001all right this being the appointed time and place and see form present i will go ahead and call this one in order to revolve these guys and join me i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice david traders it smith here all right looking at the agenda do we have any changes we need tonight we do not all right then this brings us to public input that's one of two times the agenda which remembers the public may address the board if you're attending virtually please use the raise your hand feature and you will be recognized those in person mr hand anyone who'd like to be recognized at this time okay there will be a
002second opportunity at the end of the meeting and we will move right into announcements and recognition slash communication i know we have our high school student board representative so step one up sir hello everyone uh my name is owen harris i just want to introduce myself a little bit i'm a senior here at martin high school and on the board for student council and i just want to give a little update for what we've got going on this year uh we just wrapped up in february the third week in february was our do be nice week and for that we weren't able to have an assembly yet this year but we wanted to make as much of the week as we could and make it as fun and interesting for everybody as we could so
003we put together a few small gifts for our custodial and kitchen staff so i thank them for all that they do throughout the year and then our two individuals that we wanted to thank this year were mrs geske and mrs klinger uh and for all the hard work that they do the whole year round so we actually put together a video we got as many students involved as we could with that and just kind of ask students to say a few nice words about those individuals and we put that together in a video and then showed that on the wednesday of that week during homeroom so whole schools could see it and that was the first time that this guest games claim could see it too so that was really exciting and really special that
004we got to do that this year um this week is spring fever reliever week so right before spring break we have dress-up days today was monochrome monday so everybody was sporting the same color for their whole outfit tomorrow is adam sandler day so everybody's supposed to dress up as their favorite adam sandler character from whichever movie they choose um wednesday is identity swap day so you're supposed to pick a friend or someone that you want to switch identities with and kind of dress as them for the day kind of something fun and then thursday is thrift to thursday so your best thrifted outfit from uh either old clothes or stores that you uh clothes you picked up at a thrift store and then we go school on friday so that's kind of just to get
005kids a little uh keep them going throughout the week as the final week right before spring break so that's what we're doing this week and then plans for the first week in may is our teacher appreciation week and for that week we're planning to do some small gifts for all the staff members here at the high school to show our appreciation then also our golden goslings award ceremony that we do every year we ask that the teachers come just nice they can bring their families we have some food usually and then we give out these little small golden gaussian trophies that we kind of give titles for and hand them out to the teachers just to show our appreciation for all that they do throughout the year but yeah that's pretty much our plans let's
006look in what it's like for the rest of the year so yes thank you oh and what we're thinking last weekend last weekend i was in the musical here at the high school so an extraordinary job so congratulations to you on that as well thank you thank you everyone all right our next item up is the board candidate introductions again we have five candidates on the ballot mike higgins craig wordman paul ben and langenberg david schrader and lori holland uh lori holland and david schrader were not able to be here this evening but we and i do get to see mike i'll see him online so paul and craig drew straws before the meeting and paul got short straw he was first okay that's all right i'll just see here uh thanks for giving me
007a chance to address the board tonight been in the um for 19 years my wife's dead for all those years stepson brandon graduated from the university of wisconsin whitewater in education and i had a career of 35 plus years as an educator anyway when i first ran six years ago i ran purely on an interest that i had in education and the desire to serve so with that i mean i i didn't have any specific platform or any personal agenda that i wanted to follow it was just simply serving and uh however there were three things that i wanted to do as a board member and that was number one i wanted to be able to serve the district as an advocate for education kind of education that would give every student the opportunity to
008reach their best potential secondly i want to be able to serve the community by being able to [Music] listen ask questions and make decisions that would be based on or being the best interest of the school district thirdly be able to uh support and uh carry out oversight responsibilities for all the school limited operations during the course of that six years served as 62 representative a few years i've been a participant in various district-wide committees served on the various school board level committees currently board clerk currently chairperson for the educational services as well i think i bring a unique perspective to the board so with that uh if i'm fortunate to be reelected i look forward to serving thank you oh so i am craig wartman i'm a husband a father and a caring community
009member my uh my wife jessica is a 7th grade ela teacher at riverside middle school and is completing her 17th year of teaching so i really think that uh watertown is on the brink of some exciting changes i think we're on the brink of some quite a bit of growth and the watertown unified school district definitely can play a part in kickstarting some of that growth and i'm excited about that so some of that growth can actually use some financial concerns which would be great i think we're within uh a grasp of achieving a significantly exceeding expectations when it comes to the state report card but it's going to be like moving a free chain because we do have some challenges but once a free train begins to roll trains can pick up momentum regardless
010of the outcomes of this election i'm going to be here to be your advocate parents i'm your advocate i want to be there when your kids accomplish success teachers i'm your advocate whether you push a broom work in a classroom drive a bus or maintain the facilities i am proud of your contribution and respect your hard work i will support a district culture that doesn't marginalize you or our stakeholders please i welcome your feedback i support full transparency parents staff and community members deserve the rationale behind the decisions being made right here recordings of committee meetings help the board to address considerations that have been overlooked before a critical vote sometimes we need to admit what didn't work so that we can find what does i need to know how you feel speak up it's
011hard to fix something if you aren't told what's broken i expect that you won't be a stranger please consider voting for craig ortman april 5th thank you for the opportunity thank you joined in so we will move on to our next item which is the board of canvases selection and meeting again this is the confirmation of the ballots once they have been cast and that meeting will take place on monday the 11th of april at 4 00 pm uh i will attend i need two others to join me to the volunteers who are not on the ballot i can join the tournament jennifer thank you tina or joseph yes you absolutely can't appreciate it okay all right so again that will be monday april 11th at 4 pm at the court office john thank you
012all right member recognitions we have two of them this evening uh paul vanden langenberg is award level two region 12 watertown associate or wisconsin association of school boards and we also have jennifer bakke receiving her award level three so congratulations to both of you [Applause] thanks for your participation in a variety of lovely related activities yes they're actually what makes you a higher level taking a lot of time there's not enough time to tell it is time and attendance at various wesley conferences and conventions and all of those things that they have uh participated in over the years dave we can get you yours as well i'm very sure of it you're on your way dan and then our last item into communications uh steve had asked for an opportunity to address the board this
013is his final meeting so i will hand the floor over steve thank you tony for accepting my request to address the board administration and the community at large that actually took a lot of courage on your part and i appreciate the trust you have in me that i won't go too far off the rails i want you to know that my thoughts here this evening are my own and what what i have witnessed and what i've researched over uh since 2013. my election to the school board in 2013 gave me the dual purpose of serving my community and enabling me to understand how public education works and have some input as to the direction our society and culture were being impacted by our educational process we refresh off of the enactment of act and the
014full implementation of common core both were very controversial in the arena of education with common core in place the academic bureaucracy had finally put their stamp of authority on the curriculum goals standardized testing instituted across instituted across america the parents and school boards had little to no input in the implementation of common core in fact many aspects of common core were quite unpopular with parents in general seemingly less so with the school boards this was the culmination of many years of attempting to install the concepts of outcome-based education which wasn't successfully which wasn't successful initially through the years obe morphed into other buzz phrases such as mastery learning goals 2000 race to the top no child left behind unfortunately education america has been dominated by an established academic bureaucracy steeped in marxist philosophy that had
015also found support for many past presidential administrations utilizing federal bureaucratic authority and our tax dollars it was my understanding then as it is even more so now the election of private citizens to the school board can play a decisive role in the educational process by checking the ideologue implementation of post-modern thought which has been aided by an uninformed or apathetic public and elected board members through the last couple generations presently some parental activists and a few board members are intervening asking the tough questions of academic relevance considering the years of declining performance of our youth in literacy math and the plateauing of student achievements and other foundational skills all while all while our academic leadership continually preaches quality education for all by institutionalizing marxist concepts of equity social justice inclusivity cultural responsiveness racial inequity intersectionality
016social emotional learning microaggressions and the dysphoria of gender fluidity etc and this is not an exhaustive list it is seemingly endless and its purpose is that all this word play is meant to divide and confuse populace along social political economic racial cultural sexual religious lines and subverting the paramount importance of the nuclear family and parental authority but when the nomenclature and educational process is questioned it is met with denial and or vilification by the powers that be those kind of responses indicate we are dealing with indoctrination and not education proverbs chapter 18 verse 17 says the first one to plead his case seems right until his neighbor comes and examines him we should be emphasizing one blood one race the human race openly recognizing our triumphs and our failures not erasing history or living in
017shame because of human error but by embracing our humanity our potential as citizens and a common goal of security and achievement through cooperation and positivity passionately protecting our guaranteed liberties and freedoms granted to us by god which is enshrined in our bill of rights and constitution it's been my observation over the years the slow march of marxism in all facets of the united in our political states with the rise of statism our corporations led by woke elite globalists cultural activists in the mould of italian communist antonio gramsci mainstreamed by community agitators in the vein of saul alinsky have established a strong hold in virtually all our colleges and universities media and our tech companies practice blatant censorship inclusion in one form or another denigrating those who hold dear the truth of traditional family judeo-christian values
018that uphold righteousness and equal justice under the law and love of country as virtuous ideals to strive for the embracing a postmodern thought and the inculcation of marxist ideology is a death knell of an effectual free and functional society i i wish that the man dubbed as the father of modern public education john dewey would have championed the ideals of our founding fathers but instead he was a baby and socialist would have followed our instead he was a fabian socialist and signer of the humanist manifesto along with fellow socialists such as benjamin bloom a pioneer in the educational field to this day continues to influence and lead in the psychological social and cultural development of our children my point is that i am very sensitive to the direction and velocity our country is embracing the
019tenets of marxism which goes by many names socialism communitarianism progressivism communism the ten tenets of marxism rebuffs every aspect of our constitutional republic we only enjoy these benefits and freedoms because they have been protected by god and the blood sweat and tears of those who have chosen to serve our country militarily in law enforcement emergency services also supportive citizenry who believe in the overall goodness and value of this unique social experiment for the last 240 years which brings me back to where i began as an elected official which is what we are we take an oath to uphold our constitution many people may not understand the seriousness of public oath taking in our america that would be invoking a vow to the creator god as defined in our bill of rights there being no recognized
020higher authority in law this oath if demonstrably broken is known as perjury which potentially carries a penalty of two to four years in prison if you vow an allegiance to uphold our constitution you cannot embrace the ideology of marx without compromising your oath of office the two are not compatible some may be offended by my bluntness however i find myself in good company my grandfather major john steiner an educator from the greatest generation who eventually became the secretary of education for the state of new mexico john steiner was one of the architects of the european educational system during the reparation period post-world war ii he recognized the influence of marx and post-modernism held by the elite class of post-war europe and the important importation of this ideology to america's center of higher learning john steiner
021never stopped warning of the paradigm shift coming to our country and educational system this all took place during his lifetime in the 40s and 50s until his untimely death in 1953 only 70 odd years have passed not even a full lifetime has it taken to witness this evolution or has it been a revolution in conclusion i want to exhort the board in particular there are so many things that could be that can obscure our vision of a truly rigorous education for our youth because there are so so many moving pieces don't get caught up in process policy stature and overt acceptance of an official narrative independent thought and research is appropriate and sorely needed and should be encouraged the education of our youth ideologies promoted and methodologies utilized determines the course of america and what
022it will be in the future i will leave you with two quotes the first is by vladimir lenin and i quote give me four years to teach children and the seed i have sown will never be uprooted and the second is from joseph stalin and he said education is a weapon whose effects depends on who holds it in his hands and whom it is aimed at thank you this brings us to strategic discussion and our first item up presentation on literacy adoption at riverside so we have two short slides for you we it's hard to believe that we started this journey a year ago where a team go to the next slide that's just the introductory side but where a team spent an entire year researching and studying and visiting and talking to vendors and
023now we come to a year later with the recommendation for an ela curriculum for rms um if you go down to the rationale we believe that written wisdom as an approach and built on a framework of questioning that's integrated and text-based literacy information and fine arts texts are used the curriculum involves daily reading writing speaking listening grammar and vocabulary and draws on evidence from exceptional texts the staff for the staff their their comments and what we have found through the research is this curriculum is very rigorous and organized its standards aligned it involves a lot of collaborative learning and avid connections with a very comprehensive professional development plan the texts are engaging skills are growing and it's problem solving with friends so we again had updated ed services throughout our journey we did a full
024powerpoint at our last ed services meeting and we're coming tonight to the board with the resolution for a 290 000 purchase that we would begin this spring for implementation in the fall and then in subsequent years there's a approximately a twenty one thousand dollar a year licensing fee if you will depending on what our current enrollment is each year so again there was a extensive presentation made at the last ed services meeting and that is also attached in the board agenda board members questions or comments please and i apologize of the schools that use written wisdom where any of them dual language schools some had um bll services but no none of them were dual language and i appreciate that you brought that up because we have worked extensively with our dual language teacher and
025some of our elementary dual language teachers and within this 290 000 proposal there's money set aside for the dual language program to be able to have materials and resources and some of the books through britain wisdom are in spanish so the professional development that goes along with our non-dual language students there's also going to be ongoing professional development for implementation wisdom great minds for english how do all three of those work together good question so great minds is the company that has the written wisdom materials patterns of power is a vocabulary program if you will that we use at k5 and the feeling was that if we had students that maybe needed some more instruction on certain pieces of grammar and how to do writing the teachers would have a common resource in order to
026teach those skills so it's it's actually uh if you will like a spiral bound book that has lessons in the just different areas of grammar and vocabulary so you don't get additional teacher or i'm sorry student resources it's a resource for the teachers to use when perhaps they use a common formative assessment and they determine that students didn't master one of the skills that they were working on curriculum do students actually get to get their hands on books are they just shortening the stories good question they're lots of everything that you said so they use poetry they use novels they use excerpts from other pieces of literature it's it encompasses every kind of literacy structure that we could use actually very hands-on very problem-solving with your peers if you look at the powerpoints from the
027ed services meeting we actually surveyed the students and the teachers and got responses to what they liked about it and some of the students identified that it is rigorous and that it does keep them wanting to learn more and where does the 21 year cost come from what is that the 21 000 covers there is online options for students so we will have the actual textbooks but they can also access it online and a lot of the teachers materials are also available online and student resources that they can access why is it every year is it like a subscription yes okay and it might not be the estimate 21 it could be a little less you know it just depends it's a per pupil cost okay okay perfect so for a moment and um districts
028who use this have they seen them improving in their test scores yes they have it's a fairly new curriculum we do have a neighboring district that we're waiting to hear if they're going to embark on purchasing wisdom and then we would work with them we thought that would be a great opportunity for pd um i would tell you from our short pilot that we've had in the schools the teachers have seen phenomenal results just on writing and some of the reading that they're doing with the students they've seen growth in this short pilot other board members questions tina i know you guys have been working hard on this for a very long time and a lot of people involved with a lot of considerations and everything so thank you guys for listening this i know
029at ed services um you know we talked about all the different you know groups that were represented and um you know making sure that although advanced learners aren't specifically listed as a group you know that the rigor is there and one thing too i guess when we were talking about it in detail we wanted to make sure that the needs of the students within the same classroom like it's actually i appreciate that you guys did a pilot because it's actually applicable can a teacher you know we have these ideas you know and we want to be able to give everybody what they need but is it real you know because it's it hasn't always been that case and so i know you guys have had a chance to pilot that and things like that um
030and it seems as though from the teacher feedback that you know you're able the teacher can actually take the curriculum and implement it for and meet the different learning levels so and hoping that that will carry through for everybody for the you know for yeah thank you for your support tina was involved in parts of our um vendors were coming and she participated as she could the the piece that is very exciting for all of the teachers is the core text the text that we use in these various modules are written at grade level but then when you have students that are far above grade level or might need some lower level materials that's all available within so we may have you know sixth graders that are reading at a tenth grade level or sixth
031graders that are reading at a lower level in your rights the resources are there for the teachers to utilize based off similar questioning and similar activities and socratic seminar so students could be reading at different levels but giving the poor instruction through that venue happy to hear that because one of my concerns was how much work will teachers have to do to differentiate it but if it's already part of that resources yeah and don't get me wrong it'll take the company the vendor that we're working with it takes three to five years for an entire curriculum um implementation for teachers to feel really comfortable but the other real positive benefit that the team saw was the professional development it's a three-year professional development cycle for administration for our teachers um for uh the dual language
032people there's there's things that we will keep revisiting it's not okay we spent a year researching this here it is run to town and get it all done it's it's going to be ongoing the comments questions board members yeah when we were at the head service meeting i think i asked the point of you know we we also have a lot of time involved in in the avid program so those strategies will kind of fit in with this very much okay very much it's very aligned with the organization piece and socratic seminars and the way that they orchestrate the whole block of time that will be spent on literacy it'll fit very nicely one other thing so will the well the kids that are in like the project learning stem kind of group at middle
033school are they going to use this as well or how is that going to get incorporated in there it's uh it's just going to look a little different but there are book groups that are going to be utilized as far as their day-to-day like prescribed curriculum um that's not going to look in the stem environment like you would have traditional classrooms but but at least semesterly um opportunities for the like the stem students to kind of work around a book group which is similar to what the other classroom should be using it has a connection to it but it's just it's a little bit of a wonky um here's a curriculum that has like module one day one day two day three or the stem environment which is more like a personalized approach it's just
034gonna look a little bit different they're gonna there's gonna be an attachment there but it's just gonna be a little different i mean i would say that after hearing the ann and jason talk about it at that service of me i was really encouraged it seems like it seems like it's gonna really be a good fit other comments or questions from board numbers i want to piggyback on paul's point stem i recognize that riverside stem is different from our other stem but what i know is at elementary at that stem and at least we're implementing the new elementary literacy the same as in any other school and i would say i think we need to be very very careful because one of our objectives in revisiting our entire curriculum was to look for alignment k-12
035and if we create a scenario we're coming out of the middle school a portion have this and a portion have something significantly different i think that will create a challenge from an alignment perspective when they reach the high school so i think we need to be particularly careful i know particularly careful about this i'd like to encourage us to perhaps revisit that point and look for some stronger integration aspects within the stem academy if i hi everyone if it's okay cassandra dr shug it's leon groff talking um if i could speak to that a little bit i think it's important to recognize that the curriculum that we chose um is essential question focused so the idea behind it is that there's a key driving question behind everything that students are being asked to do and
036that driving question helps them think about and process the world around them and so in all of our environments in dual language in stem in the general classroom all of those students are going to be working around those same essential questions on a daily basis they're going to be working under socratic seminars in the same way they're going to be producing the same types of writing it's just like the day-to-day instruction will look different and so we sat down with the dual language environment and we sat down with the stem environment to be able to say what are the key tenants what are the key pieces that we can make sure are common across a middle schooler's experience so that when they are leaving riverside we can check off that all students have these key
037speaking and listening skills these key writing skills these key critical reading skills and we looked at how can this curriculum make sure that we are supporting students no matter the environment that they are in um so that if a student decides to leave the dual language program or leave the stem environment mid-year when they're done with rms like wherever they choose to exit or enter all of those students would be supported in the same way with the same skills and so we felt really confident that this curriculum gave us that flexibility to be able to allow students to really engage with those essential questions and the content on high levels low levels mid levels kind of meeting everybody where they were at i appreciate that thank you for providing a little more detail and appreciate
038that you're definitely looking from that angle i still emphasize programs based on a certain daily organization and if you walk too far away from that it loses it says in its own terminology loses its fidelity i'm just asking us to re-examine that point the other question i had goes back to the overall integration and the the more in-depth presentation the head services committee saw included speaking directly to avid which is of course where they're going to head up into the high school that is really centered around avid but i am curious as to what during the process it was evident for the presentation what did we look at to make sure that this program is going to work well and that we're going to set it up to work well with our new program that
039we've implemented at the elementary level um well all of the the areas of speaking listening grammar um collaborative learning those all align nicely with the avid in that in fontes and canal in the readers workshop at their level they incorporate all of those same standards we had some of the literacy coaches involved from the elementary level when we embarked on this journey and really made sure that we were aligned and that's why the patterns of power we felt was a really great way to go to keep that consistent k-8 as far as avid i mean i don't there weren't other curriculums that had the components of avid what that we found were in line with what we wanted to do so that was a big component for us that helped us decide that wooden wisdom
040was one of the curriculums that stood out from all of the others i don't know if you'd want to add any more about that jason or leanne but just the whole problem solving and grouping and the way the kids work together again aligns with the avid strategies that we're using 612. well and back to the elementary uh continuity piece the instructional coaches did review all of this and they were all in agreement this was the best match to founders and canal uh is it a perfect match no uh however they really felt strongly that among the curriculums that were available and they were donated and this one that was also well received by staff this was the best choice they supported that and will be working in terms of making sure they're going to have
041continuity because absolutely that is the goal is to create that continuity of programming okay eight and k-12 so that would help me in terms of understanding implementation plan yep you've identified hey this one had the best bridgehead yep great how are we going to build the bridge yeah absolutely so absolutely um so while i can get my mind around and comprehend the three to five years that you talked about aaron that in the same breath kids are only at riverside for three years and we've got this dip in our performance from elementary to to uh to riverside so i'm that that time frame to me needs to be emphasized as becoming as short as we possibly can make it to that regard what as we monitor this month by month quarter by quarter year by
042year what what are the kpis that we're looking at what what's the one two maybe three things that most were saying yep yep yep oh boy um i think writing writing is a an area that we really have seen improvement with already we've had some parents indicate that they've seen in this short pilot that they they couldn't believe how much more their students were writing when they were at home i think the the reading the books that they used during the pilot so what we did is we took one module and we were going to do one novel from each module and they were so invested in it they were wanting the second book in that module so we'll be looking at reading on the star test do we see increases from fall to winter
043winter to spring do we see growth in the area of writing and do we see growth as far as vocabulary and grammar that's all part of our star testing as well so we just feel with this comprehensive curriculum there'll be a lot of measures that we'll look at on a regular basis and if we don't see growth we will go back to the materials and go back to patterns of power and see what do we need to do more of um and success at the end of the day is going to look like improved scores on star right in that ela percentage of the growth as well as achievement so those are the two areas we know are of concern uh so we will be targeting achievement and growth on the star test scores and
044there will be all of the other pieces that come along like the summative assessments that students are going to have during their coursework on the achievement that the teachers will be able to see in writing as students continue to move through those programs but the reason that we begin this process is because you need to evaluate the curriculum on a regular basis but also because we knew that we had put a lot of pieces in place but hadn't seen the movement literacy uh that we needed to see at rms and it became evident that the curriculum that we were using wasn't uh wasn't putting the teachers in a position to really meet students uh as was necessary to really impact those scores so success will look like impacting scores and yes it's three to five
045years to get to fidelity uh but that doesn't mean we won't see some immediate impact and immediate gains you know you have to be prepared for the teachers are implementing something brand new and sometimes when you implement something back brand new you have an implementation tip right uh we're doing something new we're not exactly sure how that's required so you might see an initial implementation tip but as we get better at it you should see those scores continue to raise over the first second but i would not let us i wouldn't want us to be discouraged if we experienced that initial implementation dip because that is uh that is something you frequently see when you implement anything new our sports so star scores hit star stores hitting our strategic plan correct that is the whole
046that's the whole plan is to impact those star scores uh of course the star scores represent much more that's how we're measuring but that is the plan well so just kind of getting back to the alignment thought um so the the whole idea with the stem academy at middle school i mean it's a different way of doing things than the traditional so even though we might align some of the curriculum in there it doesn't mean we're going to change that to make that look different right right okay so i just wondered is there is there data have we ever tried or have we ever looked at you know when kids transition over to the high school we know of kids is there a way that we can tell if the kids that graduate from the
047from the stem academy are have the same readiness or vice versa as traditional kids that go through the traditional program do we do we know at all and if those those kids achieve at a better same different level when they first get to the high school do we need that information i know i know it's 6 8. so i know every year the students in the stem academy environment grow at a slightly higher tip than the traditional students do at riverside if the if the traditional sixth to seventh grade is one grade level all right so traditional stem six or seventh grade 1.1 grade levels as far as like eighth to ninth grade and kind of how that longitudinal data looks like once the student gets in high school i don't know yeah that would
048be a good data point i mean i'd be interested to kind of know just to see like you know kids that go to the one program versus the other program you know you know how do they perform in freshman english how do they perform and you know whatever matter and that type of thing be interesting it's also important that in that comparison it's in apple's apples and student populations and that you're comparing students that enter the sixth grade at relatively equal levels and then how did they progress through and then how did they do when they got to nine yeah well let me bring in uh if you bring a skewed sample in that's already skewing high and find out that they stayed high you know i mean you know you know i need an
049understanding kind of a permutation of different paths the kids take um but then following those achievement scores of the stem students as they progress question thanks other comments or questions the board has no more questions i want to just take a minute to say this has been a very long process a lot of effort lots of effort erin meyer uh leanne graf jason all of the stakeholders that were involved in the uh research study team that has been meeting since may of last year i brought that proposal to you in may uh you supported that thank you i have brought it all the way around a year later and i just want to say i am uh for one very grateful for all the work and energy that has gone into that and i for
050two truly believe that this is going to have an impact um on that literacy data at the middle school which at the end of the day uh is going to improve the learning of our students overall their reading and their writing skills which is the work we do and it's critically important so i'm very enthusiastic about this and very appreciative of all the hard work that went into bringing this to i approve us thanks thank you anyone else on this one otherwise you do have a resolution on it a little bit later okay next we will have the safe space update school's update this evening is very very brief uh which is indicative i think of the state of affairs we have right now um so can't see tyler do you have her it's behind
051me so i'm unable to see it but i'm going to do my best to intuit what's happening behind me and be in coordination with those slides uh so what has been going well um we have sustained the dramatic drop in our covenant 19 cases over the past month in our schools and in our community uh last week as you saw in your board update and the weekly covet update we had no cases uh and we went for actually 11 days with no new cases we did have one case come in today uh but it is just a dramatically different story than you're seeing in january our community stays uh in low transmission according to the cbc and moderate transmission according to dhs uh so just much much much improved sustained increase in our attendance rates
052for students and for staff over the past month as well uh and in continuing to see those 80 plus percent uh substitute fill rates the past couple of days we've seen a few more staff absences and needing to be filled so we'll continue to evaluate that as we move forward but definitely improvement in both of those items we are hopeful that we will be able to scale back on some of those safety protocols for our prioritization list the wusd safety plan uh those around distancing symptom checking temperature taking those different items so we'll continue to watch the data and look to hopefully be able to reduce some of those assuming that data stays low um what has been challenging this year you know i've said it you know every month uh we are you know
053still going to be responding to those corporate 19 cases we're still experiencing staffing shortages for substitute teachers we've seen big improvement in that but our custodial staff bus drivers crossing guards and paraprofessionals continue to be an area where we've been hiring uh throughout the year and uh needing to build some of those areas and we still are experiencing issues with our supply line shortages specifically impacting food options and menus across the wusd uh how are we responding and preparing this month we are continuing the implementation of our online pilot program for tutoring at whs and rms i'm hoping that will be one small tool in our toolbox to help accelerate student learning again that on-site testing has been tremendously helpful to many of our families and staff members as i shared with you last month
054the teachers were tremendously grateful and productive on that february 21st uh date and we are looking forward to march 25th as another teacher planning day um and again uh staff are grateful and i know we'll accomplish a great deal uh on friday there are no updates this month to the safety plan i don't know the last time i said that phrase uh so there are there were no changes that i made um and this is all information you know you know where our cobia 19 data is any questions on the safety update katie yeah at what point do you think you'll be able to report out on how the tutorials yeah good question we have a dashboard that we are looking at uh very regularly uh and we are still um yeah i think we
055could probably report out jason josh may i think so yeah yeah so at the high school just the timing of when we started coinciding with the end of the second trimester and then it recycled over to the start of the third trimester um so i know the teachers are rolling that out so we've had some some you know early tries and early attempts but then in may well a lot more information and be able to talk about the efforts open all day long it's open from nine to three um we have two employees there again they aren't our employees uh this is all working through those federal grant dollars um and they alternate sometimes they're both there together but typically we have one or the other there is there any talk about them we talked
056about that uh right now um again they aren't actually our employees uh and uh we work with noaa clinical laboratories they have not uh indicated any desire to scale back on their hours as we just sort of again tentatively keep an eye on things uh and see how much of their time is necessary so we have not looked at doing that differently right now and we really take the lead from noaa labs who process all those labs and have a pretty good idea of how those tests have been formed right now i anticipate the answer is no we haven't got any information on summer funding right now the funding goes through the end of this school year so uh if something were to change uh we would certainly bring that some questions are the comments
057or questions all right thank you so our next item up last on this discussion is our safety drill evaluations uh you all received copies of those safety drill evaluations that we did last month um any questions on any of those um i know it's like quite a thing to conduct these and it's very disruptive and things like that but i really appreciate the commitment to the safety because we know how important that is that muscle medicine waits like that so for in the event hopefully that something would happen um two questions that i have um i noticed the um didn't have anyone that was assigned that signed the person submitting the report there wasn't a name attached with that one they [Laughter] which is the process that mr whitaker will be revisiting and we'll make
058sure we have it thank you just trying to make sure we have that yeah absolutely well we should thank you the other yeah the other question that i had was in the rms one and then also in the lincoln one um it just had you know headset as far as like okay so for example the link is one that just you know said okay an area of growth which i appreciate them spelling that out because i think it's important that we say hey this is an area of growth or this was a challenge the truth in this is important um so then with that part of it what happens to carry through that area of growth to make sure that it's you know corrected or and maybe other elementary school or other schools also have
059that so it's hard to make that uniform so we have a monthly meeting of the safety team uh and we review these updates and then we craft also the next safety drill so we do review those and then we also uh meet about the cabinet as we be uh in fact it's on our cabinet agenda tomorrow because we're planning for our hiatus uh so we'll reflect on all those pieces and um in our major we'll actually have uh the watertown police department will be joining us for that uh so watching us and providing us some feedback there as well so we work really hard to to have reflection on those processes uh to get feedback back to uh all the principles of the whole team and also a lot to the safety team so we
060can continue our work moving forward absolutely good great question any questions on this all right and we will move on to our reports start off with superintendents reports i want to build your participation super attendance report how are we doing tyler is it up there all right fantastic uh so as is the tradition our um amazing whs academic decathlon team uh placed first in division one uh again and you know i know i say this every year but it is just a really tremendous accomplishment it is first place in division one second place in the state because wilma just will not give up uh but uh that is certainly the goal to be first place in the state but uh the broad range of opportunities we have available for our students is just second to
061none that we can have a first place division one academic decathlon team and all the other aspects we provide from welding to culinary um to everything in between it's just music of outstanding musical it's just a great place to go to school and lots of great opportunities uh speaking of which the gosling career fair was terrific i know i saw paul there we had a fantastic booth set up for the wusd trying to recruit our own educators um and that was outstanding just absolutely fantastic to see our kusal was there we had representatives from all across the community businesses manufacturers post-secondary schools uh every student went through it at the high school and uh really really great feedback from the business community from the chamber and from our students and teachers so such a great
062event and so i i think i said to elizabeth this was the last event we had in 2020 before coverage uh and it was the first time we've had it back and it was really really nice to see uh for anyone who doesn't know we are currently enrolling uh 4k and 5k students enroll your four-year-olds and five-year-olds uh we are really excited about our numbers here we are right now pacing 30 students above where we were at last year this time for 5k and uh 20 above and 4k at this time so those are wildly impactful on those budget projections that you're seeing coming from mr williamson uh so really really really good news in fact as he was looking at those i think he was changing some of those projections to perhaps a better
063news story so really really good news um congrat congratulations to our state qualifiers for the whs visual arts classic team outstanding work to them and uh in case you missed it or didn't have it on your calendar uh it was national social uh school social worker week uh so if you know a social worker we got some of the best in the business uh be sure to congratulate them they are recognized in march also recognized in march is maintenance worker appreciation day uh again we have some of the best maintenance team in the business we just really do uh so say thank you to a maintenance worker as well we celebrated read across america and dr seuss at our elementary schools again this all takes place in the month of march and all of our
064schools have a variety of different activities that they do to celebrate over the course of that week greece it was great it was spectacular it really was great it just really was great uh so huge kudos uh to joshua at the high school and all of the coordinating pieces to make that happen uh ryan moldenhauer obviously at the lead there sarah hafenstein and the orchestra pit and just there's no there's no one that competes with us uh in terms of the musicals just not it's spectacular um and in case you want a job we are looking for substitutes we are looking um for support staffs we are looking for paraprofessionals uh let us know we are a fantastic place to work just ask anyone um and that brings me to the end of my superintendence
065report unless there's any questions thank you any comments or questions on that all right and we'll move on to our next committee report which is policy review okay greetings policy review committing that on march 9th committee members present myself steve caulfield doug will david schrader and thank you dave smith for your email which you sent on friday the 4th i did print that out and provide copies for all board members so yours you were represented as well uh other members were other participants for cassandra and jamie so we all the policies that are in the minutes are up for first reading that's just a first reading they will all then move forward for a second reading but the key discussions concerned field trips and we found out that there was a discrepancy between policies and
066practices cassandra brought to our attention that we have discovered that there was in practice for some events and field trips the requirement to have a permission slip notarized i think that we recognize that this was something historically when kids may have forged parents signatures and there weren't cell phones on kids and numerous ways to know exactly where children were and what they were doing that it was a wee bit outdated so we did confirm that no notarized requirements which were not in any board policies we would clean that up in terms of practices so we reviewed the extended field trips field trip guides guidelines for chaperone selection field trip guidelines for chaperones on field trips and extracurricular activities extended field trips an extended field trip is a field trip that goes overnight and [Music] also
067discusses some of the policies and practices for study abroad so those are all up for first reading we also have up for first reading the board committees and enhancing and taking that document and the descriptions of all of our committees and bringing it into 2022 our discussion on board docs really was to bring forth the reminder that when we as a board adopted the board doc software we felt that it would be important to create a policy on how we are using board docs so that is the one discussion item because it isn't currently a policy that is not moving forward to first reading jamie was going to benchmark with board docs concerning other districts that may have created policies around the use of board docs in that software and we will discuss that again
068in our june meeting um other there was a variety of policies under minor revision board member resignation regular board meetings special board meetings closed sessions we had a good discussion on policy 8440 virtual board meetings and the discussion really had to do with we have a policy in place that was created very quickly when covet hit that needs refinement for long-term sustainability and again looking for that alignment between practices and [Music] you know what's in policy and so that one will be coming back for further review and discussion so that is the other board policy 8440 which is not on the daca tonight or first review we're continuing to refine and edit that for further discussion and i misspoke our next policy committee meeting is in may not june comments or questions on the report
069tina thank you very much for that thorough thorough review um i did have a question regarding one of the chaperones i'm so sorry i think it's policy number 6320 okay um the field trip guidelines for chaperones on field trips okay so one of my questions is um it states that the chaperone enforces wusd policies and procedures related to bullying and sexual harassment and so i guess part of my question is i mean i i agree um but i'm thinking about the times that i've been a chaperone and i don't know what those policies are and i mean i know what's right what's wrong but i don't know what you know so really i don't know that the chaperones job is me okay okay yeah no no and the reason why i i smiled and laughed
070as i brought up with the auditor behind me it's like okay it's saying they will be impl they will be supporting off policies always forever and i simply ask the questions so what is our orientation and training for chaperones is it truly is the wording accurate that it's basically a three to five year learning curve to understand what it means to be a chapter on excuse me you can do that so what we did yeah go ahead was that every chaperone would receive a written copy of the expectations uh which we thought would help to address exactly these issues yeah uh because especially you do receive a written copy of what you need to do on the bus and whatnot when you are shepherd however uh we are going to institutionalize that practice to make
071sure that we are able to effectively implement that policy because we have those same levels of concern um yeah how long is the training for a chaperone right now i think i think our elementary principal could say it's very very short so we could use uh we could use a little more time right yeah right okay i just watched that document it's just a half page five bullet points this is what you're doing today right this is not right it's not going to be a seven hour training for the chaperone something very simple we have not yet gone back to develop that i haven't even had the conversation because we met yeah and correspondingly you know the policies need to be reviewed when there's these broad stroke um you know process but keep our eye
072on it thank you for putting your eye on it oh god no it wasn't oh what am i gonna do all right thank you any other questions on that all right fiscal management and doug's absence point we please because that you can briefly go through the long list of items and spend the time work uh payment variance reports were typical very very little was brought up on each of those issues we're trending right on with our budget in both revenues and expenditures 10-year capital improvement plan you're seeing tonight as an action item this is going to be detailed out more throughout our entire strategic plan period of those three years but for right now they cover some crucial projects that once if we approve we'll be able to access some of the dollars that have
073been set aside for capital improvement projects in fund 46 which is about two million dollars and you'll see some of those projects later on actually right now maintenance of parking lot bids we collected bids from a strong we got about five vendors who bid on this which is a great output um and uh we have a little bit of public paving to cover several different schools uh we did come with a bid for the esc to do that as well uh for right now that has been taken off the list some other homework on that we'll come back to the gym floor next month at rms we did have a soft water system fail at rms we've got two different bids in which to either fix the the current system which is only which is
074supplying hot water uh to be soft it caused some of our equipment to fail um and so we we wanted to know whether we should outfit the entire middle schools with uh soft water uh that would cause the project to then go to the entire film to be approved at the board level again we have some more homework to go back and do on that uh district-wide vehicle inventory we've got a couple vehicles coming to the board tonight uh the list uh starts with knight vehicles from 1997. so we're looking to replace some of those vehicles and i'll have some prices for you during that period i'm going to discuss that to look at and then also a special ed vehicle as well which is going to be funded through flow through due to the
075size of the reach program and that'll provide some flexibility with transportation that they do often elementary principals are willing to get rid of laser jets in order for larger and more cost-effective printers so i'm ecstatic so that has to go to the board because it's a total of twenty thousand dollars typically principals don't let go of laser jets and they just want more so i was really pleased to have willing principals be like yeah we'll get rid of laser chats awesome uh so that actually while there's an upfront cost obviously purchase these machines ongoing yearly maintenance goal and costs go down we have a foundation grant that we'll cover in a second uh that shall we take the lead on we had some follow-up on the ad agency and that's going to go back to
076esc and we gave some multi-year budget projections to the committee and those will be continued to be discussed over the next several months and possibly come forward at some point for the entire board as well let's highlight the main thing we spend in terms of those multi-year projections was just seeing the capabilities of this analysis tool that might be put together that really allows us to look at the impacts of multiple periods of time if your enrollment does this but your local tax base does this but state aid does this and health expenditures do this and how does that all sort out in the end it was a great job putting that together it's going to make our lives a lot easier to be able to look at what is a very complex financial projection
077situation otherwise a number of these items will be on under resolutions comments or questions before that then next up is human resources human resources met monday march 14th uh committee members present for myself jennifer bakke tina johnson and paul vanden langenberg margaret brady led a lot of the discussion the consent agenda agenda was reviewed of staff points resignations and terminations um and appointments that will be on the boards tonight's uh consent agenda a copy of the proposed consent agenda was submitted from the committee agenda for this meeting but it is included now the committee also reboot reviewed uh policy language so that could be included this evening and that will appear on 8140 of the resolution the committee recommended forwarding the proposed language for inclusion this evening discussion of substitute bonus programs and current attendances
078attendance the committee discussed the current status of provide 19 staff absences and the use of substitute staff bonus program for substitute employees working at least five days of assignments the bonus program started january of 2022 due to the high levels of staff absences since that time the absences have significantly decreased given that decrease in staff absences the committee recommends discontinuation of this substitute staff bonus program as of the 31st of this month school perceptions annual employee satisfaction survey timeline was discussed the committee reviewed the proposed timeline uh for the annual employee satisfaction survey administered through school perceptions the committee recommended proceeding with the survey timeline the committee requested a report on the outcome of this year's survey and longitudinal survey data to be provided when available i believe this is the fourth year of that
079and uh should provide some interesting data so uh with that we concluded the hr meeting our next meeting will be april 18th comments or questions on that question on a consent agenda the if if there's a staff appointment between the committee and the board does that does it change or does it have to clear the committee and then no but no wage no it does not happen so the final version as you presented the board is one taken action again that that hr the hr committee step is typically a menu review and there will be times in which it's still in flux okay so that's just what has to happen all right educational services and services met on march 8th uh at 7 30 morning committee members paul david lundberg keenan johnson baby stranger and
080david smith we're all in attendance get three things on the agenda the first thing was the watertown uh safety plan update which was more current tonight so we'll go over that uh the second thing was uh kayla went uh sure's principal gave up uh agr semi-annual report agr is an achievement gap recovery program that is over there um a couple of things that are required for that for that program to operate is that it requires participating schools to create performance objectives with hopes of reducing achievement gaps uh program also requires review of implementation for implementation and progress towards achieving performance objectives in each participating school uh kayla shared the progress toward the agr math and literacy goals for grades k-2-3 for the 21-22 school year the third uh item on the agenda was uh literacy
081adoption presentation which was very well done very uh concise um anyway we heard uh update on that as well today which will be a resolution so i won't be redundant on that so the meeting adjourned at 9 27 next meeting is equal 12 7 30 at the esc i'll answer questions in that report all right hearing none and this brings us to the consent agenda resolution 9086 the consent agenda includes board meeting minutes committee summaries personnel staffing that is resignation retirements and appointments approval of bills and the first and second reading of policies there are a number of policies as described in the policy committee report that are up for first reading there are no policies up for second reading a full copy of the consent agenda is available upon request at the board office
082do i hear a motion on resolution 9086 second move by paul seconded by dave comments or questions hearing none rocovo please yes yes tina johnson yes steve cocco yes dave smith yes yes and the motion carries this moves us to our action items do have a number of resolutions for this evening the first of which is the adoption of the program we've heard about for rms for literacy it's resolution 908.7 do i hear a motion by tina second by paul comments or questions on the motion and i was going to reiterate my thanks as the superintendent mentioned to everyone who put in time for the last year going through this extensive analysis any of the comments or questions on the motion all right please yes yes tina johnson yes yes david smith yes yes and
083the motion carries next is resolution nine zero eight eight this is a grant do i hear a motion so moved second by jennifer seconded by dave please it's hard to see sorry put my name down a little bit thanks so just briefly to speak to this so this is a grant that was ludicrous offered for us out of thin air came to us people just offering us money to support what we're already doing and support our existing mental health programming and although it says a quote-unquote challenge grant there is no attachment here that does not require matching funds in order for us to receive it but we will go through an effort of trying to raise matching funds as a part of this effort correct and there were only four districts that were given this
084pilot appleton racine sun prairie and watertown and they did come to us because what we've done they had heard of the good work we've done with the greater watertown community health foundation so they did seek us out uh we were blindsided we were surprised uh but i i do want to make sure that it is noted that they they knew we'd done some really good work in this area and yeah again one of four so fantastic all right any other comments or questions on the motion hearing none wrote and the motion periods next is resolution 908.9 this is the 10-year capital improvement plan do i hear a motion by steve seconded by tina i feel synthesized this is a living document it's important that we get one on the books it allows us to begin
085to make expenditures covered by fund 46 we've been talking my way into over the last three to five years where we could i'm excited thought lindsay and i [Laughter] put that together so long ago so to finally see the plan go together allow us to get that out there but again we'll emphasize the living document you're going to continue to see this come back to the board over time for adjustments any other comments or questions on the motion all right hearing none roll couple please yes yes super johnson yes yes david smith yes yes and the motion carries next is resolution 9090 parking lot maintenance do i hear a motion moved by jennifer ii by tina as alluded to in the finance committee fiscal management report this is a number of paving projects the largest
086of which is a section of the parking lot here at the high school uh we did get very competitive bidding i was surprised at i think if we go with this six months later you find very different prices so i think we're doing well to lock this in right now and again this will our intention is to use a fund 46 funds to make address accumulated out of that balance of that fund all right comments or questions on the motion when would that 146 decision be made or not made typically you can do that really alone yeah we'll wait and see how the year bounces out but it's not a four it's not a board action percentage no it's not all right any other comments or questions roll call vote please and the motion carries
087next is 9091 vehicle purchases do i hear a motion [Music] second second by steve and as briefly mentioned we have put together for really the first time in my on iron board a comprehensive list of the vehicles owned by the district looking at their age and condition and looking ahead to when can we get to a cadence so we're replacing a few vehicles at the right kinds of time to take care of this and build it into our budgeting so you don't hit it as a surprise oh one year we've got a seven minute place 10b so so i'd add a couple a couple things we did get some so there are no more there are no 2022 vehicles of any of these uh so they're all 2023 those contracts state contracts open up sometime
088early april they are taking in as an estimate right now we're taking 2022 prices and adding 10 percent a year ago we would have been like that's impossible and now we're like yeah that sounds about right uh so at 10 um a transit van for the maintenance side we're looking at a vehicle around 35 000 which is actually what is budgeted um the capital improvement plan uh the f-350 is the other vehicle of need right now and that because it comes with some additional pickup capacity and things like that is around 41. so the maintenance will have a 75 000 replacement of those two vehicles and then on the special education side which uses our flow through funds it doesn't touch the operational budget at all which is good um again a 2023 model estimating
089out at about 32.5 we do have a need for a ranger we had talked about ford ranger we have talked about doing some analysis based on on what it would cost to outsource our snow plow needs it is the only 2022 vehicle left uh it's at the current price is 26. um just wanted to put that out there as maybe we'll come back and visit that in this next month it's still around but 75 000 out of operation 32 out of flow through they won't even give me a lead time hopefully we'll have it before the next biannual i'm thinking six months i i but i don't know you want to give me a little time until um all those until we actually probably put the order in which this allows us to do literally
090the day in which that pricing opens up so again we'll be going through the state program for these and the price has already been very negotiated at a state level multiple vendors can still bid on providing that like the spin wall it really doesn't make a difference i've been frankly buying vehicles like this and go back to the city for 20 years and until you get to a point of talking about dump trucks or whatever kind of specialized vehicles going to state program is just the best price you're going to find around there is no point in us trying to go out ourselves and try and find something better and not quite so are the comments or questions on the motion hearing none roll call po please 20 yes and the motion carries and our
091last resolution is nine zero nine two copy machine purchases do i hear emotion and as was mentioned we're actually doing here is eliminating more municipal replacement right replacing getting rid of a number of of laserjets replacing them with far fewer number of copper machines so the actual cost per copy that we're talking about goes down whatever inventory which is about 80 copiers across the district is all from boarding flash to change at this point to change and have some printers on one system some with another vendor on another system and it is different it's just costly to do from an entire perspective and so i feel like the decision has been made long ago that gordon flesch is the provider and we just work with them that on what our particular needs are to make
092sure that we get the printer that's at the lowest cost that'll meet our needs it is a good question i mean i've been through this you can go out and bid and you will have to come in and basically buy your contracts your just ones maybe just something for us to look at in the future uh comprehensive just at least just ask prices at least at least use a nice comparison point and then if somebody comes in with a like okay i don't need to meet this question there's two components to it the purchase of the copier which is technically motion and it's the ongoing per i can remember it maybe like five plus years ago i think we didn't ask again to make sure okay any other comments or questions on the motion hearing
093none or but please and the motion carries this brings us to the second party agenda for public input if they're members of the audience you'd like to be recognized at this time anybody in person anybody online likes to recognize this time she's the razer hand feature i'm not seeing anyone i i opposed we stand together thank you