001foreign okay all set thank you okay all right um welcome everyone to the regular board of education meeting uh november 23 2020 we'll begin with the recitation of our vision statement where every school will be a thriving school that prepares every student to graduate from high school college career and community ready first want to begin with a recognition of our west high school student and selected for the college board's african-american recognition program and it is a resolution uh whereas baba yosemi senior at west high school has been selected for the college board's african-american recognition program whereas this recognition is earned for remarkable academic achievement and outstanding performance at on the psat and msqt whereas baba yosimi uh what has worked tirelessly toward his post-secondary future success and is even closer to having colleges view his
002full potential and power of curiosity and commitment to learning whereas the college board helps connect national african american recognition program winners to colleges around the country by sharing the talents interests and achievements of those who are recognized improving the chances of being invited to apply for opportunities including academic scholarship programs now therefore it be it resolved that the madison metropolitan school district board of education recognized recognizes fariran's remarkable academic achievements and highly appreciates baba usimi for serving as a role model for younger students to follow be it further resolve that this statement is permanently imprinted in the board of education minutes for the meeting of november 23 2020 congratulations i'm not sure where that's coming from that's mine i'm sorry for some reason my phone decides to go off as soon as my the board
003meeting starts um so um next is um a moment of silence um i'm sorry to announce the death of christine jankowski who worked as a special educational assistant at senate middle school we'd like to ask for a moment of silence this evening for our district to recognize the passing of senate middle school special education assistant chris jankowski chris worked in the madison metropolitan school district for over 25 years with most of her years at senate she had a heart of gold and a sincere love for the children she worked with she loved the challenge of seeking out the special ways to teach each child chris's passing has taken an incredible toll on her former students her dear colleagues and hundreds of families across mmsd we remember her tonight please join me in participating in a
004moment of silence and honor of chris thank you next um item is our public input sessions um we do have some written registrations and two of them were mung which is great um they were written in hmong we are working to get those translated and those will be available to us after the translation is complete um was one more yep the next comment was a lack of internet access which we all know has been a challenge throughout the district particularly for our most vulnerable uh students so thank you very much for for that written registration and it was submitted by a teacher i believe um cassandra meyer okay um [Music] we have two public appearances is that correct barb all right okay we'll go ahead and start with the first for speaker is two more
005model where are we um not sure what happened there you are thank you turn off turn on your mic and you're set to go oh hi welcome thank you for for joining us tonight um you can go ahead and get started when you're ready thank you for uh for for having me i just wanted to uh uh speak on the uh uh legum hong program at uh um i am the parent of a second grader and uh first i just would like to speak on how valuable the program is um my son went from uh you know not being able to read or write home to now he he can read and write um and uh i wasn't sure how to talk about this tonight and actually uh yesterday um i had to run some
006errands i came home and my mother uh who's never really been involved in my education or um any of my siblings just not not not due to a lack of interest but you know just the lack of ability to do it because everything was in english and uh she and my son were they they had written some stuff on whiteboard and they were talking about uh um they had posed a question to each other about what their aspirations were and uh you know that was kind of one of those things where i was like wow that was so valuable that you know that one of those things that you know wouldn't have been possible without this program and kind of just his ability to um you know write and speak hmong and you know and
007that's that kind of made you know what what i i have to you know i want to talk with you all about you know the the importance of it um we've since the since the program has started you know uh we've been appreciative but there's always seems to be a lack of energy lack of want to sustain the program or or take it to where it should be and this year with the pandemic and the extra friction it's just kind of exposed more of those issues to the point where you know it seems like our children are now regressing a little bit in terms of their their own literacy and their ability to kind of speak hmong um and we've we've tried to address this um through multiple channels um some of the feedback that
008we've gotten has been that you know it's just isolated folks with with who are concerned but you know the the great thing about this program and about the home community is we're a small community and we speak to each other and it's not that one of us is just trying to you know just we're not just trying to be a squeaky wheel we're trying to partner with with the school district we're trying to partner with teachers with with the administration to to have the best program available and some of the responses have just been lackluster it's been hey this this person is responsible for this this person is responsible for that but there's it doesn't seem to be kind of any cohesion or or energy that that's kind of trying to move things forward and
009you know and one of the things that really was is concerning is that there's a lack of curriculum and it's it that that was one of those issues that we addressed and i i believe we submitted a letter last uh to the last uh board meeting uh and we haven't received any responses to that either we're looking to be partners and most the parents who have kids there they're extremely dedicated to getting their kids there there's no there's no transportation for a lot of these kids and their parents are taking the extra time to get them to school make sure they're ready we we as a group parents and and again this is even giving my mother an opportunity to volunteer and go and help out in the class whether it's you know reading them
010long or any of that and you know so we're not we want to be a partner we want to help but we want just some feedback some energy some communication that that progress is being made and this is being taken seriously and and again i the program is so valuable but it can be better and i want to you know i want to be able to tell more of those stories about you know how my how my kids can be inspired by speaking to their grandparents because they don't have that barrier anymore and there's a reason that there's there continues to be the same people coming forward is because we all there's such a very uh a varied group of people who have who don't necessarily have access to make appearances or to to say
011things whether that's a language barrier it's a time constraint and so you know just because the same person speaking all the time it's not that you know it's not just one person it's collectively as group we've been concerned for a very long time and you know i think that that it says a lot when the attrition and this group in the uh for this program is quite high now we've lost a lot of students because i think they're due to concern about you know the longevity of the program and whether it's going to be a serious program and you know that was there's already a huge mistrust when this program started i know that when i was signing up my my son for this program just speaking to other community members you know it was
012hey this is a great idea however we want to wait and see you know they don't want to risk their kids potential and and and that's that's why i'm here really i'm pleading with you all to help us to get things moving we need somebody at the district who can start developing that curriculum we we need we need more folks who are invested and want this program to succeed and we as parents we want to partner we're not just asking that everything be handed to us we want to partner we want to help find these solutions and thank you very much for hearing me out and i really look forward to uh you know whatever you all can do to help us and i i want to work with you to to do it i
013think that this is already one of those programs that can shine for the district thank you thank you uh chu for that um you know it's this space is really hard because we can't respond um and have a conversation but you you bring up some really important um important questions and so i'm just going to um we'll have dr jenkins and his staff reach out to you and uh follow up um with you and in hopes that we can continue to work we can work together thank you thank you thank you the second speaker is deborah cades deborah whenever you're ready you can start um we're just waiting for your video and audio to come up good evening my name is deborah kadis and i've been a special education teacher in mmsd for 16 years
014as well as the parent of two mmsd graduates i we can hear you we can hear you can you hear me yes okay congratulations on passing a referendum that that will result in improved facilities you may want to turn off if you have youtube on um just if you could turn that off then that would help yeah okay thank you i didn't know about that congratulations on passing in a referendum that will result in improved facilities i'm just wondering why do you value buildings so greatly but not the teachers who staff those buildings mmsd pays its teachers shamefully low salaries according to the most recent figures from the department of public instruction the average teacher in madison earned 61 per year with 13 years of experience let's just compare that to say beloit wisconsin the
015average teacher there makes 58 000 and also has 13 years of experience pretty similar right now let's look at housing the average home in madison is 300 000 compare that to the average value of a home in deloitte that's a mere 119 000 madison is a much more affluent community than beloit so why are you a madison school board so stingy with your teachers i just picked beloit but the pattern fits across the state let's look at green bay where teachers are also paid 58 000 a year just two thousand dollars less than teachers here in madison and they also have a similar length of experience but the average home in green bay only costs 162 000 madison teachers are paid far worse than any other group of teachers in the state if you figure
016in the cost of living given the very high cost of living in madison and the community's alleged value of education how could you even consider failing to provide us with the 1.81 that's less than 2 cost of cost of living adjustment allowed by the state have you forgotten the years when we received colas as small as 0.012 i live in madison and my property taxes have never gone up that little it's time to recognize that those beautiful new buildings are going to be worthless without high quality teachers in the last five years i've watched great teachers flee to work in the suburbs where the pay is higher and the work is less demanding only you can stop this damaging trend it's time to assure madison families that they will have high quality teachers it's time
017to give us a very modest 1.81 cost of living adjustment thank you thank you debra uh do we have any other public speakers that's it for public appearances thank you okay thank you okay next approval of minutes i move that the board of education approved the minutes uh from the regular meeting dated september 21st second ali muldrow ali ii any discussion okay all those in favor aye with your hands up so i can see him okay any opposed okay motion passes next is the board president's announcements and reports november is native american heritage month the board officially recognizes november as native american heritage month our district's title um six indian education uh program continues uh to implement the native american program which promotes native american awareness on issues on various issues including wisconsin native american
018history lesson plans teacher resources suggested reading materials and the lasting and present effects on today's generation the board appreciates all staff overseeing the native american program which continues to advocate and provide essential resources for historically marginalized native american communities and families among new year celebration the annual among new year celebration celebrated by many students and families in our district is being observed by various virtual methods this year this celebration honors family and ancestors and is a chance to give thanks for this current year's harvest this year it will take place in late november early december lasting three days although the celebration will not be enjoyed in person we honor all of our american among ameri among students and families not only during the celebratory time but year-round as well referendum approval appreciation the board highly
019appreciate appreciates all madison voters who supported both referendum questions on the ballot earlier this month with over a year of community engagement guidance communication critical feedback and support the referendum questions passed and will only help strengthen our school and district communities and vastly improve the quality of education for our students we are so proud to be a part of a community that believes in the value of providing an innovative equity educational experience for our students in well-maintained facilities thank you next i'll pass it over to dr jenkins um with his announcements and reports thank you so much chair reyes this afternoon i have the wonderful opportunities just to talk a little bit in terms of our staff and about our students and just how proud we are of our staff and our students during this
020very much unprecedented time an opportunity to reach out to some of the schools and get their feedback in terms of where we are with this challenge of covert 19 and the learning that's taking place in our schools and some of the disengagement has taken place in our schools and uh it's just very challenging but we're seeing our staff really show signs of strong resilience at henderson elementary school we had some of our kindergarten students as of november who had not necessarily shown up for school as they should show up for school the team came together with a broader focus in mind including with their principal to look at the students and this they had five students that weren't showing up and they said hey let's come together and they put together a plan to address
021the students individually because the students five students had five different issues for one it was stopping by twice a week just to drop off pencils and paper uh so that the students could actually do their work and to encourage mom to help her young son get online and that really work for that particular students our teachers are going above and beyond as we continue to hear and families are having challenges in addition it was also partnering with the fourth grade team the older brother to help support his younger sibling and for another it was a matter of being uh a parent have parent and her kid being stranded in chicago area schools since school had basically began and we assisted that parenting getting a taxi cab and getting the bus ticket and getting back to
022school i'm mentioning all this because it's not as simple when we think about our schools and what we're doing and we're thinking about it in the traditional sense there's real challenges individuals are facing we actually had a student at new esto mundo that had just come to our school system two weeks into school this was the first experience this student had with american schools and it was online the parents both had to go to work and this child was left at home with other siblings to do their work and this kid took it upon himself to make sure that he got the phone number of the principals and other staff uh so that they can so that he could actually reach out if he was having any problem with online learning and when we look
023at our high schools at one of the high schools the bsu students signed a contract and agrees to uphold their commitment to academic success by striving to maintain a minimum of 2.25 gpa and attend school 94 of the time in the virtual classes well for some they may say that's not as high but we look at we're keeping our students uh engaged in the more we can keep them engaged the better opportunity we're going to have for their success yes and we're just so proud of all the things that our students are doing those students who are attending some of our students have a hundred percent attendance and then there are some of our students only missed one since the beginning but the fact that they're speaking up when they come and they do engage
024this is helping all of us we know that this is pretty serious as we continue to make our observations what we've observed during this particular time the support is there from our parents and our parents too are struggling those who are at home as deputized virtual teachers our parents in our community came together during the same time and showed tremendous support for our referendum passing about 80 for our facilities and 75 support for operating referendum we're very proud of the fact that the college board has named 25 of our students national merit semi-finalists and we had a wonderful event virtual event for them the other evening the foundation for madison public schools provided valuable support for over 2 500 students by raising more than 190 thousand dollars for school supplies this year we're seeing the
025support coming in from everyone uh we appreciate the parents but our community our non-profits they're really stepping up david olson social studies teacher at madison memorial high school has been selected by the national humanities centers to serve on their teachers advisory council for the 2021 school year this is a big accomplishment our efforts to support learning for students during these trying pandemic times in an environment that can ensure that our students are receiving high quality education but we're taking care of their social emotional and mental health needs and also being concerned about our teachers social emotion and mental health needs has been challenging i must say to you we're having many conversations about what we can continue to do to support our students in that way and our staff so as a staff we are
026continuing our food service and continue to distribute meals over 50 000 meals each week at over 40 sites that's incredible we'll put technology devices in the hands of all of our students and have continually searched for new ways to enhance access to high quality internet right now we realize that we have a serious challenge in our community with the wi-fi working consistently but we have many of our staff work with us trying to find a solution mscr cares has been providing vital child care services for our families who would otherwise face the stark choice between losing income and caring for their children and we really do appreciate our mscr staff because what we did notice when we had to close some of our sites our students disengaged from schools we need those partners in mscr
027and our other community partners and helping our families over 700 families depend on this type of a service despite these successes as well as our hard work and advocacy for children our data suggests msd still faces many challenges and we know this as we're trying to make sure this virtual experience address some of the deep social issues that we know that our students have emotional issues and their mental health issues there is a gap between excellence and non-excellence and we realize that which is highlighted by the disparity disparities experienced by our black latinx hmong special education ell economically disadvantaged students and those students who don't have a parent at the household are having a different experience and those who do have someone at the household and i say to the parent who just presented tonight
028we heard you and our curriculum department will to be getting back with you um as we need to work with that curriculum and we know that we've been doing some curriculum work but we just need to connect the truth of the fact this historical challenge faced by some students and families have made more apparent by the impact of the two pandemics covert 19 as well as the ongoing racial injustice and social unrest this is serious in our community absenteeism and disengagement is real for students from families impacted medically or economically by covert 19 different situations for different people we have to become more intentional and innovative to engage our students or be more intentional about the learning levels in which we're trying to give to our students understanding their totally total family situation and it's
029different for everyone but i have to say our staff they're working hard i'm hearing it from people in the community talking about the great work that's happening for many of the students and we want to continue to have that going on despite our challenges mmsd has talent and expertise needed to eliminate disparities and turn the educational debt that dr glory lasse billing talks about into high yielding investments in our community's future we have to stay together the resilience of our students staff and families has been remarkable and i commend everyone for the work that they're doing our community has immense resources and expertise which we have to draw upon more and more each day to try to eliminate again this educational debt that dr laura glaston gloria lesson billing talks about our duty of care
030requires us to place particular focus on students whose home environments cannot provide the resources to substitute for the educational resources and opportunities of classrooms virtual learning can become more effective when we help parents guardians and older siblings function as supplemental teachers are teaching assistants and this time we have to come together make sure all hands are on deck well this is what we're looking to do in terms of our plan as we talk internally and we're going to come back we're going to maximize our communities investments and our schools by disrupting historical predictable achievement through ensuring a high level of early literacy and beyond through an anti-racist lens in our district this has been our stance now to be an anti-racist district we know that we have some challenges we know that we have to
031come together to address our model school day could be refined to include more academic hours during the week and supplementary activities we're going to be looking at what we do with the early literacy in the science of reading and we're also going to be exploring what we're going to do for the continuation of learning during the summer our plan the early literacy we're going to pull together and have a joint task force that we're looking to do with um in partnership with uw we're going to bring in dr gloria lass and billings to work with us and everyone knows that dr glory lassen village is going to come in with an honest lens and one that's focused on children first we're going to look in our district to have an equity audit aligning our financial
032and human resources to more effectively engage all students especially those from historically marginalized groups our black students latinx our hmong students special ed students our ell students and our low socioeconomic students the equity audit would be necessary for us to take our strategic framework our core values and continue on the path of building momentum and returning the investment that the community has made in us our community is critical we want to put the philosophy forward that we want to have our schools and our community and our communities in schools and this is going to take us coming together with our plan and having a lot of intentional conversations with many individuals it's time for us to do it as mmsd so uh next we actually look at how we're gonna take our organizational structure and
033do an audit of our curriculum department department as well as well as our other departments and go line item by line item trying to make sure that our resources are there to support our students support our staff and to give our community a return on their investments so with that i'm going to close up my comments and say that i will be coming back with you as we get ready to lay out plan fully out with our metrics um on not only just our learning but how we're going to be planning to reopen our schools as well as we as well as we can managing this current health crisis thank you dr jenkins i mean i just uh you know you came uh at a i always keep saying that right you came to our
034city at a most uh critical time when we need a leader uh who brings um innovation who works really hard uh who centers our students and uh the decision that he makes um and so you are uh perfect um and so thank you for your continued leadership and working so hard during these um difficult times for um all of for everyone um so uh thank you dr jenkins um uh nikki just wanted to thank you dr jenkins again for um coming to the mad town mama's meeting and listening to some of the stories on special education especially um matty reese's story um and i thank savio and chris for also attending that meeting there were some very powerful stories at that among our mmsd parents and i felt that was really important so i thank
035you all for my attending let me say thank you not only just to both of you but to the entire board and i really do appreciate the trust that you are putting in me and trying to lead our district as we work together and i want to say thank you to this entire community i am humbled by the love of support and just the passion for education in madison knew it was here when i was here in 93 but coming back and seeing it in the midst of the pandemic i want to just say thank you to for that and i look forward to the work that we're really going to do now it's time to dig in right now to help our children and help our staff in our community thank you thank you
036dr jenkins um next we will move on to uh report on items that proceeded through instruction work group ananda thank you president gloria race good evening um fellow board members this month um it was uh we had a full range of very exciting things uh we have discussed the early literacy strategy that will begin implementation for the 21 school year uh we talked about our uh really amazing partnership with dr lorelei and billings which seems like someone that we are evoking at pretty much every meeting now which is extremely refreshing uh to hear also uh strengthening our partnership with uh what diane diane has from uw madison as well we have been in unanimous and full support of educator effectiveness waiver and allowing for greater levels of flexibilities and as well as providing continued support
037and coaching to our educators uh through the um through this pandemic through the global pandemic and virtual learning the not so bright spot for for our discussion during the instructional work group has been the recommendation uh from the federal level in regards to uh sexual harassment title ix policy um i would like to uh pass on to dr jenkins to say a few words and i think he's also going to bring a staff to uh reground and what we were discussing earlier this month and then i have a few uh remarks to share dr jenkins yes thank you so much uh as the board is going to later on this evening i have the opportunity to weigh in and actually vote on the new executive order around uh title ix i just wanted to make
038sure before our legal counsel speak here that i say to all of our students to all of our staff and to our entire community mmsd we're not wavering at all on our support our full support for all of our students we've taken it upon us to say all students and we mean all students this new executive order in a way looks at it limits some of the safety precautions as i see it as superintendent for our students and i'm going to make sure that we continue to look at the guidance that we have been given in our district and continue to support our students really do matter and i'm going to even say specifically our transgender binary students they find it even tougher the amount of abuse that happens in our community not just in
039madison throughout the country throughout the world to some individuals we have to be very careful to make sure that we're not doing anything to put them in harm's way i support what we've done in terms of the work and i will continue to support that work and we as a district stand strongly about about and for all students transgender students students who have any other of their lifestyles we want you to know you are a part of mmsd you are in our family and we stand for you every day now at this time i would like to pass it over to our legal counsel to speak specifically to what the board is going to be voting on i think that makes it me hi everybody um so again i'm eric custon and this is the
040same that came before the instructional work group and so i'll start by saying that i agree with what anato said i agree with everything dr jenkins said that as well i've been dealing with all summer and has we all discussed the instruction work group there are a lot of things around this policy that are challenging and not positive that being said as we did talk about it is federal law we do not have a choice and whether we have it so what the approach that we are taking is this is a new policy that is limited just to match the narrow scope that's covered under federal law and so what that means is we're going to be compliant with federal law with the students where we have to be compliant with federal law the non-discrimination
041policies that have existed for several years this is my seventh year here and the policies existed when i got here are still here so everyone that has always been protected and supported in the district as dr jenkins said is still being protected and supported in the district it is only limited to what we have to follow and which again undertale atlanta's sexual harassment and under the current administration has a very limited binary definition of sex so for example our transgender non-binary students um and all all these all of those students don't even go under this policy they'll follow under the other non-discrimination policy which as we talked about last time is a process that exists to help and support students when something happens in a way that hopefully when something happens as i uh people
042have heard me say no one ever calls me when they're having a good day so it's still not positive when someone has to reach out to me but at least under the policies that exist within our district we can make it as as supportive as we possibly can and so that's the approach we took with this policy and it's very limited to follow just what's under title ix on the federal law that we have to follow and that's that's the approach and that's how we're approaching it and this is like again the exact same policy we talked about there has been have been no changes to it so thank you thank you eric for giving that explanation and i just wanted to reinforce to our students and to our parents and our community all students
043do have our support and know that and all staff thank you so much so much dr jenkins nikki oh if you don't mind i have a prepared a few remarks for tonight and then i'll open up for everyone i came to the us 20 years ago looking for a place of belonging longing for a safe place that i have a never knew growing up a place safe from sexual violence racism homophobia xenophobia sexism ableism and other forms of violence not only for me but for everyone every child people differently able women young and old queer trans and gender non-conforming folks through many sobering moments for the past 20 years i have learned that safety in this country is a privilege a value that some freely experience and many don't in fact in this country the
044pervasive ways in which we have othered certain individuals and groups have robbed them us our ability to fully express our humanity robbed opportunities and human safety is politicized a point of question a matter of advocacy and a choice not given to everyone i stand here along with progressive colleagues with a lot of passion for justice and equity and we are faced with a continuing destruction of human dignity and fear of their ability to belong and to express the human values described in the very constitution of this country centering our policies and practices in our students historically marginalized students identify as black indigenous and our students of color students with ieps lgbtq plus students are paramount in our pursuit of justice equity and collaboration continuing to create spaces of belonging for our students all our students
045ensuring that no matter their identity or life circumstances they receive the full protection guaranteed by law we adamantly refuse to comply with any recommendation that contradicts the human rights of our students and uh and or compromise their dignity or safety although we have although we have no reasonable choice to vote against this federal recommendation tonight our vote would not reflect values and our commitment to ensure safety for our students our guidance is clear and continue to stand our commitment to our students safety confidentiality and their ability to feel supported the recommendations to use software language to protect our students and question our commitment to their safety come during a time where we recognize trans awareness week and trans day of remembers this past friday we affirmed today that many of our students in particular our
046lgbtq students have experienced a great deal of uncertainty this past year it is our it is on us policymakers and elected officials to guarantee and make even more explicit that our guidance and protections are still in effect so let's do it we are here tonight to acknowledge and recognize that many students in our districts continue to fight for their rights and their ability to experience a supportive learning space for all our students and we're here to let you all know that we see you and will continue to work with dr jenkins to ensure your fight and your advocacy are ours too thank you so much my fellow board members for continue to push us to act in a ways which we have expressed to actualize the things that we want to be with that i
047see nikki and gloria one i want to thank dr jenkins and ananda both for their wonderful words and more than words actual actions on such an important topic the law i've often said is the last bastion of discrimination it's a something that i've been involved in all my life but it has its flaws one of them is that it assumes one lens and one size fits all that's not the situation very simply i can't change or ignore federal law i am voting in directness and i will do that but what i can do is request that our welcoming schools be put on the priority action list for our funding priorities because i don't think that we need to argue on funding on such an important program it shouldn't be compared to others in a situation
048like this where a crisis if you put your money where your mouth is to quote martin luther king jr to follow an unjust law is unjust i cannot stop requi having to follow the law but i can mitigate it the best i can therefore i formally request that the welcoming schools be added to the early early early budget discussion items for early passage because it is what our students deserve um nikki i just want to chime in that i believe our welcoming schools work is for the most part self-sustaining so we spent an initial 50 000 to turn our teachers into trainers and now all of that work is done in-house there's a lot of ways for us to invest in survivors and there's a lot of ways for us to invest in lgbtq youth
049and i appreciate the enthusiasm for the work of welcoming schools and particularly the work of sheree haas as we navigate title ix but i think it's important to say that that work was done very thoughtfully and with sustainability at the forefront of it thank you i did not know that i appreciate that but anything we could do to support it and speak out for it to mitigate some changes that i can't change and the politics that can actually cause harm and that's the last thing any child deserves is to be a political issue these are rights these are human rights and human dignity thank you nikki gloria yeah um thank you nikki for bringing that up i and ananda and dr jenkins for your comments um ananda dr jenkins and i were we were in
050a meeting earlier um with dr mcquillen and cherie from our school district and really talking about um the challenges right and of our lgbtq um youth and ensuring that they are well protected within our school district and really sending a strong message uh to our lgbtq students um that they are supported and that we are going to do whatever we can to make sure that they are protected um and you know i just was very impressed uh during our instruction work group and how uh we as a board were actually trying to figure out how not to vote for this policy and asking our legal counsel well if we vote no you know what's our choices and so we were informed and guided by our legal counsel that we have to um you know vote
051on this tonight but um you know i know that um they are we are those students are very vulnerable at this very moment in time and you know with the will lawsuit and many different ways in which to attack and make it make them more unsafe in our community you know we have to continue to stay vigilant uh on um you know really understanding the complexity of this and how we uh support our youth and so um you know we talked about you know many of our lgbtq uh youth um who are homeless who leave homes um for you know reasons that of of not acceptance or you know disagreement with parents and we have to provide a place and a space for them um where they can feel that they feel safe right and
052to [Music] talk to our their student their teachers uh counselors and and school community and uh we have to continue to um to offer that space and this board is committed dr jenkins is committed uh to ensuring that um uh sherry was going to send us um shari was going to send us an email to the board on things that we can do um in the next um you know a few months of how to engage our our youth and our community to make sure that they feel supported and making and doing some action action steps moving forward so thank you ananda for providing given us the space to talk thank you gloria if there's no other remarks we concluded um our our updates oh uh no we didn't um and for our next um
053instruction work group we'll be reviewing the uh secondary programs and uh we will have a an update on pathways thank you so much president gloria great thank you uh next uh report on items that proceeded through the operations work group held november 9 2020. chris christie thanks gloria so um we took up two agenda items at our november 9th meeting we had a conversation about enrollment as well as an update on enrollment numbers and statistics and this presentation will inform our budget discussions which will begin in january we also got a brief update on the surplus and layoff language in the employee handbook work continues on that and we will also be taking that up in january um there are no action items coming out of the operations work group meeting this month and also
054there is no meeting of our work group in december our next meeting will be on january 19 2021 and agenda items are forthcoming great thank you chris next is the action items that proceeded through the instructional work group held on november 2nd 2020 that's the sexual harassment policy i move that the board of education adopt a new sexual harassment policy in accordance with the updated regulations for title um title 74 as directed by the united states department of education and sf4 and the documents prepared for the regular boe meeting dated november 23rd 2020. uh can i get a second second second who was that second nikki nikki second uh julia your advisory or any discussion i'm sorry nikki did you have something no okay uh julia your advisory vote oh i'm sorry no yeah um
055i just want to chime in here that um the board is really caught between a rock and a hard place having to pass this policy um in order to be in compliance with several laws we said we have to do it um i really really appreciate all the comments on our commitment to our lgbtq students i think we also have to keep in mind in passing this policy that um seven out of ten girls experience sexual harassment before they leave high school um one in five women will report sexual assault um there are many more sexual assaults that go unreported this change to title ix gives the accused more rights it narrows the definition of sexual harassment and we as a district have to be vigilant both in teaching our students about consent making sure
056that is in our human growth and development curriculum from day one for our students to try to stop this before we actually have to address it with federal law that is deeply flawed at this point and we also need to make sure that whatever the federal law says we are a district that is fully committed to gender equity and to ensuring that we don't go backward in terms of sexual assault and the reality that this is in the lives of so many girls and women so i vote with all that in mind wait anybody else yeah i'm sorry um let's go with uh savion and then ali yeah thank you chris i just wanted to add that you know from the federal level uh this policy i think is in a lot of ways backwards
057and uh uh just antithetical to to justice and gender equity um and just wanted to thank sherry cherry and eric for doing the most they can to maintain our commitment to anti-discrimination and gender equity in our district so i vote with that in mind ali yeah i want to echo the statements of so much of our board but for the sake of time i will say that at this point it is an intentional disregard for survivors and an intentional lack of ability to affirm the identities of all children that make this uh incredibly difficult and although this is federal law um i greatly appreciate the board and the staff um for for doing all that we can and continuing to work to make sure that our district is a place where children are affirmed no
058matter what their identity and where survivors um are are respected and and you know served to to the utmost with the utmost integrity and with the full respect for their dignity nikki now i was yeah sorry i was just gonna thank everyone for their fight on this issue as i've said before i don't have to agree with the law and i will do everything i will vote for it due to duress but my commitment has been will be and always has and always will be to our students to our staff and to all who see themselves as trans non-binary and gender equity for all individuals male female non-binary because we're all welcome here and thank you thank you um i think uh julia and then christina thanks i just wanted to say a quick thank
059you to students madison schools madison students provide i think uniquely supportive environment community for many lgbt plus students but any student who's struggled knows there's still a lot of work to do so thank you to a gay straight alliance clubs which exist and do a lot of work and each of the major high schools um every all four of them and thank you to students who work to promote student mental health and particularly mental health for lgbt plus students and students who are just good friends so this vote doesn't reflect your hard work but we know it's there and thank you for the good it's done for many lgbt plus students lives thank you julia christina yeah i'd just like to thank um my board colleagues here for for all of the really important comments
060and just important to to reiterate where eric said is that it um our non-discrimination policies still apply in a very broad umbrella under this and this is just one narrow part of a federal law that we're required to comply with um under title ix i don't believe this was written with k-12 schools in mind and so i would really like us to take a cut to keep a close eye on the effect that this has in our schools for our students and our staff so um i don't know if we can think some creative ways for us to measure that but i think it's really important for us to keep a close eye on this thank you all right all those in favor aye okay i'm sorry julia your advisory boat aye allah's in favor
061i okay any opposed okay motion passes thank you so much thank you um next is the consent agenda i move that the board of education adopt and approve all of the motion set forth in section 10 of the electronic agenda prepared for the november 23rd 2020 regular school board meeting exactly as said motions are written by voting affirmatively on this motion a board member expresses his or her affirmative vote on each of the motions consolidated hereby subject to any expressed separations that have been made by any member of the school board can i get a second uh save you on second any discussion separations okay julia your advisory vote hi all those in favor aye aye okay any opposed okay motion passes seven zero um other items business proposed non um other reports to the
062board um the city of uh i'm sorry city of madison education committee ananda due to the many commitments of city council elders we have postponed uh the um resuming the education committee until january 6 we have a meeting uh scheduled on that that first week of january great thank you student senate yeah thanks um we've been doing a lot of work recently actually we have um actually we do have a new a new like student senate newsletter which is coming out um within the next couple of weeks so that you guys will be able to see kind of a more detailed plan of what's actually happening which i think will be fun and exciting for everyone to be able to keep up with what students are really doing so we have a team of students
063working on that and we're excited to share that with all of you soon besides that we have committees on mental health which are committees on mental health on um environmental work for the schools and then on black excellence and each of those are doing a lot of work right now they're continuing to do work we have another meeting tomorrow and i'm excited to continue with that so thank you ali thank you savion and thanks for the update thank you julia next is uh mscr yes we are meeting on december 16th we have not met uh last time we met was in october to discuss the school for us great thank you nikki update on safety and security ad hoc committee savion yeah so we met two times last time we discussed uh we really dug
064into policy 4147 that into uh examples of full restorative justice implementation in other school districts in our last meeting we talked about are our our practices of partnership of partnering with law enforcement should they have to become involved with any of our schools and got into some more policy and budget recommendations we will be concluding the ad hoc committee and two meetings uh one on december third and the last one on december 10th and hopefully and hope to have a full list of recommendations ready for the board to consider by january um just some some scopes that we're thinking about is what does a three to five year district wide restorative justice implementation plan look like um so yeah that's been our work so far great thank you savion and then update on citizens naming
065ad hoc committee uh in falk elementary school is that dr jenkins or is that that's me good afternoon or evening rather um so the november 11th meeting um the citizens naming committee did vote to recommend the name of malaysia and nana to be forwarded to the board however subsequent to that meeting it was discovered that there was a proposal that was inadvertently missed in the emails to the board and so we are going back then with all four names um that will be then posted on the website um we're starting over all four names will be posted and the process will then start again and last for about 30 days not about but lasts for 30 days to follow the board policy and then we'll move the timeline for the ad hoc committee into january
066so the timeline will include then coming before the board at the january 11th instructional work group meeting and then moving to a final vote at the regular meeting on january 25th great thank you caletra for that update next we have the financial statement audit um who will be presenting that for us dr jenkins oh you're mute it's going to be natalie she's going to present for us hello um hopefully you can hear me properly thank you for this rare opportunity to present the audited financial statements kelly rupal our cfo is taking a much deserved vacation this week i am natalie roo and i am the comptroller for the madison metropolitan school district i am pleased to report that once again we have had a great audit despite this global pandemic with no adjusting journal entries
067i'd like to take this opportunity to recognize and thank the entire budget planning and accounting team whose diligence hard work and attention to detail year round makes a clean audit possible every year in front of you you should have a copy of the final audited financial statements the single audit report and the letter to those charged with governance which is the board hopefully you've had an opportunity to review these documents and draft um i know you had some questions that i replied to in writing um there have not been any changes to these reports from draft to final as a reminder you do not have to vote on these reports you're receiving them tonight in public for the sake of transparency on our overall audit process management is responsible for the preparation of the financial
068statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the united states of america we're also responsible for the schedule of federal and state awards presented in the single audit report our auditor is responsible for a pining on those financial statements that opinion is on page one of the audited financial statements the auditor is also responsible for issuing a report on the district's internal controls over financial reporting and their test of compliance with federal and state programs tested those reports are in the front of the single audit report with us today we have representatives from our firm wagner cpas if at this point you do not have any questions i would like for wagner cpas to present the results of our audit does anyone have any questions chris thank you um first of all i just
069want to commend you guys for your work um in particular um the the the repeat um concern that was out there about um cash accounting in our schools looks like it has finally been resolved and that is cause for celebration so thank you so much for your work on that and for moving us forward and getting a system into our high schools that's helping us be more accountable for that money um i did have a question about um internal controls i know um earlier this year we um updated our policy on fund balance so that we changed how we account for assigned fund balance and i wonder if in next year's audits um that change in how we account for assigned fund balance will be reflected in the audit of internal controls it's just a
070question for like my own information it doesn't impact this year's audit at all so um so we actually the board always had a policy on fund balance including a signed fund balance um so this is my second year here and in prior years we never um leveraged the board's ability to assign fund balance um the board also has the ability to commit fund balance um committing fund balance obviously result requires um formal bored action and then ties your hands in the event of an emergency that you would all have to get back together and um and change that vote formal board action a signing sends a clear message to the public that the board has an intent and specific use for the fund balance that it is not just fun money that we have that
071has no purpose okay the reason a signing is nice is because while you have communicated intent if there was an emergency and the board had to change the use of the fund balance for some reason the board would have that flexibility in the event of meeting the the emergency needs of the district um i felt and and kelly felt when we looked at the board policy that it was very important um in light of the covid that we communicated that the board had purposes and that we had use of the fund balances that needed to to be reported in the audited financial statements um so that's why this year and i would um as the individual who prepares the financial statements i actually would continue to report the resign assigned fund balance in future years
072which kelly takes to the board before the final issuance of the report for your approval to say yes that's what we're going to assign so that's where that came up of and it never was reported before so as opposed to restricted which is restricted by third parties and outside laws and regulations assigned is really a board level um item and and it gen it communicates to the general public that there is an intended purpose for this fund balance thank you for that that helps clarify what we can expect coming up in future years so yeah i think it's important thank you any other questions before we move on okay scott or i'm sorry natalie um that was it um so without any delay we have uh scott hummerson with wagner cpas and april campbell with
073wagner cpas and i will mute well good evening folks i'm very pleased to meet with you i have uh attended board meetings in the past but have never been given the opportunity to speak so we appreciate this opportunity they've given me five minutes on your agenda so i will attempt to be a brief as an accountant and uh thank you natalie for your comments sort of setting the stage for for uh what the audit is in front of you i'm joined by april cam campbell who was our in-charge auditor um just a really high level thought hi gloria good to see you and so many people that i know sitting there amanda alley others having and others that i that know you all out in the community so you get to see your auditor in
074live living color um you hire us whitener cpas to provide an opinion on your financial statements that they're free of material misstatements and that that's really essentially the very highest level part of what we're hired to do we also report on your audit in accordance with uniform guidance with the federal awards as well and so in order for us to prepare for your audit we we perform a risk assessment we assess areas that would be of higher risk based on past practices we review your internal controls we look look for material misstatements which is defined in our standards um by tolerable error and planning materiality and so these scopes are set at certain levels that allow us not to look at every transaction thank goodness and um so then our auditor in our risk assessment
075are planning uh go about their audit work in in the higher risk areas the risk areas that are deemed uh required to test on your federal uniform guidance we provide you an opinion on internal control which is based on what's required by the uniform guidance we also test your compliance with federal regulations based upon what is defined by the feds and by dpi and we perform specific tests on those things and as natalie said we actually issue you three opinions and the first opinion is on the financial statements during the course of our audit as natalie reported we discovered we determined that there were no proposed audit adjustments in order for your financial statements to receive a clean opinion from us we had an exit conference with kelly and natalie and we reviewed the results
076of our audit and determined that there were no material misstatements so again as i've heard congratulations another clean audit with respect to our opinion on your financial statements we also perform what used to be called a single audit word word is still used but it's not in accordance with uniform guidance and as i mentioned we have to test internal control regarding the financial statements we also test internal control with respect to compliance on those federal regulations and we issue an opinion on that finally we test compliance with laws and regulations and so those three letters exist in your financial statements the first one natalie referred to is on page two and that's our opinion and it's what's called unmodified meaning we did not modify that for any concerns that we have regarding uh scope findings
077other sorts of things in the single audit which is a separate document on page one is our opinion on internal control it is also unmodified and then on page two is our opinion on compliance with laws and regulations and that is also unmodified if you go to the end of the single audit report you'll see a summary of all of these things and in during the course of the audit we had a finding and i'm gonna ask uh april maybe just to jump in because it's stated there and i think it's important as your auditors for us to just explain uh a little bit of background and what our tests were and what are results of those and as chris mentioned um a finding from the previous audit was resolved in the current year so
078april if i can just turn it over to you at this point yeah and then we'll and then we'll um be available for questions of course so uh in that schedule of findings and question costs as he mentioned in the back of the single audit report it does describe that we had you know no material weaknesses in the federal programs no significant deficiencies in the federal programs and those tested this year were the special education cluster also known as idea and then the 21st century community learning centers and there was no findings in those two programs we're also required to test you know major programs on the state side and those are all mainly dpi programs this year we tested equalization aids aid for school mental health programs student achievement gap guaranteeing education bilingual bicultural
079and tuition payments by state in those state programs we did have two findings the first one is the state special education program um historically we've had a finding in this area and you know basically it it comes down to the fact that mmsd employs you know thousands of teachers and it's in order to be coded to 011 which would be funded by the state you have to have a valid license um you know with as many teachers as there are in the system it's hard for that to be tracked so sometimes teachers are coded to this incorrect account and then it would be funded by the state when they don't have the proper license in this case the dollar amount was very small but it is required to be communicated so here we are so
080this has been a problem in the past this year we had to do a little bit of different testing the state usually sends out a listing for us and this year we had to pick a sample we did pick a sample of 60 out of all of your teachers and um only two fell under this category and again the dollar value of the salaries coded was very small um so from our perspective you know for a site a district or size you know things are going really well um you know to have it fixed 100 all the time would be amazing um so definitely something to keep working on but um from our perspective it's uh it's not unexpected so and we do have other districts that have this this finding as well um the
081other program that had a finding was the tuition payments program um so this is the program for the jail huber and detention centers what happened in this program was there's a report to dpi and the number of days reported for education purposes were off by snow days so there was this program we actually test the fy 19 data and in fy 19 there was six snow days and some of those snow days weren't coded for the students the students were reported as a day of instruction um but in fact the teacher never would have went and did that instruction on those days so it was kind of a systematic problem so and again the dollar amount on that was was actually not material for us so we don't have to disclose that in this finding
082we just have to disclose the um finding but we don't have to say actually the question costs under the program so but other than that i mean we had no findings in the other state programs and the two federal programs were satisfactory so does anyone have any questions for us on any of those things great um thank you so much scott and april for being here i know april uh too scott so oh good great april and i spoke um a few months ago and you know you you generally don't you haven't been to a board meeting to to speak but i thought that it was a good idea since we have a lot of new board members that we have a really a conversation around this and it really is helpful um you know
083as you know i've been on the board for almost three years and um you know this opportunity really just helps and so thank you for presenting that i guess it sounds like you have as far as the tuition payments you have some recommendations um that the district will implement um natalie do we um how are we going to um respond to that even if it it it is a minor thing i think you know in those snow days in wisconsin right how are we going to keep going um and and actually i did respond to the finding in the audited financial statements so in the final report there is a district response um and basically what what happens is there we do have calendared snow days scheduled um as you call it in 2019 we
084had excessive snow days scheduled um and this is where that happened um it was those five days that were snow days that were excessively scheduled um well they were in excess of our scheduled snow days um dr jenkins um is we'll soon find out that we very rarely take snow days here um so it it happened um and what we are going to do on our end is um we use other reported data that's so when we report the the tuition data we use other reported data that's reported to dpi and so we will verify that for reasonableness in the future as opposed to just taking the data that we reported in a previous report and included in the current report we will be taking the data and saying okay yes we already reported this
085is this even reasonable so that we can we can make those corrections immediately great thank you savion and the discrepancy for snow days was for students who were incarcerated and participating in huber yeah so the and actually the the issue that actually came up is the district added hours of instruction um to the end of days and dpi does not allow us to count the hours of instruction so while we made up hours of instruction we were not allowed to count those towards the days of destruction that's where the problem really came up is no one was it wasn't a we said we gave them instruction and didn't it was the district as a whole tacked on hours on instruction um to make up all those snow days and dpi did not accept it yeah
086so like when we end school on 357 instead of 3 45 correct right so that's how we we were making sure all the students got the makeup and um that's how this happened with the huber students they also got the makeup time it's just that dpi did not allow us to count it we we actually spent a lot of time going back and forth with them on it any other questions comments all right well thank you scott natalie and april for being here it was great thank you very much you're very welcome thank you for the invitation to join you yes thank you we'll see you next time bye nice job all right so um next on the agenda is um the inter-governmental cooperation agreement between madison metropolitan school district in minority grove a school
087district relating to nuestro mundo charter school i moved that the board of education approved the resolution to amend the intergovernmental cooperation agreement between the mmsd and the monona grove school district relating to the nuestro mundo charter school as set forth in the documents prepared for the regular boe meeting dated november 23 2020. second ali muldrow ali second any discussion comments okay julia your advisory vote aye aye all those in favor aye aye any opposed okay motion passes seven zero next is the charter second amendment to charter contract for nori stonewood community school between the school board of the madison metropolitan school district and nuestro mundo i move that under section 12 of the nuestro mundo community school charter contract currently enrolled kindergartens from the monona grove school district can continue to attend nuestro mundo community
088school through the end of the 2020 2021 school year currently enrolled non-kindergartens will remain enrolled in nuesto mundo community school through the end of the 2020 23 2024 school year so long as there is no break in enrollment and beginning of the 20 20 21 school year monona grove school district students not yet enrolled in and seeking to attend western mundo community school must participate in the open enrollment program pursuant to wisconsin states statute uh 118.51 second ali mojo ali mulder ii any discussion questions okay uh julia your advisory vote all those in favor aye okay any opposed okay motion passes seven zero all right that is the last item on the agenda y'all it is 7 29. um so i moved to adjourn the meeting so moved second um ali um uh julia advisor
089wrote hi okay all those in favor aye aye okay motion passes we are adjourned have a good night see ya