001e e I think everyone's here so we will call the meeting to order at 7:00 p.m. on Monday April 15th year 2024 um got some consent agenda items including the minutes of the uh April 1st 2024 school board meeting uh some general fund vouchers and purchasing card transactions uh we request approval for of general fund vouchers 18159 through 81619 and 2 9278 through 292-8196 transactions dated 22124 through uh I've got some professional staffing recommendations as well then some co-curricular staffing recommendations and those are uh unnecessary for a vote so I would look for a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented I'll move to accept the consent agenda as presented thank you and I'll second second I'll second thank you all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion carries 5-
002Z and we shall move on uh public comments we have a number of public comments this evening and I think what I will do is start with the inperson uh public com comments so I've got Renee Sheran 3985 Mahoney Road hi [Applause] um so I'm Renee shervin and I just want to thank the board and and staff for serving their our community and pouring into my oldest daughter a 2023 graduate I have seen dramatic differences between my two children who came through CS eight years apart the most significant is the human growth and development curricular changes um spe now proposed specifically introducing gender identity in first grade attraction feelings in second grade and sexual response cycle in sixth grade these topics should not be taught to small children pause and consider the implications of desensitizing
003six and seven yearolds to having sexual conversations with other adults we talk about protecting children but this curriculum actually opens them up to potential victimization remember the the former McFarland teacher who Grooms students toward inappropriate conversations and relationships my oldest was allowed to be a kid learning age appropriate content but my second who is 8 years younger has had a drastically different timeline for sexual content she simply wasn't developmentally ready Society we've understood teaching these topics too soon would would Rob our children of their innocence I think back to my own childhood I was a socially awkward tomboy I am so thankful I was allowed to be a kid and not forced to contemplate if that meant something else by well-intentioned adults before I was ready this new New Movement the idea of moving gender
004attraction gender attraction and ual response cycle to these proposed younger grade levels is at best experimental at worst it is potentially life-altering and devastating it will be decades before you will know the full scope of consequences once these children become adults please don't make our children your experimental subjects meridith hi uh good evening uh my name is Mera fuy and I come to you as a member of the human growth and development committee as well as a parent of the Cs kindergartner a registered nurse and Mom of an lgbtqia plus family to provide public comment on the proposed changes to the HD curriculum guide I'd like to comment on our committee process Developmental appropriateness and inclusivity our widely represented 27 member strong committee was charged with the effort of improving the guide with a Keen
005Eye for celebrating differences and preparing each student to be a member of our Global Community as you can see in the approved and redesigned Mission Vision and beliefs the process and meetings were not held in a vacuum and there was no attempt to silence opinions Anonymous surveys were administered before and after each decision-making meeting the results of which were shared with members for review we often had members reference these Anonymous comments during our discussions in support of a topic or as a reminder of different views voting was clear and only after all members had an opportunity to provide feedback we asked many of the same questions posed in Prior sessions how students oped out teacher load the how of teaching a topic and more as a committee we dialogued and learned about answers to those
006questions enough so to feel comfortable making decisions that led to the proposal before the board the information about our process and documentation thereof has not been shrouded in secrecy public good is Paramount respect should be given by the board and Community to the Comm to the committee's due process and now the not what but when developmental appropriateness the healthc care providers in our group resoundingly clear they have cared for and seen patients as young as three with expansive gender identities and knowing they were transgender or non-binary countless healthc care professional and education groups steeped in scientific evidence-based research and practices agree first grade is a reasonable age to start the conversation about gender identity and sexual orientation this does not mean we sit six-year-olds down with a PowerPoint and diagrams the committee gave guidance to
007start with read alouds in the form of widely approved and accepted children's literature followed by a brief lesson plan topics of sexual orientation and gender identity is not mature content it is who we are and who our young scholars are the introduction of these ideas at a first grade level sets the stage for our Learners to process information about the world around them in a healthy manner as with any Story Time some children listen While others floss their teeth with a neighbor's hair as one representative teacher reminded us some of our students will miss the boat and that's a okay but just imagine another student may find a light that allows them to keep living and understanding there's a space for them in the world that is the true gift of education and inclusivity inclusivity
008isn't inclusive if one needs to punctuate it with a butt after afterward you cannot be all for something and caveat the meaning of all it simply means you're not inclusive what people fear is the difference the difference between normal and the other I think people are scared because they themselves lack the education on lgbtqia a plus issues and definitions the fact we have a boy girl dichotomy and heteronormativity means you already teach gender and sexual orientation to children because after all each and every one of us possess a gender identity and sexual orientation we teach the gender dichotomy and heteronormativity today by default well before first grade just look at the clothing and toy sections in your local big box stores classic Disney movies and popular book series until lgbtqia plus humans like me and
009members of my family do not need to come out we should not be nervous about introducing our existence at any age we wouldn't need to come out if it wasn't assumed we're straight to begin with in summary if we revert to Prior versions of the guide students will continue to learn about gender identity sexual orientation from unreliable uneducated sources that have shown time and time again to harm lgbtqi placed youth those youth we are talking about are your our children grandchildren loved ones neighbors family and friends individuals who have personally experienced the harm of waiting for adults to figure it out and feel comfortable with content repeatingly and resoundingly tell us they wish Educators had shown up for them when it matters in moments like these let's show up for our Scholars thank you very
010much Meredith Dr preno um good evening uh my name is Christine Pono and I'm a resident of McFarland for approximately 23 years I am making a public comment in support of the new human growth and development curriculum as a parent who has three boys who attended all of the schools in the district from 4K to 12 I would highly encourage the board to pass it I've read through it listened to public comments and I'm thinking about what my sons needed while in the district and what they need to be successful postgraduation today first I want to thank the committee for their Thor review and development of the curriculum I appreciate the mission which begins to provide medically accurate and comprehensive knowledge based curriculum and instruction in human growth and development it is indeed medically accurate
011but I would also add it is scientifically accurate it is what we know to be true today because scientific discoveries emerge daily and it's the board's responsibility to ensure that what we are teaching in this district is current and factual thinking back what I was taught in school 40 plus years ago is wrong with what we know now I remember learning genetics in Mr P's class doing punet squares in the idea that females females had XX chromosomes and males had XY chromosomes women at estrogen and men at testosterone it was taught that simply and it was completely wrong Flash Forward I've had to do my own unlearning and relearning with the advances in gene technology and human genetics and our knowledge of endocrinology and the study of hormones we know that nothing in our bodies
012exists in the binary I'd like to share a short blurb from an article in nature which is a bading um scientific journal new technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that almost everyone is to varying degrees a patchwork of genetically distinct cells some with a sex that might not match the rest of their body some studies even suggest that the sex of each cell drives Its Behavior through complicated network of molecular interactions I think there's much greater diversity within male or female and there's certainly an area of overlap where some people can't easily Define themselves within the binary structure says Dr John Akerman today we know that people are a complicated and wonderfully made mix of genetics biological processes and an anatomy physiology chemicals hormones and psychology what we need to teach today
013is human development not male and female development because scientifically we are all non non-binary at some level this is not about beliefs and opinions this is teaching um evidence-based facts if you tested my genes throughout my body you'll find both xx and XY you'll find a mix of testosterone and estrogen and these will vary throughout my life our bodies are not static genetics and hormones fluctuate and these changes don't correspond to when we feel comfortable talking about them which means what we know as sexual attraction or crushes happen either way earlier than we are comfortable with children know very early on when when their sex gender was assigned at Birth doesn't fit what's in their heads or hearts or their bodies and students and teachers need to be given the accurate language to understand their
014experience in others all children need to be affirmed and validated for who they are not for whom we want or expect them to be or in the words of my son's pediatrician who said this to me in the kindest and most Gentle Way at one of my son's annual visits I have found that most parents wait way too long to talk about these important topics I love the ending quote of this article I'm paraphrasing since there is not one biological parameter that takes over every other parameter at the end of the day gender identity seems to be the most reliable parameter in other words if you want to know who someone is it may be best to ask to me a public school is responsible for teaching all subjects accurately whether I feel like it's
015right or it fits with what has been taught to me it is for me to decide I trusted this District to teach my children and they have moved very successfully into their adult lives I'm so very grateful for this I believe that the board should pass the recommended curriculum because is because it is factual and current to what we know right now and I would hope that as new scientific knowledge and discoveries happen perhaps by the very students who are currently in the district we will rework it to ensure our students are getting the best education possibly possible thank you for the work you do as a board for administrators in the district and for all of the amazing teachers I very grateful to all of you thank you very much uh Melanie Melanie is
016here to talk about funding hi uh thanks so much for creating the space for public comments my name is Melanie robach I'm a math teacher not in the district and a parent of two here my comment is as much for fellow community members as it is for the board um I'm I'm here on the heels of the downvoted referendum with a short-term fundraising idea for immediately securing some or all of the districts necessary 2024 25 amount to resume at least some hiring for next year $3.7 million is a lot of money but I don't think it's a long shot as long as we have a way uh to get the word out quickly the number of yes votes as well as some of the expressed reasons people voted no as well as the distribution of
017wealth in McFarland and how it actually skews wealthier when you look only at families and especially with families uh families with children under 18 all of these strongly suggest that we have the resources necessary to provide the 3.7 million ion assuming uh we can get these Logistics well organized quickly um I'm going to convey a lot more numbers than I would normally attempt without visuals as a math teacher um I apologize um the median household income in McFarland is 92,000 a year so half of McFarland households make $92,000 or less half make more um just shy of a third of households in McFarland make 150,000 or more per year if you just look at families that median household income bumps up to 107 from 92,000 um although families make up the majority of households here
018families with children under 18 uh are just under 40% of McFarland households which may not bode well for passing a am an ambitious School referendum especially when you realize that although all age groups in McFarland are increasing in raw numbers the percentage share of each age group is mostly declining except for 255 to 34 year olds and especially 65 to 84 year olds with the population percentage of seniors showing the greatest increases we have to hope that these are grandparents invested in the schools but we also have to expect that until the state appropriately funds schools we may have to look out for our fixed income seniors and lower income neighbors and supplement more modest future referenda by significantly stepping up individual donations to the district district for seniors who bought a very affordable house
01920 or 30 years ago but now sit on property with a high assessed value being text out of the village may be a real concern this didn't occur to me when I voted um let's not use this though as a reason that we can't support our schools let's choose that those of us who can which is a critical majority um take on more of the burden and the good news for fundraising is that household incomes skew even wealthier for families with children under 18 over 60% of two parent households in McFarland with children under 18 have a household income of $200,000 or more over 60% of those two parent families with children under 18 of course we shouldn't expect these families to uh that they can or will carry the burden of our funding Gap
020but we should be encouraged by the possibilities when more of the community pitches in my time's almost up I'm sure um I mapped out a scenario of donations that engages each income bracket and assumes that within each bracket there will be a small number who can or will give much more than their so-called shair um and being real a much larg larger number who can or will give a little less relative to income I won't share all the numbers here I want to share it with the board I'll warn you the amounts aren't small um but they're a steal for what we get for our kids I'm thinking that if we all saw such a plan and knew what would be uh enough at our own income levels we might be more motivated to give
021what we can and maybe even compensate for those who can't or won't give it all um what's needed to resume hiring my fundraising scenario also reflects the reality that a certain in at a certain level a households ability to contribute funds drops off significantly due to Baseline cost of Necessities asking for something um but less right around the $50 to $80,000 income Mark another thing many house holds lower income or not could give a lot more if the donation was split into three monthly Auto pays the way you might for a monthly cell phone bill so an important feature of the idea is to collect initial donations from Individual households as soon as possible or by Memorial Day and secure auto payment info for two more monthly Don donations in June and July so the
022district has some funds and the promise of all by Memorial Day and then all the funds actually in the bank by end of July um and the school board could ADV this as needed it's just a draft idea um this is a this is a great District let's step up and go big where we can go big I wish I could say more but thank you thank you very much okay now we have some that board members are going to read okay all right so this first one I apologize if I don't say the last name correctly but it's Matt finale um hello I would like to offer my full support for the revised human growth and development curriculum for our schools to stay true to the statement that the McFarland School Board does not
023discriminate on the basis of marital status parental status sexual orientation sex including transgender status change of sex or gender identity then we should not be in fear of discussing different family structures at a younger age there is always an opt out an opt out provision which can be used by families if need be having family values means valuing all families and refers to families already in our district it affirms that all family types are legitimate whether hetero lgbtq Foster Etc this is a basic respect that all people deserve and there is no equality without us feeling comfortable discussing such things in basic age appropriate terms this includes discussing basic attraction I trust our Educators to do what best teaching bodily autonomy and boundaries at a young age is also incredibly important and could help prevent
024sexual assaults or Worse down the road these are the common sense choices that I applied and think all children need to learn as a group please pass this curriculum thank you for your time and consideration go ahead Bruce Ste out no okay um do you mind if I just I'm going to stay with the uh sure the curriculum okay all right I am reading uh Kim Lewis uh dear school board members I'm writing to express my wholehearted support for the spring 2024 revised human growth and development curriculum for K12 students in the McFarland School District as a parent and a member of our community I believe it is crucial to provide our students with comprehensive education that reflects the diversity of human experiences Research indicates that children began to develop awareness of their own gender
025identity and attraction feelings from a young age by proving them with accurate information and creating a supportive environment for open discussion we can help them develop healthy attitudes towards themselves and others equipping students with the language to articulate and explore their emotions can have profound effects potentially even preventing crises and saving lives by creating a safe space for self- exloration we can spare them from the torment of questioning their identities and wondering if something is inherently flawed within them it's about providing them with the tools to understand themselves and their peers Paving the way for healthier relationships and a more inclusive Society it is our responsibility as Educators and Community leaders to ensure that all students receive the education they need to thrive in an increasingly diverse world by embracing this revised human growth and
026development curriculum we can Empower our students to become compassionate and informed citizens who celebrate differences and promote equality sincerely Kim Lewis thank you Bruce I apologize but I overlooked a read that I need to make before we can go on any further with the public comments so I'll do that and then we'll start again uh in accordance with school polic Schoolboard policy 167 three the McFarland School Board welcomes public comment during regular meetings from individuals who are present at the meeting or have sent an email to the board president or superintendent participants are required to register to speak upon arriving at that meeting State their name address and any group affiliation before speaking address only topics within the legitimate jurisdiction of the board recognize that the board will not respond to comments during the meeting
027unless the item is on the published agenda limit their comments to under 5 minutes or 250 written words and maintain deorum thank you uh go ahead just read the next one in the packet um this is the I don't know how we want to read this one this is one with multiple people so read it and then list all all their names yes okay all right this is um it says dear McFarland Schoolboard we are writing to you today as community members members of family Equity Council and parents in support of the new human growth and development curriculum we are very proud the committee spent hours and hours developing this new curriculum we are also very proud the committee members took time to have thoughtful conversations about diverse family structure gender identity and attraction feelings
028moving these items to lower grade levels is critical to acceptance and selfworth for our student students we also believe introducing these topics at a lower grade level will give students the words they need to explain any feelings they have additionally this will give parents the words they might be struggling with it is very clear to us the committee reviewed our strategic plan and resolution in support of transgender non-binary and all lgbtqia a plus students these are very key items to consider when you are presented with approving the curriculum at tonight's meeting the board has spoken in many areas of commitment that they are ready to support and accept all of our students we strongly feel that passing the HGD curriculum changes will support the school's districts School District's mission and vision as well as support
029students particularly students in the margins of society to feel safe and included sincerely Cassandra Dennis Samantha Zinga Amy McCulla Ellie Kaiser Adam Kaiser Lina Haan Jason Hayman Nick cry Angie cry Meredith Huey Kyle Dennis Melissa Carr Rob car car Ed Ray cayana Kai Ray nope cayana Kylie Ray my apologies Christen Ellis Nikki Ellis Andrea norgard and Andy norgard Thank you Mr meing yes this next uh letter is from Luke fesler 649 Fox as a member of this community and a parent of two kids in this district one of whom is transgender I'd like to thank the HGD advisory committee for the extense of time and research while working on the updated guidelines I've read through the district's current 4K 12 HGD curriculum guide and support the board moving things like gender ident identity and attraction
030feelings sooner in students a students education to me having kindergarteners learn appropriate Concepts like some people call themselves boys some girls some neither or both and that's okay it's exactly the kind of knowledge that Fosters an open and accepting world for our children as they grow into responsible and understanding adults reading through the curriculum guide viewing the proposed changes and hearing Melissa F's description of the proposed curriculum at the last board meeting I'm appreciative of how these concepts are introduced at an early age then built up and expanded upon as children grow older I trust our Educators to use age appropriate content and language and to use the curriculum guidelines when answering student questions teaching these Concepts early in our children's education lays a foundation for understanding and acceptance that helps promote emotional well-being reduce
031stigmas prevent bullying and create safe spaces for our children to learn and be themselves that is the kind of educational environment I want my children in and that is why I encourage you to trust the advisory committee and their process and vote to approve the proposed changes to the HGD curriculum thank you and I have one last one and this um correspondence regards both funding and the uh HGD curriculum this is Elizabeth Riser boy please lber thank you um on Saturday April 13th 2024 at 10:38 p.m. um some financials are posted it would seem fiscally responsible it would seem fiscal responsibility should be a priority in fact it's one of the pillars developed regarding the 2223 audit and comparison to data available for today it seems responsib ability has not improved looking at the expenditure
032report comparing receipts vouchers Etc it would seem Cuts could be made to tighten up spending on wants versus cutting things like needs additionally why isn't money being saved toward the long-term debt that'll be a huge problem in a couple of years over $50 million due in 37 and 38 regarding revenues why is the state/federal aid so low less than half the grants for 1 2 3 4 and AA nothing from weeva open enrollment that alone was supposed to be focusing on needs seems prudent an additional agenda item I want to comment on is human growth and development aligning with the district's Vision posted an equitable and inclusive community committed to student belonging appropriate language should be used within the curriculum affirming gender identity sexual orientation and treating people like human beings should be common place
033thank you and that is it for public comment I think there's one one more okay do you want me to read it sure go ahead okay and then the last comment is from Danielle Bradley I want to write and Express gratitude for the human growth and development committee and support for the updated guide I was appreciative of the extra time given by the school board to review and to hear discussion from follow-up questions from the committee participants related to research on Wisconsin statutes guidelines from DPI in addition to the National sexed standards for this topic human growth and development curriculum that is typically received by many young people tends to be heteronormative focusing on heterosexual relationships as the norm while disregarding the existence of transgender individuals the national sex education standards recommends discussion about gender
034identity before second grade and without comprehensive and a affirming human growth and development education in the schools lgbtq plus youth relies on peers the internet or trial and error to learn about their identity and sex often leaving them lacking the necessary knowledge communication skills and agency for healthy relationship and sexual decisionmaking our youth need honest accurate information about sexuality it dismantles stereotypes and assumptions builds SE self-acceptance and self-esteem Fosters healthy relationships improves decisionmaking and has the potential to save lives thank you for listening Daniel Bradley thank you very much one and all uh and the next item would be the McFarland High School student report good evening everyone okay what's that we can hear you here the screen yes love it so let's highlights two weeks ago MHS BSU in global diversity CL went Black
035History Museum education center um so Mr us in our mssu um we a bunch of exhibits learned about his specific to the Chicago area um F the role of black Americans in the military and more we also went to a local black owned restaurant called blon Soul which was delicious and then last week our Med held a blood drive and partnership with the American Red Cross for mcon students and community and they collected blood donations from over 75 donors is an extreme success um and then this past weekend we had 11 model uh Model United Nations members travel to Northwestern for their newon conference um I can see we you can see me uh we had so much fun becoming immersed in this experience in a wide variety of committees and a huge congrats to
036our M and president Ava for winning best delegate and their committee for the second year in a row in addition Deca hosted their superhero training camp and big little dance um this is our annual fundraiser for Internationals which were great opportunities to to engage younger kids in our community as well as as I said raising um money awesome and then events coming up so this weekend FR Performing Art Center um image theater department will be putting onment of of the play The Importance of Being Earnest um this um new thing this year they're gonna be featuring some opening acts that are directed one tickets are available for purchase on the impact section of the district website and it's gonna super awesome and then some updates of this past weekend on Friday the first Bruce Fisher
037invit place my track and field medals some of the results from the mcf track CR Instagram we toally took took home the dubs and then some student our staff shout outs for the last two weeks include Mr Lacy an English teacher and Miss booth and art teacher as well as um some support staff Miss Swan that all being said I'm going to hand it over to SES to present about student council all right um my name is CES or cess um I'm the junior vice president of student council at MHS um and I'm here to represent and talk a little bit about what student council has been up to all right one second here don't worry okay um so I just wanted to give like a quick how we Define a student council here um
038it's a student ran representative leadership group who elects student officers to plann for our school community and volunteer events and opportunities uh we most popularly known for the coordination of the homecoming game and dance um as well as other dances like upcoming prom uh we do dress up week uh dress up and spirit weeks uh school events assemblies and fundraisers for our student council and something really important that we did this year that was at least influential for student council is that we created a new code of conduct uh to promote a better group of student body leaders uh essentially our primary goal is to improve our school so we created a new code of conduct that must be signed by the members um of the club starting this following year that we created together
039um we believe that as a member of this club you will be representing not only yourself but also your school and your community it is expected that you will conduct yourself appropriately at all times and under all circumstances whether in or out of school this is expected of students in all activities but especially students in student council which is dedicated to developing student leaders and government um so just some events that we've been doing at the beginning of the year we did the coordination of homcoming which is kind of what we're really known for we did the theme of uh popular cities at least for the floats um the sophomores truly crushed their float building skills with Miami it was pretty impressive um around November we did The Giving Tree um The Giving Tree was
040uh made the money was made through a bake sale that we did we made just over $200 that we were able to give to The Giving Tree essentially what The Giving Tree does is it gives gifts to children who are not able to have any presents under the tree so we were able to gift up some kids for uh those who needed some um and then uh one of our most important what just happened this past week as we were awarded uh for our serial Buck domino challenge um 1,111 boxes uh were donated to the food pantry we did this huge domino in our um gym of cereal boxes and we won the most uh we won the most boxes sold in Wisconsin for our school size uh pretty pretty cool uh and we just
041got awarded that last week and as you can see in the picture that's all of us in student counsil um earlier in the year we did uh something called kindness week uh we did uh meetings with middle schoolers I did as well as uh three other of our student body um able to go talk to the middle schoolers about what they wanted to do for kindes week as well uh we were able to coordinate that they wanted to do like a high a high five day or a leave a note for your friend day it was super cute um we also were able to talk to some of the eighth graders there in order to promote student council um to let them know that their voice can be heard through student council um something that
042we also did during that kindness week was singing telegrams um so essentially to help the music department at our high school students were able to send singers from the individual musical clubs at our high school to sing songs like my girl and Talking to the Moon uh we really do hope to do kind this week again again we loved it this year and uh yeah um so a few goals that we have upcoming um in late May we're planning on doing cancer week uh cancer week was coordinated for one of the uh teachers and I'm totally blanking right now whether or not she's at she's at the primary school or the Middle School um Miss Neil who is diagn diagnosed with a specific type of liver cancer um we decided to do a cancer week
043and throughout the week we were going to be uh selling some ribbons some buttons and stuff um also doing a bake sale that week as well as a teacher in Paradise day um where we can put teachers um outside of their classrooms for a little bit uh so the students will be able to put in money uh so they can put their teacher in paradise and all of the funds will be going to misne uh for that um as well as we do have prom coming up on May 4th and um as a junior vice president I've been coordinating that a lot alongside the president Bryce Bland and that has been super fun yeah so those are some of our future plans that's all I got all right anybody any comments or questions with the
044uh serial Box challenge is it always where you create a um Domino type thing or is each it's a different yeah so we had a bunch of our different advisories uh so all of the different classrooms were sentenced to a challenge whoever can get the most serial boxes donated in their advisory would get a door Dash order uh to their classroom so like some or some drinks that they wanted um and the highest highest advisory I think was just over 200 boxes and essentially what we did is student council rounded up all of the boxes in our advisor's room and we uh positioned them up through all through the hallway into the cafeteria and we filmed this huge video um one of our school photographers filmed it and we had this huge assembly afterwards and
045it was a big people were pretty hyped about it we just did a big domino effect essentially for the serial Box challenge yeah you build the same type of design next year if you do it uh I hope so I hope we can get more next year be pretty good it's tall order that's right yeah and and having worked at the food pantry it was quite a tall order I do have one question I was going to ask is there any way you could get that information about the uh donations for the cancer I I would like to give yeah I can definitely um I'm not entirely sure how we would be able to get donations directly from people outside of what we're doing just at school um I could definitely mention it to our
046adviser Angela bazon um other than that I'm not quite sure how that donation would work I'm totally sure we'll be able to course something but I'm not entirely sure I'm sorry think so anybody got anything else well once again you brought a ray of sunshine into a you know regular old school board meeting just like to do every time uh we appreciate you very much extremely positive and it's what we're looking just thank you thanks very much thank you yeah thank you all right thank you guys bye bye thank you informational items Student Life survey results Mr taret Sir the floor is yours thank you so much I know we have a very ambitious agenda who sets these things so I will do my best to give this uh attention but not belabor it um
047you're going to hear a lot from me in the next half an hour or so on a lot of topics so the first thing is this is the first time that we have given the this Student Life survey um we did this for students in grades uh 4 through 12 and so this is done through our partners with school perceptions I'll talk about them a little bit in a little bit we're going to give a little bit of background in information for you about respondents look at some of the results and then have some time for you to ask some questions as you know School perceptions that's a group we actually use them for three surveys annually this being the first time we've done the student survey we use them for the the parent parent
048uh Guardian caregiver survey and currently right now the staff survey is out to them obviously you can see their credentials um a third party that ensures the anonymity of the survey results and collects them and has a very efficient process had a 91% participation rate so that 9% means they were absent um so had a good process well coordinated across three building L with almost 15500 students responding cut across the grades which is what you would expect to see that um follows our enrollment so some considerations we do plan on doing this survey annually so we can see changes over time and Trend data so this is the first time we've done this survey so that means this is our Benchmark data as you're um looking at it you're going to see a couple things
049um you're going to see a percent it should say say agree strongly agree it's really the categories are um I think like definitely or sort of um so but that's for our students um they'll you'll see a comparison data and keep in mind these are comparison to relatively similar sized um schools and districts in Wisconsin and um but notice that there's because of that sample size a small change in a percentage can change that comparison percentage dramatic ically this data is average across buildings we do have building level data and there are some pretty significant differences across buildings so in terms of overall strengths you're going to see a a few things here one is most of the the results were in the two highest scores on a fivepoint scale so that was very positive
050and the um the indexes which are compilation that you'll see in a little bit of of multiple questions those were near four with the highest being connections and certainly ties in well with our our mission and vision um that was the highest so some of the highlights our relationships with staff we'll talk about that that's that definitely sort of language feel their teachers treat them with respect um strongly agree that the school well that one should have been kept out sorry that's a typo on on my part um 80 that was from the other survey 89% definitely sort of feel their teachers care about them them again we'd love all these to be 100% but those are high percentages particularly compared to our peers relationships with students was really uh another thing about students having
051people to sit with at lunch people who will help them when they need help and treating them with respect you see those percentages there and also relationships with families feeling that their parents Guardians help them with school very high percentage safety was also Al an indicator where we were particularly looking for 93% in the definitely sort of category feels safe at school certainly would like that 100% but that's a very high percentage participation so this was more of a 612 indicator not 45 but 83% participating in in at least one school sponsored Sports uh or co-curricular activity students felt they're really giving their Best in Class trying their best at school and helping each other when they can so some really nice indicators about how our students see themselves some growth areas is um liking
052school you know they you know I didn't put the results here but in responding to that statement about most days I like school now again again you know it's all relative but I think that the average was 6.05 um for that 1 to 10 scale now the the kind of the average across other District districts is 6.02 so so we're right there you know I'd love it if kids liked School most days a little bit more but that might that might be what we're going to get um learning students um only 75% really felt that they could relate to what they're learning at school so that's something for us to look at a little bit more how do we make um learning more meaningful our teachers really try the best um try their best with
053the content that they have but I'm sure that's something we're always trying to grow um feeling safe answering questions that was one that our administrative team looked at and thought that is probably something we can help so this is when you don't know the answer but kind of you're like I think it's this um wanting to get that a little higher so that people take risks a little bit more in class and then talking to students or talking to people outside of school about what they're learning you know 65% not great I can't say what I would have done at that age but um um I might have been in the the 35% of other ones um student behavior um students feeling that kids at school follow the rules so that's something that you see
054as an indicator something for us to pay attention students now I bet if we asked them if they follow the rules they would say yes all of them um but other kids not following them as as much so the index I mentioned to you these these combine multiple questions into one again these the five score and so you can see these the current score in these connection is a 4.41 and that's in the 74th percentile compared to other districts um so that's a you know that's a pretty high percentage we were pretty um impressed with that result learning um that there the chat the classes are challenging interesting and I get help when I need it um also right around that four so that's you know right right around that sort of um average same
055with environment a liking school because it's a place where you feel safe warm and fun and and having a a positive experience where you feel respected and have the support you need so again we would love these to all be fives across the board but um to have those um be in that right in that four range is um something that I think is a a success in terms of items remember using that fivepoint scale I'm going to go through these fairly quickly cuz there are a lot of them they start with the top five scores and then the bottom five scores it's just nice for you to have a little bit of a summary you've heard some of these already you know uh students feeling that they have kids to sit with uh students
056feeling they get help when they need it that um parent Guardians help them it's just a really nice indicator of the amazing Eng engagement of our our families um trying their best at school and teachers treating them with respect some real nice um there now our bottom five um interested that you know if I feel bullied I would feel comfortable talking to someone about it and this is consistent with some of the the parent guardian and staff surveys a continued work on on the effort of the district um to make sure that we not only prevent bullying but when it does happen that students come forward again 76% um so it's not you know below 50 but certainly a number we'd like to have higher relating to what you're learning um that question about uh
057um answering questions when you're not sure the answer talking to people outside and then kids following rules so you heard those so those are the two extremes when you get into individual survey items there's a lot of them um and so you know a couple things to highlight I think on on these slides you see a couple things on this you see um when you're talking about classes and teachers you know teachers explaining things in ways that I get 88% saying definitely sort of um that's a nice indicator um again you see that trying the best at school and that relating to what I'm learning so a bit um repetitive of of some of the areas I touched on earlier um teachers making classes fun and interesting certainly that is in the eye of the
058beholder but 82% um teachers calling on me in class you see that also another you know right around that 4.0 no average and um I can go online or use a device at school when I need it so this was 43 in the comparison and um I have mixed thoughts about it I mean I know I have the microphone so I get to editorialize but I don't know that that's such a bad thing um I'm not sure what our kids would Define as when they need to be online so I'm going to go with the fact that if if they really needed it um they could get access they certainly have a device access access to a device um again now we're talking students treating me with respect you see that if I were bullied
059we talked about that feeling safe at school and teachers treating me with respect 94% say definitely are sort of um nice indicator there kids at school aren't following the rules um I can be myself at school 82% and certainly we as a school have a lot to say about that and and their interactions with peers do as well teachers caring about them feeling safe answering questions learning new things um culture and identity valued at school this is one I'll talk about this a little bit later but we are breaking down some of the data based on um different subgroups so I'll talk about that that's one we're really looking at because 89% is high but is that for all of our kids or does that uh is it different across subgroups I know what is
060going on at my school I have opportunities to share my opinions feel acknowledged for doing a good job by the adults that's certainly one that we always want to get up if I break a rule I am treated fairly 82% interesting there so here we go people around me you've got friends helping you know um talking to people outside we talked about some of these if I have a big problem there's an adult at school I can talk about that's one that I know staff really work hard at uh increasing 86% there um place at lunch friends to hang out with I like working in groups with my classmates if you're me I would say it depends on the group I like helping others when I can this one is going to be hard for
061you to read so I'm just going to interpret it a little bit for you you know this is where students um were able to say what are the things that really interfere with your learning that make it hard for you to learn so that the kind of the gold or yellow is our younger students four through eight and the the upper uh the high school is is the blue one of the things I noticed is too much stress is the highest for our the highest um barrier for our high school students not so with our fourth through eighth graders there's actually is distracting students in class other students distracting them so I just find that really interesting and I think it's it's worth us all taking a deep dive and I say all School parents
062um thinking about what what is it that's putting that stress on students and causing that stress and I I know sometimes it's students putting stress on themselves um as well uh students getting nervous before testing was also very high in the high school so maybe those two things are related right getting stressed about taking tests so a lot of information there for for our time I'm going to keep us moving um feeling that the the this is a high school question only that the projects they're assed are more than just busy work so you can see that percentage you know what is it of 57% definitely sort of so not probably where we'd want it to see and I know the high school really works very hard to make that homework and projects meaningful um
063I'd be curious to see what why they indicate that participating in co-curriculars I mentioned that earlier um you saw that nice indicator in the most days I like school here it is 6.05 oh the comparison is 6.04 so right about middle in there I don't know I see those and I think about the ones that are a zero and a one and a two and a three um so something we definitely want to work on next STS we're looking at the data at a building level we're going to look at subgroup data for certain questions gender race ethnicity so socioeconomic status and special education status we can't do that for all the questions it's a bit labor intensive but we picked a couple that we think are good indicators and Britney Brazzle has been coordinating
064that um and then we're going to use that information to set goals and guide planning for us I would say compared to our parent Guardian survey and our staff survey there were less Extremes in this survey than than those other surveys those had clear like these are real strengths and these are real areas of growth these they were kind of all they felt a little bit in the middle um for us so um questions or comments from the board and that was a record I think that was pretty fast so question will we get to see the analysis that you guys do about the the last ones from the slid yes yep when we break those down we will get that to you um and provide if anything jumps out to out out to us
065we'll provide it all but can highlight the analysis yeah I guess you know when you use the term definitely SL sort of MH there is a huge variance when you say sort of so you know it's not as positive as I think we think it is because sort of yeah I sort of like coming to school yeah versus I definitely I come to school right you know so I don't like that term sort of because it's so broad yeah well and it's interesting because sort of is actually higher than than really so you know or not really not really I mean so it's like not really sort of so I guess somewhat would be another term to put that somewhat indefinitely maybe the time I don't know what it would be but yeah are they
066trying to use language that a fourth grader could understand yeah okay me might be one we y y or maybe just in emojis they do have the Emojis on the top do they they're filling it up y okay thank you other thoughts I'm excited to see where it moves and grows over time I think that's not not significantly far away than what I would have expected yeah you know just kind of being around it is in February too I will just point that out that's you know I don't know about you but I wasn't loving everything in February you know it is a tough time in a school year so um I'll be very interesting interested once you do the analysis in light of what we're talking about tonight with the human growth and development
067curriculum yeah it'll be it'll be interesting to see and how it evolves over time certainly yes is there a timeline for that then Erin timeline for to analyze the the breakdown by subps yeah we're hoping to get that done in the next month um we we like to take it analyze it as an administrative team first um so we have a protocol that we go through we're also in survey season so we're I just got the results tonight for the parent Guardian survey and the staff survey will be shortly followed so you'll be getting a lot of these coming up and I know you appreciate them that's good we do all right uh we have a board update Mr Mooney sure again we meet uh monthly uh we always meet virtually unless we're on a
068board retreat or we are attending graduation uh as of March 1st The Weave enrollment for the three schools was 4,597 students I think that's the highest enrollment they've had y it does fluctuate you know but that's good uh the stride K12 Marketing Group uh updated um their marketing strategies and if you saw the WIA basketball tournament you saw their commercials during that and I talked about that last year or last year last last time but they talked about more uh this past month state testing was initiated on March 12th for weeva again um they do have testing sites around so students do come together so their percentage of students segma tests are increasing gradually uh the p parent advisory board is developing a mission statement and purpose with a goal to focus on ways to
069engage parents again it's all virtual they are different regions in the state and the kids do get together when they have their annual spring picnics uh but that parent advisory board meets monthly um there's also a um highlight each month they highlight one of the schools Andor one of the students uh the graduation is June 7th at Madison College uh everyone's invited to attend if you've never attended it it's great to hear the stories of students who have spent their entire career virtually the challenges rewards the benefits and uh that will take place at Madison college do you have a time yes I do um Career Academy at 1:00 Insight Wisconsin at 3:00 and weeva at 6 o' come early it's limited seating and what's nice about the uh graduation I mentioned this last summer
070is that students are coming up they show these huge pictures of the students and some of the things that they've done while they have been in high school so it's really a personalized and it's uh just very different the way they do it last year I think there were 400 plus graduates but I think 300 some went through the ceremony nice so it's definitely growing each year I believe I was able to attend there first M and it was probably around 2010 and they had 12 graduates is that when they did it in the office yeah the WEA office y wow and now there I don't know how many graduates are they talking about now uh well there's over 400 MH but not all of them go through the ceremony Cy right and they're projecting
071a 5 to 10% increase in enrollment for next year yep so and they're already at so that's the WEA report 600 how about the C two Board of control up there sure the board of control uh we meet in person uh monthly down at uh Whitewater at the ca2 office uh this in March they talked about the ceea purchasing program and we'll be doing an approval of some type of purchase agreement with cisa later on in the agenda again through that program there was there's no charge or fees for districts to participate uh it saves districts time and money and cesa has created vendor Partners throughout the state and as what what happens is that District tells them what they're looking for what they need and they'll go out and search it with these vendors
072and they'll seek bids for them and then they come back to the district and see if they want cesa to move ahead with it again 43 requests have been made since December 2023 the top two areas uh for potential Services include furnishings and Technology Hardware um let's see and then um that includes going out to all stakeholders and K12 schools non-educational facilities libraries Head Start and they're spreading out I think they're the um seek services from five different different states right now yeah other uh the salary increase for their staff next year uh if approved will be 4.1 for next year there was a career fair in Cambridge last March I think we talked about that right before the other meeting what was interesting that Edon had almost all their administrators there so they were
073able to connect with more more candidates that were there looking for jobs and then as a board of control we identifi the process in which to do the annual performance evaluation of the C administrator and the cisa 2425 catalog Services is either out or will be available very soon today did just come today Y and that concludes the C2 Board of control monthly report very good thank you Tom moving along we are to annual board development tool results Mr tarnet sir I did um decide to make the trees cry here we haven't gotten a hand out in a long time I know this will be something you want to look at beyond our meeting today here um so I'm going to go through this fairly quickly uh what I'm going to share with you is
074that this tool is something that's provided through uh collaboration between school perceptions which is the survey service we talked about earlier and the Wisconsin associations of school boards it's a free service to school districts to use where board members uh annually analyze their performance in certain key areas and so this is our second year of completing it together and I'm just going to summarize some of the results in the key area so this is your feedback about yourselves and I appreciate again I want to really acknowledge the board for embracing this process seeing the value in Sharing um um openly in the public in a transparent way your own thoughts about your performance and how you can improve so the first area is about data driven decisionmaking there's a chart there but I tried to
075um or a graph but I tried to summarize it um a little bit in terms of these these strengths and areas of growth trying to it's still too small for our Spectators but um really it's a what I did was I I I tried to rank them in terms of the top one is the higher rated lot of strengths in this area I mean you talked about you know comparing our our benchmark test results against a similar districts having a protocol to review data curriculum development process that's culturally um relevant and ensuring all students can participate in activities and managed by facts and our decisions are data driven so those were areas where you rated yourself um the average being a three or higher an area of growth is examining data to help district leaders
076identify groups of student in Need for additional support so that's something that's come up I think your questions about the subgroup data they're a good example of um the board's interest in that area moving on to the next uh area board operations so this is probably one of if not the strongest areas where you rated yourself so that's about uh we conducted annual School Board self- evaluation hey just by doing this um but you can see the growth it was a four this time an average of a four and and it was a 2.4 last year so you can see that growth but honoring decisions outside of the board meetings so what you see in a board meeting you honor when you leave um members coming to meetings prepared evaluating the superintendent which you do
077really well um speaking on for hours um speaking on behalf of the Board District only when authorize so these are really important professional conversations understanding open meetings law board meetings being effective and efficient um being prepared and using time effectively an area of growth is just an effective orientation process for new board members and we are on that uh we had uh our first orientation session with our new board member and have assigned them a mentor so next year this will be higher nice to he you Aon was the did all the board members respond yes this yep yep thank you for asking that yes all five all right so the next one is culture um mutual respect professional Behavior valuing difference of opinions working with me um I did did not complete this but
078I would concur um great job strategic decisions and and policy issues um being you know focusing on those rather than the day-to-day you know I think that whole what is the role of a board member definitely you felt like you're doing a good job there promoting high expectations um Community you know having faith in the district you know in the governance and recognizing students teachers you know I think that's something we're always working on doing and wanting to do a little better planning yes we annually review um support services and in operation areas we look at facility and maintenance needs on an annual basis and make sound risk management practices that's something you felt good related to insurance and a lot of those are often done in you know our employee relations committees as well
079as here during the board meetings um one area that you have consistently felt as an area of growth for you is exploring sharing services with other districts and local municipalities we do that in you know in terms of like Athletics sometimes you know thinking of like lacrosse for an example um which really minimizes and and nullifies any cost for us um but those are areas I think we could work on or you thought you could work on budgeting just you know we have a process for determining if and when referenda are needed basic understanding of school Finance making budget decisions based on student achievement I'll be talking next about um some of the decisions we need to make about the Budget moving forward but looking at those financial statements and and being a steward of
080the resources District Operations so Gathering feedback um from teachers and other Personnel to update our handbook we have a real process for that that'll be coming before the board in in May um in terms of Staff Authority and responsibility is welli well defined I think we've done a really good job of trying to to make sure that the right person is making those decisions communicating our academic priorities an area of growth you said was having initiatives in place to facilitate leadership succession in key administrative positions so kind of that's something you've brought up to me actually several times in our onetoone conversations as well just making sure sure that we are not over relying on the individuals that are there and making sure there's some cross training um that's present so that's something we need
081to work on uh Community engagement here you see more areas of growth and a lot of these um you know some strengths you say about you know engaging with with families and addressing the needs of students Partnerships with business and the community but feeling like we need and this came through with referendum is how do we make our financial needs and our budget easily understood I'm struggling with that I haven't done a good job at that so I'm with you on that um and then some legislative advocacy that came up I know the board has has felt like we need to invite legislators to to come to our schools more um discuss legislative issues so that's something I I could see us working on communicating with our legislators and in terms of policy real area
082of strength I'm not going to go through all of these but updating policies promoting safe schools um you know how we attract employees um school safety so those were areas of strength that I think you felt really good about and I think lastly hopefully Vision you the board feeling that the vision is a top priority focused on student achievement um nice growth there from last year having clear strategies to accomplish our vision clearly communicating our vision and a process that allows key stakeholders to help create and refine our vision and I think where the where we're going to need to to um move forward is we did a great job I think with our strategic plan engaging the community and we need to continually do that moving forward and I think we have some opportunities
083coming forward so I know that was quick questions comments from the board Bo so what's our action plan to get our legislative legislators more involved in knowing what the district is all about what our needs are great question what what do members think would be helpful the fact that the jam Mandarin is ending is going to help tremendously because there was no incentive for many of those people in the legislature to give a hoot what we thought yeah so it could be I mean it could mean attending events at the capital could mean writing joint letters as a board or connecting with other boards around the area and just just recently the state superintendent of schools and her team came to visit McFarland specifically to go through and find out how we run our tech
084department it's that's it's seen as a as a that's a a real star in the making the tech ed Department was almost nonexistent 10 12 years ago now it's thriving just as our Deca group is thriving um so I I think we've got a great story to tell and uh once things settle down up at the capital I think we should absolutely look at advocating for visitors and have one-on-one talks instead of just in general I really like the idea of having um someone who's on point for that just and then reporting I don't know that it has to what's that well like one of you a board member that's Point person for legislative issues yeah that you know can either provide an update or you know at Le at least keeps tabs on it
085and then can provide opportunities or ideas for opportunities for engagement I think you know it goes with the whole if no one's responsible then no one's responsible or if everyone's responsible no one's responsible you know that thing so I think having a point person is would be one step to answer your question I think um you know I would really like to invite several legislators legislators here excuse me my mouthpiece and have them visit classrooms that's that's what we're all about is that instruction the interaction between kids and kids and teachers or support staff I he many of them have no idea what's happening in today's classrooms because they haven't been in classrooms for many years I think secondly we do have educational lobbyists out there somewhere I've never met one but maybe we should
086maybe we should see who they are invite them to come down here and and hear it from us instead of hearing it through filtered voices somewhere else and when I attended the fall conference there was a um Republican legislator I think he was in charge of I don't know if was the education committee but he had a real good handle on what's happening in the school districts he was a minority I would say of of one of the parties and uh he spoke very strongly in favor of what is needed in the districts and uh and I I provided some feedback last October and I couldn't go back and look up his name but I think there are resources out there but rarely have we had anyone come lately at least you know and I
087I'm not looking for people that support education necessarily things like preaching to the choir I think we have to invite those that don't believe that public education is worthwhile MH may had those out there Tom did that uh legislator that you were talking about did he at all express interest in changing the funding formula I think so did he okay interesting and he was I think he was a former educator also I I think as Bruce mentioned with the the change in the district lines I feel like at least now we have a Fighting Chance yes you know I think I I don't know whether it'll be a year or two years or however long it takes uh to make things right but I'm optimistic yeah I would hope by November you're going to start
088seeing change you'd love to see it anything else Craig isn't there a legislative uh section at the State Convention yep we able to attend that no okay that was a day before I got there that was a I think a two or three day seminar okay on school law and leg St you because that might be something that we take a closer look at and I do receive information occasionally about different opportunities that I can certainly pass along to the board because I know through the listening sessions for the referendum we've talked about it it's only talk you we haven't done much action and I think it's going to take community and Educators to move the ball forward no doubt y anything else okay let's talk about the referendum results and next steps all right
089I told you sorry crowd a lot of me um but thank you for being here I am going to just provide a little bit of some initial thoughts on on the referendum and next steps they're the these are all very things are pretty tentative and I want to update the public on some of the decisions that um have been made and and some some ideas for moving forward this is in no way meant to be an inclusive you know um data driven um analysis of of the results and next steps this is moving I could update this Slide by the time we're done and it would change so so please please please be careful about about that so why did the referendum not pass and you know one of the things is had a lot
090ofers ation in in the last um you know since April 2nd with all of you with community members with staff and here's some of the things that have come through some of the main reasons there's a much longer list um but the main reason I think and what people have told me is really it was about it being too much money overall and for too long of a time period and particularly at a time when people are struggling due to other increased expenses so all other things are going up and then this is on top of it so kind of like we get it but it's a lot um the second part is community just feeling like yes you know I know that you were trying to get the information out after the question was
091written but being engaged engaging us before the question was decided CU kind of there was this perception of it's either I say yes to this that there's no other options um so that's I think a good take away from us for us a feeling that the District you know before you come and ask for money you got to make some cuts and like I know it's tough but you got to got to make some cuts that was a s sentiment that I heard um confusion about school funding our budget the tax impact there was just misunderstandings it is as I said before very complicated um and so representing that in a way that people understand people did a lot of their own math sometimes which um sometimes was accurate and sometimes was not and um
092and I think if we can simplify our Budget moving forward all the time not just at referendum time that'll be helpful and really a lack of clarity about how the money would be spent um and I actually had a student talk to me about this today um a student who voted and said you know there just seemed to be some confusion about like what are you going to do with the money and even though we said you know 80 80% of our budget is for staff salary and benefits so that's where the money's going to go I think it still was a little bit unclear to people um and so that was that was a lesson to to be a little bit more clear well not a little bit more clear about that moving forward
093so kind of what's next um and this is something I'm going to recap kind of the board work session that we had last Thursday um I know some people were able to to attend that it was an open meeting um it wasn't recorded because it was real kind of informal conversational um so I'm going to kind of just go over that again and then and then I'll when I'm finished then the board can kind of we're going to discuss any of these items but I want to provide this background for the public you know ultimately we have to focus on next year and we have to focus on Staffing especially and the reason we have to focus on Staffing is because there's a timeline for those kind of things in order to do non-renewal notices
094all of those have to be done pretty much now um and so that was where we felt a low pressure it's also hiring season so you want to get the best candidates but when we're looking at how we're going to account for the 3.7 million that we're short next year it needs to be a combination of our fund balance so that's kind of our savings account for cash flow purposes um ex expense decreases so that's through Staffing and non Staffing Cuts how can we increase revenues and if we were to move forward at some point with another ref referendum so those are our four areas um to look at but we really the other night just focused on Staffing now when we looked at decisions moving forward about Staffing we wanted to focus on these
095three areas impact on students longlasting implications and protecting Personnel so we want to prioritize those reductions that have the least direct impact on student learning and well-being while also considering what are the long- lasting impacts of these decisions you make a quick decision now that has significant long-term impact on student enrollment staff morale Community Support so being cautious about those in the short term and protecting our Personnel very important preserving the the staff that we have the jobs retaining qualified staff so whenever possible using Alternatives such as pausing hiring and attrition so those were our considerations here's the decisions that that we made coming out of that you made uh coming out of Thursday was we have a a two-year agreement we're in the first year of a two-year agreement on staff wage and and
096um benefits um and you said we're going to continue with that commitment you know we we promis that increase um for next year and we're going to continue with that um you also said we do not want to non-renew or layoff staff uh at this time will you affirmed um our typical class siiz guidelines and our case load guidelines for special education needs and said this is what our optimal numbers are and then we use that information to review open positions uh for next year about which positions we're going to hire for which positions we're going to pause and then which ones will be reduced for next year and that resulted all of those decisions resulted in an expense reduction of $630,000 for next year and a reminder that that is just the Staffing the
097green box part of this equation so um we will also be looking at non- Staffing uh reductions as well so there were some when you break those um um hirings down there was some already planned attrition so we came into the meeting on Thursday with $210,000 of that $630,000 accounted for and these were done through um positions that between the time the referal um question was set in April 2nd so before the referendum vote but after the question was set these were three positions that were reduced um already so the first one being a fifth grade teacher that was just due to uh reduction um in in um sections as the kids move up a grade that was already planned would have done that referendum or not uh a middle school special education teacher due
098to case load um special education needs decreasing that was already going to be reduced and also a high school program support teacher we hired a school psychologist which assumed those responsibilities so so those weren't any decisions that was more like we have we have a head start um and then here's the decisions that we made and I know this is small so I I'll share those out loud um so we looked at kind of three columns one is positions to reduce one is positions to pause and one in positions to hire I'm going to start with the column on the right so hiring a recess and lunch supervisor so our students are supervised um there's a couple like a high school a middle school tech ed teacher High School business and marketing teacher um those
099two are connected with a program and so um elective programs that are really well chosen by our students those classes are very um popular and need a lot of students career goals so the feeling being don't want to um reduce a program need at this point uh school counselor um based on student mental health needs continuing that position um a high school special education assistant needed for our students with special needs and a high school special education teacher those teacher and assistant positions um are really made um you know by looking at our case load needs for special education and moving to the right or left yeah pausing so these were positions that we're saying we're not going to hire for next year at this point um but maybe for the following year so we
100have grade level education assistance very important and valuable at Conrad Elan primary school but feel like that those are maybe some responsibilities we can distribute to others and um account for those positions in other ways and a middle school librarian position um that is something where we want to try having those needs met through other people we have a full-time library assistant at the middle school to fill those needs and many other staff um including our other library media Specialists throughout the district so could be hired in the future at this point um decided to pause those that accounts for another $140,000 and then reducing positions and the the way you made these decisions was we looked at our um class-size guidelines uh that have been present in the district for many years just never
101so clearly um stated to guide these um decision-making decisions for a board perspective but certainly at an administrative level and as we looked at those class size um class sizes and some um reducing enrollments in a couple of grades and special education needs uh we were able to make reductions um they they're two kindergarten classroom teachers that's confusing in and I don't want the public to be confused on that we're not going down kindergarten um sections but those are the two positions that are open so instead of filling those with outside staff we're going to fill those internally with staff within the district particularly at grades um third and fourth grade uh our enrollment uh is resulting in us moving from four SE or four sections eight sections to seven sections so we're going down
102a section in fourth grade down a section in seventh grade seventh grade third grade um based on enrollment and it's still within our classroom uh class siiz guidelines so 24 at fourth grade 23 at third grade also due to um uh reduction in special education needs and looking at case loads able to reduce a high school special education teacher please know that is still within our case load guidelines um it will still continue to meet student needs as well as that of a speech and language pathologist which will mean that speech and language um teachers are are going to be um continuing to share buildings including the high school so they'll they'll cover multiple buildings students in multiple buildings and our assist of Technology coordinator um able to um fill that through other staff so
103all of those together um result in that $630,000 difficult decisions I know uh for all of us to make these decisions ultimately I would say the decisions on the left column well the left the two left columns the middle column and the left column those are decisions that are would not have been made with the referendum to have passed okay so they were yes sorry yes thanks I've said a lot of words right um so if had the referendum passed we would most likely be filling those positions it's possible we wouldn't have depending upon how enrollment changes but um it certainly drove those decisions even though they're within case load and class siiz guidelines um next steps so now we're going to be moving on to so for 2425 that 3.7 million we've looked at
104Staffing reductions now we're looking at non- Staffing reductions ways we can in increase revenues and then looking at our future funding needs so engaging with the community staff talking about how how are we going to navigate um this moving forward using a combination of fund balance and a possible future referendum so those were the things I wanted to just kind of summarize for the public and for the board discussion we did not talk about why the referendum failed as a group you know so if that's how we want to use some of this time um welcome to or other comments or thoughts about where we're at open it up my first comment is this you at a great job summarizing what we did last Thursday night I agree in the retreat so thank you for
105putting all this together thank you y I'd like to just you know I felt all along it would have been nice to try to get a community group that kind of almost Spearhead and you know it's it's already passed in the sense that we're ped it but um you know I'm hoping going forward we can do that because I think it's important to get the community involved I think they need to do it um I did agree with also the fact that I think if they would have seen actually a little bit more detail in other words what percentage is going to teacher salaries um administrative salary support staff um I think they'd understand that 80% a little bit more um anyway you look at it we did score second in all of D County
106and it's kind of you know you start thinking like so now what are you going to do what are you going to cut you go like you just did something very very successfully why would you immediately do that um I also want to just point out to the to the the public in in general that you know what we already have done and started there is a cost to it I just I I want people to think that you know oh well it looks like they they found this money and I guess you know this is uh the way they should approach the referendum in the first place but when you start increasing class sizes and we definitely as a board felt that you know it's it's within it it's still doable but once you
107do that you you first of all you know you put a lot more work on a teacher you also end up cutting down the chances the opportunities for a teacher and a student to connect and I always look at teachers as like that first line of defense they they recognize when a a student is having problems um and and they're the ones who are going to kind of tip off in a sense one of the guidance counselors and say you know we need to do this or they would contact a parent and so as soon as you start making you know class sizes go up you you increase or decrease the odds that that's going to happen um I also thought it's important about um fees are going to probably end up going up and
108fees of course always affect people who probably can least afford them I mean the people who come from well to-do homes doesn't make any difference as suddenly your sports feed goes up or whatever but it turns out you know that's going to it's there's a cost to it and then uh another one was just the idea that let's draw down the fund balance and I think it makes sense I think we've been very fiscally wise in how we've been using our resources but there's a cost of that as well particularly with the high interest rates as they are right now when you start saying well let's take a couple million out of that and we just lower the 3.7 well that is a source of revenue for our school district right now and so we're
109kind of you know it's like you're you're paying Peter by robbing Paul I'm not sure I got that right but I think you get the idea you know we we want to try to find that balance and so I guess one of the things that I I also want to give a shout out to I'm sorry I'm talking so much but I want to give a shout out to Jeff Mahoney because I think he's been very fiscally responsible and I think it's important that there wasn't something kind of like you know like they're just trying to hide something I think we had been successful we wanted to maintain what we had and I think that's what we we did and you started going through it that's about where we're at right now and when you
110start making Cuts there are going to be costs to that I just I think people need to be aware of that that's not to say we can't have excellent schools I'm sure we will we always have but uh it's just going to it's going to make things a little difficult so think we're going to have to get the public involved and how do you how do you how do we resolve this CU we're all in this together this this school district is such an important piece of our community so sorry don't apologize yeah anything else oh go ahead I I have kind of had kind of an icky feeling leading up to the referendum only because based on all the comments that we got and concerns with our information sessions it was almost a perfect
111storm to fail um there was pretty significant spending Village Wide over over the last couple of years time period and and that was going to increase taxes and really there's not much the population can do about that but when a school needs money the population tells tells us whether we can have it or not so that puts us in a bit of a difficult situation and just Society in general today everything is costing more uh and I suspect that most if not all of those folks that voted no still fully support this school district I think what happened was we people just reached a Tipping Point that was it was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back I think um but we're going to learn from it and we're going to come back uh
112wiser and do things a little differently moving forward I think but uh I still feel strongly that that this school district has widespread support throughout the community regardless of the referendum result yeah one of the things that um I Heard Logan clear was differentiating between our needs versus our wants and I just reflected on that you know being on the board this is my second term and being in the district all these years this is a fine district and we've always had community support for the district and you you're you're right we we reached that point now and I went yeah I just thought stop back yeah maybe some of the things that we have purchased or bought or have are more of a want versus needs yeah I think we as a board uh
113really have to differentiate moving forward is this a want or is it a need because I think we're to the point now where communities you know everywhere is taking a closer look at that as they should but we have to take a closer look at what we're doing also yeah will it impact student learning some will some may not time will tell but I think it's up to us to move forward in meeting that challenge because it's certainly right in front of us right now I think one of the things that really came up a theme in some of the comments I've received is this feeling that going to the the capital the facilities referendum in 2016 that we should have instead of doing that we should have prepared for this you know and taking
114care of Staff first and I think to me you know that's pretty easy to say in 2024 but I will tell you in 2012 when the planning started for that Capital project right and in 2016 when the voters approved it we didn't know that the state was going going to not increase funding to schools for zero level for six out of the those 10 years we didn't know that a pandemic was going to happen and and then inflationary costs were going to go up um greater than they'd been in what 40 years we didn't we didn't know we didn't know those things we didn't know what their other taxes were going to do um and I feel I I wish we would have had that foresight and that Vision um to be able to say
115school fun is going to get really bad coming up oh and by the way they're going to they're going to supplant your budget with federal funds to the point of $6 million McFarland including $3 million in 2023 24 I didn't know that in 2016 I don't know if the if you all did and I think that's hard and I understand why people would say that um the other thing that I think gets lost in that facilities referendum is that we it um those facilities were in disrepair now granted they're beautiful now and and and they're well used by other communities um and by our community and and they are very very nice um but we needed to do something about our pool that was something we didn't have a choice we needed to do something
116about our a athletic facilities um those were things the middle school we had those two buildings um at the primary school I mean there's just some things that that at the time I think made sense um to the voters and to the and to the people it's just now we look back on it and go oh my gosh that's a lot of money and now we're asking for money again and I and I you know I wish we would have had the crystal ball and and you you wish you know people would understand that there were parts of that facility's referendum that were had a finite amount of time left in their usefulness yes that's could we have could we have waited we might have been able to keep kind of muddling along and waited
117another three or four years and I got to think that had we done that it would have been significantly more expensive to do what we did when we did it so you know it's not like we're unaware of wants versus needs um I just think sometimes things that look as though it's a want to the community who doesn't who who doesn't base that opinion on necessarily all the factual information that we have um and as a board it's difficult sometimes because you can't discuss things there are such things as walking quorums and open meetings violations you it it's it's hard to do especially when you're kind of doing it for the first time you know and I I thought that whole referendum process in 16 went very very well and all of these unforeseen difficulties
118that have come since then they were just that unforeseen and I don't think there was any way we could have seen it when I don't want to come off as flippant either you know because all that's being said but at the end of the day people can only they only have so much to spend and they can there is a limit to that regardless of how we got here it's still hard and people are really struggling out there and I and I think it's important that we hear that and I think the concern has been brewing for years yeah even though they you know Community has been very supportive um but we definitely have um reached that point now yeah any anybody else so what are our next steps so that the next thing is
119to move on to we're still going to focus on that 24 25 budget in terms of um non- Staffing cuts and so we're trying to figure out a a process for um determining what those will be with a focus on what are the the reductions and expenses and increases in revenues that we can make that have the least impact on students still Focus using on that we're not going to you know make a cut in an area that's just going to get people worked up and mobilized and say oh my gosh that's just not who we are we're not going to change that um so that will be the next process so involving staff in those decisions because they know um you know better than anybody um they're going to be keys to that and
120then starting to look at you know bringing a group together um you know still workshopping names but whether it is a school budget task for force or something to that extent of say 12 to 15 people that are engaged in this work in the community um you know staff reper two that want to dive into this a little bit more so we can come forward with with some ideas on how we can move forward long term so really it's it's saying we heard you you wanted to be more engaged and find something that was more reasonable um let's figure that out together is is sort of the next next um step and then you know ultimately if the if the board does decide to go to referendum in November you know that timeline is pretty
121tight in terms of getting going that a question needs to be formulated from in August August okay uh and I play it wrong with some things Erin since our last meeting or the retreat and I categorized the information that I would like to provide sometime yeah please cuts freezes things to maintain things to increase things to decrease and things to examine further mhm yep and I think it's important that we look at it from all the angles we can I like a lot of the stuff you had what I've been saying to staff is we are lifting up the couch cushions like that is where we're at and sometimes they like I got push down on part of it so you can really get down in there and we we have to we have to
122so is there a date in August that we have to 20 something 28th or 20 something that we have to the question 75 days before the election I want to say that yeah that we have to decide about a referendum but this will all be getting getting going in the next couple weeks in terms of next steps engaging the community I think what I've appreciated most um is that we've um regardless of the feelings that whether it was administrators school board members have had personally about it um everyone has approached it with what could we have done better and how are we going to learn from that and move forward from that so to your and your team and to all of you I appreciate that 100% because that's the only way we can really
123move forward yeah and I would um really encourage all those listeners right now um to engage in this process going forward you know as we heard tonight 60% of this community is retirees or people without kids in the district so how do we go about meeting the needs of the community but also meeting the needs of the school district and the only way we know is if we hear from you and you participate in this process y excellent point what she said well and resulting and US understanding them and them understanding us MH yeah we're all in this together y okay shall we move on yeah we shall District administrator report guess is going to be it and I'm out and I'm out then you guys do the action you're not going to get much
124Who does these agendas um I'm gonna make this really really fast um I know I say that every time but this one get ready um recognition for our high school um particularly uh to Patrick tuy Brian Ward and Marlo Connor they presented to a group of 19 students from 12 different countries who are here for uh afsusa event so students that are are studying here hosted here in our Student Learning Center and they provided um information on first nation's culture and history US government and special education rights so real highlight I got a couple nice real Communications from people sharing their gratitudes for our district awesome for hosting that also shout out to Melissa fo the mentor committee all the mentors we had our Mentor dialogue dinner last week which is a Time towards the
125end of the year where we get together with our our new to us staff and celebrate the year thank the mentors for providing such good um information and support for our new staff we had I think one of the smallest ever um new classes of staff I had a 95% retention rate and looking pretty good for that next year as well they make such a an important difference for our new teachers new staff members uh thanks to everyone involved in preparing for forward testing ACT Testing it's so much work and so many people involved with technology and schedules and and you know if I started to name them would miss someone and I or I'd be here for another hour um so thank you so much well I'm going to be here for another hour
126either way but um but special thanks to them and administrators for leading that and our kids for taking it seriously um second grade music program I wasn't able to attend but I I I got a communication that it was really great and really powerful excellent performance it's amazing and hosting it here um someone's going to say they don't want this to happen but it's too late um congrats to Bruce fiser or the first aniel Bruce fiser um I didn't hear about that yeah invitation yeah sure good TR I saw you one of the most humble people I know being recognized um but so deserving great great event and well talk to you for the rest of meeting now yes yeah and our Eco um Club um won the spring 2020 4 um renew Wisconsin so
127aw yeah one two years in a row consecutive years so our Eco Club is doing in a great job um with our sustainability efforts um a couple pictures I'm going to share and then I'll invite the board to share any recognitions these you know I'll share them but as I always say the connect Club always gets ahead of me here but but I'll get to the Middle School uh the money unit in sixth grade A long-standing financi literacy tradition experience and guess what you're learning something too you just didn't realize it um but our Bankers got to go to one Community Bank and have a tour um so there's certain students that are Bankers for that unit were able to go so thanks for our Community Partners there some Eclipse viewing right middle school students
128out there checking out the eclipse um having a great time on a somewhat nice day you saw this earlier the field trip with the black student union and Global diversity class field trip you also saw this get me a Serial box award uh the starting some seeds for our our high school garden and and I know some of you have seen that it's kind of a neat recognition of that important work it was high school or High School uh school net National assistant principles week that was that week that we had um Schoolboard meeting on the 1 so excellent recognition of our five amazing leaders and also it was prayer professionals appreciation day uh that week on Wednesday the 3 and I think last but not least our um library media Specialists um so just
129recognizing um them for their amazing work that was on the 4th Thursday the 4th I believe so that concludes my part of the report any recognitions from the board the one I would like to acknowledge is Penny Thompson through the youth enip program but she does other things she sponsoring a summer work Fair where oh I saw that people can come employers I guess can come in and high school students can go and talk to them to see what job opportunities they might be offering during the summer months and they'll be here during the two lunch periods someday soon I thought that was a great idea yeah isn't that a great idea yeah saw that on social media as well I had won I wanted to recognize Kate I know as your last official board
130meeting as long as there's nothing that happened before the 26th um I just want to thank you for being a role model for you know as another parent on the board no offense to any of you but it's nice to have another parent involved another working parent another woman and I've always appreciated your input and perspective and just sharing authentically so it's been great working with you well miss you actually it's been fantastic working with you as a former student and that can remember when you came through the grade school a few years ago Kate a few years ago but but your insight into a lot of different things and I know you and Aaron communicate quite frequently uh but but no but most notely during the pandemic when there was a lot of questions
131and animosity when you talk about closing the schools or modified schedules you are able to provide that perspective from a health field firsthand so thanks for everything but you continue to support kids M thank you you've been awesome you another former student you just asked such wonderful questions let's see what what year she graduated Bruce oh no can't say that we won't go five years ago I think five years ago five years ago five years ago you came on to the board during a really difficult time yes you did and you saw it through it and you've consistently been a voice of reasons thank you you guys you know you're you're in the health care field and boy did we need some help from that direction you know that was a very difficult time you
132know I've been on the board a long time and I don't think anything's been quite like that and and you made it much easier to get through well thank you I will definitely miss many of these things not all i' like to thank you all for coming and saying goodbye to me on my last FL I will you return to the board someday oh we'll see we'll see it's a busy time right now definitely kind of depends on work and life but I would certainly consider it in the future that's good to hear yeah awesome thank you okay right if we don't have anything else oh you got some important dates and events or did we do that already we're we're good so I mean do you want to hear I can tell you I
133was trying to be fast um stuff's coming up um what clarifies it all yeah that's right um there's a there's a bunch of things I think there's nothing um significant until our next board um um meeting except for all of these things um we've got fourth grade art and music show I think it was tonight I think actually um band is coming up this week um family fun night at Waba on Thursday um Bruce and I we're working a session together did you know that yes y name that too and get ready um Patriots Day is coming up staff development um no school on Friday Earth Day is coming up string exploratory event that's where they go over to Waba and in introduce the orchestra option to those students national Administrative Professionals is coming up
134um I think it's the 25th um but I'm going to recognize it every day um AR Arbor Day um my wife would be proud of that I think that's from her home state um State solo and Ensemble is coming up on the 27th and the fifth grade art and music show is on the 29th May is a bunch of stuff Association um the Pacific Islander Asian and Pacific Island Heritage Month National mental health awareness month so a lot of important recognitions um there um High School National School principal's day it's coming up on May 1st physical education week is also that first week of May the vocal showcases on May 1st um school lunch hero day you asked for it school lunch hero Day is coming up on May 3rd prom which you just heard
135about um and national teacher iation week is the week of the 6th and that's when we'll see each other here again on May 6th so a lot of good a lot of good stuff thank you very much busy time yeah busy time uh that would move us to action items and the first is action on adoption of human growth and development guide I would look for a motion to approve the recommendation of the committee can I do can I say one thing before we make a motion just on a clarification and maybe this is out of order but um so last meeting we vote we made motions we made a motion it was seconded and didn't that and then we well and then we voted against it but if anyone who wasn't watching our discussion
136only looked at the minutes I think it didn't really reflect what we wanted it to reflect and so part of that was because of the mechanic of Robert's Rules so I wanted to make sure we knew that this time what we could have done last time is the person who made the second motion or seconded the motion could have rescinded and then the first person would also resend their motion and then we take no then we take no action right and then we could have made a new motion to table it until this meeting okay so I just wanted because if you look back on our you know if the community is only looking at the minutes it looks like we just voted down this and obviously we didn't because we're here to talk about
137it again and potentially take action so just before we that we do have Melissa here um and Melissa was going to provide a little bit of an update really it's just information the board is aware of but wanting to make sure that the the public is able to get a little updates why don't we make a motion and do that during the discussion period either way it's fine sure okay I would look for a motion I'll make that motion thank you Bruce second I will second that thank you do I need to say it discussion hi hi hi oh there you are so I had um you had asked some specific questions at the last board meeting I sent those answers to you via email but just to share them out loud um some of
138these were topics that were touched on in public comment but I'm going to kind of reiterate what was shared with you um one of the questions was wanting more information about the overall process for making recommendations and our process included considering at least four areas the committee Mission Vision and beliefs which were shared at our presentation a month ago the Committee Member surveys and Anonymous comments those were sent in between each of our meetings and the results of them were shared with the full committee at the following meeting State and National standards the state standards do not get terribly specific in the topics um for HGD they're pretty broad but there are national sex education standards that do mention the areas that are included with the guide and we reference the grade ranges in those
139standards when making decisions and D County Youth survey results from McFarland students that survey we talked about at our presentation about a month ago as well the next thing was a question about when are these topics mainly being gender identity sexual orientation or attraction feelings and the sexual response cycle when are they taught um locally and or nationally the national piece I think would fall within those National sexed um standards not every District Across the Nation adopts them but that is a guide poost I emailed my counterparts in each of the Dane County schools and ask them for their information only heard back from four schools which I can share with you but I can also point out that in those conversations some District mentioned that some districts mentioned that these topics aren't in their
140HGD standards or guidelines they're a part of their life skills units and so there's um just differences in terms of where it is included if it is included at all um the districts I heard back from were Mount horb Stoten Middleton and Oregon Mount horb and stoton both reference the national sex ed standards and their guidelines are pretty similar to ours um they talk about gender identity in K2 um at Mount horb and Stoten said grade two for gender identity sexual orientation Mount horb said they are looking to make that more explicit for next year but they teach that at grades 3 through 5 and Stoten sexual orientation is grades 3 through five the sexual response cycle I'm going to come back to Middleton and Oregon were a bit older than us for gender identity
141and sexual orientation in Middleton um it's mentioned in their HGD curriculum in grades 6 8 and 10 and they have advisory lessons at the middle school about pronoun use inclusivity but there's nothing that is assessed and Middleton for sexual orientation it's in their HGD curriculum in grades 6 8 and 10 Oregon listed grade five for both gender identity and sexual orientation the sexual response cycle for most of the grades mentioned um high school so Mount horb 9th and 10th grade health class stoton didn't respond to that answer Middleton said it's in their curriculum at grades 6 8 and 10 and Oregon grade 10 so not every District all around but those are the the districts who responded when I sent out a request for information um I did include in what I sent to you
142the staff guidelines for how to respond to questions about gender identity um and sexual orientation which wasn't a specific question but it is um those guidelines have been in our guide for years we did update some of those this year and so I included those updated pieces um what I wanted to emphasize with that is that repeatedly in that section it says students will be encouraged to talk with parents Guardians trusted adults to help them develop their own values and beliefs about gender identity or sexual orientation um that was a regular talking point within the community or in the committee and so I wanted to highlight that to the board and then examples so we currently do talk about gender identity and sexual orientation at grades four and five um I have some books so
143fourth grade books mixed is one of the books and love is love is another one of the books that they use um mixed is also prior to the committee we had thought we need to update these books and so these are the books that are currently being used I think we will likely do a search process and update the books but love is love just for a quick sample of pages um it says I've got a problem today some kids were laughing at my shirt and there is a little boy and he's wearing a shirt with a rainbow heart on it and they were teasing me for wearing it one of the kids said my shirt was gay my friend asked what does that mean I wasn't sure but I think it's because I have
144two dads and then it goes on and on um and my dads love me very much just like my friends Mom and Dad love her we both have families who love us that's not so different either and later on so when Some kids say your dads are gay I'll just say yes they are and when Some kids say you are not a real family I'll just say yes we are at fifth grade the books that we currently have again we'd like to update them one of them is in our mother's house and another is 10,000 dresses a sampling from 10,000 dresses every night Bailey dreamed about dresses and and and there are 10,000 dresses and with all her heart Bailey loved the dress made out of crystals that flashed rainbows in the sun when Bailey
145woke up she went to find Mother and there's a lot here but then it says Bailey what are you talking about you're a boy boys don't wear dresses but I don't feel like a boy Bailey said well you are one Bailey and that's that now go away and don't mention dresses again and then Bailey talks to father and Bailey talks to Sibling of some kind and eventually near the end Bailey meets a older girl in the neighborhood who works with Bailey designing dresses and um yeah it ends with these dresses don't show part of the book these dresses don't show us the Great Wall of China or the pyramid said Laurel no said Bailey but they do show us ourselves you're the coolest girl I've ever met Bailey said Laurel H hey do you think
146you can dream up any more dresses Bailey grinned I Think I Can Dream up 10,000 at fifth grade I do have copies of the discussion questions that go along with the book so with 10,000 dresses um how did this book make you feel why did the author write this book what does gender identity mean to you what do you do to show people that being different is okay have you ever felt like Bailey in some way or another why is it important that we read this book and share as a class do you think this book should be shared with others so those are books we currently have um you asked for examples that might be used for younger grades um we do have a thorough material selections process that I was not able to
147go through in two weeks but I do have books that are samples one of them that could be used at first or second grade about gender identity is called pink is for boys in that book first page you know pink is for boys no pink is for girls then red is for boys no red is for girls orange is for boys no orange is for girls and on and on discussion questions might be um how were the book the children in the book feeling when they were playing what are your favorite toys how do you get to feel how do you feel when you get to play with them why do you think the author repeats that each color is for boys and girls can you think of any objects or activities like colors that
148people say are only for boys or only for girls how can you respond to somebody if they say a color an activity or a toy is only for girls or boys another book could be um I have another example there um an example about attraction feelings that maybe could be used at second grade is called what is love in that book there is a child who asks grandma what is love love and Grandma was old so I thought she would know and grandma says I can't answer but if you go out into the world you might find an answer so the child asks the fisherman the fisherman says love is a fish and he describes how the fish sparkles in the sunlight and he loves the fish and the boy says but I don't like
149fish and the fisherman says you don't understand an actor says love is Applause a cat says love is the night a carpenter love is a house a poet has a list so long it goes on for pages and I didn't have time for that and so at the end the boy returns home he's much taller at this point and older smelled dinner coming from the house heard his dog barking in the upstairs window took off his shoes and stood in the garden and wiggled his toe toes and grandma said did you find an answer to your question and I picked her up in my arms smiled and said yes questions that we could ask was what answers does the boy find why is love to find different by each person he asks are any of
150them wrong which page is your favorite and why although the boy said he didn't find an answer he tells his grandmother that he did what is his answer how would you answer the question what is love and with that we would probably say as children discuss love remind them that love can be mean it can mean being really good friends or it can mean something else but that being in love and wanting to get married are feelings for adults and not feelings for children which is how we respond to when children currently at K2 say they have boyfriends or girlfriends we tell them they do not and that that is for adults and not for second graders so that would be the same as we're discussing love with a picture book um the next thing
151that was asked was examples of how sexual response cycle is currently discussed at 8th grade there are four stages to the sexual response cycle excitement Plateau orgasm and resolution it is taught at 9th grade with a video that uses a diving board example excitement is walking up the diving board the diving board is the plateau orgasm is jumping off the diving board and the resolution is being in the water then asked for feedback on pros and cons about possibly postponing I think there were pieces mentioned in um public comment I would like to repeat what I shared last time that whatever the board approves for the Guide tonight I feel confident we can Implement next school year if there are pieces of the guide the board would like more information about and decides to delay
152making changes on I'd request that you make those changes for the 2526 school year to provide ample time for making thoughtful changes that we need to make and lastly I prepared for you two different versions of the guide I called called guide draft 1.0 which is what was presented at the last two meetings and guide draft 2.0 which moves the topics of gender identity attraction feelings and sexual response cycle back to where they were in the current guide and not what the committee's recommendation for the grades were I think I answered the pieces that were shared and I will stay here but sit quietly until invoked and answer any other questions that you have we appreciate all the work yeah I mean this is this has been brutal in my view and these are these
153are tough things so much appreciation any other discussion or questions no thank you for all that information I know it was a short timeline but you did a great job at Gathering all the pertinent information thank you so my question is what would a bread model look like would it look like what we what what HD is recommending that moving these topics back to where they were before start of the grade level would that be accurate um so yeah the board so I prepared that example that would have all of the changes that the committee recommended except for on those three topics and taking those three topics and the board you know has the authority to put put them in the grades that they feel are appropriate so I prepared an example that put it
154back where it was prior to the committee's work but the board could say this topic goes to this grade and this topic goes to that grade um based on any information you have yeah looking over the sex education the normal no the national sex education standards it just seems like uh the committee really really low the ages when we would talk about some of these things with students for example the gender identity according to the sex education standards there be a second grade and the standards are written in grade bands so they have one set of standards for grades K through two so they say by the end of second grade you should have done this this and this they don't specify should that happen in kindergarten first or second um gender identity yes is
155in the K through two grade band sexual orientation is in the 3 through five grade band um and that was uh a detailed conversation with the committee which is why we didn't want sexual orientation to get confused with the act of having sex which is why we changed that wording to attraction feelings um which through the discussion the committee had brought up that those types of Attraction feelings can happen to students at K2 with those examples of students feeling like they have boyfriends or girlfriends or crushes or things like that um and so our regular process in the committee was considering when it comes up for a student in their life like when does puberty tend to happen to students and then trying to put the instruction slightly before that so that students would have
156the reliable information from school and the um language that they needed to understand and engage with that as they were entering that stage of their life okay anybody have anything else yeah I think um one of the things that I don't know if we've talked specifically about it but Melissa you shared and some of the documents that you shared with us about process um I think it's really important um I mean we I I think last time we even talked about potentially survey you know get getting more feedback I think we've gotten a lot of feedback from the community um um from people who are likely to engage um with all perspectives which I'm very grateful for all the perspectives shared um and I think one of the points that was shared about specifically the
157committee that I hadn't fully given enough credit to before I think was the idea that when the committee was created the the process was that they're everyone on the committee is educated and making decisions based on the same like mutually agreed upon set of facts resources and data and so I think that's a really important thing to remember um given then their recommendations like I I don't know that the public would have necessarily heard about that necessarily um so I thought that was an important thing to just for people to know um because it is such a complicated subject I you know like having discussions knowing that the people involved um that are representative of the community is it's important that they're all using the same set of facts to to have those discussions I
158think so um that's I mean we we used a very comprehensive process and um and they did a really great job and we've gotten so much information so thank you and I would concur that committee did a terrific job but there might be items in there where we might just disagree and that doesn't mean that we disrespect the work of the committee because I know it took a lot of time and effort it's just that we're going to have difference of of of opinions one of my um feel feelings that you brought up the hybrid thing and maybe this is where we disagree um but I think doing a hybrid or moving some of these topics to later you know we've we've gotten a lot of feedback that some some people in the community to
159feel like it's too early or things like that but I think one thing to consider and remember is that we're not doing this considering of moving at early simply for the kids who are marginalized or part of the LGBT community you know we've committed to you know meeting the needs of every learner every day as our mission and um and part of that is also preparing the other children who have to interact with the kids and as this as the population um becomes more and my more diverse and we learn that not a lot of things in human life or on the binary um that we're also giving them the the the you know heteronormative kids um skills and language and examples of how to interact and help with their friends that are more expansive
160um and I think I think that's a really important skill as we send those kids out in the world and it's not just about heter normative versus you know lgbtq or gender expansive kids it's not it's not just about that it's about I you know giving them skills to help um support and love people anyone who identifies as anything differently whether it's culture or race or anything and I think the examples that Melissa has provided I think are very um I I don't feel like they're like really controversial or bring up some of the topics that people I think would be very you know that they feel age appropriate to me and I don't think um I think sometimes when we when we hear comments about people being afraid of what's going to be shared
161at that level you know it is more about like what what are we going to talk to our young kids about and um and that it but we have experts who know what's age appropriate and for a general classroom age and if parents feel like it's not age appropriate for their child then there are options for that and so I think that's I just think it's important to remember that we're not only helping the children who are identifying differently but also helping the ones who are identifying as more um neuro neurotypical heteronormative all of the things but I would say that from my experience a lot of that's been going on already it has been structured we don't have a curriculum but if you know a teacher observes a situation going on and there's a
162different whatever it is you know um teachers typically will step in and bring forth you know the right words um without being judgmental but at the same time informing other students yeah I I I don't disagree with that I think it's more about standardizing what the expectation and the guideline is because those questions are starting to come earlier because kids are are recognizing that in themselves earlier and so those questions are coming earlier and so those this this guideline that is created helps address some of those questions for teachers I think I and I I understand that too I think well first of all thank you for pulling together that information I think it's helpful and it's surprising in some ways some of some of the responses you get to be honest from our local
163school districts and when they're introducing things and also at a national level I think it's important to acknowledge you know both sides of this right not everyone's ever going to agree on when the appropriate time to introduce these things is and and I think that's important for us to acknowledge I mean I hear both sides and I appreciate the perspective of both sides um I mean I'm a pediatric provider and I 100% agree that children experiencing um you know gender identity at an earlier age is 100% true and these kids are acknowledging that maybe their you know biological gender and their gender identity are different before they even get to kindergarten yeah I had to take a step back and think about my own kids when I was kind of going through all of this
164and I think it's important to acknowledge that these kids are they think differently than we did when we grew up and they're more accepting now than I think even in in my experiences through school um I was or we were because it's talked about and it's understood and you know just listening to the the books the topics that you presented I mean these are such broad level um topics that we're presenting at a young age it's we're not discussing um you know some of the specifics of what's going on but just understanding that families are different and people are different and the way they feel is okay and when I look at my own kids I'm always surprised at just how accepting they are and and I think that that's really important for us to
165remember as these kids especially if we talk about these things at a younger age are so much more accepting of it and just you know don't really question it it's just part of of what's going on and so although I understand that people are never going to agree on this we do have um a process for which if you don't agree you know your child doesn't have to participate um so where I see both sides I think regardless of of where you fall on this this is life this is like you know being open to everyone's perspective and just acknowledging that regardless of how you feel about it you know it's okay to to understand the differences yeah yeah well I end up writing this treaties and uh I'm not sure somebody that I'm sing
166go like well I'm not sure I want to read it there's a part of me thinks I will just because I I don't know else how to deal with it I I'm going to Echo what my colleagues are saying I mean I spent so much time thinking about this and and just trying to wrap my head around it um and I just want you to realize and I'm addressing the public is that we all want to do what's best for kids and there's also a part of me says there is not going to be a perfect in fact you know don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good I think there's this is going to be ongoing I think it's going to evolve um but again I think we're all we're all working
167or trying to work to to do what we can I I really want to thank the uh the committee because I just I was amazed at the the way you guys handled your meetings that you wanted to make sure that everyone was heard and I know that there's going to be uh times that's that that's not easy to do there's times you're reluctant to want to speak up um I I just think it was so thorough I I just I think that was really good um I at this point you know feel kind of like that here's the things that I I use kind of in my mind to try to come up to where I'm at um the recommendations I think fits perfectly with our strategic plan and our educational Equity resolution um the
168visions statement in our strategic plan says we'll strive to provide an equitable and inclusive community committed to student belonging achievement growth and this proposal does this exactly um in some ways I thought that this really comes down to just respecting human dignity because I kind of believe that every child deserves to be treated with dignity and kindness and every parent should expect that their child will be treated that way when they're in school and and so I think of those kids cuz we have these kids they're already here they've been here in the past um I'm thinking all of us know people who I guess didn't weren't they weren't even really able to express what their sexual identity was when they were young and and and are troubled and I think now again I'm not
169sure it's that they're they're getting younger I just think more and more people are are saying that and I just think some ways maybe that's that is healthy that you why have these people go through this um I I also feel that no one is mocking anyone's religious beliefs um of all things yesterday it was very kind of I guess appropriate I I always read and anyone who had me as a teacher knows that I always had quotes that would kind of inspire me for the day and the one that I read was a Mother Teresa's quote which is all of us need to be living expression of God's kindness I mean that woman was was about as religious if you ask me as a person can be and in some ways that quote that
170she just gave is really just another way of saying the goalen rule treat people the way you'd want to be treated and I think that's a commonality of all religions um I'm also afraid that if we ignore students or ignore I guess the way they are you in you do increase the odds that there's going going to be bullying and I guess getting back to what you were just saying Megan um it's the friend of these kids who are trying to wrap their head around why are they dressed the way they are why do they feel the way they do and we need to help those kids kind of navigate through this this time um I also put down that uh you know well I've already said it we've had students they're already here and
171they've always been there and we know these people um and then I I kind of went through the biggest controversy of The Proposal is is it age appropriate and here's where I kind of trust Health experts who say they are or it is um how did I write it I said youngsters already questioned gender identity we know that well we know that they are question this we know this because they're already here for many most kids this is probably something they're not even aware of and I respect parents who might want to hold their children out of these discussions but for the kids who are going through this crisis and for many of their friends and classmates it's important that we cover these topics and then I took exception with people saying we're indoctrinating I
172don't think we're teaching people the kids about Lifestyles and behaviors what we're really talking about is stories and we're we're trying to teach young people to be accepting those who may be different and I think Kate your comment it's working because we are becoming more respectful and then for those who say that this is a topic that is appropriate is not a topic for schools to teach um this is a topic that should be left to the parents to deal with and this is the one I finish with it because I only wish was that simple after 40 Years of an educator I can just tell you time and time again where parents haven't really known what to do and in many cases they've been in denial I think first of all the the the
173the rise in the number of suicide and depression and you know problems with drugs I the I think these parents are lost and then sometimes it's the parents have to find themselves before the kid can actually get the help that they need and I'm just a very personal level you know in my years as a coach and as a teacher I had I had kids who were having problems with eating disorders and it was always my experience I can't say always but usually the experience that it was the parents who were in denial they they just couldn't they couldn't believe that their kid had a problem they said no this is not a problem and it was only when they finally were able to wrap their head around that yes there's something wrong here that
174that the kid began to receive the help that they needed and pardon me this is the fear I have if we kind of ignore this that at some point we all love our kids we're so close to our kids we we we almost can't get a proper perspective and I don't know how to describe that I'll describe it in a really dumb way so please forgive me when my daughter was a junior in high school she had the audacity to quit track I was devastated I mean now this s so stupid because it is stupid but it's important because I remember Jane and I walking around the block and I'm going Jane how did I fail what went wrong I mean track was my life and it was the next day I came in and
175talked to a colleague it was John schaer and I I'm forever just grateful to this man he says Bruce don't you understand that every child at some point has to identify who they are they have to spread their wings and they have to become who they are and I don't know a better way of saying that and by the way it dawned on me that my two parents who met at juliard had four children and not one of their four children went in music and all of I said what has gone around or what goes around has come around and so I I this is a really difficult I just think please understand we're all in this together and it's just something that I think we're going to be looking at and periodically changing and
176tweaking and whatnot but I think we do need to kind of I think we need to go go along with it that that would be my recommendation so anyway sorry no that was well said um obviously there's there's many parts of this experience I'll call it that I I would agree with my colleagues most certainly but I I think I would be remiss if I didn't Express the Gratitude and appreciation that that we have for the the hours and hours and hours of discussion and meetings and the commitment that these folks made was not insignificant there was a lot of meetings and some of the meetings went way long and that's not hard to understand because and now this is strictly anecdotal evidence but my understanding was at the beginning of this process we had
177folks who thought we should go younger than what the recommendation is we have folks that want to follow the recommendation folks that want to keep the same curriculum that we have now but there were also folks who felt like we shouldn't be teaching this at all ever to any of the kids so just knowing that the makeup of this committee was was so different in a lot of their beliefs I can only imagine how difficult it is to get consensus us for with 27 when sometimes it's hard to get consensus with five and that's just a fact um I I think we need to honor the process it was a process that that we worked on as well as Administration and everybody else um along with honoring the committee uh these folks this had be
178very very difficult we have votes that are difficult um the votes that are difficult are the ones where you know you'll probably displease almost as many people as you please regardless of which way you go um those things are hard but at the end of the day I feel like we need to to make sure that this committee understands how grateful we are for what they did and how much we appreciate the time and the commitment and the energy that they put into it and just to sit and have discussions around very delicate very complex and usually controversial it's not something everybody will sign up for it's it's not an easy thing to do um it's hard to disagree with people that you're friendly with um so you know I I just feel like we
179need to honor the process and and I know I think everybody knew going in that there were going to be little or no unanimous votes and not I wasn't there so I don't know but boy I suspect there were some some tough discussions and I appreciate it I I think I speak for the entire board when I I say we're grateful for everything you've done and extremely appreciative just thank you thanks very much anybody got anything else if not we'll go ahead all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed no motion carries 4 to one thank you again committee we appreciate it very very much you made the difficult decision palatable next is action on second reading and Adoption of a revised McFarland School District sustainability resolution resolution in support of
180diversity and equity and policy 21051 District resolution in support of diversity and Equity educational Equity I would look for a motion to approve so moved thank you Tom I'll second thank you Kate discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I I opposed motion carries 5 Z unanimously action on second reading and Adoption of policies 5460 graduation requirements 5500 student code of classroom conduct 75402 web content apps and services 8510 Wellness uh 7250 commemoration of school facilities uh do we want to approach this do does anybody have discussion do you want to go through them one at a time or I think the changes were made between last week yeah the second reading so um I would look for a motion to accept I would move Megan that second I'll second
181thank you Kate discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion carries 5 Z action on 2024 25 school board meeting dates uh I need a motion to approve I'll do that thank you Bruce second no second thank you Tom discussion it's it's a very similar pattern is previous years so y yeah yep continuing to follow the same yeah just forecast pass any other discussion if not all those in favor please signify by saying I I oppos motion carries 5 Z action on 20 2425 cesa 2 contract I need a motion to approve I can move so thank you Megan I'll second thank you Kate discussion just one comment I would make is as we're moving forward we are really continuing to be fiscally responsible and looking at ways
182that we can cut money and reviewing the C2 contract these are services that save the district money because to provide them on our own would be more expensive than using the C2 resource so understood thank you and um so to that point do we know do we have an estimate of how much it saves us I mean I don't off the top of my head I just know that to create those service providers on your own and right staff that internally would be I mean we could maybe get a ballpark yeah because they're employees of seasa and not of the school district right right right anything else if not all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion carries 5 Z action on 2024 25663 301 Wisconsin school nutrition purchasing Cooperative agreement
183I would like a motion to approve Kate second I can second that Bruce discussion similar as last year yeah yep yep you got you know over 50 districts that get together and are able to reduce the the cost of materials buy power supplies y M anything else if not all those in favor please signify by saying I I oppose motion carries 5 Z action on weeva K8 First Amendment to the Charter School contract uh do I have a motion to approve so moved Tom thank you I can second that thank you Megan discussion so this is first time that they're requesting a 4K program yes so they'll be referred to as 4K 12 or k412 in the future if it passes yes and so this is something they've been looking at doing is is adding
184in 4k and at first that kind of I couldn't understand that and I thought well they've got kindergarteners there so 4K you know this continue to have an adult there you know supervising and guiding those students but you know provide some curriculum for for famili so it would be interesting to see how many 4K students have siblings M K5 you know since the parents there already and that's interesting yeah in order to be eligible the students have to have that service provided in their home District as well resent district is it a half day program yes any other discussion if not all those in favor please signify by saying I I oppose motion carries 5 z uh action on recommended weeva destinations Career Academy and insight School of Wisconsin statute 11848 G student transfers to
185resident districts at this time weeva destinations Career Academy and insight School of Wisconsin are requesting approval of recommended student transfers back to their resident districts due to lack of Engagement do I have a motion to approve so move thank you Tom second I can second that thank you Megan discussion this is truly a months to celebrate there you go this is the first time that I can ever recall we did not have a K through five student yep return to their District yep I was going to say the same thing so again it's just an indication of all the effort and work that's happening with the U uh WEA Administration and certainly their teachers yeah in trying to really support these kids so they don't have to get to this point and so far it's
186been working great anything else if not all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion carries 5 Z and now our last item of the evening we've got an oath of office I mean still I'm sure actually [Laughter] [Music] do you two want pictures they're not usually this long I him I warned him just to be clear this is a record do you have down pretty close for me okay good cuz I'll admit when I did my wedding vows I needed like someone to like refresh me halfway through them don't worry um you to choose which oh no I want that one yeah okay so there you go so you can go ahead and just read them read both at the same time say and you're why don't you go first since
187you're the OG do yall know what OG means okay just checking no I have no idea original Gangsta yeah oh that's how the that's how the cool kids say it okay all right I Bruce fiser having been elected elected to the office of school board member but have not yet entered upon the duties thereof swear or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Wisconsin and will Faithfully discharge the duties of set office to the best of my ability I'm Megan Kennedy Chapman having been elected to the office of school board member but have not yet entered upon the duties thereof swear or affirm airm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Wisconsin and will
188Faithfully discharge the duties of said office to the best of viability Yay see I'm hug and at this point I would look for a motion to adjourn I'll make that motion Bitter Sweet all those in favor please signify by saying I nay no I'm just kidding I'm just kidding I'm just kidding [Laughter] 949 before