BASD School Board Meeting - December 8, 2025

001uh 6:30 p.m. And if we get on, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you. Uh, next up is roll call, please. Aaron. Kate, here. Roseanne here. Paul here. Taylor here. Marlo here. Peter Noah here. All right. And uh Mr. Turk was going to be here, but he is uh delayed and may not make it. Uh next up is citizen comments. Uh citizens that are members of the district have up to three minutes to address the board. Do we have any citizen comments this evening? Anyone in the crowd? Okay. Next up is reports. First is board member reports on workshops or

002meetings attended. Does anybody have anything? Okay. Next up then is superintendent report. Yes. So it has been uh a good month in BASD. So just a couple things to highlight and just as a reminder to the school board. uh always we'll talk about things that are happening at BHS and in our activities department and then kind of highlighting one other school across the district and this year it is Cooper and a little bit of what's happening at Wisco and some of our periphery programs. So, first off, up at the high school, our ra our students who are part of WBSD was 89.1 or our radio station were able to tour Milwaukee public radio and radio Milwaukee learning from industry professionals about broadcasting and careers in radio. Awesome opportunity for those students. Also, we had a

003CNC plasma machine donation and it was in thank really thankful for the following businesses that are located on the screen there. So, the AMS applied material solutions, the Burlington Rotary Fade Distribution, HJ Foust and Lynch LDV, uh they were all invited and came to the high school to see the C and C machine in action. You can see there the students actually made bees for each of the businesses and gave that to them as a token of appreciation. uh for their assistance in helping ensure that we had that for the high school. So kudos to the high school team and it's great to be able to have our Gateway Welding Academy students be able to demonstrate and and utilize that uh for years to come at BH at the at the high school. Additionally, we

004had a financial aid night uh at uh BHS and it was hosted by Boy College, W Whitewater and Gateway Technical College. We will have a second FAFSA workshop that is scheduled for December 15th. Our glass manufacturing company also came in and did conducted mock interviews with our professional English students giving them some value ad real world experience. ARDA has been a really awesome partner for the school districts. They've they've given us over $180,000 towards STEM equipment and also now are really partnering with us as well when it comes to uh giving these mock interviews. They've done this more than one year now in a row, which is awesome. Uh World Language Club students were able to attend Milwaukee's holiday folk fair to explore global uh cultures through food, arts, and performances. This is an activity

005our club has attended every year and it's a really great cultural experience for our students. Additionally, when it comes to our activities, our one act play uh really swept all of the state awards and that was earlier here in November. They earned a clean sweep of all school awards. Plus, they had individual acting recognition to Harrison Turk, Miles Elm, and Gwendalyn Kirsten. I really hope I'm pronouncing names correctly. National Honor Society was also uh something that was celebrated this last month at the high school as new NHS members were able to be uh recognized for their leadership and achievement. Congratulations to all of our NHS members. Our girls swim team was a state qualifier and they set a brand new school record. They actually demolished that school record, it is my understanding. And the 200

006freestyle relay um really shattered that um time. We are in a co-op for our swim team with Waterford, Union Grove, Catholic Central, and East Troy. Two of the swimmers on the relay team are BHS students. So, congratulations to Molly Warren and Cali Landerman on setting that new school record. Additionally, uh, our fall sports all wrapped up. So, just want to recognize students that were recognized at the Southern Lakes Conference level for all of their accolades in athletics. So, we had Breen Kardi was second team at large. Trevor Kraki uh received an honorable mention in uh boys soccer. And then in girls tennis tennis, we had Amara Nichols received an honorable mention. In girls golf was Anna Weiss had second team all conference and Tammy Kraton received honorable mention. Cross country Payton Trell was second team

007for the boys 5,000 meters and Aiden Beck uh received honorable mention and Avery Trost received honorable mention as well. In girls volleyball, Natalie Leech was second team all conference for Labbero. Uh, Brianna Seagodal received honorable mention as an outside hitter. Lillian Dempkkey was first team allconerence for being a setter. Mattaline Reeseman was first team allconerence middle blocker. Emma Tennahagen was first team allconerence outside hitter. And then Lillian Dempkkey was also awarded player of the year for the Southern Lakes Conference. That's a hard feat to get to be the number one player of the year in all of SLC. And then also our girls volleyball team uh was conference champions. And then when it comes to boys volleyball, Jackson Bailey was first team allconerence for being the setter. Jake Evans was second team allconerence middle blocker.

008Matthew Hoffman was second team allconerence outside hitter. Vincent Kendall received honorable mention for right side hitter and outside hitter. And Isaac Miller received honorable mention for outside hitter. In football, Jackson Bibo was first team all-conference for wide receiver. Jack Sulic was second team allconerence quarterback. Porter Te was second team allconerence wide receiver and defensive back. Brett Christ received honorable mention for offensive line. And Jackson Bibo also received honorable mention for defensive back. That's awesome. It was a great uh fall season. And thank you, Sulick, and to all of our coaches for all of your work working with all of our students throughout all of those. And then some highlights happening over at Cooper Elementary School. We had four of our fifth and sixth grade students attend W Whitewater Science Immersion Program. They were able to

009engage in some hand-on experience uh experiments and some college level instruction. Look at those little kiddos. They look like they're having fun. And then also at uh in the Monasuri program we have buddy day. Older and younger students partner together for monthly activities creating Thanksgiving projects and they made some homemade cider. It's a meaningful way for them to really show gratitude to each other. They also had lunch with law enforcement Sergeant Beros and Officer Rice and Officer Hayes. Hayes is our school uh leazison officer. also visited Cooper and had lunch with our lower L and children's health students strengthening positive school community connections. Also, our monastery students always have the privilege to be able to participate and utilize our school forest through their outdoor education program. Each grade band visits the school forest at least

010six times per year and they engage in activities that enrich their classroom learning, rain or shine, which is impressive because sometimes it's been raining and they still go. Um they participate in activities that integrate measurement, writing and nature exploration. Uh nature is a central piece of the monastery philosophy and we are truly fortunate that we have our very own school forest for students to enjoy. Additionally, our Cooper students, Monasuri students, uh there the ambassadors organized a food drive to help our local families and support love inc. And thank you to all of the Cooper families that participated in that. They had a truckload of uh things come in in order to support families here in Burlington. And then this is not just something that happened at Cooper, but just across the district. It's always awesome

011to see students outside enjoying the first big snowfall of the year. And it's also kind of cool that this year the snow is sticking around so that the students actually get to play in the snow um at our schools. And we are also super thankful for all the donations of snow gear so that every student is able to participate in all of the activities at recess time. So we do get a pleth plethora of donations of coats, boots, um gloves, things like that. So that it ensures every student is able to go outside and enjoy that. And then um Wisco is our charter school that we've now had for four years. Uh WISCO stands for Wisconsin Connect Charter School. Um and it is the district's virtual um program that we have offering three different program

012options online, hybrid or book-based. And there are additional supports like enrichment day, open lab and family events to provide some in-person connections. And we also continue to plan and explore additional ways to expand the program. Currently working on some grants around the charter school. We also have um some uh information about our that enrichment day. I was just talking about which is offered to 4K through 8th grade students. It's a weekly in-person enrichment day that takes place over at Cooper Monasuri. Students that participate are in the this WISCO enrichment day have advisory, art, music, PE, library, STEM, ELA, and math. And students are grouped into three different grade bands cohorts. And right now we have 45 students attending on Wednesdays at Cooper. Most of the students that are in that are book-based families aka maybe

013uh homeschool is what is a a good term for that too. And then our enrollment for our uh charter school, it's exciting to share that we had started the school year out at 109 students enrolled in the program and we are currently at 146 students. 66 of those students are from outside of the school district and our enrollment continues to rise every week that we move forward. Um it was crazy to start uh with a a program that was about 30 students and be up to 146 now. Um and we just continue to invest in the program and help ensure that students that are looking for that virtual option are able to succeed. When it comes to some activities happening with project win, it stands for what I need. It's one of our special education

014programs for students uh that the traditional setting is is not ideal for them. It's actually located here in the lower level of the district office. We had three of our students successfully transition from project wind back to their home school. So that's one of our elementary schools or the middle school here in district which is really awesome and part of why we like having that program inhouse uh because we do have a better success rate of transitioning students back into their um home schools. Additionally, they too enjoyed the school forest and engaged in some hands-on outdoor learning, applying classroom concepts into real world um settings. And it was awesome to have the kiddos out there as well. And then just one piece that has been a bit of a heavy lift on the district side

015is that we are shifting from fully funded to self-funded as a school district starting here July 1, 2026. and our staff just went through the process of going through uh open enrollment and selecting if they're uh going to participate in the district's health insurance or not. Um and we will be starting here at the beginning of January and also starting our on-site clinic here in January as well for our staff. Um so that is it for at at the moment for the superintendent report. That's just the month of November everybody. Thank you, Jill. Uh, next up is the consent agenda items which include the November 10th board meeting minutes, uh, bank statement of bills, appointments, resignations, retirements, terminations, uh, plethora of generous donations, and the updates, which are second readings. Just to highlight a couple

016u donation highlights. We had over $9300 in financial inind gifts, food and materials donated to BASD this past month. So we are very thankful to everybody who donated to the district. With that said, um I have a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented. So moved. Okay. Is there a second? Second. All right. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right. That is passed. Next up is items for discussion. First item is the school improvement update which is for Burlington High School and turn that over to Amy. And just a reminder while she's getting set up, everyone that is coming up and participating in the presentation, it is important that you hold on to the microphone because we live stream all of our board meetings. And the only way for people

017that are listening to hear is if you speak into the microphone. Okay? So, just make sure you're passing that around as you're presenting. Maybe if like the first five or six slides of people want to come up here just to be on deck for the academic goals probably. Okay. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to share Burlington High School's school action plan. Tonight's presentation highlights the priorities we're focused on this year. Strengthening academic growth, expanding career readiness opportunities, and continuing the work of building a supportive and connected school culture. Our plan reflects both our data and the needs we're seeing day-to-day. And we're excited to share the progress that's already underway. With that overview in mind, let's move into the core components of our action plan. The agenda here outlines the things that

018we'll be digging into. The academic and career readiness goals, especially math, English, AP coursework, and career readiness, as well as our culture goal centered in the sense of belonging. We'll also share some CTE updates, and then we'll wrap up with time for questions. and we'll start with our math goal. Good evening. Uh so first of all, our goal for this year is that we will increase the average ACT math score from the class of 2027 from 18.2, which is what they got last year on their preac 10 to 19. Um which is also the state average to be proficient or advanced. Um we actually use this data differently this year. So, in previous years, we've compared juniors to juniors. This year, we decided, let's not compare juniors to juniors because it's not the same kids.

019Let's compare the kids to themselves. So, this year, we're comparing them from freshman to sophomores to juniors to see their growth as they've come along through the years at BHS. Um, so the reason that we chose the 18.2 2 to 19 is I went back and looked at their average PAC9 score and they had only or increased by 6 of a point which at the high school level that's pretty typical actually is somewhere in the 6 to1 per year gain and so we decided we're going to aim for8 to try and get them from 18.2 2 to 19, which if you also look at the bottom, turns out to be a good idea that we did because when they gave them the uh fall progress learning assessment, they actually did score about 18.9. So, it

020tells us we're probably going to be pretty close on our goal this year. Um, so that's kind of our overall goal. And some of our action steps for doing it is we obviously gave the fall uh progress learning and we will give it again in January. Um, based upon the fall, we have had some flex success which I think Reed is talking about more. Um, but to do that, we went ahead and identified areas from that fall one that we felt the students were weak in that we could use as our pinpoints of what we want them to improve upon so that they are more hopefully on the next one in January, we'll do better on that. Um, so that is our first one. We also trying to see here um we also went ahead

021and started giving our ACT environment when we did the progress learning because we found a lot of students weren't taking a test in an ACT environment. Um, meaning for example, they were being given, especially with our special ed students, they were being given extra help or asking questions during the testing time and things like that. You don't get that when you take the ACT. So, we wanted them to actually test in an environment exactly like what the ACT would, which means for a lot of them, it's just extended learning time uh for taking the test. And so, we've switched to that for them. Uh, we are also implementing standardsbased grading across all of our courses from algebra, geometry, and algebra 2 this year. Whereas last year, we had just piloted in algebra 1. So it

022is across the course. Um and we have also incorporated bell ringers, warm-ups, and closers that are from prior year ACT tests to help students identify where they are not able to be successful. And what we're finding is most of it is actually reading comprehension of what the question is asking them. Not that they can't do the math that's associated with it, but that they're struggling to read for comprehension on those questions. So, we feel like by doing those uh bell ringers, warm-ups, and closers that we're helping prepare them on how to read a question appropriately in math so that they can actually understand what to do and use their math skills to be able to be successful. So, that is math. All right, time for English. So, um Heather did a really good job of

023describing how we're look what age group we're looking at. So, we're looking at the current juniors and for English, they were testing at a 15.8 for sophomores. And our goal was a 17.8 at the at the spring for juniors. So a two-point jump. And we came up with this number by looking at what we've been able to achieve in in the past. And a two-point jump seemed really realistic for this group. And it turns out we even underestimated ourselves because when they took the fall um progress learning, they got a 19.7. So we are certainly looking good for that 17.8 in the spring. And uh I think a lot of that is because of the the steps that we've been doing and the grammar that we've really been integrating in all of our English classes.

024You know, you love it. Um um so yes, we've been integrating uh grammar more uh weekly and daily in all of the English classes uh 9, 10, and 11. Those years where it's really important. And what we've done is we've really assessed what grammar we're teaching and aligning it with the ACT. Um created a lot of our our own materials to help students understand similar to what Heather was saying. It's like they just not understanding the questions and especially this year because the ACT English totally changed how it's formatting. Um and they totally changed how they're wording their questions. So, we've kind of gone through I took five ACT English tests and um went through and looked at how they're wording their questions and I'm going to teach them, okay, this is the phrasing they're

025using. This is what they're looking for. And so, we've been doing a lot of that work um as well as um some of the progress learning questions just so they understand what they're taking and reorganized a lot of our grammar. On top of that, something that's really helped is the study sync curriculum. Um because what it's allowed us to do is it's really pushed the expectations of what we're looking at for our students. So before we were using study sync a lot of the texts we were teaching were what the students were able to read on their own which is that a lot of our students are below grade level on reading. So for a non-honors course we were teaching books that were really on a fifth sixth grade level and nth grade English um

026because that's what students could achieve on their own. Um, but with study sync, what we've done is we're teaching them harder text, things that are above their reading level, but scaffolding it and supporting them and raising the expectations. And I think that's really raised them as well. We all know that kids only rise to the expectations we set for them. Uh, so for example, in English 9, uh, we're teaching Animal Farm and Romeo and Juliet, and that's definitely above all of my kids reading level. You put it in front of them, and they would be paralyzed without any help with it. But with scaffolds, reading it out loud and reading strategies, they're able to get there. Uh, and we pair that with books that are on their reading level that they read independently um, and

027in groups and that are about what they're interested in. And the pairing of that independent reading at their level and the above their level reading in class, I think, has really been successful and a big part of the score raise as well. So, we're going to keep doing what we're doing since it seems like it's working. And 19.7 sounds pretty good. Oh, that's me. Flex success. So, um it was it was talked about a little bit, but uh we have our flex success period, which is uh the second year we're doing it. It's during our advisory period. And what we do is we identify students who aren't meeting the benchmark in either math, English, or reading. and then they will be flexed into their flex success group where they um work on progress learning tutorials

028and lessons that are um specific to the students. So you might have two students that say get a 14 on their math. The student that got the 14, they might be strong in algebraic equations where the other person might be stronger in geometry. So it is um personalized for each student. Um so they go twice a week during flex uh for six weeks where they are working on strengthening the skills to help get their grades up. Um another thing also that we're doing uh after the new year is we are going to do a ACT boot camp where students will learn all students every single one freshman through juniors are going to be learning different skills needed to be successful in the ACT. So that's going to be six different um class periods during our

029flex time where students will be working on that. Um this is just an example of one thing that we look at. So we can see uh I believe this was our sophomores. Um the benchmark score for sophomores for should be 13 and our average was 19. That's absolutely outstanding that we as a school were six points above the the national average. So looking at the students that fell underneath the benchmark, those students in the gray would be flexed into a flex success class and working on those skills. Um, additionally is that transparency with parents. So, this is just an example of a letter that goes home um where it will show the different scores that your child got, uh the benchmark, what they scored on it, what they need to to achieve um or get

030to achieve the benchmark, and then the additional supports that we're putting in place there. So, we talk about our flex success program when it starts. It started October 13, October 13th, and then it will go up until right before the holiday break. Um, after our second round of progress learning testing, students then will be placed back into a flex success if they still are not meeting the benchmark or they're getting removed from flex success. So those students that may have been one or two points underneath the benchmark, if they achieve a benchmark come January, they'll be taken out of flex success. All right. with our AP tests. Um, we've kind of always typically kind of been in that low to mid 80 range in terms of the number of our students that score a three

031or higher. So, by the end of this year, our goal for that is to um sort of still be in that range of about 82% or so of getting a three or higher. Three is what most colleges and universities do accept to award college credit to them. Uh, we kind of kept it right about where we've been in the past. Um last year I believe we were at 83% um of that we we did bring that number down a little bit not because we don't think that our students will still achieve but we have offered um a new AP class for AP language so we have some new classes that are offered AP music theory came back and then some of our existing classes have also seen kind of significant numbers of increase in there

032so we have a lot of more students that are taking an AP class so we're like well if this is the first time. For example, our freshman one on there, we have about um almost three times as many students enrolled in that class this year as we did last year. So, we have about twice as many students taking an AP test for the first time, which sometimes can be a little bit uh challenging for them if they aren't really sure what to expect with that part. So at uh beginning of the year, we had them look at kind of some goal setting, exploring colleges they may be interested in attending, what scores do they need in order to get that college credit because that does vary a little bit depending on what they are looking

033for, which um their major might be, if it's a minor, if it's just kind of a general ed credit that they are looking for to get them kind of goal setting and thinking about, well, if I need to do this to get that credit, how am I going to get myself there? and looking at some of those things. Um, going through looking at those old exam questions, pulling out old tests that were given um, to students in the past just to familiarize themselves with what an AP question is going to look like. They can be worded a little bit differently than even what they might see on the ACT um, or other standardized testing that they are looking at just so they are familiar with that. And I think most if not all of our

034AP teachers are pulling a lot of those questions for students to take even their in-class um tests on those things and just kind of getting used to what does that look like? Um what is the rigor involved in those questions because at least particularly for the freshmen those questions are much harder than things they've been asked to do in the past. And then this year we've also kind of added to some of us were doing this before some of us just kind of just started doing it this year looking at having the students reflect. So after they take a test, you know, did they perform as well as they thought they were going to? What steps did they take to prepare? Do they feel that their preparation accurately reflects the grade that they have? And

035just kind of going back and checking some of that goal setting. You know, this is what I wanted to do. Am I on track to do that? um am I do I need to change something? Do I need to uh come in for help? Do I need to study a little bit differently than I have been? So trying to get them to kind of reflect on their own learning and are they taking the right steps to allow them to reach that success. So we've got uh 251 students at the high school this year that are signed up to take 465 exams, which is about 35 or 40 more than we had last year. So we definitely have seen an increase in that. So hopefully we continue to see that momentum move us forward. Uh the

036other half of the career readiness goal. Um oh I can move this slide. Um so we are focused on dual credit um enrollment and then also industry recognized credentials. So, as you can see, the um enrollment has been relatively flat for the past couple years, but we have shown significant growth in the um dual credits. So, from 1400 two years ago to almost 2,000 last year. I'm not sure what our projection is, but um we are hoping to um keep it right around that 2,000 mark. Um industry recognized credentials. Last year we had um 80 credentials in uh mostly um youth apprentichip, EMT, CNA are our main areas that we see a lot of um enrollment in. Um but we also have offerings in Microsoft Office, woodworking, OSHA, first aid, and then this year our

037new um program is Adobe where we're offering um Adobe Photoshop to all of our um art students and um some filmmaking students. So, we're expecting to see well over a hundred um industry recognized credentials, which not only obviously help out the students, but it also helps out our district um through the act 59 um funding program that we receive um money or money back from the state um for each credential. So, um I believe this last year we were in the $45,000 to $50,000 range for those credentials and hopefully again with the uh expected growth we'll see a increased um revenue from that. All right, good evening. So, I'm talking about the culture goal and the student sense of belonging. This is a trend that I think we can be very proud of. Uh we

038live in a world where we now have unregulated AI chat bots that are trying to isolate children as young as six years old. And this might be the new challenge to really go ahead and create that sense of belonging. the fact that as you can see from 23 all the way up to 25 we have that 3.12 to that 3.24 24. This is continuing to increase. And what does that number mean? That means that there is someone in the building that a student feels like they can connect with whether it's a coach, an adviser, a teacher, they feel like there's an extended family that is existing in some kind of activity. I always like to ask students that transfer to Burlington High School, so so how do we how do we compare or what's it

039like? And I often get the fact that it seems like the teachers here just ask about my life. They ask, "How did I do in the basketball game?" Like, "What did I do in the musical?" And that sense of belonging is really a testament to the staff and all the coaches and the activity adviserss to really make that sense of belonging. Um really really excited about that trend and we hope to continue that sense of belonging in the years to come. Thank you. Okay, to dig a little bit deeper in the student survey, a few weeks ago, I met with a group of a diverse group of 16 students where we looked at the four categories that you see here of the survey. So, students looked at the lowest scoring questions. They brainstormed possible causes

040and then they ranked which areas they feel are most important to address. Now, one thing that I um really really stood out to me was their openness and their honesty in their conversation. They acknowledged that the high school student survey scores were the lowest in the district. And so we talked about why, right? Why is that? The conversation then shifted to they believed for the most part that school just gets more difficult the older you get. So, there's increased academic, co-curricular, and internal pressures that play a role. The conversation overall was extremely engaging and valuable, and I'm meeting again with them next week where we'll look at the priorities they identified and action steps to grow in those priority areas. Thank you, Amy. um wanted to comment on co-curriculars, extracurriculars that we offer uh at

041be Burlington High School. Uh wanted to talk why do we offer what we do. Uh this was taken from a study from the National Center of Educational Statistics. Engagement and extracurricular activities positively impacts student performance by boosting GPA, improving attendance, fostering essential skills like time management, self-regulation, increasing school engagement, enhancing mental well-being, ultimately leading to a greater academic success success and better college prospects. the skills learned in activities like sports, arts, clubs, transfer to academics, helping students manage schedules, build confidence, develop deeper connections to school. And we're not just talking about athletics. Uh we do offer 29 different uh athletic opportunities for for our students. Uh we offer 37 going on 38 different clubs up at the high school uh participation in everything that we do. Um, and we're heading in definitely a positive direction.

042Uh, obviously the school year is not over. We're not even halfway through, but we're trending towards our goal of 70%. We finished last school year at a 7point improvement in overall participation. Uh, right now we're currently on track to probably meet and possibly exceed our 70% goal. Truth be told, I would like every Burlington High School student to be involved in at least one activity. that sense of belonging, whether it's playing football, whether it's being in the bowling club, whether it's being part of HOSA, it it just makes the student experience so much better and it's so much more fulfilling. Um, and I I can't take credit for this. This is a huge huge kudos to who lead these programs. I think it was posed the question back in July, uh, even with some of

043the challenges that we have in in running the programs they do with activities fees and different pressures and things like that. Why are the numbers going up? I think the numbers go up because we have staff that really support these activities that do an incredible job of recruiting but also retaining these numbers and uh super proud for them to be working for us and uh we're going to continue to work very very hard to continue to increase those participation rates. Okay, so Educators Rising is one of our career and technical student organizations, CTSO as we call it for short. And I would argue that Educators Rising has seen growth, significant growth in the past couple years, much like our other career and technical student organizations that we have at Burlington High School. Those are FBLA,

044FFA, and HOSA. To me, this growth signals that students are not only exploring their career pathways, but are actively seeking meaningful opportunities connected with their future goals. Um, CTSO involvement is an important component in our career readiness work. These organizations provide students with hands-on experience within their chosen career pathways while also building leadership skills, teamwork, and service learning. The increased participation we're seeing is a strong indicator that our efforts around career pathway exposure, communication, and alignment are resonating with students and helping to make their postsecary transition as seamless as possible. Just a few weeks ago, a student approached me with a proposal to start another CTSO, DECA. DECA aligns to the marketing, finance, hospitality, and management pathways. Just showing again that this further reinforces our students are looking for opportunities within school that connect directly

045to their interests and future career aspirations. Without further ado, I'd like to welcome our educators rising club. Well, good evening everybody. Uh my name is Benjamin Blato. I'm a senior here at the high school and I've been in Ed Rising for this is my second year. Um, I joined a little late when we first started the club because I wasn't sure if I wanted to get involved in it, but I was then, um, given the privilege to become the president of this growing club. Um, and it's been it's been a blast. Um, Miss Milky standing in the back is our, um, our our leader and she's the one that got this whole thing started for us. Um, and and the goal of this whole group is just to prepare students such as such as the

046students you see up here um, to be educators when we're older. we want to be sitting in the chairs that you guys are in one day and we want to be in the back like you know Miss Milky starting these clubs and whatever. Um so what we do is we just get um we get students in an environment to succeed and to really find out what being a teacher is like. So I'll let these guys um explain more in depth what we do. Um and so yeah, thank you guys for having us. Hi, my name is Jonah Fidler and I'm the secretary for our advising club. And one of the most important things that we do is we go out to different schools in our district and we shadow them, which basically means we sit

047in on those teachers and see what an everyday thing is like in their classrooms. And that really helps students like figure out, do I want to teach this grade? I know last year we had lots of people who thought they wanted to teach middle school, but then they went to an elementary school and found out I like that a lot more. And this is like one of the best things for us to do. And it's like it's really fun to see the kids come up to you and be like, "Wow, you're really cool. You're a high school." And I'm like, "I'm really not that cool, but thank you." Um, and then this is looking into the future. We are going to be participating in Experience Burlington's hot cocoa walk. We will be at Bank 59

048and we will be doing a kind of candy cane lane theme where we will be having peppermint flavored things and I hope you guys all come by and check us out. Hi everybody. My name is Lydia Randrey and I'm a sophomore and I'm going to be telling you about our fundraising that we do as a club. Um, so our most recent one was we went to the one act bake sale and we raised over $300 as a club, which is really good. Um, last year we went to the boys baseball game and sold concessions. And then, as Jonah mentioned, we're going to be at the hot cocoa walk this year and um, we get to have our own hot cocoa and do a bake sale as well. Um, we're also doing a winter clothes drive

049um for the students who need it and families. Um, and that's running the rest of this month. Hello. Um, I'm Ava Goodman. I'm also a sophomore. Um, last year for National Education Week, we had a spirit week and did little gift bags for all the teachers. They thanked us and said that it was one of the best things they've gotten in a couple years. Um, spirits days are also a fantastic way to bring in like fun and take away from like your routine every day um for just dressing up and stuff. But yeah, hello. My name is Abigail Dutcher and I'm the social media manager for Ed Rising. Um, and I'm going to be talking to everyone about some of the conferences that we've went to and that we hope to go to. So last

050year we went to the state conference. Well, some of our members did went to the state conference in Stevens Point. Um, and they had a really great time there. No one from our school competed, but they went to some like breakout sessions and they also got to learn from other educators. Um, we also went to a educators rising conference in Mosquo this past October and we had about like 15 members going and it was a really fun time. We got to kind of learn what some of the competitions would be like at the state level and I think that that kind of made a lot of our students want to participate in competitions. Um, so a few of our students are planning to compete at the state conference this March on March 4th and is

051again in Stevens Point. Um, and that is just something that is we're really blessed to be able to do this year because it's not something we've done before like the competition because now that we are a um like national chapter, we are able to do stuff like that. So yeah. Hi, my name's Aaliyah. I'm a sophomore and this is my first year in Educators Rising. But however, even though it's my first year in Educators Rising, although I never thought of teaching as a career option for me, I feel like after joining this club, it could possibly be an option for me. And a lot of the members here today kind of helped me, including Miss Milky herself, and realizing that, especially during the conference in Moskele this past month. All right. So, I just want

052to take a second to wrap this up. Um, and then we'll pass it off to the next group. But, um, I want to talk about the growth that this club has seen as well. Miss Milky talk spoke to me before the school year started and she's saying, "Look, if we're going to become a national chapter, we got to get some more people in here, right? It's only our second year being a club, but what we've seen is a growth in in members. We're near 30 people now, right? At 30 today. So, so go us. um that's 30 potential teachers um filling these seats uh down the road. So, that's really exciting and we're super thrilled to see that growth um in our club. And with that growth, there's just more things that we want to

053do, including a potential field trip um this spring. We were looking at we're looking at going to colleges here in Wisconsin and touring their um education buildings and learning what it's like to train to be a teacher, to go to school to be a teacher, what those steps look like, too. right now. I think we're looking at going to Madison and then maybe a trip out to Kenosha to see Parkside or Carthage or some of those schools out there. Um so yeah, we just want to give you guys a big thank you for having us here um on behalf of all of the future educators of America. So thank you guys. Real real quick before you go. Yeah, absolutely. Um what are the competitions like? What is the you don't ask my question? Sorry, you

054were too late. Um like what are you competing in and what is the goal? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'll let him tell you. Okay. So, you can compete in a lot of different things. Um me and my friend Abby here, we are going to be competing a poster which is going to teach kids about like it's going to be I think elementary English and it's just like these are what certain words do. There are a ton of different competitions you can create a children's book, you can do a poster. There's a really large range. And the competitions, you basically go there, you present your piece, you get judged on it, and then you take that feedback and work to make your uh piece better. Right. So the there are actually 80 almost 80 different competitions that

055they can actually compete in. And they do split them from elementary, middle, and high school. So that students who are interested in teaching elementary can do some middle school, some high school, some um there's things like lesson planning. There's things like classroom management. There are presentations on how to run an entire lesson. So they have to actually run an entire lesson. There can be uh written books. there are actually uh ELLL language learner programs that they can do presentations on how to prepare lessons for language learners. So it incorporates a whole lot of options for them. So it incorporates almost everything. There's music ones, there's art ones. So they really get to choose what field they're very interested in and compete in something that applies to them. You got my question, man. We're good. Thank

056you so much, you guys. and thank you for wanting to be in the best profession in my humble opinion that there is. I agree. All right, so we're shifting gears to another student club. The next one up is forensics. Good evening. I'm Robbie Tuig. And I'm Matt and I. And between us, we've probably been coaching forensics at our years together. 50 plus years between the two of us. Probably closer to 60, but who's counting? It's fun. We've got five speakers here with us this evening. Five students who are very involved with forensics. And we'll start off with Anelise Truml. Hi, my name is Anelise Treml and I'm a junior at BHS and I've been in forensics for three years and I'm here tonight to talk to you about the history of forensics. So, it was

057established in the United States in the 1940s. It did take about like a 30-year hiatus, and it started back up in the 1970s. And in the 1980s, they introduced an award called the Hints Award. And that is the highest award in the United States that high school students can get for speaking. And in the early 2000s, they renamed the award the Excellence in Speech Award. And only about 5% of the high schools get it. And there's 30 like active um high schools and high school districts uh participating in forensics in Wisconsin. So that means only about 13 schools will get this award. And Burlington High School's forensics team has got it for the past 25 years. And um before it was renamed the Excellence in Speech Award, we've also got it when it was called

058the Hints Award. How's it going you guys? Good evening. Um, my name is Dominic Dennis and I've been a part of forensics for the past four years. I am a senior this year and I'm just going to talk to you a little bit about what forensics is as a club for those of you that don't know. Um, it is a competitive public speaking club. We have two categories, interpretive and informative. Interpretive categories consist of group interpretation of usually other people's work and taking messages out of it and bigger ideas. And informative is your personal and um creative pieces where you try to express your own ideas and present problems to people and uh offer solutions. The speeches can range anywhere from 2 minutes to 10 minutes. Um I myself speak in a five minute maximum

059and um yeah it's a it's a great club for um being judged on how well you communicate your ideas to other people. And um you get graded on a scale of 25. Um a typical Saturday of competition looks like um arrive at the high school at 7 in the morning. It's pretty early. Um drive over to the competition and usually at the competition there's anywhere from 7 to 15 schools to compete against. Um it's a very competitive club um to yourself and as just as much as the people you're competing against. um uh you go through usually three rounds and then if you are a potential qualifier to a power round that just means that you're doing really well and uh you get one more chance to compete to take home the gold trophy for

060your team. Uh and then on the way home we get to uh have announcements of individuals that won awards at that meet and then every once in a while we hit up the world's biggest culvers on the way back from state. Thank you. Hi, my name is Giana Balki and I'm a junior and this is my third year in forensics. Um, so why should a student join forensics? Um, it is a very popular club with very well-known uh celebrities and successful people such as Oprah, Adam Sandler, um, tons of politicians. Um, duh. It definitely establishes leadership, better public speaking skills. Um, I think it's a wonderful club to help students gain confidence and prepare themselves for their careers after Burlington High School. Hi again. Um, so I'm going to be talking about what forensics has

061meant to me personally as a student. And I think one of the biggest things is it has given me a lot of confidence. I don't think I would be able to stand up here and talk to all of you without being in forensics. you get so much more confident talking in front of large groups. And another thing that I didn't expect forensics to offer me was it gave me a lot of friends. Um, freshman year I had a very close group of friends, but joining forensics gave me a much wider circle and it helped me feel a lot more comfortable talking to people who were older than me. And if I ever felt like I needed help, I was able to go to those juniors and seniors I met in forensics and get help from

062them. And now that I am an upper classman, I'm hoping to be able to be that person for other uh underassmen and anybody who joins forensics. Hi, again, my name's Aaliyah and uh, ironically enough, this is the first club I joined in high school. And I feel like forensics for me has offered me a lot of friendships, even with people from other schools who just so happened to be in my category, moments in history. And it gave me a lot more confidence especially in speaking which ironically enough I was in speech classes when I was very young. So it's kind of ironic that forensics in one year has helped me more than speech classes have in five. And not only that, again to kind of come back to Jonah's point, it well given me a

063lot more friends. It has just well given me a lot more confidence in general. And it's pretty fun even for someone who doesn't really like talking as much. uh I can really interact with a lot of people even from different schools just because of the fact that we're from forensics or we enjoy history for a certain extent and yeah that's mostly what I like about forensics in general. So, last little correction here. Um, when you go into the auditorium and you look up and you'll see those state and excellent awards, it's the highest award you can get is the speech of excellence for the top 5% schools of 300, not just 30, 300 school districts. They compete all over. And uh if you look at the legacy of the amount of times that Burlington Forensics

064has qualified for state, it is well over 30 years minus one with a little thing called COVID. So, uh it's pretty amazing that these students have continued that proud tradition. Our legacy coach over there, Miss Tuig, continuing that proud tradition. Uh these are some of the most winningest students in our school district and it's forensics. Thank you. All right. Thank you to all of our students for being here and sharing your experiences. Greatly appreciated. Okay. Uh continuing on with the presentation. I there's not a lot left. I know this is getting a little bit lengthy, but um we're going to talk a little bit more about some other career and technical education updates that we have going on at Burlington High School. And to do that, I'd like to welcome Victor and Emily up here

065from Educators Credit Union. So, we've been in conversation uh for a little bit and talking about how we can take our partnership to the next level and that includes bringing in Educators Credit Union branch into Burlington High School and they're going to talk a little bit more about that. Hi everyone. Wow, those students were so impressive. I just had to say it. Um which that's part of my job. So, I've been with educators about four years. And what Victor and I do, we teach financial education in the community and within schools. And one of our biggest initiatives is bringing educators credit unions inside the high schools. And it's had a variety of models, but one that we've landed on the past few years that's been really successful is having the students in the school actually

066working it. So, we hire two juniors or seniors from the youth apprenticeship program in that school who have early release, who have good standing, who have referrals from their peers and their teachers to train all summer with us to learn financial skills, but also professional skills, public speaking skills, customer service or member service, if you know what a credit union is, um, memberowned. And they get that experience all throughout the year. They get their certification at the end of the year. Um, and they split their time. So, part of their time is working two to three days a week during lunch in their school. So, a branch is either shared with a school store or in its own space. And then, um, they also get some experience over in their nearby community branch as well.

067We like to deepen the relationship not just with those two students um but we also have partnership usually with our marketing business classes and departments where we go in and we give them the opportunity to help us promote the credit union. I like to say what point would it be to exist if no one knew here who we were and what we had to offer. So part of why we exist the most important reason we exist is because we were founded by teachers. So lots of love to you all. Um, and it's a way for us to continue our commitment to education by being in the high schools, by being live, by giving students opportunity. Um, but most importantly, just to be a resource for students to come to us. We know life's expensive. Life

068is lifing and it's not getting any cheaper. So, developing those skills at an early age statistically um is so good for them. And to have access right inside their school to come walk in whether or not they have an account with us is why we exist. We have all sorts of free resources um that they can do games and learning on their phones. They can come and talk to our staff. We have programs and services. Um but back to the marketing classes, they'll put together a campaign from start to finish and get students excited. Think about what are ways that we can educate our student body that would excite them and get them actually interested in learning. So I work with them and from start to finish they get a grade and we debrief and

069we talk about all of that which they can add to their resume. Youth apprenticeship program the class collaboration we also partner with clubs and organizations to deepen those relationships. Um DECA FBLA we're big partners with them so supporting them through sponsorships but also collaborations. We have Bobby Poris as an example um as a partner with us from the Bucks. So, I've worked with um basketball players and sporting players on like how can we spread the word and Bobby Portoris is big on financial literacy. Does that interest you? And we talk about it. Um I'll also mention our teacher resources. So, we provide free financial education and guest speaking to all the teachers in the schools that we're at all over the community in southeastern Wisconsin, but especially the schools that we're in. Um so, we

070can give guest speaking on a variety of topics. We can do accounts 101, credit and loans, saving and budgeting, affording college, you name it, we can adjust our um our presentations for them. What am I missing? Oh, I'm going to pass it over to Vic because he's a longtime expert here. So, I'll pass the mic. Thank you, Emily. Um, as she said, our goal is to deepen the partnership. We've had a really long-standing relationship with Burlington High School. Um, actually Burlington was the third branch of Educators Credit Union out here many, many years ago. We've been hosting the reality check day for 20ome years. For those of you that have an opportunity to come and volunteer, uh, we really do incorporate oursel into the fabric of the school and so we're excited about this opportunity.

071Uh, we can work with just about any space that a school gives us. one of our schools um that we have a high school branch in. Now, it was actually a janitor's closet that we turned into a school store, educators branch. So, it's again about um holistically talking to and being a resource for the whole community about financial literacy and financial empowerment, which just fits with the recent passing of Act 60. We know that there has to be a financial literacy element to graduation. So, that is what we're proud to do and we're happy to answer any questions you all may have. I'm good. Awesome. I think it's an awesome thing. It's going to be great opportunity for students. So, thank you so much for your continued partnership and desire to come into our school.

072Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, educators. All right. So, there are um a bunch of other CT updates here that we have at the high school that we want to highlight for you all. And Ben is going to continue with that. I thought I was the last slide, but I think that's for uh Bryce. Um um so Jill stole my thunder earlier about the U CNC plasma torch. Um so that was big unveiling this fall. We had um all of our donors, as you saw in the pictures, um in for um a showcase of our not only just the plasma torch, but also our welding academy. So um we had an awesome turnout with um basically tutorials of welding skills through um you know, how to use a manual torch into the um automation

073and the the programming piece of the CNC plasma torch. So right now the instructors are going through their training to kind of learn how to use that um tool and then hopefully second semester and into next year we'll be able to integrate that into the classes. Um our our metals and fabrication classes will all be able to utilize that. U right now it's kind of a brainstorming um how do we use this to the best of our ability and um the instructors are absolutely loving um utilizing this you know state of the state-of-the-art tool. So that was a huge huge um obviously recognition from the from the donors. Um without their support we wouldn't have any um you know we would not have had that machine donated. Advanced equipment. Yeah. Advanced equipment. Um it would

074be um obviously amazing opportunity for our students as well. Um something we've hit on in the past few years is the youth apprenticeship. Last year was our record um amount of students. We had 45 students finish the youth apprenticeship program. So they were um with 30 different employers around the community. Um so that program um basically has them mentored by a uh member of a of a business and they have to complete 450 hours of uh basically work during the during their one-year contract. And we had 45 students complete that program which puts us right up there with um all of the the local schools. Um Elhorn is usually um the leader in that. We were right behind I think they had 47 students. We were right behind them. So, um, another additional role we're

075looking at and kind of rolling out and ironing out right now is a marketing role for, u basically a social media a student social media manager that Amy and I and Jill and a few others are going to kind of iron out here this semester. And then, um, I believe the idea is to get to get it out and running for uh, second semester. So, we have a an idea of what that's going to look like, but it'll allow a student um or students to basically participate in digital marketing and um be able to um um add things to our Facebook pages and and go through the the correct, you know, verification with with adults still, but um they're going to get that experience with um the digital marketing role, which is huge in our

076society right now. And then lastly, we are um still constantly reflecting on freshman seminar and looking at how things are um how we're using things and how we're um trying to integrate the career pathways into that. So um this semester we still have to roll out the um career pathway uh basically their their survey, but we also want to have them make an informal pathway declaration of what career path they want to go into um for the next three years plus if they go into college. Um, but we're we're working through the details on that. That'll be a huge piece of information for us um to collect early on in their careers. So then we can start steering them towards the pathway planners and the things um that they could um participate in in the

077high school. I also just want to call out two things. The first is that we are the only school in our conference that has a freshman seminar course. And like we talked about multiple times, this is not only where we talk about career and college readiness standards, but also where our freshmen specifically get all the exposure to the different types of career pathways, so we can continue to provide them with all of these opportunities. Also, I don't know if you I kind of threw in there, there's like student number four in parenthesis. There's a couple of those throughout the slide deck. Uh, I was just calling attention to that's directly aligned to that goal in the strategic plan. Okay, the last slide, Bryce is up with our academic career planning revamp. Thank you, Amy. Good

078evening, everyone. uh to kind of round out the theme of the evening where we're looking at how we're getting our kids involved, how we're getting them ready for what's coming to them after they graduate from BHS and that is our academic and career planning programming. So, we're going through a current revamp to kind of fit the theme and the motion of everything else that's going on with CTE and and the partnerships that we're building right now. So currently uh we are kind of shifting everything into the program Zello. It is an online program that guides kids through um different pathways, learning opportunities for potential routes to take after graduation. Um right now grades 9 through 12 have some form of ACP through Zello uh lessons in their advisory classes and also freshman seminar. We're also

079uh building on our community connections uh programming where we are bringing guest speakers from different uh businesses and organizations around the community come talk to our kids and help them explore different opportunities that way. And then finally our next steps is we want to continue and build and strengthen our ACP uh programming. So, we want to start bringing ACP lessons into our core classes, math, science, English, history, things like that, and then continue to expand on these community connections to help get our kids ready for what's next after their time at BHS. Thank you. Okay, so I know that was a lot. Uh, thank you for bearing with us, but we're proud of all of the things that we have going on at the high school and all of the success that we've seen thus

080far. Does anybody have any questions? If any come up, feel free to email me or any of us out here. We're more than happy to answer any questions. But thank you so much for taking the time to listen to all the things that we have going on at Burlington High School. Thank you. Y Okay, so just to recap, that was the school improvement update for Burlington High School and that was also the second item for discussion, the career and technical education update. Next item for discussion is the BASD school report card which will be done by Superintendent Oshoger. Yep. So, now that our um report cards are no longer embargoed and they are now uh able to be viewed by the public, I just wanted to run through them um fairly quickly with you just

081as a good recap and reminder of how we performed as a school district um this year on our report cards. As you know, all the district and school report cards are required for all public schools within the state of Wisconsin. And really for us, it is not so much about, yes, it is normal to want to compare yourself to other school districts in the area, but it is more so important for us to utilize it internally and just be able to continue to be a measure for our own continuous improvement because it's really important to make sure when you do compare report cards to another school district that you're mindful to look at their demographics as school district demographics around us uh are not necessarily the same as ours. Um, so first I just want

082to share that we exceed expectations on the state report card as a system. These are the scores for each of our schools, but I'll run through them all separately. But you can see here on the on the left side that just two years ago, our overall district report card was a 67.5. Last year it was a 70.5 and now we're at a 74.9. So we've made an impressive 7.4% 4% growth in um three years. Uh which is a which is significant um to be able to make that growth. We also something I wanted to point out from a district level. Uh we are we rank higher than 78.4% of all school districts when it comes to on track for graduation. Um and that's comparing ourselves to any other school district that is also a K12

083system. And just wanted to give a shout out. Kudos to all of our staff and students because it really is their work that is um that is what's uh in in really making us have that strong growth and achievement. So uh kudos to our staff and to all of our students for assisting with this. And now I just want to run through each of our schools real quick. So this one is Burlington High School. So again, Amy and the team at the high school are also showing significant growth, 6.2% 2% growth in the last uh three years. And also BHS outperforms 79% of all high schools in the state when it comes to ontrack for graduation. And then almost half of all of our students are enrolled in a dual enrollment course, which is compared

084to the 26.6% average um across the state. So kudos to our staff for continuing to push on that dual enrollment, which you heard a lot tonight um during the presentations. And then at Carter Middle School, they too have shown growth in the last three years from a 77 to an 84. Um, one big thing that is important to note uh for Carter is that they were just recognized for the Wisconsin Blue Ribbon Award. It is one that we were actually told last year uh from the federal government. It was cool to actually receive a phone call from uh the state superintendent herself. I'm like, why is the superintendent calling me? This is weird. are we in trouble for something? And then she's like, "Hey, one of your schools was just recognized for the federal uh

085blue national blue ribbon award." I was like, "Oh my gosh." So only eight schools out of 3,000, which includes all public and private schools in Wisconsin are chosen. Um and Carter Middle School was one of them um in that eight. So we are chosen because of our significant growth and in achievement gaps uh is the why. And then uh the federal government decided no longer to honor the National Blue Ribbon Award going into this summer. So then Wisconsin though is saying, "Hey, that's not really fair. We should still recognize the school." So that's where they're just naming it the Wisconsin Blue Ribbon. Um but it's the same eight uh school districts that were chosen from the federal level that are receiving that this year. So just kudos to our staff for that and Ker for

086having that significantly exceeds expectations. Cooper Monasuri has seen a huge gains uh in their report card scores um 10 points in just one school year uh and now they're in that significantly exceeds expectations category as well and they outperform 76% of all elementary schools in the state of Wisconsin. But then also something we look at is their value ad growth. Um and they outperform by one to two full standard deviations in English language arts. that that means that where the average student performs in English, our students outperform those students twofold um when it comes to ELA on the uh state assessments. So kudos to Kcher or Cooper Monastery. Dyer Elementary School 2 has seen significant growth also. So you'll notice this is kind of the trend across the district to see these big jumps. uh

087they are staying in that exceeding category and are now in the 80s which is awesome. It's a it's a great place to live. Um and they outperform in all categories for value ad um growth scores and when it comes to uh comparing to all schools in the state, not just in ELA, but also in math. At Waller Elementary School, they too are now in the 80s, which is awesome to see. their growth outperforms 70% of all students uh elementary schools in the state and then also their math growth outperforms on that value ad score as well. So kudos to Waller Elementary School and then Winkler uh also you see is at a 71.4. They are a school with the highest free and reduced lunch population sitting at about 50% um and really have high achievement

088though. So they outperform 70% of all elementary schools in the state when it comes to achievement. Um some of our class sizes there in the last three years of data have been smaller than 20. So then they still have some lingering data from years past where they don't have a target group or growth score. But we do anticipate that they will have that next year um moving forward now that we have reconfigured the school district. So kudos to Winkler also for being in the exceeding category. And then I just want to call out our other two schools that we have within the district and receiving an alternative rating score. So that is schools have a alternative rating. If you don't have a minimum of 20 students taking the state assessment within all the grade levels

089that could be tested and you need to have that within three years in a row also for you to really have a report card. So F FRC uh is part of our Burlington alternative school along with pack house and win and they tend to not have historical data of at least 20 students per grade level that take the state assessment. So therefore, they probably always will have an alternative rating score, which is okay, normal for smaller schools. WISCO is the same way. It's a 4K through 12th grade program. We don't have 20 students in grades 2, three or 3, 4, 5, 6, all the way up to 12 in order for us to have a report card there either. Um, so just FYI, when you see an AR on when you look up theirs, that

090just stands for alternative rating, and that's because we don't have enough students per grade level for them to have a score. So that is my uh sharing out on the district um goals and data. And it is just really cool to see um a consistent moving forward with our our data in the right direction. So really trending in an awesome into an awesome space. So kudos to the whole school district for that. That's it. Excellent. Does uh any anybody have any questions or comments? Just wonderful to see all the great things that are happening at the high school and I don't know it's just made you feel good all over having lunch or dinner with some of the group. They were very honest with us and told us a lot of the good things that

091are happening and so forth. So it's a great evening. Great. Thank you Amy. Um and the rest of you just have one question. Yeah. Um, what do we have in terms of response to those who may look at our increased scores or improvement across the district or the district overall with the claims that um those aren't necessarily improvements due to the alleged concerns that DPI has altered the standards at the forward exam. Um, I mean, obviously some people have shared those concerns. My response has been I think our team is working very hard and I don't think that uh that really means anything quite frankly because um we've seen the progress that our team has been doing. So just curious if you have any comments that you'd like to say in response to that. Yeah.

092Well, one uh part of why DPI made that adjustment if you remember is because of the NATE scores across the nation. So Wisconsin was one of two, three states across all of the nation that were really holding high proficiency scores in comparison to the rest of the state. So it wasn't that DPI was trying to make it easier for students to become proficient. They were simply as a state trying to put us in alignment with the majority of states in the United States with how we rank in proficiency wise. Right? So simply put, if I score a 520 um and I score a 520 in most states across the the nation, they were considering a 520 proficient. We were considering a 550 proficient. So we were at a much higher um expectation level than most

093states across the nation. So it's not that we are uh changing the assessment. We're just trying to put ourselves more in alignment with other states. But then also to get to the question in regard to well are we really performing better um what we still look at is where we sit in comparison to the state average of all the other schools across the state. So we used to sit closer to only 6% higher than the national or the state average in our ELA or mass score but we're closer to 12% above the state average now. So that's where more so we too when they made the adjustment we're like well how do we really know if it's us or if it's an adjustment and we still know that it's us because you still can compare

094yourself to the state average and we are much higher than the state average than we used to be. So that is um good data to be able to use there also. Um and then they did make an adjustment this year for the overall rankings for the scores. So in order to fall in the significantly exceeds category, you have to have an 84. Now it used to be an 83. So our schools that significantly exceed have to have that 84 number. And now to be in that exceeding group, you have to have a 71. It used to be a 70. So they also just increased that a little bit in regard to um performance on on the categories also. Perfect. Mhm. Again, I just wanted you to clarify that for anybody that had concerns because again,

095I think our team is working very hard and um scores do reflect that. So, I just wanted that clarification out there. Good question. Thank you. Appreciate it. Does anybody else have any questions or comments that they'd like to make? Okay. Next up then is the 2425 annual bullying report from Director Wines. Please. Good evening everybody. Boy on how we doing tonight? Excellent. We got to do something about the order here. The wonderful presentation tonight followed by my annual bowling report. Um so I will connect and we'll get started. chill. Yeah. I didn't touch it for the first time. Wasn't me. Boardroom two. Okay. I'm getting there, guys. Just as a reminder too, the annual B billing report is something that has to come to the school board every year per Wisconsin rules at the state

096level. But then we do plan to probably shift this to the end of the school year. Um uh so that it kind of couples more um with alignment with with the timing of it. Um so next time you see this come around that probably will be when we place it is in June probably. And we have that flexibility. We can place it anywhere we want as long as we do it annually. So we're just reshifting some of the calendar, but that would mean that the report for 2526 would come in June versus uh in, you know, more towards a quarter into the current school year. Okay. Our annual bullying report um is based on numbers collected within our Skyward student system. Um, so the numbers that we'll show tonight were pieces that were put into

097Skyward based on administrators following up on concerns um and investigating concerns um whether that be conflict, harassment or bullying within the school setting. Um as Jill had stated that each year um per Wisconsin state statute that school districts must report on our process in district and numbers related to what was seen um within our schools over that past school year. Um within this we are speaking about our definition um our process as far as investigation and then communication with parents. Uh within BASAD, we look at bullying as an imbalance of power, intentional behavior, um using words, actions, um that are meant to cause fear, intimidation, or harm. And we also look at this as a repeated behavior, um going on over a period of time. We have an investigation form that I've linked here. Uh

098I just want to see how that's going to pull up for us. So, this would be a common form. Oh, it's not pulling up for you. Okay, that's okay. You can just explain it. So, the investigation form is common across all schools. And so, what we have in the investigation form are certain steps and uh pieces that need to be a part of every investigation for us to look at that as bullying. Um, and these are just steps that help the administrator or the pupil services team member to conduct that investigation and pull the information together so that we have a complete picture of that situation prior to moving to a decision. Okay. Uh the data that we have collected uh shows that we saw bullying occur at uh two out of our uh out

099of our uh buildings within the school district. Um what we see is we have uh a higher number um that we are seeing at Carter. Uh we have one single incident at Burlington High School. When I look at the total number of uh situations that we've deemed to be bullying within the district, um this is this is lower than what it had been uh the previous year. Uh year prior to that we were in the mid20s. We stay within that mid20s to low30s number as far as bullying goes over the last four years. Um and how we're seeing bullying occur within our schools. um possible reasons as to why we don't see anything at the elementary because that was the question that I saw the these numbers and I was like, "Huh, that looks that

100looks off, right?" Um so I go back to my notes, I go back to conversations with administrators. um when we're seeing situations that are rising to the level of harassment or bullying within schools, that usually is a phone call to uh myself from the administrator so that we can talk through what that situation looks like, talk through the the steps that have been taken so far and where they're at in their investigation. Um when I spoke with the ele elementary administrators about bullying, um what we had talked about was a lot about conflict. Um, so our our positive behavior intervention system within schools, our school counseling focuses a lot on conflict resolution. And so what we find is when we have a conflict, when we have a disagreement in schools, um, we're seeing that be

101managed uh, by our staff and by administration in the school setting. So we're not seeing those situations rise to the level of bullying u because of the way that we look at it. Now, if we would look at um what I would call minors or behaviors that may not be referred to building administration, but are handled at uh the classroom level or are handled by a conversation with administration instead of being written up or like a a behavioral referral. Um those are situations that we're looking at where there definitely is disagreements and conflicts that are happening within the school setting, but nothing rising to the level of bullying. when we're looking at Carter um speaking with Nick and John at Carter about some of the bullying numbers that they have there. What they had in

102response to that was that at that age level we are bringing in all of our students into one setting and they do see more conflict and they do see some struggles at that age level with handling peer conflict and and therefore for that reason they are seeing some of that turn into bullying. Um what they did say is that was a response that was some social skills groups um was that the school counselors, school psychologist, school social worker um were more active. We think someone might have hit the button. So we're just feeling like we're in a refrigerator all of a sudden. Okay. So she's making an adjustment there. Thank you. But we are seeing solutions and different pieces being put in place there. Um especially since that building has grown to five through eight

103um in comparison to what it was before. Um but it is something that's being noted and being talked about. Um whether that be at our midyear um behavior check-in as far as are we how are we looking at behavioral referrals, how are we calibrating those at the secondary level as well as at the end of the year when we're reviewing all of our data from the year um in the sense of uh behaviors that we're seeing occur within the school setting to the responses to those behaviors. And responses I mean restorative conversations, detentions, out of school suspensions, pieces like that. Um and and so those are conversations that we're having on a regular basis at the high school level. When we're having conversations that are um following along with harassment, conflict, bullying, I can tell

104you that um the conversations are definitely on on on that page of are we looking at a bullying situation? Are we looking at a harassment situation? What are the contents of that situation? um we go a lot more into the definition of harassment and bullying within those situations so that we can talk about what are the specific components of that and does it equal bullying versus harassment. And I think that becomes much more of a conversation at that high school level where um we're dealing with at times um adults and minors um involved in one situation. And so, um, the conversations just look a little bit different at the high school. Uh, documentation, communication, uh, when we're moving through, uh, a situation that that could that could be bullying. Um, the the investigation form that

105I'd hope to um, pull up here today. Um, that's a piece of it. That's a piece of making sure we have all the necessary components of an investigation in place and so that when we are going to parents that we have all the information that we need and we're pulling that together um to make a decision. Um regardless of who is investigating the final determination does fall on the building administrator to say whether that's bullying or not. um parents are contacted the day of the report, but also at the end the conclusion of the investigation so that we can sit down and explain those results and explain what the next steps are. Regardless of whether we call that bullying or not, it was still a situation that was upsetting to um students within our student

106body. And therefore, we want to make sure that we have um pathways for all students involved. And when I talk about pathways, I'm talking about plans, right? If if we have conflict and we know that we can avoid conflict within that school setting, we need to sit down and talk about that. We need to talk about that with parents and students and make sure that everyone's aware of what we're talking about when we're saying it may not be best for you to walk down this hallway at this time. Let's avoid each other for a week and let things cool down and then we can come back to that. So, we we set up some different plans. That's just an ample of course. Um, but we have some different plans and some different ways to remedy

107situations and conflict within schools. Um, and then lastly, the student code of conduct is our guide when we're we're talking about that response to a situation. So, we each year um sit down and look at the code of conduct. We look at how that played out for us in regard to response to behavior that we see in schools and whether we need to make adjustments. Um, but that is kind of the guide for our administrators in the building as to how we're going to respond to behavior that we see each year as a staff in the buildings. We then we talk about bullying. We talk about our process, our investigation, and what our definition is in Burlington. Um, so that all staff are on the same page. Um, we're using PBIS as our foundation. Um,

108because that is where we reinforce what the expected behaviors are. We're talking about what we want to see from students and how we feel that students can be more successful in school both socially, emotionally, and academically. Um, and PBIS again is our foundation for that. And you can notice tattling versus telling I having up there because this is developmental. When we're talking about students in elementary, we're looking at different situations than we are when we're working with students at the secondary level. So, when we're looking at that elementary, we're we're starting with tattling versus telling. We're we're we're starting about how to advocate for yourself as a student within that school setting and then how also to avoid situations where students are trying to gain attention for themselves in a situation or trying to get

109another student in trouble. Some early signs um that that we would see in conflict and we're trying to remedy those through simple lessons and different pieces that we can handle with elementary counseling and classroom teachers to reinforce those. Can you tell me what PBIS is? uh positive behavior intervention and supports. It's a framework that we use to teach behavior to teach our expectations. So, at the beginning of each school year, we start off with a kickoff as far as what do we want to see in multiple settings throughout that building. And so, we're teaching those expectations. We're not coming in assuming that students are all growing up in the same spot where they know similar rules as to how to treat others, how to move throughout a building in a respectful, responsible, and safe manner.

110Um, so we'll have behavior matrices um in the building talking about what are those behavioral expectations and different schools do that in different ways, but we're trying to basically provide students with a road map with a guide as to how to be successful in school. And it's by doing certain things in certain places, um not only are you more accepted socially in those settings then, but you're you're going to be more successful um with staff and and with your peers. Um one of the pieces there is conflict versus bullying. And so one of the things that we see is in situations we'll have um well someone say they're bullying me. They're they're they're bullying me. and we'll jump in we we'll move into an investigation. Um because we take that that that very seriously when

111a a student is making that report. Um what we find is that one of the pieces of our definition is an imbalance of power is that one party has an upper hand and they're using that to intimidate or coersse or get their way with the student. Um in a conflict though we don't always see it that way. We don't see that imbalance of power. And then so that's one of the things that we like to talk about not only with staff, but we talk about that with students as well as far as if we have two parties engaging in the same behavior. That isn't necessarily bullying, right? That's part of the investigation. That's part of the information that we're trying to pull out. But again, is another example of ways that we try and talk

112about conflict um and how to handle that in a peaceful, safe manner. Um the last piece there is uh different avenues for students to report um issues within the school setting. And so we have two anonymous ways within the school setting for students to report. First one is speak up, speak out Wisconsin, and that's an avenue where students can report incidents in school that make them feel unsafe. That could be bullying. Um and and we have received reports through that avenue in the past or through that platform, I should say. Another one is we have a school report form that's in um each student's class link um where they can click on an anonymous reporting form and that allows them to report a concern that they have in school without actually having to go up

113to Reed or Bryce and say, "Hey, this is what I have going on." instead they can make that report um through class link and that's something that pops up in their email then that that they can go and investigate that concern at that time instead of that student having to come forward. Um other ways that we have that happening in schools is is the oldfashioned way of coming up to an adult and and and reporting something that's happened or that's occurred. Um, we advocate for all of our students to if you see something that doesn't that doesn't feel right that it's a good thing to go talk to an adult about that. How do you do that? When do you do that? Right? And so those are some of the pieces that we talk about

114is how big is the problem and is that a priority or is that something that we can hold on to until there's a break in class or until there's a uh an appropriate time to go and talk to an adult about that versus something where it's like, nope, that's a priority. I need to go say something right now. And so those are some of the conversations that we're having with students along the way so that they they learn the best time, the best way to make reports, to speak to adults, and how to do so in a way where they're going to understand what the student is wanting to get across. Okay. uh my action steps um in regards to uh bullying, student services and some of the pieces that we can do as a

115team, as a school um is obviously my my first is I want to increase pro-social behavior um around peer interactions. I think that is one of the pieces where we notice in the elementary school that when we are really reinforcing pro-social behavior when it's talking about how kids are interacting with each other, how we're commenting on what another student has done in class, how we're commenting on what students are doing in gym or what they're wearing to school. How can we do that in an appropriate way? How can we do that in a way that is going to build people up and not tear them down? And I think those are pieces where we're looking for those teachable moments of when we can impress on our youngest people on how to act and handle themselves

116in a more appropriate pro-social way. Um, and I think that's some of the foundation pieces of what we want when we're talking about being a good human. Um, so those are things that we're talking about as a department on a regular basis as to what can we push on within our schools. What are our opportunities um to keep moving forward there and to not be okay with where we are right now. Another piece is again continuing to implement PBIS and making sure that we're revisiting those behavioral expectations, having our celebrations for positive pieces that we're seeing in school as much as is appropriate within our school setting that isn't taking away from some of our academics because I I I'll tell you when students are being praised for behavior or things that they're just doing

117and they're not even recognizing it themselves, they get so excited about this. And the celebrations are so great because everyone can do it together because we're we've achieved this as a school community. And I think those are some of the really cool big pieces in schools that not a lot of people get to see. Um but uh the students definitely take something away from that and we feel that it's pretty special. Uh the last piece is about sharing our process with families um and making that a more formal share than um conversations that we're having at that school setting. And so when I'm talking about that, it's it's more about taking what we've talked about today, but putting that down on paper that goes along with our school policy that we have in place and

118have had in place um and making sure that if they have questions in regards to that that they know who to contact to go and ask questions to. So um that's what I have for you today. Are there any questions? So looking at the numbers, I guess, you know, when you have one, right? Yes. It seems like then a lot of the intera while interactions are bad social behavior could be contributed to a conflict instead of bullying. Is that kind of what we're getting at? Because I have a lot of parents that reach out and say, "Oh, my kids getting bullied. My kids getting bullied." But when I only see one incident up there, I guess the only way to explain it is is it's not bullying by definition of what you guys have set

119up. Correct. I I'll I'll say that from when I was a school psych into this role as as director of pupil services, one of the biggest pieces out there is that um there is there's a lot of messages of bullying that that I that I hear from parents from students and it comes back to the education about how we look at bullying and how we define that. Uh because if we define bullying as one single incidence of a student being unkind to another student um we have a lot of bullying going on then you are correct there are there are there are individual isolated incidents um of students interactions not being positive and I would say that that's that that's a piece of it we use those incidents as as a teachable moment as to

120how could we do that differently. What was the impact on that student? How do your words impact that other person and then that of your class? Because if we make a comment about a student, that may hurt that student individually, but it may also impact several other people within their classroom. Uh because they may be feeling the same way or they may have made the same mistake or think the same way and therefore when another student puts that down, they put down a a a larger group of people that they weren't maybe intending to do so. And so in those conversations, we we do see growth. then we don't see as much repeat offenses in that area because then they start to actually value what the people in their in their classroom community what they

121feel and they care about that and I think that's a piece of that we really press on in PBIS is that it's a community and when one person harms that community it harms everybody in that community and so you take a lot more responsibility for your actions that's the hope of what we're teaching on a day-to-day basis so Yes, there are conversations about that difference. But to really hit on like what your question is in relation to because I know you guys get get that from parents all the time. Um it's going back to the reminder that bullying is repeated and that there's an imbalance of power. A lot of times when our team investigates into something, it is it is a conflict, right? I had an issue with so and so and you talked

122to them and it's like, well, they did this to me and I did this to them, right? Like it's back and forth stuff. that's not bullying, but a lot of times parents say, "My kids's getting bullied," right? And then you would look into it and it's usually a conflict. So that is the difference there. But then also people misinterpret the difference between bullying and harassment. So harassment is a protected class. So that's race, special ed, socioeconomic, right? If I'm getting picked on for any of those things, it is not bullying. it is coded as harassment because I'm picking on someone repeatedly based on their protected class. So that's a difference also when it comes to bullying versus harassment. So is harassment treated on the same level as bullying or not? Or is it elevated because

123it is about a protected class? I I think it's situationally dependent. So that that's the investigation. That's the information we're pulling in to see about the significance the severity of what has taken place. And so upon that then that that that's that's the conversation piece as far as what is the severity? What is the significance of the incident? And then we go back to the code of conduct and make the decision about what that consequence will be for the behavior that was seen. Okay. Um interesting. I've I've had, you know, sent I mean, being new to the board, I've had, you know, people approach me and say, "Hey, there's there's stuff going on." And a lot I mean, I I've had instances where people feel like people may not necessarily be paying attention or looking

124into those things. So, that's I have questions, but I think it might be better to discuss them offline if that's okay with you. Frequently too, we'll get things that come forward and our admin team will have uh parents say this has been going on for a long time and you talk to the student, they've never reported it to anybody. So, that's also like when you have conversations with people, just make sure they're also have they have they addressed it, talk to administration, but also sometimes parents are going to aren't going to like our response because when we look into it, we say, "But it was a conflict. It wasn't bullying, right?" So sometimes it's like, well, your student also was engaged in some activity that caused it to not be a bullying situation, but more

125of a conflict. But happy to follow up with you, Kate, separately offline. Any other thoughts or questions? Okay, hearing none. You guys enjoy. Thank you so much for the time. Thanks, Chris. Thank you, sir. All right, last item for items for discussion is the uh ongoing policy review first reading. So, we'll turn it over to uh Clerk Cobberick. All right. Not as riveting as bullying or any of the other stuff that we've done tonight, but still important. Um policy 2420 is education employment. The biggest takeaway from this is that as we've seen here, a lot of the schools themselves are actually doing the long range planning of education. And one of the things in the policy was that the board, you know, sets up the long range plan, approves it, writes a report on it,

126and does all this extra stuff that was listed in section D, but we've never really done it. So, we're removing that section. Doesn't mean that it's not being done. the schools have taken it over and they're doing a really good job with it. So that's why we've removed that whole section. Um policy 2421 uh basically is just an update on um verbiage. So that one's pretty simple. Policy 2430.01 01. Uh basically we've changed it from the district administrator to the building principal um for who's responsible for most of those actions. That's in relation to volunteers. So uh policy 2431 which is intercolastic athletics. Um basically we changed it so that the district approves the licensed um people that Yeah. Sorry, computer's behind. So, basically, we changed it to a licensed physician instead of a district

127approved physician. Um, that way there's more access for the people to get their physical exam done. And that's so that you could participate in sports. Policy 2450 is the community and adult education. Um, we changed it to community education because that's really what it is. and also removed that education is a continuous process throughout life and supports the position. Um that whole section was replaced with learning is a continuous process throughout life and values the district's role in offering opportunities that celebrate lifelong learning as well as recreation by collaborating with community partners. The district provides educational, cultural and recreational opportunities for all ages. So the biggest thing is the all ages part to be taken away from that. Also it we removed the evening and day for the purposes of meeting that it's just so

128that we can have it at any point in time and it's not specified by time and day. Uh policy 2461 recording of IEP team meetings. It's just changing from his her to their uh change special education to pupil services because that's what it falls under. and we changed to should to they must um for one of the sections so that they must do this process instead of should. Mhm. And then uh policy review during due to insurance changes beginning in January 2026. Um, since we're changing to a fully insured health insurance, self-funded to self-funded health insurance, we needed to adjust the following policies. Um, basically it was so that our policies and practices align. And some of them look like we just had done them because we did, but now since we're going to self-funded

129health insurance, we need to make sure that these were updated. um changes were made to dental because it was it is selfunded. So because it is self-funded and now um we had to review and align with the changes going into effect January 1st, 2026 to include the medical plan and prescription drug plan under the self-funded policy. We also changed business manager to payroll and benefits coordinator for our fully funded policies and to director of human services on our self-funded policies because they're still those policies. The other change that was made was removing the health savings account from policies because we can't have those legally anymore with the uh self-funded health insurance um the way we set it up. And then um the respective policies that were updated for all these changes are policies 1619.01 um

130which is privacy protections of self-funded group health plans, policy 1619.02 which is privacy protections of fully insured group health plans. And then 3419 just applies to a different group of um people that work for the district. Same thing with 3419.02 and the same thing with policy 4419.01 and 4419.02. So those are the updated policies and basically it's like when we make an update to ones that include certified staff that's these set of policies. when it's done for administrative staff that's policies and when it's the third support staff. Yep. So that's all the updates we've made to current policy at this time. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Next item is we have no items for action so we can move on from that. Uh next agenda item is schoolboard committee updates. First we'll do finance. Of

131course, Peter is not here. So, Joel, do you want to take that? Or Ruth? Yeah, we um met and discussed uh planning for the next operational referendum. Just trying to line up potential timelines of what that would look like. We're going to meet again in January in order to continue that conversation with just the finance committee and then circle back to the full team in the spring and have a board workshop um most likely to kind of circle back to that conversation. but just really needing to start to plan out what the next operational referendum will be. Um, seems crazy to have to do that, but it is just around the corner. Okay. Building and grounds, Marlo, excuse me. Um, we did not meet this month. Um, we do have a meeting scheduled in January

132and uh, yeah, we'll give some updates probably um, February in February, but I'm sure we'll have an agenda that we can at least talk about um, at our January meeting. Okay. The the goal there is to go over the Mcken Street data in more detail uh, after the team has been trained using all of the platforms. They came and spoke to you guys and shared that out at their last board meeting, right? that we're 23.1 million right over the next 10 years. So between now and that January 26 is training for Tyler, myself, Jess, some of the buildings and grounds team on the programs and then we'll circle back to the whole buildings and grounds team and kind of analyze that further. Okay. Personnel Noah uh personnel committee met this past Wednesday, December 3rd to

133discuss appointments, resignations, retirements, and terminations. Um and then those were approved in tonight's cons consent agenda items. All right. Excellent. Uh teaching and learning Marlo, I'm sorry, Roseanne. Okay. We had a great uh meeting on November 17th. We all went to Carter School and we visited a sixth grade class with um Mrs. Coldway, eighth grade class with Mr. Rumler, eighth grade class financial literacy with Mr. Schmidt, and an eighth grade STEM medical uh directive with Mrs. Olinberg. Um, it was fun to see the kids so engaged and the teachers all had different teaching styles. They were all excellent. The kids were engaged, happy. I enjoyed uh, you know, talking with each other and comparing notes and so forth. I I thought it was very well done and certainly was a great uh, meeting. We we

134enjoy it ourselves. I like it's fun to see the kids just like tonight. It's, you know, this is what we're all about and we we need to have more kids come, I think, sometimes. But my two cents worth, but it was good. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. Uh policy Paul. Well, we reviewed those policies that I just went over and Well, I'm sure we'll have more. You just keep coming, Paul. I always do. Never. All right. Uh, last but not least, board governance, communications, and legislative committee. Kate, um, we met on November 18th, and for the most part, we discussed the next issue of the focus newsletter. Um, talked about the subject matter and the content they're going to be sharing with the um, community as part of the district. Yep. Those should go out

135at the end of this week, so should see them soon. Okay, excellent. Uh, next up is future meeting dates. Again, to recap, teaching and learning, next meeting is December 11th. That'll be at Waller Elementary. Policy comm policy committee is December 17th at 5:15. Let's hear district office personnel January 7th at 1 p.m. It's close session and we handle that virtually. Next annual school or regular schoolboard meeting is January 12th here of course at 6:30m. The SWSA meeting uh is January 13th at 7:30 a.m. Finance January 13th at 5:00 pm. Board governance communications is January 20th at 5:30 p.m. And building and grounds of course again is January 26th at 5:15 p.m. And with that, next is we are going to move into close session. So I'm going to make a motion that we move into

136close session per Wisconsin statute 19.851C 851C to discuss superintendent evaluation process and personnel concerns. Do I have a second to that motion? Second. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. All right. We are in close session. Thank you for coming everybody. Thank you.