School Board Meeting - June 2021

001okay good evening i'd like to call the monthly meeting of the burlington area school district school board to order um if we'd all stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all and before i do the roll call for those attending i apologize for the delay in the start we had two uh closed session meetings before this that ran long so again i appreciate everyone staying with us and uh we'll move forward toby will you do the roll call vote please peter turk here mary schmaling here marla brown here taylor here evan bird here rosie and han here susan kessler here thank you thanks toby um i'd

002like to entertain a motion to approve the minutes of our previous meetings a second okay emotions been made and seconded any discussion hearing none i asked for a roll call vote peter yes jerry yes yes marlo yes taylor yes kevin yes roseanne yes susan yes thank you next on our agenda our communications uh first our citizen comments through our board comments um as you um everyone can see there are attached to our agenda public comment in the form of 67 different emails so thank you everyone in the public who sent comments to the board i'll repeat this again when i know we said this a number of times but board members read these emails we appreciate them um i i did some telling the uh you know the emails came from 29 different people so

003thank you for the the valuable input um they're centered around three different topics uh mass optional which we we talked about last meeting at least for our summer and community ed programs aboard going back in person and critical race theory also note in addition uh bonnie ketterhagen delivered to my house 48 index cards from citizens which i appreciated reading um and they were uniformly along the topic of the board going back in person so bonnie thank you for sharing that with us and uh um board members uh no i received those they were signed and the addresses of all the uh people who wrote the index cards were on there i would comment that say that all comments should have their name and address so that they're district residents because if they're not i personally

004will not read them yeah and kevin i appreciate that and we you will notice later on our agenda we are going to talk we added that as a specific agenda item for action um public comment at board meetings and then we're also going to talk about potentially how we're going to handle board comments if we just decided this meeting to go back in person next month or when we go back in person i think we should talk about how we want to handle board comments thanks for bringing that up um we next on our our item is correspondence and board communication and i guess before other board members chime in um i just want to make sure that uh the public knows that our school board met in closed session earlier with legal counsel and

005following advice from our legal counsel the district intends to implement our corrective action plan as written to meet the needs and include students parents and staff members the district's going to work through details so that our any community equity team that we form that's outlined in our corrective action plan is both production productive and it moves the district forward in our efforts as described in our our corrective action plan any other board members have any uh comments or correspondence they want to share yeah please last tuesday wednesday thursday and friday i was on line in a virtual meeting with the national association of school boards and we got to hear miguel cardona who is our new secretary of education in the new administration so we got to hear a lot of things and while we

006were visiting with him uh was we found out wisconsin was going to get 4.2 billion more dollars to use and we're all hoping that some of that will go for education it was interesting um he he gave us some interesting things uh 57 percent of parents in the united states that answered this thing or answered this paper uh we're satisfied with how the schools are being run 32 were not 32 percent vouchers 49 of the people asked oppose them 42 to approve them we got to hear trisha yearwood who is a country western singer i talk about the power of music education and it was very very interesting um enjoyed it and she compared it to being in sports it's something you can do your whole life thursday and friday were very special because we

007got to meet with our own representatives in washington so we were had david bagley who was for mark cocaine and ma brian's style was will neisel and then we talked to glenn groffman in person and he was quite the guy he was the longest session but there were three things we talked about because the people who went up there were our presidents who today our first vice president uh barbara herzog and me i'm the second vice president so there were three topics the first one was broadband and even in wisconsin i found this surprising i know way north they have trouble getting broadband but in door county the president lives in door county and she said she has to pay a fortune to get broadband brought to her house so they even had to have

008hot spots for the kids to use during the time of when they were not in person so we talked a lot about that the next thing was shortage of teachers and that is really getting to be a problem a lot of kids people are not going into education some of them are not staying and we discussed what districts could do to uh maintain teachers or maybe home grow them from homegrown right here and have them come back to our district i was proud to say that that burlington doesn't have a great big turnover of teachers and the other one was special special ed we need more money for special ed every single school district in wisconsin does and that's who who we were talking about i know burlington had to come up with five million

009extra dollars for for a special ed this year besides what we already had in the budget and then five million dollars comes right out of the regular fund for the regular kids so it's a problem and it was interesting when the federal government first said they were going to help with um special ed they predicted that they would help 40 percent and right now they're helping 16 so we're looking for that i was proud to also talk about the special ed kids they were thrilled to hear about our pack house they said oh my gosh we've never heard of anything like that preparing the kids for life after but you know they can be there from 18 to 21 and it's such a wonderful program and um so i know glenn groveman wants more information

010on that and i'll be meeting with him again in january but then we'll be in person so i want to do that okay then i left there got in my car on friday noon and drove up to madison for a meeting of wasb and there we got to hear stephanie hauser who is the new wiaa president the first time there was ever a woman in charge of the sporting everything in sports very very interesting person uh sharp and i had talked to eric klitzwick before i went to find out if there were any questions he wanted me to ask her and he was real thrilled with her too and um so anyway it was a wonderful four days and i was happy to represent burlington and wisconsin that's it yeah no roseanne let's just say

011this thanks for your advice advocacy and uh your topics are ones i know as a board we've talked about but awesome really important things yeah great job roxanne thank you any other board members have anything they want to share any communications uh peter i will go ahead and take the opportunity to read one of the community letters i don't think we can do that why not peter didn't you just say we're not supposed to read letters otherwise we all should get the opportunity to do that peter we talk what's what's the what's that we had this discussion i the i mean it's a chance here for board members to share communica to share communication i think and report um i agree i'd rather us not read letters because i think it's we read one it's

012giving un undue weight to one letter but i'm going to let marlow decide that on his own i think it's within his right to do it okay he wants to go forward thank you um this is from misty gilbert who does live in the district board members over the past few months i have had the opportunity to talk to a wide to a wide array of parents in our community the majority of them are frustrated and scared i completely understand because those are my feelings also the frustration seems to stem from not feeling as though they are being heard please resume in-person school board meetings and put an end to mandatory masking covered numbers are rapidly declining mandates are falling and more and more businesses and schools are making mass optional given the current climate

013of burlington most people are afraid to speak out i have made it pretty clear that i am not afraid to speak but afraid for the future of my children in basd i have years of experience in early childhood education and have worked with a diverse group of individuals as an administrator of an assisted living facility i have cared for people of all races religions disabilities and backgrounds and i can tell you that i do recognize the problem in our schools i do not feel this problem will be solved by capitulating to bcdr and their demands labeling our community and the majority of its citizens as racist is not true or productive i feel the problems need to be attacked as a issue of leadership family outreach and building community i am aware of the dpi

014order that bcer's leader or a representative must sit on the community equity team if your position is to comply please consider adding equally vocal parents and community members to the team as well the conversation requires balance the parents of the community want to be heard respectfully misty as a follow-up to some of the concerns please note that my reading of the community letters does not carry any weight i am not biased in one sense of the form of the word however you want to read that um but everybody deserves to be heard um and you know they they need to feel that they have been heard so thank you but everyone just one person was heard that's i was going to say the same thing only one person you chose that person you didn't give

015any of us a chance to choose a person either every single person on this board reads all those letters marlo you talk about it you talked about balance in that letter you're not giving a balance to this board by doing that and it's not fair okay susan i hear what hold on okay yeah i i might cut you guys off right there i think you gotta we need to stop this debate i mean i think it's it's too much marlo i gave you the chance to read the letter but i i told you i disagreed i think it's a bad idea but that's okay i don't think this is moving us forward on communication because we're going down a rabbit hole here i want to just stop it i know susan got the last word

016but we're gonna i'd like us to move on to the superintendent's uh report at this point thank you peter um so i don't have a lot but there are a few things that i did want to highlight for the board one is that community education is uh up and running and is strong in in fact we have record numbers and the group working in community ed and particularly becky segadal as their director there's there's a lot of happy faces a lot of excitement kids are doing lots of amazing things and so it's all happening at bhs that's where it's located if you want to be able to see any of that there is a lot of joy being had in community ed to to the point of being record numbers i also wanted to once

017again extend my appreciation to the board for allowing me to serve on the wisconsin school music association board as you know i'm the president-elect uh for that organization and uh we have two meetings a year one in december one in june and it just so happens that that meeting's going on now um and then for the next two days and so just want to again offer my appreciation because i know that by you granting me the opportunity to represent burlington there it also means that i'm not necessarily here at that same point in time uh just a reminder a couple of upcoming dates then june 28th you just agreed that there will be a meeting and then on july 12th also is the regular monthly meeting also of note we've made the final determination that

018the district office will will vacate 100 north kane street in the final week of july and so we will most of us will find temporary homes at bhs kind of scattered around but we'll make sure that people know where we are and how to get a hold of us so that's going to be happening in late july and then also in late july the 28th 29th and 30th for the first time now in about a year and a half wasda the school district administrators association the superintendent's association will be having a live and in-person meeting and that will be the three-day legal seminar and if there has been any topic that has been close to everyone in the last 12 to 18 months it's all of the immense changes in the law that are happening

019so rapidly so i'll be there and representing burlington hopefully well as as well um and so those are just a few updates and some things going on in the immediate next few weeks so thank you i just wanted to add something to his report and that is when i was up at madison this last weekend we talked about that music department or the music committee that he's on and where they all said oh roseanne your superintendent is such a wonderful addition to that uh committee so we're proud of you steve thank you roseanne thanks for sharing that too roseanne um taylor um it's time for the business office report will you do the honors please oh taylor i think you're muted i don't know if uh yep sorry um may 2021 bank statement reconciliation report

020uh for revenues total beginning cash on hand i'm sorry totally getting cash on hand uh 441 707.55 uh under revenue deposits total deposits equal eight million five hundred and eleven thousand six hundred sixty one dollars and eighty cents uh which leave total available cash on hand eight million nine hundred fifty three thousand six 609 i'm sorry 8 953 369 and uh 35 cents total expenditures uh expenditures withdrawals total withdrawals with seven million six hundred and fifteen thousand nine hundred and twelve dollars and eighty cents total ending cash on hand is uh one million three hundred thirty seven thousand four hundred fifty six dollars and fifty five cents that of course talented so i make a motion that we approve the may 2021 bank statement uh reconciliation report second okay emotions been made and seconded any

021discussion hearing none i'll call for a roll call vote peter yes barry marlow yes taylor yes kevin yes roseanne and susan yes thank you um i will make a promotion that'll be approved in may 2021 uh check register second motion has been made and seconded to approve the may 2021 check register any discussion hearing say that again kevin i couldn't read it bills yeah this is the pain of the bills exactly uh any further discussion hearing none toby would give us a roll call vote please peter yes mary yes marlow yes steeler yes kevin yes roseanne and susan yes thanks toby we'll move on to the personnel section on the agenda earlier this evening the personnel committee met and steve will you walk us through the certified and non-certified staff resignations retirements and terminations yes

022thank you peter we had in certified staff there are three resignations this month uh people moving on to some other uh life adventures and that includes carly barforth bhs counselor sarah flygar waller elementary general music and brianna harris karcher middle school special education in our non-certified staff we have one retirement and that is custodian ralph frank from cooper the rest are instructional or special education aid resignations and those include raymond alvarez from carter middle school danielle debenk from waller elementary andy endell from bhs sarah hopkins neeson from bhs ellen strang from bhs staying sorry brenda's story from dyer and kathleen straub from waller and again just so that other people know we there's been a lot of movement in our special education aids and from part-time to full-time and the next group of seven that

023i'm going to read those positions have been eliminated that's part of our work to develop some attrition as we move forward and that includes the following special education aids allison anders from cooper jennifer burrow from waller janet chambers from cooper geraldine krause from waller kelly rentalman maloney from dyer nikki smith from waller and alma westcott from cooper so there's a total of 15 in the non-certified staff thanks steve i guess i'd entertain a motion to approve those resignations retirements and terminations in a second please second thanks susan um emotion's been made and seconded um any discussion hearing none can i have a roll call both yes mary yes marlow yes healer yes kevin yes roseanne yes and susan yes thank you steve we we have appointments for certified and non-steroid certified staff that we discussed

024during personnel could you go through those please yes we are excited to welcome the five following certified staff members sydney batchelor at waller elementary for kindergarten nicole delastas at bhs for school kim kajawa tim kujawa at bhs as a school counselor mallory schmidt who's going to be at cooper dyer and lions as an ell teacher and michael zolecki at bhs teaching business education and then we have a total of eight non-certified staff appointments two of them are school year folks and that's jennifer duty at lion center elementary as a special education aide and angela herbeck who will be a part-time custodian for the district the following six are folks who are being hired as community education instructors that includes grace classen carson skyles keegan skyles abigail runkel gage taylor and kate tully i move we

025approve the appointments of the certified and non-certified staff second okay emotions been made and seconded any discussion hearing none i'll ask for a roll call vote please peter yes mary yes marlow yes steeler yes kevin yes roseanne yes susan yes thank you all right next in the agenda we have uh donations to go through um steve will you walk us through this please so we had a total of nine reported in the past month and it's always exciting to be able to accept these um there were eight that came into burlington high school specifically that was two thousand dollars from aurora burlington lakeland medical staff as a scholarship three thousand dollars from bhs athletics soccer program warm-up uniforms that's that's coming from the high school athletic association 222 the ffa for liberty steel and wire

026in peoria uh from from quick trip to the ffa 332 dollars and seven cents from john and leslie holtved for the coral club that was 250 the burlington coaches association donated 200 to national honor society and educators credit union 500 to wbsd and nobias press 250 to wsb so the high school that was a six thousand seven hundred and fifty four dollar uh donation from those various community members and then karcher middle school at the end of the year there was some teacher appreciation and so the parents of grades it's three five seven and eight just the way that students were in that building this year those parents in total donated uh 820 uh during teacher appreciation week and we just wanted to to point that out and say thank you as well i move

027we approve these very generous donations from the community i second the motion okay motion's been made and seconded to approve the donations uh any discussion hearing none call for a roll call vote peter yes barry yes marlow taylor yes kevin yes roseanne yes listen yes thank you uh we have three items for student travel steve maybe you can walk us through these items yes as you know uh we're we're moving forward now long awaited for the reinstatement of extended and overnight trips that uh require board approval the ffa has three upcoming trips that they would ask for your approval for that's july five through eight there are six students that will be attending the state conference in madison uh later in july the 19th to 21st that's 12 students attending the ffa top 12 program

028in green bay and then in august from the 23rd to 6th it's six students headed over to potosi wisconsin which is their officer retreat so three different approvals all from ffa i make a motion that we accept the travel second okay emotions been made and seconded uh any discussion hearing none i'll ask for a roll call vote peter yes barry guess marlo yes taylor yes kevin yes roseanne yes susan yes thank you excellent on the agenda next is we have four items for action the first of these is a holdover from last week's meeting um it's a discussion um and potentially action on the physician adding position a coordinator of culturally relevant practices and student engagement and uh board members last meeting you may recall we talked about having a job description prepared and the

029administration came through with that and also for the new uh human resources director we received that also which we approved last meeting um so i guess i'd steve do you want to make any comments on this position or should we i guess throw it open to board members for discussion uh it certainly welcomed the discussion of the board uh i will say that there is um some potential you know lots of discussions this week some came through board comments uh as well you know suggesting we look at other options or we look at other fte allocations or it's too much too fast and so i i did want to mention that as part of our corrective action with dpi if you felt that it was more appropriate for example that we through our equity audits

030engage in some partnership there as a way to address some of the work that we might need to do going forward certainly that's an option as well but i'm just articulating some of what what came through the comments that i know you've you've read and probably been thinking about well i know i know that in madison and nationally they've been talking about the learning gap and uh from the time the kids were not in school there is this learning gap they just didn't keep up the way we hoped they would uh and i could kind of read some of the things into that position like they might be working with something like that too i don't know did i read that incorrectly or is that part of your thought process as to what this person

031would do there is definitely an element to that um i know that there's there's quite a bit of question around the idea of of what what all might be encompassed in a role like that tried to spell as much of that out as possible in the job description but certainly the reality is um community engagement with kids with families uh is is a big part of it uh no doubt and it's something that we all do and we're all responsible for it's just a more targeted effort um and and i think that it's hard to draw sort of causation into the idea of why people might struggle with school uh but certainly the the postcovid reality is likely to feel different and i'm not sure we're even there yet so steve am i understanding that

032you might be thinking we should potentially pause on this until we find out some of our audit results or were you just saying that was a possibility i think that's one option for the board to consider i know that uh i you know i listened to all of the commentary last week again i read all the same board comments that you read and if your sense is perhaps now is either not the time not the right time you're unsure of uh the job description how it might work i do think that there are other ways as some of the board comments suggested and if that's something that you want for us to consider uh we we can certainly do that reality is as you know we we will have two audits that will have to

033be conducted as part of the corrective action i would imagine that those audits are going to both discover some things that we might already know and anticipate as well as maybe some things that we don't it's pretty rare frankly for a school district to dive as deeply into the finite data as an audit like this will that's partly why they they come with a pretty hefty cost having said that it also might behoove us and be beneficial to partner with you know the persons doing the audits so that we are able to on the back end be more effective in our support for kids so just just another option that i want to make sure you know people have heard timing wise those audits are going to be done until the end of summer um

034which would make it tough to hire this for fall what sort of time frame would you see implementing this position post audit if you felt it was if the board comes together and feels it's necessary so if i understand you're just kind of wondering about if if the board actually were to say move forward with that what would kind of be the timeline is that it given the school will have already started yes yeah it would be tough uh there's no doubt barry i think you know if if people don't um necessarily know we the the hiring and the cycle of bringing onboarding people and also people leaving is is really unique in education it's concentrated into a couple of months it doesn't it doesn't mean that people don't come and go during the school

035year but there's a there's certainly a reason that you hear more names in june and july than you do in november we just don't operate like that so that would be also perhaps another layer or burden uh we we might experience that with the human resources position as well just the timing might not be ideal so we'll we'll have to learn as we go through that process to who who's out there and what the level of interest is sometimes you just don't know until you do it but i think it is a reasonable point that you make that the timing of hiring could potentially be not to our benefit other board members do you have thoughts i guess it's a i think it's a good chunk a good format to have is just kind of

036an open discussion about this position or potentially going in a different direction because we do have significant needs that we're going to have to meet related to our corrective action plan and our ongoing work and equity and uh we something will need to be done we talked about this last meeting that this is a will be a huge burden on administrative team and um i kind of like the idea that steve said that maybe we wouldn't go right into hiring that person but maybe you know see what happens with all this is going on and maybe partner with some of those people that we're paying a lot of money to to do this audit maybe i kind of like that idea right now i mean i've already kind of made my comments pretty plain last

037week um i would rather see this money spent in areas of reading from half of science um personally i feel this is just a knee jerk reaction everything has gone over the last year um at the board it's okay to say no sometimes to administrative desires or wants um i'll just throw that out there um mean i guess what happens let's say you do hire this what happens three years from now and we don't really see any type of improvement in in the areas that you're specifically looking at in terms of you know their their measures of success or their primary functions or their you know specific job or district specific function i mean i mean the position is accountable to the superintendent so i guess from a board accountability standpoint i mean what i

038guess what do we do in terms of this position i mean how do we i mean are we holding the superintendent accountable for this um for whether the it's the success or failure of this position um i mean i know that again chain of command and you know superintendent reports to the board uh we kind of stay more hands-off when it comes to the other administrators fine but again i'm guessing looking at it from an accountability standpoint and i'm not just picking on this position i'm talking about all positions too but if we're talking about this position i'll just use it as an example yeah that's a good point taylor i guess i'll i'll point back to what connie said last meeting equity is going to be the work of the entire administrative staff our

039teachers support staff it's going to be have to be done by everybody on the board and it's going to have to be everyone's going to be doing it but as far as accountability goes yes the superintendent is accountable to the board so that ultimately it will be the superintendent's job to make progress in this area um and that's who we're gonna be talking to um and it as far as it it is challenging to measure because it's somewhat of an intangible but this is this is the work that's in front of us and it needs to be done i'm a strong believer that i would rather see more counselors at the elementary and middle school level than to add this position because i think over the term that i've been on the school board we've

040cut funding for those people and those kids that are going through tough times in life i'm gonna talk to a counselor before they're gonna talk to the teacher and certainly before they're gonna talk to a director of equity or go directly to school administration these kids get in contact with these counselors on a regular basis and i think that's really important that they have someone that's non-biased that they feel comfortable with and i would much rather see our money spent in that area given the times you're dealing with than for a director of equity i agree no thanks kevin other board members have thoughts on this i guess it could be in relationship to specifically this this position of director equity but also like steve mentioned too bringing on a consultant to help with our

041equity work not knowing what the accountability end of these audits will be what sort of does anyone know what sort of time frame we have for action once an audit is done where are we in another 30-day window or 60-day window or is this just things we should be working on going forward because i share the concern that administration's already up to their eyeballs in tasks um and it's not just an administrative thing i agree with you peter i agree with what connie said last meeting about equity is all of our work it's the community's work i agree with that wholeheartedly but specifically this is going to impact our administrators and i kevin i like what you're saying about having more people in the schools more counselors to help these kids but they aren't going

042to lighten the administrative load at all so it's a tough spot to be in i think barry if i'm if i may attempt to address the question that was in there about sort of the time frame and um we so we do by june 30th have to have a recommendation for who will conduct the audits to dpi dpi has to then approve them and we have to have those contracts signed by the end of the month and so we've been working as quickly as possible but also attempting to do our very best due diligence to ensure that the product will be there and so for example the two audits that are required one is a focus on discipline and one is one was just named a comprehensive audit and so the discipline one uh we

043were able to locate uh through you know recommendations and and working through a gentleman by the name of dan lozen he is affiliated with ucla he also works as an independent consultant and does specifically disciplinary audits for for schools and so dan will begin that essentially now and then should have something relatively complete by the time school starts and one of his responsibilities will be to present to you as a board his findings the other the other group that we're talking to in terms of a comprehensive audit is the integrated comprehensive services for equity team of colleen capper doctors colleen kaeper and elaine futura who work at uw madison in uw-milwaukee respectively and they are are known nationally for their work around audits and comprehensive audits and so one of the reasons that we have

044gravitated toward them is that they're local that they understand wisconsin they unders particularly southeast wisconsin and so we have more confidence in the ability to work with them and potentially work with them long term and so they would anticipate that their work should we go that route uh would be complete in the early fall and then hopefully uh if it would be of the purview to the board we would cycle into a little bit more of an ongoing engagement and or partnership with them so that we can work to execute what is found in the audit because i think that's the unknown at this point in time is what what will be found and that i think that's that's kind of the point of dpi requiring us to do that very thing so the timing

045would be that you know come early fall we would hopefully have kind of a road map in front of us to lean on and then to be able to partner going forward and i'm sorry connie was going to add something there i was just going to add you know barry that we are required to have ongoing sort of progress monitoring and reporting to the dpi as part of the process as well so once we have completed those audits have a plan with some actionable steps then we will be checking in with the dpi to report on our progress so that there isn't necessarily another 30-day window but there will be an expectation that we do follow up and um describe you know what we're doing and to let the dpi know excellent thank you both

046so yeah i guess just again looking at like the knowledge skills that build or i'm sorry the primary functions um and job functions i guess so talking about data i mean how what and how well statistical data be openly available to prove that the program is actually working in a non-biased way you're talking about if we were to have the the position tailored yeah yeah yeah i'm sorry i should clarify yeah so if we were to implement this position um i guess i guess what data are we going to i guess make it readily readily available to i guess the public to show like yes this this position is working here at the broadcast that is being accomplished from this um here's where we need improvements um that's there are there aren't any improvements i

047guess i'm just looking at it from that standpoint well i i mean i would assert that one of the first things that a person in that position would do would be to create sort of a data profile so it would be whether it's discipline attendance grades engagement in activities and we might then at some point pull you know half a dozen benchmark data points to say okay here's our starting point this is ground zero now where do we go from here and so those those are not data points that are closely being monitored right now there's some general idea but as you all know we have mounds and mounds of data that we we collect could collect should be potentially looking at and so i think that that would be something that you know if

048the board said yeah we we feel there's a need for this position then we would sit down and start you know really kind of saying okay well what are the things we want to measure and that might be through a conversation with board members are there specific things that you want to know that you want to monitor going forward i can tell you from from just my position working in the schools the highlighted points are are usually all around discipline what are the suspension rates what's the truancy rates what are those academic gaps and to really study them we look at that but probably not with the level of detail that somebody who is specifically tasked with that would well i guess kind of a miniature follow-up to that question i guess how was the

049physician going to be involved in staff student and staff and student discipline also in regards to hiring or termination or let's say an appeals process i guess where do you see that or this position fitting into i guess that kind of well as it is right now if there is a situation at a school and a principal is looking to collaborate with another administrator most of the time that calls comes to either connie or me and so a lot of times those calls involve race related issues um it might be a el student or a student with special special needs could be a student that's living in poverty um any anything that's potentially uh sort of a complicating factor it might be that there's a student whose parents are experiencing a divorce and they're just

050looking for extra support and so i think in in some ways a position like this that could be somebody who aids in those conversations and provides continuity across the buildings that's where that that's where that line item comes from so are we looking for a motion to approve or disapprove this position yeah kevin let's uh that let's uh move forward with that it's a good idea would you not approve this position second okay emotions been made and seconded that we do not go forward with a excuse me the coordinator of culturally relevant practices and student engagement any further discussion i just got a question for steve um how much longer are we going to be affiliated with the national equity project that we are that we're doing with now are they are we done pretty

051soon or are they going to be with us for a while longer it's a good question roseanne um when the dpi corrective action came out uh we we really believed that in order to get our audits done that we would need to maintain our relationship and partnership with national equity project now one of the challenges in working with them is that they're not local and by local i mean to the state of wisconsin they're not in the midwest so that is definitely not to our advantage when we talk about the potential of working with kappa and futura and their ics model that is local and that would be preferable to us and so we are looking at whether or not that's a better route but again we can't do it all and so if if

052the ics team is going to conduct or end up being the the chosen group to conduct our comprehensive audit i think both connie and i would say that we'd recommend to the board that we partner with them going forward which would mean we potentially wouldn't continue our partnership with national equity project just because there's cost implications with with all of these you have to i think you have to pick and choose and align yourself to something that's going to work and so there's always an advantage to to being more local than not but there's also a different approach given the comprehensive audit that they would potentially be doing with us as well and so this it's moving kind of kind of quick i mean dpi gave us 30 days and basically said you gotta get

053these contracts issued and so finding people talking to them understanding their services that's the process that we're embarked upon or in right now and i think to your question roseanne that might mean that we would come back and recommend to the board that we would go with uh the ics team and that might mean then that we don't continue with national equity project so are we with them right now i mean are we still are they still affiliated with us right now the national equity project we are we're essentially between years and so we're finishing the 2021 year that we were paid for and we are beginning to roll into the 21-22 school year but haven't paid for yet okay well to be honest i don't know just how much i enjoyed that group just

054i don't know just my thoughts i just want to add that some of the work that and the foundation that was set in place with the national auto equity project this first year is certainly work that we can continue even if our partnership with nep wouldn't be solidified for another year one of the things being you know the starting of our student groups and having those being facilitated in our desire to include more student voice at other levels you know national equity project did help us get that up and going this year i think we have a strong commitment to continue that so i think there are some elements of the work that we did this first year that we would continue even if that true partnership didn't exist there was some great work done

055and some good foundations set to propel us forward gary i think you had a comment i'd like to amend the motion that we revisit this after the audits are completed to determine at that point if the position is warranted or if we'll look elsewhere to solve what the findings of the audit barry proposes an amendment to kevin's motion is there a second to the amendment second all right thanks roseanne um so motion's been excuse me the amendment has been to the motion has been made and seconded is there discussion on the amendment now okay i think you should explain exactly what this is going to well we're going to vote on the amendment and we need to know exactly what the motion will be yeah i guess i could recap it if um what i

056understand kevin's motion original was to not um hire this position at this time and barry's amendment to his motion would be to revisit it after the audit is done by the two professors from wisconsin which would be the roughly the fall we're guessing really fall actually the two audits we've got two separate audits going on peter right and i think they'll be done about the same time period that's my right but one of them is two professors and one of them someone from ucla yes thank you right one's a comprehensive audit and the other one is a disciplinary audio that's the one from ucla so thank you for that clarification so is there so that means then after that we will um decide if we're going to hire or not so we still may decide

057not to hire that position okay that's correct okay thank you yeah no thank you for the clarification and uh is there discussion on barry's amendment because we're going to deal with that first and then we'll go back to the original motion okay hearing none i guess i'd ask for a vote on the amendment that barry proposed right roll call peter yes barry yes marlow no taylor no kevin no roseanne yes susan hope you're muted susan and you're the deciding vote yes all right so uh the amendment passes and now we can go back and continue discussion on the original motion which would be kevin's motion we're not hiring the position but now it's been amended to revisit in the fall after the two audits have been completed any further discussion on that motion as amended

058okay would uh would you clarify that again please for me certainly and uh i'm stumbling through it so bear with me uh no the motion is that we are not today taking action to hire this position but we will revisit it following the completion of the two audits that are part of our corrected or that are part of our corrective action plan uh audit on discipline and a comprehensive audit okay so the motion is that we are not going to hire now but but we will visit it that's exactly right okay fine thank you you're welcome um any further discussion folks hearing none i guess i'll ask for a roll call though peter yes mary yes marlow you're muted yep marlo try again sorry um i'm sorry clarification we're voting again yeah bear with me

059marlo let me see if i can try to explain it clearly um our our vote on this motion is that we're not taking action tonight to hire this position and we're not hiring this position tonight but because of the amendment motion now we are going to revisit uh taking action either to hire this or hire a consultant in the fall after the two equity audit or excuse me not equity excuse me the two audits are done the comprehensive and the disciplinary i think peter i think that that the motion network that was out there is we're not hiring now the amendment already has already been voted on correct so so you're saying your vote said we will hire this position now that's what your vote was no my vote is i voted yes that we're

060not hiring now kevin when i voted yes has already been voted on right my the vote that we're taking now is on my election that we are not hiring now correct as amended by the amendment that we proved as you see so the original motion but the original motion doesn't exist anymore the original emotion is amended by the previous vote so the entire motion is we do not hire this position right now but we will revisit after the audits are done have we already voted on that though kevin what happens is i'm sorry i'm going to interrupt so because the amendment was approved now it gets added okay initially right okay not approved then it would be just your original motion does that help marlo yes toby thank you for jumping in because i was

061making a complete um doggle of trying to explain that so thanks we were all confused because this is unique but thank you yep so the amendment so the vote is just to clarify peter if i may step in that michael was not the highest position but we were it was amended and approved that we would look at it after the investigations were done that's that's correct yep so the marlowe you're a yes yes taylor no kevin no no roseanne and susan yes thank you what was the vote i didn't hear i think we missed roseanne's vote there i couldn't hear you roseanne i said yes okay thank you for the clarification so we had so i think it was a five to two one yes and the motion passes so yes so there will be

062no hiring yet nobody's being here until the evaluations are done right and maybe not then depending on the outcome right very true very true let's move on to the second item for action in our agenda which is return to in-person meetings and this is something that obviously um we've heard a lot from the public on um things have changed quite a bit over the last few months and things are opening up yeah i can tell you go to a store in burlington things are changing um and the question has been uh we and we've talked we dealt with this subject earlier this spring we voted to stay virtually through our meetings another question i make a motion that would go back to in-person meetings thank you second okay so motion of the maiden second any

063further discussion hearing none um well let me ask you this question i'll ask so we have a meeting coming up on the 28th can we just clarify it would be for our next board meeting correct okay any other discussion board members which is for july well no we have uh we're gonna have a meeting on the 28th of june taylor for uh personal committee which would be closed session just to be clear uh for those watching um but our next meeting for the public would be our july i believe it's july 12th second monday in july maybe our next open session for the opening of the meeting they'd have to leave after that that's true they'd be welcome to come right thank you for that clarification any other discussion hearing none i'll call for a

064roll call vote peter yes barry yes marlo yes taylor yes kevin yes roseanne yes susan yes thank you excellent uh next item is public comment at board meetings and specifically why this is added to the the agenda was first to point out we have a policy which is attached to our agenda so we can see that and that will be something we'll make um we'll add as a reminder uh before our next meeting which i think will be helpful for members of our public to remember our protocols for how public comments made in person at the meeting but also the other interesting thing i'd like for the board to give feedback on and discuss and decide we are using board comments and my thought is that i'm interested in keeping that going um i think

065some people may not be able to attend the meeting and i think having another way for members of the public to communicate to board members is valuable and i've enjoyed reading the emails and people can attach things to them i i read those too um so i'd like the board to make a motion on whether we continue with the public excuse me the board comments via email question that we would allow board comments via email but i do not believe they should be read aloud unless they're are there in person yeah i guess i'm kind of with kevin on this one i mean we've always had email comments come in as long as i've been on the board so i mean they're just comments to the board they're not specifically for the public comment section

066of the meeting and of course of course i would add that to my motion that they have to list their name and their address and allow us to verify them individually and it should be timed in discussing this with other boards this weekend they have two minutes or three minutes and i think we always have allowed three minutes but they said boy at the end of that time they have to stop yeah absolutely yeah absolutely but let's go back so kevin you've made a motion and we can recap it again but we're waiting for a second on that so um maybe kevin do you want to recap your motion yes my motion is that we allow board comments they will not be read aloud people that speak at the board meeting have three minutes and

067will list their name and address and limit it to three minutes you know okay go ahead and then let's ask for a second for that i think in the motion okay emotions are made and seconded i'll point out kevin in our just in our policy we do require that people state their name and address and they have three minutes it's in our policy so i think that's covered already we have not always adhered to that yeah so we will be careful going forward that's your obligation to take care of that yep and we'll we'll come up with a process for that so that it's you know welcoming but yet that we are conducting our meetings efficiently and thoughtfully exactly um one question though i have is on our board comments then we're also requiring that

068they list their name and address correct okay you know another thing though you may want to consider because i believe our public comments can be from people who either reside in the district or have students in the district so it's possible you may live in a out you may have an outer district address but have a student i wonder if we'll have to look for clarification on that or maybe if we have a a statement at the top of board comments that please you know check a box or i wonder if there's something we can do to make it easy for people that's a good point that would be good yeah and i i think my my thought on this is i'm open to people out of the district or who don't have kids in

069the district sending us emails and we can't stop that but then that would give board members the opportunity if they want to read them or not yes correct obviously if we have a school choice student we certainly should be reading that that's very important they're they're valuable to our community yeah so that's something i guess we could work on logistically on on our board comments but i think the idea is let's keep the board comments up and running with a specific website for them right okay barry you have a question or a comment just you know just foreshadowing my vote i this motion really isn't necessary because we already allow email comments so i mean we're not really accomplishing anything here people can already email us we we it's true barry but me personally if

070if they're not in our district or they're not a member of our school district because of school choice i personally am not reading them understood completely i get that i'm just saying i don't think we need an approval to let people send us emails they already send us emails i think it's a great point to make that if they're not going to state that their communities that their residents or members of the school district community that you know right they may not be read i appreciate it the school board member can read the wall street journal and infiltrate it as you want to but i personally if it doesn't address this district it's not coming to the board meeting yeah you make a fair point barry i think maybe the idea though is that we're

071leaving up this specific board comments uh website that goes to all the board members and maybe we put something on our district website that makes clear here's how to send emails to the board and like we said make sure to include your name and address or make sure you check a box if you have a student residing here um it's just more formalizing that process because there were some gaps in the process when we went virtually here that's where that's where this is coming from yes true thank you barry is there any other comment on this otherwise i guess i'd like to any discussion yeah barry last thing we're just amending policy then so we have to do we have to do the readings and all the other stuff with this i don't know tell

072me yeah i i don't know if i'd agree we're mending policy because our policy is staying the same which addresses public comment at board meetings um which i view as people getting up and speaking um as opposed to a board comment it could be policy though i mean maybe it's something that we add as a policy measure which would mean a different process right as opposed to emotion contrary to popular belief i'm not in favor of more paperwork i just want to make sure yeah i know i i very i'm gonna advocate that we keep it simple and just make a motion and then we'll implement it and see where we go sounds good all right uh let's have a roll call about then toby would you donors peter yes barry yes marlo yes taylor

073yes evan yes roseanne yes susan yes thank you thanks last item for action should be a pretty easy one it's the annual meeting date um our administration is recommending that we set it for monday september 13th i make a motion we approve that even though it's my birthday second it's your birthday but i want birthday cake you're gonna have to ask for an amendment now i already excuse me any further discussion and yeah happy birthday kevin that's a in advance that'll be fun hearing none i'll call for a roll call vote peter yes barry yes marlo yes taylor yes evan yes roseanne yes susan yes thank you all right uh last item is uh future meeting dates uh if you look at the comment we have our personnel and school board meeting coming up on

074july 12th it will now be in person information on location will be coming out on that but i also want to add the we're going to have a personnel committee meeting closed session at least after we vote to go in closed session kevin um on june 28th and that will also be in person uh location to be to be determined and hearing that's it so i guess i'd entertain a motion to it during the meeting second okay motion of the main second any discussion hearing none roll call peter yes mary yes harlow yes taylor yes heaven hallelujah roseanne yes and susan yes thank you see ya everybody i'm going to miss the zoom good night everyone bye everybody bye good to see