001[Music] like to call to order um the Monday, April 7th, 2025 board of education meeting. Um, we recognize that the Hogan Administrative Center occupies the land of the Ho Chunk people. Please take a moment to celebrate and honor the ancestral Ho Chunk land and the sacred lands of all indigenous peoples. Will the secretary please call the role? Mr. Alberts here. Mr. Vneski here. Miss Burkidol here. Dr. Garcia here. Dr. Jimenez. Oh, excused. Mr. Ma here. Mr. Newmeister barely here. Dr. Sprag here. Miss Zukla here. Thank you. A quorum of the board of education is present. So the regularly scheduled meeting of April 7th, 2025 is now called to order. We will have a pledge of allegiance. Please stand and place the American flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
002and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [Applause] Tonight's agenda has been previously distributed to the board. I would entertain at this time a motion with a second to approve the agenda as submitted, unless there is a motion to amend. I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda as submitted. Seconded. A motion by Mr. Manka, seconded by Dr. Sprag to approve the agenda. Any questions, discussion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. Those opposed. Motion carries. Okay, that moves us on to uh public speakers. Do we have any this evening? We have none. Okay. Uh that brings us to the school showcase of the high performance learning. We're excited to have Lisa Altrider and Carrie Winch Harden
003here to present on HPL. Hello. There we go. All right. Good evening. I'm Lisa Altrider. Um I've been in the district for 25 years now. This is my 25th year. I have been a technology integrator and now I've been spent my 21st year at Emerson in the library. We are going to talk to you tonight about our HPL program and how we incorporate that into the libraries. Carrie and I were fortunate enough to travel to Florida to present this topic. Um, and we have taken that presentation and shortened it for you all this evening. Well, if you had taken us to Florida to There we go. We do want to celebrate that this month is National Library Month or School Library Month. So for the large majority of you, you have little packets on your
004desk that is something that the kids at Hamilton made along with a little fun things to celebrate this special month with us. I've already introduced myself. So Carrie, I'm Carrie. I am the librarian at Hamilton and Sodto 1 and I've been in the district on and off since 2014. So for our HPL program, which stands for high performance learners, we um take those on in the library and we work with them and we look at different things within the program. So we worked together above our curriculum, the elementary librarians, we all worked together and we found those curricular topics that we really wanted to focus on throughout the school year and everything we do with the HPL program is above and beyond that. So why and what? We recognize the unique talents of our students
005within the district. And for our HPL program, we no longer look just at academics. We're looking at other aspects of them also. We're looking at um how to identify those students and these are the domains that we're looking at creative and productive leadership visual performance and yes we do still also work with those with general intellect. So, we're going to go right into what we do as librarians and how we work with the kids and get excited because there is a hands-on opportunity for you in a little bit. So, one of the things we like to do with our high performance readers is we um have book clubs with the kids. We have a large selection of books that we can choose from. We work with directly with grades three through five. If you're looking
006at K through two, then we have Mr. Barabou behind me works directly with the classroom teachers and finding activities and different things for those students. So, third graders um and above. I love Al Capone does my shirts. We work with the kids. Um I've been to um Alcatraz. So, I have some pictures that I took and we do a slideshow to introduce them to what it looks like today. We talk about how different it is from when they actually had prisoners on the island. We read the story. They complete an interactive notebook on their iPads and we discuss things throughout the book. We do that with several different books. Alapone is just one of them. Um general intellect. We're also looking at math along with the reading and some different opportunities. I'm going to talk
007to you today about my cribage unit that I do with the kids. Um I've had tons of parents say thank you for teaching my child how to play cribage. Their children are playing together. They're playing with the parents and it's a lot of fun. One of the things we do is we talk about 15 and how important that is within cribage and they need to come up with a creative way to show me the different combinations of getting to 15 They can choose a slideshow. They can choose a video. They can choose um whatever they want to creatively show me 15. So here's one sample. [Music] Oh. Hey. Hey. [Music] Oh, heat. Hey. Hey. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I've also had things like cups and tissue boxes where they show me the different combinations.
008Um, I've had a t-shirt. One student um last year he loved to sew. So he took some fabric that he had at home and used a sewing machine to create I don't know if you can see the jack and the five over here and the nine and the six and a jack a four and a one. I had a student create a train and the coal within the cars. Each coal piece had combinations of 15 and like the cup. Also, another project that they do is they choose one of the rules within cribage and use pages to create a poster to explain that rule. And then we do finally get to the game and play with the crimage boards. So creative productive is another part of the the standards that we look at. So we
009do everything from coding to 3D printing. I love Legos with my kids. So one of the lessons that I do a lot is a Lego unit. Uh they create a Lego mini figure. There's building challenges with challen cards. They have to build a tower in 10 minutes and then build a ladder in five minutes to get to the top of that tower. We use iPad apps like Chatterpick. They make a Lego marble maze stories and then a reflection with it. And I just did this and it's amazing what they can do. I'm just outstanded. Just it's amazing. Leadership Social is another one that we have. There's the leadership academy, the tech academy, and then we're teaching them about coaching in the government. So, here's an example of our leadership academy. We talked about what's a
010leader, creativity and leadership, a leadership mindset, that growth mindset, and then what they see themselves as a leader now and in the future. And then with visual performing arts, we have reader theater, debate, drama, storytelling, all of that kind of fun things that really brings everything alive for those kids that this is something that they excel in. Here's an example that I do in my classroom is puzzlements. Uh I show them different pictures and then they have to have that curious culture and they they think and they want to look. So you would see this picture here of what we presume would be an avocado. And we'd have a conversation about what do you notice? What do you wonder? And we just kind of talk about it. And the kids say, I notice that there
011are geometric patterns. I wonder how those geometric patterns happened. I notice that it looks like it has an avocados like shape. I wonder if it is an avocado. Is it not? And then at the end we click on the bottom link and it kind of explains the photograph. We are not able to see every student in grade three through five. We do our best to hit a large um portion of the grade levels, but we do have a website thanks to Mr. Barabou that we can direct all students to and then everyone in the district 3 through 5 is able to participate in any of those things that are listed on that website. If you'd like to explore that more, there is the link within the slideshow that was shared with you. So HPL is
012honoring potential in all learners. So we do want to open it up and we want to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to participate. So, even if they can't participate with us on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, they can participate in district events, for example, battle the books, which we just had a competition, and it was a pretty fun afternoon at or a morning, excuse me, at the University of Wisconsin Lacrosse. We have the academic bialon, which we're going to sample a STEM sprint with that in a little bit. And then we have the Matt Hustle Mile Creative Writing Contest where in honor of the young man who passed away at the age of eight, students can write a fictional story, a story made up by themselves and everything is due on April 11th
013and it has to be less than a thousand words, which some kids are struggling with, but it's fun. So, are you ready for an activity? Yes, we are. Okay. So, this activity is part of the academic bathlon. And with the academic bathlon is made up of two different parts. A STEM sprint, which is a hands-on activity where the kids get to use their ingenuity and just kind of go for it. And then they also have to uh take a quiz. And this year it's all about architecture. So, we're going to divide you into two teams. You're laughing, but for reals, we're doing this. I'm so excited. Yes. So divide it into two teams. This is called the chain letter. So I'm going to explain what it is. Now our kiddos have 15 minutes usually to
014do this. You have five. Okay. So Lisa is handing out pencils because you will each need your own pencil. So the architectural concept is to deconstruct. It means to take apart or examine something in order to reveal the basis or composition, often with the intention of exposing biases, flaws, or insincities. This is a hands-on problem. You will have five minutes to solve this problem. Each team member has an unsharpened pencil. In the box, you will have 20 paper clips all hooked together to form a chain. That chain is placed inside of a small envelope. That small envelope is placed into a larger envelope and then placed inside this pizza box. So, your job is to deconstruct it, which means open it and ultimately take all of the paper clips and separate them. Now, the kiddos
015have, like I said, 15 minutes usually to do this and more than one of my teams have done it within 10 minutes. So, I have high confidence that you can get a lot done in five minutes. These are the rules, okay? Each team member should only have one pencil as a tool. The team must deconstruct or separate the items as much as possible. Team members may talk, but they may not give each other their pencils or use any other part of a person. For example, if Lisa and I were on the same team, I can't have my pencil and her pencil in my hand at the same time. Okay? You can only use your pencil to touch the items in the box. If you decide that you want to use your hands or something of
016that sort, it'll be a minus 10 points. So, there is directions on the back here. So, I will have Lisa hand those out. So, if we want to just kind of go Dr. Engel on this side and Deb on this side, it may work best to be on the ground, but you can try it at the tables if you like. I usually give my students about a two minutes to kind of talk and discuss to kind of figure out what you want to do. But as you're all highly intelligent adults, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna just start a timer. Are you ready? Are you excited? Because I am excited right now. This is excitement. Okay. Are you ready? Timer starts now. Make sure not to touch anything except your pencil. Okay, timer's on. team
017over here. If I can There you go. There you go. I like the positive. Oh, yeah. Someone's a tough day. This is where the aggression really is good. Oh, I like [Music] Here we go. There we go. So, this is an example of a stepint. [Music] Three minutes remaining. Three minutes remaining. I wish I had a video of the kids doing [Music] their set. at least the materials. Yeah. And then we could even remain Our doctor and they're performing surgery. Our doctors are performing surgery on our side. There we go. [Music] You're done also. Just a little late. That's a bummer. That's amazing. Congratulations. You're the winner. Aren't you will enjoy that? I've sent a lot. No, you can keep it. Congratulations. There's your prize. You pulled them apart. You get to keep a pencil.
018I could talk to you all night about the different activities and the different things that we do and the excitement that we see in the kids in each and every unit that we do with them, but our time is precious. Um, do you have any questions for us? How many students in your school are in the HL program? Like roughly on average? Uh, between the Let's see. I'm going to take just one fifth. I'm gonna take fifth grade. And I would probably say out of our 50 kids in fifth grade, I probably see 40 of them throughout the entire school year with different um units that we do because the kids change throughout the units that we do. They're not always the same kids that we're working with. And I think that each school is
019a little bit different. So, how I see my students are going to be si different than Lisa and how Amanda over at Hinchin are going to see her students. Uh, so you're going to see a lot of different things. Like for my third graders at Soda One, I've seen every single one of them just because that's how the time has worked and they have a little bit more flexibility in their schedule. And what I do at my school is going to be different than what Lisa does at her school. Like I don't even know how to play cribage, I'm sad to say. And I just said, we're like, can you teach me how? You know, so we share them as librarians, our different projects and our different uh teachings, but we don't all do it
020the same. And that's the benefit, too, of right like we're all different people. So, we bring our strengths to their strengths, and that's what we're honoring. Jim, does this happen at other grades other than three through five? High school, middle school, middle school. Um language arts. There's some integration there. Um they when it comes to math, as far as math goes with that, they have their accelerated math class classes that they go into. But but there's a different Yes. Right. Right. And then with high school, they can always take those advanced credits within the high school or go on to university while they're still dual enrolled. So that's where the HPL program doesn't come as as the librarian portion of it as much. But there's also those HPL, my apologies, I could talk forever. Uh
021the HPL program where we showed the show showcase those district-wide competitions. That's for everyone. Right? We don't say, "Oh no, you're a senior, you can't participate." We say, "You're a senior. Let's do this." Right? Coding, awesome. Chess, amazing. So, and we do have battle books. Battle of the Books goes 4 through 12. My second grader at Ste was telling me how excited she is about the Matt Hessel Mile writing competition and and so there's a lot of there's a lot of conversation in the grades among that and I've been pushing on her to to continue the Chronicles of Taco Man. That's I'm really excited. Um and thank you for talking a little bit about how it it kind of appears differently at each of the schools. My question initially was uh when you're mentioning like
022you you would see 40 out of your 50 students um what are the limitations that you're running up against and what what would you need to make sure that we're able to touch every student with this? Um actually sometimes it's the students themselves because in my building I think in every building we do this during win time or the what I need time. Sometimes what the students need is not us. It's more time with their classroom teacher. Good. So, it's dependent on the students. That's good. Um, I had another question quick. Um, right at the beginning, you mentioned that this is all above the curriculum. Um, did that mean both that the the standards of the activities are at a higher level than would typically be found at that grade level or that it's just
023like not typically not topics that are covered within the curriculum or both? It's above our library curriculum. Okay. as librarians meeting with the classrooms. We have our own curriculum that we cover and this HPL portion is above and beyond what we do with our library curriculum. Great. I got to experience HPL when I came to Lacrosse and what has been very impressive to me is that it's strengthbased and that any kid can essentially opt in or elect to to participate and so it's available to all students in our school district. And I've also been super impressed by how responsive it is, both what we do um with our librarian in HPL and also by with Archie's work, you know, crafting kind of unique opportunities for kids. In every place I've been, there have been complaints
024about gifted and talented or what we call high performance learning. I've never had a complaint here, not even one arise to any reasonable level. And it's because you and the team is so responsive to kids needs and providing what they need to push themselves to be successful. And when you think about the range of learners that we have in our district and the volume, that is impressive. And so kudos to all of you for the amazing work you do to meet kids' needs every day. And thank you. Uh the program while I've been on involved in schoolboard hasn't been as broad considering the students talents as it is now. So that's really nice to see. Um yes, in the past there was a uh HPL coordinator and it was just a certain group of kids
025and there was a certain exclusivity of it which is not what is good in education. Um, and so it's just really nice to see how um all kids have an opportunity and how um as you say, we we use our strengths to help the students find their strengths and I um that's um wonderful to see and the exercise was really fun and I hope it wasn't tape recorded because it was I may have been too close to my You did amazing though. Like you did it within four minutes so you should really pat yourselves on the back on that. There's a lot of positive comments and you really worked well together as a team. So, well, we were afraid of death. And that was Archie that had put that together and he does a great
026job of making sure we have everything that we need. We send him an email and I said like, "Hey, I need six books for the right three and they show up on my desk the next day and they're ready to rock." So, thank you so much. Thank you. I have one quick question. How did the presentation of the most Wisconsin card game go in Florida? It was great. We actually we had people from Minnesota and Wisconsin in our session so they felt right at home. Yeah, there was a representative from CISA 11 there and she actually reached out to us after the presentation and asked us to come to present up there about our program. So we're going to go do that on May 1st. That's awesome. What are you doing in July? Oh yes,
027Carrie. In July I'm going to present at the International Society of Technology Education. So it it's a national conference about our high performance learning or honoring potential and all. So I'm pretty excited. Thanks, Shelley. Thank you. Thank you. And in my defense, Mr. Newire, they said deconstruct. So I took that vocabulary correctly. Took that very literally. Okay. Uh so we'll move on to the uh superintendent's uh consent agenda. And let me pull up my script of what I'm supposed to say here. The consent agenda is a mechanism used by the board to deal with routine business that must come before the body. Are there any items that members want to remove from the consent agenda? If it's okay with the board, I'd offer up Miss Everson's here or Dr. Iverson's here just to talk about
028the contracts that you'll see on there. And maybe you just want like a little preview of that process and I know Dr. Iverson would be happy to just like briefly cover what that looks like if the board's open to it. I was going to actually request that they come off so we can So we may as well just address it right up front. Um so why don't we hear about those and then we can look uh at the rest of the moving the Y. So these are um contracts put together over uh every five years I believe and um Dr. Dr. Everson worked very closely with the uh committees this year to put together model contracts and I'll turn it over to you Dr. Iverson. Yes, thank you. So, we follow a a model contract
029from the Wisconsin Charter School Association. So, most of what you're looking at is language that the charter association puts together. And then every five years I have the opportunity to work with each governance board just to add a little bit of their own language and a little bit of their own preference to that model contract. So each one that you look at tonight should resemble each other uh for the most part. You may see small nuances to each contract. And a big thank you to Laura. She helped uh make sure we had another set of eyes on each contract just to make sure that the details were in order. We have several benchmarks according to the state of Wisconsin that we must meet. So sometimes questions come up about what is it actually mean to
030be an instrument of the district. So there's a little bit of negotiation that might go on if a for example if a charter school wanted something special um to brand their school that had a cost to it. Of course, you are the authorizer and you have final authority on on that language. Uh so I might operate as a a negotiator in that situation to help you understand what the charter governance board is asking for. Um but in our situation, our charter contracts, our charter schools are instruments of the district. So, uh, we we partner together to make sure that these contracts are living documents that reflect reality for the next five years. Can you for uh board members that aren't familiar with how the charter schools work, can you talk a little bit about the
031governing board and can you also give us a little bit of a summary of changes that you that are in these contracts that are different than what they were previously? Yes. So, let's see. In terms of changes, very little. uh you might see different names uh you might see different language uh that has evolved over the last five years to describe say the teaching and learning or assessments that we might be using but by and large the contracts I think read relatively the same as they did five years ago. The governance board um for a charter school is is one of the main ingredients that makes a charter school a school as compared to a program within a school. So for example, years ago, Lacrosse was considered a charter school. However, we did not have
032an active governance board at the time. So we adjusted uh the language to Lacrosse reflecting as a program as compared to a charter school. So unless um a an active governance board is meeting approximately once a month uh throughout the academic school year uh we would not have a a a binding contract as a charter school. Who serves on that board? Uh the governance boards for each charter contract. Um the governance boards are reflective often of a parent group, maybe a community member that has interest in a particular learning model. So, for example, um, Polytenic is thought of as a project-based learning school. That's the model of teaching and learning and assessment that occurs there. And so, sometimes we'll have community members that have an a vested interest in that over time. Uh, sometimes it
033also involves uh community partners, but it can be a mixture. Do they each have a separate process for selecting their board of govern? they could, but I I think often uh it's it's who volunteers and we we rarely have too many that we that we have to turn someone away. So, uh there would be obviously a teacher is not a you know, they can participate in the board, but we we have kind of a ratio that it must include parents um of the school, not necessarily it can't be all teachers or educators in the district. My kids soda and I heard from some um soda parents some concerns about the charter being written to um change the schedule so they wouldn't have the Wednesday half days anymore. I looked at the language in there and
034I didn't see anything specifically calling to that, but I did see some language that allowed for them to make suggested changes to the schedule so long as it didn't cause a change to the budget or something. Can you talk about that component? Sure. So sometimes uh the charter contract is intended to be flexible because it should be able to reflect current reality for five years. So occasionally we might have an you know a preference that would be active for a school year in terms of a schedule um maybe even how we offer courses during a school day or throughout the week that might work from one year at a time. But we're careful not to write such specific specificity into a charter contract that, you know, we're held accountable to something that we might not
035be able to follow through with on on a five-year term. And if there's um district financial obligations that the charter um governance board creates for the school district, they would be obligated to pay for them themselves if the school district could not reasonably meet them. So let's say that they decided to run from noon until 7 o'clock at night. We don't have busing that runs from noon to 7 o'clock at night. So they would, if they wanted busing, we would say like, "Ah, we can't do that. You can you can do this if you want, but we're not going to be able to contribute to your busing situation." And so they would have to pay for that busing themselves by fundraising or some other means. And so that's the the the one rub in here
036is like sometimes how they want to operate might create a financial obligation or an inconvenience to the school district that it cannot meet. And so, um, in some of these cases, we've left that stuff out, you know, so that, um, we can be flexible over time, uh, to align with the school district. And in some cases, the charter boards decide, well, we don't want to be responsible for that. And so, we're going to leave that decision to the school district and accept whatever they do. Mr. Bagneski. Uh, does this also go around in terms of how many guidance counselors they have or social worker or how they schedule classes for the next year and that included or the contract itself spells out some guidance on ratios, but it wouldn't specify how many and and most
037of the time that is built on our enrollment guidelines. Um, the ratio that the school district we want it reflective of the the school district. So in other words, if we have one school counselor to 250 250 students, that's relatively what we would do with uh charter school as well. Generally, the charter schools provide like a flavor of education or an educational delivery model. And we're still trying to provide approximately the same experience for students that they would get at a traditional school. If you're at Polytenic, you know, it might be harder to access some traditional courses, but you know, you're giving that up because you get project-based learning out of it. Um, but they still have access to school counselors, social workers, all the other supports that we would be able to provide any
038school. When we were at Polytech for the linkage with the students, there was some concern about not having access to and that's why I asked the question. Yeah. The challenge may be that you know if you have 100 kids in your school and our ratio is typically 1 to 250 you might not have a school counselor there all day every day because that would necessitate about a point4 FTE and so there would absolutely be counseling services available but that person might not physically be on site all day every day that's just a challenge with smaller schools you start to lose that capability and just so you like we have the environmental school at Summit that that's different than these than these charter schools. And I think you said that early on that this is different
039than the programs. Yes. So that I think with with Summit, it's it's a program. It's how they brand their elementary um but not necessarily charter school. Any other questions? Otherwise, I look for a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve the items on the superintendent's consent agenda as presented. I'll second. Okay, we have a motion by Dr. Sprag, seconded by Mr. Ma to approve the items on the superintendent's consent agenda. Um, any other questions, comments? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. Those opposed? Motion carries. We now move on to the board consent agenda. The consent agenda is used as a mechanism by the board to deal with routine business that must come before the body. Are there any items that members want to remove
040from the uh board consent agenda? Hearing none, I'd look for a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the items on the board consent agenda as presented. Second erased. Okay. We have a motion by Dr. Brag. Seconded by Miss Burkad Doll. Um, we got to get you in the minutes. Yeah, I know. That's what I'm thinking like. I've got to make one turn this microphone. Mark. Yeah. Um, so we have a motion u made by Dr. Sprag. Second by Miss Burkadall. For the items on the board consent agenda as presented. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. I. Those opposed. Thank you. We now move on to matters reserved for board action. We start with operation expectation monitoring report OE1 global operations expectations. That is mine. So OE1 global operational
041expectations is the superintendent shall not cause allow or fail to take reasonable measures to prevent any practice, activity, decision or organizational condition that is unlawful, ethical, unsafe, disrespectful, imprudent in violation of board policy or endangers the district's public image or credibility. This is a relatively short OEE and basically lists all the ways that we are in compliance. Um the uh indicators go on to state that we are compliant with 100% of state, federal, and DPI laws and regulations. We are not in any significant violation or non-compliance with any of the board's policies. There have been no legal charges or formal regulatory complaints against the district. Uh no written complaints against the superintendent. uh district employees are terminated and have been due to unethical, illegal or unprofessional conduct and the district meets expectations for indicator OE215
042safety reviews conducted in the school district. Uh that is the policy. We've got a nice cover sheet there that kind of highlights the the big things that you might want to take away from that and happy to take any questions that folks have. Nice cover sheet. Kudos to Laura. She's our artist and residence for our cover sheets. Nice job, Laura. There any questions, comments? Otherwise, we'd be looking for a motion. Okay. [Laughter] in in regard to the monitoring report for policy OE1 global operational expectation and with respect to the provisions of policy B SR5 superintendent accountability. The board of education concludes that the superintendent and district are in compliance. Seconded. These are long and I didn't wear my glasses which was a mistake. A motion by Miss Brokal doc uh seconded by Dr. Sprag. Um
043any question any discussion on the motion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. Those opposed. Okay. Brings us to the linkage summaries. And we have the Central High School student linkage and the Logan student linkage. This time the poly techchnic will be next time. And since Mr. Olsen is uh excused this evening. That would be good timing. Um would anyone who attended those like to bring up any particular points? I didn't bring my notes along, so I apologize. I'll say something. Okay, go ahead. Um I guess you know the biggest thing and we go back to this all the time is the the standardized grading. Um, students for the most part are still struggling with it from, you know, the kids that spoke at both Central and Logan. Um, I'm
044not giving up on it, but I mean, we're continuously hearing about it. So, it's really my only comment. I think I'd like to second that. I think there should be a bigger focus for us moving on for next year is I mean, I'm not exactly I'm not really convinced get rid of it completely. We're going on transitional phase, but I think there are some things like making it more accessible for students know where they're at or making it more easier for teachers to grade that we should be looking at here. Um I I believe we should be asking more students about this in the future as well. Just get a bigger picture from them because ultimately this is this impacts them the most. And when we're over here asking these questions right here, I just
045don't see it's helping the students. It's not exactly making them better for college yet. And I want to see have a good discussion perhaps in within by September see if there's any other way that administration or the board can do to make this better for our students right there because they deserve it the most. Well, I I think one of the things is uh one of the one of the teachers there, one I think it was Central High School, one of their staff, I brought her students report card. And if you can just visualize this, if there were four expectations during that particular course, goals that they were to meet, and then they were graded on each one of those, that might come up to 12 different grades if there were three on each. Uh,
046and it was it was three pages of print out of what the student was doing in that in that particular class. And uh, it was really cumbersome to read. So if somehow that could be condensed uh and I thought the at the state convention we went to in Milwaukee, I thought this group came up with this program called Otis and I think it was Wilmont down by Milwaukee that had it. And then I had talked to uh Jeff about this and I thought there were some conversation about bringing that cadri of teachers to lacrosse for some staff development. So they would get they would just exchange conversations as far as this is how it's working there and most people in Wilmont school district are pretty happy with it. Uh because right now the question really
047becomes you know like when you get uh proficient in one class or maybe meeting expectations in another class what is that and everybody wants to go back to that traditional A B C D and is that a C? Well for some teachers meeting expectations is a C for another person that may not be a C. That might be some other grade. So there has to be some linear definitions of what we expect so that it consistently defined across the district or at least within one high school. And so that was some of the complaints. But um I I didn't see anybody was really digging their heels in and saying no, we're not doing this. The question was how can we make it so that parents and students have a better understanding of it than they
048presently do? Yeah. I at Central we heard the students say about well first of all they said there's some improvement um they said uh one of the things we heard last year when we did the linkages with students was that there were um when we because we do this the linkages in the spring we had students talk about missed opportunities because there was uh schoolwork that wasn't required there wasn't a it didn't affect your grade so they didn't do it and they felt that there was mislearning opportunities with that it seems that that's been corrected that there's Now um those assignments are now being parted part of the grade. Um at Logan the students said hardly anybody likes it and we are a coherent governance body and I certainly don't know enough to say standard
049based grading is the right methodology or not. Um maybe some of you who work in education could but I think our job and maybe one of the things we wanted to look at in the future is um I don't know which OE it is might be learning environment but I'm not sure which one about what are our goals and if our I think I've heard some goals here about having a grading system that uh students and parents can readily know how students are doing or things like that that if and that might help staff understand the areas where we really need to see the improvement that that would be just my my off-hand comment from from that linkage and I we don't want to get too deep into this I think we just want to
050talk about the linkage in general but That would be my suggestion. Just throw out there that I'm excited that this spring our teachers and principles were able to get together to talk about processes for improvement for this next year. Standardized grading scales, a number of those things. Um, and so I'm excited for what that will look like over the summer and for next year. Um, throughout this process, our teachers have been a part of de developing the solutions for it. And so along the way, we have sometimes chosen a strategy that didn't turn out to be maybe the one we all liked when it was actually executed. And so this is a a bit of growing and learning as we move forward. And so I think we're pretty close to honing in on solutions that
051will um satisfy I think the brevity of the report card. Uh clarity of of grading across classrooms. Uh we've always had these same issues in terms of like what it meant for a grade. you know, what does a C mean in this classroom versus another one? What does a C even mean? You know, so the the the arbitrariness has always been there. We're trying to do better in terms of creating clarity. There's been some misses along the way, but I think our teachers are heavily involved in what this process looks like, working closely with our principles to develop solutions. And so, what we hear from the linkages does not go unnoticed. What our students are telling us does not go unnoticed. And I am uh excited for what will come next in this next iteration.
052And the second point that was brought up is there was some misunderstanding or understanding that there are no finals high schools. I'm not exactly sure how finals work at our high schools. Personally, I don't love finals, but uh some people do. Their comment was that Yeah. So, I mean, this year, so in the past, we've had a finals week at the end of semester where the schedule was different. Like you would have uh like on it would be like a kind of like a three-day week. You'd have like one day off and then one the other day would just be like a regular school day. That would be like that Monday. Um so you'd have periods one, two, and three. And all your classes would be like an hour and a half long. Um and
053that would be your entire day and you get out at like one and then it would be four, five, six the next day and then seven and eight. Um, and they did not do that this year. So, I think the way it worked this year at Central at least was that um, like teachers had the option to offer like a final like semester assignment or exam or something of that nature, but class schedule would not change um, during that week. So, you'd still go to classes as usual. And that's what that's what people went when they said there weren't finals this week. So that class schedule was very kind to students and teachers but did not allow us to meet our hours requirement under state law and so we needed to make some modifications to
054that in order to be compliant. So there was just a concern that students wouldn't learn at the university or college level what a final was and that's usually a extended period of time and that they thought this was a training ground for that and now without that there would students therefore not do as well in their college course. That was a sentiment of some of the instructors. Not all your college courses will have finals. Yeah. Uh Mr. Newmeister. Thank you. Well, I appreciate um that we're working with staff and teachers on on this. My concern is obviously for the students because it affects them the most. And and what I've heard, the feedback is that while they're trying to get into their dream college, um that standardized testing is difficult at best because it really
055doesn't rank them uh where they want to be ranked. if you're if you're a star student and want, you know, all A's and the 4.0 and you want to be ranked the highest in your uh class or even in the state, you know, and and get into a big college. Um, that's my concern because it doesn't it it it levels the playing field, which I understand, but it doesn't at least what I'm told, it doesn't help them excel where they're noticed, you know, and that's something that that concerns me a little bit. While I understand that we do adjust the best we can, um I'm just uh a little concerned for the students, you know, that really want to uh excel even further than most. Are you talking about weighted grades? Yes. I don't think
056the district has had those since 1996. No, but I understand that. But that's what I'm just told that they're not able to excel. College admissions will adjust for them, right? They'll say, "Oh, that's from a weighted the like the Yeah. working in college admissions, we we do grade recalculation based on weighted weighted GPA and everything every year and and also are practiced in looking at a variety of different types of transcripts. There's like very little standardization across high school transcripts, which is a constant headache. But thinking about homeschool transcripts, charter schools that do things differently, standardsbased grading is getting more and more and more common. It it it does not disadvantage students at the point of admission. And the concern for looking for opportunities to to differentiate oneself especially for those like those highly selective
057universities and institutions, absolutely there are opportunities for that and the the the overall academic performance typically reflected in a traditional GPA factors in quite a lot. But colleges and universities are used to seeing a variety of different ways of students. I think to Mr. Moyers's point, we don't want students to feel like they're disadvantaged by any means, even in sentiment, even if it doesn't happen in reality. And so that's definitely a concern that we share. We did actually have one student say they wanted weighted grades at one of the Mr. Ma. Um Oh, you pulled me off my feet there. That's all right. I'll I'll move on to something positive here. that one thing I really did enjoy talking to students and this was especially apparent with Logan High School is that they really did
058love their community attached. They really did feel connected to their faculty and the staff there too. And um I last meeting we talked about how the principal for Logan is retiring and the students seemed almost kind of regretful that he was leaving them. That's just shows you have a very strong culture there. And I just want to give a highlight to that too. And also just again I think gave a big thank you to um Wall-E last meeting but Geneva Co. Geneva Co. I that's a name I can't pronounce. Geneva but I just want to give a big thank you to Geneva Co and just I'll show a great appreciation for them because I could really tell that especially Logan High School had a very strong connection of their school there. And that's something that
059I found exceptional and worthy to bring up about this linkage that you can see it on it, but you don't exactly see the the mood of actually being inside there for them. It was very palpable. Looking at the what makes you proud to be a student here, I saw great extracurricular activities, uh great classes and subjects available, um supportive environment. People mentioned staff uh that they enjoyed. uh you don't always hear that and uh it shows the great opportunities that are available here in Lacrosse better than anywhere else in our region and the great staff that we have available to support them and you also don't hear feel like a family that's something that really really is um a big plus for a lot of other the one thing one of the things I noticed
060that we didn't hear in these linkages that we heard a lot about last year were bathrooms and I don't know what changed but kudos to all involved for addressing the bathroom situation I mean there's still some students who don't like some of the bathrooms and it I believe it was at Central they talked about a particular bathroom although one student said I just don't go there when there's a lot of students in there but um it whatever's happened has changed and I just want to say thank you for that because that was very concerning to a lot and the students that come to these linkages are typically pretty engaged students um and so um for them to take their time to come and talk to us and tell us what their concern was last year
061and for us to not hear it this year um says something really good about what's happening. Anything else on the linkage? I did have a question about the the online bathroom passes comment that was Oh my goodness. We're going down a rabbit. The situation was a central specific thing that they were trying at Central um where you would use your school iPad um you go to class link which is an app we use kind of like to get into other apps. It's like a it's like self-service kind of. Um, so you get into like a pass app from there and you can make a pass online like with your iPad. Um, or basically it just like you put in uh you you log in with like your school email. Uh, then you would put in
062like where you're going like um what you're going from like which teacher like where you're going and like just like bathroom whatever. Um, and then you have to like you have to like like finish up the pass and then your teacher has to approve before you can go. Um, and it's just like I think kind of like the main problems people had it is like one was getting into the school in the morning like if you are late um you have to do go to a kiosk in the office um to sign in um in order to go to your like class in the morning. And that would take people like 20 minutes. Like so they would be spending half of their first hour just waiting in this line. Um some of the students talked
063about just coming a little bit later because that was I think that was me. That was because I said I said I like overslept one day and I was like I'm just going to come at like 9 so I can go to my second hour. Um that feels like uh a an area where a high-tech solution is not. Yeah. Although May I please go to the bathroom? Well, in the the bathroom one was that if students say they have to go, but it says there's too many students signed up to go in the bathroom, then they don't let you go. And like, if you have to go to the bathroom, excuse me, if you have to go to the bathroom, I mean, it just it seemed Yeah, I had a time where I spent more
064time trying to make a pass than I would have spent in the bathroom. So, yeah, I like the old system where Mr. Czech eye strapped on his running shoes and would chase me down the hallway. That was Yeah. Although I would like to say I did I was like late once this past week cuz I had to after receiving my like fourth quarter parking pass I had to repark my car and I was late because of that and I did not see a massive line. So I don't know if they changed something or what but things are improving there. uh talk to any principal, an enduring problem for all of time has been the kids that go out on pass and meet each other in the bathroom or get lost and take a long time
065or maybe they go on a pass twice an hour every hour for all of time. Uh as an example of a small statistic, um there was a student at Centrals ago who was out on out on legitimate passes for seven hours in a week. when they were able to look at the data, they'd identified that as a potential issue. And in the second week, he was only out on passes for four hours in the week. So instead of missing 20% of school, he only missed 10% of school. Uh and so those are examples of where this helps identify frequent flyers, challenges, you can indicate that two kids can't be out on pass at the same time. So you present potential disruptions, fights, conflicts, sales, transactions. Uh, and so the result is a much safer and
066more effective school. It does come at a cost to kids that don't need that sort of support. And so when I talked to the student senate at Central last week, it's like this pass app is not intended for the people in this room. It's intended for your friends. And you know who they are. They're like, "Yeah, I know." And so we want to minimize the disruption to um all of our students while ensuring that the 10% that need the support get it. And so this is the latest iteration and I hope that the bugs get worked out and uh it works better and better. Uh I know the um administration at Central is over the moon about how it has helped them manage the hallways, bathrooms, and challenges uh in the in the building. That
067makes sense. That's good. Yeah. Any linkage comments? Otherwise, I'd look for a motion to approve the the linkage summaries. I'd like to make a motion to approve the linkage summaries as presented. Second. We have a motion by Mr. Ma, seconded by Mr. Alberts to approve the linkage summaries. Any other discussion? Just curious. I don't think I've seen it as a individual action item in the past. I think that came from uh workshop. What are the past discussions? We wanted just to have the more of the opportunity to unpack them. And I think um yeah, I'll leave it at that. That was just a good way to say it. Okay. Any other discussion on the motion? All those in favor of the motion signify by saying I. I. Those opposed? Motion passes. We will now move
068to communications from student representatives. And I'm going to start with Logan High School for change. Um, Miss Nelson and um, uh, Mr. Oliver is excused this evening from uh, Polytech. Um, yeah. So, big thing on school lately has been spring sports because everybody likes spring sports. So, track, they had a successful meet in Minneapolis. I think a lot of people had a good time there. There was also just one in River Falls on Friday also which was good. Um this girls soccer team had their first game of the season which they won which good way to start. Um we just had I feed at Logan on Saturday. I had to leave partway through because there was also a jazz um convention thing in uh Winona the same day. But by the time I had left
069I feed uh 40,000 meals had already been packed to send to Honduras. So and that was only like there was three packing teams and we were halfway through the second one at that time. So it was going pretty pretty good there. Um yeah and then the jazz band had that festival so we performed. Central was there as well. Don't want to steal your thunder, but yeah. Um, performed and had a clinic and then there was like a master class and a concert later that night. So, it was a good time. Um, convocation's going to be this weekend. Going to get to award all the scholarships and orchestra will be playing there. And then everybody's doing senior assassin at school, which is I'm sure going to be a good time. I'm not doing it because I
070think that probably bears some explanation. Yeah. Do you guys do is that a thing that everybody knows about? We're old. Not really at central, but I've heard of it, so I know what it is. It's just you can't do it like at school, but you get a team with three of your friends and then you try and shoot each other with water guns to get each other out and whoever. All right. The ending there. Yeah. Water guns. I believe I feed Did they I think they were going to feed 80,000. Wasn't that their goal? I believe 80,000 was which is quite remarkable, isn't it? I know that a lot of people work very hard on it. Was impressive to really see that. Yep. And the baseball team's also really good this year. Yes, I've been
071seeing stuff. Spring sports, you freeze, you you're hot, you freeze. It's always fun. Yeah, a bunch of things have already been cancelled and rescheduled. That's how it goes. But yeah, thank you. Yeah, for for us, uh I would say sports-wise, we're kind of like dead right now. There hasn't been a ton of stuff in the like the announcements. Um, and like we're kind of all just kind of working hard like getting ready for like conference and like state and stuff in May. Um, although I do know track has a meet next Tuesday, so that's pretty cool. Uh, music-wise, um, lacrosse confluence, which is both Central and Logan, is performing at Logan this Thursday during Logan home room. Uh, and then we also have State Solen Ensemble coming up at the end of the month. Um,
072and then finally, we have student senate doing some events this month. Uh, so they're doing a poetry contest which like like any student can like submit uh online until April 30th I think is the deadline and then like Senate would vote on the poems they like the most. Um, and then they're also hosting an egg hunt on the 16th. So that's all I got. Thank you. Thank you so much, Miss Burkad Doll. Lacrosse Public Education Foundation update. Today is the deadline for spring grants and I believe about 27 were submitted by different teachers across the district and that's about it. Great. Do you know is that more or less than last year? I think it's about I asked her if that was more and she said not really. It's usually at 30 to 35 depending
073on the year. So it's right in the ballpark. Uh for my announcements, um there is a coherent governance um professional development opportunity in DeForest on April 30th. I plan to attend, so if anyone wants to um carpool or anything, let me know. Um uh there's a linkage with the LEA on April 16th at 4:10 um on French Island at the crew offices. U make sure you let uh Laura know if you can attend that. We always like to make sure we have good representation. Um on April 17th from uh 6:00 to 8 uh in Hogan room 209 is the new board member orientation. Um and we will have one brand new and one kind of new board member and then one um very experienced board member. So we'll have that um and all of us
074are uh welcome to that. So um please consider coming to that to welcome the new board members. Um the WASBY new school board member gathering is April 22nd from 7 to 9 at CISA 4 in West Salem. And our uh make sure you put on your calendars our board reorganization meetings April 28th at 6 PM. That's the third meeting in April. So April like October has three meetings. So make sure you have that on your calendar. Um I'd also like to add a couple quick things. Um art selections. A lot of the art um uh pieces are up at the different places where they have the art shows. So, make sure you go, make sure you select your items and uh communicate that. Um the sooner we can uh let those students and their families
075know, the more likely they are to attend um our evening when we recognize them. And that's a wonderful evening. So, we love to see those students and those families here. Uh, I'd like to uh congratulate um you on getting reelected. So, um thank you for staying on our board. Um but with people coming, there's people going and we uh this is Miss Burkad Doll's last meeting and so uh we have some parting gifts. Um but I just really want to thank you for your three years of service. Um I'm sure other board members will chime in as well. Um, when I came back to the board table, even though I'd been on the board before, the getting back on the computer was different and finding where things are and what they're called are different. And
076I sat next to you and I appreciated your kindness to kind of show me how to find things and and um be being patient with me. Um, but I also really have appreciated your connection with the community and how you've brought that to the table. Um, you're so well connected to the community. You ask really good questions at this table. um you you bring the voice of so many people in the community who aren't at this table here um for us to consider as we work through really difficult issues. Um your passion um around some difficult issues particularly around the um elementary discussions I've always appreciated that and your focus on what's best for the kids and the families um and the and the staff all together as a team um really showed through. So
077we will miss your voice at the table. Um, I've left the board and came back. So, that's always an option. Just throwing that out there. Why be a quitter when you can always come back? So, um, we'll let you hand those over there. But, um, if other board members have anything they'd like to add to recognizing Miss Burkad, [Applause] thanks everybody. Anybody else want to add anything? Oh, sorry. Jim got his hand in the air. I have a couple questions in regard to um this is a season 4 meeting. They've gone self-funded as far as their health is concerned. Health insurance. Has the district ever considered going self-funded in terms of its health insurance? Uh we definitely consider it every single year. When the finances look good, we'll definitely jump at the opportunity. Right now,
078they don't look good. I just I just want to thank Katie as well. Um while we always don't agree as a board on everything, uh I think you've really done a wonderful job of of treating everyone with respect and we may have different of opinions from time to time. Not always, which is always good. Um but I really do appreciate the efforts you've given and the kindness you've always shown. Uh me personally and everyone else that's been around you. and you will be sadly and missed here because I really think that you're obviously an eventempered person that uh treats even difficult situations with a lot of class. So, thank you very much. Thanks. You're welcome. Even from a north, I see. You know, it's interesting coming on to the school board and I think every
079one of us was either endorsed by the Republicans or the Democrats and it's kind of a weird way to come into a board that is not political at all. But to come in with like preconceived notions of what people stand for and to notice things at the beginning, how people tend to vote with their side and how we all kind of know, I mean, I've noticed that notion dissipate as we dive into the work. And we're all here for the same reason. Every single one of us cares deeply about the district and about education and staff and teachers. And as a board member, I've felt incredibly well supported by administration and appreciate the responsiveness to get answers to questions and to change things up if we need that. And um I appreciate you all for
080showing up and being here. This is not an easy job. And I was just thinking like, man, we just got through the right sizing of the district. it might be kind of easy moving forward. But now we have to figure out what the whole Department of Education stuff is going to do to our budget and what that will mean for everybody sitting at this table and what sort of things you're going to have to wrestle with moving forward and everything else that you know seems to bubble up from time to time. But I tell everyone, I think people have these ideas that this is a heated job and we're constantly getting negative emails and I've been really impressed by our community and the way they show up to advocate for what they want and I've
081been really impressed with you all and it's been great to work together and I tell everybody like this is a great board. Everybody is here for the right reasons and I've enjoyed working with all of you. So, thank you. Dr. Spre, you see? Oh, no. I just want to reiterate what a joy it has been to work with you. Um, and how much I've learned listening to you, to your thoughtful questions, to your responsiveness to the community. Um, and you're right, like we've got enough problems to solve without fighting each other. You get on the board and you're like, "Oh, we don't have time to argue about that. We actually have to solve problems." So, um, and I just admire so much the way you go about that, the way you go about building those
082bridges and making your opinion known. I think it's beautiful. Thanks. Beautiful. And we your voice is going to be missed. Thanks. Thank you. And don't be a stranger. I'll be back on I think it's early May when we do the art stuff. I picked up my art today actually. Great. Thank you. We're starting close session. Can't leave freely just yet. start. Yeah. My daughter's like, "What? You have to go to that?" I'm like, "Yeah." What are they going to do? Fire. All right. I'll turn it over to Dr. Engel. Uh, National Library Week in honor of our HPL uh librarians is April 6th through 12th. So, we're uh excited to celebrate that. Uh, spring break is April 18th through 21st. And uh coming up is National Environmental Education Week. and we've got lots of schools
083that celebrate that as an opportunity to protect the beautiful uh lacrosse area that we have. Um the only other things I would offer up as announcements are our district um uh visioning steering committee has put together some draft uh questions for a survey. Um it ranges from kind of very um multiple choice to open-ended, from kind of concrete to conceptual, and that's an intentional arrangement of questions. And so I encourage you to take a look at that tonight or tomorrow if you get a chance. Our goal is to have those approved and sent off to the printer, so to speak, um tomorrow, uh so that we can get um postcards out to every household so that people can fill out that survey so we can get good information. And uh Laura is helping us schedule
084um focus groups with uh community groups. We've got I think 30ome different groups that we're trying to find time to meet with over the next two months. Uh and excited to to get as much information only 30 in two months. Yep. We'll we're goal my goal is two 20 groups and 200 people uh with focus groups. I think we'll be able to achieve that if not better. Uh so that's exciting too. Uh so um more information to come there. check out your email, check out the survey if you get a chance. Uh the committee has been great. Miss Sucla has been our board rep on that and I've really appreciated her um context and guidance. Um board debriefing. Mr. Beeski, you're up tonight. Sorry, I didn't see my name on the list. Do you want
085Why don't you take next time because I'm on the agenda for next time and I'll be in Miami. You can take next time. I'll do it now. Sweet. Thank you. Everyone did a great job. The end. Well, I don't know if anybody has anything to top that. That was the best one yet. Well done. My mic is super hot tonight. So, uh, the board of the Lacrosse Board of Education will consider a motion to move into close session on Monday, April 7th, 2025 following the board of education meeting uh, in room 209 pursuant to Wisconsin statute pren 19.85 85 PN 1 PN 7 for the purpose of considering financial, medical, social or personal histories or disciplinary data of specific persons, preliminary consideration of specific personnel problems or the investigation of charges against specific persons where
086paragraph B applies which if discussed in public would have would likely to have substantial adverse effect upon the reputation of any person referred to in such histories or data involved in such problems or investigations. ations to it. Consider administration's recommendation to issue the conditional enrollment order. Is there a motion to adjourn to close session? Motion made by second. Mr. Beeski, seconded by um Miss Burkad. A roll call vote will be taken. Mr. Alberts. I. Mr. Bneski. I. Miss Burkall. Hi. Dr. Garcia. Hi. Mr. Ma. Hi. Mr. Newmeister. I. Dr. Spray. I. Miss Suclla. I that's a heck of a paragraph. I know. This meeting is then adjourned. Meet up in 209. [Music]