001Hey, Hello school district Jefferson board of education. We will start off with the indisible liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We'll start off with the fun stuff. We got recognitions coming up and we'll start with the citizen of the month. Um, Mr. Start us off at high school. There you are. All right. Some people good evening. Happy to start us off tonight with citizen of the month, Joanna Bez. Joanna's 11th grader forest and was nominated by Mr. Fast and our junior teachers. Uh Joanna was instrumental in our cooks for hope events. Raise your hand if you made it to that day. It was a great event. We had community members all over the commons within the channel out of school spirit. Uh fell a little short in the game. The events and halftime show
002were impeccable. That was all most enjoyable but almost. Uh so she coordinated more than 20 different street volunteers for the middle school swim and gym night as well. Our recruit volunteers now concessions playing dodgeball, basketball or volleyball with the kids and general supervision as they move between the pool commons and main gym areas. Uh the proceeds raised from the student gym night along with hoops for hope go to support local leukemia and childhood cancer patients. And Joanna shows perseverance and just some deep care for others. Uh she's received multiple nominations from multiple staff throughout the year. Uh so our staff recognized just her deep commitment to the Jefferson community, the participation in multiple clubs, leadership ability, and just really her compassion for others. So congratulations to the middle school. All right. Good afternoon everyone. Uh
003it is my pleasure to introduce Julia Pelier uh to uh to uh the school board and everybody who's here. Um Millia is a seventh grader over at the middle school and was nominated by our seventh grade team. Who is here with us? My mom, my grandma. Um so uh so seventh grade team had a lot of really nice things to say about Ameilia. I want to share those with with the board as well. Uh so Ameilia consistently comes to class prepared and participates in every learning activity. She produces high quality work that shows she is growing in her education. What we most appreciate about Amia is her ability and willingness to work with all students. Um she encourages others to do better. I mean consistently demonstrates quiet leadership in her classes and sets a wonderful
004example for others uh through her many positive contributions to school and to classes. Um and uh and I think these words uh work very well for May. She radiates positivity when she comes to the middle school each day. Um so uh she also is a member of our amate elective class and throughout the year she has demonstrated a sincere interest in learning about college and future careers. Uh for those reasons we are happy to congratulate them as our seventh grade assistant of the month. We have Mr. Howard here. Come on. We got this. All right. Go in the front. See if we stand where people can see us. Right here. All right. There you go. Okay, everybody. We're proud to present our citizen month at West. It's Daniela Garcia in kindergarten. So, it's from our
005kindergarten team. Daniela, can you let everybody know who's here from your family tonight? My mom and my sister and my aunt. Very good. They're in the back row there, right guys? Awesome. Great job. You know, that's very good. So, Daniela was nominated by our kindergarten team. And here's what they had to say. The kindergarten team would like to nominate Daniela Garcia for the February citizen of the month from West Elementary. Daniela is a great student. She is kind and helpful. She's warm with a gentle smile. She works hard, is respectful to her teachers and peers, and she's always looking to do her best. Dianiela always intentionally makes good choices, even when no one is watching. She's a great peer model that sprinkles that kindergarten kindness wherever she goes. Congratulations, Dandela Garcia. All right. Thank you
006guys. All right. I get the honor of introducing everyone to Jack Saunder, one of first graders, and he was nominated by Mrs. Krauss. And Jack, who is here with you? my mom and my dad. Thank you for telling me that. All right. Mrs. Krauss wrote, "If you are looking for an exemplary student who leads by example, look no further than Jack. His behavior is impeccable across all school areas. He consistently completes his work with care. Jack participates thoughtfully in all of our whole group discussions. Jack is a great partner during turn-in talks and shows curiosity about new ideas. What is most admirable about Jack is his compassionate heart. He always shows kindness and respect to everyone he meets. The world is a bon place and Jack and when Mrs. Cat, it's our music teacher found
007out that Jack was winning this war award. She was really pleased because she said you do amazing job at music. Jack, sorry. It's all right. I thought maybe someone else was here for me today. I am very excited to introduce Anthony Vanakin. He is a first grade at Sullivan Elementary. And Anthony, who's here with you tonight? Excellent. Thanks for coming tonight. Um, when I think of Anthony, there's a lot of words that come to mind, but one of them is smiley. As you can see, he's been smiling the entire time. He's engaged, he's friendly, he's upbeat, and he's happy. You can't help but smile when you see him. This is what Miss Peterson from first grade had to say about Anthony. Anthony is a student who always puts in 100%. If something does not come
008easy to him, he still puts his best effort in. He is always helpful in the classroom to help clean up and help other peers who may need a little extra help. He is kind and will always make sure his peers have someone to play with. Anthony plays games and makes sure that everyone is playing by the rules and they play fair. He is a positive role model by following the rules and showing others what a true friend is. Anthony is respectful, responsible, ready, and a true Sullivan stinger. Way to go, Anthony. Anthony and Anthony. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. All get a group photo. So all the citizens Thanks. All right. Um, so as I say, future business owners, Mr. Burmire Oh. Morrison. Right. I'm actually Mr. Morrison. Um I couldn't be here, but I'm here
009along with my son to recognize some outstanding achievements from these future business leaders to my right. On February 7th, we went and competed in the FBLA regional competition. Um, and these three students uh made it past regionals and are headed to state here in April. So, uh, we'll start here with Maddie next to me. She finished, uh, third place in, of course, I don't have my notes. I can't hold her. Third place in human resources. Thank you very much. Third place in human resources. Uh, we have Eastston Ambrose who finished second place. Awesome. Tech support. Thank you. And then we have Ben Armstrong who finished second in real estate. Um but these three they had to finish in the top three to make it to the state competition which will be held in Green Bay.
010So congratulations to these three. Very proud of your accomplishments here. Mr. Peterson. Excellent. I'm calling up for coach Miller today. So, I've got Zophia Verduga here. Sophia, who do you have with you tonight? My mom, my dad, my little brother. Okay. Uh Zophia went to state again this year for gymnastics in the vault. She was a conference champion. She was a sectional champion. She took first place in the vault last year. This year's a very tough competition. Didn't place in the top two, but had a great showing up at state. So, um, just congratulations to her in a great career. I believe she also was all state involved this year, too, for her accomplishments. So, just an outstanding job. Um, the vault is not easy. I've watched it. So, definitely not something I can do,
011that's for sure. But, uh, had a great four-year career for us in gymnastics. So, congratulations, Sophia. I also would like to just congratulate a couple things since I'm up here. Coach Polar and the wrestling team, they won a conference championship in the Valley Division this year for the first time since 79, I believe. Is that correct? Um, we're going to see Alex here in just a minute. And the girls team also was were regional champs this year. So, some great job there. Good job at gymnastics. And girls basketball also won a conference championship this year also. So very successful um some successful sports in the winner. Thank you. Very good. All right. Well, I have Alex key in front of me. Uh, Alex was our 215 pound uh, state qualifier this year. Uh, he's had
012an amazing career here at Jefferson. Uh, one of only a short list of wrestlers who have tallied up over a 100 career wins. Uh, as a varsity wrestler, not counting any JV exhibition matches, anything like that. So, Alex has had a great career and was a great leader in our room. um couldn't ask for much more as a coach uh than to uh have a great young man not only be a great leader but also have um a lot of success on the map and shout out Alex. Well, congratulations to all the students that were recognized this evening. Uh from this point, I know a lot of people have busy lives. If you need to head out, that's perfectly fine. But you're more than welcome to stick around for the rest of the meeting as
013we get to the business side of the meeting. Thank you everyone. Next up on the agenda is public. Something just fell out. I'm sorry. Thank you so much. Now we'll get into the public comments. First of all, we welcome comments from the community. Is there anybody here to accomplish the microphone. We'll move to the consent agenda agenda. This meeting consists of the minutes from our last meeting. We have one pres. Any questions, comments? Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented? So motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say. Jesus. jump into reports. Going a little too fast. All right, getting ahead of myself. So, of the list of donations we have today, we have a $100 monetary donation from City Credit Union to
014JMS for the investors club. We also have a $250 monetary donation from Premier Bank to the JMS investors club. Then we have ebike battery pack valued at $130 from bicycle mode works to the high school. Total this month is $480.50 and school year to date we have our donations of $98,787.98. So some excellent support from the community there. Now I guess we could jump into the good news report from West Mr. Howard, is that is that Is this working good? I just Well, good evening everybody. Thanks for having me. Mike Howard, principal West Elementary. Uh just a nice picture from our fun run with the drone that'll be coming up this spring. Just a nice group of kids and staff obviously. Um starting off just to tell you a little bit about West Elementary. I
015always like to start by just telling you a little bit about our demographics. Um, a pretty wide variety of of kids and what we have. Economically disadvantaged our number on the last report card 62.2 or 62.2% those are kids that are are below the poverty line. Students with disabilities 26.2%. Um, Latino or two or more races 42.5% of our students. EL learners that would be English language learners 18%. And then the number of students that are open enrolled are 11.2. So that's a pretty pretty uh like I said for a small community. Um we've got a pretty diverse uh student body and we're proud of that and have fun with it. Um you can see that it's a a five-year score of our report card. Um we've been in the mid60s lately. Um our leading
016score was 62.5 last year. So as we look to improve on that 63 number, you can see below the things folder is is our new PLA adoption. you guys have at the board level have helped us adopt that new curriculum and we have spent the majority of this year just determined to implement that with fidelity. Um for teachers it's a it's a 180 a lot more direct instruction. Some of the small group stuff that they're used to it's been hard for them. Um they've been adaptable. I'll talk about that a little bit. Um, we work closely with not only Katie at the district level, but also Mickey and and Jake working hard on this. And, uh, it's by far our biggest boulder. And as far as looking at data, it's going to be like, wow,
017let's look next year after year one of that implementation to see what type of impact our kids have with the science and reading uh, curriculum for the first time. So, we're looking forward to that. Our core strategy is is uh obviously our SLO is is related right to the LA program and we chose actually as a district at the elementary level student discourse and what our goal is is that 90% of our kids will increase two rungs on the talk ladder or maintain a level five from November to May. Now the talk ladder without getting too far into it really it really goes into how kids can respond using complete sentences using a certain type of vocabulary all the way down to the kindergarten level. And we have a a building chart that we use
018at all the buildings where we're monitoring how the kids are doing and even charting it in class and really looking at not just their reading ability but also how they can present themselves uh verbally with with how they can speak about their language. Um so it's been fun to to kind of connect that component. Uh next year what's our skill next year? I should know this key vocabulary. So next year we're going into vocabulary year one student discourse. Um, so as you can see the key actions, number one, just implementing the curriculum itself. Um, everything from making sure you have the right minutes, the scheduling, um, how are we utilizing our reading staff, um, ML staff, special education staff. Um, there's been a lot of work involved in in just making that that uh, go
019in year one. Um, we our leadership and our staff meetings, we've connected to the oral language and made sure that we're not trying to do too many things at once. Kind of that initiative fatigue you can have. Uh so if you were to look at our uh either our district-wide PD days or if you were to look at my staff meetings, uh only on rare occasions do we do we slide away from GLA. So we really stayed um eyes on the ball with that all throughout the year. And it's a credit to not only the the leadership at the district level um but just even the teachers going this is our big boulder. We just got to state it. Um and I I guess I did talk about that and that support of of oral
020language and skill building. We talk a lot about reading. talk a lot about comprehension, but also being able to talk a little bit about what that little language piece can be like. Coaches Greg with the science reading is one of the biggest components in our professional development. So, we can get back that this year and uh it's just been fun to stay there and to see our kids build. As far as the ELA implementation itself, I talked a little bit about the staff meetings. We've also had PLC meetings. Uh so that would be when all the fourth grade teachers in the district get a chance to meet. all the third grade teachers get to meet. It's not just at West. Uh once again, that that's learning from each other. What are we doing at Sullivan
021in first grade compared to what we're doing at West and first grade compared to what we're doing at East and first grade? And being at those meetings, I think Nikki and Jade would be right there with me. A lot of great discussions, adjustments are being made, too. Second grade, boy, do we do the assessment on computer? Do we do it handwritten? And then you have to just have these conversations u through it together and just kind of learn from one another. So when you talk about that acronym PLC, the professional learning community, I think we've really uh been in that lane all year long, listening to one another, uh making adjustments, uh learning from one another, and just get better across the board. Um, as far as the co-planning, um, I've utilized at West specifically,
022um, Dev Eel and JD Orbble have been kind of coaching and teaching. And what on Wednesdays we have common planning time at all the grade levels and we utilize that for either assess an address where uh every so often it's not every week uh we're assessing how it's going. We're giving feedback. We're planning and then when we're doing Guy your side that would be where Deb and Genie are literally working at that grade level and then they're planning right along with them based on what they see and what they do. Um that was hard for staff because you know staff we're not used to that. Like every Wednesday we got to meet or every other Wednesday we have to meet. I like to plan on my own, you know, and there's just been kind of
023that that learning model where it's like, no, as we get in the same room together and we talk, we learn from each other. Fourth grade finds something first, especially the new curriculum and all a sudden we can share it with fifth grade, we can share it with third grade. Kindergarten discovers something, we can share it with first, share it with second. Um, so, so once again, going to that PLC model, that's something we've always shot for in this district. And I think with this ELA implementation in my years is probably one of the better examples where we've really nailed that, where we're learning together and growing together as a group. Um, we've had to be adaptable. Um, it is a little bit more with the science of reading. I'm thinking of my kindergarten teens right
024now. Maybe a little bit more sit and get, a little bit more correct instruction. Uh, that's a that's a 180 from from some of the whole language we've done in the past. And it took a while to get used to. The assessments are very difficult. There's definitely rigor in the assessments. What the 345 teachers are telling us with forward coming up is, boy, this reminds me a lot of the forward state test. So, we're hoping as kids are taking this assessment at the end of every unit in benchmark advance that it's prep them for that rigor and even for the format of the state test itself. So, that that'll be fun to see. But adjustments because boy, that's not what we've done. Um, we we've made a pretty significant change in in how we and
025uh that's hard for people, but we're working together on some success stories. I've got a few short ones for you. This week is Americanore week. You guys familiar with Americanore? Um, we have an Americanore reading teacher. Um, zero dollars for the district. It's it's a it's a I don't I don't I call it a loan. I don't know if it's or not a loan. I don't know if it's necessarily a a grant, but it's something we have at at West Elementary. You see about 30 kids in tier two. Now, explain tier two quickly. Tier one is what you get from the homework teacher. Tier three is that intensive intervention you get from a reading teacher. Tier two is something where they need some some augmentation and some supplement. But maybe the homework teacher has to
026find a way to get that throughout win time or throughout the day. But in K123, we have an Americanore reading teacher Deb Panko her and she sees kids in small groups similar to our reading teacher uses the Americanore uh reading interventions and we just see some great success. Um so I'm going to go through two of them real quick. Um we had a kindergartener on October 15th when we first tested this this young person. They knew eight letter sounds in one minute. In other words, one minute, how many letter sounds? Ready, go. They could give you eight. On January 29th, that same student could produce 48 letter sounds in one minute. So that's a times six improvement. So that's a great example, someone kind of like little Dianiela, you know, that age going from eight
027letter sounds in one minute in October to 48 letter sounds in one minute in January. So that's something to celebrate. uh a second grade student once again once again and and they're getting tier one from their teachers. So I want to also tell tell you those teachers are doing a heck of a nice job in class. September 8th words per minute. You know that will be their fluency. How many words can I read in a minute? September 8th the second grader 54 words per minute with four errors. January 15th 101 words per minute with zero errors. So we doubled our rate of of fluency. So those are just examples of kids are they're getting better right before our very eyes. And it's just fun to share that with you. My first grader, and this is
028from Amanda Goolson. This this is a math intervention where I I just got to read it for you. It's really good. Here's here's what Amanda wrote. She said, "At the beginning of the school year, this first grade student scored in the eighth percentile in the Ames web number comparison pairs assessment. At the end of October, she was selected to participate in a targeted first grade intervention group led by RAM interventionists. Since that time, her rate of improvement has exceeded the expectations that we establish. She currently needs only one additional score above 26 to be considered for exit. Equally important, though not fully captured by the assessment data, is the context. This student is bilingual and has demonstrated remarkable growth while navigating mathematical thinking in both her native language and in English. During instruction, she's frequently
029observing observed trans languaging where she goes from Spanish to English and she can explain her reasoning and make sense of new concepts in both languages. While the intervention primary focuses on number comparison, she's also made significant gains in understanding the base 10 system and enjoining and separating numbers, foundational skills that will strongly support her long-term success in mathematics. Now today, Charlie, you were mentioning you saw one of my students at reading interpretation was this young lady. She wore a medal today at school. Kind of funny. She's walking around first grade with her medal. But isn't that neat that we have somebody that's still pretty new to the language and now she's explaining the math concepts not only in Spanish but in English. And that's that's from once again early October to the time I visit.
030So those are some ne individual stories I'm glad I got to share. Last but not least, we talk so often about making sure kids are engaged, that they they're excited about school, that they want to come to school, and and just some of the things that we're we're trying here. Some of these we've done done for a while now, but just to talk quickly about love our fun run. We have a chess club by Mr. Novak. You know, Zach Novak's a fourth grade teacher that takes time to not only do chess club, but comic book club. So, I I want to give kudos to Zach Novak for that. Today, as I left at uh 4 something, what are my kids doing? They're out in the garden. 70 degree weather. The garden club instead of being
031an indoor garden club like they have been, they got to go outdoors. Matter of fact, where' they get to go? They walk the greenhouse. So, thanks to the egg guys for giving us access to the greenhouse. We we do our fall and winter dances. Uh the grit star readers, what that basically is is with our new reading program is we're picking grit readers. Kids that are sticking with it and really hanging tough and reading when it gets hard, they win their little grit coin and we have our vending machine. If you guys remember me talk about that past years, they get to buy a book. So instead of buying a candy bar and vending machine, they're buying a book. Um the public library connection. Uh Val, I want to thank you for this one. Do
032you know what you know what I'm gonna say? Um next year when we enroll students, the public library opportunity, you're going to be able to sign up for a public library card during registration. And and I I go to the public library all the time, believe it or not. And uh when I got talking to the ladies there one day, they said, "Boy, this would be something neat to do." I I mentioned to Val and to Dr. Ernest, boom, we got it. And next year if you when you're signing up I there's probably a way to go through a quick round getting a card but let's hope that but you have a real convenient opportunity to get your public library card and I think about some of the kids that maybe don't have the the
033resources the things you get in the public library amazing I mean it's it's amazing what you can rent just besides not just books itself. Um so getting more people to get the footsteps in the public library I'm I'm really happy that that thank you Bill and Dr. for safety for that opportunity because uh we want to get kids in the door and once you go you you know you keep coming back we hope so that that's good stuff. All right that's all I have for for West Elementary for this evening and thank you for opportunity to visit with you. Quick question two quick question for you. Um one curious of the English learners have you noticed any sort of trends are we getting more students that uh English isn't their first language or is it
034plateaued? Is it dropping down? I'd say I'd say it's slightly decrease indicated would you? the number of students overall slight decrease maybe maybe on families over the district we decreased I think eight kids from last year for this year. Um part of that though is with number students excellent the program and so then for example east had great success last year number percentage of kids and so then they're no longer considered even though they're still I have a kindergarten right yeah maybe Asian I was going to say speak another language at home but they're no longer yeah so in other words we have kids that were English language learners like Katie referenced but they they graduate out other issue a language a language proficiency where they're no longer an EL student I was thinking about
035I have an Asian student kindergarten she's grad she's going to be graduating out out of EL by by first grade based on how she's doing so yeah it's kind of thing for your great star readers where do those books come from books um com combination of PTO and then we do have a benefactor um that she likes to remain nameless that she knows where they go to and boom, I get a check from her and we go to a little warehouse out of Madison that sells them wholesale and we get a pretty good deal on it and we'll just fill them up like a candy cane. And Mrs. Powers, our third grade teacher, and then our librarians, they they do that extra work. Jody Wellness as well. Keep that thing stocked. Good stuff. Thank you
036very much. Yeah. Any other questions? All right. Thank you. Thanks, guys. Then um we get to our great learning coordinator report. Mer Hi, Deb Leminger is advancing coordinator for the district. And um I just always like to start out by just kind of talking a little bit about what advanced learning is to our district. It kind of can mean different things to different districts and different uh schools. But basically we are a partnership between the classroom, the coordinator, the district um school administrators, the um community and always in five um specific areas with general academic um intelligence, uh creativity, leadership, and also in your arts. It's always dynamic. Um people kind of move in and out and we're always inclusive. Um, my general role in incorporates tons of things. I wear tons of different hats.
037I'm in a lot of different places. I'm in all five buildings. Um, four mainly, the three elementaryaries, the middle school, but I'm always seen in the high school throughout the times, too. Um, and uh, but my main roles are direct services, uh, the coordinator roles, and then also as an AL advocate. But the main emphasis I want to make tonight is I brought some students with me and I would love for them to come up because I think more so than hearing from me, you'd rather hear from them. And so I wanted them to emphasize some of our events tonight. So I brought them along. I've tried this before in a uh I videotaped and when I had it up here I think two years ago, the sound didn't come off. So you pretty much
038ended up hearing me anyway. So I thought their lovely voices are much better than mine anyhow. So they come on step a little bit closer to me. I'm actually going to sit down so you can see them more. So but basically I'm just going to ask them some things about some of the events. They're going to kind of read a little bit of a can response, but then they're also going to tell you their experiences with the um events also. So basically we're going to start out with leadership and I have Oliver with me behind me here. He's my he's the uh the eldest of the group here in eighth grade. So Oliver is going to start out by telling us about the middle school leadership event. So go ahead. You probably would like that.
039Middle school leadership is an event which offers students an opportunity to enhance their leadership skills. The program involves a guest speaker who works with the students of specific leadership qualities and strategies. Students also have an opportunity to improve their own leadership skills and network with other middle school students from southern Wisconsin. We also have a high school leadership and that's real similar to this, but Oliver got to go to the middle school leadership this year and I'm going to just have you tell you a couple things about his experience this year. There was a Mr. uh Ted Nitsky that went and he was our guest speaker and he's pretty dynamic. If you haven't ever heard of Ted Nitsky, his podcasts are amazing. Also, it really helped me become a better leader for myself self and
040other people around me. And I really liked his quote he had which he talked about uh facing our problems head on and instead of running away from Yeah. He had this Buffalo leadership mentality that he always talked about. The next thing I'd like to talk about is a little bit of math. And Ally, I'd like to have you come next. She's a seventh grader and she's going to talk about the Wisconsin Math Council state math test. The Wisconsin Math Council state math test is a test taken by a group of eight students that can be mix be a mix of sixth through 8th graders. We have placed first in in first in two out of the three last years. Um this is divided amongst um by enrollment and so um we have a certain enrollment.
041So, we I think ours is like considered a class B um enrollment. And anyway, um Ally, can you tell us a little bit about your experience with that? Like when did you take the test and do we know results yet or how did you prepare or anything like that? So, we took the test last week and um we don't know our like our results yet, but we're like excited to like know that. Should be coming up soon. Uh math 24, we have our youngest of our members here. Chase, how about if you come and help us out here, Chase? Chase, you can maybe tell us what grade you're in and and maybe you can tell us about math 24. Matt, I'm in the fourth grade. Math 24. Math 24 is an educational card game that
042uses math skills to promote critical thinking. It's played with a set of cards, each displaying four numbers with a target number of 24. Students in fourth grade compete in single digits. Fifth grade compete in double digits. Sixth grade compete in exponents and integers. And seventh grade compete in fractions and decimals. And if you've ever seen this played, it's pretty amazing because I walk around the room because I go to all these competitions and I am in awe of these students and how fast they can do this and how their mental math skills are. And um anyway, Chase, can you tell us a little bit about your experience with this? Uh, I never knew what math 24 was until my brother played it and he's like two years older than me. So, he played it like
043in fourth grade when I was in second grade and I learned it and I tried to play it but I thought it was way too hard. But then when I got to fourth grade, it was pretty easy actually and I learned it quickly and I caught up and uh first place award. Yep. his first place award then that he got he was very fast at it let me tell you I there's no way I would want to compete with him in even single sing single digits um so he did amazing and we actually in fourth grade got first second and fourth place out of six places and in fifth grade we got first second fifth and sixth I believe oh no see he would know I wouldn't know this first yeah say it what do
044we get first second and sixth yes okay and then in um fifth and sixth. I think we got uh second and um second and fifth I believe. So anyway, and his older brother is up here. He's going to speak also soon. So anyway, yes. And go ahead, show your award because that is very something we're going to be proud of. So very much so. And they also told me that there was it was the best score they've ever seen. Say that once again. Never seen a score bigger than me. Yeah, he got a very high score. It was very very impressive score. Thank you very much, Chase. All right. Complimented math. We have that right now at the middle school. That has been something that was um started a couple years back. Uh we noticed
045that some of the um the gaps for eighth grade when we were seeing some of the scores come out. Uh we were missing some things because we jumped some of the kids would jump right to algebra and they would skip some of the eighth grade math. So we decided to do some compacted math. So we started a math a compacted math program. Um I I think this is maybe the first year we might see the scores for that impact or have we seen for ninth graders from the we started like right you know what I mean? So I I don't know if we've really seen that yet. So I'd like to I'm anxious to see those scores because it'll be the first time where we've seen it from sixth seventh and now we move to
046their freshman year. So I'm anxious to see that. Um and then um advanced ELA. I would love for Ava to come and talk about that. Ava is a seventh grader with us. Um, advanced CLA is a class for sixth to eighth grade students that is run through the center for advanced academics. This is an enrichment class offered to students in classes with top percentages of reading reading and writing skills. Okay. Okay. And so this is offered to middle schoolers and this is something that as an advanced um learning coordinator I have the opportunity to go and network with a lot of other advanced learning coordinators through either um our southern uh lakes advanced learning network or um at the um conference every year or or different opportunities. And the nice thing is is that through
047the networking you find these opportunities for students. And this was one where I thought we might not have enough enrichment that we were maybe offering. So it was something that I could bring back. And it was also through a grant program. So every year we got got or received a grant um for this program all but one. So when students join this program, we have I think only had to maybe pay for it one year and all the other times we've received the three of the four times we've received um money for the program. So we have not had to pay for this. So, um, the networking is huge in this in this role, um, because we do receive the monies for a lot of these programs and you wouldn't really know about that if
048you aren't out there networking about these things. So, Ava, could you tell us how you benefit from this program? Um, I think I benefited because I like have to study and research and write about things that like usually a seventh grader wouldn't really like talk about or learn about. And for example, like our course right now is world economics. And to be honest, like all of these world economics I probably wouldn't have like thought about or like even researched about if I wasn't in this class. Yeah. We had a conversation on the way home from Madison that I never would have thought I would have had with seventh graders. We were talking about tariffs and how they affect the economy of the United States and the economy of all these other countries that they were
049studying. And we had some really deep conversations as we were driving to get some ice cream because I was just couldn't believe that these seventh graders were having these deep tariff conversations with me and economics conversations and all of them um said I would have never thought about talking about economics at this age ever if I wasn't taking this course. So that was kind of interesting. And how many of you have been involved in the advanced ELA? uh all four of the five that are up here, Chase uh has not had the opportunity because he's too young right now. So, um and a lot of different courses they've been in. Um okay. Anything you guys want to add about advanced LA at all or Yeah. Okay. All right. I think it was a great opportunity
050um to like talk to other students because one of ours was like well one of the things we did was we would research about a certain topic about how geography affects like multiple things and uh including the economy and politics and even um like everyday life and it was really good learning to share those discuss. Yeah, I think I didn't even mention that. It's socially it was a an amazing opportunity to because they connect with students from all sorts of different um schools in um southern Wisconsin. So, that's also was a very big bonus for this class. Um academic poll, Oliver, would you like to help us with academic goal? ED academic bowl is an event where students in grades six through eight participate in a competition between schools. There is an extremely difficult individual
051academic test based on four subject areas: math, ELA, science, and social studies and then a team test with questions about current events. All of the points are calculated and then we get our total team scores. Okay. And this is always an event that I come and I think I'm always very proud of because students always do very well at this. And Oliver, can you talk about this because I think you've been involved in this two years and this will be your third year that you get to go. And normally with the advanced learning other than if it's an academic class, we usually try to um have a lot of different students that get to um attend a lot of the different events. Academic bowl is one that um they can go to numerous times. Yeah,
052I've gone the last two years for science and science again this year. And it really challenges me to study on all like my science notes notes previous years and make sure I keep keep up on the the news every day. And for the last two for the last three years in a row, uh Jefferson has taken first place. Yes. And we're hoping to have another VP of that. So current events is a big part of this also and then that's done as a team event. So um Sunny can you come up and share the next thing which is Southern Lakes Anthology. The purpose of Southern Lakes Anthology is to provide talented writers, poets, artists, and cartoonists in grades three to eight an opportunity to publish their original work. Okay. We've had a lot of great
053um anthology participants in years past and um every year I feel like this event kind of grows too and we've had um I think we have 13 that are published this year 13 works that are published um sometimes the works can be um an illustrated writing which is published by um multiple two people um in that. So do you want to talk about your um you've had work published before. You want to talk about that? Um, I got my work published when I was in fourth grade and uh the theme that year was what if and there wasn't really anything you would have put that didn't fit the theme of the SLA. And uh I think it really resonated with me because uh I love to like imagine things and uh like when I was
054in kindergarten uh what I wanted to be when I grew up was a cryptozoolologist. And if you don't know what that is, I basically wanted to be a monster hunter when I grew up. So uh I have I think I have a really crazy imagination. And Southern Lights Anthology is a really good way for people to like express themselves and to like try to like get themselves out and take a leap and see if they can get published in this book. And it's a great boost for your self-esteem uh if you go because there's a huge stage and uh there's a projector and you get to see your work up there on the projector. And sometimes uh only a couple students did this but one student will be picked and you would go up and
055you would actually read your piece in front of everybody. So it was really good opportunity. Really fun. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And anybody else who I know a lot of you were anybody published or Yeah. Oh yeah. Well look at that. Very good. All right. Anybody want to talk about your subs anthology otherwise? Okay. And I think Jace, you're going this year, aren't you? Yeah, you you have it this year and you you're published this year. So, that's awesome. He will be attending this year. Um, and then the last thing is that we have just a few events that we have that aren't covered yet. They're just going to read about those events um and just let you know that there's some other events that are out there. There's one called the Young Artist Exposition. Um,
056I'm in charge of that with somebody else. We kind of run that in conjunction with the Southern Lakes Anthology. Um, it's a kind of a high school event. Ava, can you read about that quickly and then we have a couple more to read about, let you know what they are? Um, the Young Artist Exposition provides an opportunity to celebrate high school artists who demonstrate a high degree of artistic talent and skill. This exposition allows viewers to meet artists, view their work, and begin to understand what motivates these great artists to create their art. This showcase is run at the same time as the SLA reception. Okay. And then um Ava, actually while you're here, I'm gonna have you read about the art immersion right away. She's kind of interested in art, so I thought I
057would pick her for the art things because I know that in our talks on the way to Madison, she talks about liking um design. So why don't you read about art immersion right away? Art immersions or art immersion day is an event for select seventh through eighth grade students who excel in the arts to visit a college campus to gain more understanding of the opportunities that the field provides. Students participate in a hands-on experience in various areas of the art arts along with a tour of the W Whitewater Center of the Arts building. Perfect. And then um Sunny Sunny I think you have science immersion day. This is for sixth and eighth graders. It's two different events, one in the fall, one in the spring. The purpose of science immersion day is to allow strong
058science students to attend an enriched hands-on STEM experience on a college campus. This event is co-op with Southern Lakes Advanced Learners Network Districts to reduce cost. And actually, a lot of these events are there's usually four to eight students that we um are able to select. And um to reduce the cost significantly um we get to select and usually it's selected through um I go to middle school or to elementary to meetings and then they kind of um we do like a kind of kind of a process of um student selection and um then those students get to attend these events and it's based on a lot of different criteria and then um there's usually about 70 to 100 students that go there and then it reduced those costs that way and And then the
059last one is theater immersion alley. Theater immersion is when four students, four middle school theater students are able to attend a day packed with hands-on theater activities and demonstrations at the econom art center. Students have a chance to rotate through sessions of cool arrays, improv, and theater tours while being immersed in a theater setting. In addition, students are able to perform or attend skits with Okconor High School actors and actresses. Students bring meaningful theater ideas back. Okay. And then the only last thing that I want to ask um the students is if any of you have anything to say because I know a lot of them have been in the um small group setting in the elementary school. um if you have anything you want to say about small group settings because I know um
060that's another thing that's kind of a a love of mine too is that when I get to see all those students throughout the week um I usually have about 40 students that I see throughout the week but probably 80 to 100 throughout the year because we mix them up between ELA and math. Um, and if you have something you want to say about small groups, you can certainly say that. Kind of a lot, but um, you can come. So, um, the small groups was really fun to do in fourth and fifth grade. Yeah, I was third two. Um, and basically we just did projects and had a lot of fun. Uh, one I remember was sticker stories and uh that was where Miss Leer would get like stickers and then she would and we would
061pick out stickers and then we have to use those stickers in our stories and I remember creating a lot of really creative ideas and working with my friends and having a really fun time just creating and working on math and writing. ing and all that fun stuff. Got some of my ideas from uh cooking shows where they would give you a an ingredient in the middle, but I would throw a sticker in the middle and I'd say here's a new sticker that you have to use now and now try to incorporate that into your revenue. So, u go ahead Chase real quickly and then we'll move on. Um uh I was talking about the math challenge group. So, uh, every Monday I would go in Miss Linder's room and I in like our guidance room
062and we would just learn about math and reading and everything that we need to learn about it goes, aren't they? Math, reading, and then what else in terms of writing. Yeah. And and we also have my mom. This is Bomb Huffer as a math challenge group in her world and we basically just do like a bunch of things in there. We learn about fifth grade and sixth grade things that we normally don't about it. So that was pretty fun. Awesome. So thank you. This is also takes a lot of brain for you to come up and talk in front of a bunch of um adults and um they don't even know how many numbers of people might be watching also, but I like that. But I did tell them that a lot of the room
063would clear out before they get up here. So, I did promise them that. So, but thank you very much for you guys to come up here. I do have a couple more things to talk about, but you can have a seat and um and then you can leave very shortly. But thank you very much, students. um pretty much the accolades that's in your report we talked about before and um they kind of went through that. So that's really about it. The thank you is the numbers. You should have an AL number sheet um that is attached that you can click on um and that just kind of shows uh the numbers that are in the program in a sense. And then goals and vision. Um obviously um I'm retiring so I don't have a lot
064of goals left for next year but I do have some visions. So um I guess mainly is the kids. I am I guess in part three of my uh statement is that I am still an advocate for the students. So, in advocating, I guess I still have to say that these students deserve equitable access to their instruction and um uh one that fosters measurable growth and as you you know heard them say um they do learn a lot about um goals that are above and beyond their years when they are in uh small groups and when they are going to um uh events that are beyond their years. And um also in networking you do learn a lot um with other uh likeminded um coordinators and event people that are helping you um find grants
065and find different programming for these students. So I guess um bless anybody's soul that is going to take on the role that is in an already full-time position. But I also don't know that that does the physician justice. So I think there can be also be other creative ways that you can look at that and I know that um I just I just hope that um that that is looked at because I think that the students deserve um they also deserve something more than than that because they have to be you have to look at the necessary scaffolding for the students also in these positions because they also have their needs. So, um I just hope that you, you know, look at those visions also because they need to have some more goals. Um and
066so I think goals need to be written for this this uh population of students also. So, um with that being said, I think we were probably long-winded enough, but um with at the Wayne Tank convention, there was Dr. Matt Saksky. He's actually um a very good person to listen to, too. But it's kind of funny who's just with a I can't hear you. My t-shirt is too itchy. talked about a lot of neurode divergent students and um talking about perfectionism and overcoming that. So just about you know it's okay to not be okay but there's a lot to um gifted and talented and it's um goes beyond just the um academics. There's a lot with the mental health and everything too. So um a lot to take into consideration but thank you very much. So
067I've got two things. One is on the board we often hear about the struggles and troubles in the district and it is great to hear how well these students are doing. Um this is really good news. I really appreciate all the work that put into this and for all the students that came out this evening. Excellent job out there. Very good. And then as mentioned you're retired. So, as a board, we want to thank you for your 25 years here in district. You've done great things and we really appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah, I'd love it. So, with that, any questions from the board? I just have a comment. Um, yeah, thank you and thank you to the students for presenting. I do um have to say that over time my opinions have waxed
068and waned about um advanced learning and who needs more advocacy and I I think it can be and in both. Um so I think that's something for us to keep in mind as a board and as a district that uh as we're moving into a direction of declining enrollment that we think about the needs of students on both ends of the spectrum. Um, and so I think as a board we should definitely be discussing the fact that we're taking a full-time position and moving a state mandated coordinator minister to an already full-time person if that's what we're planning to do. So we may want to think about the impact that that might have on the program and the structure of it and the, you know, implications of moving that to somebody who already has full-time
069um, tasks to do. So, I appreciate you and I appreciate the students sharing, you know, what they've learned and I certainly agree with you about the goals and the vision. It is it is a a balancing act trying to make sure we're advocating for students, every student, and and that they're all getting the chance to grow and and anything else. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next report is going to be the school law conference. Uh quickly I bet many of you can't figure out which traffic I decided to pull when I went to the law conference last month. And of course, it was the latest advances in technology uh from the standpoint of legal and uh law. So, I want to give credit to the two attorneys that actually did the presentation. You'll see
070that in the slides. I basically have incorporated their entire uh slide presentation. I'm not going to go through the whole thing. uh you can certainly look at that but they were two attorneys from I think it's called a police law uh a division and they have been doing they do a lot of consulting with school districts on the legal and education topics. So the four three main areas they've really talked about were the impacts that technology may be having in the upcoming you know years to come. um three main areas. Fourth amendment guidelines, FURPA, uh and again because I sometimes screw up on the acronyms, Family Education Rights and Privacy Act is what FERPA um talks about. And then title six and title seven when it comes to uh students and employment under discrimination and
071a whole bunch of other legal ramifications of that. So, a big portion of the the presentation was about some of the upandcoming technologies that schools have probably already implemented and maybe looking at enhancements that will come um that can be offered the schools can purchase and or have available for their staff, students and their buildings, so to speak. Uh and the biggest uh the first one they talked about was fourth amendment realizing that everybody has the right to be secure in their person house papers and effects against unreasonable searches. And so by definition what exactly is a search? Um they went through ways that us as a government entity are technically performing searches. Um and that we realize that you know for someone to should have reasonable expectation of privacy two factors should be met
072that the individual must have an actual subjective expectation of it. Imagine the bathroom for instance. Um but also the subjective expectation must be one that society is willing to also recognize as reasonable that they should get privacy when they're in those particular areas. And one of the things they talked about is the idea that schools are using surveillance options for the safety of students. But to be thinking about the fact that a lot of the enhancements with our cameras and our Halo devices and video surveillance is that now a lot of them are also adding in sound surveillance. um and realizing that that may mean that you are getting into into the the legal ramifications and liability issues when you are actually recording people's conversations in private areas like a bathroom or something like that.
073You're picking up on things that might be happening. So, it's something for the school districts to really think about as to whether you want that, you know, liability, that legal liability. You will notice that my questions andor notes during this presentation was really just me thinking about, hey, I should ask that. Does Jefferson do this or does Jefferson have this? So, um, it's not that I had the answers to this. It was just something that would spark my mind and I wrote it down. So, they did talk about making sure that the public, especially if you hold public events in your buildings, that you do have good signage that does tell the public, you are in a space that is being surveyed with cameras and what exactly those are and the locations of those so
074that people can make the decision as to what they're doing in those um places. that that's something that can definitely let up a little bit on liability if something were to come down the, you know, the pipeline. Um, with regard to somebody feeling like they were surveyed or searched unreasonably. Uh, and then thinking about what your handbook stage as far as how you use and what you use for surveillance. Um, and that the signs should definitely be in your school in the areas that the cameras are. So, not just putting it on the front door of your school to say, "Hey, just so you know, they're in here somewhere." Um, the antenna talks a lot about going to sporting events and, you know, really how important it is to say, "You are in an area
075that's being surveyed. This is an area that is under camera survey. It's for the safety of your students, but we want to make sure that you're aware of it." Um and then the other area that they talked about was uh the use of the halo um which I know we've discussed that there are new enhancements and um that they again the the uh detection of THC all those things that you're doing um but now again they're they're they're selling that they can also include gunshot not crying again surveying all the conversation. So being thoughtful and mindful about whether you want to implement that piece to those halo detection devices. Um they did talk a lot about um a flock safety cameras. I'm not sure if that's the one the type that we use with the
076Raptor technology, but they do say that they are now integrating swap cameras into a product that's designed to enhance. It's being sold to enhance dismissal procedures. Could see that being, you know, something that schools might think, oh, this is really helpful. But they even said it goes so far as to be able to detect an actual license plate on a car and be able to set up that it can text a student to say, "Hey, we noticed your mom um car is pulled up in front of the school and is here to pick you up and to think about the fact that is that how much surveillance you want to be having um in your school setting that it's really capable of a lot of of surveillance. So again, always trying to think of both
077sides of these things. Um, furpa then was the other main area they talked about which was how do pupil records that are being discovered and being inputed using some of these devices? Who owns all those records? Um, making sure that you have it somewhere in your legal guidelines with contracts as to who owns all that information. um and who it can be disclosed to or that it can't be disclosed. Um so some of the basics around that they emphasize districts should really be consulting legal counsel if and when they are purchasing AI products for various student programs and um making sure that they are looking over those contracts with the fine tooth from a legal standpoint. Um, another interesting thing I thought about, I know we've talked a lot about how to update our policies.
078They talked about Furpa with AI implications on things like Google and a lot of your software that now it is all optin and you actually have to physically opt out of them not using the the AI capabilities of training and using those models. And so as a district, do you really want to think about the fact that all the different software programs now you actually have to go through the extra steps to not have it? It is automatically built in that it will um do the surveying and and using the AI capabilities for them. Uh the next one was just talking about title five and title seven and with regard to discrimination um and title I'm sorry title six being students title seven being employees and again um went into that we remember as these
079companies like um they gave some examples but Volt zero eyes on alert uh claim that their technology can detect safety risks like guns, fights, bullying and medical emergencies. But criticism has been lodged that the AI as at the AI companies as some algorithms can actually reflect bias and may be monitoring things that u may not equal for our students. Um, so thinking about how those programs are being implemented and if a lawsuit were to take place, in most cases, the liability of the AI purchases and implementation falls on the district, not on the company. They often have that all buried into the contract when we sign and take on those those various AI type technologies. Um that thing lastly I think just other considerations they um talked about making sure that you are that your
080district policies fall into and take into account um who I said that who owns the data and the programs that the district uses. The AI tools can be very beneficial. However, they are not necessarily a substitute for trained personnel who know how to use them appropriately. Uh, and the biggest one I thought about probably because I purchased some over Christmas for my own kids was looking at our policies to make sure that actual AI tools that parents and students may be purchasing. So things like uh meta display glasses, uh some of the flawed note pins, angel sense, so different AI technologies that kids might be bringing into school um is something that we should probably have in our policies and make sure that we're monitoring that and knowing about what you know what's taking place
081and what's allowed and what's not allowed. um they did give examples of a lot of listing devices have have now cracked up um that a lot of students are are using and having and is bringing up a lot of like legal liability issues. Um and then I think the last part was going doing a small discussion uh about different districts and what they're doing in regards to AI and a man from Greenfield I think he's the president of their board discussed that their whole district decided to take AI add- on as a whole framework with lots of layers um built in. So creating a process on how they invent the AI that teachers and students are requesting to use along with having guiding principles for artificial intelligence beliefs and value statements around it and kind
082of the whole gamut. Um they decided that it's a big enough concern that they were going to take it, you know, I I think of it as a tree. They were going to branch it out and and um work through it that way as a district. And then the last one they just highlighted which we've already talked about in our board meeting which was the new cell phone ban um in different areas reminding us of the new legislation as well as um the making sure your district might include in your policy tablets, laptops, gaming devices, watches, other ways that again are taking away from the learning environment that are considered still uh communication devices and making sure they do that. And mentioned that there are many districts right now contemplating bell to bell policies with
083regard to this instead of laying out certain periods of time that it's a bell and you get it at the end of the day. Um if that's something that you know districts are wanting to do and they just wanted to make sure people knew we're not alone. everybody, all these different districts, you know, everybody's hesitant uh with change and knowing it. And then you've got a lot of proponents and opponents to all of the cell phone legislation because everybody comes up with a lot of different reasons why they are for it or against it. Um, but it is a national trend as you'll see in that slide 22. 36 states have enacted the restrictions and 17 states have done it within the past year. So a lot of this is somewhat new and a lot
084of states are tackling this. 90% of the Wisconsin districts responding to a survey by the policy form indicated having some form of device policy restriction. So that's a pretty large portion of the state that is implementing. I think that might be the last of my notes. Um I always love the legal conference. I I guess I wanted to highlight to the other ones I went to. If anyone is interested, we certainly have access to the actual PowerPoint from the legal conference, but I did go to another session on teacher contract non-renewal. Secondly, I went to interactions with school resource officers and other law enforcement personnel and outside agencies. And third, I went to a howto when dealing with records requesters who want everything and the kitchen sink. And I went to a fourth one, freedom
085of speech, understanding the first amendment's application to student and employee speech. So very interesting topics. um they always kind of update it with lots of different legal cases that are going through the the state and the nation when you're on it. So I always and of course I had to put in there that I did use AI cla AI to put my little PowerPoint together with my notes. So I really appreciate the district allowing me to go and my phone was on the Oops. Sorry. Any questions from the board? All right, sounds like a fun time. Um, jump into the superintendent report. There it is. Uh, sorry. If you have an answer to the open record request from your law office, please let us love to know that because that's sort of um and so
086welcome to my role with all the things that you shared. So, thank you for that. Uh you do have information in front of you, a memo from me for the superintendent report. Uh first thing is the school district and nursing contract. So, I have attached a proposal agreement with healthcare. We've used them for for a number of years. This will be for 2026 2027. You can review the percentage increase overall cost for 600 hours unless there board. We have not used this as a tax sheet item. Um since I can find any records up it's simply something that I do but I want to make sure that you are comfortable with that. The annual board walk through uh unless there are any objections. April 25th is the date. We'll start at the west 7:30 a.m.
087and then head to the middle school, then high school, then East Sullivan. And we'll stick to a tight time table allow board members to visit qualified buildings or just pick the ones that they choose. So we'll get bands and we'll do what we usually done with that one. And then elementary school the well testing results. uh we feel it's important to post these results. I put them on the board packet for public uh display and then we also put this on our our Sullivan website. So what's interesting or unique about Sullivan is they have a well that's actually enclosed in the building which is not the norm. Um but the good news is the most recent test show zero efficiencies and zero recommendations. Of course, drinking water as far as the safety we expect for
088our students and our staff. That being as well. And then uh last but not least, a fun one, 4K enrollment videos. I want to say kudos to our 4K professional learning community. Two promotional enrollment videos. You can see those on our website. short and sweet, but it's just a book to um to to tell people about, you know, we want people to uh register for day for next year as soon as possible. We'll take the enrollment right up to the start of the school year, but we want our numbers as soon as possible. So, thank you to our board game professionals questions. Mine is just about Sullivan in the sense that something about the 8 inch versus 12 inch um casing thing. Do we have to do something with it since there is no recommendation
089now to have to do it? No, because it's grandfathered in that statement is if they would build a new well they would go with the more strict requirements. It would also be outside. It's really not like safety wise. Yeah, it's nothing. All right. Um, next up, uh, come to the topic of the review process for the completion of the 2025 26 board of education self assessments. If you recall last year we had the option two different options there was the Google doc used and then there was also the review we're not requiring we are free to take either one or both last time both I would rather do this one I don't have to reference so we have to learn history with the Google but also offers that children E or stick with the group.
090Uh they like to see it valued in one versus the other. I ask the administration kind of question also certainly no offense to our homeown but school perceptions is known for their surveys and making sure they have some longitudinal database. We have not done this in the past. We could look at ourselves compared to other schools if you don't necessarily recommend that we get a price at least my mild recommendation would be the WS price the survey itself survey is free if we wanted to go to the next step once we get the results say how do we compare to the school boards that have taken that survey. There's a small cost. We've never done that. Uh my I don't see a need to do it either at this point, but there may be a
091reason to in future is we can compare ourselves year to our scores and then just have a conversation about what we put in scores. Everybody with the WS? Yes. Yeah. Then we have the considerations the fall 2026 early college credit applications that still there we go. Uh so as far as the different requests that we have we have 18 different students requesting 30 different courses. Uh again, students may request more than one course. It might not fit within their schedule. I think student F might have uh five different courses, something like that where they've requested. They're not going to have all five, but they've requested that just to see what the options would be for them. Uh with each of the different recommendations or requested actions for these, all of them were approved for high
092school credit paid for by the school district as we don't offer those courses for those students. question from the board. Is there any buffer built in? So like if students see success in some of those courses if they wanted to add additional courses like coming from that world we have students that do well in the program and sometimes the only you think the back is the school preapprove x amount of credits but like they could add more credits throughout the semester to absolute discretion if but because they were only approved before it's a missed opportunity for them to take like three more. Is that there something in place for that? So like could they approve throughout the semester if they wanted additional credits? Yes. Yes and no. We try to get a plan in front
093that's going to take care of most of those situations at least for the semester. Right. So you do this by semester. So you do it again for next year through that fall. Uh so looking at just both of those time slots, we get 95% of the students. Every once in a while we've had it where it hasn't worked with a student and we can have that I guess proved by myself and Dr. of yep, it didn't fit within what we have here, but we know that that would be supported based on all the other accounts and yeah, we don't end up with in that situation much, but if we do, we try to promise oursel from the student spend. Any other questions from the board? Is an action item. Is there a motion to approve
094the fall 2026 early college credit application as presented? Second motion and second. Any further discussion? All in favor of the motion say I. I. Any oppose? Say n. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Finance operations topics. First one to come up is going to be our press box session stand donation presentation. All right. So, Mr. Put up on the screen that same website I showed you guys. I think last year this kind of came up. We've been working on this for quite a while actually. I think it started back in 2014. Um, we got some life of the booster club to start this website. We looked for some community foundation donations and we had a community member that came to me came to us and wants to build this. I think you've been uh kind
095of alerted on this a little bit. Um but you'll see an accident from an agreement we have signed from Mr. Jim Keen and Keen Enterprises. He is proposing to construct a concession stand just like this along with some seating and stadium seating in here. the concrete. The pavilion on the right side is going to be uh a later project that's be set off to the side. It's probably moved over to the left side for future which might include moving some of the buildings that are there, some of the older buildings of the current bathrooms and the current concession stand. That's a second part of the project. Um but we do have a sign agreement from him. Just kind of wanted to refresh what it's going to kind of look like. Uh we've had great cooperation
096with the city. So he actually has connections to the city himself. So they work together on getting some engineered plans drawn up for this um because the city's going to include some sidewalks. Right now, the plan is to have a sidewalk down Wilson, but then the sidewalk on Dodge will go just down past where you can't see there till there's a little driveway there at the end of the um fence on there. We're going to have a crosswalk go across because we're having issues with the sidewalk going all the way down because of the trees right on the road and then the baseball fence. Um so, the city has that kind of planned to go along with this and coordination. So, Mr. Ke is already working on getting this done. I believe he's going to
097take out a loan and he's going to be paying this off and running the construction, donating it back to the school. So, it won't be any cost us. Obviously, when the building's done, it'll be our building. Um, but if you call it Keen Family Complex, you have that also listed in your uh description there. Fisherfield naming won't change. You'll still be Fiser Field and it'll be Kee Family Complex. behind them with the seating and the new ADA compended bathroom concession and um pros nest up on top there. Um I guess I'll take any questions from you. I just want to thank Mr. Ernest and Tim Graphin and Miss Schmidt um for helping out with all this and Mr. Bant. We've been through a lot of meetings. I've been through a lot of phone calls um
098working with the city, worked with our lawyers last week to get an agreement and then Mr. Keane took it to his people and made a couple of adjustments and he signed left for Arizona last Thursday. So, um you may have noticed that the city did state some things out down there already. Didn't want to make sure we didn't know what he was uh freaking out about that was just for them to kind of get an idea of where things are for the city engineers. Um but nothing would start until you would either, you know, you approve this. Nothing would start with that. Um, we'd have to move the flag pole, replace the flag ball to go out probably out next to the scoreboard out in the outfield where most flag poles are at baseball fields.
099Then there's a big rock area in honor of PB Walther who's a blue double um, legend. Basically, we work that into the landscaping back there. So, I guess I would take any questions you guys have for me on the whole project or any timelines or things like that. No questions from the board. Awesome. I appreciate you guys' time with this and it's going to be a great thing for the community and I'll work with Dr. Ernest and Mr. Vance and Miss Schmidt to get like a social media campaign so people know this is going to be a donation and not the school building something. So probably involve some signs down there or something something on our web page or social media. We'll work on that also to make sure that there's no confusion there with
100district dollars going into this. So thank you. I see it is listed as an action item. Um there's a recommend to approve the in donation of press box. Okay. So, do we have a motion to approve the inbound donation of the press box and concession stand as presented in the resolution? So, move. Second. Motion second. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Both say nay. Approved. Thank you, Mr. Keane, for setting that up. Sounds like a vicious project. It's going to be fun to pick that out when it's all done. Thank you to all the staffing board behind the scenes to pull all this together. Next up is going to be our enrollment driven certified staffing plan first. So, you have the entire staffing plan at your spot at your computer. Um I
101also put together a one-page memo which is outlined rights from the plan. I want to start with why why we do this. Um Wisconsin is funded school districts are funded to a complex system. It really comes down to per um so the amount of budget you have every year is based on the amount of students you have. There is a three-year rolling average for declined enrollment which helps out districts like this like uh like Jefferson as you probably know and remember from some of the stats over 70% of districts in Wisconsin are declining right now and as a matter of fact by 2050 the state is supposed to have about the same amount amount of people in it as it does right now and about the only county that brought us anyways that is growing
102is so are we going to get that bump, that day county bump, time will tell on that. So, our projections show that we will most likely be down 71 students for next year and that shows a decrease of 20 students at the elementary level, a decrease of eight students at the middle middle level and decrease of 43 students at the high school level. That's a 71. We use that based on yeartoyear numbers but then also using something called the survival uh cohort rate which is a guesstimate based on dab of uh how the classes will look from. Um, so if you look at the the the chart, it shows our third Friday count from 2025 to 2026. Our second Friday count just in January, excuse me, and then projected for 26 27. We are projected
103to be down six of 14 grades. There are some grades, but we see some increases. Most notably is we have a smaller 4K class right now. I think it's important to note that we have a um fourth grade class that is going to reduce from this year's cohort to next year's cohort. Uh however, we are not making the recommendation to reduce the staff member impact. So when it comes to the staffing plan assumptions, um when it comes down to it, we're looking at a 1.0 reduction at the elementary level. that would be at a kindergarten double because of our proposed lower pay numbers. We're looking at a 1.0 reduction at the mal level. That would be um because of again the rolling up of smaller classes from elementary school and a 1.0 reduction at the
104high school level um based on just course numbers and number of certified staff. Uh when it comes to special areas, um the multilingual uh learners, no reduction uh recommended or staff school is a better way to say it. And special education speech language, we're looking at a 1.0 reduction from the 2024 2025 school year. We had a late resignation in August 2025. We went with a 0.5 this past year. and um we believe you can absorb that based on numbers for 26 27 and then when it does come to reading teachers specialists and math interventionist advanced learning um what the recommendation with the retirement is 1.0 no reduction advanced employition. We still want to make sure that all the services are there. We've used a supplemental compensation um coordinator model also with our advanced learner
105in the past to ensure that those students are certif.0 FP in certified staff for next year. Um thankfully there will be based on that plan and this is a first reading but based on that plan there will be no um preliminary notices and nonrenewal no layoffs due to um due to declining enrollment because of attrition both retirements and a resignation over the last couple years. The staffing plan has a lot of information there with the numbers looking at our teacher to pupil ratio that's what we used to make these recommendations um and you as I mentioned the reductions we have in our class sizes throughout this so to repeat this is a first read we've included the appendix A which has the class size recommendations uh and then also we've included uh appendix B which
106shows up our cohort surviv survival rate. That's the bar head count reductions. And then finally, our appendix C, which shows our comparison class size um in our district compared to a lot of our neighbors, our Pennsylvania neighbors, and then other areas as well. We do fair we're favorable when it comes to teacher pupil ratios compared to the selected groups of persons in um of course staffing is over 75% of our budget every year people business we want to take care of our people and we've got uh students as our our main thing that we're educating and mission every single day So this is an important part of the budget process for 2020 questions. A couple just comments. Um I think I mentioned this when this was being discussed. I I know it's not an agenda
107item. We're not act taking action per se. if you're presenting it with us as kind of what has ruled out for the administration's organizations. I just like to emphasize that it's unfortunate that school finance is complicated and I I get that people aren't having as many children. We have to adjust or rightsize is what I've actually been told by a legislator um over the years. And um but the the thing that's really unfortunate about a small district like this is the fact that we don't get to necessarily look at it from the kids. Who are the kids? We're looking a lot of times these plans come up by just numbers. Um and so I have shared with the board a number of times that I just really struggle with those formidable years um when we
108are cutting kindergarten positions and we have some elementary schools that are having sections of 15 and other elementary schools that are having sections of 20 in those formal years. Um, and again, I I get that we have to cut. Uh, but I I just don't necessarily always agree that it is based, and I know the administration was telling me, Terry, you're being a little bit brash and saying it's just based on numbers. Um, but the problem is we really don't get to compare a lot more than the numbers. And that's just the way this is driven. Um, so I I would really emphasize that I just don't agree with cutting a kindergarten physician. Um, and I think that we um should think about, you know, that that as a as a whole. I just don't
109agree with that part of the plan. Um, with those formula years and I think tonight, I guess I did want to just ask because I didn't get to ask this before we heard about the advanced learning. Um, what exactly are we doing with the coordinator role? We're going to supplement somebody that's getting paid full-time to take on what was a full-time role, but we're going to but they're going to work a full-time role and then the person is going to coordinate and not be able to take the kids to activities or like how how are we going to do that if it's somebody who's already working full time? We've done that in the past or coordinator role at each of the the buildings. Um, so then substitutes are involved when people need to go through
110those types of it is a great thing to have fulltime coordinator. I will never say anything otherwise sometimes. Is it a position that I don't know what the state states? I know we have to have one. Um, is it something that can be uh hired at a lower FTE than full-time where you actually still have a dedicated person or is that not something that can be done? Does not have to be uh fulltime can find people that return contract to do that as well. So we have options that have not been finalized. And how far along has the staffing pattern as far as your planning? Um, and I guess I my question is we're presented it. We've been talking about it. I understand the administration has made these recommendations and so I want to be
111supportive and yet be able to share some advocacy like I have tonight. But um are we is this done? Are we I mean it's a first reading you're saying. So what does that mean? What does that look like for boards as far as our feedback? The feedback is now and questions are now. So then we'll bring that um to the uh the second reading April 13. Um we hold up on posting positions unless there are assembling circumstances. they saw math was an extended range of circumstances because we had we knew that we got two staff members for example handle resignation. Um so we hold off on that until April 13th. Um so we believe that the staffing plan is important for a couple of reasons. Number one just the transparency of it. Then also to
112make sure that the board is aware of the tough decision that we get to make. Right. Um so I don't I want to point out one thing on the numbers too. We started with our numbers and that's simple fractions. That's just simple division. Uh but there are the human decisions that are made on that as well. Uh we are really blessed in this district to have three great neighborhood schools. Having three schools with less than 1500 students comes with challenges. Uh so as a result if you look straight at the numbers we should be recommending reducing a a class size certified staff member for play. The administrator team had a conversation about that. Um and you have to pick which school in the city that would happen to that would be substantial disruption of the
113families and students who have spent the last three four years at one uh at one building. So even though if we were just looking for money to cut, that's the cut that we recommend we would make. We're not looking at that recommendation because of the destruction. But that does impact our deficit for next year. And if you remember back to the operational referendum, we had a a surplus the first year, a balanced budget the second year, which is this year, and we're looking at a deficit next year and a deficit in the fourth year even with an operational ending. Now we're lucky we had that surplus in the first year because we're able to use some of that surplus for next year as well. So we're trying to strike that balance between um being fiscally
114responsible recognizing enrollment and then also making sure that we're providing services. That's why you're not seeing any of the uh any recommended reductions to the interventions as well. My question is on the like harmony of this decision making. So like we still have some unknowns kind of like food service is one that's literally just came up tonight but like so we make this decision goes to second reading the decisions made is that a permanent thing for the year is that something we can revisit during the summer as the school year approaches where we have other ways to do this um where we can bring more rubber back to the road. Yeah. So there's a couple things there to answer that question. Um so nine on there says if a certified staff member resigns after this
115staffing plan is approved, we will assess the attrition risk and inform the board of that possibilities where we say there's another attrition. Conversely, if we had a bunch of students moved in and we see that our numbers are going up, we can come back and say we have an adjustment we think we need to make based on enrollment where we have to add a teacher. Now, when it comes to hiring each uh season, it's never great to hire a teacher in August or September, but it can be done can be done if we have especially when it gets to that third Friday September. That would be a rarity. There's always possibility that we can revisit this. But the reason this is so important as we mentioned is it does lay the groundwork for that budget,
116you know, which has to be developed. Uh and staffing is a a big piece. Uh now I want to point this out also. It's a certified staffing plan. Well, why just certified? Well, certified uh teachers have uh and landed to 118.21 and 118.22 as far as the teaching contracts are concerned. If we would have had a layout previously enrollment, we would have had to issue the preliminary notice of non-renewal before April 30th and a final notice of non-renewal. The board would have went that direct direction at home. So that's why we question. Yeah. both K5K students as a pair professional um in each grade. Is that in addition to any reading or math um intervention that they would be? Um so but the parent functional is um for 4K and 5K that is to keep
117those as you can imagine 18 4Kers to make sure that that proper supervision proper support and then the kindergarten number this has been a thing for a long time that CPR is 22 but then also that professional. Now when it comes to pair of professionals because this is the certified staffing plan, pair of professionals receive a letter of assurance uh by the end of May for their position for next year. So once the certified staffing plan is developed, then we'll make sure that we look at all the professional positions, but there is one in all three elementary schools at those levels that George is talking about. So all three sports have the same professional support for those classes. Anything else? This is just a first reading, so I have plenty of time to review it
118since our next meeting isn't until April. Next up will be our future agenda topics. really just thank you. I I know I complain a lot and try to advocate a lot. Um but I realize this is way too difficult and and I wish money didn't have to make a little bit of them, but it does. Um so I appreciate the team. I know this is not easy. I know it's these are hard discussions, but um I just think it's important that the board also deliberates on more than just numbers. So thank you for that. They did. I do believe it was transparent. Some districts don't do a staffing plan. They say, "Hey, here's this one and here's that one." I think that it's better to have a plan that we can say we love, disagree
119with, talk about everything else that is that transf. So, uh sometimes not fun to do, but uh I think it's an important step that we take. Do you do your administrators because I just don't always know how this works. Do they meet and get ideas from their staff about this? I mean, are you getting input or is it mostly just administrators, principles sitting in their own trying to figure this out or do you get feedback? It's both, but I'll say most of the feedback is on the back end as far as how you would build a position that's open. We're having discussions right now because uh if this were to ask as presented on April 20, April 13th, we have one less kindergarten position with no one being laid off, there will be shifts of
120who is teaching. back to the future get the topics. We have a regular uh schedule list there. Any other additions people like to see? We'll drop into announcements. Uh only thing I have is there is a candidate forum. So both school board and city officials will be there at um chamber of commerce on this Wednesday on the 11th. And then the election is on the 7th. and we're not having any other meetings before that. So, please get out and vote on the 7th and next board meeting is on the 13th. Second time that case, is there a motion to convene into close session pursuant to Wisconsin statutes 1985 C to discuss the evaluation district? looking for is