001all right Johnson age here questions foreign yeah okay um this is uh Michael as a whs class of 1984 graduate um [Laughter] you know uh and um and uh here he is today and uh there's quite a biography of him okay he graduated in 1984. Michael was active in the pine Arts after graduation with internal college graduated with a bachelor's of Arts degree budgie then earned a Masters of Science in the PhD of Southern Illinois University alumni here their transition from active to reserve status experience and as a contract research as well as the Navy [Music] research and uh yeah molecules at the Village level died symmetry I tried practicing that many times today if you don't know what the asymmetry is that that symmetry is the study of radioactive agents X-rays and other things
002their medical intervention and levels of radius and so he did this and so that um cancer [Music] medical transferred into the nation entries uh in 2009 reviews the 2011-13 Institution it's like a site in San Diego um Africa replies with task force committing Staffing companies Reserve Deputy commander of the Navy Personnel Command he now leaves the U.S Navy's talent management task force and the reserve Human Resources Community current efforts include implementing a new navy-wide online performance evaluation system for over 350 000 sure is sugar award Sailors looking at how they can develop them as better leaders um he is a prolific research author um Michael has published 21 peer-reviewed Journal Publications author author 57 conference presentation of 18 governmental technical reports one book chapter and one and a book congratulations Michael that's a huge amount
003of information that you provided us as he served and world and he served on the editorial board in the Journal of Child and Adolescent substance abuse and Associate editor of military psychology and he also was recognized in 2016 as a fellow American Psychological Association and Talia to top all that he is now going to be one of our very own distinguished alumni congratulations thank you for that introduction and thanks for the um thanks for the recognition um I'm really excited about the opportunity to to come back to to Watertown High School and uh talk to the students and share my experiences and uh really proud to see that once a gosling always a gosling so thank you and and you get extra credit for having to read through all all the bio foreign basically I've
004been almost all over the world in the world so I I've been really fortunate and I think um you know I attribute a lot of that to the foundational learning and experiences I had at Watertown High School um the motivation to pursue education be curious and make a difference in the world and that's something that has always inspired me so I appreciate the opportunity well congratulations and we thank you for uh coming tonight and we will see you um at our homecoming game fantastic looking forward to it thank you all right this brings us to public input this is one of the two times the agenda with members of publicly arrested divorce Pastor please step up to the podium and recognize give your name and address for the record and keep your remarks brief I
005just like your first suggest guessing the number of similar things to say if there was somebody else is more I said what you said maybe you can just keep your March to what they said all right who would like to be recognized first please my name is I resided 809 Fieldcrest Court in Watertown I'm here as a parent of two children currently in the wsd I have a uh my older child is going to be a sophomore at the high school and my younger will be a seventh grader at Riverside um I am here as many of us are here to thank the board or making the choice that you had made over the years to prioritize the Synergy of our children we appreciate that you have made policies that make all of our children
006feel safe and welcome and we particularly appreciate the voting policy that we have including Department we recognize that you all have very difficult time balancing the wants of all people in this community and we are just here to speak for our children and say thank you for making them feel safe um don't worry Tony that we are not all speaking because uh we are not I was speaking I would ask that everyone who is here in the audience to support our lgbtq students in our schools K-12 thank you so once again we appreciate you we thank you um please keep in our tools at the same place for all of our officials all right thank you would like to speak next please I live on Division Street I've been in water challenge for the years
007I don't plan else for almost 30 my 43 year old gradu went through a Watertown School District and um when when discussion of sensitive topics come up I think we can all agree that Foods matter there are so many school districts who instead describes the latest band during unfounded eventual conspiracy periods when such false piece of information is any link whatsoever do pedophiles and drag queens the American Psychological Association named just one reputable source States clearly that 95 of all pedophiles are heterosexual white males in their 30s another conspiracy theory that has been thrown around is that those who are looking into gender change have a high rate of suicide after their hormone treatment and or surgeries the truth is that suicides are very common when transgender people don't get the counseling psychological or medical
008assistance they need from Mayo Clinic if gender dysphoria Imperial number the ability to function at school or work the result may be school dropout or unemployment relationship difficulties are common anxiety depression self-harm eating disorder substance issues and other problems can occur adolescents and adults with gender dysphoria without gender affirming treatment might be at risk of or thinking about attempting suicide the Watertown school district has on most private materials the settings at the bottom of Correspondence calendars letterheads Etc that reads Excellence for all it's the Watertown way I'd like to look at the word all according to the Marian Webster dictionary the definition of all is every member or individual component of all all means all straight a transgender all should expect the same opportunities and support all should feel safe in the school environment referring
009to the school district's annual notices publication the non-discrimination policy specifically States no person that may be denied admission to any public school in the wusd or be denied participation and be denied the benefits of or to be discriminated against in any career or technical education co-curricular student services recreational or other programs or activities because of the students sex race religion color national origin ancestry pregnancy marital or parental status sexual orientation or physical mental or emotional or learning disability or handicap in regards to any proposed book Banning the dictator Adolf Hitler did that and we know how that ended the numerous families I've talked to about are against book Banning in the Watertown School District in closing lgbtq people have always been learning and will always be here you are not going to change anyone by
010Banning books or by taking away the Braves we're not going anywhere thank you very much for keeping our children safe right thank you would like you to recognize next um Cedar Fremont 122 North Water Street I'm speaking tonight from the perspective of a sixth grade teacher at Riverside Middle School I'm wearing my teacher teaching kindness Is My Jam shirt because I think it's important to know this about me every year I start out with a message to my students that if I can help them become better readers and writers that's great but if I can help them become better humans that's what it's really all about that is why I do the job I do I tell them this because I know that learning means taking risks it means looking silly in front of our
011peers it means being willing to make mistakes they are guaranteed I need my students to know that in my classroom we are a classroom medicine in my classroom I hold students to a high standard of being good people that means no matter what happens out in the hallway or at lunch or at home the moment they walk through my door it is a fresh start and we owe it to each other to give one another the best of us if my students don't feel this or know this learning is greatly impeded if students cannot come into my classroom and feel safe to be who they are without your condemnation they will not meet their potential learning by a long shot they'll not feel safe to be a part of the conversations that lead to learning
012if we give time effort and resources to investigating curriculum and books for material that is deemed inappropriate and having conversations about how we are not allowed to address our students and their identity by the condemning factions of our community we will see good teachers waiting students falter and learning test scores draft and we'll just send down a very slippery slope worst of all my precious students my kids we'll have their home in my classroom put at risk they will know and feel the weight of judgment from the community rest assured as long as I leave my classroom I'll do whatever it takes to keep my classroom a safe haven for all children because teaching kindness Is My Jam thank you if anyone else gets very recognize please good evening I'm Tom Levi I reside at
013132 Harding Street here in the city of Watertown I'm here to thank you for your service on the school board and the support you perform at dark Community you keep our children safe and secure I'm also here to advance the care and concern of our children as they went their way through adolescence onto adulthood I especially wanted to State my support for the segment of our children who are lgbtq oriented or are questioning their gender identity in this process it is a common question that children ask nowadays along with other ones as to their maturation and growing up for these children to be singled out fully harassed in our schools certainly impedes their growth prospects and self-esteem as they try to figure out their individual evil identities recently individuals have come before you most recently
014at your main meeting and spouted such words as transgenderism whatever that means I don't think it's in Webster's and grooming as an action occurring in our schools they've also talked about banning books these are not the answers to deal with their queer students and the use of preferred pronouns as they wish to be known as I looked up the definition of queer in Webster's Dictionary it means strange or peculiar it was used as a negative term to harass lgbtq individuals but in the 21st century the term has been used to describe people manifesting a broad spectrum non-normative sexual or gender identities is more of a positive identity nowadays I urge you to consider the needs of queer students in our public educational system to keep them safe secure and able to Avail themselves of the
015resources of the guidance office for their teachers to discuss these gender issues with a knowledgeable adult sometimes they don't feel comfortable dealing with their parents in these issues their teachers people that come into contact with daily are the ones that probably would be most of these children I would also urge you to support for our school librarians and classroom teachers to choose books and digital materials for all of our students to learn about these issues and age-appropriate levels to promote greater understanding of these cultural issues in our greater Society here again reasonable protocols can be implemented to allow parents or students who have jumped to various books to inform the teacher of their students related to their children there's also a process and a protocol that you have adopted for them to bring this to
016your attention I know it on the board's homepage that your adopted vision for our faculty staff and students is for everyone to advance that vision is Excellence for all it's the Watertown way I emphasize you all as being an integral aspect of that vision for you to consider going forward thank you for your attention to us tonight hey everybody thanks for hanging in with all of us we appreciate it my name is Charity Chandler I live at 105 Oak Hill Court here in Watertown by day I'm Dr Charity Chandler I have my PhD in educational leadership and policy so I love school boards and I love being in educational environments my day job as a director of diversity equity and inclusion for a company where I represent 100 000 employees across the United States for
017me we've had colleagues talking about the Watertown way and the mission of the school district and these are all things you know I think for me what's interesting to find is that if you look at UCLA Williams Institute they State as many as five percent of students under the age of 20 identify as non-binary or transgender and the Trevor Project puts that number at about 26 so if we take a look at what that means for a district we have 165 to 857 students who identify in this community to put that against the U.S newsletter report statistics that's 4.3 percent of students in our district identify as people with disabilities and so we look at the resources that we allocate in these communities it's important for us to consider what that potential balance could be
018and and I always it's easy for me to let emotion as a member to it but in my day job I say data Trump's opinion every day and can't fight numbers listen which is an organization found that 75 of trans youth feel unsafe in schools and 59 have been denying access to restrooms consistent with their identity so we can take a look at that we can take a look at the Trevor Project report where lgbtq plus youth people or you know people reported that the following would be helpful for people in their lives to know more about 82 responded support and acceptance so when we're looking at resources that are available to our students whether it be in libraries in our classrooms this is what students in our district want the people in their lives
019to know how to support gender identity is 78 pronouns are 74 in creating safe spaces or 68 percent so we talk about the mission we talk about how we align it with data points my question becomes how do we become part of the solution and you've been doing that as school board members I'm a 1996 grad I went through St Bernard's Elementary School Riverside middle school and then Watertown High School um in my freshman year we read Romeo and Juliet and the takeaway for me is you had two two areas divided and what did it do it affected the kids and so I think we're all aligned that that what matters the most is the students you heard it last month you're hearing it from everybody here and I know that's why you stepped into
020these roles and ran for these offices is to sort of look at what it means for the kids so from my day job perspective what I what I look at is are there safe space identification programs is there a way that we can work more kids to know that they can go and have a leader that they can talk to and save space when I was at the high school for some of the recent music programs I saw the anti-bullying posters I think a big key to that being successful is how are we as teachers Administration community members creating trust with those students so if that something gets raised they know that they're being heard and they know that something's going to be done in order to present them um what are we looking at
021from an infrastructure perspective we talk about restrooms we talk about locker room facilities and things like that that might be something that seems early for us to consider but in the past five years that statistic for a number of students who identify as a non-binary or trans has doubled in five years and that trend is likely to continue so it's important for us to consider and then finally I would I would raise my hand to volunteer to say if you want to form a Deni subcommittee as part of the school board I'd be happy to participate in what that looks like um I care about this community I care about the students I am not a parent but I think it's really important for me as a community member to know that those students who
022graduate here hopefully we can keep them here we can avoid that Wisconsin Braintree and we've heard about for years and keep them in our communities reinvesting in the businesses here so thank you very much for your time thank you oh my goodness so many people all right hi everybody I'm Molly koplin I live in where do I live oh Hospital Drive um personally I want to thank all the Librarians and teachers in the wusd who support their students ability to explore the world through books very important in Watertown as well as their right to read without any judgment studies show how vital reading is whether it's the ACT going into college by The increased vocabulary comprehension and to increase these skills so thank you for helping our students find joy and perhaps themselves in reading
023and support and encourage this board to continue any action that protects students Right to Read secondly I did teach eighth grade for six years I left the profession last June um I do miss them but I was reminded daily how hard it is to be a young teenager there's plenty of heartbreak that we don't need to invite into their lives anymore um and in fact that we can help alleviate by being inclusive and seeing them and accepting them in my former classrooms I I I'm a TV nerd I had a poster with a quote from Brooklyn Nine-Nine and the quote was um it's helped show I value them however they came into the door the quote is every time someone steps up and says who they are the world becomes a better more interesting place
024so in clothing I want to thank you all and thank all the wusdu's employees as well as the Watertown community members we see here who might be the first ones to hear and appreciate the LGBT who left students um who when they've shared who they are and for the adults who are able to act that their support system when they do come out and share who they are and finally to whomever might be watching on the live stream to the students who identify as lgbtq I'm proud of you I thank you for sharing and saying who you are in a world that might not want to hear it just yet and I can't wait to see how much better and more interesting you'll make Watertown in the world thank you all right thank you can
025you be honest hi hello Watertown Unified School District Board of Education I'm Jennifer Baki I live at 117 Riverlawn Avenue here in Watertown zip code 53094 I am a former School Board member a Watertown resident since 1985 and the proud parents of two Watertown unified school districts graduates I've always been and I remain proud of the Watertown and School District's Vision Excellence for all of you I am here tonight to thank you for your individual leadership and your effective Collective governance that makes the Watertown Unified School District safe and welcoming for all including our lgbtq plus students and staff I also want to thank you for trusting the district's faculty and staff to choose the best books for our students you see I firmly believe that access to a wide variety of educational materials makes
026our children as well as all of us better critical thinkers and citizens of our Perfectly Imperfect yet amazing United States of America thank you notice greetings uh my name is 132 Hardin Street in Watertown and have resided here since 2005. the perspective I'm coming from is this I believe each and every person that's important and should be treated fairly in a kind way the Watertown School System model of Excellence for all is one that is commendable I was employed by Jefferson County Human Services for over 33 years as a cave manager with youth families and adults who experienced or perpetrated child abuse and neglect mental illness symptoms abusive disorders people making poor choices resulting in juvenile justice system involvement and drunk driving I be tired from back my last job six years ago we worked
027in cooperation with schools and law enforcement as well as community members in the current I started that career in Illinois in California working with similar populations since the 70s now I'm in my 70s thanks to the school board members I thanks to the school board members I I would like you to represent the community as we work towards consensus in giving our students the best chance to succeed in life change can be difficult we often fear unknown and little understood behaviors and appearance of vendors life presents many learning opportunities please seek accurate information excellent for all and my social services and public educator experiences I've known I work with the non-judgmental non-judgmental manner with children and adults who had been neglected and abused because they were different in the late 70s I worked with the
028girl who was born with both male and female characteristics I also work with the woman who would put her baby up for adoption when she was very young she at that time had a judgmental attitude for homosexuals being part to her rigid religious beliefs when her grown child found her she learned he was good I just want to develop that I'm not an expert but I'm a lifelong learner my career experience led to the chance to stay current by educating myself with well research and evidence-based information I urge you to continue to educate yourselves as well excellent for all thank you thank you take a few more it's a problem hello uh Reverend Kangas I don't have a speech prepared which I probably should have but I just like to say that I also have
029graduated from uh the high school uh in 2013 I believe um I have a young child she's two years old and I'm also a transgender um I would like to see in my child grow up in a community where she is not going to be bullied or harassed because of who I am and I have I know there are a lot of lgbtq people my age who are also having children I have several friends who have children and they would love to stay in this community um they just need the report when I went to the high school it was my saved experience my Refugee I was where I felt comfortable because I didn't have the support at home but there were several teachers there who made me feel comfortable to be able to be
030who I was even if I couldn't be that at home I want students who are currently going to whs the middle school any other grade schools to feel like they can go to their teachers or any problems that they have if they don't feel the support they're not going to and then things won't get caught and who knows what will happen with them um I could go into my history of mental health and um self harm and all of that but I don't think that is necessary for the meeting I just want to remind people that the community is growing because the lgbtq viewer Community is growing because it's becoming more accessible to be be able to show who you are upwards it's not that there's all of a sudden 15 20 of people who
031are queer it's that they were always there they just didn't feel comfortable coming home I didn't come out as trans until two years ago because I didn't feel comfortable I have about five friends from that we met that I met in high school at whf who also came out as trans after they graduated because they didn't feel comfortable when they went to school I want kids to feel comfortable to be able to do that so that they don't have to wait until their adults to be able to feel themselves thank you thank you I think Johnson Alexandria Street and I'm here on a little bit of a different note I'm here to talk about men get excited I'm a junior or was a junior at Watertown High School and I stand before you today with
032pretty simple message I want you to give me and my classmates Hope on our journey for an equal education since our beginnings in middle school we were promised a path on our math adventure that would last us until we graduated we were all very excited as we were one of the first groups with the opportunity to take advanced math at RMS in eighth grade rather than being bussed to the high school as previous students had before us we followed this path to gain college credits and set us ahead of our peers which would lead to long-term Career Success all of this was promised by whs as they had laid out the classes that we would be able to take in our coming years all are gone break until Watertown High School had revoked their continuation
033of the in-person class of AP Calculus BC this is the final and most important Cornerstone to our high school math career this is what lets us stand out in college applications scholarship opportunities and oftentimes get those first access and choosing classes in college by taking this opportunity away our level of education has been lowered after canceling the in-person Calculus class whs Administration and student services staff came up with the solution to allow us to take this class online through a university this sounds like a solution at first glance however once you dig into the roots of this idea you realize that this is not a good solution people who I've spoken to agree that critical group collaboration and quick responses to important questions that you ask the teacher are eliminated in this format both of
034these listed are vital skills for any student to succeed in a classroom environment and taking away these skills negatively impacts our opportunity to learn effectively Watertown High School is taking away our chance at a comprehensive education this is also not the first time this has happened the two Capstone project lead the way classes for engineering have not been offered to me which are listed as class options I wish to not let another important class be taken away from my education some of the highest performing students in whs are being withheld from their full potential because of the lack of opportunity for available in-person learn out of those signed up to take the Calculus in-person class only two considering to take this virtually that's 30 of what wanted to take it Excellence for all means that
035we all have the tools to succeed and that promises are coming I ask that you reconsider the current plan to run this curriculum virtually in hopes that you will offer this class in person thank you for your time Michelle Stewart you know three Schuman drive I'm I'm gonna that is not the only EP class that is not being run there are AP classes that are also being done independently and the kids are not happy about that at all so back to what I was going to say um so I am glad that you are not considering Banning books it's a discriminatory practice that is you're pushing censorship it actually goes against the Wisconsin English standards um which read that I quote reading and comprehending a variety of complex literary and informational texts for many purposes
036including enjoyment including texts that reflect one's own experiences and experiences of others so if you do decide to go down that route you're actually going to get the Teaching Standards that is taught page 12 in the entire State um the College Board which does AP classes has a very clear stance against Banning books they have pretty much said we don't allow it um and it's not just books it's ideas as well so um I know that APUSH has certain topics that deal with fighting that lgbtq has had to gain the rights that they do you can't really ban that because then you can't run the class and that goes with the AP Lit then AP line classes as well I did look up the yrbs results for Jefferson County which includes Watertown because it doesn't
037break it down um publicly right School these sense of belonging for lgbtq is 32 percent people that are not it's 64 that is a very large gap and studies show those kids that feel like they belong in the school succeed more um bullying 44 for lgbtq 23 for those that do not identify that way mental health concerns is a very large gap with 91 of the lgbtq saying that they have mental health issues versus only 50 of the of those that do not identify um one of the gaps that I feel is actually a really good Gap that we have it's small is having a teacher who want to 64 for lgbtq and 70 for those that do not identify that way so thank you teachers that are here to help support us the kids
038notice um so it would be detrimental to their education and their own well-being if we do folk bands thank you . my name is Ryan rule I live in 1400 Public Road Fitchburg uh so I drove an hour to be here today to help support my Center my family and all friends and people who are here in the room uh first thing I also wanted to say back on the guy who said stuff about calculus or someone who works in the engineering world map is very very important and the backbone of America and our electrical systems I also did some schooling online in college and it was definitely not the same to have in-person classes if you can at all possible it really really helps and online projects anyway to the mainland um as someone
039who grew up and traveled with a queer identity and still been learning about it to this day the biggest issue for me in middle and high school was a lack of resources I didn't know what was normal as a kid I still don't know myself and I know that other kids lack that information too um having access to books and literature that show you that you are not alone and that you are an accepted and valued member as a member of your following Community as something extremely valuable um even though I do not live in Watertown I want to live here someday to be by my family um and I care about my nephews and my future children want to go to the school district and I want to make sure that no matter the
040Avenue of life that they choose and who they choose to be that they are accepted and know that they are valued and not strange or different and they don't have to bully or disrespected for who they are thank you everyone we appreciate your comments this evening appreciate you being brutal very very helpful thank you thank you thank you thank you [Music] all right we'll move on to if there's anyone else online all right move on to announcements and recognition communication are there any other items you've addressed for that this evening all right I've been moved to succeeding discussion the first item up is athletic and activities update all right I think Tyler's gonna work out on a couple slides there are you good over here talking is like mid to Podium okay I'll meet you
041okay I'm good okay it takes a moment to catch up okay we'll wait till I get started but I'm sure I'm getting a finger in the air I should just be waiting here and I'm fine doing without the slide it wouldn't make any difference to me um okay just talking we'll go through a bunch of things here first of all the our athletic department is far from a one-person operation I've been in the same positions together working for seven years and uh they're all working together and I think collectively we make a pretty good team I greatly value her knowledge her experience in the cooperation level we have together um there's a bunch of benefits or maybe I can jump the gun here well I guess we're going every single thing here we're going to
042throw them all up on the screen at once okay and I think it's pretty well known that when people are involved in activities clubs Athletics whatever it may be these things I talk about the benefits of participation being in school doing well in school maybe possibly doing better feeling better about yourself making friends uh and just I guess as much as anything improving the experience of the high school environment as well we talked about conflict resolution learn how to handle things but they don't go perfectly as planned certainly a broad rush but and then the final one for us for time management is you know improving that our kids that are involved in a lot of things are almost magicians and they juggle a lot of different things and so it's hard it's difficult and
043the more things people the better you are the more people want those kids involved in things it's a tough balance across the board but I think as you look at those things those are a it's kind of the makeup of the kids are involved in a lot my very last thing I'm going to talk about are is going to be our improved involvement with activities and there's been a pretty strong push from the district level from obviously from the school board and the district level and the building levels as well our clubs we have over 40 clubs right now uh clubs and activities you know the opportunities are just to be have a sense of belonging be around like people that have like interests all of these look so much different I'll talk about these
044at the tail end too but all the clubs look so much different because some are a safe haven some are very competitive and there's a lot that are in between those two things where there's a competition piece but there's a lot that are right in between the ideal thing the idea thing is to have kids involved with something they deem to be interested in if they're interested in they'll be involved they'll like it and they'll find others and we've done a really good job and this isn't a one-person operation this has been the entire school it's been everyone that you maybe even wouldn't expect besides the certified staff and support staff if everybody else from the the guidance office to nutrition and Food Service Whoever has a relationship with kids has an Avenue to try
045to connect kids we made a very conscious effort and try to get kids involved with so at the end of the first trimester I meet with every student that's not involved in something in the fall obviously there's going to be things that are going to come up whether it be the musical or um or something of the uh the Yoke of the art club that enemy hasn't started whatever it may be it doesn't matter what it is it doesn't have to be Sports driven just in general to be involved in something but also understanding that every family circumstance is different those are sometimes with responsibilities that have to watch younger children at home and our work there's an employment piece and that also talks about the involvement changes as the kids go through high school
046as responsibilities and whether it be the workforce or college or whatever the case may be you know and I want to finish this slide up just talking about the advisors you know there's a lot of if the advisors aren't there the clubs and the activities don't take place they make a valiant effort to do this above and beyond the regular school day and in doing so there's a lot of sacrifices people make for the benefits of other children so I certainly want to applaud them about that because that's obviously very important so we have a couple new things coming coming from next year I didn't realize I was going to do each one of these okay so first of all lacrosse is going to LaCrosse for the first time WIA has recognized that as a
047lacrosse as a affiliate wi Affiliated sport so we've the background for us is we've had a club for a number of years we're probably approaching 8 to 12 years if not more and there's probably people in the room that could correct me on a number of years and it's a really strong Club we've gone through a variation of um low the girls being Varsity some years being JV and the boys being JV being Varsity what happens this year is our girls are at Varsity level our boys are at JV level next year our plan because the wi is allowing this to be and recognized as a wi sport we'll have Varsity Boys and a varsity girls that's our proposal to have that there's a couple variations to talk but there are a couple things that
048are important to talk about this and at this stage from my standpoint it's anticipated it's requested and uh and recommended when the wi has some things in place if we're not a WIA sport we cannot compete against schools that don't recognize as a WIC we're a government we're not WIA sport we can't play schools that have a WIS that consider Wie Sports we don't have anybody to play this is a really important piece lacrosse is coming in both genders boys and girls it's separate it's not co-ed both run in the spring season and they coincide in that in the obviously the spring of Wisconsin being in the early in mid-march and there's some challenges outside and there's you know when things are running the club level it's a little bit different and it's really difficult
049for parents it's difficult for the students everyone involved as there's a transition to it to the to be considered WIA and high school sports there's a lot of things that get taken away there's a lot of safety pieces that come into play too as well as I guess we could start with the transportation piece because that would be part of the uh the role of the school district are there expenses certainly there's expenses to start with you know whether that's just reoccurring expenses or just to get off the ground whatever the case may be so we're going to have a conference right now there's between the big eight and Madison and the badger conference that we're a part of with our 16 schools we'll probably right now they're working out the details but we'll probably
050have a 10 game conference it looks like we're going to have seven schools in the badger seven or eight schools in the bathroom we'll have a lacrosse team and they'll be four to six in the big eight and that will make up our conference and that's the same as anything else it goes from postseason with regionals or sectionals the tournament series it'll go to the same thing with um all-conference a conference commissioner to determine the schedule help with officials and things like that so from a lacrosse standpoint this has been in the works probably a hope for a number of years once the WIA adopted it it allowed us the opportunity to push it forward so that a decision and a determination could be made continued on so now something that's a little bit different
051because it looks different is Esports Esports is a lot more popular at the Collegiate level and more well-known than the high school level so there's a number of scholarships that are available through the esport world and will they be Sports so for an example depending upon the season the seasons are 12 to 16 weeks so they're long Seasons it's fall winter and spring and it's all three seasons and they have a variation on each season whether that's going to be four on four or what the format's going to be how who the competition is and that's fluctuating that's kind of a hard thing for people to understand because it looks so different because of the letter E in there and then being a sport people have a hard time understanding how is that a sport
052necessarily the practice has taken place after school we have a lab up in the we're transitioning we will be transitioning from a club to a high school sport as well we have a lab in the facilities and I could um in the back of the library and so there's certainly an opportunity there there's a lot for us to learn we have a um some people involved in this in the district at the high school level and and the district level that have a lot of experience with it Esports are new for me I mean for all of us that are anyone's near my age I mean we're not playing Miss Pac-Man or donkey pong okay when I was you know when I went up there the first time and asked him that they kind of
053chuckled at me but it's just it's not something that exists so when you look at this the big thing to say is there's only one student there's 20 kids on the team this year and it's co-ed there's one female and 19 male so we have some work to do to try to communicate that out and get messaging out to make sure that everybody feels welcome as well we have a few kids from each gender that tried it tried it didn't like it went back whatever the case is it's going to be you know what personal interests are and their own followers but what I want to point out is we've only had one student last year that played in other sports so this is like the niche and this is like the sense of belonging
054from a school I don't understand these Sports I had to get the get the things out of my head and talk to people and figure it out and ask questions and look I don't claim to be an expert on this but I'll tell you our kids are involved and our kids they're their grade points went up we kept track of the kids that were in the club we had nudging because now you have your thumb a little bit because there's expectations and it goes with the beginning part but when the kids are involved in things they're going to do better in school and not just academics but all areas as well I guess the piece there to say is we just have to get I just suggest that we have to get past the point
055that it looks different because it's a non something that's non-traditional let me ask you a question again sports team or we hold into the same academic standards as we are with the other sports everything it would be everything as a high school sport yes absolutely and that's one of the things with lacrosse we did too is we Trend as we get ready close to transitioning we made sure there was a great level of communication on how that's going to look when things transition from an eligibility stand standpoint as well Tina did you have a question I do um is it a w-i-e-a recognized no it is not okay is there an organization that oversees there certainly isn't for the state and we have Dave lockstein is is probably one of the experts of the entire
056State when it comes to it so we've got an Ace in the Hole from a knowledge standpoint and who's been on the board from the very beginning going all the way through so there's a knowledge base and I'm in the position to pick that and pick that brain a lot because this as I said this is new to me it'll kind of set itself different because everything else it's a sport there's wiaa and then we have clubs this is going to be a little bit of a this will crossover similar to where we have with bands and being the dance dad or you know former dance fan they they phone into wacpc and they're not a wiaa anything but they're still a sport and a team within where we have varsity members at the high
057school they don't have to be recognized in that same capacity for more than letters of the organization with the WIA sweet question um continuing on the next couple slides are just a uh a little talk about participation um for both um both genders this one talks about the females next one talks about the males the uh there was a slight increase from last year in all three seasons for the girls not an excessive amount or anything like that while the males had one less in the fall I'm just going to go through both of them while they're up there before we put it up there and there's a slight increase in the winter and a slight decrease in the spring so our numbers are well pretty pretty well consistent we really make a conscious effort
058this was the same thing with the clubs and activities of recruiting to have kids being a part of things that they like that they're a partner they're a part of obviously things as you go up the ladder in terms of competition competition level The Varsity that can differ a little bit too so just gonna leave a male one up there just for a few seconds before you see as well can you go back to the female one there James sure so there's a there's a precipitous decline in from 2017-18 through um on up for the females here what was the differentiation there depending upon the year we we don't want to put everything on the on the spring of 2020 or this was Prior five um I think it's just a little ebb and flow
059and it's when the parents are involved with the youth programs for those specific kids that those kids are involved with it's all you know you look at the winter and there's not as many opportunities for girls in winter sports wise you know just a few that's there so I look at just recently from last year and I'm glad we have access to this data not just dating back a year or or a season you know so it certainly allows the uh we're good to move to the next one yeah okay you know I'm glad we could get a chance to do that you can see there there's some things that are the same some things differ a little bit sometimes it's a uh you know we go through different Ebbs and flows where people are
060involved in club sports and they might be a little bit more skilled and play that sport a little more often away from the high school venue as well so there's a lot of things that come into play that way that doesn't mean it's everybody sometimes there's a lack of Interest there's a number of reasons but we've seen pretty much overall numbers pretty close to the to the recent past but we're not only we're ever satisfied we want kids involved in things because we know it's a better experience all the way through the school day as well but this is just Athletics this is not cool this is just Athletics and I get to activities it's going to blow your socks off oh yeah okay bye I gotta kind of hustle along here um okay so
061when you look at the things here so just trying to summarize here we're trying I was just trying to strive for participation for everybody to be involved you know kind of a kind of a comprehension piece when I talk about the clubs and activities it goes hand in hand with the comprehensive education that's provided school-wise so everything that you could possibly think of with these 40 plus clubs There's an opportunity for everyone that has an interest to be involved in something or multiple things if that's what they choose from obviously we move on to the education-based Athletics and I talk about the positives before there's challenges too transportation's a huge positive all right a huge challenge I should say obviously there's a number of things that we you know there's a there's a shortage of
062officials there's there's a lot of things and the pay of officials are going on they continuously so it's tough you know New Opportunities I look at there with uh both Esports and Lacrosse I'm just trying to make sure everybody's as well aware and I tried it as much as possible try to communicate it out as clearly as possible um just so whatever decisions are made they're going to be made in terms of our community here we're fortunate well it doesn't matter if it's clubs activities Athletics whether it's board whether it's Business Leaders whether it's Community leaders whoever the case is there's a lot of support for our students and we have a lot of good students so whatever they're involved with people buy into and support because we're it's it's a it runs the gamut
063all across the board because people are going to be interested in what their kids are interested in so one of the things I say you know our community when it comes to things like this of being involved in supporting it's pretty darn special and it's much different from a lot of other places you know I've been here 18 years both working and living in the community and I say before I ask for any questions I always say to myself before we start something else we try to keep the kids interested the best as at the Forefront of everything else and I guess Alex finished with why not Watertown any questions you alluded to showing numbers about activities well I was going to wait till after the questions but I got I couldn't get in time
064so we made a conscious effort in every grade level so I'm going to be able to graduating class we could say of uh the 2023 kids they started we started at 59 of kids with no activities now this year we're at 54 total participant participation rate for that grade level I'll have a handout for this I'll give everybody what I'm done across the board everything has gone up so the number of no activities was 50 I'll go grade levels 55 60 59 and 62 in the school year of 2021 and now right now it's no no activities 46 39 29 and 25. so I'll finish with this the current participation rate of our kids in high school 23 graduating 23 through 26. 54 involved for one grade 61 for another grade 70.2 for another grade
065and our freshmen we're at 74. okay that could be a spike it could be a certain thing could be an interest what I'm saying we're making a conscious effort and the kids are involved in this is a whole thing this is at the home front the the district the community everyone's a part of this that these participation numbers are to where they are all right other questions from board members thank you for your efforts on this thank you very much you're welcome our next item up is the Dual language update yes okay um so I'm Angela heimrick and I am going to be giving a brief dual language update um for our program 4K through template so okay I'm going to start with some celebrations we have increased our enrollment in our dual language program
066so prior to this past school year we had one section of dual language at sures this last year we increased to two sections of dual language um kindergarten and those two sections will continue through all the way through 12th grade um and so our numbers for this coming school year are also looking really great we have 38 students enrolled for kindergarten this year 40 would be our Max um so we're leaving a little leeway because we know that sometimes we have newcomers or new families to the district and we want to make sure that we have a little space if families would decide to opt into our program um also in general across our district newcomers who are arriving in our district are opting into our dual language program because it's best serving their students
067needs um this year also was very exciting because the district received bilingual bipultural funding from the state for the very first time um and hopefully that will be something that will continue to come back and return to our district we also as a district participated in the GPI immigrant Children and Youth Grant we participated with four other districts through csub2 and with that Grant we were able to get some Multicultural texts in all of our school libraries we worked on a newcomer handbook that will be available for staff in the fall and we were able to participate in in interpretation translation network with some of our professionals which was really nice um and then also our first very first cohort of dual language students are now at whs and will be in 10th grade this
068coming school year so that's a huge celebration as well some changes for this coming school year so as I mentioned earlier we will have um two sections of dual language for kindergarten and now first grade and that will continue on up as the years progress at RMS um previously students were in a Ela SLA class and then a science social studies class together as a cohort this year we are transitioning to our dual students will be integrated with all of our other Ela classes and they will have a trimester of science which will be completely in Spanish social studies and then Spanish language arts will be its own class that will run for a trimester length of time um and then at the high school we will be offering for freshmen Spanish language arts and
069biology and then for our 10th graders we will have AP Spanish language and culture and Latin American history for them so I understand putting an odd I mean trimester learn at irmax they're at high school you're doing it on trimester it's a unique um format that we used we went down uh one teacher so we previously had two teachers at RMS teaching dual language one of those was shared between RMS and whs so with that stamping shift we had to get really creative and how we were going to offer classes for our dual language students without limiting opportunities for other classes for them to take um and so this was the solution that we came up with it's also worth noting that well the core classes are in that semester format the electives at RMS
070are in fact under the elective structure yes and lastly some challenges uh that we continue to face with our dual language program the biggest one is Staffing um we currently have two dual language um positions that are currently open for this coming school year it is very challenging to find staff members who have these unique qualifications and skills um at the same time we are um we have a challenge of having enough El Staffing with our increasing number of el students and newcomers um so I put in the 21-22 school year we had 18 newcomers those are students who arrived to the United States from another country and have zero English abilities and so um this past school year we had 17 newcomers a lot of them have gaps in their education so we really
071have to invest a lot to make sure that they're successful in our schools and then along with that comes family support um at all of our buildings uh the first people that our families encounter none of them speak Spanish which is quite difficult when you know they're new to the district they're new to the country and making sure that they feel supported and they feel welcome um and so that's a continued challenge that we have as well yes so question I when I hear do a language without my natural assumption is that it's English and Spanish yes is that I mean we call it dual language is it really two languages and so if somebody was Filipino or Hmong or German or Italian what do we do with those families do we have any is
072it not a need so we we call it dual language but it's really Spanish and English there's really two languages so you can set up a dual language program around any two languages that you would like ours is set up with English and Spanish we do have other um Els who are in our district who speak a language other than Spanish they are not in our dual language program however they could act into the Dual language program and become trilobal if they would like um so for those students we're providing um integrated ESL support so that's where the ell staff comes in we push into their regular classrooms and provide supports and scaffolds as needed to ensure that they're being successful as well thank you any other questions other questions from board members doing approximate
073statistics on what the students in the Dual language that have Spanish at home versus English at home um so I don't have exact numbers but we try to shoot like a 50 50 makeup um but I don't think we've ever been there yes um so typically our class sizes were around 18 so we uh had nine students from a Spanish-speaking household and nine from an English-speaking household um it does vary from year to year and I will say that by the time they get to middle school high school we are more heavy on the Spanish speaking side um just because sometimes students decide to opt in to stem or other programming um and then with our newcomers opting into our dual language program then we get a little off balance that way any other questions
074thank you very much thanks next up is our achievement Gap reduction report superintendent yeah so uh the report is in the board box for you I can go through that with you in detail if you'd like um this is an annual report that we do to satisfy our AGR grant that we have insurers um the information that you see is based on uh basically two categories the assessment data that we are tracking um as to improve access towards our goals as well as our goal information that is in the document so that is there for you should you have any questions and here to answer them for you so there's a quick background on this too long ago we purchased we chose to join a state level program to provide some additional funding for additional
075Staffing at an elementary level we decided to locate this program at one particular building and so as a part of that funding program in the state level every year we had to prepare a report that we send to the state that says here's what we've done to get the results that are expected for this program again that program is intended to you know prop up results for certain Target populations so that's why it has the complex names and all the acronyms because of course the state program and local state program may be without admins and I have to look them all up so that's the origin of this again it's just a little extra funding we get to help lower class sizes at one particular building I guarantee you the p in Pals was never
076and my first guess was not going to be something that started with the word Connecticut but that's what it is isn't it anemic anemic thank you straight out of Yosemite from something yeah whatever three four years ago yeah there was a different name yeah it was a sage program yeah Jared if you were to follow I mean I guess qualify this overall I looked through the numbers and I tried to do cohorts I tried to just mentally track it looks like most of these numbers are going up or at least in a positive direction are there are apologies as aware of our where's the winds here where are the opportunities so there's there's some uh winds there's some opportunities and there's some mixed messaging and I'll clarify each of those thank you we do have
077some you know some some definite wins and you can see where uh if you're taking a look at um the beginning of the year fall to uh end of year data um there's many places where that data is um showing Improvement there are some places especially at third grade where we're seeing some still struggles with that that class of students um I will also tell you that the when I say mixed messaging there's two things that can get you in a mixed message sense uh one is where you might look at the data that's in the fall being the pals data and the pals data is really literacy Readiness screening then you see in the winter time uh Francis and panel literacy assessment meaning how well can they actually perform the reading skill so those
078tests are two different tests in the wrong number one's talking about pre-reading skills and are you ready the other one's actually measuring your reading skills so you see this big depth but you might think they're correlated they're not they're two different assessments and you'll see a big dip because if we have high Readiness but we're not quite there with a reading level that shows where the work needs to happen okay and you do see a big dip in some of those numbers and the work that needs to happen is transitioning those higher level pre-reading skills that we have in place getting those higher but also transitioning those into action right and the action being a reader and measured by Countess and development okay so um there's that but then also within especially our math numbers
079um this is the first year that we uh tested our our students at sures in their home language because we have many students there who are uh bilingual or are El Learners and so we tested them in their home language to get a real accurate knowledge of where they are and we included those numbers this year those numbers didn't make our total number go lower um as anticipated but that just highlights the extra work um like Ashley was just talking about that we need to do for them to have access and to be able to learn um those types of skills either within their regular home language and or um English language so it does highlight that it's all there but without somebody to help interpret that as I'm doing now it can get a
080little mixed message okay thank you does that help yeah all right any other questions on this report Tina please um so on slide number four the bar column on the right it says progress spring semester 2022. is this comparing data the last spring or yeah so it's year-over-year data um that we're trying to AGR is the achievement Gap Reduction Program and so we try to measure year over year and how our Gap is from here to here but I mean this is a year-old dating yes it's your old data with regard to the report not with regard to what we do if you asked us you know what we're doing right now you would have different but this is the report for the DPI so it's usually a year behind your highlights mentioned spring of
081223 in most situations but then your your summary page goes into the spring of 22. that's what I'm talking about the summary data will be different than our current data okay so are you yeah so you you spoke to it and I was trying to pull up trying to find last year than I couldn't but um I thought I recall from last year that we got to saw the same thing where from first to third grade the numbers substantially dropped yep so I kind of those versus them you know I guess I would assume we're doing a good job year over year we should see our numbers going up we're doing better and better so I had this again I had this conversation by email with one of the board members who asked a similar
082question um am I right that last year's looks very similar yes and you'll notice that um one of the issues is again with the assessment and what what we're measuring for um so when we're you're looking at the assessments like fantas and Canal and you're measuring against a benchmark or Star you're measuring against Benchmark that Benchmark continues to grow and if you were to say oh we had like uh 35 of our students you know proficient or Advanced and and uh at the beginning you're announced only 18 does that mean we actually harmed kids no what it means is they didn't grow as expected but they still grew um what I mean by that is um third grade especially in a number of assessment years or a number of Assessments is a year where you
083see a large Benchmark difference between the beginning of the year and the end of the year um and that should be anticipated girls they're third grade to grow a lot exactly it is it is a phenomenon you know that that we know about the issue is if they don't grow as expected then it's also the year where you can see the biggest transition in your scores um as well not saying that that's what happens first grade through third grade but what I can say is that we're not uh getting as much growth as we anticipated so that should tell us that we need to be looking at either a or curriculum change and we are well or B are intensive measures for those specific students to get to a uh a faster growth recovery because
084we're not what the data is saying is is we're not getting there so I think last year we had a very similar conversation so and you talk about year old data that we're doing so what as a board what can we expect to you know that's the glaring one to me and this is it seems that we're we're missing hitting that growth through that as we go through the great years at yours in particular what what can we expect as a feedback is what we're actually going to do actionable about that okay well here's some things we're looking at we're looking at I want to know where the training looks in that well that's why I said we're already doing that um we're we're refreshing our curriculum especially in math and and had already started
085irrefessional reading curriculum and so as it takes a little bit of time for implementation we're hoping that our implementation and when the way the program is supposed to be implemented we will get better results as we're doing that we're also taking a look at the data to see if we are getting those results or not in whatever in other interventions are changing and so when we adopt a new curriculum we also talk about adopting other materials like intervention materials you guys have seen that in some of the presentations that you've seen within the um ESC or um the educational services um the reason we do that is because we know that the new curriculum is aligned to a different or higher Benchmark level than we are used to and so we're also anticipating that we're
086going to have more kids who are in need of intervention because it's a higher Benchmark that we're trying to or more rigor that we're trying to implement and so we anticipate that there are kids who are going to need some more help so those are the things we're doing the results are going to be over time and we're going to have to see how we're doing that and we're going to have to adjust online but we are already implementing those kinds of things do you know is there um not to say that it's available now and I I know we're you know kind of turning to more of a focus in some data areas and things like that I would be interested to know like now that we have this dual language program it sounds
087like K through 10 or K-12 okay through 11 next year well next year 11 the year after Okay Okay um you know as far as like how those students are how this data you know as far as like oh okay to see the growth and you know and those kinds of things there's there's a nice chart that I can't remember what it relates to and it shows the number enrollments in enrollment charts where it has the the year where it travels yeah you know what I'm talking about what she said is she would like to see more cohort data achievement data particular to dual language carried some time over the years looking in one class as you move through the system yeah compared to the total student population thank you Tony for that interpretation that
088was very happy well and that's where that's where because to me the data looked very similar a year ago yeah that's saying that the third grade went down and I thought some of the discussion was well that's that cohort and now we see it yeah well that's not a cohort then that's a process that's a an environment that's a whatever right and and as I as I've shared with the board before you know um looking at how we utilize data and getting to um have it at that kind of level uh has been a process that I've worked on quite a bit this year and that I think as we build into our new data position as well as the work that I've done with the wise Dash local this year to try to secure
089data and better align it to the individual as a student versus the whole getting to cohort data and getting to into some of those particulars can be a lot easier for us to try to try to get to that root issue is this a just a small chord or that grade you know of students that pass through and and now everything should be better or is it a universal um need that needs to be changed because our curriculum just isn't being the needs and or how we teach the curriculum isn't meeting the needs of our total student populations so those are the things that over the next few years we are really going to dig deep into and work harder at so we will have that in peace as well to help guide us but
090what Jared is your your leadership opinion on it so historically this is a very unique situation because PPI requires us to see building specific data generally we have not looked at building specifics yeah the only reason do you like that idea that we're looking at building specific data or do you prefer it not be I I I like this aggregated data um because it can help talk about whether it's a system issue or a non-system issue um that also we have to be careful of because you also have to recognize that every group is is different in how and why you selected them as a group in the first place um and um how students have self-selected or people have self-selected themselves into whatever start they did um for instance when we came here we
091asked our youngest one you know what kind of school do you want to go to do you want to go to a school where you can learn more than one language do you want to go to you know just a traditional Elementary School do you want to go to one that you know talks about you know things like um you know mental health and emotional health and all those kinds of things or you want to go to a stem school or do you want to go to an AG type school where you learn about plants and you know biodiversity in that pencil because that's what we have here and our student population very much self-selects into those and for Unique reasons um assessment scoring can be aligned to different factors within those and so we
092have to be very careful not to set up an idea that there's competition between but in order to talk about the differences that make up those feeding into a specific entity like or middle school where they all come together that's where I need to be mindful of in looking at different data types and talking about how do we take the mixture of all those the spraying sand weaknesses that they all present and how do we mail them into a place that can continue their learning through high school where they'll become even more disaggregated again because they'll self-selecting the different clubs activities and other things that make them the unique person that they're going to be into our work world as they go into College and Career so um that's my impetus within the data going
093from Individual to whole and being mindful of everything in between and why we're selecting that data and double the checking and guessing ourselves as to the what is this data really powerless all right thank you any other questions on this topic yes for me can you hear me okay yes I can go ahead all right perfect um the questions that I have is do we have if this kind of goes along with Tina's question do we have information for grades one through three going back to last spring a lot of times when we look at data we look at either fall to fall or spring to Spring looking at one full year currently what you're showing is nine months worth of growth so if we saw last last Springs data we look spring to Spring
094and then we could really see what growth is there um is that was that what was used to help set the goal I'm just wondering do we have that information that we could access at least at some point I'm understanding that this may be how they want it presented when you file the paperwork but from my perspective I guess I'd like to see overall one year's growth to know for one year's time to see where the growth truly is yeah um we can we can and will definitely get into that kind of topic when we get into our larger data dive pieces this report only shows a very fraction of the data presented the way that DJI would like it um in accordance to the achievement Gap reduction policies as well as goals that we
095had set as a school district for the program well I think that's that's what I'm asking is like because if we're gonna ask and and dissect this data as data well we're doing that in a bubble and only looking at shares right yeah if we're going to do that we should do a similar Deep dive into Webster and Lebanon and remember that if we want to do that if we say we really shouldn't we shouldn't look at it that way right then this is just a DPI report well and and honestly this is just the DPI report I'm presenting to you today and I and I know that every time that you do something that has data along with it you want to get into the larger topic which we're getting probably a little off
096task and looking at um but as you know me as a data file I I love to get into those topics and discussions about data and how we use it to help make a better system this is just a report that I have to present to you because the law says I do and it's a very specific report looking at very specific things to help our achievement Gap Reduction Program and how we staff it that's it okay yeah because I was even confused like why wasn't the sad service right it only shares yeah so I hope that I hope that understanding helps and and you'll see this every year uh as we but it's hard to not look at it it's not like yeah want to start digging in exactly or or provokes other questions
097exactly all right then we'll move on to reports and start with a superintendent's report okay yeah I got my fabulous four or five slides I can't remember how many they are um but that's usually four or five um so uh with that uh here's Jim's report thank you oh there we go uh so start off with the recognition uh I don't always recognize our our wonderful Educational Services Center staff but I want to recognize them they make a difference a huge difference in the lives of our students and staff every day um the reason I'm recognizing them is because as you may notice as you look around it's kind of moving day around here I want you to know that the only Department that has not had substantial change or any kind of change at
098all has been our HR department advocated for change I just didn't have the funding to help everybody you look at um in this building either has a new director that they're responsible to or has a new position or has been a director but is in a very new role and so I want you to recognize that myself included Ms Duncan who's here many of us who are in this building have been here less than one year and so the idea that we're running a multi-million dollar agency servicing family and kids and all the work that all of our staff does to get that done I think that's an amazing feat for the people in this building to do and to change and fix the plan as we're flying in to a different and new structure
099one that we help will continue to provide extra and more supports for families and students because that is our goal and so I want you to recognize that because sometimes in that change there can be a lot of models and remember we're feeling forward to a better place and we're trying to do that with positivity and kindness so thank you very much to everybody at the ESC who contributes daily uh to the mission of this school district because it's been an interesting shift in how we're doing things so at least okay also I want to recognize these people you guys know that Aaron Meyer and Dave Vitali um they I want to thank them for their years of service and dedication to the district they'll be missed this is their last week of service but
100you will see them every once in a while occasionally around um as we're transitioning through the next uh six months um because we do need them to pop in and help us with our transition mentoring the new people that we have as well as filling in on some of those things that they had started but they are handing off to the new person so I I do want you to know that um very um occasionally and um not much but you might see them around and if you do say hi and give them a thank you um opportunities that we have coming up we have PLC training uh in Madison July 12th and uh through the 14th um it's really nice because it's close this year usually it's in Minneapolis St Paul or other places
101so um our our staff can go and learn during the day they'll have a brief evening meal where they talk about their learning and how they forward it and then they will come back the next day but we don't have to pay overnight and they they can get their panels um we have an avid summer Institute in Minneapolis July 25th through the 26th um as you know the the building level programs uh at the middle school and high school um have a concerted effort on a reboot this year and to talk a little bit more about instead of just the elective but building wide acceptance of avid and Avid strategies and so this year they're going with a focus on that they have a a 30 60 and 90 day uh plan that they're moving
102forward with and they're coming back from the summer Institute to expand on that program plan uh with their whole building um also I have the opportunity again this summer to go to summer superintendent summer legal conference in July on the 25th through the 28th every year we learn about new things what I am very interested in this year is the Title IX reboot that's coming in October and to see what kind of foreshadowing we're going to get around Title IX and what that reboot looks like in October under the Biden Administration also we've got ongoing math work at all levels as you know that we're moving into a new math series um and we have different levels of Engagement throughout the elementary all the way through High School in in different levels of piloting and
103or bringing on new materials um I highlighted last month that go right way is looking for drivers I want to highlight it one more time again today because if we don't get enough drivers by the time school starts we're going to end up having all sorts of continued issues especially with those extracurricular routes and sporting event routes and or um field trips we have a lot of field trips at the beginning of the year and so the more drivers we can get the better they have actually two events coming up on July 15th and the 22nd at the high school parking lot where you can take a try driving a bus and if you like it we're doing is we're trying to really um lean into things like our Pairs and so on to try
104to be able to flex their schedule so they can also have driving opportunities or go right way again that's not us hiring them extra it's them going to work for a different company but us being very Mindful and being flexible because they support what we have for our needs and so again if you have a chance or opportunity to do that and here's some important reminders of meetings coming up so I have a question of that unless [Music] um development in the same day as the fiscal management are we going to just double stack those that they are going to want to move one of them okay I didn't even put the special meetings on here I just put the regular meetings of them so it depends if you if your agenda can be constrained
105to a small amount of time and you could double check they're both starting at the same time correct we'll just okay all right any questions or comments on that report all right fiscal management all right we met on Wednesday last week uh by 30 uh everyone was in attendance except for Mr Smith um uh we had one question the payment report this was interesting um uh there uh we had a purchase of a large vehicle for the district uh which always over fifty thousand dollars um the question I had was do we have to go to bids on that what I found out from Miss Duncan was uh the um we get government pricing on these so don't give bits because we get the same price where we go on it so that wasn't interesting
106there see some contracts uh we discussed these um something we've been doing every year Annual fees or agreements um the committee discussed and remember economies to come to the move to the full board uh Furniture purchase you will see on the docket tonight this is some s here three dollars 150 000 um for budget and funds uh there was included a list of purchases for furniture for different schools in the district you will note that Lebanon is not on this list this was asked and they should not provide anything um it's not that they were left out in or anyway they just didn't ask for anything um I purchased over twenty thousand dollars uh we just had one it was for copy paper uh and um they had three bids uh and it was uh
107very well done and gave us all the information of it so that one went right through uh and District projects update um the dust collection system uh is moving forward uh we are in the um they just had the kickoff meeting the last week um and we're getting ready they're going to start pouring the concrete [Music] um October for that but shouldn't be any uh contact with classes or anything with that one because we're good there uh and it's going to provided us with the preliminary budget which you will also see in the agenda tonight um we still have a deficit being projected on that this is preliminary uh because we're still waiting for information from the state and we did ask to make a delineation on the budget for what things were using for
108Ester dollars and that so we can clear that up because there were some questions on and why are we spending on this if it was us or money um so we're going to go through that um and we had no further business we adjourned at 606. questions are coming cement report all right thank you HR yes we met on Monday June 19th we had moved our meeting to five o'clock because there was a um special board meeting medially following that um all of our members were presents um a lot of others we reviewed our consent agenda um as far as that goes and we have a resolution on that tonight for the staff appointments resignations terminations um there should also be a resolution for the summer schools okay excellent um there's a resolution as far
109as the summer school staff because that's how we separated out um and then um Margaret is working on her support staff compensation proposal um she's getting different quotes from possible vendors um we all wanted to make sure that that work could you know continue to move forward because this summer is a good time to be able to do that and um to be able to you know evaluate what that looks like um let's see in discussion of vendor selection I'd recommended exploration of a tour de bidding purchasing procedure um and um Jared recommended referral of the discussion about purchasing procedure to the fiscal committee so we didn't have that as far as an extra extra little discussion there um and then as far as our agenda planning um anticipated topics for the July meeting include
110the consent agendas um employee satisfaction survey results so we will have um Bill there from the school perceptions to be able to interpret the data and things like that that we have from the staff surveys um let's see and then also an overview of the administrator performance evaluation process um and then we did uh go into closed session um for the purpose of considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of a Public Employee no decisions were made while enclosed the session and we um adjourned at 604 PM our next meeting is Monday July 17th at 5 30. thank you comments or questions on that report hearing none that services uh yeah said Services met on Tuesday June 13th all members were present plus a couple of others it was content light and structure heavy
111um for those who were there um Dave Laurie uh Diana and Craig um Jenny and I had met prior and we were trying to improve the overall operations Event Services um and one of the ways that we decided to do that or at least attempt going into the new school year was to do a report a present in the discuss and so we're going to have to try to have Jenny uh report uh at the beginning of each one much in a way that Jared reports here so any open action item anything lingering anything hey we said we'd get back to you and we told you hey the answer that was going to be we'll be taking the previous notes uh potentially with Jenny's assistant in the room so that she can be more engaged
112in the conversation as opposed to note taking but we'd like to see her report back on open Action items then we found it useful in the past that presentation from staff as well as uh the teachers admin staff was handy uh we learned a lot of good things and then we would leave it open for discussion which would typically follow on calendar however if there were things that we learned in the presentation we could then not table them but revisit them at the next uh meeting such that they could make it to the calendar and we could stay in compliance with open record laws and discussing what we're going to you know putting out there what we're going to talk about so the hopes here is to keep this to an hour and a half
113meeting we never did that last year um and also keep it such that we are not uh delving into things that we should not be delving into and keeping it focused on those things which uh staff and board need to work collectively together uh so between those two which was the function in the form of the meetings as well as the calendar topics for the following year was the heart of the discussion and uh then we adjourned next meeting is on Tuesday July 11th and I will need a pinch hitter either volunteered or voluntold I will not be in the country the Tuesday the 11th yeah sounds great and I'll first ask the committee members whether Dave Laurie or Diana would like to try that and that would be perhaps the first time Tony that
114we go into the present or excuse me the the uh report present discuss format uh we're still not 100 sure that we're going to figure it out uh the first time but we're going to give ourselves July and August before we hit uh where teachers uh days start in the cabinet starts being impacted so that's the plan but um I'm nearly 100 sure we're not gonna mail it will fall forward well we're good we're going to work on it I think it was all it will make progress it was a lively discussion and we know where we want to go it's just a matter of fact so uh anyway between Diana Dave and Laurie uh I'd rather rely on the three of you before I rely on Tony just because you're in services and he's
115already busy enough but if uh you guys uh you want to work with Jenny that's great and I can meet with you the week ahead of that to discuss the next uh topic but I won't be here that uh full week foreign I will briefly touch on policy in Craig's absence so the largest item in the policy meeting we have traditionally relied upon waspy provide guidance to us in terms of policy recommendations folder equate language to use Etc there was a presentation from an organization called Neola who does an alternative type of service I have worked with Neil in the past when I was on the board in Ohio so there was a presentation by them and the committee's next point of action Mr Clean is back at their following meeting in August and that
116included they neol provided a cost per exam for the services next it was a brief discussion we're trying to clarify the operational procedure amount around minor revisions next there were several policies brought up from a discussion perspective extracurricular activities retention and graduations to the graduation and of those the extracurriculars the superintendent got a walk away from that in terms of to Do's related to that the retention topic was moved decided there is Merit to continue to look at that policy for possible revision and then lastly graduation is those policies were set aside at this time then several committee members brought up a few other policies we'd like to see brought forward into future agendas including personal electronic devices and an address code so those would be up for future meetings and then lastly the committee
117looks to add major and minor revisions there was one policy up for major revisions and that is parents and family engagement and that's included in our consent agenda for first reading this evening and there are a number of minor revisions that are also in Armenian this evening okay and one more thing to please do um yep uh there was a discussion too on structure and format of structure of the meetings that's different um instead of having the minor revisions come back to policy uh from the the superintendent slash Lynn stamp Whiteland is the one who goes through and goes through those for minor real divisions they're going to come directly to the board on a monthly basis instead of waiting on a bi-monthly basis to tackle those so that way we can maybe get through
118the committee will be we'll get a copy of it yeah they'll get a copy of it if there's anything that they think needs to be discussed it'll be discussed actually if there's a if they see something in in the document there's to email me right before it comes to the board we're really skipping the policy discussion on those those group policy they're on the they're on the agenda you're just wondering you're not talking or every other month only every other month you meet every other month so we can keep it please District that's correct administrator superintendent yeah when those then come on for the first read or second reading to the board can we Mark those within the names of the policies that things are minor revisions or something because there's 12 policies tonight and
119one of them is a major division um that's a good idea because you just in additional comment on Yola it seemed and I don't want to I'll speak for myself the way I read the room was that there was a lot of Merit to it but it wasn't a small commitment and a small change to the way that we do business right now it's not and so Tony I don't know how we want to I I feel more comfortable as a full board discussion and the implications of it as opposed to just student and policy so I don't know if we and if we're all going to let it sort of sink in for a month before while we're thinking about the pros and cons yeah um I think we just need to I mean
120I don't want to have Scott Brown come back and present again but if Jared you wanted to put a summary or Craig wanted to put a summary or tell me your experience working with them given that they're Northeast Ohio that's where they got their name from I didn't put two and two together you probably already knew of them um but we have to figure out a way to come to a resolution on that or a conclu a direction and I don't think we still felt like we had enough uh uh I don't want to say evidence but no um pros and cons to make that decision although nobody was against it it's just a big change for us it's more of a cultural change to how we do business around policy versus anything and we
121can go into into more detail but you know some some schools or organizations feel like if somebody else is managing your policies are you in control and the one message that I think people need to take away is that meal gives you 100 control um over your policy it just gives you a lot of framework to work within to get that done and provides the requisite knowledge base and background to help support you so we just have to figure out how we want to make a decision on it whether it be the next executive discussion and then figure out if it's a board resolution or discussion or or well and there's a cost and there's a cost associated with it too my expectations that there will be a recommendation coming out of the policy okay
122to the board okay right that's the logic got it sit and bring it back okay or did it be no recommendation yes the community decides not to move forward okay just for Clarity on the process so so minor revisions come generally from the the flow of we're looking at these next month this next month Etc Majors come with a sponsor generally generally do they come in any other way to being a major so um like the major that you see tonight that is a DPI informed required policy that we don't have in place and they found that through the nodded process and they said you need to get this policy and you're fixed wow so was the class size came through that well I guess we did that yeah I came for administration yeah and
123that wasn't it wasn't sponsored put it that way David it did come through policy but it wasn't a sponsored one where you've been waiting in the queue but it did go through policy so Majors don't come to the board unless they go through policy well no I'm just trying to figure out how they become a how they become a major is unidentified by the committee or it's coming forward from the administration based on the information that they have right either from the DCI or state or federal law change or those kinds of things that could work yes [Music] previous comment with this policy that came in tonight the one with a major change looking at this there were no changes because this is a new policy that's correct it's a policy we didn't have in
124place that we need to have a place we need to make that clear there's no understanding of this I'm looking it's going okay would it be changed um and I was hoping that I would like maybe a clean version I was even when I got to Palestine yeah and we do new policy instead of made we have a major minor new sure I mean I know it doesn't have an opt-in but that would have it would make it a little bit more three new policies this last year yeah so I mean maybe that would give them its own categories something yeah okay okay we'll look to try to implement something better around that time too any other questions and comments and calls all right and we'll move on the consequence before we do that yes
125um we did not meet in planning but I just want to give the board a heads up that at our next meeting on July 12th we will be talking specifically about board development ideas as well as the board retreat so if you have input and would like to join us awesome otherwise shoot me an email and we can get those ideas generated so the committee can take a look at them thank you right thank you next item is resolution 9234 consent agenda this includes board meeting minutes seeing our committee summaries under Staffing and Personnel you have resignations as well as appointments the approval of bills and the first and second reading of policies there are no second readings but as we've just discussed there are a number of First readings do I hear a motion
126on 9234 can I have a motion first moving a good question by David second by Rory question uh the agenda items is under for the first read policies it says at the recommended action below that there are no voter policies up for our first reading all right thank you I will find right about the files I see just confusing all right any other comments or questions on the motion hearing none will cover please David Schrader yes David Smith yes Lori Helen yes Diana Jensen yes Tina Johnson yes Tony Arnett yes and the motion carries this takes us to action items we have five resolutions this evening the first one is nine two three five which is our CSO one contract do I hear a motion on nine two three five motion second move by Fred
127seconded by Tina comments or questions on the motion hearing manual Cowboy please David Trader yes David Smith yes Craig young yes Lori Holland yes Diana Jensen yes Tina Johnson yes Tony Arnett yes and the motion carries next is resolution 9236 our contract with sisa two do I hear a motion by David comments or questions on the motion hearing none will call Will please David Schrader yes David Smith yes yes Lori Holland yes Diana Johnson yes Tina Johnson yes Tony Arnett yes and the motion carries next is 9237 our 2023-2024 preliminary budget do I hear emotion move my friend is there a second second by Lori again it's typical for us to put in this essentially Pro formal budget in advance of the formal budgeting Google process sort of occur later in the fall questions or
128comments on the motion um Sarah did you say that the I read it in here and I couldn't tell if it was in or out is the by is the proposed biennium or the proposed increase in the biennium budget to the school funding included or not included in this do you think it is affirmative okay thank you I I see it alluded to here but I can't it's not red and uh form of an action thank you other comments or questions on the motion all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed motion carries next is resolution 9238 purchase of replacement and new building Furniture do I hear a motion so moved by David is there a second seconded by Dave comments or questions on the motion this was reviewed at fiscal just procedurally
129what happened so this is whatever I'm coming up now 10 11 Grand shy of the placeholder amount does that close out that it one item or does that balance stay there it should it has um reported that fiscal um we left some room in there for shipping costs or changing in uh information from the quote or whatever you know just to make sure we have some room but we're not expecting any other budgetary changes or anything like that we're going to close this out and if there's any money left over it goes back to the idea if we if we have other money is left over what we're gonna do with those okay any other comments or questions on the motion roll popo please David Schroeder yes David Smith bradian yes Lori Holland yes Diana
130Jensen yes Tina Jensen yes Tony Arnett yes and the motion carries our last resolution is regarding Summer School staff is there a motion someone by Tina is there a second second by Lori again this was reviewed at HR comments or questions on the motion hearing non-roll call please David Schrader yes David Smith yes yes Lori Holland yes Diana Johnson yes Tina Johnson yes Tony Arnett yes and the motion carries all right this brings us to the second opportunity for public input those members who would like Republicans would like to address the board this time anyone no okay anyone online right then I will entertain a motion to adjourn by Fred second or by Tina all in favor signify by saying aye aye oh here