001e good evening even 5 o' o00 and I want to call this meeting of the teaching learning equity and people Services committee to order order that one's turned on turned on okay should be good okay sorry sorry about that uh Miss schul can we have roll call please yes Megan Miller present tom henkins here and Greg Schneider present all members are present item C approval of the agenda I would like to suggest one uh slight change to the agenda item 2A attendance matters is the same thing as 2E I would I would like to recommend that we delete um item 2A and replace that with 2E which would become item 2 a is there a motion so moved second there is a motion and a second any discussion all in favor say I I I
002I motion carries um approval of the minutes of I believe well let's see I've lost it here for a moment let me [Music] um my computer decided to do a quick restart just as we get the meeting going um I'd like to ask for a motion to approve the minutes of April 16th so moved is there a second a question I was not here for that so I don't know if I have to recuse or abstain uh I will second that motion um is there any discussion all in favor say I I I any opposed any extensions me okay motion carries okay that takes us to item 2A every day counts [Music] J do your mind if I just start us off real quick do you mind if I start sure so everyday counts is
003it's a conversation that we've been having I guess every every every day especially in school districts Across America attendance does matters um one of the things that we've heard very loud and clear is that our our attendance to something that we want to improve in um just to give you all a high heart arching um thought um we would love to see 95% attendance in all of our school buildings across the school district and we have a presentation that we have and I'm not going to take up much of that time because we do have a very tight conversation I'm going turn it over to Mrs beavers hi good evening um we'd like to start by addressing a critical issue that impacts the success of our students attendance like Dr Garrison said research shows that
004missing 10% of school equivalent to about two days each month can significantly impact a student's academic success this isn't just about missing a day here or there over time these absences add up and can hinder a student's ability to keep up in both reading and math regular School attendance is essential not only for academic learning but also for the development of key habits and skills that will support our students in college careers and life beyond the classroom additionally being present at school help students build important relationships with their teachers peers and support staff these interactions Foster friendships help students learn more about themselves and encourage the development of empathy and social skills simply put school is where students grow not just academically but socially and emotionally as well this is why we've La we've launched
005the everyday counts attendance matters campaign and Monica and I are going to walk you through our goals and strategies in the coming slides so like Dr Garrison said he set an ambitious goal for for our district which is 95% attendance in all of our buildings this aligns with our belief that every school day counts and that we can and must do better for students to give some context our District's attendance rate for 2324 school year was 87.2% this Falls a little bit short of the state average um during the same year which was 92.3% according to the Department of Public and struction as we move um through the next few slides I will be highlighting the priority areas and Monica is going to share the marketing and communication strategies that align with them so first
006as part of the everyday counts campaign we are making attendance a top priority across all of our schools first we have ensured that the goal of 95% attendance has been clearly communicated in every building second attendance will be regularly attendance data will be regularly reviewed School leaders will monitor attendance patterns closely not just at the district level but also down to the individual student level this will help us identify issues early on and respond in real time finally our Focus will be on prevention and early intervention by recognizing the early signs of chronic absenteeism we can step in with supports for students I'm sorry for students and families this could mean working with counselors connecting families to resources or simply addressing ing barriers to attendance like Transportation or health issues sorry so before I begin
007good evening with the marketing and Communications support I just want to mention that as we go through each one of our audiences you're going to see a lot of interwoven and duplications that's what we want because we want consistency in our messaging and we want it across again received by all audiences so our messaging to the schools is that everyone from principales teachers and support staff everyone in that building to be actively involved in communicating the goal of improving attendance and helping students understand why showing up every day matters we'll have messaging in the buildings posters postcards charts graphs and goals will be highlighted throughout the building an example is converse currently when you walk in right when you leave that main office they have the attendance of every grade level and classrooms so every
008student in that building understands the importance of bringing it school we have our television stations Carousel and our Public Access Channel 991 we'll have information on there as well the district does the first half hour of me messaging and then the schools do the second half hour staff meetings as led by the principles and assistant principles will be focused on attendance and attendance matters and lastly we have Outreach that is going to be going to our students and Families Our everyday counts campaign is not just about numbers it's about creating a school culture where students feel a sense of belonging accountability and pride in attending their school first we want every student to feel that they are a valued part of the school Community when students feel connected to their peers their teachers and the
009overall School environment they are more likely to show up and stay engaged second we're focusing on building accountability we want students to understand that their attendance is not just an expectation but a responsibility that they take on for their own success lastly we aim to foster a sense of Pride we will celebrate improvements in attendance at the individual class and school levels our messaging to students is by showing up you are making an investment in your education and contributing to the success of your classmates and your school community so whether through recognitions incentives or invent or events we want students to take pride in showing up every day their commitment to being present will be seen and celebrated how are we going to do that we have schoolwide and classroom goal setting taking place we
010also will have those displays like I mentioned that they have currently at Converse and other schools we we have walking school buses those are very active Gaston's first day of the walking school bus was Monday they had 17 students participating and today they had 15 students getting to and from school with that principal leading that bus bus tokens are provided to students if there's a barrier in getting to school we have fun and enaging engaging activities that the principls are leading in their buildings along with traveling trophies to celebrate this success but again we are not looking at perfect attendance we're looking at improved attendance and we're also kicking off a student messaging campaign in which the elementary middle and high school will be involved in helping us put together marketing materials we'll have a
011campaign and competitions between schools um again making advertising that we can put up on Carousel and all of the school district's c um marketing channels families play a critical role in ensuring that students attend regularly and that's why we're focusing on strengthening our partnership with them first we're committed to communicating clearly and regularly next we need to educate families on the importance of good attendance not all families May understand how even a few days of Miss school can add up and significantly affect the student's academic performance we also want to offer support and address barriers together we know these absences aren't always just a matter of skipping school there are sometimes real barriers such as Transportation health concerns or family or family issues get in the way we will work collectively with families to identify
012challenges and offer resources or solutions to overcome overcome them finally it's important to celebrate and reward families when attendance improves our messaging to families involves the importance of families being informed about their child's attendance patterns and the impact those absences have on that child through our communication we will ensure families know the goal of 95% and how it contributes to a student's overall success and well-being as Missy stated we will provide resources that highlight how regular attendance build strong academic foundations and life Habits by recognizing their efforts as a family and the achievements of their children we will build positive reinforcement that encourages sustained attendance whether through individual recognition or schoolwide celebrations we will make sure families feel their contributions are valued how are we going to do that we have school newsletters the superintendent
013newsletter our blog and podcast we have a text and email program we've set up twice a month families will be getting email mess messages from us and text messages we have website updates our sdb app notifications and our family and school organizations will highlight this in their meetings with families and once a month we have take-home materials which I'm going to call to your attention in front of each of your seats we've put postcards for you to share as well so we're trying to get messaging on all levels um video communication that way printting materials and others and lastly Community a CommunityWide approach is essential when it comes to establishing strong attendance and ensuring that our students have the resources they need to get to school first developing Partnerships with Community leaders is key we
014have the support of local organizations that provide critical resources like Health Care Transportation food and Social Services to address barriers that students and families face we also need to engage leadership businesses political figures cultural organizations and neighborhood leaders we are in a unique position to raise awareness and call others to action ensuring that we have a collective effort in improving attendance across the district our messaging at the community level is that community members and groups can play a significant role in spreading the message that attendance matters when Community leaders reinforce the importance of attendance it helps establish positive Norms that students and families will follow we're also going to encourage each of our board members to reach out to the community members you know and connect with for their help in US spreading this information
015local leaders are more likely to get involved when they understand how absenteeism affects our school district and the entire community and again please share with them those note cards first step we've left them so how are we going to connect going to connect with the community our social media Facebook Instagram and Linkedin media releases and update the community monthly newsletter we send out city bus advertising on the inside of all the buses radio advertising and I I will share that those are written and produced out of the marketing department that's my job and then I share them to be shared on the radio podcast and blogs Channel 9991 and then materials share with our community U members and organizations such as those note cards can go to City Hall and other Community Partners with us
016to share oh I am I'm the LA I'm the last slide so our everyday counts attendance matter campaign is a comprehensive approach that aims to create awareness engage our students families and community and remove barriers that pre prevent students from attending school regularly first this campaign creates awareness about the importance of regular attendance again improving it next it builds capacity by giving schools the tools to positively engage student and family and staff in the process of improving attendance the campaign also aims to remove obstacles and barriers that prevent students from attending whether those are related again to Transportation health or other challenges a critical component in addressing both physical and mental health needs ensuring that students have access to the necessary resources to feel well and to be able to attend regularly again we have
017Community Partners working with us like seala smile booy Area Community Health Center and others schools under the leadership of their principles will track and review data to measure our progress ensuring that we stay on track to meet our attendance goal again what is the attendance goal 95 right lastly the campaign emphasizes collaboration with Community Partners students and families working together to provide the support needed to make sure every student is in school and ready to learn I'd like to thank um our committee for not committee I would like to thank our leadership for putting this conversation together again attendance does matter every day to the entire community of course to our uh Community Partners and of course our parents and students we do want you in school every day I think the joke in the
018district is Dr garison ain't canceling school so that means we expect you all to of course be here um turn back over to Mr Snider great uh thank you so much for the presentation are there any questions or comments uh board member henkins I gu if you could enlighten me the role of the police department and I'm not talking about the sro's or in place ones I'm not sure um you know when when the police officer are driving around town all day and they see a group of students who perceivably should be in school do they ever say something I don't know what that role is anymore you know is that is that anything that is worthwhile to investigate I mean they're the ones that are out there with I mean we have our own
019eyes and ears but they're the ones with a little bit of authority that it could at least ask I mean I don't want to speak for them but we have received students by way of blo police department who are you know getting them on their way or getting or transporting them to school if they need it there is also daytime treny which is a more punitive offense but we do have their support but they do yes I'm not saying they're doing anything anything wrong but if they're just not in school okay yep great okay board member Miller thank you so much uh thanks so much for the presentation I love seeing the social media posts about it too it's great and I'm definitely happy to help get the word out uh question and a comment
020so um I love that we're working with the larger Community um I know during covid there was like a group of like County administrators that would meet and and things like that um I know that attendance is a big deal right for like other school districts too is there any possibility for collaboration with like other Rock County Schools maybe to share some of those resources or identify you know maybe Transportation you know to sort of share that that role a little bit I definitely think there's space for that and that happens in pockets of networking meetings but not across systems if that makes sense like we might potentially be having that conversation as regional directors or in our um safe meetings across the county but not all in one space so there's definitely room for
021that yes and I believe the community is interested and having those conversations oh no I I think so too and I I think this is awesome and I love how you said it's something we can grow into because I know this has been going on for like five minutes so you know it's got we we've got some room to to kind of network and grow I just think that would be really cool and just thinking about you know there are assets that other areas of the county and Community have that we could you know work smarter not harder together so I'm excited to to hear about that thank you I wanted to add to that thank you board um board member Miller um I did do a call around to find out what other districts
022were doing what other schools in our community were doing and it really opened up a lot of really good conversations on how we can collaborate so to Missy's point I think we're looking to do even more of that oh that's fantastic and then um just wanted to shout out I think I saw in the very first parent newsletter from Todd that um principal KS is offering for himself or some other staff to be like pied in the face is possibly a reward so I just wanted you guys to know that's working well because my kids have taken that to decide that we're going to we're going to pay mommy in the face when we get to our attendance school so I'll be sure to like take a video and share but I would encage that
023seems to be a great incentive for those of you following along at home um but yeah no thank you so much this was great again thank you so much for for all of the information and the detail as to what the uh you know the attendance campaign is all about and what is happening I greatly appreciate it I know there's a lot of work and a lot of effort that has gone into that to prepare it and also to uh move it forward um and I think it also it becomes really clear where a lot of the student services staff um where a lot of their effort goes in into the school psychologist the social workers the counselors as they meet with those students who are not in school on time uh because we can't
024we can't overcome a barrier if we don't know what that barrier is and if we don't have someone who can make contact and keep track of that um then we're missing out on those opportunities to really encourage students and enable students to be in school where they need to be um so thank you for that and again thank you to everybody in the schools that works hard to encourage our students to be in school all of the time okay any other questions or comments good evening um I'm delighted to have uh two of my favorite people in booy with us tonight uh Mark ran from Boys and Girls Club and Ken Davis now from Boys and Girls Club um and I told them I would kick this off for them a little bit um a
025couple years ago uh when I came to the district Mark uh reached out to me and he had told me about this program and at that time he was um frankly looking for a little more stability in the in the school system and a leadership level because he wanted to do this um and then he also was waiting on funding and then he gave me a call and he said said I got some funding and then a little bit later than that I found out that this fine human here was going to uh sadly retire from the high school but he was able to move into this new role and this is starting off this school year and so I wanted to invite them in just to share the work and the expanded partnership now
026that we have with boys and girls club so uh Mr Davis is here to explain the program and then the work that he'll be doing specifically with our students um in the district uh thank you um not sure where's my so can you presentation yeah oh here we go I think it'll yeah so just move your ear there you go okay all right so um I just want to take some uh a little time to talk about the G be great graduate program give you a little background into what the program specifics are U what are our goals with this program which students do we want to reach and then how do we want to reach those students so we want to start off by talking about what the b-grade graduate program is basically what
027the program is it is a way is is a way to engage students or re-engage students into um the school environment and into school itself to get them going and motivated again um the program is designed to kind of reach at students who we may see that are starting to kind of fall a little bit um they're starting to maybe miss classes they're may be starting to fail a class they maybe just they're just getting disengaged in school so our program aim is to get them re-engaged and get them reestablished back into school um and the way that we do that is we use a method that we call check and connect um it's basically a mentoring situation that we create or a situation or model that we create where the first part of that
028is we check so we check some vital data about the students and we check our data in basically three different areas we look at their attendance we look at their behavior and we look at their grades um and then we connect so um part of the big part of the program is the connection part um the students connect with me on a regular basis we talk about those three things we talk about grades we talk about behaviors we talk about attendance um how can we improve those things how um how if those things are already going well how do we continue that process going so um we use check and connect like I said as our major model that we're going to use within this program to reestablish or re-engage students into this everybody in
029this has some kind of role um and we've broken these roles down in this program basically three major areas there's the role of the graduation specialist That's me uh and my role is you can kind of call it a mentor but it's it's really it's about giving the students a voice and having them figure out what their voice is and having them be the ones who solve their own problems whatever those problems might be um I'm kind of a sounding board and it catches students by surprise um last week I was interviewing a bunch of students for the program and it catch them by the surprise when I when I tell them what do you want from me and and it it takes them a minute or two to to kind of figure that out
030what do I want this person to do for me that's going to help me to reach the ultimate goal of graduating from high school on time um and and like I said it's it's almost a self-empowering uh concept that I'm working with there's a role of the student and I tell them basically their role is to meet with me and that's one goal and then the other goal is if you have things that you are doing that are working well continue those and the things that you have kind of fallen into a situation that are not working well for you well we need to discontinue those things um so it's all about them participating in the program and participating fully and then there's a role of the parent or guardian and u a big key
031to that I is they're going to hear from me on a on a monthly basis updates of how things are going and then we're going to talk again flipping it to them like what do you need me to do what would you like me to do to help you to empower you as a parent to help your child to get to that point of graduating so our check and connect model basically breaks down into four four categories and I've really already touched on each one of these already uh the check is we're looking at those risk factors we're looking at those Behavior um and we we divide these into two risk factors one of them is the alterable risk factor those are things that we can change and when I say we I really mean
032me myself as a graduation specialist the student and their parents what are these things that we what are these behaviors or these risk factors that we can change and then there's the protective factors those are the things that a student may already be doing that we want to continue we want to strengthen those even more and we want to continue those things and that's just part of looking at our data is going to tell us what of those factors um either they need to change or which are those factors that they need to keep the same and the connect and and this to me is the ultimate um of what we're trying to do um connecting with those students building a mutual Rel a a relationship of mutual trust and mutual respect um that's what
033I'm working with students on a one-on-one basis all the time um is getting them to trust me and and me in turn empowering them to do the things that they need to do or create situations that are favorable for them um right now um I've met with about 15 students at belot Memorial High School um and the first part of these meetings is always um we do a self-reflect I tell of these things what's going well what's not going well uh and that's how we start building in this mutual respect and they are very upfront and honest with me uh so that hasn't been an issue of them hiding anything and and I think in a lot of cases they know my background um so they know that they can't pull a hole over my
034eyes anyway um so that has been very helpful also but um those relationships um are what I'm going to Value the most in in this program I already talked a little bit about the family engagement I've engaged some families already because uh I spent the summer at basically every Community event uh getting out the word out about this program connected with families in that way um any student that has turned in an application I've called home to answer questions or a counselor at the high school is call home to answer questions so we're keeping that connection open um between families and then the final part is the mentor um that's me and like I said my goal in all of this is to increase those um protective factors that students are are doing well and
035then to decrease those risk factors and do that through a relationship that's built up with mutual trust um I can tell you right now and and Mark might be able to provide a little bit more background in this but um this is funded with a grant um that several Boys and Girls Clubs throughout the state of Wisconsin have I was able to attend a conference of all the graduation Specialists this summer um and that was each program is slightly different because uh one thing I love about this program is that it's kind of like you get to build it and you get to you get to tailor it for the school district needs what do what does the school district need at this point in time because everybody's program is slightly different across the state
036is what I've found out um our program is going to focus in on students in grades 6 through 10 um because we feel like that we're our program is going to focus more on before they get to the point of being credit deficient um we're going to try to reach the students that again like I said uh working with teachers and counselors and administrators in the district to find those kids who might be sliding a little bit that might have started off the Year great but now they're kind kind of dip in and they're getting into some behaviors that are uh not conducive or not conducive for graduation and we're going to start as early as sixth and seventh grade uh we can do 25 students based upon our grant at most um so we're
037going to be very selective in the students that we pick for this um but again if I am the mentor or the graduation specialist and at this point in time I happen to be the only one we don't want to get 50 kids and then we can't build those relationships I would like to thank um our team um once again for partnering with us um of course the Boys and Girls Club Ken welcome back um you didn't get away too far right down the street and so um thank you so much for partnering with us as it pertains to graduation we all know graduation is our goal um and goal for every student that comes into our door and so anything that we can do together to help that happen um the course of school
038district is all a part of and again we just thank you for that partnership okay thank you any thoughts or comments just want to Echo that message thank you so much Mr Rand Mr Davis it's really powerful work for our kids and really appreciate all the work that went into this okay I Echo what she said but I'd like to ask the grant is that recur we have to reapply every x amount of time I said I wasn't going to talk too I knew as soon as I saw Tom here I was going to have to yeah it's a twoyear uh Grant cycle um again the Grant's been around uh it's a program that was developed by the University of Minnesota it's been around for nine years now and um the state the funds come
039through DCF um so um they just expanded the program so they haven't contracted yet they expand on two-year Cycles that's how we got in to it um but it it is competitive but right now only Boys and Girls Clubs do it so so you now that you've got your foot in the door that makes it easier for the next twoyear cycle would that be yes correct yep Mr Davis when when you say you have room for 25 and you've identified 50 is there a way that the other 25 or whatever that number may be that not I mean not through your program but maybe that you've identified that the school district can help well right now we've I've identified 15 at the high school so um and that's left us with space for five at
040each middle school and and the middle schools were bringing in a little bit later um because again we are building this from the ground up we kind of of want to make sure that I'm not spread too thin um and then we also want to make sure that the connections that we are making with the students and the meetings that we're setting with the students are meaningful and then we can move it down to the to the midle schools I appreciate that I think I was asking the question maybe down the road that when the word gets out that you're doing this that those identified ones that you don't have room for that we could work collaborate with what you're doing yeah and we're even we have a meeting uh next week with um Dan
041Gratz from um and we're going to talk about maybe getting community members involved in the mentoring program and in that way we can expand in that way excellent thank you again thank you both very much uh thank you Ken for being here and continuing to do your work to support the School District of Beloit and I know Mark you have been involved in support the students of the school district over time um and I greatly want to thank both of you and appreciate your hard work to benefit the students um here um and it's as I know your work spreads out to others also not just Boys and Girls Club but doubt to the community um you know that we are we are so lucky here that we have so many employers um that are
042interested in and working and supporting the school district as we continue to move move forward but but it takes your leadership in order for that to happen so again we greatly appreciate your hard work and support pleasure thank you thank you for coming appreciate you okay so that will bring us to item 2 C which is the bmhs academy updates um so that will be of course by uh this more attch we'll do some introductions and then it'll be Emily Pals and Jeff stenus who will do the present thank you for being here and and I do apologize we don't mean to be on your heels uh board member Schneider we just know we have a packed agenda and we want to keep things moving so I do apologize because it does feel like that
043a little bit and I'm certainly not trying to to do that um so uh we annually give an update uh around our Academy structure and the work that we're doing at the high school I know a couple of our individuals that have been on this committee for a period of time have been through our cycle of updates and so this is just another one of those annual updates to let you know uh because we do have that contract with Ford NGL um in our Academy structures uh that have been evolving um over several years now and the work is exciting and we're starting to see some of the fruition um of that work and then in addition um we have some updates that we wanted to uh let you all know about um we're going
044to hear from this group tonight and then after this course proposals and I just say that to say that it's amazing how some of the work we're already planning for next year um and the reason why is because our scheduling process starts uh late fall uh into uh the winter for the for 25 26 school year so some of the things with embedded in this presentation and the course proposals are for the 25 26 school year but we start that work now okay all right thank you no problem oh good evening I'm Jeff STW director of c and alternative education um I work very closely with um with my colleagues but also with bull Memorial High School um with this Academy structure so Emily and let her introduce herself and we're going to tag team
045on this presentation Y and I am Emily PS I'm the principal at BL Memorial High School so we're very excited to provide this update to you uh thank you very much for the opportunity so um the goal of the academy is Apple Memorial High School is really to ensure that students are college career and Community ready the foundation of ourmes is Readiness relevance and rigor um and so when we start to think about the why behind ourmes they all fall in line with that Readiness relevance and rigor but our our work is driven by our mission which is really first and foremost for our students that they're the center of everything we do so through the academy system and the opportunities that are provided to our students we really aim to see an increase in
046student achievement overall um improve preparation for college careers in life as I had mentioned before just really setting students up for Success um on the next step whatever that is whatever that may be beyond graduation um it's really centered around our portrait of a graduate work which I'll talk about in a minute but that's really the development of 21st century skills for our students um students earning industry certification in college credits so uh the goal is that every student would leave blit Memorial High School with an industry certification college credits or a combination of both all of our pathways are set up so that there is that opportunity available um increased earning wage that that that really just means or earning potential that means that students have the skills to be prepared for high wage
047high demand careers upon leaving High School um again that helps propel them into post-secondary education but if they're ready to go into the workforce they have the skills in order to do that and then of course uh improve our graduation [Applause] rates BL Memorial High School is considered um uh an academy system that is built wall toall so what that means is that every staff member and every student is designated to an academy as you can see here we have fourmies within buit Memorial High School our Freshman Academy which is a standalone Academy to prepare our freshman students to um properly enter in or select a Career Academy and then the other threey are um career focused acmy so boach stands for business Arts communication and hospitality and you can see some of the pathways
048that are um offered within that Academy H is health human and educational services and then pacm is Public Service Automotive construction manufacturing engineering and science um and another important thing about the wall-to-wall academy system is that it creates small learning communities for students so each each um of theem is also considered a small learning community where um it provides the opportunity for staff and students to build um strong relationships with one another to help support them through uh their educational Journey uh this slide is um all about our portrait of a graduate and really the portrait of a graduate outlines those characteristics um and skills that we want to see students leave with proficiently when they graduate high school um you can see there that's Fearless learner ambitious innovator Global contributor resilient leader critical thinker
049and effective Communicator so um what our Educators do is uh intentionally weave opportunities for students to to build these skills learn these skills and demonstrate these skills in their lessons on a daily basis so now we're going to kind of walk you through a little bit of a journey of where we've been and then where we're headed and the items that are bolded are kind of what we're going to focus on um so we have an official Academy master plan that really helps guide the work that we do it allows ows us to focus in on specific action steps um that align with our school goals and our other continuous Improvement plans um and so the work that we choose to focus on every year comes directly out of that master plan is a working
050document that we're able to update on a regular basis as we work to expand our Academy model and move it forward we've done a lot of intentional work too around ensuring that students have intentional work-based learning opportunities so um one way we've done that is by creating scaffolded um work-based learning opportunities for uh grade or students by grade level for example all freshman students attend a college career Fair and Expo um but we also ensure that all students um for example have um the opportunity to participate in a work uh a job shadow um in a college visit things like that um and then we also uh identified the components of our senior portfolio um so that work has been solidified and now we'll start to roll that out during our academic lab time where
051students will build their portrait of a graduate portfolio um so by the time that they graduate uate they have the opportunity to sort of present how they have demonstrated the characteristics of the portfolio Okay and then where we're going um and so one of the things tresa just kind of mentioned when she introduced us is developing curriculum through the lens ofies um so you'll you'll be able to make that connection when you hear some of the course Purp proposals um that's also done through interdisciplinary teaching which is a a big Focus we talked about pulling you know action steps out of the master plan every year this year we're really focusing in on um interdisciplinary learning so our Academy teachers are collaborating with one another to bring that relevance piece in through the lens of
052the career pathway that they're teaching uh the development of advisory boards for each Academy so last year we um were very fortunate to um sort of launch our first Advisory board with the pacm academy and this year we'll expand that to um Bach and then the hes Academy we also do have um specific course Pathways that already meet as advisory boards too for example construction um our education pathway has an Advisory board that meets on a regular basis as well um I talked about implementing the portfolio uh The Graduate portfolio um and then um something else that we're really working to intentionally do this year is monitor the outcomes of our Academy implementation through a data dashboard so Jeff is actually going to talk about some of the work-based learning data that we're going to
053be collecting or that we've already started collecting um but also um in terms of academic achievement um this year we have the opportunity to uh work through a tool called Frontline analytics that allows us to um uh pull up in real time uh important data like attendance data um grades Behavior those kinds of things and look at it in a dashboard setting so so we can really see what students are exceling and who we really need to narrow some intervention into okay I'm going to hand it over to Jeff um so going further some of the things again we we have some of these things in place and we're starting with them um one of them is our Middle School career opportunities aligned with ourmes uh I just solidified that our sixth graders and eighth
054graders are going to go to Career Tech again this year and Career Tech is going to have several days in the middle schools where they're bringing out industry experts to speak to our students so we're continuing to grow that uh we're working on establishing a couple of Pathways Healthcare which is still in the works Hospitality we have a a new instructor that we've hired on now so we're starting to grow that as well um some work with the visual arts and Performing Arts Pathways and continuing as that's a very important part of growth for ours um and our Expo and our Expo by the way has moved up to November this year it's not in December it was February 1st the first time December and now it's in November so want to put that out
055there November 20th November 20th and Brian Michaels is working uh diligently with his team to try to help make sure we get that off the ground and it is a uh um a recognized um event that we have one of the bigger things that we want to present out now is we're going to move to an AB schedule um at the high school for the 25 26 school year and some of this um the there's three big bullet points here academic achievement we currently have it where a student could take a class first semester and then in English and then not take another English class until second semester possibly the following year still on grade level and we talk about a thre Monon learning loss during the summertime those students can possibly have year-long learning
056loss or Gap in that and still be on schedule for their classes so um again trying to make sure that we have a continuity of learning to increase um academic achievement it also increases the opportunity for professional collaboration time for our Academy teams but also Department content plc's um right now in their current schedule those things trying to put both of them in there is nearly impossible if not totally impossible um and it really is about teacher collaboration to develop those interdisciplinary uh programs and lessons to bring to our students um and then the Integrity of the small learning community again I'm trying to keep them so that we have each Academy structured they focusing on their AB schedule kids are in these Pathways that we have narrowed down um de PR last year really
057help to narrow those down we have distinguished Pathways and this is again another concentrated effort to bring that Academy to full fruition and how do we ensure the learning that happens the teacher time to make sure that they're implementing correctly um but also making sure that we have that integrity and again looking at that smaller Community it's easier to look at Monitor and hopefully we don't have as many students that go to Ken because we're implementing this even a little more correctly um so that that's one of the big pieces of moving forward with the ab scheduling this has come about over a long course of time there was a group of us uh that went to Nashville in March of 2023 um we had the site visit team from Fort NL that came out
058here we've talked about this Emily and I did some presentations to the department chairs Emily to the whole staff about this they did a SWAT analysis strengths weaknesses opportunities by the whole staff we've looked at it with departments we reviewed those we being again we're we are in teamate with this this isn't um you know BL Memorial on its own to do this this isn't a directive from the district it is a collaborative effort uh bmhs tle meetings we have weekly meetings and this has been on ongoing talk of how do we move this forward we did some budget and curricular impact work with our departments because we know this is going to be a bit of a change what does this all involve we wanted to make sure we had all of our stakeholders
059involved um we met uh and learned from Ford NGL we've made some connections at the district level with the rine district and asked about scheduling what does that look like how what what can we learn from you um I made some connections with the district in uh Michigan as well in January we developed with the help of Kelly grow rude um a Gant chart a project management structure that laid everything out for us and what does this look like from Front End who are all the stakeholders what are all the pieces that we need to have um ining some of the technical pieces of how do we do this in Skyward move aside from philosophical and rational how do we actually physically implement this in Skyward um we did some targeted work on AP Capstone
060dual credit classes very course specific looking at how does a student get from A to B to C to D if that's their pathway and then we had over the summer department chair meetings tle meetings um again looking at give us some Solutions if this were going what do you propose um and addressing those ones so with that I also want to then add um as we move forward this this is really tied to CTE because a lot of the pathways end with classes that are tied in the CTE program um and it aligns with our unlocking Pathways Grant which I presented earlier this year and there's really four Focus areas academic and career planning dual credit work braas learning and Industry recognized credentials the grant because it's been paired down at the federal level
061they're focusing on the two bold ones or orange ones there the academic and career and dual credit opportunities and just to share some information that we have um there's a CBL tracker you may see this it was new it came out in January last year it's going out to all schools in the state and it tracks presenters get tours all of those things that you go on we got it late last year and we only had the C folks uh participate we had 822 students participate in 10 different kinds of experiences um and that was only my CTE team this this year it's going out to the whole staff so everything will be encompassed um work-based learning these are current numbers we have 615 students enrolled in 11 opportunities some of our programs such as
062the autoshop the upper classes it's run like an Autos shop so therefore it's a site-based work experience one so this is not all kids working out in the industry some of them are our classes um you can see our industry credentials which I'm finalizing we went from 89 seniors last year graduated with credentials we had 124 this past June that have graduated with credentials and then finally dual credit um we had 400 uh 155 students earned 491 college credits there's still some work to do with that but we have a number of them asembly said this is what our goal is um the regional and career Pathways those are things that are done by the state that we have to submit the goal the state said one per school you have to have one this
063last year we submitted four they've just added another one so we will have five this next year out of possible seven um and the CT enrollment and I counted them all up we have 2385 students as of last week who are enrolled in 32 different CTE classes now some of them are multiple so it's not all individual students um but we do have again a very large contingent of that and there's some celebrations our third cohort of Craftsman's character we had 13 teachers complete the SMA State Line Manufacturing Alliance Rock externship with had three students in the internship we've got over 50 businesses and 20 postsecondary lined up already for Expo um so you see that there there is a lot of this of the academy work that is tied on the back endend and
064I wanted to give you some of the data to show the numbers of students that we have participating in these thank you thank you questions yes thank you for the presentation I just want to jump back and again forgive my naivity and ignorance possibly well it is but uh let's go to U phase five and increase focus on academic achievement and this just a general question obviously the DPI report card that comes out once or twice a year I believe anyways there's a there's a major focus by the state on that score my question is does our curriculum as it evolves is it are we teaching to that test in our curriculum because so much is based on that report card grade that we yet and everyone sees it and that's what you know every
065we're all focused on academic achievement and we talk about that in Phase five but I just want to make sure and I'm sure you guys are very aware of that I just want to make sure that it's Incorporated in all these things that we're teaching to the test I guess is the way to put it thank you so in in in terms of um State Testing um how were the majority of our report card score that's based on growth is the prea and then our achievement score is based on act and both of those assessments are based on college career Readiness standards and the qu the the answer to the question there is yes we integrate the college career Readiness standards um along with our content standards into our lessons and units on a regular
066basis our teachers PLC around um the standards and and ensuring that they're teaching the skills that are being assessed thanks Emily um do they do you know kind of what the the state is testing on do they give you any for warning or or it stay basically the same care Readiness standards are available I mean you could go online and find them so yes we we use the C care Readiness standards which is what the you know what the tests measure essentially yep okay thank you so much for this and yeah I'm really excited to see this this is always one of my favorite presentations because I got to sort of uh my prior job prior to going back to teaching in the classrooms was working at black Haw Tech and working on these dual
067credit Pathways so it's really cool to see something start and for that investment to sustain and contining to see what it can blossom into for kids uh one thing I always like to mention when this comes out uh because it's not common knowledge is that all those industry recognized credentials that were just like the screen prior you might have it up there now I can't quite see no no it's not a big deal but um so act 59 oh sorry act 59 um gives school districts a kickback on those for up to $1,000 per credential earned so this is a program that also like increases funding into the district which is of course not the main focus but I think is helpful for people to know um and also just like the the longitudinal success
068data like kids who do college credit classes and AP classes are so much more likely to graduate you know for a fouryear degree in four years because it's not typical of students there are a lot of kids who start their freshman year at a fouryear school and drop out and things like that and kind of get refocused so um really like this is such a tremendous investment and I I am just so thrilled to see how this is has has grown so really just have a lot of gratitude to express and I'm so excited to see this you know continue to go into the next steps thank you thank you I also want to just um express my thank you for all of your hard work and for the progress that this has made made
069for our district um I know I have talked to a number of parents recently and when I asked what what should the school district be doing and some of the comments are well we need to find ways to get kids involved in careers that they're ready to go in an earlier age and I'm going well we've got just the program for you it's already here it's in place um and you know if you go to say an auto shop and you see all those certificates up on the wall that they've earned that's the industry recognized credentials that's what they're coming out of high school with so they're not going up from here out to a trade school or a technical school in order to get them they've already earned those here so that's really a
070step ahead when they go into the mark into the the the career area um gives them a real Step Up um so I greatly appreciate all of your work on this and look forward to the progress that you're you're things you're working on for this year thank you thank you okay um due to the time at this point um I would um recommend to the to the committee that we postpone items 2D until our next meeting um if that is okay um okay is that consensus we're having an offline conversation where I was showing him the Ford NGL website but yes of course sounds good okay um so we will postpone items 2D to next next meeting no problem may I ask um you know how we had discussed uh the Cadence of twice and
071then waiting the two meetings to ask for um going to the consent agenda is it possible that the committee looks at the courses and reaches out to us if you have any questions because then the next time we can just ask for Action to go to Cent we need to get it in our course guide to start our scheduling process so okay okay wonderful thank you so much all right thank you and with that um do we have our next meeting would be October 15th at 5:00 is the tenative time is there a motion to adjourn so moved second there is a motion and second to adjourn any discussion all in favor say I I I e e e fire water I'll be right e e good evening it is 605 I would like to
072call to order the regular board meeting Miss may we have a roll call please yes Greg Schneider present Amy Levy here Brian Nichols here uh Brian Anderson appears to be absent unless he's online Brian Anderson oh okay okay hi uh Tom henkins here Megan Miller present and tia Johnson present all members are present may I get an approval of the agenda so moved second motion by Brian Nichols seconded by Megan Miller any discussion hearing none all in favor i i i i any oppose motion carries that brings us to the pre Pledge of Allegiance tonight we have principal vdra introducing tonight's leader from Aldridge Middle School say are we good are we on yeah all right this is Alandra Reyes um she's a DLI student at aldr 8th grade she is a shining example of
073the greatness that exists in our district she's truly bilingual uh she loves school she's always willing to help out with anything and everything and she's the perfect person to read the pledge in both Spanish and English tonight oh could everyone please stand um I P allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all now in Spanish you can have a SE now I think thank you so much thank you for being here tonight and online your involvement reflects your care concern and love for the school district of beloy our students and our staff as we all know we are in the UN enviable position of having to make the largest reduction to our budget in
074a single year in the district's history the decisions that must be made are not easy nor are they taken lightly by any of us the budgetary reductions must be considered from as many different perspectives as possible once the superintendent presents the final budget it is the responsibility of this board to decide whether to adopt it the ad hoc finance budget committee has been very generous in sharing their time and years of expertise in their respective Fields this committee has spent numerous hours over the last several weeks studying the district's finances researching and learning about various elements of public school finances and the impact different budgetary changes may have have on student achievement there are not enough ways to express our gratitude for their help in this challenging situation we look forward to the future work
075of the committee and working with them as well we are also very appreciative of the CAC cabinet members and Department staff for providing answers data and resources to the ad hoc committee originally tonight I was planning on sharing some information from the wasb budget cycle handbook the purpose for sharing these passages was to have been to remind us that this is a collective effort a effort of community staff administrators and board members and the importance of transparency throughout this process these passages can be found on pages 11 15 and 25 of the 23 edition of that book if you wish to read those as I reflected on my way here I realized perhaps a better approach to getting this message across is a personal experience and that is this last spring early spring I ran
076into a former student a middle school student of mine at Walmart I asked them how they were enjoying the high school and you know what was their favorite thing what what did they dislike you you know how students are they kind of went you know school's school okay yeah I get it I understand I was once there I kind of persisted and I said okay if you could change one thing just one thing about your experience at the high school what would it be and to my surprise they they paused did some reflection and said you know what lunch I oh you want taste your food no we need another lunch period I oh okay they said our lunches we don't have enough time to get through there's too many students trying to get through
077um we don't have um the the pleasure of having an enjoyable eating period we don't have time to eat and there are too many people in one space and too many fights are happening probably because of this had I not taken the time to ask think and kind of you know say hey let's ask a question keep asking questions you know have a dialogue I never would have put together the number of class or lunchroom periods with student Behavior it's important for us to think about things from somebody else's perspective and I think if you look at those pages that I had mentioned before you it's not just my experience but the WB the Wisconsin Association of school SCH board says hey we need to listen to each other as we move forward let's keep
078our students as our Focus let's be respectful of one another let's listen to each other's concerns and suggestions let's remember we can and should be willing to learn from one another this financial challenge brings us an opportunity to decide what are our absolutely critical needs of the district for this school year then we can have the chance to reimagine strengthen recreate our district as we work together in proposing a referendum and getting Community involvement and getting what we need to have the school district we can dream of we have opportunity at our doorstep let's tidy up our house and invite opportunity in tonight we have a very full agenda please let's keep the discussion focused and on topic we will be adhering to the time allotments in the agenda thank you again for being here
079upcoming events and announcements board clerk Tom henkins thank you board president in the spirit of uh cooperation and collaboration this Thursday September 19th join our super superintendent Dr Willie Garrison along with city manager Jerry gabri elos and president bton from BL college at dasas Bar and Grill on Madison Road from 5:30 to 7:00 they will be discussing what they have accomplished in their short time in booy as well as what they would like to do in the upcoming Years grab dinner dinner while you are there food will be available for purchase and Sarah will be happy if you do coffee talks have you heard of this one we want to thank m kropa for a great idea to host coffee talks the first one was held on September 4th with the marketing and Communications Department
080it was a huge success with many people stopping by to talk and have a cup of coffee the next one is being hosted by the bmhs administrators and is scheduled for September 25th at the blunder Cafe in the public library this has been such a success even with other school district in Wisconsin in and Illinois have started doing their own coffee talks on Friday September 6th Floyd Memorial held its first Youth Night cookout complete with a food truck and bouncy house there was so much fun and excitement for the kids the next one is sure to be just as exciting join bmhs and First Responders for military appreci night beginning at 4:30 p.m. on Friday September 27th the varsity football game against Wilmont Union will follow at 700 p.m. for their fifth Victory this concludes
081our announcement and upcoming events for Tuesday September 17th thank thank you thank you board clerk henkins recognitions tonight we are recognizing Marquita Nome and presenting is chief of communications and marketing Monica Christoper before I begin I didn't see Marita enter are you here I I knew that she may have had a conflict but I still want to take a moment and the board does to to recognize her on Wednesday August 29th Marquita Nome delivered a powerful speech to the entire School District of Beloit staff culminating in a standing ovation from the audience the title of her speech was I absolutely choose the school district of Belo for my children we were so moved by her inspiring words that we asked for permission to share her speech on our website and social media platforms Marquita graciously
082agreed in her own words Marquita highlighted her family her six children the youngest is two and the oldest is 16 exclusive of the 2-year-old who will be coming to our district in the near future her children attend heckit frusen and boo Memorial High School Marquita highlighted how our staff ensures safety provides support and create connections with families she shared that our staff provide exceptional care care and creativity with our students she highlighted that our teachers go the extra mile for students in families every single day and that our administrators principls assistant principales and teachers are committed to inclusivity and accessibility again in her words every single day in her concluding remarks Marita stated and I quote everyone in this room should be proud of themselves you could have chosen to be anywhere in the world
083but you chose to be here with me in this room today and I thank you for that please continue to challenge and Inspire our Young Learners you are the selfless mentors coaches volunteers and beloved teachers as a parent I could not fulfill the duties of my high calling if you weren't so darn good at per Performing yours so we thank and honor Marquita this evening she is an exceptional person in and of herself and we honor her this evening thank you m Mrs Christoper that brings us to public comment uh board secretary Michelle SCH are there any public comments tonight no not any um yes I have um about 10 or 11 in the room um one that is not related to reductions and cuts and the others are and then I also have some
084that are emailed in so would you like to start okay uh speakers will be announced and invited to the podium by the board secretary each person will be allowed up to 3 minutes to speak should the individual require translation assistance a translator may be of the individual's choosing or one provided by the district public comments requiring translations will be given six minutes an individual's three minutes may be yielded to another individual however each person must complete a public comment card indicate if speaking or yielding time give the public comment card to the board secretary and approach the microphone to State first name and that their three minutes are being used yed to another individual an individual may speak on behalf of a group however no more than two people may yield their time to anyone
085speaker individuals wishing to comment are expected to comply with the following Norms in order to maintain a respectful and orderly meeting and to prevent discussion of confidential matters in public form comments should be directed to members of the Board of Education and not District employees students or other members of the public in attendance at the meeting signed and Banners or other material which impedes any person's view of the proceedings shall be relocated speech that is belligerent disorderly disruptive repetitive or which exceeds the allowable time permitted for each speaker is prohibited concerns or questions that entail the disclosure of identifying information regarding specific students are prohibited response from the board if any will be limited to clarifying inaccurate information seeking additional information from the speaker or acknowledging that the speaker has been understood the board will
086not debate with an individual and the board may not take action on an item raised during public comment that is not on the meeting notice or agenda the chair will interrupt and Rule an individual who violates any of these Norms out of order if ruled out of order by the chair the individual's opportunity to address the board will end immediately and the microphone will be turned off thank you for your participation and your courtesy and who do we have first Stephanie I'm Stephanie Summers I live at 724 East Welty Avenue I came here because um some of my son's support staff reached out to me and wanted to be able to allow to give you guys a parents perspective on the risk that these budget cuts may have I am the mother of a remarkably
087intelligent young man who also faces challenges related to emotional regulation my son began his education in another local school district here in bloy where he attended 4K in kindergarten unfortunately that District struggled to meet his needs effectively instead of focusing on his unique strengths and potentials they seem more interested in fitting him into a series of diagnosis and plans that they themselves were not equipped to implement properly my son is simply not a set of checkboxes he is a complex individual with the potential to lead and succeed their approach was insufficient for addressing the needs of an exceptionally intelligent African-American boy with some Behavior challenges I am a single mother that is my reality after numerous phone calls assumptions about my home life meetings and fre frequent requests to pick my son up from school
088for various reasons I ultimately lost my job at that time I worked in a position where I was responsible for collaborating with highly regarded clinicians in the Rock County area helping families in situations very similar to my own despite my role in supporting others I was not afforded that flexibility needed to tend to my own child's needs we needed change I chose to enroll my son in the blit School District upon my son starting his first grade year I admit I was prepared to beyond the defensive our previous experience had been traumatizing and I was bracing myself for more of the same however what I encountered in the bloy school district was a welcoming surprise working with the school psychologist at the time Mr Williams and his dedicated social workers counselors to include Miss Tiffany
089who is played a vital role in my son's achievements I found that their goal was not to impose unrealistic expectations but to develop a practical and effective plan to support my child I was respected as a working single mother who truly understands her son's capabilities I had a whole slew of questions that I wanted to ask I'm not going to do that um what I want you to truly realize is I went from peeling my son out of his car seat at 5 years old and not wanting to go to school to him being up prepared ready for school every day before I get up I was told that my son would never develop meaningful relationships through the supports that have been offered through the school district and our counselors and our social workers he
090has a group of friends that stay every weekend at our house he is a high honoral student is there anybody who would like to yield time to Stephany thank you he is a high honor role student he has been participating in the plays he has his moments where he needs to step aside and take classroom breaks but those supports are provided there by our social workers without having to stop class if we continue to do this what's the point about talking about attendance if you're pulling these people away to keep that won't be there to keep our kids in class what's the point what's the point about talking about ourmes if the social and emotional learning environment is not appropriate for our students this is a very personal topic to me and I appreciate each
091and every single one of the staff that has stepped in and supported my son because Lord knows he a lot of work but he's worth it and I just hope he's worth it to you as well thank you and Miss shop that was Tommy bricko who yielded the time okay okay if you can just do a form for me um next we have Jason and Julie is yielding 3 minutes for him good evening I'm Jason Wilhelm proud assistant principal at Gaston elementary I'm here to express my concern regarding the potential elimination of assistant principal and student service positions from our school district budgets as a member of the school Community deeply invested in the quality of Education provided to our students I believe that cutting these positions would have a detrimental impact on our schools
092and the well-being of our students assistant principles and student service staff play a critical role in maintaining the smooth operation of our schools they are instrumental in handling a wide range of responsibilities that ensure the daily functioning and overall success of our educational environment these their duties often include managing disciplinary issues supporting teachers coordinating student services and facilitating communication between parents and school these roles are vital for creating a positive and effective learning environment reducing or eliminating assistant principal or student service positions will lead to increased workloads for the remaining staff members both administrators and teachers this additional strain will detract from their ability to focus on their core responsibilities negatively affecting the quality of education and the support the students receive furthermore assistant principles and student service staff often act as a critical support
093system for teachers offering guidance and assistance that contribute to a more effective teaching experience moreover the president the presence of assistant principles and student service staff enhances student safety and well-being they are often involved in implementing and overseeing programs related to student health safety and behavior which are critical for maintaining a secure and nurturing School environment our involvement helps to address issues promptly and effectively which can prevent minor issues from escalating to more serious problems eliminating these positions could also impact the school's ability to foster a positive School environment and climate assistant principles and student service staff are often involved in creating and promoting initiatives that support student engagement and academic achievement they provide support in coordinating assessments school school events District in initiatives and they play a significant role in enhancing our students overall
094educational experience I urge the school board to carefully consider the potential long-term effects of this decision maintaining the current number of assistant principles and student service position will help ensure that our schools continue to operate efficiently and that our students receive the high level of support and education that they need and deserve I believe that preserving these positions is a critical investment in the future success of our students and our schools thank you for your attention I hope that the board will take these considerations into account and work toward finding alternative solutions to balance the budget without compromising the quality of our educational system thank you next I have Kristen good evening members of the board my name is Kristen Valentine I am a fifth year music educator and I currently serve as the coral
095music teacher at Beloit Memorial High School the school district of booy has had a grand reputation for a vibrant and flourishing vocal music program once bmhs had over 250 students involved in one or more of the six vocal music ensembles offered in the past few years belo's beloved vocal music program has deteriorated due to school reconfigurations building scheduling and the inability to retain qualified and licensed Coral music educators specifically at the middle schools the offering and scheduling of Middle School choir has been inconsistent last year Middle School choir was offered on a 4-day rotation compared to Bandon Orchestra which is offered every day earlier this summer it was decided to discontinue the Middle School Coral program and to eliminate the full-time Coral General music Pro position at fren today General music is offered on a
0969we rotation for one sixth grade class at each Middle School our students in seventh and eth grade have zero access to General and vocal music instruction the state of Middle School vocal and general music instru instruction greatly impacts enrollment in choir theater and general music classes at the high school the situation perpetuates inequitable access to a sequential comprehensive and meaningful musical education in vocal and general music I am working to rebuild our vocal music program at the high school last year our bmhs chamber choir and soloist earned top ratings in wsma Solo and Ensemble festival with one student oh making it to the state Festival this took time in dedication with one student receiving an exemplary performance award for their vocal solo at state bmhs music alumni are studying vocal music performance and singing in
097general at w Whitewater w Oshkosh Tennessee State and Columbia College Chicago each of these students began singing in their Middle School choir according to DPI administrative role Pi 8.01 2J music instruction including General music vocal music and instrumental music shall be available to all pupils in grades 7 through 12 and shall be taught by a licensed music teacher we must offer vocal and general music instruction to sixth through e8th grade students meaning if stud students and families want Choir in general music we must schedule these classes we have a fully licensed Coral music teacher at the middle schools only teaching two sections of sixth grade General music Health nighttime and even subbing for other subjects this is a disservice to our students that have interest in pursuing vocal music performance composition production or music business
098at the Collegiate level we must provide the opportunity for students to explore their passions next year we must offer choir and general music for 6th 7th and 8th grade otherwise we are not providing Equitable access to music educ education thank you for your time thank [Applause] you next I have Sher hello my name is Sher and I work at Converse Elementary School and much like the parent and for and other administrators that spoke I'm here in supportive keeping Vice principles and student staff student service staff I see our principal and vice principal all over the building all day long there are cleaning lunch tables walking students down the hall that need a break or coming at the end of recess for that one little kindergartener that really doesn't understand quite yet that we do have
099to get in line because as you know teaching kindergarten the first couple weeks is like hurting cats I've been blessed to have two wonderful Vice principls here at the school district of booy in fact I chose to come to the school district Beloit based on the principal and vice principal at Converse Elementary now our vice principal is our first vice principal is now principal at fren and our new vice principal I found out from board dos turned down a job at a different District to stay here I can't imagine imagine keeping our principles with the workload that you are requiring of them my other concern is student Behavior our student Behavior at convers is above reproach our principal and vice principal psychologists counselors they're all an intrical part of our team I know if a
100student is having difficulty in my classroom that if I need them one of them will come I know that that will end due to the workload we already are overworked and our vice principles and student staff take much as the other um vice principal said they back me up when I have a problem in my classroom a lot of the times students that do need those Services I realize we are behind the eightball in the budget I understand that any Cuts made are going to be extremely painful I would be more than willing to take those fow days I know many in our building would also take those days if it meant keeping our vice principal and much needed support staff maybe if there were a percentage cut across the district that we could possibly
101save the vice principal and student support staff why are we cutting the very things that would prevent people from leaving our district we know resoundingly we have heard behavior is one of the reasons that students leave our district and I fully understand that many of you were not on the board when this problem was ignored repeatedly but now the unfair treatment of these employees many of them again that turned down other jobs to come back to our school district it's beyond frustrating our vice principal Benji Kut is a great asset to the school district and when I read on board docs that he rescinded his resignation to take this job and now partway through the year we are cutting the staff I implore you to find Cuts in technology copies supplies paper clips I will
102go the whole year without you using a honken paper clip we need to find the least nonhuman cuts that we can possibly make thank [Applause] you next I have Katie and I have Jose and Vicky both yielding 3 [Applause] minutes my name is Katie Flores and I'm a parent to a eighth grade student at alri middle school I have come here tonight to share our story with you my son has had many struggles through Middle School I have no idea how we would have made it through without Mr Saha at mcneel and Miss Tiffany at Aldridge these two people have made such an impact in our lives forever for the last four years we have had struggles with school like many children have the beginning of seventh grade switching to Aldrich from McNeil was a
103huge adjustment there have been more mornings than I can count that I did everything I could to get my child up and out of bed not because he was a sleepy teenager but because he mentally just couldn't now many say it now many say it comes to Parenting to get your kid to go to school until you have to force a child to school every day that is depressed and emotionally drained that is a different kind of struggle to see your child like this every day is heartbreaking in seventh grade we reached a point academics did not matter my only goal was to make sure my child made it to school each day and was able to just try to see my child's face go from depressed walking through the school doors to happing in
104the mornings is something I cannot explain this is all because of the impact from one person Miss Tiffany my son went from feeling feeling defeated and that he could trust no adult at school to now he feels completely confident he has someone he can trust and depend on in seventh grade my son went from barely making School 3 to four days a week and failing every class for three terms to calling me from Miss Tiffany's office on the last day of school that he had passed every single class our children need their counselors and psychologists to help them through their days at school they are there before the bell rings to well after school hours they help our children with transitions from school from schools to things happening at home that many students aren't even
105comfortable talking with their parents about our children need the support that they can rely on from our district to make this happen no child child should have to worry about not having someone that makes them feel safe and comforted at school when they are having an emotional breakdown at school how do you properly handle these how do you plan to properly handle these situations have you ever had emot an emotional breakdown I can tell you that they are not planned and they are not scheduled a child cannot put this off because the psychologist or counselor is at a different School schol two days of the week one psychologist to 1500 students is absolutely unacceptable classroom teachers are not able to give the emotional support during the school hours that our children need nor are they
106trained to do that bullying is a real problem and now you are looking at cutting one of the biggest supports for the victims our students need this support it may help solve a problem with the budget but it will only create more problems and send the district backwards even further attendance rates will drop literacy rates will drop graduation rates will drop without support from Miss Tiffany this last year we would not be starting the school year strong and ready to learn Miss Tiffany does weekly check-ins with my son and his confidence this year is amazing when I explain to my child the district is wanting to make cuts that remove one of the best Advocates that he's had the look on his face was heartbreaking our children should not have to ever think about their
107Advocates and safe Zone being taken away there was a time when he felt he had no one at school and fast forward today that isn't a worry anymore there are several other positions that should be out on the table to cut and this one is not it mental health is real if a student is in crisis learning will not and cannot happen mental health is a basic need not something that should ever be up for consideration for cuts due to the school district's inability to budget these kids should be able to wake up every day knowing they have support at school during their times of need schools should always be seen as a safe space making this cut will call this cause the school district's enrollment numbers to drop further and it wouldn't be in
108our child's best interest to remain in the district we would be forced to seek enrollment somewhere else we are proud to say that our child is part of the boo School District but if this cut happens so does our pride in the district I urge you to consider the long-term impact on your decision our children deserve to wake up each day knowing that school is a safe space space where they have the support they need to thrive thank you next I have Mary and Charlene is yielding her three minutes yeah have right I can do it right sure can hello my name is Mary mangera and I'm the school psychologist at Fen Middle School this is my 34th year as a school psychologist in the school district of booy 35 if you count my practicum
109year thank you I want to thank District administration and the school board for allowing me this opportunity to speak to you tonight regarding the ad hoc committee's recommendations to cut student services staff including four School counselors and four school psychologist I have seen a lot I have been part of numerous system changes many as a founding member I have been part of the various versions of our student services delivery models I have been department chair for the school psychologist you have heard from several of my fellow School psychologists at the last board meeting and the person of interest in our last presentation Rachel Tiffany is our department chair she did an excellent job at educating you on what it means to be a school psychologist Mrs Tiffany talked about who we are as school psychologists
110and what we do also from my fellow School psychologists you heard a lot of data about what we can do and what we have done please hear me when I say School psychologists have direct student contact on a daily basis now those of you who know me I love data and the fact is that for decades and I'm saying it decades the school psychologists have been trying to bring our services to the school district more in alignment with our National Association of school psychologists or nasp recommendations of one psychologist to every 500 students and yes that means at Belo Memorial High School we need two additional School psychologists for a total of three I want to sincerely thank Missy beavers Eric rear and Dr Garrison for supporting us in this Mission and you can all
111be assured I will continue to advocate for school psychologists at our high school to cut the school Psychological Services to our students students and families would undermine what our district is striving to do which is to provide an environment in which every student's educational need can be met I strongly encourage the board to vote no to any cuts to school psychologist or other student services staff instead look at not filling open positions passing an unbalanced budget and approving an April referend that includes direct compensation data for staff using fund 10 monies or combination of these suggestions I can tell you times are very very different now and to utilize the psychologist and counselors in a shared positions as recommended by the ad hoc committee is a step backward when we are all trying to pull
112ourselves in the same direction for forward thank you next next I have James hello James Hoy Bea co-president Melissa barbec Bea co-president the Bea supports the purpose and the goal of the ad hot committee we are happy happy to be part of it as we know there's a huge budget crisis in the school district we know that difficult decisions need to be made regarding the budget however the Bea voted against the package of recommendations due to Serious concerns we have about specific cuts the goal of the ad hoc committee is to keep the budget cuts as far away from the classroom and to avoid cuts to Personnel who work with students on a daily basis I think we've heard tonight and a few weeks ago that student services do have direct contact with students all
113day every day we believe that some of the committee recommendations however meet this goal but some of them do not the proposed cuts the student services do not meet this goal the school counselors social workers and psychologists work with our students all day long every day they provide help in de-escalating students providing safe spaces for students to talk and making connections with families and to provide them with services and resources to name a few at the last Board of meeting you heard from many community members as well as student services staff themselves as to the specifics of what they do for our students and the district as well the gifted and talented staff worked to provide activities and work that enrich our education for our students who are labeled as gifted and talented cutting these
114positions will drastically reduce the ability for these students to receive extra support above and beyond what classroom teachers are doing to differentiate for these students cutting this support will potentially cause even more families to leave this District in our opinion we should be providing high quality instruction for all students at the level they need it and this includes students who are labeled as gifted and talented the task of of the adoc committee was to come up with recommended budget cuts to help balance the budget the committee did this it's it's pretty simple to make some cuts on paper it looks good the balance the budget is balanced but that does not mean that every recommendation the committee made needs to be adopted you do not have to approve them as a package you can pick
115them apart and pass on some of the recommended cuts and not others I've heard many people say well 10 years ago 20 years ago we didn't have students student services staff were shared between buildings I think you've heard tonight and I'll tell you that students are not the same today as they were 10 years ago 20 years ago even without Co add Co in definitely much different we understand that if you don't make those cuts further budget reductions would have to be made to balance the budget that's true but that's also Dr Garrison's job as superintendent let him do his job we encourage you to approve many of the atot committee's recommendations but to absolutely not approve the suggested cuts to student services and our gifted and talented staff thank [Applause] you next I have
116Rachel with Martha and Kyle both um yielding their three minutes good evening my name is Rachel Tiffany and I am currently the school psychologist at Aldridge middle middle school and department chair for the school psychologist I would like to thank the District administration and school board for the opportunity to speak to you again tonight I'm here to speak to you about the ad hoc committee's recommended cuts to balance the budget these recommendations include cutting four school psychologist positions within the district two weeks ago My Hope was to educate the board and others on what it means to be a school psychologist tonight I'd like to highlight how difficult it will be to continue to support students families and staff at the highest level if these positions are cut the National Association of school psychologists nasp
117recommends a ratio of 500 students for each psychologist in order to provide the full scope of services outlined in the nas practice model the school district of boite currently has approximately 5,890 students based just on numbers the district would need at least 12 full-time School psychologists to even begin to meet the needs of our students and with our student student demographics it would actually be more in looking at the numbers the district is appropriately staffed to provide Psychological Services at both the elementary and middle school levels we do not meet the recommended ratio at the high school level we have one school psychologist for approximately 1,543 students for bmhs and bla this is something that the people people services department has been trying to rectify for many years as department chair for the school psychologist
118I do not agree that it is appropriate or ethical to embrace the notion that if one school psychologist can provide services for 15 plus students then certainly the elementary and middle schools could do the same how wrong and how shortsighted our kids deserve better our families deserve better our staff deserves better and our district deserves better as stated in my previous public comment it's not just about the size of a building the number of students enrolled in the building does not necessarily equate with the needs in the building let me speak for a minute just about Aldridge since that is what I know best Aldridge currently has an enrollment of 528 students at Aldridge my role is multifaceted and I work with all students both regular education students and special education students as of today
119in my building 13 students have been identified as students with disabilities that's 21.4% of our student population at Aldridge I support three self-contained classrooms for students with intellectual disabilities one self-contained resource room for students with emotional behavioral disabilities and the alternative Middle School school within a school program this year just at Aldridge with the support of special education staff there are 113 IEPs and 55 five re-evaluations that need to be completed so far this year six parents have inquired about special education services for their child and at the middle schools we can complete anywhere from four to 20 initial evaluations depending on the school year this does not include evaluations that we conduct for 504 eligibility or consultation purposes pruisen is similar so let's multiply just this part of a school psychologist job by two
120this equates to roughly 226 IEPs 0 re aails and 8 to 40 initial evaluations and this is just one part of our job let me say it again one part of our job I do not believe that making high stakes decisions about a student's educational future should be taken lightly or rush to be completed by staff who are overworked and underappreciated our kids deserve better our families deserve better our staff deserves better and our district deserves better the ad hoc committee is correct that school psychologists are the only staff uniquely qualified to assess and identify students for additional services that is why School psychologists must have an education specialist degree to practice in the state of Wisconsin and are well-versed in psycle educational assessment Behavior counseling consultation and classroom intervention research analysis developmental psychology psychopharmacology
121ethics Child and Adolescent Psychopathology and special education law in fact in fact if you have been around for a while you may remember that school psychologists solely staffed our four or five buildings after the previous reconfiguration we were the Jack of all trades and qualified to provide services in all areas to support our students in addition several of the school psychologists hold National certification this credential is above and beyond what is needed for lure in addition I also do not understand why the ad hoc committee would value a denim contracts more than supporting the academic Behavior social and emotional needs of our students I think if you asked any building principal or staff they would rather have a full-time school psychologist than a Lead Teacher or at the very least I implore you to look
122for unfilled vacancies to cut instead of positions that are filled with well- trained and highly qualified staff that can support students families staff and the district in closing please do not accept the ad hoc committee's recommendation to cut student services staff including four school psychologist positions instead work to find other ways to balance the budget that do not directly impact students approve a deficit budget or use fund 10 money to offset the cost of retaining these positions thank [Applause] you next I have Whitney hi everyone um I'm here toight again um to Advocate on behalf of our student services team and in particular our psychologist though would appear School social workers and school counselors are safer for now according to the revised recommendations from the ad hoc committee I am still here tonight to Advocate
123on behalf of our school psychologist within my past 5 years at the district I luckily can say I feel like I've worked with the two two of the best psychologists our nation has to offer and mean that honestly um I truly feel lucky I've learned so much from them and I'm so thankful for our collaboration support and growth together I truly I am not exaggerating I've learned so much from our psychologists and I've have five years in College of myself and many internships and I truly just feel like they've taught me so much about processes and everything I can't even get into it in these three minutes um I know that the level of care we provide is only as strong as it is because we have such a strong and cohesive team uh for
124an example just today I and most of our team attended three PLC meetings two to three recess duties an emls meeting and at least two crisis responses and three individual check-ins each okay each um every day is different but today like many others we're one of those lunch list days where we just don't get it's 3:00 and we're at dismissal and I'm my stomach's growling and I realize I haven't eaten and this was with three full-time student services staff an AP and principal with full functioning systems it's not like we don't have systems in place we have the systems the need is there we almost have 500 students this is regular it's not just our school this is today's day and age this is reality um our psychologists along with our student services team steps
125in anywhere and everywhere and never turn down a task too stressful or large we handle business and make real Change Daily in the lives of our students and Families my school psychologist is far more um than just an evaluator she is an advocate a safe space for student St an interventionist and a change maker for our students I also would like to make note that Elementary evaluations are far far more time consuming due to the fact that most are the initial evaluations and require extensive testing I would also like to make it clear that I know Cuts aren't easy and there is never an easy choice however I have to add that it feels extremely insulting to let us know our jobs are up for cuts the week school starts as there are almost no
126external jobs posted because school is in session um we have mortgages child care and food to put on our tables we went to school for a minimum of 5 years and are now Googling the current unemployment rate to see if we're going to be able to survive it is frustrating and insulting and yet we are still showing up with a smile giving it our 100% and not letting our kiddos know the imense stress we feel being in limbo of what's going to happen in two weeks will the budget be balanced will we be the reason it's balanced it's simply frustrating and we're tired and it's not even October this is taking energy from us when we should be able to give it fully to our students and our families this is just feels very disrespectful
127to start the school year this way and it's not even my job necessarily that's on the line but it affects the entire team um so I also it was brought to my attention that it was stated that mental health is seen as a healthcare need and Healthcare should not be funded with academic funds however I would ask us to consider as a district whether or not we truly value the whole child and if we go down that Avenue then at what point do we say nursing staff occupational therapists physical therapists and speech services our Healthcare needs as well this is a priority for our district because we see the value in the entire student and we want to support them and their needs so that we can be Equitable and inclusive in our district this
128is a much larger conversation than Quick Cuts needed and it is not student services faults that the situation is what it is in our district today and it is not our students fault but it would impact them the most I also would like to say with the increasing threats of school violence it is dangerous scary and heart-wrenching to hear our support staff would be reded I'm done oh okay I thank you okay uh the last in room person I have is Pam and she has Pierre and Cheryl yielding time for her your microphone's off okay good evening I'm not here to talk about budget cuts but it's all very moving and um everybody makes a great case you know unfortunately you guys have a tough decision and I don't envy you for what you have
129to do right now I'm here to talk about some other items that I think kind of in a roundabout way affect all of this um and and these kind of decisions but one is the consent agenda I brought it to the previous board president's attention that policies really shouldn't be on the consent agenda the board makes well the board makes policy and that's one of your main roles if you look up what's the role of a school board it's to make an enforce policy or make policy and see if they're carried out and employ a superintendent um and policies shouldn't be something we throw onto a consent agenda so that the board as a whole doesn't take time to look at it policies should come from the policy committee and be reviewed quickly by the
130policy committee chair so that the public is aware of what's being changed or what's being written WR and that you know it keeps them involved it keeps them aware and it helps communicate things to the public some other things that shouldn't be on consent agendas and when I walked in tonight I'm not sure what the topic was but I heard let's H and get this on the consent agenda consent agenda is for things like minute approval maybe the financial report things that don't have a high public interest but if it comes to things like what I what I pulled up earlier today that been on previous consent agendas a reading curriculum for Arc there was a day when when the reading curriculum would be out in the hall and it would be there for two
131weeks maybe a month while teachers came to have a look at it parents could come and look at it and we could all have input now it's on a consent agenda and I follow things pretty carefully but I didn't know we we adopted a new reading curriculum it was on a consent agenda science curriculum I also found on a consent agenda approval of new course proposals which is prettyy important you want parents to know what courses are coming up and what you're approving um and of course new route which came to a consent agenda with no contract noou attached presented to the board for quick approval on a consent agenda and the maximum we were committing our district to was nearly $2 million $1.97 six million on a consent agenda this is not the way
132to run this District let's let's watch the consent agenda if you don't mind try it a different way put things on there that really aren't of high interest to the public it'll slow down your meetings a bit but it will also keep people aware and educated as staff as well as parents and families and it it makes the public feel like you care so I hope you will consider that the other thing is um the board doc agenda reposting yesterday there was no agenda up for the entire day and people were wondering what happened to the agenda is the meeting canceled no one knew but for an entire day the board docs had no meeting posted and I realized that for various reasons meetings have to be reposted but when I served on the board
133we didn't remove the old posting we left them all up because that's a public document and you can't destroy a public document and I don't know like if I if I went home today and did an open records request and asked for the posting from yesterday would I get it or would they say no it's not there anymore we don't have it a public document should be left up the public posting should be left up and when it's reposted it should be titled revised or reposted and then we can go look at both of them and see what's changed because right now people have no idea what was changed from the reposting to this one but what we do know is that there is an agenda item that Dr Garrison is presenting called District budget
134discussion a 20 minute presentation if you look at the details of that agenda item the purpose is to continue budgetary consideration discussions of administration regarding budgetary needs in the 24 25 school year I can't even figure out what that means it doesn't seem to align with District budget discussion and most importantly there's nothing attached the public has no clue what this topic is about you may have had fewer people here if they had seen that you were going to be presenting something um that you know would make them more comfortable where they wouldn't have to come in and talk tonight or you might have had more people here if they see that what's being presented by the superintendent is alarming to them but we have no clue right now what this agenda item is about
135and we do know that you can tell by the way this room is packed that people here are very very concerned about the budget it's of highest interest to this town right now I I can't think of a time we had this room packed this much except for when you close both Westside middle schools so when something is this high of an interest to the public please please attach everything you can to give us as much information as you can and I'm assuming that this is not an action item because of the lack of information open meetings laws requires maximum transparency when you're making an agenda and especially when something is of high interest to the public so I hope you'll consider some of these suggestions thank you all for what you're doing and I
136see a couple of members of the ad hoc Committee in here tonight and I just want to thank you for all the work that your committee did it was very generous of you to donate your time and your expertise to our community thank [Applause] you I have several emails now okay thank you the first email is from Tim I'm retired educator from the sdb I'm a resident of the city of bloy I do not think it's in the best interest of the students and staff to be cutting positions that deal directly with the students who have the greatest mental health needs let's keep our student services staff so that they can serve students please remember that there was a school shooting yesterday this one actually came in too late to read last time uh resulting
137in the murder of two teachers and two students with others injured both mentally and physically as a professional educator I was not equipped to help the students who had the greatest mental health needs I depended upon the assistant principal and the student services staff to do that work they did great work there must be somewhere else additionally isn't the root cause of the budget shortfalls due to families leaving the district because of bad student Behavior cutting student services will exacerbate that problem cuts at kak are Cuts I can support thank you next I have an email from Jaden with uh Melissa and um Megan both donating time yielding time my name is Jaden I'm a school psychologist on the district I previously emailed and submitted a public comment regarding concerns for the proposed Cuts made
138by the ad hoc committee for balancing the district's budget I have read the updated proposal from the committee and this continues to cause me deep concern I believe that there are many factors and questions that the committee did not consider the followings a direct quote from The Proposal the high school has one psychologist for roughly 1,400 students and likely provides services at bla when needed if one psychologist can provide services for this many students certainly the elementary and middle schools can share psychologists stating the school psychologist at the high school makes it work by roughly 1,400 students doesn't provide any solid data or reasonable explanation that it actually results in adequate service for our student population did the committee research that the actual recommended student to school psychologist ratio is the National Association of school
139psychologists recommends a ratio of 1 to 500 the school district of blit currently has nine full-time School psychologists with over 5,000 students enrolled in the district we are above the recommended ratio however I do believe it should be a source of Pride for the District that we are close we should not take a step backward by cutting four positions which would result in having more than twice the recommended student to school psychologist ratio if we are able to maintain an adequate ratio it allows us to be more preventative particularly at the younger levels rather than reactive we all know being preventative is a far better approach than being reactive but this simply wouldn't work the same with the recommended Cuts furthermore when the committee makes statements such as the school psychologist likely provide services at
140bla when needed that tells me they are making statements based on conjecture and not actual Research into what roles the school psychologist in the district actually fill personally I have a problem with making high stakes decisions that impact our students families and the livelihood of District employees based on conjecture another direct direct quote from The Proposal States while psychologists certainly do provide emotional support for students and families only they are qualified to assess students for additional services this points seems backward to me the quote indicates that school psychologists are the only employee group qualified to provide certain assessments and that they can also provide some emotional excuse me emotional support yet the recommendation is to cut the school psychologist Department in nearly half when that very statement acknowledges that school psychologists offer a variety of
141skills it also poses the question did the committee consider data on how many special education and Section 504 evaluations are completed each year in the district and whether only five School psychologists could reasonably complete all of the assessments required within legally mandated timelines in addition did the committee examine data on the mental health and behavioral needs of our schools of our student population and consider whether the remaining student services positions could feasibly meet those needs I would like to argue that they cannot I believe that if the social School social workers and school counselors were asked they would also indicate that they could not easily could not reasonably meet the need of our student population if any student services position were cut as I mentioned in my previous email our district student services staff already
142often work through lunch and or take work home there simply isn't any more time left to give the amount Andor the quality of services offered would have to suffer furthermore the logic about cutting School psychologists when we are the only employee group qualified to administer certain assessments also gives me concern that there is little understanding or respect for what other services we offer that the district if the department were to be cut to five School psychologists then yes the primary role would most likely have to be assessment that would be a shame because school psychologists have so much more to offer and we've offered so much more to our district in my previous email I gave very specific examples with data about the variety of ways I have supported students in my role as a
143school psychologist at hacket elementary school I also think it is imperative to look at what a well staffed school psychologist team can contribute to the district as a whole for example the district has multiple RTI mlss em LSS teams throughout the years School psychologists have served on every one of those teams and contributed to writing districtwide guidelines used to provide core instruction and tiered interventions to meet the needs of our students traditionally School psychologists have been the leaders of building level emls teams and student intervention teams this year the assistant principles have been asked to take a heavier role on these teams however with the rec recommendation to cut both School psychologists and assistant principal positions the ability to maintain an effective em LSS system would be significantly impacted I can again assure you that
144the remaining building administrators and student services staff would not be able to uphold effective em LSS systems with each building while also maintaining their other job responsibilities each of these employee groups already has enough on their plate and they would become spread even thinner if the proposed Cuts were made additional examples of contributions the school psychology ologist team has made to the district as a whole include but are not limited to the school psychologist team is responsible for bringing our current currently used social emotional behavioral screener to the district the team has been responsible for training interventionist staff every year on progress monitoring for students receiving tier 3 academic support we also oversee the progress monitoring to ensure it's done with Fidelity and take a lead in analyzing the data to make important student decisions
145the psychologist school psychologist trained for all district special education teachers on academic achievement testing the school psychologist team collaborated with the executive director of pupil Services director of pupil services and program managers on updating our District's functional behavioral assessment and behavioral intervention plan procedures below I'm sorry before we allow a committee to make assumptions on what school psychologists offer and make recommendations that would drastically limit our roles within the district I encourage everyone to visit the National Association of school psychologist web page and read about who School psychologists are what the training entails and the potential scope of our practice we are so much more than testers and we can offer so much more to our students and families when we are properly staffed lastly while the majority of my comment addresses concerns for the
146proposed psych school psychologist Cuts I also think it's important to express concerns about cutting Elementary assistant principles those positions were added several years ago for a reason it would be impossible for one admin administrator to be an active member of the EM LSS team and building leadership team complete all effective educator evaluations participate meaningfully in plc's at all grade levels provide adequate instructional leadership facilitate family engagement opportunities manage the school budget address discipline and behavioral concerns Etc at hacket our principal and assistant principal make an effort to be both highly visible and approachable at our to our staff students and families while also juggling multiple responsibilities you cannot take away leaders at the building level without having a significant impact on that building's climate and functioning thank [Applause] you next I have um an email
147from Lori and she has Maryann and Irma both yielding 3 minutes I'm writing to you today to discuss my concerns with the proposed budget cuts and the direct negative impact they will have on the students and families of the school district of bloy this is my 18th year as a school social worker in the school district of bloy and I have stayed in this position for that long because of my team at hacket elementary we work well together and we are all committed to teaching and supporting the students and families in beloy I believe that cut in student services and Elementary assistant principles will result in negative consequences for everyone involved students families teachers and other school staff at hacket the principal assistant principal school psychologist School social worker and school counselor work together as
148a team to meet the needs of students to support teachers and to create and Implement interventions for academics and social emotional behavioral learning classrooms are drastically different from when I started in the sdb the academic and social emotional behavioral needs in each classroom are greater than any one teacher can manage if these needs are not addressed the research shows that students student achievement suffers students need support in areas such as self-regulation and social skills to succeed both at school and in life if you take away student services staff and the assistant principal you will take away significant contributors to the team more responsibility for dealing with student behaviors and teaching SCB lessons will fall onto classroom teachers who are already overwhelmed and overworked teachers will have less time to teach academics if the full team
149of student services staff and principles isn't there to provide support and interventions I would also like to address the fact that it is appalling to me that the sdb is considering cutting positions at this time of year any staff that lose their jobs will have a hard time finding a new job at this point in the school year if Cuts were going to happen they should have happened last spring when people would have had the opportunity to apply for openings in other districts I'm extremely disappointed that this is happening and I urge the school board and superintendent to look for other Solutions rather than cutting staff that work directly with children thank you for taking the time to consider the information presented in this email I will not she was just saying she had people
150that would be yielding her time thank [Applause] you and next I have an email with Stacy and lesie uh donating their time for Chen my name is Chen I'm a school counselor in the district I previously submitted a public comment and email regarding concerns for the proposed Cuts made by the ad hoc committee I have now read the updated proposal and this continues to concern me I believe there are many factors and questions that were not considered starting with the following quote from the most recent proposal the high school has one psychologist for roughly 1,400 students and likely provides at bla when needed if one psychologist can provide services for this many students certainly the elementary and middle schools could share psychologists that this statement doesn't provide any data or explanation that our students are
151being adequately served serviced with that ratio did the committee research what the recommended student to school psychology psychologist ratio is it's 1 to 500 according to the nasp stdb currently has nine FTE School psychologists serving over five ,000 students right now stdb is not meeting the recommended ratio but it's amazing that we are at least close to what it should be let's not take a step backward by cutting four positions it would result in having more than twice the recommended ratio right now student services are able to be more pre preventive particularly at the younger levels rather than reactive which is highly preferable being as preventive as we are now would not be possible with the recommended cuts when the committee makes statements such as the school psychologist likely provide services at bla when needed
152that tells me they are making statements based on speculation and not Research into what our school psychologists in the district do when it comes to important decisions I personally have a problem with making them based on assumptions and guesses especially when they impact our students families and the livelihood of District employees another direct quote from The Proposal States while psychologists certainly do provide emotional support for students and families only are qualified to assess students for additional services this doesn't make much sense to me excuse me it's saying that school psychologists are the only employee group qualified to provide certain assessments and that they can also provide emotional support yet the recommendation is to cut the school psychologist Department in half when it when it was just acknowledge that school psychologists offer a variety of skills
153this leaves me with many questions did the committee considered data on how many special education and Section 504 evaluations are completed each year in the district did they think about whether only five School psychologists could reasonably complete all of the assessments required within legally mandated times did they committee examine data on the mental health and behavioral needs of our student population did they think about whether the remaining student services positions could adequately meet those High needs the answer is that they couldn't cutting School psychologists when they are the only employee group qualified to admin administer certain assessments where is the logic is there no understanding or respect for what other services they offer if the department were cut down to five School psychologists their primary role would most likely have to be assessment but honestly
154that's Such a Pity School psychologists have so much more to offer and have done so for more for have done so much more to our district I would like to take a minute to remind everyone that our well staffed school psychologist team has done and continues to do for s B the district has had multiple RTI mlss em LSS teams throughout the year school psychologists have served on every single one of those teams they've contributed to writing districtwide guidelines used to provide core instruction and tiered interventions to meet the needs of our students they've been leaders of building level em em LSS teams and student intervention teams they're responsible for bringing our currently used social emotional behavioral screener to the district they've been responsible for for training interventionist staff every year on progress monitoring for
155students receiving tier 3 academic support they oversee the progress moning monitoring to ensure tier 3s are done with Fidelity and take a lead in analyzing the data to make important student decisions they trained all district special education teachers on academic achievement testing they collaborated with the executive director of pupil Services director of pupil services and program managers on updating our District's functional behavioral assessment and behavior intervention plan procedures here's another thought this year the assistant principles have been asked to take a heavier role on the EM LSS team however with the recommendation to cut both School psychologists and assistant principal positions the capacity to run an effective em LSS system would not be possible I can guarantee that the remaining building administrators and student services staff would not be able to sustain successful emls systems
156while also maintaining their primary responsibilities while I am grateful that it seems like the idea of cutting student services is being reconsidered I am not for cutting any student services position and this includes assistant principles as well please consider the data and the impact of these proposed cuts the the and balance the budget another way we cannot our children cannot afford to lose any more hardworking caring and imperative team members sincerely should he [Applause] next I have one from Sarah there are a million situations I could paint for all of you to imagine as to what would happen if these cuts to our student services and administrative teams come to fruition however there are just too many Bleak outcomes that come as a result of that and I do not wish to focus this email
157on all of that instead I will again remind the school board the public the ad hoc committee and staff at our central office just how necessary and important our assistant principal and school psychologist are to our school hacket being now within the third week of our school year routines are established students are busily working within classrooms and all staff members have counted on or built new relationships with our elementary students I may be a bit biased but my current group of students are some of the best I've worked with they're so caring friendly just genuinely Cur curious and have an urge for learning each morning our assistant principal makes a point to go to each and every classroom to greet staff and students nearly my entire class rushes to the doorway to get a hug
158and words of encouragement from our assistant principal each morning I'm telling you there are Smiles abound and that 30 seconds she takes in the classroom is necessary for some of these students to set their tone for the day our assistant principal is known loved and looked up to by all the students at our school students reach out to her in both the positive and the troubling times as a fairly new sta member to our school I've witnessed firsthand the impact that this relationship has on our students our school psychologist wear so many hats and partakes in numerous responsibilities far beyond what is written in the job description she's so much more than a person who tests and analyzes students academic performances and makes decisions regarding their learning path when a student is sitting in your
159classroom attempting to take in the math lessons and fighting back a new crisis you reach out to the school psychologist our school psychologist picks up the pieces when a teacher cannot our school psychologist is a force of nature building bridges between families and teachers when parents are trying to understand information regarding their child in the possible route of interventions and or testing she goes above and beyond home visits multiple phone calls reaching out to some of our most vulnerable students informing staff members of necessary information facilitating check-ins between staff and those students who thirst to hear from a positive adult while at school I could continue on but I'm not but I'm going to end the email here I once again encourage any Schoolboard member to come in and spend in a substantial amount of
160time within our classrooms do not just come in for a few minutes here and there come sit in the classrooms during a math lesson join us at our recess sit next to a student while in our class and really immerse yourself within the four walls of all of our classrooms thank you again for your time next I have an email from April my name is April my son Keith goes to Aldrich school and is in the seventh grade this year when my son first started going to Aldrich he had a really hard time with staying focused and doing what he is supposed to do in school that's when he met Mrs Tiffany Mrs Tiffany helped come up with a plan each school year to help better Keith and she not only did that but she
161was there for him whenever he was having a hard day or just needed a break from class he would go to her and after a short time she was always able to get him back on track we have struggled with teachers basically giving up on my son and she always pushed and fought for him my son absolutely adores her Keith has one more year left at Aldridge and he needs to have her there just just like a lot of other students some kids need more when it comes to helping mentally and physically and to take that away from the kids is only going to make their mental health State worse when they don't have someone they really can go to with problems and with their struggles Mrs Tiffany has been the best for my son
162and I really don't want to see her leave thank you for your [Applause] time next I have one from Samantha my name is Samantha I'm the mother of two eth graders at Aldrich Middle School as well as a third grader at Todd Elementary we have been in the district for 10 school years it is unfortunate I couldn't make today's board meeting regarding our district psychologists I have a prior commitment to coach a private soccer training session I also work with Children of a wide range of Ages seeing that our eighth grade child school psychologist job was up for debate was one Schoolboard issue I couldn't ignore having spent time on my child's IEP team and seeing firsthand the passion and nurture Miss Tiffany brought to my son's case I don't know what I would have
163done without her my son who attends Aldrich was medically diagnosed with autism and ADHD when he entered Aldrich as a fourth grader this is when Miss Tim and I first met this was my first experience with an IEP and special education to see firsthand what a school psychologist does this was all new to me Miss Tiffany not only deals with children behavior issues but she also deals with hot-headed sometimes worried and scared parents in the past I was that parent I came in one of the first few weeks my children started Aldrich upset confused and angry aldr staff did not know how did not know what to do with me Miss Tiffany came up introduced herself in a cool calm collected educated and professional manner she quickly knew how to assess and address the issues
164that I was feeling we spoke for a long time about my son and the help he needed at the time I did not I did not know what he needed she helped to put my son's team in place and have a plan on how to address issues communicate with staff and move his education forward while keeping in touch with his physician Miss Tiffany became a trustworthy resource between us parents and the The District in my eyes my son has had many negative encounters with staff from janitorial to principles that were confused on how to deal with my son's diagnosis and his education Miss Tiffany handled the miscommunications misinformed and uneducated staff on autism and ADHD we've had teachers that do know he is autistic tell him you're using this as an excuse when teachers don't
165read IEP someone has to be there to make sure they do when the district is remodeling building closing other schools restructuring schools just to end up merging schools sitting children on top of each other behavioral issues between students staff and parents someone must be there to put out the Flames those people are School psychologists when the board merged the wests side and East Side schools together children like my son were affected most over stimulation less attention from staff crowded classrooms fights violence gun threats Etc first you added more students now you're taking away the staff people like Miss Tiffany made accommodations for children like my son making the school years a little less unbearable this board forced these changes making people like Miss Tiffany's job that much more important the school board says we have
166no money the bigger question is how is there so many educated people on this board that are so confused on budgets how many of this board's children live and go to school in the district right now how many of your kids were affected by the board's decisions that is if you have any young children at all I for one would be lost lost without our school psychologists thank you for your [Applause] time and the last one I have is from Ashley I wasn't sure exactly who to email so I figured it was best to include all of you all board members and she says my name is Ashley I'm a mother to three children in which two of my children attend attended convers in the school district of beloy it's my understanding that we need
167to make budget cuts and that assistant principales school counselors and a few others may be cut I'm here to explain my own personal experiences and reasons as to why that would be absolutely detrimental to not only the students but the teachers as well September 15th 2023 my son Aiden Hansen who attended fifth grade at Converse Elementary his teacher was Mr clet who is now the assistant principal at Converse Elementary was shot and killed by a 9-year-old child in South booy Illinois the news was beyond devastating to my family of course but it was absolutely devastating to the staff members at Converse Elementary as well as Aiden's peers and classmates several councelors teachers staff members to include assistant principal swarmed in to help counsel these children to help them grieve the loss of their former classmate
168and friend while these staff members were dealing with this grief of the loss of my son they set aside their own feelings their grief and helped these children who needed it especially my daughter Grace Alexander imagine if you took that away and those children came to school to learn about their classmate and friend and had absolutely nobody to talk to how devastating would that be for them what if they didn't have access to private counselors maybe their parents work too much to talk to them about it explain what happened to them where do you think their grief will go if they don't have access to someone designated to talk to if you take away counselors you are going to end up with several children like the one who killed my boy some of these children
169don't have safe spaces at home school is their safe space these counselors are their safe space taking that away would cause absolute Mayhem assistant principles are important to the school's success for several reasons and I'll I'll list just a few principal succession assistant principal's help address principal attrition and teer teacher shortages student outcomes assistant principles work directly with teachers and students to help improve academic social emotional and behavioral outcomes if you take away assistant principles the schools would miss out on several benefits that they provide teacher support Student Success parent support leadership I know several assistant principal jobs are on the line and unfortunately I can only speak on Converses assistant principal Mr clut because of what I've seen from him he is more than just an assistant principal he's a leader he's a counselor
170he's a support for not only students but parents too we celebrated Aiden's one-year death anniversary Sunday September 15th 2024 and Mr clut along with several other teachers attended when none of them had to Mr clut played football with Aiden's friends he counseled them when they needed it he kept in contact with me even when school was out I apologize for this being incredibly long but this was something that needs to be heard getting rid of any of these positions is going to be detrimental find something else to cut or reach out to the community to see if if if us as parents can help do not cut people our children need we all want our children to be successful and taking these positions away would not help in any way please please deeply consider finding
171something else to cut or reaching out to the community and asking for help we would rather help than see these positions let go and all of our children going downhill mentally I appreciate you taking the time to reach to read this incredibly long email take care Aiden Hansen's mom [Applause] Ashley I'm sorry I missed one anything than I have one from Jessica my name is Jessica this is my 2th F year in beloy at hacket elementary school I drive almost an hour and a half each way from Milwaukee to work at hacket and have been doing this for 23 years I love hacket and the staff that work there that is why I drive 3 hours a day I was at hackit before we had assistant principles full-time psychologists and school counselors the district saw
172the need for more support at the elementary buildings and hired more student services staff and assistant principles to provide the behavior and emotional support that many of our students urgently need these staff are also integral parts of our RTI team working to develop a plan to provide additional academic support to students in need given that bit students needs have only increased since adding these positions it really seems like these cuts of assistant principles School psychologists and school counselors would be in a step would be a step in the wrong direction I understand that that the district is in a budget crisis given that the referendum unfortunately did not pass these staff members are essential members of our school building I hope that we can be creative to find alternative solutions to solve this budget crisis
173that does not involve cutting these staff however if this is the role if this is the route that the district unfortunately decides to cut my question is why could this not have been decided prior to a school year starting when these staff members that could potentially be greatly affected could have found their other jobs to support their livelihood the school district has communicated that they want to retain qualified and committed staff the student services team and our assistant principal at hacket are committed to this district and to our school I have a few questions and I'm wondering if they were considered could everyone in the district take a very small pay cut to offset the current Staffing Cuts I would be willing to take a small pay cut if it meant keeping a solid student
174services team and our assistant principal that is how essential I feel that my colleagues are I don't recall this option being offered to the staff can we ask staff if they would be willing to take a small pay cut to save these student services and assistant principal positions number two I heard that there was talk about a couple of Furlow days for the staff could this offset staff Cuts number three in addition I heard there is discussion about pay raises How can there be pay raises at the same time that we are cutting critical staff members with lowering the raise offset having to cut these positions I know that some of my suggestions involve also staff the teachers administrators and admin at kek taking a small pay cut however if in the future a referendum
175passes hopefully salaries can increase to make up the difference of what we lost I'm very concerned about what the school year will be like in our district if we cut support staff and assistant principles that provide essential support to students and teachers daily thank you for taking the time to read this message I hope we can find a way to balance the budget without losing critical School building staff that provide essential support for our kids we are fighting fires here and you are cutting off the water supply kind regards I believe that's everybody thank you Michelle reports to the board unfortunately our uh student board representative could not be here tonight so that brings us to teaching learning equity and pupil services committee update committee chair Greg Schneider do you have a report yes I
176do and I'll make it real quick um we met tonight at 5:00 and we we uh received information on the everyday counts U which is the new attendance matters and and the the services that'll be offered within the district and and the uh communication out to parents in the community um in regards to that we also um received the report from the boo Boys and Girls Clubs uh to a program a grant that they have received called be great graduate um where they are providing mentorship and other services for uh for students uh in grades six through 10 to help them uh get through school and to graduate on time and we appreciate the support of the boys and girls club we did receive updates on the The Academy system at at the high school
177um and so it's been working really good and moving forward and looking forward to um the actions and enhancements that will take place this year uh the last thing on the agenda were new new course proposals which we postpone to do to timing um but and because of the time when we need to have these in the course catalog um we will pick these up at the next board meeting at the next uh committee meeting um but I am encouraging all board members to review all of the new course uh proposals that are in board docs and if you have any questions please get them to me uh so we can get those answered before our next committee meeting um as we'll need to take action on it at that point thank you so much
178chairman Greg Schneider that brings us to District budget discussion Dr Garrison okay thank you uh is it president I can start so first of all let me just say um thank you to the the community came out to to to support the conversation today I want to First say not first say I want to secondly say thank you to my Administration team to the to the to the staff that's here today to everyone that's in the community um I do want to thank you for coming out to hear this conversation tonight you know one of the things that I have to start off with with saying is that it is my responsibility to make sure I bring a balanced budget to the board one of the things I I take full responsibility for is to
179make this very clear is that I did hear from the ad hoc committee that I needed to do a better job at bringing a balanced budget earlier um I take that to I take that in full consideration in this conversation uh one of the things that I one of the things that I pride myself in is reflection and I talk about it all the time but I'm also a part of that conversation and so I want to make sure that the ad hoc commune hears me a lot and cleared I do thank you for your time that you put into the conversation um as a pertaining to the work that you've U put put in over these past over this past month I will do a better job at bringing a balanced budget to the
180board earlier I followed up I follow a timeline that pretty much this district has followed for quite some time and I'm hearing that we want something earlier and so that's what I will do next okay I will put some a balanc budget out earlier so that everyone can actually um you know have this conversation much earlier moving forward again that that's my responsibility as a district administrator I stand in the Gap and saying to everyone that's in this room my goal is to bring a balanced budget next year in June um so that everyone knows our balance budget is where it's at much earlier and think that is my goal okay um so I want to make sure I put that out first to the the entire Community to make sure everyone is um aware
181of that now I have to take one brief moment to get the screen um presentation up so give me a give me a quick second here [Music] there we go [Music] so my presentation tonight is going to consist of and I do need to set this clock so we got 20 minutes to do so so give me a quick second to do that too sorry y all um I've been wanting to make sure I keep with everybody's time so I'll do the same thing my goal tonight is to to share with you all uh my recommendations for um our budgetary reductions first of all let me just say we've been we have not been working from two separate budgets our budget that we've been working from is a budget that was set back in um
182back earlier in April where we had a deficit of $10.8 million um that $10.8 million is the budget that we've been working from and as we have kind of had these conversations in the public and the and and not only in the public but also right here in this boardroom we have went from a July 2nd presentation that saved us another about $4 million to a July 31st conversation of about $4 million and then we presented on August the 6 that gave us our preliminary budget of $3.7 million of remaining reductions that we need to make okay um I did hear from um everybody in this conversation that this $3.7 million is probably one could argue um something that I I did take a little more time to try to weave through because I wanted
183to make sure that our school district had everything that it needed starting September 5th when we started school I didn't want to rush to this conversation I didn't want to um put out arbitrary Cuts without making sure first that we have everything that we need in order to be successful in our school district um that is something that I take very you know very very seriously as a district administrator we have to have what we need in our buildings in order to be successful so I did not rush through this next $3.7 million for that very reason the next few slides here that you will see and I wish I can make the screen a little bitter but um I'm not sure if I'm not sure if I'm doing it right here yeah a little
184I know I did the slideshow but it's it's actually inside my presentation though so that's the issue you can like do control sign to there we go there we go and so let me just walk through this conversation um first of all what I wanted to do is respect the space that the ADOT committee um was working from um they were working from a conversation of $3.7 million that was needed to be reduced and you know part of my responsibilities is also to hear from the ad hoc committee and that's what I want to do in this space as well so what you see here is a side by side of what the ad hoc committee was recommending along with what the district administrator has already done and what's under consideration okay and so when
185you look at this you see 1 point $1.6 million worth of ad hoc um recommend recommended Cuts coming from Colac we had completed $45,000 worth of cuts on the July 2nd presentation on board docs everyone is willing to see that and you can look and see that at your own Leisure with that conversation we've also had to um to think about additional cuts that will have to come here from Colac that's under consideration to the tune of $ 95,9 125 if you add up those two numbers what we've already done and what we are under consider consideration um you will get that $1.3 million conversation so the ad hot recommended $1.6 million we are standing at $1.3 million if the considerations are moved forward at the board level the next conversation we have is the
186um total next conversation ad hoc recommended was $750,000 of cuts and again everyone has seen the documents and I'm not going to go through both of those because of because of time um those building administrator Cuts were $750 000 at the H ad hoc recommend at the ad hoc recommended conversation at the building level on my side I should say Administration side we had already made $572,000 worth of cuts on the July 2nd conversation under consideration right now most of people probably of already aware of that there was a vacancy at the high school um that's that's that's also tal in this underconsideration conversation and so you add up the um the completed versus the under under consideration conversation you run into $14,000 ad hoc recommended $750 billing Administration again has at the $714,000 Mark
187um that's under consideration currently building staff the the building staff conversation at the Hat hoc level was $761,000 um and let me just share this with everyone part of my responsibility is again to not just make um you know make cuts that I I want to make Cuts because in my humble opinion is everything that we need in the school district um we should have okay um unfortunately in our budgetary conversation we have not been able to um you know meet the needs that I believe everyone wants to see um as it pertains to our budget we've had to make year-over-year Cuts while inflation has not helped us at all um we know this is a funding conversation here in the state as well right now there's over $3,000 plus dollars if that we were
188to kept up with inflation that we would be getting um in that conversation if that was to happen unfortunately we are in a space where funding with the state has not kept up with inflation so this is not all in just one space in a community I want to make sure I share that as well so the building staff Cuts we did we did make $1.97 Million worth of building staff cuts and these Cuts came back in a July 2nd conversation where we did have 20 reductions and te these are positions that were um reduced based off of various different reasons but these are the budgetary constraints that we're currently up under the that's what's under consideration in our building staff cuts are vacant positions I know most of people in this room have have
189have made the statement and have shared with me you know why we look at cutting vacancies versus people that are sitting in seats and in this under consideration conversation that's what's happening people that are currently sitting in seats um um and from a staffing position from a building staff position we do believe we'll be able to maintain those positions now if you add the underconsideration portions with the completed portions we'll get a total at the bottom down here of 1.87 million that's one bucket of conversations that we had to look at now I know that there's a lot of different conversations around why Haven we brought this conversation forward again I I did want to respect the space of the ad hoc committee and listening to their recommendations I also wanted to partner the conversation
190around what they have recommending and what we are already currently U working from with that being stated um I do believe that my Administration budget does represent a conversation where it has the least amount of impact on people in our school district however that does not mean for one second that there's going to be additional stressors that we have in our in our spaces I want to be very clear with that whenever you're having conversations around budget cuts to the level in which we have had to endure for the past two years in our school well more than that in beloy um it's a lot and I truly understand that I I truly understand that and that is not the reason um that is not the let me let me slow down let me backtrack
191a little bit as well our goal is to make sure that our kids have everything they need and that's people that's in this room I truly believe that okay I'm not just arbitrarily throwing that out as your District administrator I believe that we do have the right people in the seats currently to get the job done and I also understand that that we have budgetary constraints and in those situations there will be situations where we have to move things around and or have reductions um that we all don't want to talk about but it is my responsibility to bring a balanced budget to the conversation that has the least impact across the entire school district and I do believe in these conversations I will be able to to to do that um the next slide
192you will see additional conversations that the AOC committee had um we talked about the board um um board salary um opportunities there with 10,8 $10,800 that's pretty much seven board members donating um a portion of their um checks to the conversation um I put that in the administration side as well because if that's something that the board would like to do or as it pertains to a donations perspective that's something that we would have to use as revenues back to us um addendum contracts the ad hoc committee recommended about $250,000 worth of cuts in that conversation and in our conversation we have had we've identified about $96,000 of addendum cuts to the school district um from from the from the school district of BL perspective um in the purchase Services the IA committee recommended $500,000
193to to get to that point we are closer to that $400,000 Mark so about a thund I'm sorry about a th I'm sorry $100,000 away um from being similar in that conversation College reimbursement credit um we right now we currently only have one um um administrator that is working through um some college reimbursement and so we do believe we'll be um leveling that conversation as well with $115,000 being um given back to to our fund 10 conversation and then fund 80 transfers there's $250,000 that the ad hoc committee is recommending and we will also be at that $250 $250,000 Mark as it pertains to Administration and so when you look at these side by side the ad hoc committee was recommending a little over a million um a million dollars and we are at $771,000
194and so again these buckets of monies that that we are working from I do believe we are very closely related in the conversation this is a different slide here because as a district administrator there's opportunities that come to us um but with there there's opportunities that come to us in many different forms and so it is my responsibility to talk about um this this this slide here we have OPB that's a trust fund that was that was sitting there for some quite some time that's now coming back to us to the tune of $4.5 million in my budget to balance the budget I am asking the board to consider U $400,000 of that to offset um um our um deficit I heard the community talk about Furlow days um initially when we talked about this
195in the community it was not something that was very widely popular I understand that and so one of the things that I wanted to do was actually go back and revisit this conversation because I do believe that with one day a Furlow um pretty much saves us um $230,000 and that is something that I am considering in this in this current balancing of the budget I wanted to be very you know transparent with that make sure everyone is very clear with that conversation but please note there's two dates in which we could follow in this space one date will be Friday January 3rd that's the date that we come back from um our break and or from our Chris I'm sorry um winter break and then the Tuesday June 10th is the of course that's
196the last day of school that we also consider in that conversation now if we have a bigger balanced budget naturally I would want to use that Fur Day if we have a bigger Surplus in our conversation naturally we want to use we wouldn't want to use that Opel trust because we want to use that whole $4.5 million into our fund balance now with a deficit budget let me just share this again with a deficit budget we're going to use that $4.5 million at some point of the school year we're going to be tapping into it okay so if we use some of it now or use most of it later at some point with a deficit budget we will have to tap into those funds so that's this is um part of the conversation earlier
197in the school year we went from uh we signed a class action suit um that we ended up winning some money back from it so that's what you see in this Atria conversation to the tune of 2011 $21,000 now we just got that money that's new money that came to us I believe um Bob I want to say this month or last month early the last 4 six weeks correct within the last um um 4 to six weeks thank you we also o had a tid District that just closed this TIG district is also new money um that just came to us within the past 3 to four weeks Friday on Friday yeah correct thank you Friday of this week sorry and so that's another $438,000 that just came to us again some of this
198stuff is is is very fluid when you're thinking about budgets in the school district and I I would love to say that oh let's just do that and then we're done with it but some things we do have to kind of wait to see what what happens um we did we we got word from DPI that we could that we could transfer two of our gifted and talented um um um Staffing into the title one that saves the district $228,000 and if you add up the side the right side and this is not part of this was not part of the adoc conversation okay but if you if you well some of this was a part of AD combination not everything but if you add up the right side of the conversation yes we do
199end up to being $1.3 million um that we could use to help balance our budget the bottom portion that you see here and I'm going to be done in six minutes the bottom portion that you see here I know people I know I'm looking at faces in the room so I I try to read that um sorry about that but um that's just me sometime um the the the the bottom portion in the of this presentation you also see um to be determined there's a a notice of 20 2023 Wisconsin Act 12 personal property Aid that's going to that was um that came to us and we have to seek guidance around how will this money be added to our Revenue limit or will we be able to use this money as new money that
200we can use towards a um towards our deficit okay and so that's a tune of $289,000 that's not added into that $1.3 million for that very reason because we're waiting from DPI guidance to tell us whether or not this money will be added into the revenue limit or will we be able to use it towards a deficit or towards our fund 10 okay now I know there's some math people in the room if you take the bottom portions of each of these conversations the 1.8 79 229 of course the $771,000 there and of course if you take that $1.3 million here we will have a we will have a balanced budget and this balanced budget again does not come with you know any easy convers ations there are conversations that we have yet to have
201um and with some staff um but these are some of the considerations that we have to have in this in this space I did want to make sure that the community heard me as well in this conversation that my job is to bring the board a balanced budget that is my responsibility and I take it very seriously and and again I know that this conversation is a long time coming but again at the bottom of the one could argue the bottom of the ninth um my responsibilities were always to the students in our school district I wanted to make sure that we had everything that we needed in order to start school off to to the best start possible I need to go back and make sure this point is clear under the building staff
202these are vacancies that we will not be bringing back to the conversation um so that's where that $841,000 comes from it's not coming from people that are currently sitting in seats again I just want to make sure I bring that um back to consideration okay um as I move forward in this conversation please note that I have received numerous emails from staff members um about this conversation um I do take your conversations very seriously and and I'm always open to have conversations I think people know that about me but I also want to make sure that I I I honored the space of the ad hoc committee um again we may not agree in all areas but again I do I have I've heard you all loud and clear um as pertains to some of
203the things that we need to do differently here in in in the school district of booy and I do plan on bringing those things forward one of them being bringing a balance budget no matter if we have a deficit earlier in the conversation versus uh versus now um to my cabinet am I missing anything that I need to share at this current time no I that being said I'll turn it back over to board President Johnson thank you um Dr Garrison can you go back to the slide where you've uh the next one I think it is um uh no I'm sorry one more where you the money coming in yeah okay so the change of the funding source for two gifted and talented staff to Title One um that is $228,000 um and I
204know that there's averages and slight differences the um ad hoc committee had the gifted and talented two positions listed at 152 um is there uh I mean that's kind of a large discrepancy can can it's there something a little bit more um thank you so I think you look so and and my my my team is here to support me in this conversation as well this two sides of that one is salaries but it's also salary and benefits and so I'm not sure if one had the benefits included or this one does definitely has the salary and benefits included that's um Miss leie thank you so much I just have two um hopefully quick questions um the first is in with respect to educational reimbursement um is it included in current contracts and are you
205you recommending that that benefit would be suspended I I think you said that we had one individual that was taking advantage of that but if it's in the contract and other people have the ability to take advantage um just one is it in the contract and two are you recommending that benefit be suspended so that we could hold at that one person who is currently using it and that was the amount that was built into the adjustments so any given time accordance to policy I believe that that x amount of people can request this this opportunity um board board member um leevy um we only have currently one person in that so we have budgeted it probably more than that and that's why we able to have that $155,000 credit there still to us but
206Mr chady currently School Board policy so that's that's where that language is in policy corre not in the current contracts and fellow administrators I don't believe so yeah okay sounds like it's not in the contract it's extended thank you so much for that clarification so just because one individual is using it is the recommendation so that number would hold is that we suspend board policy for that benefit for this budget cycle I just want to be clear at how we stay at that number I don't think it' be necessary to suspend the policy because again we currently only have one and also it states that typically we they have to put in a request um by a specific time I don't have the policy in front of me so forgive me for um for that
207not memorizing it but there's a certain time they have to submit it and that that submission time frame is passed and so again I do believe we'll be able to meet that $155,000 um college credit reimbursement holding that 15,000 but that's just where I'm at currently perfect thank you so much and then um my last question I believe is in your your version of the balance budget it um so one I just want to be very clear with the numbers you were presenting this evening with the potential Co Cuts we would arrive at a balanced budget okay perfect thank you and then um my follow-up question is is that balanced budget going to come in retaining all of our current staff so the aps that are currently in places school psychologist school counselors um retaining
208our current staff so what's on under consideration right now um in specific spaces yes um what's not what I can't say yes to is a CAC space because those are positions that we still need to um have additional conversations about um I'm not in a position to say that those specific Colac staff members will retain their same position but a different position may be offered to them in the district thank you for bearing with me just for clarification um excluding colak the Balan budget the the version that you are working with that will come to the board for approval at some point in the very near future would retain all staff outside of Colac in there so all student services staff would be retained and we still would arrive at a balanced budget that is
209correct the people who are currently sitting in seats uh will I say currently sitting in seats not just seats in here course but you know the people are that currently have jobs in our school district and I'm not I wasn't trying to be funny or anything cuz no no no I got you but the people who currently have jobs in our school district we retain their jobs in our school district um these vacancies that we have currently those those are vacant positions that's under consideration that we will have to consider in in our balance and our conversation in this conversation thank you so much I just that also includes administrat administrators correct I appreciate everyone who has shared and I'm sure that all board members do and so it is a relief to me I
210I'll just speak for myself in this moment it is a relief to hear that we will be at a balanced budget and all current staff outside of kek will be retained I'm I'm glad that that that package is on the table so thank you so much Dr Garrison to you and your team I just want to say this and and and I'm put it I'm be very clear with my my statement here as a district administrator none of these cuts are noteworthy or something that we are happy about so as a staff I want to make sure that's very clear as well board member henkins yes uh Dr garon I was a followup on uh the revenue side any the things that you listed are any of those question marks the uh you know revenues
211that are coming in at late you know and shifting from one uh pocket to another one fund balance so when you're thinking about the the fiscal impact side you know there's dollars that you know Mr chady and I are still looking at right now that could impact this convers ation both on the positive side or balance it on the other side and so our goal is to make sure the things that we have that you all see right now are things that will stick that's under consideration for the board okay um naturally you know you we we can't we can't send the settlement back we want to keep that money right we can't send the ti District back we want to keep that money right but there's some thoughts here that I will still need
212board approval for um um especially with the opep um $400,000 that'll help me balance this budget um that the board would have to consider um approving um minus that money you know that that's it lowers our ability to say we have a balanced budget and so your question around is it the things that are set some things are set yes what we what you see here are things that are as close to being set as possible with board approval thank you I I do have more I have a you know know I I'll learn more as we go with that the 400,000 that fund and what what the bad side of that I know that you've talked to Mr chady on if we tap into that but I we I know you're under time constraint
213we all are so we'll do that at a different date thank you sorry I want I'm sorry sorry go ahead thank you um my presentation was 20 minutes but the board conversation is I I can't stop that from happening okay board member m Megan Miller hey thank you so much um I just wanted to say um in listening to what everybody had to say this evening one thing that really stuck out to me was the comment about imagining what could be and in preparation for this meeting I did a little research and there's a lot of really great scholarship and policy recommendations out there about school budgets and how to fund purposefully and there is no document that has any evidence-based data that says that it's more important to pass a balanced budget than it
214is to fund what is necessary to raise student achievement so I am so so grateful to the ad hoc and to Dr Garrison and his team and for having the wisdom to time things the way they needed to be timed I just wanted to just leave that sentiment out there because while uh my children attend the school district and I would love to see balanced budget when push comes to shove that's just my one of seven opinion so um I did just want to thank you all for that work and just leave that thought into the room thank you Greg Schneider um I also want to thank the ad hoc committee for all of their work and for the recommendations and advice that they have passed forward um um but also for uh Dr Garrison
215and and and the entire administrative team for the hours that they have spent over over a very long time to look at the budget um to look at the needs of the school district and to bring back a balanced budget at this point um so I thank all of you for your hard work any other questions go ahead uh Dr G will we get a copy of this presentation it'll be posted um um I was trying to get it posted tonight m Michelle sh can have that okay and then I I guess on behalf of the ad hoc committee did they get a copy of this before they have to speak no no one got a copy of this and this is the first time we seen okay all right thank you this is the
216first time we're all seeing this um so I and it would have been nice to have had this earlier but it this is the situation we're in um so Dr um Garrison when I run the numbers I mean this is wonderful news um seeing that we've got this tid District the OPB money um the Furlow days I I know it's not um preferable but from hearing um the feedback from the community and the employees it sounds like um they are more willing now to consider Furlow days and you know a couple months ago um so this is wonderful um that I would like to see the numbers the specific numbers per position um when I compare this to some of the numbers um from the ad hoc and we're close to saving all of the
217positions but we're not quite there so um because the two um gifted and talented those would not that that amount could not be applied to psychologists counselors or assistant principles so let's um have a complete layout of the positions the costs and um see if we can get there so that we can actually save all of them thank you the any other questions or comments from board members can I have one more thing please certainly um I also heard you know this presentation was not posted um we were working on this presentation until today um we one of the things I have to be very careful with is making sure that we have accurate information and even then I always say that's plus or minus three plus or minus three because we're dealing with numbers
218here and so I take full responsibility for this not being posted and given to everyone ahead of time um that was never my intent um I I shared it I've shared multiple times that that was that's not my intentions okay and and I think sometimes that that goes unheard in my in the community I want the community to know that I'm not trying to withhold information but there is a process that I follow and I'm very stoic that way if y'all haven't noticed that um I'm not going to put something out that I'm not that I'm not 100% sure about and so um you know thank you community for making sure that I'm aware that you all want to see the this ahead of time and that's what I'll do better at moving forward that's
219not just a statement but I just want to make sure you all know that that's the that's the truth around this presentation we weren't done with this until today okay um and that's just where we are thank you anyone else okay that brings us to the next discussion um the ad hoc finance budget committee initial recommendations uh board member Anderson I hope you are feeling better would you like to introduce this topic yeah thank you my apologies for not being there you guys probably don't want me in the room tonight but I did uh I did hear everything I heard every word from everybody like I have um you know for for months and and thank you to everybody in the room for showing up and speaking that's it's important and and I want to
220thank the ad hoc committee as they go through their recommendations you know the the work they did is it's not it's not popular work because they take that next step and they don't just say well you know don't cut this right because that's personal to everybody that they could potentially impact and that's just human nature um but then to go to the next step and say well if not that then what and that's Dr Garrison's job is to find out well if not that then what and so I think again first time I've heard this uh saw this presentation from him tonight but I think it's a good example of U you know Finding finding ways to make some things work that maybe two weeks ago we didn't know how we were going to make
221them work and we had recommendations that weren't popular um so I think that's good I think it's a it's a responsible and limited use of our opep funds and and I think it can set us up for next year um you know if and when we ask the public for additional funds in April we know that um our efforts to balance the budget and how we do that responsibly this year is going to in my opinion be the the leading factor in what the public views as responsible use of funds and would they be willing to um help the district uh for next year because we're going to need it next year too you know so so again thank you U to the adock committee thank you to Dr Garrison for his presentation today and
222as I'm not in the room I would leave that to um Miss Fox and or President Johnson to to walk through that presentation thank you Miss [Applause] Fox Now Okay um I'm a little confused but that's okay um that was an interesting presentation that we just received from Dr Garrison and um I appreciate that I'm a little concerned about some of the things that I see in there um and truthfully the ad hoc committee was asking for just that kind of presentation so that we could make some sound decisions um we have been looking for information we've been um asking for a lot of information some of it got some of it we didn't um and some of that information would have been useful I mean I don't understand uh we talked a lot about
223title one but now all of a sudden there's Title One money for gifted and talented positions that was never mentioned ever and I think if you're going to have an ad hoc committee which were people that you personally picked and trusted and who had not knowledge base who you thought would give you an honest reasonable suggestions for what to do you need to be more forthcoming on what kind of information you're giving because um obviously we would have done some different things if we had had that information this Tiff business too that's a government thing I it really surprises me that you didn't know weeks ago that you were going to get that money you know a450 ,000 some dollar check is a surprise why is that I don't really understand that so I don't
224obviously need to do a full review of what the um the ad hoc committee suggested I think that presentation that was just given should go back to the ad hoc committee for review um because I like I said I still have some concerns about it um I've said over and over again that this is difficult and this is hard and you're going to have a lot of people upset rightfully so they should be it's a painful stressful process and maybe the big learning thing that we get out of this is that um not only do we need to start earlier and have a balanced budget by June you need to have a lot of people involved in doing these things the ad hoc committee was the only group that you've involved where citizens were involved
225of any kind at all I don't think budget cutting should be done by one or two people at central office and it should be earlier the other thing that really concerns me and I would refer you um and like I've got it been a little off because I was prepared but things are different um you need to look at this list of of recommended cuts um first of all the reduction of building administrators we're our numbers aren't matching and we should have matching numbers they they should match um and they don't um we recommended uh 250,000 coming from the endon contracts because that's what Dr Garrison and Dr Mr tat said they could do now they're talking only 96 again if you're going to involve people in these things you need to be more upfront
226in what you do I I I just I it just amazes me um my biggest concern is how we count personnel as Cuts okay we have again on this list a whole bunch of people that are counted as attrition those were positions that you didn't fill and you didn't replace last year and they were put on the cuts for this year the committee was concerned about that and thought that really shouldn't be happening that doesn't seem right however and officially I don't know who recommended Jeff Severson but he's a an a financial executive and he was very concerned about that okay now you're putting on a list of positions that you are not filling this year to me if we put those attrition people on this list then and any positions we're not filling this
227year should go on next year's list not this year's list you can't have it both ways either this was a cut last year which I think it was but you still had a million-- dollar deficit budget then those attrition positions needs to come off and then you start cutting including these positions so Mr chady which way should it be done uh the positions that were attrition were included in the budget have been removed from the budget they were you did you did not pay for them last year correct they provided budgetary savings last year they provided budgetary savings last year so why are they on the list to provide budget savings this year they're not anymore they've been removed from the budget now you're talking about positions that aren't filled this year I don't understand
228how that works how can you not paid for these people last year and you had a a million dollar deficit and they can count for reductions this year and we're going to count the people that we didn't fill this year also it doesn't work mathematically I don't get it I don't understand it maybe you can maybe you can figure it out present it to the ad hoc committee and see if Jeff Severson can help you with that situation I don't know how that works but if these and one of the things the ad hoc committee said was that opep money was that if these really didn't wouldn't count for attrition for this year that that oped money would be a backup to help us with that the attritions for the staff for last year was
229$2.6 million and if that doesn't count then we're having a problem as well so my other concern is that we're doing kind of a Swiss cheese approach to our educational system we are waiting to see who doesn't want to be here and who leaves or we're waiting to look at positions that nobody wants to come here and fill and we don't fill them I don't think that's a way to cut money and to budget for education I I think we're leaving holes all over our educational system everywhere and we're not really paying attention to what that is so I think you need to really work on things a little harder um you knew this was coming you uh put uh you did a spring referendum and you were hoping that you wouldn't have to deal
230with this and you didn't have a plan in place and you need to have a plan in place so I have one last thing to say and then you can ask questions if you want because regardless of how you count these positions and how many times you count to these positions you're still going to be in in a deep problem with your budget we need to continue the work we're not done the Board needs to act and monitor this budget carefully because I'm not sure what's going to work it looks good on paper oh hey yay we can we can we can present it to whoever we have to present it at the DPI because yay it looks good on paper I don't know that if that it's really real okay and you need to
231start working on next year's budget and you need to start working on next year's budget right now right now and you need to have a lot of District committees full of Staff parents um other stakeholders to study that financial situation and come up with lots of creative ways of providing streamlined and effective services to our students we got to stop budgeting by default an ad hoc committee can support these efforts but I believe other committees need to be studying specific issues you need to right now start developing committees that are studying programming grant funding and I lost my other page oh no facility uses health care costs Transportation costs joint programming with other agencies whatever else you need to consider and then those committees can bring that information to an ad hoc committee if you
232want or they can bring it right to you and make a final recommendation you you can't you can't got to stop waiting this B this year's budget needs to start to get started and you need to start organizing for next year's budget so we have a budget that supports what we want educationally for our student and not this peace meal kind of thing where all we do is leave holes because people don't want to be here that's wrong and we need to stop it now all you lovely psychologists um my apologies I don't know if T is if you're even going to approach that next one um yes the committee made the original recommendations Mrs Johnson was looking um for um some additional Cuts so that we could try to save some of those positions
233and I did look at some of those kinds of things but what you saw in that document and you were all was was something that I helped right um so that we could get something out um yes psychologists they recommend 500 to one they also recommend 250 to one for counselors 250 to one for social workers and they want um a nurse available to every student every day we don't have any of that and I don't think any school district in the world could support that um and but that doesn't mean we don't believe in in our support services and the good work that they do um the other thing that I looked at was just the way we had it staffed right um those are the only things that we could really be looking
234at so it's not that we don't value your services we certainly do have always valued your services um but we have a lot of student services we have a lot of needs but that's why we need all of these committees organized and working and looking at all of these needs and looking at the results that we're getting and figure out what we need to do and what services we really need to have for our student um because we've got a lot of ways to go and when we start cutting and cutting deeply we come to really bad choices and these These are Bo bad choices right but what are we going to come to do we raise class sizes and cut classroom teachers do we cut art music PE do we cut pupil Services you
235know that's why you have to have a plan of what you want and why you you attached your budget to that plan so that's all I have to say thank you Mrs Fox um so to our staff and Community after the last school board meeting and hearing the um concerns from all of you I was very concerned also having taught postco and my personal Al experience and knowing how essential the counselors were um to helping me develop positive relationships with some of my more challenging students I knew that we needed to do everything to save those positions so I reached out to Mrs Fox the chairperson of the ad hoc committee and I said what can we do well the solution is we're not going to find a bucket of money uh until today yeah
236hello so we're going to have to make Cuts elsewhere and Colac is a black box that's Untouchable so we're going to have to figure something out the only thing we could think of is say to kak okay let's increase Colac cutting from 25% to 33% what would that look like and then let's look at the positions that we had on paper how can we rearrange some of these things and make things more workable and ultimately that's what it's all about it's also about transparency communication and listening to each other it's about being on time it's about having information to everyone as soon as possible it's about answering questions and it is about being open and honest and I'd like to read to you what I was going to read during my um presentation earlier this
237is from page 15 of the um was wasby budget cycle handbook I'm going to read this verbatim under planning for the budget it is a District's obligation to its Community to conduct an objective assessment and Analysis of what you know about your District this includes the full understanding of educational Trends students perform performance data and the current state of the district's program structure finances and Facilities it is also imperative to have a clear understanding of what you believe and most critically a clear ear to what your community believes are their expectations inclusive processes around listening accumulating data information and communicating lead to collaborative Strate strategic thinking which assists in forming a master plan for the future the results are long-term fiscally responsible educational operation financial and facility plans only then can the district move forward
238together working toward shared strategic goals and objectives to assure excellence in education and that all students achieve success this is important because for too long our district has lacked long-term planning I have asked for operational charts to know what we have where we have it where our employees are I asked for historical PR uh perspective of these historical charts they don't exist we have one operational chart and that is for a Colac and that seems to be changing um constantly I understand positions change and whatnot but we need to do a better job as a district to know where we are historically and keep track of it so as we move forward when people ask for information it is there and readily available we need a staffing plan Mr chady pointed out we don't have
239that and this is something that would be very essential and beneficial for us to have at this time we have to continue discussing what our priorities are and and where we want to put the cuts we do have to make where they need to come from all of this new money needs to protect the positions in the school school buildings I am thrilled thrilled that we have this money coming I I can't I mean I can't tell you how happy I am but I also am very irritated and disappointed in this entire process thank you Mrs Fox can can I say one one last thing that you made me think of it because these extra funds and these extra monies and even the fund balance and not having a balanced budget you can do all
240of that but those are onetime things that money will run out you're not going to get another Tiff money that one's done um yeah my understanding was the the gifted Talent was rollover money from title one that should that's a One-Shot deal um that's why you you you can this is helpful and we can do this right um but you need to start planning now for next year and make sure that you have a reasonable budget that's a planned budget that's planned for what we want for our students and and not continually put Band-Aids all over everywhere and leave holes all over our educational system Mr Nichols Mrs Fox thank you uh Mr Simmons fit Simmons is here and I know Mr win was here but for you and all the the ad hoc committee
241thank you I know you've done a whole lot of work in in a relatively short period of time and thank you for all that you've done and uh we we appreciate it and don't quit uh we we got to we got it we're all better together than we are apart we're all all all lonely by ourselves we're not as good as we are together Dr Garrison thank for your thank you for your presentation the numbers look better we got to stay focused and make sure that we get it done and yes start early you can never start too early so um and for all of you that are in here thank you for speaking up uh I've never gotten so many emails and thank you because they they do help and it helps you I
242know it helps you cuz when I can get something off my chest it helps and um so the whole the whole point is to make this District better that's what that's what all of us are here for and that's that's why you and the PE other people in the community elected us to do is to help make this job this this school district better and move forward so I want to just thank everybody and uh keep doing what you're doing and we will get to the schools and spend more time I've never sat with a psychologist just but I'll go set with you all of you and uh spend some time with you so uh thank you board member Miller thank you so much um also want to extend my thanks I know that's just
243a ton of work and um Miss Fox when you were talking about um I can't tell you how strongly it resonated with me and just speaking for myself but I assume the rest of my colleagues on the board those are impossible decisions and there are no good answers when we're set up with an impossible situation I did want to react and you don't need to respond or anything but I just wanted to name something that you just talked about in terms of setting a reasonable budget and of course and of course you need to start you know like right like yesterday right because that's as we just found out this evening right there's always moving pieces and things change and we need to be focused and planned and also flexible to adapt with those changes
244um I just have I have three points I'd like to make it's a two points in a question uh the first point is that it is admirable that our ad hoc committee and and everybody here has put so much work into into trying to solve these problems it is unreasonable that any of us are in this situation at all because we have an unreasonably uh arranged State funding model for public education and I realize that saying that doesn't magically solve the problem the reason I bring that up is not to complain it's not to bring in like useless like things that are outside of our control information I bring that up for context because not only are we you know as board President Johnson mentioned earlier in her comments like we're going to need to
245go in April most likely right to the referendum again it is unreasonable that we have to ask our community again to fund schools when and please uh Mr ttie correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that more or less and I don't have the exact number in front of me it's around $8 to10 million a year that comes out of fund 10 so we can fully fund special education and the reason that we have to take that money out of like our district savings account is because the state has pledged to give us that 60% reimbursement and has never ever kept that pledge ever it's never happened it has never happen that our state has reasonably funded education specifically for our most vulnerable Learners so I say that because there will be hearings coming
246up they're just like we need to get started on our budget for next year the state The Joint finance committee they're going to start having hearings very soon I just tried to Google the dates but it when they come out I'll be sure to to bring them up in the legislative update and get them out to the community they need to hear how not only are we struggling in boo uh the entire state is struggling they'll hear plenty but boo uniquely struggles not only for all the reasons that we just talked about but we're penalized and I know you understand Miss Fox too by the high property value Aid so like as our property values go up which we think is a good thing it actually decreases the amount of money that the state then
247gives the school district so on top of the fact that as Dr Garrison alluded to earlier the state has uh defunded up against inflation uh $3,500 is per pupil if you the accumulated amount since the 2008 2009 budget we get dinged there we get dinged for property values increasing which should be good for our community right um a number of things so for our next legislative update I'm going to have a nice little like half little talking points sheet and I strongly encourage everybody in this room uh regardless of your thoughts or feelings about any of us up here we have a common cause which is we need to fix State funding for education I just want to applaud my colleagues on the board for passing our uh resolution at our last meeting to wasby
248which maybe we'll consider sending directly to the state if they would just please uh execute the Blue Ribbon commission uh recommendations which include fully funding special education because even if they only just did that one thing we would not be sitting here this evening we still have hard decisions to make we still of course like there are always always things in the spirit of continuous Improvement that could be done to improve practice absolutely uh but we shouldn't have to make these kinds of decisions it's not reasonable we're not put in a reasonable situation so thank you so much for your work on that um I wanted to clarify whether this was a final report from the the ad hoc committee is that something that are we are are there going to be revisions made or
249if you could help educate us a little bit more about your process going forward going to continue to meet tomor ioning Garris will be Shar reactions for them and say where it goes for okay and then just because people can't hear you at home without the microphone I'll just summarize back for you you are meeting tomorrow this wasn't then a final so since this is new information you're continuing to work on maybe some recommendations is that my understanding potentially okay wanting to clarify that so thank you so much for that information and then lastly I'm just wondering because I think it's a great thing to have um more Community involvement and ownership just in general over like how things work these things get you know complicated and it's just good to share understanding and share
250ownership um I'm wondering if uh in the future an ad hoc or other committees might consider looking at maybe what are Best Practices because as I'm hearing you describe and I I liked your analogy of the Swiss cheese um I'm not aware of other districts who are in similar situations that are doing things differently but I don't know what I don't know and I would be really the districts that I that I'm aware of that have not passed referendums which is almost every school in Rock County um are also taking that approach right of just not filling positions which you know we do have a plan I mean the Strategic plan is our plan and it should be our budget should then fully fund that strategic plan so there is like a plan but I
251understand also Al what you're saying you want like just you know the more specific numbers planned so both things should happen I just am curious if there's any kind of potential to reach out to other districts that are in similar situations maybe and find out what are they doing differently if anything because well I I totally love what you had to say I'm not sure what else our Administration can do and I I would love to have that information so that we could to your point make those those better decisions if if you did want to comment if you could use the mic so folks can hear sorry thank you so much and that's all I had so thank you so much I guess I'll kind of take take you back I don't know of
252any other districts who started the school year without a BAL without having a plan in place all right I don't know of any others that have done that um yes they probably do some of this by attrition all districts will do some of this by attrition um but when you have serious budget cutting um always before in this district and in others we have groups of people that get together and look at the information and try to come up with some recommendations it gives a lot of people a lot more information um and then you have the kind of arguments that we're having at a board meeting which should be at other kinds of meetings it's it's like you know uh what should we do how do we do it how what do these people
253do I mean we we could have had a a large meeting to just talk about what what is the difference between what a social worker does what a psychologist does and what a counselor does and you know how do we need to staff that what are the benefits of all of that um and and how how that all works out those kinds of conversations should have been happening over and over again and a lot of discussion okay I think a lot of discussion about the grants when we looked at um some of the the recommended ation and some of the things that the teachers were asking that they didn't think they need are in the grants so maybe we need to relook at what's in the Grant and how we can better support teachers with
254what that is because that's where they suggested the cuts came from was was that you know it may have been because there were a lot of vacancies in the in classrooms it's like those people are teachers let's put them in the classroom because then we've got our classrooms filled I'm sure the teachers were looking at that too but all that needs to be looked at and discussed at length you know that you do that's the timeline has been way too short and and the discussions that need to happen um take time and that's why you need to start now for next year thank you very much really appreciate it yeah and thank you so much Dr Garrison for your work on bringing us that budget board member Hankins yeah I'd like to Echo like what
255all of us feel how much we are overwhelmed that uh they had high committing the work they did on their own volunteer time and I thought it brought to the conversation a lot of things that I think Dr Garrison heard I mean he was at every meeting and he heard what was being said in that very talented room and he took that into consideration as we went I also would just like to uh the the board and I believe it came from one of my fellow members down at the Right End uh we did when we set up this ad committee we did had the foresight to see extend it to the end of the year if we needed it and I for one L the work that they did and when M fox when
256you say we need to start working on the budget and I think that was kind of the foreshadowing that we saw for next year that and plus going through the recommendations of of administration and for you to look at I mean the work isn't done and I think you said that I just want to remind every everybody that I'm hoping that the adoc committee that is in place does stay till the end of the year thank you Brian Nichols is your hand up again okay any other board members thank you Mrs Fox that brings us to act 20 legislation update Mrs uh Mork I'll kick us off um board President Johnson is that okay sure so um one of the things I want say is that we've been having conversations about um our act TW
257legislation for quite some time in of course in the school district naturally when this um was moved forth at the state level it put a lot of different requirements at at the um School level some of the things that we are going to be talking about tonight and quick 10 minutes conversation is going to touch on some of that I did ask Mrs mortech to bring this conversation forward and um I'll turn it over to M mortech act 20 is is really focused around intervention and of course reading I'm just going to grab my bag one second I have my uh the plan in there okay um so we have been uh good evening we have been uh giving up dates periodically um presentations the last time we were here was in March um and
258then also I put those in those Friday board updates for you as well just to kind of keep people informed about the work that we're doing um I did want to as we talked about context a little bit today I did want to put some context into place because I wanted uh you to see where we're situated um because I do think that there is uh hope in our academic outcomes um and I know that that is something that all of us want um and I know that that is something that our children work very hard for and our staff work very hard for um our teaching and learning and Equity team work very hard for and our P Services teams work very hard for and so um I just wanted to paint a little
259bit of context because of the decisions that we've made in the past um and and the and what that did with academic outcomes and then some other decisions we made before the policy was put into place that have put us in a better place than we could have been um and I also have uh Tony bosow here uh with us because he does a lot of this work along with uh relle Elliot in my department I'm not exactly sure hold on a second can you help me Tony I think are you I don't know you sharing your screen yeah I think so and then I can't this happened before with Ken or if you have to stop oh do that one if you go to the presentation itself like your presentation where is your presentation
260at I just had it through the board docs make sure to share the tab yeah I did that so go here and then tab thank you usually I say when you can't solve a tech problem you find a millennial but my colleague is appreciate you okay so back when um he Tony BOS and I have a great banter um so back when uh we were adopting and looking at adoption uh that was first presented to the board in April of 20 uh 21 and this slide came out of that board presentation and what it was was a presentation around our vision for literacy in the district and we did a lot of work leading up to this um we had what we call empathy groups where were being brought into the fold of education at
261that time we held stakeholder groups we asked children parents staff members about what their Vision was for literacy and I and I see some uh people that have been on the board for for a while now that are shaking their heads because they were here for that presentation and so at that time what we were saying our vision was was um application of high quality standards aligned material strong instructional practices implemented with integrity and that Focus berated professional development with coaching Cycles those three things were really what was bringing about a vision it isn't one of these operating on its own you have to have all three of these factors okay and that concept of know better do better um is a phrase that comes from my Angelou actually but um it's that concept of
262you know it's not that we were doing all these things wrong intentionally it's as Educators our profession changes over time and as we know better we do better and that's really important to understand specifically with this movement that's happening in in the teaching of reading um at that time we moved into um recommendation for an adoption and I put that at the bottom there of the screen um and I'm going to show you another slide why we were having that conversation that has to do with data but we had materials uh that were no longer be really allowed under act 20 and we were seeing declining academic scores and we also had Esser funding that you're supposed to use a percentage of that cost for academics so with all of those moons aligned we made
263a recommendation for the American reading company there has not been any newer uh recommendations I heard a comment earlier tonight so just for we're clear on that we had American reading company adopted during those years and that's the reading um program that we're still using so then we started that and act 20 came about that legislation came into July of uh 2023 and these are some of the bullet points that are on here that I've shared in the past and I'm not going to read all of them to you but I do want to highlight two that are really important when they passed this they recognized that there would be a curriculum Review Committee one was appointed and then the DPI came out with their recommended list why did they do that because materials matter
264the way in which the materials are designed are grounded in the pedagogical underpinnings so the previous materials that we had which have were widely used actually in Wisconsin are now districts that have those it's the Lucy Caulkins units of study are having now to go and find something else and a lot of them it's after their eser funds have been used up because this didn't come until July of 23 the other thing that they did was they required training for Approved vendor right so going back to a lot of us that that and I I don't mind I'll date myself a lot of us that graduated back in the early 2000s and went to school for probably 95 to 2000 out of college a lot of that reading instruction and methodology that you got was
265grounded in something called the three queuing systems over time right now I've been in this business for quite two over two decades we've learned more and there's these SC a a ray of complexities in thinking about the Sciences of reading and that's why that legislation is plural it's not the science of reading it's Sciences um and so and the reason why they did that is because in instructional practices matter materials matter and instructional practices matter and that's why this legislation has those two those two things in it and that's why when we looked at our original Vision we hit those things we were already talking about highly aligned materials and we already talking about instructional practices and of course we know the the effect size of coaching this was some of the data that we
266were looking at so from the years of 2015 to 2018 you will see the declining academic achievement that was happening in this District I put that red line there uh just to show that that's also when we had Lucy Caulkins and so during those years you can see the declining um achievement that was happening and I'm just going to throw this in here not to go down a rabbit hole but also what I find interesting is if you overlay this there's times in our declining enrollment as well so a lot was happening in this District during the years of 2015 to 2018 that was causing kind of some patterns to happen then we had Co um interesting enough I came in 2020 in the middle of covid um we didn't have testing uh the year
267before that because we were in the middle of a pandemic as a state so there's no testing in 19 and2 at that time we ran the Pilot We introduced we came up with a vision we went to adoption and when we've been using American reading company with that program there's also professional development that's been happening along the way that's very much in alignment but we're also looking forward now to the additional training that our staff is getting this year since then we are showing growth um I can't show the 2324 because it's embargoed but we'll be getting that very soon and some preliminary data is is showing growth um and so we're excited about that growth and we believe that we'll we're on a trajectory of an increase and so I just wanted to to
268provide this graph for you because I think sometimes we can be um forgetful in in how things were um 10 years ago 5 years ago and and really painting the context of where we where we were where we are and where we're going now fast forward to this summer uh we created The Learning schedule and system for tracking progress and completion for required staff we started that and kicked it off this summer at summer Summit and our staff are doing a great job it's modules and we've embedded that into the district days um so that our Educators have an ability to finish uh the expected trainings by the end of the year um in addition to that we are making connections to our materials so if they learn some isolated learning about phonological awareness where
269is that in our materials um in Arc uh and then we finalized our multi-level systems of support to ensure all materials are grounded in science-based Reading instruction not only did we have Antiquated core materials that we had to change we are intervention materials were grounded in like Fountain and panel and LLC those are all grounded in three queing system so we had to transition out of that too with like things like luxia Core 5 and hegerty um and those types of pieces we have updated the assessment calendar in 2425 there are mandated assessments uh next year they'll start also in fall but this year since this legislation has come out as I've as afer mentioned to you it's changing sometimes because certain pieces of it are being challenged so this year the the it'll be
270a midyear assessment versus having to have it done this year because the state had to select a universal screener and then we completed a draft for a 2425 early reading remediation plan I did share that with the board um it's that about 30 page document it's also on our disclosures uh part of our website so the ACT 20 plans uh just to look at it a little bit differently um is that highlighted there and underlined is that remediation plan what's really important is the key roles in this plan are identifying after our students take the universal screener the bottom 25th percentile will have a follow-up diagnostic assessment in a reading plan there's also an expectation around communication to progress to parents so our interventionists and our literacy coaches will be instrumental in this work um
271to ensure that we are within compliance of act 20 and then also working with um our administrators and of course uh uh the people that work at in teaching and learning um then the only other piece I have here is we we do have a policy that we have to put in place um with act 20 that policy has to be adopted by July 1 2025 um last Friday we heard from act 20 required the state to put I forget her title but like a director of literacy um her name is Barb Novak she presented and so she brought up in that presentation that they will have some exemplars because they're supposed to so we'll have some Exemplar policies to look at I think they're supposed to come out in January if I remember Cor
272correctly so we can use those to help us um modify our promotion policy that we already have on the books um and that's about it for right now um but of course I'll continue as things unfold and we continue to do our work um we'll keep you updated and you can always reach out to me for any additional questions um thank you and I'm I can take any questions if you want I know we're over time thank you board member Miller I just wanted to say like I like live and breathe act 20 in my day job and your um remediation plan that you put out was like phenomenal I'm just like so excited for the work that we're doing and we're so ahead of the game and beloy and I think that as we've
273heard a lot of comments tonight about our district and how it operates and I just wanted to highlight what I heard you say because I think it's really important um this entire process of prioritizing literacy which has gone like three four years back now like this isn't like a new thing that just came about because this act passed buty was like ahead of the game years prior you engaged with the community you engaged with parents there were like feedback groups and like all of these goals organically came up through Community parent and like student participation and feedback which I think I might have heard earlier tonight people were saying that doesn't happen so I just wanted to clarify and just like lift up that that very much has happened and and under you know your
274leadership and and our team here so thank you all so much for that and the fact that we had a curriculum in place already that was on the DPI list of approved curriculum before this act was even conceived of in Wisconsin is just so I just it's just such a testament to the great work that you in our district are doing so I just wanted to thank you and and I think the work with egg2 has just been exemplary that I've seen from the district so again thank you thank you board member Miller and I'm going to go be with my kid but I'm on the phone participating thanks thank you any other questions or comments from the board thank you Mrs Mork you're welcome that brings us to item 6D consideration of a special
275committee for naming of facilities the blit Memorial basketball court Johnny Watts the purpose of this agenda item is to discuss forming a naming committee the board received a request to consider naming the blit Memorial B high school basketball court after Johnny Watts when such a request is received per board policy 9 50 and 950 rule 1 the board May appoint a special committee to review the suggestion and make a recommendation to the business operations and finance committee to accept or reject the S suggestion the business operations and finance committee will then make its recommendation to the full board policy 950 rule 1 provides a list of who the committee May consist of and criteria that may be considered when naming school facilities the for background information Mr James Simmons came to the board and presented
276information regarding Johnny Watts accomplishments and made the recommendation to name the blit Memorial High School basketball court after Mr Watts the arena itself is named after former basketball coach Bernie Barkin however this would be naming the actual Court after Mr Watts Mr Simmons brought to the meeting not only documentation but other supporters as well as Mr Watts's grandson Dr Garrison was there anything you'd like to add to this uh we we there there was plenty of conversations that happened in the community with Mr Watts as well I know there was most one most recently I believe was at the library um a couple of weeks ago um this it's a stored conversation in the city of booy um I think it goes without saying that his work um both IID say not his work but
277his his his love for the community here in booy of course as well as on the courts and as a student um speaks for itself b in a time in which um I'm not sure how a lot of people endure it and so one of the things that I caution myself with stating is that you know I I wasn't living back in that time um but my heart still goes with the people that had to endure that that space and so Johnny watts is um a known figure in beloy and um naturally you've already read into to the statements as a aains to what is required of us to to go down this road and so that's all I would like to say and thank you to the families Mr Simmons for um your many
278emails and of course U not only that but your advocacy for this to to move forward thank you Dr garison so from policy 950 rule one for more information for the community the committee May consist of two members of the board appointed on a yearly basis by the president one building level administrator of a facility not being cons not being considered for the name change one central office administrator one person from the building involved two persons from two other school locations two members from the community one person from the historical society and one person from the landmarks commission criteria that may be considered when naming school facilities are a facility may be named after a geographic location and or sections of the district it serves if a facility is to be named after a person
279that person shall be of exemplary moral character have made an outstanding contribution to education Humanity or community and have displayed outstanding leadership or be a person of historical significance parts of a facility may be named after individuals using the same criteria and recognition of individuals may be marked on an appropriate plaque commemorating that individual's contribution a facility shall not be renamed except for compelling reasons is there a motion at this time for this um action item so moved second second we have a motion um Greg are you uh I'm sorry uh member board member uh Schneider are you going with the recommended action um motion on the document on the agenda okay so for the community the um motion is move approval of forming a naming committee to consider naming the blit Memorial High School
280basketball court after Mr Watts motion made by Greg Schneider seconded by Amy Levy any discussion Mr henkins I just want to applaud um I I knew nothing of Johnny Watts until the last Mr Simmons was here a couple months ago and I was very fortunate that I was able to attend the library meeting and met his family Johnny's sitting there and his niece I believe but anyways uh I knew nothing of his accomplishments in in the three basketball tournaments state championships in bit that he won in a row and went on to uh Harlem Globe TRS and many other great great things that uh I just wanted to applaud that I'm glad Mr Simmons and the family has brought this forward one thing I did hear from Mr Simmons and with reluctance from the family
281that they you know they didn't uh the family wasn't looking for uh the Limelight to be and I guess Johnny was not that way either but I thought I thought the the telling thing for me was the naming of the basketball court was what they could tie into because that was where he excelled was on the court and I've heard some statements made in in the community that uh they're going to rename bark and Arena and I said no no no no there's been misinformation out there in the public this is the the basketball court where Johnny Played and did his work and I just wanted to share that I was pleasantly informed a little bit of the history and yes Dr Garrison the black and white issue you know terrible terrible ugliness but he
282he uh overcame it and became a very solid solid and we like to be very proud board member Levy thank you so much um just noting that the board president does do the appointments of board members to this committee so just offering to volunteer my time to serve on this committee um if appointed thank you any other questions board member Nichols well I I too want to just um say that I'm a student of history and I love I love hearing stories like these that kind of come out of nowhere all of a sudden and um it's just it's heartwarming to hear this to read the story and uh you know my dad played basketball in high school and I did and all that good stuff but I what I loved was the scores of
283the games I mean it was like it's a totally different game than it was in those days um so uh but anyway I think this I think this would be a great honor to to Johnny Johnny's life and his his passion and his family and uh it's I'm all for it so congratulations any other board members questions or comments okay we have a motion uh by Greg Schneider a seconded by Amy Levy all in favor I I I I I I any oppos motion carries un unanimously and if you are interested in volunteering um taking the rule from board member Levy please send me an email thank you that brings us to consideration of entering into a class action lawsuit regarding insulin pricing costs Mr Shady yeah thank you earlier this month uh we received
284communication from an attorney that assisted the district with uh the recent vaping uh lawsuit settlements that we received from juwel labs and from Altria the Altria one you saw dollar value attached to earlier this evening uh we have a similar opportunity with regards to um some potential litigation or a lawsuit involving the cost of insulin and I'll read a portion of uh attorney attorney linsky's email the lawsuits being brought across the country on behalf of educational institutions that provide uh essentially insurance benefits or prescription drug benefits to our employees the legal claim being asserted is that the lawsuit uh in this lawsuit is that the manufacturers and the pharmacy benefit managers of insulin have inflated the cost of the insulin resulting in school systems paying more many times more than what should have been paid
285for for each dose so that's kind of the legal claim um for the school district the lawsuits brought on a contingency fee basis meaning there's no upfront costs no exposure um the O any award that we receive uh would then be netted out against fees and costs of the recovery for both the national law firm and the local um attorney who would be representing distri districts throughout the the state thinking about the staff time would be really very minimal uh with this item um quite honestly any data information that would be needed the district would rely upon our self-funded third party administrator Prairie States and our Pharmacy benefit manager Flex scripts to provide so you know we make those requests gather the information pass it along to the law firm or facilitate that uh legal
286councel can communicate directly to Prairie States and flex scripts on the district's behalf so I think at this point in time um we're simply looking for is this something that the school board desires us to proceed forward with um again there's no risk I don't think uh there's no upfront costs it would simply be uh if uh an award is determined on behalf of the the parties um there would be a benefit or a settlement offer back an available to the district at some point in the future at some point in the future could be a year away it could be two could be more um but I think it makes sense for us to be a party to this but again I think that's the board's uh decision to make thank you Mr chady
287uh Dr Garrison did you want to add anything to the thank you um so we we've entered into conversations as such most recently in the alria um class action suit we didn't know how much it was going to bring us we you know the ranges were anywhere from $5,000 to you know $100,000 depending on the size of your district and or what what you would receive based off of the um the awards and so this came to Mr chady um naturally and to me as well and you know we talked about it and I was like well let's just bring it to the board to determine and see if you guys want to enter into it I think we should as well um the only thing it could hurt is it just brings us a
288few thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars but it's not again the cost on our side is very minimal because we have a third party and Mr Chas already mentioned that thank you board member Levy thank you um do we know if legal fees are um refundable if there're is a settlement um if there is not a settlement what is our do know what our liability is for legal fees for entering into the lawsuit no my bad there we go there is no out of-pocket costs unless a settlement agreement is reached thank you so much you're welcome Mr chady do you know if a settlement agreement is reached is there any chance that our costs would be greater than the settlement we receive um no uh no if a settlement is reached we would end
289up with net monies uh how much monies is to be determined if if we reflect back on The Vaping settlement that was brought against two major manufacturers juwel and ultria the Altria one we saw earlier $21,000 or thereabouts and I'm going to stretch my memory but I believe the jewel settlement to the district was about $96,000 and that's paid over a five-year period so we get a portion of that each year ending in um about $96,000 in proceeds thank you any other board member questions or comments is there a recommended motion on this I don't know that there was a recommended Motion in the board docks can I take a stab at it please do I moved that the district uh I move that the district move forward uh to join the class action lawsuit
290regarding insulin pricing cost a second Miss SCH did you get the full motion I have um move approval of the district joining the class action lawsuit regarding insulin pricing costs motion by Brian Nichols seconded by Tom henkins any discussion all in favor I I I I I I any oppos motion carries [Applause] unanimously that brings us to the consent agenda typically there is no separate discussion of the items unless a board member so requests in which event the item or items will be removed from the general order of business and considered in their normal sequence on the agenda I would like to pull out item C policy 115 gender identi identity language are there any other requests for um taking items out of the consent agenda Miss Levy thank you so much um I too
291would like to have um C item C removed so thank you for listing that but also items b as boy and d as in dog any other board or uh vice president Nichols yes uh I would like um e policy 512 animals on District property any other okay okay so can we get a motion to leaves us uh policy uh 383 one one policy all alone um a motion for approval of the consent agenda minus bcde E I have a question sorry does f does e affect f i i i don't know the answer yes it does um so should we pull F off also okay let's move them off okay let's talk about Item B approval of minutes September 3rd I I Believe Miss leevy was the one that recommended this one I just
292need to abstain um so that's why I pulled it off okay thank you the other reason this um I'd like to see this one um off um Miss sh can we please remove the addresses of the public commenters from the minutes thank you all in favor of approving the minutes with removal or I'm sorry any other discussion on Item B all in favor of approving the minutes uh meeting minutes from September 3rd with removal of the addresses or I'm sorry can I get a motion it's late can I get a motion so moved thank you thank thank you chairman uh Greg Schneider and vice president Brian Nichols any discussion all in favor I I I uh any oppose any AB abstentions I abstain thank you motion carries with one exstension thank you that brings us
293to policy 115 gender identity language I would like to suggest we reconsider this title the title is gender identity language and I would like to see this uh change to gender inclusive language um my reason for for cons this change is because it is not the intent of the policy or I believe any board or board member to require anyone to identify their gender I believe the intent of this policy is to be inclusive of all gender personal pronouns without designating priority or greater significance to any one pronoun and I believe having the term identity can be misleading thinking we are identifying people's gender and that's not we are trying to be inclusive of everyone anyone else have thoughts or discussion on this policy um I I I agree with that that's that was a
294good suggestion great great idea um Miss Levy thank you let me just take a moment and remove my hand before I forget to do that um my concern with this policy um whatever we're calling it that's fine but my concern is that um I believe it it neutralizes gender or it uh erases um so you can't identify the gender of the person and I believe that our our goal as a district is to celebrate diversity and that includes um diversity of spectrum of gender and so what I am recommending to replace the current language in the the proposed policy is the school district of booy uses he she they pronouns in District Communications so that would include policy um they is used to represent all gender Expressions not covered with he or she the school
295district of booy is committed to diversity and inclusion and seeks to create an environment where expressed identities of student staff and community members are acknowledged and respected um so just to give some context we currently use he she they um in our our policies in our all of our Communications and a very valid point was brought up at the policy committee that they um does not include all of the gender Spectrum acknowledgement available there are pages and pages and pages and I'm sure that is an Ever evolving list so this is our attempt um my proposed attempt at and I just want to repeat the first two sentences the school district of bloy uses he she they pronouns and District Communications they is used to represent all gender Expressions not covered with he or she
296so from my perspective that's an acknowledgement that not everyone Falls into the categories that we currently have so we want to address that and hold space for however student staff community members who are all impacted by policy um identify and express their gender um and I believe that this is a respectful way to be inclusive instead of neutralizing gender by using they them or the student or the you know staff member the individual um I think that this is more aligned um with our district goals with respect to diversity and inclusion thank you board member Greg Schneider um just a a request for information um this policy does not indicate who wrote the policy typically if we look at editing things with they are color-coded as to who made the edits to it um this
297of course does not indicate where this policy came from I know it came through the policy committee uh but that doesn't know indicate who who specifically wrote the initial policy well first of all I don't know I haven't seen any name on a policy have you has anybody usually edits will sorry since you ask usually edits will say that they came from the administration or if it came from like a staff group um and if I may the thing that I forgot to bring up and I will be super brief um if we look at policy 151 which is board policy development um the very last sentence I think is really important and and a step that that has not been met in this process um the formulating but in formulating policies the board shall
298whenever appropriate consult individuals and groups affected by the policies and um we have not done that step and I think this is too important um for just the seven of us and and whomever we may have heard from um at Walmart or in our driveways or other places to not have input into a policy that impacts everyone in our district and Community um so I I would be fine with pausing on this until we are able to follow policy let me get you the right number 151 and again that says the very last sentence in formulating policies the board shall whenever appropriate consult individuals and groups affected by the policies thank you board member Megan Miller hi thank you so much for the opportunity um so couple things um one thing to point out is
299uh first I'd like to fully agree with what was said about about gender inclusion I think having the pronoun representation does matter um since we are modeling from the top down um for our district it's important to note that um and I'm just going to put my English teacher hat on for a moment uh the MLA guidelines along with all the other Style Guidelines including like APA and Chicago style all three of those agree that all three um like she he they pronouns should be listed and I might be wrong on the date but I think back in 2007 the official MLA the modern language Association guidelines came out um to request that she come before he and I think the rationale is something like you know it's it's always been he she so they
300wanted to flip it to she he just to be more you know sort of inclusive in that manner so uh you can Google it if you want but it is in like the formal MLA style guide which is what I think we teach our Ela students so I just think for the matter of being consistent and inclusive all of our stuff should be she/he slth thank you board member Miller any other comments questions oh oh I'm sorry I thought was that I thought that was a hold over uh board member Miller I mean Levy thank you so much um so I know that there's a motion in the second on the floor but I would actually like to um propose an amended motion I don't think there is Oh I thought that's how we were
301ended at discussion oh I apologize I thought there was a motion in a second okay well I will do a a main motion then um I move that we postpone um the discussion on this policy until we can adhere to policy 151 which again um says in formulating policy the board shall whenever appropriate I do believe that this is appropriate consult individuals and groups affected by the policy so if we could do a um listening session or a town hall style session I'm open to either that would give um notice to the community and invite groups to come in and share their perspectives again I would love to hear from student staff and community members um on how they would want us to move forward with how we we discuss and and communicate gender expression
302PA second board oh uh I'm sorry board member Schneider is your hand up or is that a it is oh okay um I have not received a response to my request for information I mean I did not indicate that the policy had a state who wrote it I asked for information as to where who wrote it and where it came from I I believe it was developed by vice president Nicholls with with some um modifications and revisions in the policy committee well that is that is correct but also attached that nobody has uh mentioned is the U the department I pulled some of the information from the depart United States Department of Labor um and I'll refer to page six uh the middle of the page paragraph inclusive language whenever possible use gender neutral language
303to avoid assumptions about employees sexual orientation transgender status gender identity gender expression and interex conditions for instance use words like spouse instead of gender specific terms like husband or wife or the singular third person third person pronoun they instead of he or she when referencing a hypothetic or Anonymous person or when you don't know the individual person's pronouns in addition be mindful in referring to individuals identity gender part gender partners in relationships someone's sexual orientation transgender status gender identity gender expression or intersex conditions in one aspect of their identity but not what may fully Divine them so I kind of figured if the US Department of Labor um had those recommendations and probably we work for the school district of blite thank you um Miss Levy would you mind repeating your um motion so that
304I can make certain the board secretary has it correctly absolutely um I move that we postpone the discussion of this proposed policy until we can adhere to policy 151 which states in formulating policies the board shall whenever appropriate consult individuals and groups affected by the policies Miss shop let me know if you need a repeat on anything thank you is there a second to that oh I'm sorry I did not hear that oh sorry I had seconded okay a motion by board member Levy seconded by board member Miller can we get a roll call on this please how about more discussion oh I'm sorry thank you thank you well uh the the the wording you just read uh board member Le was whenever appropriate well this has been back and forth between the policy committee
305and the um uh the full board and now back to the full board and we had public com comment tonight this has been on the agenda since Monday or since Friday and so the public had the opportunity to come here and talk about it but nobody did so I would I would um submit that we we've met that we've met that responsibility Bo oh I didn't mean to cut you off thank you so much for addressing me um so I I will respond um yeah this this policy has been through a lot it was initially listed on the policy committee as a discussion and no policy and then you provided a policy that no one else had an opportunity to review there was a 2 to1 vote to move it on to the full board
306and then it magically never appeared at the full board I asked about it at two consecutive meetings no one knew what happened to the policy and then it magically appeared back at the policy committee with a name and a number and when I asked why there wasn't a notice to resend the policy so the committee could hear it again so we did all of this back and forth between the seven of us and we never once opened it up to the community and one of the things that I appreciate about you member Nicholls is that you have consistently expressed an interest in getting Community input um and so I'm I'm hopeful that that same position will hold true on this I think it's appropriate for us to be intentional about setting aside space especially for
307a change that is this drastic to invite the community to come in and specifically share their thoughts and opinions on how they would like to be referred to with respect to gender expression and our policies and all of our district Communications board member Miller thank you um yeah I I think it was brought up during public comment that the agenda maybe wasn't even available publicly on Monday so I just want to be sure that I'll just repeat the word that we're intentional about um eliciting feedback um we did a really good job I think noticing and kind of focusing by creating an ad hoc and all that the budget and of course like that's reflected in in the the volume I can't say the right word the the large amount of public comments that we
308received I think it merits the same treatment since we are making a very significant change that is supposed to characterize our student body which is uh you know free to express themselves herself himself themselves however they so choose Thank You board member Miller this discussion of pronouns in policy has existed since I was appointed to the board last July and I think we need to put this to rest so M chop can we get a roll call on whether or not to postpone this discussion yes I'm so sorry and just for clarification postpone it so that we can hear from our student staff and Community I think that's really critical thank you so to clarify the motion I have it's moved to postpone the discussion of this policy until the board can adhere to policy
309151 which states that in formulating policy the board whenever appropriate consult consults individuals and groups affected by the policies okay um Megan Miller I Tom henkins nay Brian Anderson nay Brian Nichols nay Amy Levy I Greg Schneider I and tia Johnson name motion failed point of order yes uh board member Schneider the action just just taken by the board is in violation of policy 151 thank you for um pointing out that your opinion is we are in violation of policy 151 can I get a motion on the this policy with the name the title change from gender identity to uh be gender inclusive language so moved what oh actually before there's a second um I I don't know if we need an amended motion but I have recommended different language for this policy I'm completely
310fine with the name change um but that hasn't been addressed um Mr Nichols you have a motion on the floor would you uh flush out what your motion is please I move to I move to I make a motion to move this policy to the full board I mean for the second reading with the change of the name title to gender inclusive language [Music] second Miss sh did you get the motion by Bri uh vice president Brian Nichols I have to move approval of the addition of policy 115 gender identity language for first reading with the title change of gender inclusive language second reading it'll be um move to the second you would be approving it tonight for first reading so that it goes for second reading okay gotcha you're right and that was seconded
311by board member Tom henkins can we um any [Applause] discussion board member Miller oh I think board member Olia had her hand up oh my apologies uh board member Levy no worries at all um I would like to make an amended motion that the language in policy5 to be changed as follows the school district of booy uses he she they pronouns in District Communications they is used to represent all gender Expressions not covered with he or she the school district of booy is committed to diversity and inclusion and seeks to create an environment where expressed identities of students staff and community members are acknowledged and respected is there a second on the um or I'm sorry does the is there a second on the is there thank you is there a second on the amended
312version by Miss Levy and Miss shop let me know if you need that repeated thank you I'll second Miss Levy would you take a moment and reread the amended motion for the board secretary yep the school district of booy and actually would it be easier if I I I will definitely read it out loud for those watching at home but I'm going to send you a quick email perfect all right email sent and now we'll reread the school district of booy uses he she they pronouns in District Communications they is used to represent all gender Expressions not covered with he or she the school district of booy is committed to diversity and inclusion and seeks to create an environment where expressed identities of students staff and community members are acknowledged and respected and when you're
313ready Miss sh can we can we get a roll call on the mo the motion of the amendment [Music] ready for the roll call okay Greg Schneider hi Amy Levy I Brian Nichols nay uh Brian Anderson nay Tom henkins nay Megan Miller I Tia Johnson nay motion failed may I get a uh roll call on the motion the original motion by Brian Nichols seconded by Tom henkins oh I just have a discussion real quick is that okay yep I'm sorry discussion no no no you're fine um so I guess like I'm I'm I'm really struggling with with how to vote here because uh board board member Schneider um just alluded to the fact that we're making a change in policy without executing the full requirements of making that change in policy um I'm fine voting
314on the amendment that just failed because it's like not really a significant change for from what we were doing but we're voting now the motion is on the table to include a significant change so I just I feel like I'm participating in something um unethical and legally questionable by even voting in this motion so I don't if I can get some clarity on whether we're allowed to like vote without following policy um thank you for your um concerns and again this has been a discussion in this district for over a year and um at any point in time people have come forward to the board meetings shared their opinions they have had chances to um contact us we've talked to uh our community members we've listened that's we're board members that's what we do well
315and so I mean we did get a public comment a couple weeks ago against making this change I don't recall hearing any public comments in favor of the motion that's on the table um thank you for noting that Mich may I get a roll call please uh I appeal the decision of the the chair the the fact that this has been going on for a long time and no decisions have been made does indicate the fact that this is definitely a a case that deserves to be heard by those affected by the policy um I believe that the chair's decision to just ignore the question um and ignore the policy is in violation of the policy and outside the Norms of of operation of the the district would anyone else like to uh chime in
316I would thank you um I just want to refer us back to policy 151 where it says in formulating policies with this is not a change this is a new policy so this is definitely uh a for formulation um whenever appropriate consult individuals so not wait for them to come to you but to intentionally reach out and for me this would be like if we said oh we're going to deal with the budget and if anyone has any questions or any comments they can come talk to us no we were very proactive we authorized an ad hoc committee to research and discuss and to bring back recommendations and I think that this is just as important we are talking about changing the way we communicate throughout our district and Community um and and I think
317it's very shortsighted and and it leaves me a bit confused as to when certain board members want to intentionally reach out and gain input from the community and and when board members believe that that's not necessary I really wish that that we could be consistent in that um and I believe we have consulted individuals and groups of affected persons we are just saying well we've been talking about it for a while and if they had anything to say they could have come to us I don't think that that meets the spirit of policy 151 and to board member Miller's point you can abstain if you have um a conflict of interest so that can be a tangible conflict or you're receiving some good but it can also be if you you have a moral or
318an ethical conflict um in the vote that is taking place thanks and since you addressed me directly I'll just second that appeal thanks all in or any discussion on the appeal I just wanted to ask uh board member Schneider he he kep he kept saying chairman were you talking president correct sorry no just wanted to clarify sorry I was reading out of Robert's Rules of Order which stipulate the process that this goes through um my only comment is that I support board member Schneider um in his position on this matter so we have an appeal by board member Schneider seconded by board member Levy any other discussion on the appeal um Miss can we get a roll call on the appeal yes sorry catching up Megan Miller sorry I Tom henkins nay Brian Anderson nay
319Brian Nichols nay Amy Levy I Greg Schneider I Tia Johnson n motion failed Mich can we get a roll call on the original motion yes Greg Schneider nay Amy Levy nay Brian Nichols I Brian Anderson I Tom henkins I Megan Miller I'd like to abstain for ethical purposes and tia Johnson I motion carried that brings us to item D policy 6721 one purchasing bidding requirements um I forgot who pulled this one that was thank you Miss Ley thank you um so this evening we have a first reading of policiy 6721 purchase sing SL bidding requirements but the policy committee did not review policy 672 or policy 6722 through policy 6726 in the interest of time I won't read all of those titles but they are all in the number grouping under purchases um so I'm
320not able to support edits to policy 6721 until we can review it with remaining policy set that governs how our district makes purchases to ensure consistency I also believe that we need to not only look at the policy number set but related policies for example outside of the 672 set is polic 673 payment procedures um which is outside of the number scope but directly linked and so much so it is crossed reference within that number set um and just as an example of why this is important policy 673 payment procedur States and again I believe this should have been reviewed with the rest of that number set the board shall survey all bills and authorize or reject their payment bills will be submitted for board appr approval after verification of receipt of goods and or
321Services um so here's the thing either we are doing that as a district or we are not and your policy needs to reflect your practices so we need to ask ourselves is this something we need to start doing because right now the board shall survey all bills and authorize or reject payments um that is not happening but that exists in our policy um and so we are are out of compliance and again the reason you review po correction the reason it is good practice to review policies in policy set numbers and also include related policies is so that you can make sure that your policies make sense and they are aligned one with another and that the messaging is consistent so again I'm not able to support this policy moving forward uh I would recommend
322that it goes back to the policy committee and we can review it as in my opinion it should have been done as a policy set with relevant policies included thank you board member henkins yeah I'd just like to ask Mr chady his opinion on this of have of going back to the policy and doing it as a group this particular one I understand where Mrs Levy is coming from and I understand that but just Sor about one right [Music] now thank you Mr chady is there anything in this these changes that will keep you and um Mrs Elwood from doing your job no I don't know policy changes might need to come to the mic cuz people need to hear it sorry while you're walking I'll just remind as we discussed the last time uh
323in policy committee 674 would cover any issues that aren't covered in 672 d1.1 correct emergency I I would disagree with that I think the emergency policy 674 is different um and is only utilized in such incidences um in those incidences I would say would require the activation of the emergency Operation Center in order for that to take place 6 72.1 the policy it's before the committee or the board this evening I think there's some things there are some questions that are unanswered is probably just the best way to put it you know do purchases and the $25,000 need to come before the board if they're recurring purchases you know previously approved in Prior years types of thing um I I think that dollar threshold I understand the intent it's going to occupy more time of
324the board in take Focus away from what the board ought to be focusing on uh is my concern and not to say that the board shouldn't be focusing on the use of our resources but the Board needs to be focusing on student achievement um and I've been in the district for a year and a half and we don't talk about that much any other Mr henkins yeah my my respectfully might just might rebuttal to the purview of the board is oversight you know in all areas and I do respectfully understand where you're coming from but student achievement I agree I think we're starting to tackle that we've been focusing on the budget and I do understand problematic of putting that threshold on you of $25,000 um but on the other hand I is wasn't born
325policy changes I don't think it was born under because of Mr chady or his team or this admin I think it was born from years ago um so I do respect it but I do think that this board has oversight over budgetary items also I don't look I just I think it it falls under our purview and so as does student achievement which yes I you are correct considering that so thank you uh board member Amy Levy thank you um I move that the board sends policies 6721 purchasing SLB bidding requirements um back to the policy committee so it can be considered for review with the remainder of that policy set and relevant policies to include 73 motion by second motion by board member Levy seconded by board member Miller Miss shop did you get
326the motion okay would you please do a roll call please oh I'm Sor Greg Schneider uh board member Schneider okay um I'm just assuming at this point that all of the edits that we see in this policy were were suggested by the administration eventually uh vice president um Nicholls yes we uh board President Johnson and I actually sat down with um Mr chady I don't know what three weeks ago four weeks ago and this is what we ended up with okay that didn't answer the question the question was that the edits that are here were recommended by the administration not that it was ultimately agreed to by the administration but were the edits proposed by the Admin Administration no they were they were proposed by us and they they were and we sat down and
327spent Mr chady what hour hour and a half going through the policy line by line and this is what we came up with okay then I would recomend that the color coding on this policy be changed because typically the green color coding is recommendations by admin Administration um and so it needs to be colorcoded differently so it is clear that it is not the proposed policy of the changes of the administration uh that that those changes were proposed by the budget policy committee so those should be all under a different color for clarification thank you Mr Schneider um Miss leevy is your hand up a second time or is that from carry over no that's new but thank you so so much for checking um and thank you for the opportunity to weigh in now
328I'm a little bit confused because when we reviewed the minutes from our last policy meeting um which were reflective of the meeting the month before uh when the when we fir to give some context when we first saw the edits to this policy it was my understanding that board member Nickles that you said that you made the changes and the administration had not seen it and then there was a proposed meeting that was going to happen that Friday at 1 which my objection to that was it excluded board members that were gainfully employed now the reason I bring up the minutes is because when that meeting ended and we had our next meeting and we were approving the minutes I wanted clarification as to whether or not that meeting that was proposed between Mr Nicholls
329and Mr chady took place and I was told no so this is not the the committee could have weighed in but the committee did not come up with those edits I was told that meeting didn't happen but now it sounds like that meeting did happen so if I can get clarification the meeting did not happen on the Friday that meeting happened the next week Mr chady something like that I don't remember the exact day but it was the next week well that's a thank you so much that's a bit misleading because whether it happened that Friday or the following week it happened prior to us reviewing those minutes and I was told that a meeting had not happened so I'm very uncomfortable that policy work is being done with select board members outside of the
330policy committee meeting that is very troubling to me and I'm also concerned that I asked if a meeting happened and I was told no when I asked the question you already knew that the meeting had happened which I'm finding out tonight this is not transparent and and this is not best practices when you're doing committee work to roll on to the full board very disappointing thank you um my recollection is at that meeting in the meeting um Finance executive director invited uh chairperson Nichols to have a meeting Michelle would you please reread the motion I have move approval of returning policy 6721 purchasing bidding requirements back to the policy committee with other policies in the sets and other relevant policies including policy 673 please is that an amendment no that I originally stated that it
331just wasn't included in the readback thank you was that 673 yes ma'am thank you and mich um can we get a roll call on this yes Megan Miller I Tom henkins I Brian Anderson nay Brian Nichols nay Amy Levy I Greg Schneider I Tia Johnson name motion carried thank you that brings us [Music] to policy or item e policy 512 animals on District property okay let so in reading the policy the new policy the proposed policy 512 under service animal it says any guide dog signal dog or other animal that is uh trained or being trained to do work but I looked at the ada.gov and it says where where is it where is it can't find it what did I do well vice president Nichols is looking for um his information are there any
332other board members that have questions or comments regarding policy um 512 animals on District property one miss Le sure I'll help stall um this is just another example of why we should be reviewing policies in policy number sets and the policies that relate because that is why you see policy 383 and 383.51 383.51 conflict with 512 so we have a new policy that conflicts with the old policy but because we didn't review them together we need to ask the board to suspend 383 and 383.51 need to ask a clarification question board member Levy did we not did we not discuss these in the last all three of these in the last policy committee meeting that's why we moved it Forward oh thank you that's such a great question um 383 and 383.51 with relevant policies
333included is that we're asking the board to pass for a first reading policy 512 once you find the information that you're looking for and then we're asking the board to suspend two policies when we could have handled this at the committee and just ask for the board to retire them so at some point these policies are going to have to come back so we can retire them thank you board member leevy so here's what the ad a says Service animals dogs any breed and any size dog trained to perform a task directly related to a person's disability not not that they will be trained that they are trained so that that's what I'm saying is this we need we need this this needs to be clarified and re just amend you know just changed to
334that is individually trained to do work to perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability so what part of of the Ser sorry service animal it says the policy reads any guide dog signal dog or other animal that is individually trained or being trained to do work and the Ada says it service animals are dogs any breed any size of dog and they're trained to perform a task directly related to a person's disability not that they are being trained so I I see what you're saying um I think the spirit of why the service the I think the spirit of this policy that we have right now trained or being trained um to do the work performing task that benefits individual disability is because I think sometimes service animals are always in
335training even if they are um I mean I've I've it's just on a personal note I've I've met a couple service trainers and they're they're training the dog for someone else you know they're not the person is not training it themselves it's being trained by an individual who's an expert in training dogs to be a service animal so I think I just believe this this language it's just a couple words is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual Miss Miss oh I'm sorry were you done uh vice president Nicholls um Miss beavers I've got uh M um um yeah Miss bers I'm sorry I've got a question and I see um executive director uh alond Daris is not here tonight um so my question is if we um
336do not address this tonight are we um um hindering any employees from not having the support they need to do their jobs until we can address this and get more information on it I'm I'm just I'm I'm not saying that's what we're going to do I'm just wanted to know I don't believe so because the law would cover anyone currently and we do have policy in place for staff um and the Ada um reasonable recommendations I'm sorry reasonable accommodations that have been requested are covered under a law so I don't believe so but that would be something I'm sure we would want to look into a little bit further okay and and for students would I mean would we be hindering their ability to um we have current policy in place okay our the current
337policy we have is written for students right um this was being written to be a little bit more inclusive okay um uh board member Schneider the the question I have is if we remove the language about a service animal being trained then would that then prevent a licensed trainer from from bringing a service animal into the school building for training purposes because if that is where the service animal is going to end up working they need to be able to function within that environment um so we need to make sure that any policy includes the ability ability for a licensed trainer to bring a service animal into the building I can answer that uh in the Ada the Ada website says Service animals are not not required to be certified or go through a professional
338training program required to wear a vest or other ID emotional support or Comfort dogs service animals are not emotional support or Comfort dogs because providing emotional support or Comfort is not a task related to a person's disability for the Ada so board member Levy oh no I'm good oh your hands up I'll remove that thank you thank you may oh please I just wanted to comment on this the service animal that board member Nichols was that definition was taken from a Neola policy which is uh reviewed by legal councel I just wanted to add that for what it's worth okay thank you Dr Garrison I believe we should I mean move forward with the policy as is as is written um I know we have the two that will be suspended quote that's being proposed
339to be suspended sorry um also understand that reviewing policies in said is also a requirement this did get moved from the from the committee to the board for this discussion um we do have an employee that we are currently that that is currently has has a service dog um and we wanted to make sure that the board was aware of this that's why I came to policy um and we didn't want to be out of policy by allowing the um service animal to to be um on our campus but we also want to honor the fact that um all necessary requirements have been met for the service animal to be um on our property um without the policy being in place so that's why we brought it to the to the policy committee um so
340the policy said is still it is still true I understand what Mrs leby is referring to um and I guess that's kind of where I'm at right now can we not move can we not move through move the policy forward with just the couple of words taken out just a modification I wish Mrs alond Daris was here to help me in this space right here but I have to lean back on my original thought which is to me animals are always being trained and retrained they have to go back and get recertified so I guess that's the gray eror for me currently any other oh and board member uh Miller yeah sure I mean I just I think like if there's even a shadow of the doubt we need to lean on the legal advice
341that was provided by getting the policy language through niola which as you've heard in previous board you know conversations is all legally checked so if we're not like absolutely 100% sure that it's okay to remove that language I would not be in favor of removing the language but remember Nichols like totally understand like where you're coming from maybe that's something we could get answered in the future if it needs to come back and be changed like absolutely but unless we're absolutely sure it's okay which it sounds like we're not I think we ought to just leave the language that's been legally verified in there just a reminder I'm reading from the the ada.gov website so no and with all due respect I appreciate that you reading from the website but we've had like somebody's paid
342a lawyer to verify that that language is appropriate any other discussion or questions um for I do remember we discussed this with Mrs U with Dei and we talked about where we were and were we being covered I I don't know Mr sh we can go back to what the question was asked to Dei about this and the legality of where we were and I it might had to do with the temporary suspension um but I'm in I'm up for whatever everybody agrees to but I thought we kind of went through that at the last meeting that we talked about that when Mrs um elen derus was sitting back there but I guess my recollection doesn't always isn't always correct Mrs um Johnson thank you m Mrs Levy um help me help me understand what
343your request is I just want to make sure I'm clear as it pertains to your request and Mr Nicholls request and kind of where I'm at too so do I think my board member n's recommendation and my request are like they're apples and oranges I think they're two different things my his request is about language and my request is about in my opinion appropriately reviewing policy in policy sets and the example that's relevant to this is if we had done that we would not need to suspend policy 383 and 3831 because it's not completely aligned with the new policy 512 is that helpful but the recommendations is to suspend right my my point is if we had handled this in the policy committee and reviewed policy and policy number sets also including relevant related policies
344we would not have to do a Band-Aid which is ask the full board to suspend two policies because if we pass 512 it is not congruent with policies 383 and 383.51 executive director beavers is there are there any last comments or considerations you'd like to share thank you okay can I get a motion on this item hearing none we will or I'll do second call going once third call okay we will bring this back next time um future meeting dates oh I'm sorry policy 383 K12 guidelines for the use of animals in the classroom policy 383.51 12 might pass through for a first reading I would recommend that we handle policy 512 policy 383 and policy together a second Oh I thought you made you no I wasn't making a motion so so let me
345be more clear since we decided to let it lie on policy 512 I think we should probably let it lie on 383 and 383.51 looking at um to the next board meeting if if there aren't any objections we I just have a question go ahead I think this is either Dr Garrison or Missy with us doing nothing are does it put the district in Jeopardy for what's going on right now I don't think so because right so the district is covered for what's going on currently okay thank you thank you board member henkins okay we will bring those back to the next um board meeting the next regular board um or um which comes first the policy meeting or the board meeting yep that's yeah okay the future board meeting dates the annual budget hearing
346is Wednesday tomorrow Wednesday September 18th the special board meeting is Tuesday September 24th the business operations and finance committee is Tuesday October 1st the next regular board meeting is Tuesday October 1st and the next policy committee meeting is Wednesday October 2nd I have a couple questions please go ahead thank you so much um so when you say the special board meeting um I that's not listed on the sheet if you could provide a bit more information on that why are we having a special board meeting to discuss um dis discuss and take action on budget items okay so that's outside of the budget hearing that's tomorrow you said I believe you said us and again uh forgive me for having to repeat it's not listed a special board meeting on Tuesday September 24th so it's
347not going to be governance it's going to be a special board meeting correct it's listed under the agenda agenda item details got it I was looking at board governance so that is for the budget but we're having the budget hearing tomorrow and then we're going to have another budget special meeting on Tuesday the 24th correct all right and then my other question on upcoming meetings um there had been some discussion and I had a few tenative dates on my calendar for the board legislative meeting do we have an update on that or if not that's completely fine could we um schedule to have an update on when that's going to happen at a future meeting yes we can we can get a schedule get that scheduled perfect thank you any other questions on meeting dates
348okay that brings us to human resources employee recommendations um are there any open session questions on exhibit a Miss Levy thank you so much um under retirements and resignations uh there's no information listed so if we could just have an understanding of who's retiring who's [Applause] resigning what's it okay there we go sorry um spe specifically to the retirements and recognition um from support or professional so at the second to the last category is retirement SL resignations and there's several people listed but it doesn't specify who's doing what so I'm just wondering who's retiring who's resigning I can go back and double check the document um to determine who's retiring and or who's resigning U I'm not sure why didn't get transferred over I don't have that information right at my hands right now but
349I can if you give me a moment I can see if I can find it any other uh Open Session questions for exhibit a well Dr garon is um obtaining that information well he's obtaining that information um let's take a two-minute recess to stretch and otherwise and yes stretch and refresh yeah I'm see if I can get it e e e okay um so Dr Garrison yes ma'am we believe that all of these are resignations um currently um I do want to you know just FY all of the ones that you see listed here no one is at I couldn't say no one's at retirement space but these these seem to be all resignations um I'm having problems getting into um um Skyward Bob is also having some problems getting into Skyward sorry Bob is
350having problems getting to Sky work and I did just got in okay sorry um I did also make a make a uh request to some of my staff members as well but I believe all these are resignations and I apologize for that not being on on this on this U Notes I'm not sure what's going on I do believe that our resignations on board President Johnson thank you Dr Garrison and hearing no other Open Session questions um a motion may be made and a vote taken to convene the Board of Education into close session pursuant to section 19.85% any discussion miss when you're ready Megan Miller hi Tom henkins hi Brian Anderson hi Brian Nichols hi Amy Levy could you repeat the motion I was I was joining on yes online and I the motion
351is to move to convene the Board of Education into close session pursuant to section 19.85% and Greg Schneider I and tia Johnson I the board May reconvene to public session in order to take any action if necessary on items discussed in Clos session thank you thank you and please remember to close out of your public session that's up to those two people up there e e e [Music] stop why am I getting feedback huh but it's [Music] now e it be right there not the e e e the board has reconvened to open session can I get a motion uh on approval of exhibit a so moved second approval of exhibit a employee recommendations by Brian Nichols seconded by Tom henkins any discussion Dr Garrison did confirm that those are all resignations that were in
352question earlier um all in favor I I I I so moved second sorry to interrupt but we're unable to hear if someone could unmute so we're able to hear from from home can you hear now yes thank you so much sorry to interrupt what we missed the last two motions like we caught the the exhibit a but then nothing after that oh um uh after exhibit a um motion the motion to adjourn was by Greg Schneider the second was by Brian Nichols any discussion I'm sorry I'm sorry was she asking about the recommendations I'm I'm Sorry Miss Miller were you asking about the recommendations exhib exhibit a so I think we all voted we we're all good on exhibit a we just missed so it sounds like we're moving to a journ which I mean
353I'm good with that I just didn't we just couldn't hear what was going on so just wanted to verify sorry for the delay okay I yeah my apologies I think we all had our mics off since no one's here um so on faer of a joury and having a wonderful night hi hi good night everyone thank you so much everybody