BASD School Board Meeting - October 13, 2025

001We'll go ahead and uh for the pledge of allegiance. If you please stand this way. There it is. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Next we'll do uh roll call. Erin, if you can help us out. Kate here. Roseanne here. Paul here. Taylor here. Marlo here. Peter here. Noah here. All right. Uh, next up is citizen comments. Uh, citizens have up to three minutes to address the board. Do we have any citizen comments? No. Okay. Next is reports which is the first item is board member reports for updates on workshops or meetings attended. Does anybody have anything right for the board members? Yeah, we went to the uh Vets Terrace, Paul, Kate, Roseanne,

002and I Jill, and the one thing I took away from that I thought was really interesting was uh lobbyists came and gave us an interesting update on what's going on at the state legislature. Um, especially with respect to schools, but it was also kind of a general update. It was very interesting to hear. Um, but I'm sure Roseanne, Kate, and Paul may have some other things to add. A lot of the information that they shared was pretty interesting, especially at the state level when that guy was talking about the lobbyist stuff he was doing. Well, they're a very active group and I'm happy to say that I was ahead of it for a while and I still am a member. Um, they do a lot and and their lobbyists are excellent and they do encourage

003all of us as board members to contact our officials and say, "We need more help with this with education." And we were talking about special ed and I mean this the uh federal government has promised 60% and they give us 30. The state gives us almost nothing. So I mean we it's uh and they do listen to you. I mean maybe they don't make a lot of changes but the more they hear it the more they're apt to make a change. So yeah I thought it was a very good evening. It was a lot of fun and that I hope that you were able to talk to other board members from other districts and so forth. But thank you for mentioning it. Yeah it was a really great meeting. Um, one of the other areas

004in addition to the, um, political insights and and the lobbyist insights, um, we actually had an opportunity to share with other school boards, um, what we're doing, um, in our community. And one of the things that we really um shared on behalf of Burlington Area School District was our community partnerships and our business partnerships and how we're using that strategically to grow and to develop our students so that way they are ready to give back to the community. And that seemed really powerful. We got a lot of positive response on that. Excellent. Uh, okay. Next up is superintendent report. Yep. So, um, first want to just start with, um, with the, oh man, uh, with the, um, school board. So, last week was schoolboard appreciation week, everybody. So, on behalf of the Burlington Area School

005District and the entire Burlington community, we want to all say thank you for your dedicated service and leadership as a school board member. Um, thank you for your commitment, compassion, and dedication that makes such a huge difference in the growth and success of all of our students. We know how many hours I especially know there are lots and lots of hours that all of you have put in behind the scenes and within meetings um for the school board and you're devoted to supporting our student, staff and community and we are just so thankful for all that you do for BASD. And also to show our appreciation, we did put together a little goodie bag that I know you each have here under your seats or behind you in order for us to just say thank

006you for all that you do for BASD. I know a couple items isn't necessarily enough, but hopefully it is something that just makes you feel appreciated here in the Burlington Area School District and in Burlington in general for your willingness to serve as a schoolboard member. So, thank you. Thank you. And then next up, just a few things that have been going on in the school district in the last month. So at BHS, we had um film making students, over 50 students at BHS film making class are honing in on their in interview skills while also earning college credit through the CAP program in partnership with UW system. It's a great opportunity for some hands-on life skills. Additionally, we want to congratulate the following BHS students who signed on with Aurora at the youth apprenticeship

007signing day. So, this is something kudos to the high school for starting this. So, thank you Amy Leavonian and Reed um for getting this started where instead of just signing days for athletics, we're doing signing days for becoming a youth apprentice, which is into college and career fields, right? which is really awesome. So, first student is Kyle Shaplaskky as the CNA, Alyssa Girth as a CNA, Dakota Grineer as a clinical support, Miley Troder as clinical support, and Mia Espinosa as clinical support. Um, all five of the students are stepping into health career fields. Um, still in high school getting hands-on experience and mentorship. And a huge thank you to Aurora for supporting our students in the future of our community. Additionally, our freshman seminar classes have had a blast taking apart computers in order to

008explore the different components and better understand how technology works. Um, that would be kind of cool. I've never I've never done that. Um, be interesting. Um, and then we had this lovely take it and tie it event at the high school. During flex period, students had the chance at BHS to learn how to tie a tie and practice their skills and even take one home from Mr. Iverson's collection. He has a huge collection of ties. So, huge thank you to all the staff who also stepped up and were helpful as mentors. Our students not only walked away with some sharp ties for homecoming, but they also learned a new life skill and some really proud first knots were had. And with our key club, one of our clubs after school, um, overseen by Veronica Mell,

009Burlington High School's key club rolled up their sleeves and joined the Fox River Cleanup. The Key Club members worked hard cleaning up the river along Bushnull Park, helping our community and the environment stay beautiful. Thank you to that group for assisting in the community. Our pep band has been bringing all the energy to our home games like never before. Their talent truly enhances the positive atmosphere at all of our BHS football games. Hosa, this was awesome. I was at the Rotary when this took place. It was a really really proud moment for BASD especially because we gave them about three days to prepare. So that's even probably the most impressive part. Um in September they attended Rotary our HOSA club did and they did a fantastic job sharing the work that they do and the

010competitions they participate in. over 90 student members now in our are in the HOSA program and is providing incredible opportunities to our students to explore careers and health services and grow as leaders. We are also proud of all of their dedication and success. And um at Rotary there was multiple Rotarians that did say we've never had a presentation that was this exceptional from anybody in the community. and they said that to the students and it was it was really awesome and heartfelt. So that was really really cool. They did a fantastic job. The bar has now been set. Um FFA officers and student leaders attended the Wisconsin State FFA section 10 fall Leadership Workshop and the World Dairy Expo in Madison. They met with state officers, explored industry exhibits, and represented BSD with pride and

011professionalism at both of the events. Our oneact play um is important for you to mark your calendars if you'd like to see the oneact play and come and attend at BHS. The shows will take place on October 23rd, November 7th, and November 18th. As you know, the one act play is a shortened play that the students have rules that they have to fall within and then they compete against other schools to within those guidelines. Um, so, uh, kudos to the group and and it'd be awesome if you attended one of those if you would like. Next up is this is pretty cool. Also, we have girls flag football. If you didn't know that, um, BHS is proud to be one of only 40 Wisconsin high schools to receive a grant for establishing a girls flag

012football team in partnership with the Green Bay Packers. Thanks to the Packers, our athletes received all the equipment needed to kick off the program. Practices and scrimmage games are already underway on Sunday evenings with over 35 girls participating. Best of all, the participation right now is free and open to all BHS girls in grades 9 through 12. And our our showcase powderpuff games took place on Monday, October 6th during homecoming week. So hoping I talked to Sulick about this, our ED, he's hoping for this to be able to be a competitive thing moving forward against other school districts. So that's kind of exciting. And then additionally here, members of our B squad, just to make sure you know what Bqu Squad stands for or what it is, it's a our student leadership cheering section at

013the high school. So the high school administrative team along with Eric Stulick wanted to ensure that how our students act at games is something that they really can feel proud of and that there's leadership there organized um cheering those kind of things. So it's called the B squad. So they have taken those students under their wing and the students involved have been awesome leaders at all of our games so far. So the B squad along with our football team helped with the annual Carter way day and they helped guide and coach several team building and competition activities at Carter. So a huge thank you to them for assisting at Carter and then also Carter uh hosted its annual award day where fifth through 8th grade students enjoyed a fun-filled day of teamwork and competition. The

014celebration ended with a proud Carter banner presentation honoring school spirit and achievement. Lastly, at Carter, one thing they wanted to highlight is that the fifth grade students became wildlife biologists using real skulls and horns to classify animals by bone structure, teeth, and horn traits. This hands-on lab has sparked curiosity, critical thinking, and real world scientific discovery. And then at um FRC, our students are diving into project-based learning and planning meals, shopping with Mr. Wedig and Miss McMurray. They're cooking in the F FRC kitchen, usually sharing their delicious creations with the other students and staff. Additionally, they have a PBL, a project-based learning that relates to raising a child. And the students are caring for baby Kora, which is a simulator baby, discovering firsthand the challenges of parenting. Our F FRC students also um were able

015to visit Northshore Bank with Miss McMurray to learn about banking, investing, and credit. And another experienced teachers um and a passionate student explored Gateways aeronautics program at Kenosha, which was inspired by a student's dream to become a pilot. They toured a training plane, learned about the aviation curriculum, and met with the program director in order to understand the local aviation opportunities. Um and that is it for the superintendent report. Just so you know, we are rotating schools kind of as the months go. So um that are those are the schools that were selected this month to share some updates. So that's it from the superintendent. All right. Thank you. Next up is consent agenda items. This includes uh board minutes from September 8th, special board meeting minutes, bank statement and bills, appointments, resignations, retirements, terminations,

016uh hefty amount of donations, which we are incredibly gen uh thankful for, and policy updates, which are second readings. So, I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented. So moved. Is there a second? Second. Okay. All those in favor say I. I. Opposed. All right. that is passed. If I can just make a comment about one thing in the consent agenda. Um, one of the members approved is the director of business services and I just wanted to point out that Tyler Golstad is going to be our new director of business services. He's sitting here in the audience. Um, just a little background, he has a minor uh his bachelor's is in a major in mathematics and business administration. He also has a master's in in uh financial analysis. He also

017has a certificate in human resources management and he's working on his second masters in accounting at the moment. So, welcome uh Tyler to the team. He'll be starting November 3rd and overlapping with Ruth through the month of November and December and then he's flying the plane from there. So, welcome to the team. Okay. Uh next up is items for discussion and information. So, first up, we're going to have the Winkler Elementary School action plan. So, Mr. Graham, if you want to come on up, please so far away. Four or five. Thank you. of course technology. [Music] Well, I'm getting this queued up. I just want to thank you guys, the board for the opportunity for us to present tonight. I'm extremely proud of our staff, uh, the amount of work they put in, the dedication

018they put in, uh, every day to make Winkler a great place to work and a great place for students to come in. So, thank you so much for all of our staff. I know we have three in in the audience tonight and then we have more watching from home. So, thank you so much for that work. Also, I just want to give Amy and her team at the high school, Sulic, Becky, Trisha, uh the whole team over there for a wonderful uh homecoming week. Uh I have a son up there. He had a great time, but the the homecoming football game with the fireworks at the end was was extra special. It was a great community night and the amount of people that were out there Lynch and everybody who donated their time. So, thank

019you so much for that time maybe. Yeah, I'll figure it out. All right. All right. Thank you again. I'm I'm very lucky to work with everybody over at Winkler. Uh we have over 350 uh years of service in education combined, 14 master's degrees out there. So you can see the dedication just with the amount of years of service to teaching together and our master's degrees is fantastic. Uh anywhere on any given day, we have about 26 to 30 staff members out there. We serve 190 students that come from the southernmost part of our district. Um they come from Boner's Lake, Cedar Park, and the BHS neighborhoods. We redistricted it two years ago. Uh so this is our first year that we have consistent enrollment for the first time in the last five. So that's a

020bonus for us. We know our kids. We're not reaclimating kids to our our school. So, uh I think they have a great time. every morning they come, they're used to our routines and our procedures as we go out there. Right now, I just have a list of our students or I'm sorry, our staff up here on the board, starting with all our classroom teachers to our math interventionist who's here, uh all our paras art counseling and our MLL with it, which is Miss Sleski. Again, we serve the southernmost part of our school district. Again, it's been rebounded a couple times now, but this, like I said, pretty consistent year. And hopefully we stay that way as we move forward and continue to have uh this area of our district. We currently have two sections of

021our school, which we had last year. I do want to give a special thanks to Jess Warren, our buildings and grounds, and our custodial group. Our school is two sections which means every room is full. So last summer we decided we were going to take two storage rooms closets and classroom spaces and turn those into a calm intervention space and another intervention space. So we've given up storage to serve kids. Jess did that over the summer with um WANC uh in a really short amount of time and made two great learning spaces for us for Winkler. So, I want to thank him and his team, the custodial crew, plus Wanosk for fitting us in uh on a tight summer schedule. So, that's helped us out there. We have art and music in the cafeteria. Uh

022and that's been going fantastic. That's how our building was built back in 2000. So, um loving that we're using every space and finding unique places to serve kids. All right, we're here because we are talking about our school action plan, which is based on the BSD strategic plan. Uh here we have a theory of action. Uh we do this every year. We come up with a theory that if we continue to learn about the science of reading for ELA, our English language arts, utilize our best practices around uh the science of reading, use our newer curriculum called amplify and our CQLA. We plan collaboratively throughout the day. We think we can get kids engaged and achieve that grade level proficiency. Again, this is based on the BSD strategic plan. And each goal that you'll see

023is tied in to each of the goals in our strategic plan as well. So, goal number one is our ELA goal. Uh we want 65% of our students, this goes with strategic plan number one. 65% of our students to become meeting or advanced in ELA on the spring forward test. You see the big number 27. My staff is probably tired of us hearing this. 27 is the number that we want in each grade level. Grade three, we want 27 kids to become meeting or proficient on the four exam. Obviously, we want more, but that is our goal. Uh we made posters to make that visible around the room. They have binders with it on there. Everything we do is around the number 27. So, we want 27 kids. That'll roughly equate to 65% being proficient

024or advanced on the ELA portion. We have a bunch of action steps in there. Uh you'll hear this throughout the elementary world. We're really aligned on our action steps between Cooper Dyer Waller and myself. Uh we're using our team time which is strategically placed with our electives where our teachers get an hour twice a week to work together to plan together to collaborate and to see what we can do to hopefully ensure that we get 27 kids at that meeting in advance level. So they're using that team time to use data and strategically plan their day and strategically plan something that we'll call boost time which is just a second dip of the core. So that's why you'll see the 27 on the next two slides. But again this is tied to our strategic plan

025at BSD on the focus of students side. This is goal number one. Our second goal is similar but it's our math goal. This is tied to our strategic plan number two. Again, we want 65% of our students. We had a baseline of about 62 to 61% of our math kids last year. We want to increase that score to 65%. Uh again, utilizing that same team time as action steps. Uh again, looking at the number 27 and that's our goal. More would be fantastic, okay? But we definitely want to try to get to that that 65%. Our third goal is tied into uh the strategic plan goal number five where it's talking about our student survey, excuse me. Uh we want students to feel welcomed and comfortable and come to a good climate. We want them

026to feel safe at school. So we just did that uh survey. It ended on Friday, October 10th, so this past Friday. uh we'll get that data together when talking with stutter if we can get an overall increase by 0.1 that's significantly um statistically significant as a 0.1 increase that's our goal I don't have a raw number right now for you because we just did the survey it just ended okay um and then the next few slides we'll just talk about how we're going to make kids feel welcomed at school and what we do kind of on a day-to-day basis we'll go through that pretty quickly Um, we have something we changed up this year. We call it the winners of Winkler. We give WOW tickets to students. We have WOW assemblies. Uh, we're trying to

027get and pump up our positive behaviors. So, students who are doing the right thing without people watching. When they're watching, we want to issue a WOW ticket to that student. They can come bring it to the office, drop it off. At the end of the week, we do weekly drawings. Usually about 12 to 14 kids. we pull out of the hat that have earned WOW tickets over time. They come down to my office for a good thing. Uh they get a prize. Today, uh we had 10 students get nominated by their teachers. Today was a special drawing. We all know the Brewers played tonight. I'm a huge Brewers fans, so sorry for those Cubs fans. Apologize. Uh today we did a special drawing. One of our staff members donated three Brewers items, two jerseys and

028a bucket hat. I had teachers nominate 10 students. We put them in a hat, pulled them out, and they got some Brewer swag to to cap off tonight's game. So, uh, just trying to recognize those kids. We picked the kids who are doing the right thing, showing the Winkler away, being respectful, responsible, and safe. So, that's kind of our wow program. We're trying to make them feel pumped up for doing the right thing. And I always say, you don't do it for the prize, you do it because it is the right thing to do. Then, we issue, we have trophies at each each grade classroom. Um, this is our friend. He's got the WOW trophy. So, once a week in everybody's classroom, the little trophy gets displayed. A teacher nominates a student because they've done

029something wonderful in class. They might have done something that was hard, uh, but they get issued the WOW ticket and it sits on their desk for the week. And then I make little posters you see on the right that hang above their boot rack and coat rack. Number one, it helps us keep track of who we've given the WOW trophy to, but it also displays the wonderful work those each students have done and they are really proud of it. You go into a classroom and they'll tell you who's got the WOW trophy and how they earned it. So, it's a good thing. Uh, at the end of the year, we do something called the I am proud of certificate. Uh, we do minute to win it games throughout the year as our PBIS assemblies. Um

030I am proud of students can pick anything academically, socially that they are proud of that they've done over the course of the year. We display it uh in our cafeteria in the hallway around our cafeteria so everybody can come and read what each student is proud of doing. Okay. And then we recognize kids throughout the year with improved attendance. Uh like I said, they've done something hard. They've raised a test score. Uh they've gotten better on their I Ready or their FastBridge or their AS Web Plus. We try to recognize those students throughout the year. So, we're gearing towards that number 27 plus making them feel good about coming to school. And then for staff, there's always the staff goal, too. They get a wow card in their mailbox. Um, and I ask them, you're

031the reason we say wow. Please write somebody a nice message, a colleague, a co-orker, whoever it may be. Maybe they've done something for you the week. and then go hand deliver it to that colleague. Um, so they're doing the same thing that's a that the students are doing but having a right little handwritten note. We also do uh the Winkler favorite things list that they have access to be. So it has all everybody's favorite sweet treat, coffee treat, drinks, uh, water. Um, what else we got there? Favorite muffins, favorite fruit. So they have an opportunity to provide something for another staff member that they're proud of as well. And then this is just a picture of my favorite day of the year. Not that because it's the last day, but it's the day that our

032grad student, our BHS graduates come back to where they went to elementary school. It is one of my favorites. Uh get to see all the students who you haven't seen in about five, six years, graduating high school, listening to the great things they're going to embark on as they graduate BHS. It's one of my favorite days. So we get all the Winkler kids back. Dyer gets all the Dyer kits back. Uh, and they choose to come out in their caps and gowns. We line up the hallways. Uh, we celebrate them. I have them announce what they're going to do for their next step in their life to all our students so they can hear all the great things our grads are going to do as they leave high school. So, one of my favorite days

033of all time. And just a couple pictures here. Uh Roseanne might recognize that uh sign. I think that was sitting in the old Winkler school for a while. He was. Yep. And then I just want to give a couple special thank yous uh before I end this. Uh number one, Town of Burlington for the fire prevention last week. I want to give Shaw Farm a shout out for providing a great farm trip last week to all our fourth grade students. I want to give a shout out to Phyllis Rice with Stuff the Bus and Kuanas, always providing great uh materials for our students. And a special thank you to our PTO uh always providing great activities for our students that do and providing donations. Like Taylor said before, we have a very generous community that

034provides a lot for us as school districts. So, thank you so much. I thank the families for allowing us to serve their students each and every day. Uh it is our goal to get 25 27 students to proficient advance uh and continue to learn and grow out at Winkler. So definitely appreciate your time tonight and letting us present. And that's all I have. Okay. Uh does anyone have any questions or comments for Mr. Graham? Well done. Yeah. [Applause] Okay. Uh, next item is the act 20 review. We're up. Okay. So, act 20. Is this on? Nope. Okay, we're good. Okay. So, act 20. Um, some of you on the teaching and learning uh board committee are probably familiar with this, but it's just a good um review um because it's at the forefront of what

035we do every day at the elementary level right now. So, going to kind of go into kind of where we're at with some of the things around Act 20. So, um okay. So, if you remember, act 20 is the reading law that was passed um to move the state towards phonics oriented literacy. Um it was approved what, let's see, now last year, year and a half ago now. Um and we fully implemented it last year. So, it's relatively new. Um we're in our second year of full act 20 implementation. So, um literacy. Okay. Um the requirements of act 20. This is a kind of a small slide, but I wanted to crunch it all in here. Um there's kind of five main components of this. Um the first one is that you have you're required

036to have a science-based literacy instructional program. Uh that's the first one that encompasses all of those things in the bullets, right? So phonics, vocabulary, uh phmic awareness, all those. Um you're prohibited from using the three queuing system. So MSV instructions. So that's something you cannot do anymore. Um the third component is that you have to or that we were required to adopt Ames web plus as a statewide um assessment tool that everyone in the state is using now to identify um students that need literacy support basically. Um so it's a different assessment tool than we were using previously. Uh the fourth component is that we now have personal reading plans. You'll hear them be referred to as PRPs. um and that there is a a requirement with family communication as well for those PRPS. Um

037and the fifth one is that there is a training professional development requirement for all teachers um working with K3 students. Okay, so those are the big five requirements. Um if you're wondering kind of like what that bill all entails um how have we kind of responded I guess in BSD. So the first component like I said was that science-based uh early literacy instruction. We've adopted amplify CKLA as you guys know uh that was adopted last year. That was the first year we implemented it and then um that was also the state fund or the state approved one of the state approved curriculums. The good news is is that reimbursement is coming um at about 50% for that um for that purchase um because we were within the uh we purchased one of the state approved

038curriculums and within a certain time frame. So that's good news for us again being budget bud budget friendly. So um again we are not using the three queuing system or MSV instruction so we're in compliance with that and then additionally we have obviously started using the Ames web plus platform for our assessment tool for a literacy screener and that was back in 2024. So that is um two of the other ways that we've responded. Um personal reading plans we are again a full year into doing this. Uh the first year was a little tricky um trying to meet all the all the requirements of the personal reading plans and just getting everything all set. But I think we have a really good system going. We use Edge Climber um to document all of the data,

039send all the data out to families directly to them digitally, so it saves on printing massive amounts of packets for people. Um so that's really nice and it's been really smooth and yeah, I think we've got a good system down for the the PRPS for families now. And then lastly, I think this is one I think our staff have done a really good job with. We have a couple people in our audience that have been engaging in this training or have done the training. Um is we have done the keys to literacy training and that's with uh we actually did it with all of our K through fourth grade teachers because we felt like fourth grade was still really important to have them trained in the science of reading as those kids that are struggling

040with literacy go to fourth grade as well and they need to be trained. So um last year we certified 37 teachers with science of reading training. We have 21 currently that are taking that. Um after this year we will be fully trained as a district. Um four of our reading specialists are train the trainers in keys to literacy. So that model really saves our district a ton of money um because they do the training versus us outsourcing. So really good kudos to that team because they lead um and do a lot of work around getting our staff trained. um really knowledgeable women as well. Um all of our elementary admin have taken the leadership academy as well. So also leadership has been trained as well. So that's also a great thing. So um something new

041I think that's kind of um that we adopted let's see you guys uh let's see did you approve it in July I think. Okay. So, in July, we have the third grade retention policy that goes into effect. We have the policy. It goes into effect um in 2027. So, for the start of the 2027 uh school year, that is kind of upcoming is that third grade retention policy. So, just know that that's already been done, but it's a part of the bill as well. So, that'll be something we work towards in the next couple years. There is also a component of the act 20 that is around summer school policy requiring us to offer or provide a summer intensive program for those kids who end their current year on a PRP and did not meet

042their goal. Um we have to offer an intensive program based off of their per uh PRP. So whatever their goal is on the PRP, they have to have continued instruction offered to them over the summer free of charge. So that is something that we are working on to establish this current summer. So you'll you'll you could see a different um programming for summer school coming up. Um another kind of new thing was that's been interesting was as web plus a platform that's required for everyone in the state to use. We had a reorming process. So if you know what reorming is, it's a national norming. So um it hadn't been normed nationally since 2017. And those benchmarks have um I guess have just changed or shifted a little bit. Our kids have not changed. Their

043abilities not necessarily have not like dramatically changed, but the numbers of kids in each level have shifted a little bit. So when you renorm um a kid that maybe last year was in the 20th percentile might be in the 27th percentile now based on like the norm of where they land nationally. Um so we've seen a little bit of a decrease in numbers. So that means nationally we are sitting a little bit more on the better side I guess you could say in some regards. Um but yeah there was a there was a norming change which is a really tricky process but not a bad thing either. And that's kind of the general overview. Quick any questions you guys have about act 20? This has been a huge undertaking for our school district and just

044kudos to all of our elementary staff. Uh it has been a lot of man-hour uh that I feel for our elementary team because it is probably 40 50 hours of training just to do the keys for literacy. Um and then also a brand new curriculum that they needed to learn. We also changed our grade configurations around a little where everyone teaches all subject areas. They have these reading plans, educr like there's a lot of changes that have taken place in the world of elementary and just kudos and hats off to all of our staff and elementary teachers that we have because it has been a lot of work and heavy heavy lifting on their part. I do have to emphasize too that DPI and the state had said we would get a lot more funding

045because of act 20 and the only funding we have seen not yet but that they've said that they would do um is in relation to that reimbursement for the curriculum but there was a lot of other funding that was promised to school districts as well around this that has not taken place so I think that's just important to know um when it comes to mandates from the state level on public schools and our staff are doing an amazing job take handling it. Um but it is a lot of work um coming down from the state level. So that 50% that was what we expected. We they so interesting um they said purchase one of these curriculums. We don't know how much we're going to give. They basically said the more people who um purchase the

046less everyone will get because they have one pot of money and however many people submit for reimbursement is how it gets basically divvied out in some regard. So it was super vague. Um they said there would be some sort of reimbursement, but they said they didn't they couldn't give us anything until about three months ago until we knew to uh or maybe it's four months ago now. I think in July Ruth and I um submitted for that. So over the summer they kind of let us know, hey we're actually going to reimburse you and we're like, "Oh, okay. This is great." So we get something back at least. So otherwise we didn't didn't quite know. And then the additional funding that you just mentioned, was this language that was in the the most recent state

047budget or is this just lip service or is this um Well, we get it directly from DPI. I would say it's outside the the bianual budget. That was something that they had said districts were going to get prior to the bannual budget being put in place. Yeah. They they mentioned this to us two years ago. Yep. But there was a lot of other things that were promised with the movement towards Act 20 that just haven't come through. So it just good just good reminders, stuff for you to be aware of um on things we have to implement without dollars to go behind it really. But we're pulling it off everybody. Yeah, we're we're also just a shout out to we have Stephanie in our audience. She is our new instructional coach and she's done an

048amazing job supporting um all these changes. Working with um our staff as they embark on science of reading. It's no small feat. It's very complex. Literacy is a really difficult thing to teach children. Um so I just kudos to her for working with all of our staff and for the sake of kids. So yeah, and I am proud of our district 2 and team for really taking this seriously. I think some districts were thinking, "Oh, this maybe will go away or I'm going to wait for the funds from the state or something like that." And we didn't think about either one. We were like, "This we got to do this. It's the right thing to do for kids anyway is to make some shifts. We knew we needed to switch curriculums." So our um team

049has moved forward and I'm I'm happy about that too because I do think when we talk to other systems they are now behind the A-ball um in some ways. So just feel good about uh where we're sitting with that. Okay. Uh anyone else have any other questions or comments? The overall um receiving of this new curriculum has been very positive. It's been really good. Um, I guess you guys could speak to it too if you ever wanted to. There teachers here. Um, it's been overwhelming in the mic. Yeah. Do you guys want to say anything about about the new curriculum or anything? You got to do it on the mic. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Um, I have had a lot of good feedback um from teachers saying like, "Wow, kids are learning so

050much." Um, and even parents are have given a lot of really good feedback of, "Wow, my kids are coming home and they can't stop talking about what they're learning in school." We have second graders learning about Mesopotamia and they're singing the Mesopotamia song. Um, it's just really cool to see these kids like dive into really awesome learning. Um, and a lot of it's weaved in with social studies and science. So, it's interdisciplines and it's just really it's really getting them excited to learn which is great. Um, skills is going well. You know, it's it's a much more structured systematic phonics-based instructional program. So, I think um that's going really well. We're seeing some really good progress and our our scores are trending in the right direction. So, it's good to see. So, yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

051It's a big adoption, so you never know. Yeah. Okay. Uh, next up is the gifted and talented program. We're looking at an update. Joel's coming back up. What are those the new scores we're seeing when we see scores? Are those the web thing? Is that what we're seeing? No. You mean like intervention that you have to give? You're my [Music] Don't be touching it. That was [Music] all right. You give me two times today. So, thank you so much. Uh we did a a slight shift in our gifted and talented. We used to call it in the past our tacit uh program. Tacit stood for talent, strengths, identification and development. Uh we decided that we were going to change it back uh to GATE which is gifted and talented education. Not much has changed in

052how it gets rolled out or what we do. It's just a quick change in the name to align to our policy into uh DPI. It's still about talent development and strength development like I talked about when I talked about our school improvement, our school action plan. Uh it's about data and using data to meet kids needs to develop strengths and their talents. Uh just like we would on the other end of the of the spectrum with intervention, we're going to use our data uh to drive what instruction they need. just like in act 20. Uh if they need phonic remediation or they're really good in phonics, we want to push them to the next level or help bring them up to the next level. So that's what our our program is and it always has

053been uh when it comes to our gifted and talented. Like I said, it's formerly known as tacet. So if I say tacet, I apologize. This has been like a week of trying to change my own language in it. So uh according to the state statute uh each school district needs to develop an identification process uh to determine talent strengths and then provide some programming to match those. Uh DPI has come up with uh some guidelines which three major ideas those three major ideas are intelligence are dynamic and fluid. The program is inclusive of all students and that is responsive to all students. So you'll hear me talk about uh RTI. You'll hear me talk about uh students flowing in and out. Uh labeling is no longer what we want to do with students. We want

054to identify a talent and push them forward by providing them more enrichment different opportunities outside of the classroom. part of the program also uh are these nine characteristics. Each program in each district might look a little different. However, these nine characteristics are pretty uniform plus those three guidelines from the DPI that I just mentioned. Uh that they're dynamic and fluid and respon responsive and inclusive. We've always been rooted in the development of students strengths and talents talents in an integrated and comprehensive way using uh the Wisconsin uh multiple levels of support systems uh formerly known as RTI. A lot of our staff still knows the RTI model with three tiers of of education. Tier one being more universal instruction, tier two being more of the intensive inter um targeted support and then tier three really

055being an intensive uh situation where kids are really pushed beyond um what they can do or they need remediation on the other end. So we've been rooted in this. I I this goes back to Pat Hoffman. I've been here 26 years. uh it it is the same type of system that gets tweaked here and there as the state goes on to with their RTI model. It's grounded in that students can all learn and achieve at high levels if you give them high quality instruction and we use data and assessment data uh to help provide services for kids. The framework also uses continuous review of uh progress towards state standards and district benchmarks. Uh Kristen alluded to Ames Web Plus. That's one of our assessment platforms that we use. Uh we use I Ready. We use

056FastBridge. Uh the ACT and ACT Aspire that Amy and Reed and the high school team use. Those are all uh screeners that help us provide data for kids to see where they're at when it comes to specific academic groups. uh this is collected over time historically and we use current data with that like we're saying is we're creating this photo album for a student a profile for each student. We're looking for students in the gifted and talented program to look at the 97th percentile and above on all these measures. So as they're getting tested we're looking for students to score consistently over time at the 97th percentile. And if they are, what can we do for them? What programmer program programming are we going to offer them? What enrichment opportunities can we give them? Um

057so in our handbook, we talk about these universal screeners developing the profile. Um at the K2 level, this is going to look like um more in-house differentiated instruction in the classroom. Uh we all know kids come to school with different levels, uh different experiences. is it makes it really hard to to identify a student in kindergarten through second grade who's super advanced and not advanced. Okay? Because everybody's some kids can write their full name. Some kids are still working on that in kindergarten. Some kids know all their colors. Some kids only know a few colors. All because of some rich environment, preschool experiences, you name it. Um so we're going to put them on a watch list. We're still going to track them. We're still going to get them on a sheet. We're still going

058to provide them with some enrichment opportunities to keep pushing them. Um, but they're not going to get as much as the third and eighth third through eighth grade students or the ability to actually subject accelerate at that time because we know over time kids catch up, they have new experiences, too, but we still want to push them. So, we're going to try to do that during our boost time at the elementary level um and provide them with extensions and enrichment. There's your uh RTI model. Sorry, I'll go back to that. So, that's what I was talking about. Most kids are going to get their daily instruction um in a differentiated classroom. Some students will receive some targeted instruction during boost time or eye time at the middle school. at the high school. What we've recognized

059is that the counselors and the staff there can help students select a track or an area that they want to pursue. Um, if it's youth apprenticeship, if it's in the arts, if it's AP courses, they can self- select and help with the help of a counselor choose their path of enrichment or beyond. Uh, Reed's going to talk about start college now and early college credit. Those are opportunities kids can take on and push themselves as they move forward. According to the state and the DPI, I talked a lot just about specific academic areas there. So, math and ELA. Uh students can get identified in general intelligence, creativity, leadership, visual performing, and arts. There are checklists within our handbook within each counseling team has it. Parents can nominate their own student. There's parent rating skills in

060there that we have. Um, teachers can nominate and refer students if they think they show uh and meet some criteria in each of these five areas. what I talked about with the RTI model and moving kids with use of data. That's mainly towards the specific academic area. But the other four are ones that we're going to do some general checklists uh rating skills that other that are universal rating skills and creativity leadership and see what we can provide from there. So each school-based team I've met with this year I've met with in the last month I've met with every school-based team uh getting to the high except for the high school um met with their counselors and gone through the gifted and talented handbook and then we have a watch list already started with over

06190 students on it from historical data and the data that they got from last spring. So the middle school right now is already placing students. They have them in advanced math class. We have over 15 students that are push subject accelerated in math. We have one student right now who's full grade accelerated because they met all the criteria of full grade acceleration and they were socially ready for that uh with agreement with the parents. uh we're looking at another student that we've identified that might meet the same criteria and meeting with families to determine that. So, um not much different than what we've always done. Uh just tweaking the process a little bit, sharing out, meeting more. Um as we got out of COVID, uh my role changed too with the redistricting where I was

062at Winkler and Lions before, now I'm just at Winkler. I'm going out and meeting with more of the school-based teams and going through the watch list. um and really seeing what we can do to program with with kids that need to be pushed to the next level. Like I said, we have currently 97 students on the K8 walk list and we continue to identify them as new data comes out and referrals come in. Again, thank you for your time. Oh, sorry. Rachel left, but Rachel Bennett, our math interventionist at Winkler, just want to say she is the treasurer. We belong to a an organization called the Southern Lakes Advanced Learners Network. Rachel, who is behind uh Megan here, is the treasurer of that organization. Laura Jablonsky, who's the counselor at Winkler, is the president of

063elect of that organization, which is a three-year commitment for her. Uh I want to give a recognition to Anakah Thompson, who takes on our math 24 teams districtwide and sets up the entire tournament that we do that sends kids to regional tournaments. Uh as long as well as the math team uh that we have at the fifth, sixth grade level, seventh, eighth grade level. Um and at the bottom uh we call it salon, just how the initials go. Um they provide really lowcost opportunities for us. We're talking $75 to send five kids to W Parkside or MSE depending who wants to take them on as a university for a science immersion day. So we have five fifth grade kids who go to MSSEE in the past and get really involved in STEM and engineering. Last

064year they went to Parkside and toured the entire science department and went through all those things. We have the math meet which is 50 bucks for eight kids to go and compete in a math meet. um the art of mission uh science immersion sorry at WMadison's under $100 for four kids to go to Madison for the day um and get tours of that that university and involve themselves in some projects and then we do the art immersion. Uh this is the first time we've had someone want to take some some students. We're going to do that this year at W Whitewater. Um and then inhouse we have plenty of opportunities for kids. Um we have the Kuanas art show. So going back to Kuanas giving them kudos. They have an art show that we can

065provide uh opportunities for kids to showcase their art in the community and win some prizes along the top. Thanks for your time. Do you guys have any questions? Thank you, sir. Joel. All right. Uh next up is items for action. These are roll call vote required. Uh, first item is the January 2026 insurance renewal. So, anybody who does not want to stay, you're more than welcome to leave. So, thank you. Um, it's been a long day, long night, so feel free. Uh, again, we'll start with uh Bridget and her guest. Yes, [Music] he might be on already. I think. Yep. Hi everybody. We're here to talk about insurance. I have Deborah Perez with us who is our client director with March Mlennon Agency as we call MMA. So, she's here to present the recommendation that

066we have for you. And I'm here as the sidekick forwarding the slideshow and hoping no tech issues and if there's any questions that I can address as well. I'll turn it over to you. Thank you. Good evening everybody. As Bridget had said, I'm here to um just talk over a little bit about your um uh medical benefits for 2026. Is this the right one? Yep. Are you sure? Let's see. This was the one I thought you would send back. No, this one. The one I came back this morning had Well, stay tuned. Looks like I have the wrong one up here. So, we'll go back to How about those brewers though, right? Fingers crossed. Yes. They start [Music] the score yet of the second score. Okay. Number one. It happens. And this is the PowerPoint.

067We're good. Okay. Well, first I have to go back up. [Music] All right, there we go. Thank you very much. All right, so um again, we're here to talk about the 2026 health benefit um recommendations. Um, so the Burlington Area School District currently has a um, health plan with a $4,000 individual, $8,000 family deductible. These deductibles really aren't competitive with the market from what we're seeing. Uh, there's um, districts out there that have lower deductibles. Um, employees have also expressed dissatisfaction with those deductibles. U, they are a little bit higher. Uh and of course um uh the these high deductible health plans also come with limited benefits within the plan design themselves. So we're looking to um create new plan design that will also uh improve the primary care physician options um as well as

068um u kind of dissuade the use of uh uh urgent care and uh emergency rooms. Uh so um what we're trying to do with this new benefit plan is to help uh members navigate towards highv value providers to help lower costs and then um reduce or lower that medical trend year-over-year. So one um analogy that we like to use is uh you know brandame grocery stores right we all go to festival or pick and save or you know some of those grocery stores and within those grocery stores everything is a brand name you recognize the brands because you see them advertised on TV. However, if you shop at a store like Aldi, um you are able to um you go into the grocery store, find maybe not as many brands or not as many um

069you know, different brands of uh one item, but you are finding those items for a little bit less expensive. Really what we're trying to point to is that just because something costs more and that you recognize the brand name doesn't necessarily mean that it is a high value product. Um, and so we kind of look at benefits that way as well. So over the course of the last couple years, I believe you've all um talked a little bit about self-funding versus fully insured. Uh, I think we finally got you to a year where we're going to be able to take a look at self-funding over fully insured. So, your um, uh, renewal came in this year with United Healthcare at a 19% increase. We did take a look, MMA did take a look at that

070renewal. We ran some analytics on that and determined that the um um that the renewal was in line with what we thought it should be. Uh which didn't really leave us with a lot of room to or a lot of um leverage to negotiate a better rate for you in that situation. In a fully insured plan, no matter how your plan performs, let's just say your plan performs better than anticipated, you don't see any return on that. So, what you pay into it, you pay into it, it's money gone. That's not the same in the self-funded environment. When we budget for self-funding, if your plan comes in better than what was budgeted, you do see some benefit um um not necessarily in the in the world of money back um but we're able to budget

071lower than next year. We're able to have better control over those annual increases. So, MMA did um an analysis earlier this year. Um actually, we've done it a couple of times just to make sure that we're moving in the right direction. Um, and we did determine that if your fully insured renewal came in above 10.45%, self-unding was the right direction for you to go this year. So, um, as we mentioned, 19% increase this year, well over that 10.45%. So, we did vet out a couple of um uh different um partners uh from a TPA standpoint um and other um benefits within the medical plans um and we have developed a recommendation for you. So, first and foremost, we're looking at the plan designs here. So the first um set of uh row or set of

072columns on the left hand side there uh that is your current plan with United Healthcare uh using the nexus acco uh the choice plus network. Uh this is an HSA qualified high deductible health plan. The renewal then again is in the middle in the darker blue. Uh again coming in at 19% using the same plan design. Okay. So, um yeah, it's a little hard to read. Sorry. Um and then that third that third um set of um or that third plan there, which is kind of in the aqua color, uh that is our recommended plan. And what you're looking at here is a three tiered option. tier one uh on the the the left hand column there where you see all the zeros that is tier one these z options um the z options this

073is this this plan here that I'm talking about um these plans are uh where members can navigate towards those high quality um lowcost providers uh when they navigate or utilize those services they have no out of pocket. So, they've got no um um nothing that they have to pay for. The plan pays for everything. However, there aren't um uh zero dollar options for everything that's out there. And because we do still want your members to have choice, there is the HPS network. And here we have reduced the deductible to 2,000 for an individual, 4,000 for a family. Once somebody meets that deductible, then they pay 20% plan pays 80% to the same out-ofpocket that they currently have. So 6,500 individual, 13,500 for a family. Built within that plan then are co-pays uh for things like

074office visits, um chiropractors, uh virtual visits, urgent care, emergency rooms. So, a flat dollar amount that they pay in case they go use one of those services within the HPS network. And then like the current plan, everything else is deductible in co insurance, which means they pay um for that amount um until they meet their deductible and out of pocket. Then there's the out of network which is pretty similar to what you currently have um except um that uh the out of network is a little bit different in that it's not always the same providers that that were available before. So um same prescription drugs. So we're um uh using co-pays for those prescription drugs. One thing that or another thing that changes with this plan, it is no longer a qualified highdeductible health plan,

075which means that um the district would not need to um uh contribute to a health savings account any longer. Uh members who have a health savings account could continue to use that those dollars to pay for medical expenses. However, they would not be able to continue to contribute to those. The reason behind that is what disqualifies them from being able to do so is that we now have first dollar benefits. Um, and that's within those zero dollar benefits there and the co-pays. So, the HSA is no longer um, uh, necessary for these plans moving forward. Now, you will notice that we do still have a 19% increase to the plans this year. However, we've reduced the amount that members would have to pay out of pocket when they're using the plans um in the in

076the way of deductible and and um uh co-pays. And then we've also added in the clinic. So, there's been um discussion uh within the within the district here about um implementing a clinic and that is something that is in the works. um and we've included that cost then in with the um the medical benefits. So a 19% increase, but that again also includes the the clinic costs. Okay. So this is an illustration really just to kind of these aren't your numbers necessarily, but just to kind of um give you an um uh a look at the difference between self-funding and fully insured. fully insured is the blue line there. So, you can see it's pretty flat throughout the year. Um, and that's because you're paying set premiums. Um, in the self-funding world, you are paying

077for claims as they come in, which makes things a little bit more up and down throughout the year. So, just wanted to, you know, give you kind of a look at what the cash flow looks like when you're going from a fully insured plan to a self-funded plan. Um, what we do at MMA is we help you create that budget so that you can get ahead of the budget and properly save in order to accommodate for those es and flows. And here is a plan trend comparison. So, what we're comparing here is over time over the next couple of years, what would your fully insured plan look like compared to what we expect your self-funded plan to look like? And so, one thing that we talk about um a lot in what we do is

078the medical trend and the far pharmacy trend. So on an annual basis, what we're typically seeing is that medical expenses are going to go up anywhere from 9 to 11%. Pharmacy is going to go up 11 to 13%. Um, and we see that usually in that fully insured world where we're not really where we don't really have a lot of control over um those expenses and those claims. But in the self-funded world, we are able to bend that trend a little bit by adding in um certain programs or certain pulling certain levers that will help us keep those those claims lower. So on this um comparison here, the orange um columns are the plan recommendations. So using Prairie States um as your um third party administrator, Vivid Clear, and Rescribe as your PBMs. Um, and

079what you can see is that they do increase on an annual basis. Um, we will see increases. It's not like we're going to stop increases all altogether, but those increases are much lower than what you're what you would see on the fully insured side. Fully insured typically goes up much faster than a self-funded environment. So, um, we've had a lot of success with these plans over the last couple of years, especially within the the, um, school districts. Um, I've got one example here for you, which is Maguano area school districts. Uh, they have about 384 employees on their health plan, so similarly sized to yours. Uh, in 2022, they were fully insured. They had a deductible co- insurance plan on a national carrier with 125% loss ratio. And what that means is um uh for

080all the premiums that they were taking in um they were paying $1.25 on every dollar that they were bringing in. So they were um not funded or their premium was lower than the num the amount of claims that were going out. So in that year in 2022 they experienced a 34.8% 8% renewal. In 2023, they went self-funded with a co-pay only plan typic or similar to what we're we're looking at for yours, an independent TPA and network. Uh they had a navigator with the $0 options. Uh they added in an independent clinic. Uh and they had an RX plan with $0 options for high-cost medications um in their first year in uh the first year ninemonth results. So, we call that mature um because we've got 18 months of of data here. Um claims costs,

081clinic costs uh were negative 26%. Prescriptions were down 43%. There were 143 members who had 0 prescriptions filled and the um uh surveys were very positive um from the employees for these plans. And here's sort of the the member feedback that we saw. So um with the um Maguano area school district health clinic 80.5% of the employees were either very satisfied or satisfied and then 81% were very satisfied or satisfied with the network and fivestar navigation. FiveStar Navigation is who we utilize um kind of the customer service if you will to help guide members towards those zerod options or those those high value low um um uh high uh high quality lowcost um uh providers for ex just for an example Deborah and correct me if I'm wrong um so that everyone on the board

082uh understands what that really means because at first I'm like okay what is zero versus not like what are we talking about here, right? So, if I need a knee surgery, then with the five-star, they would be helping you with if you get the knee surgery done here, it would be zero cost to you out of pocket. If you decide to go somewhere else, then you could have a co-pay for that. So they're trying to steer you towards the the um algorithm where they have used statistically significant that those doctors have had less um infection rates, less chance of a second surgery, you know, things like that. So they're steering you towards higher quality health care and because of that the chance of reinjury and things are lower. So then that would become something that's

083uh zero cost to the employee versus having to play towards their deductible with a co-pay. Does that make sense? Or an MRI or things like that. Um and then going to the clinic would be zero out of pocket, right? So trying to gear them towards certain things um versus what they do right now and just going to um wherever they'd like to go. Yep. Yeah. So, we there there's a couple of um organizations that are kind of embedded in the plan um who vet out these providers. Um they direct contract with them. So, any network is negotiating with these providers to get discounts off of their um their rates. Um and uh these these organizations have rated the these providers based on cost and quality uh and then negotiated better rates than what you would

084see within those networks. So that's um there sometimes they're bundles. Um sometimes they're just one-off contracts. Uh but yes, there we work on making sure that they're high quality um and that they're providing the best discount. Does that mean if you have like say Aurora for instance, you can only go to a certain doctor in Aurora or the whole network? So in that instance, Aurora is part of the HPS network. So you can see any doctor within Aurora. They would not necessarily be one of the Z options. Typically what we'll find with those zero dollar options is these are independent providers that aren't necessarily um uh part of those bigger uh those bigger organizations or those uh bigger systems. Uh but we do work with um uh the MOSH for instance the um uh orthopedic

085surgical center at um ascension. Uh so there are some um of those organizations that are in it's usually msk mental health um uh imaging is is a lowhanging fruit for us so to say in that there are um uh mh imaging is one of the providers that is used for lowcost imaging services CT scans MRIs and your uh typical x-rays but these aren't necessarily providers within big systems. Okay. All right. So, um, if you go back to that one slide, uh, Bridget, so really the discussion for tonight is for the board to take action on the recommendation to go to the self-funded, uh, plan where we utilize previous states and that deductible is the 20,000 4,000 with some co-pays. Um, and shifting to where there's also an on-site clinic. Um, this would go into effect

086starting July 2026. January. January. Oh my gosh, January 2026. That's important. Um, so just a couple months from now. So just looking um for the board to make a motion on that. I make a motion. Have the teachers uh looked at this or the staff looked at this program or not? No, we have not had much conversation with our staff about this. I don't foresee this being a concern on our staff's side. our staff are very upset about the insurance that we have right now. Um so we could either continue on the same trajectory of really high deductibles um and increases to premiums and just keep down that path of the fully funded or we can try to do something about it and make some adjustments that will also help our employees but also help

087the district's budget at the same time. Thank you. We did have input from the cabinet. We did talk to the district cabinet uh last year about it, but did they see this specific plan? No. Okay. Um can I ask why this presentation was not included in our board packet for this meeting? Uh it just wasn't ready by Thursday last week. When was it ready? Um this morning, Friday afternoon. Okay. In the future, can we have this uploaded before our meetings um presentations like this? It would be incredibly helpful. Um with that, I think this was very well prepared. So, thank you for that. Um looking for a motion then to from the board to go with the self-funded option. Then who would like to make that motion? I'll make it. Um I'd make a motion

088to uh move to a self-funded plan as per the recommendation with Prairie States. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. All right. Uh this will be a roll call vote. Kate, how do you vote? I. Okay. Rosanne, I. Paul, I. I vote yes. Marlo, yes. Peter, yes. Noah, I. All right. Motion. Can I make a a comment still? Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. I just I I applaud the administrative staff and the cabinet and everyone who got involved in this. I mean, it's we're looking at 19% annual increase. That's not sustainable, you know. So, I think this is a good investment over the long run. Um, so I'm glad we're working with MMA, too. I think you guys came up with a good idea. Yep. It's been a long time in the making, right? Switching from Brown

089and Brown to MMA. lots of conversations in the last year around this and we we have to do something different. So, this is what we're gonna try to do and you know hope it works well. Um I also appreciate the presentation you gave us on the finance committee because we did ask a lot of questions that night. We sure did. Um, and I it looks like you followed through and came up with what we had suggested or at least presented the the stuff that we had come to a conclusion on. Yeah, you're here. Excellent. All right. Well, thank you very much. I'll get working on Thank you for your time. Uh, next up, uh, Mr. Oldenberg, you are up for the Start College Now early college credit program requests. Nope. It's just not not very

090good. All right. Um so, uh for the start college now early college credit, um just going to go over last year's numbers. You should have that in front of you. Um for the last spring we had 12 students enroll in 18 courses um at four different colleges during the spring semester. Um 13 of those courses were at Gateway, three were at my two at W Milwaukee and one at Whitewater. All of our students did pass those classes. Um I know in years past you have asked what happens if a student fails. um if that were to happen then we have a contract and those those families are responsible for for paying us back uh that reimbursement. Um for the future requests uh for this uh upcoming spring um we have 22 students that have requested

09152 courses at six different colleges. Um so that estimated uh cost then for start college now uh the gateway has 90 projected credits uh the projected cost per credit has increased from last year um at all levels at all universities uh Gateway and the universities um last year I believe it was 143 for Gateway and it's gone up to 160 uh for an estimated total of 14,400 um for the early college credit program. Um, if you want to scroll down, early college credit program, uh, W Green Bay, there's 12 credits. Uh, W Milwaukee is nine, W Parkside is 12. Stevens Point is nine, and then Whitewater is six. Um, that has increased as well. That was, uh, 107ish, I believe, last year, and it's increased to 120. So between those universities and Gateway 138 total

092credits um that are being um that are being estimated for a total of $20,160. Um just also want to mention too that we are um required to purchase the books um that are needed for those classes, but that is not included in this. What's the difference between the start college now and the early college credit? Because I don't think a student's going to Green Bay for courses, right? Is it is it online then or Yeah, it would be online. Um, so essentially early college credit is courses that are offered at different universities that we can't provide uh start college now is through gateway is essentially. Yeah. How how do these students find these courses or are they pushed in to certain colleges for them? It it's through their own research. So, um, it has to

093be a course that we don't offer at the high school, otherwise it won't get approved. So, if they want to go to Whitewater to take an NAT and Fizz, that won't get approved because we have that at the high school. Are there limits on the colleges they can choose to? No. So, if you noticed um, or are you saying out are you saying like Well, could it be like the Harvard? Like Harvard University because I bet they're a little more than $120 per credit. No, no, no, no. I thought you meant the the amount that they can choose, but uh no, it needs to be within Wisconsin. But um students will sign up for maybe eight classes and they won't take them all. So if you notice like last year um 12 students enrolled in

09418 courses. This year it's 22 students have enrolled in 52 courses. we're we're going to pay far under that uh because they'll sign up for eight and maybe take two for the start college now and the early college credit. I mean if if a student wants to engage in start college now and that's through gateway are those courses conducted in person and then early college credit program courses are those all online because they're through the W system. Not all are online. No, some are in person. So some do travel to Whitewater Milwaukee for those courses. Um majority of Gateway is in person. Okay. You said the book costs are not factored into this. Typically, what what is the the additional cost for the books? Oh, boy. It's a very good question. I can get back

095to you on that. Okay. And then Hold on. You said that is a state requirement. Yes. So, we are mandated to pay for that. Correct. Okay. When it comes to purchasing the books, is that online or hard copy or both? Uh, hard copy. Yeah. Okay. And is is that one copy per student that engages in it? Yes. Okay. Um just to follow back up on that, these are are we using the most um cost effective way when purchasing these books or are we just buying brand new? Like are are we required to buy brand new or are we trying to use a used? Um I believe it's through the university that we purchase them. I don't know if they're used or if they're new. Um I can some of them are consumables like workbooks. Yeah.

096Okay. So it's so it's new. Yeah. Um sometimes students purchase used and then we reimburse. Okay. Note to self. A lot of times you can look up those ISBN numbers on Amazon and you can get the gently used. Yeah. Versions much cheaper, says someone who just did it for her MBA. So yeah, saves a lot of money. Yes. Okay. Any additional questions or comments for Mr. Olderberg? Okay. Uh then I'm looking for a motion then to approve the Stark College now and early college credit program request as presented. So moved. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Uh roll call vote. Kate, yes. Okay. Roseanne, yes. Paul, yes. Vote yes. Marlo, yes. Peter, yes. Noah, I. All right. Uh motion passes unanimously. Unanimously. Thank you. Uh next up is the approval of the 2026 2027

097school calendar. Um is there anything glaring there that is no the the big things to just uh share in regard to the calendar is very similar to this year's calendar. So, as you know, we um start after September 1 and try to end by um the holiday in May. So, that again is the plan moving into the next school year. We did reduce our count last year in order to save the district to roughly $1.2 million by reducing our school year down. So, we're continuing with that. So, students are in session 167 days just like they have been last year and this year. staff work contracted 178 days. Um we are still going to have the late start every other Wednesdays. That's the yellow days there on the calendar. Um our spring break will always

098fall the last week in March. That has been a consensus across the SLC, the Southern Lakes Conference, all area superintendents, we've agreed to have the same spring break as we do have staff members that live in each other's districts uh to keep that the same. So those things you'll see are consistent. This was developed by our district cabinet. So those 16 staff members are the ones that put this calendar together as well. So just looking for a motion to approve both the staff one and the family calendar. Uh quick question. How are we in terms of linking our our calendars up with um the private schools? Any headway there or are we still having Yep. We've met with them uh numerous times to try to get them to align to our calendar. As you know,

099we have to pay for the transportation for all private schools. Every public school system has to. So, they start before we start. Um so, therefore, we're paying for busing for that. Um and then end after we end. I did get them to shift their spring breaks to be the same as ours, their Christmas breaks as much as we can to the same as ours. Um the February day off to be the same. And then they also were in consensus that if only one private schools open out of out of the three of them that they would ask their parents to transport on their own. So um they were in agreement on that as well. Um BCS is Burlington uh Catholic is a little concerned about that at the end of this school year as the

100um Burlington Catholic and St. John's is ending at the same time as us which we appreciate at the end of the school year at BCS uh did not. Um so they would then be asked to transport their students at the end of the school year. Um so we're in conversation with her about that. Okay. Uh, and last question, any additional positives or negatives regarding the late start Wednesdays? Um, I still have mixed feedback from folks on that. Just curious. Uh, we have not heard kickback from that. Our our teams really have not either. Um, we did initially last year at the start of doing it uh in the first month of school. Otherwise, I've actually had more of the reverse. Um, so I've done some rounding conversations, uh, randomly calling parents asking them for feedback.

101I ask about this specifically and none of them dislike it. I actually hear um, more so that they appreciate that it slows down their day a little bit too in their week. So, no, I have not I have not heard much complaints about it. I'll give I'll give you my two cents. As a parent of a high school kid, I think it's excellent. they the uh our high school kids and middle school kids need to start later in general. So, this is a step in the right direction. It's a really nice pressure relief for these kids. Yep. It's a great slowdown. Also, that's a good reminder, too. We have um shared with our coaches and teams, any clubs or anything like that really for the school district that they cannot try to hold practice on

102those Wednesday late starts. We're trying to have that sacred to kids so that they do have that time to just relax and sleep in. Um, seeing as we do have them getting up very early, especially if they have to catch the bus. Okay. Any additional questions or comments? Okay. Uh, looking for a motion then to approve the 2627 staff and family calendars as presented. So moved. Okay. Is there a second? Second. All right. Roll call. Kate, yes. Roseanne, yes. Paul, yes. I vote yes. Marlo, I. Peter I Noah I All right passes unanimously. Uh next up then is the annual parent transportation contracts and that would be Ruth. Hi good evening. Um so this is something that we do annually. Um, as Jill just alluded to, uh, we, uh, per state statute, public schools are

103responsible for transporting, uh, students that attend parochial schools. Um, if the students live within our district, we have to transport them to parochial schools within our school boundaries or if the school is within five miles outside of our school boundaries. Um, so the three schools, um, in Burlington, we just use Thomas Bus and pick them up at the same time, um, as our BISD students. But the one outlier is Mount Zion over by Lake Geneva. The other option under state statute is to enter into a um, contract with the parents for them to transport their own children. Um and the the rate for that is the per student rate from the prior school year uh transportation contract. So we do have um 25 students in 13 families um for a total cost of just under

104$18,1794 that we would ask you to approve contract. Okay, we're just asking uh for you to approve the contracts uh for those families. Yep. Because that $17,94.35 is less than a trans uh using Thomas bus because uh if you remember one route added for the whole school year is $80,000 for us to run a school bus route. So, this is much cheaper for us to pay the families to drive their own students to that private school because it's within five miles of our boundary and that's required by state statute. Okay. Any questions or comments? Okay. Then looking for a motion to approve the annual parent transportation contract as presented. Is there a motion? So moved. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Roll call. Kate I. Roseanne. I. Peter. I'm sorry. Paul, yes. I vote

105yes. Uh Marlo I. Peter. I. Noah. I. All right. Passes unanimously. All right. Thank you, Ruth. Thank you, Ruth. Get ahead. Sorry. Okay. Next. Um, schoolboard committee updates. We'll start with personnel. Noah. Uh yes, we just met in closed session this past Wednesday to discuss um all resignations, retirements, um terminations, and appointments. Um and those were presented at tonight's meeting and then we will be meeting um next month in close session again on November 5th. Um again, what will you be talking about then? resignations, retirements, appointments, and terminations. All right, perfect. Uh, next up, board governance, communications, and legislative. Kate um on September um 16th, we met um and that was one week after attending the Southern Wisconsin School Alliance September meeting. Um those meetings are exceptionally valuable because they are presented by um people

106that are very heavily involved in legislature and lobbying and it provides us with a wealth of information on what's going on with school finance um as it relates to the state um what they're covering, what they're not. They really go in depth. Um, we also learn a great deal about um just how other schools are schools and districts are setting themselves up and what they're thinking in terms of messaging. Um, the leadership from SWSA, they also give great um, resources for us as a board. Um, and they also provide a lot of good messaging as well. So, it's something that we're leaning into very heavily um, especially over the next couple of months. Um, and then we met on September 16th basically to talk a bit more in depth about what we heard at the

107last meeting. Um, and we actually have another SWSA meeting virtually tomorrow morning. So, okay. Finance, Mr. Turk. Uh, yeah, we met on September 15th. Uh, we talked about the budget and tax levy. It's a continuation of an ongoing discussion that the committee's had and the board's going to have workshop about this coming up uh here in the near future. Uh we also talked about uh what was presented tonight respect to the insurance and going self-funded. That was a great chance for us to I think we dive deep more deeply and helped MMA narrow down their options with with some questions. Um the committee will meet again in in November uh November 17th. uh to continue our plan for the next operational referendum which is going to be here before we know it. Okay. Um again,

108thank you to the finance committee for your work on the uh selfunded insurance. Really appreciate that. Uh next up is teaching and learning, Roseanne. Okay. We met at the high school and as you walk in the door, you're greeted by the secretary who always makes you feel at home and it was fun to see her reacting with kids. the one kid was kind of upset and she just had him calm down. And then we were invited into principal Amy's office and uh started talking about what's going on at the high school. It was very exciting. And we visited three areas at the high school. The first one was the culinary area and they were learning how to work with knives. To me, they looked about that long, but they were very interested. The kids were

109really good about it. And we were told not to, you know, bother the kids at that time because they really had to concentrate on how they were going to use those knives and their cooking. It's very, very well done, very well planned uh lesson. I thought it was great. And then from there, we went to the CNA lab and I'm telling you, I know how to get a person ready for the hospital in their bed because that's what they learned that day. And they went over and over and each kid had to do it. It was very, very good. I I thought it was wonderful and um the kids seem to enjoy it. They were interested and I like to see that. And then we went to the radio station and there we saw the

110updates of what they're doing with the space there. Uh we didn't talk to anybody that's actually in that area, but we got to see the area itself and uh the whole day I thought was exciting. We had a good time. I It's always fun to see what the kids are doing and what our principal is doing. And um so it was a lot of fun and the next meeting will be on October 29th and I'm not sure where that's going to be. I just have the date. Is that at the high school also or where is that? District office. Yeah. District office to look at what we are reviewing in regard to math curriculum for grades six through eight because they're in the process of adopting a new math curriculum. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. Okay.

111Excellent. Uh next up, building and grounds. Mr. ground. Okay. Um so buildings and ground um has a meeting coming up on November 4th. Um we haven't met in a few months. I don't know that we've actually set an agenda, but I believe we may be it's to Mckin Street's Yep. Mckin's data. So we've been anxiously awaiting this data. So I'm excited for this upcoming meeting. So, I think it'll be really really good, eye opening and um probably a little scary, too. I know. I'm a little worried about just because you don't know what you don't know until you know it. Right. Right. How much how many millions of dollars to fix our buildings? Yeah. So, but good to know. Yeah. It's definitely good to know. Veryive and uh forward thinking. So, I'm excited that we

112will finally know. Yeah. So, excellent. And uh last but not least, Mr. cocket policy. Uh we did not meet this last month since we covered so many prior like 50 of them I think schedules did not align. Um so we will be meeting this coming month. Uh and we'll set a date for that right after this meeting. Okay. Right. Uh excellent. Thank you all. Next up is upcoming meeting dates. A lot of these we already kind of addressed, but I'll just go over a couple of them. schoolboard workshop is October 20th at 6. Special schoolboard meeting is October 27th at 6:30. Um, and then our next schoolboard meeting is here November 10th at 6:30 p.m. And then last but not least, I'm looking for a motion to adjurnn. So moved. All right. Is there a

113second? Second. All right. All those in favor say I. I. All right. We're journed. Thank you. Thanks everyone. do if those on the policy committee could stay for a second so we can try to align a date and then also I wouldn't mind if the whole board