001[MUSIC] (Laura) I want to welcome you to our December 18, 2023 regular school board meeting. We're going to start with a roll call. Kinsey? (Kinsey) McCoy? (Laura) Here. (Kinsey) Gerlach (Lynn) Here. (Kinsey) Milz (Bryan) Here. (Kinsey) Welch? (Nancy) Here. (Kinsey) Becker? (Becker) Here. (Kinsey) Laitinen-Warren? (Laura L) Here. (Kinsey) Lyerly? (James) Here. (Laura) Okay. All board members are present. One is remote. Welcome, Bryan. And let's, would you all please rise for the pledge? (All) 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. (Laura) Thank you. Volunteers for the mission statement. Anybody? Thank you, Nancy. (Nancy) Okay. We educate all students to be college, career, and community ready, inspired to succeed in our diverse world.
002(Laura) Thank you. Next we have land acknowledgment statement. We, the members of the Green Bay Area Public School District, recognize and honor the original inhabitants of Northeast Wisconsin. Our district lives, works, and learns upon the ancestral homelands of the Menominee and Ho-Chunk nations and the current homeland of Oneida Nation. We acknowledge the 12 diverse and vibrant Wisconsin First Nations who have persevered here since before recorded time and continue to be integral parts of our community. We uphold our responsibility to repair relationships, initiate partnerships, and stand with all First Nation communities. And we're joined tonight by a couple of Intercity Student Council members. Would you guys please introduce yourselves and you can go ahead and do your reports as well. (Viva) Hi, I'm Viva Winkler. I'm a senior at Southwest and I'm the president of Intra-city
003Student Council. (Emerson) I'm Emerson Kringes. I'm a junior at Southwest. And then so for our reports, Preble, they are starting their school play. There's a teacher tea and they are starting the blood drive. At East, there's another teacher tea. The student council is hosting a food drive and the show choir season has started. (Viva) All right. And then at West, they're having a dress up week this week. The wrestlers competed at the Shawano holiday classic and many placed. Sophomores are selling hot cocoa and cookies for a fundraiser for student council as well. At Southwest, we have our show choir starting up. We also have a dress up week. Women's Wellness Club that Emerson over here is a part of held a purse drive. We also held a blood drive. Our girls basketball is doing pretty
004well. We had DECA Districts this past Saturday and eight members won medals and two of us are going to state. And FFA held a warm hearts drive where they collected gloves, hats, coats, things of that nature that will be donated. (Laura) Great. Emerson, can I ask you a question? Did you say something about women wellness? (Emerson) Yeah, so it's a club that a group of my friends and I started and it's just to create like a better space at Southwest for women. So we're doing a purse drive right now where people can donate purses and toiletries and then we'll donate those to like House of Hope. (Laura) Fantastic. Thank you for doing that. Go ahead, Lynn. (Lynn) Did you say teacher tea? (Viva) Yeah, so that's something that I think our student councils host at
005all of our schools. It's like a teacher appreciation kind of event. So they'll collect like donations, just really like small like candy mugs, like things like that. And then they'll give it to teachers and be like, thank you. It's kind of like a usually around like the holidays season. (Laura) Okay. Can you keep me up to date on the women wellness thing? That's something that like I personally find really interesting and I just love to know how that goes. Thank you. Okay. Next is our public forum and we have Tina Johnson. Hi, state your name and address and you have five minutes. (Tina) Tina Johnson area code five for one and five. Okay. Dear Dr. Tiller and the Board of Education. I'm nervous. (Laura) It's okay. Take your time. (Tina) Thank you for affording me
006the opportunity to speak to you about a pressing issue in GBAPS. I'm really sorry about the. No emotional state because this is something. That needs to be brought to the light and. I'm crying. I'm shedding tears for all the teachers that are ready to quit. And are quitting. So just, you know, it's (Laura) okay. Yeah. You're doing just fine. Thank you. (Tina) I'm here to speak to you about the current reality of an education so that we can come become aware and therefore do better for our students, staff and the Green Bay community. I'm not here to place blame, but to ask for action. When we know better, we can do better. After 20 years in education four in GBAPS. I can say many of us in GBAPS feel we are right now at ground
007zero. There are a variety of reasons, but it would take more than five minutes to talk out all the causes So I'm just trying to laser focus in from my limited perspective with serving multilingual students and staff at the secondary level. Mostly middle school. The truth is we need to start having these courageous conversations about better ways of doing things and not being afraid of to change. There are excellent staff members who are resigning. And when I keep quiet or try peacefully to make a suggestion enough another staff member leaves. I know from the teacher perspective we as teachers are paid well here in Green Bay when compared to other districts around us. However, through the COVID pandemic, We have learned how to prioritize other important things, which I personally feel is one of the
008most important lessons. People have learned and taken with them from this historic event from my lenses as a multilingual program support teacher. The staff I've known. Are getting if not already worn out from the energy it takes to move toward equity for the English learners students in our continuously changing district. Looking just at the secondary level. There are at least 70 brand new to the country students whom have started in our schools after the first day of school this year. Even if the district overall enrollment is predicted to decrease over time. We have another need with our recent increasing multilingual students whom have more diversifying needs than I've ever seen. We should be focused on collaborating and utilizing the expertise of the staff who are trying to bring equity to an environment where equality is
009the forerunner. I'm challenging us to do better for our staff, students and families. Let's take a look at who has needed to make that hard decision to stop working in the education field or left to go to another district and ask them how we Green Bay could have done our work here better for them to stay. If someone has already reached out to those staff members, how can we do better. The data is showing that we still have to work work to do. And I would appreciate efforts retaining our accomplished staff. There are eight licensed staff on tonight's agenda resigning. And I know others who are close to retiring are not retiring they want to retire but they have to resign because they can't make it the next couple years. Yes, I did say laser
010focus. Here are my ideas but I really want this to be collaboration charter schools to give our students more choices. Teachers have choices of their placement every year. Ask teachers why they are leaving. Look at other countries that students are coming from. What do they do differently. Couldn't we help transition our newcomers better. Like admin sub in large groups in the cafeteria and give the students the online instruction they had during COVID. We cannot ask teachers to sub twice a week during their prep time, and especially the new ones when we're trying to make them better. It's a domino courageous conversations with expectations need to be written out and address equity teams. We keep doing videos about other cultures and add them to everyone's school's announcements staff climate surveys regularly. Over time pay for subbing.
011Ask area resources to come talk about what they see in communities co teaching training instead of saying we don't have money for that. We can't just find a way to problem solve. Hmong magnet school bilingual Spanish schools. 712 schools so high school teachers can connect before credit start, and not that a. Okay. I have lots of ideas but there's only one of me and I know a lot of my staff, (Laura) If you'd like to just kind of wrap it up (Tina) have lots of ideas and I, I'm sad because there's not other people here that would like to speak before they leave I'm not planning on leaving I love helping students, but the tears come from the staff. Every day, how hard they work. (Laura) Thank you. Go ahead, Laura. (Laura L) You're also
012welcome to email that to the board, anytime. (Laura) Yes, if you if you have your, your, if you have your speech in written and you'd like to forward to the whole board, that'd be great with you. Please include your ideas. Thank you. Is there anyone else wanted to speak. Right. Next is our legislative update and that would be Lynn Gerlach (Lynn) Okay. Really interesting. (James) Sorry. (Laura) Okay. (Lynn) Are we good now. Okay. Number one, I just laid out for you who's on the education committee in case you'd like to see, I'm not going to read it to you. Number two, notice that two things we've been following have now been approved by the governor, the one half credit of personal financial literacy for graduation, and the grant program for driver education. Number three, something
013new that the education committee will be considering four bills related to American Indian studies and tribal culture, and I've listed them for you here I won't read them to you. Then we get to number four, and this is pretty interesting. This is assembly bill 341. This is regarding a person who works or volunteers at one of our schools who commit sexual misconduct against a pupil. If I understand this correctly. Now, if law enforcement is called in, they do not have to report it to DPI, but this bill would require that if law enforcement is called in because of sexual misconduct by an employer volunteer to school, it must be reported to DPI. The license must be revoked with no chance of reinstatement. That's what this bill is about. Assembly bill 377 we've been following this
014for a long time. This is about designating sports and teams male or female. And I just want to mention that there was a public hearing last week and I haven't heard any more about it. And then we have assembly bill 640 and Senate bill 608 and this is about a provisional teaching license and I thought this was pretty interesting. So if you are a paraprofessional who has been teaching in the classroom three days a week or more for a year and you've passed a background check and you're recommended by your supervisor. This bill would suggest that you should then be given a provisional teaching license. And then if you teach six more semesters, be given a lifetime license. So we'll see where that goes. Assembly bill 728 number seven, I'm kind of confused about this.
015This is related to developing curriculum about teen dating violence and sexual violence. So basically what it seems to be proposing is that DPI work with some well known nonprofits that specialize in this area to create a curriculum about this and that the target date is to have it ready is next July 1st. That's pretty fast. And then we would be able to either adopt the state's curriculum or create our own at our own expense. So I don't know a lot about that right now, but we would have to pay to train our staff in either case. Okay, number eight, very interesting. This is a proposed amendment to the law. So apparently right now, section 118.06 requires that we display on all of our campuses, the American flag during school hours, and that we give all
016students an opportunity every day to say the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the national anthem, but their parents may opt them out of that if they wish. This proposed amendment would add to that that we must also display in every classroom, the words in God we trust, no smaller than 11 by 14 in English. No mention of any other languages. Okay, now we get to the really interesting stuff. These are five bills about school libraries books and curricular materials. So, and this is a roller coaster. So, a, this would require this is a Senate bill and assembly bill that would require us to employ a full time licensed librarian in every school. We may then appeal to raise our revenue limit to offset the cost of doing that. That's referred to the committee on education.
017The next one b, Senate Bill 615, I think is very interesting. It's, it's, they call it related to freedom and libraries. So this one and you got to listen carefully to this one because this is really could be really confusing. This is a bill against banning books. So this holds that you may not ban or prohibit or restrict a book or curriculum material or resource material for one of these two reasons, you may not do it because you disagree with it from a religious or political standpoint. You may not do it because you don't, or you disapprove of the origin or background of the author or contributors. But this doesn't apply to age based restrictions on obscene materials. So, if you notice on the document there, that little table, I have discovered that there's a
018link I can click after I read a bill and it tells me who supports it and who opposes it. And I thought when that's pertinent, maybe I would share that with you. So this is supported by an organization called Wisconsin voices, and I've given you a link, in case you want to learn about it. And it, there's no position being taken by Wisconsin Library Association, and no one seems to be opposing it at this time. Okay, now, Senate Bill 606 C. Apparently, let's see if I got this right. Okay, no, this one isn't apparent. This is just written. This bill would specify that if anyone who lives in our district makes a written request to inspect a textbook or instructional material or curriculum material or resource materials, they must be given access to it within
01914 days. And we must establish some kind of procedure or program to accommodate those requests. Interestingly, it's opposed by the League of Women Voters. Okay, D. Assembly Bill 642. This, I found very interesting. Currently, I believe the law allows that for any child under 16 a parent may request a list of all library materials, they have checked out from the school library. This bill would require a report to parents within 24 hours of any material, any child under the age of 16 checks out from a school library. I hope I'm reading it right because that's what it seems to say, and parents of children under 16 would have to be advised annually, whether or not their child has access to Badger link, which I believe is the online learning program. Online library. Yeah, yeah. Okay.
020And interestingly, this is supported by Wisconsin Family Action. I've given you a link so you can check that out. No position taken by school choice Wisconsin Action, but opposed by the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, the National Association of Social Workers of Wisconsin and WIAAC. And then the last one is Assembly Bill 308 and Senate Bill 305. And this I thought was really interesting. Apparently the law protects us, the school board, and our librarians, and the people who supervise the librarians, should someone walk into a school library and find something they consider obscene that the librarian has overlooked. This bill would remove the protection from prosecution. So we could all be prosecuted if someone walks into a library and finds that a librarian has overlooked an obscene piece of something. So this is supported
021by Wisconsin Family Action, and it is opposed by the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, the Wisconsin Association of School Nurses, WIAAC, and the Wisconsin Library Association. So it's been a very interesting week, or two weeks, I guess. And also, I just found out yesterday that the lawsuit that we have been following, remember there was a lawsuit that charged that there are four unconstitutional aspects to the voucher program. The fact that state money is going to schools, that the superintendent of schools doesn't get to oversee, and three other points, that lawsuit will not be heard by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, but I believe they will take it to a lower court. That's it. (Laura) Okay, Bryan. (Bryan) Sorry, I had to unmute there. Do we know if WASBA has taken any positions on these bills,
022especially the library ones? (Lynn) All I can tell you is what I found on that page, and I didn't see WASBA listed anywhere before or against anything. Laura, do you know anything, if they've taken a spot for a position on them? (Laura) No, but that's only because I haven't gone to their website for a while. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that they do have a position on that, and I probably will be looking into that now. But they often do take a position on bills like this. So, yeah, I encourage everyone to kind of do your own research on that. It's possible there's been so many bills, it's possible they haven't had a chance to kind of formulate a position. Anybody else? Nancy. (Nancy) So, Lynn, on number 9A, you don't
023have that nice little opposes thing. If I go on there, it will, I could still find it, or is it only some bills that have a pose? Do you know what I'm saying? (Lynn) I know what you're saying, and I think that when I clicked on the link for the lobbying organizations, that one had nothing. But I suppose that could change at any time. (Laura) There does tend to be a rather long and convoluted path for most of these bills, and they change sometimes day to day, minute to minute. So, anybody else? Thank you, Lynn. I always enjoy your reports. All right. Next is the referendum update, and we'll be joined by Josh. Hey, Josh. (Josh) Hi. Not much report since last week when I gave this report. We're looking for a date for the
024kickoff for East Construction that we just got those contracts signed. We're ready to go with that general contractor. You'll be seeing both Preble and West projects, renovation projects coming to you, I believe, in January, maybe West in January, Preble in February. I've got to double check my dates. (Laura) Is West the auditorium? (Josh) Yeah, we still have to bid out the auditorium at West. Locker rooms. So, we broke that into two parts so that we could get started quicker on the addition, which is the weight room, but yeah, the other parts need to still get to get bid out. We're meeting this week to semi-finalize design on the football field out there at West. So, that should go into like the hardcore, like architectural and engineering design, so that that can get out to bid
025here in late winter. (Laura) Can you like estimate when we might be able to see like a rendering of what that... (Josh) Yeah, pretty soon. (Laura) Okay. (Josh) I would imagine probably by the end of January, we'd have some kind of 3D rendering there. (Laura) I think there's a lot of people who can't wait to see that. (Josh) Yeah, me too. Yeah. Me too. It is a more complicated project due to the nature of it being on city property, and then due to the fact that the city is leasing a cell phone tower right in the middle of it as well that it affects our design. So, it's been a lot of coordination through multiple entities, but looks like we're settling down. I know Mr. LaPlante, the athletic director, was able to get some rough
026schematics over to the booster club in terms of the concession and bathroom redesign of that building as well. It's coming along, but it's certainly more complicated than the other ones. (Laura) Okay. (Josh) Other than that, I don't have a ton of updates other than the action item you'll see later tonight, which is for the Baird playground as part of the November 22 referendum. (Laura) I just saw some video of the Preble field again with the track part all completed and the bleachers clearly have made an enormous amount of progress. (Josh) Yeah, they've got the walls on the press box up. They work through the weekend. So, Saturday and Sunday they got the walls up on the press box there. It's different every time I drive by. (Laura) I'm assuming the mild weather is helping this
027process quite a lot. (Josh) Yes. (Laura) I think the mild weather may well know I think it's going to warm up a little bit again. Just today was cold. Okay. Any questions. Thank you. Okay, next is our. Any discussion or report from Claud around our Dr. Tiller I should say around our future referendum. (Dr. Tiller) So, since revenue limits went into effect in 1993 Wisconsin school districts have had to turn to referendums for capital projects and operating expenses and to sum up the memorandum that was sent to the board. The bulk of the last referendum will be paid by the end of 2024. Over the next few months, the district will be engaging in strategic planning and boundary adjustments. So, it is our recommendation that the Board of Education plan for possible November 2024 referendum
028to address facility needs, since we looked at those three areas that we put. In a memorandum, three bullet points boundary adjustment, the district strategic planning that will be done around May 2024 boundary adjustment advisory committee which will be complete around June of 2024 in the majority of the November 2022 referendum projects will be completed, enabling the community to see the enjoyment and enjoy the investments. By November 2022, the referendum will be paid off in the end of 2024. (James) So, I was an advocate for going as quickly as possible on to referendum, because of the timeline, right that we were working against. I don't know, Josh, if you might be the person or Dr. Tiller if you, you know, um, can does the going to referendum in November. Do we miss a school year entry
029date for new school. If it passes if it's successful I can't remember if that was an issue between April and November referendum. (Josh) Referring to the proposed new school on the site of Kennedy. (James) That's correct. Yeah. (Josh) I would say that the with the April referendum, it was an extremely aggressive. It was an extremely aggressive timeline that we had laid out that was desired. Waiting until November, would not allow us to pursue that same aggressive timeline, although in. In fact I know a lot of people involved with that project would appreciate a different timeline. (James) So, when you say aggressive timeline is my, if my memory serves me well, that was entry 2025. And so a revised timeline would be 2026 or am I one year early. And I think that's what you say
030aggressive, I think I recall a conversation about being able to get it done in 15 months for 25 (Josh) for the beginning of 25 is what you're most likely be pushed to 26. (James) Thank you very much. (Laura) Okay, then we're going to move on to the consent agenda approval would someone like to please read the motion. (Lynn) I move that the consent agenda items as presented be approved. (Nancy) Second. (Laura) Kinsey? (Kinsey) Online voting is now open. All votes have been entered in the motion is carried with all board members voting in favor. (Laura) Okay, next is the 2024 25 school year calendar would someone like to read the motion. (Nancy) I move that the 2024 25 school year calendar as presented be approved. (Laura L) Second. (Laura) Discussion. Kinsey? (Kinsey) Online voting is
031now open. All votes have been entered and the motion is carried with all board members voting in favor. (Laura) And finally, the ADA playground renovations at Baird Elementary School will someone please read the motion. (Nancy) I move that the purchase of ADA compliant playground equipment and contract for services for renovations of the playground and equipment at Baird Elementary School from Lee Recreation in the amount of $462,724 and 50 cents as presented be approved. (Laura L) Second. (Laura) So, my recollection is that when the school was built several years ago now that the playground. At that time wasn't really addressed and that this is just sort of a completion of the long term plan for that building. (Josh) Yeah, that's correct when the, when the building was constructed they reuse the playground because remember, it was
032kind of all on the same site we just swapped, swapped some land with the city but it was essentially on the same site so the, the original playground is is still in place there. (Laura) Right. Okay. So, this is for the, this will be a whole where the playground be located more or less in the same position that the current one is, (Josh) It will be located in more or less the same spot. Yes. Okay. It'll just have. It'll have ADA compliant equipment and services. (Laura) Okay. I know that the neighborhood around there uses that playground quite heavily as well. So, okay. Go ahead Lynn. (Lynn) So, will an ADA compliant playground be like the one that we saw at Jackson School recently is that is that kind of the model. (Josh) That is, that
033is the idea. Baird is significantly larger than Jackson so when you're designing a playground you have to size it to the number of students that are going to be out there using it so that's why this one is more expensive it'll be larger. The surface is slightly different but it's similar concept you know you want to be able to get people with different abilities out on that surface and on that equipment, so. (Laura) Andrew. (Andrew) I'll vote yes. As far as the, as far as whether this rises to the level of, of single source and not bidding. I understand it, but I would say it is a It's kind of on the bubble, I think. And I just wanted to, to, to put that out there, I think. I think there was a stronger case
034for the The card based learning system that there was really only one place that makes something like that. I think there was Maybe not as clear but but strong points were made by Dr. Tiller and I did vote yes, I'm going single source for the less expensive but better provider of online education based on the superintendent's experience. I just want to make sure that we need to be careful when making these decisions that we don't invite controversy especially when it probably would have been them anyways, so to me it seems on the bubble but I will vote yes. (Laura) Anybody else. Okay, Kinsey. Thanks Josh. (Kinsey) Online voting is now open. All votes have been entered in the motion is carried with all board members voting in favor. (Laura) Great, that completes our agenda for
035tonight I would entertain a motion to adjourn. (Nancy) So moved. (Laura L) Second. All in favor. (All) Aye. Opposed. (Bryan) Aye. (Laura) Okay, we're adjourned.