001We'll pass it along if we need to. Can't have everything. Yes, I'll trade with you if you cuz we had to turn that off. Turn it off because of the noise. So, you either get the fiddle playing or you get a microphone. You pick. Okay. I will call this meeting to order. Heather, will you take uh the role? I'm here. Paul here. Kelly, here. Excellent. Adrian, was the statement of public notice posted? July 4th. Excellent. Move on to item 1 C, approval of the agenda. Uh, do we have a motion and a second to approve the agenda? Second. Okay. Any discussion on the agenda? No. Hearing none. All those in favor say I. Chair votes I. Approval carries. I I am my I apologize. Yes. Uh we have the pledge and uh uh let's uh
002go to item three. Do the pledge of allegiance. Sorry about that. Mike, lead us in the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nationy for all. All right. Now, we'll move on to persons requesting uh to address members of the board of education. Come on up. We'll ask that you again introduce yourself uh and try to keep your comments to uh three minutes. And if you go over three, I I'll let you know um and ask you to wrap up your thought. So, I'm actually going to come because this mic works and that one doesn't. So, I'm gonna ask you to use this mic. Sorry about this. Sorry. Give it a shot. Can you hear me? All right. My name is Lisa Willis. I'm a
003resident of Coler, 1124 Willen Road. Uh, from a young age, students grew up seeing alcohol woven into the fabric of community traditions and school related events. Youth sports busup parties are often held at sports bars and school banquetss include cash bar options for parents. Our high school athletes are often encouraged to volunteer at alcohol centered fundraisers such as fall's Oktoberfest and KELL brought fries. The message, though likely unintentional, is unmistakable. Alcohol is not only present, it's normalized and central. So why am I bringing this up to the school board? Because I believe it's time to reconsider how we respond to student alcoholrelated violations. My personal connection to this issue deepened after my son was cited for an athletic code violation this past year. He understood there would be consequences, but he and we had no
004idea how long lasting and farreaching those consequences would be. My husband jokes that it's a gift that just keeps on giving. But behind the humor is a lot of disappointment by a poor decision made one evening. Through this experience, we had many eye-opening conversations and came across troubling content photos and videos of Colar students engaging in dangerous levels of drinking, losing consciousness, car surfing, and even climbing buildings. The volume of intensity of what we saw was shocking. These images were made public. They would have severely impacted varsity team rosters, NHS, and other extracurricular eligibility last year and into this fall. What's even more concerning is the way students document one another's behavior to gain social leverage or to ensure mutual silence. This secrecy driven by fear of punishment is not only counterproductive, it's also dangerous.
005It has given me greater insight into why some parents feel the need to host partieselves, not to condone drinking, but to try to keep their children safe in an environment they can control. With all of this in mind, I'm asking the board to consider a new approach. One that acknowledges that teenagers do make mistakes and can learn from them. Rather than punishing in ways that can define their high school experience, I'm looking for collar schools to adopt a restorative approach to code violations. Rather than focusing solely on punitive measures, students should be given meaningful opportunities to rebuild trust and demonstrate growth through volunteering, counseling, peer education, or mentoring younger students. This is not about excusing poor choices. It's about recognizing the developmental stage of our students and creating a system that encourages honesty, accountability, and
006long-term change. The current approach discourages openness and often breeds fear and shame. A restorative model promotes responsibility while also supporting growth and healing. Alcohol isn't disappearing from our community communities, but with the right mindset and strategies, we can equip our young people to make safer, wiser choices. So, let's work together. to try to create that culture. Thank you for your consideration. Okay, thank you for the comments. We'll now move into item 4 A, the board president's report. I would just report out that we completed a board retreat with the the new superintendent today that was hosted by um Wisconsin Association of School Boards. I thought it was a very productive dialogue and we got a lot accomplished and look forward to taking what we uh came up with at that retreat and getting the snowball
007rolling doing some some really great work on strategic planning and a whole bunch of other stuff. So, thanks everyone for carving time out of your day to be there. Uh the second item uh uh a Shboan Falls school board member is organizing a group of uh administrators and schoolboard members to strategize uh how to best advocate uh with our elected officials for additional school funding. Uh Mike will be part of that group uh and uh Heather has agreed as her schedule allows to also be part of that group. And if Heather can't make it, Kelly's agreed to to step in. So, look forward to you all representing the district and uh advocating for us uh with our legislators. With that, we'll move on to item 4B, superintendent report. Thank you, Paul. I I feel like
008I count every time, but this is day six officially on the job. So, it's been an exciting week. Uh number of things that I just wanted to update uh the board with, too. Projects we have going on. I think you've seen some uh movement with the playground. uh some sad that went out, some fun things to share that way. Our bathroom renovation continues and so thankful again for those partnerships that exist to make those projects happen. Thankful to our team for continuing that work. A lot of the items that go on in the summer that people don't necessarily realize are going on behind the scenes, but it's been good work. It's good to see those things come together and we're kind of in that home stretch of wrapping these these items up. Second item that
009I wanted to just give an update on is uh in connection to our athletics and our student athletes um dealing with the NIL or name image likeness uh policies. Ryan's been working really hard on that with the WIAA, the guidance that they've been given and other school districts and athletic directors to outline those expectations to make sure that those are also communicated um in our handbook and in our materials because that's a new thing for everybody um at the high school level. So that's been outlined. It's just something that I wanted to give you an update on. Ryan had spoke spoken to me about that too and we thought it was just worthy of making sure you were aware um that that work is going on and then that'll be outlined um in that fashion
010and connected with those partnerships. My third and final item I had was just an update to uh that the state budget has been uh settled and now so it's working through what do all of those items look like. I think there's some progress that was made uh to Paul's earlier comment regarding the group and board members meeting to to talk about legislative advocacy. It's still something that's going to need to be a continued discussion. I don't think it's something that can wait every two years then we start telling our story. Um and so there was some progress and and good progress uh for special ed reimbursement too and looking that was a big thing that I know we had discussions about uh but again not to the level that uh that those those needs are
011and those reimbursement levels I believe should be. But again, a positive uh step in that direction and things that we need to continue to make sure that we're honoring the the legislator's commitments to that they were able to make progress in that area. Again, continuing to explain that information uh for the future and in our work with them as they prepare the next budget in a few years, too. Those are my updates. Thank you, Paul. Any any questions or comments for Mike? just uh wish Mike a happy uh day six. Thanks for being here for six days. Uh and I know that we uh appreciate uh uh seeing you out and about in the community, connecting with our our staff here at the school and doing a great job getting out there representing the district.
012Uh so keep it up. We will move on now to item five, the review of district finances. Isaac, are you going to take this one? Thank you. Uh nothing significant at this point. Uh we're working on closing up the year. Um we have a lot of June expenses that ran through, but just as a reminder, we'll still be getting bills that will go through our accounts payable. So we will still have some June expenses posted. So next month we'll probably have two reports, one for finishing up fiscal year and one for the next fiscal year. Um, we're fast approaching our audit, which will be about five weeks away now. So, a lot of time and efforts going into that. And otherwise, everything else that Mike had mentioned is going really smoothly. Our projects are all
013on track and everything's looking good. So, nothing hugely major to discuss. Thanks, Isaac. Any questions or comments for Isaac? Hearing none, we will move on to the consent agenda. Uh, can I get a a motion and a second on the consent agenda and then we'll discuss. Excellent. We have a motion, a second uh before uh ask if anyone has any comments on the consent agenda. I'm going to ask uh Dr. Drew to make some comments. So excited again continuing the hiring process and adding some individuals uh to our team. Uh Ben Anzia is going to be joining us too. A middle school, high school social studies teacher coming from the boy school district. I'm excited to to have him joining the group. Uh Kina Laughlin, familiar name too. Uh she taught she's going to be
014stepping back into a middle school high school business teacher role. So excited uh for that. Um and then finally and the contract we approved before um with with Caitlyn in in the JK program too. So that's uh now official on on all aspects and we've talked about her before. Excited to have her and I know she's very excited. Uh and then finally to to introduce our new elementary principal, Nate Hines. Um and I'll toss it over to him here in a second if he wants to to say a couple words, but we're excited for those individuals to be joining us. Um with with Nate in the audience too, I can say we had a very competitive pool of candidates for our elementary principal position. uh which recognize too that I appreciate him uh stepping to
015the top and and making sure he's demonstrating uh excellence across the board. I think Nate's story is one that's very powerful displays his commitment to excellence, his expectations of both himself and uh for individuals in the school district. I was really excited when I talked to his references just about the glowing things that they had to say regarding his ability to build relationships and connecting with folks. Um, and I want to make sure that we're highlighting that we have a press release that'll be going out to tomorrow. Um, and making sure that we're again helping share the story too of the folks that'll be joining us. And we'll continue a series similar for our new staff that's joined us um throughout. It's kind of a slow roll out we have so we can kind of
016give them each a spotlight um in that and so I'm really excited about that work and I guess Nate will be kind of the first one to kick off some of that information as well. Awesome. Uh Nate, do you want to come on up and say a few words? You can just take a seat next to Tara and I'll pass this mic down for you. All right. Well, first of all, thanks for having me. Um extremely excited to be here and to get started. Uh Mike and I have talked a little bit of a transition of trying to get here late July, early August, so I'll be able to hopefully have some one-on-one conversations with staff members um in a little more relaxed environment where students are potentially not running around and interrupting us all
017the time. Uh but a little bit about my background is I'm coming to you from Port Washington High School where I was there the last five years. Three is the assistant principal athletic director and then two as just assistant principal. Um I'm married to my beautiful wife Ashley. We have three children. We do live in Cedar Grove, Belgium. We are Rockets, but I will dawn the blue very proudly. It's one of my favorites. Um, I'm excited to bring some of my personal uh experiences to the classroom as well. Uh, I am a four-time parolympian in the sport of wheelchair basketball. Uh, most recently in the Paris games where we were able to take our third consecutive gold medal. So, extremely excited to bring both my personal and my professional experiences to the Coler Elementary School
018and just enjoy getting to know our students and staff as quick as I can. Excellent. Thank you, Nate. Do we have any other uh discussion on the consent agenda before acting on it? Uh hearing none. Uh all those in favor say I. I. Chair votes I. Consent agenda passes. Excited for all the new folks joining the district. Uh really great time for the district. Moving on to item 7A, board calendar. I'm going to kick this to you, Dr. So, we've discussed the board calendar a few times and outlining uh where we want to go with that. Earlier in the retreat, too, we talked about what does that look like for our uh presentations for our committee work and kind of having that roadmap throughout. Um this is again a continued draft document that we will
019have throughout just to kind of keep us on pace and making sure that we're um honoring those commitments that that we said for one another as well as connecting it to the community as well as some of our other outreach efforts that we want and providing our team a little bit with guidance of hey this is what we can expect too so we don't have inconsistent requests to We know we're going to present on this. We know we're going to share information. We know where these updates and approvals need to be. Um, and so I know that the committee chairs will be sending out some dates to that we can lock in here too. And this, like I said, will be an ongoing agenda item more just as an FYI to make sure that we
020have it in front of us as we prepare for for the next month. And then that would also lead into like our next item on the agenda with the broadcast communication and just making sure that we've identified who's going to take lead on that. and then outlining what is that topic going to look like and I have suggestions built into the calendar as well. So, do we have any questions or comments for Mike on the the board calendar? I appreciate you laying this out as we start thinking through board uh work and school work related to the board over the next um academic year. I think we're just all very appreciative. I know we've said this before, but I'm I'm very excited to have this to kind of guide our work and keep us very
021strategic. So, I appreciate your work on that. Excellent. Uh you touched on it briefly, Mike, on uh 7B, the broadcast communication. Do you have anything else you want to add to that? So, I will be drafting and I'm already drafting my kind of introduc introduction introduction and welcome back uh article that I will be submitting to the villager. Their due date is July 25th. So, I will be reading that and sending it out. What I would like us to do is get in the rhythm here where we assign month ahead. So the suggested topic I have is around the board workshop that would be due August 22nd. We outline that. That comes to the August board meeting just for review. Um and I probably support for the individual that that is is working on that
022article. I'm going to be there throughout that process to uh help the board members prepare uh those materials and we'll find our rhythm with what that looks like. I believe it was suggested that Tara was going to take point on the board workshop article. I don't remember if that was a firm or if that was just I think that was Heather Heather. All right, perfect. Well, that's that's I mean, if you really wanted, I can pass the torch, but that's okay. That's perfect. So, this is why we have it on the agenda. Heather and I will uh collaborate too and I'll be able to provide some support through that process. So, forgive my error on that. Sorry, Tara. And Mike, you can pencil me in for the October one. That's the annual meeting. I think
023it makes sense. Um, and then we can figure out the September start of the year as we get closer. Perfect. Great. Okay. Anything else on the broadcast communication? Okay. Uh, short meeting tonight. We're coming off the heels of an uh, eight hour retreat. Uh, so with that, I would ask if there's a motion and a second to adjurnn. Second. Excellent. All those in favor? I stand a journ. Thanks everybody. Thank you.