001[music] >> So. You good? Um We recognize that the school district of La Crosse occupies the land of the Ho-Chunk people. Please take a moment to celebrate and honor this ancestral Ho-Chunk land and the sacred lands of all indigenous peoples. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Can you hear us? Thank you. Will the secretary please call the roll? Mr. Alberts? >> Here. Mr. Begnoche? Let's say excused for the moment. Probably in transit. Mr. Brooks? Excused. Dr. Garcia? Here. Ms. Haas? Here. Mr. Jackson? Here. Mr. Menke? Excused. Mr. Newmeister? Scott, did you hear that? Mr. What's that? I probably can't hear you right now. Okay. We know he is [snorts and clears throat] online, so. Uh Dr. Sprague? Here. So. A quorum of the Board of Education is present, so the regularly scheduled meeting of May
00218th, 2026 is called to order. We will now have the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand as you're able and face the American flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. All right, tonight's agenda has been previously distributed to the board. I would entertain at this time a motion with a second to approve the agenda as submitted, unless there is a motion to amend, and we'll need with Scott online, we'll need roll call votes tonight. I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. With a motion by Mr. Alberts and a second by Dr. Garcia, um a roll call vote, please. Mr. Alberts? Aye. Dr. Garcia? Aye. Ms. Hass? Aye. Mr. Jackson?
003Aye. Mr. Newmeister? I don't know if we have him yet. >> We'll have to we'll um not present that vote. We'll mark down Abstain. Uh Dr. Sprague? Aye. Um uh the motion passes. Um we reorganized. Uh we have a pretty full agenda tonight. We have obviously a very full audience. Uh so we want to keep things moving. We're going to start tonight with our recognitions. Uh our first recognition um for tonight, um we are recognizing Zalyana Stanton from Logan High School. This is for the Global Education Achievement Certificate. Dr. Angle. Yes, I would invite uh Katie Bayer and Canadia Perez if they are interested in talking a little bit about our programs and uh um offering the certificates up to our wonderful students. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about what we
004do in our world language department and to um showcase some of our top students in the area. So, um Did you say Can I do both of them at the same time? >> at the same time. >> So, um the first program, both of these are DPI programs where students have to go above and beyond with their studies to show that they are dedicated to improving their language skills, but also to be better well-rounded global citizens. And so, with the Seal of Biliteracy at Logan, we had two students that were able to obtain this this year and it's very difficult to be able to get this certificate. Essentially, it shows that students are bilingual um in multiple languages um and they have to show that they are literate in a foreign language as well as
005English. And so, the test to take this is very demanding. Students have to be at an advanced level, which is essentially what college students are graduating with um minors and majors in. And so, to be able to get to this level is quite an accomplishment and we're so proud of them. So, our first student that we had was um Maxime Roberts who could not be here today to earn this award, but he earned that in English and Spanish. So, very proud of him. And then, we have Zali who really set the goal of earning this her freshman year and worked so relentlessly throughout all four years of high school to be able to earn this up until the very last minute taking um retaking the language test I think 10 different times and it is
006quite rigorous. Um so, for her to be able to get this, we're very proud of her. So, come on up, Zali, FOR YOUR AWARD. >> [applause] [applause] >> AND I'M GOING TO KEEP ZALI UP HERE BECAUSE NOT only did she earn her seal of biliteracy, but she took it a step further um to obtain a certificate from the state that I think is even more challenging. Um you have to take eight credits of classes with a global focus and including world language, but then also some in the health um area, sociology, environmental sciences um to just show that you're getting a well-rounded um studies from different perspectives around the world. And in addition to that, she had to write reflections on eight different literary pieces um and participate in school events in the community and
007within our school. And then finally, she had to do a service project that related to one of the United Nation goals and hers was on education and I would love to give her the opportunity to share a little bit about her project. Um so freshman year, I created a club called Charla y Chocolate. And basically, it allowed students to speak Spanish and practice their skills outside of the classroom. Um and yeah, we played Spanish games and I brought hot chocolate and chocolate treats for them to kind of as an incentive to join and yeah. Do you want to tell us what this means to you to be able to get this? Yes. Um I've been learning Spanish since I mean really since I was a baby, but I started uh in kindergarten at Northwood International.
008And I've been working ever since then to get my seal of biliteracy and become fluent in Spanish. So, yeah, this really means a lot to me. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> All right. Thank you and congratulations on that great achievement. Uh Uh we'll move right along then. Our school sh- our school showcase for tonight uh from the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act and the school district of La Crosse. Uh thankful to have Alicia Place here who um is our coordinator for homelessness in the school district and here to share some uh things about the program and some of the things we've been doing this year. Again, can I just uh mirror my screen? Are we BOE ATV? Hey Dan. There we go. Can I just share my screen? Oh. Sorry. I've changed a few slides, Dan. >>
009[laughter] >> So, the slides that would have been shared with you are pretty much the same, but I restructured them a little bit to try to be um a little bit more efficient with our time. There's so much that we could talk about. I'm going to just try to give you guys the highlights. There we go. Okay. It's great when technology works. Yeah. There we go. Okay. So, um like Dr. Engel said, I'm Alicia Place. I am the Community Services Coordinator for the School District of La Crosse. As a part of that role, I'm the homeless liaison. So, um I've been in that role for 8 years, been with the district for 21. I want to talk with you about the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistant Act tonight and just give you kind of a broad overview.
010Uh there's so many pieces of this that we could really go in depth, but I just want to make sure that you are aware of really what the federal legislation is, how many students it affects in our district, and the resources we have um to help meet the needs. So, uh McKinney-Vento uh Homeless Assistance Act was first passed in 1987 and was most recently authorized in 2015. And it essentially provides uh students who are experiencing unstable housing or homelessness um educational rights. Um some of them are uh pretty self-explanatory. Like all students, students who are experiencing homelessness have the right to receive a free and appropriate education. But a couple other things I want to make sure to highlight uh for you tonight. One of the other um big differences is that students who are
011experiencing homelessness can enroll in school immediately without any documentation. We don't need birth certificates, we don't need immunization record, or even proof of address. We get them enrolled in school and then our social workers and counselors, or myself, work really hard to try to figure out where all those pieces are and get that for them. The other thing that is really different is that students experiencing homelessness can remain at their school when they become homeless. So, if we have a student at Spence who becomes homeless and needs to move into a hotel on the north side, they can stay at Spence for the remainder of the school year and we'll work with the family to figure out transportation. Whether that be gas cards, Go Right Way, sometimes it's cabs. Um even if they find housing
012and sign a lease later that year, the rest of the school year they can maintain their schooling where they started. And that's really important um because, as you can imagine, um unstable housing can lead to many disruptions. And if we can keep school stable, that's just one less thing that's uh youth need to worry about. Um so, that is a very important part of this um legislation is just that ability to maintain some um consistency in school. Um automatic free breakfast and lunch. That happens when a student is identified. Field trip costs are waived. Extracurricular activities are waived. We also work really hard with our students who are getting ready to graduate to make sure that they have access to post-secondary education grants, the fast fall, all the things. And like I said, all of
013these rights the student maintains through the entire school year once they're identified. Um, also part of the legislation is a mandate for every district in the country to have a district homeless liaison identified. So that's the role, one of the roles I have in the district. And the homeless liaison really oversees the implementation of McKinney-Vento, make sure that we're in compliance with our policies, make sure we have processes in place so that all of our staff know how to identify students and what the next steps are to make sure that they stay in their school of origin if that's what's best, get transportation set up, and then refer our students and families to resources. And I'm going to talk about that in just a minute, the different resources that we have for families and students.
014I also write for the education of homeless children and youth grant, which is some of the only funding we get for this. And then I advocate at a local level. So McKinney-Vento definition of homelessness is very different than the federal definition for other programs. So it's really important that McKinney-Vento students and families, their experience is represented at the table in our community when we're talking about homelessness. So I attend a lot of committees and part of like the Pathways Home project in our community. Again, just to make sure that the experience of of our students are represented. In our district, because we have social workers and counselors in every building, we also are very fortunate that they act as a school homeless So they're at the building level helping to to students, meeting with students,
015meeting with families, referring them to resources, um making sure they're on track for graduation, that their attendance is good. If it's not good, what do we need to do to work on that? So, really I give a lot of credit to our student services staff at our schools who do an awesome job to make sure that our students' needs are met. So, like I said, the definition of homelessness is a little different for McKinney-Vento. It's a little bit more not a little bit, it's a lot more encompassing than the federal definition for other um federal homeless programs. What we're looking at for students is if the um situation they're in is fixed, regular, and adequate. Adequate is sometimes overlooked cuz um adequate includes things like is the electricity turned off? Is there an infestation? Um
016are multiple people sharing a one or two bedroom home? Do the kids have beds? If not, that can be considered McKinney-Vento, which I think traditionally people don't think of as homeless. So, what we think about is can the student go to the same place every night and sleep in a safe and sufficient space? And if any one of those is not true, then we would identify that student as experiencing homelessness. So, there is four main eligibility criteria or categories. Um the first is sharing the housing of others due to economic hardship. So, you might hear this being called doubled up or couch surfing. I do want to point out that students of all ages will be doubled up and couch surfing. I think sometimes we think of high school students as couch surfing, but we
017certainly have students with their parents and guardians and without their parents and guardians who are couch surfing or doubled up. Um in a hotel, motel, or campground, again due to economic hardship. So, fleeing domestic violence, getting an eviction, not being able to afford bills, those are all things that would be considered an economic hardship. Uh shelter. This is uh probably what people think most of. Uh we are fortunate to have Salvation Army and New Horizons in our community that is a shelter for our families and also in Wisconsin 17-year-olds can access shelter without a parent or guardian. So, occasionally we do have high school students who are at Salvation Army or New Horizons. And then finally living in a public or private place not meant for habitation. So, this is when um cars, tents, abandoned
018buildings, um those types of things. And then uh right now under the federal legislation migratory children in any of these situations automatically qualify. So, what this means locally uh in the 2024-2025 school year, we had 247 students experience homelessness at some point during the school year. And what you see here the categories 164 doubled up, that is traditionally always our highest uh category. And unsheltered is typically our lowest category. Um this is the those numbers are representative of what caused the or what they first entered into homelessness, what their category was. We often have students who might start in a hotel, then they go to being doubled up, or they go to shelter, and then they go to doubled up. So, this these numbers are just representing the first um experience of homelessness for that
019student. And then I just wanted to share with you some data from the last five school years. I would say before 2020-2021, when I look back at like our data through the past 20 years, 130 to 160 was always a pretty normal range of students we were identifying every year. And as you can see, we have uh moved up quite a bit um since then. I would say a lot of that is because our staff is really good at identifying students and educating families about um what we can provide and resources we can offer if they are experiencing unstable housing. But I also do think just our financial climate and society and lack of affordable housing in La Crosse certainly leads to this. So, you'll see that that number has has certainly risen. I also
020just wanted to point out and I I have that in the slide as well. You'll see that hotel motel right after a COVID went drastically higher. That's because there was funding and in the city of La Crosse we funded a hotel for families. And at the same time shelter went down and that's because our shelters had to have COVID protocols and had to close family rooms to open it up for individuals and things like that. So, those numbers were affected. So, funding. Like I said, this is federal legislation that comes with no funding. But, we are able to apply for a federal flow through grant every 3 years. The EHCY grant or education of homeless children and youth grant is administered through the state. We have received it the last two cycles, so the past
0216 years. And I just applied for it again. Hopefully, we'll find out in June if we get it for the next 3 years. This allows us to partner with the YMCA and Great Rivers Hub to have community health workers who work with our students and our families. It's a fantastic partnership. They are able to get out in the community with our students and families and help them access resources, navigate housing, fill out applications, get to doctor's appointments, uh get set up for job interviews. I think all the things our staff wishes we had all the time in the world to go do. We are really thankful for community health workers to be able to do that. Both the Y and the United Way supplement what we get from our grant funding to support two additional
022positions for that. So, we are extremely grateful that they see the importance in that work. Some of that grant money also goes to support transportation. As you can imagine, transporting kids to their school of origin can get pretty expensive. Um summer hours for staff. We want our school social workers and counselors to come in in the summer and make contact with all of their families that end of the school year in unstable housing and make sure those kiddos know where they're going to school the following year, have them all set up for orientation, open house, how they're going to get to school on the first day. So, we have staff who work in the summer. There's also some Title 1A homeless set-aside funds. Traditionally in our district, we've used that to also um help set
023up offset the cost of transportation. There is no formula for that. There's no if you have this many homeless students, this is how much you set aside. So, that is always a conversation on what makes sense for our district. And then community donations. I really cannot thank the La Crosse Public Education Foundation enough. Um we need to uh remove all barriers for students regularly attending school. And if that means hygiene supplies, school supplies, clothes, um graduation caps and gowns, extracurricular fees, even air mattresses sometimes, we use our Random Acts of Kindness money, which truly is such a lifesaver. Um Alpha Xi Delta is also a sorority at UWL that has made their philanthropy our students. So, the last couple of years they've done a wonderful uh fundraising event and have donated all the money to
024that our program so we can use it for those things. And then I just really quickly want to uh highlight Gear Up Incorporated, which is an amazing organization started by a central staff member and his family, um and it has now become a nonprofit organization with a board. Every year they sponsor um several of um our students and get them ready for college. They take them shopping, get them ready with all their dorm supplies, with computer if they need it. Um if they're going to trade school, they'll get them ready with what they need for that. Um, it's just a really amazing organization and I would encourage uh people to look up Gear Up Incorporated if you are unfamiliar with it. Um, the last uh partnership I want to really highlight is the Boys &
025Girls Club of Greater La Crosse. So, um, youth without a high school diploma are four and a half times more likely to experience homelessness later in life. So, not having a high school diploma is the single greatest risk factor that predicts homelessness. So, um, not only am I the homeless liaison, but I work a lot with attendance in our district and people who know me know that I'm always talking about how important it is to attend school, uh be ready for graduation, and it's because there's such a strong link for the for those two things. Um, we have amazing school social workers at both our high schools and uh Polytechnic and Coulee Region Virtual Academy who work really hard with kids. We have staff at all of our high schools who work so hard with
026kids to get them graduation ready. And then at both Central and Logan, we have a graduation specialist through the Boys & Girls Club. It's called Be Great Graduate. Um, it's a program that Boys & Girls Club um funds and like I said, they have a full-time person at each high school who works with all at-risk youth. You don't have to be McKinney-Vento or experiencing homelessness. Um, but they help them uh get organized, figure out what assignments are missing, uh what test do you think you can retake? Let's do that email to the teacher together. Let's come during your study hall and I'll tutor you. Um, and they really help get a lot of kids across the finish line. So, I'll end with some good news. Uh, last year in 2024-2025, we had 20 seniors who
027experienced homelessness and all 20 of them graduated. And I looked at data today, we have 20 again this year. I The number is very similar, and 19 of those 20 will be graduating next week. Um additionally, last year we had 57 students and their families who secured housing in part because of our partnership with community health workers. And then an additional 11 students were able to secure housing in transitional housing programs, which our city offers for families who qualify. It's up to 2 years of housing while you work with a case manager to figure out how you can remove barriers to um get into your own housing long-term. So, very good news coming out of all the efforts that are happening. And again, I know a full uh agenda, but if there's any questions, I'd
028be happy to answer. Or if you have a chance to look at the slides and have questions later, feel free to reach out to me anytime. Thank you very much. Uh questions from board members. No, I would just want to say kudos. I've worked with you in the past, and um just let the community know the need is real. It touches children from kindergarten to high school. Um so, they are doing amazing work. So, thank you. Thanks, Loretta. Other thoughts from board members? No, I would echo Let me go ahead. You said something about um our staff and faculty are getting better at recognizing. Like, how do students get referred into this program? Is it something that they know enough to appoint themselves for, or do they mostly get Yeah, so a couple of different
029things. Um if students are talking about like different people in the house, or who's moving in, students are usually pretty open about um we're going to have to move tonight, or um we're being evicted. Sometimes our students know a lot about the bills. That is a lot for them to know. Um we have bus drivers who tell us, "Gosh, they haven't been at the bus stop for a while." Or we um have parents who come in and share, students come in and share. A lot of it has been just getting over the stigma of if you're homeless, we're going to ask you to switch schools or we're going to call child protective services. Those two things aren't true, so it's a lot of like building trust. Um kids coming down asking for bus tokens or
030their attendance isn't great and we look into it and we find out, oh, it's cuz they've moved and they're maybe not even in our district anymore. So, lot of a variety of ways. Thank you. Yeah. Um I had a couple quick questions. Um in the uh like the definitions that you provided, uh that that term economic hardship, is there a threshold that families or students are supposed to demonstrate for No. >> how to qualify? No, it really is like if they cannot afford rent. Okay, good. Um and I'm curious if you know offhand like roughly how much we on average are spending in transportation costs. So, I know that this year through the grant, uh the HCY grant, I think we've set aside $20,000, but I know Jeff's department also pays for some transportation, so
031um and I don't know that I have that number off the top of my head. Yeah, and I don't know that number either offhand. And then Random Acts of Kindness helps out with taxi cab rides from time to time or Uber rides depending on the student situation. Trying any which way we can get kids to school. Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> Not a lot enough cabs. Yeah. Some really expensive options. Well, I mean it highlights I mean the the numbers that you're serving are I think eye-opening for many people uh who who maybe are not aware of the scope of the problem or all the different ways it impacts children and families and then that there are costs to homelessness that that the community bears um and and rightly so, I think in in supporting
032our neighbors and community members, but um hopefully it puts a a fire under people to to want to do something more to support this this part of our community who's affected by homelessness. Um my last question is simply what is the best way to get donations to you through LPEF or directly through the district with a near mark? Yep, it can be directly to our office or LPEF random acts. Nola is fantastic about making sure not to say no when it's a student who's experiencing homelessness who needs something. Awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? Thank you very much for being >> Thank you. >> [applause] >> Scott, were you able to get audio? I know you're not going to want to miss anything else. I absolutely am. Everything's going well. Great. Okay, good. Uh
033then we will move right along and to our public speakers. I'm going to read the executive content. It is the policy of the board to provide at its public meetings an opportunity for individuals to address the board. Comments about individual staff or personnel will not be allowed. Open meeting law prohibits the board from engaging in discussion or responding to matters not included on the agenda. All speakers are reminded that the same policy limits your time to speak to 5 minutes. This limit will be strictly enforced. May I ask the superintendent to keep track of the time and to notify the speaker when time is running out. Absolutely, I'll give you a 30-second warning. Thank you. You are also asked to give your name and the school district where you reside at the beginning of your
034time for the public record. We have a number of public speakers who registered for tonight and the first one is Greg Shams. >> [applause] >> Thank you. Um yeah, my name is Greg Shams. I'm a property owner, taxpayer in La Crosse. I live on Redfield Street. I teach social studies here at Central, finishing my 19th year, and I have two kids in La Crosse public schools. And tonight I am speaking to the board about teacher salaries. According to current law, our union can only negotiate for salary increases up to the rate of inflation as per the consumer price index urban. And so when that was calculated last summer, that came in at 2.63%. So our union negotiating team came to the district and asked for a CPI U increase of 2.63% along with steps and
035lanes for those teachers who qualify. District administration, however, is only offering a salary increase of 2% which is insufficient and we are not willing to accept it because it will result in our real wages for district staff going down due to inflation. Last year, I had the privilege of sitting on the district vision steering committee along with Dr. Engel, former board president Deb Suchla, and a number of other staff and community members. And our job on that committee was to collect and review data from community input surveys and help develop a vision for the district and for our graduates. And there was one particular question that we surveyed from the community which was when you brag about the school district of La Crosse to others, what do you say? And like beyond any doubt, the
036most popular answer to that question was like we have high quality, dedicated, caring staff who routine routinely go above and beyond for students and who consistently are doing more with less. So clearly, our public values teachers and the work that we do. And as representatives of the public, we need you to allocate financial resources in line with community values. And as a board, you should support a full 2.63% CPIU salary increase along with lanes and steps. Furthermore, a key district priority for many, many years has been to attract and retrain retract attract and retain, excuse me, high-quality teachers. Uh the best way for the district to do that is to make sure teachers are not falling behind financially. And so, a full CPIU increase of 2.63% is not It's not a raise. We're simply keeping
037our current standard of living intact, and we're not losing purchasing power, um which is a great way of attracting and retaining staff. 2 weeks ago, we celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week, and during that week, I got a lot of free coffee, a lot of free donuts, some half-price pizza, which is great. Um but those gestures seem like inadequate consolation prizes if I am losing financial purchasing power. Um and I would happily give up all of those teacher appreciation goodies in a minute to ensure that my salary continues to maintain pace with inflation. So, board, um we as teachers, we know that our community supports us, and we know that you want to um attract and and keep high-quality teachers. So, please, find a way to ensure that our valuable staff receives our full CPIU salary increase
038of 2.63%. Thank you. >> [applause] >> UH NEXT, WE'LL HEAR FROM ERIC MARTIN. UH GOOD EVENING. Um my name is uh Eric Martin. I graduated from Logan in 1994. I reside in the school district of Onalaska. And I finished my 23rd year teaching social studies at what's now clearly my home, Logan. And so I've got Greg beat by a few years. I'm also here to speak about the inflationary pay cut that's being offered by the district because it has real world implications in terms of morale, teacher retention, and our ability to make a living. In our department, we just hired brand new fresh out of college teacher. I've literally never met someone more excited to be part of the Logan family. She's literally on cloud nine. It's fun to talk to her. The difference for
039her between a 2.63 and a 2% over the cost of her career is roughly about $10,000 in earning power. So, I'll pose the question. Why would someone at the beginning of their career choose to stay in our district? The district's offer has the net effect of shrinking our salary schedule once again. So, let's talk about that because I think looking backwards to what we had will be a window for our board about why teachers are so burned out by all of this. I've got all of our old contracts from when we had contracts. And in 1993-1994, the year I graduated, there were 16 steps on the salary schedule and the top salary was $46,500. Adjusted for inflation, that is $105,919. Right now, the top salary is $83,800. That's a reduction of 20.9%. Additionally, in '93-'94,
040no teachers paid 7.2% of their income into the Wisconsin retirement system like we do now. And their health care deductible was $200 for a family, which is $450 in today's money. Our deductible is not $450, it is $8,000 with a maximum out of pocket of $16,000. On top of all that, teachers could actually get to the top of the salary schedule. Next year will be my 24th year serving students here, and I'm still not at the top of the salary schedule. I will be at step 14 of 17. In every conceivable way, being a teacher in 2026 feels not like a pathway to the middle class, it feels like a pathway to needing a second job. This pay cut feels morally wrong. The difference between the CPIU raise and the 2% being offered by our
041district is about $259,000. I feel like it's kind of a pittance in the broader scope of our budget, and we've offered to help find the savings. But here's what I really don't understand. The money difference is small, but the damage to morale is going to be much bigger. In terms of what teachers are complaining about right now, and we talk, it's not any of you guys. Honestly, it feels like real progress has been made, but it feels like by doing this to teachers, and echoing what Greg said, it kind of feels like we're picking at an old wound, and we're going to you guys are going to move back to the front of the line. It just seems so wildly wildly counterproductive to me. And I think we should not forget that teachers have consistently
042had the back of this district. When our board and administration wanted to right-size the district by consolidating elementary schools, we were at the front of the line telling people vote yes, we need to do this. So, the bottom line here is that teachers deserve respect. They do deserve to make a living. And frankly, they deserve a full CPIU raise. It doesn't seem like that much to ask. We're tired of being undervalued. Really, really, really tired of being undervalued. So, on behalf of the teachers of this district, I'm asking the Board of Education to do better. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Our next speaker is Christina Scoville. Good evening. My name is Christina Scoville. I currently teach economics in the school district of La Crosse at Logan High. While I reside in the school district of
043Onalaska, I currently open enroll all three of my children to this district because of the amazing teachers and excellent education that we have here. I am here to speak to you tonight because the teachers deserve at minimum the 2.63 CPIU in addition to the lanes and steps, which would not really be a raise in the sense that it would merely keep up with inflation and the purchasing power in the economy the same as last year. I want you to look at the current climate and understand that projections for 2026 are already in the 3 to 3.8 CPIU range. So, if we do not receive the 2.63 for this year, for 2025, we will fall further behind in compensation because of transportation, food, housing, and other necessities keeping increasing cost. According to the Bureau of Labor
044Statistics inflation calculator, something that cost $100 from 2025 August 2025 is already the equivalent of $102.59 in April 2026. In other terms, a salary that you may have had $61,000 in August of 2025 would already need to be $62,702 to purchase the same things, which is already a 2.8 increase in the 8 months we've been in school. This we need to purchase items like groceries, child care, or energy. The respect and confirmation is all we're asking for that we are important enough for the minimum. Otherwise, it means that our income will afford us less and less with each passing year and we don't at least keep up with inflation. In order to keep the best educators, as well as attract prime candidates going forward, we must show how much our district has to offer and
045support this. Is the $260,000 too high of an expense to retain and maintain our qualified professionals? I graduated from Central High School in 2003, inspired to go into education by superior teachers that still work in this district today. They deserve so much more than they've received. I always knew getting into teaching was never going to make me rich because that's not why we teach. This request is not really about money. It's about providing a fair quality of life for myself and my family. This is about respect. It's about honor. This is about appreciation. This is about showing your support. How we maintain a a premier destination for education if we are unwilling to do everything that we can to support these golden staff. Thank you. >> [applause] >> OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS ZACH MEYER. Good
046evening. My name is Zach Meyer. I'm the orchestra teacher at Central High School here in the School District of La Crosse, and I reside in the School District at 4012 Terrace Drive. Additionally, I'm a lifelong resident of La Crosse, and I'm a proud alumni of Logan High School in our school district. A little more recently than Eric. >> [laughter] >> Tonight, I'm here to urge the school district the school board to encourage our district administrators to increase the current compensation package offer to teachers for the 26-27 school year. I understand our school district's continual budget concerns due to declining enrollment among other factors. However, the La Crosse School District's educators deserve to maintain their purchasing power by having our salaries increased with the CPIU of 2.63%. I love La Crosse. Our geography, our community, and
047our great schools. When I was looking for a place to begin my teaching career after college, it was a no-brainer to apply for a job opening in La Crosse at Lincoln Middle School. I I knew La Crosse had a reputation for being the place for teachers to work, and I remember many of my former teachers having now worked their entire career in La Crosse, some for over 30 years. Since starting my career as a teacher 5 years ago, I've earned a master's degree, purchased a home, and married my wife. All of this would not have been possible without the stability afforded to me by the competitive wages offered to teachers in the School District of La Crosse. As I look ahead to the next 5 years, I hope to complete my second advanced degree, make
048some improvements to my home, and start a family. To make these hopes a reality, I need to be able to count on my salary and its purchasing power. It would be irresponsible of me to continue working in a place where I risk taking an effective pay cut when I plan these big life changes. While the School District of La Crosse maintains its status as the highest paying district in our area. Many districts are closing the gap through wage increases, competitive healthcare benefits, and flexibility with paid time off. As this trend will likely continue, the school district is going to need to work harder to retain our great staff. We want to ensure the educators in LaCross feel valued not only through a supportive community, but also a salary that shows respect and places value on
049our profession. Again, I urge the school board to encourage our administrators to offer our teachers a salary increase that maintains pace with the CPIU to ensure LaCross retains the best teachers around and that we continue to do what is best for kids. Thank you. >> [applause] >> OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS MANDY WOLFGRAM. Hopefully I pronounced that one right. Sorry. Wolfgram, I'm a little more hickie than that. Yep. My name is Mandy Wolfgram. I live and teach in the school district of LaCross. I would like to begin by saying how deeply myself and my co-workers appreciate the focused effort that the school board and administration have had in the past year at improving communication with the staff. It can be crushing to express the same concerns year after year and see no improvement. At our school
050board linkage meeting, we heard and saw that our concerns had sunk in with the board members that were there and we were heartened by their distress over our experiences. We're also very impressed by the meetings that we have had with Dr. Engel to better to gain better contextual understanding of our survey results and particularly the follow-up communication of the specific action items that the district is taking to to address our concerns. This type of commitment to listening and action is exactly the kind of leadership that we are proud to follow. We know and completely understand that the school district is working very hard to be fiscally responsible and what a challenge that is with state budgets and declining enrollment. We also have no doubt that everyone on the school board or the administration wouldn't say
051that all staff deserve to be paid more. The problem is we don't just deserve to be paid more, we need to be paid more at this point. We are not asking for a raise, we're asking for literally the cost of living from a year ago, not even keeping up with the last 12 months. I reached out to co-workers to find out if any of us had a second job to make ends meet. 23 of 54 had a second job. In addition, 11 hold down a third job. Two have a fourth job and one has five. They do it because although this is a profession, a professional career that they are proud to be a part of, they can't afford to pay the bills. I know multiple staff members that have made more money per hour
052bartending, waitressing, or even DoorDashing than they do in a day with our students. And in the midst of this financial stress at home, we come to work facing more overwhelming challenges than we've ever seen. There are quite literally not enough minutes in our day to accomplish what we are mandated to cover. The needs of our children are not the same as even five years ago. Behavioral needs are magnified, developmentally needs are developmental needs are magnified, and our family needs are magnified. The workforce in our school district is composed of dynamic, creative, and committed employees, but working 40 hours a week and having it only be a 40-hour a week job without all of the other stresses that we're dealing with uh with daily is more alluring. My point is that all of this cannot leave
053us at an impasse, especially in a year where our district has so shown so much encouraging growth in communication and in growing relationships. We all understand that finances are very difficult right now, but at the same time, I've worked for this district for over 20 years and there's never not been a time when the same was true. A tight budget is always the response and we cannot keep kicking people's livelihoods down the road. I understand that the school board's only employees Dr. Angle and you do not get involved in the daily minutia of running the district. However, you do have the authority to give directives. What kind of message does it communicate when in bargaining we are given a number and there is no attempt at conversation to change even the slightest amount? If the
054district didn't budget for CPIU over and over again, maybe we need to start budgeting differently. The board can give a directive to budget with more foresight. It can also direct that the district needs to to actually communicate over the budget as they do so well with our meet and confer process. I really do believe that with the forward movement I have seen in this year's communication, we could be moving into a new era for our district. Just today we received more information on our district working with staff to streamline initiatives to use our time more effectively. Why not have the same conversations around district finances? The school board can give a directive to do so. LEA has offered this, but so far we've not been taken up on it and it is a serious offer.
055>> 30 seconds. Entrusting our voice in this process could continue to grow in our communication and trust in new ways. We're not looking at unreasonable demands here. I think we need to take a serious look at what coming up with a number and refusing to budge process is communicating to our staff. We will never have a perfect solution to the budget, but how we communicate that and that process we use matters. Continuing to grow I'm on my last sentence, I promise. Continuing to grow these passive communication rather than shut them down will offer our will help our staff to feel seen, heard, and valued just like we hope for every one of our students. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS MANDY PARMETER. HI, my name is Mandy Parmeter. I teach for the
056School District of La Crosse. I'm also a parent of two students who live and attend in their respective boundary schools in the district. Therefore, we obviously live here, so. Um, I'm here tonight to urge you to meet the CPIU inflation rate of 2.63 as well as lanes and steps for our teachers this year. As a teacher and a parent, the stress of inflation is real for my household and for many of my students. As projections for next year start to surface because they are figured retrospectively, 2.63 is not even keeping up with our reality. The district standard of budgeting two per 2% is not adequate. We know next year will be even higher and we teachers will be even farther behind. As a parent, previously as an administrative assistant, and now as a teacher in
057the district, I have seen teachers in our district first hand go above and beyond in their job just above and beyond what their job description entails to support students and their families. I watch those same teachers talk about second jobs to pay the rent and jobs outside of education they put an application in for because it paid better and was less emotionally taxing. Not keeping up with the cost of living is not what's best for students. Teachers are being expected to provide the same services and often more at a lower rate of pay. As our personal lives and our families feel this, we all suffer mentally, emotionally, and physically. And once you have lost a good teacher, you will be hard-pressed to get them back. What is best for students? That does not have to
058worry about What is best for our students is that we do not have to worry about our next pay if our next paycheck will cover the rent. That staff can focus on what's best for kids, having adequate support in their classrooms for every student, and the staff knows that they have an administration that supports them not only in words and tokens of appreciation, but financially. THANK YOU. >> [applause] >> OUR NEXT AND LAST speaker is Jill Shams. >> [applause] >> HELLO, MEMBERS OF THE SCHOOL BOARD. I AM JILL SHAMS, teacher in the district, president of the LEA, parent of district students, and resident of the school district. Many times I've come before you to talk about, speak about, and highlight the great things that are happening in our district. And today I come to you
059to speak about the people who make those incredible things happen, our staff. For those of you that know me, I am not only a glass is half full kind of person. My glass is [clears throat] usually overflowing with optimism. I am by nature a trusting person, and I tend to look for the good in every situation. I do believe that this school board and our district administration wants the best for our schools and our staff. I often comment on and appreciate the good relationship that we have cultivated here in La Crosse with our staff, the union, district administration, and the school board. And I am very proud of that work, and I intend to keep those relationships on a track towards collaboration. What we are bringing to you tonight is brought forward not in a
060combative way, but as a true appeal to ensure that our staff is paid a reasonable and living wage. I attend many meetings around the district, and I feel that I have a pretty good handle on what's going on in our schools. I am keenly aware that the running of a school district is like ours is not a simple or easy endeavor. The complexities of crafting a budget like ours that meet the needs of all stakeholders has got to be one of the most difficult jobs that there is. I get to see a broad view of the school district, and I am by no means blind to the fact that we are in a financial deficit caused mostly by things that are out of your control and mine. Rising costs, underfunding of education at the federal
061and state level, and declining enrollment. I sit in this board room twice a month, and I hear about the highs and the lows, the celebrations and the struggles, the easy and hard decisions. Paying our staff a livable wage should be one of those easy decisions. At just about every school board meeting I attend, I hear you speak about how the staff of our district is the best there is and our most valuable asset, and I wholeheartedly agree. When a budget is being crafted, staff salaries and student services should be the first items earmarked for full funding. While district and board initiatives and priorities might rank in various orders due to personal preferences or analyzed goals, if we don't have a staff that is earning a livable wage, our students can and eventually will feel those
062effects as well. Our union's motto is doing what's best for kids, and I truly believe that educators everywhere feel this to be true. But much like the flight attendant's instructions to put your own oxygen mask on first before helping those around you, our staff need to be getting a full and adequate supply of oxygen. We continue to show up day after day and year after year while being asked to do more with less and shoulder the burden just a little longer until eventually things might get better. We want to be clear that a full CPIU increase of 2.63% is not an excessive ask. It is the minimum necessary to keep educators from losing ground. We are not asking to get ahead. We are asking to not fall behind. An offer of 3.11% total package increase
063might look like it is higher than the CPIU of 2.63, but in reality it is only a 2% increase coupled with compensation for years of service. We are asking that when you approve staff salaries for the upcoming year, you only do so if staff are given a full 2.63% inflationary wage increase on actual salary plus steps and lanes. And when you find places to offset that budget line, we ask that you make sure you don't do it on the backs of our employees or student success. Thank you. >> [applause] >> THANK [applause] YOU TO ALL OF OUR SPEAKERS TONIGHT. UM BEFORE we move on, uh you are of course welcome to stay for a thrilling night of school board governance, um but we will take a couple minutes if folks do want to move on
064with their evenings to other things. Thanks everybody for coming. >> [clears throat] >> I think I got it. air working in here, it would have heated up but quick. Hot all day. Yeah. Are we going to have to tell a group of teachers to be quiet in the hallway? >> [laughter] >> That's not Not right now. That's not Okay, the next item on our agenda tonight is the superintendent's consent agenda. Uh the consent agenda is a mechanism used by the board to deal with routine business that must come before the body. Are there any items that the members want to remove from the consent agenda? Um I'll make a motion to the consent agenda. Is there a second? >> I'll second. With a motion uh by Mr. Bagnewski and a second by Dr. Garcia uh
065If you don't mind, I just wanted to add that on the HR report, um it's got it got kind of muddy for a little while. We were including all the positions that we're posting for next year. Uh just want to make sure that you know that as we move forward, [clears throat] it's just like right now, if we had all of our staff in place, who would be missing? Um that is the list that is there now. And so, I just wanted to update that make you aware of that. So, that'll be a running list of today, right now, if if we if we look around, who's who's what seat's not filled, that is the list. And so, I just wanted to make you aware that that's corrected now and should be an accurate running
066assessment of where we're at. Thank you. Thank you for that context. Appreciate that. Uh so, we have a motion and a second um for the consent agenda. Do we need a roll call vote still? Yes, Mr. Neumeister still online, so. >> Okay. Yep, thank you. Mr. Alberts. >> Hi. Mr. Begnoche. Hi. Dr. Garcia. Hi. Ms. Hess. Hi. Mr. Jackson. Hi. Mr. Neumeister. Hi. Dr. Sprague. Hi. Motion carries. Uh the next item on the agenda is the board consent agenda. And again, the consent agenda is a mechanism the board uses uh to deal with routine business that must come before the body. Are there any items that the members want to remove from the board's consent agenda? I'll move to approve the board's consent agenda as presented. Second. We have a motion by Dr. Garcia and
067a second by Mr. Begnoche. Roll call vote, please. Mr. Alberts. Hi. Mr. Begnoche. Hi. Dr. Garcia. Hi. Ms. Hess. Hi. Mr. Jackson. Hi. Mr. Neumeister. Hi. Dr. Sprague. Hi. Motion carries. Okay, item seven. We're moving into our information section. We have four items in information. Uh >> [clears throat] >> buckle up and we'll start with our cultural connections coordinator's update. Um so, attached you'll see a presentation. I will tap dance until Dan gets back to his computer. Um we've been having a a conversation for years, decades, about our cultural family connection program. And um I am so proud of the work that we do in the school district. Uh Tony and Laura are here uh from the the program uh today uh and the work that they do is incredible. And as we've imagined what
068our school district needs, um we've been listening to our community. We've been listening to our staff, our students, our families, and we need to scale up, out, and dig into some really important things. Um so, Dan, if you move to the next slide, our purpose. Um we need to better meet the complex needs of our historically marginalized and underrepresented student populations, families, and stakeholders. We need to enhance our ability to incorporate and prioritize culturally responsive curriculum and cross-cultural collaboration. We need to more effectively address the persistent disparities in academic performance, discipline, behavior, attendance, and belonging. Incorporate restorative justice capacity internally and expand our reach to include early childhood and elementary students. Uh we've identified student enrollment there on the bottom. Uh historically, over the last couple of years, it's pretty consistent where we've been at.
069Um American Indian or Alaskan Natives been about a half a percent of our student body. Asian students about 9%. Black or African American identifying only at about 6%. Hispanic or Latino at about 6 to 7%. Um we have had a few Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander I identifying students, but um none currently. Uh white students at 66% and two or more races at 11%. And so, we have a diverse student body, which we're proud of and think really adds to the education that you receive here in La Crosse. Uh but we want to make sure that we're supporting all of those students to the best of our ability. Next slide. So, our data really points us toward a need for expansion and updates for increased capacity. Uh we want to strategically address uh those disparities
070that I mentioned both in academics, behaviorals, disciplinary, and attendance. Um and our stakeholder input that you've heard recently in the last few um community linkages really speak to an increased uh desire by our community for increased cultural learning opportunities, restorative justice, and a sense of student belonging. >> [snorts] >> Um it's identified the need for identity development tools and identity-based harm response, and we need to increase representation in our curriculum, built environment, and staffing. It's a wide-ranging, complex issue, uh, but it makes all students feel welcome, and it ensures that all students have the skills they need to be successful in life. So, our proposed vision allows for increased alignment and capacity to support our district's strategic plan for educational equity. Um, our La Crosse story is certainly special, uh, but these patterns are not
071unique. We have an opportunity to learn from existing evidence-based interventions and programming, uh, and it helps inform how we move this work forward. Next slide. Um, Laura and Tony were kind enough to put together a little historical context, really to celebrate the amazing work that's gone on in our school district for decades. Um, uh, Tony Yang and Laura Abelera are our current coordinators, but we've received incredible service from so many people throughout history. Uh, Zelda Harris, Dempsey Miller, Shondel Spivey, >> [snorts] >> Donya Day, and Quartel Roberson, and he remains with us over at La Crosse Poly as a principal. Um, this year, uh, we've been working with local stakeholders, our long-standing community members, and past cultural liaisons to accurately capture the history of Cultural Connections work in the school district. Um, it would be
072very exciting to establish a small physical and oral our history archive in the next few years to honor the foundation that's been laid in the past and [snorts] to inform our future goals and direction. Uh, I think there's a real story here to tell. Um, Tony's got a book in him, I know it. Um, I didn't make these slides. I'm helping present on behalf of Tony and Laura, and so, uh, they are thankful, uh, for the willingness to support a necessary shift in the strategy to address our consistently, uh, persistent disparities. So thankful for the teachers and staff who prioritize inclusive practices, culturally relevant and responsive curriculum, and classroom climate and belonging. We have amazing teachers who do this work every day. Our past cultural liaisons and family cultural community coordinators have laid this foundation
073and made our spaces better for our marginalized students for so many years. And of course to our students, caregivers, and program supervisor, Ms. Stacy Dr. Stacy Everson, and our district leaders who prioritize this work. There's some really important things we want to do moving forward. It would be to build a sustainable district-wide ecosystem of collective responsibility for our cultural equity and belonging work to use this opportunity to conduct a really comprehensive needs and assessment strategy. This is work that we have done in a number of other areas, including our community schools, our neighborhood investment work, and our early childhood work. We think there's a real model here to really get the voice of our of our families and our students and to set our path as we move forward. Um and then to increase the
074ability of our staff to address the complex needs of our students, formally including elementary restorative justice work at all levels into our cultural equity and belonging work. Right now it kind of sits aside and next to and in collaboration with, but isn't truly integrated and we see a real opportunity to incorporate restorative justice work into our daily work and through internal expertise really leverage those relationships and connections in order to make it even more effective than it has been. And so, as we move forward, what we're excited to propose is adding two full-time coordinators um in order to support this expansion of scope and reach as well as the depth required in order to meet the expectations our school board has of us and our community. Um you know, very proud of the work that
075we've done, very excited for the progress that we're making, and also it's time for us to to move forward and expand what we're able to do. Uh and so happy to take any questions about um this idea. Um just for some context, next month we'll have a discussion around fund 80. You know, costs, adds, subtractions, etc. And then in the following uh board meeting we'll be discussing budget in general, a proposed budget for the future. So there's some opportunities to think about this as we move forward, um but wanted to put this in front of the school board now cuz it's the kind of the biggest thing that we're thinking about as we move forward with fund 80 costs. So happy to take any questions. Well, this isn't a question, this is a comment. I
076appreciate your willingness to move forward on this. I think it's a great endeavor. Thank you, Jim. Other questions from the board? I have a question. What does that restorative justice piece look like? I know what the YW does for restorative justice. How does that look for the children at the elementary school level? How what does that picture look like introducing that? Yeah, we've been so thankful for the partnership with YWCA. They've been really instrumental in launching our restorative justice work. Um something that, you know, I've found over the years is that having an external partner is often necessary in order to gain credibility around tough stuff. And initially when we started our restorative justice work, there was some skepticism that school school officials could or our own staff could participate in that role successfully. What
077we found over time though is that there's a lot more work we could do if we had internal expertise and if it was embedded with our cultural family liaisons. And so what we want to do is leverage the good foundation that we have and start to bring our expertise in-house so that we can have a greater reach both at the elementary level and on a more day-to-day way with our existing programs. Okay. So is that preventative or is this reactive? So most times the restorative justice comes in after there has been an incident. Um so are we looking to educate children or teach them more along the lines of social interaction or is this more how are we now going to address an incident that has taken place to then turn around and teach them
078right for wrong or how to interact? So is it preventative or reactive? That is a a great question and I think that kind of speaks to one of our uh excitements about this proposal. It started out definitely as a preventative measure or not as a reactive measure, right? Something happened, we were looking for a better way to deal with stuff than the criminal justice system or the traditional punitive measures like suspension that we use historically. Um and that has done a lot of good. Where we have found some limitations is our ability to do the preventative work. Um we have had some success. I think we do like sixth grade circles, you know, with all of our students and that really lays a really positive foundation for our students in middle school as they start
079to think about their relationships with each other. But we haven't had that we haven't been able to have the reach we have wanted with all of our staff in the daily classroom interactions. Uh and so we see a real opportunity with this model to expand our preventative restorative justice process as well as keeping the beneficial um kind of reactive process that helps address critical incidents when they happen. Did you have a follow-up, Meredith? Those were a lot of words. >> the wheels going. >> [laughter] [cough] >> I guess for me, it's important that with the speakers that we've had tonight, like for instance, Alicia, identifying what's actually going on with the child because those are the first signs that there are problems in the household, whether it's homelessness or housing instability, like she's mentioned earlier,
080the child is going to react, right? Um so in in most cases, those children are looking for attention, right? And they don't get that attention when those first warning signs appear, but yet the moment that I get in trouble, now I have everybody's attention and focus on me. So I I would hope that we start to look at other preventative measures, other um ways of interacting, um just to really try to address the root of the cause, um and not just once you're now you're in trouble, let's address these issues, let's try and get you help, um when there were warning signs before. So, that's all. Well, thank you. >> It's all about communication. Yes. Yeah. Um can I add just so much of this came up at the linkage. I know we'll talk about
081the linkage a little later in the meeting, but the ideas that were brought forward there from the culture and community were like, we need structural solutions, we need more people on the ground with more eyes on more campuses. So, I'm glad to see a program coming together. Yeah, we need to start restorative justice practices in elementary. And I don't know if they know yet whether it would be preventive or reactive or some combination. Would you be building it? They might be building it. Yeah. Um but it does make sense to sort of start those conversations off in elementary so we're not trying to like teach middle schoolers and high schoolers ways to make amends with one another that are completely foreign to all the practices they've done so far, you know? It's one of those
082things where the early intervention pays um dividends, right? Because you're not unlearning counterintuitive or destructive ways of um negotiating conflict. So, yeah. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right? And I think that's what we were looking at in the in the last round of the fund aid fund aid levy and thinking about the birth to three programming and funding Laura's position um a couple years ago now uh when we did and and I think that's been great. And I really appreciate the timeliness of the presentation. Good hearing that this was already happening and in the background and and then for us to hear very specifically at the linkage what we need is more Tony's and Laura's um and and to to have something to
083respond to um to that need I think is really helpful to for us to have a discussion about it. So. Uh my question um uh you have a sustainable bolded in the in the presentation when we're talking about this ecosystem. And I always appreciate ecosystem metaphors because it just raises the idea of of complexity and interwovenness and and the understanding that none of this work is going to be simple. Um so I I appreciate that but I I'm curious what you imagine sustainability looking like relative to expanding the reach of the program, expanding the scope of the program, and and culture change within the district. So. Yeah, right now as I listen to Laura and Tony talk and see all the great things they do, it's clear that there's gaps, there's missing pieces, there's things
084that are started, but maybe not able to be continued because there's just not enough time and people. And you know, they're you know, to a certain extent firefighters as well going to where issues are arising and putting those out. And when a large amount of your time is spent in a reactive nature, then you can't do the proactive stuff that lays a a sustainable future. And so, having the capacity to expand our reach and to do what we do already well, it will allow for a more sustainable program. One where initiatives continue and flourish, where opportunities can be taken advantage of as opposed to seeing them like kind of pass us by cuz there isn't time. Um Dan, I've I'm not seeing Scott in the the meeting screen on the Did we lose him or
085He must have lost him. >> He must have dropped Oh, okay. Um okay, any other questions from board members then? Hopefully we'll see Scott come back in. So. We'll talk about the finances more next week or 2 weeks. I would just say that, you know, the funding here is through Fund 80 historically, and so it does not impact the general budget. Uh and so, adding here does not take away from something else unless we want to make a trade-off in some other way as we move forward. Scott, were you able to hear the the bulk of the presentation? I didn't see when the when the meeting cut for you. I I was. You know, as soon as you mentioned my name is when I got cut >> [laughter] >> Sorry about that. That's the true
086power of the press, right there. >> [laughter] >> I'm fine other than that. Thank you. Did you have any questions for them? I do not. I just have a comment, obviously, and I think our superintendent just I caught the end of that. Obviously, with the presentation and the speakers tonight, we, you know, adding uh staff, which is obviously a needed area, but we have to be careful as well because, you know, we're in we're in a budget crunch. So, I just want to make sure that we're um I guess knowledgeable of that. Very good. Thank you. Anything else from board members on this item? The uh kind of piggybacking on what Scott just said, I know last year we did um a shift. We moved some items from general budget into fund 80 to create
087more room in the general fund. Um is there going to be additional opportunities or or am I right or am I stealing some thunder here? I just I know there's some limits in what we can shift into fund 80 and what we can't shift into fund 80. We have done most of what we can do with creative uses of fund 80 at this point unless they would benefit community partners. That at this point uh manage our own budget, there's not a lot more novel, unique things we can shift over. I keep asking people every every month. I talked to all my people around the state who are doing cool stuff and innovative things, and we're pretty much at the limit of what we can do right now. Okay. A new, novel shifts. Thank you. Does
088working with the YMCA help? I mean in terms of coordination with the two, does that allow us to use fund 80? We've worked in the community. Absolutely. Uh we can partner further with the YMCA. You know, we uh as um uh Miss Place identified, we work with them through some other grant funding and some other things. Um on this particular project, we have found that our internal staff have the most capacity to meet our needs. Um contracting could be a benefit. Uh in this case, just being embedded, being present daily, having all the same access rights and uh uh opportunities, I think creates a better outcome. Okay. Tim, did you have anything to add? No, I mean we still have the linkage to talk about, so. Okay. All right. Uh thank you for the presentation,
089Dr. Angle. Uh Lauren and Tony, thank you so much for coming. Um next item for up for information is the referendum construction plan update. Yeah, uh Joe's here to lend his expertise instead of uh my poor imitation. Uh and in particular, I wanted to talk about some change orders that are uh that we're working through. Yeah. Just wanted to take this opportunity tonight to kind of share with you some change orders, where we're at with them. Change orders are kind of that necessary evil, right? We need to have them happen, so we get the best product in the end. And so, just want to share with you how we get to those change orders, and then I'll walk you through these that we have in front of us today. And so, to give an idea
090of the State Road project, to put it in perspective, we have 154 pages of 24 by 36 drawings that go into detail of what State Road project looks like. The project manual that describes each detail is 980 pages. And so, based off that information, a lot of times the contractors or subcontractors will have a question and they call the [clears throat] we call them RFIs, request for information. And so, they'll fill out that RFI and they'll send it to the architect or the general contractor or myself for clarification. All three of us see every one of those RFIs. From there, an RFI may become a change order. A change order can happen in one of two ways. An RFI comes back. We answer that RFI and says, "Yep, that needs to change." And then we
091give them a request to change. And so, what they will do then is they'll put together a pricing for that piece. And then that comes back to us. The other way that a change order can happen is maybe we just changed the scope. And a good example would be is when we added the kitchen. And when we added the LMC and when we added those things, then that changes the scope and that becomes then a change request. And then from that change request, we get those costs back and then we bring those costs back and then we decide, "Does that make sense? Is that reasonable?" And then we approve them. And that's the way we go. For the state road project, if you recall, we have $529,000 in contingency for exactly those types of things.
092That's 5%. That's typical what you would do for a budget in a capital improvement project of this size. And so, right now um when you look at the change orders and we'll walk through them what they are, um where we're at in that and we're approximately about three 3.7% right now uh when we look at those. And I'll talk about that. The So, the first change order we we received was was a change to the contract and really what it was there's no cost to that. What it was is we had the final number in the contract. All three of us had signed it, the architect, the school district, and the general contractor, but we didn't break out what those alternates were, even though the price was so it was just a simple contract change.
093And so we took care of that. Change order number two was really mostly about soil corrections. And so that was really we ran into and and a lot of times when you're doing um construction additions, and you're not starting from scratch, you'll see a lot of that happening. So most of that was from soil corrections. The other thing that happened is when we go and get our state approved plans, they approve them conditionally, right? And they're still reviewing them as we get our permits. And so they came back and made some changes. And you'll see that it reflects in some of the change orders we had. One of the big changes, and this would really be easy to show you if we were on site right now, but from the old addition or from the
094old site to the new addition, uh what they made us do is they need us put in a new firewall. Didn't make sense because we still had the from our perspective didn't make any sense, right? From the state it probably did, but from our sense. So we had to put a whole 'nother wall next to an outside wall. And so we had to do that. That actually affects some of the change orders and actually gets down to change order number five. Some of those things are reflected in that. So the first um uh the third change order was change order to the storefront, grading changes, some um plumbing fixtures, electrical fixtures. Um it was really increasing a window size that we were looking at. And then when they submitted their plumbing submittals, and so when
095they before they put anything in, they have to submit a submittal what this product is going to be like. We did not when we sat down with the architect and myself did not like the plumbing submittals what they were requesting, so we changed that. So that's reflective in that $12,219. Uh change order number four uh was window treatments, um plumbing, electrical, some earthwork and landscaping as it relates to the 4K entryway. And so, that's what those changes were in the amount of $15,000. And really, getting and changing some of the window treatments that we had there. Change order number five is another reflection of what the state did. So, based on what the state did and required us to to put in a wall by a wall, if you were to go on site, we
096had to open up the whole ceiling. So, the four classrooms where the music was and where the art was and where two classrooms were, we had to open up the whole ceiling and actually the roof system. So, it was it was open to build that wall. And so, those changes are reflected in request number 10 and 12. And that's makes up the majority of change order number five. And then, if you look at there was a couple of miss lintels in the addition and that counts for $1,117. And then, we had to relocate a hose bib based on the wall that we put in. So, it's really a down to detail. I will tell you that there's probably 50 or 60 pages of data that we have to approve as it relates to these chain
097requests. So, there's a lot more stuff that I could have shared with you that's on there, but that's where we're at. And so, that puts us at about $391,000 and 3.7% of the project. We feel really comfortable that we're not going to go over that that amount. We're getting to a point in the in the construction process where you're going to see some major things happening and we're we're starting to start think about painting and flooring and all those things. So, we'll have a closed envelope in that building here in the next few weeks. And then, when you recall, we came to you in April and the board approved moving forward with LMC. We had budgeted $344,000 for that. It came in after we looked at then we designed the project and looked what we
098really needed, it came in at $194,000. And so that would be change request number six. And so that's kind of the process and where we're at and we'll bring those forward as we get them to let you know where we're at in the budget process. And so I kind of open it up for questions. That last one was the best one. Yes, yes it was. Yes, it was. I would also say thank you really quickly for the detail that you provided in this and the additional context. I we probably don't need to see all the bids all the time and those kind of things, but it is really nice to to kind of see where your process is coming from in the documentation. So questions from the board for Joe. I will add one thing.
099It takes time to get all these numbers. So if you look at the dates of these are all happening in April even though we've been working on these solutions over the last several months. Okay. I have I have a quick question. So the the $391,000, 3.7% of the project. So with the change order number six coming in wonderfully and significantly below the original budgeted. Um that change order is not accounted for in that 3.7%. >> No, it is not. And so it's really interesting. We had a conversation of how do we show that? And so what we did is we increased the budget by $344,000. So you would you would take that original budget. We could show it either way. We could take it off of that line item, whatever you want to do, but
100we chose to show it off increasing the budget by $194,000. Rather than drawing down the 5% contingency. Okay. Because it really was a change of scope. It really was addition to what we were doing. And if it was a standalone project, we would probably bid that out separately. Right. Yep. And that's that's the other difference then is that these change orders were often driven by either the contractors or or state requirements or things. That one was us changing. >> That was us changing the scope of work. Yes. Very good. Okay. Any other questions for Joe? Okay. Thank you very much. >> [clears throat] >> Um Oh, Scott, I'm sorry. I didn't I didn't see if you had anything to ask. No, I'm fine. Thank you. >> Okay. Uh next on the agenda is the action
101plan for policies with exceptions noted. Hand it over to Dr. Angle. Yeah, it's it's for the whole evaluation that I received from the school board as well. The There were three things that the school board identified as goals from the evaluation. So, I wanted to provide a response to two of those and ask for more information at RFI from the board for the the final one. Um so, the with exceptions noted uh was the first uh goal the board expects to see a proactive plan to move from uh more policies from met to with ex- expectations with expectations to met. The second one was uh positive school culture. The board encourages Dr. Angle to continue the positive work on improving staff culture with more focus on including staff early in the decision-making process to become
102part of the solution. And then the third uh is positive community relations. The board would like to see Dr. Angle begin to focus more on building positive relationships with the district in the community and build connections with the community. There were some other identified areas for continuation or growth. I added those as well. Sometimes the headline isn't uh as nuanced as the the text. And so, I just added those maybe more for my own support than anything. Um I'm just going to talk through this first page and then you can read the rest in depth if you're so inclined. Um on the with exceptions noted, um there are three policy indicators that have consistently been noted with exceptions in the last 3 years. So, kind of recent history. These three policies are related to staff
103climate, disproportionate discipline, and proportional enrollment. Um Respectively, the primary strategies we will employ to address these policies are workplace positive psychology to improve building culture, improved dispositions and community support to address disproportionate discipline, and addressing natural barriers for proportional enrollment. With those in particular, there's probably five pages of documentation about root cause and some of the various strategies we've used in the past, but these are the things we're going to be focusing on actively as we move forward. As it relates to positive school culture, um school culture has improved over the last 2 years, but we are still not where we want to be. Um to continue working on school culture, we'll use the following strategies: workplace positive psychology to improve building culture, involvement of staff in decision making, listening through focus groups, increased presence
104in buildings, and a helpful district customer service ethic. And so, we'll be fleshing out the details of some of those things over this next year or over the summer. Um the last one is positive positive community relationships, and while the first two I felt very confident writing an action plan around, I wanted to ask for a little more feedback on this area uh before I start, you know, writing something to address the board's interest. In particular, I need help with two questions: What does success look like, and how will we know? And so, open to questions on this whole thing and anything that folks want to talk about, but in particular, I would appreciate a discussion around that last item. What does success look like for positive community relationships, and how will we know so
105that I know where to focus and what to bring back to the board after or before my next review. I don't know if we're poised to answer those questions for you tonight. If anybody has thoughts. >> anything organic cuz I want to get started. I think what we discussed, and this was we went back and forth quite a bit on what this meant and like what we thought would be a success. So, um we didn't feel like it was you engaging in in more specific groups. We know you're already engaged, right? You're engaged across the community in various different ways. I think what we're trying to get at is how does the non-engaged citizen feel like what we're doing matters. Right? We see all the great things that happen. Like it happens in the buildings
106and and I've got kids in the district still. So, for me, like I see it whether it's at school or or what we see at board meetings and what we just hear from the community. We think it's improving. Like honestly, we do. Um but it's how do we get that person that when we ask them for a referendum for a good reason that they understand it, they're engaged to the point where it makes sense in their mind and they really want to support it. Right? Succinctly put that together. Like that's what I That's what I remember from our conversations is what we were trying to get at, like the root cause. Now, do we know how to measure that? I don't at this point. I think that's probably things that we can talk our way
107through, but I think that's what the end result we're trying to see and I think similar to what you've done with staff and we really did we applauded what what has been happening and then engagement you're having and we heard it from some of our speakers tonight that it's it's improving and that uh they're feeling like they have a a better voice in in the process. Um I think our community wants to have that same transformation happen. They want to feel like they've got a voice and they're being heard and whether the end results are always the what they want to see is it's it's part of what what we have to do sometimes, but at the same time if they can at least feel like they're seen and heard, I think it would help.
108Yeah. And I I would say that one of the ways we might we might know we've succeeded, right? Or that you have succeeded [snorts] in this is we heard tonight and have heard recently um from staff that not only do we did we felt listen to, we saw action based on it and that shows us that things are heading in the right directions. And I can imagine having you know, community partner, community members who feel like signing up to be public speakers to tell us they appreciated something that that they saw in the district, something they saw Dr. Angle leading or the district overall putting forth as an initiative. And that that could be one metric of success, hearing from folks. So Could you do you could could you potentially put some level of outbound
109survey on the end of some of our our community focus linkages, right? Like do we feel and then measure that over a few years time where we're seeing repetitive questions and data asked. We do it I mean a lot of our linkage questions are repetitive, right? So we can understand are we gaining traction in some things that are critical for us. So can you use that as a metric or can we adjust how we approach some of those community like facing type groups? Maybe. I don't think that's the best way to to go at it. I mean, I think what I would probably Surveys are great, but surveys are always points in time, right? And they cost money and they cost time and um can we do surveying? Yes, I think internal surveys are great.
110I think that is a good metric. They're a captive audience. You want them to be engaged. You want them to give us feedback on what we can do cuz what you do directly impacts what they do every day. Um Community's harder. It's a lot messier to try and use a survey to pull results there. Other thoughts from board members? Scott? Go ahead. Yeah, would it be possible obviously I have some uh things that I would like to bring up. Is it possible that you maybe email a few things to the board just to give ideas and show that obviously there's some things that personally can't be above but that doesn't necessarily need to be in this format. But is it possible to do just an email and some ideas and some maybe some helpful hints
111or or if it's even worth doing. I guess that's the question. Absolutely. I put you on the spot and so you need some time to think and and I was just hoping to get some initial clarification but I'll Laura and I will chat and we'll put together some meetings with everyone. We try and do that every other month anyway and so maybe the next time we meet we can get more into what this means for each of you and then absolutely always email. Definitely appreciate feedback in any form at any time. I would say I know we all appreciate having our one-on-one meetings with you periodically. I think that's really helpful. I would say that's a really great you know like structure for maybe your next meeting with everybody for sure. To give us some
112time to do our homework, right Scott? That would be great. Thank you. I would just add just to kind of reinforce what Jeff was saying previously about that the the discussion we had in the evaluation process was really about those folks who [snorts] maybe are are no longer as engaged with the district. It's right, parents with grown children, right? Who have maybe fallen away. We've heard recently from a lot of folks who were really quite active and engaged parents who still have the enthusiasm to to be of use and support to the district and re-engaging with those types of individuals as well as those who may have never had kids in the district or or you know recent transplants and don't don't know or have as much reason to engage with the district and um
113um yeah, not slackening your efforts um that have borne fruit internally with the district culture and everything, but um but now doing like a yes and with that. Anything else from board members? All right. We will move on then. Um next item of information is the uh Wisconsin Association of School Boards WASB 2026 Business Honor Roll. Every year we have an opportunity to recognize some businesses in our community for the um support they provide public education. Um each year um we reach out to the school board just to solicit any folks that you think deserve uh special mention. Uh if you just give us a name or, you know, some connection, we're happy to do the legwork of putting together a nomination and filling it all out. Um [snorts] you know, we also know internally
114some great partners who do great things with us, but this is really a school board initiative and so we want to start um with any ideas that you all have. And so no reason to come up with it right now on the spot, but maybe some more homework. Uh if you think of somebody between now and August 7th, um let us know. We'll continue to remind you. >> [snorts] >> Uh but we want to make sure that we create a strong public education business relationship and highlight the incredible partners we have in our community. All right, thank you very much. Uh we'll move into agenda item eight, matters reserved for board action. Uh our first item for tonight is the operational expectation monitoring report OE12 on facilities. Joe is going to read verbatim his 1,252
115pages of this report. Please don't. Uh no. We're going to focus on the highlights and some critical changes or uh particular indicators. And so thank you, Mr. Laviena, for being here. Yeah, thank you. Um, just want to recognize this is a team approach, right? So, I have Jeff Olson with me. He's our energy and transportation manager who helped prepare some of the reports. And then I have Ann Andrews, who's our buildings and grounds manager and safety coordinator. And then I also want to recognize the business office cuz they're a big part of this. But I serve at the pleasure of Dr. Engel and Patty Sprang and feel privileged and honored to have the position that I have because [clears throat] there's a lot of great things happening within the the school district. And this is
116a a really a momentous time in the district with all the things that are going on. Just a reminder about this report. This is actually a report for July of or excuse me, July 1 of 2024 through June 30th of 2025. So, we're actually looking back. Now, I will tell you that in some of the reports, and I'll try to outline those, when we're looking at some of the things if it has a name to it, it's a just a sample of the report. If it doesn't have a name to it, it's the full report of everything cuz there's a lot of data that's in here. And I will say this is a report we might want to look at our board calendar and move to maybe a September timeframe so that it looks at
117the immediate prior year instead of looking back, you know, 2 years ago. It's hard to feel relevant, you know, based on our reporting timeframe. And so, there'll be a few reports I want to talk a little bit about uh in addition to what we have because they're new. And so, we'll talk about that. So, if we start off with indicator one, a capital facility improvement and maintenance plan, uh you're aware of the the 5-year plan that we have. And so, this is a snapshot in time. I'm actually working on that plan on a regular basis, but I have attached that for your viewing as well. Indicator two asks for all conditions assessment annually. And that's uh what I've included there is the timeframe that I meet with the the I only have one timeframe, but
118I meet with them on a multiple times. And then the condition assessment and then what we recommend, the process that we do and identifying projects that need to be need to happen. So, you'll see that in evidence number two. Indicator number three is a list of projects that was completed during that time frame. And again, that's just that time frame, so it's kind of hard to judge sometimes when exactly it was finished, but you'll see a a list there. Um indicator number four, the district identifies schedules and conducts required preventive maintenance. And this helps us really identify what needs to go in that capital improvement book. And so, what you'll see there is the service contracts that we have for HVAC with complete controls and Johnson Controls. And so, we've included that. Those are three-year
119contracts. Those are up next year, so we will be renego- renegotiating those and maybe opening them up for bid from from other contractors. Uh indicator number five, safety reviews conducted uh annually with no injury or life safety concerns. Um what you'll see is the an example of the Harry Spence playground inspection checklist. That's done monthly. You'll see Harry Spence Elementary violence drill evaluation, so you'll see that. State Road building uh vulnerability assessment. I want to talk a little bit about that vulnerability assessment because this is something that happens every year. And so, it happens every year at the school. It's a walk-around with our uh safety coordinator, our police liaison officers, and then the principal, and anybody else who's associated with that. So, to give you an example, because we will be adding on at
120State Road School before that that happens, before school starts, there'll be assessment that goes around. Where do people go for a tornado? What if we have a violence drill? Something uh happens. So, all those things happen. That happens every year at every school in the month of August. And so, you see a sample of that. And then you'll see a report instant reports for 24-25 speak up speak out report. That's a anonymous system that people can put in any concerns they have and that goes to the principal that goes to the safety coordinator that goes to different administrators. And then the other thing that we have is the vape report. And so this is new the vape report and so just want to talk a little bit about that. I mentioned it last last week.
121We're going to be continuing that at both high schools will be adding additional but if you look at the vape report at Central there was 287 alerts. 163 of those alerts were during the school day. 124 of those alerts were after the school day. To put that in perspective and that doesn't say that there but to give it perspective. So it's not just our students who are vaping in our restrooms. Okay, at Logan 105 alerts during the school day and 105 alerts after the school day. Kind of ironic but they both mean. So just wanted to draw that to your attention because that's something new that we haven't included in the past and that you requested that last year. The next one is indicator number six. The district develops a long range facility plan and
122so I included the long range facility plan as it is today. I didn't go back to 24-25. The next one [snorts] the district long range facility plan is reviewed by the board at least annually any significant time changes are made and so what you'll see is there on December 2nd 2024 under facilities planning we provided that a long range facility plan to the board and the discussion at that time. The next one is 12.2 and it's project life cycle costs and this is a really the first one is the board receives descriptive analysis and decision process chosen for capital improvements. And there what you have is the capital improvement presentation that I gave last week. You'll see a focus on energy memo. I really want to highlight that because if you look at that focus
123on energy memo, what it will say is that we had a savings of $256,000 in 24-25 with rebates of $176,000. And I'm happy to report just yesterday or just last Thursday uh Mr. Elson received a word from Focus on Energy that we received energy efficiency uh champion award for this last year. So, it tells you that we're doing the right things and we're following the right processes and we're bringing additional money in and it really goes back to the board saying, "Okay, it's okay to spend those rebate money." So, we've been taking that rebate money, investing it back in things that will save us dollars. And so, with the leadership of Dr. Engel and Patty and allowing us to do that and the board, it really helps us uh increase those savings costs as we
124move forward. And then the next one is indicator two is the board receives an update on current system life cycle assessments annually. And this is actually for Mr. Jackson. I think he requested this uh report last year and just want to make sure if we could go into the H H uh let's go into the HVAC real quick. And so, what we have is a breakdown up there is kind of a life expectancy that you would expect from If you go to the very top, Dan. And so, if we look at rooftop unit 15 to 20 years, air handling unit 30 to 35 years uh boilers uh uh to 17 to 25 years and then chillers 20 to 25. Thank you. I couldn't read from here, but um so, it gives you an idea, but
125that's just All that is is a something to go by. And it's really when you talk in terms of what we do with HVAC, our preventive maintenance contracts, right? And then it's meeting with our contractors quarterly, and you'll see some of those reports later on. It allows us to sit down there and really project what were when we're going to replace them. And then when you'll see that in capital improvements. So, I will tell you that even though that is a recommended life of the HVAC components, we go far beyond that. And it's because we do good preventive maintenance, and that we're changing out components, right? So, an air handler for instance, what we're doing is replacing belts, we're greasing bearings, we're changing filters on a regular basis, and we're cleaning coils regularly. So, that
126extends the life of what you have. And so, if the district had to replace everything at that timeframe, we would never get anything else done in capital improvements. So, that's a new report that's for you, and be interested to hear what you have to say about that. And then I would go to the next one, Dan, if you can go to the roof report. Roof replacement is the exact same thing. So, what I we did is by by school, we listed the type of roof, the square footage of that roof, the roof it was installed, and then we estimate the replacement date. And so, again, we do a lot of repairs, we do roof inspections every year, takes us over a week. We have about 22 and 1/2 acres of roofs. And so, we're replacing
127flashings, we're replacing seams, we're doing all the things that we can to extend the life of the roof. And I just want to show you if you could go to I'm going to give you an example, and if you go to Southern Bluffs, Dan, if you could find Southern Bluffs, roof number four. So, it's okay. So, roof number four, if you look at roof number four, a pre-finished standing seam metal roof. The school was built in two in 1992. Now, if you look at how long a metal roof should last, metal roof should last 50 years minimum, right? We had to replace it in 2006. Based off doing roof inspections, when I was doing my roof inspections, I found a little I found some rust on the top of the roof, which caused me to
128do an investigation. Based off that investigation, what we found is when they put up the roof, the contractors used red rosin paper to keep the roof from sliding when they were doing the metal roof. Red rosin paper retains moisture. And so, in further investigation based off that roof inspection, we looked and there was condensation from underneath because there was a gap underneath the roof. That condensation was coming from underneath, and so that was under warranty. We had to replace the whole roof at no cost to the school district. But, because we did those roof inspections, those are the kinds of things that we find. And so, those things are critical when it comes to extending the life of what we have. And so, just want to use those two as an example, and those are
129two new reports that you asked for. And so, hopefully that gets you what you want, but we can provide additional information if you'd like. If we go to 12.3, um indicator one, the district passes all required annual inspections, construction inspections in accordance with the whole uh federal and state and local codes. And so, we passed all inspections, but what you'll see there is Wisconsin elevator inspection results, boiler inspection results, central chemical fume hood tests, Logan fume hood tests, flame test on on the curtains at the auditoriums, Logan High fire drill report, motion sensor and door sensor reports. And so, we test those on a regular basis. We test those monthly to make sure they're working. You'll see a fire alarm strobes and horns test log. That's from State Road. You'll see the La Crosse Fire
130Department fire inspection report. Logan Middle fire equipment look inspection, Hamilton fire alarm inspection, Hamilton sprinkler inspection. We have to do that annually. And the Logan High pool inspection was done by the county. Those are all required inspections that we do on a regular basis and we maintain make sure that we those are fixed if there's anything found. We usually fix those immediately. Indicator number two, the district completes all scheduled maintenance and we meet this is where we meet with our contractors locally or on a regular basis quarterly. And so we take that information and we may do some updates to the equipment. We may fix equipment based on that and that's again to help extend the life of our HVAC equipment. Indicator three says the district maintains a work order system that addresses safety concerns
131and equipment repairs. Last year we had 3,932 work request. That is 1,800 more than we had the year before. So that is our custodians, that's our truck drivers, that's our building engineers, that and our craft person, that all the things that they do when staff put in a work request, we approve them and it goes to those staff and then they fix those work orders. And I will tell you I think that we're still under reporting. So that's just testimony to the work that our custodial staff and building engineers do on a regular basis. Indicator four, during the student occupied hours 100% of facilities used controlled entries. And so you'll see two reports there. S2 Logan Middle sample report. That's a staff report. So staff card access every time they go in the building, they
132get that report. The next one is a Vacarda guest system report and that's a visitor system where they put in their license and then we get immediately we get any feedback from that license and so that's a visitor report that we get on every person who comes through our building and that's at every school at every site. John, can I ask you a real quick question? >> Sure. I'm seeing four access denied at Logan Middle School, but it looks like within like a second. So was that was that a teacher swiping their card and it was >> I don't remember that one specifically, but what a lot of times happens is that and we don't know maybe they cracked their card or broke their card and so they need a new card when it comes
133to staff when it comes to that access and so they'll call us and then we'll we'll have to go through the computer look at it or provide them a new card through HR. Okay. Sometimes they're visiting that school and maybe on the side door access that's not authorized for that building and so they got to run around the front. Right. This was a staff entry it says. Yeah, so if you remember part of the things that we're going to be doing is part of the capital improvements process we're upgrading our card access system cuz it was put in in 2008-9 and so there are some changes we'll be making as we move forward with that. Yeah. Uh the next one is 100% of identified violations per fire department state inspections are corrected. We had no
134state inspections, but 100% of the fire department ones were corrected. Um the next next one is uh indicator what 12.4 indicator one. The district maintains facility use policy 8300 and so I provided that policy with you um for you this evening. Number two is the use request process and rules are easily accessible to the public and so you have access to that. You can go to our website. You can go to the school's website and people put in for all the time. We are changing our from our schools to uh bound and so we're changing our software system and it'll take effect in July, um but that is happening and so you'll also see the facility use report there. We had 45,772 hours outside the school day. That's about 800 about 950 hours additional than
135the year before. And again, I think we're under reporting there. So, with the new software system, hopefully we'll do that. But, those are how our buildings are being used. And so, with the addition of State Road School and the two gyms there, I'm sure that that's going to increase because there's a lot of gym requests that's needed in the district, and the same will be true when we open up the new school. Indicator number three, facility use was monitored and all events were conducted safely and appropriately according with our policy. And all of them were monitored. Whenever we have someone in our building that's not a school district staff or we have students, we have custodial staff or building engineers that are on site the whole time that they are there. And so, we monitor
136them on a regular basis. 12.5, a final decision for naming or renaming a facility shall be made by the Board of Education. And so, I have that policy there. There were no recommendations, but as you well know, next year we'll report back that you named two schools. 12.6, indicator one, all major construction renovation activities are presented to the board. There was three of them during that time frame. That was the Hogan move to Central. That project was brought before the board, and I show you example of that memo that was there. The Logan High bleachers was brought to the board at that time, and the Logan Middle roofing projects. So, all three of those boards were brought to all those three were brought to the board for approval. And so, in that process. 12.71, the
137board is briefed on all recommended land acquisition projects to include growth patterns, comparative costs, construction, transportation factors. And so, we did not purchase any land during that time frame, but I did include in the report the property that you purchased in September. And I primarily did that for me because so I don't forget next year when I have to report to you what happens this year, right? So, I included that, and we also lease a parking lot for Polytechnic down um next to them. And then indicator 12 point eight, all contracts and projects are administered so that construction change orders are rarely needed. We did not have any change orders during that time frame and then the board is briefed on any schedule change orders that significantly increase the cost and we did not have
138any any of those projects at that time. And with that I will open it up for any Questions from board members. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. That's your job. That was a quick one, huh? Um and so just for context and for for the benefit of our newest board members of the schedule that we're on now we're looking for a motion for confirmation of compliance on this particular night and then we will see a forward-looking OE 12 um in a future meeting to review any proposed changes to the policy itself to cover the the coming year, right? Okay. I'll make a motion to accept this report as written. Uh Okay. So we have a motion by Mr. Begnoche ski. I'll second. And just to clarify the motion we'll be looking for in compliance.
139I make a motion that with it the outcome operational expectation monitor report is in line with what we would want. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? We'll have a roll call vote. Mr. Alberts. Aye. Mr. Begnoche ski. Aye. Dr. Garcia. Aye. Ms. Hess. Aye. Mr. Jackson. Aye. Mr. Neumeister. Aye. Dr. Sprague. Aye. Motion carries. Moving on to our 8.02 linkage summary. And so this is the the May 4th, uh, the one that's linked in in there is the cultural community partners linkage summary from May 4th that many of us were in attendance for. Give members a chance to read, but if there are any comments or questions right off the bat, if anybody wants to kick off a discussion. I I'll start off, I guess. I'm trying to remember which
140one it is. Yeah, I mean the two of them both I mean a lot of the things that were brought up were [cough and clears throat] were concerns in both the linkages. Um, but it was good to see that most of those are being addressed tonight. Um, so that was fantastic. I don't know if that was collaborated, but coincidence coincidence, but yeah, it's it was fantastic. I would say it's not a coincidence. We hear the same things that you hear at linkages and we have a commitment to our students the same way that our families do and so we're responding to the needs that we're hearing in our community just like you are. So. I think um, maybe the ongoing discussion about tech, time on tech, and play time, and actually play-based curriculum that sort
141of feels like it's being pressed out of the elementary curriculum in favor of I don't know, more seat time um in a way that is counterproductive to student learning. >> [laughter] >> Maybe. So, we did hear a bit of that at both of the linkages that we had in the last couple of weeks. I would unfortunately wasn't able to attend this second linkage, but I am glad to see that issue continue being raised. It I think it shows you know, from the time we had a public speaker a few meetings back that this is out there. It's absolutely something that parents are talking about. I keep hearing about it as I'm out and about in in the community from from parents in my network and in my children's networks, right? Um so, I I'm glad
142to see that here and I do think it's a good prompt for a further discussion. Well, we have a technology advisory committee that is made up of community members and staff members that will be meeting soon to um kind of grapple with some of those concerns that our community has around technology use. Yeah. Other comments on the linkage notes? Okay, hearing none I would look for a motion to approve or accept the linkage summary. I'll make a motion to approve the linkage summary. Second. We have a motion by Mr. Alberts and a second by Mr. Begneski. Have a roll call vote, please. Mr. Alberts. Aye. Mr. Begneski. Aye. Dr. Garcia. Aye. Ms. Hess. Aye. Mr. Jackson. Aye. Mr. Neumeister. Aye. Dr. Sprague. Aye. Okay, we'll move on to announcements. First is Mr. Begneski with CISA
1434 border control. Well, there were two things that board should be aware of. It says the Department of Justice extended the ADA title two web accessibility compliance deadline by one year. [snorts] So, now ADA says web accessibility compliance is needed. I'm not sure if that was always the case. And then the second one is >> [snorts] >> Act 42 requires all district school boards to adopt a policy prohibiting students from using personal wireless communication devices during the instructional period time by July 1, 2026. So, we have to have a policy in place that students should not cannot be using wireless technology communication devices. And then every year by October 1 after that, they have to report any changes. So, All right. Yeah, and that title two compliance is a really big lift. Um, UW-La Crosse
144has been going through it and and we had, you know, the big rush to to review our entire website, all documents stored online, their accessibility. I imagine the same has been true of the district. Were we in compliance by the original deadline? We were. We have had a long-awaited >> [sighs] >> um website update, uh which definitely shows off our school district better than it had previously and uh it complies with ADA requirements. There are some things here and there we need to work on, you know, even like um school board meetings, there needs to be transcripts available and close captioning and you know, and those are all good things for all residents to be able to access our stuff. Finding solutions that are in our budget can be challenging and unfortunately some school districts
145have chosen just not to broadcast meetings because they've the cost of being sued is greater than the cost of um implementing something. >> Yeah, having compliance. >> Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Um all right, thank you uh Mr. Bagnewski. Uh Dr. Garcia. Yeah, uh LPF had the Golden Apple >> [cough and clears throat] >> awards and we delivered our um Golden Apple grants as well. So, those things happened in the last couple of weeks. And I didn't get to go this year cuz I was at my niece's graduation. Um but it looked like it was a good time. Good. All right. Um announcements on the city school consortium. Uh Mr. Alberts and Mr. Neumeister. I don't know. Scott, you want to go or do you want me to go? I'll go. Um so, the survey's out. Uh
146got one in >> Sorry, I was going to I think that I just forgot the um >> [laughter] >> But you you go ahead. Okay. Um survey's out. Uh got one in the mail. Um we've had a few community listening sessions. Uh one last Thursday and uh last Wednesday actually was a virtual one and then Thursday was uh at the Southside Community Center. I wasn't there, but we probably had seven or eight, maybe 12 people attend. It was good. Fantastic. Great. Scott, anything to add? No, I agree. It did go well. Um there was a lot of good questions. Obviously, uh there are some concerns. Um people just have to remember that this is this is informational only. We're just asking if there is any uh lack of order and what our next steps should
147be here and if they will be. So, I was just looking for information. That's it. All right, thank you. Uh move on to my presidential announcements. It is of course graduation season. Uh so if you haven't already, please um respond to the um the link that I believe Laura sent out. I thought I saw somebody else had sent it out as well. Or you have a slip in front of you if you still need to RSVP. >> Or there is a slip in front of us if you still need to RSVP for attending uh graduation ceremony. So mark your calendars for May 21st for both CRVA graduation ceremony at 4:00 p.m. held in the Logan Middle School Auditorium. Also on May 21st, La Crosse Polytechnic graduation ceremony at 5:30 p.m. held at uh the Polytechnic
148School building. On May 22nd, both Logan and Central will have their graduation ceremonies. 5:00 p.m. for Logan and 7:30 p.m. for Central, both held at the La Crosse Center. I believe Tim will be there in cap and gown. I will. >> I will cuz my kids will be walking. >> There you go. Very fun. And congratulations on that. That's great. Yeah. Um I uh also have a little homework for the board. Um in in my first couple of meetings as as president and then as I've started to get into the rhythm of meeting regularly with Dr. Engel, thinking about setting uh the tone for the year and the work that we want to accomplish, um kind of want to put out there for everybody to to just think on a little bit, what would it
149look like for us to be the best board in the state. Um some of you were were on the board when we had um members from a variety of different school districts who are also um trainers in coherent governance, for example, come to us and and talk about their experiences and and share um how they work the model and everything. And so thinking about what would we go out and and share as our successes as a board. It could be simple stuff. It could be procedural things. How well are we doing coherent governance? Are there are there processes we would like to see, you know, changed or implemented? How well do we think we're doing at communicating important dates and and important things that the board needs to follow up on to make sure that
150everybody feels good in their roles and that they are being the best one board members they can be. Those kinds of things though, nothing to put anybody on the spot right now, but to open up a conversation for a future workshop in the next the next couple of meetings here, I think. So, what would it look like for us to be the most successful board in the state in your mind and maybe think of two to three items you might bring in conversation. All right. Dr. Engel. Um, Memorial Day the district office will be closed and the my one of my favorite days of the year. >> [laughter] >> Pales in comparison to the first day of school or graduation, but the last day of school >> [snorts] >> to see the excitement of kids
151to thought of summer and then they quickly return to us to summer school excited to teach their favorite teacher again. So, >> [snorts] >> last day of school is May 29th. It's a half day and we will be out for summer. All right. I should say caveat North side >> [laughter] >> will have one more week. They chose a slightly different calendar this year to build in kind of a one week fall break to create some space in the calendar to you know, provide space for rejuvenation, consolidation and then come back at it, you know, through the winter months and we're evaluating how that works for the staff members there to see if it's something we could do elsewhere. Are you also getting feedback from the families? From parents? Yes, that'll be a part of
152our analysis is is how it We know that, you know, days without school or child care can be a burden for working families and so we're always thoughtfully balancing those two things. Great. [snorts] It's good to hear. Um moving on then agenda planning for our June 1st meeting. You'll see the uh proposed agenda um listed in in BoardDocs there. Um action we'd be looking for is a motion to approve the agenda as presented or with any additions or corrections as necessary. Um note that we'll be seeing the OE 12 facilities report and that's again the forward-looking one for recommended uh any recommended changes and our first look at the OE monitoring report OE 2 emergency superintendent succession um where we'll be looking for um board action on approval for that one. Anything from board members
153tonight? We had any conversations around some of the safety incidents around Polly? I know I've seen some in the newspaper and I know with my [snorts] even with my kids at Polly like we they had incidents with people in the park and with that. So I just wasn't sure if we'd want to ever want to see something. I'm not saying it has to be on the stuff coming on the agenda but if that's something that I know community is concerned about, I've I'm concerned about. Just kind of understand what's going on. I think we can absolutely put something on if if not for this next meeting if you Yeah, we've got a you know, eight days left so. Good. In the future years, what are we going to do to address that? >> goes as
154far as long-term facility planning and and how we want to integrate that uh school into what we have and best use of buildings. So but uh just safety is probably the biggest thing I want to just understand. Good. We'll plan something out for June or July cool sometime. The parents at the district-wide parent meeting which I know we'll talk about next meeting um brought up the idea of just kind of understanding what it would be like or what it would cost to provide free breakfast and lunch for all our students if we could that and again it doesn't have to be next meeting but if we could have it on an agenda this summer that would be just to get maybe like a workshop or something to get all the numbers and figure out what
155that would Yeah, cost of universal free breakfast and lunch. >> districts that have done it how they've done it So that's a separate for us it's a separate funding right so and but that funding mechanism is different because it's we pull some money from general fund over to that fund to cover gaps don't we? Yeah, fund 50 is generally self-sufficient. We use federal dollars to offset the costs. We use receipts from families that pay to cover costs. If there is more expense than revenue we have to cover the costs with fund 10. And so if we started to run a deficit there we would have to take out of our fund 10 budget to cover for that and so >> Is there any creativity in how we can fund that or is that a pretty
156strict fund on how that Not to get too deep down the rabbit hole I'm just trying to get my head around like potential levers we can You know we done with fund 10 in the past have we overspent that budget or We've been fortunate we have a great school nutrition program. They have been self-sufficient we and they've even been able to provide funding for some like equipment repairs and equipment purchases themselves as well which is is amazing as not necessarily common in in a lot of school districts. We can explore the limitations before our next meeting. I don't have a great answer right now. Even if you can just get that out to us at some point again nothing crazy. >> Totally. We'll think about whether so without without an ask to put something specific
157on the agenda for next time we'll we'll take it under advisement as we're doing these >> you all kinds of stuff for the future. >> Got it. >> [laughter] >> Got it. Sounds good. It's like a project. Yeah. I also want to do a deep dive into what Sheboygan is doing right with closing the reading achievement gap. Take a look at some some other districts that are are having success stories, so. Um okay, um with any other comments or additions or or corrections from the board, I'll be looking for a motion to approve the the agenda as presented. So moved. Second. Okay, with motion by Dr. Garcia and a second by Mr. Begneski, uh we'll have a roll call vote. Mr. Alberts. Aye. Mr. Begneski. Aye. Dr. Garcia. Aye. Ms. Haas. Aye. Mr. Jackson. Aye.
158Mr. Neumeister. Aye. Dr. Sprague. Aye. Motion carries. Moving on to board debriefing. Before we go there, I don't know whether it should go before or after, but I came late and the reason I came late, maybe some other people were there and so on, but the P P S A P S B P B S P B S got the right letters now. Uh presentation on Polytech, I think was really well done and appreciate whoever sponsored that in terms of whether it was the Rivoli using their facility or whatever, but we should give thanks to those people and uh I wish it was shown again. I'm not sure that it's going to be shown again, but it was interesting and Dr. Engel, I'm not sure you're up for any kind of Academy Award, but >>
159[laughter] >> you did well. The Jim Begneski seal of approval. Yeah, I was very nervous about that interview given the topic. Um yeah, it was amazing endeavor. So thankful for PBS for working with Polytechnic. It was really the teachers there uh who did amazing work with those students every single day and like from start to finish creating a film and it felt like PBS. Like it was in I saw the first probably five or six. I couldn't see them all. I had to get over here, but like really impressive work by our students. In that connection, I can thank Nell Sanders-Scott from LPEF connecting Nick Marcou who worked with the PBS folks to get them over to Polytech and find the right fit. >> [snorts] >> Really a collaboration of just amazing folks looking out
160for a neat opportunities to put us on the map and really show what's special here in La Crosse. Great. [clears throat] Great. Thanks for that note, Jim. Board debriefing. Our debriefing facilitator tonight is Mr. Neumeister. Well, look at there. Today's meeting once I got the audio up and running, I was actually able to join and it worked real well. I um I appreciated the speakers. Very eloquent and we are lucky to have them as teachers. Um you know, wish we all could just wave the um flag and and and pay in the money we need to overpay everyone and but we have decisions to be made. I appreciated everyone's input. I thought the meeting went well. Um Our president didn't get long-winded, so that was good. >> [laughter] >> You're welcome. There's still time. No,
161and and I think it went well. I apologize for again missing our leg issues and um hopefully I'll be back tomorrow, but I um I want to get I think you know, we may not agree on everything, but I think we um treat each other with respect and and I think that's important to continue down that road. And ultimately we just want the best for our students, our teachers, and our staff. So um I appreciate everyone. Thank you. Great. Thanks, Scott. Take care of yourself and we'll hope to see you back in person next time. Um but if there is nothing else for the good of the order, we do have a workshop after this on uh property use and reuse, as well as long-term facility planning. Um so, if there's no objections, we'll stand
162adjourned and we'll take a 5-minute break. We are adjourned.