10/28/2024 Regular Board Meeting

001United States America and two for it stands one nation under God indivisible withy and justice for all di Johnson here Tina Johnson here Sam here David Sher here Dan join the meeting here Mike Higgins here here all right weev of our agenda for tonight any comments or questions all right well this will be the first of multiple guidelines for public comment tonight just a reminder this this initially meeting here this is our budget hearing we will have the full tour meeting after this budget hearing uh do we have any one would like to make a comment at this time right see seeing none we will close this session again we will have multiple public comment sections tonight so item of business no this is hereby given to qualified lectors at the water County e School

002District Board of Education will hold a budget hearing on Monday October 28th M 24 5:30 p.m. the border the Educational Service Center 11 on 11 DOD Street watert summary of the budget is attached would you like to start some introductory comments yeah I um this particular budget um go into in detail uh is a difficult budget we are running again at a deficit for second year in a row um knowing that we um had a plan deficit based on a referendum pass some years ago um we're continuing to stretch that those referendum dollars out but it is getting more difficult look that M dun will kind of take you through that process um so I will start by saying that a lot of information goes into creating the budget for the school district and so

003it can be a little bit challenging to distill that down to a 10 or 15 minute presentation so for the purposes of the presentation I'm going to be talking about some of the higher level like the bigger things and then we're mostly going to be sticking to talking about fund 10 which is the operation budget for the district which is where the vast majority of funds go in and out um and then there is more information Linked In the agenda for anybody who wants any more information about the other funds so the first slide is going to be our first kind of big topic which is student enrollment so every year the state of Wisconsin tells all of the public school districts in the state exactly how much money they can receive through the two

004largest pots of money which is State Equalization Aid and property staes one of the big drivers in deciding how much revenue a school district gets is their resident student enrollment and so this is a little history of the enrollment in uh wusd and we like many many school districts in Wisconsin have seen gradually declining enrollment over the last decade or more and this year was no different so this year um our resident student enrollment declined by 101 so that directly impacts how much revenue the school district can receive this year um on a positive note we have seen some growth in our open enrollment in which is a good thing um and our head count was also down by 119 we go to the next slide this slide I wanted to show those two big

005pots of money that we were talking about so the first set of columns shows Equalization aid for the school district and over the last four years overall we've seen an increase in Equalization Aid and that that's just the reverse of whatever happens um on the property tax side so we see that the property taxes have been decreasing each year over the last four years and I included the voucher amount here in the third set of columns to show that that amount has been growing so the fund or the um fund 10 tax levy has been declining the actual dollars amount to use for operating is declining even more than that so this year our fun 10 tax levy is 14 .9 million but what is available to actually use for operations is 10.6 million then

006on the side on the right hand side I have a history of those two put together so equal and the property taxes and I put that over there just to show that if we look at 10 years ago compared to this year we only see a 5% increase in Revenue I think we all know that our um costs have gone up quite a bit more than 5% the um amount was higher in the middle because of that operating referendum that Dr Burke was talking about before very good question um with the voucher amounts are increasing are the total number of vouchers increasing as well or is it the the amount of the vouchers that are increasing it's both so the amount of vouchers is capped and it's capped at 9% this year and then it'll

007be capped at 10% next CH and as of right now it only goes to 10% and um our school district has actually had students on the waiting list so we're at the cap but the amount has also gone up so it's a good question um we can go to the next slide this is a comparison of the overall budget last year to this year sorry question so if we didn't have the vouchers would that money and those two like come to us that's a great question no we wouldn't get extra Revenue but it wouldn't be in the property tax if that makes sense so it makes up a part of our property tax levy for the school district but that's a great question we wouldn't get 4 million extra dollar what would be the approximate

008difference without a v program I actually have it in a slide oh okay I guess that would be the question though I mean but maybe the natural assumption is that if the program didn't exist that those enrollments would to the dist and that would increase the enrollment counts to the district potentially and I will say I did look and it's hard you don't get great information on the private schools but their overall enrollment has also decreased de um okay so this side shows the budget overview from last year compared to this year and so we can see that the mill rate drops to 5.99 this year and I looked and that is the lowest mill rate for this school district for as far back as the DPI keeps track which is 1984 um our overall

009tax levy is declining but just a little bit that tax levies stayed about the same the transfer to fund 27 which is taking operating funds from fund 10 to balance the budget for special education is increasing our overall fund 10 Revenue decreased and our overall expenses increased so that gives us um a higher deficit for this year so as Dr Burke said we're projecting a deficit for the second year in a row last year that came in at 3.2 million and we're projecting 5.4 for this year which makes the fund balance um 21 million or 21.4 million projected for the end of this this year and that would still give us a fund balance that's 37% of expenditure so that is still a healthy fund down here's a breakout of the revenues and the expenses

010and a little bit of a different way for our fund 10 operations so if you're looking over at our um revenues you can see that the vast majority of Revenue is coming from state aid and property taxes um we do get some federal grants this year that's a little higher than normal because we're still spending down the end of Esser that uh number will be lower next year and then the other Revenue part that includes anything else so any state grants any other grants um the payment that we get for our open enrolled in students that's all in there and then on the expense side salaries wages and employee benefits makes up over half of what our expenditures are and then that transfer up top at 12% that that's the transfer to fund 27 that

011we talked about in the last slide and then purchase Services is a big category and in there is the payment that we make for open enrolled out students or those vouchers for transportation so some big expenses are in that that really are we have minimal control over I guess what I would say then is the rest of it supplies I left Capital purchases in there even though it says 0% just is to show how small that is it doesn't even make 1% of the overall budget so everything else combined is about 5% of the overall budget here's the history of our mill rate um so over the last 10 years the a mill rate was $836 and as I said at 5.99 it's the lowest mill rate this s could have had in at least

01240 years then at the right hand side we have um the last few years of the overall T and that has actually remained pretty consent you uh I heard this question recently do you know how how much of that mill rate this year had was actually Direct ly affected by the increased assessment on property so the mill rate goes down because the property values go up right like that tax the taxes get distributed more and the new growth in the district has been pretty small and it's hard to get an exact number on that but I'm GNA we had a 6% increase overall like six and a half% overall and maybe 1% of that is new grow that's a good question so it's mostly people's properties that they already own being higher and then here's

013the slide where I break out a little bit more about the vouchers so um I do this just to point out that of that $5.99 a126 goes toward um school choice vouchers so that represents about 21% of the tax ly and then finally um as Dr book said earlier when the district had their last operating referendum um a lot of people were really careful in planning um we also were impacted by the covid pandemic and the district was able to save funds through those years so that increased the fund balance and that is what we're now using to balance the budget um so now we're kind of on the other side and we're decreasing so the fund balance is healthy for now but um we certainly can't sustain that level of deficit for very long

014um and I had a great question at fiscal which is could we just increase the mill rate to try and save more and the answer the short answer is no a district can't Levy any more than what is allowed under the revenue limit so there's very little that it is that it can do to change the mill rate and really nothing that you can do to raise revenue through the through the revenue limit except for go to the community through a referendum appreciate that members questions right as this is a public hearing we can open this up for discussion if there anyone who would like to have questions from the floor um please you can do so and approach the podium at the time we will follow the standard procedures that we have for our

015normal comment section name and address when you get up to the podium I would ask you to as this is about the budget ret TR any comments or questions you have to budget specifically there will be other public sessions later on for the full Bo meeting I'm sorry you're saying the comments tonight can only be directed towards the budget no the comments tonight for this portion this meeting this is the budget hearing can only be poured towards the budget that's corre we will have the full board meeting we will have an open comment section all right hearing none I will declare this uh public hearing for the budget referendum closed budet hearing close and we will reconvene at 545 for the regular monthly board meeting preview the agenda anyone have any questions all right so

016this next public comment section will be our first open public comment section as always with public comment section I like you to comments to three minutes or less I a timer um and please uh bring to come to the podium name address um if you'd like to speak who'd like to go first oh my name is Jackie Al I'm a retired pharmacist from town NASA recently did a study on young children the results show that children four five and six years old have a high IQ they're creative they're problem solvers and they're brilliant by the age of seven or eight a few years in school those same children tested with average or lower IQs what happened in the 1980 the medical and insurance Industries created a new diagnosis code called add or attention deficit disorder

017the solution for this disease was to use uppers or amphetamines in an attempt to drug the children to help them to focus better you know these drugs is rlin viance or Concerta these are class two highly addictive drugs that are being used in children a major side effect of these drugs is the loss of interest in eating until the drug wears off other major side effects are stunted growth due to that malnutrition impaired decision making impaired mental flexibility aggression and violence stroke and heart attack in children convulsions now interestingly enough the latest Insurance diagnosis codes have changed again to create a new disease called transgenderism courtesy of Obamacare in 2010 here's a little physiology lesson the DNA contains the blueprint of your human body the body naturally repairs itself to reach balance according to that

018DNA blueprint the original blueprint of DNA and humans contains either the XX female chromosome or the XY male chromosome so changing pronouns doesn't change the DNA it's kind of like gaslighting changing hormones doesn't change the DNA changing the body with gender affirming surgery does not change the DNA the administration of hormones to Children causes a condition that I can only describe as a war zone in the body between artificial hormones and the body's own intelligent design to be either male or female children who are exposed to Lupron androgens or other estrogen hormones experience UNT side effects the use of these drugs is for Life by the way Lupron is a drug used to castrate sex and others effects of these drugs include severe depression Euphoria mood slains stunted height growth stunted maturation of genitals May

019I'm going to ask you to pinish up please sorry can I ask you to pinish up please yes um irreversible sterility in both males and females a shortened lifespan and increased risk of suicide the effects of these drugs on children have lifetime consequences that are not being fully disclosed to parents and teachers for a civilization to survive our future is our children I want to make America strong and healthy again I want our future to be so bright because we have strong healthy mentally capable and brilliantly intelligent children I encourage you to recognize the corporate policies that make a profit on our children our future we need to protect and save the children our next speaker like come up next hi everyone just gonna fill out my info here all right GNA read something here

020I would like to thank you for the areas oh M sorry my name is Tammy T I live on cresty drive thank you you're welcome I would like to thank you for the areas that you have chosen to respect by keeping the school values neutral namely in the mission vision statements uh may I remind you again that the pushing of ideology ideological values was backlashed against in the recent past and may also may I also remind you of the signatures of the hundreds of Watertown residents who wanted to reiterate to you that they do not want political agendas promoted the number is now over 800 and I have updated the file to had 90 pages please take note that we are not people asking to enshrine our personal political agendas or World Views into the

021district we are asking that you not enshrine into the district our personal beliefs nor the personal beliefs of 70 people who attended the strategic planning meetings to go down that path would be to accommodate endless demands if you give to one group then you have to give to the other and the other can you please all people at once you start down that path I would like you to respect parents and respect families and I'm asking you to move forward and vote for statements that keep our district values neutral because we are not a private school nor a home school but a taxpayer funded public school please keep the values neutral thank you for listening and I have we list of additional signatures who would likey oh thank you thank you speakers all right seeing

022none we will close this public session as usual on okay as usual we will have another one at the end of the meeting all right first item on the agenda is the announcements of recognition Communications we have our whhs student board representative and she's she is not here all right well we will not have her present do you have anything else Jared no all right moving on it's a quick one uh strategic discussion first item that we have up here is the Early Learning coordinator update great I'm gonna give it my best shot with the voice all honey my C trucks and um Jared told me stream so I will do my best I said struggle to make it three minutes that I had too many slides so um as you look at the slid

023show when it comes up please know that I intend to kind of just SC through some of these pieces some of these pieces where were used to request the addition foundation and so we will uh cook right through these and hopefully have a little bit of time for fresh ones as you know at the start of the school year we did hire in the early learning systems coordinator uh kale accepted that position with a halftime position through some of the dollars that were given us from DPI with the mental health um Grant and also some special education dollars um the reason we went with that and Tyler you can scroll through this slide that first slide um as a part of an analysis of our data from our earliest Learners um we did find that

024we were uh creating um our students were in our 4K program were multilingual Learners um were uh showing some significant progress um we noticed that we were having continued challenges in Literacy for students with disabilities we are noting an increase in refal for our youngest students um and I think noting also some overall concerns about SCH promotional challenges for youngest leers and kindergarten revenues the next couple of slides just go through what that t looks like um and so I don't need to go through each one of those slides specifically but I'd be happy to meet with you if you are curious about that data it just is uh the data behind the um information that I had in that first slide as a team we came with our working hypothesis at um optimizing our

025pyramid model practices and as you know pyramid model is the um framework that we are using in our 4K programs to support uh and Readiness um specifically with some of our social emotional learning skills also if shipping our self-contained three-year-old classrooms for more inclusive setting and I should not that this has been a very collaborative project this is not a CH Force project this is a a a real team effort but if we shift those special Le Force classes into more um inclusive generalized as we'll see an increase in literacy skills and con ready for students with disabilities and also expanding access for Pyramid model classrooms um for students who are bilingual or English language Learners would increase our kindergarten writing this for students who may potentially have language barriers and also reduce disparities and

026that kindergarten Readiness between families that are English speaking um who are not English speaking at home using a different language um so as you know lent us that position and what her roles and responsibilities are are outlined here in this um in this slide so really helping us focus on our data for our youngest Learners um I also acknowledge that the school board has made a significant investment in our full Day 4k programs and so we want to ensure that what we're doing in our 4K programs is really making a difference um for our students when they enter con and as they continue through our system just acting as the p model internal coach for our three our early childhood and 4K classrooms um she's responsible for uh helping us expand some of our preschool

027options um for our three-year-olds who are in special education um working to help ensure that we're enrolling all students and also students for English language Learners um or students with disability into our early learning programs um and then supporting teachers who have students with social Behavior I mentioned previously half time position is funding through that wasons school based Mental Health Services that um were sent to each district in the state and the special education funds and we read a grant that was uh honored through the greater Water Town community health Foundation to increase her time and I will just tell you the first month that we are she was half time we heard amazing things from our 4K teachers and our child teachers and just a huge celebration um and I will Almost Say relief

028from our teachers that standed to full um if you know Kayla she was uh working very hard during that first uh month of the year even though she was in [Music] the so essentially we have four tactics that we are um employing with her position first of all like I mentioned that data analysis pulling together a team so that we are managing um our our data so we make sure that we're tracking the right data um over time to ensure that um our investment in our earliest Learners is paying off the next piece is that she will be helping with a pyramid model implementation the third piece is increasing the um opportunities for inclusive uh 3K or our special living Early Childhood Learners and then um specifically focusing on our students for English language Learners

029um and ensuring that we are enrolling them and giving them an opportunity to so far this year in the first two months of the year she has completed teapots and goal setting with all of our 4K feachers and I ask what a teapot is um it is an observational tool I don't know what the first T SC for I should know but um pyramid observation tool is the P where she goes in to each 4K classroom spent about three hours observing in the classroom based on the pyramid model um pillars and then she sits with the classroom teacher provides feedback and from there does a goal setting conference with them so she's working directly with the teacher full hold on the 4K classroom the 4K classroom environment and then she follows up with them throughout

030the year and does another teapot in the spring to track growth over time with the implementation um she is convened their data team um to ensure that we're tracking the right data she's beginning to work on the inclusive three-year-old classrooms networking with other districts and meeting with every childood team um she supported professional development in the 4K with par model and as well as our literacy um and she has been incredibly visible in all of our 4K classrooms Sur individual students and I have a last slide here [Music] um I did have a question as far as um the you know we see a lot as far as like support um you know for for kids who maybe aren't you know who are in 4k who you know don't quite have those residance skills and

031things like that um but what about the kids you know I know we talk about growth for every student um so like what about the kids who are are are performing at Readiness level or above the Readiness level I mean that's a I mean we all know that's a huge gap you know to be able to accommodate and things like that so what has being done on that end of things certainly great question um knowing that the goal of the Greater Community Health Foundation is really focused around Kindom kinderart wri this and ensuring all students are ready for kindergarten we focused the position specifically in to ensure that we have all students readying by all means however students who are engaged in a high quality pyramid join the meeting you know for every child within

032that classroom I will also say in our early childhood classrooms our four classrooms playb is like a piece of it and a pyramid model um if you look at that t like really requires a lot of student Choice within it um and so that students can be engaged at the level that they are so some students may be um you know working in a play-based environment with their classroom teacher to just really learn you know Beginning Sounds or letters or even how to go along with friends but then that teacher May notice that a certain student is really engaged with literacy and is able to start you know doing um really like basic writing and so can work individually with that child to encourage that and the play based model's choice I think it really

033meets the needs of thatum that you can already 4K because you're exactly right there is wi Spectrum 4K when they first question um Jenny on I'm going say slide three or whatever the one where you have the stats I don't know you Tyler um you have I'm going to say two two groups which is the multi language Learners and then the students with disabilities what's the control for this what what do what do the where do the students fall who are not in either one of those two groups as far as uh the obviously you list them here as 19% and 50% and 27 and 54 and a half what's I don't want to say what's average what's typical what do we what's our goal or how do we you have that information a good

034question is where wish she had Chris right next to you I believe that the Benchmark is specifically um I want to say like the the 40th percentile so what you're looking for is that you I believe but don't quote me on that and I can find that out okay she also looked at and this is why it's important that we have to St a team working together she also looked at like just sort of like the overall wsd students who were um in those grade level as well and I can ask her to pull that data but what I will tell you is that um the multi leers who were in one of our wsd 4K programs for far out pacing students um yeah 50% and we're very close to where we expect us students

035if it's uh I know you sent me the uh preview of the ed services end next Tuesday and I don't think that's been issued yet I sent it to committee for review uh if this is something you can give a follow up on the slide C Chris pull something together on it Services just was part of the director's report that way we just have a I'll call it a control group just a a not at risk or a not special group whatever you want to call it just so we have try to this and maybe that I capture questions lot lot those kids would be in that group as well um the ones who aren't on the slide I know it's not a focus of Halo but I interested just what the norm is great

036um I just was curious uh how would the ACT changes impact this particular position so it was really important for them to have um access to the same content but more specific to their age level so the 4K teachers are taking a course called keys beginning reading I believe well I'm going to get it wrong there's two keys courses one is intended for early childhood and one is intended for kindergarten through third grade and they are engaged in the one that's for Early Childhood even though we're not M state law to do that um I think it's incredibly important and what we're doing when we're looking at our literacy materials um as we're going through that adoption process that whatever we're whatever we're doing is continuous from 4K throughout our elementary system and that's been

037a key question that we've been asking the vendors is what does this look like in 4k some of the vendors don't even have an Early Childhood Program some of the vendors have a very flesh 4K program and so we are watching that because we know that what our 4K teachers do might be difference when it go into 5K and we also know that early intervention is is key so though we're not required through act 20 to address a lot specifically in 4k besides the assessment and it is something that we feel really really strong about that's a great question thanks other questions same I've got a couple yeah uh on slide two you talk about uh some of the social emotional challenges for I think it says youngest Learners um and I don't want to

038I know you got uh you've got some uh strain on on your throat right now so I'm not asking you to uh say much but could you give me a brief uh explanation of that in a little bit more detail yeah so sure I think what we're finding is um sometimes it's a student's first or child I shouldn't say student a child's first school experience and that can be challenging because it can look very different compared to what potentially they were doing in their um home environment so supporting those students um as they transition away from whatever they were doing previously into the um School environment we believe strongly in that home and school connection um and so our 4K teachers work really closely and hand inand with families to help kids make that transition

039into a 4K classroom and so that's I think what we're seeing anything I do think there's some um I don't know right is a rejection that um some of the changes that during Co that some of our kids were going through um they had the L opportunity for like social interaction and so sometimes our kids when they move into school age that that's we maybe seen some um my know there's been a lot of conversation with speech and and so I think that's that's sort of what we needan okay thanks I appreciate it and then um one other question I think this goes down to it's either slide 11 or yeah it's slide 11 um uh you know when I was in when I was in school uh it made quite a strong positive impact

040on me to have uh to have an integration in the classroom in elementary school and in high school uh kids with IEPs and kids who didn't have IEPs um that ultimately influenced me and kind of where I went uh in other areas of my life with my career and things like that um however I do think that people have a common concern not in that area specifically but in the increasing of class sizes that tends to divide the teachers attention more and students who do need I would say students that need more Assistance or time with the teacher than other students they end up receiving overall less time so when you're talking on slide 11 about increasing uh the quality of instruction while I think that there are definitely advantages to that what's the consideration

041that you guys have given to the further increase of class sizes by bringing in students who do benefit from an additional you know a higher level of teacher to student interaction so first um it doesn't state that we are decreasing the quality right of of U our instruction typically right now we have two students who have um an IEP that do receive special education service and supports and there would be three four maybe five that would have not that pure model is what we call it um is for students to be able to see what it looks like sounds like it feels like for um neurotypical children to behave or to learn in different environments the special education teachers there's two of them that do our early childhood programming um are leading the way in

042this by making sure that all of our minutes our service and our supports aligned with every child individually those are absolutely going to be met but again it's going to be in an environment that is inclusive and not segregatory um or Pro providing segregation for the students um because we do believe fully their increased learning um empathy um the the playbase models the instruction that's going to be provided to all of our students who are in that program is going to be outstanding it currently is outstanding for our EC kids that happen to be there um but now we are going to open it up and when we um put this out as a potential pilot taking a look the feedback from the families was huge where can I sign my kid up um because

043it is free for them um and it's that 3K class that um people are looking for that they've done in other districts such as Lake Mills and Johnson Creek and all sorts of stuff so this is going to be really good I laughed because the the parents were really because the teachers I thought schol teacher the parents are excited the teachers are excited the parents are excited yeah I think when we think about our three-year-olds our current model is that those students are only students this classroom so we will be [Music] bringing thank you and it's not a like big class we're talking to five kids kids total yeah no thank you thank you for the the specification other questions heing none thank you ladies we will go on to our next item the Strategic

044plan and marketing material adoption so we have Lori Miller here from the Donovan group uh Jason's not available to be here this evening um but uh certainly um Lori is here to update and continue the disc discuss that was had um in planning um and if there's any other questions I'm here as well as the people from planning who saw a lot of the information so Laura it's it's to you yeah thank you thank you for having me here grateful to have this opportunity to be in person with the team Tyler we're gonna we're gonna forward the next slide I'm gonna do this right and we need to do that so our purpose tonight is you know it's been a while since we've talked about the Strategic plan here as a group and so we

045want to report out to you where we are with that process we want to again present the main components of the plan and outline the next steps that we need to take to move forward with that implementation of the plan we want you to feel comfortable to ask us any questions and we'll work our best to provide answers but ultimately we we are seeking your approval to continue to move forward at this point with this as our strategic plan next slide so again why why is strategic planning important um you all embarked on this process um something drove you as a board to say we need to go through this process for our school district and I believe it's just a really great opportunity to bring people together to talk about our why our students

046and of all the school districts I've worked with across this country I would say that the amount of Engagement around this process in this community was significant and we saw that with the community engagement process we saw that with the focus groups that launched this process and each of our planning committee meetings we welcomed anybody who wanted to come through the doors to participate so what what's beautiful I think about where we are in this process is that you have a plan draft that really finds common ground with very varied uh opinions and perspectives and values But ultimately it's Collective like we're we're here for our why our students so that strategic plan provides intention for moving forward with continuous Improvement it'll help decision making here for the board as uh you have to make

047decisions along the way like around budgeting moving forward it helps set specific actions for progress and ultimately it'll give you an opportunity to monitor are we having success with what we decided with our community members what's most important and if we're not then we need to re-evaluate and adjust so that we can reach our goals our Journey it's been a shared Journey not only with your internal people with externals as well and so what we did is we assessed the health of the district we looked at all the different kinds of things what's working what's not opportunities and what are some potential threats to the succcess of the district and through that process we developed a new Mission a new vision our core values we tried to really seek understanding about what is it that

048our students our staff and our facility needs we determine priorities and from there we said goal action areas so our mission we land done um remember that the mission is to answer these three questions what do we do whom do we serve how do we serve them next slide where we landed is this is our new mission statement this is our why this is what we do today we serve our students by providing educational opportunities to promote academic excellence and a lifelong love of learning so when we have people see this mission statement we want people to understand what we are about here at the Unified School District next slide our vision is where we're going tomorrow where do we where we want to see ourselves five years down the road 10 years down the

049road 20 years down the road and our our tagline for this that's really framed a lot of our work is Watertown is a community full of tradition and Watertown is a community that is is really Prime for Innovation and transformation and by transformation we mean changing a CH we're always changing and improving upon ourselves so with that we see ourselves as inspiring Learners with student centered education strengthened by the involvement of the community right so that's our new vision from there we identified our core values and next slide Tyler our core values we landed on the top five with our large group those five are empathy honesty Integrity perseverance and respect you can see the definitions there and with these five we want to instill these values with our students with the work that we

050do through our strategic plan but we also want these to be the values that the adults who are serving and working with the students also exemplify next slide F our priorities our priorities you can kind of think of as pillars or the foundation of our strategic plan and uh the we have five that came out of our work with the planning committee the first one is focused on students right we we we really exist to in Inspire academic excellence and ensure that our students grow the second one is focused on our human resources our our staff and everybody that comes together through the walls of the schools to support our students all in team the the third one is focused on the connection to the community and that includes Communications and engagement that we do

051with the community for part Partnerships the fourth one is focused on allocation of resources and being really intentional about that and then lastly the Innovative use of our facilities so we want to have Innovative facilities and we also want to be Innovative in how we are using our facilities next slide Tyler so we pulled it all together we have a strateg plan and here is an example of the poster of the plan now this is where we start to get into what I think the language that we're using here is marketing the plan um really it's marketing the school district and so here you just see a nice visual right this is designed by the production team about here's here's everything that we just talked about our Miss core values our tagline our priority areas

052and you see you see visuals that try to capture that the intent of this particular document is just be that it's just a constant Visual and reminder this is our strategic plan next Slide the heart of this gets deeper when we start taking all of those priority areas defining what that means and then defining the goals and then lining up all the strategies that we're going to take to be successful with our goals and so that's the work that's been happening since the last time we talked as a as a board so I think that was August 26 uh your internal team has been working really hard to take the work of the community and the work that you said yes let's proceed and move forward with this they taken it Implement what is it

053in our students and our staff so if we go to this next slide can see it's tin but you have copies of this too the the internal team has def what do we when we say what do we we say math what we to see we want to student performance ma increase on assment same for literacy we also identified areas postc preparation in both work certifications and credits like students can get credits through advanced placement cour work they can also get credits through and then laste important to the interal team that core value is a part of our plan to make that as well in terms of instilling values in our students slide from the team has worked to take look at what is BAS in each of these areas so you'll here just a

054glimpse of the work that team has done around math and third grade ly or EA English language arts uh you use grade LS to be consistent with theem assessment system that's where they place the most emphasis in in holding school districts accountable for student performance and so you can see that the team has backward where we were with our performance in 2021 2022 in relations to the state for each these years up last year 23 24 and then they set gos moving forward so for this year we like to see that 49.8% of proficient advanced in math in to 51% and you can see for 256 up to 53% and now you can see how that works typically we'll get questions like well how do we know that that's enough grow the importance of monitoring

055the success of the Strategic plan these are initial tars right now at the inclusion of the4 25 let's say we we hit 62% then we're to raise our goals most likely for 25 26 and 26 27 that's theimportance of the plan to help you forward SL we also the same work around the secondary reparation so you can see here the data around work certifications and goals that set over the next three years and say for credit accumulation whether it's through or dual enrollment slide I'm not GNA walk through this but I want to show you Vis that this is information but chart the team been working to map this so we move to the next what they've they' those go areas literacy certific credit ande they them up against the five priorities remember the first

056priority here is inspired academic excellence and growth so what are some strategies that we're going to deploy during 2024 scho year that gives us success with our for ly focus on student grow so you can see the work of the internal team listing out strategies that they will use to sure that we Implement plan for Success if we go slide you'll see we did that for all are you have all team so that first strategy all the to that we're doing our our human resources what we're doing literacy second human resources and here like feedback to help our staff grow you're going to see things like the survey an engagement surve survey to to see how our staff feels about the work that they're doing and how we can improve um you're seeing things around

057uh comprehensive EduCare compensation model and also just professional development as we move forward in the other years okay next slide so again same same format now if I jump to the middle column for strategies this is the part focused on connecting as community and you can see here that I I believe we're having um Burke briefings as town meetings coming up um and so again this is all aligned to what we heard from our community as important strategy to move forward and have success with our goals okay you'll have you have a copy of this so we can continue on Tyler just wanted to illustrate how that works so let's talk a little bit about Communications or what you all refer to as marketing the tools to help roll out the communications plan or the

058the Strategic plan so if you move forward to the next slide um over the past couple of months with your support we've provided the district with a number of tools uh we've done things like news releases news newsletter articles um working on the poster fact sheet here's another version of of the fact sheet as an infographic um right now we are in the month of October and we've done like slide deck templates for the the district to use in terms of sharing out the so the Strategic plan we're doing the same for social media Graphics what's coming up next and is really important to have your your approval on the plan to move forward because this is a huge investment is we're creating two pretty significant tools one is called a kinetic typography video all

059you need to know about that is a really fast-paced video that's intended to promote the school district while also sharing the main components of the Strategic plan um so it'll share the highlights and points of Pride of the district and you can use it to not only share your strategic plan with those outside of the district and in but also to attract uh new new individuals and new families to the district the second tool that we're creating in November um is a promotional flip book and and maybe just it's like a it's like a brochure or magazine if you will uh and it can be printed out as hard copy but but it can also be hosted on your website as electronic copy and the idea behind the flip book is it lies out the

060Strategic plan with a lot of detail so you're going to see all the definitions everything all the goals all the strategies all the targets all the data along with promotional material that again highlights your point point it important that your child comes to the Watertown Unified School District what do we have to offer as value ad to the Watertown community so that'll be a nice promotional piece that you'll be able to use for many years to come and then as we move into the latter part of November and get into December we'll start to shift our energies towards creating tools that are used more on an internal basis for you to implement the plan so the first one is the staff reflection tool which Margaret asked for and um and I hope it's okay to

061call out Margaret but I thought it was a really good uh strategy and we've done this for other districts where we've created a tool that helps your staff see where they fall within the implementation of the action of the Strategic plan uh so it helps them kind of walk through the plan and figure out what what impact do they have so that their work and their arrows are going in the same direction as the plan is intended and then we also work to create a online monitoring dashboard so that your strategic plan can be visual to your community and staff at all times to show the progress are we getting closer to our targets and you'll be able to have reports out here about whether we're getting close or not if we need to adjust

062and and maybe double down on some strategies or we need to uh adjust our goals because we're having great success and then lastly we will support the school district to with building uh an action plan that your building level principles can use to again make sure that their school Improvement processes are aligned to the goals and actions of the Strategic plan so lots of things are underway and we go to the next slide uh one of the things we heard from planning committee is that um there might be value in having one one you know document that has everything on it so this is my attempt to do that with our production team you have to look at it as a trifold so on the right hand side is actually their front right and in

063the middle is the back of the trifold but essentially this Tri fold is a piece that could be used that has the main components of your strategic plan it definitely takes you to your web page which has all of the details with that QR code and if you flip to the next slide Tyler this is what the inside of that trifold looks like it just gives you the definitions it gives you the definitions of what we mean when we are talking about each of our priorities and also gives definitions of what we mean by our goal areas it doesn't have anything more than that because there's no room it's really full document and so that's why that flip book is going to be really important to to put together because that's where we can share

064every every piece of detail that's aligned to the plan so next steps we would love for you to consider and take action tonight on the plan uh that helps us continue to operationalize the plan and move forward what you have in at your tables is just another version of the same information because Mr Bull likes it like this he's very sequential right so we we created it this way for him as well um but it's the same information and then also we'll continue to develop those designs and communication or marketing materials for you and continue to rule those out um next will be progress reports and it's my understanding that your internal team your leadership team has already been working to operationalize the plan and have been having really good discussions about that and so

065what's great about that is they going to be Poise to come to you fairly soon with giving a progress report how is that going and it allow you to monitor if this being effective or not so that's my Spiel I'm happy to answer the questions board members comments questions none sorry j block be more um um so I know we this came up like a few months ago I think it was and I know I had asked a question about like the mission vision statement and things like that like is that set and so um I have to apologize because I have not asked about it since and have not provided you know another option and things like that um so but seeing that this was on for you know tonight and things like that

066um so is is all of this set is there still room for those kinds of modifications or what does what does that look like or where you know I just I don't know if I miss my window or not so I I can I can share with you um two things um actually I'm going to share three things one um as we started the process you know whether it was um through just um our survey comments meeting with staff um having those initial meetings or having our CommunityWide meetings um we've had over 120 some people in this community give you feedback uh and um at each point in that discussion I said this is for you to give feedback and it's our board's responsibility to come up with the finalized plan and um your job

067is at any time that you feel necessary to um as you monitor this plan make adjustments or ask us to help make adjustments through that process that's always been your goal right it's always a responsibility of the board to set the Strategic direction for our team right um the the feedback that you got is really it's great and and very important to recognize um a couple of things during this process that I think were amazing one not only did we get all of that feedback back but your ability to sift through that and try to come together uh and bring the various views of our community together in the document that supports and gives us Direction I think uh we have an amazing start in that I think that lays out into the goals um

068and and all of the information that follows um because I I truly do believe that you tried really hard to work together to um bring those goals together secondly um the amazing team that the school district has has um not only in the leadership of Jason bull uh and the central office staff and all of our other administrators in our building but the staff um and all of their feedback that they put into this we're ahead of schedule everybody we had an aggressive schedule but we are two months ahead of schedule we were we were planning on having this completed in December um and so not only from from the initial start through all of those discussions but to where we are now I think we have a really good project put together but to

069answer your question in the blunt you guys have total Direction you can change it anytime you want um just realize that that gives us uh the runway to have to go back to staff and talk about do those changes um that were inspired by the board now change any of the goals or any of the structure that's been put in place so that we can then uh tool and move to to to follow that direction so again you have you have total rain over that as for other comments questions here none we will move on thank you thank you thank you this is like bringing it all together and you know things like that all the different pieces and very visually dealing next next item up is the referendum discussion okay so I I don't

070have anything specific uh for you on paper this is just a a discussion between between the administrative team and the board around where shall we go um a couple of things that you need to know that the sub Committee of planning as well as the fiscal committee have uh reviewed and put together um we know um that uh our our our school district has been going on a journey for some years we know that um a PR referendum helped build us up some reserves some fiscal decisions that we've made to um be very lean in how we operate has put us in a position where we're in two places one uh we're at a place where we're operating as lean as POS possible but still not able to fit the daily bills okay which means

071we're going to be at A5 plus million dollar operating deficit for this year that's coming out of that fund balance that really U helped us with the last referendum and some really mean decision making that we done however we can't cut anything else I mean we're at a at a point where it's very difficult for us to make more Cuts we've deferred maintenance um we've deferred professional development we've deferred curriculum costs and we've even slimmed down Staffing where we could recognizing that in some of our areas um our population has increased in special education as well as El and those are higher Staff me areas um but we are continuing to try do that but because we've deferred maintenance at some point in time in the near future we're going to have to talk about

072how are we going to fix things like this parking lot up here and other things uh when you only have about $400,000 as the maintenance budget for seven buildings in a year um that doesn't even get through the day-to-day stuff that we have and it certainly doesn't plan for large fixes like roofs uh Heating and and air conditioning and and uh holes and repavement of certain things so we do know that that's coming but we also know that a higher priority for us is just to continue Opera uh like I said not only can you not fix those things that need to be fixed but if you're not operating um to meet your daily uh goals we're going to have to think about things like hting programming uh and or changing what we are offering

073for students uh and certainly uh possibly slimming down staff and when I mean possibly slimming down staff when we talk about approximately $6 million we're talking an economic impact to uh this city and our region of laying off 60 to 80 workers okay and so it's not just the impact on the students it's also the economic impact that we're really facing um as we as we move this uh School District forward so in having those conversations um a pathway has risen to the top and we want to know that we're on the correct pathway and if tonight you sure that we are on the correct pathway what I will do is I will instruct Sarah Duncan to work with um our attorneys to develop some ballot language to bring to your attention in February to

074go out to a referendum this April in April 25 the pathway that we're looking at is to do a 7.5 million continuous uh referendum uh meaning that uh it'll be recurring in nature year over year the reason we've asked it to be recurring year-over-year is because we find ourselves in a position where in our last referendum um that Sunset two years ago we were able to build up money um but now we're spending and if we were to ask for that same amount of money uh it wouldn't be touching what the bills are because the bills have increased with inflation uh year-over-year increase or costs uh on things like Staffing Transportation you name it electricity everything's gone up in price everything will continue to go up in price so even if we go out for

075another referendum that was the same we would still be in a deficit year-over year if we increased it to today's budget and we went out for five years right we would still be planning a deficit and having come back matter of fact in a recurring one we still will have to come out and ask should the state stay on the same course uh as as have been funding our schools it's just when we ask in the future it'll be a more affordable ask than something like $1 million a year okay so we're asking um that we go on a path that can help correct for the last 10 years that you saw um with Miss Duncan saying you know our our revenue is only gone up 5% over 10 years I believe is what you

076quoted our our expenditures have gone up we more than that uh and to the extent that we need to make sure that we keep paac this is the aset we're going to have that impact on the mill rate will be about 70 cents per thousand okay so uh that that's that's what we need to be sharing um and uh where we think we need to be going at least from a subcommittee a referendum subcommittee position and a fiscal committee position so I just just wanted to state where we are and open it up to discussion and we're looking for any kind of direction that you would give us cor um the the number that you had cited or Sarah had mentioned over 10 years increasing about 5% what would that be if we were to

077take into consideration the level of you know just a common level of inflation of 3% you know would that be I don't have that number off the top of my head but if you look in the budget booklet that was attached with the presentation there's a graph that um somebody at the state made and it shows that roughly a school district would be receiving about 3,000 I think it is or 3,200 more per student had the state followed the CPI for increases over the last um I'm not sure how far back it goes on the graph and I will tell you we were receiving that we most likely wouldn't even have it go for an ask thanks but Craig is your question is the is the forecast for the 7 million Jared speaking to her

078what Sarah put in there for any of inclusive of any type of uh inflation assumption or is that the well that's actually another valid ask I assume Sarah that you have inflation built into to your uh future budgets and you built in how much inflation or operating cost or yes so I know you did it for wages I don't know if you did it for every single gasoline and maintenance and and Etc yeah and so again um that 7.5 million that we would be asking for um covers uh operating but it also gives us a little buffer for about two years two to three years right then for the next two years after that we're kind of on par and then we start losing ground again um we do have a sufficient Supply right now

079of fund balance to help us take this out we're hoping about eight years before or8 to 10 years before we make another ask we're hoping that's on the operational side we're hoping within that uh that timeline we will be able to um go out for a capital R from them fix some of the capital needs and maybe even restructure our district so that we can run more efficiently some of the we have right now and I'm still not sure if this answers corre question but what I'm hearing you say Char is the inflection point if there's two and a half years of having uh taken in more with the referend the two and a half years being even about two and a half years where we're whittling it down because we've gone upside down on

080it that does have assumptions in it for inflation it does have assumptions in it for declining enrollment it does have assumptions is the best that we can do do that's not just taking today and saying it's going to be this way for the next years it it has several assumptions those assumptions can be played with and S you play all day long and it's a lot of guessing especially out past two years right um because every bium we have a new budget we're we're putting in um like historical type numbers for revenues too um because those are our best guests as to what happen in the future with our state U funding schools um and so those are the things that we've looked at but again I just want to remind the board this is

081a two-step process we absolutely have to go out and ask for the operational dollars or we're going to totally change programming we we'll have to um because we can't operate um without a fund balance um secondly we are working with P to develop ideas and and PR will involve the community about how do we get into a more efficient model and that that's the the next phase of where we need to go we're talking about a phase plan that will be over maybe even the next 15 to 20 years right um as we look at how do we move into a more efficient model and uh what other operational referendum may happen I projected another ref operational referendum should this one pass in another 8 to 10 years okay just trying to put everybody um

082on a path so that our community knows how we're trying to react to that certainly if we don't need the amount of money that we're projecting we can always under Levy so even if they give us the authority now say five six seven years down the line we don't need that Authority we could always under Levy and and and we have done that U we did that actually my first year here we under levied because we knew that um the city uh had a had a need uh and that they were going to have to do a full Levy based on the assessments so we under Levy to help the general taxes to bring that down right and so certainly we could do um that again in the future if we need to great what

083um [Music] so [Music] really level of incline that we've had in the past to get us back up to those capacities that we've seen even in the last decade so it it may help to moderate the loss A little but it's certainly not going to all of a sudden take us in a in a super you know a super incline at least um with today's information 5 years out the road might be a totally different discussion so what I mean I'm sure trying to wrap my mind around it too but would it be safe to say that perhaps maybe the decline enrollment is also um I mean we've been allowing us to um make the adjustments that we have needed thus far but we know long that that the rate of inflation and the cost

084of education has greatly outpaced um those kind of declines well um and with with also the the decrease decrease in enrollment comes a larger decrease in Revenue um than we've been able to cut to to get to that so there there's those conflicting interests um it's similar to you know some people saying well if we just Inc our open enrollment in that will solve all the issues and and my response to that from an economic standpoint is an open enrolled in student isn't the same count as a regular student we want regular students because they they we get the bricks and mortar as well as the instructional dollars and open enrollment student we get the instructional dollars but we're still having to pay for all the bricks and morar right and and and that goes

085on our taxpayers to pay for every other student coming in from their tax base to ours we only get their instruction allows we still have to maintain our facilities so it's almost more expensive to have an open enrollment student come in than a regular student because we get more Revenue comments questions um jarge you said sorry uh you said attorney um is we work with the attorney for crafting or because I I think of be and be is the let's just say the thought leader or a expert in this and they know uh you know do a referendums patter better in November or April do reoccurring pass better than non-recurring do operational go better than capital do you want to pair it up with a gorial election or do you want to pair it up

086with a presidential election and they have these stats I've seen the document um how does that inform I assume our Consultants have that information as well if it's not fa um so and where does that does that say yes now is the time or does it say we we have a better chance in April or we got a better chance in November what are the odds what are the book doing so we we work with bar to crap our policy right to determine what it is we were going to bring to our subcommittee as well as to fiscal and now to you um so we have that direction should you say yes that's a good direction in consultation with Barett in consultation with the subcommittee and the fiscal committee um yes you have our blessing

087moveed forward our next step is to uh work with coral and Brady who does ballot language okay and they will work hand in hand with uh Sarah and be uh to create the ballot language that um is necessary to explain to our community what it is um then our next step after that is to make sure that we form uh through the subcommittee some kind of mechanism to help communicate that out to our our our commit our excuse me our community and so those will be the next uh steps that we that we work Ona um okay so I have two questions as far as um when you're saying it would be a 70 for R increase is that top of okay so low that and then it would be adding 707 you know for

088people to understand you know when we're taking a look at that and things and then um I mean I understand we're looking at operational and then you know you have facilities and that's you know those are two you know separate things but when I'm thinking about um you know going ref andig en why do we still all have these buildings open and if we were to person responsible know build so why would why would we not that's why we engaged and to get to that and um we're gonna try make a commitment as an administrative team to come in withget for next year that half million doll cut from current operations um and restructure closing element students the high school and recuring Elementary spaces to allow for some that work to happen again that gives

089us room to have a larger deeper inad ofbody buct so have to take middle schoolers put the capacity of high school and use our remaining SCH number what support and change I think just making sure we're very clear you know that it's not cple that's why I we have that we're trying to do number of years to get to where we need to be not only right size budg and more also to doam at making would they certainly could say no um for and they had c a whole bunch of programming um cut staff um and now they're operating within what their Community um at least spoke of so thank you c as far as an educational piece the referendum be c i be curious to see what was our what was our staffing levels

09010 years ago um compared to today um and that might tell some a good story to that that we were we cognizant of these changes and um you made adjustments to them over time as well way around any comments questions um yeah a quick comment I think it would be helpful uh I I've receiv received a number of questions about um the way that this would work and how it relates to the changing amount of per pupil Revenue I you call it um how that relates to the ending of Co the co Aid that ended in September I want to say the co relief Aid yeah so yeah as well as the um eers did the line item veto to increase the Capac the the amount of Revenue that's brought in by like I want

091to say 325 375 for 400 years um but uh I think that having some of that information in there as well would provide you know some some clarity and that would help with a good faith good faith communication with the with the general population sure I mean for communication strategies yeah yeah all right there's nothing on the agenda as far as tonight but I'm hearing General acclamation from the board to move forward with this to provide us something in the November time frame yeah if if we I mean I can't promise work from other companies but we're going to engage with p and Brady and and bringing back possible about language for passing um and again I I'm sorry to you and the community that um I have to bring news that we need to

092continue to go out and ask I wish our state would te schools so sit not a large Surplus and they certainly could have put more money in the public school sector they certainly could do it for the cities or counties or a number of different entities and I'm hoping that um at some point in time we have a way to fund all education in our state at a better uh and more affordable rate for our taxpayers so sorry that we're in that position all right moving on to our next items reports first of which is the superintendence report all right hang on your hat cuz there's a lot in this one um only because there's many excellent things happening in our district and uh as um you can see on the screen here uh we

093have an alphabet parade at sh so this young lady uh is supporting her letter the letter E in that parade it was just a great uh thing for us to share as a starting slide um next um we have a number of celebrations uh we we uh honored our distinguished alumni Miss Mullen uh and uh she was honored at a luncheon like we do for all of our distinguished alumni each year at the homecoming uh day uh prade day uh and she came to the prep rally and then was recognized on the varsity football field uh later in that game in the evening so congratulations again to Mrs Mullen um she is a a great leader in our community and has done a lot for uh students and educ a that's just the sector she's

094in um and um she is an outstanding alumni I want to uh celebrate uh Lincoln stem uh they're receiving award called the stemi award and that's to uh this Wednesday October 30th at the 21st annual system now conference um that's going to be held in Milwaukee um you can read there what it's for but um in in in a sense um with their connection with the PTO and Partnerships in the partnership category for our strong connection with our PTO and working on the stem programming and providing stem learning opportunities for the students in Watertown so congratulations to Lincoln and our PTO for working together to help our students grow uh another uh celebration um uh where history takes flight we had Melissa lampy uh who's here in the room uh talk about out uh and

095work on um an art uh Department uh partnership uh and art installation uh uh to to create some uh life-size geese for display around Watertown to kick off the event she um did a program that talks about how we became the goslings um it's interesting uh little YouTube connection there for you to watch the video but I just want to um say thank you um because U not only is Melissa um lampy our Communications uh strategist but she also um chairs uh the uh Historic Society here in town uh and has a lot of great information based on the history of our our town and our mascot and so it's a really interesting video for you to watch and um the students uh working together uh in our community uh to support our our mascot

096uh this way through ART is amazing so congratulations on that um opportunities uh we had a lot of opportunities in the last couple of weeks uh for our teachers to grow um I shared with you one of the things that we have been deferring a lot uh has been professional development that mean that doesn't mean it's all ceased um but it has been cut back dramatically but we did have some really good time to be able to get um some really good things out there for our staff they're all listed here anything from sages at elementary um but uh Wisconsin Farm Bureau all of those are there for you uh to review um but there are really great opportunities that um they that we've been working on um this one happens to be an opportunity

097uh for leap uh to engage in a workshop uh they uh created the workshop for all sorts of other uh school districts to be involved in um those people from other districts uh came uh and uh helped make classroom programs for their extensive knowledge and planning in um agricultural education and environmental education lessons and resources uh for them to take home to their school districts um and here are I skipped here are some other opportunities o I'm out or here are some other opportunities uh that our staff engaged in uh anything from as as web training to literacy training um other module work that they did on nonviolent crisis training and other things so a lot of Staff opportunities there uh eCampus and their students went on a field trip uh yes sometimes our E

098Campus gets together face to face in IRL real life right uh um to engage in things like field trips they went to the horon marsh took a boat tour um explored around and hyped a story book it was an excellent opportunity for our eCampus to get together again in real life uh another opportunity was our area Chamber of Commerce worked with our Middle School they held a a career our held um an annual career exploration day uh this past Wednesday for seventh graders area leaders uh got together U and shared an overview of their businesses um and um you happy to say that uh we also as a business participated so that we shared what it's like for students to understand us as a business not just us as their teacher and so I want

099to thank Lynn uh you and Sarah for going to do that from our HR department Sarah Miller and Lynn are excellent with the students and we got great feedback that um this was one of the favorite uh things that they they went to it and thought about so I I really appreciate that um and then I want you to know that there are some Burke briefings coming up I didn't name it but I will own it um and I will tell you that um these are again briefings on topics such as strategic planning the facilities work that we've been doing and are continuing to do um upcoming referenda and uh where we're going uh again that was uh discussed here a little bit tonight um some of the Partnerships that we're engaged in uh whether

100it's uh some of us as you saw in the summer uh went to bobcat down in Johnson Creek and took a tour of the facility and worked with them on continuing engagements with our our CTE program we had some middle school counselors school counselors go myself and Jesse or um uh working with these businesses uh and in our our um group downtown uh and and trying to just get in and see them uh for instance our CTE coordinator uh as well as some teachers went on a tour of the hospital uh we uh took some middle schoolers to the Hospital which I heard was very exciting for them to see all the number of students go through um and just working in collaboration with uh our our greater foundation and other foundations like the Education

101Foundation talking about celebrations just like you hear today all the wonderful things that we're doing um a reminder that November 5th is time for you to get out and vote um there's no school on November 22nd it's the end of trimester for high school students that's high school only um November 25th through the 29th is Thanksgiving break for everyone and our committees and board schedule are accelerated earlier in the month because of that break so just take a really good Gander at uh the committee and board meetings just so that your calendar lines up with those because they are different than any normal month and so if anybody out there wants to see when our committees are happening they're not on the regularly scheduled Thursdays of the month and whatever else because um Thanksgiving break

102is in there we tend to change it up when we have those breaks any questions sorry I know it's a lot but man there's so many good things we we try I mean that's curing it down seriously is thank question is that correct that policy is going to start at 7 and not 7:30 yes I believe so specifically planning those two hours because we only need every other month we can we change it I didn't know know where that came from yeah so you do you do we haven't that already that would just be the only thing yeah just I'm just going with what was set by committees so um if if we need to make changes bumping up a uh the planning committee earlier instead of 5:30 we can 5 or whatever else that's

103under our perview we can we can shoot for it I just I mean if we have to go to 7:30 we need have this poster I practically sleep here I don't care 90 minutes a little B later th [Music] and all right first up uh reports on committees would be ed services ed services met on October 8th all committee members were present along with distinguished we had four five topics on the agenda we conf [Music] was that the for the resolution and next fiscer also refrigerated trailer to use so there's really noice the second item was just information only this is educ every year we talked preliminary budget dist C join the meeting by no other changes the meeting District subte at election forward oober discussion Streeter decision as far as we discuss the operational

104referendum at the November meeting uh under monthly reports Mr Workman stated that if you would like to see more information about the building level budgets and what each building is spending each month uh and the business office will provide uh that information uh no further business we adjourned at 709 all right Human Resources all right we met on on Monday October 21st um we let's see high points of course we have the the consent agenda um and and you'll see that on our resolution tonight as far as that goes um a calendar work group um a subgroup of us have been diligently working on the staff and the the group and Margaret um have been diligently working as far as options are concerned and so we discussed about the different options um when that information

105um will be that information will be coming back to um HR Committee in November um any questions or or comments or input that other board members have um certainly feel free to send that to me prior to the HR meeting so that we can um you know Inc that information as well um we got a coach's evaluation system update from um Mr cap um as far as uh he did 18 um coaches evaluations last year was a pilot program we were working on and um we will continue to follow that um again for this year and it will you know continue to be evaluated as far as it that's good good program there succession planning for administration um if you go back to to the committee meeting it there is um a very nice document

106that was provided as far as um the there's a planning template for administrator roles to be able to continue you know we wanted to make sure that um information and history and things like that are reported as far as that's concerned um we went into closed session and our future meeting planning and our action items include the calendar work group um a learning leaders proposal and um exit survey process our next meeting is November 11th l i luckily have three summaries to share with you because we had the um a subgroup that worked I shouldn't say a subgroup worked with fisal so myself mik Higgins FR as president for the referendum stuff that Dr Burke presented to you earlier today um secondly there was a subgroup of Dan and myself working with the board evaluation

107survey that hopefully everyone completed by yesterday because that then was shifted to um our facilitator for our board retreat so multiple reminders were sent out hopefully everyone got that to thank you for doing that and then lastly at our overall meeting um we discussed briefly the superintendent check-in which happened earlier this week um brief update on the board retreat but the majority of our meeting was spent on the strategic planning portion of it which we heard earlier in the meeting today so last went on but you've heard it all before so check done right and finally policy all right we met Wednesday October 9th all committee members are present uh when it came to our discussion about transgender uh guidelines administrative guins regarding transgender students um board member Sam Alo was a sponsor of the

108transgender administrative guidelines uh which uh he was he brought back um the the latest draft that um was from the September meeting reest made that this Administration and District to consist so the committee will leave it will be committee a and September meeting um the guidelines had particular last district will continue toate under theion notification little bation the hope meeting so we went through the policy toal for particular meeting tonight um it was uh the transgender support and administrative guidelines will be discussed at our next committee meeting November 6 agenda which includes minutes Comm summaries Personnel Staffing approval of bills and first and second reading of policies uh Lynn I'm not seeing an attachment here for the first reading of policies on the agenda are you looking at the right one is it is that

109under administrative those in the administrative section no I I actually called about that today and I I was seeing something different too yeah but um I don't know are there I'll take your word for it I'm not seen it here and I could be not logged in who knows all right so uh can I get a motion on the resolution 9344 consent agenda so moved there move by David second by Diana comps or questions on the consent agenda here nonone roll call vote please Lori Holland yes Diana Johnson yes Tina Johnson yes Sam a Neil yes David Shader yes Dan bolner yes Craig Wartman yes Mike Higgins yes FR y yes motion carries moves on to our next item the action items first up is resolution number 9345 the 2425 adoption of budget and certification

110of tax levy okay can I get a motion on this moved by Mike second second by Sam com and questions hearing none roll call vote please Lori hen yes Diana Johnson yes Hina Johnson yes Sam ail yes David Shader yes Dan bolner yes Craig Portman yes Mike Higgins yes Fred y yes and motion carries resolution 9346 the 2427 Future Ready Library plan can I get a motion on this please moved by second David second by Diana comments or questionsa um in there it says like investing in new furniture and things like that I just was seeking clarification on where did those resources come from well uh I don't remember the fun number common school there you go okay thank you set aside specifically for Library resource okay I thought so thank you can't use it

111anywhere else libr have their own piggy yes thank all right any other comments questions roll call vote please Lor yes Diana Johnson yes Johnson yes Sam oil yes David Trader yes van Bolter yes Craig Wartman yes Mike Higgins yes Fred y yes motion carries next up resolution 9347 nutrition services condenser unit replacement and relocation project I get a motion motion by Mike second second by Dan com questions R call vote please Lorie hen yes Diana Jensen yes Hina Jensen yes Sam aeno yes David Shader yes Dan bolner yes Craig Wartman yes Mike Higgins yes Fred y yes and the motion carries last item tonight resolution 9348 the 2427 strategic plan can I get a motion all motion second motion by Craig second by Sam com question should there be an attachment like that well it

112was the there is the same the same attachment would be up in strategic discussion with the Strategic I just wasn't sure with the you know with the discussion there was a lot of extra stuff in there so that really I mean that what everything is going you know do you know what I'm saying like or is it more of do so is there so I guess I would look to Jared is there would there been more in this but be the same attachments that were in the Strategic discussion yes everything from the discussion are specific it wouldn't be all those attachments reads as presented planning committee yeah okay so okay I just wanted to be sure that Tina so my question related to that um it would be helpful if there was specific attachment in

113here so then I know exactly you know what we're what we're looking at so my question is is I know we have the document from earlier that was under strategic plan so we've got that but then in in this resolution it says approve the 2427 strategic plan as presented to the planning committee in October of 2024 so we needed to go back to the planning committee and under discussion it's not labeled strategic plan but under discussion is the different strategic plan documents and there there's like surve in there all those things but I believe in it says that those are a draft and so like what came out of that like I don't know exactly what I'm voting on we should think needs to be buil need to be Del or rewarded I this Cas

114we can we cantion simply you're on Mission the vision priorities all the way through the planning activities not the other that you heard tonight with our marketing strategy essentially the piece you have before you at table okay that Jason so uh that is what you're marketing material you're committing to approving the plan okay we will continue come back with information the marketing pieces and for the survey we're just talking about the plan all the way through the priority areas and the goals within the priority I just want sure that anyone want a lot of work to out what that is so I didn't know if we could attach it that certainly can know attachment that is and then can I get a motion I'm going to rephrase the resolution to say be it resolved that

115the Watertown Unified School District Board of ucation education approve the wsd 2427 strategic plan including the Mission Vision priority areas and goals as presented to the Watertown Unified School District Board of Education in October of 24 I move then as you had okay so who first who is first motion Craig Craig Sam second into the motion did you understand what we get I'm looking Tina Laur thank you I just wanted to make sure and then as part of that we would take the um this document this document which is listed above as Watertown unified W Watertown ussp strategies and attach that as well the resolution because this one is different plan so that's where all of the asks that we have yes are inherit this is but for clarification s yes just one I think

116the all right so we've got the amended motion can we get a roll call on the amendment wait comment question on the amendment first anyone where are you going to put the mission is there a separate document that you're attaching to that we can also bring why don't we bring down I'm just going it's all these we got them it's just putting them all together so let's go with the Water Town strategic plan brochure strategies as well yeah you don't have to reward the amendment you just have to attach yes although that does not contain the definitions for the pills I don't know that's those on the inside oh that's right side to it yeah you're right all right okay so the amendment as stated as on we have I get a roll call with

117these two attachments play in place uh Lorie Holland yes Johnson yes we have the amended motion now can get a roll call on 937 with the amend right couple of members who were very adamant that there are um only two and that is scientifically not accurate um and so I just want to give you a little bit of information about that um because I think science is really interesting um and humans are really interesting and also as you all are working on uh the policies these are real kids that we have at our schools so I just want you to have the full so um again there's lots of big 20 Page you um big 20 Page Journal articles that I did not copy for you um although you need some light readings put SLE

118you know um I would like you to think about all the national redheads you ever met including my friend Karen um there is just under two % of the human population that's the natural redit just under 2% of the human population is one inex so You' all heard the acronym lgbtq intersect the I and lgbtq so interex people are born actually like with a really wide variety of conditions that make them biologically not or um sometimes folks have yet sometimes their chromosomes contrary to to this speaker are are ambiguous um some folks are born with XY Y chromosomes or xxy chromosomes um a lot of folks don't ever know that they're intercepts or they don't know until they H puberty and they don't H puberty like everybody else so they know until they decide they

119want to have kids um but I just again as we're working together to create policies that will impact kids when in District with about 3,000 kids uh and I I went and I looked at last years inv like 3200 um that's about 50 kids age well totically that are in so as you're developing policies in again folks are very set on definitions and UMR some I just want to make sure that folks are are acting in good field so um that's all the info that I have to share um thank you for your time as always thank you for meeting and I think yall might get out before eight which is kind of thank you much anyone else like to speak tonight right my name is Jim D I live in uh North Street here

120in Watertown um it would be super duper brief I just have want to follow up a little bit on the last policy committee meeting um different than what Wendy just said just a couple things one uh what from what I Le from the last policy committee meeting right now concerning like the transgender like uh support plan policy that we're following right now we're following policy a which was written by Dr Burke and with a directive that parents get communication from the staff so it's kind of a combination of polica and policy be that's what we're following right now I notice that we're doing a very good job taking our time and trying to formulate policy that everybody approves of what that says to me is what we have right now is working and it's working

121well because we're not trying to get something else through super duper qu my question becomes this why when we have someone who is as qualified and educated as Dr Burke and we have folks like on staff you know legal counsel and things like that that have approved using the policy that we currently have in place why are we wasting time and effort giving Sam more time with Council to produce a new policy when what we already have seems like it's working or when there's another policy already on the docket policy B that could be voted on that more or less do what we're already doing now why are we trying to spend more time and effort and resources to create another policy doesn't seem like it makes a lot of sense to me in addition

122a comment was made in that policy committee meeting where Sam said that he had consulted with some people in the know I feel like we should at least know who those folks are because if policy is going to be written and sent through in-house legal council and presented to the board to then and maybe become policy that you know uh affects our children we should probably know whose hands are in cookie jard like all of the hands I think that's really really important um that's all I really got thank you thank you name is David burn and I live in Mar town I did want to speak a little bit about the um something that is of concern to me um which is the influence of Ms for Liberty on the school board um it

123does appear that some of you are affiliated with this particular group and I I do want to say a few things about them um because I've been following them for a long time and I'm fairly familiar with their with what their purpose is and their purpose is poison public opinion against our schools our school teachers and really anyone else that shows up in opposition to them it is not a parents um child support group it's first and foremost a a political group funded by billionaires and money uh the emphasis on transgender children teenagers and their family aside from being weird has a political purpose it energizes a community for the 25 years I've been in Watertown I've seen the school repeatedly handhled transgender children flawlessly working with families and working with the professionals at the

124school my my concern is the um the list of targets that are to come because next on the list is the greater LGB lgtb community after that comes the book Banning after that is the effort to promote the uh ridiculous lie of critical race Theory this is what we have to look forward to including passive attacks against children of immigrants and other of color there will be individual attacks against they listen to locally there was an attemp to local teacher at a school information not it didn't seem to go anywhere principle of school is a strong individual I have a hunch that it was squatched by her I don't think it's the last effort um summer before last um I stood with with two little kids at Riverside Park making silly jokes about neo-nazis with

125armed armed weapons sir could you pick up okay mster Liberty played a role in inviting them here wasn't direct they saturated their social media uh with inflammatory uh distorted information about the pride event and as a consequence many of their followers many of whom are Nazis came to Water Town I don't want this for my community and I and I think you're obligated to reject the moms for Liberty agenda you can listen to them I don't think you have to pay attention to it it's going to be destructive as hell for us thank you thank you sir any other comments or questions tonight hi I'm from Watertown I've worked on the school for 14 years I'm a member of BS for Liberty guess what everything I just heard is ridiculous I've heard the group off

126for Liberty mentioned several times tonight and over the past several months I find it ironic that those mentioning this group and denigrating me of those moms are the same people who have the group of Dre Queens called The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence provide security at their events with children present just recently one of the male representatives of the group sisters of Perpetual Indulgence was convicted in Wisconsin for count after count after count of child sexual exploitation videos recordings Etc and possession of child prnography and convicted in federal court for distribution of child pornography furthermore I have heard the people citing moms for Liberty as a hate gr based on the word of the Southern Poverty Law Center that should sound familiar to you as you may recall from the discussion on Panorama Southern Poverty Law

127Center is the radical activist group that provides indoctrination tools under the pretense of educ ation supplements to Educators things like children's books and lessons and how to be a leftwing activist for children as young as 3 years old if you don't believe me come talk to me I can provide you with improve and they provide lessons for children on how to dismantle white supremacy for children in this District how to dismantle WP Supremacy and to obsess on their gender and identity and regarding the monster of Liberty book Banning accusations this Takes the Cake we we give children books that are age appropriate the book Banning I I challenge you to go to the website write it down for anyone who wants to attack write it down courage is aab it.org and scroll down to the

128vulgar books tab you won't want these accusations of book Banning to be challenged in public if I keep hearing accusations of book Banning I will have to challenge those may it suffice to say that books for kids with SE graphic sex images and language and books that reference actual pornography production headquarters and that give the website address of those headquarters to the reader are par for the course of the books that moms for Liberty takes an issue with make no mistake this is what is being challenged as book Banning moms for Liberty aren't scary people who don't shelter children from pornography are scary thank you any other speakers tonight hi I'm Chad G from U 804 lindane obviously this is a really contentious topic and um what I had written down aside just to say

129something brief and that is that um in all the demands for respect that we hear I I perceive it's a little bit lopsided and that there is a a lack of respect that is shown for people that have a perspective that um things should be neutral in the school district um nobody is trying to take away anybody's rights what some of us that uh are maybe espousing uh concerns about transgender policy are here to speak about is the concern that there are thousands of kids who have the right to be protected as well they have the right to be sheltered from uh imp positions um they have the right to feel secure in bathrooms in locker rooms and I don't that's too much to ask um I think it's that simple I think it's also

130important to understand that if the community is paying for a public education it should be one that is devoid of any political leanings and it is very clear that this lgbtq movement is left leaning I'm not saying that kids that have challenges with transgender issues should not be respected they should they should be loved they were created equally in the same with the same intrinsic value that I was so I'm not calling that into question what I am saying is that those parents and children um do not have rights that exceed those who are not suffering with the same issues so what I would ask for is that there's some understanding that in order to gain respect you must give respect respect is earned and it must you can earned continually um I would just

131encourage the policy Community to keep that in mind that we're not just talking about whatever the number is uh minority students that whose needs should be respected but we're also talking about thousands of kids who have the right to feel safe in a bathroom in a locker room and should not have to be concerned that that's ever going to be infringed upon they should also have the right to not be their speech compelled to say things that they do not agree with so thank you thank you any other comments questions tonight we have any online Tyler no see any one else going once all right I'm going to end to close the comment section for tonight thank you very much one last item on the agenda or not on the agenda one item uh before

132we close tonight um as you all know this position president is a lot of late nights and long phone calls um since the board puts faith in me in this position I've had some life changes and as much as I would like I can no longer give the time and effort required for this position uh so effective uh the end of this tonight's meeting I am stepping down as president of the wsd school board uh it is my intention to remain on the board for now uh I do this with confidence that the newly appointed president David Trader will do as good as I of a job as I have or likely better uh and uh I thank you all of those of you who have given me your support and guidance in this position

133over the last few months thank you all right I got a motion to adjourn move my mic second Mina all in favor I