001Okay, ladies and gentlemen, it's now six o'clock and a quorum of members is present. So, this work session of the board of education of the school district of New Berlin is called to order. Please call the role. >> Miss Crosby here. >> Mr. Helmer here. >> Miss Kik here. >> Miss Schultz here. >> Mr. Cidle, Miss Spindler, Mr. Sinsky >> here. >> Uh Mr. Cidle and Miss uh Spindler let me know they are unable to attend this evening. In recognition of the serious and important nature of our efforts here, we will join in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. All those who are able to um please rise to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
002all. >> And now for those who wish to prepare for the meeting, we will have a moment of silence. This is a public meeting of the board of education. Prior to this meeting, notice was given to the public li public last Friday by posting the agenda at each district school, the district office, and the city library. The agenda was also posted on the district website. Copies of the agenda were forwarded to the Walker Freeman and the Journal Sentinel, which have filed requests for all public notices. So, we'll begin our um work session unpacking act 20, early literacy in the state, county, and school district. >> Yeah. At this time, I'd like to introduce uh Dr. Will Flanders who is the research director at the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. Together with the education policy
003team, Dr. Flanders conducts economic econometric research on the application of Will's principles of freedom and liberty to the educational system in Wisconsin. Since joining Will, he has authored or co-authored reports on the return on investment from charter schools, the effects of Act 10 on the teaching workforce, and others. Dr. Dr. Flander's work has appeared in numerous publications including the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, Politico, National Review, and the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Flanders holds a PhD in political science with a specialization in American politics and public policy from Florida State University as well as a master's in political science and another master's in applied American politics and policy from the same school. He earned his BA from Vdusta State University in Georgia, his home state. With that, I'll hand it over to Will Flanders.
004>> All right. Thank thank you Joe so much for the opportunity to speak to you guys here tonight. Let me check the clicker. So just a little bit about Will for anyone who might not be familiar. We're a law and policy center located in uh Milwaukee. Um we're if anyone's familiar with our stuff, they're probably more familiar with our legal work. Um we do a lot of work in school choice. Uh we also have uh an Restoring American education project that's focused on reforms in the public school system and a host of other areas as well. Um I work on our policy side. I always tell folks, you see our exciting lawsuits and then you see a boring white paper. I'm the one that's doing the boring white paper, but we'll we'll try to make
005it a little more uh more entertaining for for you guys here tonight. Um, but we work in a lot of areas on the on the policy side as well. So, what I'm what I'm here to discuss with you guys are the uh the literacy screeners and the and the sort of impact of Act 20 that we can measure so far um in Wisconsin. Just to set the table a little bit, um these literacy screeners that we're going to discuss were required under Act 20 and they're conducted in grades K4 through third. Um they're the same throughout the entire state of Wisconsin and that's important because we can obviously make comparisons between uh school districts. It's not as if uh districts are selecting their own that that varies. Um and for the first year, so for
006the data that we have here today, we're looking at just the uh the screener that was conducted midyear and in the spring. uh there wasn't time to to do the screeners um in the fall because I think it's it's sort of too too soon after the passage. Uh but in future years there'll be three screeners per year. And so what we do in most the analyses that you're going to see here tonight as we take a look at the uh students who fell below the 25th percentile at least once during the school year. Sort of the percentage of those students in uh in each school district around the state. Um you know a student may have improved their performance and not fallen below that percentile that the second time around or vice versa. they may
007have they may have uh regressed and fallen behind it the second time. Uh but most of the comparisons are among those students who at least one time throughout the year uh fell below that percentile. So just starting off with some of the uh the key takeaways. If you look statewide uh across the board, over a third of students at least once fell below uh that percentile. And what that means is that uh that triggers sort of a mandatory intervention process. And then again, because that's you know 25th percentile and a third of students are falling below it. Obviously that's greater than the 25th percentile. So at least a third of students seem to be struggling to at least some extent um in early early literacy. One other takeaway that was pretty clear uh from looking
008at this data is that there are really dramatic differences uh between the the kindergarten level and the third grade level. Um there are a lot of things that uh that can contribute to this. You know, some of it is that um you know there could be inconsistent instruction between the grade levels. That would you know that'd be sort of the red flag for a school district in terms of what we're seeing in the data. But there's also the question particularly with a new test about reliability. Right? there's the potential that maybe we're not sort of uh measuring quite as well at the third grade level as the kindergarten level or vice versa. Probably all these factors um at least contribute uh to some extent. Um another sort of key takeaway and I don't think this
009would surprise anyone is that if we look at the the biggest predictors of low reading outcomes uh poverty and disability status uh were among uh the biggest predictors of districts with low um outcomes. You know, this is a consistent finding in these reading screeners. This is consistent if you look at the forward exam, consistent if you look at ACT scores. Um, poverty is the biggest driver of of student outcomes um, in the United States. But one thing we're going to do here is we're going to see some districts that, you know, have higher levels of poverty, some districts that are higher in some of these demographic factors that generally predict poor outcomes um, actually did a little bit better. And that's what we're going to discuss uh, in the context of New Berlin here. So,
010what insights can we gain uh, from comparing the 5K and third grade results? It's important to note since this is the first year of the test. Obviously, this isn't um you know student growth over time. This isn't the same kid uh being compared from one year to the next. But we can sort of gain a picture to some extent of sort of what progress is being made over over the early grades as we as we look at one grade compared to the other. Um again, we note that students enter with wide variations in the share that are below the 25th percentile. Uh but the figure that you see up there uh shows the the count of districts with with the share of students below the 25th percentile and it's sort of a normal a normal
011distribution. Um so you know there there seems to be a wide variety or sort of a varied picture across the entire state. Um but it does suggest there's some measurement uh you know um accuracy going on here that we've had sort of this normal distribution um of how uh the districts align. And again, I mentioned this on the intro slide, but uh the changes between the two grade levels are pretty wide. And again, that might, you know, might call under question the reliability of the measures. One thing that uh when I was talking to uh Joe beforehand about this that he pointed out is uh it also can be a product of district size. So if we have some really small districts where there are very small number of students that are um you know
012included in this measurement, obviously that can lead to wide variations as well. And it's important to note that. Um but what we're looking at here in table two uh on the screen is the change in percentile rankings. So the districts that um saw higher percentage of students falling below that 25th percentile in uh five in uh k in 5k on the on the other on the left hand side and then on the further right the share of students below that percentile in uh third grade. And we have the two columns that show the districts that did the worst and the districts that did the best in that. Um and again they're huge changes. you know, we look at Pittsville, we see 32% uh falling below that threshold in uh in uh 5K and then 68%
013in in third grade. Obviously, I don't think a 36% change is really, you know, is really that meaningful. Uh but there is something to be gained again from from looking at these changes between grade levels to see uh maybe we need to target more at the upper end of the spectrum, maybe we need to target a little more um at the lower end of the spectrum. So some good news you know we we as an organization will have talked a lot about uh what are we getting from the forward exam now that DPI has changed the proficiency meaning obviously it's you know gone way up we went from um you know in the 30s in terms of the students that were proficient in ELA statewide to about 50% overnight almost purely based on the changing
014in the sta of the standards. The good news is that uh there's still a relationship between what we see on these uh literacy uh exams and what we see on the state forward exam. So you can see that as the percentage of students that's scoring poorly on the state literacy exam uh goes up then the share of students that are uh proficient on the forward exam goes down. So, you know, what this means is that um you know, districts that have more than 25% below the uh more than 20, sorry, a higher percent below the 25th percentile on the screeners also tend to uh exhibit lower forward exam proficiency. And so, if you're trying to forecast ahead, what will this mean for the the district's forward exam scores going forward? Well, if you're if you're
015doing poorly on that, then you're likely to see, you know, poor forward exam scores coming uh coming up uh in the future. And this also shows that the forward exam still can provide some useful information um on performance of districts relative to each other. So again, we've raised uh we've lowered the proficiency standard. It doesn't mean what it used to be, but you can still compare districts to each other and gain something meaningful because we're still seeing um some of these relationships between uh different uh different measures of of ELA proficiency. So what I did in my analysis is something that I do uh annually when I do forward exam comparisons and that's to demographically adjust uh some of this data. Um when we when we think about DPI's growth metrics and we compare um
016how students are doing from from one year to the next beyond proficiency uh they do something similar. they account for student demographic factors and say given the demographics of the school and the district um here's what we predict how how much growth we predict to see and how much growth we've actually seen uh what I did here was something similar um I used some of the demographic data that we have for every school district in the state um compared that to the uh the reading outcomes observed um and then compared the predicted proficiency on the regression analysis to the actual proficiency so if um a district has challenging demographics take a district like Milwaukee, high percentage of low-income students, um high percentage of students in in challenged categories and high high rates of disability, their
017predictions are going to be lower. And then, you know, maybe it's predicting 15% proficiency. If they have 20% proficiency, that means they're doing a little bit better than would be predicted by the model. Um at the same at the other end of the spectrum, districts that have uh sort of low numbers in a lot of those uh characteristics um then you know we we make the comparison they could be uh potentially lower than expected even if their overall number you know is relatively high. So that's essentially what we do in this analysis. It's adjustment for uh student demographics to compare predicted outcomes to to actual observed outcomes. Um what are some of the the key takeaways from this demographic adjustment? So you can see the factors that I that I included in this model um
018in table three on the right hand side. Um essentially what you can read that column and you know it's I know it's complex with with regression analyses to look at but you're looking for stars. The factors that are significant predictors are those that have stars. So when we we take the low-income variable there, what that means is that a district that had no low-income kids versus a district that had 100% low-income kids, we'd expect the percentage of students below the 25th percentile to go up by about 30%. Um but again, what you see with the the two uh variables that have stars there, as I mentioned earlier, uh disability rate, low income rate are the two biggest predictors of um of the number of students that are sort of struggling and reading here. uh the
019disability number is is quite striking, right? That means if we had a district hypothetically with 100% students with disabilities, we'd expect a 74% increase in uh the number of students below that percentile. Obviously, we don't generally see districts in the state that have that high rate of disabilities. Um but we're accounting for those uh sort of percentages along the pathway uh when we do this analysis. So, in terms of the raw effect on our relationship to student outcomes, disability obviously is the most important, poverty is the second most important. One thing that's interesting in this data is that in a lot of analyses uh the percentage of African-American students does show up as a significant predictor uh but maybe good news if we're thinking about uh you know the racial achievement gap in Wisconsin when
020we account for these other factors. Uh race itself was not a significant predictor in this model but we're still accounting for its effect uh as we go through. So there's a lot of uh a lot of data on this slide. I obviously won't go uh through all of it. Uh but again what we're sort of looking at here is the difference between what was predicted uh versus the outcomes that were observed. And you can see again on the lefth hand side the districts that were the worst performing where their prediction was uh pretty high and their uh their actual outcomes were relatively low. And then the districts on the right hand side are the the 10 highest performing districts in the state where um their prediction was pretty low and their outcome was pretty high.
021I'll just point out, you know, one district that's done similar things to what what you guys have as being early implementers of the science of reading is KADA. It's a district that has pretty challenging demographics, but you see on this metric, they were the third uh third best relative to their prediction in the state. Over half of students um were uh were or excuse me, over half of students were predicted to be below 25th percentile, but only 23% were. Um so that that's sort of an indicator that, you know, going in this direction um can be beneficial. And it was interesting to see that district rise to the top there. So now we get to the the stuff probably more interesting to you folks. This is the the local stuff about Wakaua County. Um so
022school district of New Berlin here performed the highest compared to um its prediction in the county. So these you can see the the districts in the county on the right hand side here and the predicted percent below the 25th percentile was about 30% 29.46% 46% but only 13% of students were below that threshold. Um the next highest was Elbrook where there was a 12% gap but there was a 15% gap here in a good direction uh between the expected outcomes and uh and what was actually observed in the data. Um I have a link and I think you guys have access to the actual slides. You can see the ranking for all of the districts in the state at that link. Um but New Berlin is 21st compared to all the other uh districts in
023the state of Wisconsin that are K12. Obviously the K8s and the high schools uh are on you know well we don't have high schools in this set but all the K12 districts in the state uh New Berlin was 21st in the entire state so a very good performance. I I was saying beforehand you know I spend a lot of time my time criticizing school districts when we do talk radio and stuff. It's like one of the few times I get to actually come and praise uh district outcomes. So you know but it's good to see uh good to see the work that's going on here in in a positive way. I go I think I went backward or no go. So again, um this is sort of a I think I think it's a repeat
024slide here. We got that in there twice. I apologize for that. But um just just sort of looking at the the demographic trends and why we may be seeing this uh in in New Berlin overall. So you know, we're seeing a slight overall trend of, you know, increasing enrollment, which is a little bit uh different than the rel the rest of the state, although it's sort of just pretty stable, right? It's not a it's not a huge increase. um we're seeing the uh sort of share of of English limited proficiency students uh is is going up over time a little bit. And then we're seeing obviously an increase in in the special needs students uh specifically. We've gone from uh 9% in 2021 uh to 11% of students diagnosed with a disability today. So again,
025when we think about those factors that are uh contributing to um the predictions for each district, having more special needs students obviously means that it's a more challenging demographic to deal with and that's uh that's what we're seeing growth particularly in here. I don't know Joe, is there anything else you want to point out on this slide particularly about like what's growing. I think the biggest driver that's uh sort of creating challenges is the is the growth in disability rates and again this is something we see you know all over the state, right? we and all over the country there's been increasing focus on the number of uh students diagnosed with disabilities and whether or not maybe we're doing some overdiagnosis in some instances but we're seeing those percentages going up across the board. Do
026you have a question? >> Yeah. Does this include K4 then too? So account for that jump from 4,300 to 44. Okay. >> And this just shows where where walk or where excuse me where New Berlin ranks relative to other districts in terms of the percentage of uh English language learners. um the you know we've gone from 2% to over 3.5% uh over the past uh four school years. So you know that doesn't sound like a huge jump necessarily but is a you know it's a a large percentage-wise jump and the district has moved from sort of the middle of the pack towards the top uh to towards the top in terms of the number of ELLL students. Obviously Waka still a good bit ahead but uh there is an increase there as well. So again,
027more more challenging demographics to deal with districtwide as time moves on, particularly in in reading. And again, a similar similar story here, although maybe not quite as much movement. Uh, you know, the district is sort of midpack in the in the in the um in Wauaaw County in terms of uh the number of students with disabuse me, number of students that are economically disadvantaged. Um, but again, it's not a low percentage. You look down at like Arrowhead or Elmrook, right? the percentage here is significantly higher than what you see in those districts. So again, um while it's not anywhere near like the most challenging demographics that we see districts dealing with throughout the state, uh there certainly is um some challenges there in terms of economic status. Then we have the IEP numbers sort of
028going up over time as well. Similar story, not so not so high relative to, you know, every uh district in the in the county, but again, an increase over over time. So what are some conclusions from this? Well, you know, I think statewide if we look uh you know, sort of globally and take a step back, um they're they're pretty big challenges statewide in terms of literacy, right? We see this when we look at uh the the forward exam scores. We see this when we look at the uh the NAPE where Wisconsin has sort of fallen relative to states like Mississippi across the country. Uh we used to be way above a state like Mississippi, now in fourth grade reading, we're actually below Mississippi um in terms of reading outcomes. So um the AC 20
029data doesn't do anything to change that. it shows where the the problems are. Uh but there are very different trajectories. There are districts here like New Berlin, you know, like Kate that we discussed as well that seem to be um on on the on the right track and you know, doing things that are that are showing up in the data uh and moving in a positive direction. Um and again, a district like New Berlin is beating the odds to some extent when it comes to what we expect versus what we're seeing on the uh forward exam. So with that, I left a few minutes for for folks if you have any questions or comments. And if you have questions as a follow-up, feel free to reach out to me on email that I have on
030the screen there. So all right, any questions? All right. >> Okay. Thank you guys. Well, then um then do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> I have a motion by Mr. Helmer and a second by Miss Crosby to adjourn the work session. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Do we have a Thanks. All right, then ladies and gentlemen, it is now 6:21 p.m. and a quorum of members is present. So, the meeting of the board of education of the school district of New Berlin is called to order. Please call the role. >> Miss Crosby >> here, >> Mr. Halmer >> here, >> Miss Kik >> here, >> Miss Schultz >> here, >> Mr. Cidle, Miss Spindler, Mr. Zalinsky >> here. I would entertain a motion to recess
031to close session. >> I move to adjourn into close session pursuant to section 19.85 1 CE and F of the Wisconsin statutes to consider A and executive session discuss approved superintendent contract extension. B the approval of close session minutes of March 9th. C discuss approved certified staff and administration administrative contacts and D the employment performance and compensation matters pertaining to staff. >> Second. >> Oh, hold on. There's one more. Is there still discuss approve employee handbook? >> Yeah. Eis approve the employee handbook. >> Okay. >> I second. >> All right. Have a motion by Miss Crosby and a second by Mr. Zinsky. Please call the role. >> Miss Crosby. Yes, >> Mr. Zillinski. >> Yes, >> Mr. Helmer. >> Yes, >> Miss Kik. >> Yes, >> Miss Schultz. >> Yes, >> we are moving into
032close session and return to open session around 7 o'clock. >> Yeah, >> usually usually that one's last one. Join in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. For all those who are able, please rise. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. And now for those who wish to prepare for the meeting, we will have a moment of silence. This is a public meeting of board of education. Prior to this meeting, notice was given to the public last Friday by providing the agenda to the city library. The agenda was also posted on the district website. A copy of the agenda was forwarded to the journal Sentinel and the Walkershaw Freeman, all of which have filed requests for all public notices. First up this evening, we have a recognition of the West Wrestling State
033Qualifiers. >> Like to invite Cody Smith, our director of activities and athletics at New Berlin West. Thank you. I'm gonna have a couple representatives stand up and join me. So, Chris, Raquel, and Coach Henzel, please join us. Uh, we're here today to recognize the state qualifiers for wrestling. And we have a few of them here present. Um, before I recognize the individuals, just a couple quick notes on the season that they had. The boys continued their tradition of excellence and had an an outstanding season, finishing second in conference and sending two firsttime state qualifiers to the Wii meet at Chris at 215 pounds and Jackson's at 285. On the girls side, um I stood up here a year ago and talked about us celebrating and making history, winning the first WI regional sectional and conference
034titles for the Woodland. And I'm happy to report that this year we continued to do that and for the second year in a row became Woodland Conference, WI regional and WI sectional champions. Our girls wrestling program has continued to grow and the numbers are increasing. Um estimates were definitely probably in the top 10 of the, you know, participation in terms of team size, which has allowed us to succeed not just at the individual level, but as team as well. Our girls team was very fortunate to get invited up to UW uh Stevens Point to compete in an invite only event where they outplace their seed. Um and so at this time to recognize our individual qualifiers um the board of education has prepared this for you. One other quick note, joining our qualifiers that could
035not be here tonight, we have the Paplowski sisters, Olivia and Amelia. Olivia is a freshman qualified for the first time and Amelia qualified for the third time, finishing third on the podium, which gives her three trips to state and three podium finishes and finishes with a career record of 147 and 23. Um, as well as Bella Ortiz, who qualified for the first time, who could not be here tonight. Thank you and congratulations wrestlers. >> Well, next we have priv privilege of the floor. Do we have any this evening? >> No. >> All right. Thank you. I don't have a message or announcements, so we'll move on to the administrative team report. >> Yes. So, thank you. Congratulations once again. Uh I know you students uh have a big day tomorrow. So, thank you for being
036here. Have a great night. Uh so now I'd like to introduce the New Berlin West administrative team. Uh they are here. They're the first secondary school to present to you. Last uh last meeting uh we had Ronald Reagan Elementary present. Uh so this is the second of our six schools to present to you the things that are happening in their school. uh some of the academic achievements uh of areas of of success and areas of growth as well. So uh New Berlin West team, please come on up. Okay, good evening. I'm associate principal Trudy Whan and I would like to begin by thanking all of you on behalf of our New Berlin West administrative team, Principal Mark Otto, um associate principal Greg Dew, and athletics and activities director Cody Smith for the opportunity to share
037the work taking place at New Berlin West along with a few recent achievements that we are particularly proud of. The first achievement we would like to highlight is our school earning a significantly exceeds expectations rating on the state report card earlier this year. As illustrated in the chart, this reflects a consistent and positive upward trend over the past 14 years. As we know, this designation is based on comprehensive calculation that includes multiple measures of student achievement, academic growth, target group outcomes, and on-track indicators reflecting both overall performance and progress for all students. The second honor that we are proud of earning was the platinum AP school honor role distinction from the college board. In order to receive this honor, a school must meet three rigorous benchmarks. At least 80% of a graduating cohort must make
038take at least one AP exam during high school. 50% or more of the graduating cohort must earn a three or higher on at least one of the AP exams. And 15% or more of the graduating cohort must take five or more AP exams over the course of their high school career with at least one of those courses taken in either ninth or tth grade. We have invited one of our junior students to share her experience and reflect on her journey at New Berlin West, including her work in AP coursework. So, I would like to take this opportunity right now to welcome Ella. >> This is really tall. >> You can move it. >> Sorry. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Hi, everybody. So, first I just wanted to say thank you so much for approving of
039the Young People's Continental Congress trip with Miss Ja this summer. I am beyond excited to be able to go and I just wanted to share a little bit of the journey that brought me to this accomplishment. Last year I took AP psychology and AP human geography. This year I took three more APs, AP Chemistry, AP Lang, and AP US government. And next year I plan to take four more because I just love them so much. Not only did these broaden my global perspective and helped me realize that the world is so much bigger than myself, but it helped me channel my passion for helping others into a future career of becoming a civil rights or humanitarian lawyer. And I continue to plan I continue to take APS next year. Back up. Thank you, Miss Whan.
040Nice job, Ella. Okay. Um, good evening. The celebrations that you just heard are partially possible through the hard work of the staff at West. To that end, teachers are wrapping up the first the first year of sale. And what you see here in front of you is the theory of action. This in a nutshell says that if we intentionally implement a specific strategy and collect data, analyze it and ensure that we act on that information through professional learning so that we are as a staff aligned with the work moving forward. If we do these things with fidelity, we will reach our goal. And what is our goal? Our goal is an average ACT composite score of 23 by the spring of 2030, which seems like a long way away, but it's 2026. So, what is
041the strategy that we're focusing on at West? Specifically, we are learning about the implementation of metacognition. In layman's terms, you can think of it as thinking about thinking. It is the ability to think about monitoring and and regulating your own thinking and learning processes. To that end, what you see up here is a summary of the work we have done so far this year. Our first three 100 day plans. August through November was diving into data and using that to identify and develop our focus metacognition for our work moving forward. November through March was implementing that metacognition or thinking about thinking in the classroom and taking data on that work. And now we are in the middle of our third 100 days continuing to develop our work in metacognition as we take steps to embed
042this strategy and begin to see its effects on academic achievement. I would now like to introduce to you Miss Meg Gardner. Come on up here Meg. Megan is a business teacher at West and will give you an idea of how metacognition has made an impact in her classroom. Miss Gardner, >> thank you. Nice to see you all. Um, so I'm going to talk to you tonight about what I did in my own classroom. So, every year we have to choose an SLO, which is a student learning objective. And this year, for the first time, I decided to work with my retail operations management students. every year they take the um ask marketing functions exam. It's it's an industry standard exam. It's put together by the Ask Business Institute. It consists of 100 multiple choice questions
043and it has the ACT connection of reading and comprehension as well as vocabulary. Um those that pass this test, they receive an ask certificate and they can use these students can actually use this in their resume portfolio. It's very specific and connects directly to career path positions. So, not only is it good for us to understand what the learning is in the classroom, but they take this forward and this is something that they can use in their future. So, this year, what I decided to do was um at the pre-EST, they take it before um there's any learning involved whatsoever in the classroom. Midyear test um I decided this year to utilize a metacognitive strategy in January during the um the semester exam period. And right before that, for those 16 days in January, uh
044I used a study skill. So breaking up learning into smaller chunks on a daily basis. Every time they would come into the classroom, they would have smaller learning and review. This is known as spaced practice. So I'm just going to show you some of the midyear results that I had, which I found really interesting. Again, this was the first year I did this uh with this class, but there's something that I can show you in the end that is really interesting. Beginning of year, the boy score. So, I had two that earned a one and then through up to eight that earned a four. So, they already had a good idea of the um of the content, but the middle of the year score is really interesting there, too. You can see that there's still
045one red score there, but one student that went up by three questions. He has an IEP. He stayed at a one, but having those three questions uh plus was a was wonderful for him. The other student that was in the red, um he's an ELLL student and he went up by 10 questions and actually that moves from a one to a three, which is terrific. A few other um components in there that you can kind of see the further jumps. Um but overall from my beginning of year score to my midyear score, it moved from 36% to having a four, which would essentially achieve that certificate, we went all the way up to 64%. And I because this is my first year, I didn't really have another, you know, apples to apples comparison. So instead,
046what I did is I looked back at my last year's class ROM just to see what was the overall pass rate. Well, last year I had a 63% pass rate, which was really interesting to me because that's essentially where I am right now at middle of year. So I do really believe that that metacognitive strategy, it had a big help. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Gardner, for sharing that. Uh, and just to highlight that strategies and that when we do schoolwide implementation of either a singular strategies or with metacognition, we're really talking about a group of a couple different strategies teachers can use, we're starting to see movement in data uh across the board. So, individual classrooms are collecting data uh relative to the assessments that are giving that they're giving in class. and we're
047starting to kind of see the fruits of our labor as we focus really intently on those strategies. So, I wanted to highlight a couple data points both in literacy and then in math. And so, we'll start in literacy. Um the celebration that we have going currently is that our A-reading scores for both eighth and nth grade students uh from the fall test to the winter test, which they've already, you know, they took the fall and now have taken the winter. We're seeing an increase in their proficiency as it stands right now. One area for growth that we're still seeing is with our seventh grade students. um they had a slight drop in their proficiency on that same test from fall to winter. We did look back to see in previous years are we seeing drops
048or increases from fall to winter and it's pretty regular to see a slight drop from fall into winter as you know we do test three times throughout the year but we have seen that occur from year to year. Part of that is due to test fatigue or students taking multiple tests but part of it is also that the tests do get harder. So they're scaled for the student and so as they do well on the fall test, it will make it slightly more difficult in the winter. So we're used to seeing a little bit of a regression, but what we did do is using our building leadership teams as uh to identify students that could use individual support and then beginning small groups uh during our flex time, which is in the middle of the
049day, to target individual students and see if we can't, you know, get their their data turned around and boost their test scores. Moving to math. Uh, one area of celebration is in our current ninth graders. And so we have the luxury of being able to go back in time and look from where they were in seventh and eighth grade on their forward tests and see where students are moving. And so the chart itself can be a little confusing. What you have on the top is the students that are scoring in the advanced area and then you see the meeting uh approaching and developing. So the different levels of performance. Now in between you see lines that sometimes go drastically up or sometimes go slightly down. I did try and point two arrows at areas in
050which we had 14 students in each group that moved and showed growth. And so growth from either meeting to advanced or from approaching to meeting. Now subsequently you do have students that move back and forth. But what we're seeing and what we're excited to see is with our nth grade uh when they get to the preac secure which is coming up in a few weeks where their where their performance is indicative. like they showed growth from seventh to eighth. Will they continue to show growth as they are in ninth grade? And so we celebrate the fact that we have, you know, 28 out of let's say 170 or so students in that class that are moving in the right direction as we approach or within their nth grade year. Additionally, I wanted to highlight one
051small subgroup of math data and this is students that have IEPs that are in a very small math connections class. And so these are students who struggle for any variety of reasons, but the teacher created their SLO to look at growth specifically. So not necessarily achievement. It's not how high they're scoring on any given test, but are they showing growth? You know, what type of growth are they making within the school year? And so of the six uh students that are in her this teacher's SLO data, it shows fall to winter growth percentages from this year on the FastBridge Ath. And so what we found was that 83% of the students that are in this specialized class are on track to make more than a year of growth in their math skills uh as part
052or throughout the course of this year. And again, that goes back to that small group really targeted instruction. Uh and that's what is helping to move the needle for our math students. And so if you look at the chart on the right, uh all but that top student is making significant growth throughout the course of this school year. So those those are things we like to see good things from a smaller subset of data. And then lastly, an area of growth in math, and I referenced this a little bit earlier, is kind of that stagnant growth uh in fastbridge that happens uh usually from fall into winter. Uh the chart here shows seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. And so both seventh and eighth grade from fall to winter had a decrease in their um proficiency
053percentage. Ninth grade had a slight increase which again if we go back two slides we had saw nth grade was showing improvement from seventh to eth and now it tracks that they will show potential improvement uh within their nth grade year but we do have you know we do take note of seventh and eighth grade dropping in proficiency from fall to winter. And again, we come back to kind of the same strategy strategy that we have in our literacy is to share that data with our building leadership team and then see how we can target small groups uh through our flex period to find the students that are in need of support and find ways to kind of turn them around and get them the support they need. So, thank you. Appreciate working through a
054couple slides of data with you. I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Smith, our athletic director. >> Thank you, Mr. Otto. Um, I know Oliver does a great job updating you all on the comingings and going of New Berlin West. Um, so hopefully this is just kind of a quick recap of all the great things that we've done since the last time that we've met. Um, so I've thrown up here right now. We continue to have strong I really should have put 75 plus% as spring sports are really just getting going here. Um, we'll have a handful of new registrations. So I expect that number to climb here throughout the end of the year. um and those students involved in at least one co-curricular opportunity um continue to exceed expectations on where they are
055performing academically. One of the things that we're very excited about in New Berlin West is the return of Vern, as we've dubbed it, this year. Um so we had a really great collaborative partnership between our student council, our yearbook staff, and the athletic and activities department to bring back Vern um to spread school spirit as we go through things. Um, one of the opportunities that's new this year is the first tech challenge. And so when we look at how our robotics uh team has competed, um, you're very familiar with the picture on the right, right? The 5148 robot that they've been doing for years. And through the work of the Ed Foundation that started last year at Elmwood and will continue next year because of the impact grants at two other elementary schools, you can
056see the Lego League robot that's all the way there on the left. And so what we realized this year is, you know, we're we're getting that process started sooner and then these students are coming into our building, they have to jump into the big robot and they might not be prepared with the skills that they need to be able to do that. And so we implemented for the first time the first tech challenge robot, an example of which is in that middle picture. Um it's a smaller, slightly bigger than a shoe box sized robot. But you can see now we have a continuum from elementary school up through the secondary level um of this robotics opportunity and to develop the skills the STEM and the engineering and all those pieces that are there. So we're
057really excited to see how that continuum that is really just getting going um continues to fuel that program from some of our other co-curriculars. Um academic dathlon is continuing the run of excellence that they're on. For three years in a row now, they've been division two state champions and for the second year qualified for the national competition along their counterparts here at Eisenhower. Our DECA organization um run by Miss Gardner over one of my shoulders um had six individuals qualify for ICDC, the International Career Conference, and um a handful of them will be attending um that competition in April in Anaheim, California. our educators rising, our student teaching organization that kind of got going last year, um had four state finalists this year and up to 24 conference attendees. Um and so we're really excited
058about that partnership of developing quality educators early on, one of which will be a national finalist for her uh her portion which was lesson planning for the arts. Um and our theater program is continuing to grow. Um we've gone from two shows now up to four and so we added the gala this year which was a dinner and a show. Um, and if you haven't caught one, we have Sherlock Holmes, our middle school play coming up here in May. Since the last time we met, you we touched on wrestling, but we've had state place winners in other sports, including tennis, and track and field. We've had additional state qualifiers again since the last time we presented in track and field, cross country, tennis, swim, dive, dance, cheer, and for the first time in school history,
059bowling. Uh, we had enough bowlers this year that the co-op Ike and West team was able to separate into two separate teams. and the uh West team was able to qualify as a team as well as one of our athletes placing 11th overall. And again, continued success in cross country, track and field, basketball, wrestling, and volleyball through WI regional and sectional championships. And the last couple highlights to put out there, um since again I was up here about a year ago, we've had 100 allconerence athletes selected for the Woodland Conference. We've had four conference championships, one coach of the year, and coach Henzel who was up here earlier. Um, we've been putting an emphasis on leadership development. So, the picture there with the female athletes, we sent a group to the FAST conference, which was
060female athletes stronger together. Um, and we have a group, a contingency of athletes that will be going up to the student athlete leadership team for the WIA here in April. Um, and we continue to get media and state recognition. We've had several athletes nominated for, you know, Freeman athlete of the week and the pick and save player of the week. Um, but one particular one that was really exciting was Spencer Phelps here was featured as the Fox Six um, high school hot shot. So, if you missed that, please go back and take a look um, and get a great look at him taking off his football pads, picking up his drum for halftime, and all the work that he's doing with Paul Vault. >> Any questions? >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank
061you. >> Uh the only update I have is I wanted to thank everybody that was able to that were able to join us for the toast to education uh hosted by the Education Foundation of New Berlin beer and wine tasting event this year. We had nearly 600 attendees. Um, and we at as of right now, uh, we have brought in approximately $89,000 in revenue as a result of that event. So, thank you to all the sponsors. Thank you to all of those that donated their time on behalf of their respective um, uh, activities or groups and uh, also all the attendees. So, congratulations to Julie, the Education Foundation of New Berlin team, and everybody that supported those efforts. At this time, I'll hand it over to Oliver. Students are working hard in class and learning
062interesting curriculum. AP chemistry students learned how to calculate the reactions between bases and acids in a chemical solution and then tested their work with pH sensors. AP pre-calc students are learning how to graph complex shapes like flowers using unit circle formulas and how this is used to predict predict growth patterns. AP physics students are learning about pendulums and pendulum motions by experimenting with real ones individually in class. And American film students created detailed movies with posters, scripts, and themes then presented them in front of the class. Spring is in the air and clubs at West have been feeling it. NHS hosted a community egg extravaganza with spring activities and an egg hunt in the fieldhouse with prizes. Best Buddies had an afterchool event where everyone could bring fuzzy socks to make fuzzy sock bunnies and
063eggs to take home. Els hosted a basketball tournament where student groups competed in a bracket style play for a chance to win Amazon gift cards and churros. And New Berlin West academic decathlon team is a D2 state champions taking first place in eight categories and having nine medalists. They will be competing at nationals in Garden City, California at the end of April. As seasons are changing, sports seasons are also starting. New Berlin West track and field started hosting their first indoor meet at our fieldhouse last Wednesday. Baseball and softball had their tri and their official official rosters came out last Thursday and boys and girls basketball both concluded their seasons after their sectional games. Thank you. >> Thank you. Well, then on to district reports. We have uh an incident report. Actually, no incident report
064this week. Um but there was an enrollment report, suspension report, and donation report. Uh we don't have Mr. Cidle to read our donation report. Uh >> I'm happy to go ahead read that on behalf of the board. >> Um first of all, at Orchard Lane, uh Morgan Stanley gift Ryan and Jackson Cula Charitable Fund. uh $2,000 for the purchase of school play items in honor of Jen Coyle. Uh the Elwood Home and School, $5,000 to pay for the buses for all of the school for the all school field trip. Also, the El Home and School, $50,000 to support the school library improvements. Uh the Orchard Lane PFC, $300 to support the first grade field trip to First Stage. Also, the Orchard Lane PFC $2,60 to support co-curriculars and the Papa Creek PTO $1,000 to support
065the sixth grade field trip to the Admirals game. Thank you to all of our generous donors. >> Thank you. And on to the uh next item, which is the consent agenda. It includes notice the approval of minutes of the board meeting on March 9th, the HOSA state leadership conference field trip application, the DECA international competition field trip application, and the Ike Music Nashville field trip application, as well as financial reports. Are there any items that should be pulled out for separate consideration? All right, hearing none. Do I have a motion for the consent agenda? >> So moved. >> I have a motion by Mr. Helmer and a second by Miss Crosby to approve the consent agenda as presented. Any discussion? And hearing none, all those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Onto the
066regular agenda. Uh we have a first read of Neola policy update 35-1. Uh because the law and regulations are ever changing, the SDMBB policy manual should be updated on a regular basis to remain legally compliant. Anola who's our uh firm that we consult with related to our policies has identified 21 policies which are in need of revisions as part of their 35-1 update. Uh attaches an overview of the policy revisions which are up for approval along with the individual policies with markups indicating re recommended revisions. Again we are not seeking your approval tonight. Uh this is a first read uh but we will be recommending approval at the next board meeting. Uh should you have any comments, questions or concerns between now and then, please let me know so that we can address those in
067a timely manner. >> Okay. So, please read those before the next meeting or and let Joe know if there's any questions. Then we have one thing to discuss approved. That's the school year calendar. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Helmer and a second by uh Miss Kanik to approve the calendar. Is there any any explanation any >> Yes. So uh just to clarify this uh this calendar earths for the 2728 school year not next year that has already been approved. Uh one of the things that uh we received some positive feedback on for the current school year was having that extended break during Thanksgiving. uh we don't feel so now next year we will not have that full week off uh and we don't
068think it's appropriate to make a change now uh between now and then based on that feedback though we were able to accommodate that change uh into the calendar for 2728 which would again allow for that full week at Thanksgiving uh as well as a a nice lengthy break for um for December as well for winter break. Uh but other than that, these uh pretty standard uh calendar that follows u the history of what we've done in the past with federal holidays and so on. Uh so we do recommend approval of the calendar as presented. >> Any discussion on this one? Then all those in favor raise your right hand. Motion passes. And we had a few items from close session. So we could start those >> motions. Actually, I have three to start with and
069then Matt will have two. Um, I move to approve the superintendent contract extension as presented. >> I have a motion by Miss Crosby and a second by Mr. Zinsky to approve the superintendent contract extension. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. >> I move to approve the certified staff contracts. um for the 26 27 school year as presented. >> I have a motion by Miss Crosby and a second by Mr. Zalinsky to approve. They were the administrative contract certified contracts um as presented. All those in favor raise your right hand. Motion passes. I move to approve the administr administrative contracts for the 2026 20227 school year as presented. >> I second. >> I have a motion by Miss Crosby and a second by Mr. Zillinsky to approve the administrative contracts for 2026
07027. All those in favor raise your right hand. Motion passes. All right. >> I move to approve the employment performance and compensation matters pertaining to staff as presented. >> Second. I have a motion by Miss Crosby and a second by Mr. Zinsky. >> I'm sorry. I have a motion by Mr. Zinsky this time and a second by Miss Crosby to approve the employment services report as presented. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. >> I move to approve the update to the employee handbook as presented. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Z Linsky and a second by Miss Crosby to approve the updated employee handbook as presented. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. All right. So, now we have our future meetings and dates. This
071is just a reminder, board meetings are generally held the second or fourth Mondays beginning at 7 o'clock p.m. here in conference room E. Um the next meeting is April 13th. Then we have one on April 27th and one on May 11th. Other important dates to remember is that March 30th through April 3rd is spring break. April 10th is the end of the quarter and May 1st there's staff in service, no school. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Helmer and second by Miss Kik to adjurnn. All those in favor raise your right hand. Motion passes. This meeting is adjourned.