001to make. So, well, actually, yeah, I was saying he called and he said I'm okay and I'm like, okay, neat. Me, too. You know, then he explained to me because it was way before I hit the and they took it took 15 minutes. Like, I literally haven't seen anything about it. All right, we're at 6:15, ladies and gentlemen. Okay. Um, I will call to order the meeting at 6:15 p.m. And I would entertain a motion to go into closed session. Move that we go into close session. How? I can second. Fisher, can you please state the reason for going into close? Yes, I will do that. Um let's see. Um under motion for close session under Wisconsin state statute 19.851C considering employment promotion compensation or performance evaluation data for any public employee over which the
002governmentmental body has jurisdiction. So we will be discussing compensation plans for administrators, supervisors and directors in the close session. Um and we take a roll call, right? I think yes. Okay. So roll call. Howry yes. Chapman here. Huy here. Fischer here. Fesler here. Okay. And we are in close session at 6:16. Are we moving, boss? Yeah. Indeed. All right. So, we are continuing our meeting. Bruce 7 20. Yes. Okay. He'll be here very shortly. Oh, yeah. I got to get up. I don't know if I have your slideshow. I think I do. I'm not being rude. I'm going to work for my Oh, okay. Anybody else coming to the club? I can't, unfortunately. I did rearrange. That's a really neat thing. I have a super fun threehour sales and marketing meeting. You're starting to do
003it year after year. Yeah. No, that was was it the third year? I really want to have my work. Let's see. Should be where would you do the jet? I don't know. I can't say, but he should be here shortly. Well, do we do we want to continue and just note that he's currently absent? Should be right. This is a first. Okay. Okay. Well, I will I'll say that the meeting is continuing at 7:30. Good. Yeah. I mean, we could get into the Well, it's a consent agenda right at the start. I don't You can You're the boss. I'm the boss. Okay. Make sure to speak in the microphone, people. What's that? I was just reminding us all to speak in the microphone. Yes, we all need to speak into the microphone. There he is.
004All right. No apologies needed. Okay. All right. So now um next on the agenda we have our consent agenda items. Um let me read this here. I'm definitely taking Craig's recommendation and going slow. Um on the Oh, that's why it's over here. Okay, here we go. On the consent agenda, um it contains minutes from the May 5th schoolboard meeting, general fund vouchers and purchasing card transactions, professional and co-curricular staffing recommendations. Um the 2025 2026 professional staff salary schedule, 2025 and 26 support staff wage schedule, and 202526 districtwide support staff wage schedule. Does anyone want to pull any of those out to talk about before we No. Okay. Um then I would accept a motion to approve those. I move to accept the consent agenda as presented. Second. All in favor? I I I I almost
005forgot to vote. All right. Motion passes. 5. You don't really know that because you didn't Any disagreeable? You're right. Any who that? All opposed. All opposed. All opposed. None. Okay. Now the motion carries. 5-0. Thank you for that. Okay. Um we also have some personnel items that where a vote is not necessary. Um next is our public comments. Do we have any one who registered? Oh, all right. Reg I'm sorry. There is a person who has a regist. Thank you. You don't need to. Are you good? Good evening. Hello. All right. So, let me before you begin, let me just read our um public comments. um our public comments policy thing. So, in accordance with schoolboard policy 1631 167.3, the McFarland School Board welcomes public comment during regular meetings from individuals who are present at
006the meeting participating virtually or have sent an email to the board president or superintendent. Participants are required to register to speak upon arriving at the meeting. Provide their name, address, and any group affiliation before speaking. address only topics within the legitimate jurisdiction of the board and recognize that the board will not respond um to comments during the meeting unless the item is on the published agenda. Limit their comments to under five minutes or 600 written words and maintain decorum. All right, welcome. Will you state your name and address, I guess? I'm parent and community member. Um, I just want to thank you for making the space for public comments. And I just have a few updates on the school funding front and I'm this is not polished, so I'm just going to kind of hop
007around a little bit, but the, you know, with the legislature working on the new state budget, I wanted to say some things. Um over the last several weeks I've been attending state budget listening sessions starting in McFarland with the one we had several weeks ago um with our Dayne County representatives who like so many of us are deeply frustrated by the state's school funding model. Um, I wanted to understand what these sessions are like in other places or in districts represented by lawmakers who don't support catch catching school funding up to inflation and don't want to fully fund even the services they themselves have mandated like those in act 20. Um so I traveled north to Watoma and Mayville and south to Bo and uh to you know individual representatives budget listening sessions all of
008which have seen school referendums on their ballots in their communities. Um in fact in Bo they failed twice on two big ones. The second of which included a referendum engagement group information sessions you know the works um and uh a lot of community engagement. they they lost by 150 votes out of that 9,000. Um, and you know what I heard in those places is pretty much the same thing we're hearing everywhere. Um, the most powerful session I attended though was the final joint finance committee budget listening session in Wasau on April 29th. Um, all 16 members of the joint finance committee were there at one long table at the front of the room. um huge uh sort of convention hall. The room was electric. You know, people were coming from all over the state to
009to you know, brought together by their referendum struggles. Uh and rose to speak for better school funding. Um, it went from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 pm and I had to leave at 4, but at like when I left, they were just calling up people who registered to speak at like 7:50 a.m. Um, and they were going to hear everybody and they were accepting registration, new registrations even when I was leaving. So, I'm sure it was a long day. Um, but really the school funding, it was the most consistent, most passionate message of the day. Um, and if we believe in representative government, the joint finance committee must listen to such a unified public call. Um, the Wisconsin Public Education Network, I want to give a plug to them. Um, they were there, too. Their insights
010have been critical throughout many communities, referendums, um, explaining how Wisconsin school funding model model is intentionally designed to push school funding onto local ballots. Uh, and referendums are not a sign of poor planning. Um, just exactly what the legislature intended. Um, they clarified a few things and I think I'm going to I'm not going to get to all of them. Um, but one thing I really want to emphasize is that we like we need to talk to our representatives. I know that not necessarily everybody there's that many people who hear this and and you all know this. Um but I don't know if we're all really doing it. So even if we each can reach out to one um I think it would be really powerful not just for us to do it but to
011think of people you know in other places in the state. Um, and that's the advice I've heard a few times and and so I looked up like where are the joint finance committee members from. Um, here we have it. If you know people in and this is the area, right? These are kind of rough areas because districts are not just single towns, but if this sparks a region for you and somebody you know, Beaver Dam, in fact, the co-chair of the joint finance committee is from around there. um Spring Green, Sock County, Stevens Point, Green Bay, River Falls, you know, just east of just west of Oaklair. Um also, uh Wakaawa, Superior, uh Oak Creek, the Oak Creek part of Milwaukee County and of course Milwaukee County. Madison is represented, Konosha's represented, Green Lake, um
012North Central Ris Wisconsin, between uh Oaklair and Wasau. Um they they especially need to hear from us. Um and finally, with just three short or long weeks left in the school year and staff appreciation week behind us, I just want to close by thanking our staff and administration. We love showing our gratitude, but we also know that one week of notes and goodies can't measure up to the work you do all year long. We see the challenges you face, the long hours, the care you give, the support you need and too often don't receive. Um, we just we don't say it enough. We see you. We appreciate you more than words can express. Thanks, Thank you, Melanie. Thanks, Melanie. Thank you. A hugely. Thank you. All right. We do love public comment, so come see
013us more often, folks. Um, okay. On to someformational and reports. Uh, McFarland High School student report. Maybe we missed. Don't I think we might have missed them. Yes. I think my guess is they they joined us earlier and um we're not sure why we weren't there. Thanks. So, thanks for showing up because we sorry we uh missed you. Okay. So, then we're on toformational items. Um the family handbooks for 2526. Yes. So I will give um an overview uh for for you and then if you have questions I'll invite you to direct those to we're fortunate to have Mr. John and Miss Shamer who are uh joining us virtually this evening. Thank you. But I'll just give you a kind of quick overview on some of the changes what um this team did and I
014really appreciate their amazing work um really looking at attention to detail and how we can improve the family handbook to better meet our student and family needs. So the f the first change that you'll see there is just you know updating a part where the talking about uh behavior and that this plan has been fully implemented and so it's just more of a technical correction I would say in that issue. The area of the dress code reflects um court cases and law about what schools can and can't do. There's been laws about, you know, students wearing clothing, displaying weapons, or different messages on clothing, and when schools can um prohibit that form of dress as a as a form of speech and when they can't. And so these changes just reflect those those limits and
015when they can and can't. and things like, you know, speech is protected unless it causes a substantial disruption to the educational environment. Also talking about schools can't decide to um prohibit some speech based on a viewpoint and others not. Like you couldn't say, well, you can wear this political party's clothing, but not that political party's clothing, right? You can you have to say no political party's clothing. um which you can't do unless it causes severe disruption. Moving on to fees. This is also largely a technical correction. Just talking about um the first part is just about the schedule. It used to be on the on September 30th, but now we we use that on on floating dates depending upon how they may fall. you know, un unpaid fees, just saying that they're they don't get
016carried over because what ends up happening is that everything just accumulates and then you get to be a senior. Um, and then also took out um um that students can participate in athletic um competitions. Now, what you're missing from this whole fee section is all of the work that's going on behind the scenes to work with families to develop plans, find ways that people can can pay the fees. Health services largely technical changes. Um, actually this this vision screening is actually just outdated. Um, it we've been doing it in second grade for years and for some reason it still said first grade. Um added some section about injuries at school and some language about um additional health insurance and changed some language about um prescription um medication sa safety a technical correction really the the
017new system is called visitor aware updated a few policies and um updated this section on on hate speech. Um and with that was really just streamlining that. A lot of that was developed years ago and just language changes and the need for education changes. Um in this case less because uh families and kids know more. When you get into individual changes, they're pretty minimal. You'll see some across the handbook some attendance language changes. Uh our associate principal team has done a really excellent job um including with collaboration with Lauren Orango and Angie Brunette in terms of attendance policies practices and wanting to update that language in the handbook including tardiness. um some language changes about you know consequences things for for um transportation some more gender inclusive language and you'll see similar things um there
018at Wabisa the middle school um you'll see in the middle and the high school updating academic honesty including AI and had the question u Meredith had reached out to me today to ask me about Wabisa and whether that could be added to W visa. I checked in with them and they said at this point it's not an issue for them. Um but they're willing to kind of reassess as the year goes on. So I didn't I hope I didn't jinx them. Um so food service just talking about the unpaid meals policy and how that that works. Um so just some clarification and language. Same thing with locker policy, just updating to reflect that the lockers are optional at the middle school. Um, change the time there for off and away. And then visitor wear. Again,
019you'll see similarly in the high school. Pretty much the same things, some course changes, things to reflect that. And then um they updated their work release, senior release policy uh that you'll see in there. And then the parking thing which you may have heard about um that has changed there and how parking is ordered. So those are the changes. What questions do you as a board have? This isn't an action item. It's anformational item, but you're welcome to ask questions on theformational item to to us and our outstanding APS who are giving up part of their evening to join us. Well, I did I wanted to show appreciation for the link I mean for all of the hard work, but um specifically I loved that the additional health insurance resource is now just linked into
020um the I think that's in the district handbook, right? Yeah, we got it right here. Yeah, that that's just automatically there. I'm sure it's a resource that they hadn't handed out, you know, as needed, but now it's just there for anyone who wants it. So, that's great. Thank you. Anyone else have comments? Just thank you for all your work. Yeah, great job. This is really difficult. I don't I don't know how you do it, frankly, but great work. It's a lot. It it made it I mean it made it really digestible um for some of us who have read them last year and then to know what the changes are and easily identify that that makes it helpful. Um, so thank you for that and I um just at the high school I appreciate the
021extra um the clarity around the work release policy because I think there's there's a lot of things that can go on there and I I just a lot of things around those types of things have tightened up at the high school specifically. So you and I have had great conversations. Yes, we've had a lot of good conversations. So, yes, thank you both and for being the representatives here tonight. Anyone else have anything else? Thank you very much. I appreciate you staying dressed up. You stay dressed up. And please go enjoy your evening. I think they have shorts on. No, it's cold. It's cold out. Sweatpants, maybe joggers. Staying dressed was the hardest part, I will say. I'm heading over to the concert here at the the pack. So, I just want to make sure I
022was Yeah. Yeah. Waiting for us in close session, too. Thank you. Thanks for your support. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you both. Thank you. Bye. Middle school. All right. Darn it, sir. We're back to you. What an opportunity service. Um, yeah. So, I'm going to So, this is the last, you know, of the slideshows for you of the survey results. So, I will go through this fairly quickly um probably, you know, faster than the public um can handle. Um but this is really meant for the board, anformational item for the board and you have received this report in advance. So, I'll go through some of the highlights. This is our third year of doing this this annual report. uh we had a 56 particip uh 66 56% participation rate which is considered high but not
023high enough in my opinion. Um but we'd like to keep um increasing that. You can see um pretty representative of staff population in terms of the people that filled it out. You'd expect the high school to have the most people filling it out because they have the most staff. Uh you can see here uh this is also fairly representative of our staff. Um the majority of our staff have been here more than 10 years. Uh as I mentioned this is our third year. I I would urge you to continue to focus on the percent that agree and strongly disagree. There are comparisons there but one you know a couple percentage points can make a big difference in your comparison. So just be cautious about over interpreting them. Um, I like to say the ones where
024we perform really well in comparisons are accurate. Um, but sometimes they're lower. Sometimes you see a 95% strongly agree or agree and you think, how can that be so low of a comparison? So, just keep that in mind. It doesn't include the standard deviation for those of you that like to talk like that. Um, there are differences across buildings. buildings do their own analysis, a separate analysis um of that with their building leadership teams. So, one of the things I'm I'm added this slide in this presentation this time because I want to point out that when there's so much data here, it's really overwhelming. Um, and we go through all of it as an administrative team and use it to guide our our planning. However, our staff are telling us that some things are more
025important than others. And when they talk about job satisfaction, you'll see a slide coming up. These are the three most important things to them in order. Meaningful work, compensation, salary, and healthy culture and working conditions. So you sometimes you can get lost in an item that's way down the list. Improving that isn't going to so much improve job satisfaction. So these are the areas you want to focus. If you look at some of our strengths and areas for growth, I put this together uh intentionally noting that some things are on both columns. How interesting. Isn't that interesting? So, um some people see discipline and behavior as a real strength and see improvement and some people see it as an area of growth. Communication continues to be strong. uh relationships. Uh many comments about the strength
026of the administration and leadership also that was in the growth area. Um safety being a real strength consistently meeting student needs being being a strength, technology and supplies and then supportive and engaged community. Uh reminder last time we had just failed a referendum. Um so people are feeling a lot more positive uh about the the staff and community support or the I community engagement and support growth uh pay is is the top one um comes up over and over as well as workload kind of you know we feel we deserve to be paid more and you're asking more of us. Um then you think that's been that way for a time? uh a time I would say it was more exaggerated this time and I think it was more exaggerated this year. this year. Yeah,
027definitely this year. Definitely this year. I'm sure we didn't take the high. We didn't take low. We went in the middle. And I think some people are You just approved something higher, but that was before they But it was also they just did they did the survey before. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think Bruce makes a good point that at the time that they took this survey, we were looking at that middle whatever we called it. Option two. Option two. Yeah. Um feedback recognition and meeting student needs. You see that in both columns by the way. Uh feedback recognition for performance just growth in the area of just overall satisfaction and professional development. Um so here's that slide I was mentioning about the the top three you can see how much higher
028they are than the next ones um coming down. So that's my you know my comments. Go ahead. I'm totally going to interrupt you. So if you go back one slide and you see growth as professional development and then go forward it's interesting to me that the most important that's at the very Right. Right. So that gives you Yeah. Like it's it's you have to be careful when you're looking at the data that you're looking at holistically and not Yes. Each specific Yeah. because you could try to spend a lot of time improving an area that doesn't really doesn't really move the needle. Yeah. So strengths. Um I'm not going to read all of these to you, but I but I think it's important to know that communication continues to be a strength and I think
029our administrative team really feels like a that was across three surveys. There's some tweaks to communication, but we're in a pretty good spot overall. Um, getting things to people that is timely, important, valuable, um, to them. Relationships, people really feel connected with their co-workers and and real a theme in their comments as well. Having access to the technology and supplies that they need, a real strength um, compared to other districts and internally, you see these 90%. So, our technology team and our um the supplies that are getting provided through our building budgets effectively, a lot of people feeling we're really meeting student needs. Um that staff do a great job educating students and I would agree to that. Um they have training and support to work with people of different backgrounds. um and a lot
030of themes about the district's commitment to student well-being and commitment to equity and just just the high quality caring staff. And you saw that echoed through the student and parent surveys as well people feeling safe at work. That's this is a stati statistics we take great pride in. 95% reporting that certainly would love to see 100. Um I mentioned this earlier about a supportive and engaged community with a big jump there with 17% and also themes in there. Um feeling that the administration is is supportive was a real comment uh theme in the comments. Discipline people feeling like we're headed in the right direction improving behavior but you'll see in growth still still a ways to go. Um district headed in the right direction. You see a nice 11% increase there. a 73rd comparison and
031and 89% strongly are agreeing that they're proud of the district. So, um recommending the district as a place of employment also increased, but it's something we'd like to see. Certainly higher top five scores. This just reiterates what I just shared. I highlighted the really high ones, the 96%, you know, because I thought, wow, that's a that's a big deal and it looks cool on a slide. Um, and then you can also see the percent change over uh to the side. So, pretty stable, I would say, in those top five, and it's hard to get much higher than 96% to be honest. Um, and that was down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's bizarre to me. Yeah. And then you look at um the the comparison the rankings by by comparison and and again we take that with
032a grain of salt but I do think that the district seeks input from a broad group of staff members is a really 87% a 2% increase and a comparison of 93 is it's a strong indicator. Um comment summary. I won't go through all of these. I summarized all of these with the help of my friends at chat GPT and did read all of them um as did the administrative team but some themes there that I mentioned in the earlier comments and feeling like the community's supporting us um the leadership team being really strong that commitment to equity I mentioned earlier collaboration and teamwork mentioned earlier and now we're on to growth so here's where you see pay and benefits with only 51% feeling the district pay pays are fair and a decrease of 3.95%. So
033that's a good reminder um of what we were just saying earlier is the board just approved a larger compensation package um than was initially planned and was planned at the time of this largely through our health insurance savings which were um much much better than we thought we were going to get. So that allowed us the flexibility to do that within our budget constraints. Kudos to you Jeff. Yeah. a lot of negotiating going on and you'll hear more about our budget shortly. Um comments um about that low pay of teachers relative to other districts. Um one of the channel challenges that we have is that our neighbors who are nearly all of them larger. The ones we compare with are all larger and trying to kind of keep up with these other districts and retain
034our staff is difficult. workload is a huge issue and it's it's a theme where when you ask staff what would really help, it's hard for people to get specific. Uh so that is going to be a year-long analysis next year is really breaking down. And one of the things is about clarifying what is something that you're expected to do and what is something that you feel like you're expected to do but you're not really expected to do and what is something that you expect yourself to do. So a lot of work there. discipline behavior continues. Consistency I think is what people are looking at across staff. So reminding people of the common expectations and following those and giving them strategies to address those. I was talking with somebody about this earlier today and and the
035question came up is would they have said this 20 years ago? Well, I can tell you that when I came here in this district 18 years ago, people thought that kids could have behaved better um and thought we could be more consistent as a staff. Oh, yeah. Um is it getting worse? I don't know. I mean, I would say it always feels like whatever is happening now is getting worse. Um but it's certainly been an issue for a long time. I'm pleased that we are starting to show some growth and our staff or student and family surveys both showed growth in this area. So, they're feeling the impact and I think our staff aren't uh as much and I think that may be because of more of a a few students can take up um
036a lot of time and create quite a disruption. So, finding finding continuing to find ways to address what when is the survey done too? Is it March about? Yeah. Yep. It's done in in April is when this this one gets done. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that it reflects part. It does. That's true. So that's certainly I don't want to minimize it. It's certainly an area of growth meeting student needs and and what you see is when you you know talk about social emotional needs and and and supporting the needs of all learners that is an area that you'll see some some questions and concerns still relatively high um but you want to see it especially when you're talking about different cultural backgrounds and racial backgrounds. The other thing you see is a real some
037people will say our expectation staff are saying our expectations for kids are too high and also some are saying they're too low. So there there is that push and pull and what it's probably you know we're probably at times probably both are true you know for certain students and certain age levels people wanting more um you know feedback to improve their work and and recognition. I do feel like when I think about the amount of recognition that our staff are getting now, it is certainly better than it was years ago. Um but it but there's there's work to be done yet there too because you know they're kind of saying we we feel underpaid and undervalued at times. So we kind of heard that a little bit in the ERC meetings too. Yep. Yeah. Yep.
038Employee relations committee satisfaction. Um I you know this is a troubling statistic to me. about 82% only 82% agreeing that most days they look forward to going to work and to see that go down that's just something to to think about. Some of that isn't a reflection just of our school though. I think it's just in in general about public education. I just think the teachers feel that they're not really appreciated by the general public. Yep. Yeah, that's true. I mean 2010 Oh, at least. Right. Yeah. Well, and I think also like during the referendum, I think feedback teachers received it was like, oh, like teachers want to be paid more. And so like if you go into an environment where you aren't feeling great just walking in the door based on what the community
039optics are, I think that plays a lot into it as well. Yeah. Yeah. And the national rhetoric certainly. Yeah. I think it feels more concerning to me because it's the 24th comparison. I know we're not putting a ton of stock in that, but it's not like it's 60%. You know, like it's I agree. That's a good point. I agree. It's definitely something lens to the to the our school district issue. You're right. But if you take the All of your points are still I agree with. Yeah. And if you take the pay, the workload, and the student behavior, I bet that would increase that score. Like if all of those things improved. Yeah. Right. You know. Yeah. Relevant professional development. Just some growth and some people got very specific which gives us some real feedback
040a lot about hoping for some more differentiated professional development based on roles. Um leadership you know feeling valued took a I have a question about that. Yeah. Um, do you think that's because our district has really been focusing on some really big districtwide professional development and as that becomes more baseline, is there going to be more room for more tailored? Yeah, I think we we need to because there are are people, you know, you kind of try to provide a foundation to everybody, but different people need different things based on their roles. And so that that is is definitely something they're asking for like okay we got it already. Yeah. And we used to do more of that I think. Um and then the leadership um you see some decreases there which is something to
041pay attention to. Um, and kind of a mix of of comments like amazing that wonderful and then others that are like, you know, feel like we want to see them in our classrooms more. And I just think we keep putting more and more on everybody's plate, including our administrators. So that's it's difficult. Did they specify in the comments why they want them to be in the classroom more? Is it more so they can get a better gauge of what's going on? Yes. Okay. Yep. I do think that is makes to know that they understand. So the bottom five scores um and I think the percent change is a real a real important thing when you look at that pay practice as one in this slide you can really see kind of is meant to jump
042out at you the way I highlighted it. Um and then by comparison percentiles see that as well. um the the comments I you know I addressed those I think a little bit earlier but there's some more specific about you know workload and administrative tasks that there's definitely when I went through each of the comments I've got a good list of you know a few things we could start with one thing about comparisons is you know and I don't think we bring it up enough is that yes we're a lot smaller than most so by comparison we're going to like way less. But then when you do the forward testing and the you know the state mandated testing we're more than competitive with all of them. I think we finished you know second third and fourth
043is for the last many years. So we we compare very favorably with performance academic performance. we're just not as fake. Well, I think that's what you'll see staff saying is, and it was something we talked about in the referendum. You know, our teachers are doing more with less. And so, and at some point, I think that reaches that point where staff are saying, "We're still doing more with less." So, so I think what you approved tonight is a good step in the right direction. compensation wise. That's such a good point because we do live in a very expensive part of the state in county and there's just no way of getting around. The bills are the same. Also, fastest growing part of the state. Yeah, for sure. I always said I wish we could afford
044to pay our teachers what it costs to live at McFarland, right? Yeah. Because as you look at a lot of our teachers and our administrators, they they don't live here and it's just because it's so expensive to live here. Mhm. You know, and the irony of that is that it's because of our schools that many people want to come here and live. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That is right. Good point. Yeah. So, yeah, just some other things. I mean, I feel like I'm belaboring this a little bit. Um, the index. And so, those are a compilation of questions that come together. So you see these in in in you know relatively flat with the exception of students being um accepted, respected and supported at school and that mostly is due to the supported one where
045you get back to that student needs one that one that's mostly I think where that one came from which is interesting because students if I'm remembering correctly and parents and parents felt like there was an increase in this in in their surveys. They did and they're very high to start with. Yeah. So, it's interesting to to hear what our educators are feeling about that. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like them both to be very high, but if I had to pick one to be higher that students and parents would feel, you know, because that's the student experience. If our students are reporting that, then that's a really good indicator. Yeah. Right. Um, how likely are you to re recommend this as a place of employment? Again, that's something we'd like to see increase. Being proud of our
046district. I think that's pretty compelling. Um, slide there. Um, and then item analysis. I'm not going to go through all of these because you've you've seen them all before, but you do see the work life balance come out here um is one that I highlighted. Um again, the work is reasonable, manageable. We keep asking more and more of our teachers. We expect more and more. Um and it's not just administration that expects more of them. It's they the families expect more. Our their colleagues expect more. They expect more of themselves. Discipline practices coming up again. But we do a good job at educating our students and I think that's very true. You you know things you've heard before already. Um and then in the area of support, you can see these big jumps with feeling
047like we're headed in the right direction. We have parent community support, social emotional needs being met is, you know, at 60% it's pretty stable. Um of course we have some responsibility for that, but not all responsibility for that. Just a reminder about that. Were there any comments? I know when we went through the growth like looking at some of these like specific questions when it says like there are needs outstanding were there more specific comments of ideas from staff on let's say for that being an example just on it but like if the administration or the board or we did xyz it would help my help fill my social emotional needs like did people have ideas for that because I I think if we're if we're not meeting the mark in some of these and
048you're right, there is some responsibility outside of um employment. But are there other ideas? I mean, I think that's where we get sometimes stuck of how do we show you the appreciation? How do we best tell you and show you? Um both of those things um so it's not just lip service um because I think everyone has ideas, but or if the ideas aren't what you want or need, then we shouldn't be doing them. Or a board in the past, all 16 years I've been on, we've talked about that. Yeah. Every single year and and you know, I think one determination we made is that it's not necessarily money. Yeah. Right. you know it could be additional although it's very difficult to do additional time off you know given the nature of the beast um
049so that is that's nothing new I mean that's we've understood how important appreciate I drove three cars around teachers are my heroes in the back and I lost my last one so um but this is that's ongoing I will say one thing I did in in my professional life like managing teams of people. I always did the breakdown of what's your love language. Yes. To say like, okay, what's going to make you feel best about what's what's going well for you, right? And it was interesting. Some people are like, I like gift cards. Or some people are like, hey, just text me. I'm doing a good job. Like something like that. It's so hard to find a balance of what's going to make someone feel good, you know? So, for for our staff, the few
050comments that there were about that for the most part is staff want people to check in with them. That's really what they want. It's it's actually seems to be more onetoone conversations of hey, how you doing? Or I noticed you did this like verbal acknowledgement. They just want to be heard. That's that's exactly how I felt in all my years of teaching. That was that meant the most to me. But it is becoming where pay is more relevant to people. It really is. It really is. Okay. Um thank you. uh you know other things here in support you know we've kind of covered these um um areas a little bit where you get into some of the leadership things um feeling valued by building administration of course pay practices. This is a always an interesting
051slide because it breaks it down on equal opportunities is the area of focus and and that economic backgrounds has been a continued concern and I think we probably I feel like I said this last year too and I don't know that we did. we need to drill down on that because I I I'm wondering what staff are thinking about like what that means for that like what opportunities are people of lower socioeconomic backgrounds not having access to and kind of jump into that because we do a lot of things um to try to make sure that everybody has access but obviously that's missing the mark in some areas and then racial and cultural backgrounds went down as well. And that is a very long I apologize for the length, but it's good. Uh, it's good
052for us to see all this questions and comments. Thank you for training us. Yeah, thank you for staff for completing it. Yeah, it's um a good an anonymous, if you will, um way to hear to hear your to hear your feedback and it's what we need to do our work for you. So, yeah. And if you want to see it next year, there's a lot more. I mean, if you want to could you send us the raw data from the survey with the comments and everything? I can send you comments. I would I would love to read. I mean, in terms of the the the data, like those slides cover the the numbers. Okay. Yeah. I would like to read the comments while I would um so the comments are 21 pages. So just you
053know know that read them over morning coffee sit back. Yeah. Um the one thing so I know that our particip participation rate was good but I know that we talked about this. I don't know if you and I did or if we did at a schoolboard meeting, but like for all the surveys we send out, we're only reaching people who are like email checkers, right? So, I wonder if we did the same like text message reminder for staff if if we would get a even higher turnout. Well, did you get any feedback as to why people weren't filling it out? No. Okay. No. And I I would guess it's time. that they would have to do. Right. So, the the best way to get staff to fill out a survey is to give them time
054to fill it out and say, "We're all filling this out right now. Fill it out right now." Yeah. Right. That makes sense. Providing the time for you. Yeah. That's the best way to get it done. And they would appreciate that, I think. Yeah, for sure. Okay. So, is that something we as a board can suggest or strongly recommend for future years or future iterations? And we've done it before. It's harder with support staff because they're on different schedules. Like even if you did it during like development day, like your first 15 minutes of PD, everyone's going to fill out the survey and we'll alleviate we'll take something off the agenda for that day so you can fill out the survey, right? Yeah. Okay. Yep. Anyone else? All right. Um, nextformational joint village board school board
055meeting. Fisher Huey Tarnitzer. you want me to cover it? I'd love that. I love to listen to someone else. So, well, this is good. All right. Um, and please interject both of you if there things out. We just started with an introduction of new members and of course Meredith was introduced and that was kind of nice. Um, and it was uh it was interesting with a new village president being there. Um, and then really the main uh thing that we covered was just the update of this community park. um the phase two of it. Um and it's on the far east side. It's going to be out on Highway AB and kind of signal though in between on that corner there's some private uh residences, but that is going to be the area they're talking
056about. And really what they're looking at is building um I think really soccer fields at this point. It was the main emphasis. Yeah. Well, on the preliminary drawings, they had nine, Craig. They had nine, but I mean, I I think that's still kind of up in air, but anyway, it's also going to have a shelter and a concession stand or concession area, but there's also a meeting area, which I found really fascinating. So, there's an area that you can actually go in and sit down and and talk. Um, and then it's also going to have bathroom facilities, which is good. And it's got about over 200 parking areas, parking spaces. When do they expect that to be? Well, there they're I I'll kind of get to that just it turns out there's also an overflow
057area which is going to be gravel so that there's places where like buses could pull in and and park. Turn around. And then one of the things that they were talking about was u the idea of having a cross country course basically around the perimeter of the u that property and some would go around what would be owned by the school district and some owned by the village. Um the whole project itself was estimated um to be about 3.3 million but they haven't really sent it out for the bids and so I don't think there's any like time kind of factor in yet at this point. It was approved by the rec committee unanimously and then that evening it went to the uh the village uh board and they also unanimously approved that it be
058further studied and that's kind of where they've left it at this point and probably long overdue. Yeah. Yeah. And and uh it was it was really nice. I mean I it was just it was wonderful some of the feedback. Uh um Paul Aley was there. Um Scott Fischer was there as the cross country coach and um I mean we just we heard some various things and I really had kind of kept out of it as you know I'm trying to kind of keep my hands off of cross country and track I don't want to get too involved and I kept going like why is the village doing it but then when the more I thought about it it is going to be a perimeter around it and so it's a relatively inexpensive thing for them
059to do it's going to be basically graded and has to be we don't we don't no and and and I don't want to get off on the tangent here because we got we got important stuff, but we we we tried to point out some of the reasons it would be good to have that because there are this the WIA is desperate to have cross country courses. We just don't have them. And it's also an area that you could use for crosscountry skiing, snowshoeing, uh bird watching, you know, just hiking. And so anyway, it was interesting. And the village board, as I said, unanimously accepted it. And then the last part of the meeting was just about the Highway 51 construction and where we're going with that. So that's coming up. And of course, everyone's going
060to be coming down to the south of us. They're going to have the bridge where the locks are. Yeah. That's going to be out for seven months, right? And that's going to be the one they they said is going to be causing the most rerouting. That's going to be interesting creative rerouting. So yeah, they'll close that Larsen Beach to excha exchange. Yeah. Um first and then it'll go open and then it'll be the the bridge that closes. But um kudos to um I don't know how he likes to be called, but coach Scott Fiser and to Paul, thank you for speaking at that meeting as well as the village board meeting. you guys um did a an expert job um being advocates for your students um and your professions and creating that collaborative um relationship
061with the village and the district. So um thank you and I'm kind of excited to see where the the village board bidding process ends up because I think that'll be more informative for us on use agreements with them and what the cost will be for the community. So, um, good things to come. Anything else on that? Thank you. Thanks, Bruce. That was great. All right. Um, okay. Sorry, Mr. Turner. Back to you. You're in the hot seat. WBA board retreat. Yes. I was able to go to um the spring board retreat for the Wisconsin virtualmies held in Green Bay and a wonderful meeting um very productive day. A few of the highlights I wanted to share. We a lot of it is just an overview of the current status of how things are going and
062one of the things they're really proud about is improving their onboarding process both making it more effective making sure that the learning coaches also often the parents um know what is expected of them um making sure that they they do that in a quick way but a thorough way. Making sure kids are getting enrolled faster. Um, this year they entered over 5,000 applications for students. That's a lot of work. That's a lot. Reminder, we tend to keep our students in our brick and mortars. So, we're not doing all 5,000. So, they their turnover is is a lot. It's a lot of of onboarding of people um in including a lot of students with disabilities. So, you know, typical district is 12 to 14% typically is their student population with disabilities and theirs is 29%. Um,
063this year, um, they currently are on track to have a another reduction in the percent of students that are failing to participate. Um, Yep. So, working there, feeling good about that. um really seeing kids that are are sticking with the virtualmies for their their entire career. There's four graduating seniors who have been with uh the virtualmies since they were in kindergarten. Wow. That's a big deal. So, I'm very excited about that. A lot of our focus was on Insight and kind of Insight um tends to take the kids that are most credit deficient and um that is one of the high schools, right? You have Insight, Weea, and Destinations Career Academy. Um is kind of a last Yes. Yeah. For many sort of it is. And they're really feeling positive. They've got some plans moving
064forward to do some like quarter credit courses, some more shortterm things, adjusting schedules, more flexible schedules to meet kids needs. I'm excited about that. Destination's Career Academy continues to do really well. They have six career pathways um and students are really involved. They actually just participated this past week in um DCA has some senior capstone interviews similar to our senior exit interviews. So was able to meet some kids. Um one actually is fairly local um and uh well two are localish and one from Milwaukee and hear about their stories. So, uh really neat program where kids leave ready for a career um and some going on to additional education. So, they um are looking to expand their partnerships with businesses. So, that was a lot of our conversation was about expanding that. We always talk
065a little bit about, you know, legislation things that they're trying to do like allowing kids to take the the standardized assessments um at home instead of now they have to go into a testing center which isn't great. Um so it was good good conversation, good meeting, good people. Um and looking forward to you know the next time we get together. And Erin, if you don't mind, I'm going to add because Erin and uh Dr. Cutler met took time to meet with me because I'm this now the ad hoc the non- voting member the there's a six member uh four lakes board and it was it was really good. Um and I think because Angie's not here um I actually ran off kind of it's it's a history but it also kind of gives an overview
066of it and I know it would have been helpful for me. You guys are probably light years ahead of me but I I did run a copy for everybody. It's It's a six or seven page little Yes, please. Yeah, I love handouts. Yeah. Well, it's not here, but I think that's because uh Angie's not here. So, hopefully we'll get that to you guys soon. But yeah, we did attend that board meeting um and that was fascinating. and they basically went over salary benefits. Um the same Neiola um policies that we had gone over about the title N changes um because of again executive actions by President Biden and President uh President Trump. And it turns out I'm not going there. Sorry. And then out also excuse me, excuse me. That was great. No, it wasn't.
067But that I don't even know if that was on purpose or but either way it was great. But it turns out that uh President Trump has changed that and so we had to reflect that with the new um comments or the new rules. And then also um the the whole change on the retention for third graders that's coming up, right? I believe they're if they don't uh their reading scores have to be at a certain level or they're going to be retained, right? They have to be they have to be in a So they changed that. So those are things that we had gone through. as well. And then they went Yeah, you guys are way past that. Yeah, we are. We are. And I let them know that. And uh and then they they
068went over prom and then the graduation is coming up on June 6. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What did they tell us for prom? 200. Yeah. Yeah. 200 people. Yeah. They had some pictures, right? That's good. Given that it's statewide, 5,000 kids like for kids who go to school virtually. Oh, I should know it. And I can't remember. Is it how they told us somewhere in Madison? Oh, fun. Okay, cool. Cool. Yeah. Um the I think we have it on the We have the information somewhere about the graduations on that Friday. Is anyone planning on attending any? Well, I'm planning on attending. I don't know how many. There's four of them that day. Oh, there's three. There's three. Yeah. Well, no, there's one that starts at noon, I believe. 12:30. Yeah. So they are on the
0696th there is um the insight is first at noon and destinations career academy is at 2:30 and then at 6 is wea okay so three ceremonies at Madison College. Yeah, I'm thinking I'm hoping to go, but I'm gonna at least plan to go to the evening one. I unfortunately cannot go to the evening one. I will be They're great. Okay. Well, thank you for representing all seats, all shows. And I will be there as well. Yeah, it'll be good. It's a interesting thing. It really makes it all I've always spoke so highly of it. Yeah. Y it makes it all make sense. Yep. All right. Um, school safety written drill evaluation notification per statute. That's Yeah. So, you see that there's three um different incidents that are referenced in there. All are administrative holds. I
070believe they're all due to protect the privacy of a student in crisis. There's my I had one question about the one at MPS um the primary school. So it ended because the child ran out of the building. What is the procedure once a child runs out of the building? Question that same question. I was like I was like what happens? Yeah. That's when we we contact law enforcement and we do our best to to follow the student and the parents were there I believe and we contact the family as well. Okay then. Okay. Got it. I mean I figured there was something but I just thought since the report ends because they're done with the hold. Is that the hold was over? Yeah. Yeah. In the biz we call those alopers. Oh yeah. Okay. That's
071good. In the piss. That's great. In the B. Is that a situation like an NPS where you would like the SRO with the SRO officer is when we call the police. Is that who we Okay. If available. That's available. Yeah. Okay. Just curious. Thank you. Cool. Anything else on that? Not at all. Okay. I one comment um going back to kind of what Melanie said in public comments um and needing to kind of refocus maybe a little bit on that interpersonal with teachers and staff. Um holds are hard. Um and I think me sitting here reading those don't show the emotional um um hardship that can come with running those and participating in those. not only from a staff perspective, but from a family and student perspective. And I just was really impressed with um
072the matter-of-act, clear, respectful way that it seemed like those events um were handled. Um so, just thank you to the staff who were involved with that. Um those aren't easy situations for anybody and your hard work is appreciated. True. Good point. I love that. The fresh eyes of a new board member. I know. I know. It's good because Right. you just see them and and I think what's great about the holds is just think they did not used to be there and so you would have kids going out in the hall and seeing one of their fellow students in crisis and that's just not good for anybody right true right that's just not good for anybody yep we learn go along right Good. All right. District administrator. Since we met last time, we had a
073high school band concert. We had school nurses day. We had a seventh and eighth grade band concert. We had prom. Prom was great. I heard wonderful things about prom. We had a high school choir concert, a m a middle school choir concert. We had this this past weekend blues in the night. Um Yeah, always a great event. Um, speech and language pathologist day. Today was seventh grade community day. They start the day. They were reading to, I think, first graders. Our seventh grade students went over and read to first graders and then they did stuff in the community. They picked up trash. They um marked the storm drains. They um helped clean the children's area at the library. They did weeding. They prepped plants. They cleaned monuments at the Legion. They cleaned items at the
074senior center. Uh just great stuff. So, the seventh grade team works really hard to put that event together. And our I I had a report from a teacher today that said they did excellent and was really impressed. Especially some kids who tend to struggle in the classroom. Um get them out and moving and they love to work and help. Absolutely. So, that was great. As um we were talking about casually earlier, we have the our eco club here at the high school for the third straight year has won the renew our school's energy challenge, getting a whopping $2,000 again for um addressing our baby. Yep. Addressing our energy use um looking at electrical data um doing some audits. We should really talk about doing like a longevity increase. Yes. you know, like and you hit
075five years, you get three or 4 thousand, right? Like if we keep winning it, right? Shouldn't we get something extra? Um, we hit five, right? Wanted to give a special shout out. May is a really tough time in a lot of ways, but one of the things is that we tend to be really short staff and so a lot of staff are covering for other staff. um our business office here, Carrie Roberts, especially um ESS with Sam Prudin doing a great job finding coverage. Our building administrative assistance putting together that coverage to make sure there's a a a teacher in every room. Um schedules, it's very complicated. So, just really appreciate the collaborative effort that makes sure that there are adults in front of our kids when our teachers aren't able to be here. Do
076you reach a point where the where there's so much covering for other people going on that it becomes detrimental in terms of missed, you know, prep time and things. Oh, 100%. Oh, it's awful. It's really hard. You lose your prep. Yep. It Yeah, it happens. It's great that we, you know, we have a sub in every room that that needs one, but that's a But guess what happens that evening? Pretty big circumstance. that evening you're you're making up for that. Yeah. Yeah. It's you know they are compensated you know for that time but it's still you know it's time in their day that they're not going to get back but you know we're grateful for them for their work and the amazing subs that we do have for sure through ESS. Um just really want
077to thank the employee relations committee and the staff for collaborating on the the handbook and compensation changes that we've been talking about. Uh it's a special place where people step up. Um before I do the the photos, just a reminder, some a lot of great things coming up. Uh we have uh the orchestra concerts tonight, grades 8 through 12. Uh the fifth through 7th grade one is coming up on the 22nd. Senior exit interviews on the 23rd. Uh, wis mix it up at lunch where kids sit in different different uh, groups with with high schoolers helping them. That's on the 23rd. Spartan Pride assembly here at the high school. That same day we've got Memorial Day coming up. High school band concert next week. Uh, sixth grade band concert next week. We're back here for
078a school board meeting on the 2nd. Um on the third we're back here for a special board meeting where you get to talk about my performance and um then we have eighth grade recognition ceremony on the fourth. Oh I forgot to mention this Wednesday we have scholarship night. Um um I don't know why that popped back in my head but it did. Um uh the last day of school for students is the 5th and uh we have the end of the year recognition celebration which you're all of course invited to on the 6th at 8:00 here in the PAC and that is also hunger awareness day and that is the day of the Wisconsin Virtual Academyy's graduation. our brick and mortar high school graduations on Sunday the 8th at 11 a.m. followed by Robert Lfallet
079day on the 14th and Junth on the 19th. Now, I would like to share some pictures with you. And you see some great things going on across the districts here at MPS. Swinging into summer, doing some And look at that beautiful gym. It's blinding at this time of year. It's still sparkling. I wish I could get my floors to be that shiny. Yeah. Having a blast there. Broomstick and a tennis ball. Yeah. There we go. They still use them. gets a job. Uh, also at MPS some writing at in in first grade in Mrs. Froden's class doing a a book called Crazy Mixed Up Animals, but love the smiles. A lot of proud proud young authors here. We're now we're on to Wabisa where their eggs cited. I love all the eggs references here of
080doing the egg drop. That's one of the the highlights of their time at Wabisa. This was really fun. I wish I would have been able to to make it there, but you had a parent who came and and shared her Korean culture and some some cooking. And I just love the excitement in these pictures. Heard some great things about how that was. And um teaching the students a a great lesson on how to make something they had never made before. I just love this kind of stuff where our community comes in and shares their expertise. Oh, I want Korean food. Yeah, looks really good. There's if you go on the Facebook one, there's a lot of Right. There's a lot of great pictures. We talked about real world um day last time. So, here's some
081some pictures here. I mentioned about the student getting their hair done uh during the presentation. So, while they were talking um and you can see Eva Ramsky there. Um she had a she had a great um middle school principal um there. So, So all of her success. Who might that be? Humble Brick. Yeah. Right. Uh uh you know, amazing talking about nursing and yeah. So some great things going on there. And I think that was a a dog um uh border um was the the last one there that will attract attention. Yeah. And then state soul ensemble. many students perform in that and do very well or that was a great event. Spartan headquarters um doing a walking field trip to Danchin Home. So, thanks to them for hosting them, learning about some marketing tips.
082The uh high school um did some cooking out for teacher appreciation week and some, you know, took their stuff on a cart. a couple of buildings do that and get around to teachers. I know teachers really appreciated it, felt appreciated. So, picked a nice day to grill out. Um, the AC capella groups performed at the vocal showcase here. We talked about that before, but here's They are incredible picture. Yeah, right. They're incredible. Baseline with the good hair. Yeah, right there with the good hair. Front and center stuff. middle school people of color uh union group there at the over overture center for for poetry slam. How cool is that? That's awesome. That's awesome. I mentioned school nurse day. We have such a great team of school nurses and nursing uh health assistants and it's just
083something that has really gotten stronger and stronger in the district. We're very fortunate and we have a lot of students with health needs and and they they approach it with such care and and and expertise. I mentioned national speech pa speech pathologist day and we have a great crew that's they're spread pretty thin um and cover a lot of kids across a lot of needs in a lot of buildings do a great job that's all I have to share for now uh any recognitions the board has I don't have any recognitions I mean besides everyone's amazing uh I do want to point out you brought up the senior exit interview on Friday. On Thursday, they're doing resume reviews. Um, and I actually got an email from Penny that they're still looking for volunteers to do
084it. Um, so if anyone wants to do it, you can send me an email and I'll forward No, it is Thursday and Friday. This Thursday? This 22nd and 23rd. Yeah. So, I know Megan and I are doing exit interviews on Friday. I'm doing on Friday as well. Okay. I'm looking for time, I think. I know I'm doing it in the afternoon. Um I have a couple. Um one is just really broad because I think it's a huge collaboration but I feel like in the last two one to two years we've seen a lot of um mixing of age groups in the students like the high school at the primary school cross age activities. Thank you. cross I know what they call it in Monasuri but it but yes crossage um whatever you just said um
085but I think it's so important and so great that that kids are learning from each other both I mean the big kids learn from the small kids and the you know young kids learn from the big kids and um I think it's just really really great and and I think the high school students are now allowed to volunteer at the summer school pro and I think That's just really wonderful. Um, and then the So, regarding teacher appreciation, I wanted to thank the McFarland House Cafe for helping us appreciate our teachers from from the school board. Um, and to that end, we'll all coordinate with you. We have the amount. There were like at least 60 people who took advantage of it. So, I hope they Good. I know it's just a small thing, but we
086really appreciate all that they do and glad that some took advantage of it. Yeah. I did go 10 times, so there's 50 other No. Okay. So, just 50 then. But you know what? If that's what you wanted to do, I do. I did not go up. Um, and then the last thing I wanted to just call out just our um, our educators are so dedicated like what the first thing that they listed, you know, is meaningful work that means to them and so they often do things in their own communities that is also education related. Um, and I wanted to call out Wendy, Brian Ward, and Kelly Thompson. Um I believe they all participated in um the G-Safe celebration of leadership. Um and Wendy was actually awarded um an award for the work that she
087does in her own community about advocating for the students in her town. So thank you for going above and beyond not just for your own home districts but or your teaching districts but your own home districts too. It's just educators are so dedicated. Mhm. So, yeah. Thank you. Anything else? Okay. All right. Okay. I think we get to give you a break, Mr. Chancer. Um, business manager report, Mr. Mahoney. I mean, kind of set the agenda a little bit. That's a fair point. Yeah. Well, happy one month later since the last time I talked about this topic and I can just mainly kind of put on this first page. Not much changed. That's sweet. Not much changed. So, we'll kind of roll through this a little bit. um really related to enrollment um is that
088this evening you'll be approving enrollments in and out of our district and also for the virtual school. And again, just a reminder, we approve, we send letters, and we hope that they all want to come to us and then show up in September as well. So, that is always a wonderful thing. Um, no changes really to the any of the staffing things that I had talked about a month ago. Uh, revenue estimates, I'll get to that in a moment. And expense estimates, I'll get to that. We'll keep moving along. Like to always remind people that our projected resident enrollment still has a downward trend. Um, I have been noticing a few more homes going on the market area. So, that's always positive to see. um for whatever various reasons. So that's always great. I think
089I shared that slide enough in my last three months. Um we talked about open enrollment. Uh we are looking forward to have an impact. Uh but we only had just about over 50% of the slots had applications. We know that we'll be sending letters out tomorrow with big smiley faces. Hopefully come here. um our revenue situation. We've went over this a couple times, but I think it bears needing just constantly reminding we are entering year two of a three-year recurring referendum. So, year two of three. So, we're halfway through and you know, as I do budgeting, we're already done with it in my mind. Um but you know it's it's there for us but it will be something we got to continue to work on. Um pay the state started a two-year budget process. Melanie
090did a great job of explaining many components of that process and their listening sessions which we really hopefully they listen um because we'll start deliberating on a few things here shortly. Um, a reminder, we do have that declining enrollment. So, right off the top for 2425 is just over just about $310,000 coming off the top because you receive exemptions when your enrollment is going down. So, I mean, kudos to those that were the architects of revenue cap. at least that was put in there a few years back to allow people to help work through those areas. Um chat about open enrollment and its amount it provides it provides us about $4,200 less than a resident student. However, that does help us uh continue to maintain our class sizes as best as possible. Uh we do
091have some variable revenues uh interest earnings um which as we use fund balance um that unfortunately goes down. The interest earnings are starting to come down a little bit um but we'll see how that goes with we're going to finish better than we had expected this year. So that will help decrease um this year's expected deficit which was just over $900,000 deficit. So that's going to help bring that down. I think it'll bring it down probably by about 250 $300,000 less. Yeah. So, agreed. That that's that's a wonderful thing. Um you've heard people talk about um Miss Roberts doing a wonderful job for doing a lot of things related to substitutes, but she is very instrumental on the timing of when we pay our bills and also how we invest. And we do have good
092business parking partner in one community bank. Um, and they're actually really become everybody's goto school districts across the community banker because they do very well. Awesome. Fantastic. Uh, the virtual school, um, that's another variable, uh, amount that we could be looking at in next year or the following year. Maybe we can have a little bit higher of an estimate. fairly cautious about um but a couple areas that will be some positives towards the end of this year. So the expense side um we did uh start off with really kind of looking at overall 4 and a.5% wage change and originally budgeted 11% um health insurance. Those are our two largest areas. Uh we came in with a 2% uh for health insurance for 2526 with some rate guarantees for those three years after for a
093nice 8.9 max in those years. Hopefully our utilization can stay down and keep us down. Um but if we're just thinking about what did that do? Well, that was about 1.1 million less in costs in the first two years compared to where we had budgeted. We'll cover this just in a moment later on another slide. But, um, I also just want to indicate that we're our our bidding is in for property and casualty insuranceances, which is, you know, your home, your auto, your um general liability, cyber insurance, uh, those type of items. I have my meeting This isn't planned very well. It's later Friday afternoon coming weekend, but it's what worked for us to do it. So, um hopefully we're better than our 15% that we had estimated early on, but that's where it's been
094trending. So, some visuals, and these are going to be really difficult now that I think about for you guys to see. So, I'm going to talk about those red numbers that are at the bottom. Let me just put it this way. for 2526 we were looking at and had a planned deficit of $540,000. That's next year's deficit. The following year was going to be 362,000. So let we'll just talk about those two years. Our our bianial budget years coming up, which we still don't know what the state is doing, so good or bad. Um so that's $900,000 of expense over the next or deficit over the next two years. Those were planned. Those were the referendum didn't cover everything. So if we flip to the next slide, which you guys are going to could have
095blown this up better. If we taken those two if we take those two years and we applied our GHC to a 4.5% wage change average instead of 11% and 4.5%. If you take those two years, we are now in the positive of about $50,000 to the good. When I just mentioned slide ago that we were 1.1 million better off than where we would have been potentially with health insurance, that put us in a much better spot to do. Next slide. upper right hand corner says GHC 5.4%. What is 5.4%. That's closer to what we approved for um wage changes for support staff and teachers in total cost. If you remember back to when we were doing deliberations for our what referendum we were going to go for, we had option whatever it was that we
096felt like we couldn't go for that. So we had to do option B. Mhm. And the goal though when we came back to the board at that time, the board said, "But if we're able to get closer to option A, which was trying to get into that 5% mark, yeah, well, you did it." Yeah. Now, it still leaves us with a deficit as we planned, but as I mentioned, it's better. So we are, you know, looking closer over to those two years of 570,000 in total instead of where it was closer to 900 900,000, right? So we're still better than where we were. We could have been better with just holding with the GHC, but our board also had a commitment to trying to do something for our staff um that keeps plugging us closer
097to where we need to be competition wise in Dane County. So, we have our work cut out because 2728's around the corner. So, we will continue to have to make decisions. I don't envy you in your job one bit given the environment we're living in today. Going to be hard to predict more than two weeks ahead, let alone Yeah. two years. Let's hope the legislature does something in two weeks. That'd be like Christmas around here. Well, there's there's rumor about the special ed. I mean, I think you were probably the first one that Yeah, they've had rumors. Yes. not playing nice and the same with those rumors lately. So, yeah. So, our last page really does. All right. We pretty much know where our expenses are, but we got to keep looking at our opportunities
098to make better longer term adjustments. Um, with the systems we have in place for us, uh, revenue is really in the hands of joint finance committee and the governor. So, we'll kind of keep I mean, we've had years where they didn't finalize things until October, right? It's happened. I don't think it's going to happen that way this time. I'm hopeful July, September, something like that. And then beyond, you just got to keep looking at what can we do to make it a longer process before we continue to need to ask our public to do the job of our legislature. Wait a minute. I think our public asked our legislature to do something. Talk to your friends people. That's right. That's right. And there go back and listen to Melany's list of municipalities. Yes. And I
099think Erin or I you had shared some there's a link where you can provide written comment and feedback. It is very easy. Um so if anyone's listening who wants that let us know. We'll give it to you. Um but it's very easy to provide that feedback if you're not one to pick up the phone or call. It goes to the entire committee. Um so that was an easy way in 10 minutes or less where you can make a difference. And if you're nervous about what to say, we have things. We have things. Uh chat GPT is a wonderful resource as well. From your heart. That That's Yeah. And it literally takes like two minutes. Yeah. Y agree. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All right. Next, we have move into
100our action items. We can actually take some action now. Um, so action on 2025 2026 process to select student representatives to the board of education. You want to give us a um any lead in there, Mr. Turner? No, it's just an annual thing that you do similar process to last year where we have student reps come and present at the board when we're on time. Is the connect club no longer doing it? They do it in conjunction with student council. So That's what I was I was wondering if it was a change. Yeah, it's not, but Okay. It's a yes and. It's a yes and. Awesome. Great. It's not a change. All right. I would look for a motion. I move to Go ahead. Okay. I move to approve the selection process for student representation
101at board meetings as presented by the high school administration. I'll second. I know. I appreciate any discussion. No, thank you. No. Okay. Um, all in favor, please say I. I. Okay. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes. 5. Oh, I I I'm sorry. I forgot I had to vote. So, there that was late. My apologies. Um, okay. All right. Next action item. um action on McFarland High School Start College Now program request. Yep. So, it's just an additional one that that um came through a little bit later and of a class approved for one of our students. I'll move to approve the course approval the Start College Now program request as recommended by the McFarland High School Student Services Department. I can second. I'm always a beat too late. It's all you. Oh, I'll second. Started. Okay.
102Thank you, Megan. Excellent. I got you. Any questions or discussion? Um, I think the course was for calc 2. So, I just want to say to the student who's doing that, good luck. Um, you are highly intelligent. Don't forget it. It's all a hard class. As someone who almost failed calculus in college, I totally can appreciate that. You are amazing here. I did not do well in calculus. I don't even understand what a limit is. So, okay. Um All right. So, no. Not any more discussion? No. Okay. All in favor, please say I. I. I. All opposed? Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. 5-0. Okay. We are moving right along here. Um, action on the 2024 2025 employee handbook. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah, probably makes more sense. Did I make a mistake there? Probably. That's okay.
103That's just what it says in the heading. Um, cut and paste. Yes. So, um, I read this little part. administration in conjunction with the employees relation committee recommends approval of the revised 2526 employee handbook. I am moved to approve the 202526 employee handbook as recommended by administration. All right, Huey. I'll second. How we got the H's on there. All right. Any questions or comments? I would just say for the public in case you're watching the changes to the handbook have been vetted with the entire staff with our employee relations committee surveys. Um there's a lot of detail to some of these changes, but they're primarily technical. So I don't want the public to think that the board is not taking full consideration of these changes. They've been informed of these changes throughout. That is true.
104I think even some of them were um I mean I haven't been on the ERC committees for two rounds now I think and they some of them we were talking about way back then so yeah carryovers yep so um that's great to have that done. Okay. So, we have a motion. We have a second. Um, all in favor? I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. 5-0. Okay. Action on recommended fee schedule. Administration recommends approval of the fee schedule as proposed. I'll move to approve the 2526 fee schedule as recommended by administration. I'll second. Got the Hes again. All right. Any discussion? I just want to say um as we look through all of these fees, we are only seeing inflationary adjustments if any if any. Um, and so I just I think it kudos to
105the administration for understanding, you know, that money is tight everywhere. And so just putting that inflationary increase is is pretty fantastic of y'all. Isn't it even just like Oh, there's Yes. Okay. So, there's some at the end. Um, but yeah. Yeah, they're very negligible if any for most of them. I was I was I was impressed. I was going through it, I was expecting it to be more. Um, so like as a as a parent of an athlete, I was expecting to have to pay more. So, and and a multi- sport athlete. So, yeah, great job. Y but another way of looking at that and that's such a really good point you make Megan is just simply it just means that the school that is a way that they could keep in a sense their
106overall cost down by raising fees on the parents and we're trying to say look we we've got to try to make this public education as affordable as we can. So, we're just everything is just kind of like right by the skin of our teeth is y I am very proud of what we're doing. Every single line item in the the fee schedule, if you will, like that is that's each one of those items is fiscal responsibility for the district. So, if we need examples of that, if you are looking for those, this is a really good example. True. True. All right. All in favor? I I any opposed? Motion carries. 5-0. All right. Action on 66.0301 Dne County New Teacher Project Shared Services Contract for the 202526 school year. Um the Dne County New Teacher
107Project is the parent organization of our McFarland New Teacher Mentoring Program. The district is a charter member and renews our agreement with them annually. Administration recommends approval of this shared services agreement. I'll move to approve the 2526 Dane County new teacher project shared services contract as recommended by administration. Okay. I can second. All right. Any discussions or thoughts? Absolutely agree. I mean we I think our mentor program takes a backseat to no one. It's just a fantastic well I think it cont every year is that it it contributes immensely to that meaningful work that they're doing and feeling supported and helps teach teachers one stay in the industry and two stay at McFarland which is obviously what we hope for. Not every district, right? Exactly. Okay. Anything else to add? Okay. All in favor? I.
108Any opposed? All right. Hearing none. Motion carries. 5-0. Um action on 202526 McFarland School District open enrollment applications. I move to approve the students listed in the attached exhibit who requested attendance at the McFarland School District. I'll second. Okay. And just um as a note, we do have to do two um votes here. Okay. Get my Okay. Any discussion there? One of the things I'll just note is that all of the students that apply for open enrollment are approved. However, some of them are approved only for the virtual school. Does that make sense? Yep. So, I was pleased though that it was less than what I thought it might be. Yeah. So, I think it was eight or something like that. Yeah. I don't I don't know what the Oh, are you thinking of out?
109Is that what you're thinking? I was thinking gonna be in the Weaver. There's more than eight. Yeah, there's more than eight. Not not a ton though. I think there's 12. But just so you know, that's why we don't you'll see you know. So we accept all kids and we just say you are accepted into our virtual school. Yeah. Well, luckily we get a small portion of that if they attend. Most of them won't. All right. Um Okay. All in favor, please say I. I I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Move to approve the students listed in the attached exhibit who requested attendance outside the McFarland School District. Bless you. That is not me seconding it. Okay. Huy seconded it. That had too many letters in it. Seconded it. Um okay any discussion? These are for the
110the kids transferring out open enrolling. Yes. And I would say what are there 15 of them? Not many number compared to a lot more in. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Okay. Hearing none. Um all in favor please say I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries 5-0. All right. Um action on 20 2025 2026 WEA 4K through 8 Wea High School um Wisconsin DCA and Insight School of Wisconsin open enrollment applications. I move to approve the students listed in the attached exhibit who requested attendance at Weebo 4K through 8, Weeba High School, WIDCA, and uh ISWI. Second. Okay. Any discussion or notes to add? Okay. Hearing none. All in favor favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. Hearing none, motion carries. I move to approve the denial of the students listed in the attached exhibit who
111requested attendance at Weea 4K through 8 Wea High School uh inside school of Wisconsin and destinations career academy. I'll second. Okay. And Erin, can you explain is that just they they're applying but they haven't shown up in the last they previously. Yeah, they were previously failure to participate. My question there's only seven though. Yes. And I know they work awfully hard to keep all those kids going. Yeah. Okay. All right. So, any other thoughts, discussion? Okay. Um all in favor please say I. Any opposed. All right. Hearing none. Motion carries. 5-0. Okay. So then action on the open enrollment reversal process. I move to approve the district administrator or a designate to reverse open enrollment approval or denial decisions based on updated data related to expulsions weight list and special education status. I'll second. All
112right. Any thoughts, discussion? I'm just making an assumption that I'll say it out loud, but I'm assuming this is just like standard process. It would happen. Yeah, it gives us that flexibility like so we accept a student let's say for open enrollment and then they're expelled in their current district. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Confirm. All right. All in favor please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Motion carries. 5. I think that does it. That's it. So, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. Motion to Even though I screwed up because everyone's looking at me. I move to adjourn our meeting this evening. I second. Yes. Yes. All right. Meeting is adjourned. Did you vote? We don't have to vote. Okay. We have to vote. Sorry. Okay. Any discussion? Mhm. All in favor, please say
113I. I. I. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. We are adjourned at 911 meeting. Yay. 9 minutes ahead of schedule. Nine minutes ahead of schedule. And we started late even with our closed session going over. That was unprecedented. Yeah. Part of it was other things that we moved faster. That's true. Good. That was good. I appreciate that. All right. So I have a question for you. the two school boards. That's