001of the March monthly meeting the school board if you join me in say the Pledge of Allegiance thank you I'd like to call the meeting to order and thanks everyone for showing up um Toby would you do the roll call please sure Peter Turk here Barry smelling here Susan Kessler here Taylor Wilson here Marlo Brown here Paige Caribou here Roseanne Han here thank you okay next we have uh two communication items on our agenda first is citizen comments and um I'll remind everyone to make a comment these are for items that are not on the agenda for Action tonight um I have it's like four comments here please remember we have a three minute a three minute limit and we'd ask you to come up to the the desk here and speak into the microphone
002and my colleague Barry will raise his hand if you get to two minutes and 45 seconds to kind of give you a visual cue to you know to include your comments um we'll start with uh forgive me on the the Yolanda Hall I get that right okay my name is Yolanda Hall and I live in the Burlingtons of the school district it is appearance right to direct the upbringing education and mental health treatment of their children it's one of the most basic constitutional right every parent holds there yet I'm seeing the school district not only ignoring parents concerns and rights but actively working against them because this isn't about education anymore it's about the indoctrination of the Next Generation and push away those who dissent from the government's deferred ayatology sorry about that yep the
003Burlington School Board does not believe in censorship it values the importance of intellectual freedom I personally call it indoctrination not education in the classroom and public school libraries there are texts that involve some controversial topics such as they're not limited to abuse neglect sexual explicit content gender identity race Etc when I talk to the people in the community about these books it is overwhelmingly both from both parties political parties that they are against these type of books being available to Children which of these children will be harmed by them not accessing explicit pornographic vulgar books like the book called identical by Ellen Hopkins and this book a father takes his very young daughter rapes her violently which is described in full detail as if you were there watching the whole thing at what point in
004the book at one point in the book when Daddy finishes I'm not going to get in it because I know you're going to cut me off but she does ask her father what's the matter did I love you enough then he goes on telling her that this is our secret and not to tell their mother because she might go away his attack was brutal bloody worthless except for the vicious shut the you know what up at her pitiful screams in please to please please no daddy no it hurts I'm not gonna keep going because I know you'll shut me down do you do you understand that the rate of suicide among children sex trafficking and Drug overdoses at its all-time high at the last score at the last school board meeting we had a formal
005School a formal sorry I'm nervous a school staff speak on how these books are good for our children has she ever had to cut down a child who was trying to hang themselves or ever have to cut off items off a child's neck that is so tight that they need medical attention has she ever seen scars or fresh cut marks from a child who was a cutter and does this to relieve their pain or has she ever seen suicide scars cigarette burns on a child do you know what a headbanger is in an institution it is when a child won't stop banging their head on a sharp or hard hard object and has to be restrained I can go on and on but I only get three minutes but I've seen this I I witnessed
006this if you think that we are a small majority that are against this you need to think again it is about informing the parents grandparents and the public that they need to know what's going on in our school district okay thank you Paul kobernik Paul kober Nick Burlington today I'm here to talk to you about the book proposal and while I agree with many points of it there are still some goals that I'd like to see taken care of uh many of us parents are not seeking an outright ban of the books I know I've heard in many meetings people speak up and that was one of their objections to what our goals were but from what most of the parents here have said we just want some kind of way of knowing what's in
007our books um also the issue I have is that I heard that it's hard to tell what's sexually explicit while the Wisconsin state legislator in section 948.11 it clearly and concisely provides the definition of what is considered sexually explicit so this could be our basis for determining if the books have that content or not to help with the mature content part of it because I heard in the last meeting that there was no definition but that's it's a pretty clear definition um also in the media they use PG ratings R ratings restricted ratings and stuff like that and they don't use the whole movie as context they use passages from the movie and if there's anything that has expletives or sexual content it's in our rating and if it goes further than that it's an
008NC read and that isn't based on the whole movie so you don't have to watch the whole movie but it's based on actual just uh portions of it so if the motion picture industry can do it based on synopsis why can't we use that for our books just to label mature content because my question is if we look at some of this um we're concerned with the exceptionally explicit material of the book and basically if you read one of those excerpts is that not sexually explicit content it may not be you know in the best interest of some people to have the labels on the books but for most of us concerned parents that's what I would like to see is just so that we know that that book has that content available it opens
009up dialogue with our kids so that we can ask them the important questions of why they want to read this book what's the purpose you know um but it opens up dialogue now when I look at the Ala website it's very clear that they don't want to see any kind of censorship at all um so using them as a guide they're definitely not for censorship so what they call censorship is basically putting a label on the book so I don't know if I trust them as a usage thank you thank you Lori Hewitt I'm gonna do headlines all right immediately following the 213 meeting I knew that my next effort needed to be what it needed to be but I did not know what I would discover I created an inventory of books and I
010lost all those steps and I can go through that I discovered correlations that if acknowledged by the board the USD can save time save money and most importantly expediently get all of see mature books locally to mature within a month and with minimal effort to keep updated monthly so how did I communicate this information I knew I needed to put a presentation together um which you all have a copy of that as well it's a little thicker we had a great event on Saturday March 11th we had attendees from Burlington Waterford and Eagle we are reaching out to all of southeastern Wisconsin and have also received interest from Sheboygan Mukwonago Elkhorn and Grove I received this email from one of the attendees and this really says a lot your presentation Saturday was excellent I was
011so pleased that you weren't encouraging book Banning but instead a moderate plan that I could get behind I will support you and endorse you um other messages from that day um is a 52 slide um everybody can take a copy of it it's out on the table um they really everyone that was there really wanted it to be available we'll do more presentations um more information on that with any effort we learned from it and hopefully we can apply those Lessons Learned we can learn from the book committee initial efforts we've got a great foundation in place from the book committee I was on the book community with any effort we learned oh I already said that we could apply our lessons learned we can think time and money um and I'm going to move
012on to page three so you know we're eight you guys can look at this on your own but we're 18 months into this and um if we just go with what was proposed in 213 um I don't know how many more months it'll take to get the 50 books that I currently have identified labeled mature and that's important um no recognition of excerpts force reading of books entirety throttle back the book reclassifications to two per person per year and limit the weak classification communities twice per year what we're proposing here will get things identified I believe within a month and then monthly keep monthly updated on page four you can see I got a picture of books I was going to have picked books here but you know there's 41 books they've started as mature
013by BAC already which is awesome and there's 50 that I've identified that are not safeguarded and um you can draw correlations from what Paul referenced to the law you can draw correlations from what the law depicts as harmful to exactly what book what the rating uses for uh three four and five ratings and all of the 41 books that Destiny has labeled adults or Angie has used tidal wave mature content labels all of them are rated also rated three four and five so I'm drawing a correlation uh I'm going to page five so this just gives you the data on the books so 40 there's currently [Music] currently there's 40 of the books yeah sorry it's three minutes sorry well you guys can take a look at the rest of this thank you thank you
014Matt stork good evening um so I have three topics I'd like to cover um the first one is um I just became aware of the fact uh recently that one of your teachers assistants you had in elementary school no longer works here due to an issue with coming to school intoxicated apparently she had to drink to get through her work day or maybe personal life issues don't know I think it was highly inappropriate to not advise a place that called for a background check to at least get a notice of that that seems like a huge liability I can't imagine you're shielded by law or prevented from notifying them and having a teacher that is in need of help with an alcoholic issue going to the school and not telling them it makes them look
015you really bad and then look really bad secondly I'm extremely disappointed in your selection process that you did to fill Mr Bird's seat um I've talked to three or four people in the community and they feel uh in discussions we've had it pick and Save in gas stations they feel that you pick somebody and I do as well um that's most likely to vote like most of you and not necessarily challenge anybody and be basically rubber stamp for a lot of decisions moving forward there were several other candidates in my opinion all seven were a stronger candidate than when you selected so I hope you do better when that happens again for other openings and then we want to go back to the porn books again too I think with those books that we have
016schools are normalizing things like rape incest murder drugs I also really shouldn't take them out I don't want censorship I'm all about freedom of speech but they should be locked in a glass cabinet like we do for pharmaceuticals or behind a counter where the librarian controls it like we do with stores for chewing tobacco or alcohol or anything that matter even condoms some stores keep us behind the counters we should have that and every parent should be notified and they should say yes I want my kid to have that toxic pornography book I want my child to go and read those books I want my child to get books that say he kicked me and I curled into a ball I want a [ __ ] he held his dick in hand I've never done it before
017I said I'm a virgin put it in your mouth I kneel before him can I put my bra back on I missed Mr stork we've been through this before with the obscenity it's not a scene it's in your schools are you admitting that you have seen books in schools just not this isn't a time for debate this is time for public health so why are you guys neat okay so I remind you of our policies that I'm passed to enforce here so I'm going to ask that the board do something about it we've got 50 more books that parents are asking you to do something about I know it's an election year right you don't want to set your status quo so you got to make sure that you make your majority happy don't worry
018about that put the kids first the parents first This is highly inappropriate thank you all right we have uh board member report on workshops and meetings attended anything in the last month Roseanne yeah I've made several trips to Madison because as you know I'm president of the board up there now and it's been very exciting but we're needing to replace our executive person in charge of all the whole state and we've had candidates from all over the country who've been returning some of their qualifications and so forth and as I'm reading through these and I was reading through the questions that we asked them you know so that we knew that they would be able to handle this job I couldn't help but think of our administrators here that meet all of those qualifications that
019made me feel very proud of what we have here and also I want to say something about I know it's not but it's the Mamma Mia I don't know how many of you went to see it it was fantastic I saw it done professionally done and I like the VHS version much better much more energy and excitement we've got to be proud of those kids anyway thank you all right thank you anybody else on the board okay a superintendent's report yes thank you later this evening the board will take final action on Kevin Bird's resignation just want to publicly thank Kevin for his years of service to our students and to the community and also in light of that want to also acknowledge publicly Paige caravoo who joins us she took her oath of office
020just this past Wednesday and this is her first official meeting with us so hopefully you'll have an opportunity to meet her here in the coming weeks and months also this is a time of year where students and their learning is being measured in just this past week as I see Amy livonian Out There Our Juniors took the act and for the first time ever by computer which is a little bit unnerving the first time you do that and yet that's definitely the future of where that and many of our other exams for students in terms of their large State high-stakes testing is going so certainly I wish them all well now as they move on from that and potentially I Look to take that again at some point in the future many of our students
021do also after spring break we'll have a whole nother wave of students who will be taking Wisconsin's forward exam and so this tis the season in terms of the high stakes testing that our students participate in also I just want to mention that since our last school board meeting not that anybody is counting we've had three closures of school due to severe weather and so I mentioned this uh it's February 16th it was a little over seven inches of snow it's February 22nd there was a winter storm warning and the timing of that was really quite brutal and then on the 23rd we had four of our schools that had no power and if you remember that ice and for perhaps the damage it caused to you personally too it was pretty intense but no
022matter what decision is made on those days I I feel like it's coming at me kind of in all directions and one of the questions that has come up is why not a two-hour delay I've heard that a little bit and I do think it's it's helpful maybe for folks here tonight but also who may be listening at home to recognize that the two-hour delay is sort of for all intents and purposes in this moment in our history is probably just done it doesn't exist as an option and really the primary driver of that is that our bus drivers many of our bus drivers have other day jobs and so if we delay by two hours we don't have transportation and the other feedback that we hear from parents really quite often is if I'm
023going to have to miss a day of work that I'm going to spend the whole day with my child I don't have a two hour delay option at work so we hear we hear that feedback as well too the other part is I just want to take this opportunity to also offer big thanks to our buildings and grounds team and our district administrators who make these days happen our crew this past week was in at two o'clock in the morning and we know we have just a specific amount of time it takes to clear all of our lots and make it safe for the for kids to come to school and so just appreciation to them as well this is also recently been the time where we're registering our families for both before and after
024care as well as for our 4K program many of you may already know if you're impacted by this that Plymouth who's been one of our wonderful Partners over the years they've decided to discontinue the care that they offer for our students in our schools and this year that was an option that assisted 148 students and so that wraparound care is something that we're going to be covering internally now and kind of expanding that as we move forward so that we're not leaving anybody out in the cold so to speak we also had just 70 what I would say future basd students the class of 2037 just in case anybody's keeping track on our four-year-olds class of 2037 37 had that screening on March 1st so it's always exciting to meet the little ones and then
025the next opportunity for anybody that may have missed that will come up on April 26th then of course I would be remiss to not just celebrate with you some of the cool stuff that our amazing students do just this last week alone uh you just heard Roseanne mention the musical performance of Mamma Mia we also had our bandarama in singaporation a lot of this involves a lot of our same kids at BHS and and they're just amazing in what they're able to do when they perform earlier this month too you may have caught some word about the read Across America week which we celebrate in the schools I think some folks right here actually came and read to students in our elementary schools and then of course later this week coming up we've got a
026pretty amazing Elementary School Battle of the books so stay tuned for that competition as well also 116 students this time around participated in the Black History Month part and essay contest which was presented by bcdr it's just great to see the the happiness that comes from the kids that participate in that and then one upcoming event driven will be hosting their annual Easter egg hunt on Saturday April 1st and if you've never seen this it it's Easter egg chaos is what it really is with kids everywhere so it's it's just awesome and it's it's worth your time if you want to come check it out uh so it's an exciting time to be part of the school district there's lots to celebrate and be part of and hopefully you find something that you can engage
027in with us so thank you all right thanks Steve I tried to take credit with my kids on the number of snow days recently and they weren't having that they knew they knew it didn't come from me um next up we have consent agenda items um so the board um and these are all available on the website in our agenda but we we group together our last two minutes minutes from our last two meetings our bank statements and bills the appointments resignations retirements and terminations and donations into consent agenda so I'd entertain a motion for um to approve the items I normally approve them approve the items second okay most of the made and seconded any comments hearing none I'll call for a vote all in favor say aye aye aye opposed name if I'm
028in May really quick yeah of course just one comment uh now that it's officially approved I want to make mention that we've had a lot of conversation about the principal role at Burlington High School and seated amidst Us in the audience tonight is Amy livonian and Amy joined uh our team this past fall as an assistant principal then agreed to serve as the interim principal and over the past couple of months in conversations with staff at Burlington High School has really won over their trust and their faith and so as part of tonight's appointments was Amy livonian as the permanent principal going forward for Burlington High School so congratulations Amy [Applause] thanks for highlighting that Steve congratulations Amy all right next we have three items for information and discussion only and the first is the
029Dyer Elementary School Improvement plan so we have a number of Staff members from Dyer school who met with the board before the meeting to discuss school district issues and now we're going to hear their Improvement plan so looking forward to hearing what's going on at Dyer thank you foreign my name is Ryan heft I probably serve as principal at Dyer Elementary School um with me tonight I have some of our staff as well we're going to be talking a little bit about our student achievement um programming and school culture as well so before we get started um I'd like to ask our staff board president to stand up and give them a round of applause please as everything we do would not be possible about that [Applause] um so as I said my name is
030Ryan haft I serve as principal at Dyer I'm going to be talking a little bit about our student achievement from the fall through um through current pictures oh Jenny you got to speak into the microphone or they won't they won't hear you at home my name is Jenny Holly and I'm the school counselor at Dyer Elementary School hi my name is Debbie treewinway and I'm a Montessori one through three teacher and I'm going to talk about Monastery programming thank you okay um so I wanted to talk a little bit about um our our student achievement and so um this is our data from Fall 2022 um I write by the um assessment um and so this specifically is our progress and free greeting as far as that goes um so on the top in the
031top row we'll see overall placement of our entire School um and so in the fall when students took the assessment 39 of our 39 of our students were proficient in Reading um in all of the categories below so you can see the placement by domain um the the darker green and the lighter green show um students who were at and above their current grade um so again a total of 39 of our students in the fall were proficient in those reading domains um this breaks it down further by grade so you can see in kindergarten 41 of students were proficient um in grade one 18 grade 2 35 grade 3 41 percent grade four 44 grade 5 45 and then grade six 72 percent um as you you might know where are we are the
032only Elementary School in the district that has sixth grade um as they are part of our Montessori program the rest of traditional sixth grade are over at Karcher so again this was um our fall 2022 assessment data where students started the year so when we look at our school Improvement plan we knew that reading was an area that we wanted to focus on as far as growth goes um and so our 2021-2022 growth and reading was 85 and so when we look at what would realistic growth look like um we did look at um you know what that growth was last year again it was at 85 percent um and then with some of the additional programming and supports we put into place this year we really wanted to strive for 100 pro so essentially
033doubling our percentage of students who are proficient in the fall and so that 20 um 2022 to 2023 goal then um if we start at 39 proficiency and we're aiming for 100 growth on the overall goal then by the end of the year would be that 78 of students were proficient so this shows our growth from Fall 2022 to Winter 2023. um so in the column on the left you'll see again what the proficiency was in Reading um in the fall versus the Whit winter that's there on the right um so you can see quite a jump for every grade so kindergarten jumped up to 85 first grade jumped up to 52. second grades currently at 62 percent third grade 64 percent fourth grade 62 percent fifth grade 53 and then sixth grade 86 percent
034yes correct yep correct why don't we repeat that for the microphone just so everyone catches it yeah absolutely so um so the expectation is that students are proficient um by the end of the school year right and so when we look and we see that only 41 of students were proficient in kindergarten expectations from to be proficient by the end of the school year right and so currently 85 percent are where we would expect kindergartners to be by the end of the 2022 to 2023 okay that's important to know too because when I think we saw the 18 number that was a bit shocking but that's for the end of the school year for first graders and that's the fall assessment just to be clear all right okay and so then when we look at
035dire overall proficiency and where they're at in the winter um again that fall percent um proficiency was 39 so again 39 of our entire School are where they would be expected to be by the end of the the school year right um that mid-year goal was 58.5 would would be proficient um and the meteor actual was 64 um so again if we were aiming for 100 growth um you know 50 percent of that would have been 58.5 so that's where we would have wanted students to be by by mid-year again the actual percentage of students who are proficient to where they'd be expected to be at the end of the school year um is at 64 um the end of your goal um if students made 100 growth um the goal would be for them
036to be at 78 proficiency by the end of the school year obviously we don't know at the end of the year actual percentages but we are well above um where we would have wanted to be mid-year and very much so on track to meet that 78 or exceed that by the end of feasibility any questions as far as reading proficiency growth from the fall of the winter or about our school Improvement plan as it relates to reading you may have said this already what is your measurement or using iready yeah that's correct okay and then what do you attribute the girls to um so the there's some major changes that we made over the last couple of years one is implementing on skills time and so that's something that we had last year as well
037on the split between math and reading last year this year district-wide we are working specifically on skills where you know students might need to fill some gaps and then provide enrichment opportunities as well specifically only ingredients that's half an hour every day for for every grade that's um specific to reading in addition to that we've spent a large part of this year working on professional development on the science of reading as well and really working to implement direct instruction as far as phonics go and phonological awareness so those are the major things I would I would attribute that any other questions okay all right I'm gonna hand it over to Debbie who's going to talk a little bit about our academic programming um specifically Montessori okay so we have some exciting news we are celebrating
03825 years this year of having our Montessori program in District so we're very excited for that it opened in 1998 by a family in District who was really interested in the Montessori approach and we have approached 25 years currently we have eight classes ranging from 4K through 6th grade and next year we have a big move coming we're all going to be housed in one building and we are looking forward to that because it's been 25 years since we've been together all together in one building and now we're actually going to have our own building so we're really looking forward to that for next school year we have approximately 190 students enrolled in the program at this point and we have lots of really great ideas that we'd love to share with all of you
039to continue to grow our program for those of you that are unfamiliar with Montessori or um if I could give you just like a quick um I'm gonna say elevator speech of what Montessori is I kind of put this together here that Montessori is a prepared learning environment in which a mixed age group of children are able to learn and explore and set their own goals daily while following grade level essential skills and District benchmarks and when we talk about the prepared environment each classroom is set up it's painstakingly set up by the teachers and we make sure that the works are on the shelves and that they're engaging to our students um this means that making sure that the works are correctly placed they're cleaned and they are complete each and every morning so
040the students are responsible for caring for the room this happens to be our cultural area where we start with the large and we move to the small so we start with the universe and we head down to to actually us understand it here's the botany in Zoology so these are the different subjects that we have in our curriculum the cultural area includes topics in geography botany zoology history and international culture we do a lot of Hands-On science experiments and they're used to deepen the understanding we are currently the 4-6 program just had just finished studying Egypt and they had a wonderful program that a couple people came and saw it where they recreated Egypt and it was just fantastic everything was made by the students and parents came and classrooms came and learned a lot
041about Egypt this is our math area and our math area is really set up and they learn with really with concrete materials so um with materials and they learn concrete versus abstract to start and so they move from like they can really physically feel like what is a hundred they hold up a hundred square and they can feel that weight versus a unit beat so it's really um nice for them to use the materials language and reading area you can see that again we have a lot of materials the students are responsible for going to the shelves after small group presentations the children are taught where they are on the shelves and where to put them back after they use them um I read about mixed age groups because we do have um the different
042age groups within one classroom so we currently have 4K 5K together and then we have three one through three classrooms and we have three four through sixth grade classrooms and I read somewhere that the youngest students are the Watchers the middle students are the workers and the oldest students are the teachers and to kind of explain that they're all working however we do have a mentor mentee program and the students really look up to they watch the older students in the class to see what they're doing they're invite it up to presentations and they really look forward to doing the work that the older peers are doing in the classroom you can see some of the pictures of the students working together across grade levels um the picture in the lower left our 4-6 program
043came in earlier this year and did lessons and you can just see their faces how engaged they are just wonderful um this is another aspect of it learning and exploring giving them a Hands-On approach allows them to completely learn but ideas by manipulating materials they can also share what they've learned by creating projects so when we take a look at the middle picture on the bottom there this was some students they were interested in the rainforest so they created the layers of the rainforest to explain their learning of it the other picture is when we study the English settlers and the Wampanoag tribe they built their own village and built created Gardens out of dirt from outside of school created their vegetables out of clay so they really get into it when they get a
044chance to and then we can see some of the materials that we have to enrich our learning students are responsible for setting their own goals daily and so when we take a look at work plans and I'm just going to pop open a first grade work plan here let's just see if you're not sure what plan work plans are set up on a month-long um basis and there are curriculum spirals throughout each month and students um in the first grade level is really color coded for them which makes it easier for them um Montessori created works that all of our operation Works in math red is for addition green is for subtraction yellow is multiplication and blue is division so when I put the works on the work pin it's color coded for the younger
045students to be able to find it on the shelves and as we kind of move forward less of that is used in the work plans one of Maria's montessori's founding tenants was to follow the child because we are in a public school setting we still do that to some extent but we also have District benchmarks and things and I have this great video and I hope this works very well this is a school this kind of just explains about letting the child kind of be the guide and us watching and allowing them to explore and learn on their own it's stepping in [Music] foreign the child's way of doing things has been for us an inexhaustible Fountain of Revelations [Music] children find it very hard to concentrate on spoken words but they have no difficulty
046concentrating on objects they handle [Music] the developing child must constantly be on the Move acting looking thinking reasoning they must be active all the time the child cares little about what others know they want to learn on their own experience the world themselves and perceive it by their own efforts [Music] I saw before me the figure of the child the child who stands before us with their arms held open Reckoning Humanity to follow and I made a promise a vow even to become a follower of the child as my guide [Music] to us that means allowing the children to experience and engage in activities independently but the inverse is also true and it means resisting the urge to lead the child instead Monastery teachers create that environment that encourages self-direction [Music] are there any questions
047about the monastery approach I just did a quick really quick overview I'd encourage anybody who is interested more to come and take a tour of our program it's fantastic we're so lucky to have it in the district well all the scores that you just looked at they're all together correct yeah I'm going to say let's leave it to board questions for now because this is not uh information only sorry yeah thank you yeah sorry I'm sorry to cut the questions off too there but when um Karcher which they would be starting in a traditional setting and it's really seamless it's really they're well prepared and it's very seamless for the kids to more than one program to the other so you've had a couple years I believe now at dire right is that true where
048that you've had all the entire Montessori program under one road we've been together for three years now so it's been nice to be together um as the whole program and so next year we'll all be at Cooper from 4K all the way through sixth grade and do you see the the um younger classroom the one through three do you interact with the four five six classroom or not so much because I know you used to be under different schools right right come in each week I have two students there's they have a whole bunch of students but I'm just speaking from my classroom um two students that come in and work with my students um doing reading with them or helping them with the work because they've done all of this work prior leading up
049because the Montessori curriculum every child has done all the work that's on those shelves before they leave that room and when they head to the four six room so um it's great to have those students come back the kids look forward to it one of the four six students just decided that she's going to have a a reading time with the students every Friday when she comes in my classroom so she's spending the last 15 minutes with her own books that she's bringing in to share with the kids so it's it's really nice so they they do they do go over they learn from them they come and they help us with things what is really nice talking maybe almost in the board of questions about monastery I want to apologize too for cutting the
050question off which is the policy we have is for information only it's just board questions but you're welcome to stay I'm sure Debbie would be happy to answer another question um thank you very much thank you everybody so I get to talk about school culture which is my um my passion I guess as a school counselor um our goal for our student Improvement plan is to ensure that 100 of our students in our school feel safe and feel accepted here at Dyer school and um it's measured through a school culture survey and student responses during Community circles so I'm going to talk a little bit about that um about Community circles and what they are and how they play a part at our school of dire and across the school district in the elementary schools
051and about other things we do with the staff to build culture and Community among our students so um some of our staff are wearing the these shirts that all of our um staff members did get um our school theme for this year is come one come all to the greatest school year of all we choose a theme to build that cohesiveness and that culture within our school and so um the staff have shirts and we do things to bring students together we had an amazing assembly early in the year um where we had aerialists come from an aerial School in Lake Geneva and um surprised the kids with some amazing um for an amazing performance um the students all created a class name and created a class motto um to be able to again build
052that Community within the individual classroom and then within the school and they um were able to share that with everyone at the assembly so some fun things to help bring everyone together additionally Community circles take place within our Elementary classrooms every day and the community circles are a time for students to really check in in the morning with each other um it gives everyone a nice kind of a soft start to the day when you think about the hecticness of mourning this gives our our students an opportunity to check in with their teacher check in with their classmates and it gives every single student a voice so Community circles are implemented at all of the elementary schools as a part of our morning routine sometimes they're right away in the morning sometimes they need maybe
053a little later depending on classroom time but as school counselors in our school district we give them structure by offering Community Circle questions like um what is your favorite food and the students all get a chance to share or describe a time when someone showed you kindness how did that feel and all the students get to share we teach that we've taught the teachers and the students how Community circles work so that everyone does have a voice and our community circles have a structure and Community circles are a part of restorative practices within our school district so it's a way again to give all those all students voice and to give all students a chance to share they can also be used when there's maybe a classroom issue maybe the class is a little loud
054in the hallways as they're waiting for the bathroom and so teachers will bring back the class and as a whole group have a discussion about how they can improve that for the next time um so Community circles are used to just build that Community but then also to um to solve any problems or concerns that might occur as well so you can see some pictures of some of our community circles you can see in this picture right here this student has a rose that's a talking piece each Community Circle has a talking piece and that lets students know it's their turn to talk it's a great visual for them they hold it in their hands they know it's their turn and when they don't have that they know it's time to listen and they do
055a wonderful job of listening and sharing so our community circles we just just some kind of information it's a district initiative which is a part of that restorative practices Continuum so this would be the the part that's very preventative by building those relationships among students um you're allowing them to have that um to learn those skills to communicate and be able to solve problems um staff we've given some trainings over the past three years um they're tied to our morning announcements I do have our dire morning announcements there and any at any time parents or community members can look at those um they are consistent across the school district as well Community circles really do a great job just to build those relationships they build empathy understanding how someone else might feel those great communication
056skills among students um and among their the staff that were surveyed we did a survey with all staff and 97 felt that students looked forward to our community circles 97 said that students participate willingly so they're coming I mean they're even our shy students are ready to share something because they know it's um just a little bit they have the right to pass but they are sharing and 81 percent of our staff have used Community circles as a way of addressing other things that might occur like a um like that that hallway Behavior or something else that's happened with in the classroom or School community um just some feedback from staff um just saying that students have have a turn to talk they know each other so you think about school and you're going through
057your day you might be with your classmates um and maybe you talk to some students and maybe you don't but this gives kids a chance to learn just so much about each other and by doing that those relationships and friendships are are um formed so that students feel that sense of community um teacher said I feel like my students know they have a voice they're able to make decisions together they can see their Collective efforts to change situations teachers will get together with their class and problem solve like how are we going to fix this and the students have a voice in that um I've seen a growth in empathy active listening skills and a better sense of community through our community circles so um it's a one way we're working towards building those connections
058so that each and every one of our students feels safe and valued within our school community and I think Community circles play in a really important part in not and I think oh another way we build a community is through different school events one is our Color Run which we did for the first time last year last year was the first year Dyer was in elementary school and so we came together with students from all over the district from different elementary schools and so we were creating our own um community and our own um place and so our um annual Color Run is something that we plan to continue um a great way our kids had and maybe principals had a really nice time at the Color Run and it was just a such a
059wonderful way to round out our year and to bring everybody together the smiles on those kids faces of very colorful faces um such a great way we made sure that all kids had a white shirt to use so when they left that day um it was not white anymore but they were very very full of smiles so we do things to bring kids together um in different ways and our color runs just another another way we do that thank you so I think that that for me um are there questions or anything you would like to ask me about building culture and community in our in our school board members you have a question yeah um I was just listening to you talk about the class culture and Community Circle and I heard you describe
060the ways it connects to belonging um listening skills empowering students to have a voice communication and problem solving skills some behavior management strategies um I guess my question is can you speak to if that is also related to achievement because I think there are a lot of community members where it's wonderful for people to feel included what how does that really is that relate a really good question um so I guess I can't speak to within our school um increases in achievement based on um sense of belonging but maybe Ryan do you have some things you could share or someone I'll let you take I don't know what I can speak to specifics um I can tell you though that generally when students feel included when they feel welcome when they feel celebrated um they
061are happy to be at school and they're more they're more you know likely to perform um you know at a higher higher ability um so I I can't speak to any specific data that we might see on that but I I wouldn't doubt that that plays a role for sure really good question I would love that something that now that you're asking I will look up because I know there's research out there but I can't Point directly to it right at this moment but that's okay I wasn't expecting our individual data points but I appreciate it but I just wanted to hear whether you thought they really were yeah I do before intermittent yes so I do because when students feel safe at school and they feel valued and that they feel they have a
062place in their school um they are going to be better able to learn better able to um try their best work their best when they feel safe and included in a part of that school Community um so that's that's um where I feel like that would make a big difference but I definitely hear Richard sing and I'm going to find some data on that because I know it's out there if I can just add since Paige asked that question one of the things that as a leadership team we spend a lot of time talking about is the connectivity between student achievement and that sense of belonging and one of the places that we almost always point to in our conversations and our research is work by John Hattie and Hattie studies all of these effect
063sizes of what improves student achievement and closing growth and learning gaps and the number one proven effect size moniker that has come up year after year after year as student self-efficacy it's that sense of I have the confidence to perform and so that is one of the leading reasons that we tether together the cultural and belonging piece with that whether it's reading or mathematics for example so good question thank you hey bills on the board of questions yeah so we've obviously have fun three years um redistricting covid yes we have getting back into the classroom how have this particular group of students come together are they still trying to find that connection with each other being from all different locations that's a really that's a really good question as well so over the past two
064years we have worked to create these opportunities where students can come together one thing I should bring up we have buddy classrooms where teachers are partnered with each other so that they have a chance to connect so it really um through the community circles through all school events through things like buddy classrooms we're creating these opportunities for relationship building so that students find that connection that person that they can connect with um because when you are comfortable being in the same school for a long time and then there are changes especially when we talk about our older students we as adults have to work harder to build those connections to help those students connect because you may not um just in a daily life of walking through the building going to your class you might
065see your class all the time and a few other classes but you may not have those connections and so we we work to create opportunities to allow students to build those connections so that they can then have relationships with other students in our building so it's something I know we look forward to as the there's more changes to come that we look forward to how we're going to be doing that for all the students in the upcoming year as well thank you anyone else in the board have questions all right thank you I think Dyer's staff or presentation very helpful or very informative second item for information discussion now is a building and grounds update regarding Karcher so it's like I got yeah Dan bocock I didn't see you there in the room all right
066yeah well thank you for having me here again tonight um we wanted to give you guys all a update in regards to Karcher um and some of the what's been going on uh the past year in regards to some water damage that happened to the building prior to you know the building being turned over to the school district uh Pras engineer here myself you know have done walk through this building that we create a punch list of items that maybe still need to be addressed in the building or items of uh concern that maybe aren't functioning properly because we're still trying to work tweaks out um and one item that was always that was brought up was that there was an air pressure issue in the building so instead of the building having somewhat of
067a positive pressure the building had a little bit of a negative pressure so it was actually sucking air in from the outside um but throughout the last year and a half these issues have always been we've been trying to tweaks we've added an expansion tank we've done a lot of things and worked diligently with our partners in this project to rectify any of these uh ongoing issues that had happened um and of course uh over the last year we've had some pretty extreme weather events that has led to some damage happening to Karcher uh first maybe we had some damage happen to the wood floor uh the West doors facing towards the football field the exterior doors uh when we had a major major rainfall was the first time that we actually noticed that there
068was water on the floor by the doors and what we discovered was that the seals that were on the doors you could partially see a little bit of daylight through the door seals and then what was happening because we actually could figure it out we took a sprinkler put a sprinkler on the outside of the building and watched because you really didn't see water coming in and it was into the seals and running down the uh basically the frame of the door down to the door jamb and then just going directly underneath so it wasn't anything that was we really saw a whole lot until all of a sudden uh myself and James the building engineer was walking through like holy cow floors were cut here on this end of the gym and cup is
069when the floor it has too much of moisture it then expands and then it causes the floor to actually either rise and what we call it coughing um so that was turned into our insurance company um in regards to that the doors are then had uh rubber seals added to them all the way around so that they are sealed tight now to reduce any chance of any uh water getting into the the gym in the future which is of course crucial for a wood floor uh then of course this past um Christmas break um in December we had a major winter weather um Storm come in in regards to high winds and very low temperatures we had below zero temperatures for I believe over 48 hours with it hitting close to negative 35 with windshield
070Wheels in wind blowing at upwards of 40 miles an hour um so luckily there was a user group actually in Karcher on the day that we had a tight burst in the bathroom in the fitness center and it was noticed relatively quickly and some of our Administration and our abilities and ground team responded immediately to rectify against the water that had gotten um through a mitigation company and Shear we were actually able to clean up and our buildings and grounds clean up the building in time so we never lost any sort of instructional time due to that water leak occurring um and the pipe was in a bathroom exterior wall which led to an outside um spigot on the building so that wall was opened up and it was fixed by shear and the mitigation
071came through and made sure that all the moisture and everything was out of the building so that um that with those two issues everything that has had damage has been addressed we still are the gym floor is being addressed July 31st the company that did install it is coming in to um resurface and replace some of the boards that are in the gym itself so it's back to whole we did however we have continued to work with terrain and with gray Farms the engineers on the project and we believe that we have solved all the issues that is in regards to the air pressure in the building there was throughout the uh duration of the last year and a half I believe there was 29 different times that we've tried different tweaks to make sure
072that it was working properly and we believe now we have the correct air pressure and the correct tweaks done to the building because we've now sustained for the last month having the positive air pressure in the building so we wanted to give you an all in an update because it was some some pretty major things that did happen to the building um we did uh fix them and we did work diligently with our partners to make sure that any of these concerns were addressed and that moving forward that we don't have anymore water issues how do you increase the air pressure in a building do you tweak the HVAC I'm just curious HVAC increase the airflow yeah okay um it was it was a combination um we actually stripped all the tweaks that we made
073off and started from scratch you know just started from the beginning where of the original set points were just to make sure that none of the I mean there was there was emails after emails and meetings after meetings in regards to it to try to make sure that it was you know working correctly and I'm just happy that it is now so would you come to my house to help me I have negative air pressure there's a lot of cold air coming in was the initial balancing report even and then something changed that put us into negative pressure yeah the the initial balancing report was was correct um and then we started having the first thing that we noticed was that the um handicapped doors when when opened because of the negative airflow and if
074we don't know what happened because we can look back of course in the building automation system and see why where the adjustment was but then that's when we started at that point because that was when we first noted so then we started making tweaks on the system to either allow more exhaust air in um or you know we had our dampeners for outside then we would turn them up to 100 so that we're drawing more air into the building so nobody can really pinpoint exactly what um there just was a lot of people that know more than me about HVAC systems making tweaks to it so okay so it was turned over to us balanced at least though yeah okay thank you any other questions thanks again yeah thank you all right last item for
075information discussion this evening is the first reading of changes to policy 2522 our library yeah and Jill I uh would you give us a little introduction you bet okay so just as a reminder to the policy um some adjustments that have been made to it um based on our book committee that we had put together is that there would be an additional taking a mature content um text with a call number at the end of the um ID of that book for all parents and students to see within Destiny with an MC label at the end again that was something that was not currently in place prior to us putting together the book committee all of the mature text would be found at the high school we did find that there were 17 books at
076the middle school that were MC mature content and we were working to shift them to the high school we will add two additional permission slips that will be put in place remember we already have the two the sixth grade permission slip for ya we already have in place and we have an eighth grade one for a high school book that is already in place the additional two permission slips that the committee came up with is a high school permission slip where any high school student wanting to check out a book that is labeled as mature content or adults would need parent permission in order to do so the other overall permission slip that the committee came up with was for um 4K all the way through 12th grade if there's a parent that is concerned
077about a certain topic or text they can let us know we can put that in Destiny and then our staff would know um to ensure their student does not check out books in that genre or topic area we also are making adjustments to our websites and indicate the different types of genre including all of our permission slips and also ensuring that all the parents are are aware of all the different topics that can be found in our libraries that is something that came up from the parents that they weren't clear on everything that is available in our in our libraries we also are working to put together a video for parents to be able to view and how to use Destiny again the community members shared they didn't know anything about Destiny and that is
078the platform where parents can see all the text that we have in the school district and what books their students are checking out we also will be adding a section to our online registration in August to ensure that all parents are aware of all the different information to know about relating to our libraries it is just it will be an informational box within registration that they would not be able to click pass without reading to ensure again that all parents are aware of everything that's taking place in our libraries we are also making an adjustment to the policy where instead of it saying anything about removal of books it is all about reclassification of books um that was something that the committee had consensus around um there's also adjustments to the policy in relation to
079how often a reconsideration committee can be formed in the past anytime material will come forward a committee would need to be formed within 10 days that is an adjustment that we would like to make where we are suggesting and it's in policy this way that there would be two different time frames in this school year where any materials would be collected for let's say for example from August through January any materials up for reconsideration would be collected by myself and then at that time we would form committees based on how many materials need to be reconsidered for classification then we would do the same thing for all of spring collecting any information that would come forward to us and then have a commit form committees in June so twice a year our committees would form
080for those reclassification forms instead of every 10 days that a material would come forward and then lastly um there is also in the policy that um any one individual can submit a maximum of two items for material review per school year and that is also in the policy those are in Broadview those kind of the big big ideas of the adjustments to the library policy a board members have questions for Jill or comments yeah Barry I've got just a couple that I think will be relatively use I just need clarification on um I'm not a librarian or a teacher so I'll forgive the ignorance on this one age of material must be published within the last 20 years or be historically significant how do we discover what or how do we decide what's historically significant
081and what texts would that preclude for instance would the Lesser works of Edgar Allan poby not allowed because they're over 20 years old but they're not historically significant so I feel like I know the answer to this one even though I'm not a librarian either so my understanding of texts that would stay in the library over 20 years old would be Classics is what we would have in the libraries um and know that most Classics are listed as adult if you recall Angie had shared that a lot of our books that are older texts are are labeled as adult and as new Authors and new text comes out there is much more clarity and a lot more tags for books that are are more recent texts but that would be the only reason in my
082understanding of why something would be over 20 years old okay thank you and then the second one is kind of comprehensive of a couple of things the permission slips pertaining to all the way through high school we do have some high schoolers that become 18 before they graduate how does this impact them additionally we have a statement in here that says parents of a student under the age of 16 have the right to review upon request Library records relating to the use of the library's documents other materials by the student why do we have a permission slip till 18 but parents can't find out what their looking at after 16. um that I is more so in there because that is a suggested age from the um Library Bill of Rights so that is more
083so in Associates in association with that um but realistically very a parent can log into their students Destiny account from 4K all the way through 12th grade and see what texts they're checking out sure and that makes sense I was just wondering if we've got a conflict with what's written down here versus what we're trying to do I can re-look at that right there and and uh while you guys are discussing and and uh read it also in that context and see if I can answer that question thanks did you get a sufficient answer on the 18 year old question Barry we would use we would use a permission slip for all students in the high school whether you're 18 or not um within our in the high school setting yeah that we we utilize
084an age of majority principle that basically says even if you're 18 we're still going to contact your parents until they graduate and the only reason I'm asking is is that going to cause us any problems down the road if we have an 18 year old saying I don't care what Mom and Dad said I want to check this out I mean they're an adult in the eyes of the law you know because we still we still follow in local parentis which means that we're even though you have that permission we're not going to do that it's going to go through your parents and so that that is our sort of modus operandi in anything when they turn 18 now if the parent wants to sign off on that and say well Barry's 18 I'm going
085to let him make his own decisions they then a parent could sign off on that but it has to be done by the parent yep I'm not for or against them just trying to understand what we're doing so I want to make sure you had a good answer appreciate it thank you yeah in high school Edmond's real used to that having been a former High School admin myself but when students try to do that no that doesn't work as long as you're under the yeah of the high school you're still governed by the rules of the high school regardless of whether you're an adult or not yeah correct any of the board members um and what's the uh the time frame you said two times a year what is those those months I'm sorry I
086didn't catch that um so the thought process is January and June I don't think the policy has a specific time though it's flexible I believe right so yeah it is flexible Okay so so everything collected in June would be the committee would be convened in January anything collected between January and June would be reviewed in June okay okay good question um and then one last one um again the reconsideration committee um principal librarian teacher and two parents minimum of two parents okay um and I'm pretty sure there's no I I've thought about this and I don't know that there's any way that we could really do it um how would we facilitate having a balanced committee the reason you know what a balanced committee balanced Community yes because my fear looking at this is books
087are submitted a committee is uh convened and you don't have equal number of voices on that committee therefore once I just you know we're not going to reconsider anything everything stays as is how do we how do we balance out that committee or that potential committee to me I think the way to read that section of the policy is with the the when it talks through the Staffing it says it may include right it doesn't say it will include so that's where the balance of the committee would always take place where there's always more parents than staff I I'd suggest too that a committee doesn't necessarily have preconceived sides you could have a committee where you come with an open mind and you're open to thinking I mean it's I think there's a spectrum of
088views on on Library preventatives potentially I would agree but a lot of times people aren't as open-minded as we want them to be so you could potentially get people who are dead set on intellectual freedom and I'm not going to budge off of that and then you get others that you know are concerned about um graphic material in the library so again how do you balance both sides so that both sides can come to an effective agreement and get to a consensus and I hear what you're saying Marlo I guess I hope the committee would be comprised of people open-minded to different points of view because you bring a committee together but just like a school board right we may have different opinions on some things we but we are respect our each other as
089colleagues and listen and consider those points well and it implies that anyone on the committee is representative of the majority of a community I mean it's a small committee all you can do is your best effort with that committee I mean we can stack a committee with four people out of five and it still doesn't mean the entire Community feels that way it's I don't think it but we can always have a larger committee too so I mean you're I think you guys hear what I'm saying and you're understanding me however I don't think well we definitely don't feel the same way about this because again we've got 50 books yet still need to be reviewed so to speak and we're still quibbling over um mature content label whether or not to use excerpts or
090not use excerpts and clearly the use of excerpts is not the majority and I think that's based on the representation of the committee so again I have concerns with this that the Committees when they're convened may not be balanced so that there is a consensus that every not every side every side should not be happy they should feel some pain in this so I just don't see how or better yet I'm just questioning how we would be able to balance the committee that's all so I don't think we can answer that question now but because I'm I'm open to any suggestions on how that could possibly be done but you know I don't know so I I don't know if there's an answer that Marlo I I understand what your concern is um I I
091think here is where I'd have to rely on our administrative team who's going to put together who's going to point the thing to attempt to try to draw people in with different points of view so you have a robust discussion and people maybe who have different opinions on this are brought into the committee so that the committee can make a good recommendation I don't know how else to do it Marlon would I was asking questions yeah just asking questions so know that hold on please know that the thought process too of the idea of having the Committees take place twice a year is so that based on the number of materials up for reclassification we may need to form multiple committees right so if there's 10 books to think one committee can review 10 books
092and and read all of those books is probably unrealistic in order to complete that in a in a quicker timeline so we would form multiple committees so know that as well okay any other questions or comments for Jill all right well just to be clear and let you have anything else Jill before no okay I just want to be clear then tonight is a first read of our policy all district policies that we either adopt repeal or amend we go through two readings so at one board meeting we do a first reading the second board meeting is where we would actually take action it's a it's part of our policy that we use this procedure to be deliberative and make sure that when we're changing policy which is a a critical thing that we do
093as a school board that we're thoughtful about doing it we give the public also a notice so that we're going through it a change adoption or repealing a policy that's it for the items for discussion we do have five items for Action uh the first would be the adoption of the high school math curriculum and Jill I'm going to guess your you're back up so I was gonna interject real quick I was gonna say you guys are welcome to stay but you don't have to you've yeah you've had long days teaching so it's very yeah you want to hang around and hear about high school math curriculum Dyer welcome too and that's true for anybody in the audience we'd love to have you stay and for the rest of the meeting but uh don't we
094won't be offended if you decide to leave but um okay we ready yes please okay so um wanting to bring a high school nine nine 12 math adoption to you um this has been a long time coming in some ways uh it has been a very long time since the high school math team has had a adoption of a new curriculum they've been working through a curriculum that they have designed on their own and really feel that there is a need for for clearer alignment based on what we're seeing within our data at the high school level when it comes to math and really wanting to ensure that alignment is really rigorous and and really clear between Algebra 1 geometry and algebra 2. so our high school staff with Andrea Garrity our math coordinator worked
095through this first document that you see here with the three circles on it um this was kind of their The Guiding Focus that and questions for them to consider as they looked through 11 different math curriculums in order to land on the one that we are presenting to you tonight so you can see those questions that they went over and then behind that is also the Wisconsin guiding principles in relation to what Wisconsin is looking for when it comes to state standards and expectations for students so those are the two different pictures that you also have in that three-page set of information in regards to what questions were used for our team to make a decision then also they followed a really rigorous instructional materials evaluation tool so they use this tool here happy to
096um give it to you and pass it around but this is what our team also used in order to make sound decisions about all 11 of the different curriculums that they looked through uh we also follow and look at Ed reports so Ed reports is a site that is um vetted by numerous different people and companies and researchers in order to support school districts and knowing if the curriculum really does meet State Standards or not sometimes it's hard to look at when you're looking at 11 you don't really have the time necessarily to get all the materials in districts to see all of it but Ed reports really helps you narrow down in regard to if if this a certain curriculum meets expectations or does not meet expectations so um the one presenting to you
097now is hmh that is Colton Holton Mifflin harcourts and what we would like to do is adopt this curriculum that you're seeing in front of you for both algebra one geometry and then algebra two so that would really be the math curriculum that is utilized in freshman sophomore and junior year we would start this or plan on starting this in the fall and we'll also ensure that our staff have plenty of professional development in order to make the switch from what they're doing right now to a really robust math curriculum moving forward the plan would be that this is a five-year commitment with hmh and within those five years if you you'll notice that this um resource is a bit more traditional in its framework and that is something that our staff really were liking
098about the resource at the moment know that there is also a desire within the next five years to ensure that we're really also moving in the direction of really Hands-On real world application where um there's a lot of student discourse at the same time so within the five years we do plan on also embedding a bit more of that that might not be within the text the the reason this is coming to you is because it costs more than twenty five thousand dollars anything coming over to you that is more than twenty five thousand dollars needs to come to the board um for approval and know that we happen to have a credit of eighty four thousand dollars within which within hmh already we had a K-5 social studies adoption that was adopted three years
099ago and has been used for two years it was a six-year adoption our staff at the elementary level were not um as pleased with the curriculum at nor was I in relation to its robustness hands-on experience for students and in engagement so did contact the company and ask them if we can get out of our contract and we could if we were to keep a credit so we have a credit of eighty four thousand dollars with hmh know that when I talked with the math team I did share with them that I didn't I didn't actually share with them that we had a credit with hmh um to me I wasn't wanting them to feel like they need to choose hmh they could choose whatever they felt was the best based on the information that
100I was sharing with you here and then they did actually land on hmh which I was I was surprised at so the full cost of the math curriculum at the high school is 87 000 and that does include some professional development it it is uh ensuring that we have class sets of of texts that are in all of our classrooms it comes with all the teacher guides it also comes with uh every single student being able to have an online textbook and there's also planning guides and uh resources additional resources for students to use along with some professional development and all of that came to 87 000 so the difference credit wise that would come out of my budget is three thousand dollars because of that eighty four thousand dollar credit that we have any
101questions for Joe I have a question yeah a comment to see that and I know that our um the book company has been around for a long time and I I know you've used them when I taught and you're a good company so I think they keep up with what's going on and um I think it looks great thank you Arlen hi we're going to do some geometry problems ran out of time right so you mentioned that if this is a five-year plan right so by year three you're not really seeing any type of significant gains what's your plan to Pivot then or is that really I guess is that a fair question to ask given that the scope is five years I would say that it's hopefully to me we start to see a
102change in scores next year even um but I do think it will take three years for us to truly see um that growth in student achievement especially having students go through Algebra 1 geometry and Algebra 2 with the curriculum um so I do think it'll take a few years to see that but at that three-year Mark is is when we will definitely be reviewing but also to me prior to that starting to try to infuse some other Hands-On real world application within there as well I guess my final question because you kind of answered all the other ones I had which is great how easy will it be for the district to share this curriculum and communicate it to students and their parents so obviously you have some that are used to the old way
103and this is a brand new concept um so that that's a really good question and something that I've been talking to all of our math Specialists about um is we want to ensure that we start to put out some videos and tutorials for parents when it comes to how our how our curriculum really works and how they can support the students at home especially more so in the pre-k through fifth grade level we use Bridges as a curriculum and bridges really focuses on uh more of a strategy approach and really ensuring that we teach multiple different strategies to students and there's not just one way to solve a problem and it's a lot more visual a lot more Hands-On trying to help students see numbers like uh Debbie treeman was talking about where you see
104it as a actual item instead of it just being a rote memorization and that really helps students with number sense but that is something that we are wanting to start to engage in and have our math Specialists assist with is some video tutorials to support parents on how to support their students at home that's a good question so we could do that at the high school as well so what's the potential what's the ETA to roll something out like that because I imagine that's quite complex videos but I mean just to put all that together that's gonna be pretty time consuming so what's the potential turnaround time for that um we have at the elementary level we're intentionally sending two of our math Specialists to go to Minnesota to be train the trainers for our
105bridges program um that is intentional as well so that when we have onboarding of new staff we have our own staff in-house that can train our new teachers but I do anticipate when they come back that we would be able to engage in some of those videos starting in August September mm-hmm how many years of math are you students required to take at the high school three three so with these courses then this cover most of the students at the high school yes most kids are taking algebra one Algebra 2 and geometry or not in that order though don't they dig geometry in the middle they take algebra and then geometry and then algebra two and Algebra 2 is a predictor if you receive a c or hire in Algebra 2 that it is a
106predictor that you would um do okay freshman year of college in in in your coursework at the college level foreign we'll give you a chance to comment because this is an item for Action so thank you um being patient I'm seeing workbooks are these chargebacks to students so these provided every year for five years how does this work out no uh so we can purchase those so you can purchase them in per student um if the staff were to say that's what they want us to do then we would do that so they would be a consumable that the district would pick up and pay for for every student at the moment the staff don't feel like that is what they would want to do they would rather have the copies of that and then
107be able to make copies of the text that they would want to use is that part of our license to be able to copy parts of this okay and there if you notice there are uh the student digital licenses are included and so that is part of that yeah and just for clarification I'm pretty positive I do not have a conflict but I may so I'm abstaining on this vote until I can speak with Steve for clarification on that okay how what's the typical lifespan of like a curricular material like an algebra book I'm just curious what how does this compare to other curricular material we give um I would say at the high school maybe district-wide I'm curious so uh that's a really good question um I would say at K-8 the curricular review
108cycle really is more in the five to seven range at the high school it has been exceeding that um year range and that is something that I would uh really like to change and has been spending quite a bit of time focusing in on the elementary level but then also at the high school level to ensure that we are getting materials to our staff that are really robust and up to date so I exceed you mean just be clear longer than five seven years like it could be ten years the high school is right now yes any other questions or comments at the board level I think Mr koburnick did you have a comment in order for the people to hear at home I'm going to ask you to come up to the microphone so
109my first question is are there other schools in the area that use this curriculum that we could use as like a basis to see if it's better or worse or you know um and then I think he answered most of my other questions which I appreciate um I guess the other thing I want to bring up as I was looking at other districts around in the area and Muskego is doing really well in math so I'm wondering if we're using a similar program to what they're using or you know yeah most school districts are using hmh CPM or IM is what most school districts are are utilizing um this hmh is the most traditional of the three I am is one that we can utilize and also still Infuse which our staff also want to
110do if you see there one of the questions even on the bottom of this sheet for our staff to review was do we have the ability to use more than one resource so that is something that we are able to do because we all know one resource is is usually never the perfect fit for every single standard for every single thing what I am feeling fortunate about is that we do have a math coordinator with us at the moment who is a former math teacher at the high school level and she has been fantastic in helping lead the team she is also participating in the sisa one math Network which involves loves people around the states that work for other school districts in order for us to engage in conversations and see what other people
111are doing she mapped out what almost every school not every school district but a fair amount of school districts in the state and what programs they are using for us to really look what is the sequencing that we're seeing throughout the state what a freshman usually take sophomores juniors seniors so we did a very robust look at not just what we're doing and not just what our neighboring districts are doing but everyone in the states to really ensure that we are picking something that we feel really confident for for our students and Muskego is one that um sometimes get that's what I was gonna say um one that sometimes is is really important to think about is that we we really need to start to invest more into coaches and instructional coordinators for the school
112district when it comes to teaching and learning Muskego has 18 instructional coaches we have never had any until this year with Esser funds any so when we start to think about really wanting to audit and look at what's happening in tier one instruction which means what's happening in every single classroom across the system we have to have more people in order for us to really dive in and support our classroom teachers with teaching and learning so again we have four coordinators this year um and and um we'll be having just two next year if the referendum passes we still have two or is it going to depend on I think it will all depend on how the referendum goes so the passes we would potentially have more than two I guess ideally um ideally I
113think four is a good start um in order to support K5 but also 612. when you start to think of every subject area that we have across the district um you know not just Ela and math but you Circle in science social studies Health PE art Wellness all of our elective offerings right uh there there's a lot there and especially onboarding new staff that come into the district as well but ensuring that everyone's aligned and there's accountability with what assessments everyone's using and ensuring everyone really is meeting the grade level standards in every single classroom and providing that coaching and feedback support for our staff they have really appreciated the help this year um and and it's been really cool to hear from the staff and that they've seen the impact of the coordinators this
114year any other questions yeah eighth grade Elder that's a good question 8th grade algebra is covered because you can take ninth grade algebra as a eighth grader so the hmh curriculum here would also be given to our eighth grade teacher that teaches high school algebra one algebra so that eighth grade year would mimic and be the same as what students would be getting at the high school now thank you for your questions anybody else in the audience have questions board members Last Call on questions if not I'd entertain a motion then to approve the uh expenditure for the high school math curriculum material so second okay motions made and seconded any further comments very none I'll call for a vote all in favor say aye aye aye opposed nay all right passes oh thank you
115I didn't ask for abstentions can't assume sir appreciate you keeping me up I told you guys thanks um Ruth I think it's a business office thank you I um feel free to look at the text here and then um if you are wanting to take one for some reason just let me know otherwise I'll I'll collect them at the end of the night you're gonna have to have help carrying them it really I'm pretty strong Rosie okay actually I thought of that Roseanne because I see our kids at the high school when they're hauling their books between classes it's this is this IQs or the teacher editions but still are they okay ready okay thank you for the opportunity to present tonight um one thing what we're going to talk about is debt defeasants um
116which we'll explain in a minute but it's um one way that we can show our commitment to um being fiscally responsible um as you know hopefully know the last couple years we've been able to do use this to what's called debt defeasants which is prepaying our long-term debt it's like paying extra on your home mortgage to reduce the length of the term that you have to repay that debt over so the last two years we levied approximately 1.6 million extra this will be the third year that we're going to use this tool so this year is 3 million extra and then we're prepaying on this the referendum Capital debt okay so I think if we look at the the one handout um called summary of cash diffuses that Baird has prepared and this is an
117attachment um um that's a made public for everybody to look at um the first um kind of boxed column on the left shows our current debt structure they were a 20-year bonds going through two thousand 39. it's weird to say that but um and then the middle column the second box column says after defeasants so what this debt would look like after we prepay this three million dollars what I want you to focus on are the the and the 2038 years so if we look at 2039 and that first boxed column the remaining principle is one million four hundred and fifty five thousand okay now if you look at the the middle combox comment says after deep reasons you see three little asterisks so that goes away because once we prepay this it's removed from
118our Bots okay so we eliminated 2039 between the the three years and then 2038 right above that was is currently 2.8 million after this defeasants will be 1 million two hundred and sixty thousand so that's where that 3 million drops off of that total that we owe so we've knocked more than a year and a half off of our um debt over these three years makes sense okay so keep going to the right then that next column after the two boxes says reduction in fund 39 um Debt Service so all those years that say 105 000 we're also reducing what we owe every year because that's less interest we're going to have to pay on all those outstanding bonds every year so it's also helping to lower the amount the required Levy every year to
119pair that okay and then way down at the bottom of that column it just shows the savings from the seasons as one million five hundred and seventy five thousand so over these three years we've levied I'm not quite 4.6 million but then we've saved almost 2.3 million so like 50 percent phenomenal okay all make sense okay so then what we have to act on tonight is that um there was a resolution that was also attached um and what that resolution um is authorizing is that three million dollars to be applied towards the 2039 and the 2038 principle um it's authorizing us to put that money into Escrow because these payments aren't actually callable until April of 27. so this money gets put aside into this fund earns interest they'll make the payments that come due
120until that callable date but once that's put into escrow we get to take it off of our books so it's considered paid um and then the third thing it's doing is authorizing Administration to sign the appropriate um documents on the closing date of April 6th and transfer the funds so that's what in what's in that resolution so we would ask you to approve that please and then we do need a roll call vote Ruth I noticed in that table that we were looking at before um there was variability in the rates um you know why that is like it started it's at five percent right now but as the time goes on it is lower that was the original originally brought that 43 million yeah okay okay that's something no that's that's perfectly fine I'm
121just curious okay thank you I'll just add one more piece because we have had this question surface and that is that this is an amount that you're levying it is outside of the revenue limit because by Statute when the community supported that referendum it's a known thing that that money has to be paid back and so this amount that you're levying this is outside the revenue limit and this really has been a strategy that you've used these last couple of years to help and stabilize the mill rate and so the mill rate has continued to go down and yet this has helped it to go down at a more reasonable level while at the same time in the long term saving a tremendous amount of money to the taxpayers yes thank you for adding that
122clarification any other questions or comments or I'd entertain a motion then to approve the resolution for the debt two reasons so moved second okay emotions are made and seconded any further comments or questions hearing none it's a roll call votes Toby would you mind in the Roll Call Peter Turk yes very smelly yes Susan Kessler yes Taylor Wishaw yes Harlow Brown yes Paige Caribou yes Roseanne Han yes thank you okay thank you and there are several pieces of paperwork that some of you have to sign to thank you thanks Ruth um next on oh I'm gonna apologize in the audience I didn't ask if you wanted questions on the debt defuses okay fair enough yeah you're here that's good we like saving taxpayers money too so good good thing uh third item for action of
123five is the human resources the preliminary notice of renewals uh Barry is the head of the Personnel committee if you want to take the lead on this one uh yes is part of our um issues with funding and with our reduced enrollment we've got some issues some notices of non-renewals that we need to issue uh there are seven of them in total and we reviewed this as the Personnel committee on Friday and it was unanimous to approve so I would put that in the form of emotion a second okay emotions invade and seconded to approve the preliminary notice of non-renewals for looks like seven staff members um any comments or questions I would note that well actually no no comments well I think it's sad these people are going to be some of these are
124going to be disappointed you know to get a non-renewal any other questions or comments hearing none I'll call for a vote all in favor say aye aye aye opposed name okay thank you fourth item for Action is the school board resignation uh we have to approve Kevin Bird's a resignation from the school board I move we accept Kevin Byrd's resignation second motions made and seconded any comments I'd really like to thank Kevin he brought a lot to The District in his time here um the construction of Karcher alone is very crucial in that so I wish him well in his future endeavors and he'll be missed but looking forward to working with Paige as well I can't agree with you more I enjoyed working with Kevin as a colleague I'm also thoroughly looking forward to
125working with Paige and uh excited what she can bring to our group anybody else okay you're in none I'll call for a vote all in favor accepting Kevin's resignation say aye aye opposite I would apologize again I forgot to ask the audience if they had any comments on the last two items so I didn't feel like you would okay thank you yeah I need somebody to keep me on my toes here so I appreciate that uh the last item is uh the board of canvassers so Susan um so yes we will have and what they do is after the election they check all the numbers that we get from the city and the town should have been different numbers like that just make sure that everything is correct regarding the vote so we've decided on
126April 6th at four o'clock we will have the board of canvassers will convene okay thanks Susan you're welcome so do we have a board canvaser selected we do okay I'm sorry I was distracted would you like me to yeah yes so um I can't be on the board of canvassers since I will be one of the candidates but it's going to be Barry and it's going to be Jill and a Ruth okay perfect uh I guess we do we need to approve that though is it an item for Action that the board of canvassers I think it says Susan's will select I think it's designated so fair enough okay again I'm going to guess the audience has no comments on that it's a functory uh future meeting date Steve yeah there are just sort of
127three things to point out uh one the first thing is that on March 29th at 7 pm for anyone who is interested we will be at that's Karis that'll be the final uh Public Presentation about the operational referendum so for anyone you know here or at home who would like to hear that presentation that is on March 29th also before we officially meet as a full board again April 4th is election day there are two pretty key items for the school district one is the operation referendum and the other is that there are candidates that will be elected on that night so please do vote then on March 13th that is the monthly meeting of the board of education at 7 pm right here all right thank you that being said I'd entertain a motion
128to adjourn so move second any comments hearing none all in favor say aye aye aye thanks everyone for coming tonight yeah with the people who stayed you guys are the