001by himself working foreign good evening ladies and gentlemen I'm going to call the meeting to order Janet would you please start with our roll call attendance christianas here Craig westwell here Don Franklin here everybody please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance and JJ Walters is going to lead us in it this evening foreign I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for instance one nation under God thank you JJ is there a motion to adopt the agenda motion by Mr Gum is there a second second by Mr pridemore we have a motion in a second any discussion on the agenda hearing none all those in favor of proceeding with the agenda as presented signify by saying aye aye can you post anything motion carries for proceeding with
002the meeting as presented on the agenda up next is our recognition starting with our student recognitions good evening everybody and thanks Tracy um both of them I had an opportunity to listen to at Rotary a couple weeks back and did a fine job representing Hartford Union High School um first is the lineup push um she is ranked fifth in her class she has taken a significant number of our honors and uh AP courses um again one of the neat things that I think she's done as she pursues a career in the medical profession is take the four-year pathway and are approxibly the way strand she's also participated in cross-country basketball softball student council H Club FFA math team for yeah there should be a few questions there waiting for you to share with the board
003and those in attendance I think the on off button is off now too okay so the first question is what are your post high school plans um After High School I plan to get a four-year degree currently I have been accepted the UW Madison and I'm waiting on acceptance from Baylor and brown I'm hoping to get my degrees in biology and also genetics and after that go on to medical school and hopefully become an ER physician um what advice would you give to incoming freshman students a lot of freshman students are really nervous and like that so I would say just go out there and be yourself and join a bunch of clubs I mean obviously you want to find what you do like want to do and pursue your passions so doing a little
004bit of everything helps you find out what you like and can hopefully push you in a career path or basically any path you want to go into uh last question is what is your favorite memory of your time here at hohs uh I would just have to say meeting all the awesome people I've been a part of sports clubs everything like that and just the People You Meet to that are so so amazing and they really do guide you and help you and just make you no better person so yeah thank you congratulations again and then the second student for March was JJ Walters JJ is ranked 10th in his class he's taking a number of the honors and AP courses as well also the cap UW Oshkosh classes as well as this year he
005has spent all year at UB Milwaukee Washington County where he's our 18 credits or hopefully we'll earn 18 credits before the end of the semester um this past summer he had the opportunity to participate in Badger boys state he's also participated in soccer basketball baseball H club and National Honor Society he serves as events coordinator for H Club he's a soccer referee basketball referee lifeguard at the Aquatic Center um and I think the neat thing about JJ's transition to this District um in addition to other factors um is that he had the opportunity through coursework in the building with lifeguarding and the officiating class to become certified as a lifeguard and certified as a referee he was appreciative of the opportunity Michelle still gave him to referee a basketball game recently as if I serve
006for him so again congratulations JJ so for my high school after high school plans I've been accepted into Carthage UW Eau Claire and UW Whitewater with a few others and I plan some major in data science or statistics and eventually become something along the lines I can actually Actuarial scientist or I would love to get into this Sports advice I would give to freshmen is just take advantage of all the opportunities they have either through youth apprenticeship which is really cool opportunity as well as all the college courses you can take through High School whether it be a t cap club or the academy that I've been doing this year and then my favorite memory here at h1hs either has to be Badger boys state this past summer which was a government simulation sponsored by
007the region or roughing the game at Pfizer Forum where I got to go in the officials room which was very nice awesome congratulations and then lastly tonight we get to recognize one of our fine staff members Mr Bob Slowinski was recognized with a certificate of recognition of excellence in teaching Ari and calavila was um selected as a regenerine STS scholar and Aryan as part of that process spoke about Mr Solinski as a teacher who supports the research because he's the best teacher he's ever had in the high school career no other teacher even comes in comparison when he thinks about somebody who supported him in her career in stem Bob is a teacher who inspires him and challenges him to reach his full potential its potential always want to go the extra mile make sure
008he understands the material RN does not believe it's just him but he's also had a tremendous impact on their students he's one of the biggest reasons why he's been successful in high school and to unthink of a better teacher so thanks for being a great model um we appreciate all the work you do Bob and will not have you talk about all the recognition is for tonight thank you Mr Walters up next is our public comments section of the meeting we do have somebody signed up to address the board so we're going to read our public comments opening here per board policy this meeting is a meeting of the Hartford Union High School District Board of Education and public for the purpose of conducting the school district's business and is not a public community meeting
009the public is welcome to address the board public comment for this meeting is limited to items that are posted on the agenda each person wishing to make public comments will have time to make them as determined by the presiding officer the Border Administration May respond your comments at a later date you may also provide your comments with copies to each board member and the superintendent no public comment will be heard that the presiding officer deems to be critical of an individual or group either by name or by reference also for board policy the presiding officer May interrupt mourn or terminate the speaker's statement when the statement is too lengthy personally directed abusive obscene or irrelevant please direct any such comments to the principal or the superintendent for administrative action comments on other agenda items and
010non-agenda items should be admitted in writing or email with copies to each board member and the superintendent so Wendy Smith would you please come up to the phone number and Wendy before you get started with what you'd like to say please let the crowd know what agenda item you're speaking to the button is right there on top of the link I think it's a slide thank you I'm speaking to the mental health topic tonight thank you thank you thanks for having me um experts so experts have done an extensive research and an extensive amount of research to um identify the link between social media and the decline in youth Mental Health but the most impactful indicator that we have had so far is what this community has been telling us about this topic and what
011we've learned is that our kids are carrying some very heavy secrets and these secrets are causing an enormous amount of anxiety depression and leading to self-harm Suicide ideation and even suicide they're seeing things and experiencing things that I think most adults would actually freak out about which is also one reason why the secrets remain that a secret teen sex teen culture is outside of most of our adults realm of uh comprehension we didn't grow up with this so conversations and education about the dangers and consequences are not being held they're not happening or at least not enough and therefore our kids are grossly equipped to be online safely which makes them Ultra vulnerable to being sexually exploited whether it be a peer-to-peer revenge porn sex extortion and even sex trafficking which is certainly happening in
012our community so we go to Great Lengths to um be sure a 15 year old is well educated and about the dangers on the roads to have classroom education on the road training we practice with um you know we we drive with them they take a test and then we still have have restrictions on their driving capabilities and how far we want them to go until we're confident that they're going to be safe on their own that they're not going to hurt themselves or somebody else it's a process but we'll hand a young child an electronic device with a literal portal to the evils and we spend minimal time teaching them how to use it safely we use the phrase all kids are tech savvy but we forget that the kids are not necessarily Tech
013safety savvy in January of 2023 the FBI Homeland Security National Center for missing exploited children these are all authorities on the sexual exploitation Trends they issued a joint national public safety alert on sex extortion schemes they have campaigns going there's videos there's a ton of media dedicated just to education on this they point out the horrific increase is what they call it in Predators from outside the country targeting teen boys they saw over 300 percent increase of reported cases between 2018 and 21. so here we are a couple years later citing the internet as Predators Paradise with no safety measures so here's a story that I tell in our presentations this is about two boys I started out telling about one but I heard about another story now so I'm going to kind of tell
014this side by side two boys very similar 17 year old from different schools but both of them very similar they have been on football teams um popular they have family they're they go to church the normal fun loving kids both were on social media both met an attractive girl and I do this because it was a false profile we know it looks like an attractive 17 year old girl and so that's who they thought they were talking with the attractive girl that asks the boys both of them separately to send a picture a sexually explicit picture and they send it to which this girl immediately responds with aggressive messaging stating that she wants them to pay or she's going to send the picture out to friends and family on their friends list both boys freak
015out they're shocked confused scared shamed horrified I thought of this embarrassing photo getting out to friends and family teachers church leaders anyone so the one boy sent some of the requested money they were Relentless and wouldn't stop harassing him for more and he didn't have more but they didn't care they kept sending him non-stop threatening messages within six hours from the beginning of this conversation with the pretty girl on March 25th 2022 Jordan Demay died by suicide because he couldn't bear no shame the other boy he told a friend who told his mom who happened to be at one of our presentations just recently she told him everything was going to be okay and they figured it and that they'd figure it all out and that she would help him and they would tell his
016parents together she knew how to respond because she was educated Jordan's family gave permission for the story to the Press last year when when he died because they hoped that people would run with it people like me to educate other people so it would prevent other kids from having this tragedy happen to him so two things happened that we have saved the second boy that day so number one he told somebody number two the person he told was educated about it because that that kid was told by his mom because he learned about Jordan to me so another story um Jason my husband is a big brother and his little in and him were on his way on the way home he was dropping him off and there was a young girl they were seventh
017graders at that time walking along the street he said his little said oh I know her she's famous in our school Jason's psycho up oh really why what is she famous for well she sent her boyfriend a new photo and they broke up now he's charging his friends 20 bucks for it so that's called that's called um peer-to-peer um revenge porn that's one term for it it's just sexual exploitation another story I got invited to speak to the Big Brothers bigger sisters group the only people that showed up was born big and and one little and her sisters those three little girls heading into sixth seventh and ninth grade and the bank and a staff member so we had a very casual Converse conversation I didn't have my papers I didn't present just talk uh
018the stuff they told me I couldn't believe the sixth grader who was in The Hartford school system at that time so it had been prior to that year she was it was the summer told of uh the boys in her class having a private group page on Facebook and they would try to get pictures from the other girls and they would put them into this page and they would trade them kind of like baseball cards it was a big joke I've also got another recent store that's just breaking my heart right now because there's nothing I can do about it but it is a little party she was there was alcohol somebody slipped a Mickey in her drink she passed out she was raped it was videotaped and it was sent to her boyfriend with
019a message She's mine now she didn't even remember it happened these kids are dealing with some heavy stuff the weight on the shoulders is heavy shame is the controlling factor it's affecting their mental health self-blame fear they don't know who to go to they know they did something they shouldn't have done nobody's talking about the topic it's not in schools really um they don't know about these Trends they don't know who they can go to these are in devastating emotions for a young person to handle let alone for us adults which is why victims often keep it to themselves and we don't hear about the stories and people are like why don't I hear about the stuff I say talk about this talk about the topic you're going to hear the stories that can do
020according to hohs statement a philosophy the Board of Education Administration and staff believe that a high school education must prepare today's youth for tomorrow's world in 1999 when the statement was adopted I don't think anybody could have prepared anybody for this over-sexualized Tech culture that we are living in right but the teenage Mental Health crisis makes it painfully clear that our kids are not adequately prepared for the way the world is and they don't have the tools needed to cope with the social change all across the board experts agree on one thing education is the only hope it's our only hope in preventing kids from being sexually exploited online thus the subsequent decline in mental health they also agree that bad things can still happen and we need to still know how to respond when
021it does as this mom did Internet safety education should be mandatory and should go hand in hand with handing out the devices in school starting at a really young age and parents should be required to understand the dangers as well I have references anything that I've spoken about here I have references references on the table here for but if anybody wants anything certainly they can get a hold of me and I can them any information on that on that note I'd like to invite you all to our presentation on teenage texting culture and revenge fund on Wednesday at the Hartford Senior Center at 6 30 PM open and free to the public and I've got posters I'll leave them on the desk there when we leave love to see you guys there and uh I
022our guest speaker is the Hartford Union High School resource officer Kaylee Lehman so from the Hartford Police Department it'll be interesting to hear that conversation thank you for letting me have the comments and thanks for watching thank you very much Wendy um if you do have a handout for the board members would you please leave Jacob and she can make sure that we get it thank you we have no one else signed up to address the board at this time so we're going to proceed with the agenda up next with our student is our reports and communication sorry through student board representative reports I do however believe that Jr is under the weather correct because JP is not actually well okay ladies we should jump forward to what you guys have okay that was it
023there right here we don't sorry okay so during the course of the season six leadership event our guest speaker whom is also the mayor of Port Washington Mr Ted knightsky led us through an integrated and disciplined disciplinary approach to the whole idea of leadership the remaining board representatives and I have learned all have learned have all learned a variety of leadership strategies of which included the zero zero mindset the Buffalo leadership and empathy the zero zero mindset was a leadership strategy in which individuals must go back to the score 0-0 when let down or even losing in a sport or a competition the whole idea of this strategy is to reset the mind and keep fighting through whatever you are fighting through because the score will always remain zero zero the Buffalo leadership concept simply
024pinpointed how Buffalo's charge into a storm in a huge grass field highlighting how taking risks and ultimately fighting through the hardest points in life is important as a leader and finally Mr knightsky also taught us how empathy was a huge building block of leadership because as a strong leader one must fit into everyone's shoes and adapt to the overall environment or situation at our school we have many different leaders from different clubs and activities sadly not all of them could um could have attended but we still want to teach other leaders at our school how to incorporate these leadership strategies um by just integrating it to the clubs we are we are already participating in to sharing it with other students in different leadership roles such as presidents or student captains of teams demonstration is
025the only true right way to communicate this to every student by demonstrating these different mindsets and Leadership strategies other students will learn how to be a leader in their day-to-day lives um and on how we plan on being Hartford Union uh we can set some clear goals and objectives for Harford new high school leadership by making sure that all clubs and activities are taught these important leadership qualities and steps in order to make sure that life at Hartford Union High School runs smoothly and that everyone feels that they have a say in their club and activity because and this will benefit HHS because students involved in these activities will feel more accomplished and like they're a part of something bigger we can also Foster a positive and inclusive School culture through this by ensuring that
026clubs and activities and everyone's voices are heard through those and everyone gets an opportunity to contribute in those clubs one strategy that can be used is something that was taught to us at this leadership conference the this like circular rope and not sort of activity where everyone held onto the rope and there was a knot in the rope and everyone could participate but only one person could speak and that's the person who had the knot but you could still offer to the discussion by quietly shaking or pulling on a rope a certain way these leadership strategies are very important for groups at HHS because they offer a chance for everyone to share their ideas while also getting a chance for everyone to speak um and then the leadership strategies that were introduced at the conference
027are very effective at quickly building camaraderie against random groups that we were put into and I feel that with more positivity empathy and a more welcoming attitude at HHS it will be much easier for teams to quickly build camaraderie and work together to achieve a common goal such as in group projects or on teams thank you ladies and JP's back how you doing JP um well I'm definitely utilizing my zero zero mindset today okay um so I just want to get it done I'm not feeling the best but we're gonna get right into it um I just want to talk about the big month for juniors March um it's the ACT month and overall I'm very excited and just great with the way it went um I am very excited to say that there's a
028much higher turnout than the previous last year's ACT Aspire and the ACT unsecured days this year I think the ACT ACT prep sessions had massive numbers which I think overall gave Juniors more confidence to attempt the act and try much harder than rather than clicking through buttons and putting their heads down I know people in my oral time personally I interviewed and they said that without ACT prep sessions I would not have done as good it's not always memorizing the questions that are gonna be asked it's the confidence and time management that you're gonna acquire by doing these prep sessions and second most importantly this month the College and Career for opportunity this mandated um opportunity to graduate was broken down into colleges two and four-year businesses and breakout sessions to conclude these break-on sessions
029were held based on different events and possibilities After High School to give everyone a chance to express and show Express themselves and really know and get a grasp on what they're doing After High School um the student reaction was that they wanted a wider range of colleges there which I know isn't always under the board's control but for future College and Career Fairs the variety of colleges could be expanded uh businesses were a very helpful addition and it they were there last year which was amazing as well the students felt like they actually wanted to engage with businesses and they felt more comfortable talking to actual businesses in their real everyday lives in colleges at times and the breakout sessions for most students were too broad and they wanted more specific and going into specific
030analyzing topics based on the breakout session instead of the broad and trying to cover every little thing I would like to ask any questions about the huge Junior month that was fantastic information JP thank you I just have one question would would did students mention at all that they would like to have question and answer sessions during that College and Career Fair actually coincidentally yes I had a few interviews where students were interested with getting together with a specific College rather than a member of an employee of a company to go one-on-one or in a smaller group to ask questions and get some more personal answers about what the campus life is like instead of being in the huge group in the field house okay thank you any other board members have questions Mr Gum
031strong emphasis on making sure that they do ACT prep in all grade levels yeah I think that the continuation and the experiment this year with the junior class was very helpful and I'd love to expand to the sophomore and freshman classes thank you any other board members thank you for your time thank you I had the opportunity after the trip to Oshkosh and talked to JP a little bit uh JP's bar was pretty low uh I don't want to speak for him but when I asked him how it was he said something like I wasn't really expecting much but it was actually super awesome like I really liked that attitude because a lot of times high school kids go into something like okay I'm a board rep and I have to or I'd get to
032go to this right and I thought it was interesting to have super high expectations that were traveling all the way to OshKosh but you had to come out of it with a pretty cool summary of the takeaways so I appreciate you and all the others who went up there because we certainly don't take advantage of the things happening up in Oshkosh real often because we're such a southern location compared to that seat since there's not so again thanks to all of you who participated miss Lamb and Mr Lewis thank you up next is reports and Communications starting with donations great thank you um we have two donations this month um the first one is for our girls softball to obtain a pitching machine um from the Hartford athletic booster club entering the amount of just
033over 2 800 and then also the athletic booster club uh donated 14.50 to purchase Guardian football helmet covers those are those things that if you've watched the news in the last year or so um they look like kind of the inside of your brain pushing pad to go on top of the helmets um as far as concussion and head injuries so again we appreciate the booster club for both of those donations including some of that latest technology thank you very much administrative reports and board dialogue starting with our superintendent's report from Mr Walters great so one of the opportunities and challenges as a Union High School District is that at times we try to figure out and start um who's the message what's the message Who are the people that were trying to get the
034message out to and so in the last couple of years um I think Kelly and I have tried to sort through that as high school principal and superintendent and I think we've certainly made some enhancements with the addition of Kayla to our team at the communications specialist and then in recent time we felt as if that there also needs to be a piece that comes to the board so one of the areas that we've spent quite a bit of time on lately is the board voice we've identified a number of things here and actually have taken action on our couple so far that we'll talk about a little bit later in regards to how to make sure that the board voices out there to our community as well so the first one is with press
035releases and so with press releases we obviously have an opportunity based on something that has happened to get that out into the larger community and one of the challenges we have is we are not a community that has a newspaper designated to us or a television station um but that shouldn't stop us from trying to spread that great news so again if you're picking up the Daily News um or other Publications hopefully you're starting to see more presence in some of those Publications regards the press releases the most press recent press release we had was around what JP references the College and Career Fair and we actually asked Tracy as the board president um to share a little bit of thought in regards to that as well so I don't know if that has appeared
036um but there's again some summary of the college career fair we're thanking our business partners and then also a comment from both myself and Tracy and that most recent press release so again this is the first of many opportunities that we're hoping to take advantage of in regards to getting the board voice out there um again time sensitive so I'll make sure that we're being as responsive as possible to make sure and Kayla does a great job of reminding me um the next one that we've arrived at is a board Bulletin so the word bulletin is going to be a section of our new website and obviously also accessible through our app um and it'll also be linked to the Weekly Newsletter okay so the board bulletin is a section some of those bigger districts
037and the area have certain sections of the board um certain sections of their website that provides the board an opportunity to share a perspective I think one of the challenges with all website content is to make sure that we keep it updated and fresh okay and we certainly know that there's an opportunity with our new website to continue to get people to visit that important information there so here's kind of an example of our website so you'll see when you go to the menu and you click you'll see this drop down menu okay the board of education is on the left hand side about us and the board bulletin will be one section of that um of that drop down menu and then this is kind of what the web page would look like okay
038so obviously sitting here tonight there is no content added to the board bulletin but there certainly will be in the near future if this is something we agree upon doing it okay anything to add so far too and then one of the regular things that have been going on in our district for years is the um Ovations so The Ovations is our quarterly publication um and you see kind of the first page of Ovations is normally a message that I have had it also um includes a reference to the five of you as our board members but again we think it's an opportunity to allow voice there so in a future Ovations which the next one is in a referral deadline okay so I will work with the board president make sure there's an opportunity
039in The Ovations magazine which I think the important part of this is it goes out to every mailbox in our community it's not just our parents it's not just our staff our families our our students but it certainly goes to every mailbox in our district okay and again there'll be an opportunity there to add voice from the board to the voice that I provide as the superintendent and then another piece that we've kind of been part of a collaborative in the last couple of years is something that's called Hartford it's happening here it's collaborative with um some people from the city Tom hostet is involved as the leader of the hatc in Hartford and I know us in joint one participates in this opportunity at this point in time we're kind of on our second
040edition of this and here's an example of what we put in um in the last Edition back in the audience back in August of 2022 in regards to again me speaking about the Hartford Union High School District and then we get four pages is that right Kayla yeah we have four pages total in there so we kind of put things as if you're sitting at the real estate office the dentist office wherever these Publications are sitting okay people will pick them up again it's 25 30 pages uh hopefully they'll find those four pages about Hartford United score right in the middle and then lastly the other thing that Kayla's been working on is the Weekly Newsletter so that's going out every week and we believe it would be important again to to large variety of
041different things that are going into that and then that newsletter is only going to our families and our staff and our students and um we've recommending a support have one to two times per month so every other Weekly Newsletter twice a month and they're looking for the School Board of Education bulletin kind of at the bottom there will be the headline that would be in the newsletter and again that would be something that Kayla would help to solve I think it's a great reminder that for our guidelines okay I serve as a district communication representative of the news media and the principal will serve that function at the school level and again I think that goes back to some of those rules and responsibilities um who is the appropriate person at that point um again
042all content is facilitated through myself and working with Kayla so that is the conversation about or voiced I mean be open to any feedback or questions you may have well I'll just start by thanking you for putting this together and putting the work and thought into it it's appreciated I know I had heard from several people where is the board voice in this so it really it's nice to see that there's a good solid plan for how we can get that out there and it's an ad kill awesome um as we also speak about roles and responsibilities um one of the things that we've tried this year is to clarify within our organizational charts and then also using something that we call the Oriole information Hub so I have a couple different examples for you
043that kind of show where we've been and what we've done and certainly some opportunities in looking at other models in regards to what might work best okay so this is our current organizational chart this gets updated as positions may change but obviously at the start of each school year it certainly is an organizational chart that speaks about chain of command okay who reports to who who supervises who things like that the orange on the current organizational Charter all those individuals contracts the dark orange the light orange are three members of our leadership team who are not administrative contracts okay so just as an example the director of Technology services okay it's supervised by myself and the IT operations specialist and the ITT support specialist are the two individuals that report to the director of Technology
044services so again certainly shows the clarity of chain of command certainly shows the structure of supervision does not speak about roles and responsibilities right the way and McCoy I'm not sure how to do this but is there any way you can click on the staff list with duties the way in which we spoke then about roles and responsibilities was to create this document that comes off of the oriole information okay so it's called our hohs contacts and you will see many of the key stakeholders in The District in regards to the roles and responsibilities they have okay so as you can see on the screen the business office okay there's Brenda and the team that she supervises Jackie and Lisa it gives a general sense of the roles and responsibilities that those individuals have McCoy
045if you uh just click technology up on top of the link just to show how it jumps in the document to technology Services okay so there's Val McCoy Jonathan speaks in very um short terms in regards to some of the contacts that people should be doing to those individuals for okay if you can just go back up to the top of toy and you see that in all of our departments okay they're all linked and then each of those links again has the roles and responsibilities for the most part that fall under each of those positions if you go back to the presentation my client then the next link is something to think about or consider it tries to combine the best of both of those okay and as you will see it certainly becomes
046um something more than that first organizational chart that we're currently living by okay so in this case what Janet and I did is develop a district chart which then includes myself and the district office staff and then again that chain of command uh staff underneath them and roles and responsibilities and then it also um I don't know if I have any more control of this mcquavies just scroll down and then it also has kind of the school level of Kelly reports to me as the high school principal and then the structure of individuals who reports that Kelly as the building principal Okay so we've gone from one District organizational chart without rules and responsibilities the roles and responsibilities are spoken of in a separate venue to two pages Give Tracy a hard copy so 11
047by 17 one page is kind of kind of again a district perspective the other page is kind of a school perspective again it shows channel two man it shows supervision structure and again it's certainly the new recommendation would speak about the rules and responsibilities in the in each of those uh each of those positions any feedback or questions on that I just want to thank you for putting the work into this and laying this out a question I have for you is as you are doing this did you notice any challenges or overlaps or things that we might need to have conversations about in the future to clarify I know the clarifying of roles and responsibilities was something that we heard from staff that was necessary yeah I think I think a couple of challenges
048as I kept asking Janet to do different versions was how much how much can you stay on one document okay and if you missed some aspect of it is that an oversight or is that you can't be all-inclusive the other part is when you're looking at an organizational chart that also ties back into job descriptions okay so I've been meeting with all of our district leaders in regards to their job descriptions so that certainly then also could impact a document such as this that's maybe not as Nimble or livable with roles and responsibilities whereas the other document that we kind of have live as a Google doc within the Oracle information be um but again knowing that neither documents certainly couldn't be as food as we need to make it um there are certainly some
049nuances um in regards to some of the support staff so as an example support staff reports to multiple people so as an example the paraprofessionals or the learning support specialist report to Jeremy is the associate principal most of the front office staff reports to Kelly is the high school principal but one of those individuals because her role in student services reports to Stacy okay either way to me again the organizational chart which we've had since I've been here which we've had every year certainly helps provide some clarity with that and again the effort we made this year was to create that roles and responsibilities documents to help clarify some of those specific questions we are hearing about towards end of last year Craig Hi I appreciate you putting this together I know last uh April
050and May when when Tracy and I did the extensive interviews with multiple staff this was one of the common themes that we had heard was um times there were people that didn't know the pecking order and I think I know you've been working on this through a hub most of the year and I think this will provide some clarity to the people that didn't see that so thank you for doing that and so Jeff just to be clear um who did you work on this with Mrs Jones you know what that's a good point so actually obviously Janet helped executed okay but again our district team worked with the roles of responsibilities so everybody on that documents worked on their roles and responsibilities we also included during Dempsey who is helping support to consult with
051Kayla in regards to some of the work as well so thank you any other board members have comments or questions hearing none I think we'll move on great and then McCoy if you could just return to the presentation again the last thing I had for the board was a little bit of an update on the citizens advisory committee so back on January 30th 17 individuals were in this room here and attended an organizational meeting a couple weeks after that the citizens advisory committee was approved by the board all right since that time the finance facilities and operations committee met with Performance Services just about three weeks after that committee was formed the finance facilities and operations committee will meet again on April 5th because we kind of sent Performance Services back with a to-do list
052and I'd certainly um asked anybody who was part of that committee to chime in about that um the citizens advisory is scheduled to meet on April 11th with again per policy the board confirms Community appointments and hopefully then that could occur at the April 17 school board meeting and Performance Services we'll also be here on that date to share facility audit findings with the school board again based upon that Journey that they've traveled with the finance facilities and operations committee okay and I really do believe it's important to kind of allow that committee structure to kind of play itself out provide feedback to Performance Services again Glenn's been involved in that as our buildings and grounds supervisor those people on that committee were there and again at least sent them back we'll be meeting with
053them Glenn and I have a media schedule with them outside of the committee the committee will meet and then again that kind of comes together on April 17th every artist and the board will have an opportunity to hear the financial side of the audit they've already seen and then also to hear of the possible Community appointments which again per board policy you guys approve those appointments for that citizens advisory committee open to questions or feedback I know last month we had the policy in our packet so I would assume it'd be in the packet again the next month for board members to refer to because there are points in the policy that we need to make sure that we're um practicing by not only appointing the the members but ensuring that we have a structured
054task and timeline as well correct so that that structured task obviously in at this point is regarding the facility's work um again it's also important to note that staff members of the of a Citizens advisory are approved by the superintendent program and Jeff would you have that list of Staff available for next month as well I know earlier we had talked about kind of looking at all the names together yeah a speech I mean we should we've certainly had a list of over 80 that's include our included our community and our staff collectively what we did today is reach out to staff specifically for a message that was sent on to those individuals and wanted staff to potentially respond to their interests and make sure we have a cross-section of staff from all of our
055employee groups so we'll certainly have those who have expressed interest at this time all right thank you very much and board members I believe we all received an email today from Janet about this as well just reminding us that we are all I believe the term is ex-officio members of that committee so you can participate as well anything further Mr Walters that is it for the superintendents report tonight and then Mary Lynn Krishna will come up and speak about an opportunity that her and Taylor Bieber had regarding a Skyward learning opportunity that kind of came from again the high school and Taylor being recognized by Skyward um for one of those excellent support So this question um so Taylor and myself had attended the icons Skyward conference in February I attended the HR and finance
056sessions and she attended the student sessions we networked with other school districts from all over the U.S and then the district also received the 2023 leader in excellence award at the conference in which Taylor will discuss a little bit further into the report um I attended a session where an Illinois District um spoke about the process of moving to cumulative which is a new platform that Skyward is implementing right now we are currently on the SMS 2.0 platform the Illinois District Who currently implemented the cumulative has 7 700 students 575 teachers 300 support staff and 100 administrators which is a pretty good-sized School District uh that they plan on going live um July 1st and their goal is to also help help eliminate other systems that are doing duplicate duplicatences right now there are a
057few districts in Wisconsin that have already implemented the new platform um right now we'll be able to use our current system for another five to seven years however Skyward did state that there will be a time that they no longer will support the SMS 2.0 system and then districts will have two years after that to implement cumulative because it's a large implementation it is a good time to start thinking about the timeline as well as it's going to implement with multiple departments and possibly the student side as well so it's not just the HR Finance side but it also could affect the student side also um I did tend a few other sessions became the Skyward reports for both HR and finance which I had shared that with the finance department and then also a
058session that discussed launching some successful District projects um currently we do not use the employee management system in Skyward and um when connecting with other districts and Skyward Consultants they mentioned we should start implementing the employee management system and the following reasons that we should be doing that is just easier transition and less work when going from SMS to cumulative oversight on positions finance will be able to run budget reports from the employee management system versus creating spreadsheets alleviate manual calculations and then HR will be able to send out contracts and letters through the Skyward system and then also running reports for likewise data budgets and salary negotiation plans the timeline that we're looking to implement the employee management system is July 1st of this year HR and finance we're both looking to implement that
059employee management system on the student side Taylor unfortunately was not able to attend tonight but still wanted to make sure she provided details from our icon conference experience the 2023 Skyward icon conference was nothing short of a great learning and networking experience throughout my time at the conference I was able to attend noteworthy sessions all related to the student side in our Skyward system one of the most important sessions that I attended was the SMS 2.0 to cumulative session currently the students died of Skyward is on the 2.0 however Skyward has another platform they built from the ground up called definitive at some point in time all Skyward 2.0 2.0 users will have to migrate to Cuma too it was a great to dive deep and develop an understanding for what cumulative actually is so
060that I can help our team here make educated and beneficial decisions when the time comes for 2.0 to cumulative discussions through this session ifp also gave two connections I also enjoyed participating in a training manual session which was led by a technology director and a school district of Illinois through the session I was able to see how another District creates training guides reference manuals handouts and job AIDS for their District I then was able to put together and brainstorm ideas for things I can do for other hohs staff members this is something that I hope to expand here at e2hs so that others can become more knowledgeable and confident when utilizing Skyward in their day-to-day other sessions that Taylor attended included areas with within device tracking data mining activities CTE and positive attendance lastly it's
061been a huge honor to have been able to represent hohs while receiving the Skyward leader in excellence award the purpose of the leader in excellence award is to honor school districts and individuals who use Skyward to simplify operations strengthen their teams and improve learning outcomes there are so many great things Skyward supports our district with and we have talented individuals here that make sure we are utilizing them to our fullest potential the amount of support I've received from Administration and staff at the district has been super rewarding and I'm very thankful for that I look forward to the work that we will continue to do while utilizing Skyward to benefit Hartford Union High School across all areas thank you again to HHS for investing in tailoring myself to attend the Skyward icon conference thank you
062any questions or comments for Mary Mr Gum I'm assuming that currently we pay a software licensing fee for Skyward for Grant is there a is a pretty significant increase from 2.0 and 200. I've not looked into that yet because it is so new we haven't really looked at the cost of it um so that yeah that's something because it is like I said five to seven years down the road but I really want to start looking into um because it takes so many different departments it's Finance HR obviously the student side and then it I want to start looking at kind of like a timeline I've never heard you said that some districts are using them using it though everyone upstairs yes so I would just encourage the district to work and Charlie talk about
063in the future real quick thank you Mr Gum any other board members I guess that's the end of the discussion thank you very much Mary Lynn up next we have our mental health Grant presentation with Dr Stacy game all right good evening everyone I just want to start um to kind of preference the grant so the last 18 months we've really been talking about safety in terms of attending both preventative and reactive processes plans and practices to really maximize the safety for all stakeholders and just a reminder we're thinking about safety it really is that interrelated construct that's the responsibility of all stakeholders in the room and and elsewhere in the community and really we need that systematic approach to address climate and culture within our schools to really enhance and maximize school safety and
064so when we talked about that definition we talked about perceptions environmental factors relationships physical protection intellectual response and tonight really that inextricable link with emotions feelings of staff students families and community members so when we talk about health we know that complete health is physical mental social well-being and not just the absence of disease this past October we pulled together through multiple Community member application staff applications a mental health and well-being Council and just a reminder of what that mission is it really for our council is to learn do a comprehensive needs assessment and develop recommendations to the board this summer and so that really has been ensuing through a review of research analysis of local and National Data the development and Analysis of this well-being needs assessment that we are in the process of
065and we know that the successful implementation of mental health and well-being isn't going to be attained through a simple Standalone program but really through the integration the integration across the school day and Beyond so our ultimate goal as we move into this Grant and other funding sources continues to be the integration of mental health and well-being across the system and so when we think about PE and helps and Online safety as one you talked about a bit ago you know really it is the integration across the system versus standalone you know one time I call them random acts of goodness we really need to ensure that um we have that across the system and so during the process of our group communicating with various agencies doing research visiting one school district onto another obtaining small
066group and individual feedback we applied for a very large competitive grant that runs through 2026 and we were just awarded 185 925 dollars which is a very sizable Grant so through that Grant in conjunction with other funding sources we believe that we will increase the sense of connectedness and belonging among our students and staff enhance that support staff knowledge and strategies strengthens our system for tier two beyond the universal tier as well as really building those student mental health literacy skills engaging staff and meaningful professional learning aligning those parent and guardian supports with what we're doing within the school establishing that evidence-based Universal mental health tier really tying it all together so we're very excited about this brand facilitating the ongoing feedback and determining our needs and then as I noted we'll provide the recommendations
067to the board this summer I just want to point out too to really maximize our fiscal responsibility and sustainability we're highly cognizant of incorporating the capacity building strategies so we talk about train the train trainer models Etc we're very blessed to have and and we'll continue to build our stakeholder capacity through the startup of this Grant and this is just one piece we've been mindful of integrating other fiscal funds to really move our entire system forward and so really in closing then we just look forward to continuing to maximize not only the physical safety but the psychological safety and well-being of all of our stakeholders and in the spirit of the season and John Wooden had really always talked about you know winning was really about the teamwork and the focus and the building and
068fundamentals and commitment and that's really our Focus moving forward is all of our stakeholders and holding on to that process that doesn't preclude us from you know it's not to say we have to wait five years to put certain elements in place but we want to be sure that everything connects to the Plumb line as we move forward to be sustainable and fiscally responsible so that's just kind of a general overview um of a grant linked to our current process and procedures so if anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer those Mr Gum thank you Dr yeah I know you and I have an opportunity to talk offline and a very supportive well I certainly have a window into a lot of those things unfortunately in my civilian career and I'm very supportive
069of what's going on uh I just want to ask you real quickly just a couple of business items as it relates to the grant is our matching requirement for that for transfer no not at all actually and the bulk of the startup when you're looking at opacity so um fortunately no there's not a matching component to that okay and this is a pretty sizable Grant the maximum you could receive was 50 000 a year I think and so we really um considering the course of the months that the grant runs maximized our our total amount and they're not I really want to thank our mental health Council as well as we have multiple staff members 50 I think over 50 that we interviewed to obtain feedback leaves them all to the surveys and other feedback
070and really had a lot going into it so it wasn't a simple application to fill out as you might know when it comes to those things is there an outcomes outcomes or objectives there's tracking and outcomes and goals absolutely Mr curly I just I just thank you and congratulations to you and your team for this it's a big big Grant um it's it really helps set a lot of costs and I I personally appreciate you um doing everything into mental health because it is important and it's getting more foreign Mr Westfall I've participated in a couple of these Council meetings with this group and it's it's really uh energizing this fee people's commitment to it and and this this group consists of not just staff but or not just teachers but staff in general community
071members parents as well as as Stacy and it's just everybody's very empowered and everybody's helped contribute to this I mean Stacy put it together and that's great but everybody did did the work here and it was really a great thing to see us accomplish this you know hats off to you uh Stacy for fighting I would just like to reiterate that I know how much work goes into a grant and it's so appreciated and and the reward for our district is is so huge so thank you so much I believe we all are well aware of the mental health aspect that is impacting our school and schools all over right now so this is definitely timely and needed I also thank you for your patience with me as I've been on the home with you
072often and um and as I continue to challenge you and our staff set to think about what we can do as soon as possible for these kids before the end of the school year so thank you very much any other board members Mr pridemore yes I want to thank you as well in part of my role at joint one was to find uh curriculum and the companies that deal with this is you because we recognize the specialty after the Coleman came through many kids who are being affected by it mentally and we want to make sure we had a program in place in order to address it so thank you foreign that while we have our and we will continue to so I appreciate all the questions Tracy you know that you and other board
073members have had the ideas the input Community member calls um that's really the only way that we're going to move forward is collectively you know as a team because everybody comes from different perceptions um perspectives so we just need to continue to do thank you any further discussion obviously super important but I don't think we should take for granted that we're one of 14 people awarded over 185 000 so students when staff wins and again we're grateful for Stacy's leadership so again thank you very much up next is our principals report from Miss Kelly lamb thank you hey good evening everybody a couple of just updates from the high school side is first and foremost I really want to give a shout out and kudos to Michael schmitter counselor and Connie Darren I'm one of
074our admin assistants for putting together the College and Career Fair that was a huge success highly intended it was great to see kids explore different colleges and different careers so thank you for that we also had an ACP presentation it was originally scheduled for the teacher conferences but due to weather we did reschedule it and I thought we had a very nice turnout is actually going to springboard for more opportunities for interactions between parents Guardians and some armor staff member to see what other opportunities we can to get more teacher more parents and Extinction first aid testing on March 73 to take the ecta student reps it was great to see students take advantage of our ECT sessions this was kind of a trial run to see what we can do and we're definitely going
075to expand it we had a lot of good feedback from students so we're going to take that feedback and make it better future I think that's part of our school goal as we always are going to continue to build a culture of learning and to make sure that we're sending students up for a success with their college or career so for the rest of the State Testing is April 3rd and April 17th will be the forward exam it is for social studies it is not part of our state report card but we do need to administer it it is two separate exams and it's two um it's 20 multiple choice questions so that would be during oral times we will not have any type of schedule change or any of that matters will be actually
076done during an oil it'll just be for sophomores then on April 14th we will be doing the pre-act s here and that will just be freshmen and sophomores that will be a day Junior since this are not and school and they'll have options we strongly encourage them to job shadow go on a college visit or anything else that can help them in their future I do know our counselors are offering different college visits so we'd highly recommend our students to take advantage of those situations for scheduling update is we have finalized most of our section numbers and our staff will be working on Wednesday during the PD day in order to find my schedules and to get the ball moving on our master's schedule we're hoping for the master schedule to be finalized by the
077end of April which gives enough time for counselors to resolve conflicts make changes and then we can talk to our students to see if there's any course changes from their initial um thought and hopefully all that will be done at the end of May that way our staff our students can kind of figure out what their courses are going to look like in summer finally we did an oral time survey out to staff for feedback and we also give it out to students I am very happy that we had almost 800 students do the survey it was very simple it was how many home days would you like what do you like about home days what would you like to change what do you like all Choice days and what would you like to change
078so that was done last week so we're still sorting through all the comments but right now it's great to have their feedback I know one thing with the choice days is giving more options for enrichment and opportunities so something that we're going to look into is providing more options for students that maybe have A's and B's and are looking maybe to expand in different areas of chest or passion projects or something of that nature I know a big comment is seniors wanted to get release time but I do have to state that those are mandatory minutes so if we did want to release our seniors that means we would no longer I don't think that they would enjoy that so that is something I'm trying to turn to students so they are aware of why
079they cannot get released and then part of for the students was just a simple engagement questions we just want to see with our pillar 4 with engagement how many activities they're involved with are they involved in activities after school such as a job or volunteer and two simple questions of what you like about h2hs and what we can do better to support you thank you Miss Liam are there any questions or comments from board members Mr Curley I just have one who said um encourage the Juniors to do college visits or seniors or seniors where do you do they do they our counseling has not told it should be yes or they're April 14th they may be coming it's great to see some of the students announces my son took advantage of it any other
080comments or questions sorry one other thing I apologize um from the survey from the staff parents and students I do want you to know that we did bring that to our school leadership team and part of the process is the school leadership team members are going to focus on two areas to improve upon and create an action plan so right now we worked into groups of two because I really wanted everybody to have a voice and pick their two most important areas that they think that we should focus on after I received all those items I did a Google form to send out to our school leadership team that has about 17 members from the school and they range from admin assistants to staff members to admin and we did a vote so we can
081have a collective voice over what are the two areas that we want to improve thank you as you can tell the high school principal this time here needs to focus on things this year but also spends much time focused on next year already so when she's speaking about Oriole time that's obviously about structures for next year Staffing obviously a plan for next year and the Personnel committee on Thursday we'll hear more from Kelly regarding that specific Staffing plan and just in future learning can we like lift this up a little bit it kind of hurts my back not everyone's at all I appreciate that thank you miss Lamb I'm up next with our board committee updates uh let's start with our finance and Facilities committee Ross you're the chair of that one do you have
082any updates for us not really um I thought we're going to talk about a little bit more tonight but um the Performance Services we talked about that we've met and right now we're just going over the Mechanicals you know looking at areas that need to be care of Courtney's priority um and I guess that's going to be a part of the next meeting and the other one was the buses were with the transportation on over transportation deuce as well hitting in that town those were the two big nuggets so just to clarify it sounds like the committee is still looking over the um the dollars figures that are coming in from the site analysis correct so the direction was to put some of the running the buckets in regards to a bucket of around learning
083about the government outdoor facilities and market around the infrastructure mechanical and then kind of a bucket of a little bit of wish list so that's what they're working on and I think that's what Glenn and I are following up with them later this week or next week in regards to thank you that's a big job appreciate the committee's work and ours our staff as well we're working on it as a council foreign let's talk about personnel and organizational management right here the chair of that we have a meeting on Thursday thank you very much the community and legislative engagement committee did not have a meeting and I am also the chair of the curriculum teaching and learning committee and I do have an update on that one um we had a meeting last week Monday
084I believe and we did have um quite a few members of staffs of parents um some members of our Council Mike McIntyre was there as our director of curriculum instruction Kelly lamb was there as a principal Mr Walters was there so there was there was a pretty good amount of people there and we did um we did go over several things or two policies you'll see later in the agenda that were discussed at the committee level last week we also discussed the age for Parental access which is part of policy 25 2022 this is Parental access to the library records for students we also talked about our selection description and deselection criteria as well as our huhs reading collection this came about um as discussions were started in the fall asking some questions about our
085reading collection here at huhs as well as some of the procedures around that Mr McIntyre has worked very hard on that as well and has um dug in and talked with our library media Specialists that we contact with through seesaw quite often so I just want to just update you that we are trying to get a better understanding of what has been done and set a good plan going forward also in the process we did discover some some library books here that we don't feel fit um well into h2hs and so those books are going through a process right now as well and I believe that Mr McIntyre will be sharing more on that as we go along in the process we did have on the agenda a library plan development he has a big
086a big scope Vision that he wants people to work on together however we ran out of room at that meeting and so we did have to table it until our next curriculum teaching and learning committee meeting I do want the the board to know as well that some of the books that we determined that were not a good fit for here at huhs through the natural deselection process of some of the things that are already in place in terms of um if they haven't been checked out in a number of time a number of years I'm sorry um there are different ways that some of those books have already been taken out of the collection so our staff is working on it as an ongoing process and that is all that we have for committee
087Updates this evening any questions hearing none will go forward into the meeting up next is the school board report for myself the board president we have heard a lot already at the beginning of this meeting and I just want to say how nice it is to see where we've come a year from where we started last year around this time was when we had a meeting where there was a significant number of staff that came forward and shared some concerns we had community members members sharing concerns and I want to say this board and this this leadership team hit the ground running and what we heard tonight in terms of discussions of committees and councils and um and plans they've come largely about from people talking about what the issues were and coming together to
088figure out what we could do to make hohs better I can go over some of the things that we heard tonight as well as our process from last year the school leadership team was formed Kelly lamb referenced that in her report there have been a lot more collaborative efforts and changes um basically decisions are basically just being talked about on a broader scope with more people at the table to talk about how it impacts various levels here at huhs when we heard the concerns that we did at that meeting last year I myself as well as our board vice president did spend significant amount of time sitting down with folks and having individual discussions as well as making ourselves available for phone contacts or any other discussions to to talk about concerns and ideas for
089huhs there are Roundtable discussions happening with our staff leaders as well as drop-in visit times where they can come into an office and and just share their ideas or thoughts their concerns and it does get noted by that leader and something does happen in a follow-up with that there's been a greater involvement of students you saw that here tonight we were asking for more voice of the students we've had the student board reps but we wanted to hear from a larger a larger perspective and so we did talk to Mr lubis about that last spring he hit the ground running and started talking his student board reps it came up with ideas for how to get into Oriole times and hold sessions with more sessions with more students throughout the school so they could come
090forward and bring a bigger perspective we also have some younger um student board reps who are attending our meetings and so that's been fun we've heard some very creative ideas come from the students that the leaders are able to incorporate into our processes and practices going forward our committees and our councils really do give a broader range of participation we're able to bring in stakeholders we're able to meet together with District leaders teachers community members board members and work together um really on a deeper level we're gaining a greater understanding of of our curriculum here of our needs here of our facilities it's really been quite an enlightened path from where we were a year ago and so I do want to thank the people who came forward and voiced their concerns because that did
091help kind of um push us forward at a quicker rate to have this level of collaboration happening we also did do um just like Kelly said she did an oral time survey but we also did do another survey recently of parents staff and students um we have a lot of great data that we're using from that survey looking at where we were in in the top of some categories and where we were in the bottom of some categories and setting goals moving forward we do also have about leave us about 900 open-ended comments from that survey that the board is going to talk about what to do with and how to go through those next we had the largest amount of comments came from our parents so thank you to the parents for taking the
092time to fill those out and giving us some valuable information going forward we look forward to surveys becoming more of a normal part of our of our culture and getting feedback here at the district our board also committed to an ongoing evaluation this year if you've been paying attention we have closed sessions pretty much every meeting and sometimes in addition to that more than once a month so we are doing an ongoing evaluation um and you will see that on the agenda tonight as well working towards student growth just like Kelly taught there have been some different um and additional processes in place such as pre-testing students to give them the practice and help them determine where their strengths and areas for growth are and so they can also individualize their education moving forward the
093mental health opportunities and discussions here have been huge just like we heard from Dr Stacy gain those are so needed in supporting our students and helping all of us move forward with a better culture here at the high school and in spite of what we're experiencing around us in our society so ultimately I think our committees and councils have been a very valuable communication and work piece for the board I know they've been hard to sustain it's been a lot of extra meetings I appreciate the board members who've been engaged and involved in those I do believe it's a discussion that we need to have moving forward to see if it's something we can continue and if we can't what does that look like it has largely fallen on on a few shoulders and we
094need to figure out something I'd like to board the board Nest we had a board workshop model where we had a workshop once a month and we had a meeting once a month so there are some options that we need to discuss I would just like to see this board consider continuing this level of Engagement involvement in collaboration moving forward I don't want to lose that momentum so that is what I have for my school board report at this time I'm up next on the agenda we have no old business to discuss and then we have a closed session to deliberate or negotiate the purchase of public properties the investment of District funds or the conduct of other board business whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require closed session 19.851 e specifically Transportation bids is there
095a motion to go to closed session motion by Mr Gum no oh sorry let me think about this okay if we're going to change the agenda we should do that in Open session so I'm going to put a halt on the motion for the closed session Mr gome would you like to make a motion to change the agenda yeah seeing as we're going in a closed section towards the end of the agendas closed sessions together I understand that the first close session uh number three is our relational proposal age so I would also move to have proposal number eight voted on after multiple sessions rather than us going in a closed session coming back doing proposals and going back into closed session again might just go into closed session once and then vote on proposal
096age when we're done okay so the motion is to move this first closed session to the end of the meeting alongside the other closed session and also move proposal to the end of the meeting when we would come back up into Open session is there a second on this motion no second green none will continue as the agenda as presented all right up next we have closed session I stated what the closed session was for is there a motion on closed session motion by Mr curly is there a second by Mr pridemore uh we'll do a roll call into closed session starting with myself I time all right thank you we're going to go into closed session and then we will be back to continue foreign thank you everybody we are back in Open Session
097up first we have proposal 23-2936 approval of the 2023-2024 budget projection is there a motion on this proposal much by Mr curly is there a second oh second seconded by Mr Westfall and the proposal is not up now for a discussion good evening I just wanted to share a little more background information with to go along with the information that you have in your memo um so nothing new has been released from the state however we kind of need to start the the budgeting process as we think about next year so I pulled together several sort of budget scenarios given our current Financial environment and just the constraints that we're facing so I wanted to share a bit of history that has contributed to our current state and how Wisconsin ranks within the country so
098um as far as the percent of per student spending increases that have happened from 2022 to 2020 this the percent increase has puts us towards the bottom at number 48. um as a result we used to be 11th in per pupil spending and that puts us at 25th and this is prior to 2021-23 per pupil spending freeze so what did this cause sort of um Gap in where what inflation would put expenses and where we've been receiving funding so sometimes it helps to visually see some of these um discrepancies and just how this happened was from 98 to 99 to 0809 the revenue limit was indexed for inflation every year so the inflation increase was the percentage change not negative in the Consumer Price Index and then under the 09 and 11 budget act that
099inflation adjustment was deleted and the per pupil adjustments became whatever was specified by law in the biennial budget Acts so what this looks like with numbers and this slide is from some Fair presentations that I've intended on this topic is you've got the 0809 numbers where we received the indexed adjustment and then in 0910 we started to receive 200 200 and then negative 554. was a reduction that was done in the 11 12 budget and so the negative numbers over there and the difference is just the the dollars that were not um granted to districts based on what would have been the prior indexing tied to inflation so visually the difference just kept getting bigger so the purple line is the cumulative difference and then the bars below show the actual for people increase tied
100to input what the increase would have been tied to inflation and the orange um and so combine that with our current state of rising costs CPI labor operations Capital all of it is creating the economy you are all well aware of and just a little visual here we have our Revenue freeze we have academic recovery needs for our students after what we've been through for the last couple years and then we have inflation so um where we are in the process with the timeline is that the governor's released his budget and his proposals were here in March the joint finance committee has the proposals and they are meeting and hopefully in June they will act on a budget and then hopefully something will get signed depending on vetoes or other um negotiations in July okay
101so with that um I've utilized our Baird budget model software and also some of the common projections that a lot of our regional business managers have been looking at to try to make some projections to look at kind of worst case scenario best case scenario and something in between so um the first scenario is that there are no new spendable revenues and obviously our costs continue to go up so that would result in a deficit of a million four the second scenario is a conservative one where we would get 250 per pupil of an increase and that will help increase our revenues and and then offset some of that deficit so if we go down to a million one the third one is a 650 per pupil increase okay so that's much better um and
102it increases our revenues and the deficit is about half a million and some of our deficit can help be offset with I still have 845 000 of Grant claims that I am able to submit so those Grant claim dollars will help offset any deficit but especially something that might be you know smaller like this and the best case scenario is kind of the CPI adjustment a scenario where over the next two years we would add 1510 for pupils though in the first year it's eleven hundred dollars in the second year would be 410 so over two years we kind of have made up a good chunk of that Gap and that would give us a surplus at the end of 23 24. so another area of the budget that I didn't put I was conservative
103in the scenario in my scenarios is the um special ed reimbursement uh amount it's currently 30 I used 35 considering that they've mentioned that they are considering uh increasing that reimbursement rate some the budget proposal has a 60 reimbursement rate and that's kind of um you know aggressive as a as to a change from 30 to 60 but any percentage increase in that special ed reimbursement rate really helped the budget any 10 um increase will give us an extra two hundred twenty thousand dollars so if they did up the reimbursement to 60 percent we would have an extra budget so that would really help our district if they increase that um there's also some proposals for Revenue limits which Revenue limit increases are a little more complicated because it affects our declining enrollment and hold
104harmless exemptions so I didn't want to put too many of those details in a projection because there's a lot of factors that go into that but there that is another area that could help increase our projections so the final uh thing to think about is what is next obviously we're keeping an eye on the budget through the summer um if you have an opportunity to communicate with lawmakers or Representatives uh certainly there's joy finance committee hearings hearings going on across the state uh some different dates I've listed there if you want to share your passion for education at any of the meetings they're they're open to people to speak there are some business managers in the um in my regional wasp group who are planning to attend some of these meetings to help explain the
105situation we're in and so they'll be very educational meetings and hopefully we'll have an impact on the joint finance committee and what they take into consideration when they make decisions so that just was a little bit of background that goes with the memo you have in your packet and if anyone has any other questions or comments any questions from board members Mr Walters yeah I just wanted to add um I think April 5th is super important again representative born chairs The Joint finance committee and a couple of board members myself are traveling down to Madison on Wednesday and we'll have an opportunity to meet with multiple lawmakers including representative Bourne so it's certainly important that we really understand the fiscal situation that districts are going to be facing in regards to how to spend the
106Surplus or the state budget with some of those decisions that are being made here hopefully sooner than later so um there's a reason why a number of districts are pursuing other options outside of trying to find that balanced budget that right number for them but I think there's some super surprising comments being made by some lawmakers in regards to consolidation if communities are going to want to keep their doors open in small communities they're going to have to pay for it themselves and things like that so um again it's it's an interesting time in School financing so we appreciate Brendan's work depending if you paint this picture for us a little bit thank you Brenda okay I'm a visual learner so I appreciate that that's the scenarios that you just presented for us thank you
107yes absolutely sometimes a picture can stay the whole paragraph much easier absolutely thank you so we have a motion and a second on proposal 23-2936 approval of the 2023-2024 budget projection let's take it to vote I'll start with myself I hi hi hi the motion carries proposal 23-2936 has been approved proposal 23-2937 is approval of the international Deca field trip is there a motion on this proposal it's almost motion by Mr curly is there a second seconded by Mr pryborn we have the paperwork for it in our packets and it is now up for discussion yeah so these students just competed um recently so that's why we're just seeing this now again four students qualified for ICDC which is an international competition as well as a as a development event to occur in April um
108cost to be put on the students to participate in this opportunity in Orlando so I'd just like to note just in case it is a sticking point in our packet it says Deca International Conference and in our agenda says International Deca field trip doesn't matter which one I would verbalize it no I would certainly say that almost Anonymous okay um so again it is an international but again when they call it International it is National national student housing Florida trip because of the field trip procedures and yet I will update you just to make sure um those days before they leave we have a board meeting from that everything is those four students and one advisor who are participating Mr Walters do we have a policy that we typically have two chaperones on our field
109trips we do that okay I just want to verify that any questions from any other board members foreign we have a motion and a second on proposal 23-2937 approval of the the international Deco field trip this is a cost to the district so we'll do a real convo starting with Craig Mr pridemore hi hi motion carries proposal 23-2937 has been approved proposal 23-2938 does approval of the Stark college now applications is there a motion on this proposal motion by Mr Westfall is there a second this proposal is now up for discussion oh start Mr McIntyre if you don't mind um in in conversations and we just you know heard our budget uh conversation um but in other conversations I've had with some lawmakers greater example mandates um that impacts local school districts budgets okay so
110the conflict is opportunities for kids and who's gonna pay for it okay and so I've said for four years we don't really have a choice to say no okay but in conversations with local lawmakers these are the types of things that we can say we're taking on the financial burden to support kids opportunities through Stark college now at the possible expense up to thirty five thousand dollars so I will never Advocate not to do it I will Advocate where's the funding source coming to help support it and I just wanted to make sure we conduct the dots there in regards to the budget conversations we're having and these are really good opportunities for kids who are looking to take post-secondary threats and I was just going to add that we we discussed this in October
111there are two dates for stair college now October 1st for fall and March 1st for spring semesters and the total amount generally students will choose more classes than their act scheduling another reason so the number is higher than is it's very unlikely pay out this much but to repeal Mr Walter said giving these students these opportunities is something that both we we are required to do and we look forward to doing for our students so many while while still in school and really finding a path that they want to pursue so to clarify that from the last meeting in October as well thank you Mr brightbar I have a question there are several two students that are taking diversity classes can you so those are the required to Lincoln again that one of the first
112students on the the list in the event that they go into the MATC one there's a class called the value of diversity that's one of the requirements for that particular program that the student is going into well at this point I guess I'd like to refrain from voting I'll take them there item until I have a chance to do some more research thank you what these classes actually pick diversity can be red flag issue some quarters it's not going to cause me any concentration just don't just clarify those down and these aren't our classes these are post-secondary institutions classes so we have a zero stay over the courses that are offered at the post-secondary level and frankly like I tried to say earlier we have little to no say over approving these courses that the
113kids take so the issue that we should have ultimately is we have no control we have no control for the funding and we have no control over kids being able to take any courses that we don't offer on campus so if you look through the entire packet um there's lots of examples in that package uh Plumbing was one okay we have to pay for plumbing they want that course it's off-site it's hosted by a post-secondary we have to pay for it it does not matter also current structure what we think and again sometimes we have an opportunity to advocate for something differently whether it's from a financial lens or a perspective in regards to certain courses but I think it's just important to make sure we have that conversation and understanding sorry Craig did you
114want to add something Mr Westfall and so this may be a good opportunity for us on Wednesday if an opportunity comes up absolutely Mr Gum when I completed my bachelor's degree in 2000 2007 at UW emergency collapse was required it's all going all the way back to 2007. right or wrong but it's a requirement of a lot of these universities and the kids that attend there uh but that's their that's our requirement S I guess thank you I guess I'd like to point out no matter where the student goes whether it's MATC or Milwaukee Area Technical College brain park or Waukesha County Technical College they have to complete it in all three to this point I I don't I think this is about pause and to the point that if a student has to wants
115to take a class that we don't offer the chance of when we're obligated to to let them do that and there's a lot of other good classes here if we don't you know like that specific one then what is there any students on here that are participating like it's more than 80. there's abundance of students that are in the department 17. there's 17 students that are furthering them there so at this point with our level of control or not I guess we're basically just acknowledging it and approving it correct and not knowing which courses will eventually any further questions okay hearing none we have a motion and a second on the floor for proposal 23-2938 approval of the start college now applications this is also a roll call vote and we'll start with Mr brightborg
116I will understand promoting all right hi is that technically okay I think you either yeah I guess my question would be Don is is there a conflict a little abstaining or are you voting against the proposal they just thought that there's some more research on these courses where I hope um focus on the agenda right now so so just so I can clarify you're asking to abstain because of a conflict of interest I was sitting because I don't know what these classes are all about any suggestions Mr Walters so it's is it is it fair to say that you're focused on a couple of the classes or just one of the classes well there's a couple a couple different names and there's only two students possibly right yeah so depending on schedules whether it's probably
117appropriate for you to voice support or voice opposition then too if you don't feel like you have enough enough information to support it yeah correct so in that case Mr pridemore what is your vote on that um okay um majority did vote for it so that proposal has been approved Tracy would this vote just be a nay yes so it is now a name okay were you were you uh yay or an A I missed yours yeah thank you so proposal 23-2938 has been approved on to proposal 23-2939 approval of Wisconsin school nutrition purchasing Cooperative agreement is there a motion on this proposal motion by Mr pridemore is there a second I'll second it this proposal is now up for discussion Monica are you here for questions or did you want okay it's pretty straightforward
118Mr Walters is there anything you'd like to add there's not a lot absolutely any questions from board members hearing now let's take it to a vote we have a motion and a second for proposal 3-2939 approval of Wisconsin school nutrition purchasing Cooperative agreement this is a role combo we'll start with Mr Gum hi hi thank you proposal 23-2939 has been approved proposal 23-2940 is a resolution of the intergovernmental agreement for the North Shore conference finances with the Whitefish Bay School District is there a motion on this proposal published by Mr curly is there a second seconded by Mr Westfall any discussion or questions hearing none let's take it to a vote we have a motion and a second for proposal 23-2940 resolution for the intergovernmental agreement for the North Shore conference finances with the Whitefish
119Bay School District holes in favor signify by saying aye hi any post saying a motion carries that proposal has been approved proposal 23-2941 is approval of the purchase of yearly updated security cameras is there a motion on this proposal I'll make a motion on this proposal is there a second seconded by Mr Prime one we have a motion and a second on the floor for proposal 23-2941 is there a discussion or questions Val were you just here in case we had questions okay hearing none let's put it to a vote this is a roll call vote a proposal 23-2941 approval of the purchase of yearly updated security cameras we will start with Mr Curley I motion carries proposal 23-2941 is approved proposal 23-2942 is approval to resurface the field house floor is there a motion
120on this proposal motion by Mr curly is there a second I'll second it we have a motion in a second for proposal 23-2942 the resurfacing of the field house floor are there any questions or discussion on this Tracy Mr Curley yeah so Glenn and Scott were closely on it that was part of it at times I know I said no to it last year to see if we could have an additional year sure see where the budget took us and things and now we're just a year further into having to need to do it so I don't know if I can share any more specifics it's time like I said I don't want to run into a track with you I want to keep up with maintenance on stuff so we don't run into these
121issues like we like we're dealing with other areas so we're actually exceeded the life of what it should have been it's starting to crack and peel you know once something starts to peel yep it's going to continue to feel so we need to actually sand it all the way down this time free paint and then we go Glenn in your opinion what is the average amount of years you get out of a floor like this before you resurface it again between seven and ten so we're over 10. okay thank you any other questions from board members thank you Glenn hearing now we're going to put it to vote we have a motion and a second a proposal 23-2942 approval of the resurfacing of the field house floor this is a roll call vote I'll get
122it started I all right all right all right motion carries proposal 23-2942 has been approved proposal 23-2943 is approval of the transportation provider contract is there a motion on this proposal motion by Mr curly is there a second seconded by Mr Westfall we have a motion and a second on the floor it's now time for discussion or questions yeah so it's um we've had the opportunity to go through an RFP process we had three Transportation providers uh bid looking for um the transportation contract that we would provide we're grateful for those three organizations expressing interest in our district and the recommendation is to move forward with our current provider go right way for essentially what is our new tractor our first contract with them because previously they had assumed the contract from wittenberger bus services
123in town here so they've certainly made themselves comfortable in the terminal down on Wacker Drive they've tolerated and navigated the challenges of the pandemic during that time and I think that's certainly seen some growth and some getting settled in providing services to not only us but some of our key districts in the area as well so we're certainly excited to recommend that they did everything possible to earn our business for the next five years and that's why I'm making the recommendation for gold right way thank you Mr Walters any questions or comments Mr Curley just one thank you for all the providers that putting bids for this it was a quite the learning process myself going through it there's a lot that goes into this and I know it was an easy decision but um
124it's the right decision for the district so again I appreciate every all the companies that have done this and the work that Jeff and Brenda and everybody also this process so thank you thank you Mr Curley any other further comments or questions hearing now let's put it to a vote we have a motion and a second at proposal 23-2943 approval of the transportation provider contract this is a roll call vote we'll start with you Mr Westfall bye aye motion carries proposal 23-2943 has been approved Tracy I do want to recognize Dave and Tim from the right-wing team of the crowd tonight I appreciate the efforts to make this happen so thank you and thank you to your team thank you for being here thank you very much up next is proposal 23-2944 approval of policies
125included in the volume 32 number one school district policy updates per Neola and administration is there a motion on this proposal I'll make a motion on proposal 23-2944 is there a second by Mr curly we have a motion in a second it is now up for discussion or questions there was a lot to this Mr Walters were there any particular Flags or points you wanted to make sure that we were aware of any other board members have a question or comment you know me I like digging into policy of course I do um all right Mr Walters if we could go to page 169 of the packet it's 8 800. okay it is policy 800 it is something to do with religious practices I believe foreign I believe okay I'm still trying to get there
126at my computer sorry okay so a question I had this is um religious activities and observances and it basically talked about what employees can and can't do while they're on duty so a question I have regarding this policy is um is a coach able to pray at a game with this policy in place so that's actually been a recent case where the coach the Victorious um that case but it wasn't found to be a policy violation because it wasn't forcing kids to do that in some kind of organized setting that he was expecting them to do that so okay like we have a Christian athletes okay that's not a piles based on that's an option of the choice that students have to form okay um another example I believe that this would follow along with
127what you're saying when I was a high schooler here on the way to school one morning one of our classmates was killed in a car accident and I do remember seeing a teacher in her classroom praying she wasn't asking students to pray but she was and that was a very calming site for lettuce in the hallway were very confusing upset upset so that would be okay correct thank you I think the important part is the endorsement part of that so staff should not be endorsing them okay page 172 is board member conduct yes it is technical um and I I thought was included in here I was just wondering why because I wasn't seeing any updates to it or any changes um in letter N on page two uh the Wisconsin School Board Association just
128decided to join the Consortium of State School Board associations yeah that's that's the door on the next page says three or four to give you in school yeah we don't have page two could you so the whole board would need it um so basically under letter n they added the Consortium of State School Board associations because that is something that the state is joining now correct so previously it was only the Nationals Association and now with that controversy last year we decided to pull away from the nasb and now that now our state has joined the Consortium of State School Board associations instead that's correct okay it's a pretty straightforward one those are the only policy questions that I had did any other board members have policy questions you're welcome I'll just wait till each
129board member gets their eyes on that page before we take a vote we're good okay so any further questions okay none let's take it to a vote we have a motion and a second a proposal 23-2944 approval policies included in the volume 32 number one school district policy updates perenniola and administration all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed a motion carries proposal 23-2944 has been approved proposal 23-2945 is approval to rescind policy 2521.01 selection of Library materials is there a motion on this proposal moved by Mr primor is there a second I'll second it is a member of the committee we have a motion of SEC on the floor for proposal 23-2945 approval to resend policy 252101 Mr MC did you want to share on this one again this was a
130policy that was active even though the little bit so it was continuously active even though it's recommended it should be removed so this was pointed out to us by our rapid Eola so it's an it's an old policy that was still active despite the fact that 2522 which was updated back in September actually takes precedent over this one thank you some more good work of the committee um any further questions or comments Mr pridemore yes this was a result of our this actually was a pretty simple one just as Mike is saying this basically we already had policy 25 2022 and so this one no longer needs to be included it is rescinded right the language in 2522 is modeled after the current statutes as opposed to this one this was dated in let's see
131the drives are a selection because my question then is are we in process of completing review of Library material or is that been completed it's an ongoing process so I don't know the exact number that has been deselected this time but it is an ongoing process is there a committee or some a group of reviewing this material or well we talked about it at our curriculum teaching and learning committee last Monday that Ross and I were at and that conversation is definitely continuing yet so that will be up for discussion again at our next committee meeting and the next proposal also so we'll um let's vote on this one uh we have proposal 23-2945 unless there any further comments or questions related specifically to this policy hearing none all those in favor signify by saying
132aye aye any post motion carries proposal 23-2945 has been approved proposal 23-2946 is approved on the updated policy 2522 library media centers is there a motion in this proposal I'll make the motion is there a second second I have Mr Primark this proposal is now up for discussion Mike do you want to start or should I so the change within this in this I think student information um the lines it within the policy itself listed the age of 16 then parents could request access to that information however that age is not in line with FERPA which allows for access to Student Records which goes all the way up to age 18. so when we reached out to Neola about this they said that they're going to have an update for this policy bro but they
133recommend committee work it was recommended this adjustment to give parents the access to their student information for the books that they entered currently thank you any questions or comments from board members hearing none will take you to a vote we have proposal 23-2946 on the tables the approval of updated policy 2522 library media centers all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye motion carries proposal 23-2946 has been approved up next is proposal 23-2947 approval of updated policy 3120.01 job descriptions is there a motion on this proposal I'll make okay motion by Mr curly I'll second it we have a motion and a second on the table Mr Walters would you like to talk to this one yeah I know Janet was struggling with trying to get this one to show or reflected appropriately
134but the next two policies are about job descriptions and making sure that as we're reviewing them the board there's clarification on who the board approves as far as the job descriptions so we wanted to make sure it was licensed Personnel District leadership team members as well as the communications marketing specialist which is the title and then the executive assistant to myself and the board previously it just spoke about um licensed or certified and that doesn't cover members of our leadership team who are not possibly certified or licensed so we wanted to make sure that there was Clarity in regards to the job descriptions for both 31 2001 and 41 because some of the members of our leadership team essentially are considered support staff and board members you may recall this as part of a discussion
135we had as well looking for those leadership positions supervisor positions or positions that do interact directly with the board as well any questions hearing out let's take a bona we have a motion and a second on proposal 23-2947 approval of updated policy 312 0.01 job descriptions all those in favor signify by saying aye hi can you post motion carries proposal 23-2947 has been approved proposal 23-2948 is approval of updated policy 4120.01 job descriptions in a different category is there a motion on this proposal foreign motion by Mr Westfall is there a second by Mr Curley any questions or discussion pretty straightforward just like the last one I would say right Mr Walters correct and this one's even more any questions let's take it to a vote we have a motion and a second and proposal
13623-2948 approval of updated policy 4120.01 job descriptions all those in favor signify by saying aye aye motion carries proposal 23-2948 has been approved proposal 23-2949 is approval of the purchase of a special education van is there a motion on this proposal motion by Mr Curley is there a second second by Mr pridemore my discussion or questions Stacy did you want to share on this one sure just very briefly um first this is a transition incentive Grant as half vehicle will be purchased with so a huge thank you to Chris Callahan for doing the legwork on that um because the van also is exclusively used for students with special needs there will be categorical Aid reimbursement on the other half which will initially come out of special ed funds but then when we sell our old
137special education van that will offset it so in essence this will be almost a zero-sum game in terms of the cost so just grateful for the opportunity for our students to continue to work on their goals out in the community and without access so wonderful thank you and so we did these uh not to trade the um we shared it out with neighboring superintendents within minutes a superintendent their expressed interest in purchasing so Stacy's comments we're looking at getting 21 000 possible at least for that vehicle from a neighboring District that certainly will benefit them as well how do we how do we ensure that this isn't used we have a system we do now yes we do and that's one of the things we explored um whether the van could be transferred for general
138education students to utilize but the right way to go about that is we would have had to take the money out of the general fund and move it into a special end dollars at the Blue Book price not for some fake dollar amount so when we learned that took away any incentive that we had to keep it and then obviously in today's market fans are hard to find a team of people went out and looked at a bunch of different Vans um traded values was desperate as some of the car dealers already used vehicles on their lot certainly was not what we were interested in so again I was pretty confident that neighboring districts would be interested in what we had to sell to them thank you very much any questions or comments hearing none
139we have a motion and a second and proposal 23-2949 approval of the purchase of a special education ban there is a cost of the district so I'll do a roll call vote starting with Mr Westfall aye motion carries proposal 23-2949 has been approved up next is the unanimous consent agenda is there a motion on unanimous consent agenda motion by Mr curly is there a second thank you I'll second it any discussion I did see some names on here that we're going to miss right that is correct um so Mr norder are billions of your own supervisors in the audience tonight at the grateful for his two years of leadership as somebody who's put in over 40 years to public education across a couple of districts here so we thank land for his services and and
140to be honest at all times know that uh he's done to a great job of taking care of some personal things that are challenging him to make sure he has that right personal and professional balance so thank you Glenn for all the work you've done in the last two years hi very appreciate it thank you Glenn and I do have um any other comments I do have Oklahoma questions for me when I have questions as well and I appreciate you'll be missed so thank you your your experience and perspectives we'll take it we're just so glad we had you while we could we wish you the best um I do the questions I do have are related to the head coaches that we're hiring I know there are several new ones and are there some
141that are not teachers here yes perhaps like two yeah boys soccer coach staff member um dance coach at the dance coach as well okay so three and so then my question is uh okay correct so returning Dance's new um boy soccer is new baseball is kind of new he was on staff last year okay thank you very much um Mr pridemore well sorry Mr primer is waving to somebody in the hallway um any questions or comments all right hearing none all those in favor of approving the unanimous consent agenda signified by saying aye aye any opposed and that has been approved announcement of meetings and events coming up spring break it's on the horizon March 27 through the 31st I believe there's a some some students traveling during that break as well our next student
142I'm sorry our next school board meeting is April 17th our day of service is May 17th is there anything you'd like to share with us about the Day of Service Mr Westfall I mean sorry [Laughter] it's been a long night Mr Walters oh one specialist who is now the leader of the Day of Service work um so it certainly provided her an opportunity to build some business Partnerships and our relationships across their community so thank you Caleb for leading that and again if any board members are interested in being part of that um we would love to have you should we just contact Kayla if we want to participate yes and if you know of any sites that would be willing to host schools that certainly need some service provided certainly let us know that
143as well okay thank you board Reflections we have the sheet in front of you uh Mr Curley I haven't I saw this this week and I haven't heard your name this week but I wanted to congratulate Mrs Locke Nancy Lockwood I'm educator of the year I saw that she was voted upon this week so I just wanted to point that out too and congratulate her as well once upon a time I worked with her she's an awesome human being and a great teacher so glad it was pretty cool and she'll certainly hopefully be here in April too have you guys to be able to recognize your bedtime so please uh complete Reflections and get them to Janet by the end of the week um any further all right up next is closed session contemplated closed
144session pursuing to Wisconsin statutes 19.851c considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of any Public Employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercise's responsibility 19.851c specifically superintendent evaluation is there a motion to go to closed session most by Mr Westfall is there a second I'll second it we'll do a roll call vote into closed session starting with myself I thank you