January 26, 2026 - Board Meeting

001At this time, I would like to call to order the January 26, 2026 meeting of the Harford School District Board of Education. Can we have a roll call, please? >> Mr. Ronda, >> present. >> Here, >> present. >> Here, >> thank you. This is a meeting of the board of education in public for the purpose of conducting the district's business, and it is not to be considered a public community meeting. There is a time for public participation during the meeting as indicated in the agenda. Any district resident or parent of a currently enrolled student wishing to speak should have filled out a card located on the signin table and given it to our board secretary. Were there any tonight? Thank you. And we have the pledge of allegiance. So Ian, would you lead us in

002the pledge, please? >> Yes. >> So sorry. Lincoln Elementary, Mr. H is like, what are you doing? Mr. Hamlet, would you please introduce all the wonderful children who came to lead us in the pledge? >> Thank you very much. It's our pleasure to be able to present the pledge tonight. Wner is here with Ma and Lincoln and they will be meeting us this evening. I pledge alce 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. >> Handshake time. Thanks for being here. Good job. >> Good job. >> Thanks for being here. Good job. >> Big thank you to the kids who did that. I'm so sorry for a moment. I had a thought it was summertime

003and we had to do it on our own. This is way more enjoyable. Um item number three is to consider the approval of the agenda. The agenda notes the board's mission of we will support our community through dedicated governance, leadership, and stewardship so that our students achieve. It also states our values and expectations as a board in governing our meetings. The purpose of the agenda approval is twofold. The first reason is to verify that public notice has been given according to state statute 19.84. Mrs. Hoffman, has the meeting been properly noticed? >> Yes. >> Thank you. The second reason for approval of the agenda is to consider tableabling an item or to rearrange the order of an event. Is there a motion? >> Motion to approve the agenda with moving number eight. Action A1, donation

004of negative district lunch feeds after number four, presentation of student excellence. >> Do we have a second? >> I'll second. >> You think it? >> All right. All in favor? I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. So item action item A1 is going to be moved up right after this next item which is our presentation of student excellence. So if everyone could stick around until after that first action item that would be wonderful. So that brings us to our presentation of student excellence and I'm going to hand it back over to Mr. Hanland. >> Thank you. >> M it's our pleasure this evening to present uh from Lincoln is not here tonight. some of our fourth grade students go through a little bit about what we've been doing with some of our writing the technology those

005kind of components that we'll be incorporating that so I'll hand it over to and up here will be okay you want to push I don't know if introduce >> Hello, we are fourth grade students from Lincoln Elementary and we would like to share about a fun writing project we did in class. In order to learn about opinion writing, we answered the question, would you rather be a parrot or an octopus? We had to choose and choose one and explain why. We clearly stated our choice. This is called a thesis statement. My thesis was I would rather be an octopus. We we researched each choice and chose two reasons for our opinion. We added examples to support our ideas. We edited our writing. One thing we did is looked at the ways we could change starting

006words like hide into powerful words like disappear or camouflage. After writing, we transformed our work into a podcast. We planned how it would sound. We practiced reading with expressions. We recorded our podcast by using our Chromebooks. We learned how to use technology in a cool way by recording audio. We worked with a partner. One was a host and one was a guest. We improved our recording if it didn't work the first time. We learned how to write strong opinions and use powerful words. We learned how to support ideas with reasons and examples. We learned how to use technology creatively. Now it is your turn. Would you rather be a parrot or an octopus? Raise your hand if you would rather be a parrot. Raise your hand if you would rather be an octopus. >> Octopus

007the pie. >> Adam, what don't we know? >> I don't know. They must like swimming more than flying. Apparently, >> it looks like more people would rather be an octopus. Thank you for listening to our pre presentation and have a good night. Thank you guys so much for that. That was awesome. Um, what was your favorite part about this project? Anyone can answer. >> Yeah. podcast before >> the podcast. Why did you like that so much? >> Well, there was all the different intricate stuff and we got to work with our friends. >> That's pretty cool. Did you like being the host better or the guest? >> Host asking the questions. That's awesome. Very good. Are there any other questions for anybody comments? [clears throat] using uh different types of words like instead of hide

008but um I forget the word you use but uh camouflage those types of words will help you in writing emails later in life. >> Good life skill or letters. >> Yes, letters too. >> Did I have one other question actually in your class was there a majority that wanted to be an octopus more than a parrot like we saw tonight or was this an anomaly? >> Was it way more for octopus? I think like all of them and only one. >> Okay. >> Really? Okay. Very interesting. >> What made you choose octopus? >> The two the two choices. >> Yes. >> It was given to us as a lesson in curriculum. >> Okay. Very good guys. >> You guys will come around and shake our hand if we would like to say congratulations to you.

009>> Good job. Thank you for being here. >> Good job as well. >> Thank you so much. >> Thanks for being here. Appreciate >> it. I see the lantern. Okay, >> thank you. >> If I could ask if parents would stay for one second because we have a very cool little thing that we're accepting here that will take just a moment or two, but we moved this meeting hopefully so more of you could see it because I think it's it is important. So, our next item is action item number one, which is a donation for negative district lunch fees. Wellspring Community Church is making a donation of $3,471 to the district to apply to all negative student meal balances as of December 2nd, 2025. And so, um, I guess we need to approve it first.

010So, the board actually I have to take a motion. [laughter] I motion to approve the donation of $3,471 for Wellspring Community Church to be used for negative district lunch fees. >> Second. >> I second. >> Can I have a roll call vote, please? Ian >> I, >> Louise, >> I, >> Erin. >> I, >> Don. >> I, >> and I'll hear. >> Motion carries. The church are here from the church, so they just wanted to be able to share a few words if that's >> Well, hello everyone. And I just wanted to let you know that Brian and I are with Wellspring Community Church. And you know, following scripture is very important. And one of the things we're told to do is to love God and to love our neighbor as oursel. Our neighbor is

011everybody right here. It's the entire city. So in following that every year we do what we call wellspring gives where we find either an individual or a group or someone that we can reach out and help. And we're really right now trying to reach the schools and the kids and do what we can do to show them the love of Christ. So this year for Wellspring Gives, someone gave us the idea of these lunch deficits that I I assume what happens is there are parents who can't afford to pay off their lunch bill. And so we decided to pay that off and so we took a voluntary collection and we were able to raise enough money to pay that bill and we're very happy to do it. So on behalf of Wellspring Community Church and

012Jesus Christ, we're going to do that. And we have a few cards here that you can distribute to whoever can use those that our church members signed. So, thank you very much for letting us come in here and do this. >> Thank you. >> There you go. >> My name is Butch. I'm sorry. Butch Cops. >> Yeah, you said Brian, but you didn't say Brian's unintention. Thank you so much. So wonderful. >> Thank you very much. >> As well, we took a picture with you in >> We'll talk to you. Don't tell me. And you're in the middle. >> All right, I'm going to take two photos. >> You're welcome. >> Thank you. question. >> Okay, sounds good. >> Did they ask for copies? >> And there you go. >> Okay, let me just get

013recombobulated in my agenda. Okay, the next item would be citizens delegations heard, which there is none. So, that brings us to board president's report. Um I was planning on discussing tonight uh we were have to have had a board workshop review a board workshop earlier this evening which did have to be cancelled last minute um due to some unforeseen circumstances. So we did not have that. However, I did want to just take we are going to reschedule um a board workshop for board members. So that just is a way for us to continue to improve and how we behave and communicate and all that good stuff. Um I did just want to take a moment to thank Louise and Ian and and Don for the time that they spent at the conference. um and for

014bringing back that knowledge and um bring it back for all of us and for the district. So, thank you for attending. Um and with that, we're going to turn it over to Dr. V. Lobos for her district administrators report. >> Thank you, Miss Smoke. Um the very first piece of information I have is that we have our spring board election and candidate forum coming up. We have five people running for three positions. That seems like it's high. Typically, it would be because uh with a board of our size, five members, you typically have a rotation of 221. Um the reason we have three board members up for election this year is because with Mr. Beni moving out of the district uh during his term, uh Mr. Grbeck was appointed by the school board and the

015statutes state that they serve until the next election. So now we're at the next election. So we do have three open seats. Two of those are three-year terms. One of those is the remaining one-year term that was on Mr. Benkey's original seat. And so when the election comes in April, the two highest vote getters will be uh receiving the three-year terms. The third person with the highest votes would get the one-year term, and the other two um I will contact and just um encourage them to stay connected and involved. Uh I did meet with our candidates uh this afternoon before our board meeting and so we had a really nice first board workshop uh board orientation meeting and then we will continue those until we have the election in April and the candidate forum. Um

016one of the things and this is for everyone in the room um we'll host a candidate forum on either March 25th or March 26th. So I'm looking at both of those nights right now. Uh we'll probably do 7 pm. Uh in looking at our records, we did 7 pm last year and the year before. So I'm looking at 7 pm again. And again, we'll be working with our high school students to provide uh and act as the uh commentators for the event. So uh that will be coming up again at the end of March. Since we don't have a primary, it'll end up being the week before voting occurs. So it'll be nice timing. And then I also wanted to make sure that we talk about the state education convention. Uh we did have three

017keynote speakers. They were all a little bit different, but it was really nice to listen to each of them because they had their own perspective on the importance of educators in their lives. One talked about it as the view uh of being a parent and how educators impacted her own son and his ability to become an a successful adult. Um it she also touched on mental health and how school people um really helped him and lifted him up. The second one was from his own personal vantage point of how educators helped him and really how getting connected with music um helped him develop and become comfortable and confident with himself. And our third speaker is a former educator who's now the uh president at Marian University. And so he is actually also our keynote speaker

018for August for all of the Herk area schools. And his perspective was on working together. Um, and he had five tenants which I'm not going to mention right now because I want to make sure people are tuning in in August when we do this. Um, but if he had five tenants of how to really thrive. Um and while the the message was geared towards education, it can really be geared towards anyone because in life, whatever road you take, um there are things that you need to do and so it's all about perspective and how you take on those challenges. Uh I myself attended several sessions and found them affirming uh in terms of some of our current and existing practices as well as came back with some new ideas. I learned that Miss Hoffman has

019a folder that says Tara's ideas. Um, so she puts those in there. Um, and then Tara's events. So, um, yeah, we came back with ideas to fill those two folders. Yay. Uh, and then I had my presentation on Tuesday and that went well. Um, it was a pre-conference sectional, so it was about three and a half hours. U Miss Malter was able to attend and that was done in conjunction with Mary Bifer and Deb Kerr, two uh very wellrespected either seated deedent superintendent or retired superintendent. So uh we had a nice turnout and um as Katie knows, I was very excited to move on after my presentation and just go on to be an attendee and enjoy it. So um with that, I would turn it over to Miss Shrunk to about her experience and

020then Mr. Grumpet and Mr. Pisan for that. >> Awesome. Uh it's always my favorite event out of the year. Um thank you for allowing us to go Mr. Majer that we have a budget for um board members to have advanced education which I think is always important. Um I'll touch briefly on I was the delegate assembly um delegate person for the delegate assembly and um out of the uh resolutions that we presented I'm happy to say that all of them move forward except supporting decoupling. So we agreed to oppose decoupling. Um, we approved um that WIA should be making the policies for WIAA. Uh, we actually approved universal state covered meals. Now, we didn't approve it. We just said if for some reason Congress would talk about it that we would have a stand on

021it and we would like to see that in the future. Um, if you guys have any questions on the other ones, of course, let me know. But they all did pass to move forward to just be resolutions in a big packet that um was. Um I enjoyed all of the um presenters that I went to. I always love to collaborate with um other board members which um Ian can attest apparently I'm popular. No, I'm just kidding. Um I I just know a lot of people and that's because I've been on the policy and res um and I'm also willing to reach out and talk to other um districts. Um which is lovely. It's one opportunity that was gives usually in those breakout sessions. You actually are um you're encouraged to talk to the people around

022you. So that really can help collaborate as what's going on up north, what's going on the west, east. It's very interesting to hear how other districts handle the same situations we h we have. So, I truly appreciate the opportunity um and thoroughly. >> Yeah, I wasn't sure what I was getting into. Um I think a lot of perception of the school board goes is mispercept mispersceived and understanding more of I mean uh superintendent Dr. Lobos does a great job as we just I witnessed with the candidates. She goes through it very thoroughly of what their roles and responsibilities are. Um it was clear to me that there was a lot of first time schoolboard members there even after like maybe their second year. But there's [clears throat] just a level of understanding and clarity that

023made me feel better about where I'm at with just trying to, you know, absorb everything for this role. There's there's a lot a lot to take in, a lot to understand. Um, I sat in the school finance and operations one the Tuesday afternoon session and I made notes throughout the throughout the days. I'm just going to read some of the things that I took away from it. um you know finance distin distinctions for me to keep uh to keep in mind is the pupil count daily attendance enrollment is year- round membership is residents and students um interesting fact that in the 90s when act 16 act 27 they worked in the initial stage of them but then it you know they they slowly stopped working as inflation and adjustments um didn't follow suit. I also

024attended a facilities and long [clears throat] range planning. They're just just these are just a couple of them. Um and they had talked about the importance of committees and uh being transparent with you know when schools go to referendum versus um you know how how they uh are going to spend the money or what the potential uh way to spend the money is. So that would be something I'd like to continue a conversation on in the future. Um not right now. There was an AI there was several AI sessions there and the first one that I attended was very eyeopening. You know, they they talked about is um are is your school in a garden box using like one centralized AI version or are you managing your AI versus app with through the app program?

025Like it's still new to me, but my point is there's a lot to go into it. But we can't silo ourselves into saying we're not going to do anything with AI. I know we have a policy on it already, but there's it's a it's something that is like ever evolving and we need to make sure that we not not get too far behind. I don't think it's possible. I don't think it's there's a way to get ahead of it because AI is ahead of all of us. So, u but there were some resources they gave out there for us uh like their WCTC has an AI lab that is available for um partially available for us to go to to like learn about things and then I think it was WBO. I don't know something

026on their website. I have a note. I didn't get into looking into it, but they have like a a link to help us understand AI better and different opportunities for it to but Mickey Smith Jr. was the was the he he was the one playing the saxophone. He was great. Um, you know, a couple key takeaways from there was u change is a mirror, not a window, which I found that very impactful. um makes you think about you know yourself and and what your what changes to yourself and then um teach students that teach that students matter don't just teach the subject matter um the students will learn better as we've witnessed here several times with presentations that and the te when the student and teacher have a connection and a relationship built the student

027will perform better and that is dead goes into the workplace I could go on about that too. That's uh all these but both of both presenters u Mickey and Adam they both um knew my my I don't know YouTube mentor you could say uh Simon Sak he's great at leadership qualities and he he he started my my own personal uh journey down leadership I guess you could say but so I I'll wrap it up here but couple another key thing is I know I don't have a student athletic director but something to keep in mind that we shouldn't keep we shouldn't be calling athletic directors athletic directors because they're student athletic directors that that's for the high school but some and uh they were talking about a report card that that read as a newsletter

028versus the way we normally put a report card out there. They said they have gotten they receive better feedback from a report card that that talks about their student rather than just kind of puts facts out there. Um and uh my final reflection that I I wrote down and came up with was clarity improves decision- making. So I was it was able it was good to get information about the finances and everything that goes into it. But uh lots of lots that I I have a few questions that we can talk maybe I don't know with terror or just nothing crazy just understanding for myself and then >> um just leadership is something we should all strive to whether it's for this or for our own personal lives or for our work. You know I

029think there's areas of improvement that we can help make better connections with people um like such as tonight with the students or just in our everyday life. something to keep us keep us working forward towards uh better bettering ourselves. Thank you for letting me go. I thought it was very very meaningful. That's all I have. >> Great. Thank you. >> I got there late on Thursday mainly because I was still shoveling my truck out of the snow. So apologize for Adam here. I said global warming was going to take care of all [laughter] all snow this year. We wouldn't have to worry about it. But anyway, I got there just in time to see the saxophone player play the saxophone. And I had a couple of experiences. I played in the high school band, which

030I gave my clarinet away not too long ago. >> Mhm. >> And uh decided I didn't want to play that anymore. So, I bought a violin instead, but I haven't learned how to play that yet either. So, as a matter of fact, I'm not even sure I could read music anymore, but it'll be a learning process. I promised my wife. I'd learn how to play her favorite Christmas song before next Christmas comes around. >> What was your takeaway from the the presenter? >> Well, that you can use music to enhance learning. So I played in a high school band for two years and one of the uh saxophone players was one of my best friends too. He was in hospice at the time and he actually passed away the same day we were at the

031>> Oh no. >> at the event. So >> sorry. That's my second uh saxophone player that I knew who passed away. But he was a good friend. Uh we both had hot rods when we were growing up. He helped me with mine. I still have mine. He got rid of his. So too big of an engine in it. couldn't keep it on the road. I actually uh day I graduated from high school. I actually took my hot rod and uh backed up to the we had a long awning that went right by the school. They backed it up and laid a rubber all the way down the entire >> We're not recommending that to any student who's out there. >> Um, >> no more students here. >> No, but they could be watching it. We

032have to be mindful of these things. >> Um, thank you for digging out your truck to to make it there, see part of it. Um, maybe you need to listen to the right music while you're learning to play the violin and that would impact your >> Well, between country and classic rock, those are my two favorites. >> There you go. >> Erin, I just want to thank you, Don. Yeah, for that. Um, I forgot. Um, so obviously with um Aaron was our last speaker as mentioned and um they are coming as a um professional development. coming here. And so every year I always ask Tara what she needs from the convention. So my gift to the district is these books so that she can continue the learning um with professional development and I encourage you

033all as board members if you would like to read it. It was a very easy and fast read. wonderful knowledge in there and great experiences that just really put you just as a human and I appreciated that. So, >> and Gulies, I will make sure that we put these to good use. I will say all five of them are autographed. So, >> uh and we did get our picture taken at the end. Um I will share those pictures. Uh but I have been a little under the weather after getting back from the conference. So, I've did a lot of sleeping this weekend. So, >> do you want me to continue with that? >> Okay, perfect. >> Uh, so I'm going to talk about district updates, but I also am going to connect it back to

034the convention and I'm going to jump around a little bit in my presentation because on Thursday night at the convent uh convention while I was at dinner, I was with a large district. I'm not going to say which one, but it was one of the top five in the state um in terms of size. And they looked at me and I was so excited because they said, "Tell me something good that's going on in your district." And uh being an educator, you can't see with the camera angle all the smiles that just happened over here on the right side of the room because that was part of our theme this year was tell me something good. And so I said, I can't tell you just one thing, but there's two things right now that I'm

035thinking of. The first is 4K and I talked to them about our journey of bringing 4K back on site, but I also talked to them about the first ever 4K night that was held last week on Thursday. And so we talked about that and they were really excited and very impressed with the work that we did, very impressed with the 4K extension or roaring ahead which you'll see the um the handbook is on the consent agenda for tonight. And then I also said uh I love athletics. I was an athlete. I was a coach. Um but athletics gets a lot of attention. And so the other thing I'm really excited about is that also this week, remember I was talking last week, uh Central Middle School just started an academic display at the library. And

036so we talked about the Jack Russell Library and they were so impressed that we have our academic work on display. We also talked a little bit about our art display that will go up later this spring. Um, but for those two reasons, this large district, these these board members from the large district were very impressed. They kept asking questions and so kudos to everyone back in the district who made each of those things happen or things like those happen. I only mentioned those two because they happened last week. But we have a lot of amazing things going on here and even though we're a small district, we are above the state average in size. Um, but a large district was impressed with the work that's happening here. So, that made me really proud and it

037should make all of you proud, too. Uh, so that's the 4K information night. That's also the central academic display. It will be on display until the very beginning of March and then it's going to come down for a little bit to get ready for the the art show, but I would encourage you to go over and check it out. Um the other thing that will be coming up and you all should have gotten an email from Mel Hanlin via myself uh is to see if you are interested in your in being involved in reads merit week. So that's coming up and we did have board members participate last week. So hopefully we will have people participate this week uh um when it comes up. Yeah, last year this year. And then the district science fair

038is coming up. So that will be uh next month. And if you are interested in attending that as well, please let me know or let Amy know because again, if three or more of you want to be there, I do need to post for that. So if you're planning on attending, give us a heads up right away. Um preferably prior to that week even, so that way we can get that noticed as soon as possible. And then the last thing that I want to share with you is some legislative information. I included these articles in the uh handbook or in the handouts for today. The very first one is there is a bill on more recess. On the outset that sounds really good. Um I love the concept but I will also tell you that

039I I link this back to what I shared about act 20. The concept is um but we haven't thought through everything. For example, um one of the things in this bill says that we cannot change the length of the school day and that recess has to happen inside the school day 60 minutes. It does not say if we can include physical education class. Um it simply talks about recess. It also goes through sixth grade which for us is middle school. For some other districts it may or may not be elementary school. And so there's uh some problematic areas in the bill itself. Um one of the legislators that discussed this talked about the research that is in the anxious generation and if that's a book that you're interested in reading, I do have a copy

040of that and I'm I'm happy to share it so long as I get it back. Um but the research there talks about unstructured play that could happen before or after the school day, not necessarily during the school day. Um, and what I would share and what I did share with legislators was if you are going to add in a requirement that we have 60 minutes of recess every day, what are you taking off of the list in terms of the requirements that you've already set up for us? Because we cannot uh change the parameters of the school day and make all of that work. So again, I love the concept, but we need to think that through more thoroughly. Um, another bill that came out is about pronoun usage and just how that um changes

041for students and communication with families. I would tell you right now, I'm very comfortable with the policy that we have in place. I don't see any issues with what we're doing and what this bill um would introduce. So again, I think um much like the cell phone bill that was introduced last year, I don't think that we'll see a major change um in our district because we do a good job communicating families um and making sure that we're being supportive of the child. And then the last one is actually about grooming. And so I I know that this is something that um is a concern, especially if you've read the news, you've heard uh Dr. Underly speak on this. This has not been an issue in our district. And so um oftentimes bills are proposed

042because there is an issue somewhere. And I can tell you confidently we have not had any issues here. And so uh if something like that were to move forward, we would um certainly apply it and I follow law, but it right now won't impact us. And then the last bill um that was put out that I wanted to discuss that I haven't discussed previously is that the assembly passed um a meal um proposal for their bills that talked about the the food colors and um just different options to make things more healthy. And so we've actually talked about it briefly in the past, but when we talked about it previously that nothing had been passed yet. It was just all conjecture at that point in time. So, we'll see if any of those come to

043fruition later on, but I wanted to share those with you today. >> Fuition. >> No pun intended. >> Well played. [laughter] Touche. >> Thank you. Any questions for Dr. Vivos about anything? >> Our discussion item tonight, we have an administrative report from food service. So, Miss Flitter is going to provide a brief overview for us on how things are going in food service, which for those of us who haven't had dinner, we just have to >> bear down [laughter] my cookies. >> We'll try not to talk too much about the menu. >> Sure. >> Very chilly. I'm so sorry. >> Like, >> huh? >> It's like blood. >> I know. Just try not that helps. Hi everybody. Um so right before winter break we were notified that we won an equipment grant that we'd applied

044for last school year. It took a little while to get through but um we're really excited about that. So we're working with Belter to purchase a new steamer unit um that's going to be going in our Central Middle School kitchen and then we're going to be moving that unit up to Roxman to replace the one that is broken there. Um, as of the first week of January, we are officially occupying all of the spaces of our Lincoln kitchen. So, we're really excited about that and having all of our inventory in one place. It's been really wonderful for my staff, not having to go to different rooms to get everything. So, they're really enjoying that. And then, uh, lastly, we're scheduled for an administrative review on February 3rd and 4th. So, DPI will be on site

045here at the district office and then also at the Lincoln Kitchen. Um, they'll be reviewing all of our operations, including prepping and serving food, as well as meal pattern compliance, and then all the backend compliance and finance pieces, too. So, Adam and Corey and I have been busy putting everything together for our viewers, and we're excited to show off our program. >> Oh, one thing I learned at the conference, sometimes those vendor fairs are useless, you could say, but um realized we're in good hands right now. where we were at. So, thank you for a job well done. Hopefully, we don't overwork you because we need you. >> I'm happy you're all into Lincoln. That must feel awesome. >> Yeah, it does. It does. Yeah, it's been a long time coming, but it's it's really

046nice to be in. >> That's great. >> Yeah, everybody's enjoying it. >> You're going to pull any questions from the splitter? >> Do we any new menu items this year that I should so I can plan my day. I know I'm hungry, so I'm talking about this. Not coming up, but a really popular one is the uh cheesy garlic bread. The kids at Central love that one. There's one girl that asks us for it every single time she comes to their um but yeah, that's that's a popular one right now. But otherwise, it's just kind of um status quo right now, especially with the reviewers coming. I wanted to keep the menus really simple so that we just have less to less time to look at everything. >> I have two boys that go through

047that line every day at Central and I used to hear complaints. I haven't heard complaints this year or even I don't even last year. >> Good. I seen them every day. >> Okay, good. Yeah, hopefully. >> They always have full plates. >> You have my permission to correct me if needed. >> Should be good. >> They should be well. the opportunity we have there partly because of space and partly because of student age is um we have a few more things that they can choose from. So again there's usually a cold option and then there's anywhere from three to four hot things that again either through using up inventory um or um just being able to offer a couple more things for them so that they participate. Um, but yeah, but the the with the

048fresh fruit and vegetable bar, I'll [clears throat] say it again, if if you leave Central Middle School's um lunch line hungry, you must not be doing something right because there's plenty of food there for students to eat. So, >> we did just have pomegranate seeds on the salad bar that was pretty popular. >> It's a hot thing right now. My kids all got one for Christmas. >> And I appreciate that. never said that there's not the selected food but that you run out and I know that has been an issue past. So I appreciate that we're balancing obviously the options but also we fiscally responsible Absolutely. >> Thank you. >> Thanks sir. >> Our next discussion item is a school improvement plan report from Lincoln and Rothman. So I'm going to turn it over to

049Mr. Hanland and Dr. Buouie. and they shared the slideshow uh with us. So, I'm going to watch my screen, but I'm not ignoring it. It's on my >> We're hoping we're hoping that the clicker works so we don't have to stand in front of everybody tonight. Ryan's assured us that it will. So, we're we feel good. Um thank you. It's it's exciting to be back up here uh with some different information as we uh were I think few months feels like just a couple of months ago. Um I wanted to put the new logo on the front because we're the new logo but the the new part of our um building on the front because we're just super happy with how that came out. So again um before I get started a big thank you

050to the board for supporting the referendum effort uh in all of our buildings but especially for us. Uh we feel like everything's now done. we're in and everything's settled. It's been a long a long time coming, but thank you to everybody who's been part of that. So, um, just like Dr. Augustus had in her presentation not so long ago, just some key pieces. We know the key the KPIs that are up here. So, again, it's more just an information slide for you uh, in terms of what we're looking at. And in terms of this picture as well, I know Dr. Regatsu talked about their theme at central. I'm going to provide you with some context here. Um Mr. Majaras has taught me well about football and how certain things are very important like the Heisman

051Trophy and things like that. If you are a runner, especially in an ultra runner, um this yellow gate is one of the most famous things in our um lexicon. I suppose this uh this is in Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. And this is the Barkley Marathons. And the reason this is important um is that back in 2024, these were the five finishes of that race, which might not sound like a lot, but this race has a 30 40 year history, about 1,800 competitors, about 70 every year, and there've only been 22 people who finished. And two of those people are multiple finishers. One of my heroes is up there in the gray. That's Jared Campbell. Um but the important part about 2024 is that it was the first female finisher ever. Uh Jasmine Paris

052is on the left there and then you can see her sort of next to uh John Kelly up in the second picture there. And the reason this is important is that at the start of the school year we talked a lot about the power of moments by Chip and Dan Heath and we talked about um our welcome back event and we talked about that scavenger hunt that we had at the start. But this is an event where you run five laps about 100 miles um plus and you have 48 hours to do it which is why it's such a difficult event. However, Jasmine Paris um made it by 99 seconds and so we took that and we talk about in our building and certainly at the start of the year what can you do to

053change relationships in 99 seconds. So, a lot of our conversations this year have been spending 99 seconds with people that you don't normally talk to, whether that's kitchen staff, bus drivers, people in different areas of our building um or across the district who you really don't get to see often. Making an effort to spend 99 seconds with them, but more importantly, how do you create relationships with students um where we talk about 99 seconds anything except school. So, we're really important pieces there about how do you actually build relationships and trust with kids in our building um where it's nothing to do with school. So, it's nothing to do with the subject matter. It's nothing to do with grades. It's really trying to get to know students as people and not numbers. And so, we've

054really pushed that Jasmine Paris message this year about 99 seconds. Um there is a YouTube um video which I will plug because it's amazing. It's about 40 minutes long. It's called The Finisher. Um, and I would encourage you uh to certainly look at that if you can. If you have children who are athletes, whether they're male or female, it doesn't matter. It's an amazing uh little clip. So, it's called The Finisher and it is on YouTube. The two of us are up there and we do strongly believe in what we're doing with investing in people. The rapid cycle feedback for both of us year this year has been um I guess an interesting adjustment compared to what we've done in the past, but it does and has enabled us to really start building relationships with

055our staff members because we're seeing them more often. And not only that, but we're having more conversations with them throughout the year. Um it is a lot, but we're getting a lot out of it as well. So for me, those opportunities for conversation are key. Visibility. And when I talk about all members of our team, I'm really proud of the fact that we get down to the cafeteria. We see our kitchen workers all the time. We talk to people throughout the building, our our custodians because we truly believe that investment is not always financial. It's about building relationships and the capabilities within our building and then also how does that look outside in when we work with Rossman, when we work with Central and even with the high school as well. We have invested with

056our staff at the welcome back in terms of getting to know each other. Those 99 second pieces, the act 20 trainings that we've done throughout the year um the exam that we've taken and our staff are soon to take. Mrs. Molter is smiling because we those of us who have taken that exam know exactly what it entails and the hard work that our staff are going to have to put in for those exams. But we're really really proud of what that looks like. um from those early seeds at the early literacy academy a few years ago to where we are now with our staff and their excellence in the act 20 material has been wonderful to see the Gallup questions as well. We saw our um our feedback on that again relationships and really investing

057in people is part of that that we're looking to improve on. We feel like we're in a good spot but that we can always do better. Um the picture on the bottom right in blue is just those places that we went to around town for our welcome back. So all of those places were really really u welcoming to our staff. You know we had a lot of people downtown and we were really proud of the fact that our community stepped up to help us develop community relationships as well in terms of what we're doing with our students. Uh Dr. Regatsker actually touched on this in her presentation. the the uh picture at the top right um is one of our new spreadsheets that uh Sarah Wolf and Jade Walmer, our psych and our counselor have

058really worked hard on sort of revamping and redeveloping so that our meetings that we have in terms of student data and those types of events are really focused on the kids that need it and we're not spending a lot of attention on students who are traveling really well. And sometimes we get mired down in talking about um how great kids are doing, which is brilliant, but when you have a short time window, we really want to focus on the students that need uh tiered support and what we're doing to help those kids. So Sarah and Jade have been incredible in uh developing that. Sarah brought it over from another district. We've tweaked it. We've revamped it. Allison Stark, our coach, has been a key component in helping that get off the ground. Um, and we're

059working with um our our friends over at uh NextPath as well in terms of how we could coordinate and integrate some of that data. Jade Wallner has also worked really hard on refocusing our student groups that she's holding. I think in the past we've just done so many groups that we've kind of lost track. But Jade's done a really great job in looking at the wellness survey, which is direct data from our kids, not just what we think, um, but what kids think and what kids think that they need. And then we've developed our groups accordingly. And we found a lot of benefit in that particular statement, um, than just trying to help everybody with our adult brains and what we think kids need as opposed to having them actually tell us what they're looking

060for and what they need help with. continuing work with Ames Webb, Forward, Next Path, all of those particular things. Officer Miller has been a really uh stall stole it performer within our weekly behavior meetings uh which are now in our beautiful new conference room. So, keep plugging the uh the piece there. Um but he's been really great in terms of helping us with some CPS pieces that we've had, also with attendance. Um and Mrs. East has been part of those meetings as well. We do feel like in terms of attendance, some of our pieces are more exttrinsic rather than intrinsic in terms of getting kids to school. We're getting them things rather than having it be part of what they want and need to do. It's a hard shift between exttrinsic and intrinsic motivation, but

061we feel like we're on the right track. Um, not there yet, but Joe, um, Nava and Jade Sarah are doing a great job. and Joe I know is also working with the other APS in the two buildings to sort of come up with some components to how we can improve that across the board. We have um mapped our probably top 10 to 15 truent students um and we've actually given that to Dr. V Lobos and it is quite interesting to look where those students are geographically in Hartford. Um they are all within about two blocks of each other um off of Monroe. So either on on East Monroe or within a block or two of that particular area, which is pretty interesting when we look at the geographical footprint that we have in the building.

062So we'll continue to see what we can do with those particular students, but we feel like we're on track. Uh we've done a lot of work and thank you to Dr. Regatska and Dr. buoy in terms of putting up with me and my push for moving towards a more structured and unified component when we're dealing with um standard reunification methods across all of our buildings. We're excited for what that looks like. Um and also looking at whether we can move our crisis plan as a district into something that's a little more streamlined, which is the protocol that's up there. Um the two po two pictures at the bottom, the one on the left is from Freeze Lake. they use what uh we're looking at in the SRP. It's just a different protocol to simplify what

063we're doing. I think sometimes we get um we over complicate things and we're looking at how can we make that a little bit easier to understand. Uh both of our chiefs have been incredible in the police office uh police department and the fire department for being part of our drills, giving us suggestions and working through what that looks like in our building to so we are always looking to improve. We invite them to our drills and we off uh we do ask for specific feedback from them in terms of what they're seeing and what we can do better. Uh I think we're in a good place again for what they look like, but we're always looking to improve. Um Dr. Lobos has asked us to provide more detail in our appendix 20 reports as we

064provide them after our drills or events and I think that that's been an important part of really um I guess providing more meat on the skeleton of what that looks like for um people outside of the building. Uh we get sort of trapped in I think using our own particular language sometimes but making that so it's more available to Dr. V Lobos and Adam and Doug has been really great as well. Uh I'm not going to talk about the fire strobes and sirens because it's a trigger for Adam and myself. It was a long process. Uh but we're thrilled that we've got it in place. Our new um system that we have uh at Lincoln and I'm not sure if it happens in your building so I won't talk for you, but it does have

065verbal commands through some of the new fire alarms that have got installed. So, we have had to make sure that our um staff and particular particularly a lot of our special education students are aware that the system now talks to them um which is something that we didn't want to just happen and have um some issues with that. So, we've had a lot of conversations about what that looks like. And again, ongoing response to drills, how can we change them? Have we blocked doorways so that we really enforce that and needing to know secondary exits in our building? And um as we've now got everything in place, renumbering doors so that we're back to understanding where our close exits are and what those door numbers look like because we have a couple of additions. So

066it's not uh as it has been for the past sort of 15 years. Um before I start and finish on this particular slide, the bottom right hand corner, I'm really really happy about this picture at our welcome back at the start of the year when we did our um work with Dan and Chip Heath and that power of moments and we were downtown um at the furniture is it furniture trader? I think >> furnisher furnish trader. Thank you. Um Amy Schmidt found this penant and her dad had designed that penant for the high school and they had never they haven't seen it for about 35 years. So, she found it in that shop, bought it, and uh it was a really touching moment. Um the two at the top, we don't need to worry about

067those two. Um but we're really really proud of our position in the community. We feel at Lincoln that we're a real community school. Um our relationships with our community members has been amazing over the years and only continues to get stronger. So, we're really really proud of that fact. We're proud to host the multicultural fair every year. Um, and we're looking forward to doing that again. Local agencies are still using our building. Um, and we're really proud again of our relationship with Central Middle School and also with the high school and the reciprocal arrangements that we have with each other. Um, but our biggest piece is about being present in the community and making sure that our families really feel part of what we do. So, we handle all of that over to the AP

068and to our counselor and our psych, but it's it's been a real pleasure helping be part of those conversations with the community and what we're doing. So, we're we're really happy with where we're at right now. Next steps for me looking postgallop survey um looking at our feedback form that we had in place last year tweaking that a little bit so that it matches what we're seeing in Gallup and then how can I really um direct my attention to those things so I'm focused on the right things for our staff collecting the information we get from data meetings and that use of that new form uh which I'm really excited about so we get key information on time rather than having to sift through and data mine And then again continuing with our rapid cycle

069feedback and all of those components. Stop the bleed possibly. It's just a part of our training for safety. We'll see what happens with that. They haven't been super cooperative with us in terms of getting times together, but I know that the fire department have offered their help in that as well. And then for the building, we're talking about our strive for 95. So 95% of our kids being there on a timely present. Um, that's something that Joe has been really, really pressing with our students with some of our trophies and extrinsic rewards. Um, and again, really pushing those key components with Jade's groups. They will restructure again within the next three weeks. Um, I think the relationship group is coming up at the uh, probably the second week of February as she tries to revamp

070some of those. And again, our piece for the whole year is again investing in that 99 second message. We've done it before with asking people to invest three minutes, but this feels kind of a better message to get that 99 seconds across. And if Jasmine Paris can finish a 100 mile race with 99 seconds to spare, we can we can give 99 seconds up to ask how somebody's weekend was. And with that, I will hand it over to my esteemed colleague, Dr. B. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hannon. Um we at Rossman uh this year our model is resilience. Last year if you might remember was um empathy. Um so we're staying strong through every turn. Um as you see through the slides, similar to Mr. Handler, we're going to go through each of the

071goals. Uh invest in people, recruit, retain, and develop excellent staff. Um develop well-rounded future ready students, prioritize safety and operational excellence. And then obviously on the last slide strengthening home school community partnerships through communications and engagement. So when we look at how we invest in people through retain and develop excellent staff uh like I said before last year was empathy. So I think we went through a lot of new initiatives and training. Um some of the things you might see on the board there as webs Cox campus and next path. We also as a leadership team went to a retreat in um Port Washington with Ted Knitsky and we looked we developed um teeter totter partners for squares and playgrounds. So in a lot of last year's situations we were more supporting one another in

072that process. This year we're more collaborating with one another and utilizing applying the things that we learned last year from the strategies at Cox campus and how to navigate Ames web and assessment and interpret that and look at patterns or themes that emerge in next path. Um so that this year we felt like utilizing those things in us and having those conversations around how we use the technology and how we use the strategies of working with each other um is really developing us as uh professionally and then preparing us for things that we're doing throughout the year. We also took time this year Mr. Hanland and I and um the rest of the administrative team spent some time on professional learning comm community communities. Um me being a former business teacher I always know of

073the the idea of norming which is like forming the team storming norming and performing a journey. So um those are big things that we talk about at the school. So we've always had teams that had their own norms. So this year we developed we took those norms and then we created norms that are district-wide or schoolwide I'll say when we work across teams. So based on our Gallup data we really work well with each other and we really like our teams but sometimes we can storm a little bit when we have to work across teams and so so we thought it was a good idea to develop those norms schoolwide and then apply those in our meetings. uh the the picture image on the left hand side are our our norms. So with that said,

074we want to maintain high expectations to hold all students and staff and stakeholders to high standards of learning and behavior. We foster open communication encouraging honest and respectful and student centered dialogue. We practice collaboration, work together across teams, including special education, our pair professionals, and our reading teachers all at looking at supporting student success. We embrace the growth mindset approaching challenges to opportunities of learning and continuous improvement. And we also like to demonstrate respect and accountability. We value each other's opinions and hold one another accountable with professionalism. Uh we are flexible and consistent. We like to adapt to the to meet the needs of our teams as well as the needs of our students and our parents. We create a positive culture by using humor, joy, and encouragement to support support a welcoming, fun, and

075engaging workplace. Uh we also encourage vulnerability and trust building trust through honesty support and openness is sharing ideas and challenges. So those are things that we worked on this year as a team um as a consensus. Uh we also know that we should take a minute to recognize some of the things that we've done this year. Um so this is from beginning of year. Um they staff took a picture of me serving them at the welcome back. So that's probably the nicest waiter they've ever had. Um, with that said, we also though we only grew two points, we took time that to celebrate those from things last year because sometimes we're already pushing through the current year and then trying to meet those goals, but we never really have time to stop and celebrate last

076year. So that was a big push this year and we're trying to take a little more time and and celebrating those moments and then um learning from those um like Mr. Hanland covered developing well-rounded future ready students uh we're doing a wellness survey this year um that's taken three times a year beginning, middle, and end of year. Um we're seeing we're starting to collect that midyear data now and we're seeing some improvement there. Uh basically it's an inventory of students not only from students take the assessment but also the teachers take it as well on their students and then how do we help the the most needy students and then help them improve and then we take it again mid year and end of the year. Um we're also taking a deeper dive in attendance

077like Mr. Hanland and the Lincoln staff and celebrating those things and recognizing how many students attend not only from a classroom level but also across the entire school. We're also spending a little more time on discipline uh things that we've talked about last year. Uh looking a little deeper as far as how students behave in those nonstructured times outside of the classroom, recess, lunchroom, and so on a regular basis. Uh Mrs. Aaf or Mr. Sun in the lunchroom. We'll give little ratings on how they do in on cleaning the tables, sitting having lunch, um focus on what they're on their task in front of them versus getting up, walking around. Um so those are being celebrated on a regular basis each week on the announcement also with um recognition in the classroom. Um uh safety

078and operations uh the picture on the far right obviously is uh Mr. Hanlin, Mr. Miller and I with doing the Alice presentation with staff. Uh this year we hosted the both elementaryaries and district office. Um due to the construction at Lincoln, Mr. Mr. Hanland did the lion share of the conversation. Uh so thank you Mr. Hanland for that. Um also a lot of our building pro projects this year dealt with safety and accessibility. Um it's a picture of Mrs. Crude and Mrs. Mooney obviously in the glass window that was being put in place. It looks like it's there, but it's not really there in that picture, but it's definitely something that is in place now. And we appreciate uh everyone for the entire referendum and putting the focus and energy and making all three buildings

079better. Um and obviously the w the the ribbon cutting for that event. So thank you for that. Um we also continue to work with Mr. Carol on our building projects which you've seen come through and then also Mrs. Mr. Rashug [snorts] on our technology. So, it's an ongoing uh conversation we have every year which you're familiar with and as we do over our building walkthroughs as Miss Majeras said um we also work with him as maintaining a sustainable budget for the schools each year. Um lastly, strengthening homeschool community partnerships through communications and engagement. I feel at Rossman we're like really busy the first half of the year get a little break and then we start up again. Um so obviously uh we've done the readathon um and celebrated those things. This year we exceeded the

080minutes in reading and we also exceeded the minutes in fundraising. Um we also had our annual walk to school to and from school which is led by Mrs. Raleley and we also work with HUS and uh the student group there to help us with escorting the students to and from school. Um we hosted the family night this year which was a huge success I feel. Um probably the biggest turnout that we've had on a family night and especially combined and the food trucks definitely help feeding feeding the staff as well. Um we always have strong partnerships with our PTO. So that's just an example of field day and also like grandparents day. So we take try to take every opportunity to invite people into the school uh in the community. And I know um in

081Hartford we have a very a large retirement community and being involved with them on a regular basis is always um always had a lot of pride as far as when the grandparents left and then u all the conversations they have when they're there. Um it also boosts things for us like a lot of grandparents this year purchased um thanks to Dr. V Lobo she suggested at a PTO meeting for a front row raffle and we had numerous grandparents um purchase front row raffle tickets there. um in addition to um scholastic books when they have the book fair. So there's a lot of uh things there that where grandparents help support the kids in the school. And lastly, working with Hartford High School always on a parade and this is Mr. Majair in the van. Uh

082he made sure that we knew he was coming and make sure the kids were ready for him. So it's a little hard to see him, but he's the guy with the white shirt and arm in the window. So, um, with Oh, you just showed up. Yeah. With that said, Mr. Hamlin just showed up right here. So, thank you for your time. The team is excited to come back and give you more detail of actual things that went on throughout the year in end Mayish. Um, so with that said, do you have any questions for us, >> Louise? um as you had both mentions about um try and just um assesses and um I found that fascinating that McGro obviously is not that far. Um do we have any do we have thoughts on what the

083issue is or how we can help to continue to encourage those students? Um is it a busing thing? Is it just a time management thing? I was just curious if you knew some of that. >> Yeah. So, um I think the important thing to mention is our overall attendance is up. So, our truency or absence is down. Um we do still have families that we have had historical um situations with. Um we're just still maintaining that. Uh unfortunately for us when we've reached out it tends to be they don't want to go through the traffic. Uh it's as simple as that. they don't want to get caught in the traffic on South Rural. Um, but we have we have talked about some of those components. Um, Joe is continuing to look at some of those

084pieces. We were he and I were even talking today about again city bus was a big issue when that disappeared. So, um, we don't think it's coming back. Um, certainly not anytime soon. So, anything we do need to work on is going to be internal. Um, and so we have some ideas. As I said, the things that we've put in place so far this year, general attendance has in increased. Um, so we still have just a handful of those families that are holding out, I suppose. Um, they feel like it's just easier to be able to drive straight up South Rural when there's nobody there, drop students off and leave. Um, one of the things that actually Dr. Bobos has seen that we did at the start of this year, and I'm not sure if

085Dr. Buouie has done that as well, but we've broken down the data into a visual. So, we've actually showed parents, you know, so far your student has missed X number of days. Here's part of a pigraph what that looks like. If this continues for the year, this is how much education they're going to lose in terms of minutes for reading and math. And then if this um is transposed over the course of the next couple of years, here's how far back your student is going to be when we look at the breakdown of minutes. Um, and we've had parents have a reaction to that, like a visceral reaction to that, breaking down and crying. Um, the next step is to actually impact what they're doing. Um, but it is the next step. So, I think

086that just taking it away from you need to get here on time because it's not good. Your kids's missing reading to actually breaking it down to your child has missed arbitrary number, you know, three 376 minutes of reading instruction so far this year. Um hopefully that's going to impact a little more than just the generic kind of general comments that we have. >> Yes, Mr. Hamlin, I don't know how long you've been at Lincoln, but all three of my boys went through Lincoln. And uh so far I have one doctor, one engineer, and one assistant pro golfer at the Washington County Park. So >> that's fantastic. I'll tell Jake because I think he was there when I >> you were there. But I appreciate it. >> Do they also have central as a common factor?

087>> Yes. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Thank you very much. Is there anything else we can answer for you? >> So, I would imagine the 99 seconds is easier for people to accomplish in the three minutes. And by the time they get 99 seconds in, they're probably at 3 minutes by the end of the conversation. So, that's good. It's good. >> Yeah. >> Um I lost my other thought, but uh it's okay. I think it's a great presentation. Great job, both of you. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, we are moving on to our action items for the evening. Thank you both, >> Dr. Buoie and Mr. Hamlin for your presentations. It's always good to hear what's going on at schools. Um item number one was the donation we already took care of that.

088So we're moving on to item number two which is the academic calendar for the 202627 school year. This is the proposed district calendar for the 2627 academic year and matches the extended break dates for the high school. It is the same one we looked at last month. Is there a motion? >> I move to approve the 20 26 27 district academic calendar. >> I second. All in favor or is there any discussion or questions? I would just add that Miss E, Miss Malter, and myself went to um the three different buildings to talk about the calendar in addition to talking to the HA. So, no concerns. >> No. No. Excellent. >> I appreciate you really try to coordinate again with the high school. I know that's always a challenge, but I appreciate how much we

089try to align um with the other districts um near us. So, thank you for that. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Any opposed? Motion carries. Item number three is the summer academy course book and budget for 2026. Each year, the district offers an opportunity for students to continue learning over the summer. There are courses intended to help students continue grade level learning in preparation for next year along with courses for those students wishing to dive deeper into grade level learning. Summer Academy includes a fiveweek summer school session and a two-day middle school connection session. Is there a motion? >> I motion to approve the 2026 summer academy course book and function. >> I second. >> Any questions or discussion? >> I just wanted to bring up um I know it says it on here.

090a fiveweek summer school session that's instead of the six week summer school session that we've had in the past. Um, one that should help with staffing, but two, it should also help and assist with maintenance uh that occurs in cleaning that occurs over the summer. The other thing that I wanted to make sure that I voice in front of everyone is that um, Ms. Malter, Ms. uh, Dr. Regatza and Mr. Stevens have discussed either together or cares about this uh course offerings, the course offerings that are there. As a reminder, there is a component with app 20 that must be included and Miss Malter is enrolled in the session that will come out in April. And so we want to make sure this is approved by you so that way we can begin working on

091preparing for summer school versus waiting until April. So, while they have information in here that does meet what we feel the requirement will be, there's always potential that we receive more information later this spring and we need to come back and modify something having to do with act 20, but we feel good about where we're at right now. So, I just wanted to make sure that you're all aware of that. My only question was because it's a week shorter, did he increase number of minutes per day or are we >> No. Okay. Just curious. All right. Uh, roll call vote, please. >> Louise, >> I. >> Aaron, >> hi. >> Ian, >> I. >> And I'll vote. Motion carries. Item number four is the English language arts curriculum pilots for grades K5 and six through

092eight as expectations for liter literacy instruction continue to evolve. The district seeks to ensure that its K through8 ELA curriculum aligns with state standards, reflects the science of reason, science of reading research, good lord, build strong foundation skills while supporting comprehension and writing, and provides equitable access to grade level content for all learners. A structured pilot will provide meaningful data to inform our future curriculum adoption. >> Motion, >> is there a motion? >> Motion to approve the English language arts pilots for grades K through five and six through eight. >> Okay. Any discussion? >> Yeah, my comment here is Miss Malter has been working this fall and winter with committees um for each of these pilots. You'll hear about science next. And so they have used not only our curriculum review cycle, but also the

093rubrics that correspond and are cited within the curriculum review cycle to determine what our current needs are, what our current curriculum offers or doesn't offer, and where there are gaps. She's also had the community uh the committee look at uh the research to determine what best supports um each of the content areas. And then in addition to the committee work that's been done uh up until earlier this afternoon, we actually had the ELA materials on display so that way anyone um in the district who is working here and may be impacted by a pilot or a future adoption could take a look. and that was very very busy last week during our inservice day. So they had opportunities to view curriculum at both elementaryaries and then over here and then the uh curriculum that will

094impact the middle school has been left at the middle school so that way they have access to it as well. So um by by sharing that information with you now I won't need to share it later. So there's been a lot of pre-work that's been done. The other thing that I would say is that um in coinciding with our community fair in March, Miss Moltar plans to have out information about the pilots so that way families in attendance can take a look at the materials as well. So, um we have a lot of of ways to get different stakeholder input. >> Roll call. >> I'm sorry. Have we done that before in the past with >> I don't believe that we have. >> I was just going to We have we have done >> the

095uh material. >> Yes. >> Um we had it at open not open house but the conference fair at the community but the conference is also I was able to see >> community. Okay. I know I saw >> any like super right word like um input or is there like is there was there a lot of input a little bit of input no input >> from parents? >> Yeah. from just feedback that we're looking for like >> we're we're trying to engage the community on it the community on it where engagement do we get >> well community members haven't had access yet >> yeah not to this but I'm saying to the last one we did the biggest one >> that's what I >> okay so like we do the same thing >> I not having

096been here um I don't I can't speak to that but I can say that we've given um community members and families opportunities. Miss Connealy, I'm thinking directly as we were going through um different audit processes, sat out at family conferences at the different buildings. She had a booth out here at our board meetings and we have some people who were interested and then a lot of people who were not interested. So, I think it's it's about having the opportunity to interact with the materials and to ask questions if there are any um but not necessarily putting all of our eggs in that basket. >> Yeah, I mean I think community involvement is critical for this. I've seen a committee work in the past as controversial as it is amongst some you know community members, but

097I'm not saying we need it for this. I just I feel like community involvement if we're striving to get that from what you just said. I can't list everything you just listed, but um if we're not getting great community involvement in the ways we're doing it, I don't know. Let's just keep it on the table for discussion. Something new way new ways to do it. So, >> and I guess I would remind the board that you employ experts in their field to make these decisions and make these recommendations to you. And so, um, in previous districts as well as here, I would certainly encourage that we give people an opportunity to look at things but not necessarily make the decision. That is, um, our recommendation. >> That's not what I was saying either. But I

098I agree with you 100%. We have experts on it. We should trust them. But when we get the board members have also received feedback on a on things that have been a broad brush approval and that's the only and that we're responsible for that on a broad brush approval. I'm not saying that this is that. >> Yeah. >> My point is that you were mentioning community engagement. You listed ways to get it. If we don't get the community engagement, let's just keep it open dialogue or open concept mind mindset of how can we increase our enga community engagement to at least see and read this material, go through it. So they have uh >> the opportunity. >> Yeah, they have they're they have a hand say it too or not say it but they're what's

099the right word? I don't know. I'm lost words but a chance to look at it and to review it and to voice any concerns or offer feedback if they have it. >> Yeah. Um, where did you say this is going to be displayed for parents to look at? >> Sure. Community fair, which is March 16th. >> And then Middle School, >> will we announce on the handout beforehand or somehow prior to the community fair will let parents know that they can review it at that time? >> Yes, that'll go on a flyer like that. >> Yeah, I think um Ian, I agree with your point that it's important for people to have the opportunity. Unfortunately, as board members or administration, we can create the opportunity and we can't force anyone to we can put the

100riddle in front of them, but we can't make them drink. But I think um it's great for us as board members to be able to say, "Hey, there is this opportunity to go look at it and to pick it up and read through it and look at it." So, I think that's excellent. I also would just emphasize that what we're approving here is just the pilot for it. So the good news is that means we get teacher teachers using it throughout the buildings throughout the district and then we're going to have feedback back from them then in the next couple of months where they're going to say hey we really love it or hey to to your point Ian like we don't want anyone going well we'll accept it and then we're unhappy with it.

101So if we don't love it we don't have to implement it. >> Correct. Miss Melter and I have spoken about that as well that if we get to the end of the pilot and we get to April or May and we don't feel good about making a recommendation to you in terms of adopting something permanently for the future that we would go back and figure out does that mean we need to pilot more and is more of the same? Is it more of something different? Are we going back to the drawing board entirely? Um but uh Miss Malter and I have had those conversations. Good conversation. All right. Uh would like a roll call vote, please. Aaron >> I. >> Louise. >> I. Ian. >> I. >> And I'll vote. Motion carries. Item number five

102is similar. That's for the science curriculum pilot for grades six through eight only. The current science curriculum resource, which is Amplify, is up for renewal and a pilot will allow the district to evaluate instructional impact, student engagement, teacher usability, and alignment with district goals prior to any adoption decision. >> Motion, sorry. Motion to approve science curriculum pilot for grades six through eight. >> I'll second any other questions, conversation. I will say one thing that came up in my discussion with Dr. earlier was that both of these curriculums are not as technologyheavy or maybe are pulled away a little bit which as a parent I do feel like there's so many screens that kids have to be on and be looking at all the time that that made my little parent heart happy that it's a

103step away from technology. So, >> um >> I'm excited to see what happens with these pilots. So, >> okay, if there's nothing else, we'll do another roll call vote, please. Louise, >> Ian, >> I I >> and I'll vote I >> motion carries. Item number six is our nursing services and medical advisor contract. This was an annual designation of the schools school district's medical advisor agreement with Pro Health Medical Group. Board policy 5310.01 emergency nursing services plan requires that the district's medical adviser be designated annually. Is there a motion? on a motion to approve a contract for nursing services and medical advisor from Pearl Health Medical Group Incorporated. >> A second. >> Any questions? This is a standard annual thing. >> Roll call vote, please. >> Louise, >> I Aaron >> Ian >> I. >>

104And I'll vote I. >> Motion carries. Item number seven is a financial statement audit report for 2024 25 fiscal year. Vesta CPA firm was contracted to perform an audit of the financial statements for fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025. The firm issued an unqualified opinion that the financial statements present fairly the respective financial position of the governmental activities, each major fund and the aggregate remaining fund information of the school district 1 as of 6:3025. There were multiple documents within our packet to peruse and read. Is there a motion? Motion to approve the June 30th, 2025 financial statement audit report from Besta. >> I'll second. >> Any discussion questions for Mr. Maja? So probably >> um do you want to give me a minute word count? >> I will. >> I think >> certainly uh the

105statement that Miss Wilk read about presenting fairly that's the key phrase as we've talked about pre in previous years. um their entire work is to be able to provide that phrase to you. Um an unqualified opinion is what we strive for and that the district has received. Uh so again, they haven't found anything materially that impacts um internal controls or just the general presentation of our financial um information. So after they complete their work, they have to provide the audit to DPI. uh we in turn then uh provide it out to the world via um the municipal securities review board since we have bonds out there and investors that want to see our information too. So we provide that information uh to an agency to get that out there and that's done also. Um, and

106so we would consider 2025 wrapped up at this point. And now we're into 2026 and doing the work for this school year. >> For those at home, it means that we do a really good job of keeping transparent all of our numbers and finances. And it's great. >> Uh, roll call vote, please. >> Ian, >> I. [snorts] >> Aaron, >> I. >> Louise, >> I. >> And I'll vote I. Motion carries. Item number eight. Designation of open enrollment spaces for the 202627 school year. The regular open enrollment application period is February 2nd through April 30th of 2026. Under Wisconsin law, Wisconsin statute 118.515A1. School boards must designate the number of open enrollment regular education and special education spaces available for the next school year. Based on current case load numbers which include currently open enrolled

107student and projected growth, there are no special education seats available for open enrollment applicants in the 2627 school year. In summary, the recommendations are number one, there is not a need to limit regular education open enrollment spaces. Number two, there are no special education spaces available at each grade level, early childhood through 8th grade for open enrollment. And number three, the board may guarantee approval of applications of currently attending students. The recommendation is to guarantee this approval as they are included in the enrollment projections. Is there a motion? >> Mo motion to approve the designation of open enrollment spaces for the 26 2026 27 school year as follows. No limit of regular education spaces, no special education spaces available in grades uh early childhood through 8 and guaranteed applicant approval for currently attending students. Okay.

108>> Um, I would just say that Miss Een has used the formulas that we have used in the past to calculate our special education spaces and this is an annual approval. So, every January each school board must make this uh action item. One thing I'd say kind of related at the count at the convention there was a lot of talk about open enrollment and voucher program and >> yeah still >> don't understand it all but yeah I think it's >> if you want to talk about the financial impacts of that you can feel free to give me a call whenever you'd like. >> Maybe I have a hard time sleeping. [laughter] Well, thanks. But it's just like one of the comments I made to a friend of mine for the conference. Sorry. I said there's

109a lot of dry content here, but it's veryformational. Like I I'm I'm absorbing it, but you know, there's not a lot of like punchlines available here either, you know. So, anyways, sorry. We can continue with the actual >> You just made the punch line though, so that was good. You livened it up a bit. Okay. Roll call vote, please. >> Louise, >> I. >> Aaron, >> Ian, >> I. >> And I'll vote I. Motion carries. Item number nine is the consent agenda. The consent agenda includes approval of minutes, bills, treasures report, and personnel recommendations. Is there a request to pull an item from the consent agenda? >> Seeing none, can I have a motion? >> A motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Second. >> Roll call vote, please. Ian, >> I. >> Aaron, >>

110I. >> Louise, >> I got motion carries. Item number nine. Um, we need a motion to move into close session. >> I'll make a motion to move into close session. >> I think you need to read the rest that per se. Sorry. >> Oh, sorry. I have to scroll all the way down. >> Wait, which one? >> Purple. >> Yeah. Motion to move into close session for Wisconsin statute 19.851c 851C for the purpose of the approval of the December 15th, 2025 close session minutes district administrator evaluation. >> Second roll call vote, please. >> Oh, sorry. >> No, you're good. Yeah. >> Oh, >> Ian. >> I. >> Aaron, >> I. >> Louise, >> I vote. I >> All right. We are going to move into close session or hopefully it's also Barber. >> All right.

111The board is reconvened into open session. There's no action to be taken right now at this time. Um, item number 11 is board meeting reflection feedback from last month. Please fill out your form tonight, including how very fold it is in this room. >> Done. >> And a motion to adjurnn. >> Motion to adjurnn. >> I will second. >> All in favor? >> Any opposed? Motion carries. We are adjourned at 8:36.