Hudson Schools - May 11, 2026 - Regular Board Meeting

001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> I'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Thank you, everybody. And normally, I don't call these meetings to order, uh but since this is our organizational meeting, uh I will uh handle at least the nominations as it relates to the president of the board and work our way through that. And then once we have elected a president to the board, I'll be turning over the gavel to that individual as well. Uh this process will be carried out for both the for the president, the vice president, the treasurer, and the clerk

002tonight. So, all of those positions as we work our way through it. So, at this time, what I will do is I would entertain any nominations for anyone for president of the board. Mr. President. Go ahead. >> I'd like to nominate Bob Bowman for president. Okay. Bob Bowman. I will make a second call for nominations for president of the board. I will also nominate Bob Bowman. Okay. Two Two nominations for Bob. And I will make a third call for nominations for president of the board. All right, hearing no no other nominations, Bob, would you accept the nomination? I'd be happy to accept. All right. So, we have a nomination for president of the board, and because there's only one nomination, we can do this by a majority consent vote. So, I would entertain a motion

003to approve Bob Bowman as the president of the school board for the upcoming term. After you, Molly. Sorry. You go. Okay, I'll go. Um I move that we accept the nomination of Bob Bowman to be our upcoming um school board president. All right. Do I have a second? Second. All right. Uh so, we have a motion by Molly, second by Megan. Uh I don't believe we have to roll call. We can do this by just an overall voice vote. Tim, is that sound right? So, all those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. The eyes have it. Mr. President, you gavel. Thank you very much. I'm happy to serve in this uh for another year. Thank you, everyone. So, now we will accept nominations for vice president. I'd like to nominate Kate

004Garceau for vice president. From Erin. Uh is there uh anyone else like to be nominated for or have a nomination for vice president? Asking, that's twice. Asking a third time. Any nominations for vice president? Hearing none, Kate, would you be accepting of the nomination? I would be happy to accept. All right, then moving forward, we would need a motion to nominate Kate as vice president. Mr. President, I move to nominate Kate Garza as vice president of the board for the upcoming term. Thank you, Megan. Do I have a second? >> Second. Second from Maria. Uh we'll again do a voice of vote. So, all those in favor of Kate Garza for vice president say aye. Aye. >> Aye. All those opposed say nay. Hearing none, Kate, welcome to the board as vice president for another

005year. And moving on to treasurer, do I have any nominations for treasurer? Mr. President. Yes, Molly. I nominate Megan Rosowsky for treasurer. Do I uh is there any other nominations? Anyone else nominations for treasurer? Now for a third time, any nominations for treasurer? And I will accept or first of all uh Megan, will you accept >> I'm glad you accepted, too, Bob. Yes, I will. Thank you. Um I look for a nomination for to to nominate Megan. Mr. President. I move to nominate Megan as treasurer. Is that the Yeah, sure. Okay. Thank you, Brian. Second. Second from Kate. Uh all those in favor say aye. Aye. >> Aye. All those opposed say nay. And Megan continues to be treasurer. Next up, we're looking for a nomination for clerk position. Mr. President. Yes, Miriam. >> I'd

006like to nominate Molly Powers for clerk. Thank you very much. Uh for a second, any other nominations for clerk? And a third time, any nominations for clerk? Hearing no other, uh Molly, would you accept being clerk for the coming year? Yes, I will. Okay. Who I have a motion to elect Molly as clerk. I move to nominate Molly Powers for the position of clerk. Thank you. Okay, do we have a second? Second. Thank you, Megan. Again, hearing no other, all those in favor of Molly for clerk say I. I. >> I. All those opposed say nay. Welcome to being clerk for another year, Molly. Mhm. Okay. Um that takes care of that. So, now we go to recognitions. And Aaron Thank you, Eva. Wonderful group behind me here tonight with our clubs and organizations, our

007annual activities recognition. And as we get into this, I just want to highlight a few things. You'll see again high numbers. And your microphone off. Now it is. Can you hear? Good. Good. Here you You're going to see high numbers, high participation. And then on top of that, incredible performance and achievements across all of these groups. And then these groups are in some cases groups that you can't necessarily buy a ticket to go watch. Certainly you can with our spring play, and Clue that just had a wildly successful spring performance. Um but we have had the now the chance to host a few more of these. So, this year for the first time, we added a wonderful Science Olympiad competition highlighted by the work of our staff and tons of student volunteers in making sure

008that things ran efficiently and hundreds of kids piling into the high school. If you have not been to Science Olympiad, me being one of those, um it was tremendous to watch the kids in each of those different categories and different contests. And And like many of them are going to talk about explore their passions. So, um I will start with bringing up speech and debate. >> Hello, my name is Aisha. I am one of the senior captains this year and being involved in speech has made me a stronger student leader because it helped me build confidence and strengthen my communication and leadership skills. Through speech, I've learned how to support others, stay positive under pressure, and work as part of a team. I've also incorporated these skills within other with my involvement with other organizations

009where I've become more comfortable taking charge and helping lead group activities. These are also skills I plan to use in college by joining clubs and applying for leadership opportunities. Now, one of the most memorable moments from this season has to be our state trip to Madison. Halfway through the drive, we find out that our in-person tournament was actually canceled due to weather and would be moved online. For the seniors, this was very devastating because we missed out on the traditional um state experience and all the memories that came with it. Even though it was extremely hard, our team stayed positive and encouraged each other. I think that moment showed a lot of resilience and teamwork because we adapted to an unexpected situation while supporting one another and making the best out of it. Hi there,

010my name is Ryah Ebert and I'm also a senior captain for forensics, which is also speech and debate. Um speech and debate has been a huge part of my life these last four years and I would love to talk about it with all of you. This year, as Aisha has described, our speech team was faced with incredible challenge. While traveling to Madison for the state competition, we received a call that there was a flood warning and it unfortunately was canceled. This, as you can imagine, brought so much uncertainty, disappointment, and worry about having to compete online. Speech is designed to connect with an audience and as you can imagine, it is extremely difficult to connect with a camera lens that is meant to be your audience. But through this experience, I realized how prepared our

011team truly was. The dedication, resilience, and confidence we built through the season put us in the best possible position to face the challenge that was ahead of us. I personally could not have done it without my best friend and fellow captain Asia, as well as our wonderful coaches. So, I would like to take this moment to thank our Faith Plan and Dorothy for being our pillars of support, our sources of motivation, and the kindest people I've had the privilege of being around these last 4 years. Thank you to the speech and debate, as it will serve me in these next stages to come. Thank you so much. Hello, my name is Jillian White, and this year I served as the president of our DECA chapter. You can see all the accomplishments we had on the

012board, so I thought I would share some of the less numerical accomplishments. So, our first competition of the year is districts, and having been a 4-year member, it was really huge for me to have gotten We had to take two buses to districts because we had so many competitors, and it really showed at districts. We swept a lot of events, so that was super exciting. Um and then, one of our leadership conferences throughout the year, um the Emerging Leaders Conference in the Wisconsin Dells, we went to that. Uh we had the opportunity to connect with our state officers, which was really fun, and I even got to be a part of one of the TikToks they made, the career ladder, but for our events, so they guessed what event I was competing in, which was

013super fun. At the state conference, we had some freshmen who I had told them that I made LinkedIn a LinkedIn account for this leadership council I'm on through the state and they took that to heart, made a LinkedIn account, and I think they probably got over 100 LinkedIn connections at the conference. That was That was what they were doing whenever they weren't competing. Um and then at our international conference, we got to go to the Georgia Aquarium and World of Coke and we had an absolute blast. There were 12 girls that competed there, which was really fun. We got to have some girl power moment and so we we had a fantastic time this year and it was very it was a very good way for me to end my year. Um I want to

014thank my other officers, Molly Schrader, Nora Shellhammer, and Evan Schultz who couldn't be here tonight. And then our advisors, Mr. Brett Winefredder and Ms. Emily Summerfeld for the amazing job they did and all the effort they put into us this year. the fall musical and spring play. Hello, my name is Tate Dillingham and we are here to represent the fall musical and and um spring play. Um I've had the pleasure to do the musical and spring play these past 2 years and I just it's just a great way to connect with your peers and be able to showcase your talents and performing in front of a crowd. Um we each kind of came up with our own questions or for ourselves to answer. And mine was, "What was the challenge you faced and how did

015you grow from it?" When I I signed up for the musical, I realized that I had my German exchange partner coming over. So I had to kind of balance that along with being in the musical, which was a big struggle for me because time management is hard. So, but the directors made it super easy. They were super understanding of me having to miss time away from the musical and um managing rehearsals and stuff like that, but it's just it's a great way to connect with your peers and like I said, showcase your talent and yeah. Um I'm George Cook and I've been in the musical the last 2 years and the play the last 3 years. And um I was uh the question I was answering was memorable experiences that I've had and uh specifically

016this year um as a senior, one of the experiences that we got to have was making posters for all the underclassmen. Um and as an underclassman myself before this year, I got to receive these posters and be on the other side and see kind of the support coming from the upperclassmen. And now being on this side of it and being able to show that support to those underclassmen was um a really cool experience for me. And another experience that we do in the musical is um play pals, which is where everybody draws a different person from either the cast or the crew and um they pick gifts for that buy gifts for them before each show and it's kind of like a secret santa thing and then on the last show, you reveal yourself and

017that's just also a great way to meet people and um make new friends, so. Yeah, those are some great experiences I've had with the musical and the play. Hi, my name is Michaela Grover. Um I have been in the theater department at Hudson um for all 4 years of high school. It was kind of my first um introduction into like theater and music um really my whole school career and I think that um it one of the ways it's helped me is that I've definitely gotten to grow my community, um my friends, and I've gotten closer with my teachers. You got obviously have to invite them to all of your school functions like the musical and the play. And I think that building that community of friends in the theater department is super important to

018growing in your high school career because you lose a lot of sleep during the musical, especially during tech week. And also you're super stressed. You have to memorize lines and music and it's just it's a lot to put together in really a short amount of time. But it always comes together and it always um works out super great and it it really brings the community together. Um and we've had like amazing numbers show up to our shows. And that really boosts the confidence of our um people who are participating both on stage and backstage, especially with all of our parent volunteers and teacher volunteers, too. So it's really just a great department in general and we'd all three like to thank our main directors, Jamie Pelkey, um Miss Heisler and Mr. David Troy, who really

019really they're the power the power trio in putting putting all of our shows together. So thank you. Thank you. FFA Good evening, members of the board and administration. My name is Gabby Cody and I serve as the Hudson FFA student advisor. It's a privilege to stand before you tonight to share the highlights of a year defined by growth and passion. With 75 registered members now actively engaged in agricultural education, our chapter is stronger than ever. I'm Mary Prescott and I'm the vet our captain. We began our competitive season with leadership development events or LDEs. These events are designed to sharpen soft skills like public speaking and professional communication. This year, six dedicated competitors represented us with a member finishing third at the sectional level and the agricultural quiz bowl team advancing to the state level.

020Those students are not just learning about the industry, they're learning how to to be the voice of it. I'm William Heise. I'm our community service captain and I'm the captain of our wildlife team. And we Moving into the technical technical side of our career development activities, our CDEs, we started our CDE season strong with 59 individuals that competed at four different invitational events. And specifically, I want to highlight Matt Woodruff, who was the first place place He placed first in our ag vet competition for the National Midwestern Invitational. That's the That's scaled up at the regional level. We brought eight teams and 32 individuals to compete at UWRF. Our chapter truly excelled at placing seven teams in the top 10 with nine of our members placing as top 10 individuals, including two overall regional champions,

021Lilly Paul in nursery landscape and Remy Kitchner in milk quality and products. This monument carried us all the way to the state level. We were We were proud to have 17 and 28 individuals qualify for state competition. Representing Hudson at the state level were our teams in agronomy, wildlife, milk quality and products, nursery and landscape, soil judging, ag communications, and ag education. We ultimately placed five of those teams in the top 10 in the state, securing second, seventh, ninth, and two 10th place finishes. We also want to recognize Sam S, who is the state champion in milk quality and products. So, I have If today's not just about competing, it's also about serving. Our chapter believe Our chapter believes in giving back monthly to help build our community. Uh throughout the year, our members have

022packaged meals with meals from the heartland, built beds for sleeping heavenly peace, and we supported the Teal Strides 5K to fund ovarian cancer research. Uh we assisted with the local We assisted local farmers with corn cleanup after their fields were damaged by hail. And we created wheelchair blankets for the Minnesota VA hospital, and there were many others. We also made an impact during Hudson FFA week. From the teacher appreciation breakfast to drive your tractor to school day to activities during the bonfire, we worked to share the importance of agriculture with our peers. And of course, a special thanks to our kiss the cow champion, Miss Cole Boy, for helping us end the week with a smile. It was a huge success in raising school spirit and appreciation for agriculture. Following up with FFA week, we

023created over 45 floral centerpieces for the district staff recognition banquet, which were then reused to spread some sunshine around the school to teachers during teacher appreciation week. While we achieved so much already, our season is far from over. In mid-June, our chapter will travel to Madison for 4 days for the state FFA convention. It is a capstone event for us. Our four state degree recipients will officially receive their degrees. Our agriculture quiz bowl team will compete on the state stage, and I will be completing my final interviews as a state officer candidate. In closing, we want to thank the school board and administration. Your investments in agricultural education allows us to wear these blue jackets with pride. We look forward to representing Hudson in Madison next month. Thank you for your time. Hi, my name

024is Mabel. My name is Ruby. And I'm Olivia. And we're all sophomores and we're officers for this year's Hudson FCCLA. Um FCCLA is very new to Hudson, so we kind of combine it with HOSA this year. So, a lot of our events overlap and along with our slides. Um But yeah, we started off the year with a fall leadership conference in um at Stout and at Madison, which was a lot of fun for both us HOSA and FCCLA. And we were able to learn a lot of leadership skills, communication skills, and able to just connect with our community. And in addition, we also hosted multiple events at Hudson like blood drives, which we hosted two of them and over 30 people volunteered at each one. And we also hosted a teddy bear clinic, which is

025a lot of fun cuz members of our community were able to bring their kids and just get their teddy bears checked out, which was very nice cuz they learned what like a normal pulse would look like, blood pressure, temperature, etc. And it was really nice cuz we got to like demonstrate our health care skills and they got to learn and get excited about health care. And we also raised funds for FCCLA's sponsored nonprofit called Paul's Party through tattoo a teacher, which was really fun. And then um finally, we got to attend The Pulse, which is a 3-day medical event. We got to go to three different hospitals and experience kind of what the medical field's like by shadowing medical professionals. Moving on to competitions, members of both HOSA and FCCLA competed in various tests and

026projects at the regional level with many of us qualifying for state and later even nationals. State was a really fun experience with nine people competing for HOSA and eight for FCCLA at the Kalahari. Members attended for a few days and got to compete, swim, meet new people, and attend various breakout sessions. Four people qualified for Nationals for HOSA in Indianapolis for a mental health project and five of us qualified for Nationals in DC for FCCLA for nutrition and wellness, leadership, and child care. We are excited to see how it goes. Overall, HOSA and FCCLA have been wonderful clubs to connect with our community, improve our leadership skills, and learn more about career pathways we're interested in. This was our first year of Hudson's FCCLA and we are proud of how our club has grown with

02739 registered members. We are very excited to continue giving our time, seeking leadership and health care opportunities with HOSA and FCCLA, as well as embark upon new experiences. Thank you. Hello, my name is Grant Stojan and I am one of the senior captains of the Quiz Bowl team. Uh this year, we have a slightly smaller group as many of the seniors that we had in the past two years left. Uh but despite that, we still did very well this year and we still had a lot of fun. So, we go to a lot of the competitions and circuits in Minnesota area where we saw a lot of success at the one at league play, which is a very big tournament where essentially all the teams in Minnesota come together and is from November to February.

028It was very drawn out, very long and we placed uh ninth out of 71 teams and we were able to qualify for the national tournament down in Atlanta this Memorial Day weekend, which we are very excited for. Very fun opportunity to compete with the best of the best at Quiz Bowl. Um many of our students, as my fellow senior captain could not be here, Austin Clark, and one of our rising students, uh sophomore Echo Fernatten, have been top 10 scores this season consistently, and that's been really fun to see Echo grow and Austin really peak as a senior in Quiz Bowl. Uh I would like to thank um Kristen Boers and Jonathan Blake for being our coach and advisors. And if you couldn't tell, I'm a bit of a nerd, so I'll stand here for

029a We like it. We love it. >> Uh so, Science Olympiad, we had another great year with about 60 members, four full full competition teams. Uh and very a big highlight of the year was our first time hosting our own invitational here in Hudson, and it was a great success. A lot of people from who were in Science Olympiad previously in Hudson came to help out. A lot of staff from Hudson and other districts came to help out with writing tests and running the events. And it was a really great opportunity to showcase uh that we're capable of running events like Science Olympiad and other events such as speech and debate, as well. Um this we placed first at our regionals and uh sorry, second at our regionals, first at our invitational, fifth at state

030out of 60 teams. We got 100 medals uh plus out of across all of our teams that competed throughout the year. And it's really a fun opportunity because uh in Science Olympiad, we get to dive deeper into what the students are passionate themselves about in science, not necessarily uh what Hudson has offered in the science curriculum. Like specifically, uh my favorite event was circuit lab, like a circuit uh circuits and magnetism class, which is uh touched in like physics two and E&M, but a more very specific approach to uh that subject. So, uh yeah. Thank you Thank you to Nick Borsch and uh Matt Anderson for being the coaches this year. It was really great year. And I just want to thank this group uh in the clubs organizations, performing arts, fine arts. It's over

03150 programs that you support and welcome in to these presentations and many beyond these groups. So, I just want to thank this group. I also want to highlight our advisors and students. Um as we mentioned at the end with the networking and alumni coming back, there were also advisors from multiple clubs and organizations teaming together to make Science Olympiad's first event work, along with kids that weren't even involved in Science Olympiad coming to support their friends. So, it's just such a cool network of kids and staff coming together to make a lot of great things happen. And if you've not been to one of those events, I'd like to make it priority next year to just let you know when they are coming to the school because it'd be great to have you walk around.

032If you have not walked around Science Olympiad before, there's things that kind of blow up, pop, explode. You just got to be on your toes a little bit, but it was a ton of fun. So, I'll I'll make a note to make sure I get this group an invitation so you can see some of those things in person. Thank you for having us once again. Thank you Thank you, Aaron, Um, everyone for coming tonight. It is, you know, amazing opportunities and work that you guys put into it and and I love to see Aaron geek out and about um, some non-sports related stuff as much as he as he does. And uh, so love the the increased participation and all. And just great job. Does anybody else have any comments? >> I do. Molly. Go

033figure. Um, I feel like I'm seeing my people. Just it as an old person, um, it having Well, don't don't laugh at me. I am old. Um, these are the things that you will remember. I mean, you're there's so many great stats. You guys are so accomplished and we know that you all work so hard. You're busy, busy, busy people. But you will remember the stuff that you told us tonight with speaking from the heart about the friends you made and the time management you learned about um, the funny things that happened. Your funny like um, speech and debate. People fear it more than death. We do it for fun. Yes, you That I mean, you guys are hilarious and awesome and I just hope you remember that. This is a great accomplishment. We're so

034proud of you as a community and just keep on rocking it. You're awesome. Maria. Yeah, thank you, Mr. President. Um, echo everything Molly said. You You guys are a phenomenal group of students. Um, you are leading in amazing ways and um, showing others um, how to just go above and beyond every day and find the fun niche that you have in each of your clubs. Um, I have a quick question. Quiz Bowl, is that math competition? Do I have that correct? Trivia, great. Thank you for clarifying. And I can't underscore how big a a deal it was that Science Olympiad came to Hudson for the first time this year and yeah, there were over like 25 schools all the way from North Dakota, I believe was the furthest one away that came to compete. The

035number of parents and staff that had to help, it it really was a phenomenal day. So, anything we can do to keep that coming back to Hudson, I think it's phenomenal and kudos to Borsch and Mr. Anderson for putting that on cuz that was no no small feat for you guys, so I think it was pretty amazing and the school all the work that you guys do phenomenal, so thank you. One more round of applause, I think. I know you'd love to stay for the rest of the Oh, oh one more recognition. I thought that was So, that would be through. Ellie's going to come up and Okay, fantastic. Come on up. Hello. Um yeah, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Um my name is Elia Christianson. I'm a senior at Hudson High

036School. And this September, I was selected by the Wisconsin Office of Children's Mental Health to be the youth mental wellness champion representative for the CESA 11. Um and through my selection to be within the Champions Cohort, I've had the opportunity to attend monthly meetings with the Office of Children's Mental Health team and learn about the state of mental health among youth and solutions to improve it within Wisconsin. And deeply, I've taken away from my experiences that youth today are struggling with sense of belonging at school and feel increasingly isolated, anxious, and stress-induced, overwhelmed by academic course loads, social pressures, and extracurricular involvements. And this April, I had the opportunity to attend the Office of Children's Mental Health Leadership Summit. Um and there I learned about various types of student organizations that exist across high schools

037within the state of Wisconsin that are focused on improving the state of youth mental health within their communities. And being a representative within this cohort has motivated me to bring what I have learned about actionable solutions to improve youth mental health and sense of belonging to my own high school. Um so I have identified the need for a student organization such as there are already across many other Wisconsin schools to be an advocate for an additional resource for students as they navigate the stressors and challenges of high school and to bolster and improve student wellness here in Hudson. So in collaboration with Ms. Doughty and Ms. Piernot, we hope to establish an organization rooted in creating more mentally well, confident students who can thrive during their time here in the Hudson School District. And I

038want to make sure you weren't forgotten. I just thought that she had or whatever like it you obviously didn't need any help. So thank you. >> Mr. President >> Yes. I just want to um comment on your presentation to us. I think when you said actionable items that excites me because often times with mental health I think we aren't quite sure what to do and we certainly want to do. So um I think as a board we really welcome those ideas and I also want to say I was watching your face when everybody else was presenting and you were just like so happy for everybody and that's how we really should be. Um so I thought that was really sweet and obviously you're in the right place. So thank you. Okay, now you're released. You

039don't have to stay for the next 3 hours of fun. Okay, um moving on we have citizens right to speak. Do we have any? No, nothing nothing there. So we can move on to reports and we'll start with the Wisconsin Association School Boards uh government relations presentation. We have some visitors today. Yeah. Okay. Give some familiar faces as I've I've seen as part of the Policy and Resolutions Committee for the Association School Boards and all of us that have been down to the uh State Convention, familiar faces as well. So, I'll turn it over to you. Well, thank you for inviting us. We're happy to be here. Um I know that a number of the board members are relatively new. I noticed that uh several of you were elected in 2025, others in 2023 and

040a couple of uh 2021. So, wanted just to introduce ourselves and familiarize you with some of the programs and services that the WASB offers. But today was a banner day in Madison. We hope that the momentum continues. There's an old saying, there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip. We got to get a vote on these on the proposal that's been agreed to in in principle. And Chris can tell you a little bit more about that, but we're excited about that. So, I don't know which you'd like to hear about first, what's happening in the legislature that's good for schools or a little bit about our organization. I'm going to start about the organization, I think. I'm just because you know, we're certainly most of us are familiar, but as far as that's

041what even you know, we've been asked to is you know, the benefit of being involved with WASB and what it provides for districts like ours and those across the state. Yes, we are a membership a voluntary membership organization. We've been in existence since 1921. We're the only statewide organization that exclusively represents school boards. And um we try to provide an array of programs and services to to benefit school boards to make you stronger and to to lead you to on the path toward better school governance. We firmly support local control. That's a bedrock principle in Wisconsin and um so what that means is that we support control of of local schools by locally elected school boards to the greatest extent possible and the greatest extent compatible with the our state constitution and other laws. Where

042there is an question about whose authority uh, something should fall under, we side with the school boards. We think that you're in the best position, you are locally elected, you know your communities. You're elected to represent the values of your communities. You're elected to represent the educational priorities of your communities and and um, we support that fully. So, um, each of you has a packet um, before I get into that I I want to thank you for your participation in a number of our events uh, the last couple years. And even before that, we've had a good representation of the Hudson School Board at our fall regional meetings. Uh, those meetings are where we elect the member of the Board of Directors from your region. So, we are governed by the membership. Uh, we have

043a Board of Directors of 15 uh, directors elected from 15 separate regions in the state. Uh, yours happens to be from your neighboring district of River Falls, uh, Alan Tuck and Hagen. Um, and um, they are elected for three-year terms by the membership again. Each board gets one vote at the at the fall regional meeting toward the election of of the local um, regional director. Uh, a number of you have attended the state convention. I hope that you found that worthwhile. Uh, each year we bring together about 2,000 school board members, district administrators, and business officials among others. Uh, we have over 90 breakout sessions, uh, educational sessions for attendees. We try to bring in nationally recognized keynote speakers to provide you with um, not only entertainment, but additional ideas that we hope will be

044helpful to you in your in your work as school board members. Sometimes it's uh inspirational, sometimes it's it's more of a take some notes on this. Um it's the biggest uh event uh for school people in the state and we hope to keep it that way. Um it is in the third week of January, which uh is is probably not the week that the tourism and convention bureau in Milwaukee would pick to showcase Milwaukee, but uh it's it's a time that seems to be convenient for school people and and um uh for historical and other reasons, we we've continued on with that. I know that's a long ways from Hudson and we've looked at other venues for the state convention. Um none within the state of Wisconsin seem to fit the bill to have to

045allow for as many exhibitors. We we have um about a thousand presenters and exhibitors who come to the convention. Uh we occupy a full floor of the Baird Center in Milwaukee, which is um some of you may know that because that's where the Republican National Committee held its convention a couple years ago. Um it's a it's a um nationally recognized exhibit facility and convention facility and um it it has served our purposes well. I wish we could find something that was a little more centrally located, but we just haven't been able to find anything that's the hotel rooms as well. Yeah, that can accommodate the number of people. So, there's probably 3,000 people if you take attendees and exhibitors and and other uh folks and that's difficult to find that kind of space. Um we

046also do a number of events. I think some of you have attended our uh legislative conference. I know Bobby were there as a member of the policy and resolutions committee. Um some of you uh are are I believe you have an attorney on staff who is a member of the Wisconsin School Attorneys Association. We do a spring legal conference each year. And um that's beneficial. So, let me talk about some of the things that are in the folder. Uh there is there's an act your service brochure which kind of broadly outlines the type of programs and services that we provide. Um but we have also in the folder a number of um online materials that I'd like to call your attention to and and we'll get into one of those uh later when Chris gives

047his presentation and that's the legislative update blog which is what we use to keep members apprised of just exactly what's going on in the state capital. And um and things to be on the lookout for, advocacy tips, uh ways that you can communicate with your legislators to um express the needs of your district. In addition to that, we uh we provide a monthly legal and legislative update webinars. Those are the third Wednesday of the month at noon. Uh we we provide uh right now we're in the middle of some board governance uh webinars that are kind of a follow-up to our new board member gatherings which we host in each region of the state uh the third week in April for new and newly elected and recently appointed board members and veteran board members are

048welcome to attend as well. We cover all the basics that you need to hit the ground running as a board member. Uh we go through the open meetings and public records laws. We go through um things about uh public comment periods, um how agendas are set, all of all of that good stuff. Um we have in addition to the webinars that we do, and I should mention tomorrow there will be a webinar um on governance topics. I don't remember exactly the topic, but there will be one uh tomorrow and one on Thursday as well. At noon, about a half an hour long. All of our webinars are recorded so that you can view them at your convenience. And in that regard, we have a library of about 50 webinars that we call our online learning

049platform. They cover various aspects of um serving on a school board. We go into greater depth on the open meetings public records law, um parliamentary procedure, board officer roles and responsibilities, uh general board roles and responsibilities. Um every just about everything that you would want to know about good governance of a board is covered in one of those online learning platform webinars. We're We're going to try to work to shorten them. Our first iteration was um some of them are a little bit long, but uh most of them are half an hour or less. So, they're the kind of thing that you can go to at your convenience and watch the video. Uh you can by watching the video and then registering that you did that, you can earn board member recognition points, the same

050as you would for coming to events or serving on WSB committees. And at the fall regional meetings, we recognize board members who've achieved a certain level. We have five different levels that we recognize of board member recognition points. Um Not sure if I'm >> Mr. President. >> missing anything. I just want to say the School Finance 101 is so good. Like those Wisconsin school finance formula is so confusing. And I've asked Bonnie a bajillion questions about it. And those slides, like, you know, I've I've watched most of them, but just to be able to go in and look at the slides and remind myself to understand it. It There it's distilled down in the in the best way I've seen to walk through it all. So, thank you for that. Um Well, good. I'm glad

051that you found that to be helpful. Um we often partner with other associations. So, in that case, developing the school finance 101, we partnered with the Wisconsin Association of School Business Officials or WASBO. Uh we also partnered with WASBO to create a school budget cycle handbook, which I believe you have copies of here in the district. Um That's a a useful tool for helping board members and uh business officials to understand and explain the budgeting process that schools use. In the spring, we produce an annual meeting uh handbook or guidebook, which goes through step-by-step what are all the procedures that are necessary to in um formulating the budget and presenting it to the public as well as holding the annual meeting. Uh throughout the year, we produce other uh guidebooks that we hope are helpful.

052We do something called the school district election schedule that um or clerks uh and um administrative assistants who do a lot of the elections work in in most districts find to be helpful. It covers all of the requirements um for filing nomination papers, filing campaign finance reports, um holding the election, holding the canvas, etc. So, those those are some of the things uh that we do. And I I don't want to go on too long here. I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have, but I want to give Chris an opportunity to talk about what happened in the capital. Sure. >> Mr. President, I don't know if now is a good time to ask, but um it seems like lots of educational opportunities available, and we've seen that in the emails that

053we get very frequently. Um I'm I guess I most specifically hone in on lobbying efforts for um finances, and I maybe you're going to speak to that, but that is probably my biggest area of concern. Um Sometimes it feels like you put it out there to the universe, and I'm not sure how to make it work, or who's making it work, or who's supposed to make it work. But um obviously we've struggled with that in the I mean, I'd like to say the last few years, but I think it's been a a struggle for the last probably >> not just the Hudson School District, it's Absolutely. >> all 421 school districts have struggled. So that's where I wonder specifically with the Hudson School District, since we're a member, what specific specifically can we come to

054you with um when we have concerns or needs, or and maybe some things we might come to you with that is not in your area of expertise, or not in your in a an expectation of people holding a membership. So that's I guess where my questions lie. Well, yeah, and I can I can talk a little bit about our government relations department, what we do. Um so I'm the Chris Coolau, government relations director. Government relations is just a nice way of saying lobbyist. Um It's It's myself and uh my colleague David. Uh so we have two full-time lobbyists on staff uh for the WASB. Um Part of our job is direct lobbying in the capital uh on behalf of school boards. Um we lobby on the positions uh that are adopted by our delegate assembly

055uh that are vetted by our policy and resolutions committee. Um and then those become our official positions. A lot of it is, as Dan said, local control, and we have a lot of resolutions, of course, on school finance and funding as well. Um so while we have two lobbyists, um you know, we can't necessarily get in 132 uh state legislative offices uh in any meaningful way ourselves. Uh we're a little uh limited in our capacity there. Uh but that is why we spend a lot of time trying to put out information to you guys in a timely fashion uh that you can use uh yourself when talking with your local uh representatives, legislators uh in your area. Um we can make some inroads, certainly, um as a statewide organization, uh but it's it's definitely uh

056an advantage for you guys, because you're actual constituents of these legislators, and you can provide more specific local examples to them uh that they often find uh very valuable that we necess- Anecdotally, we can share stories if if if some of you guys let us know um some things, but uh usually that's a strength of uh having board members and administrators doing that work uh directly. Um so typically, when we're meeting with legislators, we're most often with uh legislators in in leadership positions, either on key committees, uh education committees, um and then a lot of times it's it's dependent on who's working on various bills. So if a certain legislator is authoring a bill that we want to have uh input on, uh we'll we'll meet with them at kind of as as things happen

057or they come to us wanting feedback on something they're thinking about doing. We are strictly non-partisan entity. We do not endorse candidates for office. We do not make political contributions. We also recognize that our membership statewide is is politically diverse. Ultimately, we operate on the directive that our members expect us to be able to work effectively and collaboratively collaboratively with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Um So, a lot of times we could be open to some criticism for not um you know, being super strong in in questioning maybe a lawmaker's motive for doing something or we we have to keep it professional. We don't want to burn bridges with people while still making our points. Um Just for this past legislative session, just to give you some idea, we tracked 325 bills at

058the state level. 46 of those passed both chambers of the legislature this session. 27 of those were signed into law into law. Of those 27, we supported eight. Opposed zero and did not take a position on the other 19. 19 bills were vetoed by the governor. Of these, we supported zero. We opposed six and we were not taking a position on 13 of those. 27 bills passed the assembly but not the senate and five bills passed the senate but not the assembly. Um Our resources for letting you guys know what's going on, so hopefully you can use that information with your legislators. Dan did mention the legislative update blog. It's on our website. You can sign up to receive emails every time we post something new. Uh, obviously with with what happened today, we posted

059twice uh on the deal uh when it was announced around midday and then when more details were uh released uh later this afternoon. Uh, we have a legislative advocacy toolkit on our website. We are in We're planning this summer to kind of overhaul that, but the information there is really evergreen. It's kind of a 101 on developing relationships with legislators. Uh, it gives you an idea of how legislative offices are structured. Um, a lot of good information there um even if you're not familiar with, you know, legislative advocacy at all. It's kind of a 101. Um, here's how you do it kind of school finance 101, but for advocacy. Uh, we do webinars each month uh where we provide a legislative update uh with our uh legal counsel who provide a legal update. And then

060during the budget season um when the state budget is uh introduced, we do weekly uh government relations only uh webinars on Fridays. Uh, we keep those to 30 minutes or less and we just kind of update you each week on what we're hearing and what's going on uh during the state budget. And we do that until the budget's actually signed into law, which is a couple months. Uh, additional resources, we have a state bill tracking chart that lists all of those bills that we are tracking and whether we have a position on it. Uh, it'll also show you what uh resolution uh we are using to take our position uh on those bills. And we are also uh have a number of uh pages on our website dedicated again to the state budget, uh federal

061government updates, and then advocacy resources, which is a newer page that we kind of just put up there and is uh in conjunction with a kind of myth-busting campaign that we've begun um through kind of our social media and our blog um just kind of looking at some of the things that are being said out there that we feel might be a little misleading, uh, and just, uh, giving uh, some additional context to some claims that we're we're seeing out in social media and other places. Um, so that's available as well. Uh, going to what happened today, um, as Dan mentioned, there was there was a deal announced, uh, to spend down, uh, the the state's uh, budget surplus uh, that exists right now. Uh, this has been going on for months, uh, since, uh,

062the fiscal bureau identified that uh, there would be a pretty sizable surplus, uh, uh, over $2 million. Um, basically what they laid out in the initial, uh, announcement was about $600 million total, just over $600 million total in, uh, new funds for for public schools. Uh, $300 million of that uh, would go to special ed reimbursement, um, and that would get up to an estimated 50% reimbursement rate, uh, by the second year of of of this budget, uh, cycle. So, they they they said about 42.7% for the first year and then 50% the second year. That is still that some certain, I don't know if you're familiar with this, the some certain appropriation, so it's it's an estimate. It could be slightly somewhat less than, uh, 50% when all is said and done. Uh, the

063other $300 the governor initially said it was going into general aids. So, typically when people say that, that means going into the equalization aid formula. That we found out later this afternoon is not the case. Um, they are actually creating a new disbursement method, um, that would be similar to per pupil categorical aid, um This this getting a little complicated here, but uh per pupil aid goes to each school district equally. Regardless of where you fall on the school uh formula equalization aid formula. Um so what this would do is is it would create almost a a per pupil aid, but inside >> inside revenue limits. So because that's inside revenue limits, uh that 300 million would not be additional dollars you could spend, but it would bring down uh your property tax levy on

064on your property taxpayers. And I believe that that came to about $387 per pupil um statewide. So those were the big uh parts for schools. Uh the other big part or big number there was 850 million to a direct uh state tax rebate. Uh so they are going to mail checks of $300 to every individual filer and $600 to a married couple. Um as as a direct state tax rebate uh from the state. Uh the other items in there were were somewhat smaller. $50 to tech colleges to bring down property taxes for those. And then there was a getting rid of taxes on tips and overtime was also part of that. So since that's been announced, uh it is scheduled to go through the joint finance committee tomorrow. Uh they did put out a notice

065today. Uh they're planning to do that. And then supposedly to the floor on Wednesday uh to go through both houses. Um We've had a couple of senators already come out and put out statements saying they're they're a no vote on this. Um not enough to sink it. It's still not clear um you know, if the Republicans who control the Senate will need Democrat votes. They probably will. We're not sure how many they'll need. Um It's likely they will end up getting those cuz there's going to be a lot of pressure to vote for this. Um but that's kind of the timeline this week of that stuff happening. Um I guess I would open up up to questions unless you had something else to add on that. >> Yeah, I I would like to follow up

066Kate on on your question. Um There's kind of a push and pull. Being a statewide organization, we have 421 school districts in the state and they're all in very different places. Some of them are net winners on open enrollment. In other words, they're importers of students. Other districts are exporters of students. Some districts um have high property wealth per pupil and they don't do very well in the equalization aid formula. Other districts um you know, do better than than that. Um so there's there's a lot of push and pull. What we try to do is find ways as best we can within the framework of our resolutions to try and do things that will benefit all school districts. And so I would point to the special education provisions in this budget. We will be at

06750% reimbursement. Um there'll be about a billion dollars or close to it anyways. Well, yeah, of course it We we've we've gone through this before, but to put things in perspective 2 years ago, the reimbursement was supposed to be 33%. It actually wound up being about 30.6%. This time around, it was supposed to be 42%. It's closer to 35% in the current school year. This time we figured out how much money it's going to take. And the state is going to put that forward. So, that's going to benefit every school district. You won't have to be transferring as much money from your programs and services that budget that benefits all students to cover the the amount that's not being reimbursed to cover special education services. So, that will allow you to keep more money in

068your in your fund 10 budget. Your general fund budget. Um I think that's a win. Now, it's a win in another way because there are federal maintenance of effort requirements. So, and those go by the dollars the state puts in. So, this billion dollars of special education funding from the state reimbursing your all the local expenses is a permanent feature of our school funding law because of that federal law. You can't go backwards once you've you've made a commitment to spend a certain amount of money. You're required by federal law to maintain that effort is the term in the in the special education law. So, that that should be a permanent um a permanent allocation of money for special education services in our state. That's big because I remember not too many sessions ago we

069were at 25%. So, we've doubled the amount. Now, we we're not all the way there, but that's a significant increase and that's that's an area where where we put our heads together and say, "What can we do? How can we build support for something that will benefit every school district in the state?" And that's one example. Um I think that you know, if I'm looking at the deal that was announced today from the perspective of the Hudson School District the fact that it's a per pupil amount and not run through the equalization formula um is going to benefit this district. Um that's $387 per student. Um you know, it's not it's not uh going to solve all the budget problems that districts have, but it's going to make a significant impact. What What we found

070out last time, and I think legislators learned uh the hard way, there's an old saying that sometimes they feel the heat before they see the light, but they did not fund any increase in in school aids, and they allowed revenue limits to go up. So, all of that increased spending through the revenue limit came at the expense of property taxpayers. And um all things all other things going on in the economy right now, that was a tough burden for a lot of people to to bear. Um I think this is a step toward addressing those kind of affordability issues. The The state's going to give back some of its surplus directly to uh a couple of $300 per single taxpayer and $600 per couple, as well as the money that's going in this $387 is

071not going to fuel additional school spending, but it's going to give you money that's inside your budget. It's that's going to be hard for them to take, you know, to reduce in the future. Um that you can use directly to reduce property taxes because it it is subject to the revenue limits. It's not going to allow you to spend more unless you go to the voters and get referendum approval to spend more, but it is going to offset property taxes directly on a dollar-for-dollar basis. I'll go quick. Cuz I forget otherwise I'll forget what I was going to say. Um you know, and I'll say it, you know, when you look at the value of it going back, you know, uh 7 8 years, um when I fronted my first delegate assembly, and just sitting

072here in in that room listening to everybody fighting for what they what was important to their own district, whether it be rural or reservation or you know, inner city Milwaukee and is saying, "This is never going to work, right? We're not I think what WASB has done is it gives a voice to those districts that aren't going to go down there, aren't going to spend the time, aren't going to write their senators, but but it also has changed and just you know, I I was in in the assembly this year even though I wasn't a delegate. Just watching and there is a drive, there is a push for fairness and and being part of the you know, policy resolutions committee, that is huge now with everyone. Everybody wants it to be fair. It's it's much

073less fighting for our own little you know, things that cuz you we're never going to get there if we keep doing that. Um my question uh is nothing on vouchers with this or Well, they they they get a bump as part of this from the standpoint that they are indexed to any increases that public schools get. So, the current law and Dan can maybe >> we haven't seen um the bill language, but the the per pupil payments for vouchers will go up as Chris mentioned, they're they're indexed. That's a feature of current law that um I don't particularly care for, but it's it's something that we live with um and so they will get uh a bump of $108 in 2025-26 and $186 in 2026-27 in those per pupil payments. We're reading our blog post.

074You know, there you go. Hey John. Um it's something that happens automatically. This this deal that was struck did not change that automatic indexing. So, whenever we get an increase in our um either our general aid, our revenue limits, or our categorical aids, uh there there's provision that that piggybacks an increase for the voucher schools on that. Molly. Thanks for explaining that. Um I just want to say first of all, thank you very much for your part in making this happen. I know that we're all really excited. Uh excited for ourselves and it's excited for everybody else, too. Um I just have two questions. So the $387, that is actually just the way I understand it, and I'm sure Nick can explain it later. Is that That is just $387 less that we will not

075be able to tax and that will be coming from the state, correct? Yes. So basically, yeah, okay. That makes sense. So that a person, they will see their property taxes go down in our community whatever percentage amount that amounts to be. Yeah, all things being equal. If If you don't change if the revenue limit is let's just use the $325 that was part of the governor's Mhm. so-called 400-year veto, that's where it's set. Um that will remain the same. The dollars that are used to to make up that $325, if you levy to that amount, more of those will come from the state, less will come from property taxpayers. >> Okay. Thank you for explaining that. Um further, the other thing I was curious about is the 50% sum certain. So basically, it's just an

076estimate. They want to achieve 50%. They will not achieve 50%. Just like now, we They wanted to do 42, was it? And then increasing, but it's actually 35. Is that correct? Yeah, that's a little complicated. Um Because they just basically, they don't have enough money. When they were putting the budget together, the DPI underestimated the amount by which special education costs would increase by about half of the percentage increase. Um I don't know the reasons why, but when they were trying to calculate what 42% and 45% would be, they were using um an estimate that was did not accurately reflect the increased costs of special education. And we don't know if they did a better job this time around. That's where you're kind of getting >> bit, yeah. >> we think they did a better

077job because they're estimating a higher rate of increase. Um so I think it's more likely that we're going to be close to um 50%. Whether we will hit 50%, I'm I'm always a little skeptical cuz we've done we've we've all been down this road in the past. >> seen this before. >> At least in that like 3% range where but rather than like seven where it was like shocking. >> What won't change is there'll be an additional $85 million put in the special education in the current school year and an an additional $230 million next school year. And that won't change. So that money will will be used to reduce or reimburse you for the costs that you've incurred. Um special education is always paid on a reimbursement basis, which is what sometimes contributes to

078the confusion about just how much are we going to need to reach a certain percentage. Ideally, we we've lobbied for a some sufficient amount that So 50% means 50% and the state would have to come up with the money to actually reach 50%. Um we haven't been able to get that across the finish line, but that's something we will keep fighting for. Um and I think what's important Kate to your question is what can you bring that we sometimes can't? Um I was in Chris's role for about 15 years before I took the executive director role. What What moves the needle are stories. People remember stories. Facts and figures, I just, you know, I gave you 85 million and 230 million. You probably won't remember that at the end of the night, but you'll remember

079the stories that the kids told you here tonight. That's That's how we can be effective is to understand the stories that come from your district and come from the other 420 districts in the state. And that's something that you can provide. You can tell your legislators exactly how something's going to impact you. And just as the students here tonight provided examples of how the programs here benefit them, you you can do something similar when your legislators are here. I wish there had been some legislators here tonight to hear those presentations cuz they would have recognized the just the enthusiasm, the achievements, and the excitement of those um students. And might I say just in passing that um I was felt a a little twinge in my heart because my nearly 90-year-old father was the state

080FFA president when he was in high school, and um I know that whatever else he did in life, that was something that he was always very proud of. Very proud of. Um Yeah, it's adorable. Thank you for sharing that story. It really is. I I Um and I just wanted to point out we have some very uh great legislators in our area that are always willing to come and meet with us and listen and work on our behalf. So, we do appreciate that, and we have them at least yearly to come and talk with us, so. Great. If Mr. President >> Thank you. Oh. Um So, I totally get why the um conference is in Milwaukee and, you know, lobby days in Madison, and at At we drive south Uh for the conference from here.

081Um but just uh you know, thinking about the lobbying day. Um it's for some districts it's really far, right? You know, it's it's a long ways and I um I I should be better at looking at things on the WASB website than I am, but um I'm just wondering, do you ever help school districts set up Zoom meetings with their legislators or or share the materials and say, "You should try and set up a meeting with your legislator when they're in your district?" You know, like that to me I think driving all the way down can be hard. People have to take time off work. You have to have someone watch your kids versus um and again, I may have missed it, like clear guidance on like what to do if you can't come to

082lobby day. Is that Is that in some of the materials you have already? >> Yes. Yeah, and I think that's what we're mostly talking about is is when we're talking about you guys doing that, we're not thinking you're driving down to Madison to do that. We think you're doing that here. Um they're typically when they're in session, they're typically down there Tuesday through Thursday. Um Mondays and Fridays are typically district meeting days um and are good time to get them. When they're out of session like now, they're not in Madison much. Um obviously this week's an exception, but uh typically they're getting into re-election mode and they're around the district. And and if they're not going to listen to you now when they're asking for your vote for re-election, the question is when will they

083really listen to you? So, I think this is a great time to to invite them to your schools. Um invite them to your honors convocations. Um They perhaps could hand out awards or or meet have their picture taken with the uh recipients. Um you have spring concerts, spring plays, um other kinds of activities. I think those are great ways to showcase your school. But don't forget about your needs, too. If there are needs that you have, um you know, let them know what they what they are. Um I I would um try to invite them as many times as possible and um have have kind of a an agenda planned. A a lot of times legislators will be reluctant to come to a meeting because they feel like they're going to be grilled or they're

084um you know, they're Someone once said if you if you get an invitation for dinner, make sure that that you're seated at the table and not on the menu. And um they sometimes feel like they're on the menu, so things that you can do to alleviate that and build relationships, cuz that's really what what lobbying is about from our standpoint is building relationships and you you want Uh I'm fond of saying that the time to make a friend is before you need that friend, so um you know, the lobbying day I I I think we need to do a better job of communicating that we don't control legislators' schedules and that we do our best to arrange the meetings, um whether that's right decision on our part to arrange those meetings or whether we should

085leave that um to individual board members and and boards. Um we've tried to make it as easy as possible and unfortunately, this time around that came with with, you know, a pitfall that um legislators weren't there and we didn't somehow we had a failure to communicate um between those offices and and our office. Um and apologize again for that. But, uh um, for the most part the system has worked in the past. Um, it is 4 hours. I just drove up from Madison. It's it's a long drive. Um, but we can we certainly do try to make those materials available. Um, we used to when legislators would I think do a little bit better job of publicizing their office hours. Um, during the budget season most legislators will have office hours. So, you can find

086them at a public library or a coffee shop or some place like that. And they actually will welcome hearing from constituents. So, that's a time for board members. It's a time for you to rally parents, grandparents, people in the community who aren't the usual people who show up to talk to legislators. And, um, have them amplify your voice at those meetings. And we're happy to provide them the same materials that we provided at the at the capital to any board member or any board that wants to uh, attend those uh, they call them office hours, town hall meetings. They go by various names. I think, uh, you know, with that lobbying day, uh, and that happens every 2 years, correct? Yes. Um, so, uh, and and yes, we we missed our legislators, but that didn't

087stop Kate from getting on the phone and what saying, "Hey, where the hell are you?" Whether it was their concern or not or their fault or not. And, um, because of that we did have a uh, uh, our state senator showed up for the first time, you know. And and I give Kate credit for that. Um, but while we were down there, we did meet with the with the staff the the aids and the staff of the of our legislators. Um, a lot of notes were taken. Um, we got to hear some uh, state uh, kind of our state senators, Mr. Kitchens, I believe, from Green Bay. Um, which I had to say I'm a little not too displeased that, you know, if Green Bay's having problems, you know, that's his area and some of

088the things he said, you know, you're going to get politicians and they're going to give their positions uh very frankly and um but so >> Bob Bob, just so you know, he was a former school board president for 12 years, so >> Which is why I really don't understand some of his statements. But uh um so I think there were there was certainly value to that. Um how we how we translate that into um you know, school boards getting, you know, their their own action together and and encouraging their school cuz uh we've we made sure that our that our representatives knew that it wasn't a gotcha you know, session and we were very uh um and and, you know, and one of them one of our reps is absolutely no problem coming, actually enjoys

089it and and uh part of the community as well. So, but that's just one of the >> that's important. I I'll just share that part of my misspent youth was spent going to law school and um it's not like arguing a case before a jury. Um that's a one-time thing. You're only going to see those 12 people one time to argue your case, but the legislators that represent you will represent you for at least 2 years or 4 years, depending on which house. And so you need to to build those relationships. You can't burn bridges because I learned early on in my lobbying career that the person um who voted against me might just be the person who was the deciding vote the next time uh an issue came up and I couldn't afford to

090alienate them. So, um kudos to you for for reaching out and building those bridges. Any Any other questions from the board? Just a quick So, this certainly today's deal was that I mean, we were hopeful that something would come. I'm just curious, you know, your job for lobbying and thinking about, you know, what's next probably never ends. So, what are you for foreshadowing? What are you thinking about uh for the next legislative session? What are you thinking that we should be keeping our eye on or um continuing to talk with our reps about um that mimics conversations you're having? Yeah, I think um obviously November is a long time from now um and a lot can change uh but I think one thing that's going to still be a big issue even with this happening

091um I think school funding and property taxes will continue to be um a huge campaign issue going into November and the next legislative session. Obviously when they start it'll be state budget again um will be the kind of that first or one of the first big things that that we'll all be talking about and um I think some of the issues that we'll be looking at next session are consolidation. Um that's become kind of at least on the Republican side in the legislature has become kind of a rallying cry for um schools. Um it's almost been a little bit of an argument of well uh it's not really the decisions we've made in the state budget that's causing all these problems. It's the fact that we have declining enrollment. Um and there's just too many

092schools and uh we need to you know, it's going to be painful but we need to do this this this kind of right sizing now. I think you know, that obviously gives them a pass for the decisions made during the budget the last over any years. Um but I think it's going to be important to say yes, you know, acknowledge that declining enrollment is an issue statewide. Uh but so is you know, inflationary increases in spendable resources for schools. Just because there's one doesn't mean the other one's no longer important. Um I think it's going to be important to tell legislators that we're not like this status quo that just you know, we're just keeping doing things the way we've always done them even with declining enrollment. Um it's kind of the picture that's being

093painted a little bit. So, I think whatever we can do to remind them about that, you know, we're always making adjustments. We're always looking at how we do more with less. Uh we're schools are being closed everywhere. Um Yeah. I mean, but it's happening all over the state and it's been happening for decades. >> And I think we need to do a better job of getting that message out that school districts are right-sizing. Those Those are some of the most painful decisions that that you face because people decide where to purchase a home or where they're going to live based on where their student children are going to go to school. And And those are difficult difficult decisions. No one wants to have to make those decisions. Um But that's happening all across the state

094and Hudson is not alone. So, I you know, painful as it is, I I commend you for for making taking on tough issues. Um Another one that's out there is cell phone bands. Um I've taken call today from a legislative office about uh wanting to do a bell to bell cell phone ban mandate statewide. Uh that was proposed late this session, didn't go. Uh earlier in the session we passed a new law uh that requires a cell phone ban policy, but it provides the local district with more flexibility in how to actually institute that. Uh same session they they came back with another one that was more strict before the other one even took effect. And And to go back to our our point on local control, there's nothing that would prevent the Hudson School

095District or any other school district from implementing its own bell-to-bell ban. You have that ability under under the law. You you have control over the school district of care and and control of the school district. So, you could do that if you if if you choose to. I think some boards or some legislators have heard from boards, "Well, we we're afraid of our community that there there would be some backlash if we did that. So, we prefer to have you mandate that we do that." So, you know, that's we can say, "Well, we didn't have any choice in the matter." Well, I I think that's a little bit of a cop-out. I think you're elected to reflect the values and beliefs of your community. Um that's why we have locally elected school boards. We have

096school boards to represent the taxpayers, and we have school boards to represent the students who aren't old enough yet to vote for themselves. And how we balance all these competing interests is one of the real challenges, but it's a very important role for you. Mr. President, um I work for a membership organization that does I'm not the lobbyist, I'm the number cruncher, but um in Minnesota and not to not to put uh something on your to-do list, but when you're thinking about how do we collect the data, you know, to get ready um do you do many surveys of of school districts? I don't know who would fill it out, but like who's closed a school? Who's talked about it? Who how have you cut costs just so you have this sort of here's the

097bajillion things school districts are doing across the states. Here's what the average health care cost increase was. Like We do member surveys. I don't know if you want to talk about the one we're currently working on, but it's it's always been a challenge to get people to do it or respond to it. Like I don't know if our response rates have been Well, I I think this happens at the DPI level, it happens at our level. We we The challenge is that we don't want to put more work on our members. Um so we we don't ask for things unless we're going to do something with that information. And um I think you've hit on something that's very good. We do track news clipping services. We're aware of what's going on in districts. Um we

098haven't asked that question of them, but I think we we could certainly do kind of like SurveyMonkey type surveys of districts and gather more information that would help us. I think um that information could be used as a as a press release and get that out there so that legislators and other policy makers can see the information. I I think that's always valuable. Um So that's yes, that's something we can work on. And if you have any ideas on areas that we might want to ask questions about beyond just the right sizing. I have quite a few because I do these types of surveys for work. You have my card. >> Same same but different, but I'll email. Um and we are in the in the process of finalizing a member survey that probably won't

099get down into that many details. It's more about um how can we better serve you? But certainly when you get that survey one of the things you might say is you need to survey your members more often and and what types of information you'd like to see us gather would be helpful. Mr. President. Yes, Aaron. I've I've actually seen some really good articles in the school news magazines. So I appreciate that as part of our packet that we get. Um just a little fun fact. Uh we have our our um um high school president speaking about his cell phone policy that's been very successful as I understand in the district. Maybe you want to stick around for that right after this. Be happy to. Well, we thank you for your time. It's been you know,

100we've taken a lot of your time tonight. I really appreciate you guys coming and um can't say enough that you know, we've had a past board member that used to say to me all the time when I'd ask a dumb questions like there's a webinar about that on the WASA website. And she she said it often. Yeah, and she's like it's so easy even you could understand it, right? So, cuz she was one that would go to all the the you know, financing deep dives on financing and I was like I'm not going to sit in that. So, so the way I would encourage people there is a lot of information on the web on the website. So, but again, thank thank you guys for coming and appreciate it. And I hope All of you

101have your login credentials. We a lot of stuff is behind you know, a login. One thing I wanted to mention is I know you've done the podcast kind of sporadically and it sort of stopped, but if you would start a podcast again, I would love it because that's when I I don't want to read educational stuff. I want to listen to it. Like if I'm I'm driving around, I drive a lot and I I really feel like that was such a great way to convey information. That's you know, I love >> We could even take maybe some of the webinars and turn them into like a podcast. >> way if if there wasn't charts or something, that'd be awesome. You know, like turn pull over the pull this chart and you're off the interstate. We

102don't want to But I I love a podcast. >> Yeah, you said you were you're old and I'm sure I have you beat by quite a bit. >> know about that. Well, I'm I'm going to be 70 this year, so I think I'm 92. I don't look it. I'm so well preserved. But I'm I'm not sure that I can do the kind of podcasts that the influencer kids are doing nowadays, you know, where I talk about what I'm wearing and what I had for for lunch and and just sort of casually drop in a few a few other things, but but we'll work on making them listenable. Yeah, there are you know, there's all kinds of podcasts out there. My husband is a CPA and I have listened to many an AICPA podcast or how

103to attract young people to being an accountant. So it can't be worse than that. Okay. All right. Well, we'll let you get gentlemen go and let's take a 5-minute recess till we get back. >> Thank you for inviting us. >> Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Appreciate it. >> Mhm. >> Okay, we're back in session and we're moving on to um Facebook personal technology update with Shannon and Mike Balog. Yeah, thanks Bob. Before I get started, I just want to introduce Tanya Krieger. She's our new virtual school coordinator for the school district and I think this is the first time in front of all of you. So, just give provide you a formal introduction. Um I have her up here because I'm going back-to-back on the agenda. So, less about technology for Tanya and more about

104the online learning stuff in a little bit. >> We want We want to know her her opinion on cell phones. >> On cell phones? She can She'll give it. You bet. She'll give the right answer, too. Wow. No, um just I It was a nice segue in into our into our phone and technology process. So, let me just take you a little bit back because um you know, like anytime we do a significant change with our students and families, we always like to to like start that around winter, spring and let them know what's coming, right? And I think um you know, just being in front of you last spring, I know that gave me a ton of confidence kind of going in and I was able to to share with our staff as well

105that, you know, we've got a collective school board that's really that's really into this initiative of going going phone-free. Um we met with the students last spring to kind of let them know, each grade level, let them know kind of what it was going to look like, what the expectations were, what the consequences violations, um those kinds of things. Uh really impressed upon our staff, you know, the need that now this was their time uh to follow through and to be collective as one um because, you know, it's real easy at the high school level with with over 100 teachers, it's really easy for someone to say this isn't that important to me, so I'm not going to necessarily enforce it. Or sometimes maybe even um you know, hey Mr. Balor, just can't you just

106be cool and let me have it just this one period and pretty soon, you know, we we kind of tear away at the fabric of what's important. So, um I just want to say thank you so much. It's been really really successful. I know Brian, I think you asked, you know, you want like an update um at some point next year. And so, that's why that's why I'm here um to talk a little bit about this. Um it has been uh you guys as as successful it has been more successful than I could even have dreamt when I was in front of you to talk a little bit about it last time. Uh the the response from our students has been unbelievable. Um we have great great kids at Hudson High School. And I I

107know you know that. I'm sure everybody talks like that, but I am not kidding you when I say our students are incredible. And that's obviously a huge tribute to their parents, right? Like we have great parenting taking place to have this this level of respect uh that comes from our kids um all the time. We had just had prom last night on the I'm now I'm taking a left, but I we had prom last uh Saturday night on the boat and the kids are coming off and they're just everybody is thank you thank you thank you to all of the the workers and and the volunteers. And if you could just hear it, you would just get chills. Um so, you know, I almost view our success with our with our technology uh pro policy

108is really just almost like a link in the chain. And I think of you guys as kind of at the top because without your support it for the administration to carry it out, it becomes very very difficult, right? Um but then our teachers have been fully on board. And I not just our teachers, but quite honestly our our entire staff. Our our EAs, our food service, our campus monitors, everyone is got an oar in the water and they're all rowing in the same direction. So, Tim, if you want to go to the next slide. Um I'm just going to kind of get you terms of your update. Just going to kind of go over three three brief things. This won't be real long, but I'm just going to show you a little bit of infraction

109data for you and then I'm going to talk a little bit about some things I think how student behavior has been impacted a little bit and then we've got some survey results and and teacher reflection to share with you. So you can go to the next one. Keep in mind we have 1,700 students in our school. And if you have high school students of your own, you know that phones play an important role in almost all of their lives. Right? And so the notion that out of our 1,700 students, we've only had 313 infractions at all tech violations infractions is I would have never guessed the number would have been that low. I was that not in my wildest dreams. I know 313 sounds like a big number by itself, but when you think about

1101,700 students for five periods a day, that is just super super impressive and I think it gets even more impressive as we go along. I just wanted to note for you and maybe it's a reminder, you know, when that when we when we put the infraction list together and kind of what was going to transpire the first time a student was found to have broken our tech policy, we kind of said, "Listen, you can take a detention if that's what it needs to correct your behavior or you can participate in our digital reset procedures that our deans came up with and that that is essentially watching a series of two two series of videos and then reflecting upon the videos both their message and their own use. We're basically doing that two different times. And

111if they did that, then we didn't even put it into Skyward, right? We just kept that as we'll chart it and and you learn hopefully you learn from it. And I didn't know I didn't know what to expect with our kids, but I'll tell you I actually received an email from one of our kids. Uh actually from one of our child the students' teachers where they drew some they drew some correlation from what they were learning in class in history um about the digital reset and the impact it had on them. So, it's really cool. So, 271 of our students chose that as the option out of the 331. Tim, you can go to the next slide. And then I put on there for you on the left-hand side uh you know, of those 313,

112only 59 had a second violation. Um and then when you start getting down to to multiple violations, folks, that's just an unbelievable success story. And I I will share with you I don't know that you can I I don't know if you could talk to an adult in our building right now that doesn't think it is absolutely positively impacted their instruction. Uh their ability to to teach. Um early on in in September and October, I was trying to take the temperature uh just informally with with some of our upperclassmen in particular to say how is it going? And so many times students would say, "I didn't think it was going to be this easy. It's really been easy." And then I would ask, "Why?" And they would say, um "Because my other friends and students

113don't have it either." And so we're talking more. So, just as a reminder for all of you, we allow it before school, during lunch, after school, and then we also allow it during our transition periods, which are typically 7 to 9 minutes in between classes. Um and it's just been the the students they they don't even they ask now like when we meet as a grade level, I just met with our seniors last last Thursday or Friday in the in the during advisory. And they just they just report to advisory, drop their phone in their pocket, and come on down to advisory, and then they go get it and and leave. It's it is just so automatic right now for them. Um but I did I did thank them because they're they're an important part

114of that chain that I a proverbial chain that I mentioned about how it kind of takes everyone. You can't have a weak spot in it. And And our senior leaders did a really nice job of of embracing it. So, it's been a huge a huge success. You can go to the next slide, Tim. Um, there's some of the testimonials for you um to to kind of look through or read over. Um, but certainly the level of engagement and students talking with one another. And if And this is just anecdotally, but I will even share with you that if you go to our lunchroom right now, there are fewer kids on their phones during in our lunch period now than there were when it when they were allowed kind of a I don't want to say

115they were ever allowed to have them, but when they were using them far more frequently. There There is so much convers- more conversation in our building. It's it's unbelievable. So, thanks so much to all of you for for supporting it. I didn't ever feel the need to come back and go help me. Our staff bought in and uh like I said, we have great kids. Mr. President. >> Yes, Megan. I love this so much. It I mean only 59 kids had more than one vi- That is unbelievable. Unbelievable. I could have 59 violations of rules in my house one day with two children. So, like this is this is just amazing. Um, I'm so thankful the for the work that's been put in and I just I think you're right. There's there's such amazing students

116at our school and like the lessons learned from this um and thinking about the mental health uh spoken about earlier. Like I think we all know it's not good for us to be sitting there looking at endless scrolling of stuff, but then when you make yourself take a break, the impact that has. So, I'm so thankful to everyone working at the high school, all our kids, all our parents. This is wonderful. I don't know if this is true, but I heard a rumor that that there's actually spitballs and paper footballs being kicked around in June. They're having tournaments. >> you know, Bob, I don't know if that's entirely true yet. Maybe it it hasn't reached me, but I will say I will say kids are back to being kids again. I mean, they they really

117are being kids again. And I I embrace it. I It's not a lot of spitballs. I don't know where you got that from, but but I mean, it's it's okay. I'm okay with the difference. It's I don't know. It's like music to my ears when the teacher has to say, "Okay, now quiet down. Quiet down." Like, really? Like they want to talk with one another? There's something pretty special and human humane about that again. So, I really I really Yeah, I really I just have a ton of gratitude to the staff and and and our families that have gotten behind it. So, it's been great. You know, the executive director talked a little bit about the push and pull, right? Like you have younger people who are not old enough to vote until we have

118to make ultimately as adults we have to make the right decisions sometimes for them. There's also a push and pull even within the BRC, our Big Rivers Conference. So, we hosted I think I shared with you we were going to host the high school principal meeting here about a couple of months ago, and there was actually a couple of principals that wanted to kind of team up and go build, you know, like conference-wide let's go to just no phones whatsoever. And I was a vocal opponent to it because I just said, you know, our kids they bought into responsible use. You know, when we met with each of the grade levels, we talked about, "Hey, you know, we have some neighbors to the west who tried this, and it didn't work. And so now this

119year we're implementing This year they're implementing zero use. Let's not do that. I'm not a believer in that. I don't know of too many people that are a believer that are not a believer in responsible use. Um so, let's make responsible use work so we don't have to go to that such extreme alternative and um our kids are they they bought it. I mean, they have bought it. Our leaders bought Everyone has I mean, it's just automatic in our building right now. If you came to our school at any class period, just walk in, they just go right in and they just put them in that pocket. They don't hover around it at the end of the period. Um it's it's beautiful to watch. Eric. Mr. President. I just I want to thank you so

120much for taking the lead on this. It is such an important process and you have done an amazing job. I have firsthand witnessed this. It is awesome. The happiness throughout the hallways, the conversations going back and forth. It is a night and day difference from 4 years ago walking into that school. I'm talking about the high school just to be specific. Um and I'm just I'm super proud of the staff for sticking to this even though it was going to be a tough transition for some of them. They did a great job and I have heard not spitballs, I have heard hacky sack has returned. Hacky sack's back. >> enjoying that. It is it is back and they were enjoying that on the prom boat as well. >> were. And I love that because these

121kids they're craving that one-on-one connection and the workforce more than anything needs this to happen in high school Yeah. for successful employment later on. So, bravo. Yeah, it's a good thing. >> Good job. Thank you. Thanks. Anyone else? What was your strategy in communicating with the parents? Very often I hear that the parents are They worry about the violence or something like that and they want to be constantly notified if something happens. Yeah, I can I can I can speak to both of those. Um, you know, what I found in with our parents, and I don't think they're different than than many across the state in this in this respect, is they they want to Parents want to know the why. Like, what what what's the change and why, right? And and we provided opportunities

122early on through communicating that this is what was going to be a transpiring, this is what was going to be happening. We were going to be talking with your students, and here's a little bit of the why. We had some We had a couple uh people reach out to me with regards to school safety, but I can quickly bring them down to the SRO, and Officer Trager would would inform you that the worst thing that could happen in the event of uh of something catastrophic or significant with regards to someone entering our building in an unsafe way would be for all of our students to take down communications by being on their cell phones. The The one thing that would impede uh a rapid response is numerous cars blocking the way for our police vehicles

123to arrive on scene. That would be kind of problematic. We all have All of our teachers have phones in their rooms. They are allowed to carry their devices within their within on their person. Um, so that was, you know, did I have a couple of conversations? Yes. But when we when we have the when we're able to kind of talk through the why, um, you know, every all of our parents, even if they disagreed, they were okay with it, right? They We might philosophically disagree, but we we made this move because educationally we really felt it was best. Mhm. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. You're welcome. Since you're still at the table, next >> Yeah, so we'll just transition right into some you know, when whenever we have a a major

124shift or anything that's kind of major, we feel like we need to get in front of you in terms of our handbook. We want to bring those addendum information to you, and we're going to be making a shift with regards to our online learning guidelines. So, a little bit of history here for you as well. In 2020, we saw a significant update or uptick in the number of students that were participating in in our online options. And over that time, we've had some of several experiences and quite honestly trials and different models even within what we were doing. But ultimately, we started talking with Shannon early on. You know, we're having these same conversations with Dave and and Sarah before Shannon and and and Tanya on board it. But you know, at at the end

125of the day, we believe that in person learning is the most effective and efficient way for students to learn. And so we're formalizing that that online learning at Hudson is going to be more limited and structured support. And it's and suitable for in-person instruction. So students can still access it. Um but you know, if they demonstrate some significant readiness, grades, those kinds of things. But we're going to we're going to and and so like kind of like with our phones, you know, we want to communicate this early. We want to communicate it to the to our families and we want to give them a little bit of time to adjust. And so we've kind of got a transition place in my transition plan for that to occur. So that by 2027-28, we'll return to to

126a fully in-person model. That doesn't mean that students won't be taking online courses, but they'll be with us for for the time that they're that they're taking courses under our care. And in that way, also we're able to better support them. You can go to the next one. So so kind of the why? Why are some of these changes being made? Well, part of the part of and there's there's no one single one, okay? So just just keep in mind again kind of that ebb and pull that that he that the executive director talked about. Um first of all, we're finding hybrid and fully virtual students are honestly in terms of academically on the whole being less successful than their peers. Um it also has a a tremendous impact on our schedule. So, when we

127have students that are on what we would refer to as the term release, that means that you're you're allowed to leave our building or not be in our building, all of those have to be individually scheduled. Okay, so the schedule required that that can be a heavy lift and also then impacts when they can't when they are with us, when they are able to take classes, right? And we're trying to keep minimums and maximums, classroom minimums and maximums, so that you know, no one you don't get calls saying there's 39 kids in my in my class in my child's class. We want to we want to keep that balanced. Um and then also just the duplicative costs of uh staffing. We had students that were taking courses that we offered in person, but we were

128paying extra money for them to take said courses. And so, the schedule the impact on the schedule is very significant. Um once again, kind of like I I had mentioned with that BRC principals meeting, we this was a topic that I had brought up for conversation as well because because of just some of these challenges that we're faced with. And a couple of the principals were like, "Oh, we we were kind of there once. We were there once where where you are." And it was just it was it was it just got to be too too much of a heavy lift. So, um we put some data together from both our conference our conference folks as well as some neighboring districts and it really again, not not that you can't find one or two or

129three schools out of the 11 or 11, I think, that we heard back from. Does that sound right? 11. Um but by and large, um many of them came to some of similar conclusions. And then finally, um something that's important to all of us and you and you talked about it for an hour and a half tonight, um costs. You know, costs to support the various models, they just continue to rise. And quite honestly, um we're under the belief that it's unsustainable. So, you can go to the next slide there, Tim. So, of the students who received a failing grade in our virtual programs this year, um which is not a ton, but of those 72% were were either hybrid or virtual. Do you know what I mean by hybrid? When we talk about hybrid,

130we're on an AB day at the high school. So, we have some students that that don't come on A day, but they come on B day or vice versa. So, they're not even with us every other day. Um so, that's what we mean by hybrid. Um one goal of the changes that we're making is just a simple to see what we can do to reduce the number of failures. And I feel like if they're with us, if they're in our in our care, then we can have access to them to help them be more successful, to help them with the monitoring and the tracking, which Tonya does an amazing job with. I have to give her props. Um she can tell me right where they're tracking by week, what percentage of the work that they

131have completed and what their current grade is with all of her students. So, she does an amazing job with that. Um we have a lot of other data that we didn't bring out in front of you tonight necessarily that just indicates that students are spending substantially fewer hours in the online courses than what is typically necessary to complete the coursework. And so, how do we know that or where do we get that? Well, every time a student logs on, there's a record of it. Okay? So, we could So, so Tonya can look up a student and say, you know, this particular student has logged in X number of times, here's how many minutes they logged in each time, and here's a composite of the total number of hours that they've spent on the class, being

132typically being a semester class. Go to the next slide, Tim. With regards to our release, and and this gives me gets me a little bit nervous, but I just want you to be aware, you know, that's the number of students that are released by period. Some of that is a little bit skewed, admittedly, because if the student isn't here for an entire A day, then they're going to count for all first, third, fourth, and fifth period, right? So, a little bit that's a little bit of heart, but that's essentially the number of students that potentially could come and go. That's that's just an overview of that. Tim, you can go to the next one. Um again, the impact on the schedule, so I'm kind of going back to the to the overview. Um we have

133over 300 students that are participating in some format. And so, here's kind of that equity component that I'm trying that we're trying to weigh in as we kind of do that pro con plus minus. Those 300 students essentially have their own schedules independently scheduled for them with a counselor. Because if you're on release and you need an A day or a B day off, then someone has to sit with you and schedule Oops, excuse me, schedule the other day the other day. Or if you're a student that is uh really needs a particular period off, um then they want it then they're going to want it to make sense, which is natural. That's what I would too, but then that means you're meeting with a counselor and your schedule's getting independently scheduled when the other

1341,400 students kind of just the computer does it and they kind of get what they get. So, there's not a lot of equity there. Um we don't offer custom schedules to to our other full-time students. Tim, you go to the next one. So, we put some data together for you from their from our BRC and neighboring districts. The specific schools are down in the bottom uh in in blue font. And essentially, you'll see that all of the districts offer some form of online learning. There is one other district that we're aware of that offers some semblance of hybrid. Um and then we have seven and eight uh students with the with with respect to the to the other two questions there that you can you can take a look at. And then Tim, you can

135go to the next one. This is this speaks to the cost a little bit. Um you'll you'll notice even even without it being in in that in this in this format, it's actually kind of nice. So, in 2020, you can see we had a tremendous bump, right? We're coming out of COVID. Students are are doing some online learning. I think our teachers most teachers, students, and families coming out of COVID were very very frustrated with the online model. Uh and wanted to get back to working with one another and and engaging in some of that social conversation that we were just talking about with really relations to phones. Um but even since that time, so we kind of hung we were kind of hanging in that in that world and things were going pretty good

136and then pretty soon, if we were going to be entirely honest, uh release became an easier thing to kind of get and it became a thing that became attractive. And if I were a a high school student was a junior and I could get out of school and take care of a online class, I don't blame the kids, okay? That's not what I'm doing. I'm not blaming even the parents for wanting those things for their kids. I'm just suggesting that it we made it really attractive. And so now we now we went from 580 in 2020 to 1240 and over $300,000 in expenditures. Um so that's that's part of the impetus and that part of this whole puzzle as to why the why we're we're moving in the direction we're moving. Go ahead, Tim. Go

137to the next one. So, that's it in graph form for you. Uh you can go to the next one, too, Tim. So, overall, just the transition and this is the stuff that's going to be going out to parents. We're We're going to be talking with the kids about it. In fact, I just talked with the freshman about it. Was that this morning? This morning. Um So, we'll be talking to to the to the students about the plan, but basically next year being a transition year, the one thing that we did kind of safeguard up front for your knowledge is if students wanted to take a course that we uh a core course that we offered at our high school, we we said, "No, we need you to make that one in person. If you want

138to take an online course, find something Find another one, but we want you to fill our online courses first or our in-person courses first. Um and then in 2027-28, uh we'll look at no hybrid schedules or release. If I I really think that that's going to be the inherent mechanism to drive the demand a little bit down for only kids who really want it. We want to support that. I just want to be really clear. Like, I want to be able to support online learning. I think there's It's incredible opportunity for a lot of our kids. You know, I I don't know how about your experiences, but if in hindsight, if I could have went through high school again, I probably an ASL was offered, I would have loved that. Like, I've forgotten a lot

139of the Spanish that I learned, but I think ASL would have been cool. So, we have kids that take that. Uh it's a very high-demand course for us. Um So, so really kind of neat. So, it's not that I'm opposed to it. I think we just have to kind of bring things together and put kids in a position where we can support them. Um So, students will be expected to be full-time. Core graduation and course offers offered at the high school must be completed in person. So, the that is specifically, I think, going to be related to freshman and sophomore years uh stuff. Um you know, English we can be somewhat flexible with that with some of our English credits after English 11, which is their first semester of their junior year. We can kind

140of work with them on some of those things. Um but like English is also an example where the ninth we know that the ninth grade online course is called English honors and that honors word just grabs people. But we've also looked at the curriculum and compared it to our own and our own is actually more rigorous um in person. So, it's like, well, we really want them to experience our in-person. If they want to do both, they can knock themselves out, but I we really we really do want those course those graduation requirements that were that were requiring of of all of the kids that walk across our stage. If they're going to be if they're not going to be fully virtual, we really want them to to go through those with us. Um limits

141in online courses um you know, freshman schedules are already so darn full and there's a part of me that really wishes that they all had a study hall, if I'm going to be perfectly honest with you, because then again we have that English and math support and we could intervene with them early on. But uh offering that first online course uh each semester seemed like a a relatively reasonable landing spot. We do ask that any student that's going to be participating in online tries tries it out uh successfully with a course before we start adding on too too many. Um but at the end of the day, we're just looking for a framework that that reinforces the rigor that I that I hope you're joining me in in expecting um and then prioritizes in-person learning

142um and that and that we're using some of that online coursework intentionally. You can go to the next one, Tim. Um bigger love bigger picture, this is just kind of maybe more for you but it will be a part of our agenda as well that you know we have a we have some core principles eligibility and accountability and then administrative oversight because we are going to run into some scenarios I'm sure where we're going to need to we're going to want to be a little bit more flexible here or there we're going to want to be able to work with the family and just ask for your your support and trust in making those decisions on behalf of the kids in the district. And then just some other additional information there to to support our

143direction. That was a lot of me talking and I'm so sorry. Tim you didn't miss anything that we should Just the opportunity still for students to be able to be fully virtual if that's what works best for them and their family and that is supported through our Hudson Virtual Charter School. Yeah, that group does a lot of really good work. We want to support that if that's how students learn best or that's what's best for their family. We're just right now we have kind of a foot in both both pools with the hybrid and it has just been it's been difficult for I think most involved in often times. Just you know I know when we started this program I talked a lot with Dave Gramble back and how other districts were doing it and

144how we were building ours and the hybrid came up I think originally it was like well many kids learn differently obviously and some will totally excel in total virtual or hybrid or whatever you know it some of the numbers are troubling that we see there and then you see some of the graphs where the what the other schools what they're what they're doing and so obviously where many districts are kind of taking a second look at this and I while I hate to you know I'd like to encourage flexibility in how we deliver education. I'm sure there are some great stories or that it it works awesome for the hybrid for Many There are many really good stories out there about how it's worked for them. Particularly when they're in person and they're taking one

145or two online courses, oh my goodness. Yeah, there's a ton. So, that just my basic Mr. President Yes. Oh, I was just I think this is, you know, the increase in cost is one, you know, and I I really think it's a great move to make sure that students are taking the core courses that are already offered, required for graduation. Why are we going to pay for them elsewhere or pay for it twice? And I also to me this kind of dovetails with the phone policy, you know, like there's that in person, there's being with people. For students who are fully online, totally get it, but I would have taken as much early release as I could get as a kid. Would I've done as much homework? No. Um So, I'm I'm really excited about

146how this is being done. To me it, you know, it's not as stringent as the college courses, which makes sense and it gives people a chance to take courses that the high school can't afford to offer, but it's making sure kids are at our schools during the school day unless they're fully online and I I really am happy to see this. Yeah, I um echo what Megan said. I think having first hand experience with two kiddos who have done virtual, um I think where this has the potential, just putting on the table for consideration, right? The kiddos who are saying, "I want to do this core piece online so I can open my schedule up so I can take a second math or science or something else in person at school. Yeah. So, there's a

147lot there's Yeah, and that flexibility to kind of work with. And I know, Tonya, you you work so closely with the families to try and understand how and what What are we trying to achieve here? What do we got? And help students kind of hone that in. And those are It's a lot of work. Um so, really appreciate all of the work that you do. I fully acknowledge is this is not an easy Tetris thing. We're talking about online and in person and how are we making it all mesh? I love the idea of kids being in person. I think it is so critical and even, you know, it just gives them that support of having those connections and the teachers there. And our teachers are pretty darn amazing and work really hard to create

148some pretty amazing class opportunities. Um I just know there's there's a bunch of kiddos out there that are looking at this as an opportunity to say, "How do I get a little bit further in math so that I can do some of those other learning opportunities through UWRF in my junior and senior year?" How are we thinking about those? Food for thought, putting that on the table. >> No, and I love it. And I And I can speak to it a little bit. Remember we had that little that little bullet in there that talked about administrator oversight, right right there. Oh, you just went one more down. There you go. Last bullet. That's where I I'd really like to be able to leverage Tonya and her relationships with those families and be able to say

149because we have some students, I mean, you know this. You They come and talk with you almost every year that are really we would all refer to as high fliers, right? Like they're they're wanting to take not only our seven or eight classes, but they would they want to challenge themselves and take these other courses. I mean, you've had kids in front of in front of you that have taken a full schedule plus three additional classes at one time just so they can go take the AP test, which they score four or five on, right? I mean, they're amazing. We don't want to We don't want to stop that. That's not the intent. That's not the intent at all. The The intent is let's have them here particularly for when they initiate or taking that

150second online course so that if if we check in, cuz Tanya checks in, and then and we're approaching the end of the first quarter and they're 5% complete, we have access to them. They're not on release at home. They're They're They're They're right here. We can go touch base on the shoulder and say we really need to get this thing We need to get this thing going. So, that's That's more of the intent of it. Does that make sense? But, it's not to It's not to stop It's not to get it make any roadblock or black heads for the kids that want to that want to go above and beyond. And that's why I wanted to make sure we had that bullet >> I appreciate that. And again, I cannot imagine the Tetris that you

151guys walk through just with scheduling and then the work like I I know it's a lot. So, thank you. It's a It's huge supports. Mr. President, I am curious as WVS presented to the board at the beginning of last school year and they reported nothing but success. This board was very excited to I wasn't on the board at the time here. I was actually on the WBS board at the time and it was unanimous success and everything was great and it I mean, it appeared to be very well supported and it also seemed that it was budgeted for. So, my question is what changed in less than a year? Yeah. Are you talking about from the board's perspective of online? >> general. What changed in a year that this number is $300,000? Was that not

152part of the budget when we put this together and approved it and said, "Yep, keep going. You know, this is good. Um, another just piece, I mean formerly being on that board, it was how do we grow? How do we properly sustain? How do we grow to where it's sustainable? Um, and how many kiddos do we need to bring on to balance it out? And so, I'm just kind of there's a lot of different pieces here. I'm wondering why we would be taking steps To me, it sounds like we're taking steps backwards in hybrid learning, and technology is driving our world. We just had a discussion at the last meeting on nothing but AI and implementing it in this district. And I'm just I'm I'm very shocked to hear that we would be removing a

153hybrid option when that I mean, this has grown 50% nationwide for um, being part of regular curriculum. And I just think I think it's a mistake to be quite frank. Well, I think we're Now, she's changing it. It's the difference between the charter school. That's the the charter school. The charter school the the WBS charter school, we did budget for that. And right now, we we have eight full-time students, and those are open enrolled students. So, we did budget for those eight open enrolled students. This is a separate budget. It's it's it's separate. The high school students that are taking these courses is separate from the charter school. >> not WBS. WBS is Wisconsin Virtual School. It is the Hudson Virtual Charter School. So, I just don't want people to get confused in watching. Yeah,

154the Hudson Virtual School is the uh curriculum in which we purchase the uh system which we purchased. Um, and people have to understand the Hudson Virtual Charter School Board oversees the Hudson Virtual Charter Charter School. They don't oversee this part of the of the system. Students that are Hudson School District or Hudson High School students that happen to be taking virtual classes through the system. So, and I think that's the, you know, the biggest piece and we as we talked about this, um it it's a 35% increase in the number of course requests in 1 year. That's why it's the budget's being blown out of out of the water with it. Um we didn't have those kind of increases going into going into this year. I mean, it's just it's And I think the other

155piece is we are already budgeting and paying to have staff teach these classes. Um and so, I think that's that's that's the biggest piece. It is trying to find that balance and um in in what we want to do with this, but I think um you know, as we continue to lay this continue to lay these pieces out, we'll we're always we'll always look for a balance as we as we go through this and and I think if kids want to do fully virtual, that option's there. If kids want to do somewhat of a hybrid program, that option's still going to be there. It's just going to be uh scaled down a little bit. And you know, and we're also >> it says in here that that is being eliminated. It was very clear that

156it is the hybrid is going away in next year. Yeah. >> Well, well, it's it's I mean, they can take a virtual course. I mean, they can take a virtual course. They just can't come every other day to school or things like that. But they can still take virtual courses and in-person courses. Just they wouldn't they wouldn't be >> me speak to that too a little bit if you don't mind. If if we get to the point where we're going to approve a third class for for example, a third online class, we can have that conversation if some students learn better online, but I'm just where I'm what I'm really trying to drive is let's do it in school. That's where I'm That's really my primary drivers because the truth is is that our our

157hybrid students in particular are the ones that are struggling the most. And I would really we we can't help them if they're not here. We have a lot of resources. So when you say here in the school, do you mean the media center and uh Yep. Yep. They'll they'll take it in the media center where Tanya will have access to them. That's where her office is. Mhm. My vision is we have four courses. So like uh Mrs. Petermire does marine biology this year. This is her first year. So because it's her first year, she's using the WVS curriculum, right? So we're pay we're paying $300 for every one of those students to take that course under her purview or her her guidance. Next year she'll provide the curriculum herself. So that cost will go down

158to $100 per person. My vision is for us to be able to have those students go take it and report to her. Might be on the LGI. It might we might have 50 kids. I don't know what we'll have, but we'll figure it out. But have them be with her. They can still work on their online stuff. They can work on other classes. That that independence will not go away. But the resource to ask questions in the event that you have troubles or for her to be able to monitor their progress and help them learn how to be an online student will be there and it's not now. It's not right now. And that's that's a that's a concern. I'm I'm just a little confused because the success rates that we've continuously heard in those

159meetings has been very good with proficiency. This is the first time that I'm hearing that 72% of the failing grades are tied back to students with hybrid and full virtual. It just something isn't adding up. And And those 72% are we talking about the 12 students that were enrolled in the charter program or are we talking about 72% of the failing grades in the hybrid portion? Se- Can you answer that? Do you want to answer that or do you want me to answer? Yeah, so the failing grades are very low. So, um 72% that's of 36 total failures out of uh 600 and some courses. So, those 24 failures that's the percentage of failures. It's about half and half between um students that are charter school students and students that are Hudson High School students,

160but that's that percentage is of those students that were fully virtual or hybrid. Okay. Anybody else have any thoughts? Okay. Nick, do you have anything more with this? No, we just you know, as we continue to kind of make adjustments in how we operate, you know, at the high school we want to create options for kids. We also want to have guardrails, you know, we've we've heard loud and clear from the board especially with the AI discussion that you guardrails are very important. And um and so that's what that's what this is about about putting the guardrails in place. Um and and making sure we still have opportunities for kids, but yet you know, there are these guardrails in place and so I you know, I commend both Mike and and Tanya and and Shannon

161and and everybody that's been working on this and and we do have great kids and they do great things um and we're very fortunate to have these have these things and so looking forward to continuing to uh make adjustments and and tweaks as we as we roll through it. So, just want to make sure the board was kind of up to date as the direction as we're moving uh administratively. So, appreciate it. Thank you. So, does anybody else need any think they need any more information from Tanya or the or uh It's Mike. Mike. Thank you. Um about this cuz I mean I I I think I understand it, but I mean there's a lot of, you know, moving parts to this and and and you know, I just I just want to, you know,

162I I understand what I'm seeing here. But, you know, I too like sort of the the full virtual versus I'm trying to gather where are these uh where these higher failure rates, you know, if we can pinpoint is it related to that? Is it related to you know, I mean I I used to I used to schedule 7th and 8th off we had open campus when I was in high school and I went I left school and I went either right to football or right to uh you know, the Red Owl to work till 10:00. I didn't I didn't study. I didn't do anything. But, I mean so I I don't know that I'm not I'm not claiming there's widespread abuse or whatever, but we do have to be concerned about those those uh those

163numbers. About about the success. I mean flexibility is great, but if it means, you know, less prepared students and a higher failure rate, I have concerns. So, I mean I appreciate trying to make do this balance. Yeah. Yes, I I you know, Mr. President. >> Yes, ma'am. I'm just I'm wondering is there a way that with, you know, for example, charter schools in general are held to a higher proficiency level standard? I'm wondering if WBS or I'm sorry, the charter school has that on it already, number one. And number two, if that's something you could implement for hybrid or anybody taking additional online classes that they have to meet a certain proficiency level in order to participate. Now, example, a C- minus or above. Um to make it work. so you know that they're doing

164the work and they're putting that effort forth. Um, and giving them incentive to continue and to strive in the program. We could Yeah, the short answer to that is yes, we could go down that path. I I will share with you too though, Erin, there's there's a level with AI today, there's a level of where we don't we I mean, for any of us to sit and guess what is happening both in person and and online. Um, we run into some challenges, right? And so um, you know, by way of example just in the last week or so, Tanya and I were talking and there was a particular student that's a senior that we're trying to get across the finish line to graduation so they can walk, okay? We just learned that they completed their

165online semester English class by logging in five times for an aggregate total of under six hours and passed the class. Now, by way of example, if they go in person over the course of the semester, they're going to be with us for over 60 hours, roughly 66 hours. This student was not a really strong academic student, completed the course in under six hours. Now, I don't neither one of us want to start laying claims or being in that position, but because they're not with us and we're not tracking them and talking to them and seeing their and talking about what it is that they're pulling away, very very difficult. Right? And and and so that is kind of becomes the challenge I think for both Tanya and me. I do know that anecdotally, um, when

166I talk to seniors, when I talk to graduate people who have graduated, they'll be like, "Oh, Mr. Ballard, you know, online was online was pretty easy, you know, um, that was if you wanted it to be easy, you could make it easy. Well, there's a little bit of give and take with that, right? Kind of like the executive director talked about, there's a little bit of give and take like this is bothering I don't know, but but when it comes to students taking half their courses and not being with me that now what bothers me, I'm worried a little bit about academic integrity. They all walk across the stage and receive a Hudson diploma. That's means a lot to me. I I'm so I I I want there to be some a bar. You know,

167and so I hear what you're saying. I just think that if we don't have them with us, I think it really is hard. Um not to mention then all of those other layers, right? Like now they're going to need to meet with their counselor. So then it's going to bind the schedule more. Where if if all of them are always with us, we can have everybody just scheduled. The computer can schedule everyone and whenever they end up with up in the media center or wherever they end up in that class, it's kind of takes care of it. How do you prevent them from doing that in the virtual in the in the um charter school then when they are fully virtual? I mean, what's the there's no guardrails >> We do not have guardrails right

168now. I mean, that that is just a lot >> going to be something that will be implemented next? I mean, how would you even how do you even do that? We I don't know that there's a lot >> to do in-person testing. I mean, this is some of the things that has happened where we've required them to come in and take in-person testing if they want to be part of our virtual program. It's a great idea. So Great idea. Um Mr. President, um can I make a suggestion? This is a it feels like it's growing into more of a substantive conversation. I wonder if maybe there's an opportunity for Tonya to do and Mr. Ballard to watch how things are unfolding and come back to us, you know, partway through the new school year and

169talk about how things are going. Tonya, you're you're new to your role. Give give a little bit more time to kind of dive into the data, understand what's going on, and kind of um help us better distinguish between um what's going on with the new things that you're having versus what's going on maybe with Hudson Charter Virtual School and Nick, I wonder if we could have a presentation from you helping cuz new to the board, I'm not quite sure what our role is in supporting the Hudson Virtual Academy and that board and what what's going on there. And I think there's been some discussion about standards. And so my interest is perked and I would love for you to present on what those standards are in regards to the charter school versus Hudson High School

170so we can all Thank you. It's a great idea, Maria, and I I I would even double double down and I would say, you know, maybe maybe we meet next this time next year, but you remember next year's going to be pretty similar to this year. Maybe we need to do it back-to-back, you know, where we come back the year after we've done it and say, "Now, how did that go as well as we had hoped? What are some of the results that we have?" And do we still have some students that are that we don't feel strongly about or do we feel like we're we're on the right track? Because no one's doing this to hurt kids or families, right? This is just about trying to hold a semblance of uh of rigor and

171expectations and support. The end of the day, support. Like we can't help those that aren't with us to help. Very good. Thank you. Good great discussion. Have a good night. Yep. Thank you very much. Um moving on to Superintendent's reports. You bet. So, uh I'll be brief on some of these. Just a reminder, graduation is coming up on uh Friday, May 22nd at 7:00 p.m. Tim will be sending you an email uh that'll have kind of pers- um specific information as far as where the board needs to be, where they park, all those different components, but just putting that putting that out there so it's on your radar. Also want to hit on end of the year activities, the building celebrations of the two buildings that will be closing at the end of the year.

172I don't know Tracy if you want to touch on them. >> First I'd like to thank the the parents and the community members who have worked to put these two events together. So May 31st starting at Willow River. Willow River what the parents are planning there are more kind of guided tours, students helping with those, a little less formal than what Holton is having. Holton will have an actual program starting at 4:00. Just just different different activities at both, but both planned by the parents and community members of of those two school communities. So if people can come out that would be great. Very good. Um and we if no one has any questions then move to enrollment update. You bet. So just you know, this is that time of year when you guys are

173going to start seeing this document basically at every meeting kind of where we're at enrollment wise. So we have done our boundary exceptions, we have done our open let's see open enrollments from Willow and from Holton. So Willow and Holton that have already been that were already open enrolled in, you know, we did place those students as well. So you can kind of see where our class sizes are sitting. You know, and this is this is a moving target. So this is you know, this is about a week old. It's changing, you know, every day it changes. Some days it's up couple kids, sometimes it's down, but right now we're trending in a pretty pretty good direction and where we're at. We did have with the boundary exception process. I think there were nine total

174boundary exceptions we were not able to honor that people that requested boundary exceptions out of 41, I think 40 even and they were primarily in two different areas. It was fourth grade at North Hudson and fifth grade at Hudson Prairie. Otherwise, we were we're able to honor most of the other boundary exceptions that people requested and so we'll continue to kind of keep you posted with the with the enrollment. But right now things are are shaping up, you know, our kindergarten numbers are not where we were hoping for them to be. We're hoping we're going to pick up some more. We're right around right around 239 240 and we're going to keep an eye keep an eye on that. Overall, this number represents a you know, a downward we're down probably about 60 to 80

175students from where we were this time last year. So. Questions? Mr. President. Right. Um Nick, I was just I went back to last May 27th enrollment update and looked at you know, kindergarten through fourth grade at that time and so taking the kindergarteners last year and comparing them to this year's first graders and so on through fifth grade and looking at it, it looks like we're we're relatively flat first through fourth grade um up seven and down five. Mhm. Um but then fifth grade is a bit lower 17 kids lower. >> But just frankly, so I'm just sort of trying to get at what's going on. It doesn't look like the current kids are going anywhere. Mhm. But the kindergarten is 70 kids smaller than first grade Mhm. next year. Um and I'm just where

176are those kids? It Yeah. It's kind of shocking. 70 kids. Yeah, it's it's a it's a it's a huge number. And so, for the longest time in Hudson, we had what was called net in-migration. So, we would start with classes, you know, that might be in the, you know, 300 at kindergarten. By the time they got to 12th grade, they'd be like we graduated last year 468. And um, we just have not seen that in-migration. And so, you know, it's it's going to continue. It it's going to continue to be a challenge for us. If if the this year's this coming year's kindergarten class starts to become indicative of what our elementary class sizes are number of students enrolling. Um, we're currently built around 84 sections here. Um, that would mean over the next probably

1774 years, we would probably be built around closer to 72 sections uh, at the elementary. Just to give you some level of perspective, um, 10 years ago, we were 117 sections. And um, and if If you look at our class size guidelines, we're we're keeping them within the class size guidelines. Typically this time of year, you'd see um, sometimes more green, sometimes some red in there and things like that. Um, but uh, yeah, it's it's really it's really hard to know. We were anticipating being more like 290 in kindergarten uh, according to just birth rates and things along those lines. However, uh, we also were somewhat concerned with even the 290 number because when we looked at the 4K numbers in the last three or four years, what our um, uh, kind of what uh,

178number of kids that we had in 4K and what that actually yielded for kindergarteners was actually, you know, quite a bit less. And so, this is aligning closer to what that what that's been. Um, and our 4K numbers, I think have been somewhat artificially high cuz we've had a pretty large number of open enrolled into 4K. And that has to do primarily with our um, we have some of our private providers and things like that where they're already sending their kids to daycare maybe at those providers and but they always were intending to have their child go to kindergarten in their home district and so then they rescinded their 4K or they currently were taking the um the system like at one of our parochial systems and then as they come into kindergarten they're no

179longer part of the public school system so then they no longer considered open enrolled then. Um but it's uh we're not losing kids. They're just not new ones coming in, you know, and so you know, we've talked about this for the last probably 5 years people say, "Oh, well, it's what you guys are doing and people are choosing um you know, to take their kids out." Well, usually when people come here and they experience the Hudson school district they like they like their experience. Um it's just we're getting fewer kids coming into that coming into that system. I what strikes me in this conversation is something I think the board's talked about, you know, as we consider the really hard decision to do school closures is we have a housing issue. Mhm. We if we're

180not getting that net migration in, that means the people that we have are choosing to stay here, but we're not getting new families. And it's it's a hard move to move within our district and find a house that families with young kids can afford and people are choosing to age in their homes, which is fair and fine, but this is not an issue that the administration or this board can tackle. Mhm. It is an issue that we need to be talking more pointedly with our other elected officials at the county, at the city level, at the state level of and it is a multi-pronged approach to figure out how we are going to address it. Um because the amount of housing that we would need to have to try and drive some of this back

181up in St. Croix and there's no amount of development that's in plan right now that will address this. I I'm it's really concerning to me, Nick, that you would say we could go down to 72 sections in the elementary. And we we're facing another big problem coming pretty quick here in my mind. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, one of the things that I think that housing is an issue, but as you heard Dan and and Chris talk about, this is happening all over the state. Uh I had conference superintendent meeting last week. I think every one of the districts in our conference um is experiencing declining enrollment. And they are far more affordable to live in those places than than than where we are. So, I think what's happened for us and the

182reason why we've taken such a hit so quickly is because of the affordability factor, but uh even if you look at all of the school districts in St. Croix County from last year to this year, every single one of them was down in students even though they have much more affordable housing in some of our surrounding communities. So, I think, you know, this is a it's going to be somewhat of the new normal. So, even when we talked about, you know, closing buildings, uh as we sit for next year, you know, having space for all of our 4K programming and still having six empty classrooms with closing with closing two buildings. And so, um if we did drop to 72 over the next 3 years, it we had but 18 empty classrooms plus our 4K

183programming. And you know, we're one of the things we're doing with the 4K and the wrap care, you know, we originally were planning on having 4K and wrap care in every single building, but what we're finding is we may not need wrap care in every single building, so we may have to bus uh some kids to consolidate because we may just not have enough kids to be able to offer it um people requiring it and things along those lines. And so, it's just going to continue to be a little bit of a little bit of a challenge for us. So, but that's kind of how we're sitting uh with enrollment, and um we'll we'll keep you posted. I mean, I I believe we'll go up a little bit from here, but we're probably not going

184to go up more than, you know, a handful. Yeah, because one of the things that we know is um kids that are the new kids coming in or parents that are coming in, they let us know, but the people that are leaving, usually we don't they don't let us know until the first day of school and they don't show up, and we're like, "Where you at?" Oh, "Sorry, we moved." And so, you know, it's just just not at this point we don't get too too excited if the numbers start to pop up until, you know, we get into that July and August time frame, so. All right. That's all I have on that. Thank you, Nick. Um moving on to topics and discussion, I'd uh entertain a motion to approve the first three consent items.

185Mr. President. Megan. I make a motion uh I move to approve the consent items and that the Chief Financial and Operations Officer be authorized to pay bills in the amount of $1,000,000 $57,041.11. Thank you. Do I have a second? Aaron. Yep, second from Aaron, and uh all those in favor say I. I. >> I. All those opposed, nay. Hearing none, the motion passes. Going on to uh Board of Education meeting schedule. So, this is the meeting schedule that you guys uh saw at the work session. Uh the recommendation be approved. It falls along the same lines of what you have set out in policy, so. Any questions? I'll entertain a motion. >> Yeah. I make a motion to approve the Board of Education calendar as presented. Second. Second from Kate. All those in favor say

186I. I. >> I. All those opposed, nay. Motion passes. Moving on to C, recording of work sessions. So just to give a little bit of background because I know there were some people that had questions about this with recording work sessions. And if there was any before you guys open it up for discussion. The Historically we have not recorded work sessions prior to this year and partly because our work sessions kind of took the place of committee meetings and you know this is something that we changed it from all these different committees to committee the whole and so long before I got here and definitely before any of the board members are here other boards had chosen not to record the work sessions. Not saying you can't or whatever but just to give some background.

187So when the board gave a direction in August which was if we're going to talk about school closures or boundary changes or sale of buildings on a meeting make sure that meeting is recorded if you know any of those meetings are recorded. So the last work session didn't have any of those topics on it. So didn't have the meeting recorded. It wasn't in an effort to bypass transparency or anything like that. It was an effort to maintain what we've always been doing with the exception of the directive related to those things. And so I just wanted to make sure I was just up front with people because I know there's been some people that have commented online or you guys maybe have gotten some emails about it that this not recording the meetings is not

188a new thing. Recording the meetings would be the new thing. So I'm open to whatever the board chooses they want to do. You just you know got to give give me direction on that but felt like we were following the direction that it was given back in August of 2025 which was only record the work sessions that were related to that school closure stuff. So that being said that's I just wanted to make sure I gave some background. >> I asked this to be put on the agenda was cuz I did well I did receive two emails and then one email that came in through the district um line. And um one one was just to asking for hey, what happened to the you know, I was confused. Uh one was hey, this is a

189breach of trust. You made a promise. You did this, you did that. And I'm like I don't I don't you know, transparency an issue and you we know we try and be as transparent as we possibly can and we follow all the posting rules and um And so um I wanted to discuss it cuz I I think it's it's maybe a little miscommunication. Uh people expected it would be there forever. Um some some mean local municipalities do uh um uh record and live stream their committee meetings. Many do not. Not all school boards record and uh their work sessions and their and their meetings or they have committee meetings that aren't aren't recorded. Um I I I'm of the mind that we have nothing to hide. And we are very transparent in what we we

190act and we welcome people to come here. Um So I would I I don't have a problem with if we're going to do the two meetings, the main school board meeting and the work session. And but I would encourage public that it says right on the link, you know, um if it's not there, I I don't I don't like making it, you know, mandatory. There are certain meetings that we have where we may come in and go right to a closed session and then have to come out of the closed session. I don't think that's reasonable to record, you know, a motion to go into closed session and hour later come back in a motion to come back in. So I mean I'll I we didn't we didn't uh make it a policy. It was

191never an issue that we would if we want to keep doing it, I'm fine with those two meetings. I do think the AI discussion was an example of something that, you know, was very interesting and the community could have heard or benefited from that. But we also, we don't have a whole lot of people that stream in. You know, unless there's a really major thing going on and those are on your on your monthly meetings, not the not the work sessions. So, um unless anybody has thoughts on that. Molly? Mr. President, yeah, of course I have thoughts, right? Um I feel I very much 50/50 about whether we record or not. Um I don't think we have anything to hide, of course. Um I think there is sort of a dialogue that goes back and

192forth on work session meetings. If they're not recorded, then I think it's really productive. Um I don't think people want to have a gotcha moment and I think that's what we fear a little bit. We don't want people to be put on the spot. Teachers don't always like to be um it's a lot for them to have to come and be recorded. It's a big deal. We're a little bit used to it. Um the other part I feel like is I mean, this is totally fine. I'm absolutely let's record everything of these what we're able to, like you said, doesn't make sense for some. Um the other thing that it just strikes me and this is a little bit of a scold, but I'm going to do it anyway, is that democracy requires effort. And

193if you want to participate in our school district and know what's going on, it will require effort. Whether you have to turn on your computer and watch something that is maybe kind of boring as we get to almost our for third full hour here. Um not all of it's going to be exciting. Um the other thing is you may have to come in person to some things to actually um you know get something out of it. Um with that said, I totally understand people are busy. They have kids and lives and you know, recording does give people the opportunity to listen to something when it fits their schedule or listen to it in the car when they're driving to work, which I totally would do. Um so I I think yeah, let's go for it,

194record everything. It's fine with me. Um I think we're a delightful group. And and entertaining, right? And entertaining and we have a great great great staff and admin, so bring it on. Right. Thanks Molly. I I I think I I generally am in the same place as you. I'm kind of agnostic on whether we record work sessions or not. Um I do one point you made that I want to underscore is I do think that you know, us as elected officials, we we signed up for this and being on camera and having discussions on camera, that's that's part of what we're doing. We knew we were doing it. I do think of, you know, last week we had some teachers here and um we do live in a world where people capture things, post them,

195take them out of context and I do think that's a little unfair and it maybe sometimes will result in um those those teachers not being frank with us in those situations and really having an open conversation. Um but that said, I you know, we we did we started putting the the the work sessions online in a in a very contentious year. And I was, you know, I think people got used to it and you know, can't necessarily put the genie back in the bottle on this. So end of the day, I think I'm I'm fine with I guess kind of our regular meetings and work sessions, you know, special meetings. Probably not as often, I would think. They tend to be more sort of closed session if if they're occurring. Okay. Erin? Thank you. Um

196I'm curious, is there a cost to record these meetings? I mean, I don't want to make an assumption. Is there I mean, is it Not yet. Not yet? Um I mean, I'm I I agree with what was said. Um We are living in a world of technology, supporting that in our district. I I'm kind of sitting at the question of really why would we not want to continue to record it to bring the community in where we can. Um WASB actually had a really great article um last year in their April issue. I happened to have read it. Uh it highlights uh tools and practices to improve transparency with the community um with modern governance, including digital access, which includes recording and live streaming of meetings. And they are encouraging that to build trust and

197accountability. It also builds board credibility. Um and the bottom line is consistency is key. We don't want to record some meetings and then not record other meetings because then we end up in that limbo area. I would personally rather have the recordings done by us for that accountability piece and the credibility piece versus somebody coming and feeling like they have to um do snippets and post them and maybe take things out of context. Um and frame things in a way that suits them and not the board. Um I am very concerned about that and I do feel that that has definitely been a positive thing. As with everything going on, people have The ones that I I also agree with what Molly said is you do have to make an effort to listen, to be

198part of it, but the community is asking, has asked for um how they can get more involved with the board, how do they know what's going on, and this is probably the simplest way we can at least offer that piece. Now, whether they choose to take it or not is up to them, but it is out there. So, I I would like to see them continue to be recorded. I think I think to piggyback on that, too, is as a board, we should probably run our, you know, the work sessions are pretty casual, you know, pretty uh you know it's hard to be a devil's advocate on a on a system if you know somebody's listening that's going to jump on it, right? So, I I don't want the creativity and the that type of

199uh approach to lose, but I'll I I would as president probably run the boards with a little more process and a little more like a regular meetings then, you know, and just a as far as recognizing people and, you know, trying to keeping that if if if people agree that that's Okay, Kate. President, I actually I with work sessions, I prefer the free flow of conversation because I think that's what a work session is meant to be. These board meetings are you go through each agenda item, and we are recognized to speak. I think there's something to a a work session and in the very nature of the title, that word kind of going back and forth and what everybody's thinking, getting people's opinions, and I think the more the formality of having to recognize

200and what not takes away from that creativity and flow. That's my opinion. Um I also just think it's important to know how many people have asked about the work session, how many people are watching or do watch work work sessions versus regular ones. I I would just be interested. I don't I don't know how many emails you guys have gotten and I think I'm only aware of three total um that Bob has gotten in relation to this. And I would say as far as viewership um I don't want to burst your bubbles, but you're not getting a lot you're not getting a lot of views. Um but it really depends. I mean on on items that are highly contentious obviously get more views. I mean you know, during COVID we would get three or four

201thousand views, right? Um I would say uh uh a more reasonable average would be you know 50 100 you know, views total. The thing is you have to remember is um every time you click on it, it's a new view. Um I always watch how things are going on the meetings. Like right now, there are 14 people watching. I can tell you I know at least four of them that are watching are within this room. Of the 14. Uh so, you know, it's Yeah, well and yeah and zero in the audience here. So, um but yeah, I I mean we don't have a specific stat. And we tend to if something's going to be very controversial, we've either moved it to the auditorium. We have recorded something um and things like that. We have tried

202to go out of our way to make things accessible. And that's been a common practice. But Well, and I don't I don't want to make it look like I'm you know too reactionary but you know, one of the things that was disheartening as a board member during the last year was you know you know, you guys aren't listening. You don't try you know, we don't trust you. You're you you're you're you have an agenda. It's moving you know, you're not listening to us and but yes, I mean I three emails and I put it on the agenda. And of those emails or anybody else that you know, commented or did any online voted. No one's here. No one's here to speak on it. So, but I do I did feel it was important to bring

203it on. And you know what? I mean, I I totally agree with Kate, you know, as far as not wanting to lose that. Uh But I I I just worry that, you know, I mean, if going going forward, I just want to make sure that that you know, we I don't even know how to word it. Sure. Can So >> Help me out, Maria. Yeah, what I'm wondering here is, you know, walking into tonight about this, I I was sitting in the agnostic camp. I was kind of like, I'm 50/50, you know, I I know prior to being on the board, it took me a beat to realize what what what was happening, how the discussions were slightly different in working sessions, and being able to come, you know, that Yep, it took some logistics

204on my part with, you know, my kids were in elementary and husband who travels a lot. Yeah, it was a little bit of a Tetris game. So, um But I think two things struck me in this conversation tonight that it's making me lean a little bit one way, and that is Brian, something you said about you know, our teachers come a lot to the working sessions, and that's a big ask for them to come and present something that they're working on. It And while we signed up for a very public role of having our work scrutinized, they're presenting on their work as professionals in this space to help us understand what they're doing, and I want to give that as much safety as possible for them to feel comfortable to give us the candid here's

205how I'm thinking about this and what's going on. And that doesn't preclude somebody from coming to the working sessions. Those are always open and again, there was nobody at our working session last week. Nobody here tonight. Nobody here tonight to speak and during public comment. I received zero emails. I I it sounds like maybe handful one-sy, two-sies here or there across the board. Um I one in in Kate's comment, I think it's a fair one. There is a different cadence in that to something Molly you talked about earlier of that you know, being able to have a little bit of that devil's advocate. I'm I'm measuring myself a little bit more here now as we're having this conversation. It does it's that ebb and flow. I wonder if we just monitor it for a while

206and kind of remain with our commitment that says if we're going to be talking about a school closure or a building sale and it's during a working session, that's recorded. Um and let's just see and then we know there's a commitment on this part like Nick said, hot topics. We have a sense. We move it to the auditorium and we sense people are coming. If we're sitting here saying we have another big issue coming down, we're going to be talking about some substantive budget or goodness knows what could be coming down. We have that flexibility to say this is of absolute critical nature. We're recording all of these or those are reserved for board meetings where we are recording them. I think there's that flexibility and that we don't lose that transparency. We continue to

207meet the standards and above and beyond of what it is. There are school boards that are not quite frankly doing that and they're still meeting the letter of the law. I I'm okay with where we're at kind of just thinking about this conversation as a whole and one of the things I appreciate about this board and the makeup is the diversity of the thinking and it challenges mine sometimes to say how where should I fall? Shannon, would you have an opinion you'd like to share with us? Well, I can tell you just most recently with the teachers who were here to present when when I asked them at the task force who would be willing to present, there wasn't one volunteer. That seems very intimidating. It really did. And when I said it's a work

208session and it won't be recorded, you you see what I got. I mean, I could do a little more bribing if I if I had to, but I can tell you that just in our most recent one, that was that was the tipping point in getting a few volunteers here. Mr. President. Megan. You know, hearing that it it concerns me. Um the idea of recording every work session that I I came in pretty agnostic. I don't I don't care. I can talk the same way no matter what's going on, but it's it's hard for teachers and staff to come in and talk about hard things and then you feel like you have to say every word perfectly or does something not come out just right and then I don't want to do that to our

209teachers and staff. Yeah, that's a that's a big it's true. I I enjoyed that discussion the last work session very much and the passion that the teachers shared and the openness. Uh yeah, I Aaron Aaron. I I hear you that it's hard, but they're teaching our kids and we're watching these kids come up and do incredible amazing things and it's probably cuz they have a great teacher that's behind them and we heard them celebrating that and I feel that we've done this pretty flawlessly for the last 6 months. I don't feel like and maybe maybe teachers are holding back, but I feel like we've had some really good sessions in here and conversations with teachers and presenters, and I think that it's important that for those even if it is a handful of people that

210are watching it, that's a handful of people more than you had engaged than you would without. And I think it's important to continue that and not change the format of the work sessions. I agree with Kate on that, and I don't think we need to scrutinize and get tighter on that. It's really nice and Kate's been really great about this and very appreciative that when we have voted on big things, you do tend to, thank you very much, for bringing up and saying, "Let's have a little talk about where we were coming at and angled." Some people want more, and they want to hear specifically what Megan said, what Maria said, what Molly said. And they can go back and they can find that, and they can listen to it, so it's not paraphrased. The

211thing with the recording is we don't have to put on anything different than we're already doing. We're already doing it. We've been doing it, and it's been successful. So, to not do it now, it seems I don't know. I as a community member, if I were watching that, I would think, "Well, what the heck are they trying to hide?" And that's you know you're going to get backlash no matter what if we take that away. But, there's no cost to it, and this is easy to do, and we're technology driven, and we're trying to lead the way. There Maria is absolutely right. There are boards that do not record any meetings, and they have a big problem going on with a lot of that right now. We don't need to be part of that. That's

212Well, Brian, you started talking. I was kind of putting myself in line. I I was just going to say would would we have an agreement to just table this and continue recording work sessions for the time being or cuz it's 9:00 now. I Mr. Mr. President, I was going to, you know, the status quo is actually that we don't record them. We recorded them for the school closure discussions. Um I kind of disagree. Last or 2 weeks ago, it was much more relaxed in this room. We did have a more free-flowing discussion and I've been swayed. I said I was agnostic and I in this discussion, I like I feel I do feel like some very valid points have been made and one that you made, Maria, that I think is important that we don't

213have to do this right now. We can wait and see. Um we do summarize our work session discussions. Kate does a great job. You kind of lead that way, but in general, you know, we do that when we have a discussion at the next recorded meeting. We talk about what we talk about and I think if we move forward and wait and see and see if, you know, there's a you know, a real challenge and folks are really saying we need to know, then maybe we readjust, but it's been one meeting. There were three emails I got. Zero of them also. Um It may not It may be okay to continue this way and then, you know, we can adjust. But, that's It's a good discussion. I kind of changed my mind. I think many

214of us have changed our mind. Um So, uh do we need to have If we can't come to kind of an agreement, do we Mr. President >> Can I make a motion? You can. Should I not? No, go ahead. Okay. I couldn't tell. I make a motion to table this discussion for now and continue with the status quo of not recording work sessions as we see what we hear and Does Can I add a friendly amendment to that? Mhm. I wonder if we talk about it again in a certain period of time to see where kind of gauge where we're at. Do Does anyone think that uh kind of it it was like we should have announced or made some announcement that we we were not going to record because or that we were moving

215all of the cuz we're having a less discussion about the closing of schools to that we were if they if they knew we were all going to be discussing any of that at the regular meeting? I I mean I I doesn't change anything. Um I we can go ahead with them we have a motion and we have a uh I I second the motion with the the friendly amendment >> friendly amendment. I think it yeah, love the friendly amendment of it's always good to keep monitoring, so I second. Okay, we have a motion and we have a second. Um No other discussion. I'll uh They All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Nay. Okay, so we are I have my directive. You have your directive. We are tabling it

216and going with our standard procedure. And to your to clarify your friendly amendment, just to hear it one more time. I just my friendly amendment was that we should review it in a certain period of time and I think we should probably make that period of time so that it's cemented. So, whether it's, you know, 3 months or Do you understand what I'm saying? >> Yes. Yes. Uh is everyone okay with the 3 month? Just one clarification. So, we'll still be recording when we talk about school closures, >> Mhm. anything with the sale of buildings, that sort of thing. I think we should perhaps have a notice which I don't know how you do that, but to say we're not going to be recording so people can make an effort to come. They don't have

217an expectation cuz I think that is a little bit difficult if you think, "Oh, it's going to be online. I don't need to go." We can We can put it at the top of the agenda this meeting's not being live streamed. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Um moving on to uh first reading update of policy 443.5. So, this is the same policy that you saw at the work session. Essentially, it's what you heard Mike present on earlier, the personal uh electronic device policy. When um they passed the state law that said you have to have a policy, we already had a uh set of procedures in place as it related to our handbook. This just basically puts it into board policy. Uh administration's recommendation that you would approve the first reading of this. You'll see it

218again in June and which you would approve the second reading. In that case, then it becomes policy. Mr. President? Molly. I'm going to be Kate and I'm going to read what we talked about at the work session. Um The difference in the policy is that uh it added smart watches, includes backpacks. There's a different policy for the middle school and the high school appropriate to their age, matches the new state law which Nick just referenced. Mhm. Okay. That's it. Looking for a motion. Mr. President, I make a motion to approve the po- first reading of policy number 443.5. Uh yeah, that's it. Second from Erin. And no questions. All in favor, say aye. Aye. >> Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion passes. Then moving to international travel proposal. It's Shannon. Yep. So, this was um what

219you saw at the work session, also. Just looking for approval for the um high school trip to Germany that will be the summer of 2027. Okay. Mr. President, I make a motion to approve the international travel policy for German trip. Second. Second from Kate. Do I have any other No questions. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay. Motion passes. Next, driver's education contract renewal. Chartwells. Oh, well, Chartwells. Sorry. Bonnie's been waiting the whole night to talk about this. To say recommend approval. Um with one caveat, um we did I Kate made some great um comments about how do we evaluate our um renewal. So, they have offered um that bottom link a visioning invitation. So, they would bring representatives from their company to meet with administration, board members who'd like

220to participate, and then develop our vision for our food service program, and then once we um establish that, then we would and then make criteria for our renewal. So, then if they meet the vision, you know, then we would have something that we are all talking about. So, I thought it was a nice step in the right direction. >> Very much so. Thank you. It was fun. I mean, perhaps should I recap this? You could recap it if you like. Um okay, never mind. But, we have you on the committee to be on that. All right. Anybody else would like to let us know. If there's food, I'll be there. Okay. Okay, do I have a motion to approve? Mr. President. >> Yes. I make a motion to approve the 26-27 Tartwell's contract extension. Thank

221you, Brian. Do I have a second? Second. >> Second from Molly. If there are no questions, all those in favor say aye. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed say nay. Hearing none, that motion passes. And now, I would entertain a motion to convene. No, the driver's education. I'm losing my folks. Yeah, so >> be recording this. Yeah, so this is your second look at the the contract for driver's ed through Northwood Tech. Just looking for approval for this contract. And I too, just after the work session, looked into um possibility of other um places that we could get contracts with. And so, that's still kind of in the works. There's there is a few out there. Um very similar in cost. Some of them said they may they may not have the

222capacity to deal with this number the number of students because they're private, but they're looking into that for me. And also, Northwood Tech is putting together a satisfaction survey for us for the for the students that we have in that program. Excellent. And I I do think I mean, perhaps another one doesn't have capacity for all those kids, but if we had several contracts to offer, that'd be great. Well, thank you for your work on that. >> Yeah, you're welcome. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve? Mr. President, I make a motion to approve um the contract for driver's ed with Northwood Tech as presented. >> Thank you, Megan. Do I have a second? Second. Second from Aaron. Uh with no questions, all those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay.

223Hearing none, the motion passes. Now I'd uh Mr. President. >> Yes. I'd like to make a motion to convene in closed session pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.85 per n 1 per n e to negotiate the settlement agreement related to the brick contractor at North Hudson Elementary. Second. Second from Molly. Uh no questions, I'll do a roll call vote. Doll? I. Garza? I. Gerlach? I. Powers? I. Rozalski? I. Rudy? I. Bowman, I. We are now in closed session, but I will say we will be coming back from closed session, reconvening to possibly take action. Thank you. >> Mhm. >> Back in open session. And I would uh entertain a motion. Um Mr. President >> Yes, Megan. I make a motion to approve the settlement agreement um and authorize Bob and Molly to sign it. Do we

224have a second? Second. Second from Maria, I believe. All those in favor, say aye. >> Mr. President, yes, Brian. Could we just for the sake of transparency, Nick, maybe just two sentences on What the motion is. >> Yeah. Uh yes, so this is a uh settle- settlement agreement related to the brick contractor at North Hudson Elementary School. And so this is um a credit that the uh district will be receiving as it relates to work that was done on the building. Thank you, Brian. Yep. Uh if you have no other questions or additions, I'll um all those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, nay. Hearing none, I think motion passes. Go for it. Mr. President >> Yes. I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. I'm doing it. I think Aaron got that

225one. Second. Second by Megan. Megan, Brian is shut out. Uh all those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed,