McFarland School Board Meetings 02/03/25

001on Monday February 3rd 2025 um start out with we have some consent agenda items on is there any of those that any one member of the board would like to pull out and deal with uh individually or is it okay to proceed as a group hearing nothing I will assume that that is the case so we have the minutes of the January 13 2025 school board meeting and January 14th 2025 School Board special meeting uh we have some professional staffing recommendations and some co-curricular staffing recommendations uh if everyone is in agreement with the consent agenda I would look for a motion to approve oh so moved thank you Tom a second who's that I can second that okay fessler fessler all right okay uh all those in favor please signify by saying I I I

002opposed motion carries unanimously 5 z uh there are also some professional uh staffing recommendations uh no vote is necessary uh moving on to public comments Angie do we have any public comments okay moving on uh we've got a McFarland High School student report just hold up we do have a public comment oh I'm sorry oh yeah I'm sorry my okay Memorial I I have a short read to do here in accordance with school board policy 1673 the McFarland School Board welcomes public comment during regular meetings from individuals who are present at the meeting participating virtually or have sent an email to the board president or superintendent participants are required to register to speak upon arriving at that meeting provide their name address and any group affiliation before speaking address only topics within the legitimate jurisdiction

003of the board recognize that the board will not respond to comments during the meeting and unless the item is on the published agenda limit their comments to under five minutes or 600 written words and of course maintain decorum [Music] for for thank you all right we have John deals yes sir 2350 County Road AB Holocaust Memorial education the floor is yours sir come right up to the microphone so we can hear you and good evening and nice to see you all again and as Bruce knows my interest has always been in history and it just as this past Monday was International Holocaust Memorial Day it's just occurred to me that I've got access to a lot of resources my wife's family were both hola survivors and both were at aitz brenal and have a lot

004of memorability uh but it's just one of those things that I am embarrassed say I have no idea what the high school has access to but it's one of those things that I uh just wanted to a just find out more about what the school already has in place and also figure out what resources might be available through some of the organizations that we've been connected with over the decades and uh just to explore that because it's one of those issues that the there's other Memorial days for the Holocaust that'll be coming up later in the year but I just was more curious to find out what currently exists and help to promote a study group or whatever that might be interested in exploring more so that's my story and I'm sticking to it any

005questions or comments for Mr deals I think um if you leave your contact information with us and we can have somebody get in touch with you of course it it's not on our board agenda tonight so we can't discuss necessarily it's just one of those things that yeah that would be wonderful there's always like you always mean to do XY and it's just like life happens that's right so yeah so we'll have somebody get in touch with you you got and connected it that would be wonderful thanks a lot for being here we appreciate it now the McFarland High School student report hi I'm I don't think we've officially done one before together but uh L we don't have any technical difficulties today um I'll just share my screen today oh no oh there we

006go all right sorry for the so I'm it from my phone all right so um so what's going on in 16 newly certified Microsoft Office asso um they had PowerPoint and next congratulations to them uh just last week we have connect visited the McFarland Villa on January 31st we went to hang out with the lovely folks there and we sat and we ate fruit and just had great discussions about their lives and just brought some Joy Company to a few people who just really needed it we really hope to uh continue doing this hopefully even branching out to other clubs since they seem to really enjoy high schoolers and their company um we also want to recognize the MLK youth breakfast um we had a couple students go in for the for Martin Luther King

007Jr day they were honored for the 4 for the 41st annual MLK youth uh recognition breakfast so great big congratulations to them as well coming up so what will be going on at MHS right now we're very focused on advising night which will be happening February 5th from 400 to 700 p.m where we have over 50 colleges joining us and employers as well they will have presentations and financial aid and just helping our students look and plan to our future something we're really excited for and we also have Community week which is coming up we have all clubs including connect joining in with some some very kind ways to show our appreciation our love for as you see connect we have our Frontier bracelet gr shop our twin day dress up with a prize of

008$30 gift cards for each person who gets dressed up we also have our Tom Farley visit which uh will be happening on around February 27th where our special guest speaker will be coming to the Performing Arts Center who is Tom Farley's brother um he will just come to talk about some just about a lot of topics that I think are very important for our students we also have our athletic updates which I will not bore you too much with but we do have a big congratulations to our MHS dance team who got first place in their Jazz routine at the wacpc State uh competition at lacrosse so we're very proud of of that and yeah other than that that is our McFarland update thank you thank you do we have any questions comments if not

009it's always amazing no thanks than so much thank you so much we'll see you in a couple of weeks okay of course have a wonderful night you too thank you thank you okay next we have Community impact Grant natural Circle update Christine thank you very much good evening everybody nice to be here um I believe it might you and I yes yes Dr Le is having difficulty getting into so we will roll with us okay until if and when he's able to join us virtually so welcome here everyone um as we do we have an annual update for you on the progress of the Grant and so we're going to highlight a few things for you here today just to give you a little bit of an overview about the the grant is this this

010grant this fiveyear grant really stemmed out of an Ane Equity issue identified by the district and that our African-American or black students reported they didn't feel that sense of belonging in our schools and that was impacting both how they felt but also how they learned and um what we wanted to do with this grant what the goal is to do is to make some longlasting and substantial changes that impact um not just our African-American students but all of our students both now and into the future so we partnered um the district partnered in this grant there's there's three of us the natural Circles of support and um Dr Lewis is the executive director there and of course myself and then Dr privo Who's the um a partner with the Wisconsin Center for Education research so

011we're each going to share a little bit about uh the Grant and give you some progress about where we're at for this year one thing I will share about our partnership that's really important for you to know is that it requires a lot of trust ongoing communication that we've all been committed to it's one of those things where we are equal Partners in this work and we continually learn and grow from uh that partnership so it's it's something that's very strong and we're already starting to get a little bit sad as we move down um with our our time with the grant as we are just entering our final year so the wonderful thing about this grant is it was developed before our strategic plan and our updated mission and vision yet you can see

012how it aligns well with our mission of meeting the needs of every learner every day and our vision of creating an equitable and inclusive community committed to student belonging achievement and growth all of those factors are a key part of this grant you'll see that highlighted through the work that we're talking about there are five goals associated with the Grant and um we're going to talk about each one of them individually and report on progress but you can see them here first of all leading mentoring circles for students we also want to empower our staff through a leadership team continue to look at our results and be curious and engage in inquiry throughout the process we also want to provide professional development and community of practices for our staff so that that learning that they

013can take will grow in all of the settings and of course engage with our families in community so I'm going to highlight some of our key accomplishments um here some update and things and how things are changing here with this project we continue to offer offer mentoring circles for students of color in grades 3 through 12 so you see it's about 34 students it varies from from building to building and the times vary from building building to building in in location but about um 34 students are involved the the big thing that you're going to hear as a theme intentionally we are moving into a a sustainability model so much of the the uh leadership for this work including the mentoring circles is transferring from natural Circles of support to District staff in this case

014are diver diversity Equity inclusion and belonging coordin Britney Brazzle so we started a transition where they were co-leading uh this group last spring and then starting this fall Britney's assumed um primary leadership and for the rest of uh the grant cycle will be continuing to to lead those in addition one of the the big changes that we've made is uh with students permission of course as themes are developed in those circles what's learned in there is being shared out with staff in their uh weekly staff newsletters and that's been a really nice step because it helps the staff connect with uh what they're sharing and makes that uh practical and applicable to all of the settings so that's been really exciting the second thing that you'll see here is that we've transitioned from we had

015Equity action teams and buildings and now instead we're moving to th that work being embedded in our building leadership teams those are often the decision makers and this idea of equity not being a separate pillar or separate from our work just being part of how how we do our work and when I talk about Equity I think it's important to remind ourselves that we're what we're talking about is the ability for us to meet the the needs and and the learning opportunities for all of our students regardless of Color Race gender ability Etc um the other thing is just to note that whis has a really strong group that wanted to continue to meet and so we'll see where that that group goes but but they partner with the building leadership team as well for

016that work in terms of engaging districtwide inquiry there's a couple of levels and I think this is something that we're really excited about we've been collecting data for those that are involved in um circles uh throughout the project but the district as you know has made a commitment to Gathering data from our families our staff and our students on a broader scale uh and actually our student surveys have been going on the last couple weeks and then that also guides our work to see about the impact that we're making Beyond just those students that are involved in the mentoring circles because our goal is to make these these large larger scale sustainable changes where all students feel that they can uh achieve in our district and feel that they belong and can grow in terms

017of the seminars uh a big shift here has been moving from sort of optional approaches we still have some optional SE seminars three of those for staff and involving some new partners uh that Britney's connected with you heard about that last month a little bit but in addition to those we've expanded it into our ongoing professional development for all staff what are the the fundamental foundational best practices for what we call tier one or Universal everybody gets it all the students get it this type of instruction and what that really is is just best practices it's not a curriculum it's not a Content it's how it's delivered uh the service delivery model and things like well-being for all which you've you've heard about in our school Improvement conversations as well as when Britney was here

018last last time to present that's the work that we're doing in creating welcoming environments for all of our students uh and then lastly but certainly very important is engaging families in the community what um has really evolved was this group that started um um that I started you know a while back has now evolved to Britney leading the group and added a new element to this um McFarland schools Equity Collective by having speakers come and they talk about a variety of topics and present to those that come and so so uh I think last time was student services presented about what they do and how they meet student needs uh Paul akley as the athletic director came and spoke to them uh about the role that Athletics play in our student athletes so it's a

019variety of topics really driven by the interest of those that are participating and the other thing that's different about that group and our engagement with families it's not a sit and get type of relationship it's really bad back and forth so they will provide suggestions we will bring something to them to discuss I'll give you an example was we had this group provide some direction about when you receive communication from the district what do you prefer in a newsletter versus what you prefer um getting in an email and that really helps us try to better meet the needs to make sure that all the families get the information they need in a way that's most effective so the next thing we're going to do is talk a little bit about evaluation and and this means

020I don't have to talk anymore um I get to listen to our our resident expert researcher who's going to talk about these surveys small yeah um so I will share the um evaluation overview unfortunately it looks like Dr Lewis isn't going to be able to join us tonight um so as uh for those of you who been here while to these presentations you know that the you know the District of the umbrella and and natural Circles of support is our community partner that has been running the circles have been providing professional development they also um do data collection so they'll um either uh use surveys or surveying techniques and depending on the age of the children do it um developmentally appropriate um or a focus group or something to get some feedback from the students

021so so I'm going to read the notes that Dr Lewis shared Excuse me while while I do that uh last year we began to explore the relationship between belonging and participation in one's education from a data perspective this year we're giving particular focus on school engagement and academic success meaningful participation in their education is an important indicator of belonging that contributes to school Success as outlined in the following slide um so just uh once again as our partner they play a critical role last year um as an evaluator which is part of my role with this project it really was a fall implementation year uh we didn't do much of any new data collection um we the district does all the serving so that's wonderful um this coming year we're going to do heavy data

022collection uh not only do we always have to do an annual report which we just put in on on January 31st but we would like to write up our findings uh what happened um looking at the goals of the grant how were those met uh what were Lessons Learned what were barriers what were challenges with the hope that if other people want to other districts want to do similar type of work they might be able to use us as um a guide so um just as an evaluation overview uh first of all we're always checking to make sure we're reading the goals and all of you we are meeting the goals um the ongoing uh data collection for students and staff um do once again ongoing um District staff we were going to use um

023we had done a a staff in January is it was kind of springish of 2023 that talked about or asked staff about their Readiness and their ability to um address different um needs of students and where they fell and then that's also where they gave a lot of feedback about what kind of professional development they needs they had which then Melissa and Britney took and and did um so we'll replicate some of those questions but we'll tie it to the the staff survey so that staff aren't being over surveyed um I'll also do I did District leader interviews in the summer of 2023 I think there was 12 of them at that time so I'm going to redo those uh and see where ad ators feel like we've moved or not um so that'll happen

024probably in the summer I try to catch them when they're still on contract but uh less busy in the in the school buildings um so we'll have student surveys we'll have um the staff surveys in the in the spring coming up here we'll have the interviews of the um um administrators in the summer and then we're also going to do um I'm going to do a focus group with the this community group The Family grp that's been meeting I tend to attend those meetings anyway but they're a core group that's been regular since many many years ago so we're going to get their feedback about what they see as any positive changes and things that there there might still need uh there's any places for growth we'll so I'm really excited it'll be heavy data

025collection this year for that um just then the evaluation overview of what we reported back to our funding agency um students are feeling uh affirmed and supported in the mentoring uh Circle space as was evidenced by the data collection from the natural circles Circles of support staff um continue to feel that they're able to express themselves and they appreciate the facilitators peers and being able to have deep conversations in circles once again this is a a role that Dr Lewis and their staff his staff they play um and so there that's a really critical part of that the district level uh survey data you've all seen this actually uh we recorded this out from your presentation that was given to you by Mr tarer um so we use some of the items and indicators to

026show uh and to address some of the questions that wpp um had for us uh let's um and those were all area those areas were for the staff uh social Co cohesion uh for the community and parents how connected they feel to the district um and then social emotional health of the students and there are some data points that are shared there uh anybody have questions on the data or the data collection or analysis I know I just kind of shared a lot of information with you not yet okay I'll turn it over to you so what's next you know here we are in our final year um and as we heard we're we're trying to bring together Lessons Learned but we still have a lot of work to do with with our kids and

027with our staff and families so we're going to continue the the mentoring circles um and sharing what has been learned that is really becoming our standard operating practice and something we plan to continue after the grant um so continue with a District staff leading those circles and Consulting as necessary with natural Circles of support staff we'll continue with the equity leadership in the sense of through our building leadership team and that is aligned with our strategic plan the diversity Equity inclusion and belonging coordinator uh continues to meet with building administration at least monthly uh frankly uh more than that but at a minimum of monthly and what that has helped us do is just make sure all of our efforts are really um connected and that we're not being redundant or missing things continue to

028to develop that research both with the students that are in mentoring circles but more importantly with our other students and um the message of we we want to have this work impact students sense of belonging but in an effort to impact student achievement so continuing to analyze that work preparing for the year- end report we'll continue uh with our work in our professional development what is a highquality uh tier one instructional practices and continue with professional development seminars for those that would like a little bit more the full uh staff are always welcome to those and there's also teacher study groups when you see tsg a reminder that's a teacher study group uh regarding such conversations and then lastly we're going to continue to work um both with uh the families of students that are

029in mentoring circles you know bringing them together making sure that they feel connected that's our our next step for our work and then continuing with our MSE the M Farland schools Equity Collective which actually meets this week on Wednesday night and you can expect us we're going to keep sharing things um we'll we'll be back in June to to give kind of a midyear update as we always do and then a culminating report in December or more likely January I think of of 2026 and we hope that you continue to ask questions and be curious and support this important work that's clearly integrated into our strategic plan so that's what we were hoping to share with with all of you sorry that Dr Lewis he's trying to get in and just can't get in but

030he's here in spirit and certainly uh everything that we've shared we've probably learned from him so so what questions do you have for us or comments I have some Mr Mooney go for ite first of all thanks for the report uh from both of you yeah it's it sort of brings closure to this to the past six months and I feel that's important at least for me to understand where we were and sort of what where we're going next but I do have uh some questions here we talk about the tier one instructional practices what are we doing now if as the kids might be following through the cracks or whatever do we have tier two or tier three interventions we do yes we do have two tier two and three in interventions and often

031you know we have had those in place for a long time for our students and what we're finding is that we need to kind of back up and make sure we're meeting as many students needs as possible in the tier one so for a student to feel successful in a sense of belonging only as a result of an intervention is not where we want to start we want more students to feel connected and that they're successful in that tier one and so what we're what we're doing is identifying with staff collaboration what are those practices that are most effective in meeting the needs of the students that we have in this district and and that align with research and doing that through an equity lens to make sure that it is meeting the needs of

032all of our students regardless of gender socioeconomic status disability Etc okay thanks um and again I applaud your involvement your facilitation the administration and and teachers of course uh carrying that work forward is there any type of correlation I don't know if there is between the D count youth survey and the data you are gathering from students now question yes so the D County Youth assessment is administered to students in grades 7 through 12 so it is a much smaller um segment I would say the biggest difference knowing both surveys very well in all of these data collection content well the D County Youth assessment is a fairly um risk associated survey so they're looking at risk factors more than resiliency um it's just how it's because of the Partnerships that are involved so they're

033looking at things like you know alcohol and drug use sexual activity those are some of the things they do talk about bullying and harassment which is part of our survey results as well what this does that the D County Youth Sur surve does not do is it talks about academic success and how well that students feel they understand what is going on in class that they have people they could go to to get support so it's a much much broader and I would say more academic focused than risk behavior focused and I understand that but a big piece of the um the encounter you survey is do students feel connected to an adult in their setting somewhere MH and I know that's was talked about here you know can they talk to somebody so that's

034it's that type of correlation I was looking at specifically and I think there is a question like that on the current student there is yep but I think you know than you for bringing that up if I remember correctly when we wrote The Proposal we did some of the dment visually kind of remember it so it might be uh useful to look back at that to see if there's Trends both are anous so we can't correlate yeah students together to know how they respond other cly worth the look so than for and those results have come out recently yeah then uh uh you talked about the uh found school's Equity Collective project and having speakers come in uh you cited Athletics with Paul Student Services have there been other speakers come in trying to think

035grp who they've all had yeah they had um I I did miss a couple sorry I know Lauren Rango was one of them last month they had a panel of uh the social workers psychologists and counselors and then they explain the difference between the three roles really helpful um I also missed Mr a unfortunately I'm trying to think and then Wednesday night is an open open discussion about what other questions I have about student services so the way britty has been designing them is to keep one or two open so there's you know more open discussion and she might bring something to the table or something in the audience will bring it um so is there do you have a thought on well I was just thinking like um ell students um yeah uh the

036advanced learner student nutrition you know you I was just thinking of some different um yeah those are great areas that a group of people might be interested in hear more about that was a great idea but I do like the model that Britney's using where you have a couple open and there's just a question or something you talk about that I can I'll bring them those are great ideas and my last question is we've been very fortunate to have this grant in our district the past four years extremely fortunate because we're in a different place now than we were when we started the grant oh certainly yeah my question is once the grant concludes and know the responsibilities for the district to carry on but will there be any future grant opportunities to even further

037enhance what our district will be doing there certainly could be I mean I don't think we know right now I think that's part of what our year you know will entail is looking at what we will be sustaining from this grant um and then what how we might build upon it I think for us what we wanted to make sure sustainability has been our our our word throughout the whole thing because we have all seen grants that are amazing and they go away and the work stops and so we've been very intent and building capacity that will last beyond the life of the grant so we feel very confident that we've built that Foundation that with the goals that we currently have it we'll be able to meet those but I think that's a great

038idea about what's next you know beyond how could we build upon that I don't think we're quite to that point but I think we have another year yet yeah because I think part part of the success has been the resources that have been made available to the district and some of those resources we won't be able to tap into in the future so just you know like you said you what is our future that was very you know when the proposal was written there was a sustainability component uh we're right on track with that we knew that someone was going to take over circles even when the proposal was written dney Britney was not an idea at that point so um so really having her do it um and and building her capacity to continue

039to do it um she can still remain engaged with other circles um other circles uh staff and and teachers who are doing in other districts uh I think I believe they have a community of practice that she connect to um but yeah we knew all along that this is going to going to happen and most will you know everything that you've talked about will stay the is you know five years is a really nice length of a grant you know you work on shorter you just don't really get anything done um but was really and this will be part of the report that we write is the you know the movement away from kind of a small group of people around the students particular faculty and staff around the students and PD for them to

040a broader PD as well as um and Mr T was talking about the level one intervention um we know in all sorts of places that when you intentionally improve climate for people even if it's a particular group it helps everybody um so you improve climate for women in stem Fields it actually helps men as well so everything that you do to bring people up brings everyone up um so I think this work is important to to think about that that this isn't an add-on and it's not just affecting great staff to work with um so really feel honored to be be a part of this project many yes I was just going to say the I mean you already touched on it Tom but it's very clear that it's so much of the practices are

041embedded like I can feel it as a school board member I can feel it as a parent you know of two high schoolers um and that's the sustainable part you know um and it and that feels really good um and I'm really looking forward to the final report because that's going to I'm so curious to hear what people who are in more of the day-to-day have to say about it and what the numbers show and all of that so I really like that we've open up to the community I think that's going to continue and I I I love that word sustainable because that's in education often you just yeah you get this thing it goes in a binder and that's the end of it and we just keep keep working on this and then

042also the point is that it does it's for all kids I mean I think we have to realize um you said it very well Dr Bruin just the idea that kind of that boat Rises for all all the students so that's wonderful yep what in the board and anticipated to hear from Administration a year from now two years from now three years from now will we keep getting like six Monon follow-ups is there status reports yes so so we will in terms of of well first of all it's all connected with our school improvement work right and our strategic plan so you'll hear it through that lens uh but also you will hear it uh through uh uh Britney's annual report and that she provides to the board and just did in December and so

043now that she's taking over that leadership for this work that's where you will primarily hear it through can we get this presentation emailed us emailed to us sure that would be great are some of the kind of to that point in for Britney's annual updates will this the surveys that we send continue to have some updates or Focus questions like the ones that we're adding in now for the grant would it make sense to continue to have some of those stay just perpetuity yeah I hope so so when I did that survey Britney wasn't hired at the time so going to sit down together and go through the items and say which ones are we going to do again which ones do we not need to do because they're covered already in the staff survey

044and what would you want to know so it'll really still take more ownership of it than it be like my survey sure um but we needed to do Baseline and now we'll do it so yes I I think I can't speak for her but I'm assuming if she gets good data from that yeah that it could be incorporated um I can't speak for her but okay that makes sense I know you don't have a crystal ball but yeah do you is there any way you can anticipate the impact of the the very anti Dei stance that the federal that the new Administration has taken and that the some leadership in our state legislature also do anticipate any any real tangible type impact from that take that um you could take it for the K12 level

045that would be great yes I did just to you know I think that right now the important thing is to recognize the way that our K12 public education environment is set up it's set up with a model of local control and that that has really been the design since Inception and so there's limitations on what the federal government government is able to do so in terms of tangent tangible changes structurally curriculum at this point in our government is not dictated by the federal government um that's done at a local level um however I think the the greater unknown is about um attitudes belief support uh you know and you've seen that get changed when you talk about local control the other thing you will see is school boards school officials change um that maybe have

046a different approach um than others but I don't think it's a kind of a light switch sort of scenario and it and it will become sort of incumbent upon all of you to just affirm where you are um with it the other thing I think is just that the idea of so much misinformation and so we have that responsibility to provide accurate information because when we're talking about these these situations and you can hear us talk about this we're talking about meeting the needs of all of our students including our students of color and so I think that is a rhetoric that uh is much less divisive and truly when you talk about diversity Equity inclusion and belonging uh those are things that I think everyone you know understands and supports when you talk about

047Dei as some phrase just like we're dealing with CRT you know what is critical race Theory I didn't know um and so those are the things that I think um we have to continue to educate the public yeah they ran a good story at national news today about the difference between affirmative action which is law versus Dei and I think they're absolutely right A lot of people don't want to understand the difference that was a good clarification for people that were listening to that story I think education is going to be key because the words are being used and it's what they're suggesting isn't really true um you know I've been I guess in the field of Dei for 20 some years studying all sorts of different um populations and their success and inclusion into

048various fields and we know from research that diversity when you find Define it um not in the way that's being defined helps productivity it helps companies with the you know the return on the ROI they do better um and as I was mentioning uh earlier the the environment and the climate in which we do that work when you do it when you do the work it helps everybody um so I I think education's really key like we really need to be really clear about what the words mean and how it's being used um but you know nationally I I I'm on a couple projects where facult the country and and really feeling more of the heat from the state um so they're in places where they just can't do it so I think we will

049see something but I I appreciate Mr T's you know local control still stands for K12 um but I think for us who are doing the work and others I think part of our role will be really educating and what it is because because the way it's being described right now is not I'm I'm generalizing of course but it's not accurate it's actually very very good for companies it's very good for places that we've studied so I think education will be key but you all are pretty educated board so this topic but I think I think you're going to do a little more and I think in the community you might see that as well um I'll put on my me hat and we met with um Britney and Crystal uh the other night um over

050T to talk about just generally Village what are some needs and things like that and we all agree just education about like what's accurate about the words that are being used um and that's you know it's not no fault of anyone uh I don't expect to know a lot about being a chef or you know like right you know you just don't know what you don't know so I think that just some education might be helpful I just think it's important in education kids have to feel like they connect with someone and teachers and students they have to have that connection and they have to feel comfortable and to me it goes Way Beyond color gender it it's it's just something that it's why people run into education in the first place and that's not

051going to change as long as the human I guess psyche is the way it it always has been so I I just think it's really important we just recognize we're we're we're trying to make kids feel comfortable in their school and I think that's the that is the most important message we get out to the public so that they can learn better that's it it's it it's the only way you're going to do it well thank you drel than you thank you very much see see you next time yes all right next we have uh State education convention update ER in why don't you start and I'll pick up for you leave off all right so um Craig Jeff Mahoney Angie and I had the opportunity attend the State education convention in Milwaukee um as

052always lovely weather in Milwaukee January have um apparently my thoughts on rescheduling that conference have not been heated so um we were there after closing school on Tuesday because it was too cold but only was that heated or heated yes heated both both yes um but had a really productive conference you know I think uh each of us approaches it with a different lens I'll give my take is that the conference is really welld designed for board members and so as a superintendent who thankfully is not involved in trying to learn about and pass a referendum I had some other options to go and see whereas previously that's all I went to uh were referendum sessions so a few takeaways I had things about using uh student survey results to guide instruction um some just

053culture things and and sort of Staff culture ideas that came through some of the Keynotes that's often what they what they provide learned about the new superintendent evaluation model which was helpful uh attended a session about safety from um that was presented by the partners that were involved in the the tragic situation uh shooting in Mount HB and provided sort of a debrief of things that they they experien um some school law updates that is something that you can never get too much of because the law is always a in and I think overall just uh had a chance to kind of step away and reflect in kind of where we are uh compared to where some of our our neighbors are so productive time it always is uh one of the one of the

054takeaways I get every single year uh at both the state and National level is that uh this district is very different in the way that that that we do our business uh in the way that that we interact with board Administration staff Union uh everything starts from a amicable Place uh always really in compromise and I every year without fail I find out that that is not the norm it's not it shocked not the norm yeah no so Wednesday afternoon is the uh is the delegate elections there were 13 or 14 different amendments every amendment ended up passing eventually um probably the most popular term in Robert's Rules of Order in this uh delegation assembly is called a question because they'll they sit there for hours going back and forth literally last year they did

055this year it was much shorter so I I've got I've got I'm a decent notetaker but I'm a a bit of a messy Note Taker so I'll try to put some of this together artistic yeah but it did get out soon enough for me to to attend a session at one additional session then on Wednesday afternoon so I I took one in on standards based learning uh and grading the how okay and what I what I found is that the two most important things when it comes to making this kind of A Change Is consistency and having one story across the board as to how you're going to do this uh but then they came right back and said that everybody everybody has about the same Growing Pains initially when you try to switch from

056yeah the old style to the standards based grading so it's a matter of sticking with it uh it's not going away anytime soon anyway um so that was a takeaway from that our friend Kate would be call out to Kate exactly she might feel sad and I went I Thursday I one just caught my eye and it said calling all board presidents that I went to and I that I found out that uh the relationship here is a bit different than other places uh it seems that most boards and administration don't really have any kind of delineation between who is responsible for what and who's whose purview is day-to-day operations as opposed to finances as opposed to policy um but there were there were board presidents in there that said they would be in contact

057with their superintendent 12 to 20 times a week nope how do you feel what do you mean I mean you don't want to talk H that's amazing oh it was it was incredible how in the weeds yeah some of these board presidents took the boards and I don't know superintendent is it just due to like almost like a sense of entitlement like they're trying to create busy work I don't know if it's Legacy you know this is how it's always been I tend to think it's agendas that they're you know they're they're R I was surprised yeah that's amazing well it I think it could all I think it's probably so many things but I think also that board education about clear roles and responsibilities I mean we have our mentoring program we have like

058historically I think our board has been like that a little bit a long time ago but um yeah I mean it could it's we definitely don't operate that way here I would argue it hasn't been that way here there's been some periods where it's been that way but they're really pretty rare and things are so politicized now yeah that it's you can you can call it nonpartisan but it just isn't um so yeah you know that kind of rears its ugly head at times too U there's there's factions within boards that are when board members resign or retire they they go out and handpick who they want to be on the board that closest fits their agenda yeah and I don't know how that's sustainable no I I don't know that's not a positive way

059but I think when it comes to roles and responsibilities for or a board member that's clearly identified in State Statute mhm I think so they aren't reading the state statute apparently because it's difference between night and day it is so someone has fallen down it was so prevalent learning that that I wasn't real interested in standing up and telling them how we do it here it also sounds like there's not a lot of trust within their boards and the administration like that may be that may be a part of it too M and those are those are all things that transparency and Communications help beat back uh some of the other stuff uh did you want to say something else oh no I was just going to say that's the public perception too I think

060that school boards have then I went to two oh I'm sorry no that's okay two of the most crowded I got I have got to thank sessions in the entire convention was cyber security preparedness and AI in the school district um the AI in the school district was just busting at the seams um but the one of the important takeaways I got from that is we've been using AI for a long time yeah just haven't been really aware of it um now I think we're we're in a period where we're going to have to decide how to use it for good as opposed to used for evil um but it's it's everybody's concerned about it and everybody is is resigned to the fact that it's here and it's only going to become more prevalent and

061the key is to be educated and to figure out how to use it I I think we've been pretty proactive with both of those things I think so too as evidence by board policy that we've either refined or created yep and and we we spoke a little bit about our situation here previous to the start of the last school year with the cyber security and the ransomware and malware uh there was another District that had a had a ransomware situation where it cost them $3.1 million to get their servers back do they have another referendum coming I'm just kidding I don't know oh you're not kid I've never uttered the word referendum once in the whole time I was there typically Insurance oh wow part of that but but it's you know as always it's

062it's it's a special feeling to be with whatever it is three or 4 thousand like-minded folks you know that are interested in public education and uh you walk away you know kind of being invigorated a little bit awesome always good I think what you both shared also piqu my interest in a couple of things first of all Erin you talked about uh you enter a session where they talk about some new state laws are there any ones that we might be interested in knowing about at all that might impact us I don't think so I mean they're a bit in the weeds to be honest um things like um perspective canid that's will be going through the elections commission instead of through the board clerk okay that's applicable but less so in terms of a

063game Cher um a lot of it was talking about they did talk about like what the executive orders what they can actually do and not do they talked about those kind of things um so you know that I kind of touched on that a little bit earlier um just looking looking at my notes here um social media posts they talk about and just about board members being cautious about when they're speaking on behalf of the district and not um but I don't think there was anything really Earth shattering I think that relevant um so every other week the Dane County uh superintendents get together virtually and have a meeting and we have we have legal updates every other week I mean that's how often these things are changing like immigration law those kind of things

064those those are all real hot topics there's usually something going on you know that gets people talking I heard my first unsubstantiated rumor over the weekend about the immigration folks have to careful about those oh yeah unsubstantiated rumors and and Craig you talked about the delegate amendments and you said um they all passed what was the most controversial one that got passed well let me look and see here controversial and which one took the longest aren't the same thing um how about the one that got funding for School Meal debt you know where where schools or parental groups or someone else will go ahead and take care of the debt oh yeah the student lunch debt um and there's there are cyber security was another one big difference between rural districts and urban districts in

065terms of how they address these kind of things you know that it'll it'll it'll be well it's kind of like the way we have it here at times one person will be doing it and HR and you know business so uh that's that's difficult accountability and school report card standards um there was a lot of discussion over that there are there are the faction out there that don't believe that the true tangible result of Education comes with standardized tests they didn't offer up any alternatives you know the the the the the rationale is that you need to you need a standard of some sort to base their achievement on so that went back and forth educational objectives there was talk about uh ridding ridding public education of critical race Theory enough so that it jumped

066out a little bit I I think everything else staff mental health oh was another big one that that people might be forgetting about the staff when it comes to worrying about the mental health that's that's kind of ravaged us the last couple of years here since the end of Co um but controversial disagreements but usually that's based on Urban versus you know Rural and that's that was the question I've been asking in my mind you got rural districts that's 80% of their budget is travel yeah Transportation 80% of our budget is staff and benefits yeah right so that's those are two very different Dynamics yeah and and is it has it changed I mean because I in some ways I felt like since I've been on the board and certainly in the last 10 years

067I feel like the rural and the urban are almost fighting against each other and I see the attack on public school more and more in light of it's going to destroy public education in the rural areas because they don't have the alternative that's they don't have enough people to provide and they've got no mental health facilities you know you you maybe have to travel 50 60 miles just to get to a clinic yeah yeah which is so underst staffed and so overbooked but there's still that tension between the two groups and that's the that just drives me crazy it's like without a doubt we have a common enemy or a common cause we should be fighting for and yet we get caught up in the little nitpicking disagreements the one Title Wave was Act 10

068people are so hopeful that that will be at least figured out you know are which parts are constitutional and which are unconstitutional and such but that's a that was uh there was a lot of talk about that and there was there was also you know fear of the unknown in the next forceable future thanks so much for going yeah thank you guys for for going it's a lot of it's AED labor of love sorry um no that's okay the one the one thing that I want wanted to bring up was in the delegate um proposals when we have the opportunity to Pro review them beforehand um I think like with our goal to have more legislative advocacy I wonder if we can carve out a little bit more time next year to talk more about

069those as a board um to make sure that were just a little bit more aware of which ones they are there's I um when I reviewed them they they have their own weeding out process when when school districts you know submit them um but there were some really it was almost more interesting to read the ones that were not were not um accepted into the delegate so but actually they do talk about those do they mhm it's not it they're not necessarily voted on but they do have they do have discussion on the ones that individual school districts have sent into them that just didn't get on the interesting yeah because I think I mean there's there were a fair number that would not align with our mission and some of the items that we've

070committed to so I just think it's something we should keep our eye on I love suggestion one other area that piqu my interest was uh you talked about standard B standard based learning mhm grading grading excuse me Aon you don't have to answer this but this is my question where do you we are at as a district specifically the high school middle school in standard standard-based grading basic proficient exceeding expectations or other I would say we are um basic to a proficient uh approaching standard uh I think what both the middle school and the high school are doing is there in a period of sort of relaunch kind of like okay what have we learned on what's working and what's not working and because when you first start there's so much to learn and you

071have to try things and that's the only way you're going to learn um because there is an art to it with every content area and um and a changing curriculum and so what the middle school started last year and the high school is more so doing this year is that relaunch um so that we can get you know to that point of of feeling proficient but I think the biggest challenge that we have is just consistency across teachers um but more so across content areas and then across buildings so that's we've been working on all of those things kind of it's you know it's like we're working on the plane while it's you know being flown or the the trains already down the track and we're you know kind we were actually a tad late

072to the game sure and I just asked the question because I know we've talked about it a lot and as a board member it's important for me to know where we are in that whole Spectrum so thanks for sharing we're in a better place than we were last year and a better place than we were the year before so that's good we're I certainly concur with you cor yeah I agree with that okay moving on we will uh look at land sale to the Village of McFarland Mr Mahoney the floor is yours hey everybody hi I was like that's such a amazing background hey that that is uh not my dad's house but I'm at my dad's house in mon so um as Aaron knows I'm doing a little bit of uh we're getting ready

073to get my dad's house on the market in a couple months so anyways hey we have something that is very very important which is we are on the next meeting we're going to approve a land sale to the Village because the village has organized a great option with um the developer over in that area to move some sales of uh property and get rid of a road that will never happen because we have a baseball field in the way and we are basically selling Green Space to remain Green Space and my fun fact today was I was chatting with Aon a little bit is I have my little Memo from uh February 28 2007 from Don Peterson and you guys are going to love this you should see the graphic back then let's see okay

074it's it's got a highlighted area of the proposed well number five site so that people in McFarland can keep getting water and so I don't want to tell you this is really kind of an easy thing to kind of move on but uh the village board and their plan commission held their meetings they've held their public comment time frames and I gotta say that none of this kind of blew up on social media so I'm gonna say that all of this is very logical and makes sense and we've been talking about this since 2007 so are there any questions about something that seems fairly logical some of it might be newer to Meg end I don't know no I've I've been following everything so so it's no questions here yeah is there any reason not

075to do it I I would like to have water keep going to people that uh need water and uh this is a good opportunity for us to help the village and the village has helped us in many ways over in this area as well we should do that and Jeff what would the uh cost benefit be for the school district so about $46,000 and um since the Lacy property was purchased with f 41 money back in [Music] 1998 um the money would go back to the fund balance of fund 41 which is our capital projects and we would use it for fun things like the fact that we had a couple boilers that were really really kind of struggling this year at the high school so we've already spent that money so this is a

076welcome addition to that uh fund balance anybody else have any questions no I think I would say the other thing to think think about in terms of a cost benefit analysis is it it takes two makes two Residential Properties um which um we can't require them to have children that attend the school district but it's certainly a possibility um that they could be you know location of the houses hopefully they're Baseball fans right right that's a beautiful facility I mean six children is 60 8,000 that'd be great that's a teacher I count every day yeah thanks Jeff sounds like a win-win so we'll just be an you'll have an action item on the next board meeting thanks all right thanks Jeff keep up the great work H January we have a board meeting update Mr

077Moon okay I can give you the update for we had meeting a couple weeks ago uh we had a financial review of the the uh budget it's interesting their revenue increased by 5% and their expenses only increased by 4% oh nice so that's a real Plus in their area of communication their enrollment is now over 5,000 with a very low withdrawal rate and 90% of the students who apply to WEA actually enroll WEA oh so that's a good thing marketing uh we've had a marketing firm hired for the past year that contract will not be renewed at this point uh what has surfaced since uh we've had marketing firm Now new logo new ads revised enrollment forms and a new open enrollment email series for them and uh you may be seeing some new ads

078on television networks like we have in the past they did the tournament girls basketball tour last year I think yep I thought they were great other uh there's 2117 students classified as homeless with WEA there's a th000 students plus who are een with IEPs how many homeless Town 217 there's 255 staff with weeva uh they do have a f very active family Council that meets uh I think monthly virtually and they'll be involved with the capital day uh on uh February 19th where they meet with the legislators up there and they're going to be talking about two different Focus areas uh off-site testing with Proctors and increase in funding for special education services for students let's see students are thriving those that have special Le needs however uh the students with special lead needs are

079outpacing the existing resources so they're going to be taking looking And discussing at the existing mission and vision of WEA I'll just keep you updated on that where where that goes any questions on this past month how big an increase in enrollment is that plus 5,000 this year is is that from 4500 yeah I would say maybe 43 4400 4400 is what I remember from last year do they do they have currently have staff that is capable of taking on that additional yes WEA has WEA has maintained um levels of staff to accommodate additional students okay boy that seemed like they've got things figured out over there you may recall uh the projectory if it holds for the next uh very few short years they anticipate a potential enrollment of 7,000 students wow it Remains

080the largest virtual school in the state we are currently right yeah and for my observation and my involvement with them I would say it's a sound virtual option for kids y boy I can imagine how how a homeless family or student could possibly wind their way through you know a virtual education like that uh again if a family is displaced all their home if they uh join another family in their home or in an apartment they're still considered homeless because they don't have a place of their own eron did you want to add yes I think that was exactly so thank you for saying that that's that's biggest thing is that if they you know are forced due to economic need to live with another family um while they may have a roof over their

081heads they are considered homeless per the Mak evento act and it's important that they all have access to computers and the Wi-Fi right right that's that's it we' definitely provides that they do they do I mean I don't know about Wii but you that's all about perspective I mean if you're willing to if you're willing to walk that road to get educated you've got a passion to get educated that's for sure okay anything else for Tom then we'll look at legislative up I think we have the board retreat so the we a board retreat so first there was the we I'm sorry meeting and now this is the retreat yeah okay we have a board retreat first sure so December 18th um Tom and I and among others traveled to Green Bay for their annual

082uh Retreat and it's always a really engaging thing the one of the things that we really get from it is um it's at their DCA connect facility and tours were provided by students we spent actually a good chunk of time that day with students talking about what U their participation in destinations Career Academy uh specifically the connect program is me meant to them also with the business partners that are part of that just a a reminder it's sort of an onsite um partly in person partly virtual program where they connect with business partners oh nice and it um was really powerful day some of the things Tom just shared are very similar to the conversations we had about enrollment there's some things that you know in my notes that stuck out to me one was

083so Insight the Insight school is a really kind of a last resort for a lot of lot of kids um many have children of their own that are participating in the program um and they had their first early graduation so that was something they were really proud about about and it just struck me um they as as Tom mentioned are very concerned about special education reimbursement they have a disproportionate amount of their student population that are students with uh disabilities and so the the lack of reimbursement from our state is really impacting them financially uh they talked about their their enrollment and and their projections one of the things they're really working on is decreasing the length of time it takes to onboard a new student so so um currently it's about six weeks oh

084W um total process holy cow so um and a lot of that is honestly just some Logistics and there's some things that they are hoping the Department of Public construction could do to expedite that process a little bit on their end um so that's that's that's a concern that they have um talked about you know the enrollment increasing retention increasing as a part of it it's not just new kids so as as you know I mean and that's our one action I of my think today um retaining students is an important thing and their satisfaction rates are very that's improved significantly yes yeah yeah people are feeling really positive DCA continues to grow I would say at the State education conference their Booth was was hoppen um so a lot of attention there um the

085budget they they're currently in a bit of a budget deficit that was something they kind of knew going into the marketing campaign was kind of like put that ahead and then know that what is that Amber Alert AMBER oh no Beaver Dam um okay okay F I got you um we all got it and and so that was something they kind of of knew which is something that they're looking at you know ways to to uh address that need and somewhat through legislation we actually talked a lot about legislative priorities and so they had their um what is their title legislative leaz on um people uh that they're lobbyists I guess would be the best word what what do what do these schools what what do they fall under are they a public school are

086they treated as public school they're public charter yeah okay and so that's part of what they're asking for is uh to be reimbursed at the same rate as private schools um are they talked about the testing which Tom mentioned they talked about um wanting their kids to be able to participate in extracurriculars that's something legislatively they're lobbying for in their home District then mhm yeah um the remote test pror is huge it's huge y um I those were the main ones that I had yeah and then um DCA connect um 100% of their students who respond to an invitation and visit actually enroll so that's a huge is that up in col that's a big converion Green Bay oh okay yeah because there's a that big heavy equipment facility but they use there there is

087a partnership between that business and connect yeah in fact another board member pce um is it B Rob Rob Rob call yeah oh uh he's directly involved with with some of that okay in fact he was I don't know what program it saw once a week something about something Wisconsin um but he focused on DCA connect you're one of the programs that's a former manona yes mayor correct mayor and State Assembly uh but the students in DCA connect uh part of is uh providing them opportunities to give back to the community and there's mentorships there's apprenticeships um the student develop their own opportunities to do the Outreach they're required to to be in the building itself on Mondays and Wednesdays and sometimes they'll go on Wednesdays but the other two days are completely virtual and

088they have to do that because it's a virtual uh program uh let's see it's interesting um because right now there's 71 students enrolled as of last year 43 were females 28 29 were males and that day student shared their stories why they left their Public School District to join connect and you can never judge a book by its cover you know some of them just wanted a small learning environment others felt uh unsafe where they're coming from and uh DCA connect is a very safe place there's a lot of ownership uh it's Project based so they shared many of their projects with us projects that uh they might be able to do in their former school but I think some of them would have been censored out of public school also 50% of the students

089are of color Transportation they have to provide their own transportation at this point uh but that's probably the biggest barrier unless they live right in the Green Bay Area so and that's anything else I don't think so it is a day well spent yeah up there did you go to the evening session Erin I didn't was that with the legislators because I I didn't say that late it was actually legislators were there but it was more so with the business partners okay so people that weren't able to be there during the day um were able to join and interacting with the students but they had um a moment where the business partners were able to share about the difference that it made for them and students and their and their parents were there some of

090the parents were there too talking about the difference that they've seen it it make I think the the neat thing about DCA connect is that kids are really able to find a passion and run with it in in a way that you just couldn't do in a traditional setting so one of the things uh a big takeaway I had with this is that understanding that this isn't we're not talking about kids whose needs are being met in in the the structure of a a brick and mortar public education environment and are being sort of stolen away from you know public schools these are kids who probably wouldn't be in school right if it wasn't for that or would certainly not be happy or successful I mean kids that were at really at the brink we're

091at their breaking point and not necessarily because of of any fault of the brick and mortar school it's just not a good fit for them at that point in their life and so that helps me because you know we have declining enrollment and we'd love to see as many kids as possible now this doesn't affect us but most districts have the clanning enrollment and so sometimes I feel like to my superintendent colleagues they're like oh Virtual School keeps taking our kids um but it's really I don't see ly most people are very happy that their kids are being successful all the graduations I've attended that that's especially 10 years or so ago these were not students that would farewell at all in a brick and mortar school yeah I think I think it's it's it's

092kind of different now I think it's it's a different kind of if the demographic is the right word um kids that didn't look at that option in the past I think today are taking a closer look at it because of the freedom that it has I also think there's like less of a stigma associated with it now yeah you yeah there is I think so especially with Co but another another big strength is that students can go at their own pace yeah it's usually not a slower Pace it's an accelerated space Pace because they found their Niche like er said and it's a strong interest and it's again Project based and they just go with it and if you can make it at weeva your your parents are all in with you you know I

093don't you know there's not too many students that are going to make it through that without the parental support that that weeva tells them from the get-go is going to be necessary to be successful it is natural though you would have that feeling and it's just in the end it's really the way we fund our public education it's just so I don't know I know it's so ridiculous segue yeah thank you legislative update Mr taret yeah so a few things we wanted to highlight here and and I think we bunch of us have things to share want to talk about the Daye County uh greater Daye County School governance Consortium meeting which was held in Mount horb on January 15th talk about uh Bruce attended a a session um with the Wisconsin public education Network

094work about decoupling um I can talk a little bit about the listening session uh week ago tonight uh with representative stubs and Senator Roy I think those were the three main things uh want to talk about why I want I start with the last first um so last uh while we're actually at the State education convention I got I was invited to attend a listening session about school safety held at the monono public library last Monday uh and it was designed as a listening s uh session and um I was actually on a panel along with a few other people um uh Dr Frederick the superintendent manona Grove was also there as well as um manona chief of police um fire chief I think yeah I think it was Madison fire chief though Madison Fire

095Chief and um the interim Madison police chief was also there yes and really it was a listing session though we spoke briefly at the beginning and the end but really was about listening to constituents talk about their concerns about school safety anything surprise you um well yes uh I was surprised by all of the people that were there it was packed uh most of them were Madison residents and talking about their experience in Madison schools uh I was actually quite reassured by some of the things that people were saying and felt like oh yep we're addressing that oh they said things like you know when you're talking about school safety you need to increase your student services staff and increase decrease those school counselor to student ratios oh yep good we Easier Said yeah but

096that's what we've done that's what we done we and talking about you know just some safety protocol some confusion um about some things talking about bullying and harassment there's a good chunk of time about parent parents stepping up too there was like at home or like yeah okay was there any any pro anti- SRO discussion I know that there are no actually was more like increased security right I hear something Have Ended there yeah yeah that it didn't seem like there was anyone who was really no an in fact there was people thanking the police officers what they've done so well I know was what was uh Brett's Uncle what was the thing and we were part of that he was just saying that it was really about terms of kids who are involved in

097active shooting is that those are the kids that don't feel connected and so whether it's a an Athletics or some other co-curricular or something every kid you know needs to have something that makes them feel connected and and that was part of it um he's also part of we are many that United hate that we're part of and we'll be hosting an event coming up yeah um like we did last year so that was part of it there was a fair amount of BU bullying and harassment um that was part of it engaging the faith community was a big that was very big part of it that people were talking about just you know we need to come together on this and then at the end I got on my soap box and just said

098you have all these great ideas and important things that schools should do we need to fund our schools so it's a very short version of what I said I got I got I got a little worked up yeah I was feeling it so it was powerful that's what those are for yeah yeah exctly was powerful okay all right yeah how about the uh Bruce why don't you share about the the session you attended yeah I attended the the decoupling of uh you know the vouchers explain that to me will you yeah well right now basically the 700 something million dollars that we're spending is is part of in the end the education it's all part part of that education thing and they want to make it more kind of just general funding so it'll be

099hidden and that's already happened they had a person it was a uh you know was over the internet and they had a an educator from Texas and they hadn't uh excuse me let's see it was Florida I've got my notes I just put them away um and I'm trying to remember the other state and they were just saying that it's just almost kind of Insidious it's just a way to kind of hide you know how much money they're actually spending on these you know voucher programs and U well and who the who the students are right and that's where I I get I just you know I talk with Aaron about it to me that's when I started realizing it's going to be the rural areas that are just because they were talking about it

100particularly in Florida a lot of these rural districts they they can't make it anymore and so they're just folding and well they talk about about that in the bar Northern yeah to Northwestern part of the St and I don't understand how they they support support this group of legislators who are in favor of doing this and by decoupling it becomes that much more kind of like a mystery what what is being spent on this and it keeps on growing there was an article in uh the New Yorker I read about what they did in Ohio and Ohio is now the point I mean they started really small kind of the way Wisconsin did but it's to the point where in Wisconsin you could be a millionaire billionaire and you still can receive those funds to

101send your kids and just like it's mindboggling and the the little Public School system is just going high high enough percentage of voucher and charter school students have transferred their from other private schools yeah yeah that whose tuition is sometimes astronomical yeah so we just have to be vigilant I think that was the message more than anything and I just I I'm trying to figure out how do you reach out to our public schools in these rural areas and warn them about I mean when we had our community group come together you organize this erand this we we we started talking about how important our school district is to this community and the economic viability the demographic viability of the northern if if if those schools you know in some of those counties and those

102rural areas fail what's going to happen they have nothing and I I'm just my mind is kind of blown all this I I I hear the weeva and maybe that's one answer but I I don't think that's for everybody you can homeschool your kids you know as much as I I hate to say something like this because it sounds so negative it might take the example of one or two districts failing to kind of shine a giant light yeah on those areas that are supporting legislation that is taking away public school funding and it's the funding it is just the funding I think it was three weeks or so ago probably I read that the M School District was in a awful position that they they if they didn't pass their last referendum they were

103going to dissolve the district well if they don't pass their next ref yeah and and we just was it today we just got was it 88 more schools this this year or going most of them are again predominantly rural areas are going they're going referendum so interesting is the point you brought up is that when you look at what percentage of budgets is going to what like for our district 80% of our budget is going to compensation and benefits right rural areas the majority of their budget is going to Transportation so it might not be completely visible as to what public education funding is really doing to that District because their Bullseye isn't in the same place ours is yes exactly that's right um one other thing we Erin and I and Jeff meet with

104Matt and uh Carolyn once a month and we we spoke a little bit about the delivery of that letter to the legislate that has actually been delivered but we were I kind of brought it up wondering if we were getting into the time where we might start talking about it's a good time to to take it and it appears as though the The Village stances that that's now our BWI I will say I think that's an excellent way to go you agree that it's it falls on us I I wholeheartly agree with that okay um Erin yeah that makes sense and I think it's a good segue into the the greater d County School governance Consortium see that's a good one and that's a mouthful because that so we we met we met in Mount

105horb on on January 15th um Megan was there and Craig was there and Angie was there and I was there and there was a panel of people representing the different organizations uh superintendent business officers weak and they all talked about school funding and and their priorities and what they think they can do and then really identifi the the two priorities that that group is advocating for as a as a collective of districts across St county is increasing special education funding and indexing the per pupil uh ratio to inflation so that th those were like the the two things MH if we could get those two things and Advocate collectively towards those those two things so we signed something you know indicating our support for that and I think the next step is about how do

106we tell the story and that was sort of was a bit of a strategy like how do we convey this and to be honest overwhelmingly it was school districts have a very limited role in terms of the actual Messengers because they're just seen as yes we know you're going to advocate for that as a school district it doesn't mean you don't but you need and the story of your local community like school districts needs Lobby needs lobbyists yeah and we need the voice of our constituents to tell the story about how it's impacting them right so we have the group for Dan County um are there other groups like this throughout Wisconsin that are advocating from a board Centric perspective not that I'm aware of you know you have you have the the school administrators

107Alliance which lobbies on behalf of the Wisconsin Association of school boards the association of Wisconsin school administrators Wisconsin school business officials and uh also the Wisconsin Association of school district administrators that's a lot of groups Yeah Yeah so basically all the different education groups all use the SAA for their lobbying efforts what about like pto's ptas they're not currently organized in any throughout the state because I would think that legislators legislators would listen to them more than they would listen to us I'm sorry yeah I just have such an interesting nice if they listen to everybody yes but I think it does it's going to take getting back to where Bruce was talking about you know it in our count County we can easily be dismissed I think is my political lens and it is

108the the death of the rural town because of the death of the rural Public School yep is what unfortunately it's imminent that res if things don't change well they said in the article yesterday in the in the Sunday paper that you know the state for the first time ever is going to have a declining you know population and and the one area that's growing is D County that's going to continue to grow it's it really is frustrating you know it when I saw this on our agenda I just again it's just an opportunity for us to thank our community for passing that referendum because uh I mean we don't have a large amount left over I mean we're trying to just juggle everything to make it make ends meet but we're not in the position

109as some of these other districts are and thank God our community backed us exactly when we needed it so it's wonderful well going back to your conversation about the letter as of right now there are no joint finance committee meetings on the calendar as of right now at least for the next couple of months that's okay I mean it it's I don't think there's a real sense of urgency about it I it's just that we want to if we're if we're going to do it we should do it at a optimal time when when when it may have an impact well wasby has the day at the capital in March it's March 12th um and so I'll be there are you gonna go is that the day of the capital okay that it's March 12th

110is the day of the capital on it I wasn't planning on it I'll be there um and so during that day um board members are going to be able to talk with various legislators granted our legislators are already on our side um that being said sales is kind of my jam so I might see if I can talk to other state legislators good that'd be great plus I got I got a little in at the capital so yeah that's great too see if we can pull some strings you do it Meg really does thank you as a legislative Le Aon not that I can make a lot of change but you know I do enjoy fiery conversations ha didn't know that yeah some are more comfortable than others in that scenario yes okay moving on

111we have a district administrator's report Mr tarit please all right some good stuff going on I know many of you were able to attend bye-bye birdie uh that was really high quality I've seen a lot of amazing middle school musicals in my day and that that ranks in the top I mean it was really really high quality kids were so engaged it was just just well done and I appreciate the adaptations they made right um to to the musical to to engage our our students and make it relatable it was a youth version it was it was y than the musical or the adult version yeah but they related to that in in an educational sense it was wonderful they use that trying to understand what it was like in the 50s had to be

112an incredible amount of yeah yeah5 kids and my grandson was in it they've been going pretty heavy since October is yes but there was I mean that's a big there's a lot of memorization and a lot of places to be it it was excellent just excellent yep so that was a a show that Elise Weber was in when she was in Middle School so now she was to be in her director role so for a great job so very exciting that went just amazingly well uh one of the things that I think is important for the board to know is uh the number of staff that attended the performances I know on Friday night there were about 40 staff Thursday Thursday night I'm sorry Thursday night we were completely surrounded by all teaching staff and

113they raffle off something at intermission for I did not receive it but that's okay um obviously you heard about our dance team right state champs I think they undersold that a little bit um state champs that's a huge deal yeah that is not an easy undertaking I've been singing their praises all year they are really really You Should Be Dancing sorry yeah there would be more um thanks to our school leaders and administrators for great PD on uh the 24th so there were a lot of content collaboration meetings um going on curriculum councils happened that day there were safety tabletops literacy professional development well-being for all um Behavior expectations and norming uh you know all kinds of great literacy stuff it was just really a powerful day thank you to all of them want to

114recognize Angie bazan in the library media Specialists um Ang was able to secure a grant from the AFT Wisconsin to for $3,000 to get books in the hands of our kids and so that was distributed um equally to all of the buildings and CPS is going to use it for their book room and for their their um book vending machine whis is going to send books home for summer read reading the middle school they were able to purchase more books for schoolwide reads and the high school is getting more books for the book room um and they were also able to purchase some backpacks and personal hygiene items for the the student services Pantry here at the high school so great stuff also been doing superintendent listening sessions those are done was in all four

115buildings andn a lot of great things really wanted to hear about budget issues what are how are you feeling the impact of the budget cuts that we made last year um and you know what are your priorities and so that was very helpful the citizens facilities naming committing committee has had two meetings uh to to tell you where we're at with that that would require at least an hour um good work great work in touch right now we the the group is doing our work and then we also have kind of three people that are just um outside of the district that are just really in invested in researching and uh providing us with information so really really fortunate to have the expertise of of those three people that love to study history cool so

116we'll be we'll be you know continuing our work there's a uh an important uh presentation at the monono public library this Thursday about racial covenants that we will they're going to I think a dozen or so libraries around town and giving this it's moving presentation during the Black History Month yep uh we also have uh wanted to give a shout out to our high school they've really been working on attendance this year um and behavior expectations that was something they worked on last year but attendance is the big difference so when they compare first semester this year to first semester last year there's been a 58 decrease in the number of tardies a 58% decrease that's H that's phenomenal that's dramatic what did they owe that to it's it's their their Spartan reset and their

117focus on consistency and you know teachers you know kind of taking attendance and reminding students and they're being frankly consequences clear expectations for kids that are enforced I mean it's yeah it's kind of from my personal experience it is accountability that's an issue it's the it's the follow through must be working appreciate them for their leadership most people bunch of I have a bunch of donations I just want to recognize we had some really generous people Larry frish for um donating to Bonnie summer book club really generous donation from Larry um Debbie hodj for a generous donation of a car to the yeah of the to the auto department nice oh is iter's old car I don't know I don't know he worked his butt off and bought a brand new truck and yeah Debbie

118Debbie brought us a car thanks uh Nicholas sales a donation to um for the payment of negative lunch balances that's so nice that's so nice so just really generous those things you know often go on quietly and that's one of the things that you know I've committed to making sure we don't about those things a lot of great things true uh we have some things to recognize uh in our photos for [Music] you so um look at those guest readers recognize some of those the mystery readers yeah those very well behaved classes so you see Tom and Craig so thank you for doing that it's always a lot of fun that's a blast it is a blast if you're not smiling when you come out of there do got a real issue yeah sometime I

119I want to watch you two years that would be fun like to throw a little bellish in there that you heard about the Martin Luther King youth recognition breakfast um so this these are our students our middle school students that were recognized so just a wonderful event in a packed Edgewood uh on the Sunday the 19th I guess that was probably this year so a wonderful celebration and very proud students and their families well deserved you can see here with the high school students as well um of course we talked about bye-bye birdie you can see a little bit of the the rehearsals uh there oh such a hoot such a great great time there's lots of pictures on social media if you haven't seen them and videos and things we continue with our student

120employee excellent award uh recognized Kendall rean and they surprised them at lunch so was a a real fun event with a really big check yeah so it's my goal in life is to earn a really big J so very deserving there so a couple pictures from our 18 to 21 year old U program this is them at great grace coffee uh on a little bit of an outing there so kind of getting out into the community and here you can see them at the got to tour the police station oh nice there's offic see that fancy new place there uh well you know well deserved um I would didn't I'm sure officer Zito was a great tour guy recognizing um you heard about this a little bit with the this uh the Career Alliance sawblade

121certificate with our teched department there's so many certificates that happen like this is just one but that is something that is really special uh 49 in this case about our district and our student of the month um from the Optimus Club continues to recognize that do we have one is it tomorrow no it's a week from tomorrow okay because I wondered I didn't yeah they moved it back a week okay all right so this was Julia akley obviously um who well deserved and her amazing accomplishments and oh there is more um oh yes so the the conference uh that we talked about one of the things you can see our very own Melissa f there on the left presented with some other education leaders about retaining Educators through peer mentoring and our amazing mentoring program

122which does not exist everywhere so what was this the group that was at uh the convention yeah this is at the convention yeah that was what they did so awesome thank you Alissa for presenting there and then I can realize I'm slouching um so then um February is Black History Month um kindness month uh Career and Technical education month so a lot of great recognitions here it's also School counseling week um so you see the post day that Angie put together um wonderful event um time to really recognize our outstanding school counselors who do as much for the staff as for the students and families I don't know how they do it we are very very blessed um also want to recognize that it's black black lives matter at school week um and there's different

123dress up days and things U for the high schoolers we have the I think the orchestra concert was tonight tonight I thought there was more cars y it's not for our board meeting no offense um the middle school on Wednesday has World read aloud day so I'll be going there to do some reading it's also advising night here at the high school that evening um the McFarland schools Equity Consortium is also that night then uh some field trips at second grade is doing W geology Museum field trips coming up the on the 7th the high school rotary ethics Symposium so I don't know much about that yeah um but curious to learn more about that the student of the month assembly also coming up on Friday at the middle school next week is community week

124here at the high school so they have some activities surround um around that next Tuesday we have a closed session to set my goals for next year so be ready board for that uh the 12th is Abraham Lincoln's uh birthday as well as Jackie tarit my mother's birthday yes I will be at the citizens facility naming committee uh meeting that evening she has forgiven me for missing thank you Jackie um yes and um uh Friday we don't have school because of Valentine's Day no um it's because it's a conference release day um uh as as as well so that's where our you know our teachers for staying late during the evenings end up getting compensated with that that day and then we're back here on the 17th so that concludes my reports anything from the

125board to share I do have some uh but uh before I get into to that andon you talked about um the grant that the mft grant AF AF for $3,000 do you know if any of our teachers take advantage of the Madison reading project uh when they give away 50 books at a time they have in the past I don't know about recently I haven't heard much about it honest there used to be an email that would go up I haven't don't recall seeing yeah because my daughter uh got her books I think back in November yeah but whoever goes gets 50 books mhm they use them for their classroom libraries or for their um scho book room or whatever but I would encourage all staff to next time to take a look at that

126and go if they can because they have thousands of book it's in Madison I can't tell you can't remember but it's well promoted I mean it's some it's well promoted we've done it before yeah and they're all new books hearing about it but not the greatest either I'd also like to recognize the mentor committee again uh even though they had their month I think we should acknowledge them throughout the year for the work that they do and how effective they are and helping us retain the Convention as well good our our Mentor program is take second to no one also uh mayor Yuber Drake um who was the lead uh person in uh organizing the mystery readers at the uh seps along with Marcy gray and Brenda Runo because that takes a little coordination and

127time on their part to secure readers and do the schedule and all that so thanks for them doing that the 100 students from imms again who performed bye-by birdie and a special uh shout out to Lis Weber she's a gift to the McFarland School District talents and the skills that she brings to us and lastly uh Scott genrich uh he was the winner winner of the raffle at bye-bye Birdie on Friday night he did yes nice so nice Katie Miller won on Thursday oh do you have to be present to win you know Erin draw L of the people that are there that night okay yeah anybody else I would would Echo the bye-bye birdie comments over and over and over again I mean that those it's just so phenomenal and so you just leave

128with this sense of joy and I mean it's was such a happy thing every you could see it on the kids faces you could see it on the yeah the people in the audience it was it's just a it's it's the things that make you want to run for the school board but that's a really good example times yeah but that's a really good example of investing in kids right you know it's a great asset building for them uh and where they're all miked up that makes all the difference of the world you can hear them doesn't matter how old you are no no it doesn't anything else if not we'll move on to our last item here we have action on recommended recommended weeva destinations Career Academy and insight School of Wisconsin Wisconsin statute

12911848 G student transfers to resident districts at this time WEA destinations Career Academy and insight School of Wisconsin are requesting approval of recommended student transfers back to their resident resident districts due to lack of Engagement do I have a motion hello m f do that do I have a second I can second C discussion I'll just summarize uh my concern again um we have three and I won't even call them Stu students because they're children yeah we have three children in third grade that are on this list we have four adolescents in seventh grade on this list we have five Adolescence in eth grade my view the Guardians parents have let these kids down I feel as a board member we're letting the kids down because we haven't found that perfect uh match for them

130you know there has to be something more that we collectively can do uh throughout the nation instead of just sending these kids back to their home District because we know it's not happening once we do that but that's just my opinion I wonder if these kids have been introduced to the Insight school before they're sent back to you know their resident districts with a you know the Insight School supposedly is kind of the last chance they're the the last option that that these kids have I wonder if they've gone through that as well I would you a't gone through Insight or it's been suggested that they suggested yes I mean the staff at weeva does an outstanding job trying to do whatever they can to keep these kids engaged um the reason why they become

131disengaged is because they aren't showing up primarily uper classes um the expectations are going to be the same at inside also and inside is just high school that's only High School any other discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I oppos motion carries 5 Z and I would look for a motion to adjourn I will make that motion MC I'll got to keep up with I'll second Bruce second all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion carries 0 and we are adjourned at 906 thank you very much one and all have a great evening thanks Craig thank you Mr Dale no we were thanks for coming in for