School Board Meeting - October 10, 2022

001I'd like to call the meeting to order everyone join me to say the Pledge of Allegiance told me you do the roll call please Peter Turk here Barry schmaling here Susan Kessler here Taylor was Shaw Kevin Byrd here Marlo Brown here Roseanne Han here thanks Toby um next on our agenda we have communications so first up is citizen comments it looks like tonight we have three um if you are going to speak on one of the items for Action in our agenda I'd ask you to hold your comments until that portion of the meeting and then you can you know we'll have a chance to give your three minutes of public comments at that point so first up uh we have three tonight for uh General comments unless they decide they're going to defer until

002the items for action but Paul uh forgive me on this Cobra Nick thank you foreign yeah uh oh for the 35 000 then if you don't mind waiting uh Mr Comerica until that item comes up you'll have a chance then Aaron Melby okay thanks uh Matthew snork then you can come up to the front in the future if you don't mind use the microphone Mr snork that way the people at home can hear you we've learned if you don't speak into a mic the folks on the live stream can't hear you at all yep Wisconsin always yeah I can try to talk a little louder it's amazing how even if you're talking loud they can't hear you and yeah there we go we're good now everybody we're good thank you okay I'll try that again

003uh Matthew snork 30839 running Fox Trail Burlington Wisconsin um thank you very much so two lanes I wanted to talk about one we'll discuss later first one is um wanted to say because it's really easy to come up here and and people will air their grievances out and complain because you know I've done that other than that but I wanted to thank you because um my son absolutely loved going to the field um opening for Tony Romo I think that's a really positive thing for the school the community the kids the adults everything Burlington he had a great time the energy there was amazing I thought it was wonderful that the school found a way to work that out with him and he was gracious enough to help you know facilitate that and whichever people

004helped take care of that I don't know who they are but thank you to the people of community school that you know helped get that going it's uh I think it's a wonderful thing the energy that was great the kids seem to love it and I think it's really sets Burlington apart from other schools in southeastern Wisconsin and you guys now have something at your school that other districts and other schools can only dream of will probably never have so that's a very positive thing so I wanted to say thank you for those that made that happen I appreciate it thank you uh you can leave it on I think right all right any board members have reports on workshops or meetings they have attended last month I think Friday and Saturday I attended a

005seminar in Madison in fact I was the leader of the seminars on the policy and resolution committee and we get together with all the school districts where District 13 we have 24 School boards in our district so they're all over the state and these people came so there were about 30 of us I think they came and we decide what the schools the school boards could come up with a resolution thinking this is something that would be great for us to have in the state and then we discussed that and decide which ones yeah that would really be good let's write it and have our lobbyists who work for the education in Wisconsin uh talk to our legislators and so forth and Susan is on the committee and then a man from Yorkville is also

006on the committee from our area so it was very very very interesting um I think that one of the nicest things about going to anything where other school board members are there is you get to learn so much about what's going on in their district and how they're doing things and that's why I encourage all of our members to attend things go to go to some of these seminars and so forth and learn what other people are doing you know we we expect our teachers to keep up with the new things that are going on in education and our Board needs to do that too we need to keep up with what's going on and we'll have another meeting the fourth this one will be in Stevens Point and uh they will see which ones

007we're going to move on and then the final ones which we'll decide which ones will be sent on will be in January during the convention and Susan thank you for being on that did you want to add something um no you explained it very well um yeah it was it was very interesting because we get we get kind of the raw resolutions and then we work on them to refine them and to see which ones that we would like to include and move on and that the whole delegate ass simply will vote on and just being with a lot of different people discussing discussing the not only the resolutions but other issues that the boards that we all have in common was very interesting so the networking was very interesting so and the thing to

008add to that you will all of us will hear about them because we each one that is going to go forward in January will be presented to our board I will present them to you and then we can vote on which ones we believe and you can tell us how to vote at the assembly so you'll get to your bottom in the coming months so it was a great weekend thank you yeah no thank you Roseanne and Susan um I'll mention that our Burlington School Board had a workshop the second of two and we're focusing on on best practices we've met a few weeks ago and I think that was very productive and we've um all had a great discussion that was led by a facilitator on how we can become a more effective board

009and it's important because there's research out there saying that hard to believe maybe for some but effective boards actually have impacts on student achievement so yeah one thing I think we can do as a board is figure out how we can work together more effectively and follow best practices anybody else have any workshops or meetings yeah Barry I've got a meeting which actually we were all at the meeting from last month I just wanted to touch base again because I don't think it was properly we talked about it but I don't think it was recognized well enough Dr urschlager secured for the district a very large grant for our stem program working with ardal in our community and I don't think he got the proper thanks for that that's a lot of work to put

010that together I'm sure other people helped you do it but there's a lot of effort that goes into that and it's not an insignificant amount of money so thank you very much for doing that for the district okay thanks Barry anybody else okay let's move on then uh the superintendent's report thank you yes the the school year is off and running and the weeks are just flying by and and as always I would uh enjoy celebrating with all of you tonight the work that the district is doing to really live out sort of our mission of being a compassionate committed and comprehensive and one of the ways that our schools are able to do that is through a variety of different sorts of parent involvement opportunities and so just kind of highlighting a couple of

011things that have happened recently uh one is each of the schools is bringing back and starting again with their parent advisor groups these were opportunities for parents to come together and share specifically with principals and and other school staff and just things that are going on having conversations about their schools and they become very informative conversations elementary schools are working on their engagement nights that's being planned right now and some of that focus is going to be about how best we can work with supporting students while learning at home so it's that triangulated partnership between the family the student and the school district next week parents will also be hearing more about safety training and drills that will be forthcoming in the schools need us not ever let too much time go by before we're

012reminded of how important the experiences are that kids have in schools and are feeling safe given some of what you see in the news and some of the tragic events that have taken place in schools we also are leading up to parent-teacher conferences all of us remember some of those experiences from our own schooling that happens at the end of this month and a really cool highlight and a first for us our ell staff just on Sunday just yesterday I held the first level first ever fall festival for specifically Spanish-speaking families in an effort to further engage with the school district and if you've seen any of the pictures from that I was a really cool time together and mother nature cooperated it was a beautiful day uh it's also been a very active fall

013just in general for the school district and given some of what the experience of the last two years brought it's no surprise that there's quite quite a bit of eagerness to do lots of things and so we were once again thrilled after a little bit of a Hiatus to welcome our students uh our Danish students who have been visiting since 2015 there were 30 students with us this past week and in December we will have 27 of our students that will be going to Denmark also this past week was homecoming at BHS and so um lots of really cool things but one highlight if you if you didn't get to see it Mr Sadowski and his staff working with this the seniors in particular started a new trend of painting their parking spaces among other

014really cool things that went on I don't know for some reason I just thought the parking spaces was super cool there's a great drone shot of it you got to find that it's it's just amazing and it's extra cool looking frankly because the asphalt's brand new and so you know it just it juxtaposition of those bright colors against that dark asphalt wow it really looked it really looked awesome um and then as was mentioned as Mr snork mentioned the dedication of Tony Romo field happened then on Friday night as well um I would say many months really years in the making and it was just a very very wonderful time to see really the community kind of come together somewhat in celebration of Tony and and his career and his sort of return to Burlington

015but also just seeing a lot of folks in our community come together and and celebrate together and so that was really really a very powerful evening and I would also just add to that that we as a organization and I believe our entire school board we're very much looking forward to celebrating all the donors specifically that were responsible for raising nearly 1.3 million dollars in in a relatively short period of time and want to do that making sure that we're very accurate in in that presentation and so either later this month or when we come together in November I will be talking much more about the donors and the the wonderful work that they did to make last Friday a reality and then just one other thing that's been keeping folks busy we've really leaned

016in to some training with our staff this fall and introduced uh with a company called Vector training Solutions we've got quite a bit of mandatory training that our staff have been doing things around cyber security you know in-service awareness policy development our our diversity Equity inclusion work all of all of that to ensure that there is a baseline of understanding among our nearly 500 employees so that also is is something that we're we're working on to ensure that there's consistency across the district and finally uh I'll just wrap up that I was able to spend a little over a week ago a couple of days at the wasda conference that's the Wisconsin Association of school district administrators and one of the things that is ever present in seemingly every conversation today is the state of

017the budget in public schools and and where Wisconsin sits in terms of funding and and the one thing that I would just leave as as the teaser knowing that we spend a lot of time talking about our finances is just how difficult it has been with unpredictable and undependable funding sources and so you'll hear more and more about that that was certainly a widespread conversation at the conference this fall much more than it has been in the past and then as Roseanne mentioned the various different regions of the Wisconsin Association of school boards I still am happily presenting that on October 19th Region 13 under Roseanne's leadership as the president for the for the organization is meeting here in Burlington at veterans Terrace and then lastly I'd be remiss to not end the celebrations and

018dates and reports in thanking the Board of Education as we sit here during school board week which kind of the school board week and month is October and recognizing the amazing Dedication that they have for the children that we serve each and every day it is often an incredibly thankless job and they give a lot of their time to do the best that we can for every every student that we serve so thank you to the Board of Education all right thanks Steve next on our agenda are consent items our consent agenda items and there's six of them it's approval of past board meetings the bank statements and bills appointments the resignations retirements and terminations donations and school sponsored trips I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda items second okay any uh emotions

019made in seconded any comments I'd like to break out the donations please okay uh I don't know if you knew the form of emotion yeah if you make a motion put that in the form of emotion okay all right any comments all in favor of breaking it out say aye aye op close nay all right uh Steve if you want to take us through the donations that would be great yes for the Burlington area school district we'd like to thank Music Matters Incorporated for a thirteen hundred dollar donations for our Opera for youth program this happens at the elementary school level at Burlington High School uh sort of the the two different uh categories of donations one is specific to wbsd and 350 from Bigelow appliance sales and service 500 from Educators Credit Union 500

020from Clinical Psychology Associates 500 in the jewelry Center the same 500 from Performance Tire and Auto Service 250 dollars from Nashua Daniels 250 from Greenwood stay and bake and 250 from Community State Bank and again all of those donations were specific to wbsd Burlington High School also received 70 from Greg Joslin for BS BHS Athletics kale Gail gerzner donated 100 to the boys soccer program we had a couple of donations to the demon closet one from Saint Charles Catholic Church for 124 dollars another from Immaculate Conception Saint Mary's Catholic parish for 192 dollars driven was also the recipient of a 50 donation from Burlington Family Chiropractic driven was also a hundred dollars from the wanasec corporation and 200 from monitor pet and bird Clinic and then we also had compare Financial donate 250 to the

021FFA as well as the Union Grove FFA who donated 200 to FFA and then finally at Burlington High School was a 750 donation to the principal's account and that came from pistaka Wildlife Foundation [Music] at Karcher Middle School there was a 500 donation by uh to the Lego Club from the beach view and then the following donations to Karcher cupboard were made by Kyle and Beth Scott for five hundred dollars Brian and Nancy Ryan for a thousand dollars and then St Charles Catholic Church again for 124 and Immaculate conceptions Catholic parish for 192 dollars the last donation to mention is from Lions Center Elementary School and doesn't really have a dollar amount attached to it but instead is a bit more of a narrative of the gift of time and it reads that over the

022last year Alliance PTO and Jeremy and Karen Oldenburg have added a Sandbox a Gaga pit painted the basketball back or backboards installed Nets and donated playground equipment if you know anything about these playgrounds they get a lot of action and so we're very appreciative of folks like Jeremy and Karen who really over us this a sustained period of time did quite a bit of work to to spruce up the playground so those are the donations as presented all right thanks Steve an entertaining motion to approve the donations I move we approve the very generous donations second okay motions have made and seconded any comments on the donations thank you Steve for reading them off I know they're quite helpful but thank you to our generous donors as well it really helps move things along with

023support from the community so thank you any other comments hearing none I'll call for a vote all in favor say aye aye aye opposed nay now I'll um entertain a motion for to approve the rest of the consent agenda items some move second any comments hearing none I'll call for a vote all in favor say aye aye aye opposed name all right they're approved thanks uh tonight we have three items for information and discussion uh the first is employee benefits Consultants Brown and Brown are here um it's in our consent no worries always good to check though Jill because uh okay um so I don't know if you remember a few months ago we um had a change in our employee benefit Consultant Group I think we had one question out of that meaning that

024these gentlemen will answer tonight but just thought it would also be an opportunity to have a quick introduction so you can meet the team half the team um just they can tell us a little bit about what they bring to the table and uh that we look forward to our building a working relationship so we have Molly can introduce so Ryan Chris Lorenzo thank you Ruth and thank you to everybody for having us we appreciate the opportunity uh for the next 90 minutes I'll be speaking to you about health insurance and the history of Health Care in America just of course as Ruth mentioned uh we're very fortunate to be working together the district uh engage in a lengthy RFP process uh and vetted several folks in our space and we are lucky to be

025selected to work with the district so a little bit of history about Brown and Brown we have 140 Insurance professionals here in the Milwaukee area we work with dozens of school districts in addition to separate several private employers across the state and um really the bottom line is our role is to place the district and support the district by getting to the best financial position possible when it comes to sponsoring Health and Welfare benefits while also constructing plans that are very attractive employees and help with the district's Recruitment and Retention efforts so several projects that will be ongoing we're really just getting started here of course looking at different plan designs one thing that's going to be important is updating and modernizing communication efforts the district has made great strides I know you have a

026marketing person on staff we're going to be working with them you guys have a great benefits app we're going to be expanding on that helping to implement our own benefits app resource we're going to be looking at benefits technology which I know is of interest and I'll let the team get into the details a little bit uh more on that but we're also going to be looking at alternative funding strategies so our hope here in the months ahead is that we'll have the opportunity to visit with you folks again and provide a little bit of education so we're all singing from the same song book but essentially when we talk about alternative funding structures right now the district is what we would refer to as being fully insured right you pay a premium every month

027you receive benefits some months you're going to use less of that benefit some monthly months you're going to use more when we talk about self-funding we're talking about the district actually taking on the cost of paying those claims up to a certain points where we would be on a particular threshold past that liability onto a reinsurer and that comes with several advantages when it comes to transparency and owning the data being able to do a myriad of different plan design options that are things that are not filed with the state from a fully insured perspective and I think in the last few years which shouldn't be a surprise to folks it allows us to carve out Pharmacy benefits and get our arms around RX spend a little bit more some so so some exciting opportunities

028there we'll still be doing the blocking and tackling that you would expect going out soliciting quotes from The Marketplace not just for health insurance but for other benefits that are offered so I'm going to be brief with my comments certainly please fire away with any questions you may have and I'm going to turn it over to Chris thank you Ryan so good evening thanks again for having us so Ryan is the sales guy the relationship guy so what he's talking about it's our job to really Implement so my name is Chris Messer I'm a team lead and Senior Benefits consultant with brown and brown also you may have heard of Hayes company so Hayes companies was acquired about four years ago by Brown and Brown helped manage a Consulting team that really will be the

029boots on the ground supporting Burlington one of the big differentiators for Brown and Brown and particularly are our local office here is how we service our clients so I'll talk a little bit and I won't be too long in my comments but about what our service team is and kind of how we differentiate ourselves from our competitors so I oversee a small team as I mentioned that team is comprised of a lead consultant that is Lorenzo so he'll jump in I won't steal his Thunder he'll do a brief intro here in a minute and talk a little bit about some resources we bring but we also support Burlington with not only consultant but a benefits analyst that is somebody that supports the district in a day-to-day answers questions from the district works with carriers works

030on communication pieces Etc financials are a very very big part of what we do as well we have a dedicated Financial Consultant Consulting team that will also be supporting the district we bring a number of specialty resources as well so we didn't bring any of those especially resource individuals tonight but it's our job as a consultant to really help deploy those specialty resources we're appropriate we've got a couple that we identified here in some paper but Ryan mentioned a few things like Communications and the self-funding analysis that we do but we bring Innovation one big differentiator for us is we dedicate resources to a director of healthcare Innovation so in addition to looking at funding strategies we're always looking at some of those levers that we can pull to help our client and save money

031where appropriate we have dedicated a lot of resources as well to Communications we're very big on data informed decision making and helping our clients take the data and actually deploy strategies and communicate those strategies with their membership so those are some of the specialty resources we bring as well I won't bore you with all of the details there I'm really hopeful that we'll have the opportunity to present to you in the future a number of times and we certainly offered a Jamie Ruth any opportunity that they would like for us to get in front of you to help educate or whatever it may be we're more than willing to do that so again look forward to the partnership and I'm going to hand it off to Lorenzo thanks Chris as Chris mentioned my name is

032Lorenzo di Mateo I'm a benefits consultant with brown and brown so I work on Chris's team one of The Sultans that he referenced that as part of his group I'd say just me personally I say half the clients I work with now are school districts so it's a very familiar working with districts not just in southeastern Wisconsin but also throughout other parts of the state as well so understand some of the uniqueness and challenges that may come with school districts compared to other sectors we talked about you know budgeting constraints and you know some I mean not knowing what's coming further there right so you know understanding we're having similar conversations with a lot of districts that we work with but in terms of you know resources I have another colleague that works directly with

033me very closely on a day-to-day basis and his name is Brock you know Chris mentioned some additional resources we've already had a few meetings with the district for bringing in some of those resources for example we've already had discussions on well-being and developing and and maybe making some adjustments or on the well-being program that's being offered today um more to be discussed on that another area that uh Ryan referenced is uh employee benefit technology or benefit admin system so we have a segment of our organization that is focused on evaluating benefit admin technology has gone through a very rigorous RFP process to better understand the market on behalf of our clients and to bring those Solutions forward as opportunity as well as not the technology itself but also resources to help Implement and utilize that

034technology moving forward so uh just some of the things that we're focusing on I know there may have been some additional questions on benefit technology so I just wanted to open up the Florida questions on that piece or anything else related to what we talked about here anyone on the board have any questions just the one question we had when we made the decision was about moving to um online enrollment for staff so that's where they were referring to that that would be a process where we would have to to bid that out but they would help us through that process and find vendors that would would do that so as far as a cost um I don't know that right now do we that would be part of that process just we wanted to

035get you that answer and I would just say quickly to Ruth's point so we will be and have been already evaluating a number of opportunities talking about strategy there for possible funding of a system so more to come on that but one big differentiator and I'll set the mic down so I don't sit here all night and talk that we believe we bring and that's that our service teams do not work with that many groups so we limit our Consultants to generally about 10 groups which is a very small population we do that so they can excel at service our lead Consultants also do not have sales responsibility that may not mean as much but what that means is they're not out trying to sell they're out servicing so we fully expect to deliver exceptional

036service and again certainly look forward to the partnership this might be a Ruth question but I was just curious on timeline because you mentioned potentially being self-insured as a district and typically in April we look at insurance would that be the earliest from a Time perspective we consider a change so that is we've already had that discussion and from our perspective the first part of that analysis is going to be looking at the financials based on your state for fully insured what does that look like if you move to self-funded so that's a financial analysis discussion the kind of the second piece of that is looking at potential vendors that could help administer self-funding there's tpas there's pbms there's stop loss so the first part of it's really doing the financial analysis and then as

037we offer to Ruth and Jamie as well to the extent we need to provide some further education or Insight on self-funding and kind of strategically what we're thinking we're happy to do that but from our perspective later this year is when we'd start really wanting to dive in to look at potential vendor options so there's plenty of time as we lead into the decision on whether to remain fully insured and what that looks like or to move self-funded and what that looks like great question thank you anybody else have any questions um with your online open enrollment for other districts I assume you've done the same thing as far as Consulting in that regard ballpark what have you seen as far as the cost it all depends I mean that's just the the reality of

038it there are strategies and this is what we've begun talking about where we can look at using benefits to help fund Ben admin Solutions meaning that it could be potentially free to the district depending uh all the way up to I mean I don't want to say 20 30 000 40 000 a year depending on the robustness it could certainly climb above that but it depends on you know budget depends on needs depends on timing so we'll we'll certainly have further discussions there okay thank you anyone else okay gentlemen thanks for coming tonight and giving the introduction and overview of uh your services look forward to working with you happy to do it thank you uh second item for information discussion uh Jill will provide some updates on teaching and learning items some is kind

039of a lot I will try to go as quickly as I can but if I'm going too fast slow me down Okay Kevin okay right all right um wanted to First be able to start out with um sharing some of our district data we just got access to be able to see how we play out when it comes to our assessment data in comparison to other school districts so the state just released we've had access to our own data but the state just released the ability to see comparisons with other school districts a week or so ago is when they released that out so really wanting to be able to just show you where we sit in comparison to people around us but also in comparison to our comparables so why don't you uh break

040this down in three different ways for you every single time it'll look very similar as we work through the data but the first one that I wanted to compare and and show you is just Burlington and compared to the state average right of Wisconsin so you'll always see that then you'll also see neighboring school districts who are always curious about those really close to us right how are they performing in comparison in Burlington I think what's important to always remember about neighboring school districts is their demographic data doesn't necessarily match up with ours right so meaning the amount of special ed students are socio socioeconomic status um our population of how many students we have within our buildings don't necessarily line up with neighboring school districts all the time so what we also like to

041look at is comparable school districts so you'll see the four on the screen is Onalaska Tomah area Sauk Prairie and Stoughton those are school districts that have very similar size to us number of students as a school district and also similar special ed data socio-economic data so their school districts that are easier for us to really compare two more apples to apples right neighboring school districts might be apples to oranges but it's always nice to be able to see those around us as well so I'll run through uh the slides all the time where you'll see the state you'll see our comparables and you'll see our neighbors okay the also the thing that's really important and interesting to to look at and pay attention to which also makes it a little bit tricky as a

042school district when we start to try to look at data over time is that because of our redistricting all of our elementary schools and the Middle School data really last year was the first year that sets a new Benchmark right because all of our elementary schools used to be pre-k through fourth grade now they're all pre-k through fifth grade right when you when we used to look at dire data you were looking at fifth and sixth grade data but not Dyer now is in elementary school with all of Montessori there Karcher is now six through eight verses seven through eight right so this last year this data that we'll look at now um is really what we kind of are deeming as our Benchmark year data because it is our redistricting um tool now to

043be able to really look at Trends over time using this as our benchmark does that make sense the three assessments we'll look at is uh the act for the high school that's taken all juniors in the state take the ECT their junior year this last year it's a 9th and 10th graders took the ECT Aspire 10th graders also have to take the 10th grade social studies as part of forward exam as well this last year ACT Aspire was the it was its in its retirement so moving forward the state has decided that they are going to use the pre-act for 9th and 10th grade so this school year is the first year that that will take place for the high school and then in grades three through eight is where the forward exam comes into

044play there is no State assessment for 4K through second grade so our overall act composite data let's look at that first and and again these are always in comparison to those three areas that that I shared so first is our act composite for Burlington UC is a 19.2 and the state average is a 19.2 when you look at us in comparison to our comparable so again the districts that are most similar to us that is Onalaska Tomah sock Prairie and Stoughton so you can kind of see where they sit again it's that ECT composite that's their there's our score altogether all subjects all together for the ECT composite and then you can see it in comparison to our neighboring School District he really were right in the we're right in the pack with everyone um

045and know that to to me being in the pack is never really where you want to be because you want to be in the front of the pack um but it is nice to know like you're in the pack right but we want to get ourselves in the front of the pack for sure and then when we look at uh English language arts specifically so starting to look into that reading and writing side of things when we just look at the ECT Ela data this is what our percent of students who are proficient in ela on the ACT in comparison to the state so state was 35 percent proficient Burlington is 35.3 percent proficient anytime that you see it in green it is US indicating we're above the state average when you see us at

046yellow or gray it's where we're at the same um or in more of an area we need to be focused on you'll also see as you go through the slides I always am putting what our number is on the bottom here so you don't have to try to think about what was ours so you it's always down here is what our number is in comparison to again these are our school districts that are our comparables here and then these are our school districts that are our neighbors and then with ACT Aspire so again this is our 9th and 10th grade students and the ELA data for this and it also is going off of percent of students who are proficient so you can see we're above the state average there and then in comparison to

047our comparable school districts also when you're looking at the data here this is showing Trends over time so you'll see that it is going all the way back to the 2017-18 school year and then when you see the Gap here that was because of covid and there was no tests taken during that coveted year but really wanting to also show Trends over time and how how are other districts trending with their percentages in comparison to how we're trending and then here's our neighboring school districts and then when we look at the forward exam for ELA we're just staying on the ELA side for a little bit here 8th grade data is the state 32 and Burlington 46.5 so again this is percent to students who are proficient or Advanced on that board exam within Ela

048thank you and here it is in comparison to those comparable school districts again we were the 46.5 on the bottom into our neighbors are you good Kevin and then forward third grade data also we could we do have the data for third fourth fifth sixth every single grade level um but really looking at more Benchmark data at the global level at the district level looking at third eighth and then the high school and then we're also looking at fifth in math um at the at the district level our building level data they dive in much deeper into every single grade level into all of our subgroup data as well um but just just so you know like what about the seventh grade data or sixth grade data we're just showing some high level um for

049you so here's third grade so again this is the ELA side the state was 30 34.8 Burlington is 45. and then our comparable school districts are here um on this slide again we were 45 and then to our neighboring school districts and then like I was just saying we can drill down much further into the data and I'm just going to show one example of it here so on the forward exam in third grade the reporting categories it's a little bit hard to read there on the bottom but the First Column here is reading when it comes to key ideas and details the second one is craft and structure then vocabulary use writing and language so it drills down into different areas so that we can again see okay where which of these categories do

050we really need to work on are we fairly consistent across the board or not we can also drill down in here it's just showing by school so the red lines are indicating the different lines between Cooper Dyer and Waller so the one the one all the way on the left these are all those drill down reporting categories for Cooper and then same reporting categories here in the middle but this is dire and then over here on the right is Waller so this is really nice for us to be able to look at as well to kind of be able to say okay what's going on with key ideas and details at Waller in comparison to key ideas and details at dyer for example and be able to kind of dive into that further and then

051also here is I didn't want to leave out Winkler and lions they too have the data here now Lions too is we just were able to get a report card for Lions this year again in the past they always had an alternative report card because they're the number of students at Lions was too small but with the redistricting Lions now also will have a school report card then we can also drill down into subgroup Data as well so just wanting to be able to show you that we can look at special ed data we can look at gender data we can look at our race ethnicity data and economically disadvantaged along with other areas too again this drill down really happens much more in detail when we're at the building levels and this is for

052third grade ELA then this data here is showing data that we just had we just did in iready Diagnostic and this would have been from kindergarten through eighth grade iready is our screener that we use internally that we assess three times a year fall winter spring in order for us to also be able to inform our instruction throughout the school year because as we all know ACT Aspire forward that's just one data point we have much more that encompasses who students are and what's happening within a school district but this is just one more data piece that is really recent data our staff just completed this diagnostic with students here at the end of September so this is our current students in each of their buildings green would mean that the students are at grade

053level right now and andorix ready that grade level standards low back presentation's over Joe you could use you could use Taylor's mic there you go I'm just I'm just going to take this one here is accurate data for right now yellow would mean that the students are ready for a grade level standards and then the red are the students that are one to two three years behind um it depends on on the student there so action steps relating to the side of reading so that's the data but to me what's even more what's more important is what are what are we doing about the data um because it's really just there to inform us and be able to to let us know how we're doing as a district right so the for the things that

054I'd like to share that's been happening within the district when it comes to reading is that in at the elementary level we really noticed that we were struggling with phonics and phonological awareness so really wanted to be able to push on that and be ensuring that every student is is gaining more uh instruction when it comes to that phonics and phonological awareness piece so last year we implemented what's called Benchmark phonics across 4K through fifth grade this year we also added in the phonological awareness piece which is really the you guys all know what that is right sure yeah right um that is more so the listening and ensuring that students really understand the sounds that come with with letters um and and words so ensuring that that piece is really embedded we did adopt

055and utilize a resource that's called hegarty and we purchased that for 4K through third grade it is a very easy resource for us to implement into the classrooms and something that I thought is a really cool win that I heard from a kindergarten teacher the other day um so we're only four or five weeks into the school year and she had said that her students in her kindergarten classroom are engaged in the sounds and and makeup of letters at the level that she would have expected them to be at in the spring and they're already hitting some of that right now which is really exciting um to hear so she was really impressed and thought like wow this is the students are amazing and they're they're really picking this up really quickly so that's a

056big win another thing that we engaged in knowing that we really need to focus in on that literacy because it impacts the rest of our students as they progress through the grade levels so did Research into scene and Academy and or support we can gain when it comes to literacy and Through The Literacy Center of cesa6 did at did sign us up to engage in a professional development training that is called the early literacy Academy there's 12 of us in our district within grades four 4K through second grade along with some reading Specialists and myself are engaged in that work and it is an analysis of our reading program and really looking at where our holes what are we going to do about it and also working on embedding the science of reading within that

057as well so it is it's been a really great learning experience so far we started in August and they also cc6 comes on site and give some direct coaching to us here as well and it's been an impactful experience so far also wanted our building principals who all four of them to engage in literacy leadership themselves so do have them signed up they started in a course that is all about understanding literacy at a much deeper level they started that in August I too is part in participating in that with them along with two of our coordinators and it's a course that's still ongoing and they will kind of wrap up here November December but ensuring that all four of our principals that are overseeing our elementary buildings have a stronger understanding of the literacy

058components as well and then we did start the full Day 4k at the start of this school year which has been and we hope is very impactful when it comes to students Readiness even working into kindergarten and as I shared in the past over 80 percent of our 4K students are full Day 4k um it is really cute when you go into Waller uh the 4K classroom there she has a lot of kiddos that really need that nap in the afternoon and you go in there and they're just all on their little mats and zaunt right um and it's pretty cute to see but they're they're really engaged we're also analyzing our process for Running Records 5K through fifth grade to inform our instruction and ensure that all of our staff are doing those Running

059Records the same way but also using them to really diagnose what the needs are for individual students versus just what is their reading level so we're working on that as well and then we uh this is a 4K through 12 we're working on our scope and sequence alignment so really looking at our standards and ensuring we have common formative assessments and summative assessments across the district and that is something that we're really needing to Sure up because we're not consistent on that right now and then I ready this is just kind of something that I think is really cool but also is going to inform us about our students reading instruction as well I ready the program company reached out to us and asked if we would be willing to participate in a um study

060with them on their phonics for reading intervention I already works with lots and lots of school districts across the United States they could pick anyone and for them to reach out to us wanting to partner with us on that on the effectiveness of that Intervention Program is is pretty cool so um Chris wines and his team is doing a nice job working with our interventionists to try to figure out which students we could potentially engage in this phonics intervention and see if that makes a a big impact for our students as well and then our skills time we implemented last year for the first time Waller was using it a year prior to that but as a district we had skills time which is a intentional time during the day it's 30 minutes where all

061of our teachers including our special ed teachers and our Specialists math and reading Specialists are able to pull students into groups outside of their core academic time in order to support them in reading and math this year we have decided to switch into that skills time being five days a week focused on reading because our math intervention our math Specialists are going to push into the classroom this year at the elementary level so that is another area where we're really trying to up um the amount of time students are focused on reading at the elementary level any questions about any of that just a comment I'm so glad to see we're getting back to phonics having taught that because it seems like it runs in a cycle all at once everybody has phonics and then

062if they don't want to have phonics and then they start it again so I'm glad to see they were back into them kids really need that absolutely I've got a couple but I think I can touch on some of these with you at a later Point these aren't all necessarily interesting to the public just myself um how does Ford translate to act performance because I noticed almost all the schools had pretty high data at the forward testing but then they all fell in the ACT Testing so how how do we use that data to see forward how these kids are doing that's a really good question and sometimes uh stumps Us in some ways as well because they're all lined to Common Core and Wisconsin State Standards so whether you're on the forward the ECT

063Aspire or the ACT I we are I'm I'm engaged with a group out of CS6 again that is focused on the district assessment coordinators and it's a big group of us across the state that are all working together and um uh the overseer of that his name is Eric Larson and he is really trying to dig in and help districts as well when it comes to you know how do we make sure that what's happening on the forward really transpires up as we get into the high school level um one piece that I think will help us at the high school is we have not had diagnostic data for the high school team to be able to look at like we have I ready and that's where this year we'll be implementing and utilizing chalk

064talk which is where they'll be able to do that assessment in the fall winter and spring and that's all aligned to act strands and the standards for us to really be able to see where where are our gaps when we get to the high school level in order to make informed decisions at that level so hopefully that really starts to make an impact but it is it is one that sometimes it's hard to hard to understand which lever is the right lever to pull in order to impact that sure thank you um moving to the pre-act is that going to reset our Baseline then if that's a different test yes hopefully the state stops doing that then after that they are always yep even with this Square report card they shift things so it's hard

065to track over time I will say Barry though I think there's an interesting connection to your first question because of the difficulty we have in aligning forward to act and shifting to the pre-act it's back in the days of what was Epass Explorer plan act so it was freshman sophomore actually it was eighth grade freshman sophomore junior and it was a pretty predictable path we can hope that might happen but the longitudinal Baseline that that is frustrating because it keeps having to be reset anytime they shift it all right well thank you very much I'll touch base with you on those other ones like I said they're they're just personal interest yeah no problem anybody else have questions for Jill so far um I had one quick one uh before you were talking about proficient

066as one of your benchmarks and I there was a graph I think that basic below basic proficient and advanced what is grade level in that proficient so proficient would mean you're at grade level yeah okay so basic is below grade level all right I just want to make sure I understood yeah good question anything else I know you have more or something I do keep chugging okay so um other action steps relating to reading when we just talk middle school and high school and I did briefly talk about maybe a couple of these so um focus on that diagnostic data and how all staff can really own that data Nick is doing a nice job with his team of really when we say that really making sure that it's not just our ELA teachers that

067are focused on reading and and supporting reading really were all literacy teachers and really ensuring that we all think in that way and also being really intentional about our I time skills group time at the middle school as well we also and this isn't just happening at the middle school in high school either um but we do have Target group data so the state does give you uh your bottom 25 of students and again this is an adjustment they made uh they used to look at schools based on you all of your subgroup data and you your report card was based on different subgroups they found that to not be Equitable across school districts because some school districts didn't have subgroup data in comparison to other school districts so they shifted that away um and

068and are now calling it Target groups so it's your bottom 25 of your students and it doesn't matter what school district you're in um like so Whitefish Bay for example um they too have 25 who are their bottom 25 of their students and no matter which districts you are you have to really grow that 25 so our staff and our buildings have that Charter group data they know which students they are within their buildings and and are really focused on ensuring that we grow all students and really also focused in on our on our students that are the inmost need like I said at the high school chalk talk is something that we'll be adding in they'll take their first assessment we're piloting it now and the whole school will take their first assessment in

069winter we're also doing a lot of analysis at the high school level to look at our classroom text and materials to ensure rigor we are noticing every once in a while what this is referring to is some of our lit Circle books that we're using at the high school are also lit Circle books that were seen at the middle school level so ensuring that we're really upping the rigor as we go through the grade levels we also added uh Newsela as a curricular resource for all of our teachers middle school and high school to be able to really differentiate scaffold and be able to align articles and the work that they're having students do to standards if you're trying to Google something that is really hard to know is this really hitting a standard or

070not this resource supports them in that in ensuring that it is focused on standards and then at all levels we have the Ester dollars also where we're really uh working to ensure that we're focusing on that Reading Writing for the core and like I said the subgroups and then our principal team also engages in instructional learning walks across the school district so each principal decides what areas of focus they are really wanting some feedback on and then the rest of the instructional team which is all of our building admin and Steve and I also go with on that we go into classrooms looking for specifically what they're wanting some feedback on the building principles and then we get back together and have conversations about that and and what we can do in order to really

071improve instruction across the district I think it's really powerful for a high school principal to go into an elementary building and vice versa so that they really understand the full pendulum of what everybody is is working on and that we're all focused on on the same goals any other questions with that before I move on to math okay math data similar kind of um layout here so we'll first look at the ACT Math data and this is this is an area where we are below the state um at the high school level when it comes to the act so States at 27 percent and Burlington's at 26.7 again that's percent of students who are proficient and when you look at school districts that are comparable to us um you can see like At first I'm

072like oh my gosh right like really scary and it's definitely scary right and something that's work on um and you can see our comparable districts are our three three of the four are sitting in that same kind of percentage and then when you look at districts around us so again the neighboring school districts and ours is again on the bottom in case you're like what was ours again and then ACT Aspire math data so Us in comparison to the district so ACT Aspire remember is the students who are in 9th and 10th grade so percent proficient on on that and then in comparison to our comparables and we're 42.9 and then neighboring districts and then looking at the forward eighth grade math data so State 29.4 Burlington 20 or 31 percent and you can see

073that Gap year again right that's because there was that um absence of of uh State assessment because of covid and then in comparison to our comparable school districts neighboring districts and then fifth grade forward data again math States at 44.8 Burlington's at 57.5 and you can see comparable districts neighboring school districts and then our I ready math diagnostic data that was just done here in September so again this is the data we can use right now to inform our instruction and be able to help teachers make decisions in the buildings and this is all of our data from all of our 5K through 8th grade students oh and this deed is always important to remember that they're being assessed at grade level standards at the start of the school year so this is you know

074I'm being assessed on sixth grade standards right now in September and I just started sixth grade right so we the the goal is to ensure all students are proficient by the end of sixth grade and this just lets us know where every student is at so that we can really inform our instruction and make sound decisions throughout the school year and then we'll Benchmark again in in uh winter and then again in the spring when it comes to the mass side of what we're working on one thing that we've implemented at the elementary level is our Bridge Bridges as a resource or really are seeing strength in our numbers you could see that in our data that math has jumped as a school district at the elementary level and really do attribute a lot of

075that to the resource of bridges our staff really like it it's very engaging it has a lot of games to it as well and it really is focused on ensuring that students are able to use whichever strategy works for them instead of this is the one way to solve that problem there's 17 different ways to solve it let's let's figure out which one works for you so that is beneficial it also is a program that I feel like aligns more to what you do as a ma as an adult learner so if you're adding really big numbers you go to the 700 first right 700 and 700 plus 600 you're going to do this seven and the six first but when you're little and you're taught math you always start in the ones place this

076Bridges is really trying to help students too think big picture first so what it what do your hundreds first then your tens then your ones and put the numbers together um so it really is is thinking more big picture that way which is a powerful way to think about math and then our math Specialists are pushing in for the first time this year so they were in pull out instruction groups in the past and really wanted to advocate for pushing into the classroom versus pulling students out of their core instruction so we're really eager to see how that goes and and see what adjustments that ends up doing for our students a huge benefit of that is your Specialists are now in all of your math classrooms and they're able to coach and support all

077of your classroom teachers as well when it comes to what they're seeing because you have that second person in the classroom to support that at the secondary level again the high school diagnostic chalk talk will be really um valuable to us we are analyzing and looking at what's happening with the um high school and middle school math curriculum it's an area that we just haven't looked at in I don't know how long in the sense of uh wanting to to really think about is there a resource need there and an adjustment there at that level and then High School classes too were aligned to the AC ACT score bands and it is a shift that we're going to make in relation to ensuring that we're really aligned to the state standards and that all students

078are always getting that push towards proficiency no matter which class that we're in and then the Esser dollars is uh also focusing on that math site as well as it was with reading and here we're looking at our scope and sequence as well that Target data and our principal leadership team is also engaged to not just on the reading side but on the math side too within structural learning walks these are all adjustments we've made either this year or last year any questions just a comment I'm kind of happy to see that the kids are going to push in because for some kids it was hard to be pulled out so I think it's and they can help other kids they're just having a little problem so good idea yeah very uh looking at the

079grass across almost I think both Ela and Mass do we have any idea or indicator why Karcher seems to have bigger gaps than the rest of the schools they seem to have more kids that aren't proficient is that a middle school influx thing or foreign so the data at when you say at the middle school level because if you look at it was your red yellow green bar graph that I was referring to oh here yeah across the district already yeah there the i-Ready stuff Karcher always seems to have a bigger red band than all the other schools every time we look at these graphs do we have any indicators to what that means you're where that's coming from um I would attribute that to uh something that we're this is this is an area

080of concern for us that we start thinking about ensuring that we're doing everything we can um at the Early Elementary levels you know uh from 5K through fifth grade to ensure we're really really ensuring students are at grade level proficiency before they hit the secondary level so third grade is an indicator for reading like if students are not proficient by the end of third grade that's where reading switches from learning how to read to being able to comprehend how to read so like the third grade is a benchmark for us to ensure every student has proficiency by the end of third grade I would say the same thing for fifth grade math that we need to ensure every student is proficient by the end of fifth grade because as they start to move into the

081middle school and high school it just simply gets more and more complex it's not about understanding division multiplication nation and it really is at the elementary level as soon as you start to hit Middle School you're having to really bridge and braid all of those Concepts together so it's really ensuring our students have a strong number sense as they enter the middle school so do you say Karcher Middle School is that six seven eight three together yes this this year's data yes so it could and I'm sure you could drill it down to sixth seventh and eighth yes do you see do you see that middle that lower section growing as you get from sixth to Seventh Day meaning there's a red bar get smaller no the currently the Red Bar either stays the same

082or it gets slightly bigger from six to seven to eight really but I would say it that's kind of the case like across the board you know our goal is to make the our goal is to make the Red Bar get smaller not have the red bar get bigger but our goal is to is to have less students in the red right as you move up but realistically in every school district it doesn't matter where you are um that red that red section of students tends to get larger not smaller and that's what we really have to work on um and it doesn't matter which grade level you're really in it's just that complexity of what they're learning we we really have to ensure that they're proficient as they move on mm-hmm it's the million

083dollar question of how to yeah that everyone's working to solve you mentioned this is fall data right so this is like if you're a sixth grader Karcher this is your sixth grade test you're saying the kids who are in the green in Karcher at the beginning of the school you're already proficient at sixth grade in some of the standards yep and or are ready Are that means I'm ready for sixth grade 100 I'm in the green I'm ready for sixth grade standards yellow is I have a little that I still need to remember you I need you to uh reteach some standards to me that I might not recall as much from fifth grade what was the timing of the forward exam to then the ACT Aspire is that a spring the ECT for juniors

084is taken in March and then in April slash May is when the forward and the ACT Aspire are are taking place I'm asking because there's a big difference if you're in the fall you're not going to be proficient at your grade level versus the spring where you may be proficient but correct imagine that's all calibrated yes but this that's what the data is really nice to be able to drill into as well like I showed you the key ideas and details the vocabulary strands all that the in I ready we can dive in the same way so then we can really see which which strands are is this particular group of students um needing more work with and that's why we have that skills group time and that eye time so I might have 20

085students that really need to work on this standard and a different 20 students need to work on this one and we can specifically work on that in in a much more direct instruction towards specific standards where when they're in the classroom they're really working on Proficiency in that scope and sequence but in the eye time is where we can even go back to these students needed some a refresher on fifth grade standards if you will we can go back over that there and then in the core though they're always working on grade level thank you yeah no problem it's all the work of our teachers that's neat and the students that's right um I will say that one piece that is vital that I think that we really need support on is for our families

086to also engage in ensuring that their students are reading at home uh so as a school district we do have recommended a number of minutes that parents should be reading at home we are also going to re-engage in a reading night at the elementary level and our reading Specialists will be there in order to show some reading strategies to our families that they can also engage in and do at home that is something we have not done in the last few years so you know re-engaging and ensuring that this it takes a village to to assist students in their learning and and it's not something that can only happen at school we really need the support of of the work to happen at home as well mm-hmm um and then other happenings and updates just

087as uh um letting you know that are are taking place in the school district as well that will more so be coming up as the months progress is that we are engaged uh at continuing our work with the uh Equity learning team we are wanting that group to be bigger this year and be able to engage more people in that learning and also have the people within the team help co-facilitate and and co-plan what that looks like the equity learning team is also in partnership with Rudy Bankston the I am we and he was one of our coaches with NEP in the past and he has been a huge support for our buildings um this year so he is working with our elementary our middle and our high school and in spending some time in

088all three levels but then also providing coaching support for our leaders within the district as well and then another piece that we feel is important outside of the academic side is ensuring that our students are also well on the social social emotional side and our teams have been doing a great job putting together a student climate survey that are that we really want to utilize to ensure we understand do students feel they have voice do they have that sense of belonging how do they feel their Wellness is at school and we are using qualtrex to utilize and conduct those surveys so we have the the different surveys made and then we will be having our students take it this will be a 4K through 12th grade survey and then we'll be able to analyze that

089data too and what's great about the use of qualtrex is we can embed our demographic data with that so we'll be able to know if certain groups of students are feeling a sense of belonging or not a sense of belonging and then be able to do something about it's this is a piece that I do think has been lacking in the past of ensuring that we have some sort of climate survey with our students and then we also want to roll this out with our staff and then also with parents as well not necessarily exactly the same survey but the same kind of format and just so you know a survey at 4K does not look the same as a 12th grader and then uh also something that's been really cool to see in and

090I've shared with you in the past is that we're we have had a lot of work behind moving away from all of our disciplinary actions being punitive meaning an out-of-school suspension in school suspension detentions right that's punitive responses and trying to move towards more of a restorative practice so we did add codes into our Skyward system in order for us to track the difference of when are we using punitive versus when are we being restorative in practice and that's been pretty cool to see um so far with how that is is kind of shaking out in the buildings don't get me wrong there's moments where punitives is still taking place and it is the right consequence to give just know that our work is really trying to help students be able to problem solve through

091situations that they have with each other in a restorative way in repair relationships um versus be punitive and then they see each other in school the next day and there was no repairing and then lastly is the book discussion committee I shared this with you also in the past that committee is um going to be underway starting tomorrow and that group is going to be looking to ensure that we are being transparent and communicating where all families feel like they have a strong understanding of what their students are reading and the materials that we have in our buildings and if there's any adjustments that we need to make to our practices policies procedures when it comes to the books both within our library but also within our classrooms so those are my updates I apologize

092if that seemed long well I'm sorry there's a lot going on with teaching and learning it's important stuff Jill I have a question the most important in the buildings that you may have touched on this before but the equity learning teams who is that is it the leadership in the building typically or who would be on an equity learning team for example uh Dyer so last year we so this Equity learning team is more so last year if you remember we had a core planning team that was a very small team and then our parent advisory groups also came um were encouraged to come to our big Community Gathering we feel like it would be more beneficial to invite more people to that initial Equity learning team and have maybe 30 40 people involved all

093the time and then from that group though there'd be individuals within the group that would help co-facilitate what's going to happen at the next meeting um versus a really small team and then not really knowing who's going to be attending or coming to the community Gatherings we feel like we'll make more progress and and be able to move forward when it comes to equity work if we have consistent people always in the room but also others can come but try to make the group larger from the get-go in order for us to make more Headway so it'll it'll be a makeup of building administrators teachers students community members parents board members everybody else have any questions for Jill all right Jill thank you that was a lot great it's good but very uh informative so

094thank you yeah no problem third item for information discussion tonight is the Neola policy update Steve maybe can you give us a little bit of a background or run down on this maybe that'd be helpful yeah this is the first reading of what would be the volume 31 number two update so volume 31 that's just essentially which year update it is for Neola and then this is these then the second update there are essentially every six months so this would have been July of 2022. this update there were 24 technical Corrections and just again for anybody who's not familiar with how the board goes through this the technical Corrections are literally policies that had a typo or maybe just the wrong word was inserted the wrong there or there or something like that and so

095those get discovered and corrected uh over time and so there were 24 of those and as is described here that is something that I'm authorized to review and make those updates so those have been submitted for correction and then the policies themselves there's a total of 21 policies that have an update to them there's there's really 15 and so if you think about the way that our policy book is manufactured there's a a thousand series a 3000 Series a 4000 series and so there's some duplication and so specifically when we start talking about Personnel 3000 is non-certified four thousand is certified they say the exact same thing but they're they're repetitive in that sense and so that's how you get sort of 15 changes substantive changes but really a total of 21 numbers and so

096that is in a nutshell what we have of those 15 changes uh many of them and I I didn't count but as you read through them one theme that you will pick up on is that the federal government changed Title Nine very specifically in this past spring was that update and in that update really removed all use of pronouns so it it no longer anywhere does anything relative to Title IX and say anything about he or she it says they they will this they will that and so that is a change that occurs in I think half of the policy updates and then certainly if you have any specific question about any of those changes I'm happy to address them the summary document does in fact kind of go through each one and what's been

097edited or is what is recommended for edit excuse me all right thank you does anyone have any questions or for Steve I had a couple of questions but they're not all related to changes I guess and some of them will talk with Toby I had asked you a question before but in particular 226002 under parent parental notification and consent no student will be placed in the El program without having to received written permission from the student's parents I completely understand that this is an out there situation but if we don't get consent from a parent how are we to teach a non-english speaking student and an example I know we have some Ukraine students in the area and I mean Spanish is a little more common for us to be able to deal with but

098we can't speak Ukrainian necessarily so how do we we're responsible for educating the students because they're in our district but how do we move forward with that it's a great question and one thing that I will point out specifically on this revision is actually the definition of the use of parent to mean caregiver and so there's this full umbrella that is part of the language that is referenced both in statute and administrative code and so I actually think the the intention here was to broaden that as to ease the potential of there being conflict if there's a barrier or a language barrier or there is no parent and so really if you kind of have to go almost back to the definitions one at the front end that that sort of takes this idea of

099the parent and translates it into the notion of caregiver so it could be whomever the individual is residing with okay thank you foreign anyone else all right let's move on to items for Action we have four tonight the first one is a course proposal at BHS and I see two of our Math teachers here so does this work if I just use this mic everybody okay okay thank you so just to briefly introduce myself I'm Heather milky I teach math at Burlington High School and this is Eric ellingham he is my department chair in the math department at Burlington High School as well um so he came along tonight just so you can see that the whole department is behind that they would we would like to see this opportunity for our our students that

100we have um so what we are proposing is simply to change our current honors pre-call course into a pre-precalc which this is the first year this year that it has even been offered as an AP of course so this is a brand new offering um it is being trial run right now this year by several schools we weren't lucky enough to get in on that trial run um but if we are able to we would be able to start it next year which is when it will be open to all schools if we wish to um so just to kind of give you a little background on the AP pre-calc and why we might want to consider offering it um for a lot of students having to take math in college is actually a very

101frustrating thing to have to do because they don't have that same classroom environment that you do at the high school level where they feel like they can get help and ask questions and have a lot more feedback from their teachers and their Educators it's a little less informal and what they found is over 40 percent of students who are entering some Majors actually ended up leaving stem majors and going into non-stem Majors simply because they couldn't handle the math at the college level or it had been a couple years since they'd had math because they didn't they some we have some kids who finished their math up as a sophomore in high school technically they'll have their credits that they need and so it had been three years before they or since they'd had math

102by the time they actually got to college so this is something that if we can encourage with the AP pre-calc they would actually be able to get college credit while in high school so students who are non-stem Majors a lot of times would actually have already met their math curriculum requirements at the college level and those who are stem Majors would actually be able to advance into upper level mathematics sooner rather than having to go back and do it as a freshman in college um so kind of that money-saving thing that we all like to hear about as well um so how can it make a difference for us it provides the students with more time that in person they see us more in high school as an educator than they would in a college

103classroom as they talked about before it's a familiar space and a familiar practice they are used to our environment and it makes them comfortable and more engaged in their learning the motivation is there because they feel like they're getting a reward for their hard work and their difficult challenging curriculum that they are facing on a daily basis it's a trusted standard with the AP because it is a nationwide standard so it's not just us setting our own standard we have to submit an odd and be audited to make sure that our curriculum would meet the AP standard code in order to stay with it and as I kind of alluded to in high school they tend to see their teacher as a coach or an ally who really cares about them and who really works

104with them to try and help them be successful and to have a great environment in which to do that so who should take pre-calc or AP pre-calc it actually fits for every student and that's kind of what I like about it is it gives that universal access that we are so encouraged in wanting to have all of our students have if they took Algebra 1 in as a freshman in high school they would still be able to take a pre pre-calc as a senior which means they would still be able to take the AP test and graduate with that college credit if they took algebra one in eighth grade they would actually have it as a precursor to being able to take AP Calculus in high school so they would not only be able to

105take the AP pre-calc they would then be even more set to take AP calc and then also for non-calculus majors and careers and this is what I alluded to before a lot of our students right now take honors pre-calc and then have to be lucky if their University they choose to go to has a math entrance exam and they have to pass that two years after they've taken pre-calc in the hopes that they can then get credit for it however over when they do it if they could take it as an AP and to pass the AP exam they would actually be guaranteed the college credit when they went instead of having to hope that they can actually go to a university that has that option for them so and that's really the credit and

106placement and that's kind of fundamentally what we want to get at for our students is that it does fulfill a math requirement most universities and with the AP behind it it will actually be accepted at almost all public universities in the entire United States which is a huge win for our students and as I said for a lot of students it takes that stress load off of having to then take that Math course again in college or having to hope that the test is available there that they can test out of it two years three years after they've actually taken it in high school um the other thing that's nice is the AP pre-calc curriculum and I will show you a glimpse of that in just a second actually is also used to help you

107set up for other math college or college math and science courses um and I have in my course outline that I gave you kind of examples of some of the ones that it would help with but it actually helps set you up to be successful in other ones as well as just the math career fields so what is in AP pre-calc um the big thing that I like is that it allows them to explore everyday situations and phenomena but using their mathematical tools and lenses so it gives them kind of a different perspective of what they're trying to see but using that math lens to be able to view it and it helps them actually get to see how math affects science and reading and literacy and all those other areas of their world that

108they are going to incorporate and see on a daily basis they also learn how to observe and explore and build meaning from a different Dynamic systems that they face and that actually helps them adjust to an ever-changing world and gives them the flexibility to be able to use problem solving techniques from one situation into another situation they may face um what will they experience in AP pre-calculus they're big ones that we have are modeling our real world data exploring multiple representations of the same objects mastering the symbolic manipulation of manipulation of numbers and symbols and also um as the kids like you took away all my numbers it's not math anymore yes it is now we're thinking theoretically what can we do to problem solve to be able to do this in any situation no

109matter where I am and what I'm facing and then also harnessing our Dynamic world we know that things change in an instant and the things that they can learn that problem solving that complex thinking being able to understand how one thing affects another can actually help them adjust more readily to all changes within our world um so this is kind of the course at a glance and I know it's kind of small but hopefully you can see a little bit of it um our current honors pre-calc curriculum actually encompasses a good majority of this so our students are actually already working at this level in our honors pre-calc um there are only two areas that we are not currently covering that I would need to add in and that is the parametric equations and then

110you'll also see the vectors and the polar functions and so those two would need to be incorporated but other than that we are actually already working at the level at the in the honors programming and so I think the AP would be a great reward for the work they're already doing at that level to show that they actually can compete with others in other districts um just to kind of give you a brief breakdown this is an example of one unit and while this unit is exceedingly long they usually figure six to six and a half weeks per unit you would do multiple formative assessments as you're working your way through it um to make sure that the students are staying on top of it um and with the summative assessment at the end although

111the true summative assessment would be when they would take the AP pre-calc tests at the very end but to give you an example each unit includes the exploration analysis and application it creates a deep development of key functions and Concepts that you would see it allows them to examine how variables would change relative to each other as things occur it uses each function type to model your context and then it also has a very rigorous application of your algebraic skills to each of the different types of functions that we talk about so as I said we already do polynomials and rationals and quadratics and exponentials and logarithmics and I like I like my math I don't know I know that doesn't mean a lot to some of you apologize for that but it is it

112is a dynamic and it allows them to see how everything works together and the students really grasp that and have a lot of fun with it and the best thing you can ever see is watching them argue with each other math so if you ever come in and just want to watch them argue it out it's so much fun to watch and say I did it this way and I did it this way and who's right and sometimes there is no right versus wrong because they both are right which is what I love to see them get excited about as well so the last thing that I want to really kind of hit on is that there does also involve our procedural and symbolic fluency our multiple representations and also our communication and reasoning and

113maybe for us with high school students reasoning might be the biggest thing we need to get them across and really be fluent with is how to reason through and problem solve and not get stuck in only one pattern of thinking but being able to think outside the box and really have those multiple representations um so we did actually with the help of Andrea we contacted AP already because we were not sure if we could use our current text or not in terms of moving forward and as of right now they did say that we can use our current text um we just have to have audit approval which would have to occur in Spring this next year but typically as long as you are kind of following their course outline of the key components the

114audit goes as planned and you're okay with it so I will let you explore if you want more information on AP pre-calc because I could probably talk for hours on it but I won't tonight but I will ask if you have any questions for me I'd be happy to answer them is there any budgetary impact of us for incorporating this no no because basically the honors pre-calc would go away so to speak and it would just become AP pre-calc so there wouldn't be an additional sections or additional teaching needs the only thing that could happen is if the AP at some point would say you have to have this textbook or one of these textbooks we might have to although my current textbook is 10 years 12 years it's at least 10 or 12 years

115old so it's not exactly a brand new text as it currently is anyway speaking of which can this is uh kind of on the subject without the subject question can schools high schools charge for books like colleges do it's a long answer but a short answer the short answer is no okay and if you want to know the why behind it then it becomes a long answer I will say that I know what we also do I actually with our current one my students I might have found an online version of it and the students actually like the online version of it better for Access and so if that's an option for it which I'm assuming in today's world that's more and more of a thing that tends to also have a cheaper cost impact

116and the students actually like that a little bit more but I also help create a working textbook for them as well so essentially their notes in their work all becomes one working textbook them for them to operate out of too which helps out as well we have Motionless uh we will um I do have a question um is there like a this is honors pre-calc it's you said it's the same Burger is there an a regular pre-calculation yes there is yes there is um and we actually do have students who um have said that they would like they will actually take the honors pre-calc just for the challenge of it um and they ask because I actually kind of surveyed my students what was your interest level in this um and they said well could

117I take the AP pre-calc and then if I didn't want to take the AP test would that still be okay and my understanding is yes if they don't want to take the eight pre-cal test they wouldn't have to but they could still enjoy the challenge of it but we do have a regular pre-calc as well so two things first Kevin your former question is fantastic um because I want to make sure that that was clear that this is a replacement we're not adding another horse because resources are stretched something to begin with uh the second one is though does the honors pre-cal cavity Lottie points associated with it and if so will they translate to the AP course it does currently have Lottie points and I haven't talked to Jason yet about it but I'm

118assuming that the Lottie points would translate because our AP classes do also have Lottie points so I'm assuming the points would transfer the same way as the aps do okay thank you I guess I'd entertain a motion to approve the AP Greek Health course second okay motions made and seconded any comments from uh or questions from board members I just think it's a great idea very much behind it yeah it seems like a no-brainer right like it's all positives I'm very excited for the opportunity for our students so anyone in attendance have any questions or comments yeah you have to come up to the front though to give your comment or microphone and you have to use a microphone so say your student doesn't pass that AP portion of it can they still go on

119to calculus or are they going to have to retake no they can still go into calculus even if they went past the AP pre-calc yeah yeah that's a good question anyone else okay um hearing no further comments I'll let's go vote all in favor of the court of adding the course uh say aye all right opposed name thank you for coming tonight thank you all very much I appreciate it thank you very much our second item for Action is something that we do every year at Ruth you want to walk us through it this is going to be a resolution authorizing temporary borrowing hi good evening um so every year we have to do um a short-term cash flow borrowing because there are um the timing of when we receive our two major Revenue sources

120the tax levy and the state aid so typically so tax levy we get January February August and state aid we get quarterly so March June September and December so typically end of November and sometimes middle of January um we need the cash flow to be able to to pay our bills so this year um the amount is 1.5 million so we've been able to get that a little bit low over the last few years we had two beds um be okay financial and Northland securities as you can imagine the interest rates are a little higher than we've seen recently so they're around four percent but the um the low bid was from Bok Financial um for the full 1.5 million the effective interest rate is 3.91108 the other bid was like 4.122 so just ask

121that we would um approve that flow bid with BLK Financial for the cash flow borrowing all right thanks Ruth entertain a motion to approve the temporary borrowing so moved yeah okay yeah and we need a roll call vote please okay um any comments before we get to that questions for Ruth okay hearing done anyone in attendance site you have any comments okay hearing none let's do a roll call about Toby Peter Turk yes Barry schmaling yes Susan Kessler yes Kevin Byrd yes Marlo Brown yes Roseanne Han yes thank you okay thank you and then I just have very Susan and Peter if you're able to stay afterwards and sign the documents that would be great thank you Ruth we want the money I guess thank you all right uh Chris wines uh next item up

122for Action is the pupils Services total restraint and seclusion report um welcome Chris I think it's your first time in front of the board so I think I believe it is yeah official officials yeah take it easy um so every year um foreign on an annual basis we need to present our seclusion and restraint report to the board by this time of the school year and so in your board docs you've all received a table outlining our seclusion and restraint numbers from last school year the state law which was last updated in 2019 outlines how districts are to handle these procedures and how we are to report both to the board but how we're also supposed to one worked with parents families after a student is restrained or secluded in the school environment and what

123we need to do in regards to their IEP after that effect as well making sure that this is a serious event and if we are continually going to seclusion or restraint when working with students with needs that there may be something within the IP that needs to be changed or it needs to be updated to better reflect how that student is functioning at school at that time the next part with this is that the school-based team who's involved in the seclusion or the restraint they need to debrief they need to sit down and talk through that situation make sure that our non-violent Crisis Intervention was used to the level that it should be that they've been trained complete the report provide that to the parents and then send a copy here to district office so

124we can track and follow up on any incidents after we review them do you have any questions board members anybody I'd entertain a motion then to approve the restraint and seclusion report presented by someone in a second okay any comments questions anyone in the audience have any comments all right hearing none I'll call for a vote all in favor say aye aye opposed nay thank you all right no problem thanks guys last item for Action tonight is the contract with I am we coaching and mentoring uh Steve you want to walk us through yes this is the contract with Rudy Bankston and as Jill mentioned earlier we for a couple of years had been working with national Equity project we a year ago had asked Rudy to join forces and become a coach for National

125Equity project and I think I think most if not all of you have met and interacted with Rudy over time and given that there was some challenge associated with the fact that NEP is not local there was a lot of appreciation for Rudy being nearby residing in in Madison and that he just has an incredible way of of talking with people and problem solving and bringing folks together so this is the the net result of us not any longer working with NEP and instead Contracting directly with Rudy for similar types of services and so this is that result and this would be him performing you know work with us both virtually and on site over the course of the school year for that same kind of cap of 35 000 which we had been previously

126spending on our work with NEP and so you'll you'll note that these include sessions with leadership team members sessions with staff on students some of that being again on site but some of that being work that he would do remotely as well what kind of hours does he log hours with our group so that we can go back and quantify cost per hour yes so he he provided us earlier this summer with his costing and hourly rate for both team Consulting and and large group coaching and so the number is based off the number of hours that we would be able to work with Rudy and stay within that budget and so you know in essence we have somewhere in the neighborhood of what would be about 18 one-hour coaching sessions and we've suggested we

127break that down by the various levels Elementary Middle High so that everybody has has time you know 18 total so those three groups would be then so 18 hours with Elementary 18 with metal 18 with high school so it'd be 54 hours generally speaking we're assuming that his rate's going to be 300 an hour and that may be something that he's willing to further negotiate on and we're on a month by month basis so when you look at his contract you'll see that it says it can be amended and it can also be terminated within 30 days any other questions or comments for Steve so that's 3 500 a month correct right over the 10 months of the school year that's just kind of how you broke it down so with the um with NEP

128what was the scope of the work with NEP versus what the scope of work is going to be with Bankston well NEP had a nationally based cohort so we were part of a network and those were meetings that were either done specifically with Burlington where there was some coaching going on and facilitated conversations but also just education in general and that was either specific to Burlington and or there was a Midwest Midwest Network and then there was a national network almost all of that work was being done virtually and so that was one of the the challenges frankly that we experienced in working with NEP but the goal was very much the same thinking about how to create a sense of belonging and working with the students that we serve how to better engage a

129place from our students from our families from amongst our staff and how to also just think differently about the way that we interface in terms of how we think if there are blind spots if there's things we're biased about if we're not paying attention to certain things and so part of that is those ongoing conversations of accountability and what that might look like so that was the way that NEP had structured the year they'd have a kickoff meeting they'd have some monthly engagement that would include kind of lessons if you will readings and so the work with Rudy's a little bit different in the sense that we're now engaged one-on-one and having more conversation about what what is it that we're we're seeking specifically right here and so that might be a conversation where you

130do an hour long zoom and you're having discussions about things that are happening right now today this week trying to solicit feedback again that that kind of coaching type conversation or that facilitated work to understand how you might do us you know respond to a situation similarly or differently but that's it's much more personal at least that's the the goal is there is there this expense plus costs no this this is the holistic full cost so if he visits and specifically drives here we've included his round-trip mileage and how many hours per day that looks like and kind of factored out what what the scope of that would be so that it's inclusive so that we don't go over that allotment and what's his educational background a PhD he does not uh Rudy was incarcerated

131for approximately 20 years has a pretty powerful story about yeah I remember our story and being wrongly incarcerated and he has since become an author and a trainer and a coach and worked with predominantly with schools how does this um how would this contract translate to what he's already doing with the equity team it's part of it so his time with the equity team is calculated into this um and then per Jill's um presentation um the report out or the metric for the equity team that's going to be rolled up into that as well do we do we have a metric that we're actually being that we're going to be able to track this the outcome or the um the benefits of the equity team great question while just moving I mean I think that

132there are some things that we are looking at it's part of it is our worker on a start of practices that's something that he's I would argue probably considered an expert in and so as we track data in in terms of our working with our students in particular that would be one thing we we've looked inward a lot at whether or not the extent to which our discipline is disproportionate and so that is front and center that is something that's measurable we also have the subgroup data on achievement and that while I don't believe that that's necessarily the direct point of the work in Rudy's coaching with us it's definitely a byproduct of that and I don't know if you want to add anything I'd also add the student climate survey that we are looking

133to implement and utilize is going to give us demographic data so then we'll be able to really track over time how are students feeling like they have a sense of voice do they have a sense of belonging in in those kind of components both from students staff and from families then across the district but I do think that the restorative piece on that that component within our buildings is huge and to see if that shift is really helping heal and not shame and blame um anyone within the system but really to ensure that all that were that we're really focused on Equity um and honestly I struggle a little bit if this is a concern of yours because for we're spending on thirty five thousand dollars out of our entire budget um on Equity work

134when when to me that's pretty low um in order to ensure that all of our students feel like they belong here um and with the money that we've already invested via um the equity project team um what's the dollar amount that we've spent so far good morning and I I'm just the only reason why I'm asking is because at some point do we just continue that does this become an another yearly expense or with the staff that we've been hiring that have like um principal Nick um who has training and resp in restorative practices do at some point in time do we kind of become self of self-sufficient in that regard or do we continually have to consult out for this type of work the NEP contracts were similar in their annual expense that they're

135it's evolved a little bit but I'd have to go back and and look at it Marlo I think it was 30 000 maybe the first year maybe 28 000 and then in that neighborhood and then it was 35 000 last year so as far as the other half of the question I don't believe we're anywhere near having the internal expertise to be able to take that over yet now as I'm listening to the snickering out in the audience there's clearly people who don't agree with that and yet we have work to do and so are there things that that we can do and that we have learned and we are improving at absolutely we're we're better today than we were a year ago and we're doing right by kids more today than we were a

136year ago and so I don't think that there should be any regrets in how you might want to measure that there's there's different ways to do that I also though look back to a little over a year ago on in my own evaluation the board said Steve we want you to focus on professional standard number three and the title of that standard is equity and cultural awareness so I'm in Jill's camp with there should be questions and there should be accountability and if we want to have a different environment for our kids for all kids then this is part of the work and so I understand that there is differing opinions about that and if it weren't above the threshold that has to come in front of the board we would be doing the work

137and as all of you met with Rudy we got nothing but positive feedback about Rudy so the the numbers I'd have to get those specifically for you and I don't believe we have the the expertise in-house at least not yet any other questions at this point Steve I I guess one of the questions I would have is we're going to be billing monthly but some months we might be well under some months we may be well over is that just averaged out in his billing calculation or how will that work out we talked about that a little bit with Rudy and we had been on a quarterly payment plan when we were paying NEP as a consultant Rudy is an independent contractor asked can we just do monthly Jill and I are fine with that

138we talked to Ruth in the business office it's a little bit more work for us frankly but we also know that we're in pretty regular communication with him and so we're we're like both parties are keeping track feeling like we can we have a sense of accountability to one another okay so yeah I I think you're absolutely right Barry there will be some months that might be a little bit shy on that some might where we might be a little over and then we'll have to assess that come spring okay and then my understanding of looking through this is we came to this overall number based on what we're anticipating we might do but obviously that scope can change daily correct I mean so it's more of a this is a top fee we'd be

139looking at type situation how exactly it will be spent could vary based on the situation it's basically the time material not to exceed 35 000. exactly yeah that that's more succinctly said Kevin but we I mean we did design it that way intentionally thank you very much anybody else have any questions I guess for Steve or Jill at this point if not um and trust me hang on well you'll get a chance in the audience I'm going to make ask entertain a motion uh first of all though I'd entertain a motion to approve the IMEI coaching and mentoring contract so moved second okay motion is made and seconded um any other comments here at the or questions at the board level okay um anyone I know people in the audience had convert or wanted to

140speak on this I'd ask that you come forward to the mic or do you want to just come over here yeah why don't we do that and then I'm going to remind everyone though if you uh please keep your comments like we'll keep our regular rules though for comments uh keep them to three minutes Barry schmelia my colleague will give you a hands up when you get to 245 if you go that long um and then uh comments are limited to only um people who live in the district or parents of students in our district so um Mr kober right yeah thank you um so the first and I appreciate the equity stuff and I I do believe we need to work on that but as Educators aren't we supposed to be engaging for everyone

141and stuff like that um to where it's already in our training so I guess we've already had a couple years of using this person to kind of help with our Equity gain and stuff like that but where's the progress I mean we're it seems like we're still getting inquiries from the DPI into some of our things that have happened in the past and I was thinking that if we had more progress with equity and stuff like that we wouldn't be seeing all of these inquiries and um just some of the stuff that's happened in the past so we're paying all this money it'd be nice to see you know the progress and what are the measurables you know you have to have measurables whenever you ask for money at work if I ask for money

142they gotta I gotta tell them hey this is what you're going to get out of the end result so this Being Human Nature it's going to be harder to have those measurables met but there still has to be measurables so we can hold stuff accountable that's kind of how I feel about this whole subject is Thirty thirty five thousand dollars can be spent on improving our reading efficiency and stuff like that too which our numbers are comparable to other districts but you know we're still only at like 35 percent or 40 percent that's not a good number even if we're at state level I mean that means more than half of your students can't read at their grade level so to spend all this money on equity and stuff like that when that's a glaring

143problem as well that's where I kind of have this issue of just you know kind of spending money on something that's measurable like reading whereas we don't have those measurable metrics in place for this Equity thing so that's kind of where I'm kind of caught in something when we're asking for all this money also taxpayers I mean I don't have any extra money right now you know and I know there's a big referendum coming up with diesel at five dollars a gallon it's it's budgets are tough so we got to pick you know what's going to help our students and and it sounds like a majority of them are not reading at their grade level so I'd like to see more money going towards that then some of the other stuff that we're spending it

144on thank you yeah thank you I know uh Aaron Melby you also wanted to speak so first I'd like to say it's great to see that we're doing some good good things to address the um reading proficiency that was encouraging um but I'd like to say it's the right decision to do away with the partnership with the national Equity project but from what I've seen I'm not convinced that Rudy Bankston in the ime contract will take us in the better in a better Direction given that our district is facing a financial crisis it seems like a good place to save 35 000. why are we bringing another consultant with ties to Madison metropolitan school district into Burlington our last Equity Consultants were from Madison we know that mmsd and Madison is a much more liberal

145leaning than Burlington why are we pulling Consultants that will change the direction of our for our schools from an area that doesn't share the same general values that we do on what I saw on the ime website I don't think that this type of philosophy should be brought into the district first the first line of the I am we mission statement is very nearly the definition of critical race Theory it states our mission promote intersectionality and intersectional equity and justice for all through the unapologetically anti-oppression lens it continues with the vision that quote removes the shackles that currently bind to institutions and individuals to a status quo rooted in white supremacy and quote we know oppression will not end unless it's disrupted and dismantled I don't know about you but in a mostly white District

146this idea of white supremacists shackling individuals and having to disrupt and dismantle that oppression seems to be be a bit divisive don't you think also Rudy's idea to prioritize heartwork overhead work doesn't sit well with me while I was knocking doors during the school board campaign I ran into many many parents who chose to homeschool or send their kids to private school and I always ask them why they chose that route over public school and the answer was universally the same they felt their children could get a better education elsewhere meaning they they felt that head work wasn't sufficient enough Mr Bankston would bring a philosophy that would further degradate the education of our students leading to further dropping of enrollment less funding and an even larger deficit I simply ask that we look at

147other options thank you all right thank you Mr snork I know you wanted to speak on this also um so yes Mr snark so I'm here to um just say that we've basically entrusted all of you um and hired you for your positions with our votes at The Ballot Box as a majority you are solely responsible for taking care of and being in charge of our money to make sure we take care of our kids our district and our kids are the most important precious things we have in our lives I don't know if we're prioritizing the money in the right way I'd love to go out and buy myself a porterhouse steak but if I only have five dollars I'm gonna go and buy milk and bread and sugar and the basics I don't

148think we need to waste any money on this when again as was addressed earlier we have substandard scores yeah great 40 45 48 wonderful you're beating Elkhorn you're beating Tomah or Tomahawk or wherever it was wonderful but those are still scores that in my opinion need a lot of improvement uh 40 is not passing I know I've been out of school for a long time but if we couldn't pull like a you know if you got 75 you're off the football team if you got 75 you work running track you weren't wrestling we need to get an 80 or higher to stay in sports we need to raise our standards for our kids and put the focus back in education and as far as Equity it's not Equity it's equality Equity by itself is racist

149by definition equality all kids should feel welcome loved appreciate and respected in school if the teachers and administrators and people here can't do that themselves maybe they're in the wrong career we shouldn't have to Outsource this and did he come to UNC he just wants 35 000 just say I'll do it for your 35k we don't have an end game for this doesn't sound like we have any kind of like he said a metric to measure what the results are every dollar spent should have returned on investment is it a good or is it a good or bad investment I'm not sure if this is positive we need to prioritize that that 35 000 can go a long ways in improving I think our children's understanding and education and get them ready for their next

150grade and eventually The Real World when they get out of school um you've got declining student enrollment the last three or four years I think this is a self-invited problem to Burlington honestly I know other districts that don't go through this Equity um program in this horse and pony show and they're doing just fine it seems like a lot of this came here when the focus on this became here I think you it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that is possibly invited in Burlington by being overly hyperly sensitive to the problems that didn't exist in the first place or not that many of them I think a lot of the I have a lot of faith in the teachers and administration people here to treat everybody like human beings it doesn't matter your color your race disability

151your gender we had no problems the 80s and 90s doing this we can get back to that thank you very much all right thank you is anyone else in attendance want to make any comments oh yeah hi Laura bilafelts um I would like to say that I definitely agree with um Jill over here that asking for 35 is not a large amount out of our budget um if you know anything about Maslow's higher Anarchy of needs one of the first things that children need to feel comfortable to learn in any environment is to feel safe and included we have students in our district that do not feel that way we also have students in our district that have choose chosen to leave the district due to the racism within the district so while I'm sure

152there are parents that are choosing to pull their children out there are also for the reasons that were stated there are also parents that are pulling their children out because of the trauma and harm that has come to them within the district dealing with racial issues um and Equity is not racist and it's word um Equity just means that we provide each individual with what they need to be successful hold on for a second and Lori sorry you should uh yes trust me so Equity yes does not is not a dirty word it does not mean that we're giving A specific group of students more than another group of students it means that we are giving each of our students what they need to be successful and isn't that the ultimate goal of our education

153system that all of our students be um successful Equity is how we include all of our students um I guess I would just say that in this case um you know I personally don't agree with all of these things but I know that Rudy has been in my opinion a positive source for the district and has spent the time working within the district um it's really all ahead thank you all right thank you anyone else in attendance have any comments okay um board members do you have any comments or questions yeah I would just like to say I I agree that we need to find some metrics that we can measure that this isn't an ongoing expense to the district I the little bit that I talked with Rudy um he certainly has some some

154information he can show it's that's positive um but I think we need to be very cautious about the progress and the metrics so it's measurable we can get that training deep into our Roots so that we can accomplish it on our own without having to have an independent consultant do it anyone else uh yeah I'm much like Kevin I fully in agreement with metrics and it sounds like you guys are already working on that so I I anticipate that we'll see the results of that uh additionally I don't think this is a zero-sum game we're not doing one or the other we're doing both we want to make sure all of our kids can learn and we don't want to cut anyone short on that so we're not taking money away from one program to

155throw it to another anyone else have comments or questions was this part of the Mandate by the DPI it was well you know one of the DPI corrective actions was to address a racially hostile environment so the extent to which you would connect the work I would like to believe that this is the right work and we we would be working on finding a place of belonging and safety for all kids even had the DPI not been involved so I think it's it's hard to say it is or it isn't but the two do coexist there's there's no question I'm with the concept of um measurables too I I think and I I'm pleased I know we're going to work on that it's tough with Equity though because it's not a thing you can easily

156measure so I think that's going to be a challenge but I um I'm confident that we can um see how we're doing with our money spent right and I think the surveys that Jill has brought up they're going to be very good they're going to give us some measurables about how families feel how individuals feel how the teachers feel I think that's going to be beneficial to learn and how do we you know after I think a few cores maybe two years of that we'll have a better understanding are we doing are we doing it right are we screwing it up still or can we is it is it something that it's a five percenter and we can't change it anyways let's focus on the 30 percenters 60 percenters yeah I guess I'd also make

157the point to me and anyone sit in this room I imagine it's 35 000 a lot of money but when you look at our budget we have 45 million dollar budget it's one tenth of one percent it's eight hundredths of a percent I calculate it and if that's all the money we're spending on Equity I'm with Jill on this I mean that's and I think Rudy is a good investment I think he's an outstanding coach I've you know talked to him a number of times um very impressive I think he'll help us move forward and I don't know if this is an ongoing thing Marlo too I wonder you know at some point you think we would be able to move away from Consultants but you know frankly I don't see Equity going away I

158don't think it's an issue that you know racism is going to be in our society and there's always going to be people who have challenges with disadvantages it's not always it's not just racism it could be you know it's social economic gender I mean so it's there's a a bunch of categories we need to make sure that all students have a sense of belonging here in our district and for us to spend eight hundredths of a percent of of our budget on this issue I I I don't know how we don't do the work and and this is a step in that positive direction I also think it's important it helps with our academic progress if kids don't have a sense of belonging um forgive me somebody said this already but I think it's really

159hard for them to excel academically so I think these these do have a uh collaborative effect that there can be positives um yeah that's all I really had anyone else have questions I can tell you that I'm um a little apprehensive about the survey only because surveys tend to give you you're only going to get out of a survey what people put into it um and I mean with the district families um it'll be interesting to see what that serve what those surveys come back with um and how we decide to interpret the information you know if it comes back not in the favor of you know Burlington this the school district of Burlington is not considered to be racist by the district families what are we going to do are we still going to

160just pump you know this kind of funds into this um so it'll just be interesting well I don't necessarily think a survey is the end-all be-all metric it's one tool we could use you know doing a climate survey um I think there's you know other metrics and maybe that's what our consultant I don't know I'm not an equity expert but maybe there's other metrics that can be used Arlo but we had students come to us over the past uh three years and tell us there's issues in our district well and and until that stops I don't see how we as a board can stop this work and and I'm not saying that means a consultant but I think we have to be focused on what can we do to make improvements on being a more

161inclusive environment and we can debate what the correct method is but I'm not sure we well I I come at it from a different position than a lot of you guys and that's perfectly fine um but um yeah you're dealing unfortunately we're really dealing with the hearts of men and unless you're going to change the hearts of men and women um then this is going to be a problem racism in some form has been in existence forever so and as much as we would like to be able to dispel it people are going to dislike people for one reason or another and not everything is based on race or ethnicity but we're good for discussion but the part of me would say then I I'm not going to stop trying to work on it and

162that means maybe that's maybe I don't need to put words in your mouth because I know I don't think that's what you're trying to say but not at all I I agree with you I don't think we're going to solve any issues by hiring Rudy Bankston or we're not going to solve the entire issue but I hope we can make some positive progress that's that's My Hope any other comments questions at the board level okay hearing none I'll call for a vote um all in favor of approving the contract with I am we Consulting uh say aye aye opposed Nate no okay motion passes um future yeah meeting dates uh we do have a special meeting coming up on October 24th um and we do have our regular monthly meeting November 14th would be our

163next two meeting dates uh they're both Mondays so just our regular dates um that being said I'd entertain a motion to adjourn so move second okay all in favor say or comments none all in favor say aye aye opposed name everyone thanks for coming out tonight that's right