4/25/22 Regular Monthly Board Meeting

001nomination with liberty and justice for all thank you please take your role here here tina johnson here david schrader here david smith here doug here here all right so our first item of business is the election of a temporary chairperson for doing our election for a board president do i hear a motion to appoint superintendents as a temporary chairperson second moved by david second by mike comments or questions on the motion all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries at this time i will take nominations for president obama do we have any nominations is there a second second all right let me accept that nomination i will any other nominations all right hearing none uh do we have a motion to close the nominations at this time second second advice um

002then all those in favor of tony arnett as board president oh i'm sorry yes signify by saying aye you do not need to fill out your ballot as we just said one nominee thank you thank you again for your confidence and your trust i wish my utmost to continue our next item up is the election of the board vice president do i hear any nominations for the vice president trader any other nomination i'm sorry is there a second but not a second and is there a second i suck it are there any other nominations for vice president all right nominations are closed i'm sorry all right you now have balance in front of you please fill out the first one for vice president or either doug or david i'll be having time all right to

003the second ballot still tight we're still tied please take your third balance vice president [Music] you're doing good walking physical therapy there's still time let's go to your balance here all right well let's use the one that's present after the new person is nominated or appointed otherwise it's going to continue to be a 4-4 i presume i mean i don't know who has to vote on that i'm just saying is that we're expecting a change in the outcome without changing the voters i'm fine paper i would imagine that they're not sworn i think the in was to uh swear that individual and then immediately not immediately but uh for the following year we do need to reorganize the board in april great idea yeah that's a very good idea we have some boat ships before

004side the speakers would either individual like to concede okay foreign right do i hear a motion to confirm the remaining nominee for a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed congratulations next is the election of board clerk do i hear any nominations that you should accept that nomination are there any other nominees hearing none do i hear emotions with close nominations are you turning in the spout in favor of the sole moment is there a second second all those in favor signify by saying aye hi opposed and the motion carries and lastly there is the election before treasury do you wish to accept that nomination all right are there any other nominations hearing none do i hear a motion to close nominations and returning then as thou in favor of

005the sole knowledge opposed congratulations next is the appointment of a deputy clerk do i hear a motion to appoint jamie rosner as our deputy work move by mike second by tina all those in favor of motion please signify by saying aye aye opposed and the motion checks for board committee assignments and rep and representatives we have two specific that we need to fill this evening and then i'll speak to our standing communities after that the first is the watertown educational foundation and the next is the watertown family center other volunteers going to take on those goals i think i did i was a family center last year with zero meetings so i'll be happy to continue that and is there a volunteer for the education foundation meetings of the education foundation are approximately quarterly and

006they're also a fairly uh infrequent meeting with lots of opportunity to give back and review grants and opportunities to engage with um staffing communities in case you're uncertain of their role [Music] with regard to our board standing committees i will circulate a note to all of you asking you to give me your first second and third preferences and based on your feedback i will do my level best to get everybody at least their first preference success will last a couple times so they'll be able to continue that pattern and then i'll announce all of those appointments before the next seven minutes okay our last organizational item is the representative for cesa 2 is there somebody who's going to take this on this is a annual meeting for our csu district [Music] all right craig do

007i hear a motion to appoint craig as our sensitive delegate david seconded by tina questions on the motion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye close and the motion carries all right this brings us to preview the agenda we have any changes to the agenda i am scanning for our student board reps and i do not see them out there uh and they are not online either so uh right now we would not have them here but if they should arrive later otherwise there are no changes to the agenda this brings us to one of two opportunities for the public to address the board there's one at the end of the meeting if you'd like to be recognized and you're in the rooms please raise your hand recognize it you can step

008up to the podium and you can name an address for your leave comments if you're online please use the razer hand feature and again we will announce you before we enable your microphone and please speak your name and address at that time is there anyone you'd like to be recognized this time please riverdale circle wiretap wisconsin 53094 it's really fun being on this side of the podium um i just wanted to thank all of you and new board members and current board members for all the services that you do now i know firsthand what kind of commitment it is and what it involves so thank you so very much continue um doing good work for our students and staff and community um what i wanted to share tonight was my thoughts on the safety protocols

009i would like to recommend that you uh go back to pre-code times whereas not having that on the dashboard not having that in the recording when we call in and we have to listen to that lengthy recording whenever your child is absent or you want to reach the office i'm looking at what is happening locally and our numbers in our cases and i think it's time that we go back to pre-covered times and take it off of our dashboard and think about seriously think about the protocols you have when your child is ill and still emphasize that but not have it be so much code related thank you all right thank you is there anyone online i don't see anybody all right there will be a second opportunity at the end of the meeting so

010next up we have board member recognition we have four members leaving the board steve coffel gideon jarrian jennifer bakke and paul vanden langford three of whom are present this evening and we will have resolutions to all these effects whereas steve poffelt has served as a member of the board of education the watertown unified school district for the past nine years and whereas he has served with extinction and dedication while representing and promoting the best educational interests of the youth of watertown unified school district and whereas he has also served on a number of special committees of the board of education therefore be it resolved with the board of education with watertown unified school district has hereby expressed its appreciation and gratitude to steve profile for his unselfish public service and for the significant contributions he

011has made to the watertown unified school district and public education congratulations thank you still receiving a clock so that all of you are new and existing board members know that you have this sometime in your future uh where they play with the name and the years of service to the uh to the district so thank you again steve for all your years take care thank you thank [Applause] next kdp a member of the board of education the waterstone unified school district for the past one year and whereas she has served the distinction and dedication while representing and promoting the best educational interests of the youth of the watertown unified school district and whereas she's also served on a number of special committees at the board of education therefore be it resolved the board of education

012of the watertown unified school district has hereby expressed its appreciation gratitude to nigerian for unselfish public service and with significant contributions she has made to the watertown unified school district and public education jennifer vonkey was unable to join us this evening but i will still read hers whereas jennifer bakke has served as a member of the board of education of the watertown unified school district for the past eight years and whereas she has served distinction and dedication while representing and promoting the best educational interests of the youth of the watertown unified school district and whereas she's also served on a number of special committees of the board of education therefore being resolved that the board of education the watertown unified school district has hereby expressed its appreciation and gratitude to jennifer bonke for her unselfish

013public service and for the significant contributions she has made to the watertown unified school district and public education oh whereas paul vanden langenberg has served as a member of the board of education of the watertown unified school district for the past six years and whereas he has served with distinction and dedication while representing and promoting the best educational interests of the youth of the watertown unified school district and whereas he has also served in a number of special committees of the board of education therefore be resolved the board of education and the waterstone unified school district does hereby express its appreciation and gratitude to paul van den lingenberg for his unsolved public service and for the significant contributions he has made to the watertown unified school district and public education [Applause] pleasure and privilege thank

014you thank you all right do i hear a motion on resolutions nine zero nine four nine zero nine five nine zero nine six and nine zero nine seven [Music] hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries thank you next up is the 2022 best communities for emergency education and the namm recognition yes we have once again uh received the best communities for music non-recognition which is a national recognition for the quality of music programming provided here in the district and it is an award that we are so privileged to receive our music department reed ledoux specifically completes the paperwork for this i have said every year that i've been here that our music department is second to absolutely none from the opportunities we give our students to the

015quality of the performances that we see every single year the musical that is outstanding uh in just a few weeks we're going to have the mark woods concert a absolutely state-of-the-art opportunity for our students there's no district doing it better we have the best music team in the state uh and i would go even farther than that they are extraordinary they do hard work to make this application and we are honored to receive it uh again mr ledoux uh is in parent teacher conferences this evening and not able to be here with us uh to officially present us but we wanted to share that with you here this evening and we will yet again be hanging that banner in all of our schools so huge congratulations to our music department music families and music program

016we have another recognition to make this evening uh this is on behalf of the dpi the school nutrition association no kid hungary in wisconsin and the hunger task force who are recognizing our food and nutrition staff it is a late recognition on behalf of national breakfast week but while it is a later recognition we are so proud again our food nutrition team has had many many barriers that they have had to overcome over these past two years we were one of the first districts in the state to have uh to be prepared to give students and families meals during the pandemic our food nutrition team was at multiple locations uh rain shine every other condition that we get in spring uh here in wisconsin they drove buses around town and delivered meals to everyone who

017needed them our food nutrition team has worked every summer over the course of the pandemic and continued to get those meals into the hands of our students and families we know there's been struggles with supply lines and challenges that they've faced staffing challenges that they've faced but there is not anyone in our school nutrition program uh that is not kind to students every single day and works incredibly hard we are very proud of that team and very proud of this recognition for them tonight and we also have a donation to recognize uh from fisher barton blades for one thousand five hundred dollars again huge kudos to jesse domer and his team for all the work they do to build community partnerships and huge gratitude towards fisher bart and blades for this generous donation for skillsusa

018all right our students are not here but yes that brings us to the ends of our uh recognitions and announcements okay then we'll move on to the discussion portion of our agenda first up is a proposal for a trip to germany in 2023 that's you kim come on good evening thank you for seeing me and considering my proposal to take students to germany once again finally the last time we were able to go was 2019. we're gonna we again would like to travel with seated tours they did a really fantastic job for us last time the prices have gone up a bit like everywhere of course a major part of our costs are the airline tickets we're looking at about thirty three hundred dollars per student if we only get 10 students to go and

019if we can get 12 15 or more it'll be down to 3 000. one of the ways that i try to keep the cost down is i do provide the tour guide services at no cost to the students that saves quite a bit of money so this proposal while it's more expensive than it has been in the past is still quite a bit less than if we were to go with another company that would not allow me to do that we'll be repeating the same trip we took in 2019 staying in daho outside of munich at the youth hostel there and then for about a week and doing day trips into munich and around munich and into salzburg in austria and then spending a week with our host families i have spoken with the teachers

020in germany and they are ready to welcome us with open arms lord willing we are all right we hang on and do the best that we can right now but yes they're ready to welcome us they are also planning on coming next year and possibly in the fall as they should be but possibly not till the spring it depends on how the rest of the school year goes for them and how things play out on a global scale so that's what we're looking at i already have six host families recruited for the 16 students so um at least people who've expressed interest were not finalized yet obviously does anyone have any questions or members questions please tina it's a um like something world event you know happens and things like that and you're not able

021to take the trip how is that handled and class refundable and things like that i'll have to review exactly the refund i was just reading it last week but i can't remember if it gets canceled for things out of our control if students cancel there's 125 cancellation fee up until about two months before we go and then they start losing more money but as if students cancel um if our trip is canceled for reasons outside of our control i think that that that would be changed they wouldn't lose everything that they've got i do have two potential deadlines um first for people who want to spread their payments out i have a deadline for may coming up understanding that things are uncertain and people might not want to take a chance on doing that there's

022another deadline for october next year but that just it crunches the payments a little bit together and i like to give people time to be able to spread those out but people can choose that what kind of risk they want to take with that um sita does require now all participants to be vaccinated as just as a matter of course so that is another that's another new measure they all have travel insurance as well yes student encourages them to get travel insurance thank you because that impacts that so depending on what level of travel insurance they purchase they could get more of their costs refunded but actually ceta i can't remember if they use the word require or strongly encourage um stu the travelers to buy the travel insurance and it's quite reasonable you can

023they can get it straight through ceta but it's very very reasonable over the past few years we've had to cancel some of these trips we've done most of the travel companies very accommodating to either postpone or to refund those different options especially the students other questions from board members thank you all right thank you thank you for coordinating this opportunity there will be a resolution all right this brings us to the selection of a new member to fill our vacancy the proposed voting process is outlined in your meeting materials each candidate will be given the opportunity to address the board explaining their interest qualifications the board will have the opportunity to ask questions after each candidate makes his or her remarks at the conclusion of the candidate remarks and board questions board members got these

024ballots again it does require your signature on it that is state statute choice and senate and votes all right and we have three individuals who stepped forward they are wendy pliska who is unable to be here this evening in person at the last minute but she is online we have diana johnson and we have trevor thomas do i hear a motion to approve this learning process selection process hearing none all those in favor signify by saying i i closed and the motion carries all right so next we will proceed each candidate individually again they'll make their presentation we'll have opportunities asking questions all right let's continue all right so mr thomas you are first you can step up to the point well uh members of the board uh my name is trevor thomas and i

025just want to say first off thank you for the opportunity to uh to speak in front of you this evening with regards to the vacant board um position so uh i'll talk a little bit about my background first and then some of my qualifications and then you all can fire away um background i'm not from wisconsin i actually only moved here in 2015 uh after leaving active duty services as a marine officer um i live here in watertown uh with my two children and wife and uh couldn't be happier um but i think if we're going to talk about where i come from and kind of my my qualifications we should just really go back to well where i was born which is wyoming i'm from wyoming uh afton wyoming a small town uh just

026south of jackson hole if anybody's been to jackson hole lovely area uh definitely not a rich area my mom is a school teacher she was an educator for 30 years she was actually my third grade teacher in a small town called uh bighorn which is just south of sheridan in wyoming so that's that's a unique experience my father was a rancher and if it wasn't for a blizzard in the winter of 85 i also might have been a rancher but we lost all our cattle and my father moved into group homes and children's care um and then from there he took a job as director uh for volunteers of america in wyoming and that's what he did and moved into nevada for that as well so we moved from wyoming to nevada i graduated from

027high school in 98 and uh the only thing i knew at that point is that i really wasn't ready for college so i joined the navy which was a tradition on my father's side grandfather all that uh and that has started an 18-year career for me as a military service i was an enlisted men and i got sent over to japan really enjoyed that when i was done with it wanted nothing to do with the military ever again right like i just knew that was for me um but i met my first wife over there and uh we came back to the states i got orders or she got orders up to alaska and um we spent the next three years of our life in alaska my son was born and i completed my bachelor's

028i have bs in biological sciences for the university of alaska um at that point i still had this nagging feeling that i hadn't done what i wanted to do as a service member i'm serving my country serving my community and this was in 2008 so i i joined the marine corps and i commissioned as a marine officer in 2008 the family moved over to quantico virginia where i completed my training i was given the job of a human intelligence and counterintelligence officer and then promptly sent back to japan again uh and served out there in the third intelligence battalion during my time in japan i was deployed to iraq from 2010 to 2011 once i came back from that packed up the family and did my second duty station with the marine corps which is

029at fort meade maryland where i helped stand up marine forces cyber command and gain kind of the skills that uh pushed me over into the civilian world in 2015. when the marine corps said that no more cyber stuff for you you're going to go back and do intel stuff and i i really was passionate about that and wanted to make that transition my first wife was from wisconsin and so when we knew we were leaving active duty we needed a place where there could be family and kind of that buffer where we had spent our entire adult lives doing military things we needed that transition uh we came to watertown and it was a great fit it was a great fit for the children great community and well i'm still here um so what i

030did is i transitioned over to the civilian world and i took on a role as a consultant for cyber security for a company called ernst young um i didn't realize how busy i was going to be and i've spent most of the last seven years running around like crazy really working as a as a subject matter expert with regards to cyber operations for fortune 500 companies helping them identify risk uh operationalize their processes um and grow steadily and you know more safely because at this point everybody wants to stay out of the news if you're a board member at a large fortune 500 company your biggest concern is not being the news like so many others so that's what i spent a lot of time doing um but i i still had a passion to

031serve and and that continued as soon as i left active duty service um i came over to the wisconsin national guard and i i took on i was accepted as an infantry officer here at the wisconsin army national guard my first job uh funny enough was to be a cav guy uh here at watertown armory and i took command of the watertown armory here bravo troop for a couple years and then moved up to alpha alpha company at the 127th where i deployed afghanistan i thought i was slowing down a little bit not the case um what i guess i say through all that as i talk about what i've done from a military perspective and then the cyber perspective um there's a depth and breadth of being exposed to complex problems in complex situations

032um that with no easy outcomes and i think that that is a key to um what you all do there's no secret that school boards aren't easy um and it can be a difficult place and i think you know the leadership and the background that i have is is definitely something that can be beneficial to them um i will go ahead and just disclose now that i am a san francisco 49ers fan yeah but i figured we should probably get that out of the way now before we got any further [Laughter] my only condolences devo will probably be playing for the packers here yeah but i guess at that point i'll go ahead and uh pause i want to take all night so you know please ask away any questions comments concerns about where i've

033gone what i've done and why i'm here all right thank you board members what questions do you have let's go first right go ahead what are areas of concern regarding student achievement and do you have specific suggestions for improvement um i would say that you want to look at from a student achievement perspective if i had an area of concern i would just say opportunities for children to achieve uh you know i'll go back to my own experience as a young man coming out of high school um i think i graduated with like a 2 8 9 or something like it wasn't stellar um and and i have had the opportunity to be successful um because people gave me second chances and because people were willing to uh you know look past some of my

034initial challenges and so if i were worried about student achievement we're talking about that i would say how to looking towards finding a way to have a broad a broad process for that not focusing on always just our top achievers but looking to pull down and look across the group to say how can we encourage student achievement across a broad range of children a broad range of backgrounds and hopefully trying to get a more representative and community driven process thank you and thank you for your service as well nice tina please um so one of the next big tests that we have you know in this short short while and things like that um is you know going through a superintendent search and things like that what do you feel as far as what qualities

035or what skills do you bring to the table as far as being able to help us you know go through that process well that's a great question um so in my role at ui i led all of our national recruiting uh for college students to come in and hire for technology uh and technology roles so lots of opportunities and lots of experience there with just interviewing hiring and then also having those conversations along the way as well um also i would say as a you know just being exposed to multiple leaders at all different levels of multiple different kinds of corporations and then also from the military side you certainly get a handle on what good leadership looks like and what good leadership isn't and kind of what you need to look for in a

036leader so as you review resumes or look at people's backgrounds and what they've done i want would want somebody who would be able to provide a strategic vision right i would want somebody who could go ahead and not necessarily be so focused that they can't you know so focus on the way details of day-to-day operations that they can't realize that as a superintendent your job is to provide the way ahead for the district you to provide that guidance that vision and plan and where i've seen leaders fail time time again is not trusting their support it's not trusting those to their left and right and really being too detailed and not being able and then everybody looks around and say well how do we get from point a to point b the other part is

037being able to build coalitions and being able to build teams like in effective teams right so so many caustic leaders out there just can't work in a way that is is really effective and they and they manage and lead by fear or by threat um and so i think you're also going to be searching for somebody who has a demonstrated ability to to reach across bridge differences build successful teams and if necessary bring people with them you know to build their teams as well so absolutely okay now the board members questions okay so we just came off of an election here a couple weeks ago and some board members what uh now this vacancy became available what made you choose this vacancy but not to be elected that is also a great a month to

038go yeah no that's a great question so i will tell you um the reason that i'm here is that my circumstances have recently changed um when i was working at ui as a senior manager i didn't have the bandwidth to do anything uh my my my um morning started at 3 30 with uh global calls and i would work until 8 9 or 10 o'clock right so i haven't had that opportunity i just been working like a dog and then fitting in army life and then fitting in family life and so there hasn't been an opportunity to do anymore i left consulting right uh in the beginning of february in transition to a new job in march and uh so i'm now the director of threat intelligence and um uh incident management uh at a

039pharmaceutical company out west but my quality of life has changed i i now get out of bed at around seven o'clock in the morning uh and i get done sometimes somewhere around five and what has happened in that time period is the you know the conversations with my wife about hey i've i've given and served at the national level and i found that to be rewarded um i've given and served at the state level you know as the oic of the officer in charge for riots in milwaukee in 2017 for the burlington floods in 2017 for the madison riots in 2020 and then i was also the operations officer for the inauguration of the 500 men and women that we took to washington dc to to protect that process so i've served at the state

040level i would like to serve more directly and more involved at the community um and so i reached out and was asking questions and i realized that i missed the deadline for the the recent elections um and i was like well okay and then i heard about this and i thought well trevor it's time to put your money where your mouth is uh put yourself out there um and see what you can see if you are able to contribute in this way thank you dan other board members i have a question um so in the headlines uh there's critical race theory there's gender [Music] are inclusiveness the national headlines now um what do you think when you see these headlines or what are your thoughts well that's another great question and i'll tell you i

041i deal with that um and these these uh these issues and have dealt with these issues you know as a leader in the marine corps and army for for years um change is coming change has come right and so from a from a leader's mentality on that perspective like it's about having honest conversations uh open conversations with those those around us um i come from a place of inclusivity i come from a place of acceptance and really what i'm concerned about as a leader is that building inclusive teams where we can support children to get the job done and get the job done uh in a right way i think the children are the most valuable asset that we have right i have a nine-year-old who goes to school here in the district my son

042graduated last year um and and i think that it's our job to come together as a team and provide that guidance where it's a safe place for everybody to come to school and learn and we can leave whatever else that we think outside so let's say you're selected a year from now looking back how would you judge where the view was successful for your question um if i had to look back at what success would look like um was i able to contribute and make the school board better better what am i am i able to contribute and have my voice be heard um you know in how this district moves forward uh i believe watertown is is a fantastic uh community um that is full of hard-working people um and i think if i

043could look back and say that i was an active member on committees um i spoke up where i have my expertise and i learned when i didn't and i would say in a year from now you know when it comes to an end you know maybe i'll just run for re-election and it won't be done and is there one burning issue that we think we need to confront more than others right now uh filling this spot no i no i i don't i don't think i come to the to this um this board with any any one burning issue um again i see myself as a generalist with with a lot of different backgrounds um and in just working together to find solutions um is really where i want to focus um are the board

044members any other questions for this candidate thank you very much thank you all very much i do very much appreciate the opportunity i hope you'll have a wonderful evening next up is wendy blista who is online good evening folks i i really apologize i had every intention of being with you in person and at about 5 30 today we realized my husband's allergies were not allergies and i thought you all might appreciate me staying home and not being among you in person um i do appreciate the opportunity to speak i'm here to offer my perspective which i think is as a perspective that we do not currently have on the board in the past we've been very lucky in town to have current and former educators um fran milburn was a gift to the board

045i those of you who've been on the board long enough to remember fran service she provided really valuable insight into not just what the community needs and what parents need but also what the staff in the trenches experience every day i am a practicing educator in dane county i've been teaching for over 20 years i've gone from teaching in a private school as a social studies teacher to working at a high school in waukesha county and serving as a reading specialist i now run our alternative education program at my current high school which is in dane county i also have been blessed to be able to work with teachers in districts around the state in 2007 i started teaching adjunct courses for viterbo university and i worked with teachers from ryan lander to milwaukee to

046mount horeb really across the state and that's given me a great deal of insight into what other districts do well and what are issues that are really universal across districts throughout our state um i also teach graduate courses to pre-service teachers so i have the opportunity to work with young and new to our profession teachers who are just getting ready to student teach that's always a really exciting group of people to work with and that's given me insight into what our new people coming into the profession are excited about what they're worried about what they're looking for and as i said that gives me insights that i don't think we currently have on the board um i decided to throw my hat into the ring because i really think that the district is at a

047pivotal point um with dr shrug taking a position elsewhere our district is you know we don't know where it's going right whoever we choose for our superintendent is really going to make a difference as to what vision what direction we go into and i think education in general is also really at a crossroads i'm sure that watertown like other districts that i know uh is perhaps not yet finding it hard to recruit and retain teachers but i think we're all seeing that come down the road i think making sure that our children have the best possible adults in the classroom to support their learning really has to be our primary goal if our kids aren't coming to school every day excited and learning and feeling supported then essentially we failed at our most essential task

048and our community like many communities around the state and around the country is really divided i would not wish your inboxes on my worst enemy i know you folks have felt the vitriol from all sides of the community in the last few years and i worry that if we don't have a strong superintendent and a really cohesive experience board that we may not be able to come back from that divisiveness and our kids need us to our kids need us to work together as a community and work together as a school board and work together as school staff to provide them the best that we can so that's a very simple overview of my experience and why i'm interested personally i have two kids in the district i've got a fifth grader at webster i

049have an eighth grader at middle school she's looking forward to being at the high school next year my husband and i have lived in watertown since 2005. um and we chose this community when we got married and we're looking to put down our roots because we really appreciate the the sense of community here i've taught in several places in southeastern wisconsin and there's not a lot of cities that have you know a thriving downtown and everyone goes to the football games on friday nights and we have fourth of july parades and we have festivals there's that that's not common here um and i value that quite a bit and again i think i worry that if we don't work together to solve that divide that i see in person and online and in social media

050that we might lose some of that so again that's that's really my motivation here is i think that i can bring some really valuable experience and i'm really motivated to help watertown heal some of those wounds and really move forward um to be the best that it can be thank you miss puska questions for this candidate greg did you not know you signed up for that [Laughter] wendy do you feel that parents should have a say in what is taught in the classroom and why i think that the school board and school administrators and teachers should work together with parents and the community but i see that more as a global meta partnership i don't think that i as a parent of a fifth grader should email his teacher mrs johnson and say i want

051him to read this book because i know that our teachers are trained experts and and again one of my motivations for for volunteering to serve on the board is that making sure that we have the best highest qualified most caring adults in the classroom is what we need i want to be able to trust that my child's teacher knows what's best for them um on the other hand i do think that schools work better and children have a better learning experience when we all work together so i know just again my experiences with webster and the middle school but my son's experience at webster is they're very welcoming for parents there's a lot of opportunities for parents to meet with teachers communicate with with teachers meet with a principal uh participate in activities with the

052school i have never as a parent here felt that my input or perspective or concerns were unwelcome uh really on the contrary i have felt extraordinarily blessed with the teachers and staff that my son in particular has has worked with um so i think that would be my perspective on that i don't i don't i don't see a role for individual parents to individual to dictate individual items of curriculum but i do think that parents should be able to communicate with teachers and administrators serve on committees when we reevaluate curriculum professionally that has been my experience in the past that when districts that i've worked with in the past have reviewed curriculum proposed new initiatives we have often invited parents and community members and frankly students to participate in that work and that always ends

053up with a better product and better experience for our students all right thank you next question tina hi wendy thank you um so as a board as new dark on earth next big task of selecting a new superintendent i know you kind of alluded to to some things before but could you um just kind of like reiterate like what skills do you bring that could add value as we go through this process of selecting superintendents um that's a really good question thank you tina i think i come with a blend excuse me i come with a blend of professional experience in the field of education and then also my own personal experience as a parent and a community member but particularly someone who has worked in the field of education for over 20 years and

054has taught gosh 17 years i don't even think that sounds possible 17 years of aging courses with carroll university at virtual university and edgewood college i really probably would bore some of you with the um intricacies of of current um initiatives and education um i as many of you in your own in your own careers like i live and breathe educational policy at this point so um i can envision meeting with superintendent candidates and really being able to understand when we listen to what to initiatives that they've done in the past how they worked with their staffs how they've worked with the community um i think i'm going i would be able to really sift through some of that to really see the the the core of each candidate and i think i can also

055provide insight into you know where is watertown now with what we offer with what we're good at with what we struggle with and what sort of candidate and what sort of criteria and qualifications would we want in the superintendent who can help us take that strong path into the future and not just you know paddle and stay with the status quo all right thank you next question you talked about uh solving a divide healing wounds um divided culture we had a pivotal point um then you talked about a cohesive board as well so we we have recently put together our our priorities in strategic plan for the next three years you know we've set a direction for the district as a board how do you see yourself as you come into that with an established

056plan um being able to participate in shaping that as it goes forward i i my primary question in any policy decision any communication um any conversation with the board is always what's best for our students it's really easy as adults whether parent teacher community member board member administrator it's really easy to let our own personal feelings and experiences kind of cloud the picture and what i will always try and do is just take that step back and say but what's best for the kids and and frankly sometimes what's best for the kids may not be immediately possible with staffing or budgets we all know those are not you know not easy uh things to handle sometimes but for me the the long goal always has to be in any decision that we make with a

057strategic plan with personnel decisions with you know individual policies is this helping the students is this making their experience better are we being welcoming of all of our children and if the answer is no then that's something that we need to work on so that would be my approach um working with you on the strategic plan is just always coming back to how is this helping our kids all right next question hi wendy this is doug um hi so the question i asked the previous candidate to uh soul critical race theory and gender gender inclusiveness are in the national spotlight how do you think of that fitting into our curriculum and what you see that looking like for watertown well and i will speak as a professional educator here i am not aware of any

058district in the state that is teaching critical race theory i can't imagine that that would be curriculum that our curriculum advisors or teachers would suggest so i guess i don't even really see that being an issue that we would have to decide um as far as gender inclusivity partly i'll go back to my question of are we helping our kids um and partly i'll go back with the legal perspective of as the previous candidate stated the times are changing the courts have been fairly clear about the parameters that schools have to operate within as far as welcoming our students i would in any question that would come before me i would look at what's best for the kids and frankly what's not going to waste taxpayer money like there's some fights that we just won't

059win and as a community member and a responsible board member i can't imagine pursuing a course of action that would embroil us in a lawsuit that we would lose all right thank you other board members so wendy my question first one is you're selected a year from now how do you look back and judge whether you're successful or not um as i mentioned before i really see the next year one of our pivotal tasks being to choose the best possible superintendent that we can to lead the district and really that would be my primary marker you know if we can be back together next april and we either have hired a new superintendent um whether they've started or are just slated to to begin um that we're all proud of and excited about and that

060we are confident will be leading our staff and students in the direction that we want them to go that's going to be my primary marker of success all right and then the follow-up is is there one burning issue that you think we need to address as a district um you know as i said earlier i don't know that you consider choosing a superintendent a burning issue i think that's our primary task at hand i think the issue is acknowledging the rift or the rifts frankly that exist between parents and community members that exist between board members that exist between i think in some cases teachers and admin and community members and trying to get us to be taking some steps to heal those risks because frankly as long as we're all fighting each other nobody's

061winning and the kids are really losing you know until the parents and the schools and the board can work together we're not putting our full energy into making the schools the best it can be for our kids and that's really a shame any other questions for this candidate doug as far as student achievement and looking at watertown itself by itself what area would you consider the priority right now looking at how we operate as a district report card wise or within there you know i'm i'm not a huge i don't i don't put a ton of stock in standardized test scores um i think they're a useful measure but i don't think they're the only measure um my my big goal would always be are we providing balance in the opportunities we're giving our children

062um i've worked in some very high performing very well-off districts in the past and we had students going off to harvard and ucla and mit but we also have students who weren't planning on a four-year college and frankly often they got the short end of the stick my goal for watertown particularly being you know the the community that we are where we value hard work and we value you know working with our hands i think we have a fairly blue collar background personally in my family i come from a very blue collar background my dad was a union pipefitter my grandpa was a new painter um we need to make sure that we're providing equal opportunities for all our students so we need to make sure that our students who want to pursue a four-year

063college education have strong classes that challenge them and prepare them for college but we also have to make sure that we have a really strong cte program that prepares our students who want to go into the trades who want to go into culinary school who want to pursue other hands-on and and not not not programs that need a four-year college um and and i think we frankly do a fairly good job of that at watertown um but i think we can always do more so rather than looking at a particular you know we want 90 of our students to be proficient readers at third grade those are great goals but i would really look at boots on the ground when our students leave watertown high school have we really done everything we can to prepare

064them from for whatever path they want to go on to next dave smith did you have one more yeah good i wanted to drill a little bit more you talked about you know superintendent being a priority uh filling that role but then you talk about issues around acknowledging rifts and in the community and trying to build that back can you be a little more specific on like an example of a riff that you believe is there and a solution that you believe that we you can help the board as a board member provide well i mean with respect i can only imagine that your email inbox has been like the email inbox of every board member and administrator that i know that in the last two years you have had parents screaming on one side

065anti-mask anti-regulations anti-quarantine and on the other side have parents screaming that we're not asking enough and we're endangering our students these two groups of people are not talking to each other um i i know people who've been friends for years who no longer talk who block each other on social media who look the other way when they see each other and pick and save these are all voters and parents in our district and i i'm not naive enough to think that in one year on the board that i can solve this issue but i do think it's important that we acknowledge that people in our community are really fired up um and and really all parents are fired up because we want what we think is best for our kids we just don't agree on

066what's best for our kids um and so let's hope ironically as my husband's upstairs ill but let's hope that his covid kind of works its way out of our collective systems that we can stop thinking about the emergency of the moment and start looking towards like okay we all just whether to really significant collective trauma and we didn't all act our best and how do we now maybe mend some fences maybe never you know have each other for barbecue again but how do we mend some some of those fences so that we can work together in the future um i don't know that i have a specific strategy in mind for that i i think that you folks on the board have done a pretty good job about being open to parent and community input

067god bless you because i know that wasn't easy but i do i think the first step is acknowledging you know just pretending that everyone gets along and and that this is going to blow over i don't think that's gonna work i think we have to acknowledge that there's a lot of hurt and anger here and acknowledging cleaning out that wound letting it get some fresh air and sunlight that's the first step to starting to heal some of those wounds and moving forward all right craig you had mentioned um in your comments that education in watertown is at a crossroads what do you mean by that i think education in watertown and education nationwide is at a crossroads um you know i'm i'm sure you know you you i i'm sure as a new board member

068you've you've educated yourself and kept up on news articles we have fewer and fewer people entering the profession we have lots and lots of baby boomers retiring some of them frankly earlier than we'd hoped so i think you know when i started the profession in the late 90s a district could get 400 applications for a kindergarten teacher or a high school history teacher we're not getting that anymore um so i think our whole community cultural view of education has shifted and if we can't at least in watertown again work together make this a community where people want to live make this a community where people want to teach um then we i think we will start to find that it's harder to get those really excited high quality trained people to be in the front

069of our classroom we all know that budgets are getting tighter you know the state's not sending schools a lot more money every year so you as the board and the administrators have to always make do with a little bit less and meet those needs so i really do think that we're not we're not you know in dire straits yet but i do think there's some issues that we need to see coming and work as a board to plan for so that in five or 10 years we're not in terrible shape and we're doing that as i said before at a time when we don't have the community necessarily unified behind us right this is the time when there's a lot of contention and so we're trying to solve some heavy problems when there's a lot

070of disagreement about what direction the school should go all right in other questions thank you very much let's go thank you i appreciate it and our third candidate is miss diana johnson good evening i'm diana johnson and i'm a retired teacher with over 25 years of experience i'm married i have two high school age children and i've been a member of this community for about 20 years my days now are spent enjoying my kids activities subbing occasionally in the classroom controlling the financial side of our sales company and i'm the ceo of the rock picking crew on our family farm i'm a solutions oriented person i think it's a total waste of time to sit and debate problems as a parent i hold my kids accountable for their actions as a teacher i invested time

071to make every student successful and accountable for their learning and for their behaviors my goal is to collaborate with other members of the board in holding district leaders accountable for the goals and expectations that they set forth learned a lot these past 25 years on top of teaching i was a team leader a math department chair and district coordinator a district leader in standards-based grading a district leader and national presenter on student life conferencing a teacher leader and mentor in educator effectiveness a math instructional coach a leader in differentiated instruction and a math interventionist there are trials and tribulations along the way i promise to share the wisdom that i learned in that awesome 25-year journey i can also assist in bringing clarity to the sometimes confusing teacher lingo and jargon for both board members

072and teachers the board has a unique and exciting opportunity right now to implement change with the hiring of a new superintendent i look forward to the opportunity to be being a part of this process with you and i look forward to serving the community to make watertown schools the best it possibly can be thank you questions from board members right all right um what do you recognize as positive opportunities where the watertown unified school district can make the biggest impact on academic achievement sorry that got a little distracted can you repeat that again uh basically the last part of it would be um what opportunities were would you recognize within the watertown universe school district where we could make the biggest impact on impact on academic achievement positive opportunities always come in my opinion with

073providing every student the right to learn that has to be rigorous that has to be i'll use the district model rigorous and relevant you hear that in so many different districts if you are not providing rigor and relevance to every kid no matter what level they have it's not going to be a positive opportunity for them i see that you have a master's in curriculum is that a passion of yours yes education's okay right and so i'll just tell you when i started teaching i started back in college and i stayed myself college in 90s started teaching in 95 and actually my principal at the time when i went for curriculum instruction i was a year and a half out of college i was coaching five sports i was doing whatever i could and i

074thought you know i want to make an impact in the school so i'll go curriculum instruction to get as much knowledge i could and my principal looked at me and said i'm gonna i'm gonna begrudgingly sign off on this you should go to become a principal and i said maybe i'll do that someday but i've always just stayed everything i do when you think about what i've done in these years it's always been somehow oriented to making schools the best place they can be for kids so is the curriculum side of things i have unpacked and repacked the math standards for grades six seven and eight i have rewritten assessments for the waukesha school district for grades six seven and eight um is curriculum a passion students are my passion and frankly there are jobs

075that nobody volunteers to do okay i'm it it needs to be done all right next question keenan um so as we mark this next big task um that we have to do for a selected superintendent what skills or you know qualities things like that do you feel that you have that can help us through that process a few different things come to mind i'll be forthright honest i've never picked a superintendent before but i've worked with a lot of people over the years i'm going to tell you in waukesha when i was there we had the best superintendent ever hands down and so what skills do i bring i guess i could just bring i'll share with you now i guess maybe i shouldn't share with you now because then you won't vote me in

076but we need someone that's going to put students first that has a vision and so skills i am task oriented goals oriented follow-through oriented and so i want to help that resonate to bring that to the board as well i guess you didn't ask what i want from the superintendent but skills is being able to sift through those qualities isn't an easy task because there's this wonderful nominal person that has this great resume okay let's ask some of those tough questions what's their vision where's their strategic plan what does that look like what history do they have how is their student report card look i've done data digging my entire life there's people in here that i've worked with that i've been sitting opposite them asking those hard questions and as long as we can

077understand that it's not that i'm not standing we're having a conversation to make this all better making the best choice possible and i believe that's my greatest strength right ms sure so i'm going back to the critical race theory gender inclusiveness and the curriculum it's on national spotlight what do you think of it when you think of water how does that pertain to us or not pertain to us what are your thoughts how does it pertain to us or where's my stance on either one whatever you'd like to say about it it's hard because every student has the right to learn i personally don't think teachers should be teaching critical race theory that's something that what i'm going to do with my family and same with when you talk about gender inclusiveness every student has

078the right to feel included i worked in the largest online school in the nation last year i'll tell you a story that happened there i had a student that transgender parents didn't support it and they had a whole separate world that's at school we do this there's a fine line you know there's got to be community support parental support teacher understanding you can be inclusive and understanding and not imposing your personal thoughts and beliefs on that so there is a place for things at home at school kids have the right to be educated they have the right to feel safe they have the right to take risks we we need to be able to provide that without putting anybody down or putting anybody um in a bad situation and there's always different vantage points and

079we have to be really careful okay so why now there was an election earlier this month what what made you come up with the open seat versus the election my husband's been pushing me to do this for 15 years as a teacher putting in the time and energy and all the other millions of things we have going on is their time i've been kicking this idea around for the past six and thought do i really have the time my kids are at the prime of their life i'm missing my kids ball game tonight my daughter got to the pitcher got hit in the face how she do it my son started for the second time ever this how is he doing but then i go back to wait a second it was my kids that

080said mom you can make an impact you can watch our views you can get the updates you can watch it on youtube go do it okay all right so you can guess my questions the first one is a year from now if you've been selected how do you look back and judge success as other candidates just said as you all know the superintendent role is probably the biggest um and finding someone that's pretty phenomenal is going to be a big mark of success working in the schools as long as i have this is driving a barge so to look for success you know it's like you're going to see little things along the way that make an impact it's not a speed bump and so when i started training teachers nationwide 15 years ago in

081math it was manageable change well when you think about success what little things the little successes those baby steps come out to big steps so have we made progress on our strategic plan as i went and reflected that i've heard a lot about the strategic plan you know but i wanted to dig into it i gotta tell you that it's really hard to find the nuts and bolts when you're not a member of the board or a member of the district i've read strategic plans in the districts i've worked in and it's page upon page and how we dig in how are we doing um you're monitoring progress and so while it might not be a super big aha this but some of those little steps in that strategic plan it's a one-year goal it's

082a three-year goal it's a five-year goal so did we meet the one-year goal are you asking my personal or as a district for me personal did i help meet those one-year goals did i help meet those steps for the five-year goals did i work together with boardnet members to make those tough decisions that i helped clarify things that would be a success for me all right and is there one burning issue do you think we need to address there's a lot of burning issues and that's why i'm here ready to walk the fire with you um burning issue number one i think is the um superintendent burning number two i'm reluctant to say because i don't know what kind of firing questions you're gonna bring but how do you spend esser fund money where does

083that go you know those are things that don't everybody ask me that question right now no just kidding just because you all have as board members have a lot more background in that than what me as a parent has been informed of at this point i know and and some of you maybe you do maybe don't remember right after that initial presentation i did put my thoughts and feelings out there to the board here's what i think about esser funds and here's my thoughts on where that should go that's huge when you get that big of a gift i'm gonna call it a gift uh wow here we have some money how can we make an impact yeah that's pretty amazing are the board members questions any other questions thank you very much all right

084so we agreed upon the process we've heard them speak we've asked them questions we've heard their responses you have it in front of you instead of these balance and the process is for you to write down your selection and to sign it banana junk yes and just to clarify it does require a majority in favor so it's not the corral let's force good one we have five volts majority of the board is in favor of diana johnson therefore do i hear a motion seconded by lori yes tina johnson yes david schroeder yes david smith yes doug mills yes yes thank you to all who applied and gave your time this evening to speak with the board i hope you will actually have some encouragement and we'll continue to pursue the process and diana we will

085be in contact with you to take your over office and take the next steps all right this brings us to our last item on their strategic discussion which is our safe schools update uh this week and i guess last week two weeks ago whenever we had that services we uh talked about the safe symbols update and the fact that we were going to have this be a very very very brief report uh that there is not much new report other than good news and as we move forward perhaps we don't need to continue to have this particular item on the agenda so the ad services can be discussed that but thought we should at least have this evening to put that before you so the safe schools update is good news we continue to maintain

086really great low numbers uh in our schools one two uh this past week three cases um over the course of those weeks and we continue to maintain higher attendance for both staff and for students so we feel very good about that trend and we are very hopeful that we will continue to see that trend moving forward that is my safe schools update unless there are any questions about that sure i am positive i was told by david trader i had 30 seconds so i did not want i did not want to exceed my time so reflecting on feedback from the community i think it would behoove us to tell people in advance when we might see a number of other conditions have been in place drop off sooner we can cast that better uh and

087we had conversation at that services that we certainly anticipate um summer school and the beginning of next school year uh looking very much like we would anticipate the beginning of any school year uh in the beginning of any summer school programming uh and we can continue to have additional discussion about that uh as well uh at the upcoming services meeting tony the discussion at ed services was also is there a better way to do our quote-unquote safe schools policy it's more robust less code specific and how much resources could staff look towards that let's say during the summer uh we've been given examples whether it be from uh you know of board members or community members pointing out i'm not saying that ours needs to be improved can't exist as it is or can't just

088be set aside but i didn't know where we get the direction and the uh priority to to make sure that we have something that the school staff as well as the board is comfortable with going forward if we're not happy with the current one or if we just set it aside entirely and then bring it back should we need one didn't know what you thought about putting the resources towards that but that was a discussion at esc might i suggest that the board actually look at perhaps as soon as summer school we remove the current policy and revert to our existing communicable diseases policy and said the question isn't how do we change this what i call the safe schools stuff and said the question is do we need to make any changes to our

089communicator resistance disease policy yes that's your new starting point starting point isn't what we've been doing the starting point is what's our base policy that we've always had we need to make any adjustments to that does that fall under policy then i think that would best be handled through policy okay good thank you that's just my suggestion to you all i will support that any other comments or questions on that topic okay then our next item up is the superintendent's report all right uh very uh [Music] briefly as well however we are very excited to begin our process uh for again selecting a distinguished alumni recipient i encourage you should you know someone who is deserving of this honor uh to go onto the district website where you're able to nominate someone you can see

090here our nominees of the past uh we do still have a robust pool of candidates but we are always looking for new uh entries into the handbag pool and again making sure that that recognition uh is bestowed on someone who is truly deserving uh we have had extraordinary distinguished alumni in the past can we fully expect to be able to recognize another extraordinary alumni uh at our june board meeting which is when we typically do that so that process is concluded in may so get those nominations in um children's day fair first of all i have to give a huge shout out to jamie uh rose now who has done an extraordinary job of bringing back children's state fair we have missed children's day fair for the past two years and this year it was

091fantastically well attended if you haven't been to this event please put it on your calendar for next april uh it is an absolutely wonderful event where we bring in all sorts of community uh resources and supports for children we invite all of our community members to attend as well as children and surrounding communities it is a wonderful day full of wonderful activities and it also is a child mind activity for us an opportunity for us to know the children who are in our community maybe are not familiar to us encourage them to consider the educational opportunities here in the district and also to ensure that if they have needs that we need uh to be meeting that we are doing that as well uh so wonderful event and truly jamie i don't know how many

092hours she put into coordinating that along with many other wonderful people who are at the event this weekend coordinating those details a huge thank you to making that happen um this is an example of some of the fantastic recent outreach that's happening in campus dr vitale is doing an amazing job of doing uh really extraordinary outreach efforts uh to students in portugal that we are anticipating coming through our program as well as now working with students in japan and most recently students in ukraine all of those students are coming into our career pathways program with the opportunity to earn a diploma from their country of residence and paying tuition towards the wusd to help support those efforts uh it is a fantastic win-win situation um all the way around and dr vitelli has really uh

093reached out and created some amazing partnerships that we are so happy to have and so happy to bring the fantastic level of education that we have available here on campus uh to those students and families and provide a pathway for pool secondary for them here uh in the states as well uh we had all sorts of celebrations uh in the month of april april was a big celebration month in uh education and one of those was national volunteer week so if you know a volunteer uh it's not too late to go back and say thank you here on the wusd we have the very finest volunteers around so we used that time to celebrate some of the great work that is happening there in our classrooms to support our students in learning we are very

094very very happy uh to report the testing is over we have been working very hard in our schools to administer our spring uh testing window uh and uh we are happy with the work that has been happening in our classrooms uh to support that really important work uh which was discussed tonight we know standardized tests certainly tell far from the whole story but they are an important data point and they certainly factor into our state report card uh and we appreciate all the efforts of our students our teachers our administrators in executing those very important tests congratulations looking kinda into the light here congratulations to the skills usa chapter display team who received first place at state uh as we know our skills usa team every single year uh has extraordinary finishes at the state

095and also extraordinary finishes at the national level we are very proud of the work that they have done and as we already acknowledged again a numb uh winner uh for our best community of music and as i also already mentioned we have the spotlight tour featuring mark wood coming up get your tickets it's may 14th featuring the trans-siberian orchestra uh mark wood i mean really really really extraordinary if you haven't been to one of these performances in the past it is so cool it is so cool and my reluctant orchestra student is very excited to be working with mark wood we had national associate principal week we had paraprofessional appreciation day and school librarian appreciation day again april's a big month reach out to these people say thank you thank you thank you we have

096some of the finest around and get ready to celebrate because may is going to be teacher appreciation week that is next week let's make sure we make it a really really special today or a week for our staff and that is my report thank you comments or questions on that report all right board of canvassers the board of canvassers met on april 11th we reviewed all the detailed ballot outputs from the voting districts howard's a month make sure that our tallies match their tallies and you see the report attached and we will have a resolution recognizing that results any comments or questions on that report please thank you for those that did it fiscal management meeting april 20th uh all aboard uh all community members were present and also along with myself bill cervik our

097supervisor billions and grounds and sheila price our supervisor of nutrition services the uh payment report we discussed payments above ten thousand dollars specifically uh just a payment of 98 000 for the purchase of 400 chromebooks from vanguard computers i acknowledge that this purchase really should have gone to the board for approval and whether that has been the precedent for ongoing student device replacement the fiscal committee recommended still bringing forward the purchase for board approval to align with policies so that's why you see that um action item tonight and resolution and then in addition to that uh i'm working with uh stacy to determine how to better kind of align though um check listing with some additional information funds and things like that that can be a little easier to read under viewers report we are

098still on track we have budgeted a 3.5 million dollar allocation towards fund balance we still should be around that number and um really that's just helping to defer future deficits as we um we're gonna 23-24 school year it was asked whether we've seen evidence of inflation we have specifically in um utilities and paper items but really um you know really as we're service-based industry uh the new contracts uh we're going to be able to see evidence of inflation that are covered we talked about the gym floor replacement we accepted uh we went out to competitive bid to replace the gym for jim floyd rms uh we've got some pictures uh in the board packet for tonight uh really past its useful life the vendor that that usually performs the yearly service honor is like they

099are uncomfortable touching that anymore um and so it became somewhat of a safety concern for for bill and i so went out to bid and we just we determined at meeting itself that given the feedback on the three different proposals that bill and i would take the feedback from fiscal come back with our um suggestion on whom to approve for that and we can talk about that um resolution comes up brought forth a second greenhouse at the high school uh this is out of the agriculture department it's going to be a combination of funds that have been donated as well as district funds um it appears the majority will be donated funds the district fund portion will not be above 20 000. my question to the committee was really what if the entire project was

100over 20 but not um you know majority donated funds we still want that to go forward uh the committee determined periodic updates provided through the superintendent report be the best way to kind of give us ongoing um and i'm going to report on how that is shaping up so um with that we will be doing the jury that work over the summer and possibly getting that ready for kids to work on come the fall when they return i simply run the description for the community the greater watertown community health foundation grant and that grant will be used to fund summer school curriculum and that's in the resolution tonight and then finally uh we spent some time uh with sheila talking about the current state of the food service programs and then specifically the current financials

101um over the next year or so we actually have to draw down fund balance in food service uh per per state um request and so the committee provided feedback on the current food service program and kind of guidelines to think about as the funds are expended next meeting is may 18. comments or questions there are several resolutions coming out of that and you can also ask comments or questions on those specific items thank you human resources yes so april was a busy month for the human resources we had two new meetings last night the first meeting we reviewed the consent agenda which is in the resolution in your on the board's agenda this evening that's the reading of the staff appointments investigations and terminations we also have had our initial list of summer school projects

102to be issued for this summer this summer's summer school there's a resolution for those contracts also on tonight's board agenda the committee had a discussion about a compassionate leave idea wherein we would be looking at expanding our lead policies to include situations where an employee has a catastrophic illness or injury of a family member so that is a work in progress and i will be bringing draft ideas to the next to next month's hr committee to further discuss and explore that idea and see where we go from from their next one we did go into closed session to discuss two individual situations one a retirement and another one in assembly legal dances we made no decisions while we were in full session we resumed open session and we endured our meeting our next meeting was

103on april 21st thursday we had two agenda items for that meeting the first was a review of the finalist presentations for the superintendent's search firm we had two vendors come in and do presentations hya associates and mcpherson and jacob central presented and had some discussion with the individual as president of committee members and other interested board members the committee recommended a resolution to retain hya associates for the superintendent search and that is also a resolution of tonight's board agenda and we went into closed session for uh first discussion of the 2022-23 staffing plan no decisions were made in that closed session we reconvened to open session and we reviewed the teacher staff contracts which are also on a resolution for your consideration this evening we concluded the april 21st meeting and our next meeting will

104be says thursday but really it will be monday may 16th at factory this year all right thank you comments or questions in that report don't believe the second oh it is yeah i can i can take this uh we met april 12 um and discussed briefly the safety plan updates uh there was a presentation on a k-12 math program research and review process whereby a team would convene in the 2022-2023 school year to research mathematics instruction and curriculum and with the idea of adopting or proposing an ad option for the 2023-2024 school year process very similar to the recent riverside middle school english language arts process that was recently approved by the board uh we were joined by representatives from vendi advertising they shared deliverables on a prospective ecampus ad campaign what came out of

105that was the effort to gain a better sense of the market conditions specifically student enrollments in the market size as well as the competitive landscape before the board would decide to move forward with the potential ad campaign so that's the next step and then aaron meyer and jenny boris shared a teaching and learning update one item was the math research study there were other aspects to that as well that they can expound upon should they choose to do so now otherwise that's uh that's the report and we meet again on may 10th comments or questions in the board uh just turn i volunteered to be the board member on the uh the math uh research study but uh looking at a resume of a new board member with 21 years of math experience i will

106withdraw my name she says she raises her hand don't put it in the resume if it's not true [Laughter] this brings us to our consent agenda resolution 9098 the consent agenda includes board meeting minutes and committee summaries personnel staffing that's resignations retirements and hiring decisions as well as the approval of bills his first reading and second reading of policies please note there are no first reading policies this evening where there are a number of second reading policies do i have your emotion on resolution 909. on the resolution yes tinder johnson yes david yes dave smith yes and the motion carries this then takes us to our action items first up resolution nine zero nine nine first of all mini or summer school staff do i hear a motion on resolution nine zero nine comments or

107questions on the resolution hearing none vocal vote please twitter yes mike laurie holland yes tina jackson yes david schroeder yes david smith yes doug will yes yes and the motion carries next is resolution 9100 which is the report from board of canvassers and certificate of determination the person is elected do i hear a motion on 9100 so move question move by david second by doug comments or questions on the motion hearing none roll forward please join your best yes yes lori howard yes tina johnson yes david schroeder yes david smith yes yes and the motion carries next is resolution 9101 special education policies and procedures do i hear a motion move by doug is there a second second by mike this is an annual fare of bringing our special education policies and procedures in line

108with any changes that have occurred at the state level comments or questions on the motion hearing none roll call vote please yes yes tina johnson yes david yes david smith yes yes and the motion carries next is resolution 9102 which is our lease with madison college so that has space for the discovery academy do i hear a motion on nine one zero two some move sign moved by craig seconded by doug comments or questions on the motion any substantial changes to the police committee at all any other comments or questions yes lori allen yes tina johnson yes david schroeder yes david smith yes yes and the motion carries next is resolution 9103 greater watertown community health foundation summer school curriculum grant do i hear a motion move by tina is there a second second sentence

109by david comments or questions on the note uh just that first of all we are grateful as always to the water talk creator health foundation for their ongoing support for so many of our programs in the past they have supported cell curriculum for us during summer school uh we did not experience the same level of success this past summer as we did the previous summer therefore we've made some modifications to the curriculum and accordingly that we think we will experience better success with uh and we are very grateful again foundation's financial support for those offices any comments or questions on that it's not roll qualifications yes yes and the motion carries resolution 9104 22 2023 certified staff contracts do i hear a motion move by tina seconded by lori comments or questions on the motion

110hearing none roll call vote please yes mike yes gloria yes tina johnson yes david yes david smith yes dr will yes upstate alex next is resolution 9105 which is the approval of the germany trip it was described to us earlier in the meeting is there a motion on nine one zero five come on moved by laura by mike comments or questions on the motion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries next is residential 9106 for purchase of chromebooks do i hear a motion on this i move the table that's not subject to discussion but it will all go to netflix no lori holland yes tina johnson and david trader no david smith no no craig rortman yes motion to table fails do i hear motion on resolution 9106.

111discussion on the motion please correct so as was discussed in the uh fiscal report that is my understanding that this was a violation of the 3300 series of the policy that indicates that purchases of over 20 should come before the board of for approval um i think that this vote or approval that is being sought retroactively you know it it's a violation of the spirit of the uh the policy uh procedurally i'm not sure that i can legally vote for an action that has already happened and i think that if an up or down vote were to take place on this resolution i would have to vote no because i knew that a vote in support of this resolution is a vote in support of the violation of the 3300 policy series um my question

112would be what happens if this resolution fails then what um is this an effort to coerce the board into support of a resolution that really shouldn't should or should not happen i question the legality there um i am assuming that there is a reason for the 3300 series of policies um one of one of the things that i i see is as a board member if a referendum comes before us at some point where we have to um discuss this with the community and i have to look somebody square in the eye i have to actually be very frank that i did everything i possibly could to be fiscally responsible i feel like the discussion needs to happen in front of the board as the policy indicates uh if the referendum were to fail i

113have to explain to those another set of stakeholders look them in the eye and explain why cuts are going to be necessary so i i feel that this should be tabled so that a deeper conversation or deeper discussion can be had and i want to leave it at that so a few thoughts that i have first disappointment isn't the right word for how this went down the level of expenditure by itself should have gone this shouldn't happen it shouldn't happen and that's the way it was and there's a process for working through any actions need to be taken as a result of that second thought is this would appear to call attention to flaws in our process as a district that need to be addressed i believe i heard that spoken to a little bit

114earlier and i look forward to hearing about what changes will be made to prevent this kind of thing from happening again and certainly i would say that if the board disagrees with this expenditure then vote it down now these things are expected sitting on a ship somewhere so if we do not wish to proceed with this specific purchase for the reason of the purchase then by all means the board should consider that course of action however if you think that the purchase is the right thing to do in terms of what is being sent on then what we need to ask for is board is the accountability for how this came about this way and what's going to change in there's two distinct things here it's the purchase not the purchase that should be made

115that's what the motion before us today is for it should this purchase be approved by the board as a religion purchase then there is the separate to me procedural that this shouldn't have happened that happened if it came up at fiscal and i said it needs to go to the board at least get the purchase approved with it yes there's the question how did this happen and what are we going to do to make sure it doesn't happen again it means that it needs to take place but those are to me are two separate i guess i'm not necessarily questioning the need for chromebooks um i think that there is a valid discussion to be had there but again it just doesn't seem like this comes through um in a good faith effort i struggle

116with that because um at the end of the day i think there is i guess my question would be was there some sort of an emergency here i mean are we in possession of these chromebooks yes so we already have them yes don't deal with them dr vitelli is on the call could address the need if that's a desire of the board to hear the need for the chromebooks i can yeah i can i can speak if i understood uh craig it was craig's question about uh the need and so forth uh these are chromebooks that are on a replacement cycle they're actually replacing 2015 and 2016 models that are currently in circulation across several of our schools and they're at what what uh it's called end of life and that just means that uh

117the chrome operating system updates no longer take place um creates security uh patch um problems security problems for systems that aren't updated uh as well as performance and feature improvements that no longer take place so the functionality of the systems after six or seven years uh drops off considerably and so and and students of course with our quarantines and our are you know more digital learning taking place they take their systems home after several years they do you know they do wear out somewhat and so this order of 400 chromebooks uh would replace 400 systems as i mentioned before they're acer c740s if you want to know i have a spreadsheet i can share and i've shared with mr williamson but it's a process that we follow every year and um we certainly apologize for

118um for the oversight there was no malice here um no intent to deceive or um mis misused funds they're going to our kids and our families and i know that our feedback for example in our esser surveys and and so forth uh continue to indicate a need for uh improved uh technology or updated technology you know it's a hard thing to stay on top of because we know that this obsolescence can come by fairly quickly in terms of updates and so forth so there's nothing else i can say unless you have questions you know we'll have we will certainly be bringing more uh chromebook uh requests to you and we will uh follow the policy and again we apologize for the oversight oh i was just gonna say like i trust the fiscal committee that

119they set it through that process and that you know david there was one comment or funds is this where this is being applied or is this being no this is part of the budget yeah we think the technology should explain that yeah it's not not as it funds it's in the budget budget was there a reason we went with one price other than the other yeah my understanding is um vanguard was able to actually guarantee delivery big part um the vanguard technology hp has had better success as far as holding up over time thanks tyler uh then over the dells and then the screen quality on the hp's uh easy on the kid's eyes better quality there too so i really think the multiple quotes was to make sure that vanguard wasn't online more than

120anything else so like 1500 that's not given the quality we do have we do there are concerns about um you know supply pipeline issues and one silver lining of this could be you know in in recent weeks or upcoming weeks i should say the cost of systems with chip shortages is a real is a bona fide reality so um uh we're just grateful we have the systems um and again you know we'll certainly uh remain reticent to policy moving forward and thought we were in this case but obviously you know things fell through so any other comments or questions on the motion that's right yeah i noticing the discussion that's here tonight i my intention was to move closer to a better understanding of this and um i will support the resolution as going going

121forward but because i it's because i feel our kids need the chromebooks not regard not how the policy was necessarily handled okay any other comments or questions on the motion hearing none yes yes tina johnson yes david trader yes david smith yes doug will yes craig yes and the motion carries next is resolution nine one zero seven rms gym floor installation by david is there a second second second like doug comments or questions on the reservation saying we did have two quotes on this so i noticed that the there is no um you know dollar amount that is included in the resolution itself is that a discussion that we should be allowing for our fiscal committee to potentially make a decision um for like a not to exceed amount or is that something that there's

122just off the checkbook for a good question i believe the instance was to allow for the possibility of looking at several additional optional aspects of it well in this yeah i'll just i'll speak to it in this case basement flooring came out you can look at the um three quotes from the fiscal meeting last wednesday there they're there we would follow the basement flooring there's a couple basements we go basement flooring at the 115 number compared to basement brothers at 142 in schmidt at 180. really the discussion that occurred at fiscal was we needed to determine whether we needed to actually fix the floor or whether it would be floating and basement flooring suggested the floating and that's what we are going with here because the timing of the uh installation being in august uh

123it's going to be the most a lot of humidity yeah a lot of humidity in that gym the wood is going to already be expanded and so basement flooring knowing that there's no um air in there for the moment um is going to put in the appropriate joints uh putting the appropriate beads around each of the flooring uh boards in order to allow for expansion and shifting to occur and you won't get that buckling so really it's a timing of it um in connecting with basement flooring they certainly could fix it but that's not their suggestion here and so at uh 27 000 difference or so felt comfortable going ahead with basement brothers on this and it's the same company that installed the flooring at the high school as well and we've had a beautiful

124floor um and had success there so that's that's where this came that's what it came down to after agree quickly to me at least makes sense to have a notch except yeah we know there's a possibility that maybe option a or option b then let's let's put the higher of the two yeah so we have a not to exceed that makes sense no i would say let's go if you want to amend the um the motion say let's go with the i'm just pulling it up now uh the basement brothers quote at a cost not to exceed which only gave us one option without uh correct you're thinking you want the add-on or you don't because that was the confusion is you thought you may want to mix the add-on from one and get well

125you're going with the basement brothers at them at quoted basically yes so basement floors didn't have a lot of extra it's basement brothers who had all this extra and they're like no we don't need all that we need basement floors at the 113. that's 120. and i would just say that there's a point of process on responsibilities we do typically approve whatever has happened in at the committee level in terms of going into a contract with someone allowing for perhaps some detailing of that contract later on so i do not exceed it is certainly appropriate but it would not be at all unusual to see a resolution without a final dollar amount because frequently we are still working on uh some of those details usually in hopes that that'll come down uh over the long

126haul but i do not succeed again and this makes a ton of sense but just as a it would not be unusual to see a resolution come before you without a specific dollar amount but with an agreement going into bids or agreements for a particular company so can we make promotions on this resolution well david would you accept that not to succeed at 113 120 as a friendly amendment farewell and would you accept that just a second my friend any other comments or questions on this i should i just add a funding piece with it happening in august the intention was certainly a fund so we have fund 46 which is additional dollars aside for capital improvement plans uh there's about 1.6 in there this would be a great expenditure to take out of that

127given it's a 40 to 50 60 year purchase a nice way to use funds have been set aside however we are still piecing together the budget for next year and if it can fit within normal operations we'll certainly do that so we have multiple funding ways to do this nice question will this change since do we know how old that floor is it's original the original so i know we have a lot of recreational to come into the middle school is that going to are we going to be changing any of that i know it's really nice but i just i just want you know some of them may need a heads up if that's going to affect oh yeah does that make sense yes we're communicating yeah with with especially you know i know

128there's baseball and there's some adult things i think that's down there i just didn't know we're going to have to it's going to be early august try that first week but i mean what about in the future like is there going to be because this is going to be a new floor are we going to want to restrict some of that limited use i'm not saying we should or shouldn't i'm just wondering uh no report i mean it's meant to take on the wear and tear i mean when we're looking at a floor that's 50 plus years old now um i'll certainly talk with basement flooring and determine i'm not saying not do it yeah you know they get used for a bunch of different things appropriate in the in the shoe the shoes that

129they wear and the purpose of it is appropriate for a floor there's no point in damaging a new asset by letting them run in there with you know skateboards skateboards or those boogie boards or cleats or what have you yeah i don't know what it all gets used for but it's a valid question and basement basement flooring is basement flooring and basement brothers the same are they separate that's the same okay i just wanted to put that out i was like getting seen what i'm seeing yes okay all right any other comments or questions on the motion yes mike yes lori holland yes tina jackson yes david schroeder yes david smith yes doug will yes yes and the motion carries and our last resolution 9108 is the selection of a superintendent firm that's search the

130hr committee is recommending the hya do i hear a motion of 9108. so if i might is there a second second by tina i would just say that assuming the board is going to go in favor of this that we will then contact them right away and i report back to you on as specific of the dates and dates as we can get you they did of course in their proposal detail out what they thought the process would look like step by step but it was all subject to the start date [Music] that's what this process tell me a quick question um thanks for all those who participated in the hr meetings margaret tony and those who led it high level uh margaret tony the two or three things that set this entity apart from

131the other ones that were [Music] reviewed just just high-level stuff so this is one of the most active firms doing these kinds of searches in this area of wisconsin and so they have both familiarity with the area and familiarity with candidates and yet they also have a national reach and highlighted they're going to pull in from neighboring states i believe the those present there was a you're hiring a recruiter right there's a comfort level looking but they seem to get what you're about and that's i think the number one thing they like they have got what we're about okay good and so therefore we felt more confidence and then going out and finding candidates that are going to meet that thank you any other comments or questions on the motion hearing them roll both boots

132yes yes tina johnson yes david schrader yes david smith yes doug will yes yes and the motion carries this brings us to the second opportunity in the agenda for a public comment anyone present in room or online again raise your hand and i see one online so we will go and start there tracing finch hello you're on thank you okay tracy finch west main street watertown wisconsin i would highly recommend you keep the safety protocols into place not just for covet but as well as for influenza and other contagious illnesses even coals can be contagious if you're within a distance of a person especially if they cough keep with the healthy habits of good hygiene routines hand sanitizing areas especially before eating and after visiting the bathroom don't get rid of giving children and staff

133the option of wearing a face mask you fully get rid you if you fully get rid of face masking you will see more children getting sick my daughter has had the best two years of education by only missing one day of school in the past two years of this pandemic or whatever you want to call it with covenant and influenza get yourself a mitigation guidelines where you have metrics as in numbers if there's covet and even influenza with a case by case transmission in a classroom have mass required within the classroom multiple case the case transmission in a grade level or across the grades levels then temporary masking required within the school if there's a seven day average of positive cases with either those two if a school has a certain number or higher school-wide

134temporary masking like i have mentioned many times mass are not bad but helpful in so many ways though it's the person who makes them to be a bad thing covet is not going away it's just temporary at low just like the same for influenza and other things then though covet is more contagious and can be deadlier than influenza and i'm sure and i sure do know do not want to see any children or even adults dying or having lifetime complications from this with having mitigation guidelines into safety protocols you will have less teachers thinking of quitting their jobs i don't want to see teachers pulling being pulled left to right to different classrooms or other areas when they are prepped for their own classroom not someone else's just so that way a class or grade

135level doesn't have to go virtual i have already heard of many teachers on the verge of quitting because of being pulled in many way in many different ways so i ask you to keep wsd safety protocols and for goodness sake put in some mitigation guidelines for covant and even influenza since both are similar but have seen and for those who know covet can be more dangerous it's just a safety protocol that if you get rid of this you're going to see things back in 2020. thank you all right thank you not see anyone else online i do not see anyone in the room here so i will entertain a motion signature by doug it's their second second second by tina all those in favor signify by saying aye opposed