001[Music] people. Please take a moment to celebrate and honor this ancestral home land and the sacred lands of all indigenous people. Will the secretary please call the role? Mr. Alberts here. Mr. Veski here. Miss Hooks here. Dr. Garcia excused. Mr. Jackson. Okay. Absent. Absent. Mr. Ma here. Mr. Newmeister here. Dr. Spreg here. Miss Sukla here. Form of the board of education is present. So the regularly scheduled meeting of May 19th, 2025 is called to order. Um, next thing is we will now have the pledge of allegiance. Please stand and face the American flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Tonight's agenda has been previously distributed to the board. I would
002entertain at this time a motion with a second to approve the agenda as submitted, unless there is a motion to amend. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda as second. A motion by Dr. Sprag, seconded by Mr. Begneski. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. Those opposed. Motion carries. We'll then move on to public speakers. It is a policy of the board to provide at its public meetings an opportunity for individuals to address the board. Comments about individual, staff, or personnel are not allowed. Open meeting law prohibits the board engaging in discussion responding to matters that are not on the agenda. All speakers are reminded that at this time at the that the same policy limits your time to speak to five minutes. This limit will be strictly enforced.
003May I ask the superintendent to keep track of the time and to notify the speaker when time is running out? I will. You are ready. Loudly. You're also asked to give your name and the school district where you reside at the beginning of your time for the public record. Our first speaker tonight, we have Kim Shively and Mariah Beal. Hello, my name is Kim Shiveley and I'm here representing the governance board for Kulie Monasuri Charter School and this is Mariah Bigalow, one of our E2 teachers. Um, we both reside in the school district of Lacrosse. We wanted to take a moment to introduce ourselves to new and returning schoolboard members so you can have faces to attach with names. A little charter school 101. Charter schools in Wisconsin are by definition public schools and not
004voucher schools. Charter schools are required to have a governance board to asssure that students at that school are learning as intended according to the charter. Kulie Monasuri's board for the upcoming school year has nine members plus two teachers and we meet once a month for 10 months of the year. Two things of which our board is particularly proud. One, we have maintained a steady enrollment of about 120 students since the 2020 2021 school year. Two, our school has a fantastic staff of seven hardworking classroom teachers. In addition to having undergrad degrees in education, five of the seven have master's or specialist degrees in monastery education. two will have that certification in 2026 and one will also have their doctorate in 2026 in monastery education. Um, if we could have one wish granted to us, it
005would be to have teacher assistants in all of our multi-age classrooms. Uh, Kulie Monasuri was founded in 1998. On behalf of our board, I want to express our gratitude to current and past boards who have backed the option of a monatory education as part of this district's educational landscape. And with that, I hand it over to Mariah. Hello everybody. Mariah Bigalow. Um I teach at Kulie Monasuri in E2, which is fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. And I've been there for 10 years. Um I wanted just to talk a little bit about Monasuri, what Monasuri is. Um we teach to the whole child with a focus on brain development. Um we use sensorial materials and practical life lessons. Um as seen with our most recent plant sale. Uh thank you to those who came to that.
006Um us teachers present one-on-one or in small groupoup lessons while other students are working in the classroom independently or collaboratively with their peers with materials that they have already received lessons on. Um, we have multi-age classrooms. So, our children's house is preschool and kindergarten, four to six year olds. Our E1 is first, second, and third grade, and then our E2 is fourth, fifth, and sixth grade. Um, as uh Kim spoke, part of our training is to learn the inter interdisciplinary curriculum. And so, I brought a fun material here. Uh Miss Meline's going to help me show she's one of our children's house teachers. So this is a material uh called the bead chains and you will see this in every single monastery classroom from children's house all the way to uh E2 so through sixth
007grade. Um and it starts with just this one little four bead bar. And in children's house the children use it for counting. And so every number has another has a different color. Four is yellow. And that's consistent throughout all of Monasuri. And so children in the younger ages use this to practice counting as they make their way through uh monosur. They work on skip counting. So this is our four our short four bead chain. And so you'll see children put this out and it will four 8 12 16. Um and then when they get really good they get to use the long bead chain. Um which goes all the way to 64. And so this is an incredibly sensorial way to see like how big how much 64 is. um in uh if we were
008to put our short chain together so in u maybe in the later later ages of E1 they might put them together and see that it's a four square so 16 and so they will can see that a four a short four chain is the same as a four square and then if we pile on top four four squares we get a triangle. It's not. We get a four cubed. Uh a four cubed, which if we take our long bead chain and put it all together, we get a four cubed. So the four the long four chain is equivalent to our four cubed just all spread out. And so we have this material from the twos all the way through the tens. And this is just one example of a math material where you see children
009getting their hands on and and really deep diving and understanding what these numbers mean. Um so we invite you to come visit our school and observe the children working together and working with the materials. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] We'll now move on to the school showcase and um we have our new co-op show choir, the River City Revolution. So, I'll turn that over to you. We've got uh two great presenters here today, Adam Cardi, Ian Schultz, and they're going to let us know a little bit more about our show choir. Hi. Uh, I'm Ian Schultz. I'm the choir director at Central. And I'm Adam Cardi. I'm the choir director at Logan High. And it was about a year ago we were here um kind of talking about Chlair in the district and maybe pitched
010this idea and said, "Hey, this would be really great." And um we're about to show you how really awesome it was. So, uh we put together a little uh uh highlights video of our year um with all of our accolades at the end. And then we actually have uh four students here to just kind of give some student testimonials. Um two students from Central and two students from Logan. Um, so when that video is done, they'll come up and introduce themselves and just kind of let you know how great the year was. So enjoy. [Music] are we pretty aes is looking as always [Music] halfway. What can we do? What can we do to [Music] keep happy people [Music] Happy days in my world. I see imported from England. Life imported from Spain towels imported
011from Turkey and Turkey [Applause] from you. One day this is the end. Throw all your hands on. [Music] [Applause] [Music] It's about time I never realize. Put our differences aside. We're all alone. This floor is our home. So, let's have some fun tonight. Oh, I want to dance with the [Music] [Applause] stranger. But it's been a waste of time. Disco. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Then one day the sun appears and we'll come shining through those lonely years. I made it through the rain. I kept my world protected. I made it through the rain. I kept my point of view. I made it through the rain and found myself respected by the others who got rained on and made it through. [Applause] didn't know what I wanted to be hungry. And I guess that was enough
012for me to win the race in front of your face. Brand new clothes in a big fat place on a rock and roll [Music] TV. But today the way I play the game is not the same. I think I'm going to get me happy. [Music] I can make a true song. I have something to [Applause] [Music] sound on. [Music] [Applause] [Music] You know what I do? So come on. Come on. Come on. Let's get physical. [Music] All [Music] night. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. [Music] [Applause] Is there more coming? Star Wars situation here for a while. So, um, if you didn't Uh our show was about mannequins that came to life when the department store closed. Um so they all were representing different section of sections of the department store. Um so
013we just like to bring up just four of our uh our great performers just kind of give a student testimonial about um their experience in in the group. So I'll let you four introduce themselves and what school they go to and then we'll let you carry on with your meeting. And we also made sure to include both parts of the department store for this talk as well. Whoever wants to go first speech here. Good evening members of the school board, staff, and community members. My name is Maddie Prs and I'm a 10th grader at Logan High School. I've been a part of showquoire since seventh grade, and currently I'm a singer for the Lacrosse Confluence. Music has always been a huge part of my life. It's something that runs in my family. In fact, my
014older sibling was part of the GCS show choir over 12 years ago. So, I've grown up understanding how much these programs can mean to students. When I first heard about the plan to combine the Logan and Central Show choirs, I'll be honest, I was concerned. I worried about how students from different schools might get along, whether we'd lose the unique traditions and history of each individual program, and how we'd adjust to new leadership styles. It was intimidating to imagine being a part of the of the very first combined group. I pictured a group that might not connect well, that might struggle to perform as one unit, and that might not live up to the strong reputations both schools had built over the years. But what really happened was the complete opposite. This year turned out
015to be an amazing success. We came together not just as students from two different schools, but as performers who shared a passion for music, a drive to improve, and a spirit of healthy competition. We learned from each other, supported each other, and pushed each other to do better. Before we combined, both programs were struggling to recruit enough singers and dancers, musicians and crew. As many of you know, enrollment in the arts has been declining across the board. But by joining forces, we created something stronger. Not only did we have a full group, we also had one of the most successful seasons yet. We took home two grand championship awards, were known as the friendly choir at competitions, and received recognition for our soloists, band, and crew. We became the crowd favorite, not just because of
016our talent, but because of the heart we put into every performance. Logan and Central each have very different leadership styles. At first, that seemed like it might be a challenge, but instead, it gave us a fuller picture of what it means to grow, not just as singers and dancers, but as teammates. Our directors brought out the best in us, each in their own way. I want to take a moment to sincerely thank Mr. Cardi and Mr. Schultz for their dedication, patience, and passion. They took a big idea, one that could have gone in a lot of different directions and made it something truly special. They helped us believe in ourselves and in each other. I'm really proud to be a part of this group. What started as a big question mark turned into one of
017the best experiences I've had in high school so far. We proved that when we work together, we're not just a group. We're a team and a really strong one. Thank you for giving us this opportunity opportunity to show what we can do. We hope we've made you proud. [Applause] Hi, I'm Audrey Scampmp. I'm a senior at Central High School and I have been in show choir for all four years. I even did it in middle school and auditioning for show choir was like the very first thing I did postcoid and I went in with just so much stress and like social anxiety about it. But putting myself out there for it is one of the best decisions I have ever made. And Showquoire has really just given me confidence and like leadership opportunities that I
018would not have gotten anywhere else. Actually, I wrote my college essay about it. Um, so yeah, I really owe a lot and it is the most positive experience I have had in high school. It is just the most amazing unique community. Um, and for my first three years when we were separated, we were groups of like 27 competing with these big teams of 70. And because of how talented our directors are, we were still able to do it. But it was definitely a struggle. But it's just been so amazing to see this year like the potential we have as a combined group, how strong it made us, and it also gave me the opportunity to connect with kids who like live on the opposite side of the town. and I've made friends that I'm gonna
019continue to talk to for a very long time. Yeah. Thank you. [Applause] Hi, I'm Vigan. I'm a senior at Logan High School. I've done show choir since 7th grade. And honestly, my biggest concern coming to this year was what happens to the reputation that we've made so far. Um, I don't know much about what Central was like going through reputation wise, but I know we had when we with the class act, when we went to competitions, everyone came up to us, thank you for being so polite. We are absolutely inviting you back next year. Things like that. And this year, I'm very proud to say that we've kept that reputation. Um, and people are they they love our group. They love having us. Um, and that is so great to see. I was also very
020concerned about what it's my senior year. What am I going to do? am I gonna have fun? And I'm so happy to say that I had so much fun. This was one of the best years of show choir I've ever had. Um the bigger group made it more fun to like just participate and to feel like we had a little bit more of a chance, but it also had so much more possibility for friends and for time to spend with other people. There were so many new people to meet and new experiences to have. and I really am thankful to our directors for making the decision to combine and for um hearing out the students as well on our concerns when we did have them. So, thank you. Uh hello, I'm Wyatt Bush. This is
021my junior year, so I'm going to my senior year. Uh I grew up watching my brother in show choir and I thought that was the coolest thing. And so when I auditioned, I knew exactly kind of what I was getting into, but also I didn't know what I was getting into at all. Uh, for the first two years of show choir, it kind of with the same I hung out with the same people I had known since the beginning. But when we combined, I met friends I thought I would never be friends with because I would just didn't know them. But I think I'm so glad that uh I met them because I mean they're lifelong friends. We're going camping this summer. I would have never met them otherwise. But I want to get on
022to why this combining was the greatest thing for lacrosse show choirers because you take two amazing show choirs and put them together, you make them even more amazing. And the results of this year definitely speak for itself. We are definitely a better show choir. We get acknowledged because we're a better show choir. We're more we've been told we're one of the more respectful show choirs at competitions and we get acknowledgements about that. I think that we are just we're better off as this combined show choir because we came together and made something great. I was concerned going into this year thinking, well, what if we don't get along? What if there's struggles of different reputations of the schools, but we just mixed in so perfectly and created something way better? And I just want to
023thank uh the directors and everyone up here for making that happen. So, thank you [Applause] Um, I do the board members have questions because I know I do. I have just a couple of them. Um, first of all, I want to uh thank the students who came up and spoke articulate and very forthright. I appreciate you being honest about, oh, I don't know if this is such a good idea. And it's wonderful to hear not that you it was a good idea, but just in such exemplary terms. So, thank you for being brave enough to come and talk to us. But um you were all wonderful representatives of this district. Um to the staff uh you took a risk and boy you really did a great job. I we can't thank you enough for what
024you've done. I do have a couple questions. Um first one is how did the name get developed? And second of all, what was the size last year compared to the size this year and what difference has that made for you? I can start with the name. Sure. So the name um we knowing our students and knowing our programs uh culture and identity is very important to both groups. So the whole naming process was actually a voting process. So the name was sourced from our students and then we narrowed it down and then allowed the students to vote on it as well. So uh funny enough, we're actually talking about um branding and everything. We're looking at a name for our middle school now because they like the River City theming and everything. So, uh, we're
025really glad that we were able to find something that sort of represented the area sort of as a larger hole and sort of encompassed the whole group and then, you know, sort of also fits this new, uh, new color and this new sort of theming to represent this fresh group. So, and then the size you want to pick up. My name vote was Riverside Jive. I just want to put that out there. That did not win. Um, okay. So, your your question is about like the size of our programs as they were separate. separate to what they are now and what advantage has that brought to you because you talked last year when you came and talked to us about some of the difficulties you were having with the smaller size. Yeah. Um I think
026if we would have stayed separate this year I think um Logan would have had like 32 and Central would have had like 27 or 26. Um and we're regularly competing against groups of 45 to 60 on a a weekly basis. Um, so this year we had 52. I don't I don't teach math, so I don't know if that math added up, but it's something like that. Um, we we ended with 52 and then we had 17 members in our band. Um, and then our five member crew. So, we were taking two coach buses everywhere. I think it was 70ome kids we were going uh every weekend with um which it just you know just if you've ever been in a show choir competition you're sitting in the cafeteria and these groups kind of walk through
027and it's always impressive when you think they're done walking through and then there's just more of them keep walking through and that was us this year and it was I I don't know people noticed that and then when they came on the stage they just kept coming onto the stage um and and judges that have been around a while that knew both of our programs as separate programs just had great things to say. Um you don't know how many times we heard judges tape saying, "Wow, this was a really awesome idea for this this district to do." So yeah, we're really fortunate and thankful that we were able to do it. Congratulations on your awards. The performance was brilliant. So thank you for all Thank you very much, Dr. Spre. I'm a an alumni of
028the GCS band for for one or two seasons way back. I noticed there's a significant significantly less sequins on the costumes. Uh I'm curious how having been involved in show choir for a long time, I I presume, how have you seen the the activity, the competition uh change over time? Uh okay. So that's a great question. um the the the emergence of story shows is now a thing as opposed to getting on stage and singing five songs that really have no relevance to one another. They're just five great songs. Um used to be the thing and then it was kind of like a loose theme and now they're full on like there's a show choir in Iowa that base their show on a short story every year and they tell this short story. Um so
029that's one way the story show is changing. Um the second way is like the integration of technology. Um, we had a backdrop which was very fancy. Um, but some schools bring in like a whole lighting rigging that they set up before they start and they don't use the lights at all. That way they can kind of control whatever they're doing. Um, mixing the band with an iPad out in the house and controlling all that stuff. It's um, amazing but expensive. Um, so, you know, we're we're adapting with that as well. But, uh, that's how it's changing. And, um, I always say, you know, show used to be a co-curricular activity. you know now it's kind of a business. Um so but that's kind of kind of where it's going. Yeah. Pretty straightforward but where do
030you practice and when? Is it Logan Central 5250? Yeah. So yeah that was actually one of the biggest uh topics of discussion and it was brought up amongst our students because we wanted to find a way to be fair. Um, we ended up basically doing the prime the large majority of our uh, rehearsals at Central because of the facilities. When you think of the way the choir room is right next to the theater, um, it's all in one music wing, if you will, whereas at Logan, they're completely opposite. So, we just had more convenience there and a little more space there. So, at the end of the day, we decided that would be sort of our primary rehearsal space. But, we also tried to find ways to balance it in other ways. For example, we
031held our high school event where we invite all high schools from around the area and way from around the country sometimes to our uh high school event at Logan. So, we do try to find ways to balance. Um but yeah, this year and for the foreseeable future, we're going to rehearse at central uh just based on facilities and what the when's the time? Right after school, late at night? We actually wait a little bit later because we want to accommodate for students to be able to be in sports. So, our normal rehearsals are 6:00 to 8:30 uh Mondays, excuse me, 6:30 to 9. 6:30 to 9. I'm on a different rehearsal schedule in my brain. 6:30 to 9 on Mondays and Thursdays. So, yeah. Yeah. And and we rehearse the one of the reasons we
032picked Central um is because the combined middle school show choir rehearses at Logan Middle. So, it's kind of splitting the if you're in showquire in sixth grade and you're a southside person, you're driving to the north side. And if you're in Choco High School, then you're driving to the southside. And I know that there's one more year involved there. Um, but it we just try to even that out too, especially for parents. Then when kids can drive themselves, it kind of makes up for it a little bit. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I heard the end result of your integration of the two cultures, right? So, how did you navigate the integration and of two strong cultural programs into one? and what did you learn uh or maybe done differently as you went through that process?
033Sure. Yeah. Um I think the first step in any of that integration is understanding where you come from. So I think one of the biggest benefits we had going into it was prior to my placement at Logan, I was a middle school director at Longfellow on the Southside and prior to Ian being a choir director full-time at Central, he split time at Logan and Central. So, we both had an idea of both schools music programs and both schools identities. Then from there, a lot of it was student voice. Um, I had been directing at Logan for two years and him for even longer at Central. So, we knew our students pretty well and we knew what they cared about and we also being Showquire directors paid attention have been paying attention to the larger picture
034of Showquoire and the programs as a larger whole. Um so from there we had to be very careful with the events that we wanted to keep and and the traditions we wanted to keep. But I do feel that uh we did a very good job at keeping the important things from both. And sometimes we did learn that you know there were things that were important to a group of people that we didn't anticipate. And so then you have to make adjustments and you have to find a way to still make that group feel heard but still move forward in a way that's fair for everyone. And I do feel although there were some speed bumps, I think largely we did accomplish that. So, sounds like Yeah. Um and just I 100% agree. Um and as
035we all know, um you'll never make everybody happy all of the time. Um and there were definitely moments like that this year. Um but I think our students, I mean, if we go back and just go our students are people, too, if we're just all honest with one another and just lay the cards on the table and say, "Hey, this is why." and brainstorm together, we always came to a an agreeable result that worked for everybody. And I think our students appreciated that. I know I appreciated hearing our student perspective. Even if it wasn't in rehearsal, they'd come in for a lesson and, you know, start going off about something that happened and, you know, you'd start to talk to them about it and then you'd bring it to rehearsal or at least a group
036of people and start having those conversations to just really help understand and just how to make this group jive Riverside Jive even more. Just had to get that answer. will always lose, but I will win someday. All right. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Thank you. Great job. Our next item is recognitions. As we continue to celebrate our student success, um this evening we're going to talk about um global education and uh uh global languages. So, I'll turn it over to you, Dr. Engle. Yeah, we're thankful to have uh Miss Katie Byer here uh Logan High Spanish teacher uh to introduce the programs and distribute our awards. Well, thank you for having me and for giving our students a for taking the time to honor our students today for their growth in
037our world language programs. So, the first award I would like to talk about is our seal of biiteracy. This is a program that honors students for their linguistic talents, whether they've learned their language growing up speaking it at home with their families through our immersion Spanish program or in a traditional language class classroom or in some cases we have students here tonight that have just gone above and beyond to study the language in their own time just because it was something that they were interested in doing. And so I think what we decided to do was call them up as a group if that's okay. will start with our central students tonight as I'm presenting for both schools and then I would love for them to be able to tell you a little bit about
038their language journey and their project that they did to exit this program. Um just to give you a little context of what they had to do to earn this certificate, they had to take a very rigorous language test that tested at the advanced level. They also had to show proficiency in English and then participate in socioultural or multilingual events in our school or community as well as complete an exit research project. So I'm going to call up our central group of students. We have Cassidy Buril, Ashani Yang, and Samuel Heisy. So why don't you come on up and I will let them talk to you each a little bit about their work or about their journey here. So Cassidy, there's your certificate. to go first. Okay. Um, yeah, I'm back, guys. I'm back, guys. I
039know you were so excited to get rid of me, but um, yeah. So, I got my seal by literacy in the French language. Um, and as far as I'm aware, I'm the first student from the district to get it in French. So, pretty cool. I don't want to to my own harm too much, but yeah. Um so for me uh my journey in learning Frankship really kind of so I started taking it my seventh grade year uh and I really kind of started to focus heavily on it um like during the second semester of that year as we kind of got into quarantine and co um because I had just like literally just prior to everything shutting down my family had hosted a French exchange student uh and I kind of wanted to keep up
040with him so I started to really like study the language and I kept up with it through high school. Um, and Miss Lure, the former Mung teacher, actually introduced this program to me uh during my junior year and I started to like pursue it. Even though um like obviously there was not French classes at Central during that point, I still like continued to study hard and at the end of that year I took my exam. Um I did have to retake the writing portion, but I was able to pass that pretty easily after taking uh some college WL French classes my senior year. Uh and then for my as for my project I kind of combined my interest in like the French language and French culture with my interest in like history and social studies
041because I did my project on uh French neocon neocolonialism in Africa. So kind of examining how like colonial power power relations still like continue to exist in franophhone Africa even after what we consider the decolonial period has already passed. Um I would say it was a very um interesting project for me. I I definitely learned a lot about like economics um like an e economic policy through that project uh as well as just like the African like the political situation in West Africa over the last like 60 70 years. So yeah [Applause] um so I began my German language learning journey my freshman year under the direction of Frabower. um and it took a matter of of minutes in the class and I fell in love with it right away. Uh the subsequent year um
042Fr Murphy came in and I thought it was two times better than what I had experienced my freshman year. Um so I've been really invested. Um like like was stated uh we have to do a lot with the community dural biteracy. So I've been enjoying going around Wisconsin. Uh a lot of my events were focused on German but some of them weren't. um I got to listen to a presentation by a Japanese teacher who came um on a trip and so it was a really well-rounded experience. Um but as part of my project I focused on the decline of cultural dance specifically pula um in our area as that's very prevalent. Um despite the amount of um German and Polish ancestry that we have uh the trends are still going down and people who are
043involved in that sort of profession like uh specifically the people at Concordia Ballroom who who do this as work. It's their job to get people in and dance uh they're starting to show concern because the younger generations aren't taking part in it. Um so I did a bunch of study with that. Um, and that ultimately accumulated to a dance we had last Friday night. Um, with our PA band we hosted at Central in our gym. Uh, that went from 6 to 8. It was a great time. I played accordion for that. Uh, and we had lots of, uh, community participation. We had people show up from all over. Uh, some people who were involved with Central, some people who weren't. Uh, we had all sorts of ages. Uh, we teamed up with the National Honor
044Society chapter at Central High School. Um, and so we had a bunch of volunteers, probably about 30 volunteers, uh, who came in. Many of them had never heard of PA before. Um, and every single one of them walked out having a great time knowing how to pula and waltz. Um, I think probably one of the highlights of the night was that Molly B, who's a very prominent PA star um, in Wisconsin and nationally recognized, uh, she was able to show up and she sang a song with her band. Um, so it was it was a really great time. But thank you, Um, hi my name is Ashani and I did my I uh earned my C literacy for Mong and uh so I grew up actually speaking Pong. So English is like my second language.
045Um and I was introduced to this program um by Miss Lure who used to teach teach at Central. Um and I did my project on um Hung wedding ceremonies um and how it progressed throughout the years in America. Um I um first did this project because um growing up I was always doing like background work so I never really understood what was going on. So, I thought I would do some research on it and like get a better understanding of my culture and like what goes on during those weddings because I always miss it whenever it happens. So, yeah. Thank you. [Music] All right. I'm going to call up our next group of students who are Logan High uh recipients of our seal of biiteracy. So I have Maggie Harri, Eden Divine, Gaochi, Tao, and
046Victor Vang. Why don't you all four come on up here? Hi, my name is Maggie Harri. Um, I'm a senior at Logan High School. Um, I got my seal of biteracy in Spanish and English. Um, I started Spanish in seventh grade and I didn't really dive too deep into it until after I started taking classes in a high school. Um, I'd like to thank Miss Byer for everything that she's done for my language journey. Um, my project was about um the benefits of uh bilingualism um like intellectual benefits, emotional benefits. Um, and so that was really interesting to learn about the actual like scientifically backed um, research into what uh, speaking multiple languages can do for your brain. Um, so yeah, thank you. [Applause] Hello, my name is Eden Divine and I'm currently a senior
047at Logan High School and I started learning Spanish in kindergarten through the Spanish immersion program at Northwoods. And my syllabi literacy project was about Spanish speaking in the United Health or in the United States healthc care system. And the reason I chose to research Spanish speaking and healthc care here is because our Spanish speaking population keeps growing in the United States. And as someone that wants to become a physician assistant in the future, I just really hope that I can make our health care system a more inclusive place for all patients because when there's a language barrier, then those patients are getting the same care as everyone else. So, [Applause] hi, my name is Kochi Tao. I got my bio by SE literacy for the language Mong. And I grew up talking speaking in Mong,
048but I did kind of lose touch of that. And I know in a m community a lot of children end up losing their native language. So I wanted to learn more about the language which is why I'm wanted to get my C by literacy and same thing with her. I want this to be I want to learn this so that I can be communities can be more inclusive cuz it it is hard knowing that my parents it's knowing that they have language barriers when they go to the hospital and stuff. Hello, my name is Victor Bang. Um I'm not really sure what to talk about here but I got my se by literacy in Mong and um I guess starting from the beginning I um spoke Mong as my first language. So English is my
049second language. So I guess now I was just talking about my presentation but my presentation was on comparison um comparison between Chinese culture and also Mong culture. And you may be wondering why I compare those two. And it's because m people did originate in China as like a um as like an indigenous group. So just comparing those two and seeing the similarities and differences I think is really important just to show like our individuality as like among people. And I I guess that's pretty much it. Thank you. Um, in addition to our seal of biiteracy program, I'm also the coordinator for our global certificate program. And we only have one student that is earning this award this year. Um, and in order to earn this, she had to go above and beyond to take classes
050in high school with a global focus. So, this is something she's had um, you know, in her path since she started as a freshman. It took a lot of planning to be able to get here and make sure she had those credits. She had to take four years of a world language and she had to reflect on eight different literary pieces. So those would be four books and then art exhibits, music, movies, um that all dealt with an aspect of multiculturalism. And so that this student, I'm not going to make her speak again because she was just up here, but is Maggie Herth. I just wanted to give her a little extra recognition for her work. with our certificate. Thank you. Were there any questions before I question? I'm curious about the the test that
051the students have to take and how how does it compare to like the AP language tests, right? I I've never had students actually take an AP um test before, but this grades them or assesses their proficiency level, so their skills that they um towards using the language. So they have to read different passages, answer compreh comprehension questions. There's a listening interpretive listening portion. There's also a presentational writing where they have to show grammatical accuracy as well as they're given like different prompts in the moment that they have to answer to. And then I would say the most difficult is the interpersonal speaking where somebody's on the other end asking them a question and they're live in the moment thinking of a response. And just to give you some I guess idea of how high they
052need to test, the level of language to earn this certificate is equivalent to what a college student graduating to be a language teacher would be. So it is a very high level of language that they've been able to achieve. Go ahead. How long has this program been in existence? You know, it is relatively new. We started developing it, I want to say 2017, 2018. And so, for example, this is our first year of having students at Logan High School graduate with this honor in the Mung language. And it's also our first time having someone earned this that was not part of an immersion language program. So, someone who is able um to study throughout their years in high middle school and high school to get this. Thank you. Yes. Do you have a number of
053students that take the exam that aren't able to get the certificate? We do. Yes. just because that level of language is so high. Um, often times some of our immersion students that do try aren't able to get that quite get that accuracy piece that's needed to show that proficiency. It's nice to see students stretching themselves. Yes. Yes. Have comments or questions? Well, a million years ago when I was in school, all we had to do was a we had a French poetry competition. So, I got to go to state and I still remember my poems. So, that's wonderful. And I can poke them. So, awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh, one more question. One additional question. Oh, sorry. Do students that receive this certificate, do they get some college or university credit? I
054mean, can they advance as far as number of credits they can wave or whatever? So, our students when they go off to university, they take a college placement test. So, their work that they've done to build their skills would show in that test. And with the UW system, if a student places at a level 300 or higher, they get retroactive credits for the levels. Well, I guess it doesn't have to be 300 or higher, but they can get retroactive credits for the levels that they tested out of in high school. So, they can earn up to 16 retroactive credits, which is thousands of dollars. Thanks. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. just granted somebody retroactive. For folks that are interested, you're welcome to leave now or you can stick around for the great rest of our
055presentation as you desire. Okay, we'll continue on then with our meeting. Although seeing students doing wonderful things is pretty cool part. Um we will move on to the consent agenda. Let me get my script here that Laura puts together. Thank goodness. The consent agenda is a mechanism used by the board to deal with routine business that must come before the body. Are there any members that want to remove um items from the superintendent's consent agenda? [Music] Hearing none, we'd look for a motion, a second to approve the consent agenda as presented. I'll make a way. So moved. We have a motion and a second. Second. Um to approve the consent agenda. Any questions, comments? Uh we have to vote by roll call. Is that correct? Yes. Okay. I would just highlight uh once again in
056our grants and contributions over $37,000 in donations to the school district this last uh period which is incredible generosity in our community. Thank you. Ready Mr. Alberts. Hi Mr. Vneski. Hi Miss Fols. Hi Mr. Jackson. Hi Mr. Ma. Hi Mr. Mr. Newmeister I Dr. Sprag I Miss Zla I motion passes move on to the board consent agenda the board consent agenda is a mechanim mechanism used by the board to deal with routine business that must come before the body. Are there any items members want to remove from the board consent agenda? Hearing none. I look for a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the items on the board consent agenda as presented. Sorry. We have a motion in a second. Did you get those, Laura? Yep. Okay. Any discussion? You can go ahead and
057do the roll call vote. Mr. Alberts. Hi, Mr. Vagneski. Hi, Miss Fox. Hi, Mr. Jackson. Hi, Mr. Ma. Hi, Mr. Newster. Hi, Dr. Sprag. Hi, Miss Sucla. Hi. Thank you. Motion passes. We'll then move on to matters reserved for board action and we have the operational expectation monitoring report OEE12 facilities. I'll turn it over to you Dr. Engle. Um so this is uh part of our uh monitoring process for our school board policies. Uh as a reminder, we have operational expectations which is how we run the school district. And we also have results policies, which is what we expect our students to be able to know, do, and be. Um, with our monitoring process, we've got a a calendar that kind of um guides when things come up uh for uh monitoring and GC6E. GC6E,
058that's the one. Yes. uh under our our governance uh policies. Um the process has been that we um present this information in a monitoring report. Uh it's based directly from the policy that the school board has. Uh and we kind of break down the elements of the policy into into components that we can report on uh for the school board. Um we'll go through this information uh you know we'll discuss anything that folks have uh and then uh um hopefully uh the board will approve it and we'll move forward and then in the next meeting when we come back it's a an opportunity for the board to reflect on the policy and ask yourself does it meeting our needs? Do we need to change anything with the policy so that we can continue to to
059reflect the values of our community uh through our policies? And it's also an opportunity to reflect on the monitoring report. Was that the information we need? Did it satisfy us? Was it too much? Was it too little? Was it confusing? Was it clear? Uh and so today uh Mr. Joe Lvina uh will present our uh OE12 facilities monitoring report. And I'll just uh draw your attention to the first page. It's a executive summary that we put together to kind of highlight some key facts and figures. But um Mr. Lavina will dive into the weeds a little bit uh uh and hit the high points also. Thank you. First I want to say whoever does the scheduling next year, could you put me before that group of students? That is a tough act to follow. Those
060outstanding students. I have with me tonight Ann Andre who's the uh buildings grounds manager and safety coordinator and then Jeff Ellson who's our transportation and energy manager. and they when it comes to question time they may be I may call them up to answer some questions as well. Want to give you an idea of what we talk about when we talk about facilities. What does that mean? In Lacrosse we have 17 sites on 127 acres and over 1.5 million square feet of building. And so with that we have over 23 acres of roofs alone. And you break that down even even further. We have 409 cameras, 108 air handlers, and 44 boilers. Just to kind of give you a perspective of the breadth that we're talking about as we go through uh tonight. And so
061what I'll do is I'll start going through and we'll look at 12.11. It says develop and execute a facility plan that establishes priorities. And so what you'll see there is the capital improvement plan uh that I alluded to last board meeting. That is a snapshot in time. It lists all the projects that we have um going forward in a five-year plan. And so that's the evidence as it speaks to that. But one thing I want to share with you is page number four because we shared that last time at the last meeting and we talked about all the projects that we took offline and I I think they amounted to 19.6 million dollars. Uh President Sukla then asked the question, what would that be if we included State Road? And so I went back and
062looked at that and we took over 10 million with State Road. So that equivalents over $30 million worth of projects that we're taking off the board by rights sizing our district. Next is indicator two, a report on the completion of items of previous year. And I did something a little bit different this year because we're really looking at July 1, 2023 to uh June 30th, 2024. And it really gets confusing. When did projects start? When did projects stop? And so what I did is I went back three years. So you'll see 20 22 23 or 23 24 projects from 24 25 and then the projects I gave you last uh last board meeting. So I broke them out which ones have been completed which ones are in progress and then which ones uh when we'll
063be starting those projects to give you a better idea of a fuller breath of the things that are happening. So hopefully that works for you. Indicator number three, all schools have a condition assessment annually. And as I've spoken before, we do that every every year. We sit down with principles and building engineers and we go through projects. And so what you'll see there is those meeting dates I have at each school. I only listed the one meeting date, but numerous projects take more than one meeting. For instance, when we talk about the greenhouse, we met numerous times as it relates to that, but I didn't include those. But those are things that are going on that we have. And so you can see the process there and when those meeting dates occur. Indicator number four,
064the district identifies schedules and conducts required preventive maintenance. Prevented maintenance, we do that to extend the life of our equipment. A good example would be when we talked about the central project replacing the 29year-old air handling unit life expecties 20 years. We're getting 29, 30, sometimes 35 years because we do prevented maintenance. What you'll see there is preventive maintenance contracts and preventive maintenance hours as it relates to those those things. Uh, indicator number five, address the safety reviews conducted annually. Um, and so what you'll look at there, I want to point out a couple ones that are really specific. One is the Hamilton vulnerability assessment. That is the assessment that's done every year at our schools. And so before school starts in the month of August, we have the police department. We have this the
065the school administrator. We have our buildings and grounds manager walk through our schools and they assess every year and we make recommendations and make changes based on that. The other one is report that's kind of unique is the speak up speakout report. That's anonymous reporting system that every student has access to. They report that anonymously and then that goes to the building administrator. It goes to district administrators and so they can investigate that. It may be bullying. It may be a threat that that they presume to be. And so that's been a really neat program and you'll see that uh report as well. Indicator number six says the district develops and maintains a long range facility plan. We have that. I gave you a copy of that. Then indicator 7 talks about being in front
066of the board whenever there's any major changes. There has not been any major changes, but it did come in front of the board on June 8th and 22nd of 2024. And that was primarily from the facility advisory committee bringing forth their recommendations to the board and the board in talking about strategic planning and I included that presentation. There is what the board did, talked, went to referendum and that's why we have the referendum we have today is based off of that. So that's all the data that leads up to that. Uh share that with you and then as we go into OE12.2 project life cycle costs of capital decisions are made and so first indicator talks about design alternatives. And so the really the only project that we did as it relates to HVAC was
067focus uh was the uh project at the polytenic solar project that year. Uh what you'll see here is focus on energy rebates for all the projects that we do. If you go into that report will show that we had $144,000 worth of rebates that we reinvest back into energy projects. Give you an example. as we do the solar project at Southern Bluffs, we're reinvesting $50,000 of those dollars into that solar project. The rest of it is privately funded and through grants. Um the other thing that points out there is it demonstrates that we have $136,000 in annual savings based on the projects that happened during that time frame. So when you add those rebates, you add those those cost savings, pretty significant for our district. Indicator number two, it says the board receives an update
068on current life cycle assessments annually and the polytenic solar project. What you'll see there is the design of that project and how that took place. I also included the climate action plan even though it didn't fall into this time frame. Really looking at a way to report that back to the board every year and thought this was the place to do it. If you look at that climate action plan, if you went to page nine, it will give you the building and building and energy goals for 2030. So for the next five years, and they'll be addressed through the capital improvement process. Um right now we're working on action items as it relates to every goal so that we can complete those goals. 12.3 ensure that facilities are safe, clean, and properly maintained. The district
069passes all required annual inspections. And so what I've you see there is all the inspections that take place during the course of the year. Uh everything from flame retardant tests on our on our auditorium curtains to fire u fire department inspections as well. So a lot of information there that you can see each one of those as it's broken out. Uh item number two, the district completes all scheduled maintenance and the school district of lacrosse. What you'll see here is quarterly meetings that we sit down with our contractors primarily Johnson Controls and Complete Controls who does a lot of the preventive maintenance as well as our staff. We sit down with them quarterly. You can see when those quarterly meetings are you can see what the agenda is and then you can kind of see
070the the hours that we put into um each facility. And so that's listed out there. Indicator three, the district maintains a work order system to address safety concerns and equipment repairs. And so this past year we did over 2,000 work orders. And want to point that out. Last year I reported to you we did just over a thousand. So we did a thousand more work orders than we did the previous year. Now I will tell you we're doing a better job of of reporting those and I think that's probably part of it. But I think we're doing more work orders. This is the time I really want to talk about our staff because the three of us are here presenting you to the board, but there's our department's much more than that. We have a
071crafts person. We have 62 custodians that work every day on these objects. And so it's not just the three of us presenting you here. We have a great staff that that works on all all of our 1.5 million square feet to make sure that they're safe uh for our children. And so just want to point that out to you at this time. Indicator number four, during student occupied hours, 100% of facilities utilize controlled entries. And so there's really two ports here. Uh you'll see the S2 report and that's really access control. So anybody who has a badge who who scans in, you'll see data from that. The second one is our Verata guest system log. And so what that is, every visitor who comes into our schools, they get buzzed in, they have an ID,
072they put it into the Vicata system, does a quick background check, they're approved, then a name tag with their picture on it is printed out uh from that ID. And so that's something that takes place every day at every one of our schools. Indicator number five, 100% of identified violations per fire department and state inspections are corrected. We didn't have any state inspections, but everything from the fire department was corrected. And I will tell you, it isn't that we get 100% every time. It's that they go through and we correct it generally before they leave the building. And so, uh, 100% of the time. Item number OE 12.4 ensures the facilities are made reasonably available for public and student safety. Uh, the district maintains a facility use policy. That's policy 8300. It's a policy that
073hasn't been changed over the years. It's consistent. Um, and so it's still there, but no changes to it. Uh, indicator number two says the use request process and rules are easily accessible to the public. You can see if you clicked on the website there, that would take you to how anybody from the general public can go to our web website and they can press on that and they can reserve space for that. The second part of that is the annual community facility use report. And so you'll see in that facility use report, we had over 44,000 hours of facility use beyond the school day. Our our buildings are used 247, 7 days a week. Um um they're used a lot and so that's beyond the school day. So that's a significant number and so they
074really are community schools, every one of them. Indicator number three, 100 mu 100% of misuse of facilities is addressed. We did not have any facilities that were misused. Uh, indicator number four, returned to pre-renal condition. Every time that was used was is returned to pre-renal condition. And then indicator number five, the facility was monitored and all events were conducted safely. And this again where we have our custodial staff, they are at every single event. So when you talk about that 44,000 hours outside this normal workday, our custodial staff is the one who are on the front line and they are there ensuring that our buildings are being used safely. Then we go to 12.5 ensures that the board shall make the final selection on any naming rights and facilities on real property. Indicator number one,
075um we did uh we have an administrative policy number 9400 that says just that and we did not have any naming rights come forward, but I I would guess that in the next year you'll see uh that policy being used several times. Indicator 12.6 six. Um, all major construction renovation projects are presented to the board and approved by board action. There were three major projects that we did during that time frame. And they was the Longfellow site improvement, the Longfellow restroom remodel, and the Logan High State Road roofing project. And so what you'll see in there is the memo to the board and the dates that they appeared in front of the board during that time frame. uh 12.7 recommendation of all land requisition without first determining growth patterns. And so bringing that forward, we
076did not purchase any land or make any recommendations to the board during that time. Um but I'll bring to your attention once again that we do lease property down by the polytenic. The parking spaces there from Brightpe and so we do uh lease some property, but we had no recommendations to the board. And then 12.8 8 really talks about change orders. Indicator one, we had no change orders on those projects during that time frame. And then indicator number two, there were no schedule changes that made significant increase to the cost. And so that's a quick rundown of everything that we do. And so just really open it up for questions right now. Other questions from the board members. Okay. Thank you. Well, I have a couple. Okay. How would you misuse a facility? Yeah. Well,
077I'm glad we didn't, but I don't I don't know how you would We've had some cases in the past a couple of times. Um we had one case where an organization was um used drugs inside the facility. So, I'd call that a misuse or broken uh different items. And so, that would be misuse. And then we report that and then we'd have a conversation with that organization. Okay. Uh my other uh point is is a comment and maybe um we're going to have a workshop um this summer talking about some of our our policies, but it seems that you almost need to come to us twice a year because it's really awkward for you to be telling us about a year that ended almost a year ago um and evaluating that, but we need you
078here this time of year to talk about the upcoming projects. And so, um, I think it's something that we maybe want to talk about on our, uh, GC6e, um, calendar about how do we do that in a way that's more meaningful because it's a great report. It would, but it does the timing does seem kind of awkward on it. So, I can appreciate you saying that because I I can tell you we have to kind of think and that's why I redid the the project of the projects are completed. Was it started in this time frame? Was it completed this time frame? And so, when you go back that far, I can understand that. So, it would be very easy for us to report twice and do that. What What time of year ideally would
079you come back and report? I don't know. We have to look at our calendar to see what we've got all booked in. Yeah, I think you've asked this question before and I think I said we we would be ready by September to do to do that very easily. Thank you. Other board members have questions. I've got two um and they kind of correlate. So, can you give me the scope of work uh the complete controls and Johnson Controls does? There's a trying to get to the what I wanted to see from the documentation. I know there's you've got so much data. Yes. I'm just trying to understand what preventative maintenance like what's what their scope of work for you. When when it comes to changing filters, we do all the filter changing. So, it's replacing
080belts, uh doing all the inspections, doing the tuneups in the spring and the fall for heating and cooling is a big one. And we get rebates for a lot of that work. Uh that is a big one. And then um just going through all of our fans, I mean fans, everything related to HVAC. So our fans that we have, our pumps, um everything that we have related to that, they go through that and make sure that they're operational and in good order. So does like one of them have certain sites and the other one has other sites or takes a couple. Yeah. So that's a great question. How how does that happen? mainly because over the years in 2009 we passed a referendum and so and it was for HVAC upgrades and so whoever got
081the bid and most of the time um obviously complete controls has more schools than Johnson Controls whoever gets the bid usually gets the general who generally gets the preventive maintenance contract with that and so that's how it's been selected in the past so you look at Johnson Controls they have a portion of two high schools they have Southern Bluffs They had some north woods, but as we upgraded and as we bid projects out, complete controls is is when the bid for controls and that's why it's that way. We do have train that does small little bit that we still have in existence at Central High School, but those are the major ones. Okay. Thank you. Um I was I was really just trying to understand like one how you choose with all the data you
082have like how do you give us I'm a I'm a nerd. I want to look through as much as I can, right? Other people aren't that way. So just trying to it's how do you get to that scope of like what do I present and what don't I present. So no that's a great question some context. That's a great question and as we put out bids as we did the Logan High School as we did that uh complete controls got the bid there. So they have more of the controls now at Logan High School than than Johnson Controls. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. I have another question. Can you can hear us okay now? I just got your message about having difficulty hearing. Yes. Thank you Laura for helping sell that. That was just
083an issue at the beginning there. So, what's your question, Mr. Ma? So, my question is, this is the first full year we've had vape detectors installed in our schools. Um, we only had half implementation. My question is, do we have inspections for them planned with facilities as well? Are they considered something else? Yeah, we do have inspections on all of our our vapes. And I don't know if that's in there in one of the reports, the vape detector. Well, they were put in this just put in this next year, but they will be a part of that, right? Yeah. One of the things is that we we get the report or we get a report on every time that that happens. And so they will do a report on at the end of the year
084on each one of those. Yeah. And then my follow-up question, Miss Lavina, is um from my understanding, they're only in half the restrooms. That was actually something that students were complaining a lot to in our linkages. Um, we even had one student say that the vape detectors working so much. So, I'm kind of interested in looking at the inspections for it. But, is there any plans to expand upon that now that we're nearing the end of the year? Yeah, we've had some requests and we do plan on putting a few in this next year. Um, but the requests weren't that large, but I think we've got a request for two more vape uh detectors, I think, at Central High School. All right. Thank you so much. Will that cover all of them then? That won't
085cover all of them. No, the systems aren't cheap necessarily. It requires the detector and a camera and um I don't know. Yeah, they're a subscription and the detector itself is um is $1,500 is $1,500 a piece and then they're on a subscription with um uh BCATA which is around $360 every three years. So it's about $120 a year for those. Um Mr. Mr. Jamaica, there is a tamper um alert on those uh vape detectors and we would get that and so would the school administration and then they go and investigate and look at the cameras to see who came out. So those are investigated just like you would um a vape indicator. Absolutely. Thank you so much for that. How many is that Logan and how many is that Central? those detectives. We have we
086we have six at Central and four at at Logan. And you're going to have two more at Central next year, so there'll be eight. Correct. Yeah. There's a different number of bathrooms based on when they were the buildings were constructed. Standards have changed over time. Uh the hacket edition kind of changes things too. And so it's really been responding to what the building principles requests are, where do they want them, how does it make sense to arrange them. Uh, and it's worked um, well at Logan in their current locations. Yeah, I was just going to say that we we base it off what is administration went and that's that's what we've heard from this last year. Any other questions on um, the OE2 facilities report? I am curious about the the spike in the requests
087and partly I think you attributed that to just doing a better job of recording those. I think so. We we switched we switched uh companies where we do do that with. I think that's a bigger part of it. And then I think that people have just grown accustomed to we have great custodial staff, right? And so our custodial staff, if you see them in the hallway and you ask them to do something, they'll do it. And so what we've asked them to do, if you have a request like that, either ask the individual to put in the request or you put in the request and then finish the project. So, we're getting an accurate account of what's happening. Yeah, I noticed over half of the the calls were custodial in nature, not preventative maintenance or
088large. So, I'm glad to see your staff is keeping track of what they're being asked for. I think that's important. It's really important so that we can justify what what are we doing during the day or they can justify the things that they're doing and they're making a difference by doing that. Yeah. There's no other questions or look for a motion. Not your turn. Um I Let me see where are we at here. Um in regard um to the monitoring report for policy OE12 facilities and with respect to the provisions of policy BSR5 superintendent accountability. Am I in the right one? Sorry. the board of education. I move that the board of education concludes that the superintendent and district are in compliance. Do you have a motion? Do you have a second? Second. Seconded by
089Mr. Mr. Albert. Thank you. Any other discussion? I will do the roll call for the vote. Mr. Alberts. Hi. Mr. Vineski. Hi. Miss Foots. Hi. Mr. Jackson. Hi, Mr. Ma. Hi, Mr. Newmeister. Hi, Dr. Sprag. I Miss Zukla. Hi. Okay, motion passes. We'll now move on to the information section of the meeting. Um, we have several items here uh related to budget and if uh staff we're presenting want to blur them all together versus four separate items, that's fine with us. But I will turn it over to Dr. Spra or Dr. You just got a promotion. I didn't do my homework, Dr. Spring. Um, so any uh Yes, go ahead and present. Sorry. So, I'm gonna ask Dan if he can kind of move us along on the the PowerPoint. We're going to start with
090that. You have a great responsibility as a board uh to approve a budget in October. And so, we're going to take a lot of time in the next few months to go, it's the other one, Dan. Um, we're going to go over some of the refreshers to, you know, it's not something you do every day, but it's something you certainly need to be aware of. So, um, first we're going to go through a little bit of a a refresher as far as what what is the budget all about? Um, the basics refresher. We're going to go through some fund summaries, uh, budget development timeline, where we're at, and the preliminary budget assumption update, and our long range trend. Um, Dr. Engel will take over there. So, um, a reminder of what the school district budget
091basics are is that it is a financial plan that outlines the school district will manage its daily expenses and ensure its operations run smoothly for the upcoming fiscal year. It's essentially a detailed forecast of anticipated revenues and expenditures needed to meet the district's goals and provide essential services to students and staff. And so you have this PowerPoint um attached so that you can refer back to it as uh time goes by. So 2004 2005, you notice that your budget document is in front of you. Uh Molly and Jeff, you have your own book to take home. The other uh board members have that uh book somewhere, but we'll always put them out uh every meeting in case we want to refer back to them. But first of all, this is the the graph. So, we're
092going to be a little interactive here. What are the two largest sources of revenue for a school district's operating budget? Individual sources or like all the state aids together? Look at the at the chart. Green and purple. Green and purple. But state equalization aid and local taxes are are the uh answers there. Those are the two largest sources within the revenue limit. Any questions about that? All right. So, the next chart. So, we have our operating expenditures. We present those in two different ways. By program or sometimes it's referred to Can we go back to the the revenues? Are you going to talk about the uh revenue limits later on? Probably not even today. We're going to go into depth with that in another time. Okay. Just just as a very high level if the
093state we can only spend so much. So if it doesn't like we can unless we do a referendum operating referendum like we have but the pie can only be so big. So if one piece of the pie gets smaller then the other one has to get bigger. The pie is only so big. And so um if we could uh get more state money yay but that doesn't fundamentally increase our budget because the pie is only going to be the same size. very good after almost 20 years at the table. Absolutely. And that's you know we rely on on each other and our experience. Um so then on to the operating expenditures that we uh present these in two different ways. One is by program or function is sometimes referred to or the purpose. So what
094are the two largest areas of expense for a school district's operating budget? Green and blue. Green and blue. instructional support and instruction of course because that is our business. But then I we also have a big chunk that is yellow and that's the uh district and business services. So that includes student transportation, utilities, building operations and maintenance, safety and security. And then we um have them as operating expenditures by type. So why is compensation the largest type of expense for a school district operating budget? So we're a service organization. Yes, we are and we we educate students. So we have to employ people to do so. Uh the purchase service is also uh a good chunk and that includes instructional technology and support, student services, staff development, library media, student transportation and voucher and open
095enrollment payments. So operating funds, I wanted to go in these a little bit so you understand when um you're approving that budget in October. You're looking at the operating funds and the operating funds are made up of fund 10, the general fund, fund 11, which is for grants and projects, fund 21, special revenue, fund 27, special education, and fund 29 is other special projects. But I want you to look at this as far as what are the revenue sources for each of those funds. So fund 10, that's where we come to the state equalization aid and local taxes, state categorical aid, open enrollment and interest fees, local resources. But fund 11 that is our grants and projects. Those are uh the federal grants and state grants. And we separate those out because more than likely
096the revenue is going to match the expenditures. And then uh fund 21 special revenue. Uh Dr. Angelhead pointed out the donations that we get at a large amount. So we separate those out into special revenue. We um we get those from LPF grants, PTO support, fundraisers, and donations. And usually those are have to be spent in a certain way. Um but they are an in addition to our operations. So let's say field trips. A lot of the PTO's like to support field trips. That would be recorded in fund 21. Then fund 27 special education. So we talk about state uh special a ed categorical aid, federal grants, state grants, and that what what's ever not covered by those three things, there's a transfer from the general fund because at the end of the year, that
097has to have a zero balance. The revenues have to match the expenditures. And this is where we talk about the state budget. When they talk about increasing that aid for special ed, that is where you want to see that increase for special ed so that you're having more money coming in from the state and less of our general aid or general fund dollars that have to go back to support special ed. And then fund 29, this is uh this is particular to ours because it covers only one grant. It's the Indian education grant and the source is a federal ind Indian education grant and it doesn't flow through the state like our other federal grants. So that's why we have a special fund for that. So those are the funds that I want you to
098there's many more funds but those are the ones I want you to be aware of today. Any questions on those for now? Yep. Can you refresh my memories? I was trying to find it in the book really quick. Like er funds were those fund 11 funds for example. Yes, they were. And fund 27 both. Yeah. So then I also wanted to point out capital project funds because Joe just talked about capital projects and this is very important since we have uh the capital referendum and we have operating referendum and we have our solar projects and all of those are different funds in fund 41. Fund 41 is um the tax levy and operating referendum funds and they support all those capital maintenance projects that Jill presented to you in the CMI book. Uh they span
099years so that stays there. There is no um transfer into that fund or transfer out of that fund. What'sever in there is um each year is what we need to use for those projects. And if you look back at his uh CMI, you'll notice that there's a total dollar amount and that's what he has to work with in any given year. Fund 42 is capital improvements. I have a question on that. If he underspends in a year, what happens with those funds? They stay in there. They stay in there. So because those projects span different years, so um they would if there was anything ever left over, it just stays in there and can be used towards another project in the following year. Does that require board approval to take it out of those funds
100or is that staff can do that? The fund 41. No, they stays in fund 41 always because it's tax levy generated. So when the board approves the tax levy, you're approving that we I'm talking about if if uh say he's $100,000 lower on a job and he had $100,000 left over and so that 100,000 has been levied so it stays in that it stays in that fund. But when when that we want to use that money then is that does that come to the board or is that a staff decision to pull money out of that fund because there might be something unexpected that came up? No, it would only go towards future CMI projects and those Joe will bring to the board for approval every year and if it's over $100,000, the board would
101approve the bids for those. Correct. So, the board will ultimately approve that extra use of funds if it was available. Good. Thank you. And then we've got another question. Oh, sure. And you you don't mention in all this what you've said is great, but every once in a while we hear fund 80. How does that fund what? 80s. We'll get to that. Okay. I didn't see 49. My sheet ran out as far as it ended with 149. Well, it's a separate agenda. So then, uh, fund 42, uh, that when we talk about the solar projects or when we, uh, have a sale of capital assets, that goes into fund 42. um all of the money from the souls groups that goes flows through LPF and into fund 42 for those solar projects on our school
102um capital project fund. So this is the fund 49. This is where we put the capital referendum dollars. We went out for bonding a few months ago. $14 million of that is in fund 49 to be used now towards our projects um at State Road and at the new building here. So that's all we use that for. Um so then I have a note under here. So there's a lot of other funds, debt fund uh 30, school nutrition fund 50, and then the community service fund 80. uh we'll be discussing them more in depth in future meetings, but we're also going to talk about fund later on today, too. Thank you. You're welcome. Um so this I wanted to bring this up. The board has seen this as of March 3rd. We always uh have
103the budget timeline. Um, and this is good for Jeff and and Molly to take a look at uh that it is this process that starts back at last October and it'll go to the next October before we approve it. So, where are we at right now? May 2025, present the proposed capital maintenance and improvement plans projects and OE12. So, Joe had done that. Um, then discuss uh base salary options. We had talked about in our um budget projections back in March that the CPI is 2.95% that's the basis for our uh negotiations with our unions. We are just starting those conversations. Um then administrative goals. So I think that's on our agenda for today. Also we started sending we have the zerobased budget process where every um department every school in the district uh takes
104part in that. They start in March. They go through a worksheet. They talk to their teachers um and then they submit a proposed budget for the next year and then we summarize their requests and we um we meet as an administrative team and try to understand what they're asking for and uh then we send out allocations that we feel that we can afford in the next year and then they they put those into Skyward and and use those. So, so our budget bu is built by the people that are are using those funds. Um, and then come July, we'll start talking about hopefully the state budget impact. Hopefully, they'll have a budget in place by July. Hopefully. Hopefully. So, um, there's that. Then let's go to the next one. This this talks about the state
105bianual budget. So much is unknown. We know that the 3 25 increase per member in the revenue limit calculation is pretty much um solid, but maybe it could be more. It'd be great if it could be more. Um is there going to be any increase in the per member in per pupil categorical aid? Those dollars are outside of the revenue limit. And uh special education reimbursement increase, we had talked about that. It's only about 30% right now. We'd like to see it um doubled. uh open enrollment rates. We don't know what those are going to be for the next year. Right now, they run about 8,000 for uh regular ed students and about 13,000 for special ed student and we don't know the voucher rates. Um but those are all things that we will find
106out in the next few months. So this is this hasn't changed as far as what we had showed the board uh for the next net revenue change estimate. You can go to the next slide, Dan. Thank you. In our budget development, we approach it very conservatively only what we know or what we can reasonably estimate based on our conversations with state organizations and legislators. And so as we're putting together budget planning assumptions at this point, it's limited to the $325 increase that was upheld by the Supreme Court. Uh so we have no other revenues listed, right? And um also that 325 is important within the revenue limit because that is part of your base for the next year. Everything else is is not part of the base. And then that per pupil categorical aid is
107outside. So just looking at a very conservative look at revenues, we look like we're going to have about 430,000 more than last year in revenue. However, of course, we have our increased cost and cost reduction estimates. So what I did here was put what we had presented to the board back in March and compare it to what it looks like today. um not much of a change that there was um a 4% increase in our health insurance instead of the 7.5%. So that was finalized. Um so we put that up on the um increased costs and we lowered the costs by a bit. Also, the lane credit uh movement for teachers, it has run about 400 to $500,000 a year, but um looking at it lately, it was only about $288,000, maybe average in the
108last few years, about 300,000. So, we lowered that a little bit for cost. And everything else is pretty much um still on track. We'll keep looking at those things. And then potential savings. We still have that uh savings for changing our bus routes for next year, being more efficient with those. And uh we had our layoff one layoff she had come and and talked to you in in um at the board meeting. And then we also have that that tool that we might use and that means to underfund our OPED contribution for one year uh to offset the deficit. So that may or may not um be needed, but that is something that we might need to use before we can um you know gain the efficiencies from our referendum projects. So just like the
109weather, I use this every year so the board members are used to it. The closer we get to October, the closer we get to the budget that the board's going to adopt. And much of the revenue limit authority information is not known until after October 15th. So, we're going to keep updating you up until then that you'll you'll understand why it may change, but we always are thinking of our students. How many do we have to serve? Where are they? staff needed space needed salary increase affordability and our program needs. And with that said, just as a reminder to the board, typically we meet the first and third Mondays of the month. In October, we meet also the fourth Monday um to approve that budget. And uh some years it's been white knuckling it because
110the state budget isn't approved. We don't have some of our numbers till the very last minute. Um but make sure you have that on your calendar. Very good. So then we're going to go into long range trends. I have a question. Go ahead. If we can go back to increase cost. So the the underfunding the OPED contribution, that's a that's a really big $2.2 million maybe. Yeah. What would be the conditions that you would you would foresee that we would not need to make use of that tool, if that's even possible to answer. Yeah. I mean, we're in the midst of finalizing budgets and um Miss Spang is always, you know, we're still finding efficiencies where we can. Um adjusting uh staffing numbers um you know, we'll talk about our HR assumptions soon. We have
111some planned reductions in staff, but we all might also might have some increases that make it a wash, you know. So, there's a lot of things that can change between now and uh October. If we got to 60% on the on the special education aid, that would mean about $5 million of additional revenue. That would dramatically change our trajectory. I don't see it being 5%. I'd be hopeful for half that or yeah, 60% 45 would be great. Start at 60. Um but there's lots of things that will change. revenues, expenditures, uh other little things, grants might come in. Uh we haven't closed out the year yet, you know, so we don't know, you know, we budget conservatively expecting that we would rather kind of underspend our budget than overspend it and dip into fund balance.
112And so there might be some offsetting revenue there for a year to help minimize that um that reduction there. Um, so all of those factors will add up to um putting us in a better position uh when it comes to October. Hopefully it adds up to 2.2 million. That'd be great. We had thought we might dip into fund balance for that this last year and ended up not needing to um because of our conservative projections and our ability to to manage the budget well throughout the year. Kudos to Miss Spring. Yeah. So did you want to go into the long range? Absolutely. So um the other document that's linked on that agenda item is our um financial projections and these are all based on assumptions, right? So we don't know the future, but we can
113put in some reasonable assumptions that help us kind of give some rough estimates of what the future will hold. There's lots of different ways to do this and you can spend um you know tens of thousands of dollars with private companies to do this. Uh in collaboration with Miss Spang and our financial adviser from PMA, we've come up with kind of a short cheat sheet for us that has worked pretty well over the last five years and in creating some simple projections that have been pretty accurate. There's only a few big drivers as you saw in our budget. It's personnel costs. It's benefit costs. Our revenues are pretty simple. Is the state going to give us more money on revenue limit or per pupil categorical aid? And the other big drivers are enrollment. And so,
114um, on the revenue side, um, as we look out over the next five years, we estimate an increase in per pupil revenue by that 325 per student. Uh, and we don't anticipate anything else. It's a conservative projection. Like that's the minimum that we would get. Uh and we also anticipate declining enrollment based on the projections from MD RERS that we did uh a few months ago as well as our population study. Uh and we anticipate 118 decrease in FTE for next year on our three-year average. And the personnel costs uh we're anticipating a 2.95% increase next year, but generally we're budgeting for a three. Um, health insurance came in at four this year, but generally we're budgeting for a 5% increase. Uh, transportation costs, they're built into our contract. We anticipate those to continue at
1155% increases. Um, and then all other expenses, we budgeted at a 1% increase, which is well under inflation, but we know that's where we've always had to kind of pinch some things. Uh and so uh Dan, if you go to the next page with the the budget projections, what we see is a a a net change in revenue that continues to go up over time. Uh despite having fewer students in our school district because we're getting that $325 per student each year. Um we're able to see an increase in revenue, but it is relatively modest given our our $110 million budget. on the expense side with the largest driver being wages. Um when you look at the net change in expenses there, it's pretty consistent at three to three and a half million dollars uh
116as a increased expense. And so when you uh factor in the net revenue change and the net expense change, it comes out as a negative number unfortunately uh somewhere around $2.7 to$2 million uh budget deficit over the next five years consistently. Um, our short-term plan, uh, if we can't kind of continue to work the budget or see additional revenues is, uh, a reduced, uh, contribution to our OPE and we've built up a fund balance there. And so, we're in a a good position to be able to reduce that without impacting the benefits of our staff, but it means we lose that nest egg for flexibility in the future. So, it's something we want to avoid if we can. Um once our buildings are consolidated and we reduce our operations and our staff and our overhead
117expenses, uh we're anticipating a $2.5 million uh reduction in our expenses in 2728. And so that reduction will allow us to balance our budget over the next uh five years. And um we anticipate um a positive impact on fund balance by the time we get to year five. Uh and so those are kind of gross estimates but a pretty good idea of where we're headed on the largest drivers of our budget. And in that you've calculated reduced number of students correct? Yep. Along the way so our anticip we're anticipating a minus18 next year minus 88 the following -71 minus 36 and minus35. Um all the projections show a leveling off to a certain extent, but still a slight decline in enrollment over time. Uh that's reassuring uh given how dramatic it has been since 2020.
118It's important that board members know um because one of the questions that we get from the public is but you've got a pretty good fund balance and I think it's around 30 million but we use up to 20 million of that to cash flow ourselves throughout the year because we have expenses but we don't get our our year starts July 1st but we the taxes aren't paid until January and we get state reimbursement sometimes a year and a half later. So, it's important that people understand even though we have that and staff have done a great job of building that balance up um we could tap into it but then we are going to be end up paying interest for having to borrow or you can use it one time but then you can't build
119a budget on it year after year. So, um that's a question that comes up and it's um something just for the people to be aware of as we look at this fund balance. Patty was getting scared where I was going with that. No, no, we did great. Okay, so I think we there's no and we can circle back to this. We're going to talk about some other things as well as it relates to budget. Um, next I'll bring up Mr. Wenthy, our director of human resources. uh and uh heard from folks kind of interested in how this process works and uh a couple months ago we had a workshop where we went through some like HR scenarios. Uh but we also wanted to kind of lay out some of the basic assumptions and our our
120kind of estimates for next year. Sure. And we are right in the middle HR is right in the middle of the hiring season. And actually tonight I can I can uh highlight one of our more high-profile hires and also give kudos to Stacy Everson who led our hiring for Logan Middle or Logan High School principal and Luke Matson is with us today. So [Applause] um many of the same challenges that uh we proposed or that we uh proposed in the board activity a month ago were real life challenges this year. um we we faced as we were doing staffing um working with high school principles and with Stacy Iverson we determined class section se sections of the high school which impacted staffing. Um as an example of one of our challenges we have this current
121year we have family and consumer education as a growing program and we have many of our teachers teaching overloads in in family and consumer education. We saw an increase in number of sections for next year. We opted to increase staffing and get rid of the overloads for next year. We had a student teacher that we hired, brought her in. Great hire, we hope, and just this last week, we had another face teacher resign. So now school is a little bit shallower this time year than it was a month and a half ago. Um, we're hoping to find another good candidate, but we may end up going back to overloads and possibly reducing the section. Um, those are the types of challenges we often face as we as we go through this as we go through
122this this procedure. At the elementary and middle school levels, enrollment really determines our our sections, but we also look at smaller sections at some of our title schools. I'd say this year we're far ahead uh where we've been in the past for this time of year compared to compared to the last few years. Um, but we still have some hard to fill vacancies. Speech and language pathologists, for example, are uh increasingly uh difficult to find. And part is part of that is increasingly there's uh third party vendors who hire these candidates and then essentially contract them to us. We'd rather have those people work directly through us rather than through these third party vendors. But uh it's an increased challenge we see every year. Um, at the elementary level, we added a section at Southern
123Bluffs, but reduced at Hamilton North Side and North Woods. We reduced uh two sections of middle school. We I'm sorry, two teachers at the middle school level and two teachers at Polytech. Um, we are hoping to find some behavior specialists to help address some of the challenges that you often hear when you do linkages. Um, working with our most challenging behaviors at the schools. Um, we've hired one person already that came from Chelita. Uh, we are continuing to search and um, hoping to recruit from there. We're also looking at how we do teacher assistance. We may be looking at some potential ads there as well. Any questions? Yes. Maybe slightly tangential, but I think related uh, overall I'm curious. I I wasn't able to go back and compare uh like the HR reports that we
124get in the the superintendent's consent agenda from around this time last year. I'm curious if you have noticed any uh change in the trends in in employment in the aftermath of the I don't have the data but I would tell you that I think our retirements are about the same but our resignations were fewer fewer we had fewer resignations this last year. Yeah, I'd offer up there's still a little uncertainty within our staff about some positions they're nervous about. And so we've had some coaching positions that we were hoping to maybe attract a broader candidate pool for. And you know, knowing that some of these positions are going to go away in a couple years, like do I leave this good situation in my classroom and go take this job that might be reduced at
125some point? There's been a little bit of um tension there. Uh, but I would say overall we've had fewer vacancies this year than last year. I I I would right now I would say we are less than last year. Um, we also have a few positions that are struggles this year because of the circumstances of consolidation looming in 2027. So a librarian position at Spence in the past may have been many more applicants than what we're getting right now knowing that that school is going to consolidate with another school. Mr. Begneski is the hiring or vacancy in all areas about equal for the past years whether it's custodial, teacher assistant, nursing. Are you asking about number of applicants that are that are applying? No. How many openings are there pretty significant just in the teaching
126area or are they pretty equal to other years whether it's custodial um health whatever we have less teachers and like I said because of resignations um I think we have less teacher assistant positions open than what we've had in the last it's my fourth year so I have a small window but less than we've had um other support staff probably about status quo and our other support staff are hired continually throughout the year whereas because our teachers and TAs are, you know, more seasonal based on preparation for the following school year. So, we'll hire custodians any time of the year and as retirements come up and the same thing with uh cooks. As a matter of policy, will we not hire a TA mid year? We will. Okay. Just doesn't tend to work that way.
127If you're interested in education, you know, and you're and that's kind of or you're coming from another place where you're involved in education like you might have chosen the job because of the schedule and the you know, association with your kids schedule and so you know there's and it becomes hard in fact for folks to let's say that you've um you know been working at Chelita as a TA full-time year round and now you're thinking oh I should come to the school district these positions are open. Well, you've got to take a break for three months and so we might not get that application or that hire until August or September. In fact, right now we're taking a pause on TA positions. We'll repo we'll repost at this point in probably uh late June. Any
128other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Administrative goals. Um next, uh administrative goals. This is a part of our budget planning process and it helps drive uh some of our priorities within the school district. Um we want to ensure that they're focused on students and our staff. Um the first one is and these are a little bit more specific than they were in prior years. Um before they were maybe more statements of values. uh this year we're it's maybe not so specific as a smart goal because at our level we're at a little more strategic level but they are focused a little bit more specifically in looking for specific uh outcomes. So in R2 academic performance um students will achieve at least one year's growth in academic subjects as measured on local formative assessments and or
129benchmarking tests. And so we're looking at how we track that data this year so that at the end of next year we're able to provide um uh some accountability around that uh that goal and also uh midyear uh updates to the school board on progress on that. Uh OE4 um gosh I got the name wrong. It should be human resources. I didn't update that Laura. Darn. Uh the district culture will become more positive over the prior year as measured by the annual staff survey. Um we've made uh some uh modest gains over the last two years which I presented to the board at my annual evaluation and it has continued to be a focus of the school boards and so I want to reflect that in our administrative goals. We've got some uh plans in
130place to to work on that this next school year and excited about what that will bring. uh OE10 learning environment. Uh student belonging will increase over the prior year as measured by the annual student survey. Um we've been at um right around the benchmark where we want to be but just below. And so a concerted effort should hopefully put us over that threshold that we're seeking and uh continue to increase students sense of belonging. Uh, I think especially in tumultuous times in our in our society, it sometimes is harder for folks to for kids to feel like they belong. When there's safety issues in the in the state or the nation, it makes it harder for kids to feel like they belong or feel safe at school. And so, we just want to make sure
131that we're doing everything we can locally to to increase that sense of belonging for our students. We know it makes a difference on academic outcomes because they're engaged and present. And then, uh, instructional program. Uh this is a slightly different goal than we've had in the past, but one that I'm very interested in working on this year. The district will develop a teacher- centered research-based common instructional framework that establishes local instructional best practice. So really bringing our teachers around exploring what great teaching looks like. Uh so that uh we have um ownership at the the classroom level for uh what great teaching is. Um, I have ideas where it might go, but it will be a group of of teachers and support staff that will help put that together and define for ourselves what it
132looks like. Got great rubrics like uh the Danielson framework that we use for teacher evaluations or understanding by design that talk about how to develop good uh instruction. uh but having an organic process uh that uh we can all agree on I think will go a long way towards uh creating buyin for subsequent professional development and other um initiatives and strategies. So excited for that process and those are the administrative goals. Happy to take any questions. Mr. Veski, uh number one, the first one, the academic performance goals. I think that's great that you're changing from let's say so many people are proficient at this level versus and that's a a way that was done and now we're looking at okay the student was at this level and a year later the students at this level
133so we can show growth in each of the students. So I think that's really nicely put. Yeah, we feel that that's a better measure of a student's progress and uh we know that for our students that maybe are not beating uh uh expectations or are below our thresholds, we'll need more than a year's growth. Uh and we'll do our best to accomplish that as well. Is there a particular reason why you chose to use formative instead of summitive assessments? Um the summit of assessments that we have uh typically relied on are the state tests and other like kind of gross measures of student performance. Um we're looking at when I when you look at the the research around like what works in classroom instruction, what works in uh school improvement. um it's related to the
134the things that are going on in the classroom that are are directly related to instruction and that is typically the formative assessment uh assessment for growth that gives good feedback to students. Um I would put you know unit summitive assessments in the same category generally speaking but on a more broad level trying to localize it. Um and so looking at the essential standards that um teachers are developing where they say upfront to students, hey at the beginning of this year, this is what we're going to learn and they're monitoring their progress throughout the year and at the end we should be able to see a difference in their uh understanding from the beginning of the year to the end of the year on the thing that they very actively worked towards as opposed to a
135state test which is based on this larger national standards or state standards that's a bit disconnected from the classroom experience. everything's aligned. We're all kind of working towards the same thing, but we want to but the the best way to measure progress and to um achieve student achievement is at that local classroom level on formative assessments, not those broader state level summitive assessments. Thank you. I completely agree. I think having the local assessments be the focus of that, it's something that our teachers have control over, that they've had input into, and they understand intimately, and it's less likely to change year-over-year so that the the benchmark doesn't shift, as has been the case with some of the the state and national tests and things we've seen. I do throw in benchmark testing to immediately disregard
136everything I just said, but um having multiple measures is important as well. You can't just look at no kid is one test, one experience. And so using our our benchmarking uh uh test that we use to measure reading and math will also be a helpful way to kind of gauge performance and is often um more effective way to in mass gather one year's growth uh as opposed to you know at the local level having every teacher like all right how did you each of your kids get one year's growth a little bit harder to to figure out there. Some of the have these goals been rolled out to teachers and staff? Are they aware of this is kind of the direction that you're going? I reviewed them with our a cabinet level, not teachers and
137staff yet. Um they are all in the vein of things we've done historically. And when we look at um so like the the OE4, the district culture becoming more positive. We're hearing from school staff through our surveys, there are things we need to work on. And so highlighting some of those elements. So it's it's using the feedback we're getting from staff to generate these things. Um the student achievement goals around testing, you know, we've heard like these state tests don't represent our kids as well as what we're doing in the classroom. And so that's in response to what our our our classroom teachers are saying. Uh and then the instructional program that's in response as well, developing a teacher centered um instructional framework. I I would say if you put 10 teachers in the room
138and you give them some time to talk, they'll all be able to quickly identify what great teaching looks like and the primary resources we use. Being able to say collectively though, this is what we do. Uh and being able to demonstrate, hey, here in Lacrosse, we have the best instruction and being able to back that up with a how do we know? Oh, because we do X, Y, and Z. We can prove it. These goals all seem staff and student centered. That's why I asked if it seems like you're you're you're listening to the response from both, you know, what the teachers are saying about how our students are performing and what they need, but also that they want to have a say and they want so kudos. I just that's why I asked wonder
139if you had feedback yet if you had delivered it out to to the team. Not more broadly. It it came because we listened and uh I the assumption may be wrong but as we deliver this out I suspect you know I was like yes this is what we want. Jim, do you have a question? Well, my last one has to do with the instructional program. Uh, the district will develop a teacher centered researchbased common instructional framework. Uh, does that include standardsbased grading? Grading will absolutely be a part of it. Good. Yep. Yep. It's everything from instructional design, unit plans, uh, how we engage with students, uh, assessments, how we develop assessments, uh, how we review our teaching, how we do continuous improvement. It would be from start to finish. What does it what does great
140instruction look like? How do we collaborate together? How do we talk to each other? How do we be professionals? Um that's where I expect it to go. Uh it could be a little bit more narrow in scope. Uh at the end of the day, it'll be this group of teachers, you know, with administration there to help um facilitate uh that develops what it looks like. Uh, and the process will be kind of a core committee putting together and examining resources and developing something and then feedback from all staff and then coming back to the committee for refinement and development back out to all staff and then continuing kind of a back and forth process until we hit on something that we can all agree uh really represents what we uh aspire to do in instruction.
141Mr. Ma, yes. I have a follow-up question. Um, when you said about committees, is this going to be fed back by everyone? Like every teacher is able to answer a survey to get that or is it going to be mostly just a representative from each school? Um, we're we've got some ideas of what representation would look like, but we're going to start by asking our staff what types of positions should be on this committee and who would you recommend be on this committee? And we'll let our staff once again pick the membership. Hopefully, we have so many people that want to join, we have to make some decisions, but uh ultimately we want a representative group that our staff um kind of organically selects. Um the it will be facilitated by um we're hoping two
142co-chairs, you know, uh that are of this group. Um, our role as a district administration will simply be to respond to what we're hearing, provide resources, do some leg work to make things happen, um, and facilitate their good work. I understand. I I think I'd like to advocate for at least have some kind of um, form for staff fill. When I visited Northside, I got quite a lot of feedback about curriculum, like minor tweaks and changes that they'd like to see. That's just why I brought that up there. But I love to hear we're getting more involved about this and that just came at a perfect time right when I got back from that. Yeah. As uh we uh develop it, it's in it's it's a weird thing because we know what the end goal
143we want to be, but we can't design it ourselves because then that would be stepping on the voice of our teachers in the process. And so it's we have an idea of what maybe the end goal is, but we don't have a clear picture of how exactly we're going to get there other than some potential meeting dates uh and some resources that we might provide to to get started and some activities that we could imagine would allow us to to get to the goal line. But as we develop it further out, we will definitely be sharing with the board through admin updates. It's like, hey, here's where we're at. This is our progress. And I look forward to when we get to the end, hopefully probably Marchish of next year, we'll have a really robust
144instructional framework that will guide all that we do. Gotcha. Thank you. Other comments? It is just past 8 o'clock. We have a workshop after this. Um would we want to move 7.04 7.05 to the next meeting? Would either is that an option or should we just keep following through? business. There's no reason we couldn't table that, right? And fund 80 can certainly be tabled, too. Yeah, I don't want to ruin Jim's fund, but um I think fund 80 is a there's a lot of questions and we have some really good discussions around that. So, I I don't want to That's a whole meeting right there. It I Yeah, what you said. So, if board members are okay, we would move those items to the next meeting. Is is anyone okay with that? Okay. And I
145will just offer up it's bas is information on what kind of went on last year. It's in your budget book. So if you want to read through that and kind of get an idea of what it was just an orientation to it. Happy to take any questions between now and our next meeting too uh if folks want to talk about it further. So fund 80 just readers digest version is a opportunity for us to uh um get levy local levy funds to do things that we're currently doing that benefit the community. There's a certain criteria. It's called community service. It this is outside of the levy limits. Um so it it's a flexible spending option for us. Obviously it does affect our local taxpayers, but um so it's it's a great opportunity for us to
146look at some interesting things to do um tempering it with what our community wants. Um if everybody's okay, we'll move on to announcements. Mr. Beeski for the CISA board of control. Do we need do we need to actually Oh, I'm sorry. Table those. Oh, yeah. Should we have a a motion to Well, they are just information items. I guess that's true. Madam Chair, I would say it's up to you. Yeah. If if there's consensus, then I think we'll just proceed if everybody's okay at that point. Um, so announcements. Mr. Beeski, CISA. Uh, the most of the CISA meeting was discussing what was going on at the state level as far as funding of schools. obviously pretty antagonistic against vouchers and what we can do against to stop the number of the amount of money going
147toward vouchers. So, we spent time talking about that. But the other thing that I thought all of us should be aware of and I'm not sure what the school district is doing or what's any school district is doing at this time, but that's with the WIA declaration that uh schools can use nil name images and likeness. I asked the question as far as why did Wisconsin go in that direction. I personally, this is personal opinion, it's wrecked college or university athletics and now we're putting it in the high schools. And they said they had gotten significant pressure from a number of other states that you do this or students are going to start going from Wisconsin to state W uh manufactured letter. Um so anyhow uh is are the activities director working on a plan
148to work this out or where is it at? Yeah, we're uh still waiting for further guidance. you we expect the WIAA to potentially provide some model local policies. Um Niola, our um policy um um legal legal policy and legal support that we have. Um they're uh working on some NIL uh policy language. Um the rights are in the students hands. Not it's not really to a large extent for us to to limit that in in a lot of ways. There's lots of different ways uh it's being approached in other states. Uh I know of a a wrestler in Iowa who got sponsored by a meat market and if he pinned a kid, you could come in and you know get 10% off your um order of meat and then that kid picked up that 10%
149as a payment um uh in order to advertise that business. You know, it can be individual. It could be teams. you know, the athletic department could work with a car dealership and the girls basketball team could, you know, go to a car dealership and be on their commercials and they'd get a kickback of $10,000 or based on a per car sale if that was referenced. You know, there's lots of different ways people are imagining it could work. Um, I understand the impetus for it. There was a number of other changes that the WI made that I find more concerning than that. you know, things like unlimited contact in the summer with coaches, um, which seems like a small thing, but will add up to a big thing. Um, the number of students that will truly
150benefit from NIL, I think, are pretty minimal, uh, especially when you look at the rural nature of a lot of our communities. There'll be little payments here and there to some kids. Um, it'll be the, you know, the the student like, you know, Johnny Davis here who people could imagine a path to the pros where folks want to get in early, you know, and create a relationship that maybe benefits all parties. Um, they believe it's a little sad amateurism's dead. Um, at the same time, you know, school districts have long profited off of kids name, image, and likus, whether it's their fund 21s or a youth basketball program or a school district in terms of revenues when they the kids do well. And so I also understand not taking advantage of of students hard work
151and being able to gain some benefit for themselves. It's a tough one. Yes. Thank you. Is that it? Yep. That was Thank you. Uh Dr. Garcia is not here. My uh report, there's nothing listed here, but I do want to comment on the graduations this week. Um Thursday at 4 PM is CRVA, followed by Polytenic, and then on Friday evening, we have Logan and Central. Uh I I've commented the arts uh recognition we did last week was one of my favorite things, but graduation is by far my favorite. It's not just the culmination of what we've done for those students, but it's perhaps one of the only times that we as a board see all of our students. We don't just see the high performing students or the students in particular areas, but we see
152all the students across uh all types of performance in school. Uh some and the family's enthusiasm. Sometimes these kids are the first ones graduating high school in their family. Um we see all types of diversity. We see type all types of abilities. It is one of the most beautiful parts about being a school board member. And if you haven't signed up to attend those, I highly recommend you do because it'll be well worth your time. Uh Dr. Engel. Um sorry, I stole part of yours. Oh no, that's great. Uh I appreciate your passionate advocacy for it. I think we've got 21 CRVA graduates this year, which is our online virtual school. And I had sent a board update I think this morning. Um our with the with the implementation of our virtual school, we have
153seen a dramatic decrease in the number of open enrollments out for it. We're down to eight this year, which is the lowest new applications we've had uh in 15 years. So, uh, it's doing its job in terms of keeping kids here who deserve a good education but need to learn in a different way. Uh, and then the only thing I would have is um, uh, uh, Representative uh, Jill Billings uh, had an opportunity to nominate an assembly hometown hero uh, this last uh, session and she nominated uh, Nahua Tony Yang uh, our cultural liaison uh, who does great work with the M community cultural center uh, and also works with our M families in our school district. And so, uh, kudos to Tony. Uh, welld deserved. Uh, he is an amazing resource and asset for
154our school district. Um, our next item is agenda planning. This was something that used to be on the agendas, was gone for a while. It's back this year. Um, it's an opportunity for the board members to look ahead to know what's coming up. We will add the two items that we deferred um from this meeting to that meeting. Um, it's also an opportunity if anybody board members have anything they'd like to add to the agenda. It's a pretty full meeting. Yeah, it's pretty full meeting. We'll keep plowing through. Um, board debriefing. Um, for those of you who for Molly who's new, Jeff, you want to vote on that? Oh, yeah. We're supposed to vote on that agenda planning. Thank you. We need a motion to approve the agenda with the two additions from this meeting.
155So, move. Second. We have a motion, a second. Uh, we'll do a roll call vote. Mr. Alberts, hi. Mr. Bagneski. Hi. Miss Fuks. Hi. Mr. Jackson. I. Mr. Ma. I. Mr. Newmeister. I. Dr. Sprag. I. Miss Sucla. Hi. Uh, the next item is a board debriefing, which is an important part of what we do to make sure in uh coherent governance that we are doing what we're supposed to do. What do we do well? What did not go well? What do we need to improve? Please look at that. There's a schedule for who's up. Next meeting will be Dr. Garcia followed by uh Dr. Sprag. Um but this evening we have Mr. Begneski. Uh as far as a re debriefing tonight, uh the first thing I would say is uh the Koulie Monasuri. That was
156kind of interesting to me. Uh I never was into Kulie Monosauri, but as a math teacher, I was wondering why they based it on a four or an eight versus a 10. I mean, why was that? But I'm going to have to go back and I'll research that and find out why that was. But that was really interesting to me. I thought the River City Revolution did a very nice job pulling those two together. And that's such a meaningful thing for so many students. I'm glad it wasn't just shoved to the side and say, "Well, we don't have any uh choke global ed update, the biot literacy program. I think that's great to recognize that we have a number of people very fluent in two languages and maybe we can even someday get to a
157third. Um buildings and grounds. I'm always a fascinated by the number of things that uh Joe Lavina oversees. I mean that's a big job. You look through all those things and you say holy cats. Uh, and then thanks Patty for the um budget and I'm glad it's going to be over three months. It'll give me time to digest half of it. And so, uh, I thought the meeting was really well. We had a lot of presentations and pretty good discussions. So, good great discussion. Can I ask one question? Sorry, real quick. I know that I will be uh traveling for a conference on June 16th. If either Meredith or Tim wouldn't mind switching debriefing with me, that would be great. Let's take a vote on that. I just One thing I want to add thing
158is that Northsiders and Southsiders can get along. Scott, it's like it's like Foot Loose. It's the reboot. A town riven by geographical. Can I ask something? Or just to make a statement? I thought we used to say, "Does anybody else want to add anything at the end of this?" But anyway, um there's sandwiches waiting. I'm I just I know that everybody's hungry and and I can't stay for that. I'm sorry. I've got another meeting, but I think it's important to realize that I saw all of our retirements this year and I think it's important to thank every one of those for the dedication they've given our our children in our school district. Um and and two big notes I noticed. 40 years Mr. Doug Gwin. Uh that's pretty impressive. So thank you Doug for all
159the years of service and obviously we lost a wonderful principal at Logan, Mr. Geneva Co. and and our loss is is over the river's gain, I guess. But I'm sure we we've got a good person that's coming in. But everyone that did um put in their time and are retiring, congratulations. and I'm sure we'll miss you and and thank you for all you've done. Thank you. Thank you for coming. That's it. Um uh yellow sheets that you didn't use in your pencils, if you want to pass them to the left and save Laura a little bit of time so she can get us ready for the next meeting. We stand a journey. [Music]