April 29th 2025 - Regular Meeting

001Thank you everyone for being here. Uh the time is now 6:15 p.m. We will call the meeting to order. So at this time I'm calling to order the open session of the April 29th, 2025 meeting of the school district of Hartford joint one board of education. If I could have a roll call of board members in attendance. Here present. here. Here this is a meeting of the board of education in public for the purpose of conducting the district's business and 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 at the signing table and then given it to the board secretary.

002At this time, if I could have everyone please rise so that we can recite the pledge of allegiance together. I pledge algiance 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. At this time, I'd ask us to consider approval of the agenda. The agenda notes the board's mission that they 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. Miss Hoffman has meeting been properly noticed. Thank you. The second reason for approval of

003the agenda is to consider tableabling an item or to rearrange the order of events. Is there a motion to approve the agenda? I make a motion to approve the agenda. I'll second. Thank you. Can I have a vote? It's not a roll call. I I I All right. At this point in time, we do have two board members who are either brand new to the school board or have been recently reelected. And so, while they have already taken the oath of office officially, we would like to reenact that for you today. So, if I could please have Mr. Grand and Miss Shrunk step up here to the front and face the audience and you will be reciting the oath of office. So if you could please raise your right hand and um no we'll have

004you say it together but I'll have you take turns for your name. Okay. So I state your name, Michelle B. and have been elected for appointment, but have not yet entered upon the duties thereof. swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Wisconsin and I will faithfully discharge the duties of set off to the best of my ability. So help me God. Okay. So, in addition to welcoming our board members, we also have some very important people in the audience tonight. And we have two recognitions. So, if I could first please have Miss Kristen Kenia come up to the front. Kristen is this year's support staff member of the year. You can come and stand by me. Yes. I'm gonna give you this because it's

005heavy and I don't want to hold it. All right. So, Kristen has been a health room aid at Lincoln School since 2019. She's also worked as a speech par professional for our school district. So, supporting students in multiple facets and supporting our team members in multiple facets. She's demonstrated true compassion and professionalism in her role. One of the things that we heard throughout the interview process was that she makes sure that every student who comes in feeling sick or not doing well is treated with grace and dignity and that they're respected throughout the process. She also makes sure that they feel comfortable and can take some scary moments and make them fun. For example, when kids lose their teeth, she has created the little treasure box for them to pull out of. So she has

006been listed or noted as a quiet leader whose impact resonates throughout the building. She also did some things that supported the team, not just students. She updated passes, forms, and notes electronically, which show her ability to create a strong team environment. She's displayed dedication not only by organizing all of the donated clothes in Cal, but also often by washing them herself. So thank you because I know there's that home smell right when you do your laundry at home. So that's very nice. She continually goes above and beyond. She also cleaned two care which includes and toothpaste. And so you can see she's actively contributed to the culture that our students experience at school. But she's also done the same thing for our staff members. She's organized the youth bend food activity as well as holiday

007dress up days. both of which have helped to build a sense of community among the team members at Lincoln School. Her efforts make students and staff feel safe, welcome, and valued not only in the health room, but throughout the school. And so, Kristen, we just wanted to thank you and congratulate you on being the support staff member of the year. have you stand in the middle and board members if I could have you come up [Music] come to the front. Once again, so Heather is one of our teachers over at Central Middle School. She specifically teaches reading and supports our students. And Heather, we had wonderful things to say about her. And one of the the neat things for me to learn was when we went through this process, we learned that Heather truly is

008passionate about her content, which we should be as teachers. We should all so passionate about it. But she lights up when her kids light up. And she has done so much to make sure that she brings a love of literacy to her students. She reads a number of books over the summer and year round. So that way she can get to know her students and their interests and then help engage them in reading and literacy, especially if they're someone who may maybe wasn't drawn into literacy prior to that. And so those those were one of the big things. But um when we talked about that, she talked about working with students to improve their reading skills um and making sure that they feel not only supported in literacy, but also as educators, we know that

009student is going to learn, they need to feel cared about. And so that's one of the things that came through in your application is that students in your classroom feel seen, supported, and they form lasting connections with you. and that goes and speaks volumes about you as a teacher. One of her great examples of compassion is the boost box project that she facilitated with her class. Together, students brainstormed ideas to create a way they could boost their mood. They brought in the personal containers and added items to help boost their mood if they were having a tough day. Students were able to choose tiny cards from Heather's collection for inclusion. Examples of those include, "You matter, hope, and you can do it." She shared that the students chose the cards that met their needs, not

010only of their their day, but also of their hearts and their mind. And this is just one of the ways that the kids know that you care about them more than just about their reading ability, but also about them as young adults. Beyond the classroom, she's an active member of the community. She volunteers her time shaping dances, serving on the social committee for the staff, and co-chairs the student engagement committee. One of the things I noticed right away is I stop into the dances. Uh I'm there for maybe a half an hour or so, not as long as the teachers or the administrators, but one thing I noticed right away this year is that the dances look very different than they have in the past. And when we asked about it during this process, it

011was attributed to you. So I knew that they were different, but I did not know why. And so Heather said, "We need to find a way to include all of our kids, not just the kids who want to dance." And so the dances now have board games and activities. We have a Nintendo. We have um bags. Yes. So there's so many different ways to get all of our kids engaged and feeling welcomed and included at those dances. Heather shared that it is watching her students grow as readers that she just absolutely loves and she loves to see when they have a reading moment. I would call that an aha. For all of us who are teachers or who are parents, we know that it's wonderful. There's nothing that tops that aha moment. A moment when

012they have to find out what happens in the book they're reading and sometimes can hardly wait to talk about what happened. She also shared that it is rewarding to witness a student enjoy the book and be proud of their accomplishment. So, Heather, we are very proud to have you as our 2025 teacher of the year. Somebody. All right. The next person I'd like to recognize is Mr. Mark Murphy. If I could have him come up to the front. So you can see some photographs up here. Uh for those of you who are not familiar, Mark Murphy is a current teacher at Harford Union High School and he has been a huge part of the vision house project. But that is not why he is here today. We have Mark with us today because he brought

013his skill set and his passion for students and for learning and just for giving back to the community here at Central Middle School. And so out of tragedy um from a couple of years ago, one of our assistant principles passed away. And um we as a school district, especially a core group of teachers over at Central Middle School, worked very diligently to find a way to honor that individual. And out of that was born the idea for an outdoor classroom. And Mark facilitated the work on building this outdoor space. And so can you go to the next set of pictures so you can see the early set and then now what what was accomplished? And Mark started off by doing this with people. But what he won't tell you, at least I don't think you've

014shared it with anybody, is that Mark finished this by himself. He came in over the summer on his own time to make sure that we had this beautiful outdoor learning space for our students and for our staff to enjoy during the school day, but also just for our community. We have this beautiful outdoor space that people can come and enjoy and they can have a place to sit and just observe nature and be at peace. And so Mark, we wanted to recognize you for your time, your energy, your craftsmanship, and your unwavering commitment to create a that will inspire learning, curiosity, and connections for years to come. I just want to make a point. This one's not on my own. Um I had a fair amount of work in it by myself but I I

015need to I need to recognize people. Yeah, we started we started on a day of service or we had that was kind of our main was the students. But I want to point out that I had former grads that came on a Saturday, Jameson during Billy Foy who came on Saturday to help uh additional students that helped. Um both in school and over the summer Connor Ford, Nate Weber, Gavin Hoffman, um Trent Schmidt was a big help. Um my wife Jessica Murphy who's familiar in the joint one district was there. um my daughter Danielle um probably put the most time aside myself over the summer. Um Rick Romansky was a retired teacher from West Dallas who also subs at the high school and then Andrew Murphy who was the help designed the deck and re

016came in for time too. Um I apologize that it did not end when when it was supposed to. I know we were shooting as hopeing ceremony was going to be done and it obviously hit um the end of the school year. Um it was a lot of work over the summer. Danny really helped me to recognize um kind of in the spirit of of Miss Rose of why we were there and as as hard as it was to spend that much time um it really helped me and my daughter to reconnect. She moved in from Virginia this summer around 4th of July and the time that we were able to spend on the deck is exactly what Andrea would have wanted is that connection and that relationship piece. And I look at all of that

017with the volunteers that I just read off and it's in that spirit that that deck was completed. So it's not just on me. Um but I know that the sun was shining some days really really shining on that dark deck. But but her spirit was definitely there with us. That's was it? Yeah. But teaching staff that put the project together, they got a lot of donations from sidewalk places. The cost of us is very minimal. Even a small final word. Uh it's bittersweet because the person who uh Mr. Canon will be talking about momentarily is not able to be with us this evening. Uh however, it would be a lost moment if we didn't talk about this individual. So I'm going to call up Mr. Handlin to talk about Ed Jacela. And while he's making

018his way up here, I wanted to share that Ed, who is is a volunteer over at Lincoln School, was nominated for the Burton Grover Child Advocacy Award award through the state of Wisconsin. So, it's part of the Wisconsin School District Administrators Association. And while he did not receive that award, we felt very strongly compelled that he was a noble candidate and we wanted to make sure that he was recognized here at our own school district. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Hanland to share. Yeah, I think uh Veterans Day celebrations, you've seen Ed M. Ed has been a volunteer in the district for 20 years. So this crossing guard I see him down corners quite a lot of the time. He would come to our meetings with Dr. Smith and

019crossing eat a bunch of donuts. love the way that he wishes he was here tonight. He had a surgery tomorrow. He said he still could have made it. Go have a surgery. But that's kind of that's it in a nutshell. He's worked with our English language students. He has done a lot of work with literacy. So he come in a wheelchair the car umbrella wheel in wheel out. He never ever wanted to during the pandmic meets the kids in middle school definitely the high school everywhere he goes he says he feels a celebrity and he says that this district has given that to I disagree that's just how he is as a guy as a as a veteran he's extremely proud and due to ill health and made his way to the front row of

020course being front row. Um but we're just thrilled that he's part of of our at less we've given him a real mission in life and we're sorry he didn't get the award. We thought we would strong recommendations for him but he didn't get it but we're just congrating can be He's got a bit of value to get here, but he says he'll be here that he'll make it. So, um, but we did want to recognize him tonight just a very special thing that he brings to us. We feel we've learned a lot from from Ed and his wife and just the spirit that he brings, the happiness that he instills in children is just for somebody that's not an educator. He says, "I'm not an educator. not a teacher, but we tell you and you

021are. So, we're really thrilled he's part of our family. He's thrilled to be part of very happy to talk about an absolute and legend. So with that uh the next portion of our meeting is where we will begin elections for our officers. This is called the board organization. While you are welcome to stay for the whole meeting because it's an open meeting that's conducted in public. You are also it's not free if you leave. So we'd love to have you but if you leave it's okay. Um so for this I wanted to just clarify for our school board members any board member can nominate any other board member. There is no need for a motion or a second just recognition from the individual who's being nominated where they can either accept or reject that nomination.

022And I will be asking for nominations three times. That does not mean this is my sad joke that I use all all the time. That does not mean I'm unhappy with the quality of the person nominated. It is statutory. I need to call three times uh for elections. And so if only one person is nominated, um we may close the nominations. Uh if and then just have an a unanimous ballot for the candidate. Uh that does take a second and an action a positive vote or an affirmative vote. Um if more than one candidate is nominated for an office, we can secret ballot and Miss Hoffman has a whole staff with a colorful array of ballots over there for us and then the candidate with the majority of votes will be declared the winner of

023that office. Once we complete the presidential election then the president will lead through the process with the vice president, the clerk and the treasurer. So one thing that I wanted to share is that these elections um shall be made by majority vote of the existing board members present this evening. Secret ballots again can be used in this situation. This is one of the few situations that secret ballots can be used. It's the only situation. And then if we do have a situation where no majority exists on the first ballot vote, then a second vote will be cast for the two candidates who receive the greatest number of ballot votes. Okay? And then everyone who is uh elected this evening, those elections are opportunities to serve in that officer capacity for one year or until your

024respective successor is elected and who's qualified to take over that role. So with that, I would like to call for nominations for the office of president. I nominate Aaron Wilk for the office of president. Except thank you. I nominate Barb the office of president. I'll accept. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Okay. Then um if there are no other nominations, we will go ahead and Miss Hoffman will pass out the ballots for you. Our presidential ballots are blue or turquoise. They each have a one at the top indicating that this is the first round of voting. So, if you would please cast your vote. Once you're done, you can fold it in half and place it at the edge of the table. Miss Hawkman will walk by and collect There are

025two votes for Barb Linder and three votes for Miss Wilk. That means that Miss Wil, I'm handing the gap back to you and you can continue the rest of the elections. Thank you all. And I'm excited to serve another year. This time I'm looking for a nomination for the office of vice presidents. I would not like to nominate Lu Shrunk to the office of vice president. I accept. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nomanously decide to Do I need a motion to approve Luis as vice president? A motion to approve Luis Shrunk as vice president. A second. I'll second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Louise. Congratulations. Moving on to the office of clerk. I nominate Barb Linder for the office of clerk. I'll accept. Are there any other nominations? Are there

026any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? I'd like a motion to go ahead serve on two offices. I'm sorry. No board member can serve on You couldn't be the clerk and the treasurer? No. So I need a motion to approve Barb for the office of clerk. A motion. Motion to close nominations for the clerk of board of education and cast unanimous ballot for Barb Linder with ministerial duties of the clerk delegated to the board secretary. A motion to am I reading the same thing? Okay. I'll motion to close nominations for the clerk of board of education and cast a unanimous or vote for Barb Blender with ministerial duties of the clerk delegated to board secretary. A second. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Barb. And now for the office of

027the treasurer. I nominate Ian Grach for I accept. Are there any other nominations? Are there any other nominations? Then I would ask someone to make that motion. I have a motion to close nominations for treasurer of the board of education and cast unanimous ballot for Ian Granbach with ministerial duties of the delegate to be the business service director. Second second. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Ian. Um our next order of business is um appointing a WASB delegate and an alternate. Um has done a fantastic job in the last couple of years attending WSD and reporting back. I would like to appoint Louise Shrunk as the WC delegate. Accept. And um I'd like to appoint Barb Lindert as the ultimate. I accept. Thank you. Moving on to item C, which is a

028resolution authorizing the designation of public deposiitories. Annually, the board must select our depositories. They not have not changed since last year, but I'm looking for a motion, and you will need to read that full list. I'll make a motion to approve the resolution authorizing the designation of public deposiitories of Associated Bank, Associated Trust Company, Harris Bank, Bank 59, Forte Bank, Landmark Credit Union, PMA Financial Network, Robert W. Baird Wisconsin Investment Series Cooperative, and the state local government investment pool for 2526. I need a I need a second first. I'll second. Thank you, Barb. And now we need a roll call. So it would be the clerk that I do not call out the name. Do I have to keep track of this? Name. Um Aaron I. Don. Louise. I. Ian. I. And I'll vote I.

029Thank you. Motion carries. Item D is approval of regular board meeting and budget hearing times and dates. So there were meeting schedules are drafted for meeting date options. The budget annual meeting would be in October and the organizational meeting will depend on the schedule chosen. There were um several options put in the packet. Um so is there a motion or do people have questions about it before we get to a motion? That's true. I need a motion first. I motion to hold the board meetings on the fourth Tuesday of the month at 6 p.m. Think I need to Is there a second? A second. And now you can talk. I'll hash it out. Okay. So, just to remind everyone, um there are three possible schedules that are included. The first one is listed as option

030A. That is the third Tuesday of the month. Okay, that is a change from our current schedule. The third Tuesday of the month allows us to remain on Tuesday evenings. However, it moves it up one week. Um, that does help us with months like December and March where oftentimes we have to move board meetings anyway. Uh, you can are questions on October and April because we wanted to verify when the annual meeting occurs. Uh that does need to occur late in October. So there are a couple of options there. The second one, option B, is to remain consistent with our current board meeting schedule. However, there are two options. So Miss Linder, I appreciate that you shared which option you were looking at. We had a 5:00 pm start or 6 p.m. start. The motion

031has been made and seconded for um 6 pm. And then option C was to move the meeting to Monday. Um I will tell you speaking as someone who actively works to meet with you, prep you, and prepare the packet that Monday is listed as seen for a reason. It is my least optimal choice. um it makes it very difficult for our administrative team to put things together and then for me to convey information to you. But those are the three options that we have. I have been one a proponent of requesting the Monday meeting um primarily from a family life perspective of when kids are at home and when they're not. And so um I was I was a proponent of Monday. I also do have another commitment that I have to be aware of

032for dates. So that would also affect my which Tuesday of the month I could meet. But was the third Tuesday conflict with that? Um I need to just verify. No, I think it's second and fourth. So third would work for me. But for me the the family life was the request for Monday's but then it's not an issue. I also have Tuesday conflicts. Um, and if we go with Tuesday, um, the January date would need to change because that is, um, the start of the, um, convention and I would have delegate assembly Tuesday night. So, I would not be present for the board meeting. So, I'd like that date then changed um to reflect to maybe the 4th or Monday, Monday. But um, and I know Terry usually presents so I don't know when her

033presentation is that week. Um, but I would try to I would like to avoid that week at conference because it's a lot for me to take away from work and then yeah, plan a board packet and board meeting. Can we all do we all have calendars? Can you pull them out real quick and have this conversation with your dates? And also I see and I think Terry you mentioned this to me but I'm not sure if the other board members had this question. The May 13th date on all of them is because of a structure change for next year. So we can't do Yeah. statute. Right. So we can't go later on the May 13th. Just so you know that has to that one has to stay. What are thoughts on having it on a

034Monday from the rest of the board? Well, Mondays are okay with me. Mondays or Tuesdays, each either one is okay with me. And I understand that the high school I I didn't watch the meeting last night, so I don't know if they approved it, but I know they were discussing moving their meetings to Wednesdays because my other concern was right now they are the fourth Monday and I do attend all of the high school um board meetings as well. Um as a parent, I think it's important to to participate in that. So I didn't want to miss every single board meeting because we had our own. But I think they changed it. Then unfortunately I get a chance to watch the meeting. So I don't know if anyone else knows if they did approve that.

035Did they approve it to Wednesdays? You were there and you can't remember. I'm sorry. You can't remember. Looking at my baseball schedule right now, Mondays work better for me, but either day either day I'm juggling something. What we would need to do if we moved it to Mondays to honor Dr. Vog's schedule because we would have to make time on Thursday and Friday to on Friday to be able to meet with her. But the concern would be what if we don't have a board packet until Friday? Then how would we be able to schedule the meeting? Put that back to everyone else over here and say to them that they have to get their information into the office on time so the packets can be made because I'd request that I'd want the packets no

036later than Thursday morning if we're going to have a Monday meeting. I'd be fair. I will tell you that would be difficult. I I just transparently I don't want to guarantee you're going to get them on Thursday mornings because we are frantically trying to put everything together. What time do you think we would get them? Thursday afternoon. Well, the truth is I don't know how to read it Thursday. No, that's true. I would read I would read a Thursday night for a Friday board meeting. But I do agree um if it's a long meeting like tonight with lots of policies, cars are very good about obviously putting them to us a month before or three weeks before. Um so we would just have to be very diligent and I would also be okay having a

03745minute meeting to accommodate everyone your schedule as well. I don't need an hour and a half meeting. Um I like it. Yeah, but we can always do that. Correct. Right. Well, sometimes your meeting is going to have to be longer, but you also have the ability to email or call if you have questions about the work packet. It doesn't have to be just at the meeting that you have scheduled with. I'm okay with option A for work. Wish option option A which is the Tuesday. Well, and that's what the motion was. So, just to be clear, right, the fourth Tuesday and the fourth Tuesday is not going to work. So you could vote on you can keep this not saying you can vote on this new and we're doing or ask for friendly amendment which

038is motion right well always the third well third would work I still would prefer the Monday for me that and I know that's I'm being very honest it's simply a f it's just it would just be nice. I don't know. I'm not going to make the motion then because I don't care. Well, we have to resend your vote on it and vote. We could vote. Exactly. We can make a new motion. Correct. In her amendment include both option A and B. No, we need to decide tonight. No, I'm saying she said you could make an amendment to her motion, right? Yeah. Well, then I amended to the third Tuesday. Did you do that at 6:00 p.m.? Yeah. My question was what do you have on the third Tuesday? Could you do Monday? Normally, yes. Okay.

039Okay. So, Barb, you have the original motion. So, you have to decide if you want to change your motion or if you would like to stick with your motion, have it voted on. And if it does not pass, so I can amend it a third time. Okay. You didn't Well, then then I'll I'll the second I will amend it to the uh I didn't hear which Monday. Option C. There's only one. The third Monday. Third or fourth? It's the fourth Monday. Option C. 6 p.m. Fourth Monday. We will need a second on the fourth Monday at 6 pm. The original second was I second. Are you you're comfortable with the change? Yes. Motion. Any other? I just want to look at this again because we did there's a couple that have to be changed to

040the third Monday just so you know. And there's still a second Tuesday. Yep. Yep. still won't be able November 24th. Do we know when Thanksgiving is starting? Yes. Yes, we have school. We don't have school on Wednesday. That's a two Friday. The 24th is actually a Tuesday and we have school when's Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is the 26. It would be the Monday or Tuesday that's listed. So they have school day that they're off Wednesday. Correct. They have our kids do not have school on the 26th, 27th, and 28th. We do have school on Monday the 24th and Tuesday the Okay. So, Monday's the 24th, Tuesday the 25th, and then they're off to 26. There we go. Okay. We have a motion and a second for the fourth Monday at 6 p.m. Except as designated. Accept as

041the dates are designated. which include May 13th, August 18th, and December 15th. Correct. Any other questions? Then I don't have Thank you. Then I just need a All in favor? I Any opposed? Motion carries. Okay, we're to item seven, which is our citizens delegation to be heard. Um, were there any citizens to be here tonight? There were not. So, with that, we're moving on to the district administrator's report. So, I'm going to pass it over to Dr. Vlo for that. Okay. Thank you very much. In the essence of time, I'm going to indicate that the legislative updates are included there for you. However, I did want to give Miss Shrunk and Mr. Beck an opportunity to talk about the new school board member gathering if they have anything they would like to share from that

042event. Yeah, I took the Louise and I went down there. The main thing that u they're going to I took away from there was that they're going to make available their all their library of of learning is going to be free now. So before you had to pay for it, which was which talking to Louise afterwards, uh it'll be a big help for any any schoolboard member to be able to access that for free. But it was good to know. It was good to hear about just the generic things that at as this office or this position holds, you know, just a open meetings versus uh closed meeting sessions and uh how to interact with um appropriately with any negative or positive feedback from the community and just how to keep your the your emails

043and texts and everything confident. ial. So that's basically the highlights of the night. Good. Thank you for telling both of you. And I would say also just a reminder um to board members, they also are doing a whole series of um legislation um where you can learn more. They have seven sessions that are also free on their website. And if you take them, you get points towards your WAV um pins and um levels of um service. So those started this week. Um I haven't watched any yet. The first one is available and then every week they're going to have one. Um they also have um the capital chat still every Friday. Um and that's also a video that you can watch where they give highlights after the video has been done that following day. So

044you can read the bullet points for what's going on in legislation for Wisconsin right now too. So I encourage you all to pay attention to that because obviously we're in a budget year for um Wisconsin and um there's a lot going on. Thank you both. Uh then the last thing that I had in terms of board updates is I did have a link to additional development opportunities if you are interested. Are you comfortable to staff appreciation week? Okay. I cannot believe that we're to May that May is here, not next week, but this week and so next week is staff appreciation week. We have breakfast designated for each building um three days next week. Board members, some of you helped us last or last year, excuse me, serve breakfast and make breakfast. So, we will

045be at Lincoln School on Tuesday. We will be at uh Central Middle School on Wednesday, and we will round out the week with Ross on Thursday. So if any of you are interested and available, please let Miss Hoffman know. So that way if we do have three of you volunteering on the same day, but we want to post it so that way we don't have a quorum of the board anywhere. Um so again that's uh next week in the morning hours and then we also have a proclamation um for the school teachers. Would you like to read this? for teachers and staff. Whereas the dedicated team members of Harper Joint One continue to uphold the values of student success. And whereas Harper Joint One team members remain committed to recognizing and nurturing individual strengths, accommodating

046diverse learning styles, and fostering a culture of inclusivity and belonging. And whereas Harper Joint One team members continuously demonstrate support for one another, sharing expertise, nurturing student interests, and striving for excellence. And whereas Harper joint one team members prioritize transparent communication to enhance education within the district. Therefore, be it resolve that the Harper joint one board of education officially declares the week of May 5th through May 9th, 2025 as school staff appreciation week and urges the entire community of the Harford Joint One School District to express gratitude and appreciation for all members of our school district team. So, in addition to the breakfast that I referenced, we will also be taking next Tuesday afternoon um backed by popular demand, we will offer bowling at Dave's Lanes for our staff members, but we have also added

047axe throwing um as well. So, uh that will be something that we are treating our team to. and uh Dave's lanes did just a beautiful job for us last year and uh we had but it's a little small for the whole staff if they come. So when we had this opportunity to have both venues, we thought that would be a great opportunity for staff. So I'm very excited about that. And then uh the next piece of information is the dean of students position. Um we know that Mr. Thomas had resigned uh effective at the end of the school year and We have begun the interview process for the dean of students and Dr. Aaska is very close in terms of making an offer and so I'm hopeful that we will have someone for the board

048at our May school board meeting. Uh then the next thing I wanted to share is our groundbreaking celebration and give you an update on referendum construction. So I'll begin, but if Mr. Carol or Mr. Majerist have anything that they would like to add? I would certainly welcome them jumping in. We have accomplished quite a bit. Uh I will tell you that my life is meetings, meetings, meetings, and out of all those meetings, there's at least one construction meeting daily. Um we're always doing something with the referendum, which is exciting, uh exhausting, but exciting. So, we have our groundbreaking celebration on May 15th. It is a Thursday evening. It is at 5:30 p.m. All of you are invited to be there and I have bar hats and shovels for all of you. So, I hope that

049you will be there. Uh we will have that posted. It will be at Lincoln School outside and so we are hoping that the weather cooperates with us. Uh if it is not a torrential downpour, we will stay outside. If it does become uh dangerous or a torrential downpour, we will go into the Lincoln cafeteria. And we've already been working boys and girls love to make sure that they're aware as well. Uh the event will begin with student uh participation and so we have the Star Spangle Banner being performed by our middle school and then we have the school songs uh being performed by elementary students. We'll have very few speeches uh but we will have lots of photographs taken of many of us wearing hard hats and holding beautiful silver shovels. And so that is

050an event that's open to everyone. All three buildings are going to be impacted, but we did not want to have three separate ceremonies. So if you would like to have your picture taken with a hard hat and a shovel and a big pile of dirt, this is where you want to be. And we will end with cupcakes as well. So uh it'll be an exciting day. And then um in terms of the actual update with the referendum and construction, Mr. Majurus and I did speak last week about the referendum at the state board uh state education convention and had some very nice feedback from that. And then we also have had our bids coming in over the last couple of weeks and they've been coming in very well which is exciting uh because we wanted

051to make sure that we could deliver on what we had been talking about. So, um, all of our, uh, building principles have had opportunities to be a part of the conversation throughout the last several months. And then we are beginning our mobilization conversation next week. Uh, which is the exciting this is really happening conversation and also this is exciting, it's really happening. We have a lot of work to do to get ready. So, if there's any specifics that you want to, I'll hand it over to you. No, I would say that um the last set of bids um were presented to us yesterday. So, we'll have an opportunity to kind of gather all of that information up. Um Rossman and Central's bids were due um about 10 days, nine days ago or something like that.

052Um again, without getting into too much detail, uh the bid results were very strong. um good activity in terms of number of biders in most of the spots and um again looking very good from a financial perspective. So um we'll look forward to sharing some of that information with you as we kind of get it from Myron and are able to kind of consolidate it all and share some stuff with you. But again, the initial stuff was very positive and um Myra's excited to get get started. And then the next item on the agenda is the peerreview mentor grant. So as you're aware, Hartford joint one has been part of the Hartford area consortium and has been reaping the benefits of participation and involvement in the peerreview mentor grant. We actually have our season finale

053tomorrow night or year finale. Uh tomorrow night is a star books book exchange over at the library from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. So it's an opportunity for staff to bring professional books that they can share with others and for us to share professional books with others along with treats at the end of the day. Um this year and for all of our years past we have done that collectively as Hartford area schools. This year they changed the grant requirements and after a lot of investigation and a lot of questioning, we learned that we could double our money for the Hartford area consortium if we divide in half. And so Miss Malter and I have been working on a grant with uh Herman Neos Rubicon. That grant was submitted today. And so that could be a

054$25,000 grant just for our two districts. and then Aaron Holy Hill area and the high school submitted the other grants. So collectively we would have about $50,000 which means that we can invite them to our events, they can invite us to their events so we can double the work that we're doing and the impact that we have. So that's very exciting and we will even though that grant uh was submitted today and is not due until the first we will likely get notification probably in July or August. It's usually right before the start of the school year. And then the last update that I have for you is the US Department of Education update. If you have been watching the news, uh you know that there was a request made to the state education, so

055DPI about certification for title six. The state did respond. DPI did respond on behalf of districts and there has been a line of questioning going back and forth between the federal level and the state level of what is the proper protocol. Do districts need to do anything on their own or not? And so right now DPI has responded. I have worked with our attorney. I've talked to him two times specifically about this. And so we I'm giving you the update this evening. And then should anything change following the injunction uh that was listed over in New Hampshire or anything else, I will bring that back to you in May. If any of you do have individual concerns though and want me to bring something up sooner, please let me know of a vehicle to uh

056get things onto the agenda is to talk to Erin or myself. And so um I'll keep you updated about that. My report. Thank you. Okay, we're moving on to the discussion section of our agenda right now. Um, the first thing here is a spotlight on learning and we're specifically highlighting the art program and district art show. So, I'm going to call up Mrs. Brandt to share with us a little bit of an overview of the art shows and the students that participated. And I'm also calling up Robin Tower and Colleen Bo. Everybody, sorry, we have the whole clan cave today. That's great. the art. When you sit behind the pillar, we can't see you. Um well, for starters, the district art show was a big success once again. Um we ended up with 319 pieces,

057uh with 34 of those from kindergarten, 30 for first grade, 38 in second grade, 42 in third grade, 35 in fourth, 37 in fifth grade, 36 in sixth grade, 24 seventh and 32 and eighth grade. Um we'd like to thank all three school PTOs for donating cookies and water um for the reception. And we'd like to thank all administration board members for attending the art show and awarding student artwork while also providing students with feedback on their selection. So that was kind of nice um to give back to those students down the road. And let talk about Lincoln. Uh, at Lincoln Elementary, we had 121 pieces that were exhibited at the Dark Show. That included 14 kindergarten students, 15 first grade students, 16 second grade students, 26 third grade students, 21 fourth grade students, and

05819 fifth grade students. Okay. So, additional art out art outreach uh that Lincoln Elementary participated in was the Lincoln Art to Remember fundraiser where there's designed art. The Lincoln PTO uh fundraiser and about an estimated $1,500 that was raised for the PTO to use towards playground equipment, um field trips, incentives, and and other things that support our students. Uh for the family night, Elementary, we hosted um an art project for our families to come in and participate in. Uh the Wisconsin Art Education Association Youth Art Month. We had three students that had pieces submitted to the Southeast Regional Show in February at W Whitewater. From those three pieces, all of them were selected to go uh to state to be shown in Madison for the full month of March. U we did collaboration uh with

059Central Middle School. Our kindergarten students created hybrid uh creatures where the those pictures were sent on to Central Middle School for those art students to create self sculptures based on our students drawings. Uh collaboration with our music department designed our students designed and decorated holiday artwork for the the program for the Christmas program. uh collaboration with the third grades uh ethers where we designed and decorated the gymnasium for veterans day recognition and the Lincoln fun fair. We created collaborative artwork with each of our grade levels to have art pieces that were auctioned off to raise money for the PTO. And then there was also a mural that was painted in the lobby of Lincoln's um Lincoln Elementary and I had60 in the art show made 20 kindergarten pieces 15 from first grade 22 from second

06016 from third, 14th from fourth, and 18 from fifth grade. We uh posted an opportunity during family night to do a coloring page where we had a disco ball that matched our theme. And we had some very uh unique creations come out of that. And one that really popped out to me was one of our families signed it from the Vers. It's still hanging in my office. This is our first year that we've also participated in art to remember where I assignment for students and then we were able to create their imaginations that we are expected to have about $1,500 return for as well. Um, this year our PTO had said, "Well, what do you need first before we start putting it back into the general fund for the school?" And I said, "I would

061really, really love some new stools for my big older than I was going to say, but I love to constantly reimmit them back together. So, this it was time for us to get into this. However, they did say in addition above that if we wanted to start looking at additional racks, we're going to continue to work with the library that they would also support that as well throughout the year. As much as we like to do things on our own, it is not possible our music and young people. They are also the people help us find ways to inspire each other and also our students. So we too have also done about family photo booths that staff and family programs and it's actually the creative genius all day decoration. She says this is my plan

062and she help her do it. So I volunteered um also reciprocated. She loves if you haven't seen it, she does a global unit with her students. So we were able to use the black and then she's like all right now I'm in so implemented by uh this year we recognized the assistant principal week with a unique picture month for both students and staff. So we printed off pictures of Miss invited to find the pictures. We still have to um I also work together with a peer mentor program within our building as well. We invite fourth grade and fifth grade students once a week come in and help out their kindergarten students. facilitation and helping transition especially the beginning of the year kindergartens into what school is and how it can look with a model. The

063additional opportunities that are offered were the conservation poster contest. So the pictures that Facebook was the um posters. So those were the students that participated in that. We did the Google sticker design and I also work with students to do calendar drawing submissions for our calendar for next year. But I do want to take a moment to say thank you to our Russian Vanessa. She did a great job about keeping us breast about the transition that was going through trying to make sure that they could get their move to allow us our sculptures in the our show. On a final note, everyone say a bittersweet moment and saying that it's great that I'm able to Pam saying that as she transitions from being an art teacher artist, she now full-time grandma, but he said she

064won't come back. Okay. All right. And then I have for Central, we had 92 pieces in the show. I had 36 sixth graders. Uh 247th grade and 32 eighth grade students. Um we helped with the family night as well and we hosted um decorating puzzle p puzzle pieces and put those all together to create a project um that's now hanging in the hallway. Um I had students uh create designs for the yearbook and then 15 of those were selected from all of them and then the student body voted on which ones were ended up to be the front and back covers. Um I had 75 students create posters for the Lions International Peace Poster Contest. This year's theme was dare a dream. And of those 75, 12 were selected. The Lions Club then voted on

065and selected a sixth grade student, Sila Natney. Um, and hers was the winner on the local level went on to the um regional level and um didn't go any further than that, but that's okay. the Lions Club did recognize that her and her family at um a meeting as well as I received a plaque thanking you for my time um and all my years involved with helping with that. So that was came as a shock. Um the Wisconsin Art Association Youth Art Month. Um again, I did submit five pieces to the Southeast Regional Show. Um and then of those five, three went on to Madison. Um, and I was able to make it down to Madison to um, see the work on display there. Um, didn't make it to the regional show because of musical

066rehearsal, but that's okay. Um, and the musical. Um, I've had students help collaborate on pieces for that. Um, some students created fantasy animal masks um, that are worn in one of the scenes. Um they also created two large sculptures of Timone and Puma that are on display in front of the school um for photo ops as well. Um and then the collaboration with Lincoln had the students create drawings and my sixth graders are currently making soft sculptures from those drawings. And on May 16th we're going to meet up with them and be able to have the sixth graders present the kindergarters with their sculptures. So that's exciting. um I had to teach them some sewing skills and um threading needles and knotting and so that's been an experience. Um and then in March to go

067along with our theme, make each day a masterpiece, I um hosted the faculty meeting and had the staff come into the art room and they glazed ceramic pieces that were donated. Um, and then when those were all done and the staff all had their chance, all the leftover pieces that had students come in during their fun Fridays. Um, and so for the last two months, it's been non-stop students coming and going and glazing ceramic pieces. And I think all of them have been very happy with their end products. So, um, I can say that it's been successful. And I think that's all I have. I will just make one comment. This is the first year you guys did the art to remember and as a parent being able to so they sent your child's artwork

068home and you could order it on different things for those at home who don't know but it was a really cool way to I was thinking Mother's Day. So unfortunately if mom's watching you're getting a mug with your granddaughter's she won't um but I just thought it was a really neat way to both honor the students work and also support the schools and get parents involved to see some of this stuff. So, I just thought from a from a fundraising, getting parents involved perspective, I just really like that idea. So, thank you for that. I thought it was really cool. Thank you all for the presentation. Any other comments or questions? I will just say I appreciate always being able to see all the art on display and I loved knowing how the photography is

069going because it's a new curriculum for us this year. And to see those photographs, I was like, "Oh, that's so cool." Like it was just really awesome to see the breath that we do. You know, I think people think of art unfortunately most of the time as you're drawing something. There was so much creativity. I was I'm just always blown away. So I appreciate you guys doing that because I think it's really important for the community to see the work that we are doing for our kids. So thank you. Yes, we got to come through. Thank you so much. So cool. Yeah, I assume you're putting on the lions. Yeah, I was at the flag grind. My computer's not didn't. Okay. And so we're on to an administrative report which tonight is technology services update.

070So Mr. Blog will provide us a brief overview of the updates. I like that word brief. Brief. Um technology department. Uh we're just getting out of forward season. Um so the forward state forward testing students went very well this year. I think all the administrators could agree that this was probably one of the smoothest years we've had this thus far with no issues either with our systems or with the state system that impacted us at all, which was great to see after years of gotchas. Um we last week, Monday, we installed the new copers that were approved at last month's board meetings. Um that went very well. So, three of those went to Central Middle School and then two of them came here to our production copy center. Um, and from what I hear or

071haven't heard, they've all been working quite well. So, that's good news on us. Um, we were also told by the copier company that they're glad that we put our order in when we did because prices went up recently. So, we saved quite a bit by doing it earlier. Um we've been working the past month or so um getting our new help desk software uh configured and ready to introduce to staff um as we near the end of the year and look into summer. Um, so it's been a lot of work organizing our current um, assets to start tracking those better in that system um, and organize it to make it a good experience for all our staff, students, and maybe potentially parents in the future to use that system with technology issues. Um, our new

072phone system is um, here and we've been working the past few weeks to get that um, installed. district office. We've replaced all the phones there so far to do some testing before we um introduce those into the classrooms and offices and other buildings. Uh we recently have uh started working towards enabling multifactor two-factor authentication with staff members. So, we've been working with scheduling with individual staff members who need assistance setting that up and we're seeing the numbers grow more and more every day of people who are enrolling um either themselves or with our help. So, that's very good to see that staff are taking advantage um of that. And the final thing is uh recently sent out a newsletter. We're trying to do a somewhat regularly scheduled technology department newsletter to give our staff kind

073of a pulse on what is happening in the technology department. So, we're hoping that is kind of gives us a little more transparencies and less gotchas that they see the changes coming far in advance. Um, and I know technolog is moving at a faster and faster pace, so we want to keep people informed. So hopefully that's wellreceived and we look forward to getting some feedback from all our staff on that in the weeks to come. So that that's all I got. Question. I have one question only because when I was at Central this week for the musical a people said well there's an enhancement coming and I'm not sure what that is like something about in that area there's like because we were having problems with the phones like we couldn't get in to the

074Wi-Fi and a couple people said well there's an update happening and I'm like we didn't approve that yet so I was trying to figure out if there's something I'm missing is there something happened at Shantel that's going No, no. Wi-Fi or anything else besides you've already talked Sounds like rumor. Okay. Just wanted to clarify. Thank you. Thank you. Um our next item for discussion here is the conversations for our future which is our board of education goals. Um we are sending out a family survey to get family input and feedback in this process. But I have to compliment Dr. Vobos on how much she's done in kind of getting feedback from also groups within the district. Um I I know I've only been here five years, but I don't think I've quite seen this level

075of like involvement or time or breadth of these meetings to kind of get to drill down to what our goal should be. So I was really if you want to explain a little bit about what you've done, I think would be important. And I'm also, we're not there yet because we're still sending it to family, which I think is really cool. I don't know that that's ever been done to help get down to our board goals, but I do appreciate the work that's been done to this point. Well, thank you so much, Miss Wil. Um, what we did is to take you back to February, we had the two events, one for staff members on a Tuesday afternoon, one for community members. People could come to people from staff could go to the evening one.

076Um, but we specifically had the two events and that produced about just over 200 pages of information uh from both of those events. And so I worked with our facilitator to narrow that down. We created an executive summary and then we took that executive summary to the admin team and we reviewed the information from both sessions and then we did what's called an inner circle outer circle where we talked about what we learned. From there uh we created our own goals that we felt uh based on the information shared from both of those sessions that we felt captured something that was necessary to bring to the school board. Uh we this was done anonymously and we were able to then take all of those 14 goals that were written and prioritize them again anonymously and

077come up with our top six goals. And then the following week we completed that same activity with all of our pack leaders across all three buildings. So that way they had the same experience and we had more people there. So it was a line, not a circle but a line but the same type of activity. And then from there what we did is we took the two lists of goals from both the admin team and the path leaders and we looked at about the top third from each of those. We did an activity at the admin team to help us figure out where is their commonality. What themes are we seeing emerge from both of these sets of goals? And then from there, we took the the goals that were drafted and narrowed it down

078to 12. And some of the 12 still have the same feel. So there might be one that talks about academic growth here, but this one talks about growing the whole student, which includes academics and others. And so, um, what we did was with those top 12, we sent that out to our parents on Wednesday. So that way our parents can look at that um and give us their feedback. Since we had administrative feedback, we had teacher leadership feedback, now we're getting parent feedback. And then I will be bringing that to the board. Um right now, we do have plans to send that survey out multiple times uh with each of our newsletter releases and then we will ultimately send out a separate standalone email later on. Um, however, we have had in just under uh

079three working days, we've had 60 over 60 responses. So, that's been really great. And out of those 60 responses, um, we have some clear distribution of where people are at. And the neat thing is is the survey responses are pretty evenly distributed between all three buildings. Sometimes you see a drop off in middle school family engagement just because kids don't need us as much when they get older and more independent, but we have almost a third a third a third in terms of participation at each of the levels. And so that was exciting. And then when we looked at the goals, we had written down the goal and then the explanation of what this actually means so people would have the same understanding. Um we have three that have come to the top. The first

080one was investing in people through recruitment, retaining and developing excellent staff. The next one was prioritizing safety and operational excellence. And the third one was developing well-rounded future ready students. And so just by looking at those, you can already draw some similarities and some parallels to the current schoolboard goals that exist. And so what I'll be doing is I will send out those list of 12 schoolboard goals, potential goals to all of you probably later this week. I don't think it's going to be tonight by any means, but I'll send that to all of you so you can start looking. These are your goals. I'm just trying to get you input in terms of what what it is that people feel passionate about and then I will also provide you with an update as we

081get that survey um taken more times. Um so that way we what what stands out and rises to the surface in terms of what our parents and our community thinks is important. So, um the goal will be to have those new board goals approved by May. So, that way we're ready to start the next school year with that. Following the approval of the schoolboard goals, then as an admin team, um we will sit down and we will talk about what are the bullet points underneath that will help be the key performance indicators. Um, if we have leadership opportunities, we will bring in our pack leaders again. If we don't, because it's over the summer and people aren't available, we will unveil things in the fall. And then when we analyze everything um, in the future,

082much like we do with our capital improvement plan where we're constantly evaluating, then in the future when things are already established, we can evaluate with staff members as well. So, that'll be coming to you very shortly. And I'm really excited about the preliminary feedback that we've gotten. Any questions? Okay, thank you. Um, thanks to all of you who have participated in this so far because I'm excited to see them all come. Um, our next item is the school improvement plan report and tonight we're focus or highlighting Central Middle School. So, Dr. has a little presentation for us. I want you to know that I have it on my computer. So, while I'm not sure, I'm seeing it. Just like that. All right. I'm super excited to be here with some of my pack leaders. Um,

083three of them are retiring, so we thought we a couple of them volunteered, so we decided that all of the retirees had to help today. Um, so Mr. Stevens not uh retiring. Charbanet also not retiring. She confirmed it again with me this morning. Angie Clearary, uh Kim Seruk, and Pam Brandt. Um so they're all going to share some of the results of our improvement plan. So I'm going to pass it off to our first person who is Kim. Um, so what you see up here are our three committees that were formed at the beginning of the school year. So create consistency and discipline, the committee for classroom management strategies and the committee for peer-to-peer relations or relationships. And all of our staff um participate in a committee. So everybody in the building um has some

084skin in the game here. So it's been a really good um experience this year with that and we'll share more about each committee as we go along. Uh a couple new programs this year that we're using is securely pass. Uh so anytime students need a pass to go to the restroom, another class, sending a student from the office to a classroom, we're using Securely Pass. It has worked pretty seamlessly for us and given us good data to track how often a student may be uh requesting a pass, how long they they're in a location. Um let's say Mr. Jarus and I can't be in the bathroom together or shouldn't be in the bathroom together. Some behaviors there. We can uh make it where there's contact polarity so we're not able to request or be in

085the hallway at the same time. So, one thing looking at last school year to this school year really tightened up our hallway uh transition times uh noted as an area of improvement and we've really tightened those things up. So, I'd say getting students to class on time and um just valuing that instructional time securely passes has been a really valuable tool for us. And then the other one is Next Path. Shout out Mrs. Connealy. uh she really kind of spearheaded getting this program for us and again has been a valuable tool really when I think about that consistency um and discipline classroom management and just the streamline of communication with staff and at the office level. Um one thing that I think we were missing last year or lacking is just staff feeling that follow

086up from the office level. And so I think that's really helped as far as if a teacher puts in a behavior incident into next path, we're able to follow up and uh staff is able to see the followup on our end and kind of vice versa and it gets updated automatically. it and it I don't know assuming it's like AI but some of the data pieces that are in there that we don't have to do on our end as far as um I know I've been meeting monthly with staff grade level teams and and AFA just looking at the month data trends as far as who's kind of trending into the top 10. Um, so there's a lot of unique things that we can pull to just look at those trends. And one thing to

087note, I know an area of growth and improvement that we've really want to hit on for next year's attendance, um, and addressing chronic absenteeism and trying to get ahead of it. So taking a look at who our students are now, partnering with Rossman and Lincoln, some fifth graders transitioning in and getting out in front of it on the front end as far as reaching out to families where attendance may have been a concern in the past, meeting them with before the school year, uh creating some attendance plans to try and get ahead of it um before it's even an issue. So, couple new tools for us that have been really valuable and I think if you ask staff have uh been positive this school year. Um I'm eager to speak on this as it's part

088of our classroom management committee and um the first thing you're seeing up there is the CHAMPS chart which we began the year pretty much each teacher had it but geared toward their subject matter or their classroom expectation preferences. So the committee was able to encourage everyone to uh short up the definitions. So what does it mean? What kind of conversations? What does a student need to do when they need help? What activities will show that? Uh where is the is it motivation? No, movement. what movements will be expected of the student during this particular time such as entering the classroom or in group instruction or in independent work for example. Um how do they participate in these things and how will they know when they're successful? So now it looks exactly the same in every

089classroom and the students are speaking the same language with their teachers and it um has aided consistency in behavior expectations. The um royalty here was developed by one of our eighth grade teachers. she wanted to bring this part in. But but we went through a very telling exercise with ourselves and the committee and then we rolled it out to all and the school and we said it is very easy to say that it is the students problem for the behavior that's in the classroom. What's happening is because a student the students are doing this or the students are doing that. It's easy to go there. And we turned it around to say, but what are we doing in our classrooms to have them belong in that classroom? Do they feel they're part of it? Do

090they feel they're part of um not the decorations, not they feel welcome, although that's part of it, but it really goes beyond there. It goes to our actions in inviting children to participate in activities from um the expectations. Uh how do we speak to them? How are we responding to their needs? Are they feeling like they belong? So we went through that as as in the committee. Then we rolled it out to everyone. And then we went back to our teams on grade level and did the exercise together as a team. And then we created a goal for ourselves. What are the top things we came out of that exercise with that we would like to improve in our own classrooms? And we've posted them all up and we're going to write ourselves little index

091card um envelopes so that when we come back in the fall, we're going to read them together and remember what it was we really wanted to do with our classrooms and get those things off to a strong start. Um and uh this is the peace path which came up in our BLT meeting. Um when I was teaching first grade and kindergarten, we taught students how to solve problems using something called the peace path. That was through a program called success for all. Uh if you really want the little video that goes with it, just Google that. There's a cute penguin and a beaver and a bear and it's very elementary but they're cute and to the point of though seriously how do you solve a problem? You need to start out with making eye statements.

092You need to state the problem clearly. You need to talk to each other eye to eye. You need to brainstorm solutions together and agree to the solutions to go forward and work that out. And as a result of sharing that little video, we um developed the peace path posters that are now in not only every classroom, but out in public areas like cafeteria, recess. Um and you and then we demonstrated that with the students on how to to walk the peace path to solve a problem. And I believe this is the picture of our recent assembly. Yes. So, our our um newbie the change club and is taking hold. We're just getting it really rolled out, but the students that became mentors in that club have gone through some serious peer training, peer mentoring training

093and mediation is the word I'm looking for there. And um we're going to see a lot more of that in the future too. So very positive for behavior. Our second goal in our school improvement plan was to be responsive to making decisions that are student centered. So our first um activity in that area was to revamp incentives to include as many students as possible. Um we provide at each grade level quarterly popup parties at the end of the quarter to reward students. We had specific um specific skills that we were looking for and and specific criteria and we were very good about communicating that regularly with the students so they knew each quarter what they were working for. Um the second is to teach, reinforce and practice executive functioning skills. Executive functioning skills include being

094organized, time management, um being able to focus attention, following directions, skills that are vital to success in a classroom, but that we have to teach explicitly to middle school students. It's not something they pick up naturally. And so as part of our character strong curriculum, um they had lessons and in January all three grade levels taught lessons in executive functioning skills. Um we've had a an executive functioning skill of the month and we've paired that with a quote that is read every day in the announcements to just keep reminding students of what we are working on. And the third is to increase student engagement in learning. Um, and we've done that through having posters in our classrooms about what engagement looks like. Um, continuing to have conversations with students about that. Um, and then we've

095also incorporated engagement learning walks where teachers can go and see each other and what they're doing, but someone else is talking more about that. So what you see up here is that um every quarter we have a quarterly awards ceremony with the students. We had these in the past however we were doing them whole school where now we're doing them by grade level which seems to have a bigger impact. Um the kids really are able to see their peers, celebrate their peers. Um so we do this during the Wildcat time. Um our student council students uh will read the names of the winners and the kids stand up and we take pictures and we clap and we celebrate them. And then we usually end the time with a group activity of some sort. So, this

096last quarter, our group activity was a type of escape room with an educational um side to it and the kids really did get into it and they had a good time. So, it's a short period of time. It's only that 30 minutes and once we all get settled and get going, it's even less. So, but we were able to pull this off and um so these have been really great for the kids. Uh so we had the opportunity to go to a character conference. We were able to take a staff member from each grade level, Miss Mo, our school counselor. And I think this is one of the greatest gifts Dr. Agaska has kind of brought to our team in the school is really trying to build the culture of being welcoming and belonging to

097all students, staff included. I know our staff meeting uh this evening we welcomed a new new math educator for next year um because we've got some amazing educators uh embarking on retirement. Uh so congratulations to you to all of you up here uh with us. But really we had the opportunity to learn from uh multiple sessions and just bring back pieces to our grade level teams, whole school community. One thing that we kind of are taking away from the conference is a welcome squad. Uh so next year some seventh eighth grade students welcoming those incoming sixth grade students at the start of the school year and being student resources to them to help them feel welcome if if they're trying to find their way trouble with their locker really kind of leveraging that student leadership

098and just building a community community where everybody feels like they belong. Um and then the engagement learning walks uh came to a close, we had um got feedback from all the staff to see what their thoughts were and how can it be improved for next year. And so everyone had to fill in their plus and delta and wonderings. Um everyone really appreciated being able to go around and see other teachers um but and to see a variety of staff, different grade levels, different um subject areas and so on. Um, one of the concerns is that that we only saw really at the start of the class. Um, and never got a chance to see like halfway through or how teachers closed out sessions or whatever. And so that was something that people were asking about.

099And then um how to set up a way that they could work with um their grade levels and so see other teachers at the other sixth grade teachers in um action um AFA teachers seeing their AFA teachers in action and so on. So that's an area I think that's looking at into the future and ways that they can do that for next year as well. Um take a little bit more with logistics, but I think overall it'll be successful. Um and then our third goal was promote fiscal responsibility and so um all staff had to schedule a onetoone meeting in the fall and then in the spring of the year um meeting with Dr. Vatza and being able to kind of talk about their their to start the year and how things were going and

100then to kind of do a followup in the spring and see where things are at from there. Um, one of the committees that I was on was positive publicity for Central Middle School. And so in the month of February, we have the academic display. Um, and we're looking towards doing um for next year we're having students design a school spirit t-shirt. And so they're right now um coming up with ideas and then the all the shirt designs are due next week and then the community will meet the following week and pick um a few narrow it down to like three or four and then we will have the students vote on one um that will then be printed on shirts that can be purchased in the fall um for all students to wear and that

101way they'll have something for school spirit to wear as well. Um, and then there was team time included during our teams. We had to come up with a goal based on our work with Dr. Dicki um and what we learned and every team had to come up with some kind of goal um that they're trying to work towards and then we'll continue to work on that next year as well. Some of the work we've also done in teams, we started with a leadership team building a team compact, coming up with how we all agree to act with each other and then our leadership team members took that back to their grade level teams and did the same thing. Um, also during our team time we've done and I know we've talked about our work with

102Dr. Dicki here before and also our engagement learning lock. So a lot of this is review. Um, but we've done our all of our our cards, which everyone loves, right? Sometimes they get pretty competitive about making sure they know the definitions. So, it is it's kind of fun and some days it's it's harder than others, but it's been um good work around Dr. Dicki practices and bringing in other structured literacy practices. Uh so next steps with our improvement plan uh we're going to meet as a leadership team in July to start planning for what our leaders our um improvement plan looks like for next year. But some thoughts that we have right now and some goals that we have are doing a character reboot based on the work that we've did at the character conference

103that Mr. Stevens mentioned. Um, also doing more around belonging, welcoming, and community uh for our students and our staff because it's really important that we have both those groups included in there. Um, and doing some more stuff with families around that too. Getting more student voice into our school, looking at student data and student work uh along with differentiation. Um, continuing to look at engagement practices and discussion practices. And along with that is doing some refinement to those engagement learning wants based on feedback. Um we need to do some behavior entry wording changes in next path so we can look at that data a little bit more efficiently and get some more information from it. Um we're working on building some modules for out of school suspensions for kids to do some learning around their

104behavior when they're not at school. and then refining our peer-to-peer interactions through our premediation program and other ideas that our staff come with. So, what questions do you have? Is the next pass is that like a digital thing or next path is and so is securely pass. They're both digital. Okay. Teachers have to like log it into their computer before the student leaves. Yes. Um so either the student can request a they the student requests a pass from their computer Sure. And depending on how the teacher has it set up, the teacher can come over and put in their passcode um in the students computer and then they can go when they like decide that it's okay for them to do that or they can uproot it from their computer. And so we also use

105the same thing from the office. So we don't have overhead announcements at all during this school day um except for track meets um and then in the morning announcements, but otherwise we don't have any announcements. Um kids just get a pass from the office to come down and pick up stuff or or leave if they have passes to go to the dentist or whatever. Sure. Yeah. I'll have to say I thought it was a great presentation. I feel as though the work you guys are doing is show I'm hearing about it a little bit more in the public now. I've heard some really positive things about the middle school which is great. Awesome. Um, congrats on the first track meet last night. That's huge. There were uniforms. It was very exciting to see the um

106I just think there's a lot of exciting stuff. Yes. Based on the hard work of these people here. So, we're going to miss you a lot. Yes. And you're not leaving. And you're not. I would. And you're not leaving. I would add that anytime at this like a student or like a player that I've coached or even adults that I've helped every anytime they can feel connected to the teacher or the group, you get you can get more out of them. So by making them feel, you know, belonging to the community, belonging to your class, that's that's awesome. That's good good efforts. It'll it'll pay off in the long Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you for all your work. Thank you. A picture of everyone that We want to shake hands and get a

107picture. Let's get a picture. Shake hands first. Shake hands first. Good job. Thank you. Good job. Very good job. Good job. Good job. I promise it's probably her backpack. Um, I told her she got retired. All my trunks were gone. Thank you. Yeah. a little bit more. Okay. I feel invigorated. I feel like this meeting just started. You could just keep on going. You're lucky it's still it's gonna go. All right. Our item number five in discussion is policy technical corrections. I don't know in lie of time it goes all in our packet. Is there enough said about it or do you want to discuss them? Um no they everything was in the packet. So I was simply going to state for both five and six. Yes. Uh for policy technical corrections, those are the

108policies that do not require board approval because it's a very minor change that does not impact the meaning of the policy itself. Most of those are based on miola updates. They change some minor wording or something statutory changed. So it's an update to coincide with the laws. And then for six, policy administrative guidelines. Those also do not require board approval because they are not policies. They are just best practice strategies for us to use as administration. So um if there are any questions, I'm happy to answer it. Otherwise, yeah, I would I would like to make a motion to move uh for policy 8700, which is lactating employees. I would like to move that for action to a future meeting. Can I Are you comfortable with me expanding on that a little bit? Sure. So,

109when Barb and I had our uh pre-board meeting, Barb had some concerns over this policy. We shared or I shared that it was not up for action at this point in time and that if she felt compelled that the venue to do that would be during the discussion tonight to make that motion and if there was a second and then it was approved by the board then it could come to a future meeting as an action item where it could be further discussed. Otherwise, if that motion was made and not seconded or seconded, but not approved by three out of at least three of the board members, then it was to end there as well. And so, um, this is something that Barb and I had talked about in advance. Is that one in the

110technical corrections or administrative guidance? Technical correction. Okay. So, it is a correction from Niola from legal specifically. Correct. Okay. I would for me not being a legal person, I'll just share this one thing. I would I would not want to change something that was recommended by legal for how we have it written. That's how all of our policy we tend to use them as our as the expert people in that regard. So I'm not super for it but you've made a motion. So if there's a second we can go from there. Right. Then um is there any questions for discussion? Otherwise I'm going to ask for a vote on this. I guess my question is what is the concern? Um well, if you're on the if you're on the policy, it's on on page 53

111or something like that. Um they've crossed out um following the birth of a child, they've crossed out a staff member who has given birth to a child. And my concern is that I don't want anyone, and I don't know how to put it any other way. I don't want any any man who identifies as a woman to think he can get away with this. I do believe and I'll just again I don't know how else to say this. I do think a a person would have to um be able to lactate in order to take advantage of this. I would think so. But um but the other piece here is that I do think there are situations where a woman could have adopted a child and still be able to express breast milk. There are

112certain situations where I think that can happen. And so I'm I I do again like because this comes from legal, they already have a second on it, so it's not going to go to vote, but because it's coming from legally, I would I would be in favor of leaving it out. So doesn't uh this also say that the admin admin has to like provide a like a room or something accommodations for them. So it's not like they'd be in the public, right? Correct. It'd be off side or off on their own. Had to be a bathroom. needs to be private. No one else can accept it. Yeah. So there wouldn't be any viewing of anyone doing anything. Correct. Sure. Very true. And so again, just a reminder, we're not you are not voting to change

113anything at this meeting. You are voting to determine if you want to take this to a future meeting to vote on it there. Right now, it's being changed because it's a technical change. So if we vote yes to the motion by Barb, this one policy will come back to a future meeting for us to discuss and potentially take action on. So we have a motion and a second. So all in favor of bringing this um policy back for a future meeting for action say I. I. All oppose say nay. Nay. Motion um fails. We will not agree on that. But I think this is a good conversation. So, thank you for bringing it up. Appreciate it. We covered items number five and six unless there were any other questions about the administrative guidelines. Item number

114seven is the policy first readings. Um, these are new policies to review and will be brought as second readings in May. So, we all had the chance to read them already. We are not voting on them tonight because they are new and they require us to put them in discussion first. if there were any questions on any of them or discussion now we could talk about them. Not me. Um I just had one and I talked to um Dr. Vois about this that 5411 um third grade promotion and retention. Um just to clarify that's because of act one which I didn't understand when I was first reviewing it. So, I appreciated that she reminded me that it's to be in statute in accordance to what is now state. Okay, that moves us on to our

115district business and our action items. The first item is policy revisions. Okay. The policies as presented include current policies to be updated and are part of Niola's semianual review. Is there a motion? I make a motion to approve the list that includes all the current policies listed in action one for Niola semianual review. There a second. I'll second please sir. Oh yeah. Um Ian, hi Louise. I Don. Hi. Aaron, I say, and I'll vote I. Item number two, sixth grade outdoor education camp contest for 2025. The sixth grade students attend camp annually as part of their science, math, and outdoor education learning. There's a range of activities during the three days such as fishing, photography, GPS, learning about swamps and survival skills, and other things. Due to the large increase in price for the day

116camp and overnight, it was chosen to have the extended date program and not supplied lunches, which will save $30 per student for the trip meals. Is there a motion? I motion to approve the 2025 sixth grade outdoor education camp contract with YMCA Camp Minamani. I second. Any discussion or questions? Uh, there was one question and I apologize. I don't remember which board member it came from. Uh, what time does the extended evening option end at? And that's 700 p.m. for the late night. It was me. And then I also said, can we please do an overnight as a parent? But then we discussed everything as a board member. Have you been to the overnight? Huh? Have you been to the overnight? No, because my older daughter Well, I chose not to. That face is crisis.

117I was a chef last year or yes. Okay. It was fun but a long night. Very long. I was there the next day. Okay. Then I'll ask for a roll pop. Aaron I. Don. Louise. I. Ian I. And I'll vote. I motion carries. Item number three is the aiology services contract for the 202526 school year. The district contacts contracts for aiology services for students who require aiology services within their individualized education plan or IEP or their section 504 plan. As these services are low incidents in the district, it's not cost effective for the district to directly hire an aiologist. The rate increased $2 an hour and the district has contracted with Gateway Aiology since 2018. Is there a motion? I motion to approve the 2526 aiology service contract with Gateway Aiology. I second. Any questions?

118Vote, please. Louise, I. Don, I. Ian, I. Aaron, I and I'll vote I. Motion carries. Item number four, professional teacher merit compensation for the 2526 school year. The offer exchange included a 0% base wage increase. The recommendation is a 2.95% merit increase for the 2526 school year for returning professional staff meeting the set specific requirements and the starting educator wage of $45,500. Is there a motion? Motion to approve the professional teacher merit compensation for 2526 school year. I'll second. Any questions? Have a roll call vote. Don, hi. Ian, I, Louise, I, Aaron, I, and I'll vote I. Carries. Item number five, support staff compensation for the 2526 school year. The recommendation is a 2.95% increase for the 2526 school year for any or for returning support staff. I'll motion to approve the support staff compensation

119for the 202526 school year. Second. Roll call, please. Ian, I. Louise, I. Don, I. Aaron, I. And I'll vote I. Motion carries. Item number six, the administrator and supervisory compensation for the 202526 school year. The recommendation is a 2.95% increase for the 202526 school year for administrators and supervisors. Is there a motion? A motion to approve the administrator and supervisory conversation for the 202526 school year. A second. Questions. Roll call, please. Aaron, I. Don. Hi. Ian. I. Louise. I. I'll vote. I. Item number seven of the consent agenda. This includes approval of the minutes, bills, treasur support, and personnel recommendations. Is there a request to pull an item from the consent agenda? Seeing none, then we just need a motion to approve it as it is. Make a motion to approve the consent consent agenda.

120I'll second. Um, please. Aaron, I Louise I, Ian, I, Don, I, I'll vote I. Item number 10 is board meeting reflection and feedback. their list included from our previous board meeting and I encourage everyone to fill out your plus wondrings and delta card on your sheet read tonight. I always enjoy reading them. And item 11 is adjournment. If I could have a motion motion to adjurnn second. All in favor that 809. Thank you.