MCSD School Board Meeting October 27th, 2025

001Oh, no. Uh, yes. >> It's for Spanish. Okay. >> Good evening. So, we're going to start our student achievement committee meeting um for the month of October. We have three main agenda items. The continuous improvement update, um a little update on our Merin Science Curriculum Committee, and then where we are with act 20. So, a lot of that um will come from today. um for next month, we will have our DPI um district and school report cards released by our next meeting. So, we'll have that and we'll give you a little bit of an update of where we are with our district calendar. Um waiting on Arrowhead and I think we will be waiting on Arrowhead for a while, but we are doing some work and we'll share that at that time. I am not

002anticipating a December student achievement committee meeting need. Um there's such a small with a week off at Thanksgiving and two weeks at Christmas. We don't have a lot of time for a ton of action. So um I I don't think I'll um have to ask you guys to find some time in December. All right. So um on to our continuous improvement update. Um, what I do like to do is just kind of re um mind um for Patrick, our newest board member on the committee and um kind of where we were in July 2024, the board did approve our strategic plan, which at that time only included a draft of a one-year actual action plan. So, um what we have done now the second year and I believe uh Dr. Russ gave an update of

003the strategic um plan implementation. Um but we did develop one for this year um in the same areas as last year because the strategic plan is for five years. Um and you're going to notice um we continue to kind of color code um for you for our updates where we're at. So green um you know means that it's complete. We're done. very few things are actually complete this time of year. Most of it is like full school year work. So you'll see a lot of yellow, which a lot of yellow means um that are, you know, in progress. You'll see some that are blank because they might be a task orientator. We haven't started yet, but we're not anticipating a problem. And if they're red, it's behind schedule. Maria does not like red. Um last

004year we did have a red. we actually put a hold on our 4K curriculum review um just based off of um the level of lift on our implementation and some work on the state level. So um you know and we're doing it this year but we don't have any red this year so far and we're not anticipating any of that. So I'm just going to kind of um you know I'm not going to go over line by line but I'm going to briefly kind of talk about the categories. Um so this is available for public view of course. Um so our first experience pillar is student experience. Um we have two objectives in that one. Academic growth for all kids on um enhancing personal growth through Martin values. So um you're going to kind of

005see in this first action area a lot of things are well on their way um to uh getting complete. So, we have started our 4K curriculum renewal design process. We've begun our science. Um, we are implementing some um grading practices a little different here at the intermediate school. Um, we're still working through some of them, but the main thing that we implemented this year is we aligned our grading scale to arrow heads. We really didn't like um the fact and got a lot of positive feedback from our staff um especially from staff who was here a long time that we used to be aligned and then they made some changes at Arrowhead and we never aligned and then they made changes again. So it was a good opportunity so our kids can get used to

006what an A at Merin means here is what a A at Arrowhead would um mean for them. So, that's the main one that we're doing that's in progress. Of course, we're still we're having the first reporting period on it, so that'll turn green once we get there. Um, and then of course, we're really looking um at as often as possible our open life source um educational resources. Um, and we're finding quite a lot for the Martin Vues Committee. I know I shared that last month, but actually on our science adoption, one of the top rated programs is an open educational resource. Um, but just kind of like Eureka was, um, vendors have kind of made it teacher guide, so you don't have to send so much out to printing and organizing and the student materials

007instead of printing and and books and organization. So, um, even those are, but what's nice about buying those is they tend to be cheaper because there is no development cost on those. So, those are usually funded by grants and that's how they can be offered. So, we continue to work on that. Um, you know, haven't started yet. Ron and I have continued to talk about it. Um the the one white here at the bottom is um we're really looking at enhancing and making our summer school curriculum a little better. We tend to get new teachers or fresh teachers coming out of that or or not merin teachers. So we really want to get some higher quality materials um for summer school. Um, and we do have in act 20 actually a requirement beginning in 2027

008for kids that have personal reading plans to be in summer school and an offering. So, we are going to look at something more robust. Ron and I are working on that on a budgetary perspective because of course um and hopefully look at it this June depending on where our budget lands or um have some training for this June and additional resources the following June. So, we'll have to see where that's going. But, um, we just started talking about that. Um, but I haven't done a ton of work. What I would say for the family, your child, you would like to be part of the summer school program and particularly enroll classes, literacy class. Um, the last three years now, we have not had enough participation. So we have that for you think of credit recovering

009type of a a scenario. So we're lucky to bring that back particularly with that. >> It's more like some read fun you know we still have 3D and math classes but it could be somewhere around the math or 3D you know certain types of literature. >> We swap we also offer You can ask for a >> correct. Yeah. In today's fall. >> I don't know. We haven't talked to Swallow if they ex if for their personal reading plans if our summer school is going to meet their requirement. I think that's a good conversation. >> You know, five or six ratio one to five or six staff today. So, uh we're going to take a look at it. >> Acts program that we have materials for that. >> Act 20 is offering it at summer school.

010We can't require anybody to come, but we can we need to offer it. And for me, if I'm going to offer something, it's going to be I'm want it to be better um than just, you know, a little bit more. What do I want to say that there's no um like if a kid's struggling in reading, we'd want to do some best practices and intervention type of thing. And that's not what our summer school is, right? It's kind of more fun reading type activities and we'll want to put a little bit more instruction in there. Um in the second action, plan support systems. You know, we've got some greens. We're implementing a new specially designed reading interventionist position. um you know um working on that and what's come out of that actually is a lot

011more um working on co-eing actually so in minutes. So we're exploring that a little bit more um because the person we brought has quite a skill set for that. Um and then of course we're updating our district dashboard with our subgroups and then we had trained all our staff in the beginning of the year with Tammy Gibbons from Osaf for professional learning communities and that continues to um work with that. So feel really good about where we are in this action step. No. Um you know um with this specially so this reading position if the board maybe would remember we brought it in to take um some minutes of the specially designed reading instruction off of our special educators with a dualcertified staff member. So that staff member has a reading license and is licensed

012as a special educator. What we're finding is it's great that she can provide those minutes, but she really has some great ideas of what can happen in the classroom to reinforce that with those kids that she's working on. So that she's um kind of working with the classroom teacher and their case manager at getting into practice. So yeah, we've got some nice exciting baby steps actually in that work and I think it'll be really great for our kids. Um so um you know this next action plan is really around um learning environments. Um huge training um a lot for our principles this summer. They had small teams that we got training on behaviormies. It's actually a way of when students are struggling in a certain area where we do some intense work with them in

013this behavior academy and have it um really um keep track of how it's implementing um in the regular education environment. And this isn't just for students that might be identified with some learning needs. Steve is actually going to talk about what they're doing with their behavior academy here at the intermediate school as principal update. So, um, you know, kind of nice when you see some learning and we're applying it and people left. I mean, they gave up June training, June days to come and get the training and they were really excited about implementing the work. So, um, that's a great thing. Um, and then this last professional development day on Thursday, we did kind of do a bunch more on executive functioning strategies and we are going to continue to build that. Um, probably in

014another two three months, I'll share some really nice um intervention updates that we have going on in the district um related to not just executive functioning and literacy and math, but how we're trying to better support all of our learners with their variety of needs. Are those suggestions for teachers or something that is an expectation that >> are you talking about like our professional development slides? Actually what we created besides that training um we actually are creating if then documents for all of our staff in executive functioning um literacy and math um because we are getting feedback from it's great that you tell me to look at this book but our teachers are busy like I need a lesson I need a lesson that's what they told us math reading I need a lesson in

015executive functioning I need a checklist I need something I can't create everything. So that's actually what we're pushing out more Rebecca besides the training is the if then document which talks a lot about what are some accommodations we could do for all kids. What are some instructional things that we can do either whole class if that is or with individual students within the classroom and that's how those documents are divided. They're a long labor of love and they're going to take us all year to create, but our um instructional specialists have a really good start on that. And the feedback on Thursday on that if then is how helpful that's going to be. But we see that really in individual conversations around students, right, or class classrooms. So that's where we're going to be doing

016a lot more of the training as their needs. staff want to keep it going right but then it comes through supervision evaluation so you are observing you know how do you think between us that executive function development or what this child class >> when you're thinking about executive function one of the things I'm noting school district everything's a Google classroom but taking opportunity not work to enhance executive functioning skills. Writing things down appears to be much more over time for them to remember. >> There's a lot of brain research around actually physically writing it. Yes. >> For a child who has school every day was supposed to write. >> I don't have time. class just over gone. >> So he would need >> time >> then how that day is probably going to change and

017I don't I'm not saying what do >> but thinking about how that >> everything else we've done so far is check the screen check the screen after a number of months this summer has he writes it down >> he remember that just not for that. >> Yeah. And it's what kind of tool they have, right? Because I mean it's important because you go to arrowhead and everything's on canvas. So also Yeah. Just teaching them how to how to use the strategy. Yep. >> Yeah. >> Right. Well, what you're talking about is every kid learns different and we know that about executive functioning, right? Like we all have strengths and weaknesses. So it's, you know, finding a strategy that works for you. You know, online works for some, some kids it doesn't. So what it is.

018>> Yep. >> So we would call that like in our if then document a perfect example of an accommodation the teacher could use with the student to actually, you know, have them take the last couple minutes of class to write it down, right? figure out how to show. >> Yeah. >> We're a couple months in that >> so I appreciate that converation. What I have wondered is how does that have to is that something that he has to have a document for when a teacher >> I think we can probably like I don't know like I would you know if a parent came to me with something like that I would you know say like at conferences do we have a conversation of what works best and can we build it into that day because

019that's where we want to know and I think our because we're just starting to have those conversations on executive functioning here I think our staff is still trying to figure out um you what you know what it is. What can we do better? Um >> yeah. >> Oh yeah. No, she's talking about the the virtual assignment notebook. How can we for some kids a physical assignment notebook and then making sure that we have time built in to do that, right? >> Because I mean on you know and again it's just every kid's different. So, I think, you know, if if a kid needs something like that, I would hope we would be able to have conversations at conference time with the teachers about can you just, you know, get get that in um or figure

020out a time where he can hop on to the virtual and write it down, too. All right. Um I'm trying to think here. Um Ron and I are in the process on this one of our developing our ACP family winter night. Um we do that. So we're working on that and um we definitely we have a draft of the district AI policy that we will be taking to the board probably in spring. Um our dis our teachers will be doing a lot of that training within the next month. So a lot of these again are really well on our way. our merin values committees are working on that. We're doing a lot of stuff um in our multi-level system of support. So that again is what I'm referring to if then documents our more robust

021intervention toolbox that we continue to build. I'll talk more of that about act 20 um time and our employee experience. Our biggest thing is you know we really are this is our first year of implementing our new compensation model. So kind of doing that, continuing to get feedback. Um it's not green yet because we're in the process of collecting our school perception data. We did give staff a half hour to complete it built into their professional development time. So um hoping I mean that's the best we can do. We can't require people to take it. So um but we did build it into their time on Thursday um with a light breakfast and come and grab some coffee. Um, but we haven't, it's not yellow because we haven't reviewed it because we're haven't taken it

022yet about a year ago. So hopefully we'll send you. >> Yes. So it's again a happy thing uh when I talk to our good staff that paid. It's not a conversation. We'll see for the school recession because we'll go back and see part of the strategic plan all year. So hopefully we'll find out survey about how about that. Um, but I did have conversation felt like the compensation system was not there, you know, where they might not have done as much as what they would have liked to kind of I know what the data shows and I know the parables are so that double speak about so but uh but I think it's working and uh we actually are going to be presenting at school boards convention about that process. So you think the team

023>> I think so there was a tremendous amount of their voice they they put it together they own it we put some parameter around it they owned it collaborative and really feels really good district and our employees and our staff and it really showed in our our new staff we were able to attract uh We say this is where we're at. Okay, thank you. Some of these people have several years experience. So we may have a new teacher now. >> Correct. Correct. We're going to have to look at just three to five years to see how do we comparison because I tell you like our teacher salary and we continue business standpoint gather all that 51,000 very very >> well I think I just I just know about the education that's I don't know what

024everybody else thinks >> um on the professional development side um we do also build into every professional development day, a feedback survey as part of their time to complete. Again, we can't really require them to um you know, um but we do Delta Pluses and we review that every time. Um we're refining some of our new teacher stuff. We talked about that at the last meeting. So, that's green because we reviewed it and we're making changes. The changes are made to be implemented next year. Um and of course, you know, keep working on our professional development um plan and including our um instructional assistance as much as possible, which we did with the executive functioning professional development and they're here um a couple times on campus right along with our teachers. Um the collaborative trusting

025and positive work environment. You know, as um some of your board members know, this is more ongoing. It continues from the work we did last year. where again we did try to build in also to their professional workday time that the policy um subcommittee and personnel committee is coming this October. They're coming on Wednesday. It's a professional day in the morning from 8 to 8:30. So staff is here. So there we set that up. So, you know, that was some feedback that we got from staff and we're going to see if it increases in attention um increases attendance. You know, if not, that's that might be something we look at that just like the survey, but you know, we have it built in, so it's it's there. Um, so we have that. I know Ron

026is also um you know, working with new staff at checkpoints and grade level department meetings at checkpoints. he's been working on that. So, we're I think you know all yellow in there. Um this work we haven't started to to do yet, but we will put that on our agenda. Again, not behind, but we're really looking at our hiring process this year. Um communication employees. Again, this is really just also the same action items um above is as part of a collaborative work environment, which is really the key of holding some of those meetings that we have going on. And then um our community experience, you know, we're going to continue to enhance the communication system with our district families. Um we're doing that. We're going to collect some feedback. We're looking at school perception survey

027where we talk about that to see if going to sat, you know, Sunday nights has been effective or not. So looking forward to what that would be um instead of. We still send random emails out. Um, I think our eighth grade family's got one for me today. Um, about arrowhead transition stuff. There's some things that if it's very unique to a grade level or very unique to something that we don't want it buried, we still will send some out um at different times. >> Yeah. is >> got an eighth grader there. Um, you know, support on our family experience. We had a really popular literacy and math night and we're hoping to do a steam night this year with some extra FTE from some of our um specialist teachers next door. They don't have as

028much FTE that we originally thought. So, we're not sure what we're doing about that night if we have enough in there to actually have them do something. So, we're still playing with that, but originally they had a couple extra minutes every week and we had a snake. >> So, like a full-time FT's equivalent of how many instructional minutes they had based on their sections. Originally, we thought we Yes. So, originally we thought we had one less section and we would have more time, but we had to take it with some supervision time and some other requirements. So, I'm not sure where that's going yet. It's red. Um, doesn't mean it's not going to happen, but it might be different or we might have to find a different way of getting it done. Um but otherwise

029um you know we're we're pretty good on our way of getting a lot of um this um community um community items done and then um I know um Mary did that implement that community connection surveys um and that's ongoing and we're going to continue to do that till we find people that can come and help within our classrooms. And this one we intentionally left blank. We don't have anything in that action item um this year. So, you know, we've got a lot of things in process. We're a busy place. So, I think we answer most of your questions as they came up. Is there anything else before I talk about the science update? Reach out families who students have gone to private high school see how students here are doing >> like if they left

030as high school. Yeah, and we have not >> we don't actually unless they ask for files. We don't necessarily know um where that where that would be. So >> yeah, that was highlighted yellow. So we do have a draft policy. Um we are doing training in November with our staff. Um we really want to develop some collaborative understanding about it so that policy makes sense to them and also to help us with some of the rules. Um the and what I mean is administrative rules to the policy. So that learning is happening and um yes we do have a draft um that we use from WB with some Maria changes probably >> yeah um all right so um on the science um so um I did kind of just remind it's on our cycle to

031look at science this year um last time we had it we did not look at it K8. There was it was during COVID and it was just too much to manage primary. Um so we did some changes at 68. So now we combined them again. So it's been a while. So we're looking at that. Um just a couple things. Um we met for a power day in um summer with Merin Values um in the same week. We did a lot of things similar to um our other committee work. We reviewed the Merin strategic plan. We talked about what the curriculum and renewal cycle was. We looked at all relevant laws and state statutes related to science. We dug into our science standards and um they started reading different articles about science instruction and best practices

032in that and they'll do that every time we meet. And then they actually work looked at some of the artifacts of the last review. What did we have? How did it work? What did it look like? Um and then we began digging into the data that we have for that. Um that will be part of the report. Um what are remaining meetings for this year? Um we have in November we'll be meeting in the afternoon. Um in um January we'll be meeting in the afternoon um just with uh our our intermediate staff and then in February just with our primary staff in the afternoon and then we will be subbing out time to look at materials. We fill out a pretty robust rubric on materials. Um transparency. I review all materials and I only bring

033to the committee those I can live with. So there are things that I've already said that I'm not interested in. Um are they highly rated materials right now? Are they aligned to our standards? Most of the science materials out there were never really aligned to the next generation science standards. and you know really the engineering practices woven in we do so much here on the STEM side it's so important that we use them so um and very few programs are written for them so it really eliminated a lot because if they weren't if the curriculum was not written after um I didn't even look at them and I don't like seeing when they say oh we aligned it. There's a difference of aligning your curriculum to standards and actually writing them to standards. So I

034that's my biggest thing. And then um we'll have a March after school meeting and my goal is to get it to the board if possible depending on when you have your March meeting before we have new board members on partly because they're not here participating with all the updates and it would be hard to catch uh board members up to have their very first board meeting being reviewing something they've never been a part of. So depending on the timeline, um that's still my my hope for science. Any questions on the science review? Okay, everyone can read my board member memos. They're so interesting, you know. Well, they are to me, but I don't know how many other people. Um act 20. as you know on this memo it just grows because I just keep all

035the updates and information so it's really transparent to our public. Um and I just wanted to give a little bit of an update. We had one for the full board. Um I'm going to do this so I can walk away. Um but here's um a little update. So um if you remember I said that Ames web changed their norming reormed and um some of those expectations changed. So what I did remember we implemented last January the amount of personal reading plans we had by grade level and then what percentage of that was by grade level. So you would see kind of where this was when we reassessed in April where we were. Um, and then I did put September in there. So, that gives you an idea. You remember Maria said, "I'm assuming we're going

036to have significantly less personal reading plans." We do. Um, and so, um, 4K does not have, um, a PRP requirement, um, for your old kindergarten, but, we are required to test. So if we had students that were below the 25th percentile, um that's the number that we would have. I am not looking for early intervention in 4K. That is a place for them to learn about letters and sounds, which is what they're assessing. So a lot of our kids come to Martin with some of that knowledge in there already with them. Some didn't. So, I'm not overly worried about where that is. Um, in our program review, we did a lot of training and they implemented learning cycles and some other really good work and we're doing some good things on shared reading and writing.

037And I'm thinking it will all turn out fine. You know, of course, we might have some students that still might um, you know, need a little more opportunity to learn and we'll look at that. But I'm just noting these numbers. So, um I'm not um actually I'm still kind of disappointed our number in third grade. Now, what I didn't include on here is our number of fourth graders that are still with personal reading plans because they didn't pass the state test. Um but considering the fact that the you know they didn't have the same phonics instruction um you know early on as what we're giving our kids now. I mean, I'm not surprised there's more plans in earlier grades, right? So, um, so what are some things? Um, okay. Why aren't you moving here? My

038slides do not want to move. So, kind of what's up next. were of course busy implementing the plans. Um we did create a family involvement website because the law requires us to have family at home activities for literacy. Our goal is at the end of the year to replicate that whole thing in mathematics. So it's not really an act 20 thing but we're busy working on that. Um we have continued required reading training. Last year we actually gave all our staff time to complete the required training Cox Academy. We did hire some staff that did not come with any training. So they're in the process. That's why it's still on there. So if they did not come to us with the training complete, then our job is to make sure they have it complete. So

039we're working on that. It is on their own time. We gave them all the materials during summer to complete it. um if they wanted to start already. Then um we're continuing to work out the bugs. We had a huge communication glitch in fall and we were like, "How Maria's how can this happen? We did this in we've done this twice before." Well, we had so many students with personal reading plans that none of our students in um in inner in our intervention in our intensive interventions didn't have a reading plan. Well, now we have room to take additional students in our interventions that still meet our district requirements. Maybe not the states, but where we're still concerned about. And we had some communication glitches because we didn't have that problem last time. That problem didn't

040exist. Then we found the problem. So, we are busy trying to fix that. Um, you know, and that's a good problem to have. but one I I wish I would have done a better job anticipating. And then of course um we have a lot of new district literacy materials and staffing that we're implementing. Um Sibs, building reading success, a whole bunch from the 95% group. Um we have some intensive training um for our interventionists um going on comprehension focus group, strategy things, a lot of training. It's very overwhelming with the amount of new stuff. And our reading team is so awesome. They want to try everything we have different. So, we're going to keep building that toolbox. Every time we find a weakness in what we don't have is where we're getting training. So, comprehension

041was a weakness and we're hitting it big time. So, some of these are intervention programs and some of these are intervention strategies and best practices. So, there's training assigned to them, but it's not a kit that you're going to get. It's a framework or protocol. So, that comprehension focus group is an example of a best practice, not a something we bought, but something they're getting trained on. So they had training last week, this week. So that's what we have and it's going great. I think we're all a little overwhelmed. I know the team is I would be with all that new too and trying to decide what we want to take out for a spin is uh exciting. What? Um, well, there's so much diagnostic information. We've maybe been starting these interventions just for a

042couple weeks and we're a tad behind over here at the intermediate school because, as the board knows, we had to pull our literacy coach who's the part-time interventionist to cover a long-term sub situation. We do still have interventions going. We had to just um pick our our most needy students to be into those interventions coming out of shoot. prioritized them with the time she had and some of our other reading team members, but we are looking forward. We will be picking up more students. So, um Lauren and I are already meeting on Friday to talk about those group works and all our diagnostics. So, when she's back being a coach next week, we can look at re reframing some of that. And I had to I mean, just to be honest, we had to limit

043her training. She was supposed to take a lot of other training. I can't pull a long-term sub out of a classroom for all the training I wanted her to have. So, we'll be continuing to trying to find when those opportunities come up again additionally to keep building her toolbox. Um, she was supposed to get Orton Gillingham training and another um best practice. Both of those are not a program, meaning a practice. Um, there isn't an OG guide that comes for every student. They have to create lessons. So that's going to be happening um later on this year. So anything else on the act 20 date? >> Okay. All right. Thank you. that again. I call this meeting to order on October 27th, 2025 for the Merin Community Board of Education. >> The pledge of allegiance

044then go up. No, >> that's the start of the other one. So, our student showcase today is our theater uh musical theater is going to be produced or is going to be showing Beauty and the Beast, which runs November 13th through the 15th. And uh we have a little sneak peek out in the cafeteria. >> We're ready to go. >> All right. Uh let's do >> Oh, what's up? >> Floor is open. >> Oh, the floor is open. time. >> I think we can Well, we could see if there's any community forum. >> Oh, yes. I that's what you were saying. I'm sorry. I don't see anybody who wanted to speak at the community forum. Is there anyone who wanted to speak? >> Okay. >> Oh, for six. >> In that case, >> pledge of

045allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Right. This meeting open meeting has been published in all of the usual places and we are moving on to an approval of our agenda for this evening. >> I so move that we approve the agenda as presented. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say I. I. Those same sign. Extensions. All right. And now we're moving on to the approval of the consent agenda items. >> Motion to approve. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? >> See D, did you have anything?

046>> I have nothing. >> Thought you were about to speak. Nope. >> In that case, all in favor, please say I. >> I. Sign. Abstensions. All right. So, we are now moving to delegations to be heard. I don't have anyone signed up for delegations to be heard. Would anyone like to be heard? I'm staring at you. Very good. Then we are moving on to our administrators. >> Yep. We will start with our principal report. >> Um, would you like to move to the front here? Um, >> are you showing anything? >> Yeah, we'll show I mean, you can Yeah, >> sure. Yeah, stretch your legs. I guess >> all right. Good evening. Good evening, uh, everybody. We wanted to just share with you a couple things. The first thing, something that we're trying uh trying

047at the primary school this year, uh to be um really to build some partnerships with families. Steve's passing around a copy of something that we sent home with families when maybe there needs to be a correction or some redirection that happened at school and um this really came from our mer values team. As you know, we have a mer values team at each school and we wanted to get uh build a partnership when maybe there's some lower level behaviors or concerns that happen before it rises the level of the principal. Okay. So, we call this our woe easy now kind of to go with the Mustang team. I did not come up with that. Not that creative. >> So, uh we think that's it's worked out pretty nicely so far. Um, in terms of building

048partnerships, a lot of times if it gets to the the level of the principal, I'm calling the parent. Uh, and these are things that are generally like, like I said, lower level, maybe there's some redirection. It's very simple for our staff to to fill out. And more importantly, it's the conversation that can happen at home because we know that our our parents are are our best uh partnerships in terms of like teaching those desired behaviors. I don't get involved with these, but it's um what we've noticed is just um a little bit better connection with our families in terms of and we wanted to formalize this. In many cases, this is already happening across the school in different forms and now we're just doing it across all of our grade levels. So, uh you see

049the front and back that's on your sheet. Um and really the the goal is to improve communication. We do track this uh data if it goes into like a spreadsheet. So, for example, if they're in a specials, let's say there's something that maybe there's a disagreement at a special that a note needed to go home. Think about a note coming home from school, our special teachers also contribute to that. So, we'll look at that that that data as a school and then like it helps us in form maybe some things that we need to show up like um with some of our routines and it helps me do some reteing at our monthly assemblies. I also do a daily principal message. So that kind of helps before it fries the level of like okay we

050need like administration um help with this. So um this is our w easy. So that was my share I'm going to tag on us. We but before I do I just want to let you know like during lunch today the kids were really excited to perform today. They were talking about like you know yeah you're gonna hear me my solo you're gonna hear this. You're gonna see this. Um, so they're very, you know, they were, even though it was only a few minute thing, they were, they were pretty excited to share today. So, thanks for indulging that, as you can see how talented they are. And, you know, when you hear the mic, you know, the mics and all the things when they get miked up, they're in costume. It's awesome. All right. Um, you

051know, we've done a lot of work as as the board knows, a lot of the tier work, tier one work we've done around, and I've shared this before, some of the common expectations. What do we how do we behave in different spaces? Then we've did some work around like that flowchart if it doesn't happen what do we do and then how do we document that and then really this summer like Maria said it was like this I mean it was June but we were our team left super excited about this because a lot of times when we we have interventions for students math for reading but what do we do besides you know constantly having the same conversation these behaviormies was just the perfect like tier two what do we what do we do we've

052actually just dipped our toe and started these already. Um, we already have one student that we're working with in a behavior academy looking to add another. Um, we have to start slow because the cool thing about this book, there's a lot that's already made, but also the the nice thing about it is um kind of shares with if you want to make your own how to do it just to kind of give you an idea of what is what is a one of thesemies. So, social skills academy behavior would be like it's designed for students struggling with appropriate peer and adult interaction. And then so if that's something we're seeing, there's eight targeted skills that social awareness, self-awareness, turn taking, empathy, cooperation, relationship building, communications, and patience. And so every lesson is around those. And

053with those are also the rehearsal card. So you have kids practice what's the right way to respond to that? what's the or what's the what would be a wrong way, what's the right way? And we also can get the kids at the middle school level, there's blank cards, too, where the kids could create their own scenarios or we could create them knowing this student is constantly having really big problems in football. Exactly. And this is a constantly coming up, how do we rehearse those with them? It's just instead of saying, well, let's have a conversation. It's really targeted teaching of skills that we see lack. And so um as we now now that we have systems in place and we have data coming in two we now know like okay there are c certain students

054that will me this criteria um and it will help them and hopefully we you know feel good about um having some targeted instruction. So like I said we're really in the infant stage of this. We have currently one student in the academy right now um purposefully because we want the first time you want to run something you you know we don't want to run on mass level and go well we really need to change a whole lot. Um, you know, our goal actually coming out of the summer was to wait until second semester, but we're already in our PST team meeting kind of excited to get it rolling. So, we said, let's start one. We're actually designing a second one right now. Um, but um, I just think it's like the the next level of

055where we're the team is super excited. I know Bob's team was there too with both of our teams left that with like the, you know, was June. We're excited to come and do get the work done. >> Yeah. I I just add uh it's it's in our strategic plan to get these rolling, but when we talk about the behavior academy, it's a little bit different than these. These are really for probably less than like 3 to 5% of students. So, this is a very very small group that would have an intensive intervention. This is not something that we would not not connect to this, but connected to this. So, um again, like Steve's talked about really building our our system around like being really intentional. We have the academic side, but the behavior side needs

056shoring up. So, What kind of feedback have you done in future? >> I pretty positive so far. I think the the some of the things that we had to work through is like how to how do you uh make it uh student and uh familyfriendly across a building that starts in K4 or fourth grade. So we had kind of find a sweet spot with that. So I think it's been a good um you know we just met today team uh just met today and we talked about some tweaks that we want to do. We also we we're currently put it into like a generic spreadsheet. We want to leverage our data warehouse our next path to help with that. So kind of the next step with it. But it's been answer your question. Um positive

057it's created some conversations and it's been really good. >> Steve, where in the day one of these behavior happens? Where does that happen? >> It's it's um student by student. So, um, this I'm trying to think e the student either has study hall or we chose I mean we've communicated to parents sometimes it might be you know we look at the least restrictive place we can take take it from right um and typically like Bob said too you know if if a student's having a is in a behavior academy and parents have already you know like I've already probably had conversations about some behavioral things right so this they probably they've got written up before I've had conversations with them and so then the conversation the phone is like hey this is an opportunity for

058us to you know you know for us to teach these behavior skills so um and I think it even goes hand in hand with some of the learning with executive functioning you think we think about you know I'm thinking about one the one we're designing right now like a student who sometimes I always tell them I just just need a stop sign to stop to think what you're going to say because you what's what comes out isn't always appropriate and then but thinking about how do we you know instead but I can tell that over and over and over and over again like broken record. This is the aha with it behavior academy. But now now we're going to have him work together to write those rehearsal cards to practice. you know what what shouldn't

059I do and now what what could be my response instead or sometimes responses don't response but >> things glad to hear it's working so well >> but the vocabulary of those questions just a little bit and that's the training hospitals are doing training patients when they are not getting it's that >> hospital we're excited we're excited to be able to say we're you know on the behavior and not only are we track it's fun it's fun to track behavior it's fun to have behavior have consequences. But then what about that, you know, the explicit teaching piece, especially the students, >> that's the best practice of giving them a chance to hear themselves saying it and know that the first few times, right? It usually doesn't go very well because you're changing. We really expect this

060to be >> and the very first time we meet with somebody in academy, we lay out why you're there, what you're going to learn, and why, you know, like the student probably knows, but we want them to be clear. So the next time we meet, this is what we're going to questions. >> Thanks guys. Thank you. >> Thank you. That was very interesting. Appreciate Appreciate knowing that work is going on. >> Still on good. Okay, we're moving to open record requests. So, uh, we had one pretty typical open record request asking for all the emails and the positions of our staff, which is pretty typical. So, we turn over what we have. That's it for the month. >> Great. >> Uh, from a donation standpoint, we did not have any donations this month. So, >>

061all right. >> Pretty simple. So, the other piece that I just wanted to highlight and uh for our our families who are there is right now we are conducting our family engagement survey through school perceptions. It is open through I do believe next Sunday or Monday. Uh right now we have oh about 160 responses I do believe. So hoping to get uh as many as possible. So uh that is ongoing. We'll be sending another reminder email like good researchers do. Um so that's happening right now. And then we're also collecting staff feedback too as well. So and then the third piece to that is is we will be talking to our kids in a couple weeks in grades four through eight and our families tomorrow will be getting more information about that. >> And about

062approximately how long does it take families to fill out the survey? >> Oh, under 10 minutes. under 10 minutes. Doesn't take long. Yep. So, all feedback is appreciated. Thank you. >> Great. Let's move on to committee reports. >> Okay. So, the first one we have is our finance committee. So, which is the uh a big part again we'll be having a action item a little later in the meeting to to approve a levy as well as a budget. But, uh the first part of the meeting is was that time when we looked through our quarterly financials. um school districts are unlike other businesses where things kind of go in quarter quarter quarter um it doesn't happen that way in schools. So um so you can see so basically what we try to do is we

063kind of try to compare year-over-year about where we are landing first quarter u to see exactly hey how are we doing bases on revenues and uh expenditure. So you can see in your packet that uh that was presented at the committee meeting that you'll see that we are doing very well as it relates to both our revenues and expenses for quarter 1. Uh quarter two will get a little bit closer and again we can continue to project out how we're doing. Just a reminder to uh our community and to our board that uh teacher salaries um start in September, not in July and August. That's why there's kind of that big lag. So, we uh we just kind of get into things and again we'll give a quarter 2 update in January. So, but things

064are looking good for quarter 1. Nothing out of the ordinary. Um the last piece that we talked about, which was the big one we were going to be discussing a little bit, um is our all of our variables came in for school finance. So, our third Friday count occurred. Uh October 1st was our property values that were finalized and then October 15th was the state aid that was finalized for each school district in the state of Wisconsin. Um this memo pretty much guides the uh the process and the thinking for those of you that have been with us for a while. It's kind of the same memo we've had for the last couple years that kind of outlines the uh the process that we go through. So um this is ultimately the third rendition of

065our budget. So, um, in May we present a preliminary budget. Did you not get one there, Nicole? There you go. >> Thank you. >> Sorry about that. All >> good. >> Um, in May we present a preliminary budget. Then we have our annual meeting which happened in uh early September which we get a little bit more refinement. And then ultimately after we get those variables, we have the the new proposed budget that is in front of you today. Through the memo, you're going to find that um we do try to compare about how we estimated versus where did we come out uh from an annual meeting standpoint. And uh you'll see that we really estimated quite well. Um the only piece which is a big piece which ultimately affects affects the tax levy is the

066state equalization aid was about $500,000 lower than what was anticipated. at the finance committee. Uh Patrick asked, "Ron, why is that now? Why over the last couple years that we're falling short where a typically developing school district across the state is within percents?" So I asked DPI and I got a very DPI answer and I said, "Let's set up a time to talk so I know what we can do from a school district to get more accurate numbers, making sure that that July one can be a little bit more accurate." So, um I've sent two emails to the DPI finance team and we'll have uh some information hopefully at least to learn to make sure that we can do what we through our budgeting process and through our spending and when we spend making sure

067that DPI takes a snapshot at a at a time that's appropriate and we've got everything into the budget. We've got maybe more money spent, whatever it might be to help with support that too. So, more to come on why all of a sudden we have these shifts. the last couple years. Last year was about 200,000. This year was 500. And you'll see as you work through the memo that 500,000 basically is 35 cents onto the levy. So, um, >> did DPI answer you about a meeting? >> No. No. I they they gave >> two answers. >> Well, they responded in such that it's not subsufficient. Every school district is different. There's some shared costing variables that we could kind of look at. I said, "Well, let's talk." Yes. >> And figure this out. >> Thank

068you for doing that. >> So, two two requests that'll be coming >> with that too again because we just want to make sure we're as accurate as possible. Certainly to because again, this is kind of that big moatza ball when we said 295 and all of a sudden it's 330. Still lower than a year ago, but uh not what we expected. So, um but everything's coming in as expected. our FTE or our student equivalent um is up about seven which is good which you'll see that's why you know some of the revenue limit is increased there um but property values came in very close we had about an 8.2% 2% increase in property values this year. I can't tell you what the percent of net new construction as we know there's a lot of properties

069that are being developed. We have farm fields that at the time again the snapshot for property is January 1 to December 31st 2024. So if you think of a farm field that now has a road that's more property value. Well, next year that road now has a dozen houses. So it's going to continue to build that base. But um this year the net new construction numbers weren't as clean. They did break them up by uh school district. Like I was able to kind of compute. It was built around from a K8 or from a K12 standpoint. So when we think of the village of Lisbon, I got it right Dean. Village of Lisbon um that goes across Sussex, Arrowhead, you know, uh Aaron or wherever it goes. It's huge. Town of Mr. Same thing. So

070I wasn't able to get as detailed which I was a year ago because we could say last year it was almost 50% of our uh our property growth came from new value which ultimately helped spread that levy across more percentage of uh of homes and things like that. So >> this information came in a different way this year. Is it from year to year you don't know what kind of information you'll get or do they have trends that >> it's a really good question because I asked the question of some larger K12 business managers who really dive into that and they're like Ron this year we don't know how to help you and even for them too their municipalities were not broken down by school district like they've been done in the past so they're

071just like we can only guess and so instead of guessing I'm just telling you overall the district property raised about 8.2%. So, um, so yeah, everything was good. Some big big takeaways are is that we're up about 78,000 or about 6978,000 68,000 uh between the annual meeting what was expected on a positive side. Um, in that though there's out of that uh 68,000 an additional 38 was for school vouchers. So from a school district standpoint, we were within $40,000 of a $10 million budget. So, good good estimating there. >> Clarification. When you said 8.2% a little bit ago, is that a different number or did you mean 8.7% >> or 8.7%? I'm sorry. Is that what it is? 8.7%. I'm sorry. 8.7. >> Yeah. >> For all those listening at home. >> Yep. There we

072go. Ultimately, we put that all together, we get a revenue limit. We don't control any of these variables right now for the Merton Community School District. Um, the only one that is uh basically for us that we've approved is the fund 41. you'll see $100,000 on one of the lines uh towards the bottom which would be 14 C um which was approved at the annual meeting. So the recommendation of the uh finance committee was that we levy to the max uh which ultimately means that we take the maximum amount of taxable income that is allowed for the school district which ultimately creates that mill rate of $3.30. So we'll talk more about that uh a little bit later in the meeting. All right, next one was finance. So our I'm sorry, our facility. So the

073facility team um and again when I say team, Mr. Newcomer and Mary Iwansky and our intermediate staff would like the the board to consider um uh coming back to the remodel of the intermediate library. um the team met and we kind of uh when I say team even before we got to the facility team met and said okay what are some options we want to take a look at and what you'll see in front of you are four options that uh were presented to the uh the team the facility team and uh again we're going to continue to work through these um we did settle in number one option number one was what we brought a year ago um and option four and you'll see the pros and cons to are kind of where right

074now our administrative team would like to focus in on by doing option number four. It does give us a lot of flexibility. It allows for one additional classroom um which Mr. Newcomer and his team is kind are kind of asking for uh because we kind of have a floater that floats between health class ACP are the big ones and then a math class too as well that kind of floats. So, um, option four also gives some district storage which is desperately needed as well. So, and it's pretty least disruptive. When we say least disruptive, we feel it's the best plan, but ultimately when we take a look at a construction blueprint about what would need to be done, um, very similar to what it was a year ago, but again, very simple, confined to one

075area. Um, and it uh we feel that it meets the needs of the district in the standpoint of uh an additional classroom keeping a large group space downstairs uh for our fifth grade to uh enjoy when they want to go whole group. Uh but we also like this option too because it does give us a window and some natural light into the library uh the proposed library area too. So um it doesn't pigeon hole us to any you know say we need to all of a sudden pop a classroom that district storage would easily become a classroom it would be large enough it'll be about 900 square f feet uh for that too as well. So um we've also considered a lot of different things whether it would be hey do we need more offices

076for teaching and learning do we want to put the you know our administrative offices kind of in one area. Um we had a lot of discussion about that. Um, we have some proposals, but at this time we really wanted to bring the uh the option of at least the idea of renovating the library forward to the board and get a sense about how we're feeling before we really dig into some more detailed planning. Uh, before we get too too far down the road, the approximate cost from a year ago was right around $270,000. We feel the footprint is very similar and kind of the construction would be similar. Obviously, we'd have to go out to bid. Uh, but we would be targeting right around that $300,000 mark. Half of it probably is going to be

077in fixture, furniture, and equipment. That's just kind of the way it goes. That stuff's expensive. New equipment, uh, new new furniture, new shelving, and the other half would be construction cost. Um, we do believe that we would have to go with a construction manager to complete this. So, we're talking about we would engage the uh you know, we engage about four or five construction managers, see who's interested, and then ultimately create a bid spec. So, we would bring the final plan back to the full board uh before we trigger anything forward. But before we move forward, we'd like to know if this is something that the board would like to move forward with uh ahead of so we can start to engage some other contractors and move forward with the planning. But we didn't want

078to do that without kind of the consensus of the board. We ready for Y questions discuss? >> Yep. >> I have some questions, but go ahead. >> Probably one thing you didn't uh discuss the construction would probably be next summer. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. Okay. >> We're looking at this summer. So, summer of 26. >> Summer 26. >> Summer of 26. Yep. >> And so, your priorities here are creating at least one new classroom space. >> Yep. >> That and maintaining a large group space. >> Yep. >> Your window. >> The window coming in. Yep. I see that. Uh, did I miss anything? >> District storage. >> Yeah, district storage >> and then flexibility for future growth. >> So, between three and four, why do you like three better than four? >> I guess

079one and four. >> One and four. What you like best? Yes. But what I'm looking at >> Yeah. >> I guess my question was why not three? >> Why not three? >> Don't you like three? What I don't like about three is we don't get we don't gain an additional classroom in three. >> That isn't an extra. >> Okay. Yep. >> Because the li where the library would go actually displaces two teachers. So then we would be created. That's why we we weren't big fan. Now we like that location but we felt that as we looked forward we're net zero which doesn't benefit us. >> Yes. So then each classroom the special ed classroom then doesn't have a window but everyone else does. >> But everybody else would. Correct. Yeah, special education at the intermediate

080school comes and goes. Again, our goal is to serve them in the least restrictive environment, but again, it's an in andout uh potentially there. Our upstairs special education room is very similar to that too as well, where it is an interior room. That's also a functionality of size there too for that one. Upstairs is a little bit smaller, right around 700 square ft, I do believe. So the biggest difference between one and four is the um configuration of where the library sits and that four puts it with a a window. Are the costs similar to >> we anticipate given you know wall construction very similar very similar cost but again until we go out and see we would uh we would anticipate something very similar. My question is on number one. So we're talking about

081a library, but it says limited design to accommodate the books. >> Yep. Yep. >> And limited I mean can we break that down? >> Sure. When we say limited is is we are we have it will be it will be very tight with the books. When we say tight is we're going to go through every year we kind of go through books and say hey what circulation hasn't been used and things like that. We do have uh accommodate the books. Basically the shelving will be very very tight with our current. >> So we would have less books as options for students. >> We would go through and weed what we would typically do. But ultimately whenever you move a library you kind of weed a little bit more. When we say weed it's basically what

082books haven't we used at all um in a long long time and just kind of recirculate them out. But uh >> but in four one of the cons is still smaller footprint but you don't have that uh limited book space as a >> we felt that we would be able to with the footprint of that uh be able to accommodate more of the book space too as well. >> Is it because there's less fewer doors and walkthroughs? >> Doors walkthroughs just a little bit more you have opportunity to go up a little bit higher with some books. Uh again that was just kind of in our preliminary and this is all preliminary. We're going to continue to >> this is just the conversation right? We're not like official vote. >> No, no. This is just

083a conversation to see if there is enough momentum for us to spend our staff and administrative time and start to engage some other contractors moving forward. >> I appreciate all this and all the work. I don't feel like it's there yet. Personally, >> what are you looking for? What else? >> Well, let's not get rid of books. Like redo a library, but it's going to be smaller and we're getting rid of what a library is meant to be. So if we go with something like four and they're able to keep >> still a smaller footprint and it's still not giving them the storage either that they're looking for. So >> four gives us some storage. It gives us 900. It's a little bit we can handle that because it's larger than what we currently have.

084We would be gaining about 900 square ft of storage in Florida. Um the we believe Nicole from a traditional library standpoint that uh we don't need a 3600 foot library anymore. >> Okay. >> We truly believe that an 18,800 foot library could meet the needs of our students, our staff as well as the academic needs that are there. Um you know the one of the cons too is right now there's some small group spaces that you know kids can kind of go to. It does limit it as much there too as well. So correct, we just believe that we don't need the 3600 library. >> But I'm one of five. That's just my personal opinion. >> And so one of the things I'm hearing is perhaps you are not seeing how what how the priority

085is met by the plan >> by either one of them. I feel like if so we have four options and my opinion is how do you get the best of both out of one and four like can we take it one more step and then come back with a proposal. So if you're looking at them here, >> the reason why we went away from one was feedback that we had about having the natural light window. Uh that right now kids in the library, >> it's a dark >> go towards natural. >> That's where they go. And the one end just feels darker and unused as well because it is darker. >> So like I'm seeing for pros gives large group space gains two classrooms. This is one classroom. The the difference in we would change

086in number one of the classrooms we would just designate instead of extra classroom we would say it's storage because you actually create one of them would be storage and the other one becomes an extra which is ultimately and we really didn't uptake number one. So number one and four gives you the same spaces. Um we just believe that the change of the natural light in one or from one to four is the the difference maker there >> is the difference >> and because it's not in one as the space is now there are three different entrances to that space and it's you have to cross that space to get to back to these classrooms. So that is that part of what's happening? >> Yeah, we also would have one entrance into the library and one

087exit as well. I think the natural light in there does help for student management as well because there's always going to be some light. >> Yeah, I do also want to mention uh it came up at the the committee meeting. How would this be funded? Okay, this is not budgeted for. This would be a basically a use of our fund balance. So, we would tap into our fund balance just like we did to for our roof. This would be a one-time fund 10 fund balance project uh that would hit a combination of more than likely hit more in the 2026 27 school year just based on time needed things like that of when it would go. >> So then timeline to think about what happens next. Paul said this is not an action item for

088tonight. It's a discussion >> that what what do you perceive happening? So, we would just like, you know, to Nicole's point, would love the feedback to say, "Hey, it's just not working for me. I'd like to see XYZ or or or, you know, the rationale isn't there." Um, just any feedback that we can go and kind of, you know, squander up and create a new footprint or something different in the design process would then come back uh to the the the full board in November. We could do that again because we have a quick turnaround. It's November. Um, and then ultimately at that time, we would need to say, "Hey, let's go ahead and do this because then we really need to quickly engage our contractors, which it won't take long because I do believe

089that given the work that they've done already and that they're familiar with the space, we'd reach out to the people who uh responded last time with the RFP process and uh, you know, we have our furniture and our fixtures kind of picked out so it wouldn't be like a complete redo. We would really like to have this in front of the board in January for approval so we can get on the calendar and ready to go and get prices locked in for the summer of 2026. >> So, as you continue to work on this, I think part of what might be missing is we've got the pros and cons list here, but it doesn't start with the need statement, right? That so that >> I think you're I think you're missing a part of your

090narrative. I think you know the narrative. I just don't think it's here. >> I think that's what's missing for me. And then I just saw limited books. >> So the pros and cons feels like the second step once you know what the needs is. It feels like you know it but it isn't as well articulated here. >> Okay. And can you discuss future ability for library classroom space if after school moves? Future ability for library classroom. So you have the ability for a second classroom. >> I'm talking on four. Yep. net gain of one classroom, but you could get two if after school moves. >> Correct. Well, after school currently occupies three classroom spaces and uh so if we again ultimately we would have to pick up after school and move them somewhere else by

091the primary school more than likely. Um, you do have opportunities for some expansion there too as well in in all of our scenarios because we're always looking to say what happens if we grow, if we need to pop a classroom uh, in particularly in the fifth grade area because the the after school program does have some flexibility throughout the day. Like for instance, they may only need that third classroom in the afternoon. So, we could use it in the morning. Again, we want to make sure that we can meet the needs of our families through as much after school as possible. We've heard that before. definitely >> uh which is a big priority. We want to make sure that we're taking care of families, too. So, >> so what I'm hearing is >> wouldn't that

092be a pro in everyone? Wouldn't it be true for any of them? If after school moves, we'd have more space >> for all of them. >> Okay. So, that's not really just specific to one plan. >> Yep. >> Okay. >> Timing wise, one of the advantages is um this coming budget does not have any big uh Yeah. to cost like a roof reurfacing the parking lot, things like that. There's nothing anticipated in this coming year like that. So, you know, any surplus from uh the budget because he figures probably 3% more >> we hope for >> than what he normally uh what the expenditures were. could also go into funding part of this. >> Okay. >> I'm interested in doing the work. That's the end. But when trying to make a selection here, I I

093need to see what you're trying to meet so that I know how to make a good choice. >> Is the after school area similar size to the library? >> It is. Could there possibly be a switch there? There's a window there. >> Yep. It's a general classroom. There's actually two classrooms in there. There are Yep. Right there. Um, they need to have separate spaces. There need to be some separate spaces in there. Not to say you we could do some finagling. Um, and we're also trying to, you know, limit our construction cost in some of this at this point. I mean, because we even talked about, you know, building offices and the teachers. I mean, there's all sorts of other things, but right now, we just kind of wanted to focus in on this project.

094But does it cost more down the road if we aren't looking at I'm not saying we can do it all, but from a construction standpoint, does it make sense if we're already have a crew here doing things to look at some of those other options as well? you know, with the volume of scale that we're doing. This is a fill-in project a lot if they get done with a job early or late because we all of them said, "Hey, we will get to this between June 15th and August 15th >> just because of the scale of it. They're just they can throw it here or there too. So um we can look into see if there is a quantity of scale that we could bring uh because there is conversation amongst our administrative team to

095say hey is it worthy of bringing a traditional district office together. So tech curriculum special ed the superintendent business are all together because right now we're kind of scattered across a couple different buildings too as well. So we could bring that forward as well because that's again very simple construction right we're building walls and that's something that we can so we could bring something forward that too as well that I think is probably the next again the district need you know again it costs money to put us together and not to say that you know we can't walk you know across the campus or anything >> but uh we could discuss that too as well with some of that planning we have >> well I like to see better use of space I like to

096see the planning that type of thing and I do appreciate that this is not that this is a good time for it that we wouldn't have another large thing we're planning. This district has traditionally done a really nice job of making sure we're keeping things up and planning it like that. So that's a compelling point as well. >> So okay, thank you. Okay. So we'll bring some direction. We'll bring it back to the the board for some consideration. The last piece that we talked about which we're really excited about for those of you who have been here for a little bit is a turf soccer field. uh very similar to when we brought the turf uh volleyball court uh out is the kids love playing volleyball and it was a mud hole. Right now we

097have kids who love to play soccer, football, you know, whatever yard uh backyard games and our area is just all beaten down and when it rains here sometime it's all going to be mud. So, um, this is a partner project like we've done with, uh, other projects in the past is, uh, looking at a proposal to bring a mini turf soccer field to the back of our primary school. Um, again, it would be striped soccer. Not to say you can't do other things, but, uh, we already have the goals and everything, uh, thanks to some PTO work, I do believe, but, uh, just looking to partner and a very simple rectangular turf field, um, for our kids. Um, right now, I am collecting bids. Um it's things are coming in you know right around that

09880,000 mark plus or minus um on some things. We should have four competitive bids for that and uh just again PTO is committed right around that 40,000 uh to it. Again half and you can see how things are going with their fundraiser. Again they'll be announcing that next week and I'll have some final numbers for uh the board once we we bring those proposals together. Um I do believe we can put this project into the budget. Uh, no problem. You know, it'd be about $40,000 approximately and, uh, it would be greatly needed by our kids, uh, our community. Uh, just would be a really fun fun thing for our kids to do because they enjoy the volleyball court every day and we really feel that would enhance our student experience. >> What's life expectancy on

099these? >> Um, 15 years, >> approximately 15 years. Uh, the when the replacement would be needed, all you need is new turf. >> Turf. >> That's the nice part about it. New turf. Uh and because all the the base work has been done too as well. So about 15 years warranty is 10 uh might even get 15 on some things but typically it's a 10-year warranty. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Few years ago when we were getting ready before we did the volleyball court I thought that wasn't there a plan to put some shade sales in at the primary school. What happened at that point? Um, I I think that the momentum for that kind of went well, you know, it's it's it would be more of a a summer project just based on

100the seasons what we thought. When I say a summer project, it gets really hot June, July, and August. >> We're not in school. >> Well, except for this year. One of my questions, I don't think we're getting we're going to have a cooler climate. We're headed towards a warmer climate. So, having shade, especially for our uh teachers who need to be outside and kids and kids who can't overheat, that type of thing. I would I appreciate this. I'd like to see this, but I would like to see some follow-up on that project because I felt like we heard a lot about it and then it wasn't there anymore. May can be hot. September was hot this year. It was 90° at a soccer game the other day in the middle of October. So, I think

101it I would like to continue that conversation about how we can find a way to add some of that in because I think it allows us to use our outside space better and not wear down our staff as much. So I'm not saying >> take a look at that. >> This I just remember we had a conver I remember that was out there. >> Yep. And I've never heard why. >> Does this So it fantastic. It has an expectancy 10 15 years. Does this affect if we needed to build? Is this in anywhere >> any of the areas that we would look at? >> Nope. >> All right. >> Be sure of that. Absolutely. Yes. The the negative part is it's be right along the if you think of field two, it's going to run

102basically right in parallel to field two at that I don't want to say the outfield fence, but if you extended a line down uh third base, it's going to be right on that corner. Um I think somebody asked a question, can it handle >> spikes and and all the turf shoes? Absolutely. Okay. It'll be built for that, but it is not in any future expansion. >> Okay. This is a small small area. Um, you know, it be the little kid in their soccer programs to have that small field, the three on three type. One of the things it's going to save is having to re either s it or uh re try to replant grass in there because it is getting worn down. >> It's dead. It is absolutely dead. >> Yeah. Which it should

103be. Can't you go out and have some fun? >> Absolutely. >> Yep. Okay. So, that'll come in November. >> November. >> Thank you. We'll have more financials from that too as well. >> So, uh finally, our student achievement committee. Uh again, thank you very much to Maria and uh for Rebecca and Patrick for coming a little early today. Um we did talk about our continuous improvement. Again, ultimately we took a look at our proposed strategic plan work. You'll see that it's colorcoded. Uh and if it's not colorcoded means we're right on schedule. We haven't started it yet, but we really feel positively that we'll make sure that we accomplish that as the year moves forward. So again, some very easy work just to kind of take a look at that. Again, that is a culmination

104of our entire staff too as well and many many people. Um, we also got a science committee update. Uh, again, Maria walked through how that is going. We are on track. Uh, again, big thank you to our staff. There are 13 members of that team and every science teacher. So, right around 13 people. So, 13 staff members coming together to to formulate that, too. So, big thank you to that work. And then ultimately an act 20 update. So, uh, yes, we continue to update because there's things that we just want to make sure that the board's aware of, our community is aware of. Um, and probably one of the bigger takeaways that kind of combined both Act 20 as well as our strategic planning work is the summer prep that we're going to have to

105do and kind of continue to figure out because we need to offer um a basically if you're on a reading plan, we need to offer some assistance through the summer. Uh, we want it to be the best quality in summer school. Uh again the variables are is they may not be our teachers. Uh they may be new to the profession and who knows who's going to be in there. So we want to make sure that we create some very strong curricular resources so that whoever is in that position can can deliver that curriculum for our kids. So uh again that connection between the strategic plan and our act 20 work too as well. So that's all I got for committees. >> Thank you Maria. Y Okay, we are moving on to new business. Our first

106item is to approve the 202526 district budget and tax levy and this is an action item. >> Yep. So, um have discussed kind of the uh kind of the the recap of the finance committee. Um the administrative recommendation is a and the committee recommendation is a full levy. Um there are two motions to this action item if it's desired. Um one is again we would have to uh read it again ultimately setting the tax levies. is the fund 10 fund 38 is the solar panels basically we did borrow six years ago approximately right around there for our solar project uh again we have about three or four three years left after this I do believe uh that's what fund 38 is for fund 41 is untouchable because that was uh levied at the annual meeting

107so then ultimately when you take a look at our revenue limit uh the tax levy then is 6,23,67 so and that creates a mill rate of $3.30. Just making looking for a motion uh to approve the administrative and the finance committee recommendation. >> So looped. >> Uh I think we need to make this. >> I'll make a motion to recommend to certify the tax levies of fund 105,8866,779. Fund 38,57,188. Fund 41, $100,000 for a total tax levy of 6,23,967. >> Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? >> Seeing none, all in favor, please say I. >> I. opposed. Nay. Any abstensions? >> Okay. The other action item this evening is again you've seen this item about three times. Once in May, once at the annual meeting, and then ultimately

108this evening. Uh this represents a balanced budget. And uh again, these are all woofer codes and explanations for what they are with sources and object codes. Um this is what the administration and the facility team are recommending where we spend our money. This is a fluid budget. Um, we know things are going to eb and flow. So, but the administration of the finance committee is recommending the board make a motion to approve the 2526 budget as presented. >> So, moved. >> Second. Second. >> We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say I. >> I. Oppose. Same sign. Any abstensions? >> Thank you. So, our next step, Nicole, I'll be reaching out to you and we'll be getting some signatures. Um, this week I have to deliver the

109tax levy information. What I do now is is put this information into the state portal. It then divvies up to the appropriate municipality, creates four sheets of paper, which I bring to Nicole, she signs, and then I hand deliver those to the uh those clerks. So, >> we have to get those notorized, too. Don't >> I do believe we need to notorized? Yep. It's that time of year. self and I think you're the only one who can do that. So, I'll get those to you hopefully tomorrow. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Moving on to our next item of new business is discussion about adding a part-time human resource position. This is something that I added to the agenda. Uh we had a brief discussion about this a few years ago, maybe two

110years ago and one of the things we'd asked was did any of the other feeder schools were they looking perhaps to do a 6603 and sharing a human resource person and Ron had reached out and hadn't really heard anything about that. Uh didn't hear that anybody was interested in the conversation dropped from there. In thinking about it more recently, I Ron, as you'll recall during the strategic planning meeting, I said one of my goals for the district was to be a best place to work. This is I I would love to see us named there and we do many many good things, but we're not hitting some of what I think are best practices in workplaces. And I think it's because we have you doing everything right. That's it. That's I think it's too many

111jobs for one person uh to you do many many things really well but there are too many things on the plate here and so a few things that I have been thinking about are that um one for instance you do a really phenomenal job in negotiating our health insurance that's something that I don't think very many districts who do nearly as well as you I also think though it is difficult for then people need to need to come to tell the person who negotiates their health insurance that they're about to use it and maybe in a big way. Um there's in other institutions I've heard of uh concerns about this. I know my family members at other institutions have had I mean people shouldn't need to feel guilty about using their health insurance and we

112of course want them to use it but it's also you see where that's kind of weird kind of or where people may be less comfortable about that. Um, it also means that you end up with everybody's health information and that's not a I am not saying you were doing anything wrong by it. I think that is a whole lot of information for one person to have who then also is the person who recommends renewals and things like that. I I think we open ourselves up to risk by having all of that in one person. I This is not an accusation. I want to be very clear about this. >> Oh yeah, I understand what you're saying. Not an accusation. >> Yep. But if that was asked that would everything would be we as a board

113would say well that's this one person who has all of those pieces for it. So I had been uh thinking about that as well as having someone for the people who work for you to talk to because when the only way we as your supervisor hear about anything is it it gets elevated to the level of the board and that's relatively unlikely to happen because you it's pretty serious to get it there. So there's not a good place for people to come and talk with kind of everyday things or smaller trends that they see that doesn't elevate it to a pretty serious action. And so in that both of those I think are reasons that I think we could benefit from having somebody who uh part-time person who could do some of our human resources.

114So that's why I'm bringing it to the board for said discussion. So I'm interested in hearing from other folks. question. Does Arrowhead have a human resources employee? >> Ask another question and I'll find out. I don't think so. >> About Heartland Lakeside. They're >> No, >> they're a little more critical. >> Heartland Lakeside. Um, well, I don't believe so. >> Heartland Lakeside did. Is that >> They did. >> Do they no longer >> I know their superintendent. She came from a humorous resource background, but let's see. You're looking at Aon. I'm >> looking at heartly say no then I'll go there. >> Keep discussing talk amongst yourself. Okay. >> Um >> so Dean you're interested in comparables. Is that >> comparables? Uh there are third party HR people that we could find out whether they

115would work in a situation like this and what their costs would be. >> That's kind of one of the things I was looking at because I reached out a little bit. I was just doing some looking around and their uh the third party like the CIA's uh third party rates were really high. really high >> like $150 an hour type of >> Arrowhead does have one. >> Yeah. >> Full time or is it >> that doesn't tell me on here? >> Okay, these are all the questions. We should get some feedback. I do have uh I'd have to go back and re pull it back out because I know there was a question about just to run FMLA for instance from the health standpoint of it. Um very offensive uh because again it would be

116something that you'd contract with but they to hold your spot because we're so small it's not like hey when somebody has an FMLA issue oh the clock starts it's a contracted service just from the FMLA standpoint to answer that part. >> So I mean I had also thought that I'm not sure that it needs to be a part-time person. It could be a contracted idea. When I was looking at just some of the contracted rates, and this is very cursory looking. It looked to me like we could have part-time person who could do some other things. Like for instance, we wouldn't need to hire somebody to do our exit interviews, right? That would be we wouldn't need to outsource that. And we pay it looked for like from the numbers you sent me about $800

117per exit interview >> approximately. Yep. Uh, so there would be some other things that that person could do that we might be kind of close in what we'd be paying if we went to the third party anyway. But I'm I agree we should see what those numbers would look like. >> We currently do offer what's called an OMBbuds from our conversation a couple years ago. Um, we do have an OMBbudsman who then uh ultimately we we communicate that with staff. I can tell you it's not well utilized. um it's not it's basically a phone number for a person to talk through some of these human resource situations. So kind of when people want it e either there's a concern or or what do I do? How do I process this? We've kind of filled that

118gap with that too as well. So >> well and that was you know that was something I was interested in and had suggested a while ago. I from what I hear from people who have used it they essentially can say is what's happening legal or not? But because they're not here and not a part of this community, they don't have a sense of who they should talk to or anything they could do to really resolve it. It's more >> this it's legal or it's not. >> So they they weren't feeling people who had used it didn't feel that they knew what to do next. I would be interested in Were you able to find anything on H Heartland? Like I said, >> um they have a uh Oh, yeah. Here it is. They have a

119payroll/benefit specialist from that's on their human resource web page as well as the accounts payable person. So, uh, from a benefit specialist, I'm assuming that with the person who builds their employee benefit plan and creates that, too, as well. I don't know if she's negotiating or what they're looking at from a trend standpoint. Um but yeah, >> could you use WSB as a resource to >> Right. That was a question. see what other uh school districts districts around the state are using >> from a part I I could see what WSB we do have um every month we have a it's called Wasp the Wisconsin Associated School Personnel you know people um and I can talk to them and kind of put a survey together to say hey what's your stu what's your staff number

120and what's your percentage very simple and what's your percent of human resource allocations because Some organizations have a lot. If they have, you know, 500 employees, they may have three or four people depending on what it is. So, I can gather some more information if that's something that the board would like me to do. And it's pretty simple, just kind of kicking something out to my Waspa friends. >> Yeah. I think I'd also be interested to know are there any um eternal internal things that could be looked at as far as efficiencies with looking at somebody's role that we currently have to make sure that we've exhausted those opportunities as well. >> Mean people who might have HR experience that are already working for us >> andor is there is there somebody who's part-time currently?

121Might they >> move to add this component if they're qualified? Obviously. >> Right. >> Well, that's a great thought. >> There was somebody Oh, but I can't I'm mixing up her name with somebody else right now. She was with uh Tanya in the front office and I >> Thank you. I can see her in my head tonight. Yep. So, but that was I think we talked about that a little bit when she was here just momentarily because then she wasn't here. since she wasn't here. Yeah, she went full-time human resources. >> Yes. Y >> Okay. >> Other thoughts? >> Interested in more information and continuing the conversation? >> Do you want me to find what school what smaller school HR like for instance, what does Mary Ellis do? I think with Mary I think somebody

122Thank you Nicole for pulling that out. What do human resource particularly part-time human resource people do? What's their job description and things like that? >> And I foresee that for instance >> things that some human resources may do benefits negotiators with other companies. That's something you do particularly well. I don't think we would necessarily think they need to do that part. Right. So knowing what types of things are there and then we would come up with what would be the best set of those pieces to fulfill >> the things together >> the number that number of hours we're looking to >> exactly because then you would be able to build you have to build the job description which ultimately equals the FTE. >> Sure. >> Okay. >> Other questions or thoughts? Do we keep this

123on the >> I will hopefully bring it in November. I'll have some information uh for everybody and then again as I'm gathering it I'll kind of share it with you guys so it's not all brand new on a Thursday but we'll kick that out to you too. So okay >> thank you Rebecca. >> Thank you everyone. >> Now Rebecca I do want to follow up with you on one piece you that you started off by saying we should be the best place to work and things like that which is always our goal. >> Would you like us a few years ago pre-COVID we did enter into the you know the best places to work Journal Sentinel at the time and things like that. We certainly can pursue that too as well if that's something that

124the will the board obviously there's a cost to it. >> I want to know if it's time inensive and I don't know what resources you need to devote to do that. >> It's pretty much a survey. It's a survey uh how your staff feels. Obviously they have a set of questions. It is then benchmarked against similar organizations. Say you know school districts with employees of you know 30 to 60 or whatever it is. So you are benchmarked and then ultimately some metric is kicked out and then you get the badge um from that standpoint too. So it costs money to do that. Um if that's something we want to pivot to. Obviously our school perception survey is very similar to that. It's not accredited with you know uh you know badging or an accreditation. >>

125If we felt strongly we could you know move that way too instead of the school perceptions. We've been doing school perceptions now for four years I do believe >> but uh that could be something I don't know if we need to double up on it but it's something similar but you do get an accreditation with it. I just wanted to bring >> Could you just let us know what it does cost? Sure. >> Is that it is from what I hear from other school districts. It's a nice recruiting piece. >> Do other schools in this area participate in that as well? >> I know Richmond does. That's that's I just know Richmond does. So it's an easy phone call to GD to say, "Hey, what's the process?" We did it a few years ago and

126it's been a while. So, we went to school perceptions from >> I know as far as county school districts, Mosquo uh district is one that um they taught themselves is per that u metric that they're one of the best. >> Okay. Should be pretty easy on a Google search for student that was recruiting for them. That's one of the reasons that it got their attention to to go and apply there. Yeah, >> I do like No, I do like school perceptions too coming up year four. >> Yep. >> That we finally have the benchmarks where we can see areas of improvement and whatnot. So, >> so, yep. >> Okay. Thanks. I'll bring some information. Thank you. And circle back up with that. That sparked an interest. So, >> all right. Future meeting and agenda items.

127>> All right. So, next November is coming up quick. It's November 17th because of the uh the Thanksgiving holiday. We do have no school that whole week. Uh so November 17th. U couple things. One is is uh the board asked if that's still something you would like me to do is a consolidation financial review with the revenue limits. Uh now that ours is approved, ultimately everybody else has to approve theirs. Uh um I will be reaching out and communicating and bringing uh business managers together who are interested. We do have a meeting set and it seemed like there was some interest. So, um, we're >> like everybody but North Lake. Was that >> everybody was invited? And I do believe, um, everybody but North Lake potentially is going to be coming. So, because I know

128I heard from one business manager today who said, "Is there still room for me? I'm just interested, you know, what my board thinks just to see what it's like." >> And I want to be very clear, we're making no decisions here. We are gathering information so we can make informed decisions in the future. >> Correct. That's it. So, that'll be coming. Um, we're going to bring back the the library. So, we'll have a discussion about the library that will be in on the new business. You know, bringing that back. Um, we're going to talk about the HR position is what I heard. Keeping that alive with some information that you're requesting. The other piece per board policy is a board self-re. >> Yes. >> Okay. So, board policy, there is supposed to be a special

129meeting that is assigned just to board self-re. Um, I will kick the uh the self-review questions to the board later this week. So, you guys have that. In the past, you uh you know, you've just kind of filled it out. There was a discussion. However you guys want to facilitate that, it is a meeting of the five of you. Um, and I'm just there to help facilitate if there's any questions at all from that standpoint. >> We've done that separately than the board meeting before. Or did we do it before? >> We did it. There was one if we did it before. Um I know Maria we are looking at a student achievement committee meeting in November too. Correct. >> Yeah. >> Could we do that reschedule that one if Patrick and I can find

130a different time so that we could do this time for the board because that's just two of us to reschedle. What are you thinking about birth for a time frame on that? >> What they are? We could just add it to the board meeting. >> We Yeah, >> we could just do that. >> Are you Are you comfortable with that? >> We >> Okay. >> That way we can highlight it to our entire community, the full board. >> More people will see it. I think >> Yep. So we will just instead of that student achievement, we'll move that agenda item which will be report card release. >> Is does that work for everyone because that's prior to this meeting? >> That's fine. >> Works for me. >> Time >> 5:00. Does that work? >> Ross,

131I'll make it work. I can put it on the calendar if I know it now. >> Thank you, Jeff. >> Um, under C, can you change it to 2026? >> You don't have a time machine. >> Thank you. >> Like 20. Got it. >> I know it's a good year, but >> it's a heck of a year. We're going to be closing it out pretty soon. Yeah. Got it. >> Okay. >> So, five o'clock self-re. >> Yes, please. >> Okay. Do you need an hour? I'm just going to throw it out there. Do you want an hour? >> Half hour. >> I think we're probably good with a half an hour. We did 45 minutes the first time, but we were new to doing it. I think in the past I think it's been about

132a half hour of eating >> start 520 so we have 10 minutes too >> or we go 5:15 then it's easy I don't >> 5:15 if we end early then we have a break before 6:00 start time sounds good >> got it sounds good >> break 5:15 >> 5:15 >> we'll put it on we'll post it >> any other items for the November Entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> I move we adjourn. >> Second. >> All in favor, please say I. >> I. Opposed. Hey, let's get to a quarant. Okay. All right.