001request um since request um for a staff member who is requesting a 10day sobatical leave. Um if you want to pull anything out specifically from there to talk about, we can do that. Otherwise, I would look for a motion. I move to accept the consent agenda as presented. I'll second. All right. So many pages to get through before I get to the writing it down. Okay, Chipman. I almost wrote Kman seconded. All right. Any discussion? All right. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Um there are some personnel items that do not require a vote. Um, so that comes to public comments. Do we have anyone registered? We do not. We do not. Alrighty, then we're up for ourformational update about K8 PTO. Careful. I know I'm hurting myself. Welcome. Hello. All
002right, hold on. Hello everybody. My name is Samantha Zylinga and I am the current president of the McFarland EC through8 PTO. Um I actually asked Aaron if I could appear to kind of just give you a yearly update. This is another thing like I'd like to change. Um I got the idea from Tom actually. school board meeting when he was talking about the lions and so that it's one of my emails that I sent Aaron after schoolboard meetings with my thoughts and so this was one of them I'm like you know what we should really do that and go over it because I don't know when it has last been done I've been the president for two years now and as it has not been done then so we will start a new thing here
003so just kind of give you a little rundown of the organization for people don't know um we serve EC through8 very protective of the EC so like the three-year-olds, the like six of them. So, I just always want to make sure that they're included. So, we go through um to the middle school. Uh we have a president, myself, and then a treasurer and a secretary. It is our going to be our treasurer second year and um brand new secretary. We also have some advisory council members. Um as you can see, there's not that many of us. We do have a few other parents that are involved um and help us out with things, but the nice thing is is like people don't need to make like a full commitment to do things. You can kind
004of jump in and out like if you like like an activity and you want to help with that, that's something that you're able to do. We have monthly meetings of the advisory council. Anybody can come to those meetings even if you're not an elected member. It's just where, you know, we go through hash out everything that is happening. We'll have kind of spuroff meetings for different activities as needed. Um, we've been doing the monthly meetings mostly virtual. I find that works better for a bunch of like parents in the evening. It's a lot easier to hop on your computer than like leave the house. Um, and then we have three all parent meetings per school year, one at each of the schools. some meetings. I'm just going to kind of go over like what some
005of our activities and the things that we do throughout the year. Uh so we always start off the year with stock the lounge. This is where for all three schools and then each 4K site gets like a little box um full of snacks and different drinks and coffees. And this year we did a supply fundraiser which went very well. This is a very successful event. I delivered to all three schools and I had like an entire SUV load full of boxes for each school. It was amazing. Um the supply list we did pretty much through an Amazon wish list. So I'm sure the delivery drivers like my house. It was crazy. Um but the community was very generous. This is all done by community donations of these physical items and then we also usually supplement
006um with PTO funds just to kind of round out the food a little bit. But this year was an amazing show and we did this this year because of the supplies. We did it during um like teacher work week, the week that they all come back before school instead of doing the first day of school. And we got a lot of good response about that. like it's easier when they don't have their kids to like come in and then grab what they need and we wanted to make sure they had the supplies before the first day of school. So, I think we'll stick with doing it during that week as well. Yes, it is like and each school is a little different. All three we asked how we did the supplies is I asked the
007three principles and then they reached out to like their build their um leads in their building and so we got some suggestions. uh all three schools had some of the same thing and then all varying different by needs compared because as you imagine like MPS and IMMS especially like need very different different things but it all worked out very well. It's one of my favorite things because people always get very happy when you like bring them food the new pens you can't Oops. Go back that way. Oh, I'm all messed up now. Sorry. We will go back and I lost myself again. It's like glitching with it. Sharing was really easy. It was it made it very accessible and easy for people who like me sometimes run short on time and easy to click click
008on that. So yes, I liked it too. And then it was you know things like came in little by little like at my house instead of having like a time like you have to drop it off on these two days. Um it was just really it was really easy. So our next event which has been going on um I don't remember when Michaela started it like it's definitely like during co is our trunk or treat. So we always do it at MPS that works out really well because that's the target age group and it has that nice lawn parking lot um with like the oneway street on the side so there's less traffic when there's hundreds of kids in costumes walking around so it works out really well. Um, we had about 20 trunks. So,
009I like this is just done. I send an email to people who have signed up in the past and then I just post it on Facebook and businesses and individuals sign up. I think a lot of people think it's a lot of fun. Uh, we raise money um just like a like a couple hundred dollars through like a change war. And so that is everybody votes for who their favorite trunk is by like putting change in the jar. So these are our winners. That was Next Home Metro. um and they won. So that was fun. This year we are discussing about revamping it for next year a little. I can talk about it more, but um just having the different like family fun or like carnivals and things at the school that during this time
010of year, it seems like it might be good instead of having a separate carnival at that school to include it in this event. And then it can be like fall themed. that I'm all about themes and fall is a fun theme and they're already there and so we're going to we're going to discuss that but kind of in like some of the changes but this is always good we have always have like 500 kids um all the trunks like provide their own candy and then we ask for donations for candy um so that we have I just usually like keep it up by me and then if people run out of candy but everybody's been pretty good in a lot most of the trunks they have done it year after year so they kind of
011know what is happening. Now uh the next things we do is we assist in the WHIS and the IMMS family fun nights. So those two events are run by the district just with our assistance. So each one looks a little bit different. Um for WHIS, we helped spread the idea for uh donations for the food um because we have like they do like a free trail mix. And then this year we did a raffle which was a great success and a fundraiser for the PTO. We also assist them in helping get volunteers at the IMMS family fun night. We do the food and this year we changed it in the years prior. we had always sold pizza and I'd like to move to the policy of that if there's a school event and there's food
012being served there's some type of free food available um when the PTO is involved uh just to make sure that anybody that wants food is able to access food and so we've done that at a few events and then we put out a donation box and honestly because it was like the carnivals last year and this year we've like made about the same amount of money because people donate and it's all based on what you can like the you know there's a dollar and then there's like a $50 bill in there and I think it creates like a nice equitable environment um for just to have if there's food available it's accessible to anyone. So this year because we had done pizza in the past Hut actually donated 40 pizzas to us for the IMMS
013family fun night. So that's how we were able to provide free pizza. So I can't guarantee that to anybody watching in the future. That was an amazing donation. We went through every piece of pizza like and but it was the perfect amount because we just finished like as the um night was was wrapping up. So that was an amazing donation by Pizza Hut. And then also at the family fun night, we basically run the escape room to say like we'll take control of this. We'll make sure that there's volunteers and everything like that. So that's our involvement in those. Then we also provide conference meals. So twice a year on conferences, um teachers and I believe some staff at each of the three schools and 4K, all 4K sites get it as well, get a
014meal. So each school picks a day and time and tells us how many people there are. So some schools like to have it like during lunchtime and some people want it during like night when they're there for the conferences. This year both times actually we used Cranberry Cranberry Creek and they've been really great to work with. They give us a discounted rate and the meals are all indivi individually packaged and they come with drinks. So we find it like very convenient for for the staff. That is that that I would say is one of our like highest expenses per year because you know we're feeding like 200 people um each their own individual meal. So, a lot of our funds like this year we were like really happy with our raffle results because we're like
015this is going to pay for a huge chunk of the fall caf um conference meals. Our next big event was a staff appreciation week. So, we got a generous donation this year of $1,500 specifically earmarked for staff appreciation week. Um so, we had like three events. The first thing is we kicked it off with yard signs in chalk the walk. So at all three schools and the 34K sites, families were invited on the Sunday before that week to come talk the walk and just like write um encouraging messages to teachers and decorate and that went over well. A lot of kids had fun with that. Then we also purchased these yard signs. So that was an expense that was prim that was came out of that generous donation because these are going to be reusable.
016That was our thought. And so each um school and 4K sites had these yard sites all around the teachers parking lot. So the whole week when they pulled in, they're double-sided. That's each side. Um and then we also had a breakfast and coffee bar. And then we did supplies again. So the coffee bar and the supplies were through the Amazon wish list. This was um toned down a lot from the fall supplies um but it still went over well. We just did like writing utensils and people they really really like the flare pens. Okay. So, if any is watching, your teachers like flare pens and so like they're very very happy and so we decorated and that was all cute and that we had like a different committee for and that was a lot of
017work and volunteers making sure everyone was at each site because we were at each school three times that week. Um these are some other miscellaneous things that we participate in. So, there's an author visit scheduled for next year that we have already been contacted about. So, um I believe the librarians say that that is funded through like the book uh Scholastic Book Fair and we're purchasing a book from that author for each classroom. So, that will go so each classroom will have a book. Um, this year we did uh field day t-shirts for the kindergarten teachers with the new school name on them because no one has t-shirts with the new school name. So, they had the field day uh t-shirts with that. We also provided the eighth grade ambassador snacks so in the beginning
018of the school year. So, they got loaded up on snacks for their their little thing. Um, we also like take requests for funding help. So that was, you know, like the field day t-shirts was a parent idea that reached out to us. The eighth grade that was like Fred Bartman was like, "Hey, would you guys be willing to do that?" So we do if there are requests um from like club leaders and teachers for specific things, you can always contact me and then we discuss that and as the budget allows, we'll assist with things like that. Um our other like really big project is yearbooks. So we are responsible for the EC through 5 yearbooks and this works different um than the middle school and the high school yearbooks. So every single child in EC
019through 5 gets a yearbook regardless of payment. Um this is done by that we charge a few dollars more per yearbook than what they cost us. How much how much is the cost per per book for us? Uh parents are charged $15 and I believe ours is 1011 something total. They cost us our invoice is like $13,000. Um and so that is done. Lisa Crane does that where she like works with um the photography company and they make like the extra little pages, you know, with the the um photos that aren't just the classes. This um has been a challenge this model the past few years. So this year we balanced out we raised $86 more dollars than what the yearbooks cost us. Okay. In the past we've had to cover like over $1,000. So
020because it is it's just a fee in Infinite Campus and so it is an optional fee that is not required. So some people skip over it. Um there was a thing like I'm sure it's just done by mistake like oh I'll pay that later. We do know that some people know that they get one regardless if they pay or not. Um so it is important if any if you have the ability to pay for a yearbook that you pay for your child's yearbook. Do you feel like uh the demand nowadays is as high as it might have been whatever 10 years ago? You know, I think virtually everybody got one. Do Do the Especially the kids in high school, do they continue to I'm not sure about high school. I know the little kids really
021like them, you know? Like my niece like she's in 4K and her brother is in first grade and he got his like two days before she's she's like she calls me Samantha do I get a yearbook too? I was like yes you do honey it's coming like cuz my sister's like talk to him. the little the little kids do like it in into in flip through. So, um this year we did add a donation button in Infinite Campus um to say like donate a yearbook. I haven't looked through exactly all the details of um our Infinite Campus collections to see if that had a difference. So, this I think we're going to do messaging. Um, we did notice I think a difference when we stopped sending home paper about the yearbooks. So, you know, everything
022has moved so digital where with the like the younger kids, we'd send home like you know the old school thing like buy your child's yearbook, send a checkin and then on the paper we're like able to write more you know about it and like because it used to be a fundraiser like a while ago like I'm talking like 10 years ago it would actually make money um and but it still had the same policy. So we're I can't you know write a paragraph in the inf infinite campus fee section like so this again is just one of the challenges kind of with communications and things that we need to adjust but this year you know we raised it was the $86 we we raised so that's better we're on the right track but it's just
023kind of something that needs to be keep an eye on and like messaging so if anybody you know you hear them talking about the younger kids yearbooks it's just every kid and you know we discussed not doing that And I was like, I'm not going to have like a kindergartenner be the only one in their classroom not having a yearbook. I'm just not doing that. So, we just want to we'll make it work while we can take it year by year. Um, and then so then going this is a good segue into finances. So, we raised about $26,000 and we spent about $26,000. That does include the yearbooks. So, that's about half of it because the yearbooks I believe were right around $13,000. um the school. So each school get we write the schools uh
024a check each year with our remaining funds. So we split our bank account balance with money for us to start the year with because it takes money to make money and then we split it in three between the two the three schools. Um, so the school check should be about $3,000 each. And that's not an exact number. We kind of still have some no hassle stuff like piling in. Um, and they will get those in the fall. So, they spend that money on all sorts of different things. It is completely up to the discretion of of the school. We have no requirements of these checks. We just trust and know and know what they're doing. I have had sometimes a principal to be like what do you think about this like a new idea? But
025um it is just up to them. They they spend money on like the kindness retreat, the book vending machine at MPS, uh a field trip fees, daily snacks that are kept in the office for kids that need a snack, the uh ice cream welcome back at like supplies, they can use the money for that. uh Spartan Star shirts for children whose fees have been unpaid. Um things like the Olympiad. So it's all those little miscellaneous and to kind of just supplement and make activities go a little bit further. Our fundraising method methods include the school supply toolbox. So that is parents can just like go on the website and you just pick what grade your kid is in and like the your last name box and you hit and you end up with the box
026at your front door of all the supplies on their list. So that will be coming out soon. And then we also have um we get infinite campus donations at registration. There is a PTO just $5 optional donation fee. Um, raffles, that's been like a new thing the past couple years. Those have gone really well. I think people like those. Uh, we have the donations for free food and events that we get. We have um we've had some businesses uh donate us money and then we have the no hassle fundraiser which is just no hassle as you say. We basically send out an email and say, "We need money to pay for these things." And people send us moaning checks and it works out really well because no one wants really wants to go sell like
027wrapping paper and things. But, you know, we need to to raise money for these events to happen and that's just the way that it works now. And it's surprisingly easy for everyone. Let me see. So, our greatest success is our monetary and physical donations. So the um you know the food and stuff, we have a supplement here and there, but we've never had like a gigantic disaster before where we don't have any donations at all. Um our greatest challenge is volunteers. So we had to cancel the MPS carnival this year, which was a very hard decision on my part and I did not want to do it. But in order it it needed to be done because it's irresponsible to run an event with over 500 people in attendance and not have enough volunteers. It's
028just not it's irresponsible. Um this has been a consist a consistent problem. I'm really big on then being like, "Hi friends, I really need like one more person at this date. Can someone help me out?" Like it's just constant stress and struggle for volunteers. um that is going to be like in the thing that we are starting to work on next year is one of our advisory members is going to kind of work on a volunteer coordinator role. Um and we're looking into developing that and like adding it to our bylaws to have like an actual role. I believe that there are opportunities in town to connect with organizations to connect with some of the high school clubs to connect like with parents on different ways. However, all of that takes a lot of time
029and effort and with the duties of the officers and then the person planning the event. Like for example, MPS, Mandy, our treasurer was the lead on MPS. So, she is planning all of the activities, doing all of that, also doing the treasure position and then to have to try to find all these volunteers. So, the fact of the matter is like we need help to find help, right? Um, and so that is going to be like a focus next year. Um, we have some ideas for that. So, we are going to be at picture day. I have to finalize details with Angie, but I think picture day is a very un underutilized time in this school district because every single parent, especially if we're targeting under 8th grade, enters that cafeteria in a two-day period.
030And so it is the easiest way to access them and like get in in front of them and actually like talk to them as opposed to just like another email, right? Everybody gets the emails. So I'm actually thinking this year we might do a raffle because then people will come up to us more if there's things to look at and then it would start us off with some funding for the beginning of the year. That's all going to be in works, but we will be there in some way. We like to like improve our communications. we are going to start having like a standard spot in the school newsletter. So in every single newsletter there's a spot and it doesn't change. It's in the exact same spot that's like PTO updates. So every week there
031will be something else. Uh we'll continue to add like special event things and flyers, but there's going to be like an actual spot. Um considering things like making our own email list and having our like a newsletter. Um because right now we use school communications which is good because obviously as parents would give us permission but if we can collect our own emails that might help to have a little bit more reminders. Um we're looking into possibly more paper flyers being sent home especially at MPS. Um those parents are very fast by the way because with the no hassle we sent it home and the Venmo started going off at like 3:05. I'm like you guys are fast. like you just open your kids backpacks right away. But with those younger grades, they do go
032in their backpacks every day, right? With the older grades, with like especially the middle school, like those papers never make it to their parents. So maybe kind of looking at like targeting that that if paper is something that we do need to kind of shift back to in a very targeted way. Um, I'm open to ideas. If any of you would like to have a cup of coffee and tell me what you think I should do, I would like to hear it. um because we do a lot of things good and we can do things better and we can do more. So that is all that I have. Thank you so much. Um if you have any questions, that's my PTO email address. Anybody or anybody watching, we could always use more help. What do
033you think the average um commitment like time commitment for volunteers would be? just like as a PTO member, not necessarily at events and things like that. Anything that you really want it to be. So, um like I said, you can like people can come to the advisory meeting which is about like it's supposed to be an hour but I talk so it's like an hour every two hours. Um, and like that's like once per month and it's just kind of like giving like your ideas or your thoughts or we should do this and then if you want to, you know, plan a carnival that's all kind of subjective the week of it more. Um, depending on like how heavy things are, there's other people who are like, "Hey, this is what I got going on.
034This is all I can do this year." Um, at all of our events though, the shifts are usually only an hour. I try to keep them in an hour. Um, and I always try to have like two people per stand. So if you want to bring a friend, um, so that I think is like the most accessible would be to volunteer at an event. One thing about that I would suggest to other people is considering volunteering at an event that your child at a school that your child does not attend. So that's one of the troubles. So if you're it's at MPS, right, and you have an MPS student, then you want to like bring them there. And if you don't have another like person available to watch your kid or they're right like it
035just makes it more difficult. So I think it'd be nice for some like community building like if we you know oh like I only have a seventh grader so I'll go help with the kindergarteners and then the kindergarten parents like oh I'll help with the seventh graders like to kind of to make it a community thing because we really need a lot of volunteers and we kind of look at that way because like we like we saw like events just can't happen without it. Well, and that's why I asked because I think it some people might feel like it has to be a really big commitment when it could be right just an hour here or there or an hour once a month or so. Yeah. Yeah, it's super it's super flexible. You can come
036in and you can like completely lead a carnival or you can just show up whenever you want. Like all different levels of help are needed at this point. I will say I did volunteer at the carnival. You did? Last year. It was super fun. You've all heard my face painting horror stories. I will also say I was not even aware that y'all were needing volunteers for the carnival this year until Aaron mentioned it in our board meeting. Yes. So that's is a challenge then with communication. So we need to also look at I need to there there's a lot of things on my list. I'd like to sit down maybe with the principles and with Aaron like to have an actual like email communication policy with PTO using school resources because I know we always
037have that thing how many emails is too many emails do people want emails do we not want emails and so I deal with that too like how many emails can I send out before this event and then we also do things though like for like MPS it was only going to MPS parents so you wouldn't have gotten the email and I post on Facebook but if you don't see it you don't you don't see it. And then maybe like additionally too, like in the other school newsletters. So, or even just ambassadors around town, like if any of you see the PTO needs something, tell somebody else. Like I just it's hard and you're always going to have people that you miss. You know, people are like, I never heard about this and my kid goes
038that school. I'm like, well, it was in the school newsletter for four weeks and I sent two emails. I don't like but then they but then she still didn't, right? So, how do you reach someone like that? That's the question. And it's the same question as you all have with all like other communications. And I watch it and I'm like, "Yeah, see this is my point." I don't um go some like brainstorming about other ways Yeah. to communicate. Snapchat something. That's like the kids. Maybe that's how I want to get high school volunteers is Snapchat. So, start a Tik Tok. Gosh. Well, thank you. This is really helpful. I'm I'm glad that you thought of it. I'm sad that we It didn't occur to us. So, let's make this an annual thing or Yes. I
039like it. I think it's good for everybody to know what's going on because we do do a lot of things throughout the year. And I kind of like putting it all together as well because it's like, wow. As opposed to step by step, it seems slower and less. Just Just know that the district appreates all you do. Absolutely. Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you everyone. Thanks Sam. Thank you Sam. All right. Next we have Mr. Aley with the athletic update. Also a new report. Yeah, another new. It's like the night of new reports. Also looking forward to having this one more regularly. Just give me a minute to get set up. Absolutely. [Music] Look at that. That is a pod of power. That is Oh, that's a good You are
040in marketing. Uhhuh. Pod of power. We are a pod of power. Oh, snap. I just saw a commercial like a flash of five of us walking down the street. You know, like they do. Yeah. That would be really funny. All right. So, I think Angie's gonna go ahead I think Angie's gonna go ahead and share a quick doc with you, but I also have some hard copies just because I'm a little bit of a hard copy person. We like handouts. We're We're used to the handouts with mater. Yeah. So if we think handouts will suffice then let's go Aaron can go back to his teaching days postable. It's not you really do hand them out well like he's right. It's like you're just like a teacher. Brings you back. All right. Our pleasure. Yeah, I
041think so. And then all those other paperclip ones can be handed out too if we'd like. All right. How you doing, Bruce? Good. Looks like you're up north. We are up north. Good for you. Good for you. All right. I'll go ahead and get started. I think most of you should have received this document, correct? So, just kind of aformational sheet to kind of start out with. So, uh Mr. Tarnitzer is passing around just some links that are in there, but again, a hard copy for you to use and then, um just some otherformational stuff that we'll go over. So Bruce, sorry that you won't have the hard copies obviously, but if uh you have a laptop, I think Angie is going to send out the doc already did. So could be in your invo
042inbox if you want to look at that. If not, we'll try to explain it to the best we can for you virtually. Thank you. I can sure stop by sometime too, Paul. You betcha. It should be in your email already. Yeah. Great. Well, again, just thank you for the opportunity. Just want to make sure that I start off by thanking the board of education as well as Mr. Chariter for providing me the opportunity to meet with you tonight and share with you information regarding the MHS athletic department. Uh it's been a while since I've been here, so it's nice to kind of be back and and talk a little bit and uh share with you some things that, you know, I think Erin and I looked at and and thought were important to share um
043to start out with. So, first I'd like to share with you our participation numbers. I think that's a question that a lot of people always have. Um, so you can look at the first I guess it would be the second handout that Aaron handed out to you. It's kind of the colorful one. The orange page would be our fall sports. The blue page would be our winter sports and then our green page would be our spring sports. And it's been amazing to have Leah Polus uh hired on the last three years as my assistant because prior to that I didn't necessarily have a dedicated assistant. So it was great to get Leah involved and she's been able to track a lot of great things for us. What being one of one of them being this.
044So starting in the fall of 22, you can look at our fall sports and boys soccer, cross country, dance, football, girls golf, girls swimming, girls tennis, and volleyball. Girls volleyball. And you can look at the uh participation numbers from the fall of 22, 23, and 24. You can see that many of the numbers are fairly consistent with what is going on and what's um in each an individual sport. We do try to list our managers because when you do a poll on Infinite Campus it, you know, our managers we want to have sign up as well in case we have any type of issues or concerns, food allergies, medications, accidents that would occur that we still have the emergency contact information for our managers. So, with that being said, uh you can look at the
045fall information there and flip over to the next page if you would like. not as many sports in the wintertime that we offer. Uh but obviously boys and girls basketball, boys and girls hockey, boys swim, dance. Again, dance is a two-season sport. And then we also have boys and girls wrestling as well. Uh and so you can see that we have some participation by both genders in our in our wrestling program as well here at the high school. And again, our wrestling program is one in which we co-op with Monona Grove. and we've done that now for oh goodness I would say a good 10 years uh with them as well. So and then flipping to the next page just trying to move along because I know you have a a busy agenda. Looking at
046our spring totals, uh we have baseball and and um boys golf, boys tennis, girls soccer, we have boys and girls lacrosse. Again, that is a co-op that we have with the school district of Oregon. softball, track and field, and then ultimate frisbee isn't obviously a sanctioned sport through the WIA, but it is a sportbased club. And so I do oversee that um with just transportation, you know, practice facilities, game schedules, things of that nature. So you can see the spring numbers there. All right. So, that just gives you kind of an idea of a of a rolling three-year participation uh numbers in regards to each individual sport. Can I ask a question? Sure. As we go. Okay. So, I noticed in the spring from 23 to 24 the participation just total um was a lot
047more like it went from 132 boys. Um I take it. Are you looking at the next handout that we'll be going over? No, the the green one. Okay. The green. Okay, wonderful. Just and then um spring of 24 there were 179 boys who participated and then 107 for girls and 119. Any idea what the big jump was in regards to the boys? Yeah, just like a lot more participation and then it stayed kind of similar. A lot of it has to do with the enrollment in the grades and and the breakdown in which the genders have. So, you know, we have for example this graduating senior class and again don't hold me to these numbers but I believe we hadundred and 10 boys and 71 girls. So when you have a that's a pretty big
048discrepancy in regards to genders within your grade. So therefore, you know, our our girls numbers might not be as high in that senior class where our boys numbers would be high because we have more boys to participate. Sure. I know our our other classes, again, not having it right in front of me, but our other classes are more balanced in regards to boys and girls. Uh there's just some grades where, you know, we have a low low enrollment and and that might just be part of just a cycle coming through. I believe our incoming freshman class is a low enrollment class. um where we just kind of get a little bit of a dip, but then I think our seventh grade class is our biggest class in the entire district with 200 plus kids, our
049incoming eighth grade group. Okay. So, a lot of it, you know, there's no one reason for it in all honesty. We added a sport or something. It was just Okay. Right. I was just curious. Sorry, I had a question. Do you feel like that's an issue at all? You know, it's kind of a a blessing and a curse at the same time. You offer many, many opportunities. Is that at the cost of maybe some of the other I mean does it dilute the number of participants in your other sports when you add sports? There's always that possibility. I mean we're a school of 700 roughly 750 kids and we offer 25 uh whether it's club-based or sanctioned. 25 of the 26 WI sanctioned sports. Middleton has 2,300 kids in their high school roughly and they're
050offering 26. So we're offering one less sport um that a school of 2300 is offering. So there's always that possibility Craig that you know we do offer a lot of things and it could spread our numbers throughout the sports. Now, the other flip side of that is you have participation opportunities, right? You we have we're a we're a school of, like I said, mid700s and we offer lacrosse, we offer wrestling, we offer boys volleyball right now as a club. Looking at the possibility of moving forward with that in a co-op opportunity. So, there's just a lot of, you know, a lot of sports that we offer that could spread out your participation rates. Yeah. So, one question I had looking at girls basketball for this current year, um, it said there were 18 girls including
051a manager and then five had quit. So, did we initially start the season off with 23? Yes, that's right. Okay. Okay. And and and again, you know, addressing individual sports, there's always rhymes and reasons for all all I just wanted to make sure I was right. Yep. Yep. All right. So, put that over here and then we'll go with our next handout. So, if you go down on the next uh bullet there, I say I would uh next I'd like to take a deeper dive into uh each I guess season, not sport per se, for additional information that you may find interesting. U I want to thank Michelle Eversol for setting this report up through Infinite Campus. This uh report provides you specific information regarding each sport we have in our athletic department. Uh again,
052it's more of a seasonal outlook, not necessarily each sport, and you can access for the fall and seasonal information. So, if I click on that link, I believe it takes us to the fall sport. What that does is it breaks down information in regards to how many ninth graders, 10th graders, 11th graders, and 12th graders we have participating in the fall. And it gives you a total. It gives you the total number of males in our school and the total number of females in our school. And then it gives you the percentage of males in a fall sport and percentage of females in a fall sport. Uh it also then takes their grade point average. It looks at the average male term GPA, the average female term GPA. If you follow that role over, it
053also talks about a cumulative GPA. Obviously, you know, it's a big emphasis for us in regards to student athlete, right? that education based athletics, an extension of the classroom. So, we want to make sure that our student athletes are, you know, doing well in the classroom as well as uh on the court, field, rink, whatever it might be. So, it kind of gives you a kind of a synopsis. It also breaks it down kind of in diversity in regards to um what Infinite and Campus has as um uh diverse categories and you can see a breakdown in percentages in regards to that as well for our fall, winter and spring seasons. And again, you know, in the fall, we offer, you know, more female sports per se than male because we have, you know, boys
054soccer, but then we have boys cross country and football, but we also have girls cross country, girls golf, girls swimming, girls tennis, and girls volleyball. So, your percentages are going to be a little bit skewed uh in regards to the sports that are offered within that season. Okay. It's so interesting. the GPA are almost they're so consistent. Very consistent. I noticed that as well. That's pretty typical though, isn't it? Yeah. I don't you know, again, it's been a while since I've run this report and shared it with the board, but it's a great opportunity here today to be able to do that. So, you know, I would say that in my past experiences, I would say that most teams and seasons are pretty consistent with our grade point. Would you know a a ballpark percentage
055of of the students that begin in these sports but end up leaving them over time. Do the numbers within the class decrease or increase you know from 9th to 12th? Um I mean I was I think it depends on the sport to be honest with you. I think every sport finds itself a little um you know decline in participation. um over the years, you know, freshman year, the I think the mindset of our freshman or even families coming in as freshman would be, hey, try things, right? Give it a shot. It's your freshman year. You don't really know what you're going to like. You don't really know you what some friends might be going out that you want to be hanging out with. Uh but then as you get going in your sophomore and junior
056and senior year, h you know, you might get a job, right? You might have other sports that you want to put more focus on. uh multiple sport athletes is something that's becoming more and more of a challenge in our school district, but not just our school district, other school districts because, you know, there's just so many opportunities for kids to participate in sports on a year- round basis. So, I would say that without having numbers right in front of me, Craig, I would say that yes, it probably is fairly common in most sports that as you go from 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, your numbers are going to have a slight decline in regards to it for multiple reasons. All right, we'll set that one aside. And then just talking a little bit about
057um you know obviously um with the referendum uh that we had you know so generously passed through our community. Uh we want to make sure that we work hard uh this school year uh to be fiscally responsible. Not saying that we weren't working hard to be fiscally responsible in the past, but obviously a point of emphasis through our athletic department, working with the district office and high school administration, you know, and assure you that our focus will still stay on fiscal responsibility, uh, and will continue to be a point of emphasis through our athletic department. So, some of the expenses that we have within our department that I I think you could probably figure out on your own, but obviously just as our budget, we have coaching salaries for all the coaches that we have.
058We have transportation costs to get our athletes to and from contests. We have officials pay to make sure that we have a safe environment for our contest to participate in whether it's an umpire, a referee, an official supplies, whether it's bats, balls, um you know, nets, whatever it might be per the individual sport, you know, you have to have supplies for the student athletes. Uh athletic um athletic entry fees. So when we go to an invitational, a tournament, something of that nature where there's multiple teams, often we are asked as a school to provide whatever it might be $200, $250, $175 to participate in that invite or that tournament to help that host school cover their costs, whether it be referees, umpires, timing systems, things of that nature, workers. Uh we also have uh athletic
059training services, right? We're blessed to have a great athletic trainer in Jay Hansen. He's been with our school district for 22 years, which is really unheard of. Um, he is constantly working throughout the summer as well as the school year to make sure that our athletes are staying safe, rehabil, uh, you know, having rehabilitation on their injuries, getting them in to see W Sports Medicine doctors if needed and getting them back out onto their activities as soon as possible. So, those are some of our expenses. Obviously, it's not all of them, but that's some of the major ones that I could think of. But then also to offset those expenses, we have revenues. Um, obviously, it's our seasonal registration. So, every sport, every participant has a sport fee that they pay through the school district.
060As you guys think in our June, earlier June or maybe late May board, we went through all the fees and and passed the fees. So, that's what I'm talking about there. Uh, gate admission income. So anytime we are getting gate for an event uh or getting admission for an event that will go into our general athletic fund through our district office. Uh student athletic passes. So we offer high school students, middle school students, wabisa students uh opportunities to purchase a an athletic pass to go to events where they can just bring their ident their student ID, their student identification. they can take a picture of it on their phone because their kids will always have their phones on them but maybe not always their ID and they can just show that to the ticket taker
061and then they get in for free. Uh, and then we also have something new, excuse me, something new that we started, I believe it was two years ago, was our family athletic pass where we advertise that through our registration, advertise it through our kind of our sports uh, newsletter, per se, uh, registration opportunities for parents and families to buy athletic passes for their families. So, those are some expenses and revenues within our budget, working hard with the district office and the high school administration to stay fiscally responsible in regards to that. I I know football's generally more expensive than any other, but just just to give an idea of what those costs are, how much does a new football helmet cost nowadays? Uh, a brand new football helmet that we purchase is $385 and that's
062a small, medium, large. And if we get an extra-L large helmet, then it's additional cost of I think $415 or $420 for those helmets. And and you're required to to turn those over what? Every They have a 10-year cycle, but we have to recondition them every other year. And the reconditioning costs are it could be anywhere from 35 to $42 roughly per helmet depending on the needs of the helmet. Need a lot of parts, it's going to be more. Need a new paint job? Going to be a little bit more. need a face mask, things of that nature. And last year we did add a helmet fee to for football specifically. Correct. Yeah, we did. As a mom of football players, I'm totally happy to pay that fee for a better helmet. For a better
063helmet. Yeah. And that fee we just uh explained it to the football parents as a it's a reconditioning fee and it's there's other schools that do that because if our participation fee wouldn't cover all of those costs. So, we need a little help in having a reconditioning fee in regards to that. Well, just Just a reminder for those who may be watching, those the revenues um for like seasonal registration when we reviewed those back in May, you guys have done an outstanding job of keeping those costs low and manageable through the years. Um so when we're looking for examples of our district being fiscally responsible, this is a really good example that we saw very negligible increases in some grades and times where there were no changes. So, congratulations and good work on being continue
064to being fiscally responsible. Thank you. We appreciate that. Great point. How many, if any, uh, kids do you lose during the season to academic ineligibility? Because I know you have Yeah, I mean, it would be again, it all depends. Your percentages is all going to depend on the participation rates, right? So, fall, spring, you know, I would say it's it's minimal to be very honest with you, right? very minimal. Um our our the more often situation is an incomplete grade, not a failing grade. So in our academic eligibility criteria, you have student athletes have to have a 1.75 grade point average and not failing any classes to be eligible for athletics. And if they have an incomplete, uh they are technically ineligible until that incomplete, excuse me, until that incomplete gets changed to a passing
065grade and they have that within 10 days. So, a lot of the time it's, you know, end of the se end of the semester, end of the grading period, kind of that nine-week midterm progress grade. A lot of it has to do with uh maybe they just have to reassess. You know, our student athletes, students get an opportunity to take a class or take a test again, do a summative assessment again, a formative assessment again, and just be able to kind of work that grade up. Um, I can say in the years that I've been here as a coach and athletic director, I can honestly say that our teachers are very active in making sure that not only all students, but our student athletes uh have an opportunity to to get eligible. Uh, and if
066the student athlete is failing a class, I would probably guess that it's well earned on their part and and not given by the teacher. Well, so it's uh you know going to school here myself many years ago and knowing the teachers and the educators that we have in these hallways, they're working very hard to make sure that our students and student athletes are academically responsible. Well, and I the if going back to the seasonal data, I mean the average cumulative GPA is a 3.4. Isn't that something? I mean, so it seems like that it would be a very low percentage, I'm guessing. Yeah, I would say we're more likely to lose a player for eligibility due to a co-curricular violation of another type that they violated the co-curricular code with behavior. Sure. Correct. Yeah. Than
067academically. I would deal more with those types of athletic code violations than an academic one. I had a question just about booster clubs and funds that they raise. How do you incorporate those into your budget? Yeah. So this year now um you know being tasked you know the 10% cut budgetwide that we had talked about as a district once we got that referendum fundraising Spartan sponsor account that we have through our athletic department individual booster accounts uh each sport many sports I shouldn't say each but many sports have a account here at the high school or in the district office where they could do a fundraising whether it be coffee sales fundraising cards car washes we had just a team recently uh volunteer their services at the Broatfest and they got a check for their
068times there. That money would go into what we call their fund 21 account. That fund 21 account then is helpful in the fact of one of the things that we really had to look at because the cost was getting quite in increasing quite rapidly were uniforms. And so when I talked to uh Mr. Tarniter and Mr. Mahoney in regards about uniforms is we put somewhat of a freeze on uniforms this year. There were some there were two programs that we really needed to catch up uh because we had been a little uh late on getting them the uniforms that they needed. And so we were able to have some Spartan sponsor money which is our athletic department fundraising where we get um through our Spartan sponsor program as well as our Bill Garvey Memorial golf
069outing with the MEF and the athletic department. And that money really then helps out with any kind of additional supplies, uniform costs, things of that nature that our budget can't support or that would just take our budget up too high if we would continue to put that into our budget. Now, as we move on and as we look at our budget, we're hopeful that like specifically uniform costs because obviously that's needed in a school district that we could start to put that back into our athletic budget and not have to use so much of our fundraising accounts for that individual programs, but also Spartan sponsor program so that those funds can be used more for things specifically, you know, supplies that we might not be able to look at or or purchase for specific specific
070groups, but every group's a little bit different. Every sport's a little bit different in regards to fundraising, but they all have that opportunity within our district office to have an account there to put that money in and then use it for additional costs that would come up over the season. Maybe Well, I'm sure either one of you could answer it, but I know, you know, there's there's folks out there that simply can't afford, you know, the athletic fees and such. And it's always been my understanding that that this district finds a way to to make sure that anyone that wants to participate in these opportunities will be able to do that. Is that a fund set aside on on the administration side or is that that your responsibility? A lot of in my experience is
071a lot of the opportunities of um student athletes that might not be able to afford the athletic fee is that typically those families would qualify for free and reduced lunch. And our district policy would be that if they qualify for free and reduced lunch when you apply for that you then check a box within that online application of who would you like to have notified. And if you check athletics then when we run our fram report our free and reduce report then that automatically works with infinite campus and when that student athlete would register for a sport that fee is going to be automatically waved. So that does a certain group or percentage of the athletes that want to do that and and in fact it's a probably the largest percentage of it. So we
072have that opportunity there where we wave the fee for anybody who qualifies for free and reduced lunch. if there would be a family that doesn't qualify for free and reduced lunch but has a challenge with the fee at all of our parent meetings. Um, and in my video in regards to sports, uh, registration, we talk about if there's a a financial concern on your family side, please feel free to contact the athletic department and we'll work with the athletic department in regards to that fee. Typically, it can be waved. if it needs to be supplemented. That's something that again our Spartan sponsor account could help out with or I have other businesses, contacts, people in the community that would be more than willing and have come to me and said, "Listen, if you have a
073student athlete that needs help, please let us know." And people have been more than happy to step forward with that. Hey, Farland seems very generous in that way. Absolutely. I've noticed that, too. Good questions. Appreciate that. Uh I'll go to the very last I'll go to the very last part here. I did my best. You know, it's it's kind of like when you're at a banquet and you want to try to recognize your student athletes and there's always going to be something that I probably forget. So, for the people watching or listening to the board members here, um I I do my best to think back to August and uh the highlights. I try to get some major highlights in regards to our athletic department this year. So, in the fall, our boys soccer team
074was our sectional runnerup. Volleyball was a D1 regional final. Uh, they played in the D1 regional final, and they were bumped up to D1 because of the performance factor points that the WIA had just installed that year. So, because of our recent success in girls volleyball with state uh runners up in 21 and 23, that moved us up to D1. So, that was kind of one of those situations where Hey, great job. very yeah very proud of very proud of that team to get past the regional game and get into the regional final in that team uh we hosted the Badger girls tennis tournament that is a 16 team tournament at the Neielson tennis facility um for all Badger Conference schools it's a ginormous tournament uh goes over two days Todd Lacy our girls tennis
075coach and boys tennis coach did a phenomenal job in running that and making sure that it ran smoothly and that's that's a large event we also hosted did the D2 girls swim sectional here at McFarland. Our pool is one of the best around as many of you know. Uh and so conference meets or sectional meets. We we have a high tendency to host those. Uh and again Stu Schaefer, our um community rec director and obviously Kayla Ellison too, our um assistant aquatics director director do a wonderful job of getting us uh set for that event as well. Those are revenue producing to a certain extent as well to a certain extent. I I wouldn't say we're raking it in hand over fist on some of these. Uh but it's definitely what I look at it
076is this. It brings people into our school which is always a benefit and it brings people into our community which is always a benefit. And so by doing that we're raising the awareness within our community. Culver's Quick Trip you know Angelos Spartan Pizza whatever it might be are going to be benefiting from those families coming in. So absolutely although we might not see a great financial, you know, stipen coming from that. Yes, we do make some money. Uh but our community is generating funds from that too in our chamber of commerce. Yeah. It's so much work. It's a lot of work. I mean last Thursday was that when the sectional was here? Yeah. Yeah. Well, Friday, 60ome teams and Yeah. 36 high schools represented there. It's a huge event. That's probably our biggest event that
077we have that we do. All right. um winter. Uh so yeah, winter we obviously as you well know had some very nice accomplishments. We had a a D2 boys state champions and that was backtoback in swimming. Um D2 state jazz dance champions. First time that we've had our dance team win a state championship. We've had some uh third place finishes and fourth place finishes, but this year in jazz we were D2 state champions in jazz. Um, our boys hockey team made it to state and so we say that that's in the state semi-final game or the final four for boys hockey. We had our wrestling team advanced to the team sectional and participate over at Middleton and we had many participants participating at the state meet for girls and boys. Uh, boys basketball played in
078the regional final. So, we had a nice participation there in the nice opportunities and achievements in the winter. uh spring, our girls track and field team were sectional champions and what we were just talking about hosting that event. Our girls soccer just Saturday uh uh were sectional runner-ups to Edgewood uh in the sectional champ uh final game. Uh we have we had participation at the boys golf sectional uh for um two boys participated in the sectional um golf match. Participation at the state track and field meet for boys and girls this year which is just two weekends ago. And our boys 3200 meter relay where the state champs again backtoback like our swimming team. Softball had a wonderful turnaround from last season. I wanted to make sure that I mentioned that. baseball was playing for
079a conference championship near the end of the season. In fact, right up until the last two games against Reedsburg, we hosted the boys conference uh tennis tournament. Um and we had a participant at the tennis sectional. Our girls lacrosse team had a very good conference record and played in the regional final game losing to the Verona co-op. And like we had spoken about earlier, we hosted the boys and girls track sectional um for our community and our area. and there's only four of those, excuse me, four of those in the state that are in that division two. So, feel very proud about our athletic accomplishments um throughout the year. Feel very proud of our student athletes. As you can see, our participation numbers, I feel, are strong uh within every season. And again, we emphasize
080our student athletes being academic based first and kind of an extension of our classroom. So, just an opportunity to share with you some things here tonight and just thank you again for for this opportunity to talk to y'all. Facilities are all good. Yeah, I would say very good. Um, you know, we had that new uh building, concession, storage, restroom, pavilion building over at Wabise Intermediate School through the village and the school district with that wonderful park, the inclusive park. um that just made our softball area so much better. Um baseball, you know, when we're playing that sectional, I'm sorry, the we're playing the our games, uh there near the end of the year where the grass is greening and the facility is really looking nice. Uh people should feel our community should feel very very
081proud to walk into our stadium. Um our rink now, our hockey rink just got an ext expansion onto that as well. So I would say that a school our size should be very very proud of the facilities in which we have. Yeah. I think if I don't if you let me make a comment there again your your comment with the 25 out of 26 sports there's not too many division two schools that have have that going and we're competing against you know it it's amazing and and you you might talk a little bit about the idea of I guess diluting some of our talent but the truth of the matter is um it does give kids an opportunity to participate so um I just wanted to add as well just kind kind of like following
082up on Samantha's u nice presentation on the PTO. You hope that if there people listening and they're interested in getting the volunteering and the and the helping out with athletics, um it would be it would be helpful for all of us. This is an amazing thing that you do, Paul. So, thanks. Thank you. Appreciate that. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. This is It's great. We've definitely I I did I learned a lot. I don't have kids in a ton of sports, some sports, but not but I did I learned a lot. So, thank you. I look forward to again appreciate the opportunity. So, I think hopefully we make this more of an annual thing whether it's, you know, maybe not so much, you know, at the end, maybe we can break it up into kind
083of a half and half type thing. But obviously, you have a busy agenda most meetings. So whatever you feel is appropriate, we'll go ahead and accommodate. Awesome. All right. Now we have up our discussion items and uh Miss Huey, I think we have you first for our WPN schoolboard champion onboarding workshop. Um so I attended the Wisconsin public education network. Yeah, lot of acronyms I'm learning team. It's um but I attended their schoolboard um onboarding workshop three weeks ago now um on a Wednesday evening when there was a lot happening in the district. So if you didn't see me there, I was virtually attending a really great session. Um and wanted to bring back I shared um some presentations and notes with um the the board and Mr. Turniter. So, um, a lot of information
084is out there and thank you, um, Melanie as well for your reminder to the board, um, that there was this opportunity. Um, definitely took advantage of it. Um, there's a whole bunch of notes, um, that I have, but I want to hopefully be a little bit more brief um, this evening and kind of share a few of the highlights that I took away from that. Um, and one being the first kind of grouping is lessons from other teachers and other school districts to schoolboard members. Um, and I think it's things we know as a school board, but it was really nice to recognize um, from teachers that that is in fact yes, that's the case kind of across our state. Um, that we need to be um, present outside of our schoolboard meetings um, and
085kind of go go where the kids are. Um, and then when we're there, um, to honor the the space, um, that that our teachers and students have, um, and honor their various perspectives and listen critically. Um, sometimes I think that is a challenge. Um, when we hear of issues, it's very easy, um, to kind of want in and want to jump in and fix everything. Um, and sometimes it's a good idea just to kind of take a beat and listen. Um, and I think we can make bigger, broader change. Um, and when we listen with that criticality. Um, and then the last one that I kind of took away from their advice is to really name and validate um, hard issues. Um, the we're facing a lot of hard issues in the school district um,
086and in our state and saying this is hard. Um, I think we do a good job of that as a board. Um, but it's a nice reminder that to the teachers and those and the community who are listening, um, we know that, um, money is tight. Um, that we're always asking more of each other. Um, and that maybe even more importantly, everything we do is a priority. Um, because our kids are our priority. And there are a lot of priorities, you guys. Um, and sometimes we have to remind ourselves that we prioritize for a reason. it doesn't make things less important. Um but we have to prioritize for um our role um and for our board and for our superintendent and for our teachers. Um so everything we do is important for our kids but
087really stepping back and saying is this the right time right now for XYZ thing. Um, so those were just a couple of three things I learned from teachers. And then a couple kind of switching gears in the conversation from the workshop was to really talk about um the state of school finance um which seems very appropriate with um our joint finance committee decisions from the state um late last week early late last week. Um but a few things just I think for the community to remember or those who are watching I think we're all fairly familiar with this so I'll try and be brief. um but that referendums really are a reality across our state. We are not unique um in that fact. And I thought it was interesting. They said kind of throughout every
088region of our very rural state when you think about it. Um and across partisan lines and across rural and suburban, we all are facing the same issue. We are we are not unique. Um 1.43 billion dollars was requested in 2025 elections um in referendum across our state. Um we have made up 1.09 billion of that through those operational and capital referendums. Um so thank you to our community members who voted to support our schools. Um referendums are the only way we have right now um to be able to offset um our increasing costs and lack of funding. Um, and I think the other really key takeaway I took away from it was that districts right now, um, and will continue with the lack of, um, decision and action at our state level, um, that districts
089have to cover the cost of unfunded special ed um, first for all of our students. So that means that um, when we don't get the reimbursement we need from the state, um, we have to cut into our general resources for all of our students. So, it's not only impacting when we think about special education, it's not only impacting special education students, but it's impacting all of our kids. Um, we have to take and kind of I talked about prioritizing, we have to pull from other places to give to other places. Um, and those are really hard decisions. So, um, keeping that in mind. And then I think the last piece really ties into our, um, efforts as a board over the last couple of years. Thank you, Megan. um for kind of our our legislative
090advocacy um action on the on the committee on the board rather um and that we need to continue to participate um which I think we've kind of jointly all all do um but it's also asking our community members to do the same um schools I think people have heard me say this before but schools really are the institutions um that are the center of our community of our of our village um and we need your help um to help us advocate um for shifts in our state funding um and answer questions when people have them in the community. So if you have questions um that you need answers to um please ask us. That's what we're here for. Um so if you need ideas for how to advocate, ask. We will have plenty of resources
091to provide you. So um stay engaged, please. We appreciate you. Um and I think I think that was it. Those are kind of the big things. I'm really glad I attended. Um I'm really thankful that we do have um state groups that are supportive and have resources for us as a district and as board members um to advocate, educate, um and hopefully make some change. Was that less than 10 minutes? I don't know. But it all sounded important. So it's fine. Any questions? Great. I'm going to zip my lip on all things political right now. Okay. So, not a good idea because I'm very very angry. It is. It's very discouraging. Yeah. You know, it's obvious that until something happens in an election year that we're just not going to get school funding that's adequate.
092But I would like to thank our local legislators for consistently supporting public education funding because if we had more legislators who felt the way ours do, I think our state public education funding uh would be a lot more positive. And you don't just have to contact your representatives. You can contact any of them as frequently as you want. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's um yeah, you make a good point. We've talked about that in the past where we're it's we're constantly giving feedback to the people who who are in our corner. Yeah. Right. Like and so it is kind of more about getting um out to the other representatives who don't, you know, maybe don't hear from us, don't hear from our perspective. And um it also feels like those representatives might not be listening
093to their constituents and that is disappointing in the whole process. So yes, thank you to our local legislator for sure. And I' I'd like to just add again I I wish people in the McFarland area because we are so blessed with our community and the support that they've given us over the years. Um, I just want to ask them to contact friends in rural areas. What would your community be without your public schools? And it just it's mindboggling to me that many of these rural areas keep reelecting people who are supporting what is what is being proposed right now. It just it is mindboggling because the communities are nothing without the public schools. Thank you, Meredith. Thanks very much. Very helpful. Thanks, Bruce. Yeah, thanks Bruce. Um, Erin, district administrator. So, I have some updates
094for you. I'm going to get into the details of what you were just alluding to. I didn't want to steal your thunder. That's okay. That's okay. Um, kind of thunder. So, first update is about the the state bianial budget. um joint finance committee um met in the in the proposal that was approved included a few things. So I want to talk about what that was and the implications for our district. Um it had a very modest is a gentle term in my opinion a very u minimal special education reimbursement rate increase. So currently the it's um we're at right around 30% a little over 30% reimbursement rate. So as Meredith explained what that means is that the remaining 70% comes from our general education funds. Um and so that's money that isn't going towards other
095things. And so um what moved forward out of joint finance was increasing that to 35% next year and 37.5% the year after. Um and what people were feeling was a compromise was to propose 60% reimbursement which would have meant $1.8 million for our district. Um, so the increase that was sent through joint finance will u maybe keep up with inflationary costs um but not change the the situation for us. Um so the other thing was there was no increase in general school aid. So that means that that $325 per student that was approved um and that you know kind of the the situation with the with the governor's veto um that is will be funded by local taxpayers not by our state. Um so that is something that our our community will be feeling. The
096other thing is that it does not increase per pupil aid. Um, and there's only minimal increases for mental health, transportation, and and sparsity age. So, basically, status quo there. So, reminder, we're in a deficit. We continue to be in a in a deficit as a school district. Um there were some increases to high-cost special education aid. Um which is um I think a a partial response to the request for increasing in special education funding. But um that is a very targeted situation where costs are over 30,000 per student and not all districts take advantage of that opportunity to receive reimbursement for that. We do. Uh we're a district that that does to the to the tune of about $200,000 annually. It is um a sum certain amount. So some certain just means the legislature says
097we'll spend this much amount of money on this. Some sufficient on the other hand which was what we're looking for in the 60% and of course here as well means whatever the amount is whatever it costs um we'll put forward. So um this being some certain so very it's a specified amount um approved an increase of 50% next year and then um a reimbursement of 90%. So you know the 50% would mean about $300,000 more to our district which is welcome and um 90% the following year would be about $700,000. Um, now that's contingent upon what other districts do. So, you get a piece of the pie and you know, it's one of those things where the more you talk about it, you realize, hey friends, if I talk to you about this, you're going
098to apply, too. And then um but but the point being that that Dane County we have one of the lowest enrollments of any school district in the county and the third highest reimbursement for high cost special education. So you know this this impacts our budget but again I talked about 1.8 million with that 60% and now we're talking 300,000 and then 700,000 just the beta what our state superintendent, you know, was asking for as opposed to what Yeah. it's turning out to be. It's almost laughable. Yeah. Dr. Underly asked for 90%. 90%. Some sufficient. So, you know, all that put together, you know, we're not even on a a plane of the other ask, which is tying the per pupil aid um to inflationary um indexing to inflation as was done uh prior to 2010.
099That's not even being discussed. So, so now we're kind of at a stalemate, I guess, a little bit. So, um we'll see where it ends up, but the gap is so significant. Um um less relevant, I guess, directly to our funding. Um but there was significant amount of money that was um allocated towards voucher and private education. So, if anyone would ever like to have a conversation offline and I can fill you all in on the political realm, please feel free to reach out to me. We can grab coffee. Yes. Y because otherwise I'm just gonna go on a tangent of rage. Yeah, please don't. I won't. Um, and just so like the community understands when we're talking about like the significant when Mr. Turner is talking about the significant increase to the school voucher
100like the funding for that. 83% of our students in our state attend public school. So this is talking like we're increasing the funds for a very small percentage of our students. So just keep that in mind. Um and also understand that this is a really these are complex words and numbers. Um so if you didn't understand like some sufficient you are not the only one. Um, I've asked a lot um and there are a lot of really good resources that you have here in the district office um and on the school board and others in our community who can help um break some things down for you um as well as the school referendum information that we still have on the district website is very good. Um, so plug it. And Erin, I Erin, I'd
101like to pack on what you you had said about the taxpayers in McFarland will have to, you know, we'll have to pick up this this extra money. The truth of the matter is we're sitting on a $4 billion surplus and this legislature is determined to give that back in the form of basically um pro uh income tax uh a rebate as it were. And it turns out what's going to benefit is basically the wealthiest people in the state. And the people who are seniors who are on a fixed income are going to see none of that. And they're the ones who are being hit so hard with property taxes. And to me again, it's just unconscionable. Yes. And you know, I think it is important we continue to remind people. I think people's memory is
102starting to fade and that's concerning to me. Um, you know, a year ago, April, we asked for what we needed for a referendum that did not pass. We asked for half of that. It did pass. So, we are operating in a deficit. So, um, we have to make difficult decisions on a daily basis and that is part of our fiscal responsibility and the taxpayers should accept nothing less. Unfortunately, um the decisions we're having to made make do impact our students. So, I'll give you an example is that our diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging coordinator position is currently uh a vacant position and we're pausing hiring that because we don't know how we're going to pay for it to fill an existing position because we know we're in a deficit and based on what we heard
103last week from the bianial budget, it's only getting worse. So those are, you know, really hard and difficult decisions that we need to be making. We have to make decisions now that are are going to be of impact in 26 and all of the elections going forward, right? So yeah, so it makes you go against things that you you care about and you value and think will be good for our kids just because you have to pay your bills, right? And I I have I have run into people who are confused by how can you have a deficit? You just got your referendum passed. And again, if you were to talk to any of the people on that citizen advisory committee, they realize, okay, if we would have really asked for what we thought would
104get us out of a deficit, we would have done it. But we realized that we could not get that passed or we ran a very good risk of not passing anything at all. And so we were between a rock and a hard place and we took what we thought would be palatable as far as what the taxpayers could afford, but knowing full well that we were going to be in this deficit and I want the public to be aware of that. This is all again there is money there four billion dollars but they want to give it back to the rich richest people and it just to me is unconscionable. Well, and I think to to go back to you're totally right, Bruce, and to go back to the decision about the DIIB coordinator that
105is one that really touch impacts all the students in the district and it's incredibly hard decision. Um, and it's part of our strategic plan like equity and inclusion and making sure that all the students belong is a is one of the foundations of our strategic plan and to feel like we weren't really faced with a decision, you know, like there was no um I mean it felt like there was only one answer in a way um because of the decisions that our legislators are not our legislators but the ones in who are controlling the decisions right now is really sad. So a little bit choices. Yes. Y in mind and still wanting to stand by things that we believe in and want to teach all of our kids. So it's this is hard. I mean
106this is when the rubber meets the road and it's really bad analogy but we have lots of skip marks like that this is told you really bad analogy y longevity I just you know le levity but like it this is a this is extremely challenging and I I hope that the community I hope you understand that these are not decisions we take lightly and um because every kid does matter to all of us and Exactly, Meredith. And I I just it is it's popular with some folks to sit there and say, "Oh, this is all a woke agenda." And I will say that more than anything, what you just said is that we feel that every kid should be treated with dignity. And that's all that's really all this is about, that every kid should
107be treated with dignity. And I I just want people to understand that. And this is again it's it is a a a blow to literally our our strategic plan. We're trying to just do everything we can with the minimum amount of resources to to carry out a I think a very beautiful strategic plan. True. Yep. And that's one example among many and it's yeah looking like it's not going to get better. So you got some good stuff for us. Uh so we um also just to give you an update on rea the renaming process, right? So the board voted to rename uh the primary school to McFarland Primary. And so there's kind of two paths going underway at the same time. There's sort of the logistics of rebranding a school and what those costs are.
108At this point, we haven't spent anything. We've just done what we could do on our own. And then there's the recognizing Conrad Elvium and and his legacy. And so we're we're trying to do those things. At the same time, we do have some places in our curriculum where we've identified where we will talk about Conrad Alvium, both in terms of his his many accomplishments in science and as a as a local um resident here and then also to talk about um the restrictive covenant, the racially restricted covenant and the impact on housing. So, so a lot of good work underway, but a lot lot more to do um in that. So, I wanted to give you a little update on that and then I do have some things um to share in a in the
109slideshow with you and so that that will be positive. Um so you have some students here um a little dropping everything and read outside at MPS just love to see a love of literacy. It's always fun. Then you have some students that uh in 4K. Yeah, the 4K they they raised some chickens. Look at those smiles. Little chicks. Yeah, very exciting moment. Very exciting moment. Exciting. Pick up on that, huh? Yeah, it wasn't me. Um, so it's celebrating the end of the year in in in uh Mrs. Rapunzel's class there. So, they had a little camp out. What a fun way to do that. Are those like tablecloths? Yeah, I think they're like those red plastic tablecloth. Yeah, it's not very fun. And we had um author visit here for our second graders. That's something
110I've been seeing more and more in our district this year. um did a great job bringing in local authors and talking about their experience inspiring that love of writing and reading. Moving on, uh just just a nice picture, kind of an end of the year picture. People having some fun here, laying class there. The uh Black Girl Magic Conference, fourth and fifth graders have done that before. Thanks to Britney Brazzle for organizing that and and leading students there. Had a great day and a lot of fun. Really good moment for them. We had the we always have the summer presentations from the Edilock Public Library encouraging kids to keep reading over the summer. So this is at Wabisa with Heather there doing some worm dissection at the uh middle school. One of my favorite things
111is to watch them dissect. Uh always always a blast. Some kids love it and some kids faint. Um every year uh having some fun just with our school nutrition department. Uh saw that costume in a couple different places. The uh pizza made the rounds. So just a fun thing. great relationships that Amanda has developed with our students there and of course is the case with all our school nutrition. Bruce given up couple retirees among many, right? We had 176 years of service uh that that were losing. And here you see Joan Schmidt and Brian Coleman celebrating uh their retirement. two amazing employees that will be greatly missed by the students they served and the staff that got to work with them and the families as well. Club Unified there uh doing their their bowling trip.
112They try to get out and do that at least annually and just had a lot of fun together. Eighth graders doing their 3D animal project. Um, so that's, you know, some hands-on use of volume and surface area. Pretty good work there. Uh, Jamie self-sacrificing with the sort of, you know, the the bucket over the head for the carnival at the that the middle school does seventh grade. each of the the times advisories develops a game uh for students to play and they have a little fundraiser that they do as part of it and they do some donating. Um really a neat thing that they the seventh grade team put together a few years ago and thanks for their leadership and thanks to Jamie for being willing to do that. Yes. Yes. The library um does
113a really neat thing. This has been going on for many many years. The um in this case the students the the classroom librarians the students volunteer to do this but they send books home with staff. So staff sign up and say I want to read these kind of books over the summer and they get them some young adult literature to read and they take it up. That's fun. It's a neat neat tradition there. sixth graders doing the uh oh gosh the science fair. That's always classic. Um that's one thing I I missed it this year. I just typically get up there. You know they've changed over time. They they're well beyond the you know which is the best brand of toilet paper. Um so real versus AI. You can see that one. So very creative
114and really neat and I love the way that the sixth grade staff involves the community in having families come uh little writing anthology um celebration here with 10 of our middle school students. You've seen some if you've seen on social media a lot of pictures of the community day. Another thing that the seventh grade brought forward um first starting off reading to first graders and then they go out into the community and do different activities um to help our community some planting and you know marking things. It's really good. MHS multicultural club had uh the cultural meal which is always a great great tradition. Um a lot of great donations. So, thank you businesses for donating and then families bringing special recipes to them. Polyai had their legislative semester um again with their full session
115and debating some bills and the definitely our kids are getting their civics in. So, thanks to the teachers that took that on this year. It's a ton of work um but a really powerful experience. if you ever get to see it. I know Bruce was able to stop by. Um here we have an award, the Dovetail uh award was uh given to amazing um head custodian there does a great job and and really brings such a positive attitude to what can be an extremely challenging job. So congratulations to him. the BSU here at the high school. Uh got together with the middle school um PCU and got to know each other. A nice end of the year kind of transition. Here we have um the kind of a walking field trip for our high school
116marketing students learning about the McFarland House Cafe and Grace Coffee and some of the things that they do. So, love our local businesses welcoming our students in and sharing their expertise. And we had the Optimus Club recognizing uh Kendall Reid as a senior of the month. Finished out strong. I think she had a special spot at graduation which is very coveted. Hey, look at this. Uh we had our recognition ceremony which went really well. So, thank you to those of you that were able to attend. Um, and we're really fortunate to have uh MHS graduate class of 2018, Kenzie Beam, whose business um made drinks for our staff. And thank you to the many community members that donated and bought a drink including my daughter um who you know bought that drink. I am getting
117right there. So um but really great. It is amazing that they did what they did. If you follow uh the business's social media at all, you uh you can see they had a video that they sped up of the entire process. They were moving so fast. Unbelievable. Really special for that. And then other things going on, of course, we had graduation. Um so that was a real success. What a wonderful event. Great speeches. Yeah. really top notch. They did a great job. Yeah, really special event and I think well organized. Um special thanks to Kim Wink for her leadership. That's so she takes every detail so seriously and really went well. Also had the WEA graduations. So three of those um on the Friday before our brick and mortar graduation. And I do I did
118bring the the we have a high school one if anybody wants to see the the program from that. But really powerful. starts with insight which is for the you know I would say the students that come with the their most credit deficient um uh situation and all and and then um DCA destinations career academy and then they talk about like what experiences they had in a in a given career pathway and then the largest is is we have a high school but all three were the largest classes to ever graduate from their respective high schools. I think the first year I attended there was 12. Yep. Yeah. More than 12, I'll tell you. Yeah. I'm still It was a lot of hand shaking. It Yeah, there were. And then they cruised through it, too. Yeah.
119They were like backed up on stage. It was the loudest and most um enthusiastic graduation ceremony I've ever attended. It was they were like you could just tell that these families and supporters were so excited for these graduates. Like it was such a different experience. It was awesome. Families thought that could never right ever happen. Yeah. I mean it's amazing how it is. You're right. It's a it's a whole different vibe. Yeah. It totally was. Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. It's great. We also had our leadership institute. So district and building staff came together last Tuesday working really hard right after school gets out. So I was just in awe of the staff and the work that was done. We started summer school today. So thanks to everyone for their leadership um there. Melissa F and many
120others um on a rainy start um to date. So uh it was a good start a good start to summer school. We've got a teacher study group going underway. Okay. So, thanks to Aaron Fischer, our our 612 literacy coordinator, who's leading a study group around the book, Why Kids Can't or When Kids Can't Read, um that our secondary teachers are really looking at when they have students that that struggle um with reading. So, that's what they're doing this summer. Of course, you heard a little bit about our our success at the end of the season and some great um success at at at state for track. So, I won't go into all of that and girls soccer and all these things. The Shane Blake and Kale Tabist um were recognized as sport persons of the
121year from for the Madison area at the Madison Hall of Fame Sports Banquet. So, kind of neat to have the three of them recognized. Special shout out I wanted to give to Sheila Fay. She put uh edited a video that um uh officer Zitzma and I made with a script that um Mike Clemens as their safety coordinator put together about reunification that we'll be putting up on our website for families just to just it's very brief but it gives you a sense of you know here's some recommendations if we would ever need to have you reunify with your child either on-site or offsite. What what to do and mostly it's stay home, stay informed and then you know be prepared so that when you do come in we can reunite you as quickly as possible.
122So that's uh she did all the editing. Uh appreciate the high school administration student services. They have prepared an alumni survey that we're going to start sending out to our alumni to just hear how things are going and and do that one year after graduation and then five years after graduation. Awesome. So that's something we uh will start now. Uh I have a draft of it in my mailbox today. Email box um today and we will get that out in the coming weeks for that. We collect email addresses, personal email addresses from our kids. We'll use that. Special thanks. We've got some donations. McFarland United Church of Christ made a very generous donation towards the purchase of our land acknowledgement plaques. We have enough for one. Sweet. So, we're going to do that. Um, we're
123not going to get lost in a political conversation, but I will say the cost for the plaques has increased dramatically dramatically in relation to the tariffs. Um, so also wanted to uh thank Jennifer and Chad Pagels made a a wonderful donation to McFarland High School Skills USA club. So thanks to that. Uh, today we hosted a safety training here for um, Dayne County School Safety Team um, with emergency management on the standard response protocol, which is what we use. We had people from other districts coming right here um to use that um awesome our facility. So they were in the PAC. So thanks for that. Um June we continue on. Of course you know it's LGBTQIA plus pride month. Um also the 14th was Robert Lefallet uh senior day. We have Junth is June 19th
124with a celebration at Arnold Larson Park uh this Sunday from 12 to 3. Same folks are doing the food again this year. Yeah, very good food. Make sure you go. It's a great event. It's in collaboration with the village and our our high school black student union. And then the third annual Pride in the Park is on the 29th. throw pie in the face of your favorite or least favorite um school staff member or former board member. July is disability pride month. Um we've got Independence Day of course on July 4th, the second summer school session from the 7th to 17th. We have the joint village school board planning committee on July 8th. We have our school board regular meeting on July 14th. And then uh camp kindergarten is just after that. That concludes my
125report. Do you have any questions or other recognitions you'd like to share? Well, you kind of you covered it mostly, but I just wanted to add on to how incredible I thought that the graduation went. Mhm. I thought the speeches were just spoton and everything flowed. Yep. Great job. Great job, Kim. Wink. 100%. 100%. I agree. Yep. I was going to say the same thing. And then also a shout out to the staff who choose to attend because that's not re that's not required. So correct. they choose to be there because they think it's looked to be more than I can Yes, I can recall. I thought that was a really really good turnout. That's great. Um I had a couple um I mean that was going to be the one I ended on. Um
126there were I wanted to acknowledge the um shooting the killing of the um legislators up in Minnesota in part because we are all public elected officials. Um and I don't feel like this is something we have to worry about here in McFarland. you know, like it's being an elected official can feel really unsafe sometimes and here I don't feel like that's an issue and I unfortunately that's something to be grateful for right now and I just want to I mean educators teach us how to do social discourse in a kind and positive way here. Um and so thank you to community members for doing that and just we have to do better. we have to figure out how to do better. It's just it's that's why we're here. It's true. It's why we're here, but
127I think we're we're um we're unique. So, it's I'm grateful for that. Um, and then going back to the joint finance committee, I just a general thank you to all of the board members who submitted comments and public um, support, community members, family, anyone um, who did something to try to help public education. So, yeah, we're going to keep trying. I have one um, Aster, I'm totally gonna mess up your your last name. Um Aster Campi. Yes. Oh, you did it. Um is a high school um student and GSA member and spoke about um our inclusive programs and spaces um at at the Village of McFarland um pride flag raising ceremony and community gathering um on June 4th. um they spoke very well. Um and it is inspiring to see um the next generation. I
128feel like I'm getting old. Um but it's it is um something that I never saw in my experience. Um and um thank you Aster for standing up um and using your voice um as well as all the other um GSA members um in our community. So very courageous. Yeah. Yep. It's true. Yeah. Makes you proud. Yep. It gave me goosebumps. As did graduation. So, yeah. Anything else? Okay. Thank you for all those. Those are great recognitions. Um Okay, I think we're on to our action items. Running. Yeah, we are. That's okay. um action on the memorandum of understanding with natural circles of support. Um this goes from July 1st to of this year to December 31st of this year. Um was it Do you have more you want to say about it, Erin? I can.
129Um Sure. Yep. Uh just give you a little update. five-year grant, $1 million community impact uh grant and we are in the last half of the last year and so we is built on a plan of sustainability and so we have the district has taken more and more ownership u working with our partners uh researcher Dr. Priel out of uh WMadison as well as the natural circles of support community group provide consultation leadership led the mentoring circles initially now we have res assumed responsibility for these activities um with them continuing to serve as a consultant and kind of stepped back in their role so that we're prepared to continue moving forward. uh made some changes to this agreement in response to um previously there was a lot of uh references to the diversity, equity, inclusion
130and belonging coordinator and their activities. We have we will continue those activities just with other staff members. So this is very similar to the agreement that you approved last year. It's just that one it's for half of the year. um it will end in a very large comprehensive report for the entire uh project and um also I would I would just say that it kind of is symbolic of you know the district's ownership um and and and responsibility to make sure we're meeting the needs of all kids so learners and NCOS can move on and serve other districts. Awesome. Any questions about that? I would look for a motion. I will make that. All right. Fisher. I can second. Chapman. All right. Any discussion? Okay. Um, all in favor? I I Any opposed? All right.
131Motion carries. All right. action on the 20252026 private transportation contracts. Um, annually the school board approves private transportation contact contracts for those district families who will have children attending private or parochial schools in the school year as defined by state statutes 121.54. Board action is requested to approve the private transportation contracts as listed in the exhibit provided. I would move to approve the 2526 private transportation contracts as recommended by the administration. All right. How are you? Second. I'll second. All right. Got the H's there. Um, any discussion? Okay. All in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. All right. So now we have our the um action on the second reading of many policies. Would you like me to read the policies now or do it in the motion? I can make sure I
132have here we do. We want to approve these all at once or are we going to go through them one at a time? Well, we already went through them. This is the second reading. So we already went through them last time. So I think we can do it all in one unless there's any discussion. I mean we can we make the motion all in one. I I move to approve the second reading and adoption of the following policies as recommended by administration. 4124 letter of reasonable assurance. 6231 budget implementation 6235 fund balance. 6620 petty cash 7410 maintenance. 7430 safety standards. 7440 facility security 744.202 Smart Monitoring Equipment 7540.03 Student Technology Acceptable Use and Safety 7540.04 Staff Technology Acceptable Use and Safety 7540.07 7 districts student email account 8120 volunteers 8125 consultants 8395 student mental health
133services 8531 free and reduced price meals 86000 transportation 6110 federal funds 6325 procurement federal grants and funds 7310 disposition of personal property 7450 50 property inventory and 8510 wellness. Thanks Craig. While you catch your breath, do I have a second? I can second. All right, J. All right. Do we have any further discussion? No. Okay. Um, all in favor? I I Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Okay. Okay. Now we have action on recommended um WEVA DCA um Insight School of Wisconsin um state statutes 118.48G student transfers to resident districts. Um these schools um are requesting approval of recommended student transfers back to their resident districts due to lack of engagement. I move to approve the WEA Destinations Career Academy and Insight School of Wisconsin recommended student transfers back to their resident districts due to
134lack of engagement. All right. Thank you. All right, Fiser. Any discussion? No, it was it's it's a longer list this time. I imagine it's probably because it's end of year. Yeah. Yep. Only two kindergarters. Thank you. for the mooney mooneyies. Yep. Got to do the mooney. Um, yes. It's always sad to see the youngest learners not for whatever reason getting their needs met. Not for lack of trying from Weea or anything like that, but And only one first grader. Yeah, it's it's all it's been so much better. Yes. All right. Um, all in favor? I I any opposed? All right. Motion carries. Um so now we are going to um have I will entertain a motion to go into close se session. So move. Um I have to read a little bit first. Um but
135you are so fast. Motion for close session under Wisconsin state statute 19.851C. um considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data on any public employee over which the government governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility. Um specifically, we are discussing um certified staff member request for retirement. So um how are you? I move to go into close session. I'll second. Okay. All right, Chapman. So, we are um going to do roll call. Um Howry, yes. Chapman, yep. Huy, yep. And then Fiser, are you coming into close session with us? I will try. Okay, great. And Fesler, yes. So, we are going to go into close session at 8:59 and then we will reconvene in open um in case we take any action on what's in close session. I think that's right. All right. [Music] I
136don't two days ago we decided to switch from Android to iPhone. You'll get used to it. You will. Oh my god. Hence the phone in the middle of the meeting. If you need any help, I will help you. Android We're coming back. That's fine. [Music] Yeah. Wait for Chapman to Yes. Howry motion. Chapman seconded and we went back into open at 9:18. I figured it out all by myself. You did. That was wonderful. Okay, Chapman is back. Uh oh, he's on a lake. There we go. Okay, there's Bruce. All right, we're live. All right, we're back. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. Um, okay. So, does anyone um now that we're back in open session, does anyone wish to um make a motion to take action on what we discussed in closed session? Okay. Hearing none,
137um I would uh entertain a motion to adjurnn. A motion to adjurnn this evening. Hi. I'll second. All right. Chipman. All in favor? I I All right. Any opposed? No. We've still never had one of those. No, I know. All right. And we are meeting adjourned at 9:21 p.m. Very good. Motion carries. Sorry. Thank you, Bruce. Enjoy the rest of your time.