McFarland School Board Meetings 2/20/2023

001I've heard that's the worst cancer um foreign thank you myself my biggest fear you know thank you one second I haven't I haven't gone into the webinar yet oh I just want to make sure that I just want to make sure that he pulls like hey Tom are you using speak ing how long is your presentation let me see well let's come back inside hey can you hear us yet can you I can hear you okay I can hear you good okay it's all this advanced technology from my son's Studio turn that off how are you doing great yeah all right I will call the meeting to order at 6 52 pm on Monday February 20th 2023 and I would look for a motion to go into closed session I can do that Bruce thank

002you I'll second that Megan thank you very much and now we need a roll call I believe how are you yes green yes Mooney yes ler yes and Fisher yes all right so we will retire as a closed session and a little bit Mr Mooney sounds good thanks for when you're thank you foreign thank you very much foreign thank you close this is perfect yeah I can't like disconnected my skulls on my Sunday we have a little too fast turbulence in some places sensitive because we this train um gentlemen if they weren't loyal for whatever yeah no just just around the way thank you very much foreign thank you foreign thank you we're back in close or open session we need Angie where is she where did Angie go we really cannot survive without her

003well and we're not officially back thank you again Open Session once again and the first order of business I used to look at the consent agenda items we have the minutes from the February 6 2023 school board meeting we have some general fund vouchers and purchasing card transactions general fund vouchers 178 986 through 179208 and 292-100-292-135 and purchasing card transactions dated 1221 through 1 20 23. um then we've got some other co-curricular staffing recommendations administrative staffing recommendations and some Personnel items on not necessary to vote so I would look for a motion to approve the consent agenda items as presented I'll make that motion thank you Kate I'll second that thank you Megan all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries five zero I just want to acknowledge that the

004board has just hired our new high school principal who happens to be in attendance so thank you for approving that recommendation Brett Jacobson is here and wanted to uh just kind of wave to you and give a 20-minute speech about it make that good first impression that's what we want there we go nice to meet everybody thank you very much I'm very excited obviously to uh to get started uh obviously I'll be around a little bit throughout the spring while I make the transition but yeah looking forward to July 1 when we can can really dive in but yeah looking forward to being a part of McFarland so thank you to everybody I don't know how many people are tuned in here but thanks to those that maybe participated in the in the hiring process

005I was able to eat meet quite a few people that that participated so that was great to see obviously a lot of community support and a lot of invested parties so that's that's always exciting to see when you're looking to join a community so that was very neat so nice to meet everybody and yeah thank you excited to be here we're excited to have you congratulations and welcome um look forward to working yeah yeah thank you very much welcome you are not required to stay [Laughter] it's all good I'll stick around for a little bit okay you're welcome well great I'm happy to hear it yeah yeah thank you congratulations all right um moving on then uh do we have any public comments I'd like to ask the members who may be attending via Zoom

006please do all right one moment all right if you'd like to make a public appearance by speaking to the board please utilize the Q a portion found at the bottom of your Zoom window in the Q a we would ask that you type your name address subject of interest and whether you have discussed this item prior to the meeting with either a district administrator or president howary after submitting the information I would transfer you over to speak to the board thank you all right we'll give people via Zoom an opportunity to register if they wish okay and I will we have had one excellent thank you very much all right in accordance with school board policy 167.3 the McFarland School Board welcomes public comment during regular meetings the board will accept public comments via individuals

007who are physically present at the board meeting who are participating in the board meeting virtually or who have sent an email to the board president or superintendent in advance of the meeting please note the following participants are required to register their intention to participate in the notice public comment portion of the meeting upon their arrival at the meeting and shall begin their comments by stating their name address and group affiliation if and when appropriate participants shall address only topics within the legitimate jurisdiction of the board the board members will not directly respond to comments and may only take action on topics that are on the published agenda participants are asked to limit their comments to five minutes in duration written comments will have a word limit of 250 the portion of the meeting for public

008comments is limited to 60 minutes unless extended by a vote of the board participants shall direct all comments to the board and observe reasonable decorum so we do have one public speaker here in our presence this evening Dr hickey the floor is yours I think every thing you said there I would have to but I can't believe you're gonna let me talk anyway um I just wanted to take a minute tonight to acknowledge what I would call a third day of school the third day of school of every day I had the opportunity just within the last couple weeks to see uh come up during the Middle School play I think in the in the uh Auditorium and then I'm a regular swimmer in the morning and they had massive meat a couple of massive

009Meats recently on grounds here as well as doing phenomenal at state the bottom line is and I trust you understand this but I think it's good for other people to hear it and not you know the wonderful job that those people you know all aspects of it from the coaches to the managers do and that crew Alicia the custodial crew that asked it is a big pain I remember those days for them uh enough can't be said and you talk about um the value to this community in opening up our facilities is is in you can't even put a value on it it's beyond what you can value uh when I started out as a assistant principal uh back in the day centuries ago I remember John schiefer my principal my tutor so to speak

010um he said the most misused facility public facility is a facility that is not used and I'll tell you what you guys got to be proud as a board our community should be proud because the amount of Engagement the amount of community involvement in in getting in and out of the building here is phenomenal and everything from parking uh what could have been a disaster with the play in a swim type activity can't say enough so heads off thank you and thank you to all those people you know Stu and that crew comes to mind because that's who I deal with that young Ethan hanzel and by the way I appreciate that I remember talking to the board long ago about that you talk in in the weisso concert hosting you cover all the bases

011and it just can't thank you you aren't making it uh insurmountable to get here now I do have one other question it's a question if I wanted to make another comment later in the meeting uh can I do that or do I have to do it now your call obviously and I mean if you want to make another comment you are certainly welcome to make another comment I would I would love to see you do it now oh is that probably more appropriate I think okay no but that's all right I don't want to we do prefer to wait until after well I don't know if I can do that I don't want to breach you know me yeah yeah right well I was between a line follower it shouldn't be a big I mean

012I'm not here to uh you know it isn't contrary to all my emails uh it's uh you know whatever's in the policy I I don't I can sit back down write the thing give it to you and say something no your call I respect everything yeah I think you know in the agenda public comments is now the time for that is now so I think we don't have another public comments part of the agenda later but do you want me to it's okay sit down and come back yeah okay on another does the clock start again all new time and another note um I I think you know I have a it's it's obvious I think that I have a great interest in I'm a history guy and I'm a great interest in in diversity

013and equity and certainly minorities whether they're however they're a minority uh from the indigenous populations to our blacks to our Hispanics uh on down the line the question uh I was looking for and I want to thank uh superintendent ternitzer and Mr hallway sitting down I've been looking for having some kind of information out to the public you can see how interested they are about uh uh about uh the the equity slur and hate speech the one question that I would have and you may have be you may be addressing it in that presentation you may not be but let me back up and just say one more time thank you for meeting with me I found it uh it's very nice you're having this tonight and that's good um it's kind of sad you

014know maybe the thousands of people people out there in radio land are going to listen to it or pick up in a New York Times or something in a positive thing the bottom line is the question is the district uh and you don't have to answer it no you can answer in your speech not your speech your presentation the district hired a doctor Holly out of California saruki Holly I believe who is uh you know a cultural um responsive learning I believe and you know he you adopted him you had him come on you had him talk uh about these you know racial uh slurs and hate speech and then he did that and then all of a sudden later in November there was I think it was November December uh there was a switch

015up and it's in the thing I sent when we met uh Aaron if you want or uh superintendent Terence or I can give you a copy that I can text it to you but you're probably going to address it anyway I'm just curious why the change and uh you know we hire someone the guys that quote an expert um he he has been a two thousand or more presentations and I think the answer was this was the answer what I meant with you guys was you want it to be more localized with the local people kind of like Dane County well I kind of get that and maybe that's it and it is what it is but it's just kind of uh surprising and a little uh interesting because McFarland on his kind I thought

016like to be on the edge of what's what's right and you know not what's right but out there so how does it impact what I'm interested in like I'd be curious and that goes probably to Melissa uh is you know what about like teaching I I think I've seen a new policy and I'll learn it tonight but like uh to uh To Kill a Mockingbird uh if you're gonna do Frank Frederick Douglass is uh uh book that is just out um Huck Finn Mark Twain you know there's there's not good stuff in there and who's that other author that you know kids read there's multiple so I'm curious as to how that's uh I trust those books aren't being thrown out or whitewashing history that's my question uh a little bit um and I understand

017I guess that's it you know I just I like uh as a history guy I don't think we can be uh I think it's good to discuss and have those engagements and appropriate uh with appropriate language at the appropriate times period so that that's a question with lots of answers from me of course so we appreciate that too I'm going to hang around to hear you often again I I do appreciate your repeated answers and I'll just say to you on the last realm it is what it is probably disagree a bit but I get it you know I kind of get it I'm kind of getting it so thank you thank you thank you oh I'm not done well you're welcome what's the time I might sneak out to Sierra basketball game's doing but

018I don't want to miss your presentations all right okay so moving on uh Angie we have no other all right so we'll move on to our high school student report hey welcome all right [Music] okie dokie what's what's going on at NHS in the past two weeks so first of all last week um our McFarland High School hope Squad which is a club dedicated to uh peer-to-peer Suicide Prevention and raising core instruments for mental health last week um hosted a hope week um kind of designed to lift the hopes of MHS students around the school um so they put together like student Raffles candy guessing games for prizes scavenger hunts around the school um and in the morning they also treated MHS students to beverages to welcome them on Monday morning and on Tuesday ended

019up self-love packages so congrats to the Hope squad for and that very successful week um this past um weekend-ish sort of um February 17th Friday our boys swim team uh won uh the first runner up at State um which is incredibly impressive um probably the best they've done so far so congratulations to them our girls basketball also won the Rock Rally conference um so they they secured the championship so congratulations to our girls basketball team um another another another MHS organization State the visual arts classic team which is full of um high school students who are very passionate about art competed at Carroll College and are off to state after winning person the critical thinking our art project the second winning second in the art history quiz bowl and third place overall so amazing job

020to our artists um another Super exciting thing uh because it is Black History Month our macron high school black student union has partnered with 608 threads and created an online store where these wonderful designs can be purchased um so like awesome job to our BSU for Designing this awesome logo featuring a bunch of um very important like black figures throughout history um uh specifically like good job to the two members who create who created the design Shadow Nichols and Alex Collins um that's it are there any questions anybody got anything I don't have any questions but I I it this continues to be one of my favorite parts of the of the school board meetings I think it's um besides your presentation skills it's just really fun to hear all the things even though I

021have students in the district and specifically in the high school I don't always hear about most of those things so thank you I think the comment I would have Joey is that we as a board at least myself and I present the others we're here for the kids and the more often we can hear about kids what they're doing what their challenges are the better informed we are so when we make decisions we can make more sound decisions that will directly support the success of all the students I have to comment on connect you are certainly inclusive of you know probably all the groups at the high school congratulations on that we should try all right thank you guys have a good have a good reference thanks again we'll see you next time bye okay

022moving on we've got our language arts curriculum review and adoption update Melissa welcome thank you Mr Mooney I will have to get a copy of this too via email afterwards um nothing that you need to be able to listen along but information that you'll be able to read and follow up on afterwards Mr tarnitzer asked me to give an update on our Ela curriculum search and review process which is focused on K5 for the most part that's what I'm going to focus on this evening but he also said since you're coming to the board why don't you teach them everything there is to know about the science of reading so I'm going to take about seven minutes to do that and then you'll be experts and after that we'll move on um but this in

023all honesty will be a very brief overview of the science of reading give you a little bit of context and background knowledge because that is something that has informed our committee's work and so it's important to give you just you know a dip in the waters of that information and then any questions you have or follow-up information let me know and we can have more in-depth conversations as you'd like to in that packet I have the closest thing that we have to a DPI definition of the science of reading DPI doesn't come out and Define it but they do release a informational guidebook on dyslexia and related conditions this is appendix E from that document and in that appendix it gives three possible definitions or three kind of suggested definitions of the science of reading

024which are notated there with those orange dots on the side I really appreciate that it says the science of reading is referenced in academic literature in the popular press and on social media and it's important to understand what researchers mean by this term because it's kind of thrown out there people use it in different ways because it is science it's a broad interdisciplinary body of research about reading and issues related to reading and writing and it really has culminated in a preponderance of evidence to inform how proficient reading and writing develop in students now because it is science it's based on the scientific method and that does mean that it changes and evolves over time and in that large body of evidence you can probably find a lot of information that would prove maybe even

025contradictory points at time now a lot of the information that I hear or see you know in social media or in journals when they're talking about the science of reading they're really focused on Phonics and that makes a lot of sense because for people who have been in education for a while you know that the pendulum tends to swing back and forth between ends of ideologies and with the science of reading for a long time the pendulum swung away from phonics and in a lot of ways it's swinging back but within the science of reading people who you know have really studied it and know a lot more than sevens minutes worth of information about the science of reading they would say it is not phonics alone it is phonics yes daily explicit comprehensive phonics

026instruction is important for students to develop as readers and as I talk about our committees process you'll see that we valued and put a lot of importance on that in our search but it's not only that when I say it's not only that what else is it well if you continue in your packet there's the rest of appendix e and then there's a page that was intentionally left blank so that you could look at two models representing the reading process side by side the bottom one that you have there is Almost Famous at this point anytime you read an article about the science of reading they will reference Scarborough's reading rope and that rope really Blends together Scarborough is a researcher and what he says is if you are going to become a skilled reader

027you need the blue part of the Rope there at the bottom which is word recognition skills syllables phonemes alphabetic principle decoding sight reading you need all of those really you know someone who knows who has studied reading research a lot will maybe not appreciate that I'm going to lump that in under the Hat of phonics but kind of in a general audience setting those would be phonic skills some basic foundational reading skills pieces but you don't only need that you also need some comprehensive comprehension skills so you also need background knowledge vocabulary language structures verbal reasoning and literacy knowledge and what this model says is that you can't just work on one first and then the other you have to work on them both together when we think about our kindergartners they're really going to

028focus most of their day on the blue part of the Rope but they have to also be building vocab knowledge sorry background knowledge and vocabulary at the same time and the way they're going to do that is orally so the teacher will be reading a loud complex text with Rich vocabulary they'll be doing that verbally with their students while the students are also picking up that decoding and learning to read on their own as students become proficient readers the blue part of that rope becomes increasingly automatic and skilled readers need to spend less and less of their working memory on those decoding skills and their ability to use language language comprehension becomes increasingly strategic they'll be applying syntax and metaphor in more and more complicated ways as they become more proficient readers now that famous

029graphic what I like the most about it is it matches up almost completely with dpi's model of reading which is the other graphic that I have for you in that yellow box that blue part of the Rope the word recognition happens to also be the blue part of dpi's graphic with foundational skills it's hard to read because of the coloring there but it has the same phonemic awareness skills phonics skills or orthographic knowledge and all of those foundational literacy skills are in blue the Rope part that is kind of orange or red those language comprehension skills we talked about that's the green part of dpi's knowledge right there in the middle but what dpi's model adds that I appreciate is it also says you need cognitive skills as well you need a purpose for your

030reading that helps with your comprehensive you need some strategic reading behaviors and comprehension strategies and then they fill the entire graphic there with a box that says it's also important to think about the social emotional learning that students need their choice and access to books and the interest and relevancy that the topic has to them all of these are pieces that we spent much more than seven minutes on as a committee learning about and unpacking before we begin our search process so that we could make sure that our search was grounded in the latest and up-to-date research about reading on the next page is another piece that we looked at the next page has five columns and these are the key shifts in the ELA standards that came out in 2020. so back in 2010

031Wisconsin adopted the Common Core State Standards for ELA and was a part of their regular review of Standards the ELA standards were updated in 2020. with those updates the 2020 standards built on the foundation of existing standards and reflect new research and understandings of English language arts and literacy so these new standards were meant to reflect the science of reading as well as with anything you'd find people who would disagree and say it didn't go far enough but they did look at the updated research and reading as they revise the standards these shifts are the areas that DPI and the people who wrote the standards which is a committee of Educators from around the state by the way they said these are the things that we should really be focusing on shifts three four and

032five were all existing from the 2010 standards those are focuses on comp um students engaging with regular practice with complex text both literary and informational students engaging with Reading Writing and speaking that's grounded in textual evidence so being able to make a claim and then point to the text and say how they can back that up right from what they are reading and also that students build knowledge through text those three shifts are nationwide shifts from the common core standards and what's great about that is there are a lot of Nationwide resources that evaluate curriculum resources and how well they're aligned to those shifts and there are a lot of tools that we can pull from that are really focused on those three areas as well shifts one and two are new and specific to

033Wisconsin but they make great connections to a lot of the work we have been doing in McFarland locally key shift one is about the importance of recognizing your own and others identities through text that's something that I've talked to the board about before and something that even predating these standards we have that statement of intentionally inclusive curriculum in McFarland that prioritizes students seeing themselves and others fairly and accurately represented in the texts and materials that they read shift to the short version there all students are flexible users of language that really talks about using your language specific to the audience and purpose tonight as I'm speaking to you you know I talked earlier about phonics I kind of use that as a catch-all term based on the audience that I'm talking to if I was

034talking to a group of reading Specialists they would take offense to me calling that phonics overall and they'd want me to really talk about specifically with phonemic awareness and orthographic mapping and use some of those specific vocabulary words as we're teaching our students we want them to think about the audience that they're speaking or writing to and making sure they're using language flexibly based on that audience and purpose as well and that's key shift number two all of that knowledge we spent a lot of time reading learning about it particularly with the members of the ELA committee we developed an updated literacy philosophy and beliefs document that you have in your packet as well that is heavily paraphrased from the state standards since we are obligated and our goal is to meet the state standards

035we wanted to build on that Foundation that they lay out for us and that kind of ends my seven minutes on the science of reading um just a very brief background into what it is and I guess if I had any advice for you if someone brings you know the science of reading or wonders does McFarland believe in the science of reading my answer would be what do you mean when you say the science of reading and kind of getting their Clarity on exactly that and also of course we are always staying up to date in the latest research in science in math in all of the subjects to make sure that we are providing the best instruction that we can for our students I'm going to Pivot and talk about what we did with

036all of that information so the ELA curriculum review really began pre-covered we were giving surveys to teachers in well I worked on creating the surveys in the fall of 2019 we gave them to teachers in January and February of 2020 and I was in the process of collecting survey data from K-8 teachers at the time and going around to schools and talking about a summary of what we heard then we took a break and paused the process while we worked on Virtual learning for a little bit came back from that we did do some virtual committee work and learning and unpacking the new 2020 standards when they came out actually while we were still doing virtual learning at home and the committee really came together it's concludes teachers from every grade K5 including interventionists and

037special education one of the first things we did was develop that philosophy statement we also then developed a tool to evaluate curriculum we adopted a tool from The Institute of educational Sciences in conjunction with the U.S Department of Education that tool was aligned to shifts three four and five that we just talked about which are nationwide shifts and we added to the tool things to really highlight shifts one and two in the standards as well as components that we value and prioritize here in McFarland some of the McFarland specific pieces had to do with wanting curriculum that had great assessments built in wanting curriculums that would fit within our schedule and the number of minutes and days that we had and pieces like that that committee after so that was a Year's worth of work

038that I just talked about in a few sentence learning about the standards philosophy statement creating a tool then over the summer I narrowed our choices down to a top five based on the priorities of the committee what we're really looking for was something that could be as comprehensive as possible we didn't want to have to piecemeal and pull a little bit from this and a little bit of that our first priority was to say do we have a curriculum that could be as comprehensive as possible and have all of the components of literacy included in one place we came up with five options to look at those were Arc core El education Super Kids wonders and the units of study which is our current curriculum the committee spent a full day on each of those

039five so one day a month they had a sub they came in actually to this room most of the time to review the curriculum because of our sub shortage instead of getting together as a K-5 group on Tuesdays the kindergarten and first grade group would come in on Wednesday second and third grade on Thursday fourth and fifth grade would come in and we did that every month September through January looking at our five choices to narrow our options down now three five is still in the process of considering next steps but K2 has made a decision so our K2 teachers will Implement wonders curriculum in all of our classes next school year that was a unanimous decision by the committee and again people who have been in education and particularly Literacy for any amount of

040time to come to a unanimous decision about something is rare and something that is to be celebrated wonders wonders curriculum for K2 yep we chose wonders because it's the best option that meets our need specifically for daily explicit and systematic foundational skills lessons in all areas of the ELA standards Reading Writing speaking listening and language skills and it's aligned with those five shifts that we've talked about particularly with the focus of complex grade level techs vocabulary and building background knowledge through text the last two pages that you have in your packet is a printout of an email that I sent to K2 staff that explains why we selected wonders and has some more information about it from the ELA curriculum committee they select they helped draft this and put it out next steps for K2

041just last week we had a zoom call with some teachers from Milton who are already using wonders to kind of pick their brain learn what they like about it what some of their struggles were I saw some emails floating around between teachers already saying oh I reached out to that teacher already from Milton and she sent us pictures of what her classroom looks like and she sent us a link to the way she organizes her materials so we'll continue to collaborate with teachers in schools that are already using wonders going forward we're hoping by spring break to have identified training dates so that teachers know okay this is when the training is going to happen we're also hoping to have the materials in hand before the end of the school year our teachers are very

042motivated to learn they don't want to wait until the last minute or until August to prepare for the school year so we're hoping to be able to send them home with curriculum resources perhaps do some training yet this spring and then follow it up again in August for any new hires or kind of a refresher as we go that's K2 three five and then I will pause four questions I'll take a breath and some water in a moment um three five is currently at the process where they've narrowed their choices to two choices or of course the nebulous third other but they have narrowed it to the units of study with adjustments so if we are to pick the units of study that would not mean changing nothing it would be sticking with the units

043of study but focusing on the areas that we know we're currently lacking building in a focus on complex text vocabulary word study and grammar their other choice would be wonders as well so three five is considering wonders as an option for them they the committee wants to sent a survey out to all three five teachers to get some feedback on those choices the committee wants to look at the two choices units of study and wonders side by side maybe do some site visits or Zoom calls with teachers who are using wonders in grades three five to get their feedback as well as talk to districts that are still unit using the units of study but are getting different results from us to see what is it that's a little bit different about the way they're

044implementing the materials we are hoping to have a decision for three five by spring break as well just so that we can move on to you know if it does mean ordering materials we can get ahead of that if it does mean you know adjusting what we currently have preparing for summer curriculum hours or professional develop and professional development for teachers to make sure that we can make some of the adjustments that we know we need to stay in alignment with the science of reading with the state standards those five shifts in our philosophy statement there is the update on everything you need to know about the science of reading as well as where we're at in the process what questions can I help with one I had was immediately I was going to ask

045are there area schools obviously you've mentioned at least K2 Milton would we be kind of atypical if we end up having two different starting three five or is that not necessarily uncommon at all and then it's a different building I think four or five and so Milton has wonders for K through three and then they have a different curriculum actually for eight um Janesville has also adopted wonders and they use it all the way K-5 and I think that has to do with the structure of their buildings I've also talked to a school near Milwaukee who uses wonders for k-3 and then something else beyond that so it wouldn't be unheard of for us to have two different curriculum options it would create transitions for us to manage vocabulary and structure would be a little

046bit different students would have to adjust to the style of the different curriculum whenever they switch the middle school is continuing with the units of study so even if we kept wonders all the way K-5 there would still be that transition from fifth to sixth grade to the units of study are you view satisfied with the pace of the work so far you know are we kind of on schedule where you thought you know we would pretty much be at this point yes and no um I wish we didn't have that pause in the spring of 2020. um yeah that would have been better and I really if you walk around schools or talk to teachers at you know Conrad lvm particularly they have been ready for a change for a while and so the

047quickest thing we could have done is by myself I could have picked a new curriculum and said this is the new curriculum that would have been the quickest change we could have made it would probably not have gone as well as this went right for a number of reasons and so I think given that we wanted to have a participatory process we wanted a lot of teachers and feedback involved this is about as quick as it could have gone given everything pulling teachers out of the classroom once a month even was a big ask for their students for them to write sub plans and if we would have tried to compact that work and say okay let's you know meet five days in a row in September we can't do that right we can't do

048that to the kids who need like the reason these teachers are so great is we need them with our students every day we don't need them in this room all day we need them with their students so doing this any quicker would have been really difficult um also it would have you know the other idea was could we have done the search all over the summer and then been ready for this school year well maybe but we would have probably had a limited number of teachers who were available for those days over the summer and then we wouldn't maybe have had the right voices at the table or as much participation so you know like the teachers that I hear from yeah I wish it could have gone more quickly but I think given as

049much input as we wanted in the process this is about as quickly as it could have moved I'm really pleased the goal was to decide by spring break so the fact that we decided by early February was nice it's going to get us like one step ahead maybe of some other districts implementing in terms of the global supply chain and ordering materials and getting them here before the end of the school year I've been talking with the publisher and he's pretty confident we will have the K2 materials by June so that is good that's great yeah Melissa I would applaud the way you did it because I think in the NDA it might be a little bit slower up front but if you have all the teachers behind this they're going to fly now yes

050yeah and so I think you'll make it up and you'll be I think much more successful doing it the way you did so kudos to you thank you so I have a question um what is the I guess the reasoning in looking at those two curriculums for three through five is there something specific that the teachers really like about the old curriculum that they want to keep or yeah um and and no um in in that survey that I mentioned it was split there were teachers who were very passionately advocating for continuing with the units of study and there were teachers very passionately advocating for not to the units of study and I don't think it's opinion based and none of their opinions are wrong the reasoning that they provided for sticking with the units

051of study was strong and based in evidence the reasons they provided for wanting something different and the things that they're seeing that the units of study are lacking is based in evidence reasoned you know it is not flippant it is not without deep thought there is a lot of deep thought on both sides of that decision the units of study provides a lot of authentic texts a lot of time for students to have choice in what they're reading some in the survey indicated that a curriculum that's structured like the units of study is easier to support students because there is so much choice and flexibility others have said it's not enough it's not supporting our students who need more support it's not structured enough it's difficult to support when there's not enough structure or background

052there and that the units of study doesn't have enough foundational skills and those word study vocabulary and complex text parts of the shifts aren't there who's right who's wrong you know it is really hard to say there are districts in the area that are using the units of study who aren't even in a search process they have said nope the units we have invested we are getting the types of results we need we are going to stick with it um if you follow the national news about reading the units of study has had a lot of critiques now particularly those critiques do come with the areas of foundational skills which are the biggest in the standards in grades K through three by the time you get to fourth and fifth grade the standards and foundational

053skills really say apply your knowledge in context it's a you know one or two lines it's a smaller part of the puzzle as we get older and so you know from where I sit I I've told people this I wake up and some days I really think yep we should stick with the units of study other days I wake up and I say yep we should switch to wonders and sometimes I wake up and I go uh what's the third option like what is this other thing that we haven't found yet um if anyone has an idea of what that third thing is I am all ears and happy to look and listen more um it'll be interesting and I think the biggest thing that makes the most difference in our outcomes will be teachers

054self-efficacy their belief that what they do matters and their belief that they have the resources and support to succeed also their belief that their students can succeed again with the resources and support and training they have that is so much more important than any curriculum resources that we have the other thing would be the instructional practices so what is happening between teachers and students is going to matter more than the resources altogether so how do we make sure we are providing teachers with things that make them feel confident that give them the support that they need so they can do that important work with students obviously this is a supplicated complex issue best probably not done in haste yeah I would think I agree yep so again kudos to you and the entire team our

055thanks and uh keep us informed let us know what's going on we'll do thank you very much thank you yeah thank you you bet uh hate speech policies Mr turnitzer floor is yours all right wow the trees are crying paper didn't give one yeah at least double-sided all of the audience yeah I mean honestly just the letter by taking place and at the end of the evening we're gonna have this down to one side of the piece of paper yeah right and we can put this on our website as well I so really the the purpose of this presentation here um tonight is to provide an overview of the policies that exist within the district regarding used to of hate speech and slurs by any member of the school community and so you know as

056you heard in our public comments you know this was the idea for this presentation I appreciate uh Mr hickey for bringing this forward because it seems that through our work particularly this year we've had communication to staff we've had communication to students we've had communication to families and limited communication to the broader Community about these policies and so people know things in pockets and I'm hopeful that in what I I've heard I'm being timed um what will be roughly 20 minutes um I can provide an overview and a context and then entertain your your questions and comments um for that you know these are delicate issues these are evolving issues so I guarantee you that the policies that we're discussing right now will likely look different in five years in 10 years and and would

057have looked different 10 years ago so so know that that I I recognize there's a variety of viewpoints and that these are not my policies these are our policies to share so I divided them into a few groups on the first group that we're going to talk about and I'm going to share is policies for all members of the school community and as I go through these policies I did attach all of the policies and the email I sent and all everything that we're going to talk about is in there and it's in entirety but I'm going to highlight some of the language the first policy we're going to talk about is one the board should know well this is policy 2105.01 District resolution in support of diversity and Equity this was a policy that

058really was formally adopted in May of 2021 but it was a resolution adopted by the board prior to that in June of 2020 and that was a time this was brought to us by students and community members on this resolution the board met discussed it in Open Session made some changes and then adopted the resolution things I want to highlight of that is it's clearly stated in there that the district unequivocally condemns racism hate speech so that phrase is right there included that vilifies humiliates or incites hatred against a person or a class of person's bigotry hateful behaviors and all forms of unlawful discrimination a line I really want to highlight and one that I think is important for the district to demonstrate their commitment is that these behaviors harm students and they harm all

059of us and the school district must impose appropriate consequences consequences aren't specified in terms of what those are which I do appreciate because it allows flexibility based on the context of the situation which will be a theme in my conversation my presentation to you a much less interesting policy in my mind is policy 7544 but it is important use of social media so I think this policy I'm not sure exactly on the origins um of it it is a policy that I think emanated from the policy service that we use in the district which is Neola but it was adopted formally by the board in June of 2020 and I highlight it because it does say that District approved social media sites shall not include content that is and it states several things but one

060of those is constitute hate speech and again says staff for students who post prohibited content may be subject to disciplinary action in terms of policies specific to students the one that is really like it's that sort of the what students think of as the hate speech policy um is included and it was an addendum um to our handbook initially so this really came in the 2020-21 school year the administrative team through leadership in the high school put together this this policy and then it was formally a made part of the family handbook the following year 2021 and 22. there's a lot of great language in there that I think guides our work but it again says that we condemn racism and hate speech it says in capital letters I will not shout it to you

061but hate speech is not protected speech it has consequences and those consequences can vary so if it says if a student has a disciplinary referral that involves the usage of hate speech it will result in additional consequences consequences and restorative practices will be based on the offense and determine at the building level and I highlight that because that is again I'm coming back to this theme I think there's a misunderstanding um sometimes that when you say that there will be consequences that means anytime someone would say something that means a suspension or you know expulsion or whatever consequence you have in your head but consequences really do vary um if you ask a student having an educational learning opportunity with a school administrator feels like a consequence and I've had many of those in my

062time and sometimes that is the level of intervention that's needed so consequence to me just means there'll be a response it won't be ignored and so though sometimes people toss around the phrase zero tolerance and you know my nuanced way of addressing that is to say that in my mind zero tolerances we're gonna do something but the what I think is open to the context of the situation and in the Judgment of all of those involved um certainly as a school administrator I can tell you that a student's ability to reflect on their behavior take responsibility for their behavior does have an impact on the consequences that's an important part of the process their intentions as well I'm the this handbook policy also talks about everyday acts of intolerance manifesting themselves in many ways lists

063many name-calling slurs defines hate speech as communication that carries no meaning other than to vilify humiliate or incite hatred for a group or class of people especially in circumstances in which the communication is likely to provoke violence um so this idea of this form of expression that is that is offensive is is listed there and it can take many many forms and it's hard to make an inclusive list of all of the forms but symbols do are included the next policy is one that should be familiar as well policy 5517 this is a board policy student anti-harassment um in the definition of harassment it states it also includes hate speech and the use of language or behavior which is the use of language Behavior images symbols that Express prejudice against a particular group on the

064basis of any protected characteristics and it has some examples provided making statements that promote violence toward a racial her ethnic group drawing displaying or posing posting excuse me images or symbols of prejudice and the example given is swastikas that in and of itself a swastika swastika is considered an example of hate speech um it also talks about racial slurs and nicknames implying stereotypes epithets and or negative references regarding racial Customs so it breaks down there's racial harassment religious harassment which involves religious slurs and that natural origin ancestry harassment and the reference ethnic slur so they separated out but you can see the theme there and this was as far back as I can trace it first adapt and December adapted and then revised in December of 2013 but our most recent version was adopted in

065November of 2021. for staff they're similar there's three types of policies board policies about employee anti-harassment and once for administration once for professional staff and a ones for support staff this is the thing that the board comments about how annoying it is that there's three policies that say the same thing but that's the way it's set up and so it talks about you'll see that same that same exact language that you saw on the student policy about harassment including hate speech in the examples included you'll also see the the separate areas reference that I talked about so I'm not going to go into the details on that because it's the same as the student policy and isn't that nice important to be consistent the next one is a really important one and then I think

066the last thing I'll talk about is is an email I sent with the hopes of providing Clarity this um position on reading slurs and texts the context where this came from really this was distributed to to staff in May of 2021 but it was after involving people in the process initially it was drafted by myself and Aaron Fisher the literacy coordinator and then brought to staff for feedback and response the reason I came up was because of incidences in class where students were upset when their teacher was reading test texts that existed and included a slur and when the teacher read that aloud that had it upset the students and we wanted to be clear on what was our stance as a district in terms of you know do you read those words aloud do

067you not read those words words aloud and I'm going to tell you so that you know in case you don't know this is controversial people have very strong opinions on this within our district outside of our district and they feel just as passionately and when you talk about how experts feel experts disagree on this topic so the district has has to take a stand and in this case you know through review with staff and through discussion and in the administrative team administrative Council the decision was made to move forward with this policy which says that we as teachers do not read a slur or hate speech aloud to our students and I'll read you some parts of that you know if we try to in this in this document explain the rationale for it and

068things that we considered it says we as a district are choosing not to read aloud slurs and texts that we teach by disallowing the usage of slurs even when it comes to reading a text out loud we are demonstrating to our students that Words of Power as individuals we don't get too arbitrary decide when they are hurtful and offensive and it talks about that reading a slur really denies experiences perspectives and consequences for people who have had to live with the impacts of language Beyond School in in that sense it's an example of a microaggression there's a difference between getting to use a derogatory term and having to live with its dehumanizing effects and that a slur can affect the ability to learn by invoking stereotypes and stereotype threat and what you know what I

069I challenge us to do as we think about this policy is to put ourselves in in the shoes of someone that hears a slur being read aloud and has an an immediate visceral reaction to hearing that word it affects them in a way that is in a conscious level sometimes it's it's just an immediate level to hear your your teacher read that slur aloud you know can be hurtful and offensive regardless of the intention um and certainly that is not our goal um as Educators however um that doesn't mean we don't teach that text or remove that text or not talk about it in fact the policy says the opposite it says you need to talk about we're choosing not to use this word because and it explains a little bit of that they should

070share with students why the words are not being shared referencing the reasons shared above staff members with questions or concerns you know I'm concerned and contact building administrators um and so that that that policy has been in place and then the last thing I'll focus on before I think it is before we get to questions is an email that I sent uh to the staff in November of 2022 and So what had happened is we had had a very public incident Personnel issue that had raised a lot of questions among staff and they were good questions they were questions about when I hear this being happened by students what should I do what can I do what can I say and it was causing a lot of stress from our staff and so I sent

071this email with a hope to provide some clarity and so that people understood and had a chance to to think about you know the expectations and ask questions and I I received positive responses from the clarity although I'm sure there's still some questions out there some of the highlighted language and I pretty much included the whole the highlighted language is pretty much the whole email because it's also good because it's also good um but it does say um that this it says this year the school year we continue our progress and how we prevent and address the use of slurs and hate speech including the n-word our goal is to be as clear as possible that the use of slur hate speech is not acceptable meaning it will be addressed through education and consequences for

072those that use it regardless of the form of the word that being whether it ends in an A or an ER who says it and the intention of the person seeing it hearing a slur or hate speech regardless of the context causes harm and may cause confusion about expectations for the use of the word among those who hear it I'm just going to pause here to highlight something and this is if if you were able to attend presentations that we just had with with Percy Brown Jr and and Dr Briggs they they talked about this and their experience and the use of the word and um Percy Brown spoke extensively particularly with our students about the conversations that he has and has had with our students about using a slur for a group with which

073they identify so for example an African-American student using the n-word or a person who identifies as lgbtqia using the F slur and it was interesting because through that process students had had the students that he spoke to had kind of come to a an agreement amongst each other that we can't use that word because if we use this word other kids hear it and they think they can use it it's confusing to people and it it sets a bad precedence some words you just don't say you know and and particularly in the context of school so that's where that comes from and that's the philosophy and I'll expand upon that in a minute the exact extent of the consequences will vary based on the specifics of the situation so I I spoke at that at

074length earlier but reiterated here um I also um had added a park because I had gotten questions about okay I understand we can't read this aloud but what if it's in a movie um or something that we're showing and again someone could hear that and be upset so we want to have them be prepared anytime hate speech or slurs appear in written audio or videos resources used for instruction teachers should first carefully consider the educational purpose of the use of the word and consider if alternative resources or alternate portions excuse me of the same resource could meet those objectives so is it necessary for the learning okay let's say it is if they decide to move forward parental permission and consent should be obtained prior to showing the video and the option of alternate educational

075resources should be provided so the teacher should also consider muting the the video and the reason is is because we really want students to be involved in that and families to be involved in deciding whether or not that's appropriate for their their child especially given developmental needs and a student's own experience so lastly I'll address um the um what Mr hickey referenced earlier about Dr Holly's standpoint so Dr Holly just so you know shiraki Holly we just had a zoom with him um last week we have hired um not necessarily him but but his company him and his company because he has developed a model that we really believe is essential for our staff and our students it's called culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and learning you've heard about it this should not be the

076first time that you're hearing about it and that really is a method of engaging students by recognizing their background what they're bringing and juxtaposing that with with kind of what we would consider kind of traditional schooling models so making sure all kids with different learning styles and backgrounds and experiences are engaged in our curriculum he sends out a newsletter you know periodically that talks about different issues and so we've been doing the work with Percy Brown Jr and Dr Briggs for several years and so you know our our stance on hate speech is informed by their work as well as our own experience right the students that I have worked with personally and others have worked with personally that have had upsetting experiences when they hear the use of a slur out loud you know

077those are the kids that that I think we need to put at the top of our list in terms of considering our approach Dr Holly his standpoint he takes a different position than what the district and and other experts do and he states that if you know the n-word is used um ending in an ER that we should provide a consequence that's different but he separates that from using the n-word ending in an A and he sees those as two different things um that that should require a different response um he also believes that when the word appears in the text that we should have students say the word so that is that conflicts you know with the our District's approach um and I would say that you know he talks about education in both

078approaches um and that is something where we agree like he feels like you should still educate in either situation and I think you know where we would disagree is that if we hear the word used with an A or an ER we're going to address it either way and there will be some form of consequence now if that form of consequence means you know conferring with a with a with a building administrator that's one thing it doesn't mean it's always going to result in a suspension or something if it's staff it doesn't I mean it's going to result in a suspension for staff or I know a letter in the file or whatever it may be we really um and you may disagree and you're welcome to disagree and of course influence our policy and

079change our revise our policy as you see fit but we really believe that if we end up having a prescriptive consequence for every type of behavior you really eliminate eliminate your ability to address the context of the situation and to be flexible so I would caution the board about moving in that direction and um you know I I feel like as a district that's one of our Hallmarks with restorative practices and the work that we do is that we really want to repair the harm and there's a variety of ways that that can occur all right so that probably was over 20 minutes um but that was kind of my quick synopsis it has all of this stuff in there that you're expected to read board members public is not um so at this point

080I open it up um to your questions comments regarding this really important I'm just glad you you've that word it's evolving because it is just changed it has changed in my lifetime oh my goodness how things have changed and you know as a as an educator for you know 40 years it changed and it's going to continue to change and I do like the fact that you've also included that flexibility because I remember at first that was my concern like oh my gosh if we get to the zero base oh my gosh and that that takes out the education yep there is and that's where I mean you know the first question comes from a kid is why that's where the education begun you know it begins there so I think I I applaud is

081I also um have a friend who you know you mentioned the fact that you know perhaps we don't want to necessarily make it something that's kind of more common to the area but I do believe it's important that in some ways we are more closely aligned with our neighbors I think that's important because you have kids who are going to have friends in other schools and I think that could you know I I just think that would pose problems too perhaps are good educational experiences but I think it's good that we're trying to I think follow pretty much what Dane County schools are doing I think you did that I know you addressed that to me when I've talked to you privately so I appreciate that too okay um Mission it's I think I I

082really support the policies that you've laid out for us and the reasoning I think that's really important I do um in the end fully support the flexibility of the I like your interpretation of zero tolerance you know um and I think where it gets sticky for the public is they they really want those stringent like when this happens this is the consequence but I think and and that's the tricky part for all of us to educate right because it's such a complicated issue and um and while I would love to be able to give the public that kind of rhetoric and algorithm it's just not the right way to do it so I really appreciate that um or what I feel is the right way to do it so I really appreciate that part of

083the way that you've clarified for the staff and all of that so that's great yeah sometimes I it's easy for me to get on a soapbox and you can feel that I'm pretty passionate about this but one of the things that I often hear is about well in the real world you know there's consequences you do this and you have this I don't know what real world people are living in because decisions are made routinely if I'm speeding and I get pulled over I don't know that I'm gonna get a ticket you know sometimes I do sometimes I don't you know it depends on the situation I don't speed um but if I were to speed I should say um yeah and if I were to get pulled over but I do think that that

084is because the context does matter it might I mean what I really appreciated and I appreciate all the clarification on reviewing again the reservation I have are the consequences yeah I think they're too broad which is probably a different opinion um citing examples would help there's nothing to say we can't cite examples in the policy because that still leaves flexibility um but I think it's still too dependent on certain people uh what those consequences may be so again um I I would be more comfortable if we gave some scenarios for examples of if you do this this is what's going to happen realizing there might be some flexibility to that because otherwise it's a big mystery you know people don't know when we talk about consequences well you know you know just like you mentioned

085is it suspension expulsion neither one you know I think to be more transparent it would be helpful at least for me and I would assume some public just cite some examples for us I appreciate that Tom um and um to give some credit to our associate principals they have brought forward this year the idea of doing that with you know our entire code of conduct and so it's going to take a while but it's not just related to hate speech and the use of slurs right it's all of our behaviors and then you but they're put into sort of ranges you know it could be as little as this or as big as this so at least defines the options right because if you come to school intoxicated you're not going to just get education

086right something more is going to happen um so kind of shrinking that range I think would would address your concern not only for this top expect for others Justice and I certainly support that but are there times when we know up front that that is not the option to go to yeah so there are and I think the I want to clarify oh I like this opportunity I hope everybody watches us that it's not an either or and I think sometimes that's what gets confusing for people is they think where you're doing restorative practices so you know there's no consequences um I have a long speech about that which will be more than 20 minutes but what I will say is at times there there are consequences suspension expulsion as the board knows well um

087that that do happen sometimes that's an addition to restorative practices sometimes restorative practices are not an option I'll give you an option an example if someone doesn't take responsibility for their actions you can't have restorative practices you can't restore it if they're not able to acknowledge the harm that they've caused if a victim isn't comfortable meeting and sharing you can't force that to happen that is harmful and so we those things happen all the time and it's not indeed either or so I appreciate that question and opportunity to clarify I think lastly oh no go ahead finish it up last night how do you know how effective the consequences are I mean do we have data any type of data out there that through the behavioral reports or whatever but the consequence has been administered

088um do you have any idea that just showed that yes this was an effective consequence or oops additional consequences were required down the road yes that's a great question repeat offenses is really the best data that we have so if if a situation happens uh you know does it happen again now of course we only know what we're made aware of okay so we got to be sensitive to that but that is data that that we can look at I can only speak for my experience at at the middle school of course I'm growing to understand the experience at the other buildings but that was something we would look at for all kinds of the all behaviors in terms of repeat offenses but particularly bullying and harassment because if we felt like if we could

089address something and put a lot of time into it the first time and it doesn't happen again that was worth the time and the energy to do that and and effective so okay thank you Megan um I think the the I think it's an interesting um idea to include the examples like you were saying Tom and even for the code of conduct um I wonder though where the issues that arise or the incidents that arise where we can't share the whole story and when people can see well this is what the Spectrum was or this is it from what they are able to know this is the information that or consequence that should be applied but if there's information that they can't know then it it becomes you know in a an appearance of unfairness

090or inequity or something and so that would be one I don't I would just say that we should think about that as we decide what examples to include or what information to include because that's I mean that could be damaging for victims and other people especially if there's restorative practices involved and also Personnel you know restorative and Personnel like it's I think it could create some other perceptions that maybe we don't need I don't know I can say you know in 16 years in this District I am routinely naive because I just assume that if something that I hear doesn't make sense I probably don't have enough information there's probably something missing um but that's based on my experience with the district and my my faith and trust in the district and the people that

091I know and the experiences I've had that would support that if you're a Community member or a family member who for whatever reason my whether it's your own experiences your own experiences as a student just is it it doesn't fully trust the district and their ability to make decisions and maybe you've had a bad experience then I think it's you know it's it's natural to sort of Wonder well that doesn't make sense they're not handling this correctly and that that is the most difficult part and so you know in my brief time as as a superintendent my seven months with multiple weather related calls and difficult decisions to make um I I'm trying to be as transparent and proactive as I can and sometimes saying too much or the risk of saying too much more

092than people have time to listen to is what I mean by too much to try to be proactive to that and share as much as I can because you're right anything else will be involving topic I just gotta say I really I mean Aaron seriously your passion is incredible to hear your think that and say this you know it's like wow very very um admirable and uh I've learned tonight myself from you so Kudos thanks for putting this on uh it's really really beneficial so I know I'm out of line but what's new but seriously I was going to apply a number of things just particularly the curriculum thing and uh Holly so just thank you very much you it's clear so you were um it's clear as a leader where your passion is and

093where you want to roll um so thank you I just want to give you a little also you were here maybe you weren't here when I made the snow snow day call were you here for that no I don't think so I have it award from the a council that maybe I'll pass on to you it's called the Winnie award because uh I call it snow day and it rained I mean there wasn't any snow so I don't know how you're taking the handsome but I think I hold the record I think I have heard that story now yeah I might uh if I can uh send it I would expect it to be in your office though you know if I presented framed you know no oh yes thank you for letting me break

094yeah if we if we can just quickly Circle back just real quick I would also say that I commend the the strict line that you've drawn about reading texts or not reading texts and the and the the thought process behind that and just to reiterate how complicated and nuanced this work is especially in a community where we are predominantly um not part of a marginalized group where there were either white or were you know the socioeconomics isn't isn't different I think it's um I think that's the thing that we continue to forget as a society about how um complicated it is and how important it is to remember that we're all humans and that um we all have to learn this so and that and that's going to be hard as we go through that

095you know and I think sometimes it gets lost that this work isn't strictly about you know black and white or you know all the racial aspects of society today there's so many other things with the lgbtq folks and you know any marginalized or underserved uh you know part of the society to me all falls under this Dei work it's it's not just the the folks of color in the students of color obviously that's a predominant part of it but we have to keep in mind that it's more than just that Equity work on any level helps any marginalized or underrepresented groups no okay we have anything else the challenge is how do we get that same interpretation out to the public we're working on it constant thing that we will work on yes okay we're

096moving right into summary of the February weeva board meeting Mr Mooney please okay thanks this is the monthly update uh they have 206 total yeah I'm sorry yeah yeah go ahead Tom uh We've employees 206 total staff 56 of them were hired this school year because basically because of enrollment increases um they do have their strategic plan and goals their goal is to that 70 of the students will meet their growth goals the graduation rate will increase by 10 percent and the decrease of withdrawals by minus 10 percent uh we heard different stories from uh students both graduates and high school students on how virtual learning turned their learning around Forum from being struggling students to successful students they share the data on the beginning of the year versus the middle of the Year student

097growth and the era of reading and it's interesting because they classify their students uh in this way those that need urgent intervention those that need intervention those that are unwatched and those that are at and above benchmark and you've heard me say before it's that urgent intervention that they're trying to really increase this year to help support the most struggling students another goal that they have is to decrease student engagement increase through engagement decrease the failure to participate and in 2018-19 they had 420 students who failed to participate whose names came before the board last year was down to 152. so we see that training in the right direction unfortunately last month or last semester there were 96 so we'll see how the second semester rolls up we heard from the we had strategic my

098updates from their advisory councils which include the family Council and the staff Council and right now they're preparing families and staff for liftoff of State testing this spring and that concludes my monthly report any questions for Tom comments if that will move along thanks Don thank you very much Tom to the district administrators report Aaron okay uh so first thing is you have a couple of uh drills in this case an actual safety issues that were addressed there were two medical holds at the high school I'm going to use this to segue right into recognitions because um having you know living in this building and seeing the way that the staff respond when there is a medical hold which is typically to protect the the safety and privacy of a student or staff member who

099is in need of medical attention is so impressive um and you know there was an an incident where um occurred at during lunch which is a time that's always our worst case scenario like we have to do something during lunch and staff responded and you know collectively just intervened and helped and it was just a really powerful example and I just kudos to the high school staff and the high school administrative team for just preparing staff to be able to respond on in those situations and protect the privacy of the students involved um you know Mr Jacobson was here earlier and I just wanted to again acknowledge everyone involved in the hiring process we are very grateful to Mr finstead for his service to the district and you know also excited for Mr Jacobson and

100as he begins that new role but grateful for the Community involvement once again 757 people filled out a survey saying what they're looking for in a principle that's amazing of course it was a school resource officer appreciation last week we are still appreciating officer zietma and we'll do so in the future yes we do yeah he had some big shoes to fill and has done a wonderful job bus driver appreciation week was uh you know technically last week tomorrow is sort of our bus driver Appreciation Day there'll be a breakfast for the bus drivers and just want to acknowledge now where does this happen um some restaurant um I don't remember not in the district um outside of the district Nelson's a reminder you know serves other districts lesser districts um but we are we

101are grateful for them and it's amazing with the bus shortages out there we are looking for drivers um but compared to other communities Nelson's retention rate is very high for their employees a real positive culture and there's so many people involved and of course from a district and that is largely Jeff Mahoney and his leadership but the staff at Nelson's with whom I get to speak at four in the morning on some days do an excellent job the drivers are so student focused um we're just very grateful for them do a great job they literally have our students lives in their hands I've given that speech to many a student before uh so congratulations I know you saw this but Spartan headquarters was selected as one of 4331 schools in the nation as gold certified

102so three students are going to be eligible to to represent Deca and Spartan headquarters at the international level in Orlando uh so that's really kind of a cool thing yeah it's really exciting incredible it's amazing the program that they continue to build I don't know how they do it they don't sleep um strengthening unfortunately I was not able to attend but I heard wonderful things about how that went a reminder that's that's all of our Orchestra students on grades 5 through 12 um spend a day kind of work shopping and practicing and then they it culminates in a concert that evening at the middle school and high schoolers helping younger students just a great event and it is all due to Leanna Hershey and her leadership I it's amazing the event t-shirts and I don't

103know it's it's outstanding what a great opportunity and that's hers that's not something that someone tells her to do that's something she wants to do the first real initiative that we passed when I joined the school board in 2010 was to form the orchestra back then I think we had maybe six kids that were third grade fourth grade something like that and grown to what it is today is phenomenal yeah it's absolutely remarkable what am I can I interrupt your report to just talk on that so yeah if you were able to attend I would yes it was um one thing that I've noticed about it that's really fun that Miss Hershey puts in there is that she often incorporates some other community musician and um like I think last year the year before it

104was a fiddle group that was so fun to listen to and then this year it was um a composer who worked with the students for the whole time to um to learn the piece that she had composed and then she also LED one of like one of the composing workshops at string fling and so that was really um like this is a special opportunity that I don't know other programs get you know so I second yeah that's all of her initiative I was supposed to be a narrator but I was at wrestling um so which we're not going to talk about um so uh then the last thing I wanted to acknowledge is just safety today all day long um Dr Brooke Hauser and Sarah bouzalaki represented the district at a training and I can

105never remember what it stands for so I'm going to read this embarrassingly school safety and violence event Incident Management training and so really proud of our district leadership with with safety our administrators are so invested and so are our staff and that training and they volunteered to attend this training and bring their wisdom back we've we've also I don't know how much I've shared I guess I shared it with the board in the minutes but I'll share publicly that the district has contracted with a school safety consultant Corey saffold during the day he's he does that work in Verona but he also has a consultant firm that he's working with and he's currently conducting a safety audit of the district and we'll bring that feedback back to us so we can make changes to be

106to be safer next I'm going to share just some some photos from around the district with you reminder this was Tom Mooney's great idea and so these are things that you could see maybe you've seen on social media uh we have the class positive character trait Community quilt so each kid uh each student made a square recognizing their classmates for their kindness keeping with the theme while we saw also has a kindness Focus for this month and they had a theme now these are our power leaders fifth graders and there's similar things in each of the buildings you should know the middle and the high school also have student leaders that do this kind of work making posters about how the challenges for showing kindness and there was a bingo challenge so just spread the

107kindness around the district um the the fifth grade won the grade level McFarland food pantry a challenge at wabisa and I was there when they were throughout the process they were revealing the updates and it was intense so they they really that competition thing works um and and we're so grateful for the McFarland food pantry and glad to partner the pantry is so grateful to this school yeah they do a lot yeah and it's families that do it I mean the district doesn't bring the food um um this was a a post about new books for the fifth grade classroom libraries and reminder we want kids to see themselves and others in the books that they read they talk about mirrors and windows and sliding glass doors that's a speech for another day but um

108a nice thing and as was shared in the post we're focusing on a grade level at a time updating these classroom libraries with some new offerings the science Bowl competition just you know so grateful that the regional science Bowl competition and so grateful for Mary Don again for her leadership of that they get so excited it is really intense it is fast-paced I don't know if you've ever seen it but it's really cool and very scary for someone that doesn't know most of the answers I am intimidated by these Scholars as we've mentioned before a Little Mermaid I love this picture had a great great run World read aloud Day celebrated throughout the district here's some teachers reading aloud and I believe that's a social studies teacher and a science teacher so just pointing out

109we read across the curriculum also heard a choir teacher reading to students um this is one of my I mean I love them all but this post really he got me the Goosebumps so my a little tear uh the McFarland High School has a club called girl up and the members visited fourth graders to talk about um anybody being in stem on International women and girls in science day so just a neat thing anytime we can do cross-grade things that just makes me happy so appreciate the advisors of that group for their leadership of course we mentioned hope week activities was really fun to see that in an important reminder to students about their mental health during what is traditionally a very difficult time of the month or month of the year for for students

110Auto three class just nice to see some of the Hands-On stuff we talk about it we don't often get to see it so Mr Han amazing educator with our students that's engagement for you of course Optimist senior of the month you know Mr Mooney knows well as the spokesperson he puts on a good show each month and and Bryn Barry who here recognizes the the student on the month senior of the month very deserving I'm sure she's loving that parking spot and we do have school whenever we do have school school counselors week I'm Angie I want to acknowledge put together this wonderful post of recognizing our school counselors we will be adding school counselors next year but these are our amazing six who that what they do for our students staff and families and

111it really is all three of those groups um it's just amazing so so grateful for them that concludes the slideshow upcoming events I've mentioned several of those a few important things a public schools week is coming up February 27th also that is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week March's women's History Month youth youth art month music in our schools month there were some typos in the minutes that none of you noticed I called it Jurassic in our schools month um in the minutes so that just encourage you to read those a little more closely read Across America America day is March 2nd kindergarten orientation wow right yeah that's crazy March doesn't March sound nice maintenance workers Appreciation Day is on the third School Social Work Week soft spot in my heart coming up on March 5th

112we have currently have two wonderful School social workers we'll be recognizing and then we've got our next school board meeting which means I don't need to talk about the rest that concludes a lot of me thank you very much sir thank you so we will move on to some action items here okay we have action on second reading and Adoption of policies and there are a number of them there that uh I won't read here but what I will do instead I think let's go ahead and make the motion [Applause] so I will do that I'll move to approve the second reading and Adoption of policies 2260.02 services for bilingual students English learners 2414 human growth and development 2460.03 independent educational evaluation or IDE [Applause] 3120.04 employment of substitutes 3425 benefits 4425 benefits 5113 open

113enrollment program inter-district 5517.01 bullying 7440.01 video surveillance and electronic monitoring eight seven four zero protection of District funds 3217 weapons 4217 weapons 511 eligibility of Resident and non-resident students 7217 weapons 7440.03 small unmanned aircraft systems as recommended by Administration oh do I have a second I'll second one thing I want to note I think in your reading I think you said the human growth and development yeah and I thought that was on for first reading nonsense that's correct now that you say that that is absolutely correct so would you like to modify your emotion uh yes I would like to modify my motion by removing you know 2414 human growth and development from this motion for approval of the second reading as that particular policy is up first reading still thank you okay okay you

114second oh second discussion hearing none all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries five zero action on first reading of policy 2414 human growth and development this is the second the second the first reading of this policy as we had some questions during the first reading at a meeting last week we will discuss some of this information um research regarding the policy and statutes make recommendations for changing before the second reading if you're in favor of this recommendation I would look for emotion I think we do have some I mean someone can make a motion I can't stop you from doing that but I think there were some things that people wanted to discuss with this one as well sure and and we can do that I guess after we

115get emotion yeah okay he can make the motion I'll second okay Tom thank you okay discussion so I sent an email to you and I'll share the content of that with with the public verbally here right now um there were some questions that the board members had raised last week about some content in the policy of also received some feedback from the community on the POS on the policy I wanted to share a couple of things when you start at when you look at the top of the policy it says the very top the board directs the students receive instruction human growth in the development consistent with chapter 118. such instruction will include the following um so that was a choice that the board had a previous board had made that the language would be

116will include according to State Statute you are not required to include those elements they are recommended by Statute that first um section there is not required by Statute both A and B are not required by Statute so that's a decision the board can make do you want to keep it as is which is will include do you want to keep it will include some of those things do you want to take all of those out that's a decision for the board to make so I don't know if you want to talk about them piece by piece or if you want me to do the whole spiel I think the only um I think there's only one I I think a lot of the items listed in the optional parts um I think are really appropriate

117I mean it feels like there it's a lot about health and scientific knowledge and medically necessary knowledge and and things like that um for me personally the only one that I thought maybe I would like to see go is under B three the address the positive connection between marriage and parenting I think that starts to go into that area that we talked about last time where um I mean and they're I'm sure there's positive research about that but I think it goes into that area where it might um not make all of our students and Community feel included or even represent a lot of our constituents really so Megan do you have a suggestion on how that could be more inclusive well I don't I guess I'd have to see the information that that we

118would present that is covered under that line because um because I think it's I mean it's connecting marriage and parenting and and someone who's not married and maybe single parenting could be you know think like oh is there a negative connection but to my type of parenting versus you know because they're unmarried or even the child um kids yeah um how the child might feel about that so I don't I think I'd have to see more of the specific things taught to be able to answer that question yeah you know and the way you explain that like I certainly concur with uh your opinion I guess I just didn't interpret it in that fashion but if others made then we have to re-examine that now but I guess one thing that kind of jumped out

119to me reading it is that there's a there it's it seems to be a almost overbearing push toward marriage absolutely I mean that the entire policy is kind of pointed toward you know the ideal situation would be for all of our kids to abstain until they get married and then get married then have kids and everything is great and and I don't know I don't know that that's you know necessarily true and I don't know if it's necessarily appropriate yeah I totally agree but what would I do differently that's where you're captured me you know I don't know I don't know what I would do differently if I would take the references to you know the ideal end game is marriage and family I don't know if I would take it out I just don't

120know I just feel like it's really pushed by the district in this policy yeah in the policy because when you take a look at it that part of the policy could have been written in 1950 or 1960. and we are in 2023 now it's true culture has changed a lot I mean the family units look so very different now I mean that I guess that's why I'm saying like what what positive connection are they talking about because I imagine that whatever positive connection they're trying to inform the child the students about she's probably also found in a lot of different relationships whether it's a you know it's mm-hmm I mean and I don't even mean relationships between adults but like relationships between students and parents and Guardians and characters next and a caretakers yeah well

121so that's why I think we should just take it out I don't I because I don't have enough information to come up with a alternative another term could be committed relationships but that's open for love and misinterpretation also I think it just doesn't do justice to the parents and families who have one parent or non-traditional um or I mean I think it just I think it I think it does and it's an injustice to single parents and and even co-parenting I mean there's a lot of parents who are really strong parents when they're co-parenting and not living together and are much better parents that way sure um yeah so I don't know I so where do we what do we do from here Mr ternitzer do we well I sit down and talk about Reese

122re doing it or yes so you could say you could say that you move we're not done with discussing the policy but if that's a change removing item B3 that is being proposed then you could you know adopt that when we get to the second reading and adoption I could make the revision for the second reading and then you can adapt the revised policy at that that is a choice policies before so I think most of this should be included because it's important to teach this I agree with you I I think I know like where they were going there you know this is an old policy and I think a lot of it was based on data that came out a while ago um I think I'm I'm fine with taking that just completely

123out the other thing is in the top section that Aaron was talking about such instruction will include the following we could modify that to say may include the following that way depending on interpretation of whoever's teaching this right they may choose to teach all of it or they may choose to eliminate certain parts I thought the same thing Kate but the only trouble is then then I feel like you could end up having a teacher out on a limb and and I just wondered in some ways it should be our job to say look let's just not go here and I think that's where the curriculum comes in right yeah yes yeah the teachers teach the curriculum to Fidelity and would hopefully be mostly consistent yeah um yeah yeah so the just so the so

124the board in the community is aware you know this policy sets certain things that are part of that curriculum but the curriculum is much more than that and there's an advisory Council that helps determine determine that and it's not includes Community people yes by Statute and no and note this language is right out of the statute right as well all of this whole first part is but it states recommended for that so that was so are we good to do that so we're taking taking it out you know taking out B3 yeah that's what I would recommend Tom you're good yes and then the second part so it starts with you know in my case it's the bottom of my page but I don't know where it is for you the following shall also be

125incorporated oh let me just well you I guess you said what B3 was but it and I want to make sure the public hears that too um we removed from B3 is the instructional program will also include the following address the positive connection between meriting marriage and parenting has been removed um again it's not officially adopted we're just moving on to the next step so then this part is this next part that I'm going to read just for clarity it does stay this content is required the statute requires this be taught yeah the following shall also be incorporated into the above subjects one age appropriate that is language in the statute that we are adding proposing adding um that's why it's in Green in the same course and during the same year and then it

126lists out you know a through h um items and you know the board had um board members had shared some concerns about the content of that and so in my you know in my research looking at some options just for your consideration of course you can leave it as is it is required by Statute it's not something that the board can change yeah without legislative action you could um the I guess I'll go to The Other Extreme which would be you could just add the phrase that says you know the um the [Music] the following loss would be um the board so [Music] you know the um curriculum will include content about subjects when age appropriate as directed by as required by chapter 118 yeah you could just say that and not have any language

127and then the middle option and I'm not suggesting any of them the middle option is sort of say say that as required by the statute and then list what's required all three options are available to the board leave it as is say we're going to follow the statute or the middle which is we're going to follow the statute and here's what it says I think for clarity's sake we should probably do it that way the last way we're going to follow the statute no and here's what it says I I get really torn because this is the part of the policy that I have feel like could do the most damage to so you know like and wouldn't be the most inclusive um so part of me wants to take not list it and say

128the first option where we're just we're going to follow the statue yeah I think how that's why and that lists the specifics of it because it doesn't I mean we have to follow the statute hopefully the statute changes but I don't also want us just spelling it out as people are going to read that and I feel like it it doesn't align with what we're doing up above so I think we just put it as we're following the statute and whatever that statue statute is is I agree quite well taken yep I agree yeah Tom what do you think you're sure I agree sure I mean it doesn't it doesn't feel 100 transparent but also I feel like it's the most triggering language so it feels like I think I I mean I totally agree

129with you Kate that would be my preference too um and parents are gonna pay attention to that the annual update that they receive for their kids about what the curriculum they're receiving so that's that's fine I'm fine with that I am too and do you mind if I highlight some of the parts just for the public that sure are the most I'm I'm not pleased to make anybody upset I always want to be transparent to the public about it and I believe we're talking about a b and then I've also had concerns about H so I don't know how people feel about that but I'll I know A and B we talked about um at our last meeting a says presents abstinence from sexual activity as a preferred choice of behavior for unmarried students so

130we talked about that and the use of marriage and there it was your previous conversation um also I'm just going to acknowledge the moment the things you never thought you would do would be read these things to a group of adults while being recorded all right Item B it's surreal but emphasizes that abstinence from sexual activity before marriage is the only reliable way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases including human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome um that was the other one and we talked about that at length I felt like last time and then each had come up um and I I know some board members had some questions and community members share concerns about H which says explains the process under chapter 48 195 of the Wisconsin statutes under which a parent

131of a newborn May newborn child May relinquish custody of the child to a law enforcement officer Emergency Medical Services practitioner or hospital staff member and the concerns about that just to make sure the board is aware related to that we're just that you know it's somewhat pejorative related to students and in families who have adoption and that that may be you know um that could be offensive language for students and families that you know have adoption in their family which includes my own so so I just wanted to share that with the public so that they know what we're really talking about I think C also was somewhat had potential to be problematic yeah C is prevents prevents provides instruction in Parental responsibility and the socioeconomic benefits of marriage for adults and their children so

132very similar to what you had the language okay I can make those revisions please do and then if you want to continue we had the Motions we had discussions so there's no more discussion if there is no more discussion all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye aye opposed motion carries five zero I do have some discussion no oh we didn't we didn't want to no I thought we didn't want to pass this until that's just the first reading though first reading yeah so this is just passing okay with the adjustments yeah the changes I got it got it very confusing to me but okay yeah it's kind of been in that case here when you see it next okay yeah okay can I do have some other discussion related to that

133though okay um I it doesn't change my vote to what okay but it's just something I think we need to think about so um we have we had some feedback about the curriculum from a parent in the community um and I wanted to know when the last time the human growth and development curriculum was planned was updated or reviewed and when it would be currently reviewed again um [Music] do you know that answer okay yeah so we review the the curriculum annually and make changes um what we haven't done and I don't know the last date that we did the full advisory Council um that pandemic thing sort of got in the way of of that work and so our our current plan is to make modifications to the curriculum um you know based on

134on staff recommendations and changes for this the remainder of this year and next year to reconvene the large advisory okay advisory Council which is a process I've been involved with since day one in joining the district a very effective process and what I will say is that there is a difference between the work of the that that advisory Council which is to set the objectives which are very specific if you've ever looked at it for what's covered the actual content the resources you know of course the council doesn't have the capacity nor is it appropriate for them to decide because those should be constantly changing right um we received two concerns today you received one I received two um about part of the content which was distributed to families which was clearly outdated we wouldn't

135we wouldn't teach parts of that content were just inappropriate and outdated and offensive in my in my opinion and I I can say this because the response from staff already were yes that's you're right that we wouldn't have actually taught that but we shared this resource with you that has content we don't when we have our resource we don't teach everything that's in it um we do make modifications so cool okay that's great because I the one thing I was going to say um is because that that I'm very happy about that that that's on your radar already because it's it looked like the curriculum was last updated in 2019 based on the feedback that we had gotten and I and one this whole like I think human growth and development and kind of the

136Spectra spectrum of gender and you know identity and all of this has really blown up in the last three to four years and specifically like our the you know the resolutions that we passed the support of diversity and equity and then the ones um for the transgender non-binary in all lgbtqia plus students like those were both since this last revision right and so um it I just wanted to make sure that reviewing the curriculum was on the radar um to make sure that it aligns with those resolutions and then also our strategic plan so and I think it's important for the board to be conscious and to acknowledge the the many viewers who have hung on this long out in the public is that this is very controversial we talked about hate speech being controversial

137like human growth and development Across the Nation including in our state there's a lot of different opinions and you know I encourage people to look at at the it is digestible um the document that is on our website and you can see where we first talking start talking about gender issues and and I can share that that is something that has come through with much discussion um and and thought and it's probably very different than what you may see in another Community but that has been the Norms that are you know Community has adopted but certainly does not represent the feelings and beliefs of all of our community members right and that's and that's important I mean as as much as we we want to protect you know our resolutions protect some you know communities

138there is also that you know other communities that we also do have to use our culturally and linguistically you know responsive and make sure that their culture is also included and so yeah it's yeah our district Mission comes in is that really should be The Guiding Light of all that we do and now with the Strategic plan like you mentioned that again I mean we're on silent ground here to move forward with this yep yep you're correct thank you Tom for saying that so important I would look for a motion to adjourn I will make that Bruce thank you second oh second okay thank you all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye aye opposed motion carries 5-0 and we are adjourned at 9 10 p.m well done everyone well done thank you

139Tom good luck welcome safe travels and all that good stuff yeah yeah and we'll see you when you get back [Music]