HUHS Board of Education Meeting - February 24, 2025

001for e e good evening ladies and gentlemen I'd like to call this board meeting to order please um Laura would you start with our roll call for attendance yes Heather Barry here Nolan jacket here Tracy Hennis here Don pridemore is not here Craig westall here all right would everybody please rise and face the flake for a pledge of allegiance I believe Maddie is going to lead us tonight I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under IND andice um next on our agenda is the adoption of the agenda is there a motion to adopt the agenda so moved motion by Craig Westfall is there a second second we have a second by Nolan jacket I would like to make a motion

002to amend the agenda and um in the interest of time and things we have going going on this evening I would like to motion that we move where's the item we we move is it 6D item 6D the Wisconsin State education convention reports to a future meeting is there a second on that motion I'll second that any discussion all those in favor of moving that agenda item forward to a future meeting signify by saying I I I any oose say and that motion carries any further discussion about the agenda hearing none all those in favor of adopting the amended agenda signify by saying I I any opposed saying nay and that motion carries we'll roll forward with our agenda as amended next is our public comments do we have anybody who signed up to address

003the board this evening we did not thank you Laura so we will move on in our agenda uh next are our recognition starting with our Fe feary rotary students of the month great thank you Tracy um our first February student four years skills USA for a year she's been part of the Local 4 for the past 10 years where she's held multiple positions from president vice president secretary and treasure she's been one of the students who has traveled to the FFA National Convention where her dairy product evaluation team competed in placed 23rd in the nation Claire has also been a most integral part of our vision house project this year first as a member of the design team that was selected for this year's house and now part of the crew building and just about

004finishing up the house here in the next couple of weeks congratulations Claire thank you so my plans after high school include going to I'm accepted into wakaa County Technical College for interior design and Architectural drafting it's a dual degree program that so I'll earn two Associates degrees in three years after that I may continue to Che or I may um continue to W Milwaukee for a bachelor's in architecture I'm not 100% sure yet um my favorite memory at HS is probably being a part of the vision program we create so many um fun memories every day so I couldn't choose a specific one any advice I would give to incoming freshmen would be to really take advantage of all the opportunities here at Hartford whether that's the start college now program that's really helped me

005a lot as I've got a jump start in my college um the vision team and there's not many schools that um sponsor a whole house being built so that was huge for me uh just really take advantage of everything that Harford allows us to do so yeah that would be my advice thank you and then our second February student of the month is Ria Cava Ria has taken 12 12 AP courses as well as the Project Lead the Way of biomedical courses during her time at Hartford Union High School last year she served as the MC for the senior scholarship breakfast as well as the Schoolboard candidate Forum R has uh also served as an intern at UD Milwaukee's freshwater Sciences Institute represented Wisconsin as a global Delegate for the world food prize Foundation where

006she researched Global Food insecurity and fighting Global hunger and lastly she placed in the top three at state level as the 2024 distinguished young woman of Washington County congratulations Ria thank you uh so after high school I plan to attend a four-year University and I hope to study environmental engineering um my favorite memory at HS I'd have to say uh being the student MC for the 2024 uh the class of 2024 senior scholarship breakfast I thought it was an amazing opportunity to strengthen my communication skills as well as to talk to a larger audience and advice to incoming freshmen I think that you should treat high school like a marathon and not a Sprint uh I think this because there there are so many different opportunities that hohos has and offers and it's awesome to

007do everything but it's also important uh to take care of your own well-being and so I think being able to do that uh step by step and slowly is the way to go great congratulations and then we have one donation this evening that comes to us from the rush Youth Lacrosse Club who not donated just short of $465 towards the purchase of an official lacrosse game net something that not only the lacrosse program will benefit from but other programs um in addition to them so we are grateful to the rush Youth Lacrosse Club and that is all the recognitions for this evening thank you Mr Walters um up next is our consent agenda is there a motion on the consent agenda so moved so we have a motion by Nolan jacket is there a second

008second on the consent agenda thank you very much um I will just talking about the minutes from the January 27th meeting Mr Walters I see that um some of the edits we talked about were there I'm not seeing the that we talked about related to Future agenda items right there I think under 15b didn't we talk about how during the meeting I believe I said um I would also like us review our Communications policies and the exit interviews is it in there okay I I don't see it on my maybe I have an old copy of yeah right so in that in that statement I believe I had also expressed an interest in discussing your Communications policies at the last meeting and I think I talked over Mr Walters but I do not see it

009in there either way it's noted under Nolan so um right that was listed under Nolan 15a okay so we we can keep it is so it's just done um any other discussion on conent consent agenda items all right all is in favor of a of approving the consent agenda item signify by saying I I I I and oppos say nay and that motion carries um under items for discussion and possible actions we have one item up here the resolution awarding the sale of of um 14 million General obligation promisory notes so this evening we have uh two people here um talking about parts of this um the first is uh Jordan throw from be will go through um the sale that happened this morning for the $14 million of the 25.8 million um the the

010remainder the 11.8 will come back a year from now um that uh again breaking that up into into two different parts uh to pay for all the um items um that the referendum is going to take care of um and when Jordan is done the board will be asked to approve um the promissary note sale and then we have Brett Weeden from PMA uh PMA we approved as our our uh investment uh company to work with the now these proceeds the 14 million will actually receive the first week of April and working to uh maximize our interest on those I just want to at least introduce Brett to the to the board uh put a name and a face uh and then if there's any questions they these to will be available to answer them

011for you so with that I will turn it over to Jordan all right welcome Jordan thanks for having me uh like Rob said Jordan tho from beard here just to discuss uh the competitive bids that we took this morning at 10: a.m so as you'll see on page two uh we did have nine bids today um you'll see the first three bids are within a couple basis points which just to notes that um those first couple bids were uh pretty competitive uh the district this kind of also denotes that the district receive a competitive bid um also wanted to mention the district did receive uh a double A which is snp's rating methodology um if you can go to the next page um so for the first phase the district uh issued $14 million uh

012they'll receive that money on April 2nd uh the first interest payment due will be April 1st of next year with principal payments starting April 1st of 2026 running through April 1st 2038 to the first call date so what that means is the district will be able to either prepay the debt on that call date or refinance the debt on April 1st of 2020 2033 for maturities 2038 to 45 also below it just shows like I just said uh the district received a doublea S&P rating as well as the uh true interest cost or all all-inclusive cost of 4.16% next page all right so I'm sure some of you have seen this before this is the district's uh financing plan for the 25.8 uh November 2024 referendum that was passed um below I just want to

013point you to the referendum box which just shows uh we had a referendum planning estimate um when we first showed this to the board of five and a quarter uh currently right now uh we're at a 433 The Debt Service um that was estimated was 42.4 as well as an impact that was presented to the public was 45 cents uh currently uh we're at 38 cents for the uh Max impact as well as avoid interest avoidance of 3.6 million um this just shows basically what your current payments are as well as U make some assumptions based off your state aid as well as uh the district's equalized valuation uh any questions so far I I think the one point to note is um the the debt that we're talking about 14 million is is going

014out further and and the debt that we'll issue next year will fill in those gaps that you see in that that First Column uh the second column um I think uh in discussion with Mike was trying to lock in those longer term rates at a lower amount that we know uh today knowing that we still a year from now rates could could move a little bit different and change the bottom the numbers in that box but it definitely locks Us in for you know well over half of our money at 4.16 versus the five and a quarter we started with in the fall and there had been some rate adjustments by the FED that helped bring that number down but the competitiveness I think and then also retaining our doublea rating uh helped uh with

015the sale today correct correct and to further clarify that point there so then this document does look different than what we advertised during the referendum because the mill rate impact is lower because of those factors correct yep lower interest Y and I also add so the 475 that also has a cushion in it as well so just keep that in mind but that 433 in that box below that's an all encompassing what if today you were to receive a 475 on that second phase that's what would it would be an aggregate so obviously that's going to change as interest rates change uh going forward so and then next page so we always uh provide a copy of uh the district's um rating report so I'm not going to go into this in too much of

016detail but this just basically uh goes into different credit highlights uh what S&P was looking at in terms of U the district's financials Etc um so we just provide that report at the end of the the pricing book and 2015 was the last time we had a bond rating and it as I stated before it was double a back then and it has stayed at that uh stable rate very good rating I'll say through that process with uh S&P uh Jeff and I had about an hourong call with them and they ask a lot of different questions about our finances about um businesses in the area Home Building uh there's a lot of different factors that that go into it not just uh HS information uh but this is a reflection on on HS and

017Hartford uh as a community uh in general uh so I think it's uh it's something to be celebrated uh for our whole community absolutely any questions it looks like no questions at this time thank you thank you so seeing the presentation and hearing the information is there a action or a motion from a board member I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve the $14 million of $4 million of General obligation promisory notes phase one of the 2024 referendum I'll second that we have a motion in a second any discussion hearing none we'll do a roll call vote starting with myself I I don i i i and that motion carries unanimously thank you Mr Nelson for being here tonight I know you have oh one more going yep all right thank you um

018I did want to introduce br Weeden from PMA um let him introd or let him introduce himself um and part of the sale today um the winning bid had to put in a a called earnest money I forget the proper term good faith y what's that good faith deposit good faith deposit which has already been deposited in our account at PMA so we're already earning interest on those dollars but I'll turn over to Brett great uh thanks Rob and thanks members of the the board I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight in front of you all so Brett Weeden with Ma I've been working with uh PMA for the last 20 years uh born and raised in cedur not too far from you guys so um glad to um have this opportunity to work

019on behalf of the district so as Jordan had mentioned U be obviously put together the financing um for the district we at PMA are working on your behalf as Municipal adviser on investing those dollars so as Jordan had shown uh on the schedule um you have 14 million that'll close on April 2nd and then the remaining 11.8 that'll come to you um in Spring of next year and so um on PMA side we will work on your behalf to look at the draw schedule the construction draw schedule and see where that F first $14 million fits in to that construction draw schedule and we're not taking discretion in this um in this mandate we're working with um Rob and his team to provide um interest rates and following State deded allowable investment vehicles certainly encompassing

020local banks and local financial institutions in that process and then having that dialogue with the business office um on closing date to determine what's suitable and appropriate for the investment of those dollars so so that'll happen with that first allotment as I mentioned and then also with the second round that'll come in Spring and so just being cognizant of where we're at in interest rate environment you know Jordan mentioned the 4.6 and the borrowing side you know on the investment side it shouldn't be surprising to be kind of a little bit above the that range right now the fed's range is at four and a quarter to four and a half to kind of establish expectations of what you can get um out in the investment World um but certainly that that draw schedule and

021the I guess the outlay of cash that we're going to get here will determine kind of where you're at on the interest rate side so that's my little uh Spiel for everybody uh once again appreciate the opportunity if you guys have any questions certainly I didn't have any prepared um you know information to share with you here this evening but um willing to answer questions if you guys have them any questions from board members looks like we're good for now thank you very much for being here BR thank you appreciate it thank you and Mr Nelson thank you for being here tonight I know you have another commitment to get you we we we appreciate you um next on our agenda is reports starting with our board I'm sorry our student board representative reports okay

022so um a few weeks ago I believe three weeks now um we had the Schoolboard candidate forum for the primary that was last Tuesday uh five out of six candidates were able to make it to this forum we had 900 uh members of the community online and then 50 in the audience that night um Jackson and I ran the Forum and we asked questions about a student survey that went out um I want to say it was during first semester I don't remember the exact date of it um but it discussed students's future plans trusted adults and mental health and then we also asked questions about uh ACP requirements the decision about the recent referendum and phone policy uh questions from the audience um discussed Ai and like the purpose of school board overall and

023then overall I mean I personally think I really benefited from this experience just seeing the behind the scenes of how you put on an event like this and also just thinking of questions that the community would like ask to these candidates um I do um I'm very involved in politics and I plan on having involvement in the future and so just kind of like putting myself in the I um in the shoes of the community members was just a great experience for me to have the four candidates that um will advance to the April election after the primary last week are Adam Majerus Jenny Gillan Kenneth Mueller and Tiffany Stapleton so good luck to them in April all righty uh so last month we started talking about we go all right um last month we

024started talking about the student recognition assemblies and working with the admin on adding more academic achievements to the next assembly on March 31st um at this assembly we will recognize the top 5% of each class recognizing honor role and high honors after each semester and cons condensing the Athletics and adding more recognition to clubs um Harford does do a good job already to recognize academics considering I reached out to a student from Slinger and they do not even have like assemblies to recognize like academics however we think we can still do a better job at it um by recognizing these students it helps motivate students and it congratulates them for the hard work that they put in so we don't only focus on Athletics but also congratulate the students who do put in that that

025extra work and so they don't feel overlooked and then I'll be talking about upcoming concerts in Soul Ensemble um so Soul Ensemble this year was held at Watertown High School um there's three different difficulty levels so Class A solos have a chance to go to State and then B and C are following that they don't have a chance to go to state um within each class there's a scale one through five one is the best and five is the worst um choir had about 73 events which added up to be around 90 students because there was some Ensemble groups um 25 of those events qualified for State uh 24 received a one 20 received a two and three received a three and then in Bandon Orchestra there was 94 events 14 of them qualified for

026State 45 received a one 27 received a two five received a three um for Bandon Orchestra and then we also had students that did things outside of choir and Orchestra and band so there was eight piano solos and I think like one duet three qualified for State four got a one and then one got a two and then there was only one person that did a guitar solo and they qualified for State um and then solo Ensemble doesn't always uh work out for people so there's also makeup days on March 1st and March 8th um and then upcoming concerts um well there's a concert tonight which is why maybe me and Maddie are dressed up a little bit more um and then past Thursday um the orchestra had a concert with the Middle School um

027we were able to get involved with the middle school and work together as a community for that one and then choir has a concert coming up on March 3D so last board meeting we talked about a potential tutoring program and today we'll be talking about some updates on tutoring recently we and Miss slam met um to discuss some strategies and ideas for tutoring we're considering a mandatory tutoring session for struggling athletes during their academic days as well as um a scheduled after school tutoring session held in the library and we also talked about um some next steps that we could do um first we were thinking of creating a marketing dock seeking out for other tutors and then we want to submit a school survey to ask students what their opinions about t the tutoring

028program is and then we want to advertise a marketing Dock and showcase foring during Mr Lynch's next NHS meeting do we have any questions tonight Heather yes please I have two questions are you planning to do another candidates Forum with the final four um I have not heard word about that yet honestly just because the primary is so recent but I would love to like bring it up to people and um maybe organize that again I would enjoy doing that that would be awesome yeah it's it's a great opportunity having been a candidate myself and going through the forums great and especially students that and just give them another opportunity to like reind reintroduce themselves and stuff like that and then I had one more question on the um tutoring program um I was trying

029to recollect and not doing it as quickly coming up for a question but are you only using tutors that are students or are you possibly going to look into the community as well we've been focusing primarily on students but I really like that idea of using the community as well to help so we'll take that into consideration on my campaign Journey before I got a seat in the school board a lot of um retired teachers retired professionals um you know when you have all that time on your hands and still have a passion for Education had expressed interest in possibly doing something like that so I just share it with you to maybe also post out in the community for people that want to come and help okay yeah thank you so much for your

030idea sure I'm going to Second Heather's comments on a general like candidate Forum I would expect turn out to more than triple for the April 1 so I think some community members who may not have voted in the February election would find that fair helpful yeah uh I totally agree because I mean our primary voters are a little more um I don't know just like into this kind of stuff and so it' be nice to just have another event especially if you weren't able to attend to the other on so I Believe Miss crav is in the audience tonight and I'll talk with her about that another day and just to comment um thank you very much for all of your suggestions I think it's especially helpful to hear your suggestions for the recognitions so

031thank you for bringing those forward tonight appreciate it um any other comments or questions from board members looks like we're good thank you thank you uh next is our stakeholder survey results from school perceptions and we have Mr Darren sers here this evening great so as Darren comes forward just a reminder uh School perceptions is a thirdparty organization that works with school districts across the country um they served us for a number of years including the community survey led to the successful passing of the referendum and then also for the past three years has done the uh feedback surveys from staff students and parents again we appreciate you being here tonight Mr sers and I will turn it over to you Jee will I be clicking through this or is am I how's this you

032click oh yeah okay great great first of all before I get started I did want to congratulate the board on the the past referendum obviously we were watching that very closely having done the community survey for you and and uh that's worthy of Celebration I don't know if you you knew this but we track all that data for the 23 years we've been doing this and this was the lowest passage rate since ' 08 during the Great housing crash so the fact that you passed two referendums in this community really speaks to Hartford and they're they're um standing behind your school so that was particularly noteworthy because there's a lot of districts that could not pass their their their their capital or operational referendum so that's good stuff congrats all right so again as Jeff

033said this is our third year of doing this work with you and and uh Administration and I I did report back to the staff last Monday on their inservice day and I guess the theme of these three reports tonight is steady progress um you know we started with kind of a baseline two years ago saw some progress last year and that progress continues um in year three of checking in I I was in Lake Geneva this morning um reporting to those two districts in a combined session it's their first year and I was reminded so many staff asked me Darren is This Confidential are my answers truly protected because they had some lower participation rates I assured them that that's actually why we get hired you can do a Google survey you can do a

034survey monkey but this process is is the is highly confidential so staff can get back to you as a board into Administration in a very protected manner I I would have no way of looking up who said what we only have one employ in the system who has access to that and he works from like midnight till 6:00 in the morning when it's dark U because he's he's just he talks in code so anyway so you've seen this report before and I'll go through it fairly quickly tonight but I I'm excited to share the results just a reminder of who we are for those in the audience uh School perceptions we've been doing this for since 2002 we've now done over three million staff parent student and Community surveys for school Improvement in all 50

035states and five foreign countries and uh the staff report we're starting with tonight is our fastest growing product right now and that's because Talent pools going into education have never been shallower so boards and administrations are wanting to stay engage with their employees and hear from them so that they can meet their needs and support them the best they can so they want to stay on the hard for team and so that's why we're selling more of these staff surveys than any other product in our in our menu of services so the report on your staff this year you had 114 staff members respond 72 % participation rate the company average is 65% so you're you're well above that last year was 115 employees so you're only done one employee compared to last year um

036this is how we break out who took the survey we can study this by position I'll remind you if we wanted to see how um support staff are feeling as opposed to classroom teachers and so on um that's one thing the L districts do to break out the data and make sure that all employees are on a similar basis of satisfaction tonight is just a general summ of all employees this is your distribution of years of experience of quite balanced um and nice to see that way sometimes I give these reports and over 60 60% of the employees are in their first five years and then I worry a little bit about uh where they're learning their craft if there's not the the senior veterans around there to Mentor them and support them through their

037through their years and so again I'll remind you our our um rating scale is on a scale of one to five uh one thing uh obvious is missing and that there's no three on our rating scale we only measure people having an opinion one way or the other if they don't know or if it doesn't apply to them they can click that answer but it has no uh points no value because they're not really telling you how they feel about something they're just kind of taking a pass on that question because it doesn't apply to them so our goal for Hartford as many areas as possible at 3.0 the true median is then 3.0 we want to see as many above 3.0 moving towards fours and fives as possible and so this is the screen

038that shows you the five index areas that all the the survey questions feed into for the staff academics engagement support student experience Through The Eyes of the staff and their own staff experience and as you can see you have this year's current score all well above 3.0 and you see last year's scores and you had growth in all five areas some modest like the staff experience but some remarkable in the areas of academics and we're going to go question by question efficiently just so you can understand what contributes to that growth so question by question the workday questions we saw a nice growth in workload how they how they rated the district on their personal workload First Column is percent that gave you a four or a five current score on a scale of one

039to five all the average all the scores average together last year's score and then the percent change so that makes sense to you as a board how we reporting out the findings any questions on that because that's how all three reports and then I'll be able to go efficiently for you because I know you also have a concert to get to tonight too all right so all right so workload nice progress Comfort sharing their input and concerns with their supervisor administrator good growth there um access to the Technology support they need growth and even though look at how high those scores were last year um 98% of the staff gave the district or four or five on access to the Technology support so your it Department was already at a high threshold even higher this

040year and um that's not just support but also access to the technology the devices they need so good stuff there from the staff on having the tech tools and support they need most days I look forward to going to work was of a high score last year and inched up a bit more this year in this time of challenging budgets they're reporting that they have the materials and supplies I need to do my job well and that is not something that can be taken for granted I just gave a report last week where a district hadn't bought new curriculum for for 10 years because their budgets so tight and the staff are scoring them down the twos on that rating scale so uh you're prioritizing things in a way that the staff appreciate um some

041couple areas slid slightly backwards um but also I will note we're already at very high threshold of scoring well above four um that's their relationships with their co-workers and feeling safe at work the environmental questions from the staff this is where we really have have to uh do some accolades uh our staff handles student discipline in a consistent Manner and our school's disciplinary policies and practices are effective we get excited as a company when we see four five six% growth you had 19% growth on those Behavior rating scales and they are one of the biggest factors for job satisfaction teachers get into this profession because they want to teach they're passionate about their curriculum they're passionate about kids they don't want to be managing kids all day so to see that growth from last year

042to this year I did huddle up with the administration first and then I reported to the staff last Monday and there's no magic bullet here other than continuity at the administrative level staff knows exactly what to expect from the administrators behind me here in the room that support them day-to-day with the students and that was what the the cabinet that I met with said was probably is the big factor behind that is that they're just all so consistent in how they deal with the kids and know that if a behavior happens someone acts out they're going to be dealt with and that's what staff appreciates so that is I I it's not many times I can report 19% growth on anything for any District so you as a board should feel very good about behaviors

043and how they're being handled because your staff were definitely seeing it and you'll see later on in the parent and student report they're noticing too um in the last year I've received use of feedback to help improve my work all those those uh evaluations that the the administrators do of every staff member walkthroughs formals informals staff are finding it valuable 6% growth there our staff does a good job of educating our students you were you were I remember in year one that there was great pride in the job you do for your kids and look at that you grew another 5% as far as the job you're doing Serving your kids and you know what here in the student reports we got some really really neat things going on with student tutoring and the recognition

044of academics and maybe deemphasizing Sports and emphasizing clubs neat stuff uh staff input being valued that's one of the reasons you give the survey is to give them a voice to give them input confidential manner about things that are important to them students in school are respected for their values and beliefs I feel like communication has improved uh there were I heard some murmurs amongst the staff about the your new Communications leader and and some of the impacts that they're that they're seeing from that so that's good stuff uh the staff development U members of your administrative team up on the stage tonight are responsible for a lot of that that training and professional development and they're reporting it is being highly valued parents and Community supporting the district look at that 25% growth from

045last year to this year well I think that's largely when your community Botts through $25 million worth of building improvements the staff feel back the staff feels supported how about the school board doing what it takes to make the district successful you as a leadership team had 9.72% growth District Direction 8.75% growth and again another great score related to training and support that they receive to work with students from different backgrounds during a time when our students probably no more diverse than they've ever been the students that come to our schools remaining questions on the support uh area of the survey supporting students from diverse backgrounds got great ratings all students in our school are given equal opportunities to to learn and experience success social emotional needs of all students being met that's a nationwide

046Challenge and hardford has grown that by 4.69% District administration doing what it takes to make our district successful 3.96% and then finally as we wrap up the support questions recognize why I do a good job feeling supported by my supervisor administrator uh the school having a process to ensure every student has a connection with at least one adult and there's two areas where things slid back ever so slightly just three 100 the district seeking input from a broad group of Staff members um and then finally pay practices uh slid back by n and a half percent pay practice is being fair probably not what the board wanted to see but sometimes we have we have lots of good news report tonight but we have do have some areas that that um regress so um as

047we talk about supporting uh giving equal opportunities to kids um very favorable ratings in four of these five areas whether they have different economic background whether they have special needs from a different cultural background different racial background the only area that regressed by a couple hundreds but it was also one of the higher ratings last year um a second highest rated area last year is gender equal opportunities based on gender so top five summary of top five areas Through The Eyes of the staff so much to celebrate there Community Support Behavior almost every District I report to these days I do several of these a week behaviors their lowest rated area or the number one target area so good stuff there board report and District Direction and then the five areas that we would will

048keep an eye on um through this annual exercise and uh we'll see what they say a year from now hopefully budgets improve things of that nature school safety is honestly just on every everyone's mind with all the stuff going on the schools so on a scale of 0 to 10 we asked them How likely would they recommend the district as a place of employment again one of the greatest compliments I would say a board could ever get is yeah you should you should want you should work there it's a great place to work very very good rating 6.41 3% higher than last year all right so now let's see what your parents said again we'll go through this uh a nice balanced report as far as uh grade level representation had a few even seventh

049and eighth graders because Jeff um asked us to to reach out to those kids parents of kids who take some of those Extended Learning opportunities at the high school too um you can study these by which prog special program they may be uh involved in a lot of districts study how things are going within special education gift and talented just to see how they're feeling you can study your data by race um probably not an exercise worth a lot of time in Harford just because you're not that diverse of a community but had an account a couple weeks ago in Arizona where 49% of their kids are immigrants students and they've got a completely different population that they serve and they needed to disaggregate the data that way so Through The Eyes of parents um

050again you're not going to see as dramatic growth in this report as you did Through The Eyes of the staff but steady growth in many areas in most areas Through The Eyes of the parents as well parents the indexes that we summarize are how inform fored they feel how included they feel educational Excellence taking place in Hartford the atmosphere and their family's overall experience so the questions that feed those there's three starter questions that we ask is the district headed in the right direction that grew by 2% District administration doing what it takes to make our district successful stayed very steady the school board doing what it takes to make our district successful slid back uh a tenth of a percent when he asked them about communication um they rated it very high 3.2 compared

051to last year's 3.11 almost a 3% growth and I would tell you this is one of the highest ratings I've ever seen in given this report so Harford parents are already feeling very good about communication last year and they're only feeling better about it this year that's good stuff because I think you know parents get so used to how frequently we communicated during covid was like daily emails um that that it was natural for them to be disappointed not hearing from the district as much feeling quite as engaged but uh those percentages 49% good another 37 so you're at 86% um good or great that's that's that's unheard of when we ask that question of parents again feedback for you as a board on how they want to be communicated with obviously the parents lead

052busy lives so they prefer a quick email or that text notification about the windchill warning and the snow days that Jeff won't have to do any more of the rest of the year because we're never going to have to face that decision in March all right um and then all the questions on the parent survey are related to their school experience so again they'll be ranked from highest percentage change to lowest um nice growth I mean these again I said we get excited as a company when we see four or five% growth you got four areas here where where you saw that kind of growth Through The Eyes of the parents um having a staff member that they contact contact when they have an idea or a concern knowing how to support their child's learning

053being updated and how their child is doing and the school having high expectations for their child how much their child has learned this year I mentioned the growth that we saw in the staff report on behaviors parents are seeing a behavior change too they're satisfied with the school's efforts to address bullying grew by 3% my child getting help when they need it and again another growth uh another way of looking at communication is it both timely and transparent I'm coming on the heels of a big ref referendum Porche I was particularly happy to see that that would have been an opportunity to maybe question transparency but your voters backed the ask and they they their the parents are really appreciating the communication um their children they're reporting that their children are able to handle the

054emotional challenges of school and that gr ever so slightly they feel welcome in their child's School they feel there's a healthy culture in the school opportunities to provide feedback to school the school and teachers very steady compared to last year just up one/ 100th and a few areas that regressed a bit um my child enjoying going to school the school teaching with uh materials that reflect my family's cultural and racial backgrounds some of these I will I will caution you uh school facilities are clean and well-kept look at the ratings that you're you're dealing with um you know last year was a 4.32 and this year 97% gave the district a four or a five so I don't think you have anything to be nervous about there along with the safety score um above four

055last year 91% giving you a four or five um so again uh a slight regression but nothing to be alarmed by finally uh the school provides opportunities for Parental involvement modest change School staff treating my child with dignity and respect and then that very challenging question if my child breaks the rule are they treated fairly it's always a challenge to know what fair is um when they're you're holding them accountable for their for their behavior but uh we did ask a question about overall how's the amount of homework again not so unlike your communication rating scales this is the highest I've ever been able to report as far as the amount of homework being just right so your teachers are hitting the mark As far as Through The Eyes of parents not too much not

056too little they feeling like the amount of homework that comes home is appropriate for the courses their kids are taking very high participation rate this has been one of the Hot Topics across the state that we've been engaging with students and parents on is trying to get kids more involved um in clubs and activities and you have one of the highest U engagement scores um as far as after school activities Sports and co-curricular activities which is nice to see love to see kids involved beyond the end of their learning day and your parents are well connected we can't say that about some of our accounts in northern Minnesota and Northern Wisconsin North Dakota because uh they have pockets of of the community that don't have access to Wi-Fi and then it makes it hard to

057do onetoone initiatives and send any online um assignments home with the kids but you're you do not have that barrier in Hartford so as we talk about the celebrations on the Through The Eyes of the parents lots of good things here related to communication and academic expectations uh parents are feeling very good about the learning that's taking place at at this High School District and again pardon me um some modest regressions on some areas here um that may or may not be worth more study from the board's perspective or administrative level again some of those um um are are just they're so so tightly clustered like the safety that I don't know there's a lot you can do there me you got great safety protocols you're going to be enhancing the building with new all

058kinds of newness and so um that should take care of itself um in that regard so as we talk about um on a scale of 0 to 10 How likely would you recommend the school to a friend or family member you remember this we asked the same question on our community survey about the referendum very favorable ratings very topheavy report we tend as a company look are there any pockets of people that are super upset zeros ones twos not at all in fact look at how top heavy it is 18% giving the high school district a 10 31% nine or a 10 and so on that's that's good stuff and then um finally the student report 549 students took the survey very balanced distribution by grade level and then um their racial distribution interesting very

059disproportionate gender distribution um far more girls took the survey than boys don't know what the research is behind that um and then the indexes for the kids there are four of them and again steady growth and from year one working with you um your your student data has always been was the strongest report in year one and yet in year three continuous Improvement Through The Eyes of the kids too just not as as large a leaps because you'd already had a pretty satisfied student body uh but nice to see see that that your efforts to to to get better continue to be rewarded Through The Eyes of the kids the reason we open our doors every day so we have some questions on survey related specific specifically to their classes and teachers my teachers make

060their classes fun and interesting nice growth there and being able to relate uh to what I'm learning teachers explaining things in a way that I get nice growth my teachers calling me on class having that nice interaction trying my best at school Grew From a very high score it still grew further and if I need help outside of class I can talk to my teachers uh about that stayed the same as last year and that's a very high score now I hear your adding T tutoring opportunities which is even better uh one score that dipped by 3.39% and uh it just had this happen I was telling the staff last Monday we had this happen with a district in Minnesota where it dropped by 15% because guess what they put in a cell phone policy

061so when the kids say I can go on L online and use a device when I need it they're interpreting their phone as one of those devices and the fact that they can't have their cell phone out they're showing a little bit of Revolt in the data there because they can't take their phone out when they want to but that's Statewide that's just everyone is hopping on that train because they're such a distraction they're a distraction for us adults so life at school knowing my teacher my my teachers care about me love to see that and it only grew higher from last year again we talk about the staff and the parents talking about kids following the rules and being held accountable for the rules the kids are seeing the same thing most most kids

062at school follow the rules if I were bullied I feel like I would feel comfortable talking to someone about it and I like to learn new things talk to people outside of school about what I'm learning my parents and Guardians help me with school as much as they can if I ask I like helping other people when I can and if I have a big problem there's an adult at school I can I can talk to about it we're getting nice data points in Harford about their connectivity to their teachers and being able to seek someone out for help which speaks to your environment and culture um people around me have friends to help me when I need help I have friends to sit with at lunch or hang out with after school look at

063that you grew by only 100th but look at how high those scores have been the last two years um shows your student body is welcoming and there's a place for everyone here at Harford Union I feel like I belong at the school slight regression from last year and I like working in groups with my classmates um again that's one score that I wouldn't worry about as a board because you're asking them if they like working in groups well no they don't they'd rather they'd rather be on their phone they'd rather work singularly but we've got to break them out of that comfort zone because the world of work requires people to work in group and team um all the time something I want to point out to this board so we ask this question on

064every survey we give with the students and this is the first time in my two and a half years of the company I've done hundreds of these presentations where the number one factor making learning hard for the kids was not the distracting students distracting um students or distracting behaviors in classes that is another celebration within the whole triangulation of the data that shows that that there's consistent rules consistent Behavior policies and everyone's working together and making sure those that are acting out are being held accountable because every report I've given that was the number one distraction for kids whether it's elementary middle or high they're saying when I can't learn it's because other kids are screwing around well it's not even close to be your top 65% they're just stressed out which is another whole

065story and it's sad to see but the things staff can control behaviors they're doing it um sleep that's not anything within our control that's more of a family thing so thought that was noteworthy to point out shows that everyone's working together and to a lesser extent all these other areas uh Too Much Time online too much time spent gaming those are some of their own personal self-control things and again the homework and projects I'm assigned um is is more than just just busy work so the parents give you favorable ratings as far as homework so the kids and nice growth from 3.12 to 3 3.31 6% growth on how they're rating the value of their homework so as we talk about the student report again not these double digit growth scores that we saw in

066some of the other uh reports tonight but steady nice steady progress in the eyes of the student body and you're always going to have some areas that are going to regress some and again we even as a company are thinking about rewarding that question about devices and saying School issued technology or school school provided technology so we're not measuring cell phone policies that's their phone that's not essential for learning so and then um nice growth on on this closing question with the kids we say most days do I like my school um went from 5.57 to 5.78 but I will not notice we don't allow a three on any of the questions we ask this is the only question in our whole company where we allow that Midland score the five and look what at

067the highest points on all three surveys quite honestly I think it was um so anyway that's my report um congratulations again continuous Improvement in Hartford and and that was after a couple a nice growth year last year so um you just keep working at it and getting better each year so good stuff any questions for me any questions from board members I'd just like to make the comment thank you very much for breaking this down as well as you did for us and I also like to make sure I express um appreciation for everyone who did fill out the survey it's really good to see that there is a a growing positive culture here at HS around filling out surveys and so I very much want to say thank you to every every parents staff

068member and student who did help us to get this information through the survey and and I would concur and also say this um kudos to you as a board for doing this as an annual exercise uh I cite you often um as a as a model of this annual exercise of just always checking because your student body is ever changing and your student your parent population is ever changing and your staff is changing over and so the fact that you're committed to this annual you're kind of the model as we talked to other districts about being very intentional every year just take the time slow it all down 10 minutes per survey check in with your the people you're open the doors for every day and see how things are going so we can have

069targeted Improvement your administrators get asked a lot of thing there's a lot asked of them this tells you where to spend their time and energy based on the data you're Gathering so good stuff okay thank you thank you Mr sers next on our agenda is our superintendent report great thank you and thank you again Darren for being here tonight to share that feedback with us Tracy could you come forward um Miss Peterson will join me with an up regarding the referendum work um in related as it relates to the successful referendum in November McCoy if you could pull up that presentation thank you um after the January board meeting we are proud to have the full team together um which includes uh Bray Architects and now CG Schmidt as the construction management firm these two

070worked collaboratively previously in our district for those of you who have been here a number of years and we're certainly glad that they are back together to lead us through this next investment in our facilities um next you will see um some of the other parts of the project team so if you've been around campus or live near campus you may have seen some soil boring or some surveying happening outside that is Kor and Associates on the left and then the one on the right uh WTI um is is a super big driver in regards to this work um because they will offer their insight and expertise as it relates to the swimming pool um as a side note this weekend the swimming pool was officially closed and Tracy are we officially drained or we

071just got a couple inches left or yeah there are still a few inches of water left in the pool um it we have a 4 inch cast iron main drain so that has been so corroded that it's like draining the pool through a garden hose so it's taking a minute but it is on its way so super excited to get started on the the pool work and then that'll prepare us for tomorrow when folks from CG Schmidt will be here to start demo of the walls and the panels around um the steel pillars and Bricks between the steel pillars to see what condition and the impact that moisture has had on them so they can help identify a solution when the engineer comes in later this week anything else to add to that part Tracy

072no you summed it up okay next then we um have advertised this on our website um the timeline uh preliminary draft timeline of the project uh scope for the next two years um again it can be viewed on your device if you have access to board docs or again it's on our website um phase one will include the student parking lot the fiber optics partial LED lighting uh the pool as we've talked about a number of times which is certainly again going to be a driver uh the bathroom upstairs as well as some of the additional bathroom work right outside the space we sit in here today um phase one will roughly occur from this coming spring to this coming fall um so that's the timeline for phase one uh Trac if you can just

073click forward oh maybe not and then phase two um with phase one of the parking lot work they're not going to put a finished coat on it but they'll leave a I think it's called a binder coat correct um and that will suffice for a year and then phase two they will actually officially finish that parking lot while they're outside doing the outdoor facilities work the track the turf field uh regrading all of the Green Space uh behind the building and then you will see additional safety security work roof Replacements more LED Plumbing HVAC electrical remaining bathrooms flooring and addition to the teched space excuse me chck um so are they going to still be able to use the parking lot yes during that time it's just not going to be finished correct correct for

074stripe is it it'll be striped though won't it correct just won't have that final code why is that uh so that is to give that um first quote time to settle um and also when they're staging construction equipment in the summer of 2026 they'll use that area so in order for it to um you know kind of have a place for for them but not um you know um I don't know the word I'm looking for uh not wreck any of our spaces that we currently have they'll go on that that top or the bottom base of the parking lot and then anything that would um need to be repaired they would do in that area instead of let's say like our student parking lot sure that makes sense yeah thank you and then phase

075two again will last from the spring of 26 to the fall of 26 again these are just preliminary timelines and certainly subject to change if you click a couple forward to the site improvements maybe Tracy can walk through this overview of the outside um so the summer of 2025 like we said we're adding that new 113 space parking lot summer of 2026 will be the track and artificial turf uh field replacement um the also the summer of 2026 we're uh regrading the practice fields so um the parking lot would pitch towards Monroe Street and those back practice fields pitch towards the South so we're looking at um the drainage and um the best way to um our best options for the drainage of those fields um and also for the the new track and um

076and turfield um and also it's showing the new tech ed Edition that will be going in um that I think they can they were planning to start work on the tech ed Edition um earlier than the summer correct me if I'm wrong Jeff correct on that one yes so um we will see some of that work during the school year next year why would why would you have all of that train to the South that's in Orange um that's how it was originally pitched everything to the South End um but we aren't seeing the drainage that was originally planned so um like I said um they're just starting to get into the boring samples and the topographical mapping of this so that could change but um the plan for now is to have that all

077pitched to the South which like it currently is supposed to be you know they took the drainage out the last time that's fantastic well I'm just saying that yeah you know look think think about the distance you know I logically wouldn't half of it go one way and half of it go the other because you even if you put it between two fields the pitch on the pitch could be different like that Jeff I was just gonna comment the pitch on the pitch the pitch on the pitch so one of the challenges is they're already working with the city regarding the parking lot in regards to the retention area ditch whatever they refer to that yeah retention area that would go north okay one of the other challenges is getting the water to a place

078that can go somewhere and so as we we learned with the tennis courts the city sewer system or sep I don't know sewer sewer system does not have many connective points right and so that is a challenge that when you have project such as this to run anything to the north because then you're getting further away from those connecting points there's not a lot to the South either I mean I I I only say that because I I live there but all that water is going to go down and then how does it go up because that whole area is sloped downward and maybe I'm being too technical I don't know but but these are things that are concerning if you're going to move all that water south or south and the edge of the

079field actually goes up three feet how do you get water to go up three feet yeah I think those are all the results that are going to come back to us from kapor um in regards to the land survey the topographical drawings that they will provide they've not finished that work okay again this is just what they're proposing based upon how it was currently structured and some of those challenges of moving the water to the north okay yeah this is why we hire people smarter than us well I I mean I'm just saying I lived there 20 years and and there's those fields flood and and they flood to the South Y which is why I'm saying what I'm saying so okay any other questions on that Tracy just to the next slide then and

080yet I did mention that they already have run this plan by the city uh they're starting the process of approval again Tracy mentioned 113 spots um certainly still discussions in regards to the in and the out of that but again because of those two cuts that does have to be City approved um and then there's certainly uh city ordinances or restrictions that requ ire landscaping and uh Island islands is that what those are called U the ovals you have to have so many of those with so many trees and all of that when you develop a lot such as this so again that's where some of our most recent conversations have have taken us where do the students go from that parking lot to get into the building because if you go to Monroe Street

081you're going to cross ENT or the exit from the back of the building right that is you want all those kids walking in front of people trying to get out of is the plan right now based upon um that's what they do now when they park on the street yeah but you're at 113 ft ball right cars you don't have that many over there now do you there's a there's a lot on the streets I don't know how many um but one of the issues is you don't want them cutting in a walk that is not designed to be a student Walk So the plan was to put a a fence between the new lot and the tennis court the old tennis courts so they're not cutting through the back of the property and cutting

082across behind the teched space instead of walking in a place that's made for pedestrians which would be the sidewalk and that makes sense I just it was something I thought of that you know and if you guys are thinking that way and that's the best way then then it is what it is um but I just wanted to point it out if there was a safer safer way might be the way to say it and if there's not if that's the best way then I guess right now high school students walk where they choose to um well there's always that right in the current student lot they walk through the student parking lot to get into the building okay and we're assuming these students despite that there's going to be a path around the perimeter

083of this parking lot those kids are probably not going to take the path to get to the sidewalk they're going to walk through the student parking lot to get to the sidewalk right like true so I think there's only so many opportunities there to try to get them funneled in the direction that we want them to yeah and I would think that this would um lessen the foot traffic on the four the four-way intersection on Mon row and cedar because we're putting more parking here instead of them parking on the street in those areas okay and this is showing the phase one scope of construction so um the renovation of the second floor girls and boys bathrooms uh adding two stalls uh to the drama lecture girls bathroom and moving that sink over so that

084we have more um more stalls in there we currently only have two stalls in that bathroom uh renovating the two um staff bathrooms right outside the drama lecture hall and um the renovations to the swimming pool and replacing LED fixtures wherever we possibly can in the building um we will be starting work on door access control and security around the perimeter of the school um extend the security cameras throughout the school and uh Corridor lighting will also be upgraded for emergency power those I think may be pushed off into phase two just because there is so much planning around the door access control and the camera systems um and getting those two systems to integrate um we would also like to see our wave emergency system integrated into the door access control so that if

085a wave button is pressed pressed the entire building would go into a lockdown mode are there any questions and I just want to reiterate the swimming pool the swimming pool the swimming pool is going to be a huge huge huge um answer that we need to get sooner than later to drive the scope of the work that's going to happen in that area and this is the phase two scope so um replacing the the remaining LED lighting and this is when we will get into the HVAC and Roofing so um a lot of heavy work in those areas so it's not much that you know you'll be able to see but um obviously it will make a huge difference in the you know the temperature controls of our building um and making kids comfortable in

086their classrooms um and also the tech ed construction lab and classroom Edition um and uh yeah just uh and the asbest abatement and we have a lot of smaller closets areas and and a few classrooms left with asbestos flooring that would be abated and then the next two slides just focus on the HVAC and the roof work again as a reminder we talked about that as we kind of traveled the road to referendum that there are efficiencies that can be found um when some of that work is done at the same time so on the first slide it shows the location of the air handler units and the rooftop units and then the next slide it shows the roofing work that's to be done and that's why again it's really important to keep some of

087that work um tied together for those cost savings and the efficiencies that can be found yes and we will be replacing 12 rooftop units over spring break this year that was approved for in our capital projects budget um in July those were ordered in July we finally got those in and um they're ready to be installed is the is by the chiller where you going to be putting the generator has that been determined uh yes the generator will more than likely go in the chiller location you have to have that um offened in area so putting those two close to one another is is ideal any questions or thoughts from the board regarding the referendum update looks like we're good thank you very much thank you Tracy um next in my update is the robotics

088team hopefully you had a chance to see some of their um work as you came in this evening um they had submitted back in October a request to go to the competition in Lacrosse in March and they have submitted the update to me um in regards to who will be attending that trip um so again all our expenses for the field trip are funded through proceeds from fundraising there will be 18 students attending that competition um they will leave after school on Wednesday March 19th and participate and compete until March 22nd excuse me nine chapon also who serve as mentors will accompany those 18 students I know we talked about that last year um they don't just serve as chaperons but they're mentors birs that help support that uh work um in competition so that

089is the update regarding the robotic trip to Lacrosse in March any questions or thoughts on that I just want to say I appreciate them being here tonight before a meeting um it's always it's always great to see students bring their work forward and have the rest of us be able to experience it so thank you very much to the robotics team for bringing that tonight great thank you and then last in my report this evening is a follow-up from last month's meeting regarding how the district delivers administrative Services as the board was making a decision on administrative contracts last month uh the district's legal council shared a statement on the board's behalf but before she did that she spoke about the confidential nature of such conversations how some of that's discussed in Clos session and

090I just want to reemphasize that point and encourage everyone to consider not drawing conclusions with the absence of such information as an example as you can see in board docs from prior months the board discussed administrative Staffing enclosed session back in September and December of 24 um with that the statement that Miss Lewis read last month included the following she was um she shared that the board was grateful that I brought to the attention how we deliver administrative Services she stated that the board is challenging our district level Administration to work with school level admin faculty staff community and other to further study the issue um I think now McCoy if you could go to that item and pull up the organizational chart so when we talk and and and and when Shaina used the

091words administrative uh Services I think we just need to remind those listening following along watching and and all of us that the uh eight in the dark orange are individuals with administrative contracts okay so one of the questions I have is in regards to the conversation is it about administrative services or leadership uh work or Services of our leadership team so as an example um M can you just shrink it for a second um those in lighter orange are members of our leadership team but do not possess administrative contracts so School nutrition supervisor buildings and ground supervisor Communications um oura students assistant athletic director um those assistant to the athletic director those are not um administrative positions but those are leadership positions okay so I just wanted to make sure um that reminder was thrown

092out there um and then on the left hand side McCoy can you shrink it a little bit it minimize it or just put it at 100% because then on the left hand side of the document you can see as an example the four individuals who make up our high school leadership team so Kelly is the principal Desiree associate principal Scott athletic activities Dean and then Kelly frings is at the bottom on the left hand side okay so those four people make up the high school leadership team um does that make does that make sense so three of the four are admin ative contracts that make up the high school leadership team are we are we good with that yes looks that way yes okay um so then as I go back to the board statement

093that Miss Lewis shared the board is looking for future discussions and solic solicit solicitation of feedback to assure the district is effectively and efficiently spending taxpayer dollars on District Administrative Staffing as well as the district distribution of roles and responsibilities amongst administrative Staffing so as we plan to discuss this at an upcoming cabinet meeting in March I guess I'm looking or we're looking for some clarity so when we say administrative Staffing are we limited to administrative or are you referring to leadership in regards to um the work and the solicitation of feedback that we might be seeking um I'm just speaking for myself and at the board because we did not discuss this but I would appreciate looking at leadership okay and and yeah frankly just the the organizational structure leadership and even Beyond any

094other thoughts or because again it was also about the roles and responsibilities distribution and things like that right so I think you know again this is my personal perspective I think um we may have had some changes in different roles or responsibilities just like we've even talked about taking a look at job descriptions and so I think it's it's it's a complex problem or a complex you know I guess makeup I guess to look at for how things are run in the district so I would appreciate you looking at at as many pieces as possible yeah because at at this point our leadership team because we believe believe leadership should be also not just driven by A administrative team a leadership team but we should continue to seek ways to grow teacher leaders um so

095some of the conversations we've had have have centered around some of that and hopefully Stevie in the next month uh we were hoping to bring um some thoughts to the board in regards to some roles and responsibilities to grow teacher leadership okay um I also know that as I look back on some of the work of the district um while I don't want to um say that the challenge is um more difficult because of the Union High School model um I do know these conversations were happening just before I came back in um and so at that time it was about delineation of district and high school responsibilities um at that time there was also some conversations about consolidation happening and things like that um so in some of the notes that I've um uncovered

096um in regards to the conversations back then it seems as if some of the same conversations were happening and again not many of us were around back then um but I just wanted to make that um point for everybody um to understand um I also have surveyed the other nine Union High School districts in the state uh to provide some data to consider as well regarding those conversations um I think I will close by saying I'm proud of the work of our leadership team um that we've done for the last two years um Daren reference some of the continuity that we've developed uh some of the results I think speak for themselves from the stakeholder surveys again achievement scores continued to increase um referendum was successfully passed budget deficit has been closed two years row

097um So based upon that uh message from last month uh we will certainly bring our district leadership together like I said the first week of March and have those conversations about um soliciting that feedback and looking for ways to be more efficient and effective is there any other thoughts or questions from the board at this time regarding that or Stacy or Stephen looks like we're good thank you great thank you and that's it for my report this evening next on our agenda is our annual at risk plan from Miss Desiree Romo hello so short and sweet um some of this will be familiar from last year every February moving forward we're going to be good about this um bringing to you what is it that that we have in place for those who are are

098at risk so I'll click forward to the basic definition per state statute 18153 sub one um these are kiddos who are one or more years behind their age group in credits attained two or more years behind age group in basic skills habitually Trent their parents their adjudicated delinquents or a combination and we love them and we want them to do well um so we meet them where they are from you know a visual standpoint this is how it it kind of plays out starting in Universal instruction adding targeted supports adding intensive interventions um and if necessary moving to those alternative Pathways to graduation on that far right it's always a fluid um experience for our students and certainly for anyone who is serviced through special education always involving their IEP team um a 504 plan

099and and so forth as also important visually um we know that it is Paramount students would earn a high school diploma that says Hartford Union on it um so we're really proud that that's always happening in an alternative pathway scenario um right so a lot of students who meet those criteria I named earlier will wonder yeah but is it the same diploma and the answer is yes that that core um marker in their their life is um key we get that and so moving forward onto um how we do that we've really in my time here come to realize though we know we we have a portrait of a graduate no matter what for our um 12th graders as they walk across that stage right and we don't want to minimize those Essentials for students

100who are at risk we're not going to diserve them by um lowering the bar so it's it's another pathway right it's um maybe a more curved one still with communication critical thinking lead ERS ship teamwork time management um really as as Center points and so this year while those have always been priorities for us we did begin an unofficial academic intervention called strategies for academic success where if it's a teacher recommendation staff recommendation um opportunity students lacking those skills also qualifying as at risk um the criteria from earlier they're in a block just one block in their day and they're learning these skills through some very specific curriculum while also advancing in credit um so I'm going to go to a screen that you'll perhaps recognize from from last year and I think will probably

101stay um as part of this report as as years come forward but this is new where we've really said while we're helping them catch back up with credits while we're helping them um connect better relationally so so be less true and because they're really valued you know in a way they haven't experienced relationally um we are very intentionally teaching some some core skills related to a portrait of a graduate so there they are familiar from last year these different Pathways if you will but on that far left very top with a little asterisk is that strategies for academic support framework so on campus here at HS students who are behind are still earning course credit with us but at the same time um experiencing executive functioning lessons and um applying those livetime we do have

102things that are off campus as well um we often mention I know this is part of your world Mr Westfall cisa W and Pak where um Tracy helps us because she's a driver um mptc in Westbend also uh we have drivers who who get our kiddos there and see GPS in the in the center steelcraft is an awesome site so career-based learning these are different ways that our students who again um often qualify for multiple of those at risk criteria find success so just want to make sure you you recall that those are part of um our commitment day in and day out and then some numbers to put to it so I'm going to always work to give you a three-year span um the current year on the far right is to be determined

103numbers because because the the different opportunities are fluid um some students start on campus with us in an atrisk pathway but then they move off off campus and and vice versa um we're we're pretty responsive to the needs as those needs change in progress on the far right um is is what you see because we of course aren't at at the end of the year but you notice 80 from 22 23 students wholly um as as numbers served for at risk and then 68 23 24 this year we're up a little bit we're probably going to be around 75 or 80 um and what's interesting as you see in that Frost column of this year we've got three compared to one last year and in the sophomore column 11 um that doesn't mean something you

104know all of a sudden happened in the water it's really us I would say being more and more responsive and um I would also suspect that if I go back to this graphic I hope I hope that we're able to add maybe one or two more um pathway opportunities in the coming year or so we're really seeing a need for um a small group of students to access virtual education that conversation is happening Among Us administratively um it's not a good fit for everyone and so we would certainly know the um hard questions to ask right and the the demographics that would fit in order for us to to make that placement a reality um but it it's a need so we we tend to joke those of us who are in the at risk

105world we would love to say we're trying to always put ourselves out of a job we want kids to um right no longer be considered uh according to those criteria but there will always be a calling for such um and I'm really proud that huhs sees that you know meets as I said kids where they are um so that's that's the basic summary want you to have a general sense of every year how we are indeed serving a subset that qualify under questions Des can you just go back to that various option yeah that one there um as the county Works to determine the future of the WM Washington County Campus in Westbend did you see that article today yeah yeah uh there's a number of us superintendents in Washington County who are um putting

106a request in to possibly try to work against every single District trying to do this and send kids from Pewaukee to Westbend to Brandon and and all over the south south central part of Wisconsin and see if there's an opportunity at the campus in West Ben that some shared services uh could occur that would serve all of the high schools in in Washington County mptc currently does a version of that um but we definitely have a Washington County need for a more centralized alternative school absolutely um so there was is an article just out today by the county executive thinking of of um ways to relook at using that site it's interesting all good yes thank you very much absolutely thank you uh next on our agenda is the school board report for myself I

107will keep this pretty short and sweet um unfortunately we did have a tragedy that impacted our HS family greatly since our last meeting and I just want to express our thanks to our community members and Community organizations that have come together for support in the day since and um also that we appreciate continued thoughts and prayers for the current family thank you to our our staff and community members um that did go to the funeral last week so thank you very much for that and um please again continue to keep them in your thoughts and prayers um secondly I'd like to say that at our last board meeting it was clear that the voices of our community wanted to be heard and we deeply appreciate the engagement and feedback we recognize that there's still more

108to understand regarding the intentions behind the restructuring discussion and its broader implications as the board we want you to know we are committed to listening and learning and we are actively speaking with staff and Community leaders to gain insight into the core issues at hand these ongoing conversations will help guide our decisions as we work together to move the district forward in a way that best serves our students staff and families we appreciate your trust and patience while the board determines our next steps so thank you very much for your engagement um next on our agenda are items for discussion and possible action the first of which is a purchase of student Chromebooks for the 25 26 school year all right I think I have everything in the package of all the information you need

109um one uh we would recommend going with Vanguard the purchase of uh a 500e Lenovo um and we actually have a cost savings this year um that is costing us $16,200 less than last year so yay that's a big celebration um and that's the recommendation so it be a total of for 375 uh Chromebooks of $1 143,144 I did request 145 just in case with prices changing since these quotes I hope it's not going to change but just in case thank you Val do board members have any questions hearing none and we have information in our packet is there a board member who would like to make a motion yeah I'll make a motion to approve the purchase from Vanguard for student Chromebooks for the 2025 26 school year not to exceed uh $145,000 thank

110you for the motion is there a second we have motion by Nolan and a second by Craig any further discussion hearing none let's put it to a roll call vote because there's a cost of the district we'll start with you Nolan I don i i i i that motion carries unanimously uh the next item for disc discuss is policy 4112 board staff Communications the next two discussion and possible action items are the same content but different policies so the first one is policy 4112 board staff Communications which is for classified staff the words being considered for added being added to the policy is as staff members can raise matters related to District policy or Schoolboard agenda items to the board and again that's 4112 for classified staff any comments or discussion from board members Craig

111I would like go ahead hand up she change your name um so I just wanted to to say that um this was a result kind of of our workshop and discussing thereof and I think uh these policies are here to to protect everybody whether it be the board the district the staff and we we need to be cognitive of it as a board um to make sure we're not put in a position where later in time we have to recuse ourselves because we maybe took something in matters into our own hands that maybe we shouldn't have as far as an investigative perspective but um the thing I wanted to point out is that this would be a staff member raising a matter to the board not the board reaching out to a staff member and

112I I just engage in or reinforce that everybody makes sure they follow that so that you're later not going to be an an ineffective board member because of that any other comments or questions from board members I guess there is also one other thing I would like to bring up just to clar ify in the future does this also mean that members of the staff member will be able to participate in the public comment section at our meetings in their capacities as a member of these staff or and not just as a uh Community member um it's my recollection that we do not have a parameter set in our public comment section that they have to reside within the district um so I believe that yes they should be able to to contribute and be

113a part of a public comment section plus this expand their ability and kind of safeguards them because as as we all know the public can make comments regarding agenda items so this this I I feel comfortable and confident that they could participate in the public comment section Mr Walters do you feel any differently than that that is correct we do not have a restriction on the public comment uh policy that we have in place at this point okay great thank you uh with that being said I would like to make a motion to approve policy 4112 board staff Communications as presented I'll second that any further conversation hearing none all those in favor signify by saying I I I any oppose saying a that motion carries unanimously the next item for um discussion is policy

1143112 the board staff Communications policy just as Mr Walters had described again this is for professional staff with the same recommended change of language all right then I would also like to make a motion to approve the policy changes to 3112 board staff Communications as presented I'll second that also any discussion I just reiterate my statement about these people coming to the board and the board not seeking them out for comma any other discussion okay we have a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying I I I and that motion carries unanimously uh next is policy 0166 which is our agenda policy so this is a cleanup of language between 01 66.1 and policy 0166 so in policy 01661 when it speaks about the consent agenda it does not use the

115word unanimous in policy 0166 it did use the word unanimous so the recommendation is to remove that word from 0166 pretty straightforward um any discussion or a motion oh I would like to make a motion to approve the uh policy 0166 agenda as presented is there a second I'll second it we have a motion in a second um any further discussion none all those in favor signify by saying I I I I I and that motion also carries unanimously uh next on our agenda is the discussion over an ad hoc board committee for referendum work and I did talk with Tracy she's kind of helped me through this I asked her to come forward as well in case we have some questions or conversation with her Mr Walters is there anything that you would like

116to to state regarding this yeah just um the workshop that was held on February 13th uh where the board and attendance discuss this it's being brought back obviously this evening for further discussion and possible action thank you so what we have before us in our packet is largely a result of that that Workshop as well as conversations that have been held with key people here in the district um it is definitely up for discussion this evening um to take a look at whether we want to form this ad hoc committee uh which would be really for um transparency um discussions possibly getting some questions answered by people who' be on the committee themselves and um we we just kind of came up with a rough draft of who could potentially be on this committee as

117well as when they would meet and Tracy was definitely a very key part of those conversations and we were even still discussing it today so thank you for that I appreciate that um do board members have any any comments or questions or um thoughts that they would like to put forward at this time regarding this ad hoc committee I I have a couple comments or questions um how would the people that are not specific by title be determined to be part of the committee so at this Point um the thought was that so for example the two to three prior members of the citizens facility advisory committee sure we we've had uh about a handful that either have expressed interest or were recommended by the chair of that committee so it would be a By

118Appointment based upon those who already were involved in that Journey so far and so my thought was today we would discuss um whether to form the committee and what we would like to see the makeup of the commit potentially be and then bring back that membership next month for for discussion and approval that's my thought so so what about the staff and students um staff and students we've also so staff I I I receed just a couple suggestions but I would like to put that probably toward um people on our district leadership team okay to discuss and bring that forward to the board and then with students so here's here's where I think Tracy and I had a conversation today too so we've heard several different um possibilities either you know student or two from

119our our um student board reps someone involved in the vision house someone heavily involved in tech ed classes maybe a student who's interested in business management um so it would be a student who is engaged and committed because whoever we designate as the the regularly meeting group for this committee would be a part of that number that is responsible for establishing Forum sure that makes sense um the last thing and I guess this might be the more concerning part of a couple classes of people you've missed there's there's no parents well and and be careful um this is us as a board this isn't just me we did discuss this so so we've missed it yes I'm I'm just bringing it up as a point I I'm not saying you did or didn't do anything

120I'm saying I I would like it to be added if that's how you would like me to say it um and then also um there's no Community member now I guess maybe through the the facilities advisory but you know the the community is the one that approve this and then to not have them on it I guess we didn't get into this in the workshop and maybe we should have in hindsight so I think um maybe to help you clarify help you understand and clarify that this we have a core group group that's responsible for Quorum but these are open meetings so that would means that parents and business members um community members would always be welcome and then for certain meetings like say we have a certain part of the project of discussion we

121would specifically invite certain individuals who might have either that experiential or professional expertise that they could offer as well so we're it's not to exclude them Craig it's just making sure that we don't have too big of a number that is saying they're going to commit to being there in a monthly basis and then we have something happen to that number just like we kind of did for the CAC so we're trying to be careful and this is for our discussion at the board workshops too I think we're aiming for somewhere around 10 to 12 people to be our our committed members but then yes it's always open um for parents and community members as well well I guess I'll just be transparent in two months I'm not allowed to be on this committee and

122and that that kind of being somebody that lives in the community has a has children has a child in the building I live around the block I I would be committed to the meeting but I can't based on how this is written today and I I'm just saying it as somebody that would be very engaging and very much a part of this I would not be allowed to be part of it um do you have any suggestions yeah a Community member and you could maybe you could even say a Community member and or a parent I mean I I I think that's something that should be part of this for the reasons I said earlier um so that approved it if we're looking to add um community members or parents um how many would you

123recommend and how would you um suggest that we v through that I I mean I I'm thinking no different than like we did for the mental health counil get a a series of questions I don't know what you'd want to ask or or just see if there's interest I mean I might be the only person that's interested which would make it easy but um I think they should have a a if they're willing to commit to it and and that should be part of it too you know Wednesdays at 3:30 can you make that if you can't please come as you can but I I think this being such an important project and and as I you know go through my last two meetings I'd like to stay involved and I think this is a

124place where I could be a great asset but I I want to do whatever I can to be part of it if it means filling out an application and justifying my reason to be on it i' I'd like to do that um but as it's as this is written today in two months I wouldn't be part of it be able to be part of it and now I'm just trying to recall so we we have had you know community members asking for is there going to be some kind of a committee how can I get involved how can we make sure you know the public is is involved because we had the public or we had stakeholder I should say so heavily involved in the CAC you know before we got to this point and

125there are a lot of questions about okay well what now what's our chance to get more questions answer now or input now and like Tracy knows too I don't want to slow this down I also don't want to stall the process of being as transparent as we possibly can so we're kind of in this weird little time like things are rolling so I hear what you're saying Craig um my concern is the timeline to get that done and what we do in the meantime I guess so um that's that's just me kind of thinking out loud I did not really prepare beyond what we talked about the workshop or the discussions I've had since um so I guess looking at that kind of a process applic like seeking out advertising out seeking applications Ving through

126the applications to completely form the committee to me looks like that probably would be um at least a two-month process Stacy how long was it for the mental health Council and I'm just trying to think like what is a realistic timeline I won't speak specifically to this process because I haven't been involved in it but um when we've run other application processes certainly you can expedite that as quickly as you as you want to um I don't know I would say it was probably a good month depending on how long you have the application out there but certainly could expedite it quicker okay thank you heather yeah what about Stevie when when you did the human growth and development committee when you had the parents and the community members involved you expedited that kind of

127quickly the timeline was similar yes you can you can um just as long as your window is open okay and I guess to answer like you have two to three members of the citizens facility Well maybe one or you know maybe make it four people two of them are not part of that and two of them are now you've hit your community and maybe a parent might be part of that as well so if you ask where you could put it that would be my suggestion okay or where we could put it that would be my suggestion and and to be clear I did have a conversation with Katrina as well just asking for her recommendations on the director of communications whether that should be a a committed member that's going to be attending monthly

128or whether that's a person who's already involved in some of the other meetings and updates and she could always just kind of clarify here she could clarify that with with our director of building and grounds so I guess um Katrina did you have any further thoughts on that would you like us to keep that that piece in here yeah should that be should that be a a piece that's committed to attend monthly at the meeting or there it's just open and they they have the opportunity to attend you think I'd know how to work a mic there you go um you said it I had to take the joke first Craig uh I would definitely have go with definitely and then walk it back ability to attend okay I think that the director of communications

129is going to be in those prior meetings before this ad hoc committee meeting as well and as I mentioned before having Tracy Peterson is going to be crucial in the communication through it all so she's really the point person on this okay thank you so there is another another number then potentially sure and I and I think the the summaries that Jeff provides from those meetings you should definitely have those before you meet because I think that's the core of what's happening and Tracy Peterson would probably disseminate some of that Craig Craig's referring to the minutes uh from the court team meetings uh that are forwarded on to each of the board members um and then the plan from Katrina's perspective is to uh work with Bray and develop a monthly report that encompasses the

130work or the progress or the upcoming work that happens in the last 30 days because correctly if I'm wrong I think Bray puts out those minutes for us but they don't necessarily want that to be the the public document that is correct okay that's why I said the basis okay I mean at a high level nothing's it it it just covers the highlights of those meetings right um and you could take it you could water it down even more if need be but I think that's probably your outline um any other input or discussion from board members I just wanted to say that um I think this is really important you know we did all the front-end work of getting um Community input uh Community feedback getting the um refer referendum passed and now once

131you are actually starting all the implementation efforts um I think community involv whatever that transforms into and whoever sits on it I know when there's decisions that need to be made and if we have to have a forum and I know um having participated in another committee um there might it's hard to predict where we need someone else from a different area as you mentioned Tracy I agree with that because maybe there will be more people that attend that are interested but they don't want to commit to the full committee so there might be kind of two tiers of involvement based on what your agenda is going to be Tracy that you have so it's just consideration but that's like um it brings it full circle you know I I get asked by people so

132what's going on with referendum now you guys got the money what are you doing with it so I don't want to be at I don't want to keep being asked that I want to be able to go hey here's what we're doing we got a committee we're we're rocking and rolling on it and um I don't want to have the de the headlights look when um it comes to implementation since we did so much and did it the right way on the front end so it's just my thoughts what about U modifying the two to three prior members of the cfac and making that three to six parents Andor community members including two or three of them must be from the CAC because all of those people are within that right they're all either community

133members they're all community members I yeah I want to remind people though that we were intentional to recruit people who had um no longer had children in our district were um more experienced in nature um and had prior experiences at the high school and those are the ones that we were intentionally focused on getting after we had the initial makeup of the CAC so I think those are the ones that should still we should try to find the way for them to have a voice not to get the committee so big but um if you go back to the slides that were just presented and you get students involved and they're G to learn so much by being part of this to a certain um element of it with the communication critical thinking leadership teamwork

134and time management um you know you look at the dashboard that's that's something I see in the real real world all the time I'm sure we all do when you're managing a project so what a great asset to look at that and to experience it in an educational level before they're exposed to it in a work environment so for the the good of um the discussion in order for this evening um where does the board want to end up tonight with this I'm perfectly supportive of the three to six parents community members and throwing the uh you know having couple of them part of the seac on there I think that would be a perfectly fun proposal to move forward with do we just need to am it yeah I mean we we basically this

135is a discussion someone's goingon to make a motion however they want it to look um we could actually because regardless next month would be the month we're going to bring forward the names and the makeup we could just decide to form the Comm the ad hoc committee and um get either appointments or appli ready to bring forward to a future meeting that's probably best in my opinion I agree with that being the best I think that's probably the safest um that gives us room to work with so so can you just say I'd like to make that motion sure I'll second it sure I'd like to make I'll do that like to make a motion um for the approval of an ad hoc committee to be charged with regular engagement and referendum project updates and

136discussions and possibly make recommendations to the board um with the recommended makeup and members of the committee to be for to be brought forward at a future meeting I'll second that any further discussion all those in favor signify by saying I I I any oppos say nay motion carries unanimously thank you Tracy thank you for stepping forward in case we need you apprciate not a permission to be excused um next item on the agenda for discuss perion to be excused oh sorry go ahead Craig yes you are excused Craig has an engagement he'd like to get to um next item on the agenda is our softball Diamond dugouts at Lincoln Fields while Scott and Tracy come forward I just want to add that I did receive a communication um regarding this and I'll just point

137out the clarity in regards to the question that did not have a sender that I could reply to um the recommendation that Scott and Tracy are bringing forward is that $20,000 from District budgeted dollars is going to come from the bildings and grounds budget to cover the cost of the concrete slabs the remaining amount of the cost is coming through some sort of raised dollars uh through a couple of different gift accounts that is correct and you can see in the uh board packet that $40,000 of that is coming from similar insurance and Craig semler uh he donated that $40,000 back when we had the Orioles onward campaign um so it's been sitting there waiting for these dugouts to be built um then taking some money from our Athletic Department events fundraising account um from

138our golf phoning other events that we host here and then our girl softball program is donating $5,000 towards it and Scott I know I mentioned it to somebody but the timing of this coincides with working with the city to update the DU West Side for boys baseball can you speak about that a little bit yes the city of Hartford uh the p park and Rex department has now taken down the dugouts at Westside Park uh that's the park that all three levels of our baseball program use um in hopes of having those dugouts built before our first game early April for all three levels um to so this is coinciding with that um we're looking at doing the four dugouts that we have because we have two Fields um right at Lincoln um and that's

139a property that we took over just over two years ago that that that coincides to the conversation we had previously like just Scott said a few years ago in regards to we want to be able to invest on uh property we own we own this property um and again in working with um these Partners uh storts and semler uh they've made this what appears to be the right opportunity to invest in these facilities any questions or comments from board members I would just like to publicly say thank you for putting all of this funding together it shows a lot of um a lot of and wide support so thank you very much I mean this is this is fundraising over time as well as donations so thank you yeah and it's we should also thank

140the the zern uh who gave us a pretty good discount on the supplies uh that they are giving us as well as starts with the bid that they came in fantastic thank you we appreciate all the support um with that is there a board member who would like to make a motion yeah I would like to make a motion to approve st's Custom Homes and zern building products to provide construction materials for four new dugouts at the softball diamonds at Lincoln Fields a total cost not to exceed $90,000 I'll second all right we have a motion and a second any further discussion hearing none um let's put it to vote this is a roll call vote because there is a cost of the district so we'll start with you Don hi I I I any

141oppos say nay and that motion carries unanimously thank you very much um in our packets we have future Schoolboard related dates you can see those there uh for possible future agenda items if you have any such please email me the board president um is there a motion to adjourn to close session so moved is there a second we have a motion in a second to adjourn to close session this is contemplated closed session pursuing to Wisconsin statutes 19.85% let's do a roll call vote in a close session starting with you Heather i i i i and thank you we are going in to close session