001today although I've since changed on Tuesday will be red and green day and Wednesday is formal day the German Honor Society Christmas clog decorating contest is now taking place each first hour class has had the opportunity to decorate a traditional German clog with the class winner taking home a secret prize Spanish Honor Society has been busy exchanging pen pal letters with third and fifth graders from bilingual students at scherz they've discussed important topics like ocasion de gracias or Thanksgiving and Deportes or Sports and hobbies student council student council rank calling out this past Thursday answering phones as sprinkles sprinkles too Sparkles buddy and snowy the elves kids told Santa's helpers what they want wanted for Christmas Legos and Barbies and one kid even said that he wanted the new iPhone traveled to Chicago on Saturday
002they explored the field museum Shedd Aquarium and Art Institute did you know that we're in a blood shortage 38 000 blood donations are needed every day thankfully Mr Gibbons Health observations class hosted an American Red Cross blood drive students and teachers gave the gift of Life all day long donating gallons of blood that will save many lives and they celebrated by eating their cookies and juice over the past month the Watertown High School carolers have carrolled throughout the town for meetings nursing homes local businesses and schools each gig is left a little more holiday cheered to all who listen and on that note please enjoy this Christmas poem Twas the week before Christmas in Watertown so great the students are excited to soon take off for the break they'll say goodbye to their teachers with
003Glee and with cheer wishing them a merry Christmas and a happy New Year so here's to the school board and all Who oversee have a wonderful break and may you find gifts under the tree Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night we'll see you in the new year shining and bright thank you all right other items underneath recognitions and I've got two donation announcements one from Baker woman for a thousand dollars towards our skills USA and then also uh one from the Smith family for 250 for our skillsusa program I want to thank them sincerely they and a number of different Community businesses and other people help make that program happen and we can't be more thankful for their input thank you all right and we'll send these around so you can
004take a look at them anything else under Communications just my report s you're so excited about it almost okay okay all right our first item under strategic discussion is the safety drill evaluations and school security assessments superintendent yes so we have a number of files in there for you to produce and I'm sorry that they were kind of coming in throughout the day just a reminder that we are doing some transitioning um as as far as jobs but also the short Runway that we had between meetings and just the realization of oh we gotta get that so um they're there for you to look at and peruse I did have general questions um at least from one board member about you know how things are done has has anything been done differently since we've last
005uh reviewed them one of those questions would be you know for instance one of the schools uh you know reported that they they wanted to make some changes um and so if there are any changes or anything that our Administration can highlight from last year to this year or any uh thing in any of the safety report material that you had uh could you share that at this time I saw I'm sorry I know I'm putting you on the spot is there anything differently that you may have done in one of your buildings or um anything else uh that you'd like to make us aware of or anything that you have planned coming up for a safety drill or um I just when we had done in the spring the evacuation drill I had some
006concerns with uh points within my school and so I actually did walk our way uh through with the chief and officer Stacy uh just to go through plans and make through that we were doing things in the best way to talk through a different couple of items that had me a concern so because it's been a good 20 minutes doing that okay can you share with us anything that came to that meeting um just some of our profiles when it comes to fire drills I guess I'll share um we have had the same evacuation site for several years at Douglas there's really not any very close buildings that are large enough and for an entire school to go to so I won't say where but we worked with the police department and officer professor and
007recite um kind of probably mid last year to that was finalized and um so that's moving forward okay a really good conversation with the police department to talk through what we were thinking they felt the same thing so then we're through a change of site okay I also know that as a team we've talked about we're working on doing a variety of different drills um and if those aren't scheduled yet or if you haven't seen those in the paperwork know that those are coming um whether it's fire tornado lockdown evacuation uh Jason could you just share a little bit about your evacuation drill that had happened uh earlier in October yeah it went really well we had a we've broken down the administrative team of the police department of five kind of pairs so we
008broke the building up there's some parts of the Riverside I didn't know existed until the evacuation drilled like there's a big area around the pool upstairs which I had no idea so until I checked it off my little map so our evacuation Like a Shepherd was was good our seventh graders all fit in the hallway uh we found that out uh fairly uh and uh we had a neighbor who had decided it was a good day to fly his drone and kind of see everything that was happening which freaked us out and freaked the police department out because we don't want people taping what our kind of measures look like so we had a good conversation with that neighbor and I got that figured out but all in all it was really good it was
009just some minor things that we just like individual teachers about but really it's been a while since we had done a real evacuation drill it was well known okay uh I would just throw off at our drills pay off he got the surprise tornado warning and man we got to our basement and into our shelter areas quick and and we're a little scared because that we let them know when the drills are happening and they knew this wasn't uh a drill so to deal with someone good ones yeah at the high school like over the lunch hour when almost 400 kids are in the lunchroom as it's happening in real time and alerts are popping up on phones um it was it was good but I mean rely on a strong team in communication and
010thankfully it went smoothly anything that you took his notes during that because that was a live drill that just was put Upon Us anybody have notes as to something that should help me differently making sure because people were in common areas and you always when you practice your drill the vaccine from your classroom you can also where your classroom goes is necessarily where you go if you're in the lecture room so that was just an awareness for our staff to Think Through um oh it might where you are in the building determines where you go for a shelter like I said you would normally practice from that type of an area the other thing that I'll tell the board is our Safety Committee does review all the drills that happen and plan for New drills
011in the future another thing that our Safety Committee is going to be looking at as we meet in January and further on is that drop off and pick up at the high school has been noted by a couple of parents that you know it's been kind of a little bit out of control Mr Kerr sent out some good reminders to parents and everything else and that you know helps a little bit but now we're starting to see you again towards the holiday season because it's kind of getting a little crazy kind of at all the buildings right now and so when we get back we're just gonna have to remind parents our procedures does anybody have any specific questions board members is a big question I do is there with going to say to jails
012is there a specific order of drills or is it like you have a calendar of drills and you always do this drill this time that's it so by law we have to have a safety drill of some kind every month okay um you know you can get a waiver if there's just you know really some really bad stretch of weather or whatever but even then you can do a tornado drill which is all inside or you know those kind of things so um it's not very often that um either the fire department or the police department a waiver um but you can see one um but we we try to do um those for sure every month and then throughout the year couple of safety drills whether it's a lock and hold or an evacuation
013mural or something like that even the Sims man trading that I shared at the last four meeting that we did in respect with the EMT services that counts as a drill um and so any anytime when you do that instructional planning with staff and students especially um that counts so and and then this is your time of year uh every year once a year in December or November the board reviews all that information and we talk about it as a whole Community or a board and if there's something else you'd like to see happen um now is your time to really help share that information with us hopefully you see that you know in each building we're really taking it serious and we have all the information there for you other comments or questions from
014the board members Craig the only other observation I had was um is it a possibility to try to get together a consistent style form that's used from building developing um just because it almost I I look back and I'm like if we're inconsistent one area we want to make sure that you know we're consistent about the practice you know going forward that's one thing that I noticed again it's my first time through um I do have to say this they're they're all using the the approved form of some kind or another whether it's the electronic one or the paper one or whatever but uh having our safety community how to do might be a good thing I kind of know that for my Safety Committee to deal with but it's a good idea okay other
015comments or questions Diana do we ever have any attempts where they are unannounced to students or I don't know if it's ever I don't know that information from from your standpoint I know that like fire drills and stuff like that even the Intruder drills each of those scenarios or are those typically announced as well I would say that those are typically are not like the Intruder drills just as a opportunity for parents and students to not be to take it seriously but not to be overly anxious yeah trauma associated with that sure usually announce like the the week of or like it's going to happen in that time we usually don't announce the exact time the students as we go through programs and there are safety drills there's for our like uh safety and not
016fire and tornado the other safety drills typically there's like something you talk about with your class beforehand uh so that they remember the procedures and routine so it's all foreshadowing before the actual drill takes place and my only purpose in asking is in a fire drill there are situations when it's not enough kids are in the bathrooms what happens when they're in the bathrooms or if there's a lot of clock and hold whatever they're in the bathrooms where do you go so sometimes not having it as announced and then talking about right there and after it's like oh this is more realistic what are you doing there in gym class or they're in specials we just like you guys announced with lunches all those things come to surface the things that you need to focus
017on I guess it's probably the timings of the drills I'm guessing are all I know we plan for them different times they might be in specials for one of their girls you'd be surprised because even even when they're planned or even they're announced um we might still find a student in the bathroom or there's something else happening that you know just have to respond to okay other questions or comments from board members all right thank you all very much our next section is our gallery walk and for this we're going to split up into three groups we have a group in the superintendent's office one in the assistant superintendent's office conference room and the third is in the small conference room which is right around the corner here so we'll just go one two three
018you're in the superintendent's office to start Craig you're with me the three of you can go to the small conference room we'll be in the assistant and then and then uh Margaret is going to be our timekeeper and she's going to keep us moving 15 minutes generally speaking with each of the three groups so why don't we want to rotate through right why don't we give everybody about five minutes uh set up and roll it and thank you all right let's get back up so first I just want to say thank you for everyone who came this evening um very focused efforts to give us concise presentations that we could all take in so thank you very much for that and I know I had an opportunity to ask a few questions and I appreciated
019that uh other board members do you have any high level observations about the process overall or any particular item you wanted to highlight um just as far as like the overall themes like progress and growth and narrowing it on things not trying to tackle absolutely everything because you know we can't chase you know can't have our feet in two canoes or you know Chase five rabbits at the same time that kind of thing so I appreciated you know kind of narrowing the scope and really focusing on those items and moving the needles thanks completely I just thought it was slope they were all well prepared and uh [Music] to have a lot of good information obviously uh not nearly enough time for uh I don't even call it q a just discussion uh but uh
020we'll work on that we knew it was going to be tight and so uh thanks to Margaret for and that's why it's a gallery the gong hope literally came in through the door pretty good pulled us and pulled us out and honestly if you wouldn't to go longer then we you know I'd be like but the fact that you just wanted to keep talking show was a lot of passion of what you're doing other board members I guess I would offer um sometimes it's you know you look at the numbers and it's easy to get frustrated but I would offer this that um we'll get there we'll keep working on it is there any specific questions that the board has you know something that sparked a thought or you just couldn't talk well please send
021those to me uh and then um I will help uh you know do the same from the administrative standpoint are there questions that a board member posed to you something you're thinking about that next time we do the gallery walk again we can kind of focus in on some of that I'd like to make sure that we have a follow-up to you because it is hard to get all that done in just the 15 minutes permit that's what a gallery walk is all right thank you and you will move on to a report section starting with the superintendency I have a good 30-minute presentation at least that I want to give tonight just hopefully you're in your comfy spot because by the time I'm back tomorrow night okay so um I I really don't have
022a lot of slides tonight um just three um I want to tell you that uh it's exciting for me to be in this uh new community see how things are being done differently um see just what the focus has been and what the focus is is going to be um the gallery walks today are a good example of that you know kind of where we're we're coming from things that we're trying to get there and other strategies that we're thinking about together to hone in on and so I just want to say that um in all areas our staff our students and families you as a board um the season of giving has been tremendous and I've noted that throughout the last month and a half easily um the programs who drive celebrations really show
023a culture of care respect and love and for those who are out there who aren't seeing that in our in our schools we we need to we need to be able to highlight that better and hopefully as we work on our communication plan and our communication audit and we talk about what that looks like we can do that because if your eye is on the good that we're doing not only with these things like uh culture of care respect and love um we are focused on a lot of things for our students um and you know academics is one of them but you saw through our gallery walk and other things um that we are about much much more than that and that's how we're going to get to be the the best school district
024in the state of Wisconsin uh so uh just recognitions for all that we're not moving so if you can move um just want to let people know that there are opportunities should they want to join us in our team and our effort as a school district to advance those um that we do have a board election date coming up here um and if you are interested in that information you can log on to our our school webpage there's a connection there that will take you right to the documents you need to either decide if you're rerunning or if you're standing aside those by the way have to be done by the end of this week if you are somebody who's up for reelection um and then if you are at large or um one of
025the larger population and you just want to throw your name in the Hat uh January 3rd is that deadline and then um lastly some other important reminders we are off uh December 23rd through January 2nd it might look like January 22nd all right excuse me December uh 22nd uh if you're looking at the weather report so keep an eye on that that's very fair I'm just saying that when the when three weather stations and Noah calls on superintendents for an emergency meeting tomorrow at two o'clock it's probably going to be worth noting not saying I'm making any decisions right now I'm just saying that but we also have oops I I didn't change November committee it's supposed to be January committee members but January 10th is Educational Services January 11th planning I'm highlighting Human Resources
026because we talked about moving that date to January 9th and I believe that's a joke uh and then um January 18th is fiscal and January 26th is our regular monthly meeting and we do have the 18th through the 20th at the State education convention for those of you who are attending and that's all happy holidays all right thank you any comments or questions on that report and we'll move on to the Trinity reports freezing up here first up is fiscal I will report on Doug's behalf to the agenda items again for fiscal was an update on the sr2 and sn3 project schedules worth noting about math curriculum that study continues to move forward and science and social studies will be taken on after that and we're looking out about two years out on the scientific
027social studies it was actual implementation there was an update from CG Schmitz they presented several different options with regard to the air conditioning projects or insurance and Douglas and the committee chose of the three which you can find in the committee documentation they chose option two to recommend which is the one that was actually closest to the original budget as well foreign hires [Music] one we have our new business manager to be approved at the last meeting and then we have our new ability to ground supervisor as well and that is coming up on our agenda here at senior there was discussion about the construction manager to help with that for all these projects we have underway there's also an update on the communication consultant work which is actually happening over in the planning committee
028but important to make sure that the fiscal is aware of that and then there was a discussion on a number of identified or prospective projects and I would say the bottom line for these is they're going to be worked into the overall comprehensive Capital Improvement plan for the district or they'll fit into a bucket that's more operational it's going to be handled on a annual year basis but we don't want to really want to drive those through that 10-year plan through them we have that plan in place we should continue to drive things through that no matter how it's being funded whether it's coming out of our fund 46 when it's coming out of our fun 10 general fund what is coming from you know Esther funds which are also floors or fund 80 which
029is our community programs we should still drive it through that planning process any comments or questions on that report all right HR excellent we met on December 12th at 5 um and we had um special guest um principals Emily Lester marquettes and then social worker Chris weddig um we went through the consent agenda of Staff appointments resignations and terminations of which there is a resolution tonight to cover that on the consent agenda um responsive classrooms overview so the principles and um the social worker gave us gave us information regarding the responsive classrooms program um which is up all at the elementary level and what they do support positive culture regarding you know students and staff as far as interaction and things like that um and how it's affecting climate um and relationship building and things
030like that um Diana recommended implementation of progress monitoring and collection of data over time to evaluate the success of the program which I believe that's all in in process there and things like that is these are in newer initiatives that are being worked on um as far as committee agenda planning we discussed future meeting schedule and agenda items we did decide to change the jam memory meeting from January 16th we moved it up a week to January 9th um Margaret did contact Bill Foster from school perceptions and he is available on to join us on January 9th at that time School perceptions is our teacher satisfaction survey so we're going to dig a little bit deeper into that and be able to ask him some questions as far as you know do those questions you
031know work for us we have the data that we can do comparison we're going to be evaluating as far as um the timing of when we give the survey and things like that um we're also um in January we had also talked about reviewing information about performance review process or administrators and support staff and we requested an update on the employee Wellness committee um Margaret also suggested a future meaning item for teacher contract Administration laws and process we've earned that 625 our next meeting is Monday January all right comments or questions in that report thank you Educational Services yeah said Services met all members are met on the December 6th all members were pleasant uh present plus uh several others uh the probably the bulk of the discussion had to do with Ready set go
032which is a resolution uh on this evening and it was felt strongly that we were able to codify it such that it wasn't uh something that was still as an ongoing debate at the same time there's still a general awareness that it's not yet in its best form and so uh to keep moving forward um where the board and Ed Services is still interested in some quantifiable data but at the same time we felt it necessary to move it forward so that the principals and staff could start rallying around it and hence the resolution that is on the agenda later tonight or not to extend uh not to use up more than two instructional days in the 2023-2024 school year and that can be Revisited again uh next year we touched it then again on
033the math adoption program which we had also in the month of November and that's going well uh but it might uh slide one month for the recommendation to the board for approval a little bit of discussion on the tutoring program and the gifted and talented which are both still open and active and uh are open and active initiatives and then lastly was the district report card which was available I believe to us at that time and we all heard someone about that tonight uh in the different rooms that we visited during the gallery walk and uh something that I asked selfishly for but I think Dave has indulged is how does star relate to forward relate to scorecard relate to act and making sure we're looking at the right tool at the right time to
034tell us what's going on um obviously there's no real point in looking at a scorecard or graduation rates if you needed to do something in third grade third grade's a little bit late to be trying to fix your graduation rate 15 years later um so for for my edification uh and to enhance both what I hope will be the discussions in this room is to kind of have a primer uh I know Dave started on it because he and I were going back and forth on what would be on that just to try to educate Uh current board as well as future board members on how one exam or one test or one score uh relates to another one and where the staff and admin is focused on um so that we're asking uh better
035questions um of our staff and they're asking better questions of the teachers and uh maybe even then asking better questions of the students so um I don't think it's something that everybody in the room doesn't know I just know that I don't know it um so like I said I'm gonna waste some of Dave's time putting that together and then hopefully that will be useful uh for current as well as future board members other than that uh we adjourned and the next one is January 10th at 7 30 at RMS thank you comments or questions in that of course yeah I just would like to add something I don't typically add if in this menu but you all saw the action form calendar that I had laid out what we were doing you're talking about
036math yeah and I just want to highlight that on this Wednesday at the high school from 2 30 to 4 45 we have a luster tip map and we actually have an individual coming who works for sisa two but it's also a math coach for illustrative math and he's taking us through a sixth grade lesson from start to finish so they'll be all of the six eight Math teachers um nine twelve Math teachers some special ed some dual language we've invited some Elementary folks to come and see it because they're investigating illustrative math so I'm not telling you you all have to come because you might be buying salt and sand for Thursday according to here but if you are curious what we do and how that looks you're more than welcome it's the high
037school media center we have a soft start of 2 30. because we're giving people time to get there but for sure we will be started by 2 45. okay so it's a full lesson but there's no exam at the end right here sixth grade math I'm not sure if you don't come I mean I'll take good notes in yeah there everybody's excited to this is the first time we've had a rep or someone that's going to come and take us from we asked would you take us from the start of a lesson through the end of the lesson what it would look like so we can feel it and understand every component so I apologize for taking okay thank you all right I wasn't there I can I can go for policy so um members
038present uh we're Doug Wilton Johnson Craig Martin the chairs in your chair is not in attendance I was also present the policies that were up for discussion which is stage one um is where somebody sponsors a um a policy that's in our queue to come forward and then we talk about discuss whether or not we're going to take further action on that item or not uh five three three zero extracurricular activities Tina Johnson sponsored she shared that she was wondering how we were meeting the Equitable standard in our policy and so we decided as a team to have Administration look at that and kind of report back to uh the committee about Equitable and how do we treat Equity or Equitable Services within our activities that was more of a function most of financial discussion
039but we want to take a broad look and then bring it back and then we'll see if we have to write or change any policy based on our findings so that's kind of where that is for work to be done the anti-bullying policy 5000 362 and with respect to relationships Lori is sponsoring that policy for review major changes were suggested for review the administration will use her suggestions from the DPI model policy anti-bullying as well as some other recommendations that the committee put to discussion and together and we're going to bring a first draft for review at our next committee meeting there were no major revisions policies minor revisions policy 5220 through 5240 um not all of them but some of them in the in the in the queue grading systems retention procedures for the
040retention of students uh fourth and eighth grade promotion a specific graduation requirements early graduation graduation exercises and graduation um a number of them had some small minor suggestions that the committee has asked us in verbiage or an old reference to an old test that didn't get caught or something just in the cleanup so we do have some cleanup on those but also more repressing is the committee itself wanted to dig into policy 5220 at greater dap and Craig mortman is going to be sponsoring that and doing some of my work with me to get it ready for discussion um and then we adjourned at 6 55 our next meeting is in February on the 15th at 5 30 P.M thank you comments or questions on that I'd just like to offer that I like the
041process that is in place here I think this is a substantial moving forward thank you David thank you I asked him how windy says it went very well it's good all right I said you finished the policy policy record time like yesterday I don't know that it was record time but and we had healthy discussion I think it's a really healthy discussion I think it's a good process it's uh constructive way for board members to bring up things that they have questions about and create a clear tasks or sort of actions really occurred here's how it's going to occur at board Administration or community members if somebody wants to sponsor a idea a thought or change all I have to do is get it on the discussion queue and when it comes up uh either
042the chair or I would notifies uh the sponsor and says hey can you come tell us why you wanted us to have this reviewed and then we make a decision we want to work on there doing that all right thank you very much and then last is the planning committee and they did meet on the 12th and it was a meeting to review proposals from our Communications Consultants prospective partners and that was what would occurred there there was no action director out of that meeting our next item then is the consent agenda resolution 9169 the consent agenda includes our board meeting minutes our committee summaries Personnel Staffing changes that's both resignations retirements and hirings the approval of bills and the first and second leading of policies but they weren't attached in here uh we did
043okay okay that's right because there was one or two of those minor revisions I could have but okay all right we decided to wait until we had the multiple movement all right do I hear a motion on 9169 David comments or questions on the motion question over the and I don't understand it's part of our policy that it's there that we have the approval of bills yes what are we doing so with that when I mean it goes through fiscal to some degree but fiscal doesn't take any action there's not necessarily that's because the second can't take out yeah but it's not it's the check register essentially as well and really uh fiscal's job is that clearing house to ask those questions should there be a large flag then at the board meeting is where
044you would share that large Flagger issue here with the board um before you would gratify them yeah register could be the content that we're approving yes brilliant I had a big recommendation that that be added in the future so we know what would you mean adding it yeah all right any other comments or questions on the motion can I ask the question about yeah I did notice there was a twenty thousand dollars there was a steamer that was purchased that was over 20 was that did we have to approve that in the past I don't recall that right so it was I'll get fall for you in terms of your processary okay thank you okay all right then I'll go ahead and take the roll call Diana yes you know yes you have a Trader
045yes David Smith yes Craig Wortman yes I will go yes Mike yes Laurie yes and the motion carries and we'll move on to our next action item which is resolution 9170 which is additions to the 2023-2024 Watertown High School program of studies do I hear emotion on 91.70 by David [Music] seconded by Diana and the resolution refers to the material that was an educational services Community for your convenience that is repeated on paper at your desks and uh just for uh clarification I didn't allude to it this time as it was in the subject of our December meeting but these were all reviewed in our November meeting and and the Educators were there to present on each of these subjects all right comments or questions on the motion Tina um as far as the the
046recommendations to you because I recognize some of these courses as far as like they're not considered AP right now so I'm just wondering why the move to AP I don't know if it's a staffing thing or if it's to gain more credits or yeah I mean Aaron or Dave were here we'll we'll head into Josh yeah so um the uh the math department actually went forward in terms of offering the course that you've seen in front of you so it's a way to still like be able to go through some of our content but then gives students the um access to pursuing the college credit if it's something that they were interested in doing so the math department thought that was a really it was a nice seamless transition in terms of why not you
047know why why not and then be able to program that into AP um and then the um the AP Spanish Spanish language and the AP Spanish language and culture is an evolution of the Dual language program um which would then give which which would then be like part of that that next step and then give students access to college credit so we do have a bunch of different AP courses at high school level um and these ones just seem to make sense along with uh you know with wealthy groups of teachers and staff were here and one of the things we talked about at the committee level was that now with ap the rigor may or may not have to be bumped up I mean if they're already rigorous enough at the honors level but
048at least going AP there is a scope and sequence that must be followed um to achieve that A and B like one of my questions is okay if a kid already had pre-calf this year can they still get those AP credits for it they can take the test next year they can do the AP Prep class and still have access to that so it's not like a kid missed out if they choose to go that road or in the past like my kid for example wouldn't have gotten these college credits where now they can be recall too last year before agreed at a freshman levels AP Human Geography which is a gateway course that we think we'll report 10 future AP opportunities for kids so we're broadening the access that way and this is a
049factor in calculating things like U.S news and World Report uh best schools uh distinctions and so forth so there are those sort of external things I think that come into play as well certainly not primary but um yeah it's uh and then of course we have the um our uh CTE course offerings as well on the back uh more balance of things I think the one thing uh by direct you Josh that we didn't discuss it at services that came up a little bit after his AP puts you into the need to be doing the courses first try second try and a something other than AP courses in your third try so for a lot of these kids that are going to be heavy in the in the apis it's going to create an awesome
050set year if you have any solutions uh I'm talking through that a little bit how are we navigating that yeah um you know I I think part of it comes with academic planning to see which courses you might be able to take with the junior or a senior to see which which courses you know might might work you know I I know um it's come up in the past in terms of some departments offering AV courses and like alternating years to try to see if they give more people access to courses in alternating here like an example of that might be AP environmental science and um um AP biology right we offer an alternating years to try and get more people access to those um but you're going to end up taking Math Science Social
051Studies and English and you're in all AP ology that's four of your five classes first try second try and then third try you don't have academic classes correct I mean you leave right I mean and we we do offer the AP Prep it's a little bit of a lopsided schedule if you think I think throughout the square people have to make a decision I mean you know you can't do it all and mind messaging around a beat it up and what are you passionate about you know like sometimes I think we're motivated by putting our name on the wall of fame but you know what are you passionate about the lack of those kinds of things and be selected but as Joshua mentioned um and so the academic counseling piece really comes into play but
052we're replacing these we're replacing the honors with you so that's not an option so your option is okay AP to pre-calc or um just one last question I'm sorry this is a detailed thing I just wanted to make sure so the AP Spanish language um I believe previously when it wasn't AP um if you gotta I think it was a certain grade in there then you got like retroactive um like 14 Spanish credits and things like that does that still allow for that when that's an AP class so the the new ones are proposed are are new courses that haven't been offered ever before the high school I want to make sure that I'm understanding your question okay so maybe are you talking about the fifth year Spanish as a senior kids that take uh
053no like so for example if you took Spanish freshman sophomore junior senior year your senior year if you prior to this if you got an A or whatever in that class then you were eligible for 14 retroactive college credits I'm sure and then then you would go take that you would take the placement test that you're you know at your college yes so that doesn't this is true language okay I'm done any other questions on this all right then I'll go to Raw Paul vote you Tina yeah David Schrader yes David Smith yes Craig yes although yes Mike yes Laurie yes Diana yes and the motion carries all right then we are at resolution 9171 which is Ready set go conferences for the 2023-2024 square do I hear a motion in a second moved by
054Tina second by Mike comments or questions on this resolution so if I'm reading this resolution correctly um it says that it's it's in regard to not exceed two instructional days um so it if if let's just say this resolution were to fail what does that mean does that mean that uh where you said go conferences are very set goal conferences would be utilized outside of instructional time or does it mean that does that open the door for more than two and strong uh it does not me and you were going to do more this allows us to that up to that two-day window not taking any more than two days which is centered around one of the largest pieces of the discussion uh at uh and services as to how much time we're taking instructionally
055and then you know we talked about trying to estimate from staff how much time we were recouping by doing assessment early so there was some efforts made by the administrative team to try to collect and share that information either through a resource data that they brought forward or testimonial from a staff member who came in and shared there were other strategies that we tried to think about within scheduling to get the time in front of the students and parents to be less to try to cut that down what we found is at least in the next two to three years the calendar itself and holidays fall it just it's going to be very difficult to try to move away from at least using two of the instructional pieces so to answer your question procedurally the
056board has not yet approved already says go for next year so if this motion fails then there still will be at this moment no board approval we're ready to go for next year unless everybody wants to pursue it they're going to bring back another plan for the board to vote on people also just specific Amendment and the other reason why what we wanted to do was cap it I mean I think you're part of the discussion at services and to cap it so that Jared and the right and his team can continue working on it as he mentioned we know that it's not yet in its perfect spot but to continue to work that effort and spend resources on it with no hidden State guarantee of Court approval would be wasted effort so the first
057thing we have to do is we have to free him up and his team to spend the resources to say listen we're going to design a system that's better than what we've had before but still does not exceed two instructional days and then this gives him the leeway to do that with his team and of course if it fails as Tony just pointed out then we either have to go back to the drawing board or a fully functioning Ready set go design that we ratify which would be really really detail-oriented require a lot of resources and still not get approved in which case would be a waste of effort on everybody's part or we pick a different number of days and do the same thing all over again you way this seemed to be a
058good balance between making sure that he knew he wasn't wasting effort and that we don't need to be involved with exactly how many minutes a teacher meets with a parent on which night aside from the fact that we know that he and the staff are going to continue to optimize it and so um that's my two cents on the resolution um but to me this seems to write just raise the question that um the time commitment for Ready Set goal utilize two instructional days versus maybe utilize Ready Set goal outside of instructional days that's true so I mean that's the question we're answering today not not necessarily whether or not ready set go has value but more so that already said go as more value than two instructional teams that's that's this resolution and I
059I'm sitting back here and I I want Ready Set goal conferences to continue um I've observed uh conversation uh for over the past two years of discussion and services where um board members have asked for some more empirical data to support going to uh to replace the instructional days with her and he said go conferences um and it and I do find Value in anecdotal information that support it but I'm also looking at it like the parochial school system has utilized Ready Set goal style conferences outside of instructional time for a long time um I think that it could be successful here as well um I also think that when we're in a situation where we're pursuing to be the best school district in the state of Wisconsin that we're not we're moving instructional time
060I just I I have a tough time supporting this resolution as it's written when um I find I haven't found a compelling enough argument that Ready set go conferences would be more enriching than instructional time at this point in time I'm not saying that it's of no value I definitely find Value in it I just don't find that anybody's really made the argument strong enough for me to believe that it is more energy for our students the board members comments Tina um I guess two two thoughts that I have um one as far as finding non-instructional daytime to be able to have these conferences um I'm guessing we would run into contract issues and things like that as far as how much time teachers are giving outside of you know the actual work day or
061you know I don't know exactly the details of that but I'm guessing that that would become an issue there um the other the other thought that I've had as far as Ready set go conferences you know I know it as a as a board we're focused on the Strategic plan and moving the needle on literacy in the the um school report card and things like that and I'm taking a look at it like okay well if our if our scores have been pretty flat over the last turn the eight years so whatever whatever 10 years whatever it's been if the scores have been flat and we weren't doing Ready set go conferences and they had those instructional days and it didn't move the needle you know so we're trying something new and I really to
062me it would seem like this I agree with the data like we want to have some kind of like okay is it valuable you know like show me that it's valuable I appreciate and Trust number one the um the teacher input regarding that because they're the professionals that are that are working on that and if they find it to be a valuable thing um but the second thing is that it really seems to me that this is really the first year that we can claim like okay this has been a normal school year so really the beginning of this is the first year that we would see an impact so I would imagine with a couple years of data we might be able to you know have some more of that information to quantify that
063um so I guess that's my that's my thought and I can understand why it would take two instructions piggybacking on that like we said in committee minutes Etc it is a new program we have asked for some potential modifications to it um right now it's very heavy reading focused and things like that there are many ways that it could expand but remember it's Year One so what would it be like in year two we want data yes that's been asked for but what kind of data do you really get in year one where as we start to look at growth over time um I also look at the recommendation was made can we be a little creative in terms of how we use Ready Set goal maybe for some of those multi-family or whatever outside
064of the school day so I think our administrative team was really rallying around what can we do to make this work we know that we don't have a perfect scenario right now there is room to grow but unless we give a go-ahead to do that it's not going to grow so I understand where you're coming from um instructionally when you look at the foundation that could be made within those some of the presentations were outstanding of hey if this is done across the board he said okay as an Exemplar can we now expand this so that it's all teachers because what's a new teacher getting in and how are they doing it if that is the case then you losing those two instructional days you're going to take a step or two back and gain
065three leaps forward over time I appreciate that um I I do want to differentiate there's two issues um one the value of Ready Set Go I don't think I've ever heard any argument from any board member or anybody else for that matter say that ready said go conferences don't have value and that they want them to continue it's a matter of whether they're taking up instructional time or not and that says black and white as it gets to me and I would expect that if this were to fail that perhaps maybe staff uh the administration would come to the board and request an additional two days of professional development I'm not saying that that was actually I mean I don't know what the outcome of that would be but um I would expect that that
066would be the next course um I uh I want to hear the rationale behind that um really what it comes down to is why can't it why can't it be outside of instructional time I don't see I don't see why can't so I'm going to speak I'm going to be brief because I've spoken to this before um I'll say that I'm primarily coming from my experience as a parent being in these conferences I think I'm the only one here and I I always challenge myself that my personal experience doesn't necessarily mean reflect what everyone else gets right however in this particular case in two years I've not heard anybody portray it as being substantially different from what I've experienced so what I've experienced as a conference has three basic components one is an orientation discussion
067here's how the classroom is laid out here's how the classroom is organized here's not that week is organized that's literally a teacher repeating themselves 20 times the next component is the reading assessments come back to that and the third component is the parents talking with the teacher about here's my child here's what's special about my child here's what we have here's what our folks are for the year all right let's go back to the green assessment we my perception is we're acting like we don't know anything about our student coming in the door there when in fact for most of our students they were with us the previous year and we have copious amounts of quantitative and qualitative assessments of where that student is in reading and yes I recognize the learning loss that can
068occur over the summer the summer slides it's called right reading game again okay but the reality is that most kids come with a fairly narrow rainy new show where they've finished off it's fairly predictable and to go through whether we do it within the context frankly whether we're asking the wrong question when we do in the context we're ready set go or any other context why are we doing that when we know we're the vast majority of our students are so there's the three components one is teach repeating themselves 20 times second one is things we should already know and do already know that should we do already know about the vast majority of students and the third is that rule interaction between the teacher and the parents I look at that and say there
069has to be a way to approach this differently and I realize this this resolution doesn't preclude the option of of a one day but in the conversations I heard the committee level it was pretty apparent to me that that's not going to happen and that's coming back as two days and that's so that's all I'm gonna say anyone else want to speak my comment will be where I share a lot of the sediments that are there I continue to hear from administrators and Lead teachers of how they feel it has such high value what that for the committee what I believe the committee challenge the administration is is we have to hold that accountable and to have a high standard that that is actually happening I.E if we say that this makes reading groups have
070meat to them and have kids in the right seats you know two weeks earlier well then we need to have an expectation that every elementary school kid is in the right reading group within you know the first five days of school and that that's there and then how do we take and say are they in the right math group are they in the right uh everything else that goes with it and build that and have that be accountable so that there is because I don't know that it's happening what I sense is it's not happening with Fidelity across all classrooms all schools in the same time and doesn't mean that there isn't Stellar places where it is the head bringing very very high value but I think there's and I guess that's from my perspective
071they continue to ask and I'm ready to support them and say yes but show me now bring this and say Here's the value it's bringing to every student in every classroom any other board members who haven't spoken yet I'm just trying to make sure we hear from all this Saturday I can occur with Dave yeah I was going to say the same thing but it's going to take time to show right it's not going to happen tomorrow so I have one more 30 second piece not even 30 seconds 10 seconds the interaction that you have with families as a teacher and you get those in November conferences oh man if I wish I wish I would have had that three months ago so where we talked a lot about reading and things like that huge
072coming week one it explains that child and so yes they might have been in that school but as the teacher getting them for the first time unless you're looping you know that's a piece that also carries greatly the uh resolution after calendar per discussions held at the educational services Committee just clouds it to me because we had in our long discussion and we have three sentences in a in the committee summary so I would make a recommendation of that I think in general we should be avoiding that from our resolutions yeah and I I guess um that that little piece on the end there was trying to capture what those of you from Ed services are are trying to to tell everybody else on the committee which is uh I think what uh David Schrader
073said is I want a resolution that says as a board we're behind us enough to do it but let's cap it off somehow so that we're not debating every year or not whether we do Ready set go it's how do we do Ready set go better and right now our cap is to instructional days if we can get better than that or we can find ways to get outside of that or or it is to instructional days but we find more value in how we're doing it to capture more instruction during the time we have it um like Diana said about maybe we could find a way to figure out how we do the math or how we can you know how can we make it more valuable so that when we do miss the
074two days of instruction we are gaining more in the long run that's what we're trying to capture with that part of the sentence and it's really hard because you're working it's procedural to meter and it's we can't take we can't take action in a committee we had an hour-long discussion and then we're trying to say you know and similarly I mean in the in the previous resolution over this it's like we had plenty of discussion over this this wasn't the exact document that we had we had different forms I mean just having clear like this is what we're actually approving would be like and make a motion to move the resolution and that calendar period is there a second on that sure I'll check with that and after calendar period in the district calendar period
075all right any comments or questions on the amendments [Music] on the amendment on the amendment only at this point all right David Smith yes Craig no yes Mike yes good morning yes Diana yes correct Amendment carries all right bring these back to the parent devotion 9171 any further comments on all right hearing nothing else so go ahead and take roll David Smith yes Craig no myself I'm building no Mike yes Maureen yes Diana yes Tina yes and Davis Trader yes and the motion carries yeah okay this brings us to public input this is the second time of the agenda where members the publicly address the board either in person or virtually do we have anyone online any one person nope okay then we have a closed session do I hear a motion to enter into
076closed session for the reason stated in the agenda Tina will call vote on that Craig yes I will go yes right yes Laurie Diana yes David Trader yes all right we are in post actually we do not anticipate