McFarland School Board 3/1/2021

001I know he ran in the room quick but I can't see at the moment so sorry thank you for your patience and working out there's always kinks in the first run through and then we'll get everything all right our stream is started we are set to go whenever you ready all right like to call order at 534 now I look for a motion to go into close session I'll move to go into closed I'll second all right that requires a roll call vote y Aran yes uh Christine yes yes I'm a [Laughter] yes all right so um that carries um and we have a quorum so now we go in Clos we're in closed okay all right all right and I will uh end this webinar and then you start it back up when you're

002[Music] ready e [Music] e e [Music] for [Music] I [Music] e [Music] e e e [Music] e [Music] e e e [Music] not are we having a student council tonight yes they're going to join us on the computer okay looks like will is here it's somebody outside to um yeah he's I communicated with him okay yep thanks we all set to go yes all right um next is the consent agenda items the minutes of January 15th 2021 school board meeting and February 16th special school board meeting some professional staffing recommendations and co-curricular staffing recommendations do I have a motion to approve consent agenda items I'll move to approve thank you an second I'll second Tom any questions or comments hearing none motion from an second from Tom all in favor say I I I opposed

003passes 4 Z we have some person personel items not necessary for vote and uh so we roll into student council report all right so will Carl is going to come up online here and he will give our student counsel report hello will hello Lizzy is also here um but the two of us well we can't hear you hold on for one second I sure hope it's not my fault Stephanie are you able to pick up Will's microphone on his end yep we can hear him maybe it's maybe that's it you hear me here we go great yeah Will what did you have for breakfast today to do a sound check what did I have for breakfast today again I had uh Pasta Pasta it was sort of a breakfast lunch combo type thing I was

004doing a brunch if you will all right well that's not going to work cuz we're going to get feedback turn off your we should all well it's okaying um let me step into the control room for a minute and see if we can't get this is Lizzy's mic working maybe she can okay yeah I'm wondering if it's not us well it's in the Board Room so okay cool I just changed some things out so it'll just be a moment yeah no thank you everybody for your patience there we go we a noise we did Will Lizzie can we try one more time we sure can okay there we go fantastic ftic um so Lizzie and I wanted to talk tonight and just give some updates on how um the uh transition is going for the

005high school now being you know fully transitioned how things are going both from my perspective as someone who's staying virtual entirely this quarter and From lizz's perspective as someone who is uh in person half of the the quarter as well so from my perspective I think things are going fantastic um one of the big worries for me and one of the big worries I had in communicating with other classmates and teachers and stuff was that the students who were actually in class were going to get like an unfair amount of attention from teachers and teachers were going to be like teaching to people who were in class and stuff but I don't think that fear is really has been um has really occurred at all and I think what's great about the way the high

006school did the the high school plan is is that half of the students who decide to go back semester are in class um in person on Mondays and Tuesdays and half of them are virtual on Mondays and Tuesdays and vice versa this means that there's never like a minority of students who are online um which sort of evens things out so that people who are in person might like have be able to communicate with the teacher better but it ensures that the teacher isn't just teaching to the people who are in person because the majority of people are always virtual which um has really helped me and I just think it's going fantastic from that perspective and then to add to that will if you're done okay so as someone who's going in person I

007also personally think it's going really well um I'm imp person Thursday Friday so I've only been back two days and those two days really like Chang my perspective a little bit on this year um I think a lot of people really starting to get in the song and um a lot of the zooms became very much one-sided with the teacher teaching but the students not responding as much and what I noticed is when students went back in person it actually got more discussion going even from the students who were still virtual as well as the students in person um there was more interactions with each other and with the teacher so that was a benefit that I guess no one was really expecting but I mean there's the classes are much more lively again which

008feels really nice to be back in a Collaborative Learning environment um along with that I think every teacher has kind of found their own way to do it and from like from my perspective that's perfect I think it depends on the class as to what works best when you're combining virtual students and in-person students and I have yet to find a teacher who's done a bad job and I'm in four classes right now so shout out to teachers for doing such a good job on this transition and overall I think everyone so far has benefited good to hear yeah it's really good to hear anything else from the board sure how this works you can just just talk like they're in the room with us well thanks guys I'm glad to hear that it's going

009well really great really great to hear thank you thanks for bearing with us on the new technology set we'll get it figured out all right all right both very much next is public comment and how are we handling that tonight then Stephanie Miller is going to from the village communication technology department is going to assist us in public comment tonight we have one public comment that was submitt submitted in writing ahead of meeting is prep read that one Stephanie do we have anybody Jo meeting to comments as of now I haven't made any uh connection with anyone looking to make a public comment but if they are I would encourage them to utilize the Q&A portion found at the bot their Zoom window please state your name your address the subject you're looking to discuss

010and if you had uh have previously discussed this with Dr Bell and we will wait while a few we do have some online so we'll let them type up that information if anyone is looking to speak to the board I will then uh transfer them over to uh to the zoom side or panel side on Zoom so they can address the board as they like as they like okay and we can start with a written comment to give folks time if they feel they want to address the board via Zoom for uh we have just one comment in writing from Tom money on peasant Ron and McFarland and uh his topic that he is writing in about is the reopening of school for in-classroom Learning and he writes as an informed member of our community

011I urge members of the school board to support and engage in a more effective and collaborative effort with School faculty members and support staff to do what is in the best interest of all parties in the district reput teaching and support staff are in the best position to help guide the reopening efforts and our reopening efforts for in-classroom learning to be safe effective and meaningful everyone agrees that in-classroom learning needs to be available as quickly as feasible historically speaking the unique reputation of the McFarland McFarland School District has been a direct result of teacher empowerment School staff engagement and a strong collaborative partnership between the educator and the school board I encourage representatives from the teaching staff support staff and members of the school board to Simply sit down together to communicate and actively listen

012to each other in an open and positive manner without distractions there is a winwin scenario to the reopening of the school for in-classroom learning for all students all parties just have to set aside their biases and get down to work to create that win-win scenario that is reasonably within everyone's reach and Tom money signs that as a retired educator and former Schoolboard member very good and Stephanie have we had anyone log in to make not not receiving anything in the Q&A portion from the public at this time all right then we go on District Administration report situated here all right thanks thanks again Stephanie we are going to begin uh The District administration report tonight well we have two reports to give tonight the first is on our district Equity work and the second will

013be a school status reminders and updates report uh so we're going to begin with our district Equity work and I'm going to invite Mr carer to share his screen with the group and what we're going to talk about this evening is um a combination of things kind of an overview of the equity work that's been done over the last three years since the board adopted uh um uh embracing opportunities for um diversity while taking on challenges related to equity as a Bo priority and also since the resolution that was adopted over the summer last summer so work that's been ongoing and then work that we're looking ah had to do so uh Aon will start this off and then this is a this is a team presentation so you'll hear a we hear a number

014of us joining in so Erin thanks very much great to see you online and uh take it away hello thank you so much for this opportunity yes uh the team is assembled here we're going to be sharing a few things um a couple of notes uh about the kind of the purpose of this conversation today is we want to make sure to provide just an overview or a snapshot of our recent kind of in the last three years efforts within our schools and in the district related to anti-racism and Equity but we want to be clear this does not include all that has been done what we didn't want to do is overwhelm you with a you know 10-hour presentation on all of the work we've been doing so we will be kind of highlighting

015a few things within a structure of talking about things that pertain to uh the audiences of students staff and Families um so please you know as you have questions feel free to to share those um made the decision to kind of talk about what's next and the and and the rationale to start with what we want to do next is we don't want this presentation to come across as a a feeling that we've got this all taken care of look at all we've done this work is completed check the box we want to be clear that we have a lot more work to do you're going to be hearing about the community impact Grant which I know you're aware of but a little more details about that and also um we've developed and will be

016implementing a district uh anti-racism uh resolution action plan so you passed this resolution a wonderful document but only as good as the work that's done uh so um that's some important work that's ahead some of the areas that we've identified where we really have some um some growth within the district despite the things that we'll be talking about some of the highlights are about having a more cohesive and intentional and coordinated District plan we've done a lot of great work in buildings um but we want to be a little more strategic uh utilize our resources a little more efficiently efficiently and have a Clear Vision uh we also want to develop a uh districtwide anti-racism scope and sequence so talking about race with our students and what that will look look like in developmentally appropriate

017ways we want to implement professional development for all of our staff that's part of the resolution we've done some things with that recently we want to have a framework that is kind of systemwide so that regardless of what building that you're in you're going to get the professional development that you need um a more inclusive curriculum which we'll speak about that that that that work will never be done as well as um continued Equity audits how are our students doing how are they perceiving uh their experience here we'll share some of that tonight as well but that that also is a never- ending process uh one of the more exciting things is the development of a parent Equity Council as part of the McFarland Equity project in the community impact Grant so uh that's a

018Next Step that you're going to um be wanting to hear more about in the coming months and then also looking to expand um our work with natural Circles of support in the uh black Student Union to other schools so I wanted to highlight that with you just just to let you know um that uh we have some important work to do and we'll revisit this again at the end provide some context I think for what you're about to hear so in terms of our work with um students and mentioned inclusive curriculum and that is really important really important work and Dr Bell is going to share a little bit more about some of the things that have been happening recently Rec recently that called started looking broadly curriculum across mult e e thank you and

019in in terms of other areas of our curriculum having Multicultural text throughout the curriculum in our classroom libraries in our physical libraries is really important to us that's something the district has done quite a bit of um many teacher study groups around this area um really trying to to look at the text that we provide access to students we certainly a long ways to go um we're continuing to learn and grow together um Equity audits are just that idea of kind of looking at the curriculum in in the ways that Dr belel Bell just talked about um having identity lessons for students whereas part of the curriculum they reflect on their own identities and appreciate the identities of other others is something that we really started to expand um this year with some success and

020found students really responded well to that it was a great way to get to know our our students a little bit better um I did want to talk um a little bit more and have I I think uh I think we have Greg Nelson on a little bit here he's going to talk a little bit more about some of the things that CE has been doing um related to this idea of equity Audits and looking around your school and seeing how students are represented sure thank you Ain so like like you just mentioned um we are completing um in the in the district schools Equity Audits and um that's not only examining the curriculum and making sure that students are able to see their culture and background and other people's cultures and backgrounds represented in

021the curriculum but also environmentally in our schools too in the displays and visuals throughout the school um that's work that schools are already engaged in or beginning to be engaged in when it comes to both the curriculum and the school environment too um and like I mentioned it's really important that they not only see themselves represented but other people as well um at CPS um that bottom bullet point there um we know that um with our very young students we're building that foundation and it's exciting to see how charged the staff are this year um beginning that work really intentionally as a as a whole building when it comes to working with our students and teaching them um we've committed not only to um examin curriculum examining our environment with that envir environmental Equity lens

022but um being intentional on our lessons too so you'll see that we're doing at least monthly lessons um with our students for example black history month last month women's History Month um in the month of March 2 so just speaking a little bit about CPS but then the district portion as well when it comes to those Equity audits excellent I think that really speaks to something that's you know we've talked about is having this experience from you know early childhood on through 12th grade that students will see themselves um and others represented in our curriculum couple other things just know that we have empathy and Ally lessons um throughout the district it's really important to talk about harassment particularly related to um race um also our our approach to student behavior is positive and proactive

023you've heard about positive behavior interventions and supports and of practices all of these things and it really does tie together um because often exclusionary approaches to student Behavior disproportionately impact students of color um also we at the middle school had some lessons um this year that are really new to us in talking about race real directly we shared with the students as other schools have about the the board resolution we've talked about what civil discourse looks like um around the election all the schools um wanted to make sure their students knew what how you can talk about your beliefs and and your feelings related to the election so those are just a few things related to um curriculum also highlights some some of the student presentations um because that's awesome some often something that you

024think about and you hear about um related to really powerful experiences that our students have engaged in so um I believe we have and um Nichols is going to talk a little bit about Spartan peace project hello can you guys hear me all right okay um sure yeah so um we've done Spartan peace project has been you know here since 2018 we've done um things in the past with um serve to unite um Arno and prep and then last year we did some things with Percy Brown we'll hear more about that later um I just wanted to f on one of the new initiatives that we've been working on which is um started last October McFarland High School became the first High School chapter for um uh we are many United against hate in the

025state of Wisconsin um since then Deerfield uh Mount horb Edgewood and dodal high schools have joined the student ambassadors board for we are many United against hate um and the purpose is that we would get together um monthly and we share ideas about what we are all doing um to end hate speech and bigotry and racism in each of the schools um administrators talk and students um are in their breakout groups student ambassadors and they discuss um what they are doing um each high school has two to three student ambassadors and like I said they discussed various projects or awareness campaigns what they're doing to try and get their Community involved in um the we are many United against hate movement um there's also student ambassadors from the Madison and Stevens Point so we are

026working to continue Partnerships with them as well as other um Higher Learning institutions as we go I think Madison College is another one that they're trying to partner with um our representatives are Hannah rounds a junior and Valerie vber who is a freshman um just very quickly um the goals for we are many United against hate it is not to just start a whole another club but rather the purpose of this um group is to take the clubs that are already atal high school working towards um uh anti-hate speech um and racism and microaggressions and have them each focus on their own area but then bring them together and share their their knowledge and their experiences um they've come up with uh We've visited I'm sorry we visited a couple of clubs already we've talked

027with um BSU we've talked with GSA we've talked with the Multicultural Club um and we've have commitments from 10 other clubs and organizations that are willing to join the we are many United against hate um what that looks like what does that look like for these these students we have a PSA public service announcement that our ambassadors are working on right now and they're going to share what we call the Care and Share method care stands for communicate um calling in people when you hear an offensive comment or want to ask a question um awareness recognize microaggressions ask a question that causes the person stop and think the r is reflection reflect on your own biases continuously finally empowerment um empowering others uh to stop hate speech and racist comments through our own actions and

028words that's that's care um our other goal we have two other goals is um in order in addition to getting clubs and activities involved we have a community awareness campaign we have a t-shirt that's been designed and any club that decides that they would like to be part of we are many United against hate they will get their name on the t-shirts t-shirts and we had yard signes that we're going to be ordering and sending out in the community in April um and then the final goal for this um term is we are going to attend the Dan county social justice Youth Forum with representatives from the various High School clubs that I've mentioned as well as we are United against haes on Wednesday April 14th they'll attend the sessions and then report back um

029to their clubs on the conference sches which are uh student leader activist training celebrating all cultures and cultural appr creation and those were all things that were determined by a group of students in St County so that's all I have for what's going on with this peace project this year awesome that's great work and you'll hear about that a little bit more as we kind of connect some of our student sort of involvement and activism projects uh something else we wanted to highlight it feels like it's been longer than the spring of 2019 but we had uh NAACP image awardwinning author KLA magon she uh came to the middle school and the high school we read the books in class St fr the books and celebrated her uh amazing work so bringing in authors is

030is also part of this work you've um heard quite a bit about Percy Brown Jr and really gave a powerful present presentation for students and I'll also talk about for staff in the fall of 2019 talking about the n-word the history of successful black Americans and kind of what's missing missing from our history books in courses and really was a powerful presentation and and uh good springboard for for much of the work that we've been doing um as a district but especially at the high school um in terms of the power of one assembly I think we have associate principal Al nor house who share a little bit more about about what happened at w yeah thanks Aaron um thumbs up Aon you hear me okay awesome cool uh so this year ATA we got

031creative and and figured out a way to host all of our students in Zooms for all School assemblies so we have them on Wednesdays and uh we get we've had as many as like 440 of our students in the zoom and we stream them to YouTube so you guys can go out on YouTube and and find our intermediates school all School assemblies and for the month of October we focused on the power of one SOA power is something that we that we have at our school where each letter of power represents something else and for October we welcomed in uh Leticia Hollard and she focused on um how the power of one person can make a positive impact in our community and she she met with Cory and I a couple of times and planned

032out this this kind of mini video she made it for about six minutes and talked about how she had the power of one person to to kind of change our community of McFarland through the lens of her black lives matters um organization and protest uh in the spring and it was fantastic the kids loved it she actually came to the assembly in Zoom was one of our participants and spoke to the to the kids as well live as well as in video so it was a really fun opportunity she did a great job of making it age appropriate for our WEA students uh and it was a great connection for our high school down TOA as well yeah really powerful I think just showing that model and using our high school as role model is

033pretty exciting stuff thank you Al um so we Tau this a good segue to student involvement in activism um natural Circles of you've heard about this but really the middle school and the high school what we're doing is is bringing together our African-American students to share um to learn together and to provide really Insight um that can be taken to the the rest of the school about their experience as a black student in in our district um um sometimes they have an action focus and sometimes it's just about connecting and being there for each other um heard a little bit from from an about the MHS clubs you know how exciting they just uh really have so many great opportunities for students to get involved and now um being leaders as they are I'm kind

034of connecting that all was there anything else that you Ann or Sarah wanted to add about clubs or do you feel like you got covered I feel pretty good we're kind of in that emerging state but there's a lot of energy I agree it's really exciting just you know to see how how engaged the students are so and and that message always is more powerful coming from students and you know something we haven't really talked that much about is is the middle school we created an africanamerican history uh Bowl Club in 2018 unfortunately um weren't able to compete last year with with Co um but planning to continue in the future once they get started that's through the 100 black men of Madison so I have students that um it's open to all students and

035learn about African-American history and compete and you know if you win um you can go on to the national competition so something kind of exciting that many people might not know about all right so um that was our our students as the audience and now we're talking about staff and professional development there's so many things that we done implicit bias microaggressions identity becoming an equitable educator creating your multi classroom Multicultural classroom Library as I talked about so a few things we want to highlight was you know first of all we mentioned about Percy Brown coming um and and speaking to the entire staff and that was really powerful presentation um that not only you know engaged our staff and learned something but sent sent a message to the staff of the importance um of this

036work um many many teacher uh study groups occur um related to issues of race um listed a few things here culturally responsive instruction the libraries cultivating genius becoming an anti-racist educator there's other things like the El Paso anti-racism course many people engaged in Institute of critical Consciousness I would say you know you know after um the murder of Georgey up on through um to now there's really been momentum there's been a lot of new opportunities um for our staff and they've taken advantage of those um at the building level each building on the their current um staff but more importantly the level of their students have different presentations you know uh we focused a lot on microaggressions at the at the middle in the high school um in implicit bias one of the things that's

037really been a neat thing that's been happening this year um that um principal Cory Chef is going to talk about was uh this culturally responsive teaching and the Brain book study being done at Waba thank you Erin and hopefully you can hear me okay perfect yeah so um so Erin talked a little bit about uh the Percy Brown um presentation that was done last year and those types of learning opportunities really create that common understanding that really and in that situation brought us all together what we had found out was we had some phenomenal tsg uh learning happening and we had uh particularly I know the Institute of critical Consciousness this past summer we had um a second round of that opportunity and a much broader we we had a larger number but one thing

038that we felt we were ready as a staff is to engage um and again those were large numbers and we had a lot of staff that were excited and engaged in really building some momentum but what the one thing that we were lacking was um a shared learning opportunity for all of our staff so we felt it was a really um big priority this year um and to to engage in a common learning experience together and that's where the culturally responsive teaching in the brain and in collaboration talking with Percy Brown and rainy Briggs we had had a conversation with them about kind of giving them an assessment about where our staff was at in terms of their journey and um and that we were kind of tossing around this this book idea and and

039they thought this was a good recommendation so we purchased books for our entire staff and try to chart out a course this year to um allow for all of our staff not just our teaching staff so I think that's been really powerful too that we've provided the opportunity um both at staff meetings and at times during our PD days to include our office staff our special ed assistant so this is in these groups we've um kept our learning groups together throughout the year um and we're about halfway done with the book right now at this point and it's just really um really powerful to see the conversation the Deep conversations that are happening because essentially the book um takes us through the Journey of some brain research I'm doing some introspective um learning about our

040own surface and deep culture and really developing into action about being a culturally responsive teacher so um just a really exciting learning opportunity for us as a staff and um to really Empower our um support staff who sometimes can feel maybe a little bit um maybe on the outside in terms of learning that we we have so um looking forward to continue that Learning Journey throughout the rest of the school year thank you Corey I I really like that idea of putting it into action because that's something that I think often those of us that have been doing this work and doing learning often have difficulty connecting it to actual changeable practices in the classroom so what a powerful example that is and uh in terms of CE um kind of a new exciting opportunity

041um a partnership with you W Madison so uh Greg would you like to share a little bit about that yes thank you Aon um so as Cory mentioned um similarly at CPS we realized that all of the wonderful opportunities out there for attending PD joining book studies um participating in online modules were awesome for learning and growing as professionals at our building but it wasn't creating that shared Foundation um that really decided we needed in order to move forward and have deep conversations be able to be on the same level when it comes to addressing and teaching around equity and diversity so um the way we approached that was by establishing a partnership um with Dr Dan Tim from W Madison we have a connection to him because um he's a professor in the Kinesiology

042department where our PE teacher graduated from but he's also a leader at w when it comes to equity and diversity serving on lots of committees and having leadership roles there um we have partnered with him to provide a course of ongoing professional development um just like Cory said for all of our staff at CPS for support staff um teachers administrators even front office staff um what the way we the way we went about that was um we completed a survey as a staff about where we're at on our Equity journey and we actually got this idea from corisa and um what topics people were interested in learning about we shared that with him but then we kind of balanced it with his knowledge of how to help us establish that foundation and he created a

043like I said a series of CD for our staff so um we participated in professional development this year already about identity and cultural identity we're going to be move forward this year and next year um continuing to learn about cultural self cultural curriculum cultural communication and a cultural Learning Community the staff have responded really well he's done a nice job leading Us in PD over Zoom um gotten great feedback about how that's going to help us have that shared foundation in order to Collective collectively grow as a whole staff in our whole staff Equity Journey so very similar to the other schools it sounds like and thanks Corey and Aaron for setting that up um setting that up for me to talk about CPS yeah really really exciting all the district will benefit from that

044experience um the next thing is in terms of leadership and and it's so important we have staff that really want to be on the front lines and part of this change process we have building Equity leadership teams in each building and that's where you know they're working together to to see how this work manifests itself with in each of our schools um uh one of the things kind of a unique thing um that's been done this year is related to hate speech uh and that was something that um the associate principles brought forward and Sarah Waki is going to talk a little bit about that work yeah thank you Andrew or Erin sorry um the hate speech document idea which all of you should have in front of you from Andrew uh was brought to

045the Forefront of our work at MHS when we recognized early in September a need for policy and procedure that centered on addressing hate speech um the overall goal of this document is to Define what hate speech is as well as provide learning opportunities for students and staff to recognize an interrupt hate speech in the moment and discuss and restore relationships after and you can see towards the end there's a lot of resources where we were able to pull a lot of the valuable information from um on that document and overall the most rewarding part um of this work was being able to collaborate with the district associate principal team uh we had a lot of really powerful conversations and we were able to break away in smaller groups during our weekly administrative meetings um throughout

046the fall and our overall hope for the document would be to have it in our handbook for this upcoming school year back to you that yeah so it's just kind of an exciting thing I think the policy change are a good example of where we can start to put this work into action um in terms of our administrative Council it's really been this work has been a focus of the group especially this year um however in 2017 and 18 we participated in the leading for Equity Academy and we conducted a very comprehensive Equity audit um where we looked at student performance participation in different programming uh that's something that we're trying to build in to be a routine part of an annual process um so that we're really making sure that all of our students

047have equal opportunities um to participate in many of the the great things this District offers of course um lastly but certainly not least um you know about the exciting Grant um that we're able to secure over five years and Dr Bell is going to talk a little bit about thanks very much Aaron and so um Christine panau one of our board members is also also instrumental in in uh in putting that Grant together as our academic partner uh so the the partnership on this grant is the um W Madison uh School of uh School of Medicine Public Health natural Circles of support and McFarland School District and so we were able to to successfully uh write for a community impact Grant from Wisconsin partnership project uh we were awarded that Grant in October of last

048year we officially began working under the Grant in January of this year and the granted self Builds on the work that eron you referenced earlier um that we have started with circles a number of years ago first here at the high school in connection with our black student union and then expanding uh a little bit past that through the high school and then most recently at the middle school about a year and a half ago um when we um expanded our circles partnership to Indian Mound and so the overall goals of the grant are to to continue to where we are already doing mentoring circles continue those and also establish mentoring circles in each of the schools to empower staff leadership to engage in district-wide inquiry around issues of equity and to develop seminars and

049uh communities of practice which with other circles districts and schools and very very importantly to engage families and community in the work that we're doing and the the central focus of the grant is supporting the social emotional health of African-American students in grades K through 12 and that's a very very important because the social emotional health and well-being of all of any of our students all of our students is a pre both a prerequisite and a precursor to Su to success academically and there are many many projects um that are that address curriculum issues and pedagogy and those are all very very important there there are fewer projects that Focus intentionally on social emotional health and well-being which are really the learning conditions in which those other things happen and so we're very excited to

050have the opportunity to continue our partnership with circles to really focus on improving social emotional conditions in our school um we are we are um in the process of establishing connections with um Conrad and weisa we have our first circles meeting with weisa uh under the grant this week Conrad will be coming soon and we are connecting circles with the McFarland Equity project as well so that is uh those are both goals of the grant for Community engagement and we're I'm very pleased to say that um we're helping circles connect with cesa 2 as well and D County Equity Consortium one of the other goals of the grant is to connect with a broader Community outside McFarland both to share our work and to learn from other people as well so so that is uh

051we are we are two months into a 5-year Grant and it's uh uh it's really exciting to get it started and we're very very appreciative to have the opportunity and Christine thank you again for your for your help and pulling that off to get that going so thank you excellent and then families um you know we had the equity round table for a few years it really started at the high school and now important thing is is wanting to expand that to a parent Equity Council um you heard the representatives from the McFarland Equity project talk a little bit about that and that is something that we are actively doing right now um setting up meetings and starting to develop that group something I would add probably here um since we put this together that

052I think is important is just providing as many opportunities for our families to be engaged and a part of decision making one of the things we've learned uh through this experience with Co is that um opportunities for families to share their thoughts their insights only makes us better uh and so that is something I think that could really continue both through those involved in the parent Equity Council but also those that choose not to be um or not able to be um a a meeting isn't isn't for everybody so providing one to one conversations and really listening and and hearing from our our families and engaging them is an important part of this work and then lastly back to that that second slide right there you know about what's next so implementing the grant resolution

053action plan taking the work that we've done and just providing more coordination U more um intentional scope and sequence in our our both our curriculum inclusiveness but also our our discussion of race you can see the amazing work being done at Cs and right up on through uh is important and continuing to to check ourselves and to monitor our progress both in terms of actual data about student performance behavior um but also perceptions are we creating that that safe welcoming um School environment that that we say in our mission and vision um and then lastly just providing more opportunities for students to be supportive engaged um and and admiring and celebrating and capitalizing on uh their activism along with our our families being more involved so that was a lot of information I know that

054was long can you imagine if we shared every detail um but welcome the opportunity for you know if anyone has questions um you know for any of the esteemed panelists that have presented to you happy to answer any questions you may have and this has been a weird process being an MC but it was kind of fun so any is there any questions for the group questions or comments good work everybody yeah very thorough thank you very good work Christine um first of all thank you for pulling all of that together I would love to have the slides because I think that there's just so much there um I'm really appreciating how thoughtful you've been about um a number of things one is including all staff um because I think our all of our staff

055are part of our community and um engage with students and each other and staff and um so having the um everyone involved in that learning and having common language that common experience I think I'm just really I'm really thrilled to see that that's happening across um the different schools so I just want to say kudos to you for for doing that and engaging that um otherwise just fabulous work I'm I'm so excited and so pleased to see how how much um and how thoughtful you've been about all of this work really looking forward to engaging the community more we have and we do but even more so I'm really looking forward to the the Equity Group um so just want to say thank you all for the hard hard work and efforts that you're doing

056and at least in my experience and what we found with our own research is when you make the environment and Community better you're working on it for uh name any particular group for women or men it helps everybody so all of this work pays off for everybody so that's all I have to say thanks again thank you very good okay well we'll go to the next presentation and uh thank you so much to everybody for putting all that together and that's that's a lot of work that and condensed into a very short talk really uh but I hopefully you see the the fruits of our labors and the efforts that have been underway for a number of years here so we're excited to continue to bring that forward very fulfilling very good yeah thanks we're

057School status School status updates are next so we I'm GNA we're going to shift some stuff around on the screen and get that ready um share my screen here we go and this okay oops not sure why that's there we want to go with this one there we go all right so we are going to uh have a school status uh report and update for tonight I just need to shift one thing on my screen there there we go all right um so tonight we're going to cover four things we're going to talk about uh we'll give an update on the covid-19 data uh we'll talk we'll have a vaccine update we got some very exciting news over the weekend about opportunity for our staff to be vac to receive the vaccine um we will

058spend some time talking about the plans in each building for potentially I want to say that again potentially moving to step four or something a Next Step Beyond where we are um and these are contingency plans so we are anticipating Public Health the public health order expires next week we don't know what they will change um we are not making any decisions at all on changing instructional models tonight but what we're presenting to you tonight is a contingency planning update because we want to we want to demonstrate um both to you and to the community that that we are we are constantly revising our plans and reviewing our plans to be prepared for things that may that may come forward so that's the purpose of tonight I just want to emphasize that there we are

059not saying tonight we're going to move from one step to the next step this is a contingency planning update we'll talk about and then we'll finish with appreciations uh as we as we have U been doing for some time which is a really nice way to to end the talk so uh I'm going to turn it over to Lauren for Co data and Lauren just let me know uh when you need me to switch the slides up sure Andrew you can go to the next slide already um so looking at our Co data this is just taken directly from our website so this is our data dashboard that this section of the dashboard is updated daily so as you can see it was updated today we currently have no active student or staff cases that

060we are aware of in the district and I always add that caveat in there is um our students who are virtual don't always have to tell us if they have experience Co because there isn't that direct impact on other students or staff members um but so our data so far is is looking really nice um you can go to the next slide Andrew the next part of our dashboard we actually updated on February 19th we changed it a little bit we used to track the census track of McFarland so that we could see how the community was doing and that data wasn't always 100% accurate because it looked it didn't look at the entire county of mcfar it looked at the census track of McFarland which I'm sure Jeff Mahoney could explain the differences there

061I cannot but it wasn't our direct population so it wasn't always a great indicator so we made the adjustment to switch to include our reverse metrics and these metrics we update the buildings update daily we update the dashboard weekly so this was updated for the week of the 22nd and you could see last week we were notified of zero positive cases for Staffing we had 10 professional staff members that needed substitutes and five support staff that needed substitutes last week um and that we didn't utilize any tier three that's kind of our emergency coverage when we're really short uh sub coverage and then close contacts we didn't have any close contacts um because there were no positive cases last week which was which was great any questions about our data before I jump into the

062vaccine update Christine Laur just a quick uh clarification that Staffing availability wouldn't necessarily mean due to co correct it could be just that they were people were out for whatever reason yes is that right yes that could be just um people were out for any kind of reason those are just the numbers of Subs we needed throughout the district right it kind of gives you an idea of where we're at overall for needing Subs yes gotcha thank you I like the I like the changes you've made to this data dashboard thanks okay next all right so onto our vaccine update Andrew you can go to the next one um so I just did a side by side comparison Co where we are as a county with the vaccine so we have around 150,000 doses that

063have been administered in Daye County um and this is today last Thursday so I'm sure there has been some more over the weekend um 92,000 people have received at least one dose which is about 75% I'm sorry 17% of our our population here 60% of our 65 Plus have received at least one dose and one of the caveats here changed a little bit which which as you'll see in my district update changed our numbers is that initially Public Health was asking to receive 14,000 doses so that they could do a mass vaccination site at the line Energy Center this weekend and next weekend they did not receive enough Doses and so now they had to push that date back until March 15th um so you'll see that the Alliance Energy Center will host a child

064care and teacher uh vaccination clinic starting on the weekend of March 19th um because they were unable to receive the doses that they needed um so on a plus side for us the district had enough people who responded to a survey saying they were interested in being vaccinated through the district um so we are currently partnering with SSM health or Dean and having a vaccination clinic on site on March 19th and again this is pending that we receive the doses of vacc that vaccines that we need I am hopeful that we will um so our first dose would be given on March 19 the second then on April 16th so how this will work is SSM health will give us the vaccines and our uh nurses and some outside nurses will help administer the vaccines

065to our staff um currently we have 115 staff and this includes our our weeva staff as they are part of our district um have signed up to receive the vaccine on site since my email on Saturday that number has dropped I think we're just below 400 people that for whatever reason were not able to participate or have received their vaccine somewhere else um I am hopeful that we will not see too many more people cancel from from our numbers in hopes that we can keep our vacination all right that is my update any questions on the vacc Lauren Arland has a question about vaccines are we including on the staff are we including the bus drivers yes I have already a list from Nelson so the people just so you're aware the people and community

066members that have been invited to participate in our Clinic are Nelson's bus company uh CLM gingerbread house Little Spartans because they are 4K partners and the mcar center along with the virtual scho so we have included them into these numbers Lauren can you remind us again what was the bottom line number you needed to have the clinic so the bottom line number was over 300 however when I submitted numbers to SSM they have asked that i' be in a 20% error window so I actually submitted a number around 420 um so we couldn't necessarily drop down all the way to 300 gotcha thank you I have a quick question in the group and I understand they they're uh Village employees but uh crossing guards included in that I mean they they're viewed as school affiliated

067although their paycheck does not come from the school um but they would be similar I think in a position as Nelson bus company they affiliated but not directly paid any thought to the the crossing guard contingent sure so CH I have a a meeting with SSM Health on Thursday that I actually have a running list of people that I want to say can we include them and I will add crossing guards onto that list and and if they are I will reach out to them okay any other questions about the vaccine okay thank you thanks Lauren so we're going to transition now uh and we're going to revisit the steps for reopening and as I said at the beginning we we are I just want to make this really really clear we're presenting a contingency

068planning update tonight we're not saying we're going to move to to to a Next Step um going back all the way to August 3rd last year we we presented our five-step uh well actually was at the end of July where the board approved our fstep transition plan Step One is uh having just staff in the building step two which we spent much of the year uh in in uh grades 3 through 12 was virtual fully virtual instruction um step three which as of as of just last week we now have all the buildings in step three which is a hybrid branding Blended learning model and then the next step four would be uh would be a hybrid full in-person attendance using student cohorts and what's different about step four is um step four is only

069possible to consider when public if and when Public Health changes the distancing requirements for some or all grades of students and so again going all the way back to the beginning we put together this five-step gradual reopening of schools plan and so what we're going to be talking about tonight is potentially what step four could look like if and when one Public Health changes those regulations and then if and when the district decides it's appropriate to move forward so um again step four is is a hybrid uh hybrid because we will continue to have students who attend virtually uh if we do Transition to a next step we will continue to have the virtual option for students uh both the house virtual option and students who were participating in weeva um and then uh uh

070we'd be looking at a at a full attendance uh with cohorts now cohorts at the um at grades K through 8 are basically a home room design that's a cohort at the high school it's very very different it's basically it's what we have now is half the building is essentially a cohort which is a very different approach to cohorting but high schools work very differently and public health has supported us in in doing that in the past so what we'll do is work through through uh each of the schools uh and we're going to begin with Conrad so Greg if you would if you would uh just give us a sense of what is what are Conrad's contingency PL looking like and again nothing is said in stone there's been no decision made but just

071as we're trying to be proactive in our planning great thank you Andrew so I'll start and um one thing you'll quickly notice as we go through the different buildings is um there's going to be a lot of similarities that you hear as far as both what state is the same as far as what we're familiar with already from our step three hybrid model and also similarities in the changes that we would be making in that contingency plan um that Andrew mentioned if we were to go to a step four um iners model um full days for um is what I mean so I'm going to highlight some things that would stay the same to start um and that at CPS would be classrooms so the am and the PM sessions that we currently have in

072the hybrid model they would then become one cohort with their teacher that they already have they would remain in the regular classroom that they have been attending in their AMR PM session um and it is tight um I acknowledge that but our classrooms at CPS can accommodate 3ot distance um distancing for an average of 20 students also cooh cohorts cohorts in general remain together throughout the day they continue to not mix with other classrooms for example at lunches related arts and at recess we continue with our safety procedures of masking hand washing or sanitizing the disinfecting measures that are building and grounds crew have been absolutely amazing with arrival dismissal procedures would stay the same just at the very beginning and very end of a full day um and distancing measures remain in place again

073distancing in this case would be a three-foot distancing uh we would continue to prioritize social emotional literacy and Mathematics instruction throughout the student school day our weekly schedule of Monday Tuesday and Thursday and Friday for students in person in the building would remain Wednesdays would stay the same as far as staff planning collaboration and meeting School cleaning occurring on that day that's the day that the deep cleaning occurs and we would transfer all of the asynchronous learning that's been happening those 50% of the time when they're not in person on Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday um we would transfer that to um a asynchronous Wednesday learning opportunity um we would still keep recess for kids at CPS in the set four um but we would keep the measures in place that have been working as far

074as having classrooms and preassign zones I'm of course rotating through the zone so they get to play in different areas based on the day sing with just their cohort uh we would be looking at tentatively two recesses a day just for giving them opportunities to get out of the classroom and get their bodies moving changes in a step four model though um distancing obviously would go from 6t to 3T that's how we could accomplish having all kids in the classroom uh at CPS specifically this would be a change we would need to determine enrollment for step for um the hope would be that we don't lose students but we would want to determine any K2 family enrollment commitment for a state a transition of step four where they stay in person might CPS um need

075to explore a virtual option um and like you see in that third bullet point under changes because if enrollment does indicate a need for a virtual option that would a new addition for CPS it would impact our staffing scheduling and inperson student programming as I mentioned um several months ago when we talked about the addition of an inhouse virtual option um another change would be our student instructional day it's tentatively planned at this point to be 8:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. um based largely in part on not only the needs of our students um but on transportation and coordinating that between buildings definitely another change would be related art so the related arts team of Music PE Library art and life skills which um is their guidance curriculum they're determining how to incorporate their destru

076their instruction into the 4day in-person student week so instead of students doing their learning asynchronously for related arts um online and then one live related arts zoom on Wednesdays they would now get to see the related arts um teacher um in person um in a safe manner that that team is working to um plan right now actually of course being there a full day the kids are going to get hungry so we're developing a plan to safely have students eat snacks tentatively thinking about what that could look like but definitely lunch during the day including remaining in their cohorts and keeping distancing measures in place and then finally busing would be provided for qualified Riders both to and from school at the bookends of the day so again like I said you'll start to quickly

077see that there's a lot of similarities in what stays the same in changes but for CPS that's kind of the big picture plan of what stays the same and would change in a step for model thanks very much Greg um are there any questions for Greg before we go on to Aisa okay thanks very much uh all right weisa Corey and L excellent thank you um like Greg said and um you you you'll see it here is a lot of similarities and consistencies across our building and uh one thing to note is that everything um you're going to see here Andrew talked about it this is Al tenative we are actively currently actively engaging our building leadership team our BLT um in some decision-making Pro uh processes giving us feedback and including our staff too

078um so tentatively speaking um here's what's we're looking at staying the same is that uh our home room groups and we've been telling parents um since we made the shift to step three uh that that we will make every good faith effort to keep those Home Room groups together so they'll largely remain the same unless um a family chooses to to move their student to a virtual option um those cohorts will now be combined um the AM and PM together and uh right now our students have been familiar with all all school year long whether they've been virtual or um in person now for the last five weeks of having those small um 8 to 12 13 maybe students in a group so that will definitely um um be something that we'll we'll look to

079to making that um change um but nonetheless like I said they they'll be together as one big cohort and they will not be combining um throughout the day um our safety precautions will continue as uh we have disinfecting handwashing distancing masking um our c our excuse me our rival dismissal and um we'll make slight adjustments just as we currently are every week um I know Al and I are constantly evaluating our situations and looking to uh to make improvements based off of uh things that we're observing or feedback that we're getting from both families and our staff and uh our both our in-person um students and our virtual students will um experience a full learning day Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday as Greg mentioned um our curriculum Focus that we've had all school year long around

080social emotional learning and literacy and math uh will also remain the same um obviously they'll have a little more time to to dig a Little Deeper um and then Wednesdays as Craig mentioned that asynchronous and synchronous we will have some of those learning opportunities but that will um maintain being um an opportunity for deep cleaning and team collaboration staff meetings and um Greg had mentioned that our related arts um and you'll see that down in the changes that they're going to be offering four days of U instruction now and that does free this opportunity on Wednesdays for them to be part of collaborative team meetings as well which is a a nice opportunity for them because currently Wednesdays are our um related arts days for our students so um while our core staff um are

081doing planning and and collaborating our related art staff are doing their live instruction and then we'll continue with recess um with our cohorts and rotating through um zones as we get down to changes now you will see that recess while the cohorts will stay the same we'll rotate in zones um we currently have and it's the fourth bullet down um students in their half day um have 15 um minute recess and we're going to we're going to tentatively looking to add a second one um to really kind of split up the day um because um students will largely um remain in their their classroom for for most of the day um as I mentioned um earlier that we're going to be merging those two AM and PM cohorts together um the longer instructional day from

0828:10 to 2:40 and um of course there maybe some adjustments um due to transportation and all the buildings were working super collaboratively together um to to make sure that our time if we're adjusting our time it's not unint you know unintentionally um impacting another building um as you mentioned related arts will um provide a 4 day a week option for students uh which is a change from what they currently have um and of course with having students there for a full day we need to provide them um with some food and some snack opportunity because um to maintain small lunch sizes we will have to um spread our lunches out and we'll have to have um currently looking at six different lunch periods um which means that we have a lunch happening a little bit

083earlier maybe a little bit later in the day so we'll want to have some snack time and uh create some safe uh routines and procedures um for that as well and then lastly um important getting students to and from school that all qualified bus riders will will be able to get to and from school um and currently as may know that our students only in the PM have that that opportunity right now um Al anything to add in or any questions from anybody how's uh traffic working out over there I know there's a lot of parents and a lot of cars I know we've changed the buses from where they used to pick up now we're picking up in a small lot or small circle um how's the traffic patterned around the school in General

084um overall I would say pretty well depends on who you ask know but uh um overall I think it's going really well speaking on the continuous Improvement um that's I guess that's what I would call it is that I mentioned earlier Alan and I are constantly we're in contact with Nelson and talking to the daycare um shuttles and so we we made another change last week um with that um primarily for offic I mean for safy obviously but also for efficiency um and we we're keeping a kind of a tabs on on length of time when from dismissal to when the last car leaves and I think uh early on we were in about the 14 15 minute range and now we've got it down to about the 9 Minute range we also have Arlene

085the main office she'll at times uh you know look and and and track a a vehicle and see how long it takes and I would say once once our traffic starts moving uh parents are maybe in the line for 3 to four minutes but and maybe it feels longer than that you know so overall I think it's going pretty well and and we've we've got a crossing guard now down at lean and um Red Oak and that's been really really great addition I wanted I wanted to mention that Crossing D because that is really huge uh for safety um it's at yeah Cory said Red Oak and lean Lane previously that was not a crossing guard there and when we switched to hybd we knew that that would be a high traffic area so officer

086Miller John Miller worked with us and Jeff and we were able to secure a guard there for the rest of the year so families who are maybe looking to have students walk know that there is a an a guard there which is really great question any other questions for Cory and Al okay let's go to Indian M middle school and Aaron and Brett excellent well thank you I you know I don't need to repeat everything that's been said before um one of the things that we are very fortunate is that we're able to move in between these models um pretty easily because so much does say the same as others have shared our rooms we have looked at our rooms with our largest class sizes when things are combined and we can fit people um

087at a three foot distance or actually more a 3T for a middle schooler is not it's not even comfortably um you need to have a little more distance so we can fit some more distance than that um but that is only because of the outstanding Community Support that led to the remodeling of in M Middle School we actually don't think we could support our current hybrid model at 6 feet if the school wouldn't have been remodeled so a little reminder how grateful we are for that our cohorts stay the same our teachers and classes stay the same our terms stay the same uh as we move forward we're able to continue our concurrent virtual model we anticipate as as the other buildings have shared and Greg started off right away that there may be some

088differences some some families um if if the distance does get closer may feel less comfortable you know and and we know that that we may actually have some people that choose virtual that are in person now I will tell you I think it's important for the board to know um that pretty much every day um we are having more families who chose virtual choose hybrid um some families have just said that that they wanted to see how it went and and and just to make sure that things were safe and we appreciate that um the other things are of course the safety precautions that's been shared in Wednesdays being a really important day um for cleaning and collaboration in terms of changing obviously we're combining our am and our PM cohorts as the other buildings

089are talking about our kids are actually saying when do we get to meet our PM kids or our you know am friends and uh that's kind of a neat thing the start in the end time originally over the summer when we put this together um our estimate of Transportation needs had us starting at kind of a 10 to 3:30 and we think we're actually able to move that up to 9:15 um is the latest information we're getting from U Mr Mahoney and Nelson's so that would be kind of our day so you see kind of a shifted timing um from what you see K5 to allow buses to run their routes and then come and get our kids obviously the reduced distancing um longer classes so what we're doing essentially is kids are taking the

090same classes that they would have been regardless of hybrid or or um fully in person but for a longer period of time because we're combining their in-person instruction and what would have been homework asynchronous instruction so now when our kids leave here they're not done um they've got homework to do they've got work to do asynchronously um on their own before they come back for their next half day session this would kind of put those two together is the is the idea but we need to add recesses obviously staying in cohorts K5 is has kind of um shared that model with us of what that would look like we need to add lunch and snack most likely our kids would eat in the cafeteria um up to 50 kids um but that's you know that's

091about a third of of our students in a grade level um so we would have kids eating in classrooms um staying in their cohorts cuz we got us spr them out the data is clear that that eating is one of the the times you're off a mask so that's something to to make sure we do really well and stay safe there and of course our our transportation um I will kind of not that you ask this question but I just want to want to say um about transportation and the traffic flow you know we have one of the worst um driveways for pickup and drop off um that's not a secret and um because um you know Jeff m and Nelson's work so well in using the high school for our bus pickup and drop

092off and we have cars come up here we are so grateful for how well it has worked similar time frames I think today pick up um this afternoon was 6 minutes um where people are getting their kids picked up so really really going well that would obviously put a little bit more strain when we don't have half the kids we've got double the kids in step four but um that that would be would be a change but we're confident it would go well I would say um in part of that also is I think we've been consistent from building to building as far as expectations for transportation it's really helped our older students as they and the families as they see what's happening at C EPs and Laisa and it's been really helpful to train

093train is not a good word but to um inform them of the procedures so thank you to the other buildings for all your work with that too definitely any questions for us okay thanks Aron and Brett Let's uh let's transition over to the high school good evening everybody um I probably Echo a lot of what you've heard already from my colleagues but I I will tell you that at our last meeting last time we met with you we presented to you the plan for step the high school and we have been on that plan for about one week and I was happy to hear will and Lizzie used the words fantastic and going really well and I would concur with that we're pretty happy we're at and I mention that because the foundation of our

094last step will be very similar to what the foundation is for our cency plan moving forward um we will we'll have to keep our cohorts because of class sizes we don't think we can combine them and fit everybody in classes our term starts April 8th same stage of precautions will did a really nice job tonight outlining how our weekly schedule goals with Monday Tuesday being a Navy cohort and Thursday and Friday being a Columbia cohort and the virtual students are streaming in both classes are both cohorts as everybody else has said tonight Wednesdays would still remain the same as we have we have a Freshman Academy has gone really well our advisory would meet advisory and clubs and interventions would happen on Wednesdays as well so that Foundation of what was presented to you last

095week would remain intact some things that were looking at changing is the length of our classes is can we extend our class period from say 51 minutes to maybe 75 minutes and to get closer to more complete all inperson instruction less asynchronous time and more synchronous time with students when we make the class day classes longer the school day longer we also have a lunch issue we have to look at and so we have to figure out where how many students can we have really truly safely in the cafeteria what other alternative locations do we have whether it's down athletic hallway um other places we kind of brainstormed about and when the weather gets nice it will be nice to have some picking tables outside and take advantage of that area as well so again

096the foundation stays the same we have some changes but what I really want to talk about is the process we have to use because we're we're diving into this now and our process is in full swing and I outlined the process to you last week so just kind of give you update how we're approaching this is our building leadership team and mft members have the plan we met last week with both groups and already said here's what we're thinking and we're getting feedback from those two groups as well as feedback through the The Forum what feedback Forum we have there'll be a survey going off in the district we're going to really ask about the impact of it potentially lengthening the school day and how does that impact students and families but we also have

097to look how impacts our instruction and so we're going to review that feedback and make a better more solid detailed plan for you but to give you an idea we need to look at class sizes if we whatever changes we make and how has that impacted teaching load but teachers teaching through the day they lose about two hours of prep time right now so how do we make up for that we need to talk about the curriculum change being students in a third term having 51 minutes 51 minutes of synchronous time that same class be different students would have 75 minutes of a of synchronous time is that academic impact we have to discuss that but I think a couple issues oh we also talk about special ed IEP minutes when we exchange we lengthen

098that school day there's an impact on special meeting their I goals but two things we're really looking at and getting some data on is the impact of Youth apprenticeships we have 40 students right now in youth apprentiship programs and if we lengthen the day that'll be a third change to those students work schedules and could impact their how they work and what they get access to so we have to see what impact that would be can we work around and help them out but the other thing we have to get information on is impact on student students who aren't in youth apprenticeship but are working still whether it's to help the family to um financially other responsibilities at home earning College money there's we're used to being done at 1236 so adding a couple more

099hours to the day could impact those work schedules so we're right now researching that as well and have better numbers there so I apologize if it seemed kind of begged what we're doing but we got we have to get some information we can really solidify our plan otherwise we're like I said we're going to repeat we repeat a lot of what the other schools are doing so that's in a nutshell High School KY plan questions for the high school don't have any oh yep you do I just had a question thanks Jee um I know you just started so to be thinking about this is probably a little bit overwhelming you you mentioned lengthening the day do you have any any idea of the schedule for the day or do you not even are you

100not even ready to go there and I'm masking way premature what was presented and been discussed is going from 9: to 2:30 but that's we'll review that too to see how how we're impacting the job sit the students who are working yeah there's a lot of considerations for sure yeah thank you so much you're welcome welcome Jeff could you could you just say you mentioned it earlier but could you just explain why um uh at the high school because of the class sizes we're we're we're needing to stay with at least in what potentially The Next Step would look like why we're needing to stay with the two days a week yeah so uh approach right now we feel pretty comfortable with nine students in a class at that six feet range if we got

101lucky and got to down 3 feet which like Aaron mentioned it's pretty cozy for a high school student student we're thinking the largest class size would be 17 18 students and so we have to review but we we're concerned that we cannot get all our class sizes to that size that we we can't get our classes that small and so that's what necessitates having two separate groups attending yeah thank you other questions for the high school okay thank you CH thank you thank you uh before we go to appreciations I I just want to um actually I'm going to just come off that slide just for a moment go back here I just want to as we're closing out this part of the of the slide deck I just want to explain again why we're

102why we're even having this conversation as I mentioned at the beginning um and for folks who may be turned in tuned into the meeting Midstream here the current Public Health order exp which is order 13 expires on March 10th and so typically Public Health when they're ready to release a new order they did do that a couple of days ahead of time but not much before March 10th we don't know what's coming yet we we anticipate there will be changes we're we're they will possibly be around distancing there may be other changes coming too we don't know what that looks like yet um and so so again the purpose of tonight's presentation is to is to share with you what our what our Advanced contingency planning looks like in the event that some of those

103things change and there is a decision to take up about whether or not to move forward um along along with that consideration it's also very important to keep in mind the timing of the vaccine clinics which are the first dose clinics is is in mid as as uh Lauren mentioned earlier that's mid-march the second dose Clinic is in mid April you know how all of those things coincide is a very very important factor in all of this as well as are all the other things that you heard tonight including impact on families and staff and and uh and students and transportation and and all that so there's a lot of there's still a lot of moving Parts uh but I just want to I just want to emphasize as to why were you know especially

104at the high school as as you pointed out Christine we just started step three and now we're talking about a change and obviously that creates that creates a um you know some stress for folks too with the planning but I just I just want to be really clear why we're why we're having this conversation tonight um so thank you very much for for to everybody for sharing your your your planning process and the updates and thank you to the board uh as well and so as we close with some congratulations can can please comment or an observation about that um because I know there are a number of community members that want uh to move on a dime once things are opened up and um I I think as we saw here considerations are more

105than just recommendations um CDC guidance or uh Madison St County Public Health there are a lot of lot of logistical items that have to go into any decision and um you know so I hope I hope our community understands that even though things might seem like they can open up quickly there's a lot of moving parts that we have to consider that um it's it's not just a a single um item that influences our decisions on how we move um I just wanted to make that observation for anyone who might be watching thanks Tom um yeah that's that is you're you're right on though we we we experienced a lot of that just in this last transition you know all the pieces that go into that so those those are yeah it's it will be

106that again um so so I appreciate you appreciate you highlighting that um appreciations for this evening we've got four to share first of all congratulations to Beth Canfield for being named recipient of a coal Fellowship award at the high school that is extremely welld deserved for Miss Canfield who's a uh School counselor student services professional at our high school and congratulations to Marty qualheim sixth grade teacher at Indy Mountain Middle School also for being named a cold Fellowship award recipient way to go Marty and Beth and uh representing McFarland School District extraordinarily well and we're grateful for your for your work and your talents and very very much appreciated and and we're glad to celebrate you this evening um thank you to Nelson's bus company uh for being flexible and working so well so well

107with us this year uh as as Tom mentioned with so many moving parts and we had an opportunity to to join uh the Nelson staff uh as a for a little recognition breakfast uh last week it was and and it was just a great opportunity to to be at the garage and say thank you there and so thank you to Nelson's and then last tonight thank you to our amazing District technology department and our building Tech integrators and Technology leaders for making sure our staff and our students have access to and know how to use the devices and tools that we need we couldn't do this without you who you know when I think back to the time when I was just joining the district we were the the one: one initiative had started but

108it was still fairly early on and you know thank goodness for the foresight to have that technology in place because without it we would be in a very different place with what we could offer kids uh particularly this year which was obviously an unforeseen occurrence but thank goodness for the foresight of of uh many of the people in this group uh and our board for for uh uh supporting that work along the way as well so that our school status update for tonight thank you very much and uh lots of detail lots of things to be thinking about um and uh thank you for spending the time with us on it this evening great the last piece tonight is uh just a reminder of our of our upcoming school board meetings on uh March 15th

109April 5th and April 19th we will continue to meet here in the boardroom uh with our uh hybrid Zoom technology and a special thank you to Stephanie Miller and her team at the Village of McFarland uh Communications and technology department for all of their help um in uh uh putting this meeting uh technology for us together this evening very very much appreciate it and that is my report for this evening very good any questions or comments i' also like to Second the technology here you probably can't see it on Zoom but there's a lot going on here that there's a lot that makes this look simple but it's nothing so much appreciated all right we move into the action items first is action on Wisconsin Virtual Academy High School weeva agreement ministration recommends approval of

110the weeva high school agreement do have a motion to approve move to approve thank you Tom second thank you Ann questions or comments could I make a comment just for contact so the next few items are all are all WEA uh contracts and what we're doing here is um uh we are we are creating a new set of contracts to get all of these different contracts on the same alignment in terms of calendar scheduling and that was a recommendation of our three three-year review a few years ago to get those things aligned so that's what these next action items are we will be doing the next program review with uh Scott Brown as our helps us with that that'll be happening uh in the spring and into the summer uh and then what will happen

111after that is we will then um um negotiate a new set of five-year contracts these are short-term contracts to get them all on the same schedule uh as a first step in getting them all uh set up for a long-term alignment and uh renewal very good thank you so next is action on Wisconsin Virtual Academy K8 WEA k sorry we got to vote on the high school one first oh I'm sorry I messed up on I got looking around I got excited motion from Tom second from an all in favor say I I I oppos passes by majority next is action on Wisconsin Virtual Academy K8 WEA 8 K8 agreement Administration recommends approval of the WEA K8 agreement do I have motion to approve I'll Mo to approve thank you an second I'll sec I'll

112you got it time no you can go I got it any questions or comments hearing none motion from an second from myself all in favor say I I I opposed passes 40 next is action on destination destination Career Academy agreement Administration Rec recommends approval of the attached agreement do I have a motion to approve I'll move to approve thank you an second I'll second thank you Tom any questions or comments on this hearing none motion from and second from Tom all in favor say I I I opposed passes by majority next is action on Insight School of a Wisconsin High School an Administration recommends approval of the Insight School Wisconsin agreement do I have a motion to approve move thank you an second I'll second thank you Tom any questions or comments hearing none motion

113from an second from Tom all in favor say I I I opposed passes by majority T is action on second the addendum to the Insight School of Wisconsin High School charter contract Administration recommends approval of the attached agreement to have a motion to approve I'll Mo to approve thank you Ann second I'll second thank you Tom any questions or comments on this very not motion from an second from Tom all in favor say I I I oppose passes by majority next is action on M high school early graduation requests High School administration recommends approval of the attached high school early graduation request I have a motion to approve approve thank you an second I'll second thank you Tom any questions or comments on this hearing none motion man second from Tom all in favor say

114I I opposed passes by majority next is action on memorandum of agreement between mcfar school district and the center for Community stewardship on behalf of the national Circles of support for the implementation of Wisconson partnership project Community impact Grant the administration recommends approval to be attached to me memorandum of agreement Administration further recommends that the board authorize the superintendent to approve the revisions to the mou MOA on behalf of the district as needed to accomplish the goals of the Wisconsin partnership project Community impact Grant do I have a motion to approve thank you an second I'll second Christine P me to it thank you any questions or comments hearing none motion from an second from Christine all in favor say I I oppose passes by majority next is act on recommended weeva DCA Insight Wisconsin

115statute 11848 G student transfers to resident District at this time we have a destination Career Academy inside School of Wisconsin and requests appr approval of recommended student transfers back to their resident districts due to lack of Engagement motion to approve Mo to approve thank you an second I'll second thank you Tom any questions or comments hearing none motion from an second Tom all in favor say I I I oppose passes 4 Z next is a motion to adjourn no get that yeah there we go thank you Ann second I'll second okay Christine all in favor say I I I and we're out at I'm going to call it 8:00 that's close enough thank you and thanks for all the help for the technology oh yes thank you yeah thanks to everybody on the call as

116well thanks for listening in and thanks for being there yeah thank it's appreciated guys it really is yeah we got all the Kinks out tonight so it'll be even smoother next time have a good night everyone good night everyone thank you so much