001great uh Welcome All I'm going to call uh the February uh Board of Education meeting to order let's all stand and pledge I thank you Lind please call the role Diana Johnson here Sam David Sher here Dan bolner here Craig wman charity Chandler here Mike Higgins here Lorie Helen here FR thank you very much uh Dr Burke we have a preview of the agenda um any additions changes notes comments no changes okay outstanding uh this brings us to to our first opportunity for public comment uh we have the timer uh in effect at 3 minutes a pop uh as we've been doing for the last several meetings um there is a basket on the side for you to log your name number uh serial number um but you also have to uh say it aloud
002when you get to the podium but that should speed your time at the podium so you don't have to um waste it signing in there um we have right now 15 minutes slated and uh if it looks like there's a lot of energy or a reason to go longer I'll ask the board if uh for a a motion and a second uh and a vote if we want to extend beyond that otherwise um first Speaker uh take the podium well thank you for having me my name is Sandy ragnas I'm here today because of the recent Announcement by Burke discussing the recommendation of closing leap Elementary um the little ad considering the flyer sent out about the referendum indicates that some of the money would be used to expand agricultural instruction but as I'm sure
003you already know the recommendation is based on declining enrollment and too much building space in the district overall however I'm also aware of the concurrent research being done to continue closing all the elementary schools one by one not just Le so makes me think this is the start of something much bigger which the larger Community probably doesn't have as much Awareness on quite yet because it's not has talked about y um but let's talk about leap since this is where it's all starting leap is one of the district's newer initiative guys it's working it's a success story right now it's one of the best parts of our school district and is actually helping to attract students when Lebanon Elementary converted to LEAP they were given goals to hit and the school has been exceeding all
004your expectations leap has been given Awards several grants and this year was at capacity with the waiting list no enrollment issue there it is a smaller campus but um some kids need the smaller environment and our number one focus should always be the diverse needs of our students and leap has many students who transferred in from other campuses for a variety of reasons they are succeeding at leap and student test scores and family reviews reinforce this now I know that moving the program to be a school within a school is being discussed but you need to know there's no way that moving the school would keep the program as successful as it is Leap is being loved on and supported by the surrounding Lebanon Community the families support the school like none of our other
005campuses they have fiscally and manually contributed to the vegetable garden pollinator Garden Coupe Outdoor Classroom several animal enclosures the only way to really understand it is to visit it and you're always welcome um I encourage you all to visit because these components are not easily replaceable or movable and other space in the district is not comparable so it's also important to note that since it opened leap has been on their own self-promoting within the community showing up making appearances at local events hosting internal events all the boost their enrollment and it worked for them it can work for the rest of the schools too so instead of closing leap and the rest of the schools maybe we should take a step back and look at what's really working so I asked the board I know
006that might Maybe not today but to consider other ideas to boost enrollment and fill our buildings if that's really what this is all about because starting the closure of our elementary schools with leap would be really sad and detrimental so let's promote the uniqueness and successes of our themed campuses starting with leap it's an asset that we really shouldn't turn our back on thank you anyone else okay anyone online very good I will uh close public comment thank you very much uh next up uh student representative Addison I think I saw her out there there she is hey so February we've had many things but more importantly we've have a lot of things coming up so we had the students took the wide RVs survey in El we are doing the musical March 7 7th
007to the 9th um future Business Leaders of America had their District competition held February 1st the juniors are beginning to plan prom we have the ACT coming up on March 12th six of the sophomores and freshmen attended driven leadership conference NHS was delivering cookies to the hospital along with shoveling sidewalks March 19th we have our career fair apart just went to New York two of our wrestlers made it to State Owen scherg and Olivia Walsh girls basketball had their last home game gymnastics has sectionals this Friday and just s conference at home and spring Sports would still be getting practices and having their like meetings to begin thank you thank you okay next up Blair Thorp with a EU trip proposal uh excuse me good evening um my name is Blair Thorp I'm a teacher
008social studies teacher up at the high school and I'm here to seek approval for a trip in June of 2026 to Northern Europe um if approved this will be the fourth such trip that I have led um and as you can see by the itinerary that I forwarded earlier um we start this trip in Amsterdam and from there we go to Brussels which is in Belgium via Brugge um and from Brugge we had to Paris and we do sort of the standard sightseeing stuff in Paris the Lou um a guided sort of walking tour through the other monuments and this one will include a trip to Versa um after Paris we will head to London via the Chunnel which goes under the English Channel and we'll spend two days in London seeing the landmarks in
009London uh the price that you guys see on the trip is all inclusive um um includes tipping and every entrance and airfare and hotel and meal that's a part of the trip so I guess I'm here to answer any questions that you guys may have okay bordon any questions okay thank you all right thank you very much next up is uh Reflections that sounds so warming uh Wisconsin State education uh convention wasby uh Reflections I know uh we had at least three four five six seven staff members go uh Diana you went I was able to attend the delegate convention and so uh Diana probably get to see most of the breakout sessions but uh I think this is time for both her to give some updates to the board is what she uh visited
010as well as any of the other administrators uh in what they took away as far as far as what it could mean for us in Watertown so uh Diana if you want to go first or if there was somebody else who was uh expecting to I can go first you know I Diana and I went to a couple of them together um but two things that I I have this takeaways is um we're we're always talking about and there's a a requirement for our students to understand uh personal economics better um and there was uh a gentleman that was there as part of the vendor Hall um sharing some new curriculum ideas that um dealt with not only personal finance but also things like Investments investing in the stock market and some other things so
011I thought that was really worth uh bringing back some information on and uh talking with uh Jenny uh our director of curriculum instruction about and so um there's some information there that was big but I guess the bigger stuff was um and I always go to uh the fiscal updates and the legal updates and you know usually you get a couple of gems here and there um but the the big takeaways that I got this year is there's going to be a huge um difference between um our state government and our federal government and how they're moving about business not only from a standpoint of where the legislature might be but also and more especially where uh court cases and court cases coming before our state courts are looking at versus direction that the federal
012government may be going in um at the State Convention is the first time that we heard that there may be large Federal Cuts Federal Dollar Cuts as well as a change in uh educational programming uh with um the possibility of the Department of Ed being dissolved and moving many of their services to Health and Human Services uh as a consolidation and how that may or may not affect us may be very different um but then also uh just taking a look in the breath of which our state budgetary process might be looking at uh and as you saw um in Tony Governor toner Governor Tony I's budget um uh puts out a large ask for schools um but we're also hearing that U the legislature probably won't support those asks so it's it's a real
013uh you know usually there's you know uh the people who are in the no kind of say yeah we hear all that but here's kind of the thread um and right now they're saying we don't even know right and so um really uncertain times right now from a legal standpoint as well as a fiscal standpoint going into next year and and Beyond so that was the biggest takeaway that I took from the State Convention really interesting times for me um three days seven sessions an hour each session I've always loved convention type things simply because what can you learn and grow from it yeah some of them are does sometimes you walk away with so as long as you walk away with one or two nuggets which is awesome there were a lot of nuggets
014so my first pitch is if you have the opportunity even to go for a Day next year it's well worth the time and energy there um so I'm going to share with you a few n nuggets from each of them I I condense it down as much as I can so it's a little sprinkling of what was there um first of all I went to a session on the district report card and we talked about how the state report card doesn't really tell the story of what going on in the district and when Dr Burke first came to us he had proposed an idea of a district report card so at some of these sessions it's it's new some of it's affirming what we've done and some of it's yep affirming we shouldn't go down
015that pathway and so this one was hey this was an idea shared where is that in the pipeline you know was an idea is it going to come to fruition because we are so much more than what the state report card shows we have talked a lot about transparency we have talked about bringing more people into the community um looking at our schools but we have nothing other than the state report card to show for that and an interesting nugget there was hey talk to your realators in town you have a little handout whatever it's a nice way to share about what's going on with the schools um couple quick facts in there that course attendance is eight times more predictive of success in the freshman year than the eighth grade test scores H Dr
016Burke's first year here his big Focus was on attendance uh second second one students who have a 2.8 GPA or higher have a 71% likelihood of reaching the American middle class H we've been focusing a lot on raising overall academics the third Point students engaged in co-curricular activities are more likely to pursue higher level education H last year whs made a focus during elt to get extracurricular work done during elt time to get more kids involved and they were at like 97% inclusion rate um so that was very affirming of things that we're doing within our district another one I went to was portrait of a graduate and some key things that resonated with me and sorry I'm taking key nuggets that they had in directly reading so I don't want to paraphrase too much
017but statement we are currently preparing students for jobs that didn't exist 10 years ago such as drone operators AI consultants and assistants Esports with tools that didn't exist many of our students will have jobs that haven't even been thought of yet AI is not going away we need to start by teaching kids the human component then teach them how to work with AI like chat GPT and then bring it back to that human component so working with those tools um generally speaking we teach the way we were taught we tend to teach the way we were taught jobs look different now though compared to when we were in school and kids look different as well and then lastly big nugget in that one our classrooms this is what they stated and I agree our classrooms
018need to be more relevant for kids they don't need to focus on a bunch of facts anymore they have those at their fingertips with their phones with their computers we need to teach them how to share information with others solve problems and present information to small and large groups they said if you really want to know what's going on talk to the community talk to the Business Leaders bring them in and see what do we need to know what are we doing um how can we better prepare them for you because not all kids want to go to college and that's another point they said ask the kids what they want prepare them or let them know all the different Avenues beyond their high school years not just you know degree work not just going
019into the trades what are what options are out there and again this is a couple different districts perspectives going on so those are just key nuggets I thought were interesting um I went to three sessions on governance because as we talk about what's our role as a board and how do we become a more effective board and in all three sessions effective Schoolboard governance is the single most most driving Factor behind School achievement I want to read that again effective Schoolboard governance single most driving Factor behind School achievement we've been talking about how do we raise the bar but the one factor we haven't looked at is how do we do better ourselves and that was our Focus this year is with the board evaluation survey with board development um kind of pieces that we
020so it's going to kind of continue to be a focus and that's why we're having Drew ho come in multiple times a year kind of helping us do our um role in that some boards across the state you have a full governance thing now this is a little outlandish but kind of interesting they take the policy book and they've divided into two parts this is the part that the um superintendent and his admin team focus on and this is the part that the board focuses on that way each group stays in their own lane it's like okay wait a second how do we make sure that the superintendent his team are accountable well they have more accountability because they have all those policies that they're focusing on um so was interesting to look at that
021route because our Focus then I should say their focus from the board level was more on student outcomes and safety and admin has the rest so I'm not saying all of these things we have to go on these were just things that kind of resonated me of hm why don't we think about that um another one was the superintendent evaluation as promised in planning I said I would go to that and see what there is to offer because there's a little bit of uncertainty as far as how do we feel about dates and school perceptions does as you know our student survey our parent survey they also offer a superintendent survey and with that I've never walked out of a session before I walked out of that session um Dr Burke and I walked out
022of that session as we sat through some good components nothing better than what I currently see that we're doing with dates and the fact that it's not digital a lot of it still pay it's like if we're not to that point yet it's not worth the extra time energy and effort I went to one on board evaluation again School perceptions does a board evaluation survey and that is something as you know uh board evaluation is part of our board policy that we need to do and multifaceted like five or six pages in length um but a few things that were interesting with that is do doing goals based on that survey and they have someone that you can pay that just um segregates through the information to help pull those ideas forward and I actually
023met with Drew this morning met with him at Convention as well about our survey and um his suggestion at the survey and reiterated today was instead of going a big route his his recommendation start with our Collective commitments we've got what 12 of them and just do your survey based on those 12 so as you probably remember or maybe not he will be at our March planning meeting and we will be transferring those Collective commitments to survey form to implement at the end of March to then help us write those goals so that way we are um then moving into compliance with both the evaluation and goal setting um that's all I got that was a lot days busy few days Sarah Lynn I know Sarah Margaret a lot of you guys were there any
024other takeaways a lot of changes in some Law changes in some Finance we're seeing that right now with how Medicaid starting July 1 is going to be um allowed to be build on certain things um I do forecast that we will see a reduction in Medicaid um reimbursement coming on into the district because of some of those changes uh treny attendance we know that those are things that are very important for engagement of students across the state we're seeing some issues how do we combat that how do we engage our students and what are the barriers that we can remove to get kids into the buildings uh continuous Improvement empowering Educators communities parents bringing all of those systems together the um convention is always a very highly functioned event with a wealth of knowledge for
025a variety of people and so again it was a top-notch um opportunity got it did you have most of my attendance focused on it areas I attended a a session on HR technology tools and how to um increase efficiency and reach with u various types of Technology strategies I also U attended a session on AI policy which is an area of Fascination for and um also uh couple sessions on cyber security um the following day I I got more people oriented because I'm in Human Resources so we attended a wheny and I attended a session on best practice for staff appreciation and then for anyone that was at the final closing session seemed to focus very heavily on communication and the importance of really promoting everything that's right about's going in your district and making
026sure that that message is distributed quite broadly and um quite strongly great thanks so um I did attend but I only had the time to attend the delegate session which was a three hours on Wednesday afternoon uh I won't go through all the details on that it was fairly uneventful um I will say though that I've been to these breakout sessions before both at wasby as well as the AA conferences and uh I uh I I'll say like Diana and the other people in the room uh got a lot of value out of them but uh in prepping for this I'm sure that they didn't want nobody wanted to give you the 1hour session in total recap wanted to just nobody wants yeah so just be aware that uh I mean one of the subjects
027that they presented to you from AI to board development to Law changes coming in the pipes and so for any board member and uh quite honestly for anybody in the room uh if you have additional questions please relay those to the chair uh committee chairs and door to the admin uh who spoke on its subject and I'm sure we can get more of that uh injected into a uh forthcoming meeting uh if we wanted more updates on any of those topics uh with slides most of that stuff you can take the slides with you if not there's QR codes where you can download them uh and represent them to the board in full uh if there's a particular topic that we wanted to do a deeper dive in or and or even have the speaker
028come here um which we've seen done before as well so yeah number of sessions also were recorded So if you want to go to WB or wasda um which is a superintendent organization ask them you know which sessions were reported if you want to take a look you can take a look at those free of charge awesome okay thank you all for attending uh and taking time out of your busy schedules to do so uh next up uh Dr Burke you have a thank you note to the board is on the agenda yeah there's a wonderful uh thank you note uh from Caitlyn creger um as you know she was uh a person who put her name in to uh try to fill the vacated seat uh dear School Board I want to thank each
029of you uh for the opportunity to be interviewed it was a great experience I'm thankful to have participated in the process uh to the members of the board who voted for me a special thanks but to everyone I hope this year is especially great charity congratulations to you it was a pleasure joking around with you I'm sure glad it didn't end in a bake off I'm still hungry for a cupcake after all that talk I hope uh to see you at the bakery also to Lynn it was a joy corresponding with you thank you again Caitlyn creger okay well thank you Caitlyn to see that go ahead okay um next up is strategic discussion and we have the audit report from Amber Ebert is everyone able to hear me yep okay um so I'm going
030to start and just kind of flip through the 6302 24 financials and just kind of Deep dive in some important areas so this year we issued an unmodified audit opinion which is the best opinion that can be achieved for an audit and then Pages 6 through 14 of the financials are the management discussion and Analysis which is just a short synopsis of um kind of everything that we I guess kind of a short synopsis of the whole financials just broken down into um into by the thousands um so this year we added roughly Little Less Than 3 million in capital asset additions to buildings and improvements and equipment um long-term debt decrease just with normal Bond payments um WS is still a liability although it is um a pretty it was a pretty big decrease
031in liability this year um and then Pages 10 through 11 just kind of goes through the revenues and expenditures and 13 through 14 is the capital assets and long-term debt PID 15 starts with the government-wide statements so this would show um the debt and capital assets along with um all the fund information so 15 and 16 are those two statements nothing super important to note there page 17 through 18 these go through the fund statements so overall um the general fund which also includes the special education fund had a total fund balance of about 27 million this year which was a decrease from last year of about 3 million The Debt Service fund had an $81,000 fund balance this year which was an increase of about 26,000 from last year Amber Amber just a second
032Tyler um you gotta go off of the page numbers on the page not on the PDF oh yeah yep so you I think she's two pages off from what you have up on the screen uh you're looking for 17 at the bottom there yeah there you go one more uh that looks about right yeah yep y thank you okay go ahead um and then the total non- major governmental funds which will get to later in the report had a total fund balance of 4.4 million this year um which was a decrease of about 308,000 for the year and then the bottom half of that is just the reconciliation from the balance sheet on this statement to the balance sheet on the government wide um you can skip page 18 and then page 19 this is
033just the reconciliation for the income statement on the fund side to the government wide side um just kind of shows the um assets that were purchased along with debt payments made page 20 starts the notes to the financial statements the first um I'd say four to five pages for all the note ones these are just some simple verbage of everything we kind of look through when we do the audit nothing nothing's major to not here page 25 this starts the cash and investment section so you can see that um the state of Wisconsin investment pool um had maturities of about 7.8 million for the year and then the Wisconsin investment series had 9.3 million for the year if you want to go to the next page um that right in the middle of the custodial
034credit risk um it's just saying that there was a bank balance of about 12 million um 10 million of that was uninsured or uncollateralized as you can pay the banks extra to secure your funds but that's really kind of a decision on if the board decides they want to do that or not um and then the bottom starts the capital assets um you can see there was 3 million added and 41,000 deleted this year and then the next page just shows the depreciation part so about 2.2 million was depreciated this year and then the bottom half just shows the subida assets which these are subscription based it contracts or relases however you want to look at that um mostly just some software things that they not require us to keep track of nothing was added
035this year page 28 starts the long-term obligations so the Fe year you can see there was 4.3 million of bonds paid um the bested vacation and sick pay um we always pay off what was at the beginning balance and then we increase by this year so there's 274,000 of um acur vacation and 210,000 of acur sick pay and then here is the Ws liability you can see it decreased um 5.5 million this just varies every year there's really nothing the district can do about it it just depends on how WS calculates it for the year and then also OPB Healthcare decreased um about 1.5 million from last last year and this too just kind of varies um the general obligation section just shows the bonds that are still outstanding along with um when they were
036issued when they were matured and the interest rate and then the general obligation debt limit calculation just shows what you could potentially take out in debt although I would not suggest taking out that much but just know if needed that is a possibility and then the top of page 29 is just a breakdown of future debt payments if um the debt payment schedule were to be followed however you are always welcome to make additional payments if you'd like uh the rest of page 29 starts the Ws pension but note this is all just standard verbiage that wrs requires us to include um nothing really major to note here that lasts until page 33 and then on 33 we also start the OPB pension footnote this too is just standard verbage that we are required to
037report so again nothing nothing too major to note here just noting what the benefits are page 37 is a breakdown of the fund balance so you can see we have the nonspendable fund balance restricted fund balance and assigned fund balance um broke down by the different funds and then the purpose that it's set aside for and then we also have the governmental activities for the purpose that it's set aside for and this can be um adjusted as needed by board approval uh the rest of this page is just some standard verbage and then page 38 is the self-funded insurance for dental um so this year there was just a very slight increase in ending liability balance of now 53,000 page 39 start or shows the budget to actual for the general fund and the special
038education fund so overall the total revenues for the year you received about 690,000 more than what was budgeted and expenditures you spent about um 1.3 million less than what was budgeted so that's great to see on both sides and then the next page just shows each line item that was over budgeted for the expenditures although like I said in general overall it was not over budgeted which is really the main thing that we look for but just kind of a breakdown um if you were curious what areas were over budget Pages 41 through 43 again are just standard WS um notes that were required to report and then 44 is the OPB for seven years this will get up to 10 years once um 10 years have reached of the benefit 45 and 46 are
039the non- major funds so um 46 shows the net change so the special Revenue trust fund had a total ending fund balance of 79,000 which was a decrease of 156,000 from last year the food service had a fund balance of $993,000 which was a decrease of 97,000 from last year uh a big reason for this is covid funding for food has ended so that's kind of what's causing the decrease There community service had about 420,000 which was a decrease of 32,000 from last year and then the long-term capital Improvement fund had a 2.2 million fund balance which was a decrease of 23,000 from last year um if you want to skip to page 48 this shows all of the federal grants received for the year um so you can see how much was received versus
040how much was spent and then how much is yet to be spent so there was 7.5 million that was spent this year and 1.6 million left to be spent and then page 49 shows the state grants so same thing um 32.3 million was spent and 43,000 is yet to be spent and then the rest of the reports Pages 51 through 52 this is just some standard verbage um for our findings which we only had one finding which I'll get to in just a minute or so and then 53 through 55 is just um the single audit verbiage and state program 56 shows the schedule findings and question costs so for the federal major programs this year we looked at the special education cluster and the Esser funds so we deep did we did a deep
041dive into those and then on the state side it was the equalization Aid and the pruple aid and then page SE 57 is our one finding which is just preparation of financial statements this is a very common finding for all of our districts so nothing nothing to worry about here um and then yeah that's all we had any questions any questions okay I guess I'll say first of all well done Sarah and your department Stacy uh unmodified it's pretty good uh if not the best right can't get a better one than that I mean unmodified doesn't seem too flattering but that's we're talking to accountants here [Laughter] yes so uh anything else Dr Burke on this uh no just uh you know an understanding as you see the documents that more is going out than
042coming in and and you can see that but I too agree uh Sarah and the team do an excellent job making sure that we're straight and narrow with everything we need to do we should rest easy so thank you Sarah and thank you Amber yeah thank you and I just want to thank you on behalf of poin Ash for allowing us to be your Auditors again great okay uh next up uh we have the AGR report from shur Mr B thank [Music] you question know AGR has been available to shers for some years now and um we do a pres presentation at middle of the year and then uh the June or July to close out the Year this is the the typical Cadence for sharing some data and with that I would just like
043to thank Casey for her hard work team alternative we case um well thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all today about um a topic that is the heart of our mission and vision which is closing the achievement Gap and promoting academic Excellence for every single one of our students at sh Elementary um today I'm going to walk us through the why what and how of the EGR program as um Mr Bull stated that's required by the state of Wisconsin um just a little background information about um the EGR program um it was established in 15 as the state of Wisconsin recognizes that um students who come from Lev income backgrounds have a higher um achievement Gap than students who come who do not come from low income backgrounds um just taking a
044peek at the graph in front of you um just through the past four years sh has um continuously had a disproportionate number of students who are economically disadvantaged um even looking at the data through the past 10 years um that percentage of students who fall in into that economically disadvantaged category has ranged anywhere from 65 to 75% of our student population over the course of the past decade um moving into the what um as part of the EGR program um the wsd has chosen to the strategy of an instructional coach at sh to help and um decrease that achievement Gap um our instructional coach is vital to a wide variety of academic um pieces in our school um first and foremost person serves as a curricular and instructional support to our teachers um they meet
045with grade level teams and their professional learning communities um to help coach and work with staff with curriculum implementation um they're also in the classroom modeling observing and providing feedback to our teachers um they are essential as part of our response to intervention process um this person collects data organizes that data for our teams um helps us in that analysis of the data and determining what students um require tier two and tier three interventions um and progress monitoring the um effect of those Implement interventions as we go along um that or sorry that coach also um touches students every single day whether working in small groups in the classroom or pulling students oneon-one for a tier three intervention basis um and lastly this person is also essential in our um teacher growth and professional development
046especially considering this year with our bridges curriculum adoption um act 20 all things related to keysa literacy and our um investigation into new uh curriculum next year for literacy um this person has just been essential in providing guidance and support and resources for our staff as we um go through these curricular changes as a school um I know I talk really fast any questions on the who or the what before we go into the how um the last piece and I think the most important piece is how are we we doing as a result of the AGR program I'm starting with our kindergarteners our assessment of choice is the letters and sounds assessment which um kindergarteners are asked to show their Prof proficiency and their letter recognition and matching sounds for the letters um you
047can see in the fall our kindergardeners were barely um 10% proficient in their letter recognition and sound recognition um looking at the orange there our winter assessment that we just took about a month ago they made tremendous gains and then that green end of year goal um we're hoping that um all of our students will be at least um seven uh will reach proficiency with 75% accuracy so we're definitely On Target to reach that end of the year goal with our kindergarteners I'm sorry moving down um to our star reading and math of your data um you can see that first second and third grade is represented represented represented in each um of the star reading and star math areas um again similarly the blue represents our Baseline data so the blue is the percent
048of students who were proficient um at or above in Star reading and star math um at the beginning of the school year orange represents our current assessment results that um students again scoring at or above Proficiency in the areas of reading and math for each grade level and then green is where we want to be at the end of the school year um I think a huge celebration um comparing that orange and the those green bar graphs is that um we're really on track to meeting those end of year goals and quite possibly surpassing in um a few of those grades um our next steps for the rest of the school year um we're going to continue to collect and analyze our assessment data we do have spring star reading and math assessments that we'll
049conduct um we have our spring as web reading assessments um that we will conduct with grades kindergarten through third to monitor early literacy progress um we'll continue to progress monitor our students who are receiving literacy interventions as part of act 20 um as outlined in their individual reading plans will'll also continue to engage in professional development for our staff we began our keys to literacy um PD um summer and we're continuing to prank along with that and we'll wrap up at the end of the school year so that all of our teachers are um educated in the science of reading and then the last piece is really leaning into to our schoolwide action plan that our building leadership team developed this August um really again with a strong emphasis on the science of reading in
050our classrooms and our instruction and then an explicit focus on vocabulary instruction as our respons in forward data um identified that was an area of grow gr for our school and our students um so we'll continue to do our work with that um I know that was fast and furious um but it closing addressing the achievement Gap um is just not about improving test scores it's about ensuring that every student at shars has the support resource and resources and opportunities they need to succeed um while progress has been made we know that there's more to do to meet the needs of our shars tigers um thank you for your time and your support in this important work and I welcome any other questions you might have at the this time great for Fred um looking
051at the scores the math scores I see that we've had tremendous growth in the first and the third grades and they're at or above their mid year at what their a of the Year goals are but the second grade seem to be lagging behind a little bit can you speak to what's the difference there in the second grade yeah I think it would be um the the first and third grade teachers are actually in their second year of implementation for Bridges they were kind of our leaders um so they already have two years of instruction under their belt and just a um a knowledge of the curriculum where our second grade teachers this is their first year chunking through that curriculum and so that is the biggest difference to me between the different grades is
052that our first and third grade teachers are one year in versus our second grade teachers are this their first year so I'm not entirely to that data okay other questions uh the I don't know if I missed it um who who sets these goals is it DPI is it the AGR um so the EGR program is created by the state of Wisconsin the individual blls that are identified under like the kindergarten and the star data that's set um by our building leadership team with our instructional coach myself um and members of the building level leadership so so I like to say I mean I it's it's great to see that you know you're on track with those goals so I I think that this is ultimately telling a good story um My Hope Is that
053we can take it to the next level then when we when we surpass those goals hopefully for next year yeah absolutely we'll take obviously the data that we collect throughout this year and make adjustments as we go and maybe you know set that bar a little bit higher so we can continue to push our students to achieve high levels I agree with that di sorry for asking this but I need a little help reading the graph kind of odd coming from a math teacher um but looking at it the goal is to be raising 20 percentage points per grade level so is the end of the year goal based on the beginning of the year test score because what I'm seeing is in math like first grade start at 20% and your end of the
054year 40% that's 20 that's 20 percentage points right all of the math ones fall that but when you look at reading help me understand first grade started at 40% but the end of the year goal is 50% in reading for second grade it started at about 52% and it ends at about 65 and in third grade it starts at 60 and the end of the year goal is about 72 so I'm not understanding am I reading the goal wrong am I struggling with the graph I'm not understanding because that's not a 20 percentage Point yeah so what am I missing um I'm not sure but I can send you the actual numbers of the Baseline and the end of the year goal so that you can see that for sure so it's not like a
055visual representation created by Exel act right because you guys just you pluck it in and Excel does it so I'm just wondering where that discrepan because that it just didn't make sense if if it was something I'm not reading correctly or what I'm not sure but I can definitely get you those exact percentages so if you do that can you just copy all of the board members and just so we all have the information thank you stop us from asking this J did you have a question the only question I have is you mentioned that there was a teacher the first grade and third grade teachers have done this you one year before are you seeing similar increases over time based on last year's data recognizing they're different students but are you seeing similar increases
056um that's my first year as the sh principal um and so I'm not super educated as to what last year looked like off the top of my head I can certainly look into it um I do know that there were significant gains with our teachers who implemented that first year and that we are seeing those similar gains um but I don't have like specific numbers of things that I can pull over my head right now just anecdotally anecdotally um teachers are sharing their successes um but I don't have that in the work one other questions um I'm gon uh question maybe for all four of you at the end of the table down there um if this is the achievement Gap reduction and we use it at shurs and we see that we have economically
057disadvantaged uh increasing over the last four years um and the kindergarten letters and sounds let's just take that one for example uh they came in with a 10% proficiency or or a 10% on the on the bar chart um is that the is that consistent with the the downward trend on what they're coming in at is that consistent with the upward Trend in the economically disadvantaged and do we track that uh the other part of this question is is are these tests administered to all sh students or just the ones that are are identified as economically disadvantaged I guess I'm just wondering in a nutshell are you're being given a a larger body of work every single year to improve their skills Gap is that a fair statement and do we have data Jason or
058Chris if she were here that shows that that it's getting tougher or it's going to be more and more students every single year that need this intervention the fall scores for kindergarten really all the grades that are represented here are pretty typical right I would also say that the growth that we're seeing at shes um on a consistent basis and longitudinally is something we should be celebrating I didn't want to skip over cred I agree you guys are doing a great job and and Craig pointed out to it I'm just wondering how much more of a job you have to do every single year that's outside of your control is is what I'm trying to get to also to the question uh sh sets the goal right so every building has uh building leadership they'll
059take a look at that data where they are at the end of the year and they'll set goals so AGR provides the resources the guidance but we're setting the goals and I think we're seeing over time the bar is is increasing much to really really much to celebrate right I 100% agree y like well generally like bar charts that go up like this every quarter if it's profit can I ask one additional question because it may end up taking that off the plate for you your goal is that data looked at Spring to spring or is it fall to spring for the specific for the math and re first star if it's if it's fall to Spring then I understand stand we'd need additional data or additional things for me um because it's not the
06020 percentage points but if it was a spring to Spring that's why there would be a discrepancy so it's it's false fall dis okay so then I would need additional thank you okay any additional questions on that topic well done Casey thank you uh next up Sarah uh with a uh budget planning update I to look at an updated fiveyear Financial projection and to do that we have three documents in the agenda one is the projection itself and then the other two show what go into that projection so one is an enrollment projection and then the other is a document that shows all the different assumptions that are built into this projection um I want to start before we even start looking at the the information anyway I just want to start by saying that
061one thing is that this is they call it a forecast it literally is a forecast it's a planning tool it's by no means a budget or a recommendation of what should happen this is showing what would happen if the district were not to pass a referendum and if we were not to make some um pretty significant reductions in budget so this is to a certain extent showing what would happen if we continued on as we have um so with that said maybe we could start by looking at the enrollment projection so on that paper for enrollment projections there are two different tables and these are two different methods for um projecting student enrollment the first is called the cohort survival method this is the method that the district has used traditionally to project student enrollment
062and this method looks at the previous six years of enrollment numbers and then calculates a survival uh rate for the upcoming years so this method is pretty pretty good it it never comes in exactly as it shows but it usually comes in pretty close to where we end up landing and this method keeps certain things like um Watertown often sees an increase in students in the ninth grade and this will keep that which is helpful the second method is called a cast forward method and this is a method that a lot of school districts use as well this method just takes the number of students and moves them to the next year and you'll see that both of these methods show or project enrollment declines for the upcoming Five Years um the second this cast
063forward method shows student enrollment declining faster than the uh the first method so people are kind of unpredictable we don't know exactly what's going to happen here but this again is a tool that we can use to help us in the budgeting process um for this financial projection I'm using the first method the C survival method so those are the numbers that are actually in the projection and I also included at the bottom of this document just a little reminder that when we're projecting enrollment we're we're talking about headcount or the actual number of students that are in the district and that is not the number that's used to calculate the revenue limit the revenue limit is um something called membership and so that calculation formula is here in those this a little bit more
064complicated um next we can look at the Assumption sheet and I won't for everybody by reading all of this but the first the first section here numbers 1 through 17 these are the assumptions that I'm making when I'm building this projection and in a nutshell I'm keeping state revenue as it is right now I haven't changed it I kept the $325 per FTE on the revenue limit which um was in the last biannual budget and got vetoed for 400 years by line item veto that is being challenged in court but I C that in four projections and then it shows the declining enrollment it shows increases in expenses um like CPI increases for wages and then increases on things we know are going to increase like employee benefits such as health insurance Transportation utilities Etc
065um then I just have a few sections here talking about the different uncertainties that we have right now in building a budget there's always uncertainty every year especially when we're starting a new state by annual budget which we are right now um this year is I would say even more uncertain so we have the upcoming new budget Governor iers did present that last week it's actually B shared there are a number of things for public schools in that budget which we don't know what will make it through and what won't um but there's lots of uncertainty there and then this year we have the added uncertainty of the federal revenues um being a little bit in question we don't know exactly what going to happen with those which would definitely impact our projections in the
066upcoming years or our budget in the upcoming years and the other thing we have is Act 10 is also um in the court system again and that is another huge unknown for us on the expense side so there's lots of uncertainty and so when I say the this uh projection is a forecast I mean it it truly is a forecast even next year is tough to predict let Al five years out um the other thing I will say is that um we had committed to reducing the budget by $1.5 million over the next three years um and so for the 20125 26 school year we have identified um 742 th000 approximately in reductions that we will be Mak that so we are on our way to uh filling that commitment and now we can look
067at the actual projection when we look at this like I said this is no referendum no massive reductions in spending this does include that $742,000 reduction um we are facing the the red line item there is the um deficit for each year so just just CPI increases and um increases in transportation and things like that alone increase our budget by like anywhere between1 and $2 million each year that's why we see the deficits growing each year and with declining enrollment Revenue goes down each year so those gaps get a little bit bigger with every budget year if nothing changes um that that is those are the big things I had to say um obviously we could not really do this this shows us running out of fund balance by 2027 28 which we actually cannot
068do so something would have to change um we do have the referendum coming up in April for $7 million a year and even at that if we were to pass that um we still would have to take a look at this budget each year and make sure that we are um making reductions where we can and making sure that we're balancing that budget each year and uh Craig I'll just second and I'll just mention that this was all reviewed at fiscal last week as well pretty much uh identically uh so I appreciate you uh Sarah doing this for the full board as well as for the uh public who uh opted to join us tonight and with that go ahead Craig I think I figured out one question that I had at fiscal a little
069bit about the um uh the fund balance being um you know basically spent down right uh and this particular model that we have here doesn't take into consideration the additional cost of short-term borrowing if that's correct so so at year let's say 2027 2028 the negative $3 million may actually be quite a bit more because of the extra cost associated with borrowing funds to make up for that difference that's a great okay thank you and the I had one of quick observation um in when we went through the um the Hawkins um what call uh audit it mentioned um it mentioned about $8 million of federal funds through like special ad and a number of different like Title One programming and so so in your assumptions it's not accounted for however there is a possibility
070that some of that funding would also disappear yes that is very true um so that $8 million was higher than what we would get on average because we got quite a bit of eser funding that we don't normally get but in a normal year we probably get about4 and a half million dollars of federal funds and um as far as I know the only thing I put for sure that's not on the table for sure is Food Service um so that's a separate fund so we would be looking at about $2 and A5 million dollar of funds that are uncertain at this point okay thank you Dan um this may be a Margaret question I don't know but um if we asked why we were our enrollment is declining I mean do we do ex
071interviews with families so that that's not necessarily a marget question but uh if you recall back to earlier this year we had a firm um that we had done that population study with right and um the biggest thing that is affecting our enrollment population is the decline of birth rate so a lot fewer students being born uh and our population is Aging in place that is the biggest contributor to that decline in enrollment it's not that they're going somewhere else and I mean we do have some students that go and some students that come in right um but in general it's just the the lack of having more births and having more students available uh and that's that's not only a Midwest problem and a Wisconsin problem that's a national problem that we have right
072now Dan if you're interested the um roer's report is actually posted on last fiscal committee meeting agenda which kind of lays that all out if you want to go watch the [Music] video and um if I may another question or another discussion was um and for those in the public there is a significant amount of interest in new housing in Watertown this is again both Jefferson Dodge this is the state of Wisconsin and right now Watertown has 350 announced housing starts and potentially 900 on the books um I asked Sarah that question during fiscal um when does it show up and uh she said uh well this goes to 2029 2030 uh well you didn't exactly say look at the next column but uh there's really no way to tell how that housing and even
073if all 350r started here in the city who's going to be in each of those beds um how long it takes them to vacate a single family home and move into an apartment uh how long it takes them to get an apartment to become a family and get those kids into our district so um that's a long game and and one that I I see a lot of positive things going on in the community to help but nothing that's going to affect Sarah's forecast looking out five years um matter of fact if you look at the raer study it's at least eight years out before we start seeing that trend of decline come back to a positive trend and when it does we're not talking about it picking up at the level we declined it's
074going to pick up slowly at least to their projections you know but anything after 3 to 5 years they'll tell you uh that's like you know predicting next year's weather right so um probably tell you approximately what the average temperature might be but we can't tell you anything better than that um additional questions comments and Sarah we revisit this I mean you revisit it daily probably but uh next time fiscal would see something that looks like this or the full board um okay I thought that's about how I mean once you hit July August September we start seeing it monthly but right now another three months before we review this again and see if anything's changed with the funding from the state or the federal government okay yeah thank you Sarah okay we are now
075ready for the superintendent report okay uh a number of things uh for us to review uh this is a picture of the whs uh National Honor Society students there over at the hospital uh giving some some gifts of love over to their staff uh so we thought we'd put that on as a introductory picture um at sh Elementary uh they were awarded a little AG Library uh that AG Library comes from the Wisconsin Farm Bureau uh in that they have books that highlight some of the crops and other things that are in our egg industry and so on really cute little uh Barn shape to it but it's just a lending library kind of like you've seen the little libraries around town um um that people put a Bookshare in but it just thought it
076was a PR neat idea from the Farm Bureau uh to highlight agricultural education also uh 4K at Webster wild CL Miss Peter's classroom got to do uh a a student uh you know celebration we like to put a lot of these out there to show all the things that are happening uh they finished a book called hi Pizza Man and uh Mr Peters as well as Mr Clark delivered the class or the pizzas through the classroom and they had a great time another student engagement celebration uh that happens at all of our elementary schools here's some pictures from Douglas is the 100th day of school a lot of uh activity around the 100th day of school um the younger kids uh use those days to count to 100 and learn how to count like that
077um but then the older kids just get really excited when theth day comes and it's usually about this time of year uh another celebration uh this comes from our Elks club in town our Elks club in town uh had a special um concert where they raised over $4,000 uh to support our our dog Bailey uh who is the um School support dog over at Douglas last year they gave almost $6,000 so in total uh you can see about $1,000 uh that the El Club over the last couple years from Watertown and Bieber Dam uh did to help us with um having our support dog at Douglas um that support dog is is trained and handled by principal um we have a a new opportunity from a high school a high schooler uh senior Evan Rodriguez
078he has a new program on our local TV channel it's a talk show uh where uh he interviews special guests you can see uh the first interview of Mr Paul's uh at that link on the YouTube there um and it was just interesting and um don't miss hearing Mr Paul perform of his band very interesting uh uh the uh AP art history uh students each year go to New York City they put on tens of thousands of steps a day um going and viewing a whole number of different arts art installations and other cultural events uh this is a picture of them uh and they had another uh great trip this last year um upcoming we have our youth apprenticeship recognition that's scheduled Tuesday March 4th uh start starting at 8:00 a.m. um there we
079honor all of our youth apprentice and some of our Cooperative skills programs um we C we have business sponsors come um you as the board are invited you have a invite sitting at your table there in front of you um hope you can attend but it's really um a good thing uh where we recognize all those students and everybody put that uh together and want I want to remind you that we have over a hundred youth in apprenticeships this year working with our business uh business business in town so just shout out to all those businesses who hire those students in Mentor them and skills and training um because we couldn't have as robust of a program without them and them hiring our students and mentoring and doing that stuff so I just want to
080appreciate uh them again tonight as well as on Tuesday March 4th they will be appreciated uh some uh upcoming dates uh for the road to referendum we've got a whole bunch of uh meeting out there uh if you're not seeing us at one of these you'll see us around town at some of our businesses uh Saturday morning I was at Piggly Wiggly with Miss outen Hoven uh as well as uh Miss Boris Miss pyck at latus for a little bit um and we're just trying to get as much information to people as we can in the community this is another listing of a bunch of events uh the next major one um that we will be doing a larger um intentional sitdown is at the public library March 3rd next week not next week yeah
081next week March 3rd at 6m uh here's some important dates for you all uh recognizing that we have a full schedule and that March comes a little early because of uh spring break so make sure that you double check your meeting dates because they aren't on the usual they're uh when we have breaks like that like winter break and spring break we we change them earlier into the month so just double check your calendars if you had them for whatever Tuesday of month because it'll be earlier any questions okay thank okayy thank you uh next up is committee reports uh I'll take ed services first uh minutes are published and accurate as written I will uh two comments on there one a shout out to Mr Whitaker and then Fred y um you guys uh
082took upon yourselves to really dig into the summer school and uh Fred you didn't attended services but you did end up with an action item yeah yeah so just want want to make you sure that uh we were hoping you'd Circle back with Mr Whitaker and put some language into a uh policy which is also being uh reviewed currently by the policy committee uh related to the goals for outcomes uh for summer school and if there's any uh let's call it strategy regarding academics versus uh enrichment uh that's been a longstanding open item from this board as to uh uh let's just say coales on a on a vision and and what we're trying to get out of it for the public and the kids um Etc and then the other comment I'll make is
083that the U with the adoption of the Yola policy uh ed services took the first pass at uh reviewing the three uh uh policies on curriculum uh Jenny did a great job on those bringing together four different uh sources of information and then we pushed that over to policy which met the following uh night I believe uh hasn't done much with it yet but that's fine um but it was a good flow of information and discussion in order to help uh policy move those along uh for adoption at some point um as Jared pointed out next meeting is uh just two weeks away I think or a week away oh that's a week away okay it's next Tuesday um so see you all then freden if you don't want another action item you show up
084byes EV that You' invited to at your stop so if you want to run service 7:3 to 8 or maybe like 755 so we time to drive to the high school that great it's very [Laughter] Wishful okay uh next is where's my spot here fiscal Mike yeah yeah we met everybody was there the vast majority of what we talked about we saw in the previous report by uh the only other thing that's there is the the fund 39 debt prepayment that we talked about that at fisal that'll be coming up a little bit later as an agenda item um other than that uh any questions okay thank you Fred next up uh Human Resources I think that's also you Mike yeah so uh almost everybody was at that one we had one person uh Missing
085uh but we knew about that in advance we had some guests present um nothing extremely out of the ordinary the biggest thing I we talked about was uh extracurricular appointments that's the kind of the Highlight that we talked about took up a good chunk of time uh a lot of questions revolving around that that uh however in the process that how it happens I think we tabled that for right now we're going to bring it back up again next month for a little deeper dive uh just on process really and that was about it other than that the minutes are are disted any questions good thank you Mike any other questions good uh planning Diana um starting with the subcommittee of planning meeting minutes first that's the referendum Planning Group that meets every couple weeks
086um those are accurate pretty much as written lot of information of things that we discussed in there that you've probably seen out and about that some of which have been talked about tonight such as meeting at literatus etc etc and the next meeting is this Friday virtually um and so there's so much going on right now you know that we're meeting every what is it every other week I believe and then secondly as far as planning goes it was not our month to meet but I did want to just put the shout out out there again that we are meeting March 5th and we will be constructing the um board evaluation survey at that point Drew Howick will be here at 5:30 so the first hour of that um meeting will be geared to that
087because we couldn't get a separate date to do that as regular board so I'm encouraging everyone to show up you're never required but know that the time SL slated for that is about 5:30 to 6:30 we've given about an hour on the fifth I did send an email a week or so ago just as a FYI I hope everyone got it okay uh anything else Dan good any questions uh very good uh Craig policy we met February 12th uh all of our committee members including charity were now present at that meeting the uh we discussed uh that to have the administration to review the U Title 9 policy uh to see if the title 9 updates that Neola forwarded on to us would um uh basically coincide with the previous 2020 Title 9 policy that
088we currently had in place um Jenny Bor will create a subcommittee that would include herself and the chair of the policy committee and the chair of the ed services committee Andor his design to work through some of the uh uh 2200 series of policies U specifically adoption of textbooks selection of curriculum instructional materials equipment uh and and equipment and then um M Bor Miss Bor uh we'll update the review of the valuation of the Year 2210 curriculum development and reflect on the seven years five years timeline uh and then Fred and Jason were going to meet on policy 2440 regarding the summer interm or interm school session so I the question the Neola policy is at the current act policy I believe that would be the Neola policy not seen that Nei one of these
089in the draft or it's not for the uh it's up first read yet it's not up for first read yet to this work yet so it's not in the first draft corre correct um and I just if I may correct I sent I don't want to say some draft l anguage but a a flavor for how that document could be modified uh Fred and before I sent it to you and Jason because I didn't want to give you and Jason undo work without having uh Jared and uh Jenny weigh in on it U but I had some thoughts on it that I can get to you but uh and that would Dove tail into Craig's policy thanks and then you'll see several policies from the 2000 5,000 and 7,000 groups uh on the consent of
090Chen tonight we were adjourned at 8:25 next meeting will be on Tuesday March 11th questions for the policy share um don't know if you got the email but I did pose the question regarding the third party review just some clarification on that um right now we currently have a process by which board members are involved teachers are involved the administrators you know can be involved and so with it I understand and you know proposing an idea of a parent you know being through that whatever the way that I read that particular suggestion was it's an overarching subcommittee is that correct that would then work through it my bigger question is right now we review curriculum within like elementary math Elementary reading high school math and so I'm not understanding the value of having an overarching
091group to look at it because they're not the curricul experts so I don't know if you had discussion in that or or where kind of that went if you could do a minute summary we haven't we we're still navigating through that process at this point in time but the I think I think the intention was to actually establish a more U robust policy by which um the district uh and the school board can uh monitor that whole process by which board members or uh member parents are involved um that would be an AB board a board appointed type of committee that would do that particular view process how is that okay take the parent aside I understand that but we already have that in for board members there's board members in each of the different
092curricular review processes and that process started when Jared came on board so I don't understand what would be different so it would actually be a standing well those are things we have to try to that's that's being Jenny chair ofed services and the chair of policy was going to be that discussion okay I just as I read through the minutes it's this person suggested this this person suggested this so at leads the it led me to believe that this discussion was had and we're moving forward we have the discussion and that's why those three policies aren't for first read got it to put it in a little clear language for the board who weren't at the meetings and or public who's watching um many of you may know this but some of you probably don't
093in that uh we are really undergoing a a whole new way for us to be able to be accountable for and to work through our curricula you know all of the different um ages and stages that we have um along with creating new curriculum guides so that they're up and out there and for parents to be able to review all these other things so we're trying to create policy as we're also trying to rebuild and and renew how we do do that process of curriculum renewal and so really what we're trying to do is try not to have one get in front of the other and um we want to make sure that we have a well-defined process that informs the policy and not a policy that um trumps over the process and then we
094go oh wait that policy it was good when we developed it but it doesn't really fit for this idea and so um really uh Miss borest is really doing a really good job of trying to be thoughtful in that maybe even taking a number of different policies and maybe coordinating them together um defining uh to what level of involvement we need from different groups and activities uh is um I think it's going to be something that those few that we have are going to take a slower pathway through this process than some of these other policies that we're turning through en process only because we are really changing how we're doing things does that help okay awesome good thanks Craig okay uh that brings us to our consent agenda which includes minute summar Staffing approval
095Bills first and second read of District policies um do I hear a motion do I move for Mike second second from Sam any discussion on any of the contents included in uh agenda item six that includes anything first or second read uh yes I have a question so up for first read was 5240 reporting student progress and I'm curious what just because I wasn't at I'm not a policy Committee Member I was out of town I wasn't at that meeting North but I participate online um I'm wondering was there any conversation about our current District um online grade book that is a reporting process that is utilized universally that's probably the biggest means of reporting progress from teacher to family but I didn't see anything in that policy that even comes close to touching on
096that I was wondering is there a different policy that touches that but if you think I don't even want to put a number to how many parents like myself that's my primary source of checking progress of my child not necessarily parent teacher conferences which that policy obviously it hits the obvious face tof face type ones but have we looked at um our online grade book for reporting student progress and if not I strongly suggest we do we did not have a really end up conversation on that and I I I welcome the idea of um referring that particular policy back to committee for further discussion and and I might add Diana for everybody here and I don't to say Craig's defense but remember this and Lynn you might be able to do we have an
097equivalent original District policy that's equivalent to 5420 um I have to look back my notes that's fair enough um remember a good portion of our effort right now is to migrate everything to the Neola book uh small changes easy we take those on at the fly big changes let's say curriculum we kick those out and either put them on the back burner refer them to another committee or take a little bit more time with them so I agree that these comments are warranted and probably appropriate to adopt but when you're trying to do a thousand policies or more specifically Lynn and Jared are trying to do a thousand policies and we're trying to make sure that there's no major gaps or or uh uh misstatements uh we haven't been improving them as we go along
098in which case uh but I agree if an improvement is necessary then let's put that in the notes let's put that in the spreadsheet so then come if this is adopted in May Come June July or August ccle that comes back to it um you just hate to lose those kind hate to lose those ideas and then it's not till another two or three years cycle that we come back to it so just whomever's in charge of putting the notes in the spreadsheet fantastic Lyn's writing go ahead charity Point clarification in in the notes that Lynn had shared from the policy meeting um match 5220 grading systems and reporting to parents okay so 5420 is the new one 5220 was the old one correct okay thanks so there wasn't so there should have been a
099right but that doesn't mean that correct it doesn't mean that it got cleaned up or correct correct remember it's an alignment process yeah I get it I just and that's we're looking through as as a non-committee member my job is to just bring it to the surface and your job is say check done yep we're on it great I'm gonna say check done because I saw Lyn writing it I just want sure I understand what the what that action item would be I mean what your suggestion is what was it restated please okay I just I was wondering if he was reading it back that's what I was waiting patiently for um just including currently they use um Skyward as the grading reporting whatever our online grade book is at that point in time um
100that included as a means of reporting student progress so so specifically the the name of the reporting um it references nothing to anything dealing with online it says the board is directs the establishment of a system of reporting student progress which shall include written or electronic reports and parent conferences with teachers is that not does that include where does that say anything about the grade book that's written that could be an email okay that could be whatever it has nothing to do with the way I read it so if a word or two can more specific language right now if someone outside of this room in this conversation right now read that would they interpret that to be the online grade book okay and my venture to guess would be probably not so just adding
101something in there that that covers with that because um we don't even send grade reports home via mail anymore and that was a progress report so we do need to have something in there to cover us that way perhaps we just want to include an example of what a written electronic is in this case grade book we don't need to solve it now it's just as a piece there to bring so thank you okay any additional discussion okay hearing none roll call please Diane Johnson yes Sam a yes David Sher yes Dan bolner yes Craig Wartman yes charity Chandler yes Mike Higgins yes Lor Holland yes Fred y yes and the motion carries okay we're now up to three action items uh first one is 9371 student engagement survey um see we resolve the Watertown
102Unified School District Board of Education approved the student engagement survey as presented to the planning committee in January of 2025 do I hear a motion Brad Diana discussion is there uh is there any supplemental material that's being provided along with this survey because when we were working previously with Panorama panoram Panorama Panorama came with quite a lot of additional material um is that going to be the case with this as well or where do we stand with that maybe that would be i' ask the planning or J yeah good question I've seen no supplemental materials and then uh one other question on question number three I am click any that describe you how did we arrive at using the term latinx uh under Hispanic or latinx what slide are you on uh this is on
103page three uh depends on yeah right if you were interested in using uh you know and in this case I think it would be the exact proper use of the term gender but if you were interested in using a neutral gender term there is one in in Spanish um so how do we arrive it using L tanks this uh demographics pieces straight from scho perceptions it's and and if I may Jason how much of these or how many or which of these questions were asked last year are these all identical did we modify these much or these are all new these are all new okay years past we used St okay and that part sunet student engagement School perceptions and really align with our core values okay thank you so I have additional question Jason
104kind of along with yours because I too was wondering where that kind of came from if we change that or we make the recommendation to change that particular one does that then like we've had in years past if we change verbage in that we can no longer do comparisons across other districts I believe so but I would have follow we we might be able to change something minor like that I I I don't know and still be able to see the same demographic response and so if there's an alternate to that then please share it forward and we have Jason inquire about it so if Sam if you have an idea of how to ask it separately or differently then U just send that to Jason and I and we will inquire and see if
105I don't think it'll change the data we get back and we are totally in control of how we want to word them but the the warning that comes with with that is if you word it um drastically differently they may not be able to correlate that to other schools than how they ask it okay thanks for bring okay additional questions discussion Craig um this this Anonymous survey then wouldn't think that it would matter that much I mean there is an option to collect other so I mean not saying that they would but that leaves a lot of so it must not have that much impact doesn't Okay hearing no additional discussion roll call please Diana Johnson yes Sam Ao No David Sher yes d bolner no Craig Wartman yes charity Chandler yes Mike Higgins yes
106Lorie Holland no Fred y yes and the motion carries next up uh resolution for the Amsterdam trip as presented earlier in the board meeting uh do I hear first FR second Diana uh discussion I always love when we have opportunities for kids to go see different things experiences that they may not get elsewhere so as always thank you to everyone that's providing these opportunities to our kids um a question that I would have not to be answered today that maybe look forward is um what type of scholarship and things are available so this doesn't become like every a have versus a have not so that's not for us to discuss today but to put out there if it's good for one it's good for all and how do we make sure that all can do
107this because the price tags whether it was bise or this one we're talking five and $6 thousand doar a kid not easy to do and it really makes the Have Nots excluded so just something to consider um or whether it be you Dr Burke or whomever conversation in the future um to include k right um and to that point um probably would have been a great question to ask or the representative that was here for that um but uh what what uh fundraising opportunities are there available for children that want to participate in that as well as uh potentially uh potential scholarship opportunities for um per perhaps a business to to donate for for that particular opportunity you know so with this this I make a suggestion in the future that in the presentation those
108things are presented to us scholarship and um fundraising opportunities so you know to address those pieces is it possible for us to invite recognizing they're going over the summer but if there are any students who are going to be returning to school all that might be interested in sharing some of what they learned as well something that they got out of it inite here any we can do that with any and all of the trips if you want are you looking at just International or are you looking at like AP art students who just went on the New York trip or I mean there's there's a a lot of opportunities for kids got some middle schoolers going to DC shortly U coming up you know that kind of stuff what are you guys interested well
109we always have a student representatives and that's good I I like the idea of getting a rotation at the podium not to say that Addison is in good but it gives other kids an opportunity to do a lunch and learn and uh get an opportunity to speak in front of a board of adults that they can be intimidated by uh and we get to learn what they did on the trip yeah and you know we've had a number of students do that in the past like skills and you know a number of other opportunities just goes back to what you were saying that you learned in one of your sessions about students getting opportunity to present in front of small and large groups and kind of developing some of those skills connection then when we
110have a teacher present the agenda what they're going to see it doesn't really tell us what they're going to learn and I'd like to know what's being taught them by the teachers I interviewed a girl who came back from European trip and I said oh how was it she said fine I said so you know what'd you learn from the trip and she said well that Europe is ahead of us and everything everything wow and and you know I thought if that's what she took from that trip then we got a lot of work to do here so I'm concerned about what the you know the teachers are getting outside of the school and the culum and perhaps they're teaching them some stuff that uh there was one mother that told me um that uh
111her daughter's teacher said that um they were going to cheer for one party's um representative one senator in Washington and boo the other one and so you know I'm concerned about you know what they're being taught while they're there not just what they're seeing what what's you know sounds like frean pedagog and what is that PO I'll send you a copy of the book PDF okay additional discussion okay roll call in Diana Johnson yes Dam I no David Sher yes bolner yes Craig Wartman yes Jerry Chandler yes Mike Higgins yes L holl yes FR yes okay next up resolution uh resolution authorizing the Redemption of certain of the general obligation School Improvement bonds Craig second Mike beat Fred to it Craig uh who wants to give the story on this a lot of words a
112lot of numbers lots to understand I could certainly give it a shop that much I I want see Mike try there was a levy a separate line item for fund 39 debt which is referendum approved debt and um that Levy allowed us to prepay some of the debt so this resolution is showing how that prepayment would be applied to our current debt structure so all those numbers in there show the existing debt structure and then the revised um debt structure once this debt prepayment is applied and it puts us that much closer to having that debt paid off and it does also Save The District in interest over the course of the law and that was about 120 what was it 126 over the course yeah and this also was reviewed at fiscal okay uh
113would you could you please clarify I mean because it seems very strange when we're asking for referendum why are we paying off debt can you please clarify that process yeah that's a good question so the way that the fund Le or the tax levy works we have the revenue limit formula the revenue limit formula says how much the school district is allowed to raise in Revenue through state aid and property taxes outside of the revenue limit are a few things and one of those is this debt this debt was approved by taxpayers do not remember what year it was oh eight in 2008 thank you and so because um of the voters approved that debt at that time they also approved paying the debt each year so every year we lovey funds to pay off
114this debt so it is separate from operation it's a great question that s that answers it that was a good answer by the way good question right no I was just I'm glad you asked it again because I didn't understand it the first time when I saw it at Fisco last week okay uh no additional discussion uh Lynn roll call please Diana Johnson yes Sam oal yes David Shader yes Dan bner yes Craig Wartman yes charity Chandler yes Mike Higgins yes Lorie Holland Fred y yes okay and the motion carries uh that concludes the action items of this board meeting uh we have a second opportunity for a public comment again same rules as the first um state your name three minutes at the mic and please drop your name in the basket uh before
115you leave so that we have an accurate accounting of your name and address good evening Jacob M 416 nor Washington Street Watertown Wisconsin uh here for discussion on leap uh Elementary uh prior to this meeting um or prior to this public hearing uh the second one uh chamber or uh not chamber man I'm used to Common council stuff uh uh commissioner uh Diana Johnson uh she spoke about the jobs that are to come in the future uh what we do know is that Jefferson County's thrived has a food and beverage and innovation campus which is 165 acres and located in Jefferson County uh they they specifically State on their website a region that this region is celebrated for its vibrant food and beverage industry and robust agricultural Heritage leap provides the skills for this Rob
116connects this robust Heritage that uh they're looking for in these jobs and in this market that will be provided by this by the Fab Innovation campus um leap provides these kids with an agricultural and enironmental ethos that simulates a lot of the what we look at in farmers and agriculture businesses uh I was privileged to be in several meetings when I worked for the city of Watertown with some of the um business owners and one of the business owners once said during a a meeting that they would hire an agricultural kid over any other applicant generally speaking when they when they take those kids into or when they take the applicant in for for uh a job interview so again leap is the school that is providing this type of direction for our district it's
117the one that's going to provide these job or the the applicants for these jobs at uh the Fab Innovation campus in Jefferson uh these kids will stay local because of the skill sets that they are begin beginning to get the base at uh leap elementary school so I I want you to make those considerations when you uh look into how you going to handle leap and all these other budgetary items in the upcoming budget cycle thank you I'm sedra Fremont 1222 northwater Street um I wasn't necessarily planning on saying anything tonight um but just listening to some of the discussion uh just putting a face to teachers right I'm Riverside Middle School teacher uh you talk about policies and you're talking about curriculums and um kind of hearing some things about almost hidden agendas that
118we come across with it seems like and I just want to put out there that I know a lot of teachers and I go into a lot of classrooms and I've been in a lot of meetings and I've interacted with so many teachers in this district and I can say with so much certainty that if there is any agenda that we push it is the love of our students and the betterment of our students and our professionalism and there are always going to be outliers there are always going to be people that don't live up to the integrity that's required of the job but when you lump us all together and you stand against policies and you look over our shoulder and make us feel like like we're being hawked over you are making us
119feel undervalued and not professional and that you're calling into question what we are very passionate about I am still in that like early payment bracket of teaching I can guarantee you I'm not in it for any kind of money like this is my passion this is what I love to do and like every day I go to work and I work so hard to make sure my students walk away feeling loved and appreciated and that they have a place in my life that they are a part of my heart and my family and I just want to be a face of a teacher for you when you're making policies and when you're talking about polic IES and when you're you know wondering what we're teaching and what we're doing in the classroom like I'm just
120I'm just trying to be a good person I'm trying to communicate that to my students I don't care what their political alliances are I don't care what whatever that is and I can say that that is most of my colleagues if not all of my colleagues we work so hard to just be decent people and I hope that you can like walk away with that with some confidence that that's the kind of people we are in your schools thank you hey everybody uh Cody McCary 914 Ridge Court uh first off thanks for all you do um I'm sure there's a lot of emails and lots of other things that I have no idea um about that that you get hassled with so thanks um my wife and I my family we moved here to watert
121about three years ago so nobody in here really knows who I am and none of you know who I am um really appreciate the question when we're looking at the numbers related to enrollment um related to why is that happening uh I really don't doubt uh that we have an aging population I have some gray hair so I'm a part of the gray hair group now um but I I would encourage you don't overlook um the exit interviews uh when we decided to move to Watertown we had a lot of people I'm not talking one or two I'm talking five 10 people that all came to us and and warned us of the school district here um it it's not something that uh oh it's not something I think that is taken taken lightly you
122know when you you make these decisions to move somewhere so don't take those lightly um my family and I we've we've enjoyed the school district um but we do every day we we do think about is this the right place for us is is the school district the right place for us um so I'd encourage you there's a good population out there in Watertown in the surrounding area where the school district tastes a lot like an old sweaty gym sock um so don't forget that group do the exit interviews thanks for your time again thank you for all you do public comment and before I take a motion to adjourn I just uh should have done this at the very beginning charity welcome uh made it through your first board meeting of course I couldn't
123have said that at the beginning but I can hopefully confidently say it now so I'll take a motion to adjourn why oh that's right no marches Walker out the door Diana you're out you're out of order Diana so move we got a motion from Mike second second by Craig all in favor of adjournment I