Hudson Schools - May 9, 2022 - School Board Regular Meeting

001[Music] all right i'm gonna go ahead and call the meeting to order uh please rise for the pledge allegiance i pledge allegiance to the plight of the united states of america and to the republic for which to stand one nation under god indivisible with liberty and jesus thank you since this is the first organizational meeting of the school board the first uh thing on the agenda normally i don't call meeting to order uh because i'm not on the board uh as a superintendent but it is my job to uh take nominations for the first officership which is the president of the school board and then once the president is selected then i'll turn over the meeting to the president and then they will take nominations for vice president then treasurer and then the clerk positions

002so with that uh i will start off by calling for nominations uh for the president of the school board dr oled i nominate jamie johnson for president okay i will go ahead and call a second time for nominations for president for the school board i will call a third time for and a final time for president of the school board all right hearing only one nomination first of all i need to ask mr johnson do you accept the nomination yes okay knowing that we have one nomination and the nomination has been accepted at this time uh i would entertain a motion uh if anybody would like to make a motion we can do this by voice vote since there's only one uh individual that's nominated we wouldn't need to do the written ballot so i

003would entertain a motion for jamie johnson to be elected as the board president second so we have a uh move by heather who is it moved by heather right and then seconded by kerry so i'll go ahead all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed same side all right mr president i'll turn it over to you all right thank you and thank you to my fellow board members for this honor um again uh now i will open the nominations for vice president mr president yes i would like to nominate bob bauman okay we have a nomination for bob bob do you accept the nomination i do okay any further nominations second call uh third call is there any one else oh no wants to nominate for vice president hearing none i would

004entertain a motion to appoint by acclimation so moved motion by kerry second second by molly all those in favor say aye aye aye aye those poor say nay and member bob omen is elected vice president congratulations next up is nominations for treasurer i'd like to nominate heather logan for treasure okay heather do you accept the nomination i do all right is there other nominations for treasure that's the second call is third call is there any other nominations for yes uh i'd like to nominate rob brown okay we have uh a second nominee rob do you accept all right so we have two nominations and i'll call one more time only because there was a nomination i know i'm kind of going fast but we got a lot of folks here at this meeting um so

005um is there any other persons that want to nominate we can't have more than two but we do require a majority vote which means at least four because we have all seven board members present and i'm not seeing any nominations so i'll close nominations and you are now please mark your ballot there will be one more office to nominate so we'll wait till it's announced who the treasurer is because people can only serve in one capacity as an officer so okay and uh the results are in heather loglin has been elected treasurer so i re-elected i should say because either you've been for treasurer before so i guess as has rob so either way it would have been having prior experience as treasurer um now i'll open nominations for clerk somebody's got to have the

006job i know it's mr president in light of the exceptional job done these past several years i would i would nominate carrie to continue okay uh carrie do you accept okay and um she's had lots of practice of signing her name which is one of the chief duties is clerk that and keeping ministering are closed sessions so all right um we have one nomination is there a second call for nominations for for clerk and third num third call for nominations for clerk give everyone a chance here okay hearing none i'll entertain a motion to close nominations and elect to carry by acclimation so moved second motion by molly second by bob all those in favor say signify by saying aye aye those opposing a and kerry has the job of clark again all right that

007concludes our election of officers and now we move into recognitions which is our next and probably longest section of tonight's meeting so um i guess i'll turn over to nick for a district depreciation of service awards yep and i'm actually going to start off with uh turnover tracy and aaron thank you so as you recall the appreciation of service awards um helped complete our strategic plan and our recognition of staff students and our community and so tonight we're excited to kick off our first appreciation of service and mr banky is here to introduce his award recipient you better all right so um thank you to the school board for inviting us in to get to do these recognitions i'm pretty excited that i'm the first one here to give out one of these awards um

008so when we talked about this at one of our cabinet meetings um a couple weeks ago a name came to mind right away we've had a very difficult year in many ways and so the the first name that came to mind is a parent of our building and this this parent actually has subbed at our building over 90 times this school year many of those are in a paraprofessional role um in one of our cross categorical programs due to an opening that we had a couple months into the school year and so i would like to recognize megan white to come on up and to accept the first award for um what are we what are we calling this award so i say it right appreciation appreciation of service award so a little bit about

009megan her and her husband scooter moved to the district in from arizona they have three children who go to our district her daughter riley is in 11th grade her daughter jillian is in eighth grade her son ranger is at hudson prairie and i i know i'm speaking on behalf of the teachers that she works with directly every day they enjoy seeing her every day show up to the building with a smile on her face i'm ready to serve our kiddos and so it means a lot to have consistency in that position and so megan came to mind right away and i'm very excited that i get to recognize her more than just the thank yous i give her every day when she walks in our building so thank you megan [Applause] i have the next

010award recipient in 2015 hudson parent katie elwood approached community education about holding a daddy daughter dance katie described how other school districts held similar events and thought that it was a great idea for hudson at the time community education didn't really know what the scope of an event like this would be and if you've had the good fortune to work with katie you know that there isn't anybody who is more organized than katie she quickly put together a proposal that included an evening of dancing crafts snacks and a professional photographer and it wasn't only going to have spectacular activities it was going to look spectacular our measure that first year was river falls they had held a daddy-daughter dance for several years and had about 600 adults and children attended attending given this was our

011first year we thought it was unlikely we would reach that number of participants but it was a good planning number we actually ended up with 275 adults and 336 children for a total of 611 participants with katie's help and her superhero organizational skills we have held a daddy-daughter dance every spring except in 2020 due to covid this year we welcomed 462 adults and 583 children for a total of 1045 participants katie worked with the high school honor society and parents to make sure we had enough volunteers to check and register registrants work the coat room serve refreshments take photos at the photo booth additionally she organized food food donations for the hudson backpack program and we had an unprecedent unprecedented number of participants contribute to this year's backpack program i can't think of another event

012that is held that is as affordable and as accessible to so many families as the daddy daughter dance that katie built for community education we thank katie for her passion and organizational skills without her drive we would not have launched this event to begin with true to katie's character she asked that i make sure i include a thank you to the community education staff betsy gantz bev hagen previously michelle psiphala and the many volunteers parents and students who helped make this event a success so katie [Applause] okay next up we are super excited to recognize the raider network program at the high school and i'm going to introduce julie johnson who is the social worker at the high school to introduce the group and recognize the work that they do thank you i'm julie johnson

013school social worker at the high school like aaron said and i just want to thank you for having the time to share a little bit about the raider network and then three of our exceptional volunteers that support the program um it was with their vision that the program started and so we'll go from there so we all know research confirms that students who are prepared for school and are not hungry do better in school academically and behaviorally so the raider network plays a critical role in meeting those needs so the students are ready to thrive and learn what is the raider network it is our free school store at the high school and it meets all students in need everything is free and no questions are asked currently we have over 170 students that utilize

014the raider network and we average about 50 students daily we expanded from one small room to two larger adjoining rooms thanks to the high school administration support and one having and one of the rooms has a refrigerator and microwave for students to use some of the things we provide in the free school store are school supplies including backpacks notebooks binders and other supplies clothing new and gently used raider gear some winter wear like coats hats mittens scarves gym items like shorts shirts and leggings etc we also have hygiene products like lotion chapstick shampoo conditioner deodorant toothpaste and toothbrushes etc we also have some blankets and earbuds journal books we try to be green by having encouraging kids to use refillable water bottles so we have water bottles and then the most popular obviously are the

015healthy snacks and other food items that we provide the other services though that we do do are special requests by students the room you know we don't have enough room to house everything so we do get special requests for like shoes sometimes or sports equipment graphing calculators driver's education club fees contacts because that's a lot of times not covered by insurance or the state program laundry cards prom and other items those are some examples we also their idea was to really recognize seniors as a special year at the high school and so they organized a volunteer photographer that comes in in the fall and will take senior pictures and we order them usually a yearbook and help them with cap and gown and then around winter we help we do a holiday drive and do

016holiday gifts and then they also came up with a great idea of doing birthday boxes so they get those disposable cake pans and put cake frosting candles a little gift card in there and so they get a little birthday box so i'd like to share just a quote from a couple of students the kids say my mom is going through a hard time having a place like the raider network to get snacks and food is really helping us another student said thank you raider network for everything my family appreciates the good snacks and support you give us and another one said i just want to say thank you for everything you do for us kids you guys help us a lot and i am very thankful so with that i also would like to thank

017the many generous donors that we have for the raider network there's too many to mention but i really came tonight to recognize these three amazing volunteers so lisa bailey laura foster and darcy keeley here are just some of the many things that they do with their time and talent they meet and greet students in the raider network which is open daily during advisory and passing times before and after advisory they spend numerous hours ordering items carefully selecting stocking and displaying those items financially they set up a 501c3 banking and help with fundraising efforts they share new ideas to implement or make improvements but most importantly they help create an environment where students feel welcome and belong which studies have shown again help lead to higher academic achievement and success they are truly making a difference

018and i couldn't imagine coordinating with any better volunteers thank you thank you thank you and so i'll end and i'll introduce them but i'll end with a few more quotes that i just got in the last couple of weeks from some students they wrote down for me they said the raider network feels like a family at school it has really helped me with my confidence and my openness with others i think it's perfect for students who don't really have food at home and i think it's really cool the school does something like this lastly thank you for having this kind of program although hudson is a large school it may not look like it needs it there are many kids who do benefit from it i hope other schools who can afford this type of

019program take action in following your footsteps the raider network is awesome so i'd like to congratulate these three ladies darcy keeley and lisa bailey all right thank you thank you and the the appreciation of service program is something we've just started this year it's something we're going to do four times a year uh honor uh volunteers and folks in our community that go above and beyond to help the district uh be may september uh i believe december and february uh is what we're we're going to honor honor those folks and so want to make sure we get the word out if there are other people who would like to nominate people to be part of the appreciation of service award we'd welcome those nominations and look forward to the opportunity to recognize all the different

020individuals that make it happen and we can't as a school district we can't provide everything to everyone and we know that these folks that step up and volunteer and provide all these additional services really do make a difference in the lives of our kids and and so we're very fortunate to have such a caring community and caring group of people that to be a part of it so we're very fortunate with that all right next up is the activities recognition report i appreciate you having us and inviting this group in for for the beginning of recognitions tonight it's a group that i would identify as competitive clubs and organizations and sometimes a group that can fall through the tracks because they don't have a traditional fall winter spring season hence a great time to have

021them in in may everybody's had a chance to wrap up their amazing seasons as you've had a chance to read yet been able to read in the report but most importantly two things is one they're prompt they were here they were ready they have their they have their script they know what they're doing uh so it's you you'll be very hopefully educated on on what each group has been able to do this year and then what their experience was but two as one of my advisors mrs cuffold mentioned there's a lot of participation amongst all of them they're involved in so many different things to hopefully well to hopefully round out that educational experience uh but they are everywhere we've sent we've been able to now this year send trips all over the nation um

022with some high performers and as at the state level as well and regional level so i'm excited to begin with deca so i'll invite that group up and having questions for each of them afterwards they're ready for those two if you have those hello i'm blake b woltz i'm the co-president of our hudson deca i'm emma hatch and i'm the vice president of marketing of our deca chapter and first we just wanted to thank you all for having us here not just us but all the other clubs so that we can be recognized for what we do throughout the year so deca is an international organization that is focused on promoting and building the next generation of of business leaders and entrepreneurs and through the international organization as well at hudson deca we also highlight

023community service and giving back to the community as well as our deca competition one of the big focuses of deca is the competitive aspect of it and the competition for deca consists of both 100 question tests and a business scenario with a one-on-one judge who is a business professional this year we had roughly 40 members in our deca chapter and we had 23 of those members go to the district level of competition with 16 of them moving on to the state competition at grand geneva wisconsin from the same competition we had five of those comp competitors move on to the international career development conference in atlanta georgia along with 20 000 other deca competitors and that was where we got to go against some of the best of the best deca competitors in the nation

024yeah and like i said we're also super focused on community service and giving back to the community so this year a couple of the fundraisers that we were involved in is we held trick-or-can around the halloween season to give to the hudson food shelf we also were involved in the polar plunge to benefit special olympics and one of our largest fundraisers that we do is for the mda the muscular dystrophy association we held a miracle minute and in a minute through the school we were able to fundraise over nine hundred dollars to give back to the muscular dystrophy association in order to benefit them and we placed second in the state for our contributions toward mda although we have a lot of great accomplishments some more things that are just than a number on paper

025is the sense of character that our members have developed throughout their years at deca we're leaving deca with a sense of confidence because we've gained problem solving and leadership abilities to help be a positive leader among our peers and this will help us with going into college and career with a sense of confidence and knowing who we really are along with that interest and experience in some business scenarios and finally i need to thank our advisors and our the volunteers who came with us to both the state competition and international competition uh some of their names trevor verdoorn and leslie blescheck and then a huge thank you to our advisor ashley blum who has helped us a lot throughout the year and finally thank you all of you guys for having us here so we

026could talk a little bit about deca right thank you so welcome ffa up and i'll begin with uh mr ballard's lucky i did not get my hands on this presentation because i have an amazing video of him kissing a cow a couple weeks i'm gonna ago it work hi my name is blake smart i'm a senior at hudson high school and i'm vice president of ffa and hello my name is tory berger i am a junior at hudson high school and i'm the president of our ffa club um this year we've had a really busy year we're kind of still rebounding off of kovid so we weren't able to do everything we were interested in but so far we have gone and attended a few leadership conferences taking students to spencer stephen stevens point green

027bay river falls and madison these leadership conferences are to really teach students how to interact with other students not only in a classroom setting but to use later in life in a more professional setting on the on the competition side of ffa we have career career development events and leadership development events during career and leadership development events students participate with other students of course but they do that so one second sorry thank you so students are challenged to develop like a lot of effective decision making skills and just working with other students promoting teamwork while recognizing individual achievements and team achievements so we had two members participate in a leadership development event one being tory burger who took second out of leadership and me blake smart who took a silver at leadership likewise this year

028we trained five career development teams agricultural mechanics horse judging flora culture milk quality and products and vet science most cde teams consisted of four members who advanced through regional live and virtual competitions to be able to represent their ffa chapter at the wisconsin ffa cde contest there were 331 total teams from over 140 schools competing this year hudson ffa had three of their five teams advanced to the state level from regionals at uw river falls so the three three teams that advanced were floor culture mill quality and products and vet science vet science took fifth mill quality and products took 24th and sorry floriculture took 10th at state two of which receiving silver medals and one receiving gold the people who participate in floriculture were michael airnet quentin bratch kate lawn and alicia rodriguez the

029people who participated in milk quality and cheese were myself like smart white johnson and say i'm not gonna under pressure i'm really sorry kaian and aiden magnuson vet science participated of john boyley tory burger who took fifth individual um theo lon and shaylee jones fiend vet science completed three procedural practicums a math practicum identification of breeds equipment and a test afterwards a general knowledge vet science test milk quality did the same with doing a general daily product knowledge exam scoring milks and doing a sediment scoring sediment disk after completing in general sorry i said that already like i said not going under pressure i'm really sorry floriculture consists of one-on-one sales floorage arrangement and the identification of plants equipment after a general fluoroculture knowledge exam and likewise as i mentioned earlier we just recently went

030through our ffa week which is normally in february but it's a national uh week to represent not only ffa as a club but also agricultural education in total we had multiple events such as a trivia booth during lunch as well as was mentioned earlier our kiss a cow contest which mr ballard our principal and pharrell buckmaster we're the lucky winners to kiss a calf we would also like to thank you for inviting us here to speak as we really do feel that ffa has allowed us a lot of new opportunities and we would really like to continue with our program and i want to do a special thanks to miss kuffel because she's been a really great teacher and she's helped a lot of us get better grades all right [Applause] um hi my name

031is anya ghetchell i have been in forensics for all four years of high school and have been captain for the past two hi i'm braden schoder i've been in forensics for the past three years and i've been captain for just this year hello my name is michael worth and i've been in forensics last four years so forensics is competitive speaking club which means there's a variety of categories that students can participate in to compete against their peers and themselves my personal category is ferrago i compile different poetry poems articles and create a speech brady does poetry michael does group interp involves a lot of different kids that perform and write a piece forensics has a lot of variety and students can participate in any ways they want it really builds practical skills skills for students

032that will help in the real world like public speaking and thinking on your feet some of the categories you have to make up on the spot but it's also just a lot of fun it allows kids to be creative create speeches work with plays work with poems um and kind of do what they want with the club so it's really fun and it creates good skills to start our season we started with invitationals and these invitationals we have three of them and they you go to them to attend them and then we as a whole team place third out of all of a few schools and and um granted our numbers we had roughly 25 people and the schools we were going up against had 50 roughly and um we placed third out of that

033and granted our numbers we would have placed a lot lower if we had a lot less people and we would have placed probably first if we had a couple more people and we did good those invitationals and to combat covid related issues and schedule related issues you were allowed to compete online and the people that competed online also did well in these invitationals and many of our students in the group ended up moving past invitationals to sub-districts and districts yeah so following the invitationals we went to sub-districts and districts we had 17 um entries that made it to the state level so then that meant we got to take a little trip to madison it was really fun some some groups had to uh enter virtually because they were they had conflicts but we ended

034up earning nine gold medals and eight silver medals at state which we were very excited about and then we also got the distinction in speech award which goes to ten percent of schools that were at that competition yeah so we really got to use our numbers um to compete against bigger schools and really show um how talented our students are and how hard we work another opportunity brought to us by being in forensics was a debate so me my fellow is blake beholds who you saw earlier and ryan arthur were able to compete at a debate at river falls on university river falls and compete against college kids for a grand prize so we ended up placing first and won a one thousand dollar prize um just using the skills that we won through forensics

035being able to public speak think on our feet um and really like prepare a good strong argument allowed us to place first against um the college competitors and it's just another way that forensics has provided students with opportunities here at the high school we'd like to thank our amazing coaches and advisors miss jessica flanagan and miss megan doherty who are absolutely lovely and work great with the students and we're really glad to have the opportunity to speak about our club thank you hello my name is john boyley i'm josie oseki and i'm isabella black we are three of the presidents of hosa hosa stands for health occupation student organization we have our advisor mrs lewis and we are a student-led organization for students who are interested in the health profession field hosa really brings out

036students who are interested in taking advantage of a small like project and really building it to custom their own personal like choices it really helps students branch out and be independent and rely on other students in their groups or if they decide to go solo they really get to show their talent we qualified for we had 15 students qualify for hosa state leadership conference here in wisconsin del well in wisconsin dells and we had events like veterinary and science creative writing community awareness public re public service announcements research persuasive writing and speaking and there was a few others but there was a lot of events and a lot of people participating and it was a great time for students to really see what was all there for the 15 that did get to go and

037experience um things that they might be interested in for the future you were able to go check out little breakout rooms to help branch off what you would like to learn for next year if you decide to stay in it so yeah meant to add on to that there's also like college fairs there so you got to explore different colleges and what programs they have so you can learn more about like what majors you can get at those different colleges and then we didn't have anyone advanced to internationals but a lot of us did make it to state which was nice um so again we did like ffa said we did have a lot of setbacks because of covid but we did a chocolate sale fundraiser and so we raised money so we could go

038to um so we could go to what the conference sorry and then um we talked to a group there or actually like um a program there and they're called varsity they're like a um a blood donation group and so we're hoping to go tour like their um their building in milwaukee and then get to learn more about like what they do and then hopefully next year we can host our own blood drive and then expand more with like the community and try and like volunteer more with like um like i don't know hospital yeah and just other programs that people are interested in that are a part of the club so very good thank you [Applause] and one act play and quiz bowl uh quiz bowl was already presented or did already present to the

039board and one i play had a conflict so we'll bump right down to science olympiad hello my name is travis hostrider and i'm representing science olympiad so i've been in science olympiad ever since freshman year and that's also the year that the club started so it's been a really great experience uh growing along with the club and i think we've established a very welcoming and inclusive environment where people can come even if they aren't sure um if they're going to do well or if they know a lot of people we're very good at bringing people in and including them and making them feel welcome so excuse me this year's been our best year so far as we grow as a team so we've gone to state this year and we placed 10th and we also

040meddled in seven events and we placed second and two of them and fourth in a number so other aspects of our year so we've gone to about five meets and state was at a um this day was at uw stevens point and it was nice going to uh meets this year and in person because last year all the meets were online and this year half of them were online science olympiad has been a really great experience because i've got to learn a lot about topics that interest me and i've also made a lot of friends there and i've met some great teachers like mr flippiak and miss gearing who are very supportive and always help us uh that concludes my summary of science of yeah thank you all right [Applause] just real quickly one last

041thank you to the board for having this group in obviously a tremendous amount of accomplishments and experiences that they provided tonight one other thing we we tapped into hosa for our human growth and development unit review they're going to join in to that committee and provide some specialty experience from their what they've learned and their development and their training too so that will be an awesome awesome experience for them thank you all right thank you all right great job students mr president yes just a quick comment you know the the best thing about being on the board is watching our students and just seeing how how they grow you know it um of course you're having a lot of success for a forensics group to beat a it sounds like a college team it's pretty

042it's pretty special but if you look at just how they speak the the pace at which they talk their hand gestures the eye contact the confidence i mean they talk better than most adults i work with just saying so anyway congratulations to all of you and thanks for everything you're doing it's really great to see uh you know we've we've had a lot of success in athletics but it's great to see the success we have in these other areas and it's not just you know taking a ct test but it's uh you know putting that knowledge into action and also all the creative and problem solving skills you guys have i was just disappointed that we didn't have a cuts of meat judging team you know that's for those that are old enough remember david

043letterman that was one of his gigs was judging cuts of meat but anyway yeah so anyway no thank you everyone for your participation i guess now we move over to the staff side of things for recognition and android take away for cheers for peers have you gotten your oxygen now yeah well i'm trying to reflect a little bit what rob just said about pacing but i know i don't excel in that i really go fast but we have a lot to say in a brief period of time but it is exciting it sounds like it's bet well it has been a really great night of celebration of staff as you guys know my one little plug for the week is wednesday we're having the recognition banquet hope to see y'all there um so we are

044going to be doing for the month of may it's the banquet as well as all the wrap up at the end of the year so we're not doing a new um cheers for peers for the month of may we'll kick up or pick it up again uh when we return in the fall but we are going out with a bang for our april winners the categories that we focused on for the month of april school-aged care nutrition services and activities and extracurriculars whether it's athletics or all the stuff you just saw so kind of aligned really well so out with that take a big breath and i'll go so first up is kelly door school aged care she was nominated by a lot of people i'm sure a lot of you know kelly um she's

045uh was nominated michelle beer kim domier jess mallis mike gorinik jennifer mcconnell jody campbell tom johnson jessica seiler and jody youngman a few snippets from some of the recognitions kelly always goes above and beyond for a school aged care family she attends her extracurricular events and asks about their family she shows she genuinely cares she is constantly looking for additional fun activities for the kids and really seems to enjoy her job kelly gives her heart to school aged care and the children that attend it kelly is an amazing asset to the school so that's first up she's been the lead at north hudson and has worked in the district for seven years next up is colleen gullickson also school aged care she has been the lead at ep rock and worked in the district for

04610 years she was nominated by kelly robertson jody campbell sarah tetmeyer michelle colisia and tiffany ed bloom clean house does what is best for the kids she always has the best interest in mind and truly cares about each of them she has a patience of a state and is always finding ways to accommodate a child's needs clean is awesome at her job is always willing to help out whenever you need it she leads a great team at roc clean makes school age care a place where kids have fun are part of the ep rock school community and really want to be so again clean colicson next up is angela gable she is a counselor at the middle school and has a gsa club advisor she has worked in the district for 16 years and was

047nominated by dana miller angela gables dedication the students at hudson middle school and the gsa goes beyond measure she is supportive dependable and a fabulous role model for all students and staff i admire angela for her ability to stay neutral in many situations and a professional tact angela goes out of her way to make students feel hurt and is a safe space for students to come to when they are in need all of us at hms are truly fortunate to have angela as her colleague and friend then we have jamie holland she is a science teacher at high school and also coaches track at the high school and has worked in the district for 23 years and she was nominated by betsy ganz i work with district coaches scheduling the practices and facility needs jamie

048stands out as uber organized i was submitting her needs well in advance and is so easy to work with she is always willing to share space when needed and keeps up the positive vibes i'm sure this shines through with the athletes as well then a little unique one for nutrition services we kind of lumped all three into one because it's been a rough year with nutrition services it's been short staffed the entire year and it really meant a lot that the heads as well as many other people recognize each of our three lead people in nutrition services so first up is nicole sigman she's assistant director of nutrition services has been here for two years jen johnson is the nutrition services lead at the high school and has worked in the district for 10 years

049and simone cardozo is the nutrition services purchaser and has worked in the district for 13 years and again they were nominated by as a trio by district staff including all of the leads at the other buildings who are seeing everything they're doing and so we really felt it was they called and asked if it was okay if they did that and i thought that's super awesome of course so i had to pick them so real quick this dynamic trio has accomplished mighty feats in this department these women encompass the foundation of this department and simply cannot be matched they're the hardest workers we know constantly have our backs and respond to every challenge with a can-do brilliant attitude the food service industry calls for a desire to serve and this trio certainly has it not

050only for serving the students but each other and all of us team players we appreciate you simone jen and nicole next up lance hufflin who was here i saw him earlier he must have just stepped out he's an advisor for the sustainability club and has really kicked that off at the high school and the gsa club he also teaches tech ed at the high school has worked in the district for five years he was nominated by matt dahl most people know that recycling is not really done here at hudson high school and lance heaven and his crew of students are trying to change that he's a great guy in addition to teaching auto shop and his advisory duty sometimes he delights students and staff by playing his fiddle in the hall between classes that was

051fun then we have jim revore oh and it kicked me out of my presentation so i well i can't read that okay i can go with it there we go okay jim revoir he was nominated he's a softball coach in social studies teachers at the middle school he's taught a few different things in the middle school and has worked in the district for 22 years he was nominated by dan buckle whenever i hear jim talk about what he's teaching his softball team it is never about how to hit a ball or make a great play to third he consistently talks about what kind of life lessons he can incorporate into his time with them his heart is pure gold when it comes to the young people that he interacts with and he's able to see

052it beyond the day-to-day lessons and grasp the gravity of what it means to teach kids i can guarantee that if you interview any of his players they wouldn't remember the wins and losses of their seasons with jim as much as they remember how we helped them navigate through life and then last but not least megan halverson school aged care she's the school age care lead at willow and has worked in the district for 11 years she was nominated by jenny derrick jody campbell and other district staff and megan shows up early and is ready to work and play she's always up to beat and fun with her students and staff megan puts all the kids needs that are in her care and all the kids she meets first and foremost she's been an excellent addition

053to collaborate within our 4k program at school happy to know her megan cares deeply for her students she greets every student by name and has a way of making them feel welcome and excited to come to school kids tell me about her with excitement all of the time she makes a huge difference and there we have it those are 10 award winners we'll be because of the recognition banquet this week we're going to wait till next week to deliver the baskets but we'll be delivering that and it's a fun way also to celebrate with the buildings as we're bringing the baskets to the staff all right let's congratulate those teachers and staff [Applause] great job andrea and appreciate that whole process and getting in filtering and reviewing all those applications because it sounds like there's

054a lot of nominations yeah we had 100 this month okay that's excellent all right so next up is the time for citizens request to speak about non-action items do we have anyone that wanted to speak about non-action items all right i'm looking at the crowd and don't see anyone so we'll move right into well it's got president's report and uh since my tenure has been one hour now in this term i don't have anything more to to add um and just turn over to nick for end of year activities all right thank you uh so first thing end of year activity is just a reminder for the board there's three kind of major activities are coming up wednesday this wednesday we have the staff appreciation banquet that will be at hudson high school starts at

055five o'clock 5 30. it starts at 5 30 um and so i want my mocktail at five o'clock that's that's a totally totally accessible uh but a great event uh opportunity for us to uh recognize our retirees and also folks that have been with the district for quite a long time and so it's usually a really a fun night a fun night of celebration uh friday june 3rd we have the senior picnic all board members are are invited to come to senior picnic if they'd like it's at hudson high school at noon it's a neat event all the seniors are out and the staff grill out for them it's their seniors essentially their last day it's i think following commencement practice i think is what what happens and so fun event for the seniors kind

056of one last hurrah with their friends to kind of hang out and and do some of those pieces as a class prior to graduation which is the next event on saturday june 4th uh high school graduation uh it the ceremony is at seven uh so you can park in the back and follow the science the lower level fitness center so that's where you'll pick up your cap and gallons and hoods uh the ceremony starts at seven um i will say that the parking gets uh very full very quickly but i think they will have some signs for some reserve parking in the back of the building that allow you guys to park back there but should be a great ceremony we're planning on having that outside in the stadium whether permitting the backup plan would

057obviously be to move it into the gym uh if we need to do that and then i believe the senior all-night party follows that and so then as board members you're required to chaperone that no i'm kidding uh you're not required to do that but uh i've already done it twice yeah but i just wanted to remind you that graduation is on the fourth and the high school should have reached out to you to get name of school and major and things like that if they have not please let me know and i will get that information so that is upcoming activities i just wanted to remind the board about that we have going on with the earliest one coming this wednesday uh next item i have on my list is class size guidelines there

058obviously been some questions tonight in listening session there's been some emails to the board and people asking you know where do we where do we get the class size guidelines what are they at how do we assign sections how do we decide when we add sections not add sections and so um what i'm going to do tim can you give me a casting ability um so i will throw up there a couple different spreadsheets for people to be able to look at the first spreadsheet that i'm going to cast to and that's i'll make it bigger because i know that's not overly large uh is our our current class sizes and uh this is basically what we do is as we allocate sections uh to the to the different buildings and so what you see

059along the left-hand side um and again i'll start the top three schools and then i'll go down to the other three schools is every year we start tracking what we think class size is going to be and what we think our enrollment projections are we start this about what december january and we start looking at okay when we roll our numbers up to the next year so when first becomes second second becomes third and so on and so forth what does that look like and then how many what's the average class size in each building based on the number of sections that we've assigned to that building we kind of start with the default of what is our current section situation and then we look at okay as we roll up there is a difference

060between second and third grade and that's what some of the people had talked about because our class size guidelines as you can see down here at the bottom and these are guidelines that weren't set by me they were answered by andrea they weren't set by i don't think anybody in the current administration these were these have been in place since uh the late 90s by there's a gentleman named bob benoit i think that actually put these out and the board has seen these class size guidelines um every year you guys see this as we as we go through this piece but in kindergarten through second grade we kind of try to shoot for 18 to 22 students and then in grades three through five we try to shoot for 22 to 27 students they're not

061caps they're not perfect numbers because sometimes it doesn't work out that way and so when we do our spreadsheet what we do is any of the numbers in white basically let's see here if i can when you see a number in white at the bottom which is the average class size that means they're within the class size guidelines for that grade level if they're in green that means they're actually under the class size guidelines for that grade level and if they're in red they would be above the class size guidelines in the grade level and so as you can see um from this where we're seeing this current year we do have a few classes that are over the class size guidelines one at willow river when i say one grade at willow river so

062it could be potentially multiple multiple classrooms uh over the class size guidelines there really it would be two classes of 23 and one class of 22 in first grade and north hudson we had some move-ins very late in the summer where we were sitting really well with north hudson at 22 and then all of a sudden we have some move-ins and so at kindergarten all of a sudden our class size at north hudson went to two over the class size guidelines um typically uh what we try to do there is we do provide additional support we provide additional counseling support to go in and and do some of the the um kind of the life skills type of teaching and things like that but we also provided paraprofessionals to help in those classrooms as well

063because we know 24 kindergartners in there that's that's a lot to manage but you get to a certain you get to a certain point where um you know when we start to get all of a sudden especially in kindergarten it can be kind of shaky because we'll have people that don't register for kindergarten and then all of a sudden show up the first day of school with their kindergartner and so um but when we originally had this allocated i mean these class sizes were more in like the 20 21 range and then all of a sudden we added quite a few kindergartners right at the end in august hudson prairie in this current year has two different classes that are slightly above class size guidelines so the third or the second grade class uh is

064uh currently class size guidelines would be 22 um to 18 to 22 and the current second second grade class is at 24 24.25 in each of the classes on average and the current third grade class the class size guidelines go to 27 so we have two classes of 28 and one class of currently at hudson price so we have gone slightly over the class size guidelines uh by one student in two of the classes and second grade we've actually gone over the class size guidelines the current second grade class by more than two students in uh in several of the classes and then at holton which is one of our more challenging buildings because it's a two section building and what you'll see is class sizes can can range anywhere from that you know 21

065or 14 if all of a sudden you have 28 students in second grade you split into two sections now all of us in your 14. that's one of the challenges that we run into with having some of our smaller buildings is as soon as you add a section it drastically changes what the class sizes look like and so you know as you as you kind of work through it and then you can see it rock um they only had one one grade level that was under the class size guidelines but everybody else was basically in the class size guidelines so when we go to what we're projecting for this coming year again we haven't we haven't changed any of our our class size guidelines it's just what are we looking at allocating and so when

066people say out there that we're trying to cut the budget or things like that one thing you can notice is that a lot of our sections are very green um actually 15 of the 36 grade spots are green whereas this current year it's i think there were five um but there are some sections that um and some grades in different buildings that are over our class size guidelines for example willow river uh has 58 kids in uh in fourth grade projected for next year and so we try to look at okay what's what's reasonable what's the balance and so one of the things that happens we'll go in there and say okay if we allocate a third section then that class size drops down to 19. um not totally out of out of the realm

067but you know that's basically as we're trying to look at these different things we are planning on allocating essentially the same amount of sections this year or this coming year as we had this year i think within what one section is that where we're at andrew um however right now as the elementary numbers sit uh we are down about 50 students and so you know as you look at any of these things whether it be hudson prairie uh that has uh as has been brought up there's one over the class size guidelines in fourth grade uh rivercrest has one over in one class and two over in the other class and then at north hudson in second grade um they're you know two over in one class and one over in another it's trying it's

068trying to balance all these all these different components and so overall our class sizes are very good there are just certain pinch points uh that we've run into and that if the board says you know hey we want to add sections we can absolutely you know we can do those things it's just we we typically try to watch this and you know we'll go about another month or so before we kind of say okay we're hitting a point of it's hard to start to add sections because of of hiring and things like that but the idea that we all of a sudden have have redone all of our class sizes and our class sizes are through the roof across the district it's just not true there are several areas where classes have risen up willow

069rivers fourth grade primarily holton's second grade north hudson's second grade next year and then hudson prairie's hudson prairie's fourth grade next year so as you can see we've actually because we have fewer students in the district at the elementary level and we're holding pretty steady on number of sections we you know we are we are sitting at at more green than what we would typically be at this time in in in past years the one thing that we did do is we did make sure that we allocated at the kindergarten level we allocated the number of sections to make sure that we didn't get to that 24 situation like we have at north hudson and so everything is about kind of making choices one way or the other um knowing that you know sometimes you

070know we'll have to you know we'll have to make adjustments but this is one of the challenges we have with different sized buildings and we've talked about this with the elementaries is by not having similar type of elementaries all four section buildings are four and five section buildings you end up in some of the buildings especially some of the smaller buildings where class size is really disproportionate to some of the larger buildings and in in trying to balance you know some of those some of those different components and so um i did respond to multiple emails and i know those got posted on facebook but it's we are watching it um we do try to look at what is the class makeup we have talked to building principles i talked to mr banky about it

071what is he seeing what is you know in in those classes it usually is a it is a jump every year from second to third that's it's been that way for the last 20 years it's not unique to this year it's not something that we did to cut the budget it is this is literally the same type of thing we've done every year uh when you go back to uh 2019 and 2020 and i can pull this up real quick um this is the way the numbers shook out in 2019 and 2020. we actually had more red sections and fewer green sections um than what we currently have this year uh and we did have at north hudson 28 kids in fourth grade we did have some sections of 24 and even some sections of

07225 and second grade uh in in some of the buildings so there's there's nothing we've done this year that's any different than what we've done in past years it's just a balance now if the board says we want to allocate more questions you know more sections um you know we do that it's just it's as our enrollment has gone down that means our revenue goes down and so when you want to incur additional expenses that that's a challenge so what we try to do is we try to balance you know some of those things um we have over the course of the last seven years reduced about 15 sections across the district across the elementaries in the last seven years and yet even doing that when you go back to the what we're projecting for

073this coming year we're still sitting with quite a few of the sections that are below the class size guidelines so we are so we're not we're not in budget cut mode right now as we've talked about in past meetings we will eventually need to get to budget cut mode because we we are not increasing our student enrollment and we don't have the option unless the board and the community are willing to support an operational referendum to increase the amount of revenue that we have coming in so we do have to live within our means and part of this is making some of those choices between okay do we add another section at the kindergarten or do we add potentially a section in fourth grade or add a section in third grade and so that's that's

074kind of how we how we sit through this it's it the concerns don't fall on deaf ears we we are very cognizant of it we don't like to see a lot of red on the on the sheet um but they are guidelines and the reason we say their guidelines is because we don't say well if it drops below 22 we're not gonna you know that's not a feasible option and so that's kind of the the gist on on the class size guidelines report it's it's the challenges we run into by having different size elementaries some elementaries end up with really good class sizes um and some don't and and it really also talks it's an issue year to year um because we have move-ins we have move outs it's you know those are some of

075our some of our big challenges what questions do you have for me about class sizes can um tim can you scroll so at the bottom where we have total elementary then also we don't have the calculation but is it safe to assume that if we would run that calculation across the bottom we would be at or below all of our students divided by all of our sections i didn't do the math on that um as far as you know like for kindergarten if you take the 313 and divide it by 18 i'm assuming that number ends up being i mean so those overall numbers are i'm guessing must be with more green than red um within those so the average kindergarten so the average kindergarten class across the district is 17.4 you can see what

076first grade is second grade third grade fourth grade in fifth grade so our average class sizes across the district if everything was distributed perfectly in a perfect world um you could kind of see you know what that you know what that looks like um that's why you know it doesn't the more elementaries we have and the smaller capacity buildings create some challenges because if you come up here to for example um holton four out of their six sections are well under the class size guidelines you know and then you have one in the red and we don't have a room for a third section correct of second grade or you know and people have asked us about you know when we talked about the the two different elementary options we're looking at facilities six versus

077four and and and some of these different things um you know we they're they're just some of the challenges that we that we run into um whereas if we had more similar elementaries we can balance class sizes a little bit easier but because the number of elementaries we have we have to try i mean if there's uh you know like at holton for example if we don't split that kinder class into two sections it's 27 kids in kindergarten so it's just too many um but it if you can see obviously what what it does to the class size or even uh third grade 31 kids if we don't split that it's either 31 or 15 and a half so i mean it's it's the smaller section buildings have a bigger impact when you start to

078add sections or take sections did you say that we are going to drop projected now i understand there could be move-ins last minute and so forth but right now we're projected to be dropping 50 students overall between the six elementaries but we're only dropping one section instead of because if you did the math it should be two sections that we're dropping yeah i mean yeah right now i mean and and really we would anticipate we're gonna pick up some more students over the summer and that's why we feel pretty comfortable about this being as green as it is at this point in the year because you know we'd like to think that we could pick up another 30 students somewhere between kay and and and fifth grade and fifth grade and that's why when when

079we responded if all of a sudden we we start having some more move-ins into um you know fourth grade hudson prairie or fourth grade willow and allison that class has really you know really pushed up there then yeah we would we would we try to add that section yeah so i'm curious in that situation so let's say you know looking at hult and well maybe that's a bad example because it's further away but okay holton you know let's say a k-1 a second a rising second grader moves into the district this summer would that parent know about that and be given the option of instead having their student attend north hudson i mean how how is that handled with when kids are moving into an already over subscribed if you will grade at a at

080a at a neighborhood school uh well i mean when they move in that's the building they're assigned to based on their attendance so if they chose a boundary exception then they would have to provide their own transportation for their child if they do that and we move the boundary exceptions so if you remember four years ago when we redid all the elementary boundaries we had almost 400 plus students every year on boundary exceptions and everything was kind of all over the board you know so what happens is with boundary exceptions every year we look at these numbers by moving all of the kids that are in a building back to their home school and then we look because we've said we're not going to overload a grade for a boundary exception and that was that

081was the directive from the board at the time is we're not going to overload classrooms because people want to go to a school that's not their home school and so there will be some children uh based on these numbers that you know if they hold and we don't have we don't add additional sections uh that are currently uh going to certain elementaries they'll have to go back to their home schools because those those sections are overloaded okay mr president so just as an example river crest since it's there we know river crest is a three section building you know we know where our budget's about 77 million dollars in total and we know what the cost of a teacher is what's what's stopping us other than budget from adding that additional section in third grade

082excuse me because ultimately that would mean a 19 kids in a grade we look at fifth fits at 20 and a third kids [Music] and so from a student health standpoint and a teacher sanity standpoint why wouldn't we add that teacher there i mean similarly when we look at willow river if you wouldn't mind tim scrolling up just a little bit where do you want to go willow's up yeah and so you know similarly we see 58 kids and that is a three three section building why wouldn't we because if if we add a third section it bounces closer to the rest of the grades than it does is two and i i mean certainly we have a lot of conversations we need to have around budget for sure but at the end of the

083day if our core focus is our children and we're talking potentially you know one additional teacher in maybe three of our elementary schools i mean it's just something that we should talk through no absolutely and and we can absolutely add those sections um i mean is it going to bankrupt the district in one year no um but it's anywhere from 75 to 100 000 to add a section uh so the eventually we are going to get to a point we know we're going to get to a point where we are going to have to cut and so um that would be compounding things that we know we're going to potentially have to cut over the next year or two but if the board says hey you know what let's add it now and we'll deal

084with cuts and deal with budget issues down the road you absolutely can do that i just i think you need to be careful because every dollar you add to expense right now is potentially a dollar you you're going to have to cut down the road right now if the state we can tell you right now if the state doesn't help us out with funding in the next biennium budget i mean we could have multiple millions of dollars budget shortfall that long term we have savings to be able to you know to weather that to a certain extent but similar to paying your mortgage out of your savings account um eventually you're going to be out of savings and the mortgage is still going to be there i had a question follow-up to kind of answer

085rob's rhetorical question why wouldn't we i mean um wouldn't there also be other options other than deviating from the class size guidelines and skewing it even more by going to classes that are under 20 because then you're more than two under the guideline then we have to create a dark green color for school for sections that are way under the guidelines these are just guidelines and you know we try to have more green than red i think that's a good goal i agree with the student sanity a teacher sanity and student welfare and everything is primary but you gave the example at the one i can't remember which school was the kindergarten i think it was holton kindergarten where there was extra kids like 24 in the kindergarten northwestern north side it was north high

086area and so you're deviating from the class guidelines by two instead of just one at some of these other reds in that one where you deviated two you were able to do some things with what an extra para or somebody else school classroom assistance or something for the teacher yeah i mean we can do some of those things i mean when you get to when you start to get to a three section of four section building the amount of costs associated with if you start adding paris to three sections you need you might as well then just hire a fourth teacher you know because it's it's a much better option um and that's if we can find paris i mean i think we've been up here telling you guys that it's important we currently have

087quite a few open pair positions in the district that we can't get any applicants for um and custodial positions and food service positions and you know variety of other things so although yes that is a viable option if we can find somebody to to do that um you know as far as a more viable option when it relates to if if the goal is to get the number down the more viable option is to add sections i'm just saying that um long long term i mean unless our enrollment turns around this this is a real problem for us and um it's going to continue to be a problem uh and you know we talked about this you know when you start looking at combining some of these buildings uh if if certain grades were in

088one building versus two different buildings you would see us needing fewer sections in some of those grades which then means you could allocate more sections to other greats and so um and that's kind of the crutch of the conversation as we talk about the elementary long-term plan is you know where do you guys want to put your district resources mr president yes um granted we're at this table for our students in this district um i'm sure uh benoit would be amused that his name has come up so many times recently but i was watching boring school board meetings back when they came up with uh with the guidelines and they did a lot of comparison on you know where we were versus other schools in the district what was important for us in this district

089and it was to have lower class sizes compared to minnesota and compared to neighboring school districts and that was important so my question is has any of that changed because our numbers haven't really changed uh have numbers changed in minnesota have numbers change in competing school districts just yep no absolutely so i did i did kind of pull other districts um in our area and other districts um our district size around wisconsin you know a lot of districts are district size have very similar class size guidelines some of the smaller districts in our area adjacent districts to us their class size guidelines going to be slightly smaller if you go on the other side of the river it's a it's a totally different story you know you would expect to see up to 26 to

09028 in kindergarten to k2 and up to 32 to 33 in three through five we don't want to go that direction we don't have desire to go that direction um but it's again this year is really not any different than than any past year it's just there are certain grades that are starting to bump up and there's there very well could be that you know we start to hit that threshold where we have you know all three sections are over you know two over the class size guidelines we start to say you know what let's maybe we need to pop and pop another section there um but it it is it is a challenge because um we could absolutely make all of these green but you know and i think if somebody had said we

091should add a teacher to every single grade level in every single building that would be 36 additional elementary teachers and so just i mean to give you some perspective that's that's like a three and a half million dollar ad to the budget you know so i i mean i'm tonight one of the speakers talked about adding one day so it's not that we can't do i mean we can do anything you want i just want to caution you that uh we need to just be careful um because we just we're going to have some challenges coming forward so we're talking about next year right and certainly the demographic report's going to come back at some point and if we continue to lose enrollment i think the teacher situation i think corrects itself because at some

092point you know there's going to be a limit to how many teachers will have it as long as we manage class size appropriately but to have 28 29 kids in a class just next year i think is the challenge mr president i think what's what's challenging for me about this and you alluded to it earlier is i mean these were established quite a while ago and i'm sure many of you like i kind of went out and looked for national and state research on like what works in education right and the reality is that it's really inconclusive i mean on a gut level you think of course smaller class science sizes benefit kids and it seems like the research i looked at leans toward its stronger support for the earliest grades and then kind of

093gets iffy and so i mean i think these guidelines we have i mean just to acknowledge there is nothing magical or super smart about them i mean they were established at one point based on information that was reviewed so i think it's it's challenging right now to make money decisions like it reminds me of that scene in terms of endearment where she's trying to take things out of her grocery order and then she starts putting things back in because the kids ask for him and the cashier says lady you're going the wrong direction i mean you know this year would it break us to add one someplace or another maybe not but the bigger question is moving forward if we know our enrollment is decreasing kind of where do we land on this and are

094these the right the right guidelines i mean i just looked like eau claire it looks like there's our 19 to 25 in k2 and 21 to 29 in three five so higher than ours not so claire not hudson but again there's nothing magical about these guidelines that were established 20 years ago which makes it even harder because it's not like we can say this is what the research says works therefore it makes sense to invest the dollars in making sure that none of our classrooms are over these these guidelines um so i think that's that's what's hard about this mr president yes carrie i guess to address hazard heather's point just there um i would say that we could we could probably trust our teachers and the feedback that we've been receiving from them um

095to address rob's point i think um yeah over you know maybe next year if we had a section or two we're addressing a symptom and not the issue which adding a few sections will only hasten difficult decisions that we are going to have to make and that the community will need to wrap its head around or the district the administration will just have to make decisions uh without that input and make it strictly on cost make those decisions on cost and probably have some reconfiguring if not closures so i think you're being prudent to try to best address these class sizes um and obviously if we have to add teachers we will um if if all of those if the class sizes get bumped up uh above these levels with with students in in the

096boundaries yeah i mean and i think you know we did have a class i think it was a holton class because it was a singleton class that jumped up to what it was like almost 30. uh it it it got big on us and then and then we added us i think we ended up banning section and then we had some move outs and we went from you know two sections of 15 to also we had a section of 12 in a section at 13 and it was you know that's one of the challenges that we that we run into and so it is a balancing act i mean it's not um it is kind of an art you know that principles you know they we have conversation with them how is the class sizes

097impacting things um you know we talk about as a cabinet team because we do want to put the resources as close to the classroom as we possibly can but it right now um that's that's one of our biggest challenges and again this is may and we have added sections as late as what june july august um so it's not as though it's all set in stone and i know even some of the people are worried about class sizes with kindergarten class size numbers uh that people are posting because there was talk that oh we weren't going to have this or first grade wasn't have that and as the numbers change it becomes really it becomes really fluid you know as we as we work as we work through this but we want to be as

098open and transparent as possible um so people can see this is this is this is it this is the document that we use um as we continue to try to add or or take you know sections away um you know just to give you some perspective in 2016 uh i pulled up the class size numbers in 2016. we had 2401 elementary students in 2016. and uh next year so far we're projecting 2076. that's you know 325 fewer elementary kids than we had seven eight years ago and what happens and the reason why it's not perfectly fluid is because you can't you can't add as as kids come and you can't take sections away at the same time like it's we can't sit there and say oh well uh river crest third uh fifth grade you

099know they lost two kids so let's all of a sudden take it down to two sections i mean it's sitting really under the class size guidelines at 20.67 but if we take it down to two sections then it's then you've got 31 in it in integra and so that's really what we're looking at and then the question because it's it's not just one grade because it's like okay if we add another section of prairie how do you justify adding another section of prairie if you're not going to add another section of river crest and you're not going to have another section of north hudson and you're not going to add another section at willow river i mean so it's not just adding a section it's potentially adding four sections of of classes because how do

100you you know as you kind of work through that and we do keep an eye on those things because sometimes one or two kids it does kind of make a difference when you when you start to look at the averages mr president um also i mean to look at holton small school i'm sorry um look at holton as a small school and it's it's been low class sizes historically for a long time it it's never been fair to the rest of the kids you know at other schools that had you know 23 kids 22 kids and there's 14 kids in a class at holton um is ice at some point you know the community has to understand that the inefficiencies of our buildings you can't have low class sizes and inefficient buildings so you're going

101to have to decide you know we want six do we want six schools well we're not going to have 18 kids in a class do you want so i think the communication obviously has started it's not going to be easy it's not going to be it's going to be difficult um but the the studies about you know large schools versus small schools with what's better i mean that's debatable as well the budget is the budget and we don't want to make decisions always based on a budget should be based on student need and what's best for our students in our community so we have to i'm going to add on to what kerry said some of these decisions are going to be difficult but they are neat we need to communicate them kate did you

102have comment i did i just i know we're talking about the whole big picture um and we do have decisions we need to make but in the right now i wonder what are we doing in these bigger classes that is supporting the teachers or is um helping those kids that maybe are struggling in math do they have some extra help coming into the classrooms and for today from that yeah so the resources follow the needs of the students so we do have a math assistance program and the schools that have higher numbers have a greater proportion of the total allocated resource for math support reading support is the same way that's driven a little bit more by title allocation so that follows free and reduced numbers but that that's another resource that's there we have

103been creative with individual classrooms that required additional support specifically the north hudson kindergarten classrooms because those numbers were quite high so there is a certified teacher that has part of his day's schedule they're supporting and then also an allocation of the counselor time is dedicated to that classroom so we try to personalize as much as we can certainly i mean there's always more we can do but we do try to bring the resources where they're needed is long-term subs still an option out there i know it's difficult to find peras and things like that but certainly long-term subs we use all the time especially with maternity leaves and all that we probably at any point in time have five plus in the district and often retirees and so if that would be something that learning

104sports services would say that we wouldn't want to explore there are definitely people out there and there just gets to be a point where if you're going to try to have one person split their time over three rooms you get to a point where you say actually we're better off allocating the resources to add another section and so that's why um you know and and those are the conversations that we're having constantly does it make more sense to just add another section than to try to provide additional resources to supplement and that's what we kind of go back and have those have those conversations and and this isn't this is the may ninth look at class sizes and section allocation uh we could come back in june and it could look slightly different um as

105as we look at it and the reason we have to start doing this in january because we have to start thinking about building our budget for next year even though we don't know what we're going to get from the state until three or four months into the budget the thing is so different right now that the board has to start to contemplate that they haven't had to contemplate for about 15 years is we have no more under levy so we used to have an under levy it was as high as 13 million dollars annually i think when i got here it's down to zero it's not because we've just spent spent spent it's because we've been we've been cut and cut cut because we've lost enrollment and um you know we've kind of juxtaposed our

106state aid to property tax expectations uh in our funding and so we've been expected to because we're in a fluent community we've been expected to put more money on property tax less money on state aid and it's it's a constant challenge so just to give you some perspective and and for people watching our budget that we approved this year that we're currently in is a half a percent lower expenditure-wise than the previous year's budget and our under levy went from four million dollars to zero so it's it's not as though we are just spending like crazy it's not as though um you know we're not conscious of those things but in past years we've been able to add sections and do some things that we're not up against we're not up against levy limits now

107as you add sections to the budget you're going to have to pay for these things out of savings in order to in order to cover do we have savings absolutely can we handle eating into those savings sure we can't we don't quite know what the next couple years are going to look like we are facing unbelievably high inflation which means we are having to give higher raises than we've ever given and probably i think since we've been keeping track in order to try to attract and retain our staff and it doesn't look like that is going to let up any time in the foreseeable future just to give you some perspective when we bargained with teaching staff two months ago we were capped at 4.7 percent that's what cpi according to the wisconsin employment review

108commission was at in the last two months that number changes every month that number is now up to 6.2 percent so it has gone up one and a half percent in basically the last few months and so um all of these things are pressures that we have to keep we we have to keep an eye on um are we going to be making some cuts down the road yes there's no doubt about it we're going to have to make cuts we will have to make cuts at the administrative level we'll have to make cuts you know at our certified staff level at our uh support staff level there's no doubt in my mind we are going to have to make adjustments unless all of a sudden applied populations comes back in the next week or

109so and says boy you're going to have this huge influx of kids it just doesn't seem to be the case we are a very fluent community it's not new to us or it's not only us that are having enrollment issues a lot of districts in that kind of that 4 500 to 12 000 student range they're kind of older suburbs established suburbs are not seeing uh the enrollment growth or the enrollment uh keep up that that we've had in the past and then on top of that you couple that in hudson with you know that price of housing is is extremely extremely expensive and that is that that's going to continue to be our challenge uh for many years to come so if you know and again the board's not taking any action on sections

110tonight um you know what can continue to monitor we can add to the work session have more discussion we can add it as an action item if the board wants to direct the administration do something different at the at the june board meeting um but you know we'll continue to keep an eye on it over the next uh next few months and add sections you know if we absolutely have to um but being down 30 students is like 360 000 just walked out the door from our elementary programs and then if you add four sections at anywhere between seventy five and a hundred thousand you've now you know added anywhere from three hundred to four hundred thousand that's a seven hundred thousand 000 swing in one year that's where it starts to compound and become

111a challenge for us it's not because we don't love kids it's not because we don't care about kids it's just we we have we have to make some of these decisions and if all of a sudden we start picking up some more kids and and um we can add some more sections we we would absolutely you know absolutely do those things this isn't this isn't we are not in budget cut mode yet i know people are thinking we're cutting the budget we are not in budget cut mode yet this is just purely how we've operated for the last and as you pointed out you went back in prior years we've had more red sections than green for next year we actually have twice as many green sections in this red already projected we actually have

112three times as many green sections as red right now we have five red sections and fifteen green sections uh so but but the reason they're green is because we have a lot of small section you know you can't really go from you know like it holds any 43 kids in fourth grade you can't really cut that down to one section that'd be a you know so i mean they're just it's just kind of the nature of it um on some of these things so we you know that's that's some of our bigger right well like i said i'm always open with when we set up the agendas whether it's work session or action usually everything's discussed in work session but i think this is something that you know the board can put on for a

113work session or even put on for its retreat in june which reminds me we need to set that date i am we'll have to do that later this month all right any other questions about class sizes all right yes kind of what's the latest realistically from a practical standpoint if we were going to increase and need to bring a teacher in kind of when does by when would that decision need to be made is it now june i mean now would be great the latest but i mean we still get decent hires in june okay okay once we start posting in july then it's end of july date that gets to be pretty tough and so that's where you know the conversation too is okay we have had some phenomenal hires in august yeah um

114and we have but we've also had some less than phenomenal hires in august probably more times than than than the first um you know and i think about you know uh what is you know what is that you know what does that look like um you know it's it's it's it's going to be a challenge i personally would rather have my kid in a classroom with more kids and a teacher that we know is is going to be an outstanding job than in a classroom with fewer kids with the potential higher that we made in august and we don't quite know you know the background that that's that's me personally just based on years of experience in administration and watching what the hiring looks like as we get closer and closer to the start of

115school year so sometimes people say why don't you just add a section in september or add a section in october those are things we can do but sometimes you're actually better off having your kid in a larger class size than in the smaller class size with somebody we hired in september or october yeah with so to i guess kate's earlier point if if we're looking at not adding teaching staff does it make sense to add supplemental to a classroom so if we likely won't find a quality teacher in august does it make sense to supplement more so than you know some of the additional tutoring and what have you that might be available yeah and we've and we've done that in the past we've tried to hire paraprofessionals educational associates in those classrooms um to

116provide additional services yeah absolutely i mean that's not that's not out of the realm of things we've done good data yeah i think the point that nick was making earlier is important one to think about mathematically if you're talking about a small section school a two to one adding a paraprofessional absolutely makes sense if you have a large class size because splitting it isn't viable but adding one person adds the resources all to those kids when you're in a three section school or four section school going to three that's when you run that dilemma that nick was describing where if you add someone you almost have to add someone to each class and at that point you're up almost to the same expense as hiring a teacher so it the the math plays out very

117differently depending on the size of the school because it can run about three pairs for the cost of one teacher depending on how experienced the teacher is and everything yeah all right um well is there anybody opposed to putting this on for uh the next work session for further discussion okay are we putting on the work session to to try to make the decision on this and and taking out of administration's hands well i don't think well i think it's working with administration depending what their recommendation is as opposed to you can have it it's it's all yours you could you could have this but no just because i i don't want that decision i mean i think we've given them the guidelines so yeah we can discuss it an important and at the end

118of the day the discussion decision may be no changes in class size guidelines and no additional direction beyond that but i think that there is some things that there's a uh the boundary exception deadline has closed and so we'll be considering that before the next work session so this this will change um based on whether the boundary exceptions are up or approved or not for the particular buildings so we'll have new information you're saying in two weeks all right good i have a yes quick question um you know just in thinking back when my kids are in school you know you can have the classes where the kids are super easy going and then you have this class same number but they're like exponentially crazier i would assume that when you're having a class of

11929 in third grade or fourth grade or whatever that the teacher if he or she needs resources is asking for them and the principal is coming to administration or hr and saying we really need to do something you know keeping in mind that yes i'm sure they everybody would love to have a smaller class size i mean that would be like kind of my concern is just making sure that if there are needs that they're being met and not every class of 29 is the same not every class of 20 is the same and sadly sometimes it's the luck of the draw and i i feel for parents when they're their kids are in a class or a grouping where they are feeling this is not going well um i think it it just really

120everybody has said this but say the same thing it just really brings up the larger issue of it's much easier to equalize class sizes if we have fewer buildings with more sections and realizing too that river crests kindergarten the sizes of classrooms are different at different classrooms like not every north hudson kindergarten classrooms not every single one of them has a bathroom in the classroom or they're smaller or just some of those things so just a few random thoughts about about what's kind of going on but just that it speaks to the larger issue of buildings all right i think that concludes those remarks i'll move on then to the action agenda and entertain a motion to approve consent agenda with the expenditure language mr president yes move approval of the consent items and that

121the chief financial and operations officer be authorized to pay bills in the amount of eight hundred twenty one thousand six hundred eleven dollars and maybe sixty six cents yeah yeah don't even need the glasses all right very good there's a motion is there a second second all right and there is a second i think heather by a millisecond all those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed nay uh the consent agenda items are approved next up is social studies curriculum selection we discussed this at the work session some board members had opportunity to take books home and so forth so are we taking action on this dave yes that's the plan and what is the action recommended the actually you approve the recommended slate of texts as presented mr president yes i would

122move that we approve the recommended slate of texts as presented motion by heather second second all right we have a second by molly is there any further uh discussion on that i have to say that i took three um and you know got my workout in by carrying that bag you know uh with me that both home and um had extra reading material i didn't get back to my book i haven't still haven't finished hamilton yet so i put that book aside to pick up and i looked at the the us history sociology and of course your law class i had to look at at that and i was impressed uh you know with uh the books i just wish that i had those books when i was that age um and reading um you

123know quite a few different chapters uh there is no critical race theory there's nothing even close to that being taught in those books so and or any of the other things that people have been waving flags about so i just commend the selections they look excellent well we we appreciate it too we appreciate the careful deliberation that went into the process i know the teachers appreciate you weighing in specifically this is the first time we've taken the new curriculum process through to completion and really appreciate all the support and i know the teachers do as well all right any further discussion on that all right and um we had the list i guess the list is up there um of all the different classes that we're approving and these are the quote unquote require required

124texts versus any kind of uh the electives yeah the electives are included yeah i'm sorry it's a required text for the course but it includes elective courses and core courses yes right but not elective readings where that might be you know kids have a choice of six books to read as auxiliary to the textbook or something exactly up and we've actually we're tightening that process up as well but this is the cortex all right very good any further questions comments we have yes kate my one question would be this fine toothed comb review that looks like it's happening over the summer do we get a report on that or would you be telling us if there were any red flags yeah we certainly could offer a report um yeah we'll go through a process of

125essentially accounting for any place we had questions we just went through this process with a resource that is shared between teaching and learning and student services not quite done but yeah then we generate a report of anything that we thought required further review that we take that next step of going in and reviewing those things so we could certainly bring that back if that's something the board wants well yeah and i suppose if there's any changes to what we approved tonight that would be appreciated if there's no change i don't think there's a need for a report but and typically the result of that might be like one lesson or a couple lessons we say you know we're going to skip this lesson or actually preferably is that we add lessons we find so or

126add resources we find something that may be slanted one direction or the other and then we bring in supplemental resources to balance it out okay all those in favor of approving uh the administration's recommendation for curriculum selection of curriculum resource selection signified by saying aye aye aye those opposed nay the eyes have it it's approved now we have handbooks we'll approve them one at a time i guess um erin sure so the first one we have the high school student handbook which we reviewed at the work session as well again just trying to make this document a little more user-friendly concise and just aligning to policy updates so an addition since the work session for the middle school and high school handbook was just additional nutrition services information okay is there a motion to approve

127uh bob i've got the motion i'll give a second to carrie any further discussion hearing none all those in favor of approving the high school student handbook as presented um signify by saying aye aye those opposed say nay the eyes have it next up is the middle school student handbook yep so the middle school handbook as we talked about at the work session was really just updating um staff names this went through um a big revision last year so this one is pretty straightforward for 22-23 we got the years right and everything yes we do all right that's important all right all those in favor well let's have a motion to approve i guess so moved second all right motion by molly second by kate all those in favor signify by saying i to approve

128the middle school handbook i those opposed say nay the eyes have it um yes then uh the activities code of conduct right so there have been no changes to this one since the work session review again just adding a more specific language on the absence piece to provide just clarity around participation after an absence those sorts of things motion to approve all right thank you didn't have to even ask thank you is it all right we have a second i've heard it from this direction kerry gets it they're pointing at each other and i'll defer to our speed reader heather is there anything in there that is old information that needs updating all right very good all those in favor of proving the activities code of conduct signified by saying aye those opposed nay the

129ice have it and it passes last up on our action agenda is the 2223 board of education meeting schedule um it's pretty straightforward we have the second monday is our regular meeting and the work session slash special meetings are generally the fourth we have a few variations and those are sometimes due to uh events in the district and whatnot do we have anything that stands out here are we meeting on a tuesday at l i'm trying to read from across the room here i'm not all mondays all mondays all right no packer game yeah well the the schedules aren't out yet but you know we're we always have our challenges and there was where we there was a question at the work session about choir concert did we have the uh holiday is that going

130to be december 12th the same night as we meet yes but but there is a sunday holiday cancer in options and we will all be yeah well school board members be guaranteed two tickets each all right good okay we've got it on tape so now it's broken all right yeah i'll take the one behind the column no all right so is there a motion to approve the board meeting schedule that goes out through can you scroll down please uh through uh the end of may which takes us to you know the next uh new board we'll be looked at so moved all right we have motion by molly second by heather all those in favor of approving the schedules presented in signify by saying i i those opposed nay the eyes have it it's approved

131i will now entertain a motion to go into closed session we have two different areas so we need to quote both uh sections or subsections of the statute please mr president i move that we convene in closed session a pursuant to wisconsin statute 19.85 parent one parent seat to consider the employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data of school district employees and b pursuant to wisconsin statute 19.85 parent one parent e to conduct public business requiring competitive bargaining all right we have a motion and a second to go into closed session from which we will be adjourning for the evening this requires a roll call vote bowman hi brown garza logan powers whitaker johnson aye the eyes have it we will move to closed session we're just gonna head to the conference room in the

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