SDB - TLE & Pupil Services Committee; HR Committee; Regular Board Meeting - 1/17/2023 (5:30 p.m.)

001thank you foreign [Music] okay there we go all right good evening uh so sorry for the delay uh today is Tuesday January 17th at 5 34. I'd like to call our teaching learning equity and people Services committee to order um Miss Schulte may we please have a roll call for attendance yes Joanne Winfield Greg Schneider present Megan Miller present all members are present in the boardroom thank you so much at this time I'd entertain a motion to approve our agenda Sobo second okay any discussion hearing none all in favor please say aye aye aye aye all right motion passes unanimously that takes us to item 1D approval of the minutes would anybody like to make a motion to approve the minutes from the December 20th meeting from 2022. so moo second okay any discussion Motion

002in a second all in favor please say aye aye aye all right and that passes unanimously thank you so much and that brings us to our only agenda item for the evening which we're excited to hear about our K-12 literacy updates so this time I'll turn over to miss more Tech thank you good evening committee um yes Teresa more Tech executive director of teaching and learning and equity and I have Tony Bosco here um director in the teaching and learning Equity team he leads a lot of our literacy work and working with our coaches as well so um what we wanted to do tonight was just to give you a mid-year update and let you know how how it's been going um in our Arc implementation and also our other work with literacy in the

003secondary schools so this is um really a coal asking of lots of pieces that are coming together and we're excited to see some of the initial academic outcomes so we just kind of an overview we approached the Improvement of literacy in our School District of Beloit last year when we developed an increase here when we developed the vision for literacy we ran many many empathy groups throughout the district to Define what how we see literacy in the School District of Beloit and what we want um and then we wanted to approach Improvement and continuous improvement from operated approach which is high quality materials and instructional practices and that's really critical to understand because we know that no boxed set of materials is one magic piece but it's essential that you have high quality rated materials

004that are aligned to the standards and then along with that we have been working on instructional practices so it's not just what we're teaching but how we're teaching it and so with our Arc adoption American reading company that we did with our Esser funds we started that work partnering with the American reading company to um not just get the materials but we've done district-wide professional development and then we've professional learning and then we've also had coaches from the our company that are assigned to the schools to have individual kind of differentiated uh coaching to meet the needs of the schools and then um with springboard which is our secondary we have our grant that is through the Department of Public Instruction that is an extension of high quality materials that lended us the opportunity to

005partner with instruction Partners through that Grant and so in the work with instruction Partners we've been looking at we had already springboard so how we are improving the instructional practices and implementation of springboard and so they have been working last year they worked with two of our intermediates this year with for all four and have brought in an instructional practice tool they have a done that's in literacy and actually in math as well but focused tinnitus literacy so Tony is here to give us the overview of of how all of those pieces are coming together in some of the initial findings that we're having we're excited to see um the work that's happening and we are pivoting into year three implementation with Arc so forward planning about where our needs are and what we need

006to do for professional learning to build sustainability okay thank you so much good evening um teaching learning equity and people Services committee thank you for having us this evening my name is Tony Bosque I'm the director of instructional leadership and equity for the school district Beloit and I'm very excited to be here tonight um I think as Ms Moore Tech alluded to the work that we've been doing is not just this year it hasn't just been a couple years and it won't be a couple years into the future this is really a work of passion and a work of need as we look at our literacy practices our literacy data in the school of Beloit um when we look at literacy in the school district Beloit we develop these goals that you see on the

007screen based on our three-year implementation plan and really what we're focusing on anytime you look at implementation science it is a process it is a very clear process and we're trying to be very diligent in how we navigate that process understanding that as you go from year one to year two year two to year three through subsequent years of this adoption not just with American reading company but with springboard as well that we're expecting to have growth that is quantifiable as a result of our efforts our time our commitment I'd be remiss before I get any further and and not recognizing there's more Tech myself for only two people we have a Cadre of English language arts language arts teachers by literacy instructional coaches instructional coaches instructional leaders all over the district that are committed

008to this implementation and I just want to raise um that this none of this work is possible without them and they're at the ground level doing this work every single day with students and I just want to thank them because it's anytime you bring some new resources in the district there's a bit of a learning curve and they've really been game for the change so I'm super excited um to highlight some of the work that they've done again as we progress through the the this initial implementation we're really looking by 2526 to be at 25 percent proficient Advanced across the district that's a lofty goal um in three years I'm sorry 55 that's a lofty goal in three years but that's something that we're really looking to press on very hard over the course of

009the next several years we're going to kind of do this in two segments we're going to focus on K5 and implementation with American reading company and then we'll transition to um our implementation or relaunch with springboard uh Teresa talked about the work that we did with DPI a couple years ago on implementation science and then also using a high quality instructional materials and and pairing that with high quality instruction and so we've learned a lot of those lessons and used those have used those lessons to help us develop implementation plans that really are based in that implementation science that I referred to and you're going to see some of those key components as I go through the presentation specifically with American reading company one of the things that we were really enamored with as we

010went through the adoption process was the quality of their professional development and Teresa alluded to the concept of them being on site multiple times a year but we also thought that it was very important for us to be able to calibrate our entire literacy staff K5 and make sure that we have common understandings one of the things that we have seen as we went through the adoption process and even in the first year and a half of implementation is the idea that our teachers at the elementary level are not all teachers of reading and we need this resource really helps us focus on that very intentional approach to foundational literacy development with our students and that's been a great resource for us because when you talk about third grade teachers fourth grade teachers kindergarten teachers

011being very explicit about how we want students to progress through that literacy development kind of Continuum has been wonderful in terms of deepening our knowledge of pedagogy of curriculum and how to use this resource um well so that's one thing that's been very important and key to the successes that we have experienced and will continue to experience the next thing is just what also what Teresa talked about was the idea that multiple times per year each one of our elementary and intermediate schools will have three on-site coaching Cycles with the coaches from American reading company and the reason this is important is because this takes that kind of ten thousand foot view of that professional learning that we do in August November and February and really takes it down to the classroom level where that

012art coach is sitting with our bi literacy and literacy instructional coaches and those teacher partners and really digging into their data really digging into their instructional practice and trying to help them make those adjustments in the moment which is where it's most valuable oh geez I'm so sorry um that's okay I'm a Kansas Man Too that's an awesome ringtone but I it shouldn't be going off right now I apologize um so the on-site cycles of our coaches um but as we look at that on-site coaching we're also very aware of the fact aware of the fact um that uh being with American reading company for 5 10 12 years it's not we're looking to gradually release responsibility for that professional learning to the district and so that's something that we've started to explore with support

013um with American reading company where some of the Nuance of each of the individual reading levels within the system take a lot of time and and effort to unpack and understand and so we've developed some color level studies um at the the yellow and green levels which are kindergarten into first grade so that our teachers and our coaches can really dig deeply into what those foundational skills are and really understand if a student is struggling with phonemic awareness how do we address that if it's finalized what are we doing in response using the toolkits and other resources that we have in the resource in the arc framework to address that student's needs um and then lastly before I move to the next slide we've really developed again a concept of instructional leadership at the building

014level is a a team game really helping our instructional leaders at the building level I referred to coaches but also our assistant principals and principals to understand this framework and sit with the staff from Arc and really build their background knowledge and understanding so as they're going through classrooms they know what they're expecting to inspecting inspecting to expect or expect an inspect so that Leadership Learning Series has really been an opportunity for our coaches and our principals to collaborate on some of those framework components the next part that I'm going to talk about is um the key aspects of the arc framework that are really um High leverage for us the four most important pieces that we see are that Equitable conference schedule the idea that students are getting direct instruction that is very purposeful

015whether it's through a morning message at the K12 level or a more prescribed or more focused direct instruction lesson from the teacher and then establishing power goals for every single student the idea that every K5 student in the school district Beloit has a power goal that they are working on that will help them move from what they're currently at as far as their reading level to where we're trying to get them and the students are very in tune to what those individual skills are that they're working on and we also do a lot to communicate with families about what they're working on when they bring their book bags home what those bookmarks look you know are telling them as far as what color level those are they're in and what those proximal skills um to

016get to the next level would be um also two other aspects of the K5 implementation are really being focused in how our bi literacy instructional coaches instructional coaches are supporting the plc's um whether that's within the building at the K3 level or grade level at the four or five level I just want to kind of spend some time focusing on the independent reading level assessment this is a key aspect of this entire framework because it is really the launch for how that teacher knows every student as a reader we we have really worked hard to develop this process so that no matter where the student is in their reading Journey their teacher knows where they are and where they're trying to get to next and so the independent reading level assessment and that conferencing schedule

017is critical to making sure that we're meeting the needs of Learners wherever they are in this Continuum if they're at the profession or advanced level they're going to be conferenced with once every week or two if they're at the striving or at risk level they're going to have a couple of conferences a week if they're at the emergency level they're going to be conference with by a teacher almost every day okay again this is year one and a half of implementation so getting to this ideal is something that we're working on but we look at conferencing data regularly and we can see in School Pace the percentage of students that are meeting this framework for conferencing and when we see discrepancies we're talking to coaches we're talking to principals we're talking about teachers about what

018do you need how can we support what structures are not in place so that we can you know get this moving because again this individualized approach to reading for every learner's critical aspect of this and then this last piece is just and I know it's a little hard to see on the slide I apologize but this basically shows um a January of 23 comparison to January of 22. and at the K5 level district-wide we're up about 10 percent proficiency wise at the four or five it's a little flat more flat in at the elementary level K3 it's a little bit more robust but this again gives us an opportunity to say where can we um affirm the practices that are resulting in student achievement growth where are we also looking to allocate some more resources

019so we can address some of the you know other challenges that might be um there the only thing I would add is at the bottom you'll see that where I think this one is when he took the stamp shot was 33 proficiency so if you go back to our alignment goals we had 35 percent for at the end of this year so we'll need to and it these are based on our benchmarks so the students are currently 33 meeting their benchmarks but they have to continue with the rigor to get to the end of the year to meet end of the year benchmarks at 35 percent so this is good news because we're headed right towards the end of the year goal that we wanted to get at and then you know in thinking about

020in our strategic plan we have meeting and exceeding goals by the end of 25 26 under the whole child so in knowing that if we get to 55 proficiencies that'll helpfully contribute to boosting us to meeting and exceeding expectations identified in our strategic plan okay now we're going to transition to springboard okay um so when we um as I said we went through the DPAC Grant where we're looking at high quality instructional materials and high quality instructional practices and as we're going through the arc adoption and doing the work to kind of assess what direction we wanted to go with that it caused us to kind of step back and review springboard because at the time you have this question based on Ed reports and some other data is this a resource that meets our

021needs and I think we've been with springboard using springboard for about 10 years now and the answer to that question was we need to relaunch because as we're coming out of the pandemic there had been some changes in leadership within my position director positions and we needed to just recalibrate the district around the use of this resource and the intentionality around uh some of the key aspects of it so that really started when we did the implementation plan for Arc we kind of aligned both of them to have that restart at the same time very similar opportunities as we implement this resource at the 6-12 level we're using some very similar systems and structures to have an Integris implementation that starts with really having a strong partnership excuse me with instruction Partners who we connected

022with as part of that DPI Grant and their ability to help us zero in on some of those key aspects of prioritizing our standards understanding the design of units in the Arc of units and understanding the design and implementation of lessons so through our professional development that we do start professional learning sorry that we do several times a year instruction Partners has partnered with us and with our coaches to have that professional learning happen in an ongoing way so that as we go out into buildings and do we come back and debrief and that really develops our Cadence for what our partners with instruction Partners focus on as we come up to February 10th for instance so that really aligns the work that we're doing from the beginning of school year to the end of

023the school year another critical aspect of this is just the role of instructional coaches in this work our our literacy our language arts teachers 6 through 12 are are you know you talk about the four intermediate schools often in a grade level they are a Singleton there is one sixth grade language arts teacher at McNeil one at Aldridge so if their ability to collaborate is difficult but our coaches are able to kind of be a conduit between the plcs to help them align around our our curricula and so that's very important that um with any implementation going forward with a reconfiguration you know having some of these structures that will will continue and the last part and I kind of skipped over this a little bit with The Arc but another similar structure is the

024literacy learning walks that Teresa and I do and Rosa Maria did with us going back to last year this idea of us going into a building sitting down in collaboratively exploring their data doing some walk through some learning walks coming back and debriefing about what we saw and then collaboratively developing an action plan for them to move forward with has been you know another thing that I think it will continue to be a part of our implementation for the foreseeable future um another aspect of uh the work that we're doing with instruction Partners is this kind of focus on instructional practice and that really kind of goes back to this protocol called the instructional practice guy and this is a tool that we use uh that really helps us identify in uh language arts courses

025six through twelve what those key aspects of instruction are and then gather data on implementation of that and then be able to reflect with the practitioner and the coaching team the instructional team about what we could do to build that so that we have better student outcomes each one of our secondary schools in collaboration with instruction partners and with ourselves has developed action plans based on this data so that every one of them has really looked at their local data the implementation the instructional strategies that are being implemented and identified where they in an individual building may have area for growth um and then this is all combined our our K5 our 612 is really combined with the idea of understanding where we're trying to have students get and excuse me we talk about the

026ACT the pre-act has a Capstone we spent a lot of time this fall working with the home of the purple Knight staff identifying opportunities to look at data in more deep ways I just had some thank you um I brought my own this time um to look at the data more deeply I think one of the things that we are really focused on is how we can make those alignments between our curriculum our instruction and those outcome data whether it's curriculum-based assessment data or our standard standardized assessment data and we had all of our 9th 10th and 11th graders take the pre-act back in November on the November PD or late October actually the November building per card Prep Professional learning day College Board came in and helped us do an item analysis so we

027dug in with every department at Moore High School home of the purple Knights to really assess what that data was telling us where those curricular challenges are but also we I uncovered some test taking strategies and other things that we needed to address as well this is exciting for us because as we build out our strategic assessment system bringing in the pre-act this is the first time that we've done this as a district and then building out what that'll look like going forward and how it informs instruction um we're hoping then that that'll inform from the Middle School up through the high school so that we are um you know improving our ECT scores overall but just also preparing students and improving proficiencies so um this work is exciting if you're in the world of

028curriculum instruction or teaching and learning because it's it's really getting the high school whether no matter what subject you teach to see how literacy in in mathematics are embedded throughout so the work that we're doing with um pre-act data we're going to be administering the previous CT or 8th graders this spring so that our high school has some data to look at for that incoming group The the other aspect of this is we're trying to build Legacy systems and structures when we look at item analysis we really need to develop these Cycles where it becomes a gradual release so our plcs understand this data set go back to those test booklets and are really digging deeply into where the holes are curricularly and where we can improve instruction because it takes both of those to

029really make Improvement the other thing that I would raise from this slide is just this concept of as freshmen and this is the first time freshmen have ever taken an act style test and there are some crazy questions structures that just threw them for a loop but but that growth from ninth to 11th grade is evident in the percentages of questions is answered correctly in this data and this is going to improve because this was our first swing at this this fall so building this Legacy system and structure is going to be beneficial to the district where we're headed um you know really what we're talking about is as our K5 instructional coaches continue to build their capacity really starting to take ownership for some of that professional learning that we're doing and and that's

030going to be beneficial for our staff and our students as I talked about building these pre-act structures so that it becomes a legacy part of our system so that anybody that's working at the 6 through 12 8 through 8th grade through 12th grade level understands how we want to prepare students as they're going um to take that act in in 11th grade continue to use our curriculum and data review processes to tighten our curricular alignment and be more focused on that and then um and then also to braid that with um what we do at the PLC level with our teacher teams because that data in isolation doesn't produce the instructional adjustments the curricular adjustments that we need um and then that uh high quality high quality professional learning um you know we are in

031your you know the the 18th month of our Arc adoption we need to commit resources to high level professional learning for our staff um five seven years out because that's the only way to sustain this kind of commitment to high achievement foreign sorry I got rushed a little bit then there um what questions or treats anything to wrap any questions thank you thank you so much for the presentation it's a great overview of all these different areas um just want to open it up um board members have any questions go ahead um thank you so much for presenting today just a couple of questions um how is this information with our goals and were we really trying to achieve does that give me incent to the to the to the homes or the kids so

032the parents can have a high level of what our goals are that's that's a great question I we have not as a department communicated these goals maybe through the Strategic plan or something there'd be an opportunity to do that I think that's a great idea though yeah and on the very fine granule level every student has their own power goal and those are communicated so if a power goal is I will learn my initial consonant sounds that is identified and then and then that's communicated to the family that's a really important piece because we talk about when we talk about metacognition and students understanding what they need to learn and how they need to learn it right in that whole Collective efficacy piece so at that very kind of like ground level it's being communicated

033but all the way up through the system that we're trying to get at you know at the end of the day 55 proficiency we have not yet done that so thank you for that no problem thank you um book it and I'll bring this up probably every single board meeting oh yeah uh personal pan pizza right yeah yeah is there any way that we can we can um get something like that implement it where the kid can have a well I have some good news there are some schools and I don't know if they're doing book it but what is Gaston doing I know some schools are starting to do different embeddedness like incentives in addition with our with their 100 book challenge but we'll continue I'll look into I know you asked for it

034so I'll look into it John I appreciate it thank you anytime um and just real quick to that point there is um every student developmentally has a certain number of minutes per day that we expect them to be engaging with text and so we can monitor this data by building by classroom by grade level and it's very important you know one of the things that we worked on with instruction Partners as we went through the work with them is the amount of time that students are being are spending in text every day and that when you think about a school day we that Family Partnership is critical to this process and every Elementary student should be taking their blue book bags home with them that has their book set in it for them to be

035reading you know every night to really practice those routines and get familiar with that text I'm adding a slice of pizza or something I think could be very a very easy next extension so Mr Bosco what I would do I and I don't know if this is bored thank you I I am willing so if if you guys can come up with some data and find out what school has read the most in the month of February I'm willing to buy that whole school Pizza okay all right so if we can get that out um um Monica if you can push something out and say um Winfield will purchase that whole school now I don't know if my wife is going to see this video but in the sense of I really would like to

036see us give these kids some extra push and that I I'm willing to do that thank you yeah and our last question do you guys foresee any barriers that we will probably face in the future with this I mean a barrier that you always think about when you think about implementation is when you have new staff and so we have to think about how we're going to rotate in new staff and what training they'll get um you know a mandatory training type of piece to learn uh the program and then you know and have those expectations for them coming into the fold and so that's why we've really leaned heavy on our instructional coaches because they have to be there to We Can't we're not always going to be able to pay in to Arc

037the reading company for professional development right in professional learning we used a lot of our user funds for that and they're awesome but they're expensive and so we've been building um and thinking ahead so that we have sustainability so that's a huge barrier um always to I want it huge but it's always a barrier and a consideration is is as staff turnover happens how do you train people into the program and and I would just add to that you know as you get into years two three four five it's important for us to keep things fresh and focused I think it's very important for us to not step back from data to not step back from this alignment this this kind of real intense Vision that we have because I think that's where you kind

038of really build that Collective around where we're trying to go so I think that's something else that um is is something that we're aware of in implementation science that we have to be focused on so thank you thanks appreciate it yep thank you for the excellent questions and comments and offers board member Winfield I'm going to share my Goodreads account with you and if I meet a satisfactory amount of books I'm going to send you my address okay board member Schneider okay thank you so much for the presentation I'm really thrilled to see that the focus on data and and working with staff to be able to understand what that means and how to adjust the curriculum to uh to move forward um you know sometimes it's that that piece of transferring what we know

039from the data to how what we need to do that sometimes gets missed and I love to see that Focus so that staff can continue to begin to monitor on their own and to work with that I mean that's a great support is to make it happen um I've seen the the new reading program in the elementary schools a few times firsthand um I just love the excitement of the students looking at books or when they're exchanging books or the amount of time that they're talking with with other staff about the books that they've read I think that's that's crucial to make things work um you know the other piece I thought is looking at or thinking about with with the parents that we work with um that there may be a a possibility of

040maybe working with a class at the high school or a Beloit College to do some basic reading instructional videos that are available to parents so that if they are struggling to understand what it is to be able to look at well how do I now work with it with a student with my child who maybe can't pronounce this word or or struggles with that what are some techniques that we could follow and that's also then reinforcing those reading skills that at the high school as well as a lot of career skills that go along with that and a way for to really use all all of our students that benefit for those kinds of things absolutely as well as then the parents have them or anybody has them that they can just view I just

041love that idea and actually when specifically for American reading company a strength of that when you look through those materials is the parent family engagement component when you look across programs and materials not all of them have that and so but they're they have that 100 book challenge that's specifically the parent and family engagement piece and they also have an online tool kit and I wonder we could even look in there and see and talk to the company about videos that that are like that all of their books that are at the kids different levels at the back of the book they have a kind of like a protocol what do you do when you get to work you don't know and it's some of the classic stuff that all of us that have taught

042early reading know but like just showing that to parents and getting them on board so we'll look into that for sure I think that's a wonderful suggestion thank you we all jump in there when it comes to like reading at home that I think one of the most important pieces is just allowing our parents to read with their kids no matter what necessary level that they may come with or whether it's you know from historically martial arts groups to to the gifted and talented um that is the reason why they send them to school you know to help us help to help with the reading efficacy of our students and so I just want to make sure I noted that a lot of times we want our parents to have more um and in their

043caveat or in their cache of things to learn but people go to school for years to learn how to teach reading right um and so we don't want to dress drops things in the bucket to say this is the strategy or this is the golden egg or Goose um more so than it is we want you to read with your kids and so those challenges that we have in place and the level readers that we have in place no matter where those kids are or our kids are we should just be encouraging that reading and so um that's kid according to what Mrs mortek is missing as well as Mrs bosso yeah another thought would be is actually to um record the individual students reading the books that they have chosen and making that as

044a database that's available for preschool though or those students younger as an option to to look at or to listen to a book um and so there's some options you can do there I mean the art Department can do you know Graphics to go with it or or whatever so to do some illustrations so there's a lot of things that we can do that would encourage students to to really work on their reading I think if if a student is able to record the book that they have and they can then take that and send that to their grandparent or to you know other relatives or people that can't be here all the time as a way to do it that it might of encouragement could also then encourage them to continue working hard to

045read better and better so just that's really also springing off of like a LeapPad of what we did during virtual covet times right so all these things came came out of that and a lot of you know recording students reading to share with others or to to assess where they were at really came out organically out of covet times and so I I'm sure that that's pretty easy to continue because those mechanisms already exist just an oak you know copyright doesn't allow for recording um districts uh can get in a little trouble for that part right there as well so we can naturally students can record themselves reading um but we kind of get in the gray area when it comes in a different format thank you so much for those thoughts and comments and

046questions um I just I know we're closing in a little bit on time and I apologize for a four minute delay in starting but I just wanted to offer some feedback generally on the presentation was excellent like it really like checked all the boxes and I appreciate Miss more Tech how you pointed out there's no Silver Bullet curriculum and Irene really study after study like in in Wisconsin shows that building teacher right and we know from Hattie right like teach yourself advocacy and capacity is a way to like boost all of our our students learning right so I think you from what I've seen today it sounds like we're like right on the right track and I'll just share anecdotally um like I have a struggling reader who's currently in Arc and I learned about

047the colors because like prior to this year it was like pulling teeth like no matter how much pizza I bought but this year I'm seeing a lot of like intrinsic motivation and she was telling me like Mom I want to be a green like I've been stuck in yellow and I had no idea what she was talking about but I was like yes yes let's remember so we like apply you know we're you know we we've been reading every and she's and it's not like a chore now like I mean it's absolutely she's it's yeah no I just I know I was excited to see like all the little Charity charts and I'm like oh yeah that's like my kids doing that and so like I just um and I also want to compliment um

048just when you talk about the instructional coaches and like the impact on our teachers like at parent-teacher conferences because you know I want to be able to support at home you know what they're doing at school but it's hard to keep up with with everything I'd asked her teacher like what exactly are like you know what and I I didn't even necessarily seriously meet up but I'm like she it sure would be nice to know kind of what the prioritized standards are right so we can really focus like the minimal time we have at home with like after school stuff to like really focus on the heavy hitting stuff and they're like yeah sure no problem and sent me home like this whole thick packet of like yep here's our prioritized standards it's all laid

049out for the year and then I can give her that feedback like wow like look how well you did this and this is right what you're supposed to like your teacher told me this is right what you're supposed to be doing right now because like nobody can like stay on top of that communication I'm sure it would exhaust teachers to talk to parents that much so uh I just thought that was phenomenal like there's such great evidence of um so in addition to like buying a ruby Pizza just like to see that intrinsic motivation is huge and I know that's just one kid but anytime I've heard nothing but good things so thank you so much for taking all the time that you have and taking this multifaceted approach to really strengthen our curriculum I

050just want to say thank you because that is actually it's important feedback because when you're working through the stuff the the system to know that we identified priority standards right we've developed a curriculum Warehouse we have adopted a program and when you asked as a parent what are those things that teacher was able to access those things and then send them to you and and that's exact that is exactly what we want right and so um I'm grateful to whomever your teach your your daughter's teacher is or your child's teacher is because that's that's the work that we want to be able uh to do for all kids and so thank you for that oh no for sure and I mean this is a child who's like neurodiverse and it's like this you know and

051I mean that's really that intrinsic motivation piece is just phenomenal so yeah overall I'm really happy with what you were able to share and I mean I really appreciate it and I'm excited to see so and I just want to clarify those scores because when I do my report out I'll mention it so it looks like this time last year our proficiency number and it's like 0.9 so can I round up is that honest to say 23 points can I say like last year at 24 and this this time this year we're at 34 which is just a shade below our end of the year goal right and I understand that that rigor will and we have to stay on that but that's yeah very commendable thank you thank you let me just say this

052on this could be the last words I think we have the responsibility to continuously um report this information um no matter what direction or we're going to be we want to continue the direction the right to right and the right in the right way however we do know that um as it pertains to year to year conversations um this first big jump is normally followed by like small leaps after that and then you'll see another big jump and so from a data perspective just understand it all kind of comes you know in small leaps and so um this is a long run especially when we're trying to talk about achievement over time especially in reading but we do believe with high high um teacher conversations and professional learning that these conversations can continue and our

053students can continuously grow um over time and so that's just the literacy um snapshot for today thank you thank you thanks again everybody that's my favorite thing to talk about and hear about so glad we got to do that this meeting um all right and I just want to point out too um which was really cool if folks who are following along at home when you click now on the agenda items you'll notice that it this kind of checked off like culture and Leadership equity and whole child and so anybody who's got like their strategic plan scorecard playing along can knock those three off okay cool which I really appreciate thanks for posting it that way all right great so our next meeting is going to be on Tuesday February 21st most likely at 5

05430 pm and is there anything else before we adjourn fantastic well thank you so much everybody for your participation motion to adjourn all right move by Winfield second by Schneider uh all in favor of adjourning at 6 17 p.m please say aye aye aye thank you Bob board member one field in second about board member Spencer Anderson is there any discussion yes I um have an adjustment um so the minute say that the amendment was made to increase the addendum by 282 dollars that actually wasn't the amendment the amendment was not to increase the addendum um but it was to replace the recommended thirteen hundred and eighty dollars from the November 1st 2022 employee recommendations and replace it with the correct amount of 232 dollars Miss Trope do you need me to repeat any of

055that okay so again it should be replaced with 232 dollars thank you okay um so the minutes have been amended um any other discussion okay hearing on all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye aye aye motion passes unanimously item 2A fall 2022 climate survey results foreign so over the fall of course there was a survey that was given and we have our presenter here that's going to give us a quick presentation over the over the for the survey results um again I would like to again thank the organization that has helped us with this and again here we are today to um discuss it per the board's conversation you wanted to to bring this back um to the board for discussion thank you thank you so much okay there we

056go all right um thank you so much we appreciate being back presenting the climate survey results and the climate survey was completed in um the fall semester and this is survey results that we're doing fall and spring semester um your our semester over semester so we can see what those key trends are and really what we're looking for in the survey is what is the engagement which is the emotional commitment to the district and its goals and why we care about that is because it is looking at how what is the productivity The Innovation the impact of the current staff that we have and what is their ability you know what is their likelihood that they will be leaving the organization so if we want to go to the um to The Climate survey response

057rate slide perfect yep so one of the things that we look at within the surveys is what percentage of staff are responding to the survey and what we have is in this survey so the fall 2022 survey we had a 52 response rate this is higher than the spring 2022 survey which had a 48 response rate um I will say that there was a lot of work on the administrative part to get those numbers up we extended the survey by a week to get that up and a note to that as well is The Benchmark for valid results is 65 so I want to name what that is because we're not hitting that number with the responses to the survey what we're hearing so when I'm talking to staff in an exit interview is that

058they don't feel like things are being done with the climate survey data so I just want to name that with that number because I know that's a question that has come up in previous surveys so even though we're not at that 65 percent number we really have a strong indication of what the sentiments of staff are are so if we go to the next slide what we're seeing here is we're seeing what are the results of the climate survey based on four key areas in those areas together make up the engagement meaning how engaged are our staff inside of our organization and what this is showing is essentially 52 percent of staff are engaged and 48 percent of staff are not engaged in the day-to-day work of the organization and when we break that down

059what that looks like is there's four key drivers that come into that one is am I in the right job and you know fit to roll with my specific job 62 percent of the staff are saying yes we are the next one is looking at the manager 69 percent of staff are saying yep I'm aligned with my manager my manager is leading me the way I need to be led to be effective in the organization 75 percent of staff are stating you know what I work with a great team my team really helps support me to be successful and then the one that I think is needed to focus on is only 34 percent of Staff feel that they are working in an organizational culture that supports them to be successful in their day-to-day work

060and that really is the area where we see some key concerns so when we look at that let's go ahead and look at the strengths thank you so much go ahead and look at the strengths and the opportunities so these are the strengths and the opportunities for this climate survey and what I'm going to do is I'm going to compare this to the previous survey and walk through it each of those within that so if we want to go to it's two more down we'll skip yeah one more perfect so these are the strengths that we see so what we did here is we compared the spring climate survey to the fall climate survey so you're seeing what last spring survey was to what we're seeing now and one thing that is staying consistent is

061I'm excited about the work that I do every day which we like to see that right we want Educators to be excited about the work they do every day along with support and administration we see the Benchmark data so we do look at data across the country to say hey how is this comparing to what we're seeing in organizations so that's our benchmark the next one is my manager help to create opportunities for my growth and development um what we're seeing here is that that stayed about the same in my day-to-day work I'm gaining valuable skills and experiences that will help me in my future when we look at this one this dropped by about 17 and so that is something that we see concerning it's something that we also kind of saw in in

062the comments as to okay so what's changing in my day-to-day experience that has it not feeling like this is going to help me in my future career um and then the next two were the strengths in the last survey that now are no longer the key strengths and the one that really showed out as concerning to me here is when conflict arises the people I work with resolve it respectfully and quickly that dropped by 20 and so when we look at that you know it's looking at this and saying what's happening with our teams and our leadership the individuals don't feel like they can quickly resolve conflict as it comes forward so if we go to the next slide um we will look at the opportunities so these were looking at what were the lowest

063rated areas that impact the engagement in the organization and so what we see here is we see um I trust senior leadership in my organization this has shown up on you know the last one as well and that actually fell that went from 39 to 25 so we're seeing a decrease in staff that feel like they can trust senior leadership in the organization and when asked who senior leadership is because I believe that this distinction is really important that is looking at essentially the administrative or CAC essentially is what that is looking at I believe the culture of the organization drives high performance this stayed about consistent 37 38 percent The Benchmark for that is 71 so again when we talked earlier about the culture sure of the organization this is where some of those

064key items are driving and so that feeling that the culture that we're in doesn't allow me to have high performance because of whatever those structures are the next one that showed up as an area of opportunity also fell from the last survey result and that was there's great open honest and two-way communication in the organization so we're seeing a lack of transparency and we also saw that come out specifically within some of those comments that staff did share and then the next is I see growth opportunities for myself in this organization um we saw that increase um you know over the last um survey so we went from 36 to 60 so we're definitely now seeing that there's career growth opportunities and that is aligned with what the Benchmark is what this next slide will

065show if you want to go to the next one is looking at then um where individuals feel that they can kind of grow within the organization and what that looks like and so um with that we see my organization has an outstanding future again um and I believe we're hiring people with the right talents to help us achieve our business strategies so we're seeing these shift that went from 62 percent in the spring to 27 in the fall survey and when we looked at the comments as to what was coming in on are we hiring the right individuals it was looking at Keck Administration then it was also looking at staff coming in without licenses Etc so and that's the sentiments that staff are sharing so with that I have the take action items so

066there's three items here I will name that these didn't necessarily change from the last report that we had and you know so those take actions is every survey that we do has very specific actions within it and you'll see that in the in the packet that was provided as well but there are specific items that that show hey how can we move this forward so impact on culture while instilling and showing staff organizations making changes necessary to be competitive in the future what our numbers are showing us is that staff don't feel that that is happening within some of the decisions that the board and executive leadership is making the second is clear Direction communication definition and support on where the district's going specifically transparency and and what is being shared is that aligned with

067what the staff's sentiments are is there a disconnect between the two and then the third is processes and procedures that support staff and serving students and we've definitely heard that one in a number of different areas over the last couple of years whether it is um with support in removing students from a classroom that are disruptive or whether it is in you know support with subs and how that's happening versus teachers being pulled in and asked to to sub during prep periods Etc so with that that's a recap of our presentation of the climate survey results the comparison and then the taking action and Dr Garrison I hit it in 10 minutes thank you so much for the presentation board um this again this is a report that we that you all asked for and

068I want to make sure we honor that that conversation and so we will open it up for discussions uh just a couple questions um one you mentioned um staff exit surveys so I have to admit I haven't seen any of those so I'm not sure where those are housed or how you know who access them accesses those X on them I guess I'd be interested to uh whether it's seeing you know not that I need to see everyone but I guess a compilation of of those thoughts as well because we look at why do our students leave the district we I think we got to look at why our teachers leave in the district I I bet there's I would bet there's some similarities there and some common themes yeah absolutely least so we do

069have and this is something I can provide if you're interested in it I do have where we have tracked the exit survey data along with the climate survey data so we can see what the trends are year over year so the exit surveys are those are sent out as soon as individuals leave so it is a paper survey then we have a phone conversation and those are compiled and then shared on an annual basis so we shared that in September but I think what we're not seeing here is the the trending of that to to The Climate surveys and to what those key items are so those have come out I think every year for the last four or five years so um so with that that's kind of where those are um as well

070so I don't know if we can pull those back out of okay I'll work on getting them from wherever their housed at then uh the second thing is you know with any of these you know I've worked for organizations that have done these year after year after year and I think the only way some of these things change at least change in a positive direction is we have to understand what steps are being taken in between these surveys right so surveys results can go up down we can see Trends they can be they can be better by accident they can be worse because you're not doing the action items you know so it's hard to tell you know so I guess this is more of a question for Dr Garrison and like said he wasn't

071here for the first survey he wasn't here uh really when the second survey was done right so it's one of those um you know something to dig in at some point and say Hey you know of these action items that were identified in the spring and now we've got a new set of action items which really are kind of the same ones uh they really haven't changed you know how are we following up on that to make sure that we're addressing them you know and and taking the actions that are included so that when we have uh Tracy does a new survey next you know next fall that this shows you know the progress that we're looking for I think one of the things that we're trying to do right now under admire Administration is

072to really just be transparent in our communication um since I've since I've arrived I did look at this survey I looked at the action items and one of the things that of course you saw in the and the report is that there was some distrust from Cake administrators and I called myself a cake administrator as well and so as a superintendent I believe that it's my responsibility to lead how we will communicate moving forward and that's what I've been doing um I in my superintendent's report in the next conversation I will lay out to everyone all the conversations again once that I've been having inside of the district and so naturally you've heard about conversations I've had outside of District but I've also been having a lot of conversations inside of the districts on various

073different topics to gain that momentum around trust and culture from leadership naturally I also have been very clear with my administrative staff on our monthly meetings based off of what I say here and then it's the same conversations that they need to have when they go out and so there's not a miscommunication around Communications when especially when we're honing in on exactly how communication should happen trying to again fix the whole conversations around you know that culture piece you know clear communication is again something that I pride myself on um I don't always my words sometimes slur but um if you listen to the first and the last thing I say is pretty clear and so uh one of my things is that we have to continue to make sure that people are you know

074we can deliver a lot of information but how they receive it is up to them right and so as long as I'm delivering the information that is you know timely clear concise then that's that's the expectation that I have to bring to the table and that expectation that is followed throughout um the rest of the administration processing procedures that support staff and serving students I think there are some things that we got to correct and I haven't wrapped my brain around all of what that statement could actually mean from from an action step um naturally we've been having conversations around student achievement in our district prior to me I should say well before me um and we have we haven't made the gains that we really want to see across the board now with that

075being stated there's a lot of things that we have to put in place in order for that to happen um day 39 I'm not counting but we are we are here to and I could be wrong about that day I just counted her out there but we are putting some things in place to address some of that achievement conversations and even then today um in the literacy conversation I did bring forth the possibilities that we are making certain gains that we need to report out our story so that everyone can hear it so that's just some of the snapshots that I've been working on but there's a lot more work to be done other board members and questions um thank you for for the presentation and doing the executive summary very helpful I'm looking at

076the longer report on page seven um and I like that it it allows the employee to reflect on um the people I work with accepts accountability they try to understand one another they communicate effectively work to resolve so all of those things is there a place in the exit survey process where an individual is able to be reflective concerning themselves because if you are not in the best situation um sometimes you play a role in that and it it would be helpful to understand like Yep this didn't work out these are the issues that I identified that were external and if I'm being completely honest these are the things I either could have done or did and probably shouldn't have done they could have helped to make this better is there any place um whether

077it's formally written down or if it's through the conversation um we're staff that are exiting have an opportunity to share information like that so from the exit yes there's a number of different places within the exit um surveys and in the conversations so we definitely when we do those exit phone conversations we definitely dig into those items as to what is it you know you know one of the questions I ask is hey if you could go back and change anything what would you change and would that have changed you staying or leaving so those questions are absolutely asked there to tie this back to the engagement survey for a minute one of the things that is available is that there is take action on engagement where you know we actually have the conversations with

078the leader for the area and that's where the leader is saying okay here's my here's my report for my staff and there's it's a essentially a facilitated conversation that says how do we change this because it's not just on the leader right it's also on the staff member to say here's where my hand is in it and here's how we can collaborate together to do that and what we find in those conversations so much of it is a slow start based on a lack of trust so there's a lot of trust building that starts first thank you yep any other board members and I'll ask my question yeah can we go back to this in the slide yeah so one I want to say thank you for the presentation I think that sometimes people might

079not understand what the purpose of this is and like I said sometimes there's information that comes back but um like I said the exit surveys you present at the end of the complete hiring cycle and people coming and going so that happened in September um and then we have this fall in the spring survey I think one of the things that as a board that we are wanting to address like I said is to provide um the educational experiences and outcomes for our students that lead them to where they need to be academically and then also we've made a focus on providing um a great working environment for our staff I think that one of the things so when I when I when I look at the information that that is presented what I look

080at as a board as a board member what are the actions that we can take that will impact some of these things um and I think of like our longest serving board member to date here would be Megan um and she served a full three-year term and re-elected um at some of these issues because I'm a former employee of the school district employee and some of these issues existed before any of these people on this board ever got here so I understand that also um but as I go back and I'm looking and like I said there's a there's you can you can feel that disconnect between maybe what has been done and then where the employees feel it and you'll be looking to see that in the information uh but and it's not that

081I'm trying to explain but I just want to go back over this so in the take action part where it says impact the culture um with instilling and showing staff that the organization thank you for getting bigger is making changes necessary to be uh competitive in the future and so that's board leadership and superintendent stability um just kind of as an example Spencer here has been elected and then re-elected Megan served it three years and then was re-elected Greg was appointed served that time and then was reelected uh board member Winfield um he was elected to the one-year term served as one-year term has decided not to serve again [Music] board member Levy served is finishing her three-year term I'm in my second year three year terms and so I take the time to say

082that to say that our most recent history of school board members is that people have not finished their three-year terms so even though it might not be reflected it's kind of like football if you're a losing team just because you make the playoffs one year people don't consider you to be a winning team all right but those are the things that it might not show up but to me uh part of that board leadership is that we're establishing stability as a board now after you get to that part you know there's other things that we've done to address compensation so can I go ahead yeah thank you so much so I'm going to give again so much of it is reading between the lines and looking really deeply into what the staff comments are what

083the conversations are through the exit so when I when we put board leadership on here it was really looking at things like is the Strategic plan aligned with what staff are saying are the concerns right and so when we look at those two things side by side what staff are saying are their biggest concerns are those reflected in that strategic plan as what what's coming up so that's that's where that came from and then superintendent of course has been the the turnover that has specifically happened at that level and really the changes that happen from you know when a new leader comes in and how that kind of rolls through the organization as far as we're going to change these directives and you know just the the misunderstanding of what's starting what's stopping Etc right

084and so but I want to go back to like this board leadership part because the part of this is politics too these are elected offices and how people respond uh so there's opportunity to say things but again for this board our most recent actions of compensation and like he says alignment or strategic plan we didn't have a strategic plan so we just approved a strategic plan superintendent hired whether people wanted us to hire a superintendent or not we hired a superintendent to address the facts that we've had superintendent turnover and then even as we address the next issue that we're dealing with tonight is referendum planning and finance um just some of the things that have been there like I said in on the superintendent leadership side Dr kieser and his interviewer and superintendent year

085super uh Teresa serving us for the summer Dr Anderson is serving us through the interim period and then Dr Garrison Enterprise stability because he has been meeting our expectations um extended the year that the contract provides and so like I said again I know it's not that hey when we say well these are all the things we're doing to improved the organization that they might not show up but then also too we you know I think the other parts as we continue to work to different parts of the Strategic plan those would be the things that I would look um that now that um as Dr Garrison is here like that last part about clear Direction communication definition and support for where the district is going the Strategic plan is where the district is going

086for people to understand that and for uh the administration and administrators that serve unto him to begin to articulate those points as we're in these meetings and feedback is coming that is what people should understand and that's the direction the district is going and then lastly the processes and procedures that to support the staff in serving the students that is kind of I'm seeing that on the day-to-day process of what uh coming from the superintendent to the other administrators they're in the building with the teachers that that's where that lived experience is so again the reason we continue to ask for this to be done and have partnered is because we do want to hear what people are saying so we can address it and then have some um a chance for adjustment to see

087if things are if things are happening um so I do thank you for the information but those are those are important parts I just want to articulate um kind of in those spaces so when I when I see those things I know that some of those things have been covered and that they're you know the address is there how long like I said has it caught in the organization yet where the organization registers that as this was a problem it's being fixed those are things that we'll continue to look for yeah any other questions board members okay all right thank you thank you so again so as we look at those results I just want to make a summary and wrap-up statement that because we've asked for that result to be uh for the surveys

088to be done and now that Dr Garrison is here he has that information to take with him as he said as he continues to work uh and help us at the board level and the day-to-day operations level to uh we want to have uh different results we want uh to make sure that we've got a thriving organization and overwork towards that all right we are now at employment recommendations a motion may be made to convene the human resource committee into closed session pursuant to section 19.85 parentheses one parenthesis C uh the Wisconsin State statutes relative to considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any Public Employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility is there a motion is there a motion foreign because there is an item I have for

089closed session is um is there a second oh second thank you uh motion by board member Sean Levy second by Megan Miller uh any discussion Mr shop can you give us a roll call please yes Amy Levy I Megan Miller I Juwan Winfield aye Brian Anderson aye Sean Levy aye Greg Schneider aye Spencer Anderson aye motion carried unanimously session oh my God foreign thank you very much thank you anymore experience foreign thank you because sometimes what will happen foreign details but those are garage opportunity foreign thank you things investigations thank you very much foreign before okay foreign you can use it but just over here in this together so you can't compete ers thank you ages for me I trust you for me is foreign here I'm just curious foreign thank you it is is

090you know Joe Smith foreign I hope that we thank you foreign are we all ready and where's Bank okay the human resource committee is reconvened in public session in order to take any action if necessary on items disgusting closed session are there other um questions for items in open or actions to be taken um I have a quick question on exhibit a um is there another teacher ready to step in for the 7th grade ELA at Frozen do we have that covered I apologize but I do not have an answer for that currently okay um and then my other question is I see that we have a special at para that's transferring from even start to Robinson and I know that over the past several years we've had issues with being fully staffed at even

091start um is this a surplus that's going to Robinson does this kind of leave even started a deficiency it's not a surplus however what I can do and research in your previous question and providing you with an answer I can let you know the status of the back filling of the even start rule that's being vacated okay and in the future if that's something that you know you want to make sure we have I'll be more than happy to have that information available during the board meeting thank you of course and then my other question is on exhibit B so if there are any other questions on exhibit a I can heal the floor any other questions on exhibit a okay exhibit B okay um exhibit B thank you for putting those calculations um where

092the public can access them so that is much appreciated um I just had a quick question so it looks well just one thing that kind of confused me and if it confused me it may have confused others is that in the equation it has the last name Dash um but when I initially looked at it it seemed like something should have been subtracted from and then it got odd because it was the last name which I was like well maybe that individual's salary should go there and then you do the calculations um so just to note that the way it was laid out was a bit confusing but I was able to figure it out that it it had nothing to do with the last name and that was a dash and not a minus

093and had nothing to do with the equation um so I just wanted to highlight that but then it got me thinking is that the the amount for the mentorship is seven hundred and fifty dollars and so when it was prorated I thought it was based on the date but as I looked closer at the equation you put in there's eight different people but there's lots of different categories of contract days and so that would make sense for me if you're talking about the difference between like teachers or administrators or secretaries but it seems like there's a lot of people in the same Employment Group but they have a different number of allotted contracted days to be a mentor so I'm just wondering why that difference is there that ties in with the exhibit B the

094effective date of their mentorship to begin and so you'll see you have one that started in November of 2022 but then you have some that are not starting until 125 of 2023 so that's the difference of contract days that they will actually be fulfilling that mentorship role and that could be for any number of reasons when the mentorship begins [Music] and then my other question is we have been told previously that we have an unlimited number of mentors so for example anyone in the district that needs a mentor will find you one and that will be requested that the board approves it but my question is is there a cap on the number of mentees a mentor can have does that make sense yes that makes sense and I am not I don't know if

095we have I have not seen anything to the effect of a cap Missy can you speak more to that and the only reason I thought to ask that is that we have one person down twice and I was thinking oh well how many mentees can you have we I have not seen a cap on any I can just speak to a personal situation I was in I I you know oversee departments that have very few people in them I'll use social workers for example and you'll see we have a lot of new social workers so we have somebody with multiple mentees and the staff member in charge of assigning has always just called me and had a personal conversation to discuss the capacity that the individual can handle sounds I don't know thank you so

096much that's it okay thank you any other questions board members all right is there a motion um yes I move that we approve exhibits A and B without the facilities MEP manager position on exhibit a is there a second okay it's been moved by board member Miller and seconded by board member Schneider is there any discussion hearing none all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye okay emotion passes unanimously going to four a our next meeting date Tuesday February 7th 2023 at 6 30 PM is there a motion for adjournment still moved let's move by board member Miller seconded by board member Spencer Anderson is there any discussion hearing on all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye aye motion passes unanimously all right and now we

097will start we are adjourned and we'll start the business meeting in about four about three minutes all right get ready people we're getting where you started all right I'm gonna call to order the January 17 2023 regular board meeting at 7 35 pm Mrs show can we have a roll call please Joan Winfield Greg Schneider present Megan Miller present Sean Levy present Amy Levy here Spencer Anderson here and Brian Anderson here all members are present foreign before we have our roll call that the Board of Education would like to let our families and viewers know that our regular board meetings are being simultaneously interpreted you can watch the Spanish interpreted meeting through the link found at the Board website under the watch meetings tab with tonight's date in order to accommodate this interpretation we will

098be monitoring the pace of our meeting to allow time for the interpretation and I'd like to remind our board members and other speaking to please speak one at a time thank you so much for your consideration and understanding all right Mrs show could I have a roll we had the roll call all right thank you um the uh is there a motion for the approval of the agenda so move second it's been moved by board member Amy Levy and seconded by board member on Juwan Winfield is there any discussion yes board president Levy would it be possible to move our I'm just trying to be considerate of people's time item seven for the bmhs Academy update could we move that after committee and other board reports I'm just looking at the other items and like

099I don't want to put anybody off but yeah we can do that is that is that okay with our presenters okay okay uh so board member Miller has suggested that we move um the um item seven to after four all right foreign so we have had the motion uh we'll accept that Amendment there uh all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye motion passes unanimously board member Anderson uh Brian Anderson will you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance please I got you pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right all right yeah I'm getting ready to read it here uh Mr Shope do we have public comment this

100evening we do have a few people with us tonight that would like to make public comment all right so a few people in the audience any email is there any email there are no emails no okay you ready for the first person app read our I have to read our numbers first yes all right norms for public comments during board meetings members of the public are welcome to attend all open meetings of the Board of Education Roberts rules of orders will be followed at all times individuals attending board meetings are expected to conduct themselves in a respectful and courteous manner that models appropriate behavior for our students individuals wishing to comment are expected to comply with the following Norms in order to maintain a respectful and ordered meeting and to prevent discussion of confidential matters

101in public in a public forum comments should be directed to members of the Board of Education and not District employees students or other members of the public and attendance at the meeting speech that is belligerent disorderly disruptive repetitive or which exceeds the allowable time permitted for each speaker is prohibited concerns are questions that entail the disclosure of identity 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 not 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 agenda the chair will interrupt and Rule an individual who violates any of these Norms

102out 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 courtesy and you can call the first Speaker up is Devin McIntyre and I think he had to leave all right okay our next speaker is uh Teresa Johnson 20 hours 42 minutes you all are crazy whenever you're ready I messed up this the secret timer thing I hit the wrong button so I have a three minute timer and I'll just give you a wave if you're getting close to time but okay well and Isaac's going to yield his time to me too but I know he knows he needs to come up here and follow protocol yes ma'am thank you at last

103month's meeting I shared with you how I was offered and accepted a Science teaching position last August but had to resign due to the noxious air in the classroom highlighting the sad irony that the school's gymnasium had had high-tech large screens and projectors installed Last Summer during the interview for the position and knowing the subject material was primarily Earth and science Earth and climate science I asked if the classroom had a periodic table no world globes no it hadn't occurred to me to ask if there had been any complaints about the air quality in the classroom that Friday before classes began I met with my fellow team members I was informed we would all be required to teach a section of music class laughably tone deaf I agreed without hesitation figuring I could at least

104teach about the physics of sound and the material materials of different instruments nonetheless it was a challenge all four of us accepted willingly because that's what the teachers of Beloit schools do they prioritize the needs of the students they care about the students as people students today adults tomorrow fellow community members 10 20 years from now recently I ran into one of the team teachers I explained my sudden resignation due to my negative physiological reaction to the putrid classroom air my and my interaction with the administrator the teacher's response was oh yeah that classroom's been like that for years let that sink in four years this District had a 70 million dollar referendum took five six million out of operations to build this building but failed for years fix the HVAC in that classroom it

105is shameful and embarrassing the district has not had the courage to do what is right by its students its teachers and its taxpayers that is prioritize authentic needs over fanciful wants I see nothing in the first phase of the referendum to cover HVAC at middle schools and please recall the middle schools were neglected in the 2012 referendum the second phase of your proposed referendum occurring in November 2024 has no specific indications that these needed improvements will be addressed in the meantime how many educators are you willing to lose between the 2012 referendum dollars the money taken out of operations to pay for this new administration building and the extra covid funds it makes me wonder where has all this money gone really I will however vote in favor of both phase one and phase two

106only when there is a clause that prevents any District of referendum money going for any non-academic purpose until every classroom has adequate HVAC systems the level of respect consideration and value a district and a community puts on its classroom teachers is a direct reflection of how much they actually value their students do better Beloit Isaac Isaac Johnson 1621 Indian Road I yield my time for during the district's 2012 referendum and being a strong advocate for education I kindly suggest you do not have a two-phase referendum especially after the enormous referendum of 2012 which began at 20 million dollars and quickly escalated to over 70 million the citizens of Beloit will not be as charitable especially with the decline in school ratings academic test scores and enrollment have one referendum get it right the first time

107put money into essential classroom needs breathable air para Educators and time for teachers to do their jobs unencumbered from excessive and meaningless meetings begin with adequately Staffing your human resource department so they can help figure out how to recruit and retain quality educators hire Educators with backgrounds in the subject matter they are teaching mind you had I not resigned it's been sent 30 years since my last music class the district has a glut of Administrators and a deficit of classroom educators as a taxpayer I'm wondering why the district needs so many administrative teacher coaches to coach teachers in other words why does the district have so many teachers in need of coaching to justify funding so many teacher coaches shouldn't teachers you approve already be prepared to teach the subject matter the most effective use

108of District funds at this time is improving classroom atmosphere both literally and figuratively and improving academics this will only be achieved when you give the teachers the respect consideration and value they deserve again do better Beloit thank you are there other public comments yes I have one more Brittany keys [Music] excuse me good evening school board members and Dr Garrison my name is Brittany keys I'm a resident in Beloit 1611 East Ridge Road and thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening I'm here to speak towards student safety specifically with commuting to school and getting to and from school activities so whether that's walking biking or driving safely so the three things I'm going to share are a near myth an update and an invitation as well as an ask so my daughter goes

109to Todd Elementary and I am occasionally one of the parents going into the pickup line and I'm also a Prius driver so and I drive like a Prius driver which I'm very thankful for because there was an early out and I was going about 15 miles an hour and the queue was very long because there's no extra school time and as I was looking where I was going to turn around pausing looking to turn an Emerson all of a sudden there's a little kid sprinting out in front of me and I slam on the brakes and thank goodness I really think that there was a larger distance in between me but it's just um a reality check this little one was probably looking to his left there was a queue of big vehicles to his

110right he looked the the road was clear to his left and he couldn't see to his right of what he could see it was clear and he went right after that I was very shooken up my dog was too he flew to the floorboards um he's okay I called the city engineer and shared with the city I was like we have to do better by these kids I don't know that little one but I know he was scared and these kids are all these kids are are need to be supported by everyone in the community and I feel like even that kind of fell short so um I started problem solving brainstorming on what we could do so that comes to the update um one minute left the the update is I have been communicating

111quite a bit with City staff on um how we can improve commuting walking biking and around um and slowing traffic around around the schools um and I've been I've written to the traffic Review Committee written to the state line area transportation I've met with City staff and other community members I'm encouraging them to adapt Vision zero and also look into a crosswalk and Milwaukee Road potentially one that has a flashing sign that the little kid could have pushed the button and then as a driver we could have all seen and stopped and even though I visually couldn't see him on the sidewalk it we could have prevented that because we all want to make sure we're being proactive and investing and protecting our students um uh my final ask is regarding um a little bit

112older with improving access to uh and educating and optimizing safety for our driving students and looking at bringing driver's ed back into the district um and looking at how we can remove barriers to access that education so they can be safe with getting on the road and decrease like I said barriers to school sporting events and even work so if possible I don't know where you are in the timeline but if that'd be an operational cost if somehow we could reflect on how that could be worked into the operational referendum and bringing that back in that would be huge for our students and so I do want to say I greatly appreciate all the staff within the district that I work with and that work with my oh my time okay come on Deb prowse

1132056 Cobblestone Court I used I yield my time um I thought you were just nodding at me president lady I was like thanks yeah um uh and even though my timer says four minutes um so um I do greatly appreciate staff Administration and Leadership and the willingness to consider how to improve safety and resources for our students regarding vision zero I want to expand on that just a little bit that's a program other communities have adapted and this would be asking you to potentially support and collaborate with discussion with the city it's having zero uh deaths related to Vehicles whether pedestrian vehicle bicycle vehicle or vehicle vehicle so I feel like there's a lot of opportunity for leaders of our city to collaborate on problem solving and how to make our roads safer for our

114students whether they're walking biking or driving and so I will email that resource to the board and I greatly thank you again for the time and for the support and um yeah for your leadership and serving the community thank you do we have other public comment okay our student board representative is not here today so we don't have a report so we are now at 3B director facilities board report yeah good evening everyone I hope you're all doing well um I will move fairly quickly through this update please stop me at any time if you have any questions I know we have a pretty full agenda tonight um I don't know if you're going to share the presentation Michelle I'll let you get that cued up no problem great all right so I'll just get

115started first of all my name is Luke Butz the director of facilities I've been with the district for about four years I'm sorry four months now 4C it seems like a great four years so far but four months excuse me so the first thing that I have is an update on our facility study and master planning excuse me what's that start with laughter that's good that's good yes loosen up the room a little bit of course so we are currently um working with cadence Consulting right now um to put out an RFP for architecture firms to start the facilities uh process again and we are currently planning for interviews to take place in February of uh final deliverables are tentatively scheduled for September of 2023 in preparation for a possible 2024 referendum um and um

116we should have more information in the coming weeks about that and a our first draft of an RFP to review with the superintendent here shortly so we've started that process already um something we're also currently working on is our Roofing Asset Management uh we hired facilities engineering who has done work with the district for about 15 to 20 years in the past to complete a full assessment of all of our roofs part of that process is advising on what needs to be replaced district-wide and then also recommending what we can do to prolong the life in a lot of areas of our roofs as well so that we can be the most cost effective with our funds um they have already given us some budget numbers uh the 1.5 million that's included in the April

117referendum recommendation is included in that number and they'll also provide us with more numbers to assist with our Capital plan uh over the next 10 years um something we're also doing is um on July 1st we're going to be implementing a new computer maintenance Management program called the keita box that is going to be much more of an asset based uh program and going to allow our our team to be much more accountable with what we have in the future um part of what is also included with that is a better way to track our financing or the finances spent by the facilities department and also the work requested and just the overall service that we're providing the district in general this includes the rollout of an extensive preventive maintenance program we do have uh

118a very simple preventive maintenance program that we complete now that isn't well documented part of us extending all of our district assets and the life of those assets is really implementing and tracking a very extensive and thorough preventative maintenance program throughout all of our facilities and all of our assets it's also going to assist us with priority prioritizing the replacement of District assets throughout the the buildings as well so I've also met with the uh City of Beloit Parks and Recreation Department they have a new director so we've met and reviewed some old documentation specifically in regards to buildings and grounds and Inter governmental agreements um for instance Telfer Park and some other sports areas that we use now that are a part of the district's overall plan that we're considering to bring Sports back

119to the facilities here or back on the grounds of Beloit Memorial High School in the meantime we're reviewing those agreements that we have and and we'll of course keep the superintendent on the board abreast to all of that as well but that really circles around what type of small Investments can we make in those Parks as our students are using them we want to make sure that we can provide safe athletic fields in the meantime while the district is making some longer term plans for different areas there in regards to Athletics so lastly we are currently reviewing and evaluating all of the bids with Nexus solutions for all of the late Memorial High School HVAC upgrades we received bids last Tuesday and we're going through and vetting all of those bids with the contractors this

120week we should have a recommendation for Award with Nexus probably by the beginning of the following week and we'll be moving forward that project that's already been approved by the board um there was some unfortunate delays throughout this process just giving the current supply chain issues that we have originally this project would have been slated to add the air conditioning and do the upgrades that would hopefully be done at the end of the summer of 2023 unfortunately due to some electrical equipment and some other vital equipment for that project we are now looking at a completion towards the end of the summer of 2024 and that is assuming that we will not have any additional delays for equipment which oftentimes uh comes to the Forefront as we're actually getting to a ship date for a

121lot of these things so we'll of course keep everybody updated in regards to what the actual finish dates of of those projects are but unfortunately they have been pushed back due to things that are out of our control at this time so any questions for me in regards to any of those facilities updates board members uh just uh one question about um so the facility study the master of the facilities plan that we are going to use to help determine um possibilities for capital projects that is alphabet or going out for bid and will probably be placed in February and then the my tongue is tight here the deliverable they for the work would be September correct okay correct yeah we should be reviewing our consultant is working on a first draft of that study

122that I will provide to Dr Garrison and whoever else he would he would share it with probably by the end of this week and that and from there we will be Distributing uh the actual RFP in the next week or two with things to follow then with ultimately having that fully delivered product in September right so then being able to evaluate um possible plans and needs of buildings in September yeah correct and what and what I would recommend that we align that with is shortly before or probably four to six weeks before we receive that final deliverable from the Architecture Firm we would then be engaging with a construction management firm or Com or starting to draft an RFP for a construction management firm because typically a construction management firm would work in conjunction with

123our architect once that deliverable is made from them that's where we can start developing the actual facilities master plan putting budget numbers to those as well because that's a function of a construction manager and not the architect so that we can move forward with possible plans for 2024 or whatever the board and the superintendent decide is is right at that time okay any other questions board members I have one um I see that we're going to implement Akita box on July 1 of this year but will this software package have the capability to manage your project management timelines um no it it is a key to box is mostly a is work order for our facility staff so that's how we track and manage and distribute our work orders and communicate with our stakeholders our

124staff the second large piece of that is asset management that we don't currently do now so you will actually be able to our team will actually be able to pull up floor plans and see all of the assets located within a building and track all of the repairs that are made within those assets tie our invoices to those and and we will tie all of our purchases directly to a work order for accountability in regards to what we're spending our facilities Budget on and then that the also the large piece of that is the preventative maintenance as far as project management goes that as as typically the owners rep in my position would be doing that that would be something that I would be managing myself throughout the process with the help of a construction

125manager once we get to a larger referendum or something that it's to that scale in the future do we have software do you do you see a need to have software is that being tracked with like Excel spreadsheets or I track that I do track a lot of that on Excel spreadsheets with my brief um project involvement that I've had here in the district a lot of it has been fact-finding and pulling information from my predecessor and the different files that we have but that's typically what I would do is is on a project by project basis we keep files of those track costs with a project spreadsheet and then also just your typical documentation that we use in conjunction with our Architects and our engineers and whatnot okay thank you and then what you

126just said actually generated another question with the information that's being tracked in a key to box and and I'm assuming that's you can isolate that per building will we be able to capture other information like building capacity we can but the main function of that is actually going to be coming from the facility study that will be out for RFP so that is a huge part of the and we've done some of that already in preparation for things that are going to be talked about and decided on in regards to the reconfiguration and whatnot that will be in place before this but a large part of that is also included in the facility study which includes capacity and utilization information perfect thank you for providing that context and we do have I mean just to

127just so the board is aware we have we were able to look and find some other older documents that our district have put together before on previous referenda conversations and from different Architects that kind of gave us a good snapshot of building capacity as the building stand right now naturally um Through Time different Architects use different numbers and so we do have a range in which we could possibly work with but that's a great question but remember leaving anything else thank you I just had a question on the intergovernmental agreement with the City of Beloit and I said the agreement was never executed you have 2018 but it was dated in 1998. so it's 20 years old at that point and it we've never been executed between um is that an agreement just for for

128use of a school district assets or property with for the City of Beloit or Park and Recreation or yeah correct it would be any any current agreement or any relationships that we have uh for both sides so anything that the school district uses for the City of Beloit and any properties that the City of Beloit uses or programs that they have on our property I mean the extent of the information that I have is pretty much what you just stated right now um I'm fairly new with the school district obviously and and the new parks and rec uh director is new he reached out to me we're starting the conversations to improve some of that communication improve in what we're doing and really work together between the city and the school for the the overall

129benefit of the entire community so it's just this is just the beginning great thank you thank you okay uh 3C superintendent board report thank you board member um board president Levy um first of all let me just say thank you to uh everyone who is here tonight and of course have participated thus far um it'll be I'll be remiss if I didn't um just say you know of course yesterday we celebrated Martin Luther King day and hopefully you all had the opportunity to partake in some of his uh work and through celebration and or reflection I did some research and I tried to find a couple of his quotes that I thought could be a great starting point for today's conversation and you know naturally Dr King have state a lot of a lot of

130different things and a lot of his statements are um very long in his oratory but one of the statements that he put out that's very short in four words a lot cannot live a lot cannot live and so I thought it would be a very appropriate that we put that conversation into into play um there's some thoughts that um our district has to work through and I believe we have put some things in place where we are addressing some of those lies that have been told to told about the School District of Beloit as the superintendent and working with the board I believe is very important that we put out some of the truths about our school district just as much as we hear about some of the unfortunate lives with that being stated I

131truly believe that um I truly believe that it is our hope that through time um there will be more truths stated about our school district versus some again some of the untold lies from a superintendent support um we I have been feverishly looking for our business services director um since I landed here back in November the 14th over the past month we've had a few conversations with a few folk and we have um started those conversations through interviews I do believe we are almost at the point where we can bring a recommendation to the board for consideration for our business service director we are in the process of checking references at the current time and we'll be bringing that conversation um here in the next few weeks we of course have had some reconfiguration committee

132conversations over the past month as well naturally over December we started the conversation and now of course here in January we are meeting two of three we have come to a lot of consensus around some of the things that the committee has has stated naturally I've reached out to individual board members just you know sharing some information as pertains to the reconfiguration and the committee work that we've been doing and I look forward to Bringing more information to the board um in a full report here in February we have had principal evaluation conversations um we I can honestly say we have conducted all of our principal evaluation conversation that immediate your point that is something that the board has the board has talked about and making sure that we want to make sure that we

133want to make sure that all of our evaluations are done not only just with principles but also at my level from the district administrator we've all had conversations around EE and so the board have had conversations about me naturally from me perspective I have also had conversations with all of our principals and so the next phase for us is to of course upload certain information into the front line platform we have continued continuous staff meetings of course that address some of the referenda conversations I have since I've started this conversation um here we've had numerous conversations around our referenda along with some of our reconfiguration as stated but when we came back in here in January I thought it was very important that I actually started going to all of the staff meetings and addressing

134the staff as it pertains to some of the things that we're working towards I know there was no decisions have been made on a lot of things but I do believe it's very important that people hear the correct information so on Tuesday January 3rd I was at Robinson January 4th I was at McNeil January 5th at Beloit Memorial on January 10th even start Converse Elementary January 11 hack it January 12th at Gaston January 23rd I will be going to Cunningham and so there's a list of people and list of schools that I will have to still get to yet naturally as it pertains to my my calendar and schedule there's never a I can say another adult moment we also have some Community um conversations that we'll start to have as it pertains to kind

135of where we are right now I've tentatively started to schedule or some future conversations February the 15th with the Beloit Public Library board the gbedc board on March the 8th on March tonight the greater Beloit chamber State Line Boys and Girls Club on March 15 and so forth and so the reason why I'm sharing this if I'm working with you is because although we are moving towards a conversation there's future thoughts that we have to keep moving towards and so that is part of my responsibility as a district administrator to make sure this work continues naturally I've also had conversations with the community at large and over this past week after I had the opportunity to work with Cindy Lottie over at even start I'm Dr Cole right across the street over at Lincoln Academy

136Cecilia Denver I'm over a head start as well um Scott Biermann the president of um president of Beloit College thank you Floyd Cottage and I've also heard a conversation with our wac representative and ex-employee Kurt um Hendrick Hendrick thank you Cat cringers and so those are just some of the um reports that I have for from the superintendent and again thank you or for allowing me this time any questions for Dr Garrison okay thank you we're now into committee and other board reports um business operations and finance I have nothing new to report out teaching learning equity and pupil Services committee hi yeah this evening we met at 5 30 and we had a very thorough wonderful update about our Arc literacy curriculum and its impact for K-5 and our springboard literacy pieces through 612.

137just a couple highlights things that popped out to me is kind of exciting is just an emphasis on our K-5 as having an individualized approach to literacy which is uh just an exceptional undertaking for a large district-like ours and it sounds like it's going very well I'd like to also call out that our data last this time last year in January for proficiency for K-5 was at 24 but it has grown already this year to 34 which is just a hair below the 35 percent goal that we have for the end of this year so continuing on at that rigor through the end of the school year hopefully will hit that 35 Mark um and it was shared out like that next year's goal will be to hit 45 Proficiency in the filing year would

138be 55 proficiency which um as we're changing culture and practice like are very reasonable um and exciting I think benchmarks to see uh going on and then just looking into a couple other things I wanted to highlight that I thought were pretty awesome I'm just seeing action plans for each School informed by that local data it sounds like there's been a lot of item analysis and deep dives into exactly what not only academic supports are necessary but also like just test taking skills are necessary with some of the pre-act that we just kicked off this year and I just also wanted to kind of lift up that we heard about just the focus on the importance of creating and cultivating Legacy systems and structures so all of these things were very exciting for me and

139I wanted to take the time to share those out but I would encourage anybody who missed that committee meeting to go back and watch the presentation I thought was outstanding to any board members have any questions on any of those items all right thank you very much the governor's committee did not meet in December we will be meeting in January when we meet in January we will address areas kind of like we said we use our governance meeting to get topics out and kind of keep us focused and aligned with our work with the key worker school boards and the Wisconsin Association of school boards the annual development tool and we'll be talking about aligning some work and some things to be done to our strategic plan when we do meet in governance in January

140D legislative update a legislative update is attached um but the Highlight there is that just to let everyone know that new education committees for both the assembly and the Senate have been established however there are currently no items in either committee and no committee meeting scheduled for the month of January the policy committee will meet next on Wednesday February 1st at 5 30. all right are we to uh yep seven which we moved up uh bmhs Academy update good evening and thank you for allowing us time here with you this evening to talk about our Academy structure at Wood Memorial High School I'm Emily pelz the principal at Beloit Memorial High School and with me tonight I have Deb prowse who is our Career Academy coach in Monica christopa who is chief of communications um

141and so um to start off I'd just like to say that um The Academy system at White Memorial High School is a community connected approach to transforming the high school experience together with our community for our students so that we can ensure that they graduate from high school college career and Community ready okay and so as we move forward through the presentation it's really important to remind ourselves and Center ourself in the why for the work that we're doing with the academy system and again it is all centered around our students and doing what's right for students and ensuring that they have every opportunity to excel in this district and at Beloit Memorial High School this means in the classroom this means in the community and then beyond all of this work is really grounded

142in ensuring that students have rigorous relevant experiences that expand relationships and their readiness um and ultimately what we would what we want to see through the academy model is that students are graduating college and career ready through career exposure and relevant learning opportunities um so that students really have true and authentic opportunities to discover their talents and their passion while earning college credits and Industry certifications and through the academy model we expect to see increased academic achievement improve preparation for college career and life development of those 21st century skills those soft skills that you know will get them ahead especially in a career industry certifications and college credits earned increase earning potential as well as improved graduation rates good evening thanks for allowing me to speak a little bit about the portrait of a graduate

143I've been before the board numerous times you know the work that went into it but we didn't just want it to be an infographic we wanted to be a living breathing accomplishments of our students so this year there was a true commitment in working with our Community Partners talking about that portrait of a graduate in those skill sets one of the ways you're going to see how this really came to fruition was with our Craftsman with character program and board member Winfield I know you know of that so Deb will be talking a little bit more about that but know that all Communications that come out about the academies are tied around our portrait of a graduate through our curriculum through our correspondence and through our meetings with our Community Partners all right went too

144far all right so I get to talk about some of the fun stuff that's been going on and some of the really cool things that our students have been able to do so everything though that I'm doing is centered around students and their experiences and getting them prepared for whatever they choose as they move forward outside of high school these pictures just represent some of the activities that our students have done so you see some students in our Craftsman's character program at CCI you see some of our finance students talking to students at Frozen about personal finance you see some of our students who are interested in nursing attending University of Wisconsin Wright County to learn more about their nursing program which really is a cool program that just started where it's in connection with

145Edgewood College so students can actually go to urac for the first two years urac tuition earn their way into the Edgewood program take all of their nursing programs for a bachelor's degree in nursing at you rock from edu Edgewood professors and they actually get a they pay far less in tuition 500 per credit versus fourteen or fifteen hundred dollars per credit and they can get a Bachelor of Science in nursing from Edgewood through urac so there's some really cool things they've also gone to Blackhawk Tech and we'll be visiting some of the programs that they have there and not only nursing but sonography and stuff like that so we've got a variety of things going on in these pictures but I thought it was just kind of nice to see our students out and about

146they're excited to be out and about in the community and being able to kind of get in and do things so uh you'll notice that I've got six uh comments in here from from different students along the way on this first page curtes was one of our students in Craftsman with character he is really excited about the connections he made and the people that he uh met along the way and some of the adults that he was mentored by in the different facilities that he was in he's also one that went now I know how now I know why I'm supposed to learn fractions Miss prowess and it was it was really kind of cool that he had that experience Amory has been active in our construction program and she thought she knew what she

147wanted to do until she got into our construction program and now she's really decided what she wants to do she wants to be a tech ed teacher I said come back in four years so um Amy's excited about that as well Dustin was another student in our Craftsman with character program whereas Cortez wants to own his own business and maybe use some of the things he learned in Craftsman as far as in the business that he starts Dustin has decided I want to be a welder I love welding I I like being creative about it and he was able to get a lot of exposure he's actually got several different offers for youth apprenticeships because of this and because of his interest in that Mason is one of our youth apprentices right now at Frito-Lay

148and Mason is uh he described it as life-changing and for me that was that was I was glad I was sitting down because to hear his story and and I tell it in this quote I don't want to read every quote to you but it was really important to his family that he had this opportunity so it was it was a really cool conversation I had when I spoke with him Blake Greenwell is also one of our youth apprentices and he is at the Morris group and at the Morris group he also um was he commented about how much does this changed his life and he wasn't quite sure that he would have you know gotten the experiences that he he has gotten because of that but he really wanted to point out that what

149he's learned most at his experience in at the Mars group is nobody knows everything but when you're working together together you can accomplish anything and I think that that's kind of what we're talking about here in our community as well none of us can do this alone but together we can do a lot so it was just a really cool statement by Blake as well and then Anna Ann is just this amazing kid that wants to try everything and that's what she says she's gotten out of the academies is she's she's learned about all these opportunities and she'll try everything and every time she tries something she learns something new and she she considers other things so she's taken construction classes and business classes and Entrepreneurship classes and all of these things and now she

150thinks she wants to be a sonographer but she's had all of these opportunities to explore and she's got purpose to what she's doing which to me is really important for our kids to have and for them to have it before they leave and to be able to walk out with some idea of what they want to do or don't want to do because I've got students who decided they do not want to be construction because they don't want to work outside and I have to move on so sorry I get excited about that oh we have two minutes all right I am gonna hustle then three eyes in our academies in our small learning communities of if we take away anything from that it's a small learning communities because as teachers then we get to

151talk about our students in smaller groups and through those three eyes we talk about an identity we want our students to feel like they belong somewhere we talk about intervention because if students leave us and they can't read and they can't do math they can't do much so we have to raise that bar and we have to make sure that when our students are struggling we know how to intervene and what we can do to make things better and then the last is is interdisciplinary because we want teachers to teach through the lens and then move Beyond but right now we're really focusing on teaching through the lens there's our academies you've seen those before I'll get out of the way and certainly the work that we've done around our Academy model has been a

152journey it will continue to be a journey um but we're thankful because we have a partnership with Ford NGL who offers a framework for us to operate under as we work through our Academy implementation what's really nice about having a framework is that it allows us to develop the academy structure to fit our students needs and the needs of our community so quickly where we've been all started in an explore phase where we formed an academy implementation team we participated in A needs assessment to really gauge if the community was ready to engage in this work then moving on to the next phase this is the phase where we really worked on developing those governance structures both in the district and in the community so we developed a partnership with the gbedc is our convening

153organization this is where we developed our portrait of a graduate and you know very thankful for all who participated in that work and then we established our steering committee and then the next part of the phase phase three is you know a big portion of the planning so we continue to work with our steering committee to define the roles and responsibilities of what that committee would be overseeing we developed our tactical teams and this is where we really engaged in the master planning for the academies um we also worked here to really refine our Partnerships with the community with our business partners and with higher ed Institutes and phase four which is the phase that we're in now so um so far we've worked really hard to intentionally Implement um wall-to-wall academies meaning that all

154teachers are designated to an academy all students are designated to an academy teachers teach the majority of their classes within their Academy their class room makeup their student makeup is at least 80 percent of students in their Academy and students are taking at least 50 percent of their classes in their schedule also within their Academy um we continue to expand work-based learning opportunities that are aligned with our bmhs Career Academy so we have always offered a lot of work-based learning opportunities for our students but through our Academy structure we're really able to focus and funnel students into relevant learning experiences that are work-based learning experiences that meet the interests of the academies that they're in um yep and that's what I just mentioned there so really briefly oh go ahead I just have one additional

155comment we are having our designation day and board member Schneider as a member of the committee will be helping us give Awards out and that's February 2nd there was some changeover in leadership not only in the city but the gbedc and ourselves so the steering committee will be reconvening in April with those leaders being a part of that and they review to the master plan and add feedback and input to that so the steering committee is in existence there's just a little pause but again you have a board member who's represented on that committee is where as well to share that news okay and then real quickly where we're headed um so like Monica just mentioned we're getting ready to celebrate and designate our master plan um Miss Pros is working on refining our Pathways

156and developing a line graduation plans for students she's working very closely with Workforce Development data with the community with post-secondary Partners on that work and then she'll be bringing that work to our staff to work closely with them as well we are in the process of organizing scaffolded work-based learning experiences and then developing a tracking system so that we can ensure that all students participate in those experiences we're always working to get better at our practices in our small learning communities so that we can Elevate the focus on building identity in our academies and primarily increasing student achieve movement we're in the process of developing a data dashboard to monitor the outcomes of our Academy implementation that work is well underway and we're also working on identifying essential components of what a senior portfolio May

157encompass and then some celebrations quickly to share with you that we attribute some of this work to so our attendance rates well they're not exactly where we want them to be yet they are on a positive trajectory up which is really great the number of students we have on track for graduation is increasing so that means a decline in our failure rates and an increase in our gpas um something we're very proud of specific to CTE is that the district has outpaced the state in providing work-based learning opportunities for our students with a 9.8 with 9.8 percent of our students participating in these opportunities compared to 3.4 percent across the state um and um we're working on increasing the number of students who are earning industry credentials um we we already know that within our

158welding program we're going to far exceed what we did last year and um I think that that takes care of it for now so thank you very much for allowing us the time to present this to you and we'll open up for any questions if you have any I know we're in a time limit or members have questions I just had a quick one if that's okay with Megan sorry well actually one of my questions was going to be if our industry recognized credential rates had increased so thank you for calling that out and just for like my colleagues on the board who may not know that there's act 59 dollars attached to that so for every student who completes an industry recognized credential or certification we get like a kickback from DPI up to

159a thousand dollars per student which then funds the program so I just thank you for doing such a great job incorporating that into our academies I was curious I love that there's a data dashboard is that going to include Clearinghouse data about kids who complete like post um I guess does that only track like four-year completion or are there associate degrees like tracked and all that wonderfulness on the data dashboard so we haven't worked out all of those details currently those are something that we're working on that and how we can get that information readily to put it or input it into our dashboard but yes we certainly want to track post-secondary outcomes for sure no I think that's awesome and thank you for such a great presentation and for the work that you're doing

160thank you I'll do my best to be brief um and I think you may have answered the question but I just want to clarify but before I ask thank you for pulling together this presentation I loved hearing about the students experience and how impactful it was um not just to them but to their families so that's always awesome um so my question is if I am passionate in science and business but I have to commit to one Academy that's what I initially thought but then you said at least 50 of your classes need to be in one Academy so you can have that crossover is that accurate absolutely we never want to limit any experiences or opportunities for students the academies just allows an opportunity for students to really focus on the things that they

161are very interested in perfect thank you so much other board members with questions or no question just a couple of comments if that's okay president maybe have your way thank you sir appreciate it I just want to give thanks to um to you guys it hasn't been a Winfield that came through to high school that um wasn't appreciative to the staff so secondly my daughter was a part of the craftsmanship the only girl I'm trying to say that um three times um Trinity was different and I think um I think that Miss prowson and what she done with their program really brought something out of her so I really appreciate that because it was different to see her go do something she did not like to do um and it brought me to a place

162as my 43 years of living where I've had six children and they're all been great but this one is special because he's willing to go through the trouble so I just want to commend you guys on that I'm proud of the program I'm really looking forward to be Nationwide and before but late to be the front order of that so keep up the good work just to comment on that we do have a video that will be coming out soon that just highlights our students and here they they get to share with that but then Houston the entire city of Houston's looking at this Beloit Kansas is looking at this there's there's cities in Michigan I get calls regularly asking about this program so it's it's really cool and some of the other things we

163have local districts saying wait you guys are doing what so it's really kind of cool because we get to share with what we're doing because it really is good for all kids and that's all that's pretty awesome all right we'll have uh greater opportunities in the future to discuss more at length uh but thank you for your work with the academies at bullet Memorial High School all right so we are now to six um I'm fairly okay no five consent agenda um uh consent agenda is there anything that any board member like pulled off to consent agenda so here's the thing I don't need it removed which would require a separate vote but I do have a question um about the Open Enrollment seat allocation okay all right um so my first question is I'm

164curious how does this process of designating spaces for annual open enrollment allocations change if we are close to or at capacity so basically the state requires that we set aside seats for open enrollment during this time period of like um February 6 to April 28th um I I can take that offline somebody can send me an email because I know we are explaining it just go for it now oh no no no I'm just wondering how that like now we're fine come on up Mrs beavers um because we're not at or near capacity so we're gonna hopefully vote to accept anyone who applies but I'm just curious and it you can answer this offline how that process changes if we are near or at capacity you kind of answered your own question but DPI does

165give guide what you said about currently the situation with the school district apply DPI gives guidance on a formula you can use should you go to that route perfect um and then my next question I believe this is my last one is that the regular open enrollment application period for the upcoming school year so 2324 is like I said February 6 to April 28th is there like a special open enrollment period for students that fall outside of that window um or does it just not require allocation of seats if you're outside of that window so there's an alternate window which would fall outside of those dates they have to fill out an alternate application and then their the allocation of seats that you would be voting on tonight would not apply got it thank you

166just in one question I know we're also too in districts where if we had limited size in our special education program we would designate by the different programs we offer and how many seats are available in each correct all right but we're open we're taking students what we're saying yeah all right okay uh any other questions about the consent agenda items board members all right is there a motion I like to move that we approve the consent agenda second then moved by board member Miller seconded by board member Amy Levy is there any discussion hearing on all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye aye aye motion passes unanimously all right um that is that's what that means yeah all right uh 6A referenda so um first of all thank you board for

167this additional conversation um as we retaining to our referenda we've been having conversations I stated in my superintendent's report around referenda over the past um few months here I think that we are nearing uh closer conversations as it pertains to the will of the board um from the aspect of different options different questions that we have to kind of move through for your approval with that being stated I do believe that in our last conversation as I just kind of kick off this conversation a little bit here um the board had um had a I should say flavor what's the word I'm looking for how to how to what's the word I'm looking for Miss Levy no it's one word um I want a different additional information as it pertains to other possibilities um we

168were at the time not prepared to you know give that information because that's not what we had prepared for um however um we had some time over this past week to drop a different option that the board had uh mentioned um as it pertains to an additional year in our operational question conversation with that being said we do have Lisa voice in here with us and of course Kevin Mullen I'm from Barrett along with Mr Duff to present the um information that was shared over the weekend or and then and also in your board report and they will kind of give us an overview of this slide here as it pertains to additional information that you all requested and then I'll turn it back over to um what president Levy for additional questions um when

169needed great to be back in person thank you um and we saved the best for last right um okay so again I'm Lisa voyson from Robert W Baird we've been helping the district along the way as they make some decisions and this is kind of the last meeting and hopefully you've gotten all of the information uh and well educated on what an operating referendum is we've talked a lot about that but we really have come down to two options first what you're going to see on this report is nothing about question one question one will be the 19 and a half million dollar facilities question that is taken care of it is in the resolution it will go alongside of either question 2 will be either option one or option two okay so we're all

170clear on that I'm not going to talk about the facilities I'm going to talk about the operational referendum questions okay so you have seen option one operational referendum question which is a one-year ask for 14 million dollars that's nothing has changed in that one we're looking at about the same tax impact taxes as you everyone in the community has seen last year it will be about the same uh this next year if we go with option one again buys this time it's a bridge to when we can get more information to possibly go back for uh other another referendum uh in November of 24. one year so that so then we talked about at the last meeting what if we went an additional year so two years what if we asked taxpayers for additional taxes

171not only 14 million dollars in year one but nine million dollars in here too what we did is we kind of crunched the numbers and said keeping that tax level that was the whole the idea along with keeping that which is on page two the um sustaining that current programming and replenishing the fund balance so essentially the same use of funds As We Know It uh now but we're having that second year it gives us the opportunity to even wait longer if needed to go to referendum so if we needed extra time in addition to 18 months if we wanted two full years uh we could we could do that or we could go in 18 months so we just talked briefly um it doesn't necessarily have to wait until 2025 for that option too

172so you could go a little bit earlier and what we would do is layer so say we have question say we go with option two the first year we Levy 14 million the second year we level Levy 9 million we could go to referendum and layer something on top of that 9 million if you found you need it for your strategic plan initiatives because that's really the goal the goal is let's fund our strategic plan initiatives along with the other initiatives that you have on that second page so is is that did that describe what we're talking about sufficiently what I'll take a pause and see if there's questions right so I'll before we kind of start talking what I'll say is that you know we had a conversation today we had five board members

173so we had a conversation we kind of came to a consensus on where some things were at but we wanted to see uh with a one-year option and a two-year option because we recognize that some things would change like I said over the weeks we've had multiple conversations and so even as we kind of ask questions or go back and forth uh what I'd like us to do during this conversation is you know kick the tires on one year two year have that understanding of that since we already had got to Capital situation out of the way but then kick the tires on the one year two year kind of come to our consensus again and then make our resolution towards what it is that we're going to do uh because we have agreed that

174we're going to do something and I think where we where we left was just wanting all board members to have input um and just to kind of talk our way through what might be necessary or the benefits of doing one or the other and with that we'll start with board member Levy thank you for president Levy um so quick question and a super brief statement that Mill okay so for option one remind me again of where that would place our mill rate for the the one-year non-recurring currently your mill rate for 22.23 which is the Year we're in is 4.78 478 yeah so actually one would keep it the same yep for 23.24 it would be 4.78 option one to be determined for the following year because we don't we don't have it right and

175then the same question for option two so are you saying that that it would be 478 for the upcoming year would be our mill rate with option two and then that following year it would remain at 478. so the best of our knowledge got it knowing we don't have a state budget right now we're doing the best with what we have could be lower could be higher so my super brief statement and then I'll yield the floor um I was the main one that was pushing to have a second year in the non-recurring referendum and the rationale for me behind that was it's not either or it's both and we need to go to referendum because we need additional capital in our district but we also need to find areas where we can reduce our

176spending in the district and some of those things are timed um and so once we we know that we need to make certain adjustments they cannot contractually be made immediately so the two years gives us more time to definitely make those changes but still bring in the capital we need to execute our strategic plan um to supplement things that are already happening in the building and to replenish our fund balance um other board members um not really a question but I guess I just want to clarify I mean a lot of like the operational stuff that we're asking for isn't like a Hoodwink kind of situation it's like to continue funding things that we are funding and I guess I've just um want to make that clear because like as we're looking at these numbers

177like the 14 million and like the 9 million that's to sustain the work that we're doing and so I just kind of building off of what board member Levy just said we want to continue to fund operation of what we are doing while we look at like right sizing pieces and consider necessary you know potential cuts and things like that so it is like a balanced approach and so to that end I I liked I was I came last week honestly prepared to vote for the resolution as stated for the one-year bridge I really like what board member Levy had to say about giving us some time to actually show that we can be effective with those dollars like we just heard for example not to go too far off tangent but at our committee

178meeting we just talked about like literacy Improvement and how you know things go you know we might see a spike and then just a little you know sometimes you plateau a little bit and then it's like tiptoe up and then Spike and you know how progress is messy so since we are results oriented data-driven District you know we might want to give ourselves that extra year to show our community like thank you for continuing to invest in in sustaining what we're already doing and here's the progress we've been able to make in two years so again I really like both options I think that that point I just made is why um I appreciate so much you putting together that option too and just again to emphasize what board member Levy said these are all

179things happening kind of in tandem with like looking at that right sizing element as well so I appreciate that both are very balanced approaches other board members yeah I guess I would just say that you know I don't disagree with what that second year option accomplishes right it gives you that gives you a little farther Runway right to do some of those things and I guess I guess my pushback on that would be you know I think we need we need to recognize the need for more immediate action and I think I think under a one a one-year option your next kick at that is still 18 months away and if we can't show results in 18 months I think we I think we risk going in front of the public and saying hey we

180want two years worth of money we don't know what we're going to spend year two money on quite yet but you know we're going to have a plan for it and I think we risk disenfranchising some of the voters to say well you know proof is in the pudding show us what we're doing for Year One and I think that puts us in a better position to ask for money in November of 2024. may I ask a clarifying question yeah this is our discussion because they've given us the numbers so Brian do you see it a difference in asking for two years amount up front or what you just said asking again that second year for an amount and then the only thing that I would add just so we're all on the same page

181our largest expense um our human resource not the human resources department but our our human resources which are hugely valuable and and contractually we can't make immediate changes to that largest expense it's something that you got to give notice and time Etc um so I just wanted to to add that point to the conversation no that's a good point I recognize that and I think we've already started to do some of the pre-work that's going to get us to that situation so I I don't mean to say that you know we can walk and chew gum at the same time and we're doing it so you know credit to the to the rest of the board for that as well but I think we can still say here's here's our plan because unfortunately right now

182we don't have enough Runway before we're going to ask voters to vote in April to say here's the 112 different ways we're going to spend the money reduce expenses you know kind of the whole plan we just we just don't have enough time to do that we we have an idea of what we're going to do um and when you talk about you know this human this human capital aspect of it that's our biggest expense we may not be able to execute on whatever that plant looks like by this by the second ask but we could say we know what we're going to do and now we've got to wait that timeline out so I think again it's not about executing it on time but it's about convincing people that were being good stewards of

183the funds so that's where I'm that's just where I'm coming from but all perfect points did you have a I had a question for Dr Garrison um so to board member Anderson's point we talk about like making sure that we know where funds are going I recall seeing a list of operational pieces and I think some of them are one in two year so Dr Garrison because I don't want to you know Dr Garrison would you say from an administrative standpoint are you clear on where like those second year funds largely would go and if so are they in line with the documentation we've already been presented so the second year funds as has been since we have to draw up this you know second year opportunity here we will want to keep it in

184the same bucket as our sustaining current program around social emotional behavior and academic achievement and because we couldn't we wouldn't how can I say we wouldn't just make it up as it pertains to where the month funds would go we will keep it in that bucket around um student achievement that's the that's where we would keep that money flowing for the second part of year two Okay add something there is also discussion on the board to try and get our fund balance to 20 percent so the ball a good chunk of that 9 million would get it to the twenty percent um goal uh for fund balance because we were only going to get to the minimum of 14 with the option one this would get us to the 20 which is kind of the

185generalized goal and then the additional 3 million it gives us uh there will be another round of curriculum purchases for the next year that is on you know the funding is unidentified uh and then the other thing that from a business manager's point of view we have this huge Ester Cliff coming and this kind of gives us a little bit of cushion for that unknown uh expiration of the Esser funding in that year one last thing I will add and I know I think I talked about this before but remember that second year 9 million if the state comes through with what the DPI is recommending in terms of funding for schools if you guys you know cut expenses because you're resizing your District or right sizing your District all of those things that kind

186of line up and we get to the fall of 24 and now it's time to Levy that second nine that second year you don't have to Levy the full amount correct so we'll be able to shake it out and really have a better picture when it comes to October of 24. right now this is what we know based on what we know which is you know what we have pretty good but not great are you speaking to one year or two years now this is the two years so on that second year even the first year you wouldn't have to Levy the full amount and some districts don't this is our best estimate of what the needs are right now so when it comes to I guess like so for me like I feel like

187I see what you're saying that there's not like we haven't had said year two this is what we're spending on but it was my understanding that we were going to continue to fund that list of you know like kind of those at like Dr Garrison said like the and that's why I wanted to confirm that academic and social emotional peace right and then it sounds like um for me as you know just in my own personal life I like to be proactive when I put so if I know like man I got a pay cut coming you know in two years like I want to make sure I have some wiggle room and it sounds like that nine million dollars could be our wiggle room to avoid having to take some drastic I just don't

188like acting with urgency so I kind of like having that extra length of rope to work with and it I appreciate two that you pointed out I don't think we're in any position where like if if we're good and Joint finance committee acts differently than it has for the last 10 years and we can like fully fund special ed for example and things like that then cool let's let's not worry about that 9 million then so that's kind of where I'm at all right my board member Spencer Anderson is that you were trying to get in earlier um so I was unable to attend uh when you guys are talking about this but my main question would be is that the committee that was brought this to us the different options um they presented originally

189as a one-year um what do you think they would have thought like how would things change if we they presented as a two-year um how would their viewpoints have changed possibly so at the current last as stated from the last conversation with the ad hoc Committee of course we make a recommendation to the board um that's what we did we made a recommendation to the board based off of the Adcock committee's conversation and the one-year information that was presented over the past um conversations here at the board level the board then of course like you all have the opportunity to weigh in on that and make changes to the recommendation and so um naturally I couldn't I can't move this back forward to the committee until at hot Community I should say until the board

190decides on what direction they want to go in and then I can go back to Alchemy and let them know this is the direction that the board is going in the group itself um was an agreement that we should go to overall should go to referenda and I say referendum because it was two questions that they both had agreed to one of the things I would add like to your question board member Anderson is that you know as seven board members and we have been receiving you know the business operations Finance reports and everything else like that I think it was it I say it was clear to me um that we would need to take a step towards a referendum and part of our goal in in providing that information and asking the ad

191hoc committee to come together was to get the conversation beyond the seven of us of other people who live in Beloit have vested interests them having the same access to the information that we had at the same time and like you said because of where we're where we are at that you know our goals shifted when we had to hire a superintendent and our facility study didn't come through um that you know we've gotten to the conversation as quickly as we could but they've had the opportunity to examine the same financials uh understand the same things about referendum where our fund balance is and their suggestion to us is yep you should ask for money because you need it um and I think like I said that their conception was you're going to have a

192two you know it's probably gonna have to do it in two steps because there's some pieces that we're looking for that we don't have all of it together so like I said receiving that recommendation it's an advisory recommendation but I think like not not I just come back to us to stop and ask these questions about one year versus two is just a space where you know as all of us are weighing in together um that because we've already voted that we're gonna ask a question we've crafted one but just again now as we get ready to make this you know as we come in consensus um that you know we might end up exactly where the committee was but the Committees like asked for the money and um you know address the needs that

193are there and then we're just I think right now where we're at is having received their recommendations trying to make sure that we the seven of us are in agreement and comment what we think is the best ass for where we're at the first opportunity is April 2023 and I've kind of said this is that you know it's possible that these things these actions could have been taking place a year or two before now um if people are looking at the financials and so I think we needed money yesterday we need money today and we're going to ask for it and if you don't give it to us we're still going to have to ask for it again on the 20 you know in 2024 and so as we look at where we're at with

194this one year two year and there's some variables that we could you know kind of change and put things in different place but just you know what's going to give us the greatest amount of stability and then able to take the next step because if we like says we continue to have to ask or go to the public for a Next Step you know I think um like earlier tonight there was a conversation about don't ask twice well we have to ask now because this is our only opportunity to ask and because we have to ask now that means we're going to have to ask twice um you know as an example um with some of our Esser funding you know we had our graduation in the um at Memorial and because the weather was

195indoor but that was before the Acoustics and the audio visual were together and that was less than the quality experience we want to provide for our graduates so that has been addressed but of course there's HVAC stuff that hadn't been done yet and that was teed up and so we've got some HVAC projects that were assigned but it won't be asked this question we'll be able to move some funds and have even more of our Esser funds to address other areas so I think that like that's the part that we're trying to get to is like what's the best use what's the best ass that we make uh for our community because we might have to ask them to take another step but you know controlling you know what do you ask for now to

196make sure that you we've provided disability we're seeking to provide and the fact that you know there is a Time Factor there and what does that mean so I mean but like I said you know the option what they gave us was I would just acknowledge that part of the answer that we were given is based on like there's parts that they didn't know and we just you know couldn't provide at the time and even it just goes from do you need to ask for a referendum to do you need two questions you need one and we're narrowing in on that conversation and we know tonight we have to make a decision so we can make our timelines just things to think about board member Winfield um uh there was just a second question I

197had for you and then I'll like I'm good but um my next question though is because like well the only reason I brought up on what they would potentially be thinking for the uh for the group that brought this Forest to us is that how much harder is it going to actually achieve that ass that we're doing for two years instead of one year because they're probably like like Brian said they're looking at the commitment level of it they're like okay we want you to like we'll give you this one year opportunity we want to see that change something happening and then like then ask for more because then they can actually be like okay there's something physical tangible there that's actually going on so my question would be is how much harder for option

198two would it be to actually achieve that yeah I would say like one of the things that I'm thinking about as we just kind of fits into the whole conversation though is like um one of the questions I do remember is like hey what is our number like what do we need and that's that was one of the things I think that has been was hard to nail down in the first presentation even as we go here because you know the variables of what you know we're asking you know the governor hasn't come out yet with his preliminary budget that's february-ish we haven't come out with our January what we're hoping to be our interim budget in June and then what the the state government actually decides around July 1 and then what we actually

199do October 10th so all those other question marks are there so when we get back to like what do we need that's you know that's still a question one of the other things I'll say is that as we've talked to this um that you know we have already taken actions on administrative contracts uh and preventing rollovers and issuing one year uh to administrators so we're not so far stretched out in our commitments um the reconfiguration conversations are um are in process and that's going to yield a different result than the number of buildings that we have um then we get to that right sizing conversation about if we've got roughly 850 employees we've lost 25 percent of our students we need less employees and so at the same point in time where we're having a

200camp information campaign to explain whatever we decide tonight while we're asking for that in February March and then the voters are going to vote in April but we will have been taking these simultaneous actions in February and March where we have made decisions because there were this many schools now there's x amount of schools which is different than what we started with so I think that that part is going to be demonstrated along the way that people can see we're taking actions um and so I mean that I mean I think like that's that's that first part about where they're at and what they're going to see um the biggest thing that I'm thinking about right now too is one I know because we've taken out a fund balance for two years like as long

201as that we adequately restore that fund balance or have that that space um I know like I said this first one gives us the 14. I mean there's another way to get to 20 uh versus where we're at and that's something we can discuss also but um having to go into fund balance twice and like I said I don't think we'll be there again because we're going to make other changes but those are you know just those concerns because like I said and I guess also too I'll just say like the organizational stress um as Luke shared with us that you know they're going to have the facility master plan and hopefully that'll be received to us in September that just means like in September we'll be making these types of decisions again in that

202compressed timeline um because you know we're trying to get ready for November or I mean it's just the asking time so I'm just thinking about the the organizational stress to kind of provide a relief for the people in the organization to feel like okay something's been adequately handled and it's not just like well you just missed and it's coming back around that swing but I understand what you're saying about the urgency of now to don't want to delay also so there's a question there for member Schneider there are pros and cons to both the one year and the two-year but the one thing that I'm continually hearing from everybody is looking for stability and trying to maintain stability and going with the two-year option would be showing the community that that the mill rate is

203going to be consistent for two years after that there's a change especially with the understanding that if things go the state really comes out and and does some great things that we don't need to ask for that that much money the second year um because we don't know what's happening but it does give us that Authority or that ability to maintain some stability in the mill rate as well as the time we need maybe to um put together a very detailed plan of what we're doing next based on where we are at that time board member one field you had thank you so much I just I just wanted to thank you guys for presenting this um as a community member I was here at the I was part of the not part of it

204I voted for the first referendum with not all of the information like this and I just want to appreciate this the fact that you're giving me two options uh what I've heard everybody say what's really it's playing in my head it's time time time um just thinking I was at a barber shop this weekend and I was discussing as being on the board and all of the fabulous people I get to work with and stay here and meet till 11 o'clock at night and and they had some very very Choice words for me and our my colleagues but um as in as in as in me being the person that I am to those individuals I had to make sure they understood Juan just don't I don't just be with anybody um these individuals on

205this board is The Stables I've seen in a very long time I just think what we need to do now is let the community know that we've done our part with hiring a superintendent we got the we got um a lot of the community coming to meetings and being engaged in a lot of things that we do so when I think about time it's time for the community to say hey well okay what do we need to do we want to make sure we we're good and stable from here on out me personally I don't think one year does that I think that if we can really talk to the community to the masses and let them understand that hey like we we've we've looked at everything that we can do not the state not

206the government not um little lady that's on Facebook bashing all of us but in the sense of this board coming together working together with Dr Garrison and his team getting a true understanding of what we need to do to be sustainable I think we figured that out that's my opinion well I also kind of just hit on the tax impact again to um there's you know going from 10 10 to 478 is a real swing and it looks at 54 percent um for some taxpayers thing I'm concerned about also is like like I said we've decided we're going to take some action because no action would mean falling to zero and even though if you've paid you know eighteen hundred dollars and then you dropped to around 800 drop into zero is zero and then

207asking someone to give you something past zero I mean it's like if it's a one dollar increase it's a one dollar increase if it's a thousand dollar increase it's a thousand dollar increase um so in the two-year option of whatever people are paying this year as those tax statements came out is what they would pay the next two years and understanding that there's going to be more because even in the one-year option um if it's 478 in the first year well the next year we come back around it's going to be 478 or something else so that's kind of that space I just um you know like I said you know we're mindful that these are all the children in Beloit that are in the school district um we understand our decline in enrollment we

208understand the learning environment and uh when our classrooms and programs our meeting expectations and when they're not meeting expectations but regardless these students that we have are still here and they still have to be provided in education so all those factors are in consideration um let's open it one more time if people have other thoughts that they want to share on one or two a year and then let's try to determine our consensus on where we kind of where we're landing at and then let's craft a motion after we kind of understand where we're at so I'll give everybody one more time if you want to you know kick the tires again I just the only tire that I need to kick is uh just like feeling like obligated to point out that the state

209budget surplus is now currently at 6.5 billion dollars and um as a taxpayer I'm extremely frustrated by that but I'm happy that as a community member I'll know that my property taxes are going directly to sustain academic and social and emotional programming that will help every child in my community I'll just remind you that what they're projecting about that 6.5 is that a lot of that is tied up into the market so if there's a market swing that 6'5 might not be there so we've got a lot of things to work with though and we've we've had a billions of dollars Surplus for a very long time while our kids are going without especially dealing with like covet and I'm not just talking about our kids and Beloit like across Wisconsin and I think it's

210morally absurd but I am fully supportive I think of option two at this point just because again as a taxpayer I appreciate the predictability and I feel that we've been very transparent and exactly what that funding is going towards sustaining and I also like the ability that it gives us to be proactive and make sure that we're okay and we don't just you know when we if someone's asking me for money I want to make sure that I'm giving it to I don't want it to just be like a short-term loan and they're going to come back because like now we're in a desperate crisis again I'd like this to be like okay we're going to avoid potentially a cliff from losing that us or funding and we can ease our way in very purposefully

211and proactively give ourselves time to make sure all the planning and all the teaser crossed and eyes are dotted et cetera et cetera to transition into where we'll need to go into that year three in order to continue to adequately academically and kind of whole child offer that support to our kids so as I'm just kind of keeping consensus here I'm going to put you in the first one on the board option two all right is there a reason we're going through with consensus since we're going to take a formal vote Yes the reason we're going through a consensus is because before I mean like because I'm ready with emotion I definitely don't want to cut off any of my colleagues if they need to kick any other tires but I'm ready to move forward

212with a vote all right okay so this is the thing um I think it's important for us to kind of understand where we're at before we vote because it's just some very confusing language the way these resolutions have to be offered um and I think that it does just help for board members to see where we're at I appreciate that but I think that's what the discussion can be used for if there's emotion on the floor and if anyone has any questions about what we're voting for um I think that would be an appropriate time to have those questions answered okay thank you for that uh other board members what do you want to weigh in on your consensus yeah well you know I'll just say you know a lot of the conversations about stability

213and I I can appreciate that but we've talked about a stability of mill rate and stability of Revenue um and I my fear is that in our in our haste together stability on those fronts there's going to be a perception of stability from an expense side and that's where we don't need stability you know because that's where decisions still need to be made and so and it's true that I'll concede that out of these numbers and then somebody can jump right in and correct me if I'm wrong um I won't be offended because it happens a lot um year one 14 million dollar referendum let's just say seven million of that is rough numbers to replace one balance the fun balance right so that ask is not in my mind it's not a spending ask

214right because the money's already been spent we're trying to replace it and the thought is we go into a budget cycle next season we say look we're not even spending that 7 million it's not spendable dollars it's in our fund balance right and so year two another six million dollars I mean it's spendable but if if you're selling it as we're replacing fund balance what you're saying is Our intention is not to spend this in our next budget cycle because we're replacing fund balance because the idea is if you once once it's given to us we ask them once it's in the fund balance there's nothing to stop this board subsequent boards because boards change of spending that fund balance again and you don't need we don't need permission from anybody to spend those dollars

215once they're in the fund balance we just passed the budget so that's the reason as we get to consensus is that I think you know that I can't support something longer than one year and I'll just add two uh so I got Brian Anderson on option one uh for understanding because we kind of got to the space last year is as we are presently composed the seven of us today when we get to April we will be a different board um board member Levy's up for election board member Winfield is not running so we could have two new members or one new member and that is a different board and even as we make um different actions budgetary wise between now and April before we set the budget in October there's possibly one or two

216people that are not here now that'll have some option on that so that is a part of what's changing um so that is there another just kind of thrown in as you're talking about the fund balance and you're right about those additional funds um that it also the fund balance is also going to be a factor when we do ask because our number is going to be at a place and it'll be there 14 or 20 percent and like we talked about our rating is that they will be aware of the actions that we are taking or understanding where we're at because we won't be you know technically in the best space when we're asking but there's other considerations that are going so I got you down as option one uh board member Winfield option

217two uh uh Anderson Spencer honestly I'm I'm kind of torn between the two because I understand the whole aspect that people want to see us do something first before asking for more but I also do see that having that two-year Bridge can Will smooth out that that kind of that Trend uh so instead of just painted a sudden drop off it's a little bit shallower making it easier on people that are doing our financial stuff so they're not sitting in their office uh Sweating Bullets every day trying to figure out how we're going to do this um I like I said I am torn between the two um I could go either way um I'm going to be more up to whatever it seems like the board wants to do in this scenario because I'm

218I'm just horned right now all right so I'll hold you out and I'll come back to you at the end before we make the motion right so you kind of see where we're where we're leaning in I mean which is it's a space um I'm gonna go with option two uh Miller or uh board member leave you do you want to wait or no no thank you okay uh board member Snyder um I'm also torn between the two I see the advantages of both I think option two is is the better option for the school district and for the students of Beloit so uh board member Anderson I don't think board member leave is going to participate she's going to offer her he's going to offer her motion that thing after a while but that's

219kind of you kind of it's It's kind of board member Anderson Brian is on one side and he got four in the other space you had a space to to lean in all right um if we do go with option two we do have to realize that we're going to have a little bit harder of trying to like actually asking for that um so just you mean like how the question is structured and what that or what part or we'll just gain support really for it um because uh from the people I've talked to before they've expressed concerns they're like well we want to see something happening before we get more but there's also other people that are like well we under we completely understand that your District definitely needs the money so um I

220guess I'll support option two okay so kind of what I'll say is uh board member Livonia thank you for your um for your patience I know as a individual you may have been ready to move forward I think again uh what I'll say to our community what's important is that you know for us as a board how we work through things that we do take our time to study the issue we know that we are dealing with your finances not just our own and our own pocket and then for the seven of us that we respect each other we work together we make decisions not all difficult decisions um I mean not not all easy decisions to make but in this case um you know in a very quick fashion but not without the diligence

221needed we've gotten the issue in front of the public uh worked with Dr Garrison and worked with our financial consultants and this and the remaining Financial Service staff that we do have thank you Mark for your time but we're trying to decide big things for our community and we want to be um and be able to demonstrate our unity in doing these things so it's important how we get there so at this time uh if anyone wants to offer a motion and to pay attention because I know that Dr Garrison has given us working with the Consultants there's a way that these motions need to be made so be mindful of that as you make your motion and make sure that we understand what we're doing I move approval of option two which includes the

222capital question and the two-year non-recurring question as outlined in item g h and I on this evening's agenda a second uh who was the second I missed that me all right little G uh so that's a motion by board member uh a levy seconded by board member Winfield um any discussion I just I do have one more comment to make so just I just wanted to go back to um so I wanted to thank you um Lisa Mark and Kevin for all the information you've given us and I just want to clarify we've never gone to operational referendum ever right is that correct which puts us in the minority of districts and so just to kind of be responsive to my colleagues on the board I would just say as a parent in the district

223I don't like the idea of my children's education being put financial crisis to financial crisis to financial crisis and for that reason for me it actually seems like again as a taxpayer and a parent of the district much more palatable to vote for two years because I feel like the next time if we need to go to referendum again it's not going to be to put out an imminent fire it's going to be to just be sustainable and so I guess those are just my final thoughts thanks and I would like to request a roll call vote please okay even as we just uh just to add for the discussion I think another part like I said before is um there are a number of things that you know on the board that people might

224disagree about but I think that this is another one of those things that um that if you examine some of the issues that are before our board that people would say like there's really only one side that we need to do something or we've been doing things one way and we need to change the way we're doing it even as we go forward uh in the vote um our we already decided that we would have a capital question we've already decided that um that we were going to address the operational question and we're just trying to decide if it should be one year or two year um so in in you know we've worked our process and um the option that's in front of us is the option two option um and then even when

225we come to the place where we might have disagreements about which way we should move forward that we all respect each other we'll make a vote and the vote is to vote and then we just move forward so um that's that's where we're at at this time so if there's no more discussion I'm gonna um ask Michelle can you give us one minute okay all right all right and to make sure all that other stuff happened uh Michelle can you um give us a roll call vote please may I ask a clarifying question does there need to be included in the motion the portion to decline option one well this is the other part of like the just need to understand the consultants and like how things need to be stated for the resolution so

226we we can't so what we can't do is have two um different operational conversations going on at the same time so if we move to option two as stated we would need to follow the guidance of the of our team which is to move to the client option one um and then of course move to approve option two if that's the will of the board so I think what you're seeing in short for for option two to be pursued first we need to deny option one and then um may ask a clarifying question go for it option one was never presented as a motion so why would it have to be declined table option one but why would it even need to be tabled it was it was a part of the discussion but there

227was no formal action taken on option one so I'm just so the bond attorney just said because it's on the agenda it's an agenda item you just table option one and you move to option two but you have to approve each individual resolution within option two now I did that with the capturing of of GH and I because they're they're all listed there on the agenda I think this is one where like the exact explanation you're getting might not be exactly like it's this is the part where we're leaning towards the lawyer or the bond attorney to do it as they told us to do it she says the bond attorney will say table option one and she'll say I I think it's great that you're voting for option two but each resolution should be

228stated as a motion so G would be motion improve initial resolution roll call vote motion approve resolution authorizing you read that motion roll call vote motion to approve the resolution providing four roll call vote that's how it's written out in the minutes from the bond attorney so just final point of clarification so as outlined in g h and I because they're written in the agenda that's insufficient is what you're saying according to the bond attorney yes you have to read the actual motions excellent then um we would need to vote the current motion down and then restate and I am more than happy to read all of that out right that's that's what I was saying about the the you know the exactness of the motion when it's made so um so oh we haven't

229even voted on this one yet correct all right so the first thing we'll do I guess is vote down the current motion Mr show Kevin roll call vote please yes Winfield all right let's go okay I'm sorry I didn't hear what you said was that an a yes it wasn't wait before we go on we're voting we're voting down the motion correct so what we we overall we need to make a re we have to these resolutions have to be read a certain way and the way it's read is insufficient so we're gonna the action at least everyone take is going to vote down this motion and then we're going to be restated so option two can happen as it's supposed to happen May okay thank you for the clarification Greg Schneider nay Amy Levy

230no Brian Anderson nay Spencer Anderson Megan Miller nay Sean Levy nay motion uh did not carry it failed is there perfect yes there is I moved to table option one as listed in the agenda and to approve option two which includes the capital question and the initial resolution authoring General obligation bonds and an amount not to exceed 19 million five hundred thousand dollars as outlined in in item G second one I don't know that that's exactly the way it's supposed to go again okay president do you have a second just a minute oh we have um a motion uh by a levy second by M Miller and discussion I'm gonna say I got some discussion first um remember Anderson Brian Anderson yeah so just to clarify that motion covers solely the capital let's do one

231step referendum for G thank you all right so like just to be honest could I get a clarification of the motion could I ask a board member Levy to repeat her motion please absolutely my motion that's what I'm doing okay so my motion is to table option one right right you need to go one step at a time no you're fine my first motion of the evening is to table option one that's what I'm saying so we're on a discussion make sure we're on the right motion well there's not Clarity right now there's just the current motion is to table option one okay that's it and the second is by Megan Miller yes all right and we were having discussion and now we're missing can we have a roll call yes Amy Levy aye Megan

232Miller aye Joanne Winfield hi Greg Schneider hi Brian Anderson aye Spencer Anderson aye Sean Levy aye motion carried unanimously all right Second Step my next motion of the evening is to approve option two which includes the capital question do you want me to stop there the capital question outlined in G initial resolution authorizing General obligation bonds and an amount not to exceed 19 million five hundred thousand is there a second a second it's been moved by board member a lady seconded by a board member Juwan Winfield is there any discussion hearing done all those in favor oh we have a roll call vote please we Levy aye Spencer Anderson Brian Anderson hi Craig Schneider aye Megan Miller I Joanne Winfield aye Sean Levy aye motion carried unanimously my next motion of the evening is to

233authorize the School District budget to exceed revenue limit by 14 million for the 2023-2024 school year and by 9 million for the 2024-2025 school year for non-recurring purposes a second it's been moved by board member a levy seconded by board members Juan Winfield is there any discussion um Mrs shop have a roll call vote please yes Greg Schneider aye Juwan Winfield aye Spencer Anderson hi Megan Miller aye Brian Anderson nay Amy Levy aye Sean Levy aye motion carried six to one so I have a question before I potentially give my last motion um how is I different from what we handled in G that's a good question so you're authorizing the bonds you're authorizing to exceed the revenue limit and you're providing for a referendum so you're saying we are going to referendum in April

234those are the three different resolutions got it I feel like I should have done I first but um I move to provide a referendum election on the questions of the approval of an initial resolution authoring the issuance of General applications bonds and an amount not to exceed 19 million five hundred thousand dollars keep going and the resolution authorizing the School District of Beloit to exceed revenue limits by 14 million for the 23-24 school year and by 9 million for the 24-25 school year for non-recurring purposes second world like that this has been moved by board member Levy and second hit by board member Miller is there any discussion I do have an item for discussion I don't know if this was a slip you said School District of Beloit in the motion recommended action says

235budget so make sure make that clarification thank you please amend my motion foreign there um Mr show could we have a roll call vote any other items for discussion before all right Mr Joe roll call vote please yes Megan Miller aye Joan Winfield aye Brian Anderson nay Spencer Anderson aye Amy Levy I Greg Schneider aye Sean Levy aye motion carried six to one all right I think we're done now that's all of it okay all right thank you thank you for your help okay we're now at future board meeting dates governance Tuesday January 24th at 5 30 PM policy committee meeting Wednesday February 1st at 5 30 PM business operations of Finance Tuesday February 7th at 5 30 PM Human Resources Tuesday February 7th at 6 30 PM regular board meeting at uh Tuesday February

2367th at 7 pm uh move to Executive session here and we will be adjourning from executive session emotion may be made and a vote taken to convene the Board of Education in a closed session pursuant to section 19.85 parentheses one parenthesis C relative to considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any Public Employee over which the government governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility so moved moved by board member Schneider is there a second by Megan Miller any discussion hearing none Mrs show could we have roll call vote please yes Megan Miller aye Brian Anderson aye Joanne Winfield aye Spencer Anderson hi Greg Schneider aye Amy Levy aye Sean Levy aye motion carried unanimously foreign