001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> 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. Okay, first thing on the agenda, we will be moving to closed session and then come back to so it's an open session. If I have someone willing to read the language. Mr. President. Yes, go ahead. Um, I the board will convene in a closed session pursuant to a Wisconsin statute 19.851e to deliberate or negotiate the purchase of public properties, the investing of public funds, or conducting other other specified public business whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session specifically related to the listing agreement for Willow River Elementary School. Do I have a second? Second from was it Molly? Erin, second
002from Erin. Uh, we'll do a roll call vote. Doll? I. Garza? I. Guerro >> I. Lock? I. I. Rozanski? I. Rudy? I. And Bowman, I. We are now in closed session. We're heading to the conference room. >> Mhm. >> We are now back in session for the Hudson School Board meeting. And we will start off with citizens request to speak. On the agenda items, we have one item. >> to make a motion on that or is that >> No, that's later in the agenda. Uh we have Scott Ellington. Thank you for all your work on the insurance. Hello. So, um as I was saying, thank you for all your work on the insurance. Um I am concerned about our retirees insurance rates. Rachel cannot make it tonight, so you have to put up with me,
003sorry. Um our our retirees have loyally served our students for decades. How we treat them says a lot about our district. They do not deserve to be singled out by having their monthly premiums based upon their group medical experience, nor do they deserve to be singled out for a 10% surcharge above what active educators pay. We don't single out the very sick or those that are pregnant because they cost more. We shouldn't single out those that have served us the longest, period. Yes, this does not technically move retirees off of our health plan entirely as some other districts do, but in effect, this precedent opens the door by pricing them out. If we open the door with 10% this year, what happens next year and beyond? Remember, we are like nowhere else. We have 500
004employees in our active plan and only 45 retirees. That number will naturally dwindle with normal premium increases and the decreasing value of our early retirement benefit tiers over time. With the passage of the referendum, the school closure savings, the Holton sale, impending health insurance changes, our district is currently in a strong financial position and does not have to balance its budget on the backs of our most loyal servants. This morning I offered a tweak in the premiums that could offset some of the projected cost by $80,000. Please take a look at that. Thank you so much for your consideration. Have a great evening. Thank you, Scott. Moving to reports, we have school board election results. All right. Uh yes, so uh reporting the school election results. Uh so you have in the attached to the
005agenda, you can kind of see how the votes went. Our top two vote getters, Megan Reschovsky, Maria Rudy. Uh so they will start their new terms, uh three-year terms actually start on April 27th. So, congratulations to both of you. Um the results will be canvassed tomorrow. Is that right, Tim? Uh so the official results be canvassed, so these are preliminary results. Um you can see how uh how the votes went for each of the wards and each of the municipalities and and how that sits. So, any questions about the school board results? All right, well, congratulations on another three three years of fun. Yep, I'll say congratulations to Megan and Maria and uh and thanks to for all those involved and those that ran and were part of this uh part of this election. So,
006uh next up is universal screener update. Shannon's coming down. Yep, I have Laura and Melissa here from the teaching and learning team to give an update on our universal screener and process. Hi, I'm Laura Manarczak. I'm the assistant director of teaching and learning. Um and we're just here to talk to you a little bit about the universal screener, what it is, and the process that we use to um to get a new one. So, uh first we wanted to point out that the academic screener is a really important facet of how we do business here. It applies to students, staff, and parents and families within our strategic plan. Um and you're going to hear a little bit more about how that is um as we go through this presentation, but we just wanted to point
007out how connected it is to our to our strategic plan. Um tonight our focus is on universal screeners as we said. This is one facet of our balanced assessment system. So, here's just kind of a visual of how we use assessments in the school district to get students what they need and to measure our impact on what we're doing in the classroom to see who is benefiting the most from our instruction. So, as we talk about the universal screeners tonight, just know that it is one facet of our assessment system um that we kind of start at to look at how our how our systems are doing and it it's a it's a dipstick into how we're achieving and how our students are growing. Hi, I'm Melissa Miller. I'm the data and assessment coordinator for
008the school district. Um I oversaw the screener review process that we went through. So, much like our curriculum processes, we go through this every six years um a process to ensure that we are using the tool that meets the needs for our district to ensure we truly have our best fit. Um so what we did is a team of us created a rubric. Um we had a screener committee. Um took a lot of different um different holders perspectives and voices went into building this rubric of what is important, what are we looking for, what do we need out of this tool and then we put out a request for proposal to all of the vendors and we had different vendors come in and present to us once we made our final decisions. Again, we had
009that screener committee able to provide their voice. They filled out the rubric listening to those different vendor presentations. After the vendors left, we had some we contacted some reference districts for each of the vendors around us and asked how are you you're using this product? How's it going for you? What's your experience like? And we also had all the vendors provide us demo accounts. So we were able to log in as a staff member and see different reports. We were able to log in as students and pretend take the assessments so that we could really see it from all the different viewpoints of that. So like Laura said, the screener is just one facet of our assessment system, but it is a pretty important facet. It is that first lipstick into the view of how
010our instruction is going. So the functions of a universal screener, we really use it to guide our instruction and we have it help us identifying students' needs academically throughout our system. Sometimes students might need extra support. Sometimes they might need an extra push or maybe some extending activities as well and this really helps us understand with what group they fit into. We also use it to document their performance over time. When we take it three times a year, it really helps us see those students' growth over time and how their achievement is going. And like I said, that appropriate level of instructional support as well as evaluating the effectiveness of our tier one instruction. How are things going in the classroom? What does it look like and what are the areas that maybe all kids
011need more support in as well. So like we said, we went through this process and we did name a new academic screener. So we were using FastBridge as our academic screener through the company Renaissance and we actually did end up going with another Renaissance product called Star Assessment. So who is the new screener for? It'll be kindergarten through 10th grade math and it'll be fourth through 10th grade reading because 4K through third grade still has that AIMSweb Plus mandated screener for the Act 20 law that I was here talking about last time I was here. And so kind of why that shift, what made us go to this new resource of using Star? The big part part was the reports that it were provided. It was really actionable data because the reports were broken down
012by our state academic standards. So we are able to see how students are progressing on those state standards and then teachers are able to take action because the reports are so easy and usable and broken down to specific skills and areas. And then it also really will help us clarify student growth and achievement. And when I say clarify, by having that more transparent and easy to read data, it helps not only teachers but also the parents side of things. So we're able to more effectively communicate with all stakeholders how children are doing and what they need and what's going great for them. Any questions about the process or the new product? Mr. President. >> Yes, Mary. Megan, sorry. >> Um, thank you for the presentation. That's a lot of actionable data and it's great to
013have it align with the state standards instead of trying to figure out how it would. Um, this one question, how long are the um, screener tests usually? >> per subject area, they take about 20 to 30 minutes depending on the student's grade level. Yeah. >> Thank you. Thanks, Mr. President. When are you anticipating the shift from FastBridge to Star? Is that happening this year or is this a for a next year? >> It's a next year. It's for next year. So over the summer, I'll be doing all the behind the scenes work to make the shift and then when teachers come back, they'll be trained and ready to go before school starts. >> Awesome. And it sounds like the parent the cuz I know with FastBridge we get little performance which is always hard to
014I kind of translate well, what is this really telling me about my kids' performance? So there'll be a different format for for parents as well. Okay. I'm looking forward to seeing what that looks like. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, I you're so welcome. Any other questions? Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Uh, next is topic for discussion and possible action. I'd entertain a motion to approve consent items, all all that are listed. Mr. President, I just have a question actually about one of the consent um, items if I can it it'll just take a second. Sure. Um, on the I think this is a Shannon question. On the early college credit that was in there. I just wanted um, I noticed that there were 93 courses that were requested by 23 students and it
015says it's broke down to half four per student. Are we increasing that or is that and I also I I read the little footnote underneath of it so I just want clarification that we are still allowing three classes and they're selecting four for Yeah, there's still a limit of the number that the students can take but because they're kind of in competition with the college students, they request a lot and then they kind of get what's left. >> And so it does it ever go to four or is it just is it No. six to three. Okay, that's what I wanted. Thank you. You can go ahead. I move approval of the consent items and that the chief financial and operations officer be authorized to pay the bills A bills in the amount of $993,159.43.
016Second. Second from Aaron. If there are no other questions, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, nay. Hearing none, it passes. Next up is the Willow River Elementary listing agreement. Yes. So this is added to the agenda. You guys talked about this at the last work session. Um, and you know, we went through the listing agreement itself would be the same listing agreement that we used utilized with Holton Elementary School. Same parameters and things. But what we would need is a motion if you want to approve the listing agreement for the price of the building, if there's any type of you know, deed restriction um, and then that allows us to move forward with listing the building. Mr. President. >> Megan. Um, so just a when Nick said it'll be the same
017setup as Holton, there will still be the NDAs, it'll be evening and weekends for showing all throughout the summer. Um, but so just wanted to say that but then also um, I'll make a motion to list Willow River and the cinder lot at $4.5 million with a deed restriction on K-12 schools. Second. Second from Kate. All those in No, any other question? Sorry, pronouncing. If not, yep, Kate. >> I just think we should have somewhat of a discussion so that people watching know kind of what we discussed as a board. Um, obviously we placed Holton up for sale and have accepted an offer there and so we're looking at Willow. We talked extensively with our I don't know what I call you, Brian, an agent? >> [laughter] >> Um, to see what the price is
018and he's done a lot of research and shared that with us on what you think the property the value is including the cinder lot cinder lot. Um, and we've kind of gone back and forth on what our thoughts are. Um, if anybody else wants to share what they're thinking. Yep, Brian. Just really quickly, we kind of got into it at the last meeting but that we're listing Willow River does not preclude anyone in the community from putting together a plan and making an offer on the building for it to be a community use. But you know, like we said last time that that takes organization and effort and funding in the community and you know, we can't do that as a school district. That's not our role but um, you know, I'd hope that that
019if there's energy to be behind that, that folks can pull that together. Molly. Thank you. I completely agree, Brian. I think I feel pretty passionate that I hope it would be a dream if we would have some community use or something that was a combined multi-use building. So just encouraging people to really think it through if they have some big idea and they feel that they can move ahead with something to they are perfectly welcome to make an offer. So. Mr. President. I think similar to Holton as a board, we've all talked about the fact that we want those properties to be purchased by somebody who's community oriented. That's really important to us. Um, obviously it's really sad that we've had to look at selling properties. Um, it's I know it's a grief for the
020community and so I think I've heard from every single one of you that we want that property to go to something It's a special property and we want it to go to something that's useful and community-driven, certainly if we can at all possible. Okay, very good. If uh no other comments, um we'll uh do a vote. Uh All those in favor, say I. I. I. All those opposed, nay. It moves forward for listing. Uh next up is health insurance. Uh we got Nick and going on that with Bonnie as well. >> Yep. Uh so, not going to go through the entire Alera presentation that we went through um with the Alera Group at the work session. Uh but I do want to draw your attention to a couple couple of items on this. We did
021meet with the uh teacher advisory committee on Thursday to go over some of the stuff. I would say generally, the support was positive. Molly can speak to that. You know, there were a couple people that um you know, were not liking any type of change uh related to it. Um but I think the uh piece that we want to just reiterate to people is we're trying to do the best we can to hold benefits intact while also be responsible financially to the district. Um and to be able to put this together, uh we did have to negotiate, you know, basically nine different contracts uh cuz there's a lot of different pieces that goes with this. Uh but the big takeaways is from a uh employee standpoint is the deductible's going to go from 500 to
0221,000. Um and then the the emergency room copay is going to go from $150 to $300. But other than that, the plan will operate like the plan has been operating. Uh and so, the only thing that is different actually to the good is we were able to negotiate uh some direct contract uh services through Hudson Physicians to allow for some no-cost uh health care for our employees so that they don't even have to pay the deductible or copays in certain things. And so, to help offset some of those those costs as we go through it. It does require our plan to be a single-tier plan, so there's no more Achieve Network and Open Access Network. It will all um be kind of the equivalent of the Open Access Network. If you go to the very
023last slide on this uh on this document, um you can kind of see the the cost difference. And again, we have a presentation for the employees that we're going to be going through over the next week and a half uh to make sure they have, you know, much more information about the plans and things like that. But uh essentially, the cost difference is um you know, per pay period, it is if if employees were on the Achieve Network, uh it is about a 33% increase because last year, if you remember correctly, those that stayed on the Open Access Network had a large increase um to be on the Open Access Open Access Network, but the Achieve Network uh was put in place to try to keep the cost down. Well, it just it it just
024didn't generate the types of savings that we were hoping that it was going to it was going to generate. So, in order to balance these out to get everybody onto the same level of of premium per month, you can see that the Achieve Network Those on Achieve Network um going to this new plan will see about a 30-some percent increase. Now, remember, last year the school board, you guys added $1,000 on the steps to help offset the cost of health insurance. If they chose the Achieve Network, they didn't have those increased costs last year. So, they still got the step, but they didn't they didn't have the cost. But those on Open Access did have the cost last year. And so, um this you know, the Open Access plan actually uh employees that are on
025Open Access are actually going to see their monthly premium go down by 6%. And so, it'll it kind of balances out uh so they're both in that same ballpark. The district's still paying 85% of the premium, the employee pays 15% of premium, whether it be for the single or for the family plan. And so, tonight, the board or sorry, the administration recommend approving uh the changes in the health care plan and the new uh rates moving into uh next year so that we can do our open enrollment period in May. What questions can I answer for you? Mr. President. Molly. I just wanted to comment a little bit. Um I think Nick, you've pretty much answered the questions that I had. Um I know there is some concern amongst staff if they have a chose
026if they picked Achieve in the past and now they're going to this that it's a pretty big jump, but like you say, um we are going from two to one and it is not cost-effective where we are. We can't continue with these two plans. The in premium increases would be much more. Um so, I kind of feel like it's a little bit of a six of one, half dozen of another, you know, because some people paid that cost last year and some will be paying it this year. With having said that, of course, these are real dollars for employees. Um and we don't want to forget that. Um I think the really good things I I overall at the TAC meeting, I think people were really happy um and pleasantly surprised because as we know,
027health care is kind of a nightmare um with expenses and deductibles rising. Um deductibles are going up. Um but it is it feels a little bit like um maybe we can do something there. Again, I don't know. I'm not going to speak for the board. That's just my opinion. Um and also, what what you guys have with Hudson Physicians is really unique in that most people were going there anyway. Like 93% of the people are still going to go to the same doctors that they have. Um physicians, staff, etc. nurses, nurse practitioners, whatever. Um but there is zero charge for wellness visits. What else is there? Vaccines. Um acute and injury visits, lab services, durable medical equipment, imaging that they can do the imaging there, they'll do it. And there's no charge for that. Um
028and that I it's really hard for us to compare like well, this is what I pay cuz we always feel like we're all getting screwed the worst, you know, like but I have to tell you, I went to the doctor just for a checkup and it was $1,500 and I had to pay over $800 of that in February just to meet my minimum and I am still paying. So, that is typically you take that sacrifice and teacher pay sometimes, I think, to get that benefit of the great health plan and this is still an amazing health plan. And it's not to say that we don't want to take care of our teachers with pay. Of course, we do. So, um I don't know if that makes any sense at all, but I was really pleased
029with what's out there and now it's really going to be I hope it's really good. It was really good. Oh, one other thing that we talked about um and I know Scott Ellingson had brought up um retirees and nobody wants to leave retirees um you know, we don't want to leave them in the dust, you know. We want them to have a plan and they're still going to get the same amount of money, correct? per month. They make decisions on what they want to do for health care. They can go with the Hudson's plan Hudson's plan our school district's plan or they can pick their own. Um and also, this company this consulting company that's helping us, they have some really great tools to help us be better consumers. And I when I went to
030this meeting, I thought, oh my goodness, I am a terrible consumer. Terrible. Like my husband's telling me, you know, we can order prescriptions for 3 months' worth and it's this. And I'm like, yeah, but I really like who I go to. Well, you know what? Sometimes it's like we're just going to have to change our plan because it affects everybody else in our plan and those costs are um uh huge. And so, we're just all going to have to be better consumers. I think they have great tools at this company that everyone can take advantage of. So, I think it can be really good and not like a oh, you know, retirees are a drag or anybody's a drag, but we have lots of opportunities here to spend our money more wisely with great care.
031Kate. Um I also just wanted provide kudos to a numerous people. Um I think this is something that we need in health care is to really think outside of the box and I don't see a ton of it going on until I see this partnership with Hudson Physicians. They're a huge part of our community and the schools are a huge part of our community and I think it's really something unique and special that we can partner together to make all of us healthy. Um and I hope that other communities will kind of see this and do the same same things. Cuz we do like Molly said in health care in America, we need to start rethinking what we're doing. So, this is kind of an awesome step towards that. I would I would agree with
032what uh Kate and Molly said and and absolutely, I feel like I've become you know, I know more about school district health plans than my own. And um and I've started like 2 years ago, started paying attention and looking at other districts and what they're doing. And I know you you know, you can't completely compare districts, but this is this is we have wonderful health care uh options for our tea for our teachers and our staff. And and I don't want that to get lost when you talk about, you know, percentage increases or there's always something taken away or something more. When when you when you look at what other districts are doing, I think we can be proud on our efforts, be proud of Bonnie and and work on this and I and the
033and you know, like Molly with the TAC, you you go to those meetings and you learn a lot. And uh uh the effort is there. I and I think we should certainly be proud of of these efforts. Mr. President. >> Yes, Aaron. Um [clears throat] I just want to touch on what Scott was saying because I don't see anything that he sent the board. Was that a separate discussion? We just got it. It just came in. >> Okay, so it's nothing that we can really dig into and review. Is there Do you have any comments on what that proposal was that he was talking about? >> what he wanted to do was just just freeze um freeze the retirees at their current amounts. And um Indefinitely? Uh well, just at least for next year and
034and I think um our consultants recommended originally a 40% increase and we said maybe ease in at a 10% increase. And so um we we think the 10% is reasonable considering what the actuaries have said and what the consultants have said. So um Yeah, I I I as Molly said, the retirees still get their same amount contributed to their HRA. Uh it's just how they want to spend it. They can spend it to buy health care from us or they can spend it in the exchange and get health care in other places. Um so none of that none of that changes, you know, it's just um but you know, we've had some challenging years uh with some groups and it's all coming out of the same pot. I mean, you know, our health care costs
035are coming out of the same pot as our salaries as our class size stuff as our supplies. Everything comes out of the same same pot. So um Yeah, I understand but um as Scott also alluded to a lot of districts don't allow people that are retired to stay on their health plan. They actually and and we do. And so That was my next question. Thanks for clarifying that. Um I think that's a really nice benefit that the district offers that they can do that. And there there's got to be a workable deal on both ends for that. Health insurance is going up drastically. Mine is ridiculous. This is awesome. $500 for a deductible and that's per person. So it's I mean, I would assume It's a $1,000 per person deductible, a max of 2,000 for
036the family. Gee, it sounds like a health insurance plan I would like. >> Yes, um >> [laughter] >> and and once you hit that, you know, it's 100% covered at that point. Yeah, I I think that's awesome. And then um Kate asked before about this but there is telehealth that's also involved in this, right? >> Okay. Yep, that is that is part of it and I think there's a document uh that it's the third document if you look at metal uh medical partners. So these are all the different um areas that, you know, Bonnie and I have been working on um to get these all as part of the plan. So it's not what people think it's just kind of a just an easy just flip a switch. It doesn't work that way. And so
037the whole goal of going with the TPA is to break these things apart to try to find the best pieces of different plans versus if we would have just stayed with Health Partners, they wouldn't have allowed us to break any of this stuff out and we would have been, you know, kind of um captive to it, especially the stop loss and things like that. And so um Yeah, this is this is a great um great great setup but yes, we will have um the virtual and not only virtual um health care but also there's some virtual mental health care plan as well that's going to be tied to it as well. Well, thanks for answering that. And Bonnie, excellent job. And the Alera Group also did such an excellent job putting this together and presenting
038it. So thank you for your work on this. And and I I think Nick pointing out that you know, the advice was a higher percentage, you know, we didn't go that route. We uh we made our concessions. I'm a you know, I I would be concerned you know you know, pausing it or freezing it for 1 year because all that does is make it look even worse next year, right? So and and with the volatility of school funding and us knowing where we are with insurance in the last 3 years um what has changed, I think it's a responsible thing to do. I think we're doing great. So um I'll accept a motion to approve if no one has any other questions. Mr. President I make a I make a motion to approve the health
039insurance plan as presented tonight. I've a second. Second. Thank you, Kate, with the second. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Next, moving on to high school activities code of conduct. So I don't I mean, there's really not much to this. Aaron came and presented to you guys at the last work session. There's no changes to it um unless you guys have additional questions. I think most of them, if not all of them, were answered at the work session. Administration's recommendation would be to approve as presented. Mr. President >> Kate I move to approve the Hudson High School Activities Code of Conduct. Second. Second from Brian. Uh all those opposed or all those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed say nay. Hearing none, that motion
040passes. Going on to building temperature controls. Sure, so this is the proposal that was Whoops. You're excited about that one. >> [laughter] >> Um so this was the same proposal that you um discussed at the committee of the or the work session. Um it was the upgrade of the Hudson Prairie, River Crest, and Hudson High School temperature controls. I think we had all the questions answered last time but if anybody has questions Mr. President Bonnie, this was my question last time and maybe you can answer. I'm sure that other people had this question is why do we have just a change in temperature controls and all this stuff at just these three buildings and not at the others? So the others um were done as part of the referendum work. So those are all updated
041and ready to go. These are the three that weren't included in that. So once that's done, that's done, we're all tip-top? Yep. Awesome. Mr. President I make a motion to approve the building temperature control replacement update as presented. Thank you. Do you have a second? Second. Second from Brian. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Uh we have a second reading of uh school properties disposal policy. It's the same same policy you guys saw at the last meeting. The second reading would be uh once you guys if you guys approve tonight, it would go into effect immediately. So recommendation is to continue. Mr. President Megan I make a motion to approve the second reading of revised policy 690 uh related to school properties disposal. Thank you. Second. Second
042from Molly. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. Motion passes. Moving on to school year food service pricing. Again, this is the same proposal that was at the work session. There'd be a 5 cent increase on all of our meals um for the upcoming school year. Do we have any questions related to that? Okay. Wait. Got the motion if someone Mr. President >> Yep. I move to approve the uh meal pricing increase recommended by the administration. Do you have a second? Second. Second from Molly. And all those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. And the motion passes and that brings us to the end of our agenda. So I'd accept >> Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to adjourn. Second. Second. >> [laughter] >>
043I'll give second to Aaron. Oh, thank you. Let's just say we're fighting. Um All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say nay. We are adjourned. Woohoo! Don't get used to this. Yeah. >> [laughter]