001[Music] Um, first we'll recognize that um the Ho Chunk or the Hogan Administrative Center occupies the land of the Ho Chunk people. Please take a moment and celebrate and honor this ancestral Ho Chunk land and the sacred lands of all indigenous peoples. >> Will the secretary please call the role? >> Mr. Alberts >> here. >> Mr. Vnesky >> here. >> Miss Fs >> here. >> Dr. Garcia >> here. >> Mr. Jackson >> here. >> Mr. Ma >> here. >> Mr. Newmeister >> here. >> Dr. Sprag >> here. >> Miss Sucla >> here. >> We have a full board present tonight. So, the regular scheduled meeting of August 18th, 2025 is hereby called to order. We will now have the pledge of allegiance. Please stand and face the American flag. >> I pledge allegiance to the
002flag 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. Tonight's agenda has been previously distributed to the board. Um before I ask for a motion, I do want to make a comment. The agenda planning uh or the agenda setting section at the end was inadvertently omitted. The setting the agenda is my responsibility as the board uh president. The staff have prepared it, but it's my job. So, um it'll be on next time, but when I do my announcements as board president, I will talk about the items for the next meeting. I just wanted to acknowledge that and apologize for that. Um, at this time I would entertain a motion with a second to approve the agenda as submitted, unless
003there's a motion to amend. >> Make a motion to accept the agenda as submitted. >> Seconded. >> Okay, we have a motion to second. Any discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Those opposed? Motion carries. We have no public speakers this evening. Uh we will then move on to the superintendent's consent agenda and uh there's an opportunity through the department of public education to take career teched courses. And if they sufficiently align with kind of core classes like um biology, English, social studies, uh etc., you can count them in those core academic areas for graduation credit, but only as an elective. And so in this case, we are um we did the work. We've got great people working in these areas uh to align uh animal science
004as a life science credit. And so we'd like to include that uh here in Lacrosse. And so that is the application. It requires board approval and so that is why it's on the consent agenda. Uh for the public's purposes, we also have the typical HR approvals or approval of receipts, payroll dispersements, electronic transfers, and the grants and contributions that come to us each month. Uh any other questions? Otherwise, I look for a motion to approve the superintendent's consent agenda. >> Mr. Pineski. Yes, in regard to I looked through that uh curriculum for the animal science and there was there was some trigonometry and so on statistics in there. So the teacher that's hired has that kind of background and the students I mean I taught trigonometry as a theoretical credit for quite a few years.
005So I'm just wondering about how prepared the instructor is and what the background of the student coming in knows in terms of statistical or s cosine functions. >> Yeah. In the context of a practical science like animal science, it all becomes a lot easier for a lot of kids to to grapple with when you're learning about triangles and cosiness or statistics in kind of a kind of austere mathematical setting. Sometimes it's a little more difficult. But when you start to involve livestock or constructing a barn, some of those concepts become much more relevant and easily um accessed. And so our teachers are well prepared and we're find that it's easy to build up kids skills to do those uh that practical application. >> But none of those classes would count as their math credit. You
006said electric. >> That's correct. Yep. >> But then on this one, it says equivalency approval for a science 0.5 science credit. So it does count as science but no math. >> This this one will just count for a science credit and it's an elective I believe not like a core replacement for some other course but it allows a kid to expand their interest in in an area that they might be curious about. It also gives them um credit toward the 120 credit hours that they need to graduate, which means sometimes they can drop from 15 credits a semester to 12 credits a semester, which is often a lot more manageable for students as they move through the college curriculum. >> Any other questions? Otherwise, I'd look for a motion to approve the superintendent's consent agenda.
007>> So moved. >> Second. >> You have a motion and a second. Do you have the names, Laura? >> Mhm. Thank you. >> Um for the items on the super content superintendent consent agenda. Um all those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. Those opposed. Motion carries. We move on to the board consent agenda which is only the minutes from August 4th. The consent agenda is a mechanism used by the board to deal with routine business that must come before the body. Is there any items that the members would like to remove from this consent agenda? Hearing none, I'd look for a motion, a second for the items on the board consent agenda. >> Motion to approve the items in the board agenda as presented. >> Motion, a second. Any discussion?
008All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Those opposed? Motion carries. >> I'm really glad you're here in person since we have to do roll call because I keep forgetting to >> Thank you. And we don't have to approve nearly as much because he's at it. >> True. We have to look around like whose turn is it this time. >> We missed your body here being here. >> Glad to be back. >> So our next item is to move into close session. The Lacrosse Board of Education will consider a motion to move into close session. Uh Hogan Administrative Center room 209 pursuant to Wisconsin statute paragraph uh 19.85 85 PN1 PN7 for the purpose of considering financial, medical, social or personal histories or disciplinary date of specific persons preliminary consideration of specific
009personnel problems or the investigation of charges against specific persons except where paragraph B applies which if disc which if discussed in public would likely to have an substantial adverse effect upon the reputation of any person referred to in such histories or data or involved in such problems investigations to wit the consideration of the administration's recommendation to consider a conditional enrollment order. Is there a motion to convene into close session? >> So moved. >> Second. >> We will do a roll call. >> Who did the second? >> Thank you. >> Mr. Alberts. >> Hi. >> Mr. Beeski. >> Hi. >> Miss Futs. Hi. >> Dr. Garcia. I >> Mr. Jackson. Hi. >> Mr. Ma. Hi. >> Mr. Newster. >> Hi. >> Dr. Sprag. Hi, >> Miss Sucla. I we'll head up to 209. >> Can we
010leave our [Music] Great discussion there as well. You know, still open to opportunities for improvement. I would love something better than students of character, but haven't found something yet. Some sort of adjective noun uh sort of arrangement. But uh it was really good discussion and um Missuka was there and you can add to kind of what was the process like? >> Well um have such a committed group of people um show up on a nice summer night and who have been doing this work for a while and um lots of word smithing. Not my favorite. Um but to take so much information that's been provided to us through thousands of surveys through I don't know 22 groups. I don't know how many people even spoke with take all that information synthesize it down um into
011this information into this um was a lot of work on behalf of that committee. It was really clear though that the top points that the community was saying to us really popped out. It wasn't like it was like we could have gone down the list for five more. It was really kind of a top group and then there were some other ones but the top ones really popped out. Um I I I do think um I ask that you take time to really read all the words in each of these because the committee worked on every single word and every single word is meaningful. Um you know exceptional staff is not just to attract and retain but to develop and support and we the word professional staff we want to talk about the quality of
012our staff in that term in those terms and what they do. um community partnerships uh is not just working with finding community partners to work with but it's really about being a partner to the community about uh good communication and about good use of our resources that are provided to us um as a trusted partner in the community. So each of these words are really very I mean take time to read every one of these. It's a brief document but every word is meaningful. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. Uh was there a thought or what's the rationale if there was any in regard to the listing of them? I mean exceptional staff whole student well-being learning did was thought given to that and maybe it's a chicken and egg thing but I I think the epitome
013of a school district would be presenting the whole student well-being. Uh and that happens through exceptional staff. But again, I suppose like I said, it's probably a chicken and an egg type of what came first. >> It really was the input we received from the community and um to take away from my whole speech about opening day today um with staff um we heard such a strong message in in the feedback from the community of what do they h most proud of in the district? It was our staff. And what do they want to make sure we do well in the future? It's our staff. And so that staff message really came across really strong and how much our community values and appreciates our staff. Um it was interesting in one of our meetings uh
014one of the members brought up and said well your goal 10 years ago was to attract and retain quality staff. I mean we're still talking about that did you not achieve it? And the truth of the matter is it's still that important to this community. It isn't that we didn't achieve it. We are achieving it. They want us to continue to achieve it. And I think that's a really strong message. So, it's really I think these are in order in terms of what we heard through the surveys and through the feedback. >> Yep. I would agree. It's kind of the top items first and you know, they were all important, but if you had to rank order them in the frequency and the intensity of mentions, it was probably in this order for both the
015vision themes and the portrait of a graduate. >> Mr. New, >> I just I when I was reading this uh the other day, I was I was thinking like exceptional staff. I'm assuming, you know, not only teachers, we're talking entire staff. So, I want to make sure everybody's aware that we're not just talking teachers from, you know, to our lunch people to our, you know, porters, our janitors, the outside people, and everybody. So, um I I want to just bring that up. I'm assuming that's what they're talking. So uh because when we say exceptional a lot of people's lives are changed not always just by teachers but it's the teach the workers around the teachers as well that they develop relationships with them and really do some stuff. And the the future ready. I really
016I really enjoy that one because I've seen us come a long way in in the past years with FFA and you know their building trades and stuff like that where we lost that for many years because it was focused just on college college. Well, not everybody's ready for college right away and some are are you know not interested in college. So us to develop other, you know, other things for them and trades to teach them that is is very important. So I I'm proud that we have that on there, but it's a great list. So thank you. >> I particularly appreciate the inclusion, develop, and support and and how we want to talk about our staff. And we've been attracted and retract attract and retain attract and retain for a long time. if only to
017break up the language and make it easier to say quickly. Um, but I think that's super important and just in saying that we we want to generate opportunities and we want people not just to stay here in one role, but to to find ways of growing and staying within the district that that support the overall mission. So, I appreciate that. >> And even education, it was delivered 20 years ago is so different. We have to continue to develop our staff. >> Absolutely. >> Other comments? We would be bringing this back next time for approval. >> Yep. Most likely. The um one missing piece is some sort of sing. So we would like the district vision themes to be on a single page and the portrait of a graduate to be on a single page and
018we need some sort of graphic to kind of bring it all together. And uh we didn't have enough time with our steering committee work to get to something. So my homework is to mock up some examples, share it via email. We'll have some online discussion and uh identify something that we think meets uh the the community's vision for this. Uh we looked at a number of examples from other school districts and whether it's pillars and columns or it's uh trees or stacks of books, rocket ship, wheels, circles, hexagons, beehives, lots of different ways to tackle it. We're gonna put some stuff on paper, see what resonates with folks based on going through this experience and and find something that matches us here in the school district of Lacrosse. >> Rivers. >> And back to your
019point, Mr. Beeski, >> the vision the the themes from the vision really are all tools to support making the portrait of a graduate happen. And and yeah, I don't there's all kind. I'm not a marketing person for a reason, but I mean, the picture in my head is the student is the wheel and all these other pieces are the hub to make that happen. I don't know if that's a particularly attractive view of it, but that's kind of how it's it's um that's really what this is about. All these pieces in the district vision are how we're going to create this portrait of a graduate. Okay, any other comments or questions? I do want to publicly thank all the people that were on the uh work group. They're still doing a little bit of work
020yet, but um really dedicated people. Um we have some staff in the audience that were part of it, Stacy. Um and so we just want to say thank you to everybody that gave their time to it and really put in a ton of work on it and really um uh a wide variety of opinions around the table and we didn't always start in the same place, but we it was really interesting how we gelled together around the information we got and how what we all is best for kids. So, it was it was a really cool process. Okay, we'll then move on to the review of the updated 4K program schedule. Lots of cool changes there. >> Yeah. Um uh kind of a a rapid change and so I wanted to talk through just a
021little bit of the timeline to give folks a sense of how we got from point A to point B. uh can talk a little bit of of the rationale and then um uh Miss Sher's here to talk through any specifics as we kind of implement and uh you know how we got to where we are. It's faster than we would normally approach something this big. Uh however, we had proof of concept a number of years ago during the pandemic uh with uh ARPA funds or ESRE funds. We were able to run an all day 4K pilot at Hamilton and North Side. So, I already had experience with all day 4K, knew where things were successful, knew where we might have some challenges, and so, you know, we waited into this with a little more knowledge
022maybe than some other folks in other districts might have. So, timeline, July 3rd, the state budget was approved. Um, and everybody kind of went off to Fourth of July holiday and went away thankful that it got in under the wire 3 days after the wire, but enough to get under the federal wire uh for whatever those uh funds were. Um, I was reading through the the budget document, uh, the education piece and some others on July 11th and I noticed this DCF uh, program uh, get kids ahead initiative um, that was located in there and uh, sent an email off to I think Shelley and Patty and and maybe Jen at that time, Jen Kis uh, just saying like, "Hey, I noticed this. What are your thoughts?" But it hadn't been published anywhere. there was
023no conversation in the state around it. It was just me reading through the budget bill, you know, the you know, 40 50 pages on the school part and noticing it. Um so we started discussing that via email and trying to learn more and there wasn't a lot of you know public information about it yet. Um we each had vacations that took us out for a little bit here and there and then finally on the 31st of July um so about 20 days later we were able to get together uh and talk in in more depth. And at that same time, Jen Kis, our early childhood coordinator, she reached out to DPI and received more information directly from our early childhood contacts at the DPI. uh they had a little bit of information but really no
024more than what was in the law. There was no information fleshed out. Um this get kids ahead initiative is a department of children families uh program not a DPI program. So it's not even housed with the educators. It's housed with child care. Um uh Jen, Shelley, uh Patty and I met to discuss what we knew on July 31st after that meeting and our options. Um the next day on August 1st, uh an update was provided by the DPA DPI in the ED leaders dispatch with a short description of the program. It included a link to more detail um where the DCF program was described in an appendix was not front and center. It was in another email at the bottom of a thing. And so picked through that, found it, read about that. Um we
025um Jen uh met with our school-based uh early childhood leaders from across the state because now we're starting to get to a point where we're starting to network, try and learn more because we're not getting a ton of information from DPI or DCF. Uh and they discussed kind of what their strategies were, what they were thinking about new understandings. Uh and then on that same day, August 1st, I provided an update to the school board with our current understanding of the legislation and its impact. Um, so we're learning a little bit more now. Uh, on August 6, Jen met with local child care agencies to talk through the legislation that passed and the implications. We've had great partnerships with our Model 3 sites, with the child care agencies. We wanted to give them an update
026because they were unaware more or less in a lot of cases that this program existed. And so it was an opportunity to communicate with them. This is what we're hearing. This is what it could mean for you. It may be good. It may be bad, but you know, this is the lay of the land. Um so after that conversation uh and after those conversations with leaders from across the state uh um on August 8th uh Jen Shelley Patty and I met again to kind of talk about 4K and what our options were and uh based on our concerns about loss of funding uh about uh the lucrative opportunity that our child care centers uh will likely take advantage of uh we decided that we needed to protect ourselves a little bit. And we also noticed
027at the time that we were uh underenrolled in 4K. We had the capacity to go to all day 4K pretty quickly without hiring a lot of staff. We had capacity within our buildings and within our uh existing teaching staff. And so it was a ripe opportunity. On August 11th, uh we notified the school board we'd be moving forward with all day 4K. And on that same day, uh parents were sent an email regarding the move to all day 4K. The next day, August 12th, all parents were called regarding the move to all day 4K. We wanted to confirm that with them, you know, verbally, uh, because this is a big change and folks would have a lot of questions. Our administrative assistants were amazing. Uh, they did a great job reaching out to everyone and
028we made verbal contact with nearly everyone. Then on the 13th, um, uh, Jen Kais and Ammy Zabrowski met with, uh, the Department of Children and Families, uh, leadership on this to learn more about the program. And while they had some answers, there were as many questions as answers that were generated from that conversation. Uh August 15th, we reviewed transportation needs with Go Rightway and here we are uh moving forward relatively rapidly. Um, you know, it was probably within a month of realizing what this was, we made the decision and pulled the trigger to to move forward with all day 4K. And like I said, we had proof of concept before. We knew where we had run into issues. We were able to very quickly troubleshoot those. Uh, as an example of an issue that we
029noticed before is when we had all day 4K, our 4K teachers didn't have a daily opportunity for prep. They were only doing it four days a week. And so on Fridays they would have kind of consolidated prep but that left for a very busy hectic day. Um a neat thing that we can offer in our current situation is art, music, fiad and library services for our 4K students. So really elevating the experience that our kids get with trained professionals in those areas. And so that'll provide the prep for our 4K teachers, a really neat experience for 4K kids that you know has probably not been experienced before in other places. Uh and so the quality of our program shoots up just with that addition. Uh so a challenge but also a neat opportunity uh as
030we move forward. Um I'll stop there and then I can talk about the finances of it and kind of some of our calculus in a in a moment >> if I might. Um, so I was on the committee that created the Lacrosse model 4K and we were the first ones in the uh state and Midwest that really figured out a way to do 4K that worked with child care and I think it's worked beautifully in our in our district. It really gave parents um an opportunity for where what do you need for your four-year-old? Are they at child care um are they at a childare setting with with certified staff? do they have older siblings or are you near a school building you want to send them to school? As we did that process, as
031we started it, um there was a lot of um anxiety among child care about because child care makes money on the four-year-olds. You can have fewer staff to four-y olds than you can to the the younger kids. And um there was I was very concerned about we didn't want to create a situation where we had worse child care for the younger kids. And what we ended up creating was a beautiful thing where it's better for the four-year-olds and it's good for all kids. We aren't um causing financial hardship on on child care facilities and it gave families options. But when we started, there were comments like, "Oh, I suppose you want to do this all day. Next thing you're going to do is want to do this all day." And when we were done and
032we were delivering this to the community, people were saying, "So, when will you be able to do this all day?" So, um, I think this is an exciting thing. Um, I also want to say I sit on uh Thriving Wisconsin, a statewide group that works with childcare resource referral agencies and met talked to them early in August and said this is kind of really difficult. We've figured this out and in Wilacross I don't understand why we needed this legislation. But as you can imagine in a lot of rural areas um and I people that spoke most uh loudly at that meeting were particularly from northern Wisconsin from small communities and they really felt that 4K had kind of gutted the child care in those those communities and they felt that this was their chance to
033get back their money. um which uh clearly was an effort on their part that was um um disappointing to me considering we instead of fighting over who gets the money, we really created something here on how do we share it. And so it was really disappointing that districts haven't taken an opportunity to figure that out. Um, so I do want to compliment staff on on finding a way to make uh lemonade out of this out of these lemons and um figure out a solution here that works for our district and keeps our model that gives families lots of choices alive and healthy. So, thank you. >> Yeah, we were fully satisfied with how things were on our end. And I think, you know, it's tough in child care, but I think they were satisfied with
034our relationship and our partnership. I had heard and I think um Jen experienced this when she called DCF is that there were also some school districts that were partnering with child care agencies and receiving you know about $7,000 in in revenue limit authority but not passing any of those funds back to the child care agency for the services that they were providing. And so it felt like you know we're not receiving anything for this. Now that said, you know, our child care agencies locally are still charging tuition on top of the funds that they receive from our school district and it's ostensibly for the surround care that uh surrounds 4K. But, you know, that tuition is, you know, 11 to $13,000 depending on the child care you're at. And then we're also paying about $2,800
035per student uh to that uh child care agency as well. that provides compensation for a four-year certified teacher when you know by law you would only need a two-year certified folks uh some additional training and other things. Uh you know it certainly uh makes sense in a lot of ways to continue charging that tuition as well. just an idea of our um potential um lost revenue, you know, in some. So, last year in our January count, we had about 110 uh early childhood students at off-site preschools. And uh our revenue limit is right around 10 $12,000. You know, at a point6 FTE, that means we're getting about $7,200 per student uh for 4K. uh multiply that by the 110 students, it's about $794,000, 800 grand ballpark uh in revenue that we could stand to lose.
036Now, we pay out about 300,000 of that to the child care agencies directly so that they can provide high quality 4K. Um but lost in that is some of the other support that we provide for our childare agencies. So, we're providing transportation. You know, if you take our total contract divided by our ridership, you know, it's somewhere around 15 $1600 a kid on an annual basis, it was about 88 $90,000 in in expense that we're picking up to ensure that kids get to to school at those uh child care agencies, which is great. We have a early childhood coordinator and an AA to manage that first experience that a family has as they come into the school district to monitor for quality, to provide supervision, oversight, and mentoring. Um, you know, those costs total somewhere
037around $200,000. Uh, and then on top of that, we help with supplies, curriculum, uh, equipment, mentoring, financial support. You know, we're doing budgeting on our end that they don't have to worry about as a result. Uh, and so leveraging all of those resources as well really comes out to about a wash at the dollar amount that we've identified to pass on to our child care agencies. Uh so if we were in a position to lose $800,000, uh it made sense to expand what we're doing just a little bit to make sure that we capture as much of that as possible. A small investment would yield retention of those whereas no investment may yield complete loss. And so you know the costbenefit ratio, the return on investment has shifted a little bit. Um, but we're confident
038that if we can continue to maintain enrollment and FTEEs, we'll be in a really good position. We are still hopeful to partner with our Model 3 sites. We want them to continue to provide high quality child care. Uh, one of the things we're a little disappointed in with the legislation is it lowers expectations for 4K. The curriculum that they can choose will be that they have to choose is developed by the Department of Children's and Families. They don't know what that is quite yet. They certainly haven't shared it with us. Um the certification to be a child care teacher for uh this 4K program is a two-year degree, not a certified teacher through the DPI with a four-year degree. And there are great teachers in that position, but generally speaking, we have found a higher
039quality with those additional certifications. Uh and those are a couple of the concerns we have. uh and and hopeful that we can find a way to maintain our relationship, keep standards and expectations high in our community because we know it will benefit kids. >> Do any of the parents have an option? Would they prefer just half day am PM? >> Yep, we're willing to work with parents on half days. Uh if it only really works for them or they've got other arrangements, we can do half days. Uh we've had some parents ask about, well, what about Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays? And we understand that that would be nice maybe, but in our settings, in our schools, we're just not able to accommodate that. We need that routine. We need that consistency so that all of
040our learners can be successful. >> Wouldn't that cost us more money if we're letting some people do half days and we're have to bust them and and others are going full days? And I that seems cumbersome to me and and I just wonder what the cost difference is on that. I mean, somebody has to pick up the cost and obviously it's taxpayers then. So, I don't we need to be remember that, you know, we're spending other people's money here, too. >> Yeah, totally. There's actually a little bit of uh efficiency because we're going to go to beginning of day, end of day busing for our 4K students. And so, they'll be with the routes that other kids are on at elementary level. uh and they'll be able to get off with their siblings or doortodoor
041if they don't have an older uh student that they can walk with. Um and we're going to eliminate most of our midday routes which is a extra cost for the school district by and large. We still have we we couldn't quite figure out all day 4K at all of our sites. And so there's three sites right now uh Summit, Emerson, and Southern Bluffs that still have half day 4K. Um and so we will have midday transportation for those sites but not any of the others. And so that eliminates a lot of the transportation barriers we have. If you're a student attending at State Road um and you want to go home at half day, your parent would have to provide that transportation now. So great concern. I think we've navigated that one. Um and we're
042hopeful that everyone who sees the great experience they had in the AM wants to be there all day. >> I actually had a question from parents about at Summit about why there wasn't all day at Summit. Can you talk a little bit about that um capacity calculation or how that got decided? >> Absolutely. So, >> it might change too. You said it might like what's the >> it could change depending on how things shake out. We might move to all day at other sites if the numbers work out. It's, you know, we're not going to promise anything we can't deliver on. But, um at our other sites, what we noticed is this lower enrollment of 4K than we've seen in the past. Uh, Miss Shur has tracked enrollments for years now, has a very good
043idea of when kids show up, and we're getting to the point where we didn't think they were going to show up. Uh, here in August, we sometimes see a flurry, uh, but it just wasn't materializing, and our deadlines were kind of creeping up. Uh, and so, um, what we found is we would have like 15 kids in the AM at State Road and three kids signed up for the afternoon. And so with 18 students, we could go to a single section all day with a teacher and a TA and be able to fully support that program. Um at um uh some of our schools, you know, Emerson, I think they had like 15 and 13 a.m. PM something like that. Um there were just too many kids to go to a full day and we
044didn't have space to open another room uh and hire a teacher to be able to accommodate. Similar situation at Summit. just a few too many kids and not space right now to go to all day 4K in this moment at this time, you know. So, as we are able to plan for next year in future years, we'll be able to start rethinking how we use our buildings, start planning in advance for hiring those additional teachers. We're also nervous about hiring at this time of year. Uh the best candidates are are usually available in uh in in April and May. you sometimes get a gem who's moving to the area late and is looking for a job in August. Um, you know, so we're hesitant to hire too many folks uh here at this time of
045year. Uh, and then we also know that if we find a great person, we're also probably negatively impacting a partner child care site or another district in our community. And it's not our goal to be bad neighbors either. So, >> any other questions? >> Yeah. Sorry. So, um I was I wanted to sit and listen to and see uh give you a chance to explain everything. I had asked for this on on the agenda because I was getting a lot of um comments and and information about it. Uh full disclosure, I I have a kid at one of the partner sites, the Model 3 sites, and my wife volunteers on the board of that site as well. So, this obviously came up in recent discussions with with some note of concern. Um so, I appreciate
046the the detail you're able to provide. Um, and and I've been trying to think about where I'm coming from with all this and understanding that a couple of things are true at the same time. One is as the district, we have that fiscal responsibility to our students and to our district and to be able to provide what we can. I think it's apt, however, that in the district visioning community partnerships is a is a key focus here. And I I think where most of my concern and maybe I don't want to speak for anybody from from the comments that I've read and and seen from from others in the Model 3 um partnerships, but that the communication this was maybe a missed opportunity for us um for a variety of reasons. Obviously, Act 15 did
047not come out until later in in summer, right? But when even as late as I want to say it was May, there were asurances given from the preschool side that the district was not interested in. So I'm glad that you said, for example, we were perfectly happy with the model that we had. There would be no reason to move to it. So clearly the legislature is going to do what the legislature is going to do and we have to respond to that. So that's one thing that's true. Uh, I think a couple of the other things that maybe could have allowed us to to take a beat, um, and granted again this is all information that is is still brand new and just coming out. Um, that the the GKR, the Get Kids Ready initiative,
048um, doesn't start and the funding won't start for the partners until next fall. The application window for that opens in February. So, that seems like an opportunity to to sit with our partners and ask how is this going to impact your budgets? Um, at at our center, the loss of two students who have already indicated that they're going to take advantage of this. And again, full disclosure, for my family with three kids, I have to think about the finances of this as well, paying at this alternative site. um that but that loss just of two students is $13,000 plus in in operational costs. And so thinking about this in terms of partnerships, these are local businesses that employ people. These are these are places where future educators get field experience. And I think as we're
049making these responses, uh taking that moment to to really try to connect with them and I appreciate the the communication that was out there. I know last minute meetings. Individuals in that network are very good at at sharing with one another and there are just a lot of question marks. But there's also still a lot of question marks from DCF about which children are going to be eligible for this. I think is it only going to be the Wisconsin shares eligible children? >> My understanding having read through the bill is that you have to be a center that is eligible for Wisconsin shares. Not the students themselves need to be Wisconsin share students. So you have to be certified at such a level that you could receive shares. >> Right? So that obviously changes the
050calculus another time. It would have been a much smaller percentage of students if it was only the individual students eligible for that program. >> And that's just my understanding of it. Like I said, we've had very little information from DCF. >> Right. And I saw other information that the the actual payout to the providers might be variable uh as well, not necessarily the full $7,000 >> was dictated explicitly in the in the bill. >> All right. So >> $7,40. >> So when I say that there may be our communication challenges, I'm not saying it's all of our communication challenges. I think that the legislature and and the DCF are also struggling mightily with uh where this was coming from. as you said, districts around the state, like we are in a good position with what
051we've been doing. When when care providers around the state are not getting paid by the the districts that they partner with, well, we're in a different situation than many of them. So, I understand the the impetus for this at the legislative level and and all day 4K is absolutely something I want as a parent and as a as a person in this district. I think it it supports families, right? Um but I wonder if if just with that timing uh and and with you know these partner institutions that we're also trying like you say to be a good neighbor to who are counting on their budgets and figuring out you know uh their budgeting for the year now. Did we have enough time to pump the brakes and and talk with everybody and get a
052sense of of what the actual, you know, commitment of students from in movement and what their budgets would be doing because this this has potential downstream effects if if as you said 4K is a is a good money maker that supports the early childhood programs that these these places also offer, right? And there's already enough problems with early childhood care um around the city and around the state that I wonder if that was an opportunity for us to just slow down. >> Yeah, I would definitely say that what one of the factors that caused us to move a little more quickly was that at four of our schools, we were highly under enrolled and we didn't have to hire somebody or find a classroom to go all day 4K at those sites. It only took
053the hiring of one 4K teacher and assistant in order to get six sites out of nine uh ready to go. If we had been more fully enrolled and we had space issues, we would have uh you know taken six nine months, you know, to to kind of figure things out. Um you know, the alternative in those sorts of situations, we've already offered these folks contracts. you're looking talking about like layoffs or some of these other things of of long-standing teachers in our district, which is something we'd prefer to avoid, or just finding jobs for them in the school district to make them, you know, fully employed, quote unquote. Uh, and so, um, it was not only this, you know, somewhat existential threat to how we run 4K, but also, uh, just a unique opportunity that
054arose from declining enrollment and underenrolled 4K programs. So, it certainly not communication can always be better and we certainly own all of that and hope to continue to partner with our our 4K Model 3 sites to to figure out the future as well. >> I I appreciate your comments, Dr. Sprag. I again having worked with child care in the past and being on the statewide committee, um it it's a tough business. It's it's a it's a very difficult business. Um, I think the challenge where I see kind of the where this things went wrong from the view of Deb Supa is the state made a rule oneizefits-all and it doesn't that that you can't do that in the state of Wisconsin. That doesn't make sense. In these northern communities that I referenced earlier because of
055what had happened there was child care dried up. There was no child care. couldn't make it and so they all closed. And so this was an attempt by the state to try to reinvigorate child care centers to open in other communities to create child care. So that's a good thing, but that doesn't fit every district and it it's not one sizefits-all. And I think that's where the challenge comes in. And um I I totally get your comments and um two students in in uh one model three site can make a big difference financially and make some real difficult choices for them. And so um I totally understand where you're coming from and your your concerns and I appreciate how you've kind of put it together on how what could we learn from this and how
056we could do this better. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean and a lot of it was out of our control, right? When when a legislative act comes down that is going to have this kind of wide reaching impacts, we're obviously left doing what we can to to respond adequately to it. And I think that what what's unfortunate is that like we're left here, you know, a week or two before classes where parents kind of started getting notified about this. And um so I'm also concerned about like how we could manage to actually roll out this opportunity equitably, right? That managing the logistics of like okay can I is there going to be afterare from these full-times? Are they eligible for surround care? Um I don't know too many people that got off work at 2:20 in
057the afternoon. Uh but you know if you had full day care at your model 3 site um and granted you were paying for it, right? you're you're you're saving a decent amount in terms of the actual 4K. Um, but do you need to look at alternative options for for that afterare and that those surrounding hours? And that's that's a challenge for families. I mean, talk about that all the time in my family. >> Well, I think it's also a challenge for families affording daycare period. Absolutely. >> So, a full outrageous >> a full day daycare to a great deal of families that work live paycheck to paycheck is godsend. you know, it's it's what they've wanted for many years. Um, so yes, there is obvious hurdles that we have to cross and there's going to
058be some growing pains and and some I guess challenges that we have to uh take care of, but as as a parent, I'm assuming there's a lot that are relieved over this as well. >> I agree. And like I said, like my family has to realistically consider this. We've we've put two other kids through the same program and we have this relationship with them. It's it's important to us as well, right? And having to like do that math and figure out those logistics with school right on top of us. Like it's not the district's our fault that the timing is what it is, but there's a lot of challenges that that I hope we're able to to navigate. >> Totally. And our child carees have that value add of surround care. They're able to provide
059something that at this point we can't do. Uh and so you know some of the families that we talked to said it's great that you're doing that but I we need coverage from six to six and uh school district can't provide that and so we're thankful that our childare agency can uh and so that's where we're going to do our 4K and we know they'll get a great education there too you know so I think uh you know to Miss Suko's you know earlier larger point one size doesn't fit all having a range of options that work for everybody that are accessible and equitable is is the ideal um you know and uh hopefully we can continue to find ways to support all those options. >> Other comments? >> Can I ask a more nuts
060and bolts question about the >> the implementation of this relative to our budgeting practices? Um I'm going to check my understanding that as we um if we had you know 10 kids in halftime uh uh 4K at at one of the the in school sites and they are transitioning to full-time 4K that goes from a point 6 to a full FTE for each student. It does not. The state only provides a point 6 reimbursement uh for uh 4K uh education and so we are eating the rest of the cost so to speak by going to all day. We were going to do that anyway this year. Uh and so it was a opportunity to provide a better longer education for kids with no change in our expense uh essentially. And so it was a unique
061opportunity. Like I said, had we had higher enrollment, so we had to hire a bunch of teachers at each of these buildings, that would have been a different calculus. You know, we would have been expending a lot more funds, you know, 100 120, you know, thousand dollars in salary and benefits at those at those sites. And so, uh, given this opportunity, it made even more sense than it would have otherwise. >> A comment. I was just going to ask were we there are probably lots of reasons that or that we might have eaten the point4 difference but some of it is for like keeping staff employed at full-time equivalency so that they have an actual dependable full-time job instead of bringing people into work part-time. Right. >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> So it's one of those
062attract and retain and develop strategies is to keep people in jobs that are >> that allow them to support their families. >> Totally. We occasionally have specialists art music fiad where in their building you know if you look at their course load it's probably a seven or a point 8 and 20 years ago we would have reduced their contract to 7 or point8 and they would have been thankful to still have a job that is not what we do today now we find a we try our best to find 3 or 0 2 and that might be going over to Logan High School to teach an art class or heading over to Logan Middle to do choir lessons or working over at the JDC to develop curriculum for FIED, whatever it might be, we're doing
063our best to create full-time employment for all of our employees. Otherwise, they the job market dictates that they have great opportunities elsewhere. And so with these 4K teachers as well, you know, that was our opportunity to keep them fully employed uh in a way that made a lot of sense this year. >> Other comments or questions? >> Thank you for keeping the conversation going. My computer decided to upgrade during >> ours. >> Did they? Oh my gosh. Um, okay. So, we'll move on to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards WASBY 2026 resolution proposals. >> So, board members um are asked to submit any proposals to the board secretary by September 4th um to review um so we can review the proposals at the September 8th meeting so we can get them to WASBY by the
06415th of September. Bosby doesn't vote on those till um the delegate assembly at the convention in January, but there's a whole process where there's a committee that reviews all the proposals. So that's why it has to go in um early. And um does our WBY delegate have anything to add to this? >> Well, I hate to do this. Um last meeting I said I'd take more initiative. I was belly into college finals. Just got done a couple days ago. So I still have to look through this right here. But um this is something which I want to take initiative. to submit something for myself here. So, I want to see if I can kind of brainstorm amongst all of you, see if there's anything in which you'd like me to bring to just anything in
065general. Um, would we as a district want to propose and I don't know exactly what it would be, but since we've had a pretty robust conversation about the 4K program and we are the lacrosse model. We invented it here and it was called that around the state and actually at other states as well. Do would we want to put something together in terms of a resolution to say uh we'd like the legislature to consider that there's more than one sizefits-all when it comes to that. Perhaps I can we could draw something up like that. >> Yeah, absolutely. I can help provide some boilerplate and information and folks want to kind of hone in on what that might look like. That would be a great opportunity. >> Do you prep feel prepared to um present that
066at the delegate assembly? >> I'd be happy to if it passes the committees that is >> okay. Yes, Mr. Bes. I I don't know if this is pushing the can too far down the road, but are we are we one time we had a hard conversation about 5-year-old kindergarten and that became full day and now we're at 4K. Where is 3K? There's districts that have it. They start at zero. Well, there are some services though for three-year-olds for >> Yeah, we've I've gone through them with my kids. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, usually uh the privates and childc cares have quality three-year-old programming. There's not um school district funding for that. Personally, I'd like to see all day 4K reimbursements, one FTE, you know, if we're going to provide it before we start expanding things further.
067All of this, you know, gets back to like the core of what we were talking about in terms of like affordability or the the bottom line for child care providers. You know, historically they made their money on four year olds because the uh supervision requirements, you know, lessened and so they were able to, you know, kind of help out their bottom line a little bit with more four-year-olds. We're not helping their cause by going to all day 4K by any means. Um, and so if we start going after three-y olds, gosh, uh, it's just gonna get really hard. >> Well, I I read that literature that was sent out and it talked about early explo exposure to education, etc., etc. So, uh, I just think the lane is there. >> I I totally agree in
068terms of providing a great environment for for children at an early age. uh how we do that in partnership with our local businesses and and child carees. I'd love to to wade those waters together. >> Yeah. >> But at the Model 3 sites, we pay for certified staff school dis or for staff in childare that are certified. Correct. And so we're really helping support those child care facilities um have quality staff which benefits three-year-olds. And I think again this, if you haven't figured out, I'm hugely annoyed by this legislation. Um, >> because we figured it out how we could work together. We could support child care. We could support them to do better work for younger kids. We could add the piece that we can bring in some money for the district, but also bring
069in quality education for kids, and together we can make choices for families. And this legislation destroys all that. Um, and that's that's the that's the frustrating part. And I think, um, the question about three-year-olds, interesting again. Um, when we started the four-year-old kindergarten workg group, the question is, I suppose you're going to go after three-year-olds. And then the question at the end was, oh, so would you ever think about doing this for three-year-olds? But I think, um, at this point, we we've got enough to figure out on four-year-olds and get this sorted out before we'd even think about three-year-olds, in my opinion. I I forgot I wanted to add still somewhat gerine to your points Deb u that the the funding for the get kids ready program is only going to be for two years.
070It's very much a pilot program for for the state. And so to think about which care providers are are going to, you know, families are going to make their decisions and how that's going to impact care providers who now have a two-year change to reckon with in their budgets and then may see an influx back the other way if the program is discontinued. And it's in terms of WABY, I'm going to try to couch this in the right agenda item here. Um, I would love to see a a WASBY and I know there will be one a WASBY resolution um asking to stop privatizing education and in particular ending uh the voucher program, siphoning off public dollars to private schools. This legislation is a similar example of that. Taking money from from DPI through a
071different agency, still putting out education, right? It seems inefficient if nothing else and I have other principled reasons for opposing it but >> thank you. >> Uh so we'll you'll draft something up. Are you comfortable? >> Yep. I'll put together some boiler plate for folks to consider and we can look at it and see what you like. >> Okay. um the June monthly finance report and year-end analysis. >> Reboot update also. >> So anyways, I'm back now, but I'm just getting to that point. So let's see. >> So yeah, um I don't know if anybody's had a chance to look at that. I put it in the same format as you're used to seeing on a monthly basis. Usually, I don't have a chance to provide this to the board until you see the uh
072budget booklet that shows the previous year, previous two years, and then the budget. So, this is this is good uh that you are being able to get a look at this right now. And um as you can see, we ended up the year pretty well as far as uh we did not go into fund balance to pay for operating expenditures. There were areas that we um uh maybe spent less and others where we spent more. But if you look at the bottom line, our expenditures were very close to budget. Um our revenues although are um were than expected in some areas. Uh one of them being the Apple buyback. Uh those dollars uh came from our Apple refresh. We uh we sold those and they um the technology department has purposes for those funds in
073the next year. So uh when we present the budget for 2526, you might see that our expenditures will exceed our revenues, but that means that we're using those fund balance uh dollars in the fund balance for those. So the other thing I wanted to point out was as far as fund balance uh is not money in the bank. it is uh a combination of receivables and payables as of June 30th. So when we talk about fund balance designation that we'll talk about a little bit later, it's a point of transparency to our public. Um the the board um understanding that when somebody says, "Oh, you have a $40 million fund balance." You know that that's not money in the bank. There's still about 11 million that we're anticipating in our municipal uh tax payments. Uh
074probably about over two million in reimbursements for our uh grant uh claims. So uh that just gives you some idea of where we end up as of June 30th. And you'll you'll find that, you know, come July, August, you've seen this on a monthly basis that that fund balance, you know, starts to whittle away. Um, but that enables us to not have to short-term borrow and have the expense of short-term borrowing. Is there anything that you observed um on those financials that you might have questions about? I have a question on the graph if you have you >> on the cash flow graph. Um so the revenues are always lacking be lagging behind the expenses but at some point they catch up so that they even out >> but it doesn't look like that on
075this graph. How does that work in real life? So, um, that gets to the point. So, June is when all that revenue comes in from the state and we book those receivables, but we're also booking all those those expenses that happen in July and August back to June. Like I talked about the um uh the teachers that choose to get paid in July and August, but it's really from their 425 contract. So that's we're all booking that back. So at June 30th, that's how close our revenues are to our expenditures. our revenues um are a little bit more this year at the end of the year than our expenditures, but there's such I mean I at some point I mean like in uh September, October, November, you see that big gap developing. Um that's why
076we need the reserve to be able to pay it looks like around $15 million we have to be able to carry. But it's so we have to pay we get reimbursed and I understood in January we get a big re uh cash flow check. Um I I just thought I mean usually those lines dance around each other and so that they meet up at the end. Um do we get a big amount of money like in the 13th month or something? Is that another or you have that all booked as a receivable in June? >> All all as a receivable in June. So as you look at look at July, I mean it was really quite uh low because we don't have a lot of expenditures or revenues and this is just expenditures and revenues.
077This is not um >> the fund balance taking into consideration. >> So our and this is comparing yeartoear. So remember that that um the orer lines are the expenditures and see how our expenditures are exceeding our revenues from July through probably February. But then towards the end of the year, our revenues and our expenditures are going to uh match up because we're booking everything that payable in July or receivable in July and August back to June to our fiscal year. I don't want to delay every I I'm just was curious when do we collect because if we didn't dip into fund balance this year that gap that we had in those months where there's that big gap we would have received at some point more revenue than we would have had expense in a month
078>> we did dip into fund balance during the year and that's by uh if you look at the fund balance um chart I don't know uh Dan if you can move it to the one keep going all the way down to >> last >> this That's where we dip into fund balance. >> But you said earlier that we didn't use any fund balance >> at towards the end of the year. At the end of the year when I am giving you the end of the year numbers, if I had um underestimated expenditures to the point where our revenues didn't um match, we would have dipped into fund balance. And then the board would ask why why did we overexpend our expenditures because at the end of the year we would have gone into fund balance
079we would have ended the year in a deficit but we did not end the year in a deficit. So during the year we're dipping into that fund balance >> and we could for cash flow, >> right? And at the end of the year we could end up in a year where we're in a deficit. >> Yeah. Starting around December we receive aid payment from the state and then in January we get tax receipts and then February we get another state payment. Uh and then it kind of slacks off from March to May and then we get the final payments from DPI. So you can see that revenue jump kind of for periods and then jump again. >> And that's why we say that the fund balance, so if we're up at 40 million at fund
080balance at the end of the year, it's not money in the bank because we're still waiting for that cash to come in and uh we still have expenditures going out. >> And much of that is committed to various things that makes it functionally unspendable in the long term, but usable in the short term to cover our uh expenses. >> Did that make sense? >> Any other questions? >> Yeah. does the fund balance um I mean we I think our commitment when we're passing a budget is that we'll have at least a 20% fund balance or higher, right? >> Um for what we've budgeted and then of course we see through the years sometimes it's lower than that because we're covering operating expenses and then sometimes it's higher because we're waiting for all those things to
081catch up. Um and that improves our credit rating and our borrowing ability. Absolutely. So that when we're doing capital projects and other things like that, we've got a good reputation for not being for being careful with the money, the taxpayer money that comes in and making sure we're not caught out not being able to make payroll or borrowing in, you know, doing shady things to cover expenses. >> And it's really important for us right now because when we went to borrow $14 million of the 53.5 back in March, we had to go through an SNP rating call and they they focus on that fund balance at that time. We have to do the same thing this coming March. >> Yeah. >> So, they're going to be looking at this. They're going to be looking at
082our financials, how we ended this fiscal year in order to um maintain that really good S&P rating that helps us with our borrowing. It's a demonstration that we can cover operating expenses throughout the year even though the money comes in from the state and the federal government in different ways at different times and not always right when we need it and that the capital money will be used for capital there's not going to there's no danger or there's less danger of crossover there >> and there are school districts who have you know through accident or otherwise you know run out of fund balance so to speak they spent it all down and it disappeared and they had to short-term borrow just to make payroll. Um, and they had nothing at the end of the year
083even still. Uh, and those school districts, we've seen their credit ratings downgraded, you know, and so when they borrow money, it's more and more expensive. So, you pay even more for the money that you don't have. Um, and their ability um to take out loans is sometimes even impeded. And I don't think we've seen it in this state in a long time. But you can go into state receiverhip too if you've fully mismanaged your funds. >> I knew schools in Michigan that happened to before I left there and it was this kind of thing. They had kind of spent themselves out. >> I am very thankful that we budget conservatively here uh and that we have an amazing uh person and Patty to make sure we're on track and the whole accounting and finance team
084does an amazing job. team that keeps track of it all. >> Get a definition on the contracted personnel and property services category like what what falls into that bucket. >> Oh, contracted um >> as you see we're over by 20 just under 25%. So, >> sure. That could be anything from not having um >> speech therapists or uh school psyches that we've had to contract those services instead of being able to hire a person. Um so it's they're all uh instructional related for the most part. We might be able to hire a speech language pathologist or a school psych directly for, you know, salary and benefits between 85 and $100,000. When we're contracting that out, we're paying often a 50% premium on top of that. Uh, and gosh, I think we're down six or seven
085speech pathologists right now. And so that's a 50% premium on seven positions. It really starts to hurt. and those um overages uh relate to those kind of niche unique high demand services right now and we're working on a lot of different strategies to overcome that. Don't don't get me wrong, but at the end of the day it's it's that's where we're at right now. >> I was just going to ask that question if that's I was wondering if that was what was driving it because I know that we've struggled to retain and or recruit and for those positions. It's one of those things if we're already overspending anyway, should we be looking at that pay band or how we're recruiting onto those? I'm sure you guys are >> totally Yeah, we're looking at do we
086just elevate the salary to a different place? Do we think about bonuses or retention structures? Uh we have developed close relationships with the schools that produce speech language pathologists and we encourage them to intern in our schools uh as opposed to others. We've thought about, you know, apprenticeships and other ways to get them in and pay them so that they have a a good feeling for our schools and our culture and want to be a part of us. Uh but when you can dictate wherever you want to work in the state or nation uh or online and work from anywhere, it gets really tough. And so we're actively imagining all those solutions and you know things that 15 years ago, five years ago would have been taboo in public education, you know, but existed in
087private industry elsewhere. We're having to realistically consider uh while still trying to be fair to all of our employee groups, all of our certified staff. you know, because, you know, seven years ago, a speech language pathologist and a, you know, third grade teacher were on the same playing field, and if one all of a sudden moves, we have to manage how everyone else in our buildings feel as well. Uh, and and folks have been super understanding, but it's a kind of new territory for us. >> Thank you. >> Yeah, >> thank you. We'll keep moving along. We got a lot on our agenda this evening. Um, our next agenda item is the early childhood impact coordinator update. I am uh very excited to uh introduce uh Kurt Te and uh Michelle uh for uh this
088presentation. >> Terrific. Uh thank you for having us. Um want to start with just a couple of introductions. You're going to hear from Michelle Samson in a little bit. um kind of hear who she is, where she came from, some of the initial work that she's been able to do uh related to early childhood impact. Um also want to introduce Alicia Place. She's out in the audience tonight. Uh Alicia is part of our community services team. She supports all of our um community impact coordinators, our community school coordinators, supporting Michelle. Michelle just started uh toward the end of uh May. Uh so it's been a lot of learning and and uh kind of kind of finding our way um in this sort of work. Um have a presentation that uh got shared out with you.
089You your your side of the presentation has just a lot more text and content. So we trimmed it up if it looks a little bit different just because we we removed some of the text. Um but you have all the information that we'll be uh presenting on tonight. Uh really my role I'm just going to be touching on a a few slides. I'm going to be the the why behind this and I know I've been up here a couple times before to talk about that, but really want to summarize that. Um, we've got a short clip to show you a little bit about what we're thinking about some of the work that's coming out of Harvard uh that we're that we're aligning our work on and then Michelle's going to be talking a lot about
090the how. So, uh, so, uh, we know, uh, that there's general consensus on what kids need, uh, to grow up, uh, healthy, uh, in our community. Uh, one of the things that we share, and this is with lots of different groups of, uh, people that we work with, kids don't need perfect parents. Um, I don't know if anybody's had a perfect parent or perfect, you know, experience growing up, but there are some essential essential things that when we get right, it just increases the likelihood kids are going to be at school ready to learn, mentally healthy, uh on track to graduate, mitigates risk uh for uh challenging behaviors. Uh and and this generally where a lot of that lands. Um you know, kids have basic needs uh that that need to be met. Um responsive
091relationships. A lot of the research talks about the the importance of the serve and return where we've got uh parents who are interacting with their kids uh responding to those sorts of needs. Um positive uh parenting practices, early learning opportunities. This kind of connects back when I was visiting with you about our code of rights and responsibilities and all the benefits and protective uh aspects of play-based childhoods versus technology based childhoods. That's that's huge. Kids being able to interact with each other and mistakes and build things and fall out of things and and uh learn about the world around them. Um being supported uh with uh their mental health and and growing up in safe and stimulating environments whether that's at in the home or or in even in the environment neighborhood that they live
092in. Um I think there's kind of a historical uh belief that you know the a lot of times whatever happens kids when they're really young they really don't remember it anyway. you know, how much of an impact does it have? Can't we just buffer it later in life? And really the the research that we know around um the the brain is that um and I shared this at our last meeting, this idea of what surrounds us shapes us and our brains. Uh and the prenatal period is uh one of the most influential periods in development. Um uh children are far more sensitive to stress and adversity than adults are. Um not that Not that nobody's affected or that there's ever a point where where it isn't affected. Uh just young developing brains um are affected
093earlier. Uh in fact in in uterro uh depending on the circumstances of an expecting mom might be experiencing stress or abuse or or environmental factors. Uh there are signals that are sent to that that uh growing baby uh to prepare for the world that's outside uh when they're born. So we know that this is a critical period u largely because of the the timing and getting that right is so critical and you can see on that graph 90% of a child's brain development happens before age five. So there's a big window of time there. Um this is uh really kind of a crude graph. This out of the center uh for the developing child, but it really helps show uh when kids are young on this kind of yellow uh graph uh they have a
094lot of plasticity. They can pick up things and learn things. And it's largely why in our school district, we encourage orchestra probably earlier than many many other school districts um in in the state. and and um uh the green line really shows how how much energy we have to expend when we're trying to relearn things or if we learn things the wrong way, just how much energy it takes. And and it's kind of like if you're going to learn an instrument, not that you can't do it at 40 or 50, it's just going to take you a while if you don't have any other context for that. So, we know that there's a a window uh that's ideal to support u learning. um when we don't get it right, when when we can't uh when
095kids basic needs aren't met, they don't have opportunities to learn and grow and have a play-based childhood and have warm responsive adults. Uh we know the risks uh uh are related to school. Um academic problems, behavioral issues, attention problems, social emotional problems, mental health concerns, all of these are things that we're seeing within our school district. Um uh and Miss Sukula spoke this morning about uh partnerships and listening to our community. This feedback is coming in all sorts of different corners. Our student code of uh rights and responsibilities feedback. Um joint leadership. I know that it comes up in linkages as well. Um uh Michelle had just shared an article with me that student uh behavior is nearly surpassing pay in terms of educators top concerns in our country. We know it's a growing growing
096issue and and something that's going on here. Um long-term community impact. Um we're going to be doing a um another rebuilding for learning conference. The the topic of it is uh raise a healthy child, raise a healthy community, and and we know that healthy kids have the best chance to grow into healthy adults to support positive communities. Um when we don't get that right, it's disruptive to graduation rates, postsecary success. Um, we always share, you know, people can only give what they got. And and that's what's kind of changed a lot of this into generational challenges. Uh, is if new parents didn't get what they needed growing up, they don't have the skills and tools and abilities um to to oftentimes do better um for their kids. Um, so the video that we're going to
097share is going to talk about a traditional early life system. So, one of the things that we want to frame for you tonight is how's this different or we've got questions come up like gosh don't we have organizations that kind of do some of these things um traditional early life systems are really built around a primary uh care model and and child find um a lot of the organizations that we work with are designed they're they're funded they're structured to respond to problems after they happen um and if you remember I think it was one of my first presentations I talked about early life development is a million neural connections a second uh for kids and and if we don't detect an issue until they're three years old, not that it's ever too late to
098make things right, but gosh, if we could have got it right uh right away, what a difference um that could have made. Um so a lot of our traditional systems are really kind of built around are families willing to engage with us, are they participating in assessments, are they coming for wellchild and then all the follow through to connect identified youth and families to the right care uh is another mechanism to to that we have currently. Um why us? Uh and I think that's been a question that's come up here like what you know how how is the school district connected to this? Um and really the way that we think about it is kind of twofold. One, that the stakes are high. Um we've shared some of the metrics around youth uh at previous
099board meetings. We're seeing some current concerning trends um for our youngest learners. We're working on that. We're trying to mitigate that. We've hired a number of behavioral specialists, which is all good things, but definitely after uh some of the difficulties have have occurred. Um we're concerned about school safety, student achievement, support services. I think this links directly to some of the visioning work that you just spoke about tonight. Um the best chance to create the portrait of the learner is to give them the best start in life. Um the other side of this is we think we've had a history of success. Uh the work that Michelle's going to talk about is largely modeled on our community school framework, our community impact framework where we work with the community. I know one of the outstanding
100concerns um uh maybe it was from last time but wow this a big challenge we're going to do a needs and asset assessment what if we find some really big things who's on the hook for that and our model has always been to work with the community uh and we've been able to leverage partnerships with our community schools I'll share a little bit about that in my um action item presentation um but but really we think that we've got the right partners uh we believe that we can leverage those partnerships. We become uh good at finding grant opportunities and funding opportunities to to really extend and maximize impact. Um so we we think we're in a a positive position to be able to help lead this work with our community. U Michelle's going to talk
101a little bit about some of the reaction that we've gotten from community partners, but we're excited about it. it it's incredibly inspiring work and and it's more upstream um than than I think we've uh ever worked in in some ways. So, uh I'm going to play a quick video uh and then I'm going to turn over Michelle. She's going to do a little introduction and talk about the how. [Music] The early childhood brain development story has been a powerful influence on the growth of investments and programs to promote early learning and enhance school readiness. But the brain does not exist by itself. Connecting the brain to the rest of the body is critically important. Early childhood experiences are as much about lifelong physical and mental health as they are about early learning and readiness to
102succeed in school. All biological systems, all of them are highly interconnected. And all of these systems are primed to adapt to whatever the environment the thrill is. Think about this as a team of highly skilled athletes. Each has a role to play, but they depend upon each other. They influence each other's responses. Like any good team, it's how they operate together that is the key to their success. When we are stressed, every cell in the body is working overtime. The brain is the master control system that detects threat and then manages the response of all of the different systems. It sends signals to the cardiovascular system to increase heart rate and blood pressure. Signals are picked up by metabolic systems to increase the availability of blood sugar to provide more energy stores for the body.
103The immune system is activated to be on alert for the possibility of a wound or the need to protect against infection. The neuroindocrine system is activated to increase levels of stress hormones in the bloodstream. All of these also provide feedback to the brain. The stress response system was designed to deal with an acute threat or challenge. But when the stress continues at a very high level, then these biological responses actually start to have a wear and tear effect on the body. This is where stress explains chronic disease. The science is really clear. The most costly chronic diseases in our society have their roots in early childhood. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and depression. Three of many diseases that are associated with greater adversity early in life. Those three diseases together consume more than $600 billion of health
104care costs a year. So if we want to think about preventing disease and promoting health, it doesn't begin with exercising more and eating better when you're 30 or 40 years old. Health promotion and preventing disease begins prenatally and it extends into the early childhood period. Connecting the brain to the rest of the body has very important implications for early childhood policy. If we look at the basic science-based principles focused on early learning, strengthening relationships, building skills, reducing sources of stress, those are the same principles that increase the likelihood for lifelong physical and mental health. And when we think about the major sources of adversity early in life, we talk about poverty, discrimination, exposure to violence, maltreatment, child abuse, and neglect. Although each of these sources of adversity differ from each other, biologically the effect on
105the body is the same. Systemic racism, the dangers of implicit bias, and everyday discrimination impose a level of stress and adversity on families of color raising children that is present all the time. It's never too late to make things better. And we are biologically prepared to adapt to whatever environment we live in. But we need to look upstream at more systemic issues that are the sources of this enormous burden of threat and hardship. We have to connect policies and resource allocations from the educational sector and the health sector and the human services sector. Pediatric primary care is the one domain where almost all children are seen from birth on and provides a critical opportunity for engagement with families and developing relationships, promoting healthy development and is the ideal frontline opportunity to connect families to needed
106services as early as possible when they can be most effective. pediatrics alone is not going to provide all of the supports that many families need. The opportunity is to move away from asking how do we connect pediatric primary care to early childhood programs and in a different way change our mindset to say how do we build a new early childhood ecosystem in which pediatrics is an integrated part. The brain development story has been a powerful influence. The same principles, the same concepts are also affecting the early foundations of physical and mental health that will last for a lifetime. [Music] So, as Kurt mentioned, um, my name is Michelle Samson, and before I kind of dive into what we're currently doing with our work, I wanted to take a minute and introduce myself. So, my name
107is Michelle Samson. Um, I started in this role, um, I think tomorrow will be three months. So, um, like Curt said, at the end of May. Um, I myself am a graduate of the Lacrosse public schools. I went to Southern Bluffs, Longfellow, Central. Um, I actually met my husband in the halls of Central um, over 18 years ago. And we have two kids now who um, are in the uh, school district of Lacrosse. So, we have a going to be fourth grader and second grader who both attend Southern Bluffs as well. So um prior to uh starting here um almost three months ago though I um have spent most of my professional career working in the early care and education field. I was at the parenting place prior to coming here. So um my time
108at the parenting place I was in the early care and education department where I started doing um working in the youngstar uh with with the youngstar program which is Wisconsin's quality rating and improvement system. So spent a lot of time uh working directly with child care providers in our community. Um and then the last few years I moved into a new role that uh childcare development coordinator which is a partnership between the city of Lacrosse and the parenting place to address childc care challenges within the city of Lacrosse. So um uh very there's a lot of similarities between my past role and uh this role in that that la that that program that I came from uh that also started kind of from the ground up. So it started with uh looking at the challenges
109of child care within the city. Um identifying that there's child challenges and looking at we need to do something. Um, and so it was really exciting work and I'm really excited to be able to broaden uh that scope within this work uh and really focus on early childhood as a whole. Child care is definitely a big piece of that but we're looking at early childhood um as a whole uh within our community. So very very exciting. Um as we started this work we um have we've developed a very high level theory of change for this work and we developed this with the idea of really grounding ourselves and also the steering committee which I'm going to talk about in a minute um so that way we could remember like you know why why we're doing
110this work and this is what we've come up with. So if we build a connected network of prevention and intervention supports for young children and families, then families and children will get the right help at the right time so that we can strengthen early life experiences, improve school readiness, support healthy development, and create lasting positive change in our community. Um, and as Kurt kind of mentioned in his uh portion earlier, we know the influence that children's home, family, community has on those early life experiences, and that's where we're really looking to address this work is within the context of children's f um homes, families, and communities. So, where are we going with this work? Uh, here's a nice little road map that we've created. uh very first step is creating a steering committee and we
111have done that. So we uh have created an a steering committee and we've met um uh we've had one official meeting with some additional meetings. I'm going to talk about that in a minute. Um but the role of the steering committee is bringing together uh community partners to design and guide this work moving forward. So we have many voices um to be a part of this work. The steering committee's role will then um begin by engaging with the community. So uh we're we have already started by creating a stakeholder list. We know that list is going to be very long. We live in a great community with a lot of um organizations and people out there who are already doing some of this work. So we're starting with stakeholders um and looking at data collection
112uh through to to get to that kind of data collection piece. We'll do a whole needs and asset assessment which I'll talk about in um a minute as well to pull pull together community data so we can really look at what's happening within the community. Um we'll take that data and we will mine root causes. So we will use the data to determine what is happening and what where where are these problems or challenges um coming from and then we'll take that information to develop a clear theory of change. Um we'll identify a set of strategies and targets which will help us meet our desired outcomes. And then from there we'll look at program implementation, program expansion, program development. Um, that's where we'll really lead into the transformational change within our community. Um, sorry, I
113went too far. So, I mentioned we have pulled together a steering committee. So, uh, as you can see the logos on the screen are who we have at the table. So, we have both of the major health care systems in our community at the table. We have local government, both the city of Lacrosse and Lacrosse County at the table. We have uh representatives from higher ed from western technical college. We have individuals from the parenting place rec um um both from the family resource uh center side and the childcare resource and referral agency. And then we also have an individual, she's the only one that's not local. She is dually funded from both the department of children and families and the department of public instruction. So we really looked um when designing the steering committee
114at trying to get a wide variety of individuals from various sectors um to to bring their um experience and knowledge and input into this steering committee. Um and as so when as I mentioned as we started designing this steering committee before even our first meeting I met individually with each one of these organizations. We uh sat down, we talked about what the district's kind of goal and vision was within the work, asked for questions, asked for their own thoughts. Um and it was pretty unanimous that all of these organizations are very very excited about this work. Uh it was mentioned many times this is the work that they've wished that they could be doing and are very excited that they were asked to be a part of this. Um, it aligns very well, I've been
115told, with the two-year, uh, community health assessment that is, uh, coordinated between both healthcare systems and the county that our goals uh, or what we're trying to do aligns very well with their goals. Um, and was even uh, told that there's potential for um, funding opportunities in the future from from this type of work. So, very excited. So, as we begin this work, we um are going to be utilizing Harvard's ideas impact framework to help guide us since we're starting this work um kind of from the ground up. So, Harvard has a whole framework um on their website uh you can you can look more into if you're interested uh that that helps guide programs just like this innovative uh programs specific to early childhood. Um so we'll use that framework as we begin to
116collect our data through needs and asset assessment. We'll use the framework to develop a theory of change uh as we go through program development, evaluate those programs and then scale it into um uh program development. The role of the steering committee really falls into this like nice little circle graph uh or image here that that you can see. So the the um steering committee we will we are working to develop a needs and asset assessment um during our next steering committee. It's it's one of our topics that we're talking about is what do we need to know from the community. So we'll start with looking at what questions do we have, what strategies do we want to take to identify what assets, resources in our community and what challenges and needs are out there. uh
117we'll use that information then to do some strategic planning. We'll then take all that and we will partner with with our community. So Kurt mentioned this uh the district is not looking to take on everything we find in this uh from this work um ourselves. We're really following the idea of it's our responsibility um the district and the steering committee to see it all, not do it all. We live in a great community with a lot of wonderful resources and so we're really taking that approach and that we want to, you know, sit back and pull all the data and figure out what's going on and then partner within our community to find the right solutions to the needs that we identify. Um so as I mentioned we had our first steering committee um at
118the end of July and we within those organizations we did a brief um initial mapping activity and you can see that on the screen here to just start to kind of identify um and have these organizations start thinking about what assets are in our communities within their own organizations. So, we pulled the three strategies from that Jack Shankoff video that you all just watched on how to improve uh early childhood outcomes. So, strengthen relationships between caregivers and children, build core skills, and reduce sources of stress for families. And we asked these organizations just on a whim to think about what uh resources, services do they provide that kind of fit into these three buckets. And this is what what they came up with. So, um which is a pretty great list. Um, and so we're
119starting to just get our minds thinking about what, uh, resources are already out there in our community. Um, from there, uh, within during our next few meetings, what we're going to do is we are going to continue to identify and map our community stakeholders. Like I mentioned, we've started a list. Um, I assume that list is going to be ongoing for a while as we continue to think about what um, organizations and individuals in our community are a part of this work because we know it's a very long list. Um, we will then uh, move into developing our needs and asset assessment. So, what that looks like is we'll just start start to have conversations about what information do we know in the community, what resources and needs do we think are out there, and
120then how do we begin to collect that information? What questions do we have? And um it's I think it's important to note that through this needs and asset assessment process that that's more than just a survey. We're not just going to send out a survey to families. We want to make sure that we deeply engage our community. Um and a survey is not the the way to do that. Um this will take a lot of time. We'll you know be doing interviews. We'll you know we'll connect with this nice list of stakeholders. Um we know that they have relationships with families. We want to make sure that we're connecting with um all all different families within our communities uh or within our community. Even thinking about the individuals who aren't quite parents yet but will
121be having um you know children down the road. Um, as Kurt mentioned in that uh video, the even the per the um prenatal care piece is so important. So, these are all pieces that we um are thinking about during that needs and asset assessment. So, it'll it'll definitely take us time um to get that completed. Um so, what do we expect to find throughout that needs and asset assessment? And we um assume that we will uncover what uh resources and supports we have in the community, what's working really well for families, what families are utilizing and are working well and providing um benefits to families. Uh maybe we'll find opportunities on where we can expand programming. It might be working in one neighborhood or area of our community and where can we expand into others.
122Um, we also assume that we will find gaps in programming where we have some really great programming, but maybe it's not um where not all families are able to access it. It might not be um not all families are eligible for for specific programs. Um, and then um adjustments to programs as well. Um and then finally we have a nice little graph that uh came or a nice little image that came from Harvard's uh center of the developing child and it's uh titled place matters what surrounds us shapes us and it just talks about uh or it just shows how the environment that we create impacts a children or impacts a child's life. So in that first circle closest to the child are is their social environment. So things such as child care, community supports,
123caregiver relationships. Um and then you move out to the next circle. Those are some of those built in natural environments within a child's life. So things like community safety, having access to clean air, water, food, things like that. Um and then finally the last the third ring is the systematic influences and we um anticipate that most of our focus within this work will be in those first two rings. We know you know what we will be able to influence um and impact is within those first two rings. However, our hopes are that we will collect data, we will have the information to be able to share to our local elected officials or others throughout the state that maybe we can make changes to to that outside ring as well. Um if we can find uh
124you know some of the root causes to some of the the needs and challenges that we can share that information on and that um we can make an impact um greater than just what you know we can kind of reach. So um that brings us to the end of uh of our presentation. I thank you all for your time. >> Thank you. >> I had a um couple of questions. So I know this is something that the board put in place last year. So um you started this three months ago. Were there anything any other programs that were started before to get this started off with? Is this still in the very clear piloting stage for just setting up the program in itself? >> Yes. Uh so we had some delays. We were working on
125um uh some position concepts. Some of it was recruiting. We interviewed some folks that that um you know didn't feel like was a good fit also. Uh but yeah, there's definitely delays but found the right person with the right background. So we're excited to >> taking the time with it too. Absolutely. And this is something the board has to renew this year as well. Right. Gotcha. >> Coming up tonight. >> Gotcha. Um trying to think of the next way to the next question here. Think I'll pass for now just on that question. I lost it. Sorry there. >> Other questions. >> Mr. Mcneski. other communities. Are you studying those other communities in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa as an example to get ideas? Because there's some districts that are certainly further ahead than we are. >> Yeah,
126I will share our best lead has been the ideas framework. That whole framework is based around this early impact model. We have not so when we some of the uh partners that we have when we had visited with them, they had just never heard of this concept. Um Alicia was leading a conversation with DPI um for homelessness and this just happened to be a talking point that came up. That's how we ended up getting DPI on our steering committee. They're like this just so innovative. We haven't heard anything about this. So, uh, we're not aware of any local models, um, as far as in other municipalities, but the ideas framework does, uh, in part of the part of the training in that, the way that they design that, uh, there are other communities in the
127country that are leveraging that, uh, strategy to address, um, similar issues in their communities. >> And I agree 100% with what you're doing. We talked for years and years and years, far too many years, about kids that have fallen behind and how do you catch them up and my comment is always why do we constantly let them fall behind >> right >> Mr. Did you come up with your question? >> I did. Sorry. I'm just trying to find a word to word this correctly. This was something where I struggled to support last year mostly because I didn't really see the specity of the program in itself. Looks like a piloting stage here where we're building these expectations of um kind of going to Jim's point right here is that there are a lot of partnerships
128that are beginning to develop this kind of stuff and this is something that WASBY had a a large focus for last year at our state convention as well. What are you anticipating beyond this year? Some specifics of what this program would help with? Is it focusing on students just trying to bring them past a lot of these providing a safe spaces forum? What are some specifics of that? There anything where it's like helping parents learn how to parent and go through some of their traumas as well? I'm seeing a big nod there. >> Yeah. And this is why we engage our community even even when we uh do some of this community impact work in neighborhoods. um we might have some suspicions of what we think's going on, but one of the things that we've
129tried to bring back here and frame is the people closest to the challenges are closest closest to the solutions. What they aren't closest to is often resources, influence, power, and those sorts of things. And um honestly, you know, I do a lot with discipline and behavior and things. I've ne never met a parent who wants their kid to really struggle socially and and really struggle academically and and learn grit the kind of the hard way. So, we know that we're working family. We're working with families who want to do well. We know that kids are actually born to do well. Uh and so we want to work with uh folks who are closest connected to some of these trends to understand what's getting in their way. I know one of the questions that we're wondering
130about is let's say we decided and you're kind of asking what do you think we're going to be doing with them or what are we going to do. Um one of the questions we've been um kind of thinking about and and we'll we'll see how it unfolds. But if we were to decide to you know we get to the root of it and we know exactly what to do. Uh one of our questions is our families in any one place that some of the families that need the help that we have are they in any one place long enough to get it? you know, or or is this connected to some other systemic issues? And um you know, that it's dynamic and that's why you talk with with families to get an understanding of what's
131getting in their way of being being the parent they want to be or, you know, raising the child that they'd like to raise and and then we help organize that and work with partners to work on that. Yeah. as a theoretical example, right? You know, we could talk to our parents and it could be like, "Hey, you know, if I would have just gotten a great parenting class, um, you know, two months after my kid was born and that lasted for about six months, um, I would have been the best possible parent." If if the majority of our parents and our community is saying like, "Hey, it's this parenting class thing," then we'll work with the parenting place or Mayo or Gunderson at the right time to deliver that program for our parents. At this
132point though, we don't know what that is. And we're very committed to asking folks who are experiencing parenting at this early childhood level what they need instead of assuming from our position what it is that they need. And so that's just kind of like this weird gray area that makes some folks feel uncomfortable. And I can feel that tension for some folks because we don't know exactly what we're going to do right now until we talk to the folks that need the help. >> But it's perhaps related to our earlier problem with with the legislators passing a one-sizefits all solution without talking to different communities about what the 4K solution could have been. >> Totally. >> Mr. Neski, you had your hand up. Do you have another question? >> Dr. Yeah, that's a great point,
133uh, Dr. Garcia, that we we can be just as guilty of, you know, being a little too hamfisted and and trying to throw things at the wall. >> The solution is thinking we know what the solution is, but not doing the proper research and Yeah. And that's I mean and that's exactly why I really I absolutely supported the creation of this position. Um and I not that it was necessary for you to you know be a central grad and come through but I think that your roots in the community make you a really pretty ideally placed person to do this work of of coordinating the resources that are already out there. Right. I see I I'm familiar to an extent with with the the ideas framework and I really appreciate the kind of like the
134if then so that structuring that that give a real clear sense of direction and that the reason for this kind of investment is simply because it takes a village right young children's mental health the behaviors that we hear about constantly constantly constantly uh in our district and and and across our community that didn't all erode code over time in a in a little vacuum, right? And so to think that there is there's you know one there's one cause that there's one area that we can we can turn it around and flip a switch and things are going to get better. It is going to be an absolute need for all these different aspects and elements and organizations and individuals across the community to to recognize that if we want a healthy community, if we want
135a healthy society, there are things that we all touch on when it comes to to young children. And I think it's exactly important to have somebody who can pull those strings together because it comes down to it's work, it's labor, and it it you got to get people together and doing things and pulling together. And when we have these great we have great organizations, we have a fantastically involved and engaged community, but they're sometimes working across purposes or don't even know that they're pulling in the same direction, and we can capitalize on those things. So, love the start. I worry that you're gonna find that it's all poverty and cost of living all the way down and there's nothing we can do about that. But >> Mr. >> I I did I want to thank
136you also for the comments and that's kind of where I also saw a lot of problems with too is this could possib turn into a one-sizefits-all solution where I think of families where they each have their own different sorts of needs and their own resources as well. >> And for me it's perhaps hard to imagine this since I'm just turned 20 and don't have children of my own. But I hope train myself be in that kind of need but I knew a lot of parents who would use these kind of resources not more for the child for the child's benefit but for their benefit and that was big problem with my family that's all the concerns about that so I just want to thank the board members for kind of giving their thoughts too and
137um I guess just my kind of hope to see this program is to see how exactly it develops we're still in the pilot stage it is an incredibly huge need that a a lot of stakeholders beyond our community are talking about and just want to thank you for your time there and I mean I have a lot of questions here but I'm quite excited to see that there is something a lot of spec uh specificity added so far I can see your passion already >> I have >> um I have a question first of all I want to say um I'm delighted you hired somebody from the parenting place I used to be the director there before Jod and it's a very pivotable pivotal and very important resource in this community that's really under um
138recognized and appreciated. Um this is a question for Mr. Te. Um you know my concern with the fund 80 is that we talk about all these great things that we could do to save the world and we kind of would all like to do that. Um but at the end of the day, our job as a board is a whole lot about data and accountability. And in the budget book, it says that the early childhood community partnership um supports uh parents and other entities to strengthen community relationships, collaborate on preschool curriculum communitywide or citywide develop future preschool initiatives in an effort to synchronize, develop, and coordinate and grow early childhood partnership services throughout the Lacrosse community. An early childhood development coordinator position will be created. I feel like you've diverted direction of this. >> That
139might be a different position. >> It so historically um that early >> fund part of the >> totally is. Yes, it's there. >> That description comes in part from when we used to have a contract with the parenting place for curriculum development and other things. And Michurel could talk a little bit more about that if we needed to. Uh it was about a 1012,000 allocation annually and it supported all that stuff on the top. the the bulk of that is not related to this uh this particular uh position. It's just that last little bit that you mentioned there. Uh and so that's probably a legacy piece that we haven't updated yet in the budget vote. >> So you didn't do I have the right budget? >> No, that that's the correct one. I I'm saying
140it's potentially an error on our part in updating that description to reflect our move from where we were historically, which was funding uh support of child care 4K model 3 programs through the parenting place. Uh that program ended over time probably six years ago, five years ago, four years ago. Shelley says uh and we are transitioning. it's a kind of the same bucket and so it made sense to put um uh this position description in there but we didn't flesh out what it looks like in the future and so I think what we did historically was a little more transactional and curriculum related but we're looking at more is more transformational and community partnership oriented so >> because when this was sold to us last year it was really about there isn't enough child care
141there isn't enough resources for that and now we're we're affecting child brain development mental health and families and I feel like It's shifted since what we were told we were going to get and what we're getting. And again, at the end of the day when we were going to agree to fund this, I got to know like did we achieve what we were going to do? I I it started late, so it's a little hard to do that. I get that. But is this even the same program that we talked about a year ago? >> I thought I would argue yes. We some of the same some of the same slides are referenced. We talked about ideas framework and yeah, the the larger concept was always built around Harvard Center for the Developing Child. Okay.
142>> Um the impact framework. >> Okay. That was just maybe that was just my misunderstanding. >> Well, and I'd have to go back. I was trying to find it in my email to look at like the description of it, but I remember it being funding for a position for a person who would coordinate with early child care stakeholders in the community. And that seems to be what this is, right? You've got the strategic that was my memory as well >> with Mayo and Amplify and DPI >> and those are all >> early childhood. >> It struck me there were no child care facilities on the steering committee that that struck me that this part of this is about early care and education. they're the fundamental piece of it and then I and again I uh
143>> this isn't on you but >> how does this role fit in and how does this work fit in with the current situation we have with 4K and trying to work with child I think this is an opportunity and I don't want to miss that either. >> Absolutely. Yeah. So the idea of the steering committee um so we're envisioning a big stakeholder group because just like you you know shared we've got lots of stakeholders lots of daycare we've got inh home we've got some of our stakeholders maybe even family members who are trying to provide care um out in the community of the steering committee and it's partly why we've got a couple representatives from the parenting place because they're connected to so many of those organizations um we wanted it small enough to be
144able to design uh the work and then uh we carry it out. So even within our community impact work or community uh schools work, we always have a small site team that's working to develop the needs and asset assessment. They're looking at the data, but the stakeholder group um if you remember last uh board meeting I shared our target was 75 to 100% of all stakeholders at those schools. So, uh, lots of outreach, uh, is part of gathering that information, but in terms of steering it and and making the the group workable, that's why we're leveraging a a steering committee. >> Other questions, comments, >> I said a quick comment. Uh, we were talking about, uh, the development and, you know, many years ago, many years ago, like when I was young, um, they used
145to all generally be parent working um now we struggle just to to you know work paycheck to paycheck so both parents are working and it's become obviously more and more difficult uh to parent when that develops that that kind of a life foot so I'm thinking you know there's many many avenues that this uh this affects but obviously these the stress on a parents a big one too so I think as we move forward and you and obviously you will Um, I think that's going to be one big part you're going to find because it just doesn't have to seem to have the time that a parent used to because, you know, when they're both working in different shifts, it's difficult to and even if you' went to Logan, we'd have appreciated you. >> Page
146of the book. >> Yeah. >> One one of the things you mentioned and it's really true. Uh when I was at Hamilton Elementary School, I say my worst day in the day was at 8 o'clock in the morning, nine students transferred out and the next day 11 new students transferred in. So it's a constantly changing population and I believe your work is to help us meet the basic needs of the kids in Lacrosse. >> I just have a really quick comment. as a mom of a one and three-year-old. Thank you for the work you're doing. >> Yeah, that's near and dear to you. >> Yes, it is. The parenting place is a lifeline for me right now. >> That's awesome. That's good to hear. >> Any other comments or questions? >> Can I just ask
147what section of the budget book you were referencing before? So I >> page 69. >> Thank you. under the fund 80 budget. >> Maybe last year's was early childhood community partnerships. Early childhood community partnerships support parents and other entities to strengthen community relationships, collaborate on preschool curriculum. >> That's the one. Yeah, that's what I read. >> But it it said the partnerships and and supporting parents. So I I think it kind of all fits together. >> And I guess I took early childhood to be before prek even like in my mind early childhood is that birth to >> birth to three. >> It's not 3K 4K. >> That's exactly what I read. Okay. So we'll move on unless there's any other questions to the community to uh matters reserved for board action. We're going to
148move to the community service fund levy. Um, >> thank you. >> And certainly if you don't wish to stick around, you're welcome to take off. Also, great board meeting left, >> high intensity board meeting. >> Um, here in the the content there are two attachments. There is one which is the proposal from last time and then um per a number of requests including Mr. Newmeisters is the fund 80 cost sharing. Uh and so uh folks are interested in you know what is uh you know some of the total expense for some of our partner programs and what is the share that we as a school district are funding and so uh we were able to provide that information uh in a slide there. You'll see it varies uh from program to program. Some are really
149owned wholly by the school district like the um uh let's see the early childhood impact work or the um look let's see um cultural liaison uh or community schools. Uh some are um you know partial fundings like the school resource officer program uh and then uh so they vary from from program to program. So you can see those uh in particular there was some curiosity regarding the boys and girls club uh and their afterchool programming and we were able to provide uh both um the percentage contribution for the the school year surround care that they provide uh as well as some you know relevant facts regarding the the cost of that programming for our students. happy to follow up with any questions on that. And then of course you've got the other documents which lays
150out um in green the the things that we're proposing uh as an administration uh for the fund 80 levy. Um quick reminder, there's some uh program operation costs um that have changed over time. So we're interested in increasing those funds in order to continue to promote those programs. uh those are uh minor relative to the uh two new proposals listed at the bottom. The first is the empowering youth beyond the school day, our middle school community co-curriculars. Um moving those uh programs and funds into fund 80 at a cost of $300,000 and then strengthening our community connections, our partnership with Grow Lacrosse. We want to create equal opportunities across our school district uh for students. Um, our grow garden programming has really become integrated and foundational to what we do in our schools. We want
151to make sure that every kid has access to that at every school site. >> Mr. U with the middle school uh in power youth beyond you have 300,000. Can you explain a little bit what that would involve? >> Yes. So that uh is a conservative estimate of the costs of operating our middle school programs. So, we're talking, you know, middle school volleyball and cross country and track and uh football, all those uh extracurricular programs. Uh and I think some of our most of our non-athletic programs are already covered in fund 80 through some contracts there or Patty's looking at me funny. They're not. So, this must be included in that as well. Uh and so it would cover things like uh theater and some of those other programs also. Uh, and so it would allow
152kids access to those programs through fund 80 instead of fund 10. Uh, it would free up some opportunities for us to provide raises for our coaches and other things that we've been wanting to do for a while. >> Okay. So, that that touched on my question. I just wanted to ask you to remind us that this is actually not new expense. It's it's a fund transfer from the general fund to fund 80 because we are statutoily allowed to move middle school sports as a co-curricular rather than an extracurricular or something. Right. >> Correct. That is correct. >> And um so is there is there additional cost built into that budget from what we are already paying for? >> There is not additional cost. We looked at our budget >> more than usual. It's a what
153we anticipated from uh for this school year. Uh it would uh free up that capital. It would allow us to you know what we did as a parallel to this but connected in some way. So we were looking at our pay for our coaches and our co-curriculars and we found that we were not competitive remotely in the region or school districts our size and it's led to an impact in providing those great opportunities for our students. And so we wanted to be able to use this opportunity to um provide uh competitive compensation for coaching contracts, for extracurricular contracts, for theater, for um clubs that happen after school, Southeast Asian club, Black Student Union, all these awesome opportunities for our kids. Uh and uh to continue to encourage our staff and our community to come out
154and support our students with these after school programs. >> Mr. So I I was under the impression that this 300,000 would be above and beyond what we presently pay. >> It is not it's shifting the costs out of fund 10 and into fund 80 an allowable place to cover middle school co-curriculars. The one caveat is it needs to be available to every student in our community. We already have homeschool students that participate from time to time. Be no real material change in our enrollment. And if we get a couple of kids that experience public school from the private schools, so much the better. >> But but then if we aren't additionally adding on, then how will we help some of those activities that are presently not being met? >> So um the the fund 80
155is an additional levy. So it's functionally new revenue. So we'll get new revenue over here. we'll have a lower expense in fund 10 to be able to um support those programs at a higher rate. And so by generating new revenue in fund 80, we can increase our expense in fund 10 in order to fund those things I was talking about. >> So the bottom line is there is an increase. I mean we're going to now spend and just make up a fictitious number. We're spending uh 200,000 at Longfellow. Now we'd be spending 350,000. No, >> total. >> That doesn't sound right. I mean, >> it could. >> Yeah. >> Across the district as a whole, we would increase our if if we just took this in isolation, we'd be increasing our budget by $300,000. >>
156Yeah. >> Okay. >> That's right. >> And so, Yeah. Right. So, although it doesn't represent new spending on the actual programming, the levy is separate. So, there's an additional levy uh on the tax base. >> Correct. Okay. >> Yes. I have some questions on the numbers um on the document with all the different amounts and there's some amounts in blue and some amounts in green. >> Um so the amounts in green I believe add up to about $560,000. Um the 900 the 1.927 is an increase over the budget um that we had last year of 1.857 and that's a $70,000 increase. If the colors, the items in green are only adding up to 50,000. Am I missing something? And how do we have a negative tax impact when it's actually 70,000 more than it was
157the previous year? >> That's because >> property taxes, >> property assessment, >> property value. We had talked about that the last time. More property value to spread it across estimate. >> True. There's more property value, but there's no more property. like we're all going to be paying more because our property values went up. So, it's >> it'll be dispersed among the increase. So, just you know how you know how a levy works. >> Yeah. But if you have $100,000 house and now it's assessed at 125 and you're I mean >> for us to pretend that taxpayers are paying less would be a false statement. The the mill rate might technically go down, but individual taxpayers could still be paying more. Yes, >> the total dollars paid could end up being more. Um, and you know,
158we often talk about things in terms of the mill rate um because it's translatable across houses as a result as opposed to like singular for one particular um taxpayer. Um, of course, if there's more dollars levied, then it will go up a little bit everywhere. Uh in this case, you know, if this was all approved, we'd imagine a five cent mill rate increase, you know, so the average homeowner of a $200,000 home would pay $10 more next year. >> So why is there a difference between the items in green and the budget from last year? There's it's about >> the items in green are new dollars >> to those areas. And then there are some areas that are in blue that the dollar amount did increase from last year because it may be salary or
159benefits or something like that um naturally. And then of course remember that if we have anything left over in each of those places that we levied for, we reduce next year's levy because we have to those leftover dollars for that same purpose in the next year. >> That's what happened with the early childare child care coordinator. Since she just started in May, we're only levying for $20,000 of her salary because >> we didn't spend it last year and we have to spend it on that. >> Great questions. At the end of the day, I I still have a concern about the amount of increase that we had again even um a few years ago. This is doubling the amount that we're spending on this levy, and this is an increased levy to our taxpayers. It's
160doing good things. I can't dispute that whatsoever. Um but I I do struggle with that personally. Other comments or questions? I feel like our taxpayers pay for it on one end or the other. We either invest in like safe places for children to be after school and ways to connect them to their communities and take care of them or we pay for the problems that arise out of not having invested in them when they were young. So it it doesn't come through the school district on that sense. So I guess you can relax and about however your property taxes go toward some other institution and not the school district. But I feel like the things that we invest in the five cents on the $100,000 that we invest in giving our coaches raises and having
161someone look out for early childhood care that can be coordinated and made available to parents who might not know about it. I think I think is worth it. It is. And I'm I got one of those letters, too. my home assessment went up. >> So, I know I'll be paying a little bit more, but for my >> for my money, I know where this money is going and what it's doing. I have a lot more control over it as a taxpayer than I do um other things that I end up paying for because we don't invest in children. >> I agree. >> Yeah. The challenge is that not everybody can afford increases. There's a lot of people living on very difficult financial situations and that's my my worry. But Other comments or questions on this?
162>> I'll make a comment as a parents um at least when it comes to co-curriculars and extracurriculars right now. Um if if we don't fund or find ways to increase accessibility like it just comes down to parents that are funding this or booster clubs or donations and fundraising. I mean, we're putting extra stress across different different various different avenues and we're seeing other districts around us that are currently underfunding some of these programs and it's just it's a cascading effect across them. So, I look at this as um we're already not competitive in a lot of our co-curriculars, extracurriculars um to start with and then if we start continuing to to underfund those uh groups, one, we have accessibility issues and and two, we're just uh the experience our students are going to get is
163going to be very different than than other districts. So, I know it's one of the biggest expenses on here as far as that shift um from fund 10 to fund 80 for it. So, As far as the looking at the the bulk of of the dollars increase, it's coming in there. For me as a parent, um I know I've spent a fair amount personally on on stuff for my kids and other kids that don't have accessibility because you want to make sure that they can have a good experience. >> Teachers spend money on that, too. >> I know. And so, and I see that a lot of the >> somebody's paying for it, >> the program and and professional development supplies fees. I mean, these are things that we should be providing to our to
164our staff and our teachers. So, >> I think I think that Deb Deb's comment. I mean, we obviously we're here and we should be good stewards of our taxpayers money. And her point is well taken. I think part of the problem was we underfunded things for so long. And when we don't have, you know, we're not paying the coaches enough, the refs enough, we're underfunding so many different items because this is life, right? We we only have a certain amount of money and we try our best to put it in the right spots, but sooner or later that's going to bite us and and if we're not paying our teachers correct wages, you know, our our support staff and our coaches and stuff, we eventually do have to catch up. Um otherwise, they're going somewhere
165else. And and we want our children obviously to have the best experience and the best education possibly. But I I do agree with her that, you know, being good stewards of of taxpayer monies is important and we got to continue to look at that moving forward and hopefully we can cool things off. But we we definitely um fell behind. There's no doubt catching up to do. >> Do we want to take action on this this evening? >> If so, we'd look for a motion. >> I'll make a motion that we fund fund AB if that's working the way stated here. >> So to approve the community service fund levy as presented. I'll second that. >> A motion, a second. Any further discussion? >> All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >>
166I. >> Those opposed, nay. >> Motion passes. We'll move on to fund balance designations. >> Um, Miss Sucla asked a great question the other day, like why do we bring fund balance designations to the school board? And uh, uh, it prompted uh, Miss Sprag and I to think about that for a little bit. And you the short answer is because we've always done it that way. And as we looked into it a little bit further, uh we uh quickly found uh Gazsby 54, the uh general accounting standards board, which governmental accounting standards board, which dictates how governments have to do accounting in order to present for um uh what are they uh the the audits and other things. And so this is required uh by our auditors. so that we can submit an audit to
167the to the government, the state government uh as a part of that process. And so it was a great question. We learned a little something today >> and and I will add to that because I looked into something afterwards that it's also gives a uniform look at our financials by like S&P that when they're looking at financials across the board of all government entities that they are uniform and so they can read them a little bit better. So that's that is the other part of it. So fund balance designation. Um so this is our annual uh look at what's left. This is not just your fund 10, your general fund. This is all of our funds and they are designated by non-spendable uh or restricted committed assigned fund balance. And then again the unassigned fund
168balance is dictated by our policy that we need to have 15 to 20% of our expenditures in the prior year in um unassigned uh but we designate them anyways in a way um in the unassigned balance. So, as it turns out, um, fund 10 is the only fund that has an unassigned fund balance, and that is your general fund. So, going through these, the uh restricted fund balance includes our self-funded dental insurance, our custodian HRA, our common school fund uh remaining funds, those are designated uh exactly to the penny. um for our financials and the HA waiver plan that we had knew. So those were dollars that we had uh contributed but did not spend in the 2425 school year. The grant dollars received for future use. Um the capital projects fund 4142. So that
169is those are project dollars that we designated that maybe we're doing the projects in the summer when we usually do them. And so that's those are leftover funds from that um from the previous year's budget. The 13 million is the uh elementary school capital referendum dollars of the $14 million that we borrowed that we have not spent yet. Um, and then the debt service is made up of IRS de uh re rebates from our qualified school construction bonds and our build American bonds that amount to about 4 million that we've set aside for future debt service payments. Um, and then of course the scholarship funds, those are all donated for scholarships and can only be used for scholarships. And our fund 50, the school nutrition funds that can only be used for school nutrition. Any
170question on the restricted fund balances? When we go into the committed fund balance, this is where we talk about uh funds that we set aside that uh are meant for a certain purpose to keep us out of um out of a deficit. So the operating referendum funds that we may have spent in years past using ESSER funds, we have designated part of the operating referendum funds uh set aside for those purposes. the capital uh expansion building and renovation that is uh just set aside in case we have some projects that we might want to fund out of fund balance um for one-time purposes. The same with the um the capital expenditures, cyber security. We do have some insurance, but if we would ever have a cyber uh attack, we probably would have to spend about
171that much money above um our insurance to get back on track. So hopefully never happens. It's really been a ma not a matter of um if it's a matter of when based on >> school districts and governments and so it's something where we've increased that expenditure a little bit over the years but it's been prudent in order to protect ourselves. And then our technology lease is a promise to continue with our onetoone technology and refreshing that um that program every 3 to four years. >> Would that just be hardware or also software? >> Both. Um the assigned fund balance is set aside um And this hasn't changed much um from year to year. But one thing I will point out uh to you is the data closet move. We've kind of delayed that and delayed
172that and we finally moved it over now to central. So that is just to cover some of those expenditures in this next year, but you will not see that on fund balance designation um going forward. donations from fund 21 and then uh our dental rebate to help with our dental expenditures, mandated curriculum changes that goes with the act 20. Um, as far as the reading programs that we have to have in place, class size needs, we have that every year just in case we would have an influx of students where we would need to hire more teachers, you know, close to the beginning of the school year, but we usually reserve that every year. And then, of course, your community service fund. That's with the unused uh dollars in the community service fund, meaning that
173we do not have to levy to the the total amount for some of those areas. But then the unassigned fund balance um that is where we have to have not less than 15 to 20% of the prior year operating expenditures. Um we break that down into our uh revenue instability due to reimburseable grants. So, we have to always incur those expenditures uh before we're reimbursed. Like I said, we are waiting for $2.6 million at this point at the end of June uh to be reimbursed for expenditures that we already incurred. Then we've set aside the the uh 20 million to avoid the short-term borrowing um because we know that our fund balance uh gets kind of low from October through December or January too. So then um then the other part is the unassigned fund
174balances contingencies and emergencies. And remember, like we've had the fire in the last few years at Central. We've had the floods at Longfellow. Those are the funds we use to to fix the problems before our insurance money can come through. So um that is the um explanation by fund. Um so you can see that some of the funds uh are combined to uh in those areas of a non-spendable restricted and um unassign unassigned and committed questions. We will need a motion to approve this. Make a motion to accept the final 2024 25 committed assigned unassigned fund balance designations as presented. >> Seconded. >> Have a motion second. Any further discussion, questions. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. >> I. >> Those opposed? Motion carries. Now we'll move on to the
175operational expectation monitoring report 09 communicating with the public and key stakeholders. Um this is the part where administration would bring forward any recommended ch recommended changes to the monitoring but there are none at this time. So do we have to approve anything? >> We do not. >> Okay. Well then we'll move on to um results monitoring report R3 involve citizenship. Again this is where administration could bring forward any recommended changes and they do not have any at this time either. We'll then move on to announcements. First of one is uh Mr. Beski for the CISA board of control. >> Um I'm going to go back to the last time you presented. I talked about a program that they're using at CISA 4 and four CISA area schools uh adopted it at least partially that was
176named Liftoff and from what I understand liftoff is now being used in the lacrosse school district at Pal Technic. At least that's what was announced at that ceasefire meeting. Uh I'm not sure who's I haven't gotten down there to find out exactly how it's being implemented or not, but that was the gist of our discussion. They still think their self-funded health insurance is going well. And uh I think that kind of was the main discussion. >> Okay. Any comments or questions? >> Is Polytech using liftoffs? um Polytech is done yet. Uh we thought that the um perfect situation for kind of that independent use was our CRVA would add another layer of support for kids that didn't have access to an adult all day. >> Okay. >> Um we're still debating whether or not it
177intersects with uh project based learning in the right ways. >> Uh I gave a keynote at their uh AI thing. I think they might have been sorry they asked me by the end. >> Um no no it was good. It was good and it was a lot of enthusiastic people working really hard to kind of make a change and keep kids, you know, locked in. So, it was interesting to see how that was going on. I'll be curious to see how virtual does it. Um, bow tie classic September 6. Buy your tickets, get your raffle tickets. I'll have raffle tickets the next time we meet. I was hoping to pick them up today and I didn't get here soon enough to do it, but or just find me and I will sell you raffle tickets,
178but it'll be a good time. >> Um, for the uh for my report or my announcements, um, you have listed there the upcoming board meetings again in September. It's the second and the fourth Monday. Make sure you get that on your calendar. October, we have three meetings. We have the first and third and the fourth. We have to approve the levy. Um the 27th use typically a short meeting. We may be looking at a possible workshop. We have some big things coming up this fall um on facilities and um what do we do with facilities? What do we name facilities? Um also Mr. Ma and I and Dr. Engel have agreed uh Mr. M has requested a workshop on standardbased grading and we agreed that we'd wait till the end of the first quarter to
179kind of see how that went. So that'll also be stacking up in that same time period. Um, so we may be having a workshop that night. So just so you um plan your social calendars accordingly. >> Which one was that? I'm sorry. >> The 27th of October. There may be a workshop. It won't be just a short meeting of the budget approval >> probably. We'll see when >> to be determined. Um, uh, WASBY regional meeting is coming up, uh, October 9th as well. And then, um, as far as the agenda setting, um, for the next meeting, of course, we have the regular superintendent's consent agenda, board consent agenda with the routine matters any for action. If there's any bids on construction, we'll be looking at those. We'll be looking to um approve the district vision
180documents that um we saw this evening in the information section. We'll be discussing the WASBY resolutions. Um it says if any, but I suspect there will be some, so that will be good. Um and then we will also be talking about budget again and results monitoring. um R2.3 the academic performance um and then um we we will have a workshop talking about some policy follow-up questions that we have. It should be not a long workshop but we'll have a short workshop. So unless anybody has anything they'd like to add to that, you can let me know. Now >> can I ask a quick question please? Um, I only ask this for teachers sake and everyone else's sake, but in the information part or whenever we have teachers here, coaches here, whatever, is there a way
181we can move them up so they don't have to sit here an hour and a half before they uh speak that they've had long days already? And and I I feel bad, especially we went into close session, they're all sitting here. I just think if if we I don't know if we can, but it would be nice to maybe put them as more of a priority at the beginning of the meeting so they don't have to sit here. >> Thank you. >> Good recommendation. >> Um so that's my report. Uh Dr. Oh, and um I do want to say we had did um I was able to speak with uh staff at new staff uh last week and today at the um opening. You guys did a great job of putting that together. Again, I
182was sandwiched between the mascot race and prize drawing. So that was code for make it short and sweet. So, I hope I did. >> Yes. Thank you, Miss Sukley. Did a great job with your uh comments. Uh we had an opening day today. It was awesome. It was a little rainy to start us off, but uh there was so much energy and enthusiasm with all of our staff back. Uh Central High School dance team performed to open everything, which is amazing. Uh and then we also had a mascot race with all of our mascots. Logan High School won. Uh go Rangers. Uh so, it was an awesome day. Uh we had a lot of fun. Uh it was inspiring. It was uh exciting. Uh and we sent folks off to to get after it for
183the school year. Um >> Oh, Mr. Question. >> I just want I I was at the new teacher orientation and so I sat next to this young lady and asked her if this was her first job, etc. First year teaching. She said yes. And we got into a conversation and then she turned it around. She said, "Well, when did you start teaching?" And I said 1970. And she said, >> "My, that was before my parents were born. >> Nothing like feeling old." >> The first day of school is Thursday, August 21st. Uh it's my favorite day of the school year. I can't wait. Uh and then uh just as a reminder, with the holiday on September 1st, the board office is closed. Uh so, uh that's it. >> Thank you. Um then we will move
184on to the debriefing and this evening we have >> Mr. Ma >> and ain't it glad I'm not on a virtual screen today. >> Yeah. >> It's good to be back. Got to thank for your patience though. Out of nowhere I got a bunch of allergies today. So I'm fighting a lot walk out. But um from this meeting we worked really well. I didn't write any notes at all. I just think we I didn't really see anything really really nitpick at um we're enter into a lot of important discussions. A lot of our normal discussions I think are usually just how we are assessing the superintendent or how our results are going through here. But these are some of the big decisions we make of exactly our funding towards and I like the diversity discussion
185we've had here so far and some it's challenged my own thoughts as well and I like that I felt kind of myself grow and be able to kind of understand that as well. Um really it's just good to be back here. I'm just keep it nice and short here. >> Excellent. But thank you again for your patience. My allergies today too. >> I do appreciate the variety of discussion. I also um truly value um that we can disagree agree to disagree so respectfully here at this table. It says a lot about um everybody around the table. So I thank you for that. Okay. With that, the Lacrosse Board of Education will consider a motion moving to close session on Monday, August 18th, 2025, immediately following the Board of Education meeting at the Hogan Administrative Center
186room 209 pursuant to Wisconsin statute 19.85 PN1 PNC C for the purpose of considering employment promotion, compensation, or performance evaluation data of any public employee of which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility to with the superintendent's midyear evaluation. Is there a motion to adjourn into close session? So moved. >> A motion. Do we need a second? >> Yes. >> Okay. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Okay. Roll call will be taken. >> Mr. Alberts. >> Hi. >> Mr. Beeski. >> Hi. >> Miss Folks. >> Hi. >> Dr. Garcia. >> Hi. >> Mr. Jackson. >> Hi. >> Mr. Minko. >> Hi. >> Mr. Newmeister. >> I >> Dr. Hi, >> Miss Zukla. >> I most reluctant close ever. >> Uh, with that said, this meeting is a journey. signatures. [Music]