we go through this whole process to determine which is their resident district and which is the Lea block right now we're just talking about the kids who so I'll take for example a residence student maybe a resident for whatever reasons open enrollment rules are completely different and if it student had these kinds of needs under open enrollment the district would very likely determine well we don't have the capacity to be able to serve that student and that student would go back to home District as a result so we're talking about students we know we're responsible for and this process is you yes we have to provide a

030Continuum replacement but we're always going to start and we're going to try as hard as we can with all the tools that Jenny and Aaron have described and can describe to keep students in District but there could come a time where when we're going down that Continuum we have to move from an elementary school within the district to something outside it's very rare and it's rare because of the fact that you know we have that obligation to try here however with the Statewide issues Nationwide issues regarding mental health regarding you know just behavioral struggles and safety issues then it turns out that in in many many districts there are more of these alternative placements so the question that I think for lots of people is how do we get there who makes that decision so

031if you look at this next section here at section two and this is state law that talks about who makes the decision and you can see here it's the IEP team the individualized education program team and I list in section three who's a part of that team so this is you know a combination of state law saying okay we have to have placements made by the IEP team and federal law saying here's who who is on the IEP team so lots of different people people who know the students best is what I think would normally be argued in terms of why are these people the participants and that list is here parents are on that team and you can see parents are listed first they're an important part of that team they're an important part

032of the decision-making process you can see we also have regular education teacher if if the child is in regular education especially a teacher a representative of the public agency meaning of the school who has these qualifications and one of those things will qualifications is that they're knowledgeable about the availability of resources of the school so there's going to be a person on the team who meets all those qualifications they're knowledgeable about the resources but they're also knowledgeable about the child and about the program and about special education and and part of what we do in getting teams ready when you're thinking about a potential alternative placement is that we train them we provide a lot of training either training that's General so that everybody knows about it or if a team is considering an alternative

033placement we're going to train them because their legal obligation is to start again with could this be that could we serve this child within our own School environment so a lot of times there's training have you done enough here do we need to bring in resources he said too Jenny can attest to that um has been a fantastic resource in helping to keep children in District because maybe somebody an expert from season two can come in and give staff some ideas about educationally behaviorally what could be done to help keep a child with us instead of considering an alternative placement so that's the those are the people who are making that disable others who are but it's like like Aaron mentioned with sculption if if a child with a disability is expelled from school federal

034law says that that child is entitled to receive Service as post-expulsion but when a board is writing an expulsion order for a child with a disability the board can't decide what that post exposure those post-expulsion services are going to look like because federal law says it needs to be this team of people including the parents who know the child making that decision and this is very similar and it's one of those those limited circumstances where you know it's rather than a board decision or a committee decision or one person's decision it's that instead so we do a lot of prep before we would ever get to that spot like I said generally so that people know about the need to try to like at least restrictive environments for the child but also specifically when a

035team is thinking maybe you want to go that direction because we need to be really cautious that we've done all we can do beautiful there yeah um in these decisions um and things like that one of the things that I become concerned about um is because I've been a special education paraprofessional so you know failure but I'm also a parent as well and so um some of the things that I become concerned about is the effect of you know yes I understand that these children have rights of you know to be the least restrictive environment in their education and things like that however what about the other 30 kids in that environment and their right to a safe you know an uninterrupted education so how what is one of the reasons we see more alternative

036placements because when you look at the standard for how do we address behaviors we're talking about what do we need to do either within school or if we can't do it within School in an alternative placement potentially if the student's Behavior not only impacts that child but also the learning of others it's right there in the standard and so that's part of the analysis and part of the calculation and I would say that most of the alternative placements that I see the large large amount majority I don't want 100 percentage on it but larger majority is because of these safety concerns that you're expressing behavior and safety versus we we don't really see them for academic issues for example we really do surround safety of not only that student but like you're saying of all

037students correct do you do you suppose you see some sort of um you know I I don't know I'll look at it like this but unfortunately I want to make the best decisions for for the students that are you know that we need to serve and so that's the lens that I'm looking at it through but do you see a component of which um with dishes districts might consider um well we we want to give this kind of an individual resource to this child until it gets to the the certain point and to try it because there's a an expense Associated to go to an outside Source um and where that have you seen districts trying to come up with some sort of a break point by which a decision would be made to do

038some other see that's the problem um is that one of the key features of the individuals with disability Education Act is that like Sarah mentioned earlier every single decision has to be individual so it's really challenging to come up with guidelines or policies to say this is the time when we go to an alternative placement because of the fact that every decision needs to be made by a team of these people who know the child fast for that particular child under those particular circumstances and always even if a child is you know placed outside of the district for a period of time always the goal is because the law requires least restrictive environment right which you have to keep looking at can students come back kind of students come back but again it's one of

039those individualized things so when we try to say like oh the student can come back when the student's done a b and c that gets tricky too because we have to be constantly watching this individual child in this individual circumstance and figuring out you know ethnic team what's going to be best who typically fills the number four role in here for our district the Lea rep you know I I've seen it different based on based on the if it's an alternative placement situation my bet is that one of these two is going to be in the room I'm not aware of situations where you'd be considering alternative questions don't show up at that meeting correct we're very aware and have been working with the staff and bringing this piece of people in and bringing in

040we have someone that we work with that's not with CSA but to come in and try to support us and we've started that some of these decisions take time and you're trying to recraft a schedule and a routine and you see some success with some of that when you do alter and then you try a little more and in the end Jenny and I are always at the table with these decisions it's not a collaboration to make sure that I mean it is really like not just a legal obligation but I think that both Jenny and Aaron feel it's an ethical obligation to make sure that we've done all we can and you know just to make sure there are no trouble spots in terms of the staff's implementation and whether there's anything in terms

041of more creative problem solving that could be done with those outside agencies Renee can you um I'm going to when we get into these enrollment agreements with these different organizations can you talk about how our continued oversight happens within that agreement and with the programming that's happening um so that our board understands you know what what control do we still have if we're going to send these students to a different Organization for their education I feel pretty strongly control that we have because we still remain the Lea the local educational agency responsible for that child receiving an appropriate education so whereas in the past some districts would say oh you know a student is alternatively placed there we are and then we'll see in a year that's never been a good idea recently DPI has

042been more active in noting that that's a bad idea that we should leave the issued a bulletin that specifically says here's a lot you should have constant communication you should be getting progress reports um from a fiscal perspective I typically recommend that if there's an option where there's not a lump sum payment but you know it's gradual so that if that placement isn't working out or if that placement isn't doing what they said that they were going to do to serve the child and the child isn't getting appropriate education and we can say well we'll be looking for another placement whether it's bringing the child back or whether it's finding another placement that will provide something appropriate district and so does the case manager and the case manager Remain the case manager here in the

043district so the special ed teacher who was a special ed teacher when they were in the district maintains that um and they get daily communication about how that is going we get bi-weekly reports and then we also get quarterly reports as well based on what their IEP goals are so we still meet and helpful that in case so that's typically not a student that we meet once a year that's a student that we're having meetings as student a needs or as students it varies per student some schools will push back and say we want to take control of the IEP we want to write the IEP and um and we're aware of some schools that do that and and we will not agree to that right um I think that a question that routinely comes

044up uh in in some of our discussions is uh what what um type of negotiations when it comes to services that we um that we're seeking financially do we have control of as in what kind of rates can we try to have a reasonable expectation so that we can try to plan around those costs and if if one if we're looking at comparables for providers uh if that is even an option um how do we compare provider to another provider so that we can financially plan for those children's needs the idea and supplementary state law if there's one option that costs more but is inappropriate for a child and the other one costs less or you know if it's the cost less but it's inappropriate the other one is appropriate and it costs more it's

045not like we can say oh we're just going to provide the placement that's less expensive however if we're comparing Apples to Apples then we're in a situation where an IEP team might say you know we think this is an appropriate placement here's another appropriate placement and if your apples to ask truly Apples to Apples for a child then there is an opportunity to say that you know that could factor in that's unusual that we're apples to the staffs right now it's really hard to even find an alternative placement that has space or that's a good match for a child so that's a challenge to begin with there have been times where if the family is represented by an attorney or an advocate and we're looking to find an alternative placement that everybody agrees is appropriate

046and that the parents are having their voice as you know as we would expect that they would in that decision-making process we have worked with families attorneys and Advocates and um jointly approach an alternative placement saying we think that this is appropriate and essentially cut a deal you know could we could the tuition be different is it different this way or this way what if it's this way that's less likely to occur these days because right now we're looking for places that even have space at all and can be a good match but it's not impossible and it's something that we routinely did in the past just a little bit more challenging now given that there's not as many placements available I think the the last question I think that our board had that I

047delivered to through Aaron was Aaron had sent you a policy and in our policy it talks about purchases for twenty thousand dollars getting purview of the fiscal uh committee uh and then you know onto the board for approval that doesn't quite happen when it comes to these agreements um can you explain the why and how and is there something that you would give us guidance to do to make sure that we're following policy and or have the correct policies in place yeah yeah so I I know the policy you're talking about it took a look at it and familiar with it many districts have similar policies and there are of course going to be exceptions to policies and one exception is that Federal Law requires something different so in this case the idea requires that

048decisions regarding alternative placements not be made by school board but rather be made by the IEP team with really solid training and understanding of what their obligations are but nonetheless by the IEP team so typically in policies of this nature we would just include a sentence that talks about you know unless otherwise required by state or federal law and then it allows this exception and if there are other exceptions many of them are under the idea then we would be in a similar position where your policy so I expected that I mean that yeah that's right it's protective information if something's going to stay away from it even under that circumstance have you seen other districts have what I'll call a master Services agreement type approach in place with a given institution that says okay

049we're gonna have placements occur each one is individual but there are some rules for the road overall that apply to all of them yeah you know I haven't seen any given School District make so many alternative placements in one location that it would be a situ even larger districts you know where it would be a situation where they'd say we're going to sit down with you and Hammer this out um given the fact that there are very few kids in any given place at one time but if there were several students going to the same place over time then it would make sense to sit down with them and say here's what we want to do and I'll give you an example um not a lot of students went to this one location but there

050is one location that had the practice of taking the IEP over and they still do have that practice of trying to take the IP over and say we're gonna we're gonna create this IEP you're not going to do it anymore well that that doesn't make sense for lots of reasons and so this individual District sat down with them and said yeah you know for us it's going to work differently and here's but the Leverage is different than it used to be given the fact that there's such a scarcity of placements right for example the one what you brought it before the idea of not doing lump sum filling even a master Services agreement is simply spoke to here's how you're going to invoice us here's how we're going to pay you yes and here's agreements

051about liability I mean the common features of Master's Urban dreams have done with other right so it might not be the same across the board because we only have one or two students there's but yeah we typically have we have it we do we do have agreements that say we're not doing a lump sum the liability of that with the individual alternative organizations that we read we sign we sometimes send or attorney and for questioning it so are those individual based on cases or is that is that an overarching they're individuals that they're the same agreement S one school like if we had more than one student at one school it's the same agreement it just has student a on one okay and student B on the other sorry so we I guess that's that's

052a confusion to me because up until this point I was we were being told we do not have agreements part of that conversation and now you're saying we so there is a formal I think what I'm hearing is this common language used in each individual student's placement agreement but that there is an individual placement agreement it talks about the expectation for the school and the expectation for us and the financial for us the timing of it and all of that is the general one the general agreement well I I was told that there wasn't any agreements period yeah whether there's general or individual individual General so for example if you look at you know a form that the district had to use for everybody for example uh people Student Records if you want to share

053Student Records between a physician and the district we have a form and that's the district's form and somebody will give us all sorts of stuff and we'll say no can do you need to fill out our District's form whereas with individual schools there will be different agreements and we don't see all the agreements like Aaron said sometimes if there's a question or whatever then they'd send them over we would take a look at it and see if it's an individual circumstance I don't know if that helps at all because it's not like one agreement that we have for all providers right well differences in that you know I think the confusing came around the idea of you know what does our contract look like well it's not a contract or an overarching contract there are

054a number of separate um placement agreements that outline for that student the cost for that student the kinds of um uh education that they're required through the IAP you know and those kinds of things so there's not really a contract there there are specific educational placement agreements that outline all of those things within the agreement well what I'm asking is if we're taking student a Aaron and sending her to lead Lake are is there an agreement that signed by an administrator and by Led yes that's that placement is contractual about that placement yes and we're saying that that is a that is done on a standard agreement form that Ladle Lake provides with some fill in the blanks correctly right and then when we go to a different Richardson School it's going to be a

055different document it probably looks very similar but is different but we somebody with an administrative title signs that and somebody friends that institution signs that each other okay that's correct okay that's new news okay and that document is what is protected by federal law that should not be coming in front of a board those individual documents should not be coming into proper board that's correct yeah if we get into some kind of situation where there's litigation there might be exceptions to that but as a general rule we don't want that we wouldn't have them we don't want that and which is a general rule the administration would typically not find a legitimate educational interest in sharing those unless something else extraordinary all right other questions on the process how students are identified how it's determined

056that they that possible external placement should be considered how we keep up and in sync with what is occurring those external placements and the nature of the paperwork that is created as a part of this process other questions about that at this point that was our objective this evening just to educate not to figure out where we're going to educate and I think there there was one recommendation for change possible change in our policy to hear that come out be more inclusive and we'll refer that to the policy committee for consideration correct I just had one why I just wanted to make sure I I clearly understood um some of the discussions so far we can as a district however make conditions here locally more conducive to be compatible with an IEP that to in

057order to try to prevent or not prevent but um to give the student the best opportunity for sex success right here before we go out and send them to loud Lake and that might mean an additional um uh use of resources to make that sort of thing happen lots of support s to try to make that happen about functional behavioral and assessments behavioral intervention plans you know making sure that there's a lot of knowledge among staff members regarding all the things of training so that they know what they're trying and then having Jenny and Aaron supervising that so that they'll go in and say eh nope there's more stuff that you need to do so that's that's really a significant effort here yeah and and to you know we literally um exhaust the skill set

058and level of uh programming that we can provide to the best of our ability why because we truly believe like a student's least restrictive environment is the school district that they go to that being said sometimes the alternate placement it has something either physically or skills based that we can't provide for instance um we may have a student uh who you know is a runner um tries to get out and once they get out of a place if they're familiar enough for the environment they they may run home which is unsafe I mean um but if the alternate placement is 40 miles away and they're not familiar with that that limits that choice for the student and helps change that behavior set and puts them in a place where they can start learning because they're

059not in in control of that physical situation where they still maintain some control especially if they know their surroundings so again that's just only one example of a number of different ones we could go through but we do absolutely try to exhaust every possibility within our means and even if it costs has cost to it we add some of those in place to make that happen but I think uh I think my observation has been that um if if there's a certain circumstance where behaviors blend itself to physical violence and things of that nature there's there's to a point which we can no longer really serve that child to the best of them and and I I completely understand the need for the service and I just think again what I'm hearing is it's not

060as I'll say simple as we can create a checklist of when I do a then B and C then D then e then F and if all those none of those work then we're doing this because in some cases you go straight to pet you go straight to F you bypass a through e because they're not appropriate and we try F and it doesn't work and then we have to look something different it's not yeah it's not going to be as straightforward is what I'd like to be able to put in policy so from a legal perspective and I just put this I mean last month we spent 100 over 120 000 on all sorts of education so I'm just trying to put that in some of the perspective of this is it from a

061fiscal perspective is it is it legally something to be new of saying we have to get our Administration to say we have signed the contract for a new student with XYZ firm and here's the financial for amplifications of that and that that can go through to our fiscal committee to be at least aware of and understanding that this is happening so every District works out separately aware of the financial impact of things but in terms of uh like a case by Case by case like thumbs up or thumbs down the problem is that that would come come into conflict with the people who are supposed to be making the determination of regarding that placement Via pizza and that's where the no not not asking us to give approval for it okay to be informed of

062it just the knowledge of it because we're on fiscal and we have to run a budget and like right now we're 223 above our budget okay so we're trying so can we run our budget and without knowing so here's a hurting parcel we need we don't know at any given point if we're this many kids or this many kids right so it's harder to plan for it I totally understand that and respect that but I don't think and I need your legal advice on this like it's now March 20th let's say March 24th we're in a situation where we have another student that we're looking at placing I don't know if we can bridge that confidentiality issue of okay we have another student we're placing out of district and the reason why things we we

063hear about these kids right I mean you hear from your own lives and your community connections I just don't know how we would it's depending yeah I promise it's dependent and it like you said like you're the community connections and so there are times when you know because there are so few students if you say to anyone we think we're going to a private placement and people could even if you don't say the name if people know who that is that's personally identifiable information and then there's a question that needs to be answered about whether there's legitimate educational interest in what's happening to that student so I mean it's attention there's no question that it's attention but I think that's where you hear the hesitation because if you walk in and say there's a student

064who's going to be placed and everybody knows that there's a student who's had some significant difficulties with self-regulation might be a safety risk and it's possible that that information would be shared and it's supposed to be confidential under State individual law so that's where we get into that tension and I understand that but I also understand from the board's perspective looking at right and so if you don't know what's happening so is it possible to look longitudinally in terms of okay in the last year we had five place in the last year previous year we had seven place so now we can get a ballpark it can then be budgeted within and then you know put a little slush with you know there's not a lot of slush but somehow it has to be somehow

065exactly rather than talking about individual students who are advising that there's an individual student here's generally what we see here's generally what the budget is understanding we need to go up and down and that high cost kid bond that we were talking about before where in recent years there's been you know the district has been accessing that and can continue to access that further is there any hindrance to the administration expecting the board based on our current case load here's what we would here's what we can project outward for the remaining portion of the year for this area of expense is there any issue with that yeah yeah any issue with that right you guys don't you can just say here's a projection because that's just a projection not based on it right we're bringing

066in individuals this is what would be based on our current case look where we are right now quarterly for the next three months to the end of the fiscal year and then again as part of a budgeting process if we make assumptions and again we want to we commit to we want to bring these students back as quickly as they can but if you make assumptions that those placements continue this is what that would look like for next year that would be especially doable if we didn't start down the road of you know here's how many students in elementary I mean that's not what it is trying to get some some projection for it of next year we think again based on where we are this year we think it's going to be 50 higher

067or we think and you all know right and and you know that a couple of students what we can do is here's where we're at and this is what we anticipate yeah if we stay status quo which means no more going out or none coming back right so this would be your projections right here exactly right that's can't we can't be held to if another story it's just right now we're in the dark investment from completely so we're trying to yeah we're holding this intention of it's protected we can't know we can't know and the board is saying well what can we know we understand that there's things that we can't know and we aren't we we need to respect that but the answer can't be just well this is an IEP situation you just

068gotta keep your nose out of it you can't know anything we got to figure out what can we know I'm not trying to change it I'm not trying to change it we're just trying to be informed make your best assumptions on current conditions and what would you project it's just don't get a sense of that yeah just another piece can you answer the question in our world costs have gone up significantly the percentage whatever is that the same with this have had the class been pretty consistent the last three to five years they've gone you know because I was saying okay if we look at the last two or three if you can use that as a baseline but if costs have jumped up twenty percent fifty percent you know then we just need you

069know how do you get a baseline right well and there's other factors too that really make things different transportation that Aaron mentioned earlier some parents will transport and we can do a parent contract for that other parents are not able to transport and the transition is more costly and so like you know there's a lot those are the types of factors the increasing Transportation costs are through the river but he says that they we've got a we've got extra bus riders here in the district we've got people trying to do lots of things to make Transportation work so that one's been another factor in addition Aaron just said in our history we did more things internally well if we did more things internally in head staff here and other things and it was that budget

070X and hey in the last five years that's crippled well maybe we need to go back and look at all their own ways to there's going to be some point there's going to be some economical point of saying hold on this was the path that we were always on but the economy of it has put it here and maybe it makes sense that we look at a creative I guess the board student needs him and rather people are addressing student needs internally or externally the costs everywhere have increased and then as Aaron mentioned before one of the huge challenges as you all know is Staffing so you know that's sometimes you've got the you've got the budget to pay someone to do it but you can't find the person to do it so there's just

071all those factors I'd say even for the districts that have in-house programs the costs of their in-house programs are increasing significantly as well because you got to pay people more to take the jobs to find the people to do the jobs and and then you need more people because there's Staffing you know used to be that you could have one special teacher maybe working with a number of students and now because of those needs we have more staffing needs more people I'm just thankfully what things are going down we'll do the best we can do anything else on this subject for this evening thank you very much absolutely if you have any follow-up questions Administration no sort of thing next topic under seated discussion is a presentation by Dr Burke on needed programmatic supports that's

072good so let me let me start off the presentation by kind of talking about where did this conversation start um during my interview process um and uh shortly thereafter the board asked me to take a breath and with the program that we offer for students and see if we have indeed everything in place that we might need to be successful towards our strategic plan into other things that I might uncover or here as I'm putting my ear to the to the wind and and finding out what's out there so um how did I go about finding the areas of need that we had uh I I entered their into review process a lot of that I started with onboarding discussions that I had with individual board members as they were able to meet with me

073um and and or are the board as a whole as I was hearing them at different committee meetings or board meetings expressing uh concerns or interests related to areas where we might be able to do better I also sought Community input met with a lot of either former board members other people in the community are Community leaders had multiple uh you know meetings and lunches just hearing from them and asking them um you know people in business and other things you know what are you hearing about our school district where where do you think we can have some more support or or where do you think we can improve things for our students also multiple discussions within our administrative team individual administrators uh asking them about programming that's happening in their buildings or programming that

074they're in charge of district-wide seeing where their stresses might be where they feel like maybe uh they're they're having some difficulties uh because they're being pulled in a number of different directions or other things also staff and parent concerns as it relates to phone calls parent surveys that we've done or other things that we've done as well as sitting with staff members or having the casual conversation in the hallway and or other other meetings that have a staff um to get that feedback so so what I'm about to share with you is uh there were a number of uh areas that people kept saying we need to think about some some supportive um and these ideas kind of keep rising to the top so regardless of support I'm going to tell you that in what

075I've heard so far we do have questions of concern through the IEP process we just spent the last half hour talking about uh one percent of our most needy students uh and how do we work things around that how does that happen how does that whole process work and and go but we do have questions on the IEP process um even as much as you know are we able to timely turn around IEPs uh have meetings scheduled when we have meetings scheduled you know um people being pulled in multiple directions uh having that last minute having to change um even the Lea that was in charge for that meeting that day or other things because those things do happen also behavioral supports of students a number of concerns about you know things like bullying we've

076been working on the bullying policy as one of our supports um that we're looking at changing but definitely some concerns about behavior supports and when Behavior gets to be too much from a student or group of students in an individual building uh Central um office administration having to go into the buildings to act as extra support and or get coaches from other places like Cesar or other places to help in regard to those behavioral supports I myself on a couple of occasions have had to be that support for um some students whether it's uh you know taking them down to the library and engaging in uh you know some some relief for the the teacher or the other administrators that have been working with that student or other things um curriculum review and supports many

077of our our staff are concerned about the pace at which the new curriculums are coming in and or being developed some are saying too fast some are taking too slow some are saying I need more help in uh some some people are needing um to understand the materials better those kinds of things so curricular review and supports has been something that's been rising to the top of the list measuring those curriculum reviews uh are those the curriculum um and other things like attendance um staff engagement data student engagement data parent engagement data um we've been talking a lot about data and the importance of data but we do have a limited uh limited tools and supports to really go through the data to the level that we really want to and make sense of it

078and talk about how it can help direct our program Fidelity is support programming that we have in other structures what I mean by support programming is are programs like our El programming for English Learners um our Advanced learner program Dual language program our stem programming or other programming that we have uh in relation to anything outside of the general curriculum and or innovation that we're doing making sure that when we bring in new innovation and other things and or we're working with those specific programs designed for those specific students to engage in that we do that with Fidelity and that we maintain the level of fidelity throughout that and and when you're being Innovative and we have a number of innovative programs here staying on top of that Innovation track and making sure that we're

079adjusting as we go through that has been a question that's come up you know are we appropriately adjusting and then lastly questions of alignment and role confusion when people are getting pulled to things to support things that aren't germaning to their job description it does produce some role confusion or when there's shared responsibilities over programs or other areas um and and then and the answer is you know it's the question well who's whose job is this anywhere who's uh who's the person in charge and you say what we are that that doesn't sit well sometimes and and or goes into a lot more explaining as to um where we need to be and so again these are just some of the things that have risen to the top of the list that we as an

080administrative team have been talking about you as a board have been talking about and saying how can we how can we do that better like how can we engage into those things so that we can make sure that our experience for our students and our families is much better than it is right now because sometimes these things in the best of the ability that we're doing to implement them and I think we are doing a really good job of trying to implement these with the resources that we have but it does bring up other questions about can we do better so um I have a um a solution here I say the needed solution equals more supports um the do more with less thank you um for uh handing that out this is hard to

081see on the screen so I do have a handout that that is going around hopefully that makes it a little easier for you I'm going to stay on the handout it's not as easy either but it's a lot of information on one sheet but I needed it to be on one sheet so that you weren't confused so I will go at whatever space or speed we need to make this discussion happen I I really think that it's hard to do more with less um and I I know that when this board hired me I I really got the impression um uh that not only do we have a high set of standards and a strategic plan into those High set of standards but that this board will engage in the community and try to get

082whatever resources we need to make sure that we are on that pathway foreign that I have here for more supports I'm not asking for any more money for the supports that I'm putting in front of you today average about one to one point two percent of our budget I what I'm asking for is that the board sees this as the first priority in the 2023-24 budget and if we do this we will make a budget that takes this as the first consideration meaning we will still get to the balance type budget that we were looking for with all of the other additions and subtractions possible new revenue or not coming from the state possible reductions and staff are not as needed by enrollments or whatever other things or any other impacts on raises benefits or

083anything else that comes into the budget making as we move forward this impact will be the first decision we make along that path if we believe it's important and I'm telling you I think this this restructuring and adding of supports within our administrative team um uh and and moving forward I think we'll get to what it is you're looking to do as a board and and we as a community of Educators and as a community for our students I think these supports are needed based on the information that we got but also doable in a way that's not going to add to our overall expenditures that being said go through a couple of things the large three gray boxes on the top indicates Three director positions we currently have two directors as well as an

084assistant superintendent in the Serb Educational Services area of our um of our school district proposing that when we get rid of some role confusion and we realign some of their supports in doing so instead of having a situation where we have two directors that do special education student services as well as curriculum um either at the elementary level or the high school level separating those two jobs the responsibilities to one person meaning a K-12 student services and special education person and a K-12 director of curriculum and instruction okay you can see the proposed titles on those um and you can see the key roles and responsibilities in the budget areas that they would be in control of but that's the first thing I would do we talked a lot in administrative team about going down

085to two main roles and having a lot more support under them but as we're seeing an explosion in some of our International students or eCampus and talking about really this district and one of the strengths that we've had as a district is its Innovation and different types of programming having somebody continue the vision of that and be a focus on that was important putting that under the other two even with supports we thought might have us lose sight of something that we thought was very important to us as a district so therefore we have a third director um instead of uh doing away with the assistant superintendent position and having more coordinators underneath we're going with fewer coordinators underneath in this in this plane that's in front of you um and keeping a third director

086position not an assistant superintendent but a third director position that third director physician uh will be in the area of Technology Innovation strategy and data moving to the next layer we have two administrative assistants who help those directors in everyday programming communication um you name it those are a vital support role to that director in that position I'm suggesting we're bringing in a third person to help with that third director um and I will say that that discussion was actually at the Forefront of some communication as I came on into the district about another clerical support here at Central offices that would have gone along the lines of to one of the teaching and learning um support uh people um that is either at the elementary or secondary level because currently Elementary and secondary share

087a support person so we think it's vital to bring in that role you'll see that's in yellow that's the first ad I'm talking about so when you see yellow you see additions uh that we don't currently have in place if you follow under that technology uh person uh Technology Innovation strategy and data person that coordinator you'll see two gray boxes those two great boxes are people that we already have in place there may be some small strategic changes to their overall job description um but uh those people uh one in charge of uh that would be in charge of basic technology and networking we already have in place we already have somebody in place that somewhat supports our eCampus uh and environment there um and we would be adding a couple of things in order

088changing a couple of things around and how they would function under that director very few changes though then we would have an additional third column that third column would be somebody who would be dealing with our student management system possibly um our LMS or our lms's um what I what those are our Learning Management Systems like our our Google Classroom okay I hope that helps um and Skyward is our student data system which tracks all of our student data um on enrollment and everything else um that person would be in charge of that all of our all of our data around student instruction uh and and the student enrollment processes as well as District assessment coordinator and um person who can help us navigate those data discussions we're looking for a very specific specialized individual

089one who really gets computer systems as well as data um to help in that regard that would be the ad in that column uh the ad in the middle column that would be helping our director of curriculum instruction um would be a coordinator of curriculum and educational programs you can see that there's stuff for El and dual language making sure that those programs are are continuing to have the support they need in running in that fashion mostly uh most of the title work would be supported through that curriculum coordinator again oversight by the director for that position um and then things like transfer of service and other things transfer of services when students come to us from a different uh school and if they have educational need for instance let's say they're an El student

090and we have to provide them with extra supports we can apply for what's called transfer service dollars to make sure that those uh students get the support they're needed maybe they come from out of state or out of country have educational needs outside of an IEP these aren't students that would be with a disability they would be outside of an IEP but still have some educational needs this person would help make sure we're tracking those students and getting the support as well as the funding Network that Revenue stream that would come in uh possibly for that student you also see a green box there now the green box indicates money that has been set aside within our asset funds to look at hiring a advanced learner coach and and um and or coordinator okay now

091if it's just coordination that's a lesser dollar amount if it's a coordination and coaching and what I mean by coaching is more of the closer face-to-face student work or direct work with the teachers and ensuring those deps are communicated in time and working through more programmatic setup and not just overall guidance that's going to cost more money um out of the Esther fund okay and I know that there's gonna be a question about well that was one time money that's for next year what are we gonna do after that and I will talk about that in a minute okay lastly on on the left side uh special education program manager this program manager is going to do a lot of the work around supporting our staff within the IEP writing and IEP processes um looking

092at our birth to three and our child find what our child you know when we do talk about our child find um I I know I don't have the name of it right off the top of my head but um the activity that we do um uh in this District I forget the name of it but we called it early learning play days in in Richland where we would have families come in and engage in play activities with that assess them to see whether or not um they were in need of early services or that um and tracking um what's what's the name of the program thank you children's Fair which is why I wasn't it wasn't in my head um I know but it's in a list of a whole bunch of stuff and

093I I'm not trying to read off the slide I'm trying to speak as clearly as I can with what I know so um in that regard uh that would support that um along with our Medicaid billing and some other things that would give a lot of support to this person okay so that's what I'm proposing right now is the need um so permission to move ahead means yes so yeah the yellows are what you're looking for the yells are what I'm looking for the green is um something that we've already applied money towards it's just how we're going to finalize that so forth positions you know four yellow positions is what I'm looking to change um also I'm looking to change job descriptions and titles of the upper uh line there and special programs like

094or Avid where would that fall under the coordinator yeah so um if you're looking at Avid and other things it's going to fall under the director of curriculum instruction okay um to what extent the coordinator gets involved in helping with that um that would be as as a team holiday parcel the workload okay help me understand a little bit Jared that you have director of special education and then you have special education program managers one-to-one how how do their roles so I'm trying to put this in a linear support chart help me understand how their roles are then uniquely different so um the way in which their the responsibility over the programming is um in this case you'll see that there are specific programs that we uh picked out and or functions um for instance

095we have IEP reviewer one coordinator to review over 600 IEPs is probably fairly difficult I'm going to tell you that okay I'm not telling you we're bringing you the best or everything that's needed here um but I am telling you that a large function of the role of this person will be helping with that paperwork process reviewing iaps making sure that dates are being followed as well as some of the admin assistants in that area to make sure uh IEPs are scheduled and continue through the process in a timely manner so it's going to be really at the start making sure we're laying out those responsibilities and so that's why I'm saying as we move forward here we need to finalize some new job descriptions if I have permission to move forward with this again

096this would be the first budget decision made to the 2324 budget if this is a priority we will make sure that it happens it happens in an overall budget neutral aspect not asking for us to put more money to the budget at all I'm just asking us to make this be the first financial decision others to follow that will also support the financial decision you make as you build the budget starts putting a box around other decisions that you have to make until you get to a budget that is acceptable and I say acceptable because we know that we're not looking for a balanced budget because we know that over the past few years and with our referendum we've been putting money aside in our fund balance to be able to run in a deficit

097for a year or two um to see where the state budget aligns us or where we need to go in the future so we've been very good fiscal stewards we know that we're going to go into a budget to have to sit for next year but I'm saying I don't want the deficit to include the deaths that we were aiming at plus six hundred thousand dollars I'm saying we're going to shift things around to make sure we're still at the budget that we were looking at where we were planning and and you guys know what those numbers are because fiscals had a chance to look at them last year you had examples of what those looked like and we're on a path already for that but we do need to make sure that we uh

098put job descriptions together have them come through HR so you get some finalized detail that you're not getting tonight um we're gonna have to put a new org chart in to give you some of that finalized detail Dave that you were just asking about how does that look um and um we need to start posting these positions the reason I'm coming to you today and saying we need to put this on the front end of our our priorities just two things one you ask me what do we need I'm telling you what I think we need based on everybody I heard from two we're in a hiring time where we need to move the process forward we can't wait for the state budget to be finalized because that may be October if we think this

099is important and I tell you we can do it by moving around what we need to within the budget then I think we're positioned to move which means posting these positions as soon as we feel comfortable that we're going to give you a job description that you're okay with okay and then final board resolutions will come around the hiring and and and those uh policy org charts and or job descriptions you'll have resolutions that you'll be passing along the way as we move into the hiring process for these oh it uh conceptually no issue with the budget neutral edition of the four Yellow Boxes and try not to get too deep in the weeds but I see that under curriculum you have mental health mental health intervention uh mental health and yet restorative practices uh

100responsive classrooms Etc are under special education um is is mental health the best spot for curriculum silo or is that I mean am I this depends on what side of the silo you're talking about if you're talking about programmatic supports okay A lot of times those happen under curriculum no the other side okay if you're talking about what skills students need to learn right within the second step program or health class or other mental health supports they may be there okay okay so you're gonna see it on both sides because again when we talk about things like I hear Diana say in Her speech the whole child we're not just talking academically and we're not just talking on the other side I'm in here it has an addressable okay I'm actually hoping that one of

101the inputs that we get from revenue is around mental health supports because that's been talked about quite a bit on both sides of the eye okay now I can't count on anything coming from the state and um I'm needing to tell you that whether it comes or doesn't come if we make this a priority we will move things around and this is the first choice that we've made for the next year's budget okay and then just last just a comment I appreciative of the way you put the presentation together and what you use for your inputs and how you came to your conclusion so thank you for praying that way the last thing I need to share with you is that I said um we we certainly didn't give you the Cadillac version um but

102you you all know um there are other uh things that we we discussed around this table in other places I got people here in the crowd who you know really know technology well and they know where we are with technology and if we decide to go to one-to-one programming which we're trying to aim for we're going to need some more Technology support in in reference to maybe having a technology coach at our last special meeting last week we talked about math being a high priority as well as literacy we have literacy coaches in our district we need to look at and think about how can we help in that regard I told you that 600 idps is a lot to review we may look at another additional support there the scope of the K-12 curriculum

103in general I know this being a former director of curriculum instruction that was in charge of a K-12 this a whole level of curriculum and supports past that um that that does take a lot of support and then as our campus is growing and we see it growing quite a bit with my Leaps and Bounds this year and especially if we offer it to more International students looking at somebody who can be an eCampus principal of that school when you're talking about the number of enrollments might be something we need to look for in the future so this is not just a one-year look I'm presenting something to you of how we move forward next year it may be three to five years of an approach here that we are looking at as we continue

104supports as we continue to listen to different people throughout the community through our schools our parents our staff our students to make sure that we continue these supports I'm just telling you what I've heard now and how I think we need to move for next year hoping I have your permission to move forward so I'm going to jump in here after three a couple thoughts again I've been here nine years fundamentally our structure is what it was nine years ago true if it's at the level we're talking about here our structure is what it was nine years ago our program is not where it was nine years ago we have introduced a number of things we've identified areas we need to go and so I'm telling myself like this change is necessary in this area

105since because our structure is fundamentally out of date with what we are doing and what what we want to do so I believe this is very much aligned fundamentally with the change that the board was expecting to see starting to move this year so we knew change was coming we know change is necessary I fully expect again Catherine's last comment this is your want it will change one thing I can guarantee is that whatever we think about is year two of this it's not what it is going to continue to change it evolve I certainly hope it will because that's going to make successful I strongly appreciate it's been presented as budget neutral I believe in that and I'm prepared to make that commitment here as our first budgetary decision realizing that begins to put

106constraints around other things we could potentially do next year I'm definitely on board with that and as much as we have squeezed as much as we can from everybody here in the end as he had outlined there are gaps we know there are there right now and those gaps are not because people haven't been trying to fill them they've been trying there's just only so much you can ask the same group of people to do within the prior roles and structures this is not a question of will and this is not a question of capability it's a matter of having the right resources in the right areas and every time we've asked people to stretch themselves realize that well that may not have had a financial cost it had an opportunity cost because every time

107every all the time is spent trying to split their day to cover these areas that meant there was something else they couldn't focus on so I think it's important for us to recognize the support doesn't just create lift in the areas that we've identified it's important creates lift throughout the organization because people whose attention and energy has been split will now be able to have more Focus and we've been asking for that as a board plan that we focus and change I think there's this movement that is in that direction [Music] Diana I have a couple questions the first is on the chart itself um when we look at the director of innovation strategy data and Technology I understand how K-12 stem and the charter schools fall under that because it's innovation yet they've been

108around for a while so is it truly Innovation anymore but on a deeper lens when you look at the job descriptions post for each of those I don't know how it would fit under there and we don't have to have that discussion right now it's just posing it out there as a question is it more under a curriculum an instructional piece as opposed to looking at data and so on I understand that yes it fits under the technology but given what those directors are doing I'm not sure I see the connection that's there and that just might be a conversation that we didn't need to have deeper my second piece is looking at if we are moving forward and we talk about new job descriptions for H to HR a timeline person I'm a structure

109person we meet with HR the middle of April so then if that is approved in HR would that then come to board for resolution so that hiring could come after the April board meeting or is it after HR approves that I guess I'm just looking this is prime time for hiring I know yeah I guess what I was saying is if you say we're going down this path and I think you have enough information to to understand the general direction we're going in um and we're not going to come back with a widely different job description right um we need to move forward you know as we are doing these processes together because we can't wait until May for all the approvals to happen and then start in on that process we will we will

110miss good candidates you want to get the makeup so when they're under policies and they're going to have two readings and everything else what you're describing is job descriptions HR in April and you start the hiring process once that review of those job descriptions has happened and the next time it comes before the full boards when you've got a name to attach to a role and you're presenting for contract approval correctly is even after that that policy actually catches up and say Here's the approved job description I just want to make sure the policies right yeah there's policies on each of these jobs we're essentially hiring under a draft job description and that's happened before where you know sometimes the rest of those things have to catch up right um but we know what we're

111looking for and we can explain to our candidates what we're looking for is there a resolution or a consent agenda item that's coming before us regarding this tonight you should have formal action so there's not a resolution currently listed but it will concur after this discussion okay so thank you good procedural question other comments or questions on the presentation they make the motion to instruct the Administration to continue as to proposed [Music] by Dave by Diana move ahead ask for post okay comments or questions on the motion hearing none will call vote please Mike Higgins yes Lauren Holland yes Diana Johnson yes Tina Johnson that's right David Trainor yes David Smith yes doc will yes Craig Morgan yes Tony internet yes and the motion carries thank you well thank you guys that this is the

112easy one okay our next item up under reports the superintendent report yes that's me again uh my my report for March uh first of all uh great recognition goes out to all the students uh who are in the performance and the crew that helped the performance um I'm sorely I I just I'm I'm sad I missed it because I'm hearing it's so good um as you guys know I was um not able to go to the forums because I was uh I was Ill but this year's performance of the Musical Legally Blonde um I hear went off well there was even some um question as to some of the content but I heard overwhelmingly that even those somewhat questionable content the way it was portrayed and displayed at the uh um musical was outstanding um

113at least from what I've heard uh secondly um special recognition to staff members I read the new Scott Meyer and Ryan moltahauer um they uh again feedback from the students and I I know a couple of them uh through this the student a rotary organization a couple of Louise talking about just how much these staff members and other people uh other adults and other volunteers who contributed to the show were so much of the success of the show just amazing um discussion about how they were supported so congratulations to them and they they absolutely deserve that recognition it was a stellar performance for my hair really missed out um other opportunities that we have we had a job Olympics uh job Olympics is a job fair and we have a high school students who are

114transition to students uh and or intellectually disabled and are autism uh and um we have a job fair that we Taylor created just for them it's my first time going to this course you know first having the district but I have not even seen this in other districts where the district as well as organizations like adrc which is the um aging and disability resource center and other uh agencies got together and held this job fair at MATC um students participated in job skills uh performances as well as mock interviews and had um some speakers speak to them about job availability and other things it was just outstanding um and I just want to say it was a great opportunity for these students um also we had a high school career fair in our main high

115school we had a number of vendors can't recall off top of my head but I believe um I'm hearing a lot uh you know I heard from about four or five vendors specifically who thought this year's uh career fair and we've been doing the career for a number of years um in conjunction with uh our um chamber thank you uh to to put this on but a number of our events were saying how um even though there were maybe fewer vendors the students felt like much more engaged much more prepared much more involved and I think I can give some credit to some of our Avid strategies and school-wide strategies that we're trying to implement uh on that um to truly try to engage students more in that school to career and school to college

116to prepare for career uh Pipeline and and like I said when I went around and talked with different vendors um it was it was it was great to see that um I also got to talk to uh some of our state apprenticeship people um and I found out that we are one of the highest participating school districts so this is the pat on the back to our employers as well as our school to put placements of students out there um and to give them those opportunities to Apprentice uh we almost have a hundred students this year the next closest in around the area was Fort Atkinson was like 72. but we're like maybe three or four short from 100 and we were trying to get that goal of 100 by the end of March um

117and we still have a couple of days to get there but if we can get those placements that would be a really a a huge benefit to our students and our businesses not for that but I just want to say congratulations to the chamber and our our staff and and the businesses for putting together what I thought was a great opportunity for students as I went around um I stopped and met with vendors and talked with them too it was a good morning for that to happen um also another opportunity uh Panda day was last Thursday Panda day happens uh at Lincoln stem program uh and at Lincoln um they use this as a students and staff engagement thing uh they're all sorts of activities they do center around uh Panda and as you guys

118know their logo is a panda bot um but one of the things that I saw that I I took special motive is a engineering feat to put together the tallest piece of bamboo uh and so the students had to use materials created uh incored for them to see what they needed to do to try to get the tallest freestanding piece of bamboo uh it was kind of a neat lesson that went along with this and of course you can see the fun festivities that were there and all the student Pride uh you know a student Pride that was worn on their shirts and everything else it was a good activity that happened last week and then then lastly some important reminders no school starting the 27th which is next week through the 31st also April

1197th is Good Friday um and then the listing of April committee and board meetings I do want to make a quick mention that we do have a special meeting tomorrow night as well for those of you who said you can make it so I appreciate that just reminding you of that um lastly uh skillsusa I'm a really important date for them is the 25th of March um that is their annual skills USA push lawnmower drop off there has been some questions if you can think of your Rider over there but this is for your push bars but they they take in 100 almost hundreds of push mowers and they take rototillers oh do they you gotta know the right person right so um but they get them all ready and and do that um I'm

120gonna take some of the time to go out and support that if you have time to help them support please do that over a break because that's when they're doing the main main workings um but to sign up for a lawnmower drop off is the 25th so make sure you make sure you do that ahead of time any other questions yeah another question is going to mention one other thing that transpired since our last board meeting which is that our bowling team oh that's right are these Patriots awesome yes that Championship occurred the weekend and we was the third and fourth um went off to what's called a roll-off doing no better roll off in bowling it was exciting that was this the semifinals I think they had to have a roll-off in the 9th

121and Tenth Frame and then went on to win the championship on Sunday so we are king of the lanes congratulations to that team they earned it I would remiss if I didn't share an important date that drive your tractor to school day is tomorrow awhs outstanding awesome can I have one of the really cool piece of information the basketball teams have just finished their seasons and the girls team there's an academic component to that an All-State academic and both the boys and the girls had about 80 percent or more of their athletes score 3.5 cumulative or higher um the girls had a higher percentage than the boys so they're I have two kids but the boys actually had the highest overall cumulative GPA percentage-wise all of D2 across the state of Wisconsin so kudos to

122them and we don't always hear the recognition but they put a lot of time and energy on the court but they also put a lot of time and energy in the classroom as I refuse to tell my teams they're student athletes the student comes first and obviously they're getting that message across at the high school what about Megan Doherty I heard about her and she had an order sometimes she just competed down south I don't remember which state she is very very big in a um and so she had done one of the competitions there we have a number of students that are going to sectionals over break and some other things in FFA but she just yeah if you don't remember off the top that's okay all right we can't always get all the

123wonderful recognitions they're highlights of the wonderful recognition set them up and knock them down please I forgot to say that all right fiscal management you'll make him be the last one now yeah go ahead all right last Wednesday um and went over the payment report there were a few questions about that we discussed um some Amazon detail that was provided at this meeting were the variance report we talked a little bit about how overtime is a little high and that's really because we've been short staffed in certain areas so some staff that we currently have are making up the difference hopefully that's going to be resolved pretty soon we're seeing a little bit of movement and getting some positions filled but we still do have some open position different departments we talked about expenditures over

124twenty thousand dollars there were two this month um the first was for the metal fiber optic laser CNC tape table which is a resolution later on in the medium and the other was a agreement between the district and USI which is a part of our contract so it's just a renewing of an agreement that we have with them for brokering our employee insurance and that's not YouTube resolution um we went through two different Financial forecast projections so five-year projections one that was kind of showing um like maybe like the toughest budget situation we would have for next year where maybe we would have no increase in Revenue we would have declining enrollment things like that what that would look like for five years and then another one that included all of the different proposals from

125Governor ever proposal so we looked at those two and next month we'll probably look at one that's maybe somewhere in the middle we had a presentation by Mrs Riedel about the um interest rates for district accounts so for the last couple of years interest rates have been so low we haven't had to put a lot of effort into um getting higher rates but now those are going up and so she's been doing a lot of work making sure that we are maximizing the interest that we're earning on the District bank account and then finally um Josh Carter our buildings and grounds director came and update on some of the projects that are going on so he was talking about the AC project that's going on with the different um project contractors and um he gave

126a timeline update to on where we are for the cool boiler for the Middle School the gym floor and the gym features so the pool is also going to be shut down in April for a scheduled annual the meeting adjourned at 7 40. yeah comments or questions in that report um I have one comment on the interest rates um with the banking system and how it is now we have three right Sarah three different amenities we utilize uh for our money that we put in and there was some discussion on like a seven million dollar one coming due and what to do with it so I was just going to ask the board what they thought of maybe having four entities instead of three diversing a little more we didn't you know it came up

127that night so we don't I don't know if there's anything we Stacy was asking for some guidance wasn't she somewhat a little bit Yeah on that we were kind of talking about using the local bank versus using some different ones that we get better return fund from we talked about that and then as you said we have a couple of CDs that are going to open up their money yeah and so kind of do we want to watch those lines up again or not so it would be just you know she she was looking for some guidance I'm just throwing that out there uh I don't know if there's anything we need to do I'll just bring that extra portion up on it so yeah but so initiating that transferring the money would that require

128more approval and that circumstance involve a new entity I don't know for sure yeah in terms of starting up a new relationship it depends on what we're securing I mean if it's a CD or something like that possibility it was just my thought of being more Diversified you hear about what's happening in these Banks selling all all three entities that we're utilizing are strong are very strong on right now but there was one seven million dollar one coming in I believe right it wasn't that amount so I do say that um in the recent audit report it did mention something about you know risk so we'll see if we went there so you have a palace concern but it doesn't have to be done right now or anything I'm just bringing it up to the

129board that it will be coming Google sometime I would not okay I don't think we need to constrain ourselves to local entities and if we can get a noticeably higher rate from a non-local entity we should pursue it from my perspective isn't the one we used to if I remember right uh when it was offered at a lower rate kind of matched some of the local entities we have been using forgave us options to meet or exceed interest rates provided elsewhere as well so I think there are those options as well yeah okay any other comments or questions not reports cool all right HR assistant because of the conflict hand it over to you so we had our meeting on Monday March 13th at 5 30 PM we had a compressed time period but nevertheless

130accomplished all of our work uh very efficiently we we discussed the consent agenda which is included on tonight's resolution hires appointments resignations terms and then we also have the first summer school staff resolution for approval uh this evening where we reviewed the summer school staff resignations and appointments so we we did talk a little bit about getting some advance notice of the plans for summer school we have that added to our planning agenda for next summer so that we're in on the front end in terms of what the plans for Staffing are for for summer school for next summer and we also talked a little bit about the different types of academic class lessons that are offered for both both Advanced Learners as well as those that are participating at other levels of the educational

131Continuum and we talked a little bit about Esther funds for summer school learning opportunities we moved on to approving the timeline for the school perceptions employee satisfaction survey that was approved at last month's board meeting we'll be running that survey from April 25th until May 9th and then we did talk a little bit quickly about our agenda planning for next month we will make up a time we gave up from this month's meeting next month we'll have a legal presentation by Dan bleed from Beulah better on the overall Contracting process for both teachers and administrators we anticipate our initial discussion of the Staffing plan for next for next year for at the school level and then we'll talk more about the consent agenda some School sounds like we also based on the activities award tonight

132we'll have some job descriptions that we will be doing your first cut review at for next month and then I need an agenda uh ended at 5 48 pm and our next meeting is Monday April 17th right here at 5 30 pm all right questions on that no all right thank you ed services yes uh ed services met on Tuesday March 7th uh committee members were present were uh Hilary Smith Dave Smith coach made Lori Holland Dave Smith Diana Johnson was not president um several others were in attendance uh first item that we discussed was the social emotional learning curriculum renewal which is uh paid for the mental DPI mental health grant for thirty three thousand dollars over a five-year period um generally the discussion was is to move that port for resolution there was

133some question as to its efficacy and uh we're still waiting for some data on some survey results uh incident rates Etc to uh I'm going to say support the uh or at least to show how it's impacted uh and had success um we don't we didn't have that at the time of the meeting meeting minute completion uh nor do we have it tonight nonetheless the resolutions on there um and it's a fairly straightforward um uh pay to pay to provide uh Grant um but we can talk about it more at that time during the resolution there was also a discussion on the infrastructure for one-to-one Chromebook uh this was debated whether or not it was uh appropriate for fiscal given that it was infrastructure so we kicked that aspect of it over to the uh

134fiscal committee when they take it up however we did have Dave lockstand in the room and we discussed all the pros and cons from educational and delivery perspective and how it would change um uh how we do business in the classrooms um total cost implementation any PD that was required no action was taken on that merely a discussion however we'll take it up again assuming that it is approved by fiscal and then lastly was the eCampus Academy and international program and an opportunity to partner with Pathways Academy a lot of discussion nobody really saw that there was a downside to it with the exception of potentially growth or diminishing our quality um we asked Dave vitelli to put together a budget which he did do it was in my possession as well as Tony's and

135Jared's unfortunately uh it did get lost in my mailbox I did not send it out to the rest of that Services yeah there's a lot of things yeah nonetheless as anticipated it's all in the black it's difficult to charge that much per person and uh provide services at 60 to 1 without covering your costs even at the break points of additional Staffing that may be needed at distances in the future that also is on a resolution tonight and I'm sure we could share that the Break Even analysis to the screen if we needed to Dave either I can send it to Lynn or to Jared or get it right into the minutes if that's necessary otherwise next meeting is on April 11th thank you all right thank you any questions on that report policy review

136uh no policy meeting um same as last time uh however I think that we did have the one that was for a major revision um past legal that was on The Bullying that was put forth prior to the February meeting and uh I don't know if there was any changes to a significant uh there were significant changes but you can see the changes in the doctor okay there you go um and that's gonna go for uh first reading yep I saw that on the agenda so I figured it passed um but I didn't memorize what was put forth and what was uh modified so uh that one was a Champion by uh Lori and the next one's up uh grading systems and reporting to parents right yep that's me and she's extra courageous extracurricular yeah

137and then after that it's uh Craig with policies regarding retention next meeting on that is in April um 12th yes yep okay all right planning yeah planning uh we had our meeting on March 8th and we had uh all committee members were president except for Lori Holland and then we also had Diana Johnson uh superintendent Burke and then uh green attempts Dempsey from D communication services that her presentation to us uh discuss about the communication audit process and she was gathering the information of what our uh from the members of the board what we thought were high priority areas to communicate with so it was just pretty straightforward and that was it so that's all we discussed on the planet and it concluded that I don't know what time concluded it was like 7 40

138or so and uh the next meeting would be May 10th at 5 30. so comments or questions and that report all right thank you next is the consent agenda resolution 9186 the consent agenda includes the board minutes our many summaries personnel and Staffing changes that includes appointments designations requirements the approval Bills first reading of policies and second reading of policies as noted there is one first reading up this evening and there are a number of second readings up as well do I hear a motion on 9186 so move second by David seconded by Mike comments or questions on the motion great so um it's specific to the meeting minutes regarding the eCampus Academy yeah to add your education services committee um my question to the committee members do you feel like these minutes accurately reflect

139the reservations expressed in the discussion foreign because I I also attended that meeting and and I felt like there were some uh some other questions as far as funding sources and things of that nature are probably not um reflected accurately in the meeting minutes the other question I have would be do you feel like this resolution for eCampus that comes before it's night regarding this discussion is a recommendation of the committee I believe it to be it was a little I mean we're gonna get some more information right I didn't know you guys no I got it on Thursday afternoon and I was out of town so I you know whatever it's hard to because I I I guess I didn't get that sense based on the discussion I felt like there was enough reservation

140as far as the cost and and the growth of the program that it was going to come back before the committee and I believe that there is a general um belief that when um when things of this nature come before the committee and and then we get forwarded onto the board that has been somewhat fully voted and the full discussion has been made and that rep you know the committee is bringing it forward as a recommendation and that means something I just wanted to double check um if the sediment of the committee happens to be such that this is a recommendation for the for the bar to consider what we can discuss it again uh now uh given that Diana wasn't uh present and Dave and I and Lori were as the committee members um

141and I appreciate that there was the question regarding the break even analysis or the cost to serve and I just sent that in it and Dave had sent it uh but uh only to uh I guess executive committee if you want to call that or executive myself Tony and Jared maybe somebody else but um even with that I don't think that even at that time Craig even though that we were interested in what that would show there was nowhere in there where the cost per student as well as the cost per teacher whatever or cause it to go negative we had some discussion regarding uh making sure that we were able to continue the quality of the program so and who would uh management and who would it fall underneath but I never considered the

142fiscal aspect to be one of concern given that the math and the uh what do you call the contract or the the memorandum of understanding would prevent it ever from going negative um therefore I wasn't uh never considered that it shouldn't be a resolution although I do admit that we were hoping to have that and I should have forwarded it well I think to this moment at the stage we're at it's the approval of the myths I think that while the minute Republic could have always be done slightly better it was representative of the discussion I don't see any major holes in in that I think we wanted a discussion over the motion this probably holds in a lot of committee minutes for some language that was left out so I just said asking the

143question because I didn't get the impression that that was an entire discussion that was had regarding regarding the reservations that that was discussed about eCampus I think when that motion comes up there may be more discussion I'd like to piggyback quickly on on Craig's comment though not regarding this specific but I have questions in the past minutes being that they are very general very 10 20 000 mile overview and don't always reflect some of the discourse or whatever going through and I don't know the proper procedure protocol but I know if I'm not attending when I read the minutes and try to figure out how things went is it really giving an accurate view or is my job as a board member to go back and watch the video so I guess I'm questioning or

144throwing out an idea of what's best for us as board members as writing the committee minutes how can we best um be transparent about what's happening within so that way Committee Member non-committee members um feel they have that so not getting too much into this short of a Verbatim transcript of a recording I think it's a great little you can do to try and figure out where do they start where do they stop and where do they start because it would forever become an argument of well why didn't you what these three words that I said I thought that was the most important three words I said the entire meeting you didn't include those it doesn't it doesn't work okay but I mean I get your point of they have to have enough detail to

145give you a sense of it particularly not for particularly not just for you as a board member who wasn't there but for the board member five years from now correct that looks back at when we made the four years in from now looks back when none of us are here for whatever reason and says okay what was considered when we looked at this contract four years ago and you have to have enough of that historical sense to it because frankly for you and I you can do what I did was like from dinner okay and I said what can give me a little more detail of what this question was like because I couldn't attend because that's weird or review the recording but the essence of that I've run into this repeatedly of being in

146our role and having to look back on historical decision and there was certainly a time and place where the general approach to minutes was record only the actions taken verbatim for the action taken and no context at all and that's not good but neither can you just reach a point which again all it's going to do is break down over an argument over why didn't you pick my words versus those words like if that's just not helpful at the point so this is one more area that I would advocate for wasb come in and do some training I think the one area that gets me is when and we're getting better at it every day but that we have information that's shared at the committee and then if that information isn't fully in in the

147board box at least and then there's a committee summary that says very little yeah and then there's a resolution that says as presented at the committee right and then you're like hold on what was the presented the Committees well we don't have good delegation but we document what's at the commit so that's my concern is that we have resolutions that just say what was done at the committee and the what was done the committee is not documented well I don't think this is the case but well now I do think that this is the case and that's when we should clean up the resolution we can discuss that the resolution okay other comments or questions on the resolution with the consent agenda 9186 first reading yes it will not go back to policy or that's

148correct unless there's substantial changes by this board right okay editing that between the first and second it does not go back okay and the changes were the attorney changes okay they reviewed the policy it looked like there was maybe like some double wording so they maybe talk it out I don't see anything that there it wasn't substantial no no I mean when I first read it I'm like wait what but then I but again I don't know what a lawyer right so what made it they made sure that when they read it it's very clear legally how they're going to interest attack and that was the main gist of no other changes right what it is yes okay you're nothing else roll call vote please on the resolution the content agenda 9186 yes yes Diana

149Johnson yes David Schrader yes David Smith yes Doug Wells yes Craig no Antonio yes and the motion carries it brings us to our main body of action items starting with resolution 9187 for summer school staff for 2023 do I hear a motion for 9187 second but Diana seconded by Lori comments or questions on emotion that's a bit Danny change at all right yeah right all right hearing themes Johnson David Schroeder yes yes Doug will yes yes Tony Arnett yes and the motion carries next is resolution 9188 the renewal of the second steps of promotional learning curriculum do I hear a motion some of the second moved by David seconded by Diana comments or questions on the motion I'm sorry uh who started I was having that was David and then Diana so can you come

150into questions on the motion nope all right we'll call vote please Mike Higgins yes who are you Holland yes Diana Johnson yes David Schrader yes David Smith yes Daniel yes Craig Morgan yes Tony Arnett yes and the motion carries next is 9189 the E cancer Academy and halfways Academy LLC agreement do I hear a motion so moved by David is there a second seconded by Dave Smith comments or questions on the motion all right all right I do um one of my first questions was was there additional information that the administration would like to share about this resolution is it convenient to talk to the doctor I sent um several uh items oh you want me to clean this up on the screen please [Music] stop sharing nope [Music] foreign [Music] so I had shared

151uh one email in the wake of the meeting seven we've had a link to an attached version of the agreement the draft agreement located as well just to give you a sense of the language um you know in that agreement of course and highlighting really what you know what the district's role and responsibility would be um and then the LLC the pathways Academy very typical language reviewed by our attorney and so it's a fairly fairly standard but I wanted to share that nonetheless because that would say what's centering into um and then subsequent to that I shared some detail with regard to the sort of the what what we do or what happens in eCampus wherever a family is available okay whether it's domestic International um you know these things aren't separate above and beyond

152what we do for kids that are located within within the state or within Watertown and um so obviously virtual education is distance education so we want our kids to be located in places that are within our community of course if that's what serves them best but beyond our community as well because that's what the medium supports and so um at a what I think is a lower overhead if you will uh certainly not without cost um but uh you know the ability to distribute educational opportunities courses and resources and class class work and all that kind of thing remotely um and anytime anywhere is really what this medium is set up to do so if you're not doing that then we're really if all of our students are in right across the street versus someplace

153else or you know further out then we may question whether there's efficacy and even putting forth as effort although I will say we do have several students within our district that are part of our eCampus programs sometimes there are students that come to us for reasons that our attorneys stated earlier um others are looking for other you know supports and so forth that have their education uh distributed delivered to them so so these things that you see here these links I won't get into them I sent you this email uh all of you just about 10 or 15 minutes ago I hope that it had gone to you last week so I apologize um and the original one from March 8th was sent to the committee days Tony and David if we if that should

154change um then I can certainly send it out to everybody but uh I'm saying you're the uh March 8th email that you sent the day after the meeting this went to you and Jerry yesterday I forwarded it to the commitment we saw that we did not see it right so we did put a budget yeah I appreciate your help on that um so I'll typically work through David um so that has these links here uh they also had what I call the sort of an eCampus implementation detail this would be the kinds of information that we would share in the agreement with the with the entities that we would be entering into an agreement with and we don't even have to do an agreement we can do individual Aid you want to enroll in the

155program here here's a form design that uh upholds assurances that we have and that you have that would make this um effective kind of like we do now with our enrollments that come to us from around the state okay so uh so this just has things like uh what eCampus is um what we would expect um our remote families to support uh one of the key components is for example in an international program uh English proficiency okay we have to ensure that there's English proficiency because we can't support you with language services that's not part of the deal Student Services of any uh you know special education nature it's not there's no expectation of that um and that's clear clearly articulated in the agreement um uh there has to be a local learning coach this

156isn't going to work without somebody that's partnering with us remotely to ensure that students are on task and things of that nature the market okay the market is home school students and students that are seeking a post-secondary opportunity in the United States so those kinds of things we articulate there Dave you would ask sort of like can we come up with the components of a business plan and so that's kind of what I I put together here so to the best at an academician can do today but you've got to think me on that which is fine you know um I don't know anything about education and so you can read over that um and uh and then this idea of this costing this this breakdown um and then some considerations so we can you

157can dive more deeply into that if you wish uh but there was some some questions about you know at what point do you have to or would you add a number or ship we talked about you know this doesn't always mean hiring somebody new perhaps we look at our landscape and you say okay is there an opportunity for us to make a shift someplace but you can see there I came up with some variances or some what did I call them I call them differentials that take into account what our tuition uh is for the given for the coming year that those are things that we can change I mean I'm just looking for some dialogue in the future on a number like this that we could come up with my research uh in terms

158of the ratios and the number came from heinekol or the Aurora Institute which is an organization that specializes in in online education internationally um certainly nationally but uh so then you can see the differentials it would be a a self-sustaining um you know program you know some of these variances are gonna you know change from from year to year it depends on some some circumstances um with respect to you know our staffing uh picture you know who we bring in to to staff the the you know the programming and so forth but um it uh you know that's in a nutshell what I shared with you um and then some considerations that I uh articulated here there's no expectations special educational language support for international students um learning coach most of our learning is going

159to be asynchronous because the time zone differences the main thing I tried to capture in the meeting minutes is that there was some sense that if it gets too big what are we going to do you know and so I brought to mind in January when the board approved it's uh actually this came up to earlier in our conversation when the court approved the um it was a resolution to adopt the thresholds or open enrollment and you had a cap on special ed we had it wide open for General open enrollment from anywhere in the state so if 500 games came in from New Lisbon versus Lisbon it means the same kind of conundrum that you're faced with you get if you get big and so that was one factor of course um that uh

160I mean came into play in terms of laying out these scenarios I don't know what else um you know there's uh we we mentioned in our in our staffing scenario here that Jared um laid out for us earlier this idea of an executive assistant support um that currently had been the role of Lynn who was uh in the Educational Services office with me for for many many years um I had been serving and have been serving as the faculty campus principle and those kinds of things so that that area will continue to be uh one of uh one of a priority I think tuition is based on 2023 2024 levels I'm just trying to articulate here into considerations how I came up with the numbers at the top uh and there's a ton of other

161things I could mention but uh I thought this would get us to a point where Indiana um all indication is that this is something that is very you know with respect to a strategic plan but is most interested and continues to be interested in pursuing in terms of enrollment in Revenue generation and so forth and if I'm wrong about that we can shift and pivot and do something else so that's all I have to say okay I do have a prepared statement and um and because I fear that sometimes my passion can kind of get the best of my ability to convey my intentions so I'm going to try something different so please bear with me I was uh fortunate enough to attend the Education Services committee or this was this cost many of the

162questions were raised and left unanswered it was even made public record documented in the meeting that is just approved by the board quote the committee is interested in reviewing estimated stabbing thresholds and break points with respect to increasing enrollments quality control measures cost and cost and revenue estimates Uncle so I was surprised to see this as a recommendation tonight several board members have expressed a certain level of trust and Reliance on the committee vetting process when your resolution comes from a committee questions and concerns have been satisfactorily addressed and there's agreement among the committee that the resolution moves forward it was not my impression that there was a level of agreement among the committee to move forward with this particular resolution the right the Administration has rightfully called attention to board self-evaluation and processes in

163my perspective uh this particular process may be a reason for that policy so I guess that we get to have that discussion tonight in any event fellow board members I have to call your attention to some key details that may not be readily apparent to you on its face I'm very concerned that we are about to make a million dollar mistake you see what is implied from our discussion at ed services and this resolution is that there's that a yes vote gives the administration bold discretionary authority to set the tuition agreement amount to 3800 per student to that is current not currently served by the district or even in the state this agreement as described also ties us to four more years or more of offering Services depending on how slowly pays a student takes

164to progress through the program when asked about the tuition number how it was derived it was indicated that it was a best guess through conversation with DPI well I expressed my concerns to the committee and I will provide you with a basis for my concerns as well I feel strongly that in order for the program to be successful and to be fair to our existing stakeholders we have to allow due process to this discussion so I would like to share with you a little bit of research keep in mind the burden of proof is not on us board members to provide the justification and basis for this tuition number it is on the administration to do so I did some research it cost local parochial schools anywhere from 6500 to 8 000 to educate a

165child in a K-8 setting that tuition is charged about 25 percent while the congregation subsidizes the remaining five to six sixty five hundred dollars to provide that education so between five thousand and sixty five hundred dollars in addition that the church is picking up the tab for for our kids for those kids it costs approximately one million dollars to educate those 130 kids I know this because I pay attention to this at my church I know the process of looking around area congregations to verify to verify um I almost process of looking around to area congregations to verify that our expenses and tuition rates are in line locally so naturally it came as a surprise when Administration came came with that intention that the tuition was set to cover the costs what costs since there's

166a significant financial implication to our school district why aren't we able to have a discussion about financial matters like this at the fiscal committee according to our discussion at the physical Community the budget projections indicate it costs nearly fifteen thousand dollars per student between 13 000 and fifteen thousand dollars per student to educate them and eCampus members a portion of them are actually included in that thirty three hundred dollars to the district membership number according to dpi's financial information a full-time educator in the Watertown Unified District represents an average financial obligation of ninety thousand dollars ecaps has 12 educators it also has shared administrators a shared business office shared Human Resources shared building costs I.T expenses technology costs subscription and other program costs now we're adding tuition agreements to the plead over business office there's

167policies that are missing to address non-payment of tuition likely there will be a bad debt expense it's not a stretch to believe that eCampus currently represents a cost of 1.5 million dollars to operate for 180 students so I can roughly estimate estimate that it costs around 8 500 per student to educate them in eCampus that means that the district and ultimately the taxpayers could be subsidizing as much as five thousand dollars per student or one million for an additional 200 students or 2 million for the 400 additional students discussed at the committee meeting why such a discrepancy the math just doesn't work out the most accurate information on the cost of running the program should come from our business office the district knows the building budget they know the wages and benefits and they know

168what shared resources eCampus utilizes yet why hasn't this information been presented to the board for proper consideration DPI may not have a lot of familiarity on dealing with tuition agreements and how much is appropriate for the district to subsidize education of students outside of the system I was under the impression that one of the primary purposes of eCampus was to allow for the district to attract open enrollments from parochial schools and Wisconsin districts as well as homeschool children from Wisconsin to benefit the state provides Aid of approximately ten thousand dollars per student that open enrolls I can see that as a model that works by covering expenses and adding to the actual number the state considers for state aid purposes in fact the recent audit report specifically from here it's specifically um mentions uh eCampus

169as a positive for future growth of the Watertown Unified School District and that can actually attract students from outside the geographic area in order for eCampus to successfully grow the revenue model has not only covered costs and expenses but it also has to allow for additional supports like a principal as necessary in conclusion I like the concept of eCampus I think that it truly can add to the financial solution to grow enrollments if we allow our due diligence to occur we have to do it correctly the kinds of numbers that were mentioned would possibly triple the enrollment of new campus but at what additional cost to our district in order to maintain an adequate level of service I would anticipate a much larger need for educators and other resources that have not yet been discussed

170this can add an additional one to two million dollar strain on our district when our Administration has just outlined the need for additional programming supports I have absolutely 100 confident that it costs the district much more than the 3 800 being proposed for tuition to educate these kids it would be a beautiful thing if that wasn't the case but sometimes facts are inconvenient I believe that the true cost is likely three times higher than that we cannot afford to subsidize this expense by diverting funds from elsewhere in our already screened budget please keep in mind the burden of proof does not lie on us as board members to provide the justification on this number please don't let your emotions Cloud your judgment on making a sound financial decision based on facts we don't need to

171subsidize other students education or we have so many needs right here in Wisconsin should there be a grant let's discuss that as of now we don't need to make a one to two million dollar mistake at the expense of the other 3 300 students faculty and stakeholders that we serve thank you thank you other board members with comments on the motion this is Maria is that an emotion or questions on North website questions on the motion including session following questions other comments or questions on the motion I I just will have a comment that I I am a little frustrated because I was at the meeting and I I went round and round when I I wasn't able to look at the agenda until late last night maybe and I wasn't sure and maybe I

172should have reached out and said was there any more follow-ups so that is on me but I was under the impression that that was going to come before the resolution so I don't feel like I can make the decision because I got no more than I left last the bad service meeting with does that if that makes sense and I understand it was a lack of communication but I do feel like I have not I sent you an email on March 8th not with the financials no I got the the breakdown of the proposal or what this all looked like that's just not the finance but we had talked in the ed Service that we whenever you start something new you have a business plan and that business plan is laid out this to me

173is something that deserves a business plan I'm not saying it's good I'm gonna say it's bad I I really have no I have really no opinion because I don't have any facts if that makes sense so that's that's where I stand it could be great it could be financially a burden I don't know and services talk significantly about the fact that we don't want this to take our eye off the ball right this is not Court our mission right the reason to do this is almost purely a financial reason that it can be a profit center for the district to bring these funds in and not create that profitable significantly Outlet way the burdens are to me this bread sheet that Dave just recently got to us and we went through shows that I mean

174up until right now I didn't have that so I died I don't disagree but that was the that was the dialogue that we had of this is you got to look at this through a different set of lines because this is not going to do it's going to do very very little for us hitting our core Mission other than put dollars in our pocket to help us subsidize learning for the rest of us is the goal of it whether that is the way it is or isn't that's I mean so what was presented sure I just want to add a little bit on that which is actually do see it as contributing to the corporate mission because Court remission of innovation and progress in the future we have to add program capacity that steps out

175of the mold of and sitting at a desk in a classroom for 180 days a year and by virtue of that I've completed the requirement we have to build up our capacity to deliver programs that can move as fast as our students want to move and can move in as many very directions as students we will simply not be able as a district to deliver everything that they can and should be able to pursue in the model that has been in place for Galactic years and if this if this program is nothing more than over time net neutral even if essentially we plow any total profit I have those questions about that back into this program just for the purpose of building upper capacity to be able to deliver similar programs like this is absolutely

176aligned with where we need to drive as a core the only thing I want to say is not all eCampus students are the same there are several different audiences we currently serve they have frankly several different support structures required to deliver their programs with several different cost structures and what I've heard from the beginning of this is a very constrained definition compared to what I know is occurring for existing students in this program particularly where it comes to for the that local resource that they have to have which is a significant part of our current cost for some of our students in our program not all but some again every student they're not the same they're not the same in the cost required to serve them are not the same yeah this resolution under my

177understanding is for the international yes it is not overall correct okay um and then the one of the questions that I had was you just referenced the local learning coach and when I taught at the online school the learning coach was in 95 of the cases the parent it wasn't another teacher there it was someone that can sit and help ensure homework's getting me getting done grades are there whatever whatever so I'm assuming there's a lot of assumptions in here I'm assuming that that person will take the role they've obviously put forth the funds to do that so that should not be an issue as far as getting things somewhere I do have a bigger question is and I wish we had this information ahead of time I have a hard time making a decision

178when it's a financial piece when we get it even 24 hours before because I need to think in a process that's just me but one piece here it says the teachers don't prep the curriculum that's in the considerations who does who creates the curriculum who preps the curriculum if the teachers aren't doing it is it just an online can thing well that doesn't really work they don't they don't um create lesson plans like a typical circumstance um the Lincoln International uh curriculum there's uh e Dynamic there's a handful of curriculum that's available for the teachers who will um monitor the distribution of the content and then what we want to do is have our adults do the things that humans are really good at and the technology do the things that the technology for Distributing

179content and things like that are things that the technology can do for you what I want our teachers doing is providing feedback to the students coaching the things that we do well that the technology doesn't do well they can republish the course they can add lessons or or subtract lessons that students have shown competency in an area and they don't have to sit through the same thing that they've demonstrated competency in so those are the things that make it a different medium and a different experience for those who choose to be part of that and experience success for them sometimes sometimes not not success because a lot of times folks think it's just going to be an easy easy thing to do you know I'm not in the building or whatever and you know folks

180aren't tracking me down for attendance I'm at home and so forth but the messaging is that it's it's harder you know and it plays a big role in our Advanced learning options as well as as well as students need a different setting to um you know to achieve their goals so uh so it's a lot of feedback there's a lot of coaching communication it's one of the things I've stressed with our team I want you connecting with the kids I don't want them sitting in front of a computer all day you know not interacting with people it shouldn't be it doesn't have to be impersonal just because it's not in person and that's that's where our thinking has to move forward I think as we can you know contemplate a changing landscape in the third

181decade of the 21st Century uh so a lot of what we do is not sustainable um and so I think that's just healthy for us to have these conversations and the in the agreement is for one year and it 'd be something that you shift gears on or we don't we want to cap enrollments because we're all that stuff is possible we don't have to take a single student you know we would do that because entering into this option possibly great uh might make sure I'm trying to convey to you I mean to the board rather that for every hundred dollars that we spend we're looking to spend for every 100 that we're looking to spend to support eCampus we're we're going to bring in 35. that's what the numbers are saying we want to

182have a philanthropic discussion about whether or not we have a duty to try to educate children across the globe let's have that discussion but purely and and possibly I would argue then well is that really our responsibility um to subsidize that education but we have needs right here we have needs to provide here we're saying it's going to cost us thirty eight hundred dollars or we're bringing in thirty eight hundred dollars in Revenue we're not recognizing any additional expenses associated with growing and it just it to me there's just a lot to try to figure out yet and and I I know we've worked hard on this I I appreciate that I I know that again I I wanted to succeed I just where I where my stumbling block is we should be able to

183have those details those numbers because we have to justify that to the taxpayers and the other teachers that are in the classroom you know and the other other students that are in the classroom we're going potentially there could be a little bit of deprivation there because of a decision being made tonight and that those numbers those break point numbers all indicate the math indicates that it's still thirty eight hundred dollars whether it's one student or 500 students there is a range but that's what it was indicating by seeing big numbers we're also spending big numbers in order to get those big numbers any other comments or questions on the motion roll call please Mike Higgins yes Lauren Allen no Diana Johnson no David Schrader yes David Smith yes no Tony internet is there another home

184yes and the motion carries not the process there all right last item is resolution 9190 purchase of metal fiber optic laser CNC table do I hear a motion right now moved by Mike seconded by Lori comments or questions on the motion hearing none will although please my kittens yes yes Diana Johnson Epstein David Trader yes Dr will yes Craig Whiteman yes yes and the motion carries this brings us to the second opportunity for public input they're members of the audience either in person or virtual that would like to be heard on the board on anything please hi I'm Fred John 869 Briar course I wanted to commend the board on it use of technology and advancement in recent years the board docs especially has been amazing um just the access to the board of its

185materials like board policy 8524 the board clerk shall cause a complete accurate set of minutes to be recorded for each regular and special board meeting the minute shall constitute the official record of proceedings of the board and include the substance of all actions taken by the board of the meeting including the subject matter of any motion the person's making seconding the motion and the votes taken on the motion the minutes shall not present value judgments as Danny reports or presented presentations made at the meeting and shall not make an attempt to include a complete description of all discussion against the meeting being able to have that information and knowledge of my fingertips on my phone in the audience is excellent I appreciate that continue the good work thank you anyone else anyone online no all

186right regarding agenda planning I did not teach the course of our discussion items that need to be referred to Future agenda did I miss anything you want to just speak to the process with elections so forth over the next time and so forth a little bit so people can think about that as a million people on the board so in the past what has occurred is that we'll have an election on Tuesday whoever's elected is elected committees will continue as they were for the April meetings Doug I will cover fiscal and your absence the board will hold in the April meeting April meeting will start with our organizational tasks the board will select a board precedence the award vice president a Treasurer a clerk then in the past the past have been for the board

187president after that meeting to circulate to the board members and ask for your interest in committees and then from the board president to prepare a roster for the board committees which now includes chairman and to announce those appointments prior to the May committee meetings started so there's a tight window there between our April board meeting and when there's appointments need to occur so that has been the past pattern board was just asked something different I would expect that it would occur the same way sorry then maintain a motion to adjourn so second wow why many people are eager to make a motion I pause all right