001Ladies and gentlemen, it is now 6 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. >> Miss Schulz >> here. >> Mr. Cidle >> here. Miss Spindler >> here. >> Mr. Sinsky >> here. >> Uh, Miss Kanek let me know she's 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. For all who are able, please rise >> to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And now for those who wish
002to prepare for the meeting, we'll have a moment of silence. This is the public meeting of the board of education. Prior to this meeting, notice was given to the 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 agenda were forward to the Walkershaw Freeman and the Journal Sentinel, which have filed requests for all public notices. So this evening we have our work session unpacking the state report card and um we have Joe Schroeder with us from the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators. They'll provide anformational session related to unpacking the state report card. >> Yeah. So the uh you know obviously the board had set goals earlier this year. Uh did a midyear review I believe it
003was at the last meeting. Uh and one of the goals as far as uh learning on behalf of the board was digging into the district data more than we currently do. So uh you know we do present administrative presentations to the board throughout the school year. Um and uh we actually have recently been working with Joe Schrader uh over the course of the last eight nine months now. Um but uh uh without further ado, Dr. Joe Schrader combines impactful leadership experience in teaching and administration with a passion for leadership development. Before joining the Association of Wisconsin School Administrators as asso associate executive director in 2012, Dr. ministrator served five years as superintendent of the Mosqua Norway school district. Uh prior to this, Joe was the assistant superintendent uh for educational services in the Elm Brook
004School District, uh principal of Brookfield East High School, associate principal and principal of Evansville High School, and English teacher at both Manasha and Parker, Arizona high schools. Uh during his 38 years in the field, Joe has been an award-winning teacher, principal, and superintendent. For example, WASDA uh selected him as both the 2025 Wisconsin Educator of the Year and as the 2011 Wisconsin Superintendent of the Year. Dr. Shrader also received the 2010 OSAW distinguished service award uh for contributions to the profession. Furthermore, Joe led Mosqu Norway schools to Wisconsin forward award mastery level recognition in 2010. only the third K12 school district to uh ever be so honored in this program of organizational quality based on the Baldridge criteria for performance excellence. Dr. Shrader has three degrees from the University of Wisconsin, a BS in secondary
005education English, an MS in educational administration, and PhD in educational administration. He also is a 2017 Learning Forward Academy graduate. Joe and his wife Annie continue a multi-year home renovation of their small farmstead in Walkshock County that is filled with all sorts of critters and which provides almost endless opportunities for lifelong fitness outside the gym as well as abundant ongoing humility training. Joe and Annie are celebrating 28 38 years of marriage and the unfolding journey of parenting and now grandparenting their three adult adult daughters and families. So, I'll hand it over now to Joe Schrader. >> Thanks, Joe. Appreciate that. Good evening, everyone. Good to be here with you. U I'll just start with I'm a Waca neighbor. I've been here for over 25 years. Um fun fact, I actually got to hire Kelly as
006a teacher at Brookfield East years and years ago. Seems longer for me than you. You still look about the same. Um so, yeah. Uh so, yeah, I've worked north and south of you for a bunch of years. um worked with people from here for lots of time. Uh lived my kids went to Arrowhead. Um I live in KM now if you will in Deloffield. My grandkids go to PWA. You get the idea. I'm all around you here. So it's good to be here with you. Um it's great to be in Wakshuck County. I'm not born and raised here, but I'm I choose to be here and love the area and I thank you for what you do in service to kids. There's a lot of things going on went well here. Um I'm here I
007believe because you have a goal of going deeper with understanding this and I think I applaud you for that because that's really important in your role of governance. Um I would also say like 20 years ago um I was um had moved in my first year's assistant soup at at Elmrook um for teaching and learning there was educational services with the name and uh at the time you know we were we had been uh the state had been looking at um you know achievement which of course matters a ton we want to be high achieving but we were very u we understood the limitations of that. So 20 years ago, we were looking at creating our own ways of looking at growth, particularly around kids who are our most marginalized students. And uh so just
008so you know, I'm going to be unpacking things that I've been thinking about and doing with folks for a long time. And Mosquito Norway before you have now the state has a has a multi-dimension scorecard. We were do we created our own because we saw the value of that before the state did. So again, these are things I'm going to share that the state's been doing. Um, there are things that go back to my training back in WMadison and I was kind of viewed as who's this crazy guy with these these new ideas around here, but there are things I think that are valuable. I think that's been shown to be valuable. I hope that you can um learn how those are going to be helpful for you to understand how they're they're here. And
009I'm really I'm really here to help you learn, but also really to to celebrate. You have a tremendous amount of wonderful things going on. So, what we will cover are three things. We're going to recover the highlights. So if in case you're not quite tracking there's lots of moving parts you know our state has spring assessments and you know mainly in the spring throughout but mainly in the spring and then there's a lot of machinations and then in November those get released so every November you get the public release of your report cards there's always a lag right so the most recent comprehensive scores you have are from a year ago that's just the way it works you got you receive them in November like every district but they go back to 24 or 25
010so we'll look at that We're gonna particularly look at the ways, you know, your overall score is what people really pay attention to. Usually five star, your five score star district, five star schools or what have you, but those come through four different um priority areas and you see them on the second in the diamonds. And then why what this means and why it matters for my role. I'm I'm at the point now where I'm like the old guy in the room always and you know so I hopefully there's some wisdom that comes with that and certainly some some trying to be reflective about the experiences and hopefully that'll add some insights and some value for you today. Let's start with just a few of the celebrations. I mean the hard thing is to put
011this on one slide and again I um I'm going to I just want to be thankful to be up here and share some of this with you. You have you've you're the ninth consecutive year of having um significantly exceeding expectations. That means you're a five-star system. Um, there are 363 K12 districts in the state and there's only 24 that have that. So, if you do the math, that's you're in the top 7%. There's only 7% of the districts that have a five-star rating. You've done for nine consecutive years. Rare air. First time ever, ever this year um that all six of your schools also are at that highest level of significantly exceeding expectations. Five star. So, you have seven units, seven for seven. in the district and all six schools are five stars. Um, in
012the state, you're ranked seventh in the state of 363 K12 districts. You'll notice below that there's a larger number because there's some K8s mixed in and some 912s. But again, overall, I mean, again, you're in the top 2% pretty much however you want to play around with it. And if at the bottom level there, the overall kind of if you're if you're a numbers person, you're all it all gets computed into a single number like your five 88.6 six is high enough to get you to a fivestar level and that that's about 16 points higher than the average again and just crushing it compared to the state. So those are some of your highlights. And then you get into the county. 72 counties in W. This is your fourth grade civics study. Again, remember 72
013counties in Wisconsin. Six of the 24 districts. So a quarter of the districts in the state who are fivestar are in this county. Again, you are in I could that's something I've known for years. It's probably why I choose to live here. This is the the most high achieving county in this in the state for educational outcomes for kids. uh there's always ways we can look at that but that's one of them I would just say so um and that you are second in the county in the last um and again it's you know it's a matter of tens of points or on the overall score I mean that is celebration for sure um and then just a few other things again only other system in the county to have all it schools along with
014itself as a district at five-star is Elbrook and this is the first year Elbrook has had all their schools also there so you're doing that together um Eisenhower has the highest uh overall score and accountability across those four areas in the in the county and both of your high schools again both of your flagships are at a five-star level. Again, what a celebration. I can't tell you how many systems would die to have the things you have here for your kids. And then lastly, and I think really important to my heart because it's what you do for your kids who are most struggling. You lead the county in Tiger Group growth and outcomes. So again, just a few things to highlight. I mean, it's, you know, it's a blessing to come here and talk to
015you about some of these things today. But let's dig into the and get you a closer look because what we're trying to do is help you, you know, get that. That's the that's the, you know, 20,000 uh foot level, though. And it's really around celebration. So, what makes up all that? What all feeds into it? So, there's a thing called ACT. I'm sure you're familiar with that. Um, in 1959, so probably older than anybody here was around, that's when the ACT showed up. It was an alternative to the SAT. ACT stands for American College Testing. It is now and for years has been for decades at least has been the most commonly taken um college admissions test. Kids usually take it in junior year. You know, if you have a junior, they're like stressed out
016about the ACT, right? Um and maybe take it again, maybe take it again their senior year, but you know, that's toward the end. And it's supposed to show how well they're ready for college. And it it assesses five areas. ELA, that's English language arts, your reading, math, science, and writing. So that's what that is. The then a the preac is for kids um um that are in grades grades three through 10 because there's been an effort around college readiness now for a couple decades. So now kids also have like what's what's uh college ready uh appropriate for third graders to know versus sixth graders versus so you don't have to wait till 10th grade to see if kids were ready or not. DM is um dynamic learning maps. That's a an assessment for your most
017significantly cognitively challenged students because um the general uh accountability tests are not appropriate typically for kids that have significant cognitive disabilities. And what they're aim to do is just show how what kids can do um that have those disabilities within ELA, math, and science. And then the forward test is the Wisconsin based one. And it really measures how your kids are doing around four performance levels from developing up through advanced in you know math and English grades three through eight. So every year in science fourth and eighth and in social studies fourth eighth and 10th you know. So again what I'm trying to say is there's a whole bunch of things and there's reasons for all this. I've been watching the sausage made on this pretty much my career because I was around when we
018didn't have any of this stuff and it's been built over time. But I would say overall always for good reasons like DM showed up because how could you have a kid with significant cognitive disabilities take the test that is it's not appropriate for them. So that got created over time and it's a good thing and how could you only be thinking about achievement when you have kids that are you you care about how fast you grow kids not just whether kids are started at a certain level or not. So all these things over time I've watched they've been for good reason good evidence-based reasons. Um, and then also besides those tests I just mentioned, ACT, DLM, and forward that all come into your overall like five-star rating, you also have some other things like that
019are important like that people care about a matter like absenteeism, like what's your attendance like? Do you what's what's um your enrollment like? Do you have kids graduate at a high rate or not? Those sorts of things. So, those also factor in in your overall rating that that we just celebrated a minute ago. So, if you ever look at this, and I know you had this available since November. Um, I know that you have it available. I was chatting with David ahead of time. It's available has been since November. You can find on your district's website for not just the district, but for each school because remember this stuff, you get this each November. Typically, it's November when DPI releases it to the public. You'll have it for your district and then you have it
020for each school. Right now, we're talking tonight just about the district, but that, you know, all the schools feed into what I'm sharing today. The thing you care most or the people typically care most about is what you see at the very bottom. This is the top half of the cover page. And the people typically care about, okay, what's our overall score? In this case, it's 88.6. And what is that in the stars rating one through five star? And you're again, that's where you see it. A few other things you might notice if you look and see if you can see my cursor. Uh, yeah, you can. All right. So, you know, you can also typically get some good information about any school or system. Like you have over 4,300 students last year enrolled. Threearters
021or more are white. Next biggest demographic group is Latino at about 9 10%. The next group is Asian around 8%. You're pretty typical with 11% of your students um um with disabilities that would would typically be receiving an IEP. Um e economically disadvantaged. you're pretty much where most Wau County districts are, but that is very much less um students experiencing poverty than most of the state. Most of the state is more like 3540% and around here it's typically like you see here ranging from typically 8% to about 14%. The outlier for here is Wakaaw with about 36%. If you just move to West Alice be 67% and forward. So again, so that that's a that's something that stands out a lot. I point that out because there's been for decades um a high correlation between
022um poverty levels and educational outcomes. So, um that's why you'll I will show how I'll I'll make a note of how that shows up in your priority weights here in a moment. And then you you have some English level language learners. That means they don't speak uh students who don't speak uh English first and they need to learn that. Um but not a lot. You have some. Okay. So, so far so good. How we doing? Is that all right? So, getting into the weeds without going too deep. I'm going to I'm trying to thread the needle here like Goldilocks. Like not too much, not too little, just right. So if I start seeing your eyes drift, I'm going to take that as feedback. Um, so let's look at this. So again, you get this overall
023score. I mean, so one thing just to know is the overall like there's so many pieces to this, but the big number is that number and where that overall comes. And ultimately, there are priority four priority areas um in every system and every school in the state. And they're the same four areas. is just how they're weighted is differently. So the bottom half, let's say the southern hemisphere, if you will, pretty much in every system, 25% of of your overall score is going to be around target group outcomes. I'll talk about what that is in a sec, in a in a minute, but and the other 25% will be around um on track to graduation, college readiness, if you will. So again, the bottom half is pretty much consistent if you looked at any of
024the 363 school systems. What varies is the top half and it varies pretty much by the number of kids that are experiencing poverty. Um kids that qualify for free reduced lunch as an example. Um so the higher your or the lower your rate of econ of economically disadvantaged the higher um level of achievement in your waiting. Give you an example. um Waka Shaw is pretty much almost 2525 here because they have um around the state average of experience. They have more like 37% or something like that. So again they have a much higher level of economically disadvantaged students. So that means they have their their weightings are different. Okay. So so far so good. So let's talk about each of those four priority areas so you can understand that. So each of them are worth
025have are have a zero to 100 score. So you can kind of see like you had an 87.3 achievement rating out of 100. Growth was 78.4. And I'll get into all the details in this a little bit, but just know they're each 100 points. The gray bar shows how you did versus the state average or in this case it doesn't look gray. Maybe yours is like blue, but you see like for example, you had a an an English language arts you had an 83 and the state was 63.9. So where you see that that's the how you your kids did versus the state average. The exception is target group because target group isn't um in relation to the state. Target group is instead designed to be uh help schools or in this case school system
026see the gaps between your lowest 25% um performing students versus your general population um and the areas you see um and and so that's the idea. And so whatever your score is again like you had so to get your overall score like this is important remember this is the bottom half of your cover sheet and it'll be the same for your schools you would take 87.3 and you would you would calculate that to the waiting in your case 30.25 and you could take growth 78.4 and in your case you could take it times the the percentage the weight here. So that's how that's why you see some differences because again the waiting remember goes back to poverty levels essentially. Um and and then you'll see that's the kind of way they use it and there's
027good reasons for all this I believe. Um so I I'm going to stop there but that's your overall like what you see without getting too lost into all the mechanics of it. Okay. A key thing that you should also know is value ad. Um and value ad matters um like how you doing for all your kids? Are you are you giving every student a pathway to educational excellence? Like expect excellence. I see it. Are you giving every student a pathway toward that? This is outstanding slide. This is a huge celebration for your district. I don't see this too often. I'm going to tell you what I see here. First off, let's just read the box. What does value ad mean? Value added scores range from 0 to six. Higher scores mean greater positive impact. A
028score of 3.0 is average. The line you see here in language arts is what an average what this is what a a year's growth should look like. We we would expect a year's growth to be here. If you have more than 3.0 that means your kids in that group experience more than a year's growth and that means you're doing better than the state in that way. And let me tell you a little bit more about value ad. Value ad is um uses a complex statistical technique with a straightforward concept. Basically, let's compare apples to apples. That's what I would say it is. It's trying to take kids like in your like you have a unique context. Your context is somewhat described by what you see here in your demographics. You know, your the these kind
029of met these these sorts of things. So kids that are from like your system, your schools, how are how are your kids doing versus kids like them in similar context around the state of Wisconsin. So again, I feel like it's a you know, it's not just like saying how we're doing against school districts. like how are we doing against systems like ours or schools like ours because that's a higher standard for you to to to demonstrate value add in this case and so and I always think like uh my biggest mantra as an educator I'm still consider myself a teacher even though I've been an administrator teaching administrators and growing that for 25 years or so 30 years now um I think that the biggest thing is um is that you should get a year's
030growth for a year's time that's what I mean I always I want at least that and your kids who have the biggest gap should you should try to do your best to accelerate they get more than a year's growth, you hope. And so that's why I celebrate this. So what does this actually say? There's a lot of numbers here. Oops, let me go back. So it says for all your students who took some level of English language arts, remember the test we went through earlier, forward, ACT, all that. 3.7 overall, your kids had a 3.7, more than a year's growth. But look at at every every demographic group. Now, you'll notice there's a few that you don't have a number for. That's where you had too small of a sample size to provide it because
031they won't do that because otherwise if it's down to three kids, you could you're basically telling the world what those three kids got for scores and it won't be humane. So it has to be a certain sample size for you to get a number. But you can see most of your groups are big enough or you actually have a number here. So I want to particularly celebrate our state is getting hammered for years and maybe rightfully so, right? For biggest gaps in America, one of the biggest between white and black students, right? I shouldn't say maybe so. We should be and we should do better for all our kids. In in this case, you're actually your highest subgroup is black students. >> Yes, sir. >> Yeah. >> You said six. Or is this six like
032>> uh I haven't seen a six, but I but may it's probably there. I don't get into this is I I have a good background on this, but isn't where I live. So there, you know, if I if you looked Mitchell, that'd be a great question. >> Um like there's probably not a zero either or a six. I mean, but I mean, >> yeah, I I Well, no, that's I've seen high numbers, but I don't know about the six. Yeah, that's a good question. There have to be a follow-up on that. And um but again, you that's I'd celebrate that particularly again the biggest gap in the state, you're actually showing your strongest value ad in that demographic group. Again, what a celebration. Um and it isn't just for a few kids. I mean, there's
03334 lives there. Um and then if you look at um on mathematics, again, a lot of times Asian students, that's a high subgroup for that. That's kind very common. But I look at another one here and again I celebrate all this but I look at English language learners. Again I want other bigger gaps and that's your biggest um demographic group in particular um that you see as well with really high high value ad high growth. So let's talk let's talk about each of the four um areas. Remember again they were let's just remind ourselves what they are. There's we're going to talk about achievement. We're going to talk about growth. We're going to talk about target group and on track so you can understand because all those things factor into your overall accountability. So this
034is your overall accountability score. So again this is your this is what we're talking about right here. The thing that led to your five star. This is where it all comes together in the one macro metric. This is the one if you care about branding and what people pay attention to. This is probably the one. There's a lot of detail to but people okay what were we a five store? Are we a fourstar? What how are we? How are we ranked to our others? You know, all that sort of thing. You see it here again. Um and so 88.6 and 89. You see the top two there in the systems. Um so that's that's wonderful. Again, a lot of celebration around that. A couple things I'd say on that. Um that item is that uh
035know that um up to you PE people uh DPI will use up to three years of data where they have it. So when you see this number, it's actually your last three years. It's not just this year even though there's it's the most upto-date. So just know that because and that that's again I think a good thing because it used to be like okay we had a good year bad year. Um we actually want we know trends are better helpful in to provide information. So one thing is when you see this this is showing your last three years work and it also the way they do this and I again I also applaud them for this your your most recent of the three years is the one that has more weight. So, so you get
036a trend and you also get that. So, this is this is the best of both worlds from my view as someone who wants to use data for information to make better decisions as a leader because I see trend data and I see our most recent data weighted weighted here and it's not just a flip in the screen. So, that's the sort of thing. So, just know that. So, again even more reason to celebrate. This isn't just you got lucky this year u by no means. So, let's talk about achievement then. Achievement is again the top or the left is where you ended up this year with achievement and again you're very strong again among the the the most competitive and high achieving sis county in the state as we just said six of 24 of
037the top systems are in your county and you're right in the thick of it is further down than math um but ELA from my view as an achievement is you know it there's going to be variance it's not weak it's just lower down than some things and again I especially when you think about how that feeds into overall but again the whole point of these systems are to give you sense to see what strengths you can build on and some areas that you could hone in on. Um and this might be an area you could you know hone in on just and and just try to notice because you know there's some variance but again overall very strong achievement um with with um and and let me go back to the the one other thing
038about achievement. This summarizes all students on grades 3 through 11 who take the forward, the preac, the the ACT with writing and DM across four areas. And that's where you you've seen that before where the four areas are, you know, the lowest performers on that would be u would be um developing, then approaching, then meeting, then advance. So that's what this pulling all that together into one achievement score. So from all those levels all is assessed and and that's what they're trying to do here in growth. This is this is about um the purpose of this priority area is to give schools and districts a single measure that summarizes how rapidly your students are growing yeartoear. So you should be able to ask the question here and I do when I look at this. How
039is how are the how is the pace of our students learning doing versus the pace of student learning across Wisconsin? And again, um overall strong growth. The pace of learning is is is solid here. Um you can see on the left is the overall and then in the middle you see it for particularly with ELA growth and for mathematics growth. So again, this is one of the things you see two hands. So you maybe in the previous slide you saw achievement in ELA was a little lower but it's still very competitive but growth you're you really closing really growing kids. So again it's just another way of looking at important areas of learning. Another thing to know about growth because this comes up and again this is something that's happened over time which I'm thankful
040for because I remember we were part of these discussions. could you make it so it it's so there used to be a thing kids would show up for a month to a system take the test had almost no learning in the system and then yet you know how that factor into overall and especially for places where has a lot of up and down and and mobility in the community. So when you when you see statistics here for example growth and in other areas um a thing called full academic year applies. So students need to be with you for a full academic year for their data to be included. And again typically you also need two years of of of test taking for it to also be included. So again that gives you a truer sense
041of kids who are in your program how are they doing just so you know that. So it isn't just um again that would be another reason maybe to discount the data but actually that's been taken into account because a full academic year and two years of data um to be uh two years of testing to be included in the data that you have. That's why sometimes you'll see your the number of kids tested doesn't seem quite with your enrollment. That's probably because they were here for a year. You know that sort of thing where they didn't quite hit it. So that's why they're uncoded with your scores. There might be a discrepancy with that. But that's for good reasons. Target group outcomes. This is one you crushed uh in a good way. And uh target
042group outcomes are um let me just kind of get to my notes here. This priority area examines multiple measures for students in the bottom quartile or the bottom 25% of your results. It's from the previous year. So remember this is 2425 data we're looking at. So this would have been the students the previous year 23 24 the students that were in the bottom 25% bottom cortile that returned to school last year that those those kids at any level are your target group students and that's those are the kids across our state who we want to find a way that they are not right now as performing. We want to make sure they can get and if there's gaps to close we can accelerate. That's the idea. Again, this this priority priority area examines multiple measures
043for students in that bottom quartile performance and and then um what the four criteria used here are how are they achieving, how are they growing, um what's their attendance or graduation like and is there some chronic absenteeism and if you know any of these things you can go back to what I shared earlier if you because just take a look here. If you see target group right now on the screen, you see the four criteria I just showed, you can see how in for example there you can see how they did with achievement, growth, chronic absenteeism and graduation. So can come back. This is this is again the bottom half of your cover page. You can see some of these things. I'm just trying to go even a little bit deeper without getting you lost
044here. Hopefully and hopefully going back and forth and kind of help you make those connections a little bit. One last thing is on track to graduation. Again, very strong on track to graduation score. you're among the top on the one on the left is your overall score that showed up in your accountability. Um then the middle one is how you did overall for your all your students which is amazing 98.9. Um and then New Berlin are and then you see New Berlin in the second slide on the far right where it's for the target group. So even look at how close it is for the students who are most likely maybe to drop out withdraw and to disengage. Again some very strong things. So uh again overall very strong. Um, a couple other things and
045we kind of sum this up and get to some questions. A few things like I think about this with data and I if you want to go deeper with data I think this is my suggestions and I work with a lot of systems with strategic planning and things like that. I say when you look about you want to look at yourself and examine yourself you know um thoroughly. You want to think about data as information because you can have a lot you know that whole acronym you've probably heard drip where you're data rich and information poor. we have all we're we're swimming in data but we don't know what to do with it. You don't want that. So if you have a data point, okay, that's maybe it gives me some information. Like what you
046see here in the dots on the left is unfortunately that that kind of got created with COVID because what happened with COVID was we had a year or two wasn't testing and then it it got it didn't allow us to continue trends like we couldn't compare, you know. So that's why you see a gap here. So basically there were some trends before that time but they aren't connected to what we currently are doing because co if you remember we didn't have testing it broke up the system so that was where data is a point data is more helpful when you can see trends right and you can see how we do compared to this and that's why we we do a lot of these things now what got disrupted with that is that we had
047forward cut scores get updated so the you probably have paid attention to that um so our DPI had had changed um about a year ago now the cut scores. So, let's imagine a student's taking a test. I'm just going to make up a number. Let's say uh if I take this math test to get a perfect score would be 200. And in the past, maybe if I get a hund I get 112 points on this test, that might be I'm I'm moving from the lowest stage, you know, to the second stage. Let's just say that number 112. I'm just making up a number. So, that' be the cut score. If you got 113, now you move from the lowest level to the next level. That's the cut. Well, those change. So some of the numbers
048um you know maybe now instead of 113 it's 111 or something to move that stage. So they changed. So sometimes when people see the the trends which are usually helpful they wonder like okay are if we're seeing upward trends like you are here like you're seeing upward trends in everything overall everything except for growth which is kind of stable if you look the question is is that ch is that basically a product of just the cut scores being re um re repositioned and so what I asked the team to do and I think thank for um Danielle and David and others that helped with this. So one one thing we just suggest at this moment in time um is that you look at how are you doing relative to the what's the net change and
049so what you see here is it's another way of showing this and we've just had it here for overall score for achievement and for growth and again the overall is the thing that we were looking at earlier your fivestar rating and here what we're doing is we're looking at how did you do in for example your overall score 88.6 to last year. go. Oh, that's improved. Okay. Um, but the the big thing we want to look for is how much different is that to the state to the rest of the state compared to the year before? Because you can't control that the cut score has changed, but every every district like you had to experience the very same cut score changes. So this year it makes sense to think about how your how your changes
050are relative to the state to the rest of the state. Does that make sense? So even though you so when people ask like okay great we see growth in our trends but on in transparency because the cut scores change or because we actually got better you can say I think this is why I look at your data and say well you have you've you've grown the difference between you and the state in overall achievement in the last year even though everyone had the same cut score differences. So that therefore you've gotten your your your your move upward is actually showing improvement, not just that the cut scores changed. So I just want to make that point too because that's often a question people have. So you know so what does this all mean? And I
051want to say one thing too is I love that you have also the uh integrity and the transparency to say not only do we have data points, we have data trends and we try to contextualize those trends so we can show what how how are those trends relative to this. So you you almost all your data is contextualized against the most competitive districts in the state or among them. And so you're again you're you're holding yourself up to a standard that I think is important to be the best you can and expect excellence in all that. So as a guy who's been living in this work for a long time particularly in Wshaw County for you know 26 years and around the systems around you and around the state here are a few things why
052I think this why what we just walked through um what it means and why it matters. So big picture, broad overview. Um, what you have here is a comprehensive balanced view of your impact on student learning. I used to think that I wanted I wanted high achievement and I that was the one thing of course because that's you know that's going to help you get every door open and that's important. Absolutely. I mean I mean obviously my life's around that I have a PhD and all this stuff you know but I know now that I want a more comprehensive balanced view of that. So when I was at Elm Brook, for example, I mentioned 30 years ago, we looked at we realized that we had a lot of kids who were achieving well, but we
053weren't growing them. They weren't growing very much. They pretty much just show up and do just fine. Um, and we weren't adding a lot of value to some of those kids. We and we wanted to know how we want to know where it was and what we do about it. We also cared about the kids who were are struggling the most needed not just a year's growth they needed us to close gaps which meant they need more than a year's growth. We need to understand that. You get the idea. And that's why in Mosqu we started this at Elmer. We had a thing called the uh well anyway we some dashboards we did around each group in our in our schools. At Mosqu we built a balance scorecard much like you see here. It was
054very similar. We had growth. We had we had we call them um subgroups not target group. Um and I think Mosquo still has it. I don't I don't work there anymore but I believe and all these sorts of things around readiness because again it gives you a more comprehensive balanced view. I really think overall, you know, you care, I would you care about all four of those areas and they all matter. Achievement, growth, target group, and college ready, college, career readiness, market analysis. The other thing is um again that you are strong and growing within a region that's long known for educational excellence. Milwaukee County has a great education story to tell and you're you're in the midst of making that happen. And you also have things to continue to work on, which is great.
055and you are um three types of data are there. So um you think about those four areas you know I don't know if you're lagging data means it's helpful but it told us like you know we we've already cross like we're here and that that legging data tells us what what what happened and then there's leading data that kind of helps us get data to know how to go as you know move as we go and then there's like legacy things that were all said and done it's like we did we changed lives or not I think you can think about those four priority areas as one of these like lagging data is achievement data how did our kids do were they were they advanced, were they meeting? But that's always in the past. Whereas
056growing kids, growth data shows us information and especially when you get into Fastbridge and Ames web like some of your local measures that get into this, it actually shows you how kids are growing right now. So we can see where we are actually. It gives you more leading information more to help inform good decisions about improving and programs and supports for kids, what have you. And so that's target group and growth. And then legacy to me is college career readiness. Are are you able to are we able to find uh help uh every student find a meaningful path to them to be a contributor to society be successful contributing adult that's college career readiness and are we having kids ready to pursue well any pathway that grabs their heart's you know attention so those are
057a few things big picture I think also what it means it matters through three analogies like I'm a I like the you know you can judge a tree by its fruits I'm a man of faith I love that it means a lot to me I think the best predictor of past performance future performance is past past success and you've been doing this. This is nothing new. You have a heritage of of success here and you're building on that and um you know then I get into the business analogy and I have a I I I have a a I'm a consultant. I have my own business on the side when I can fit it in. And I know that if I want to um be successful in any business and I do it my own,
058I I have to grow my business because I don't want to just be good at what I do, which I hope I am, but I need to grow that business because without otherwise it stagnates. And I think you want to think about this as well. If we're in education, we want to have high achievement. We want to all these things, but we need to grow our ability to serve particularly the most challenged kids. And then medical analogy, you can have an autopsy or a physical exam. We used to talk about this all the time when I was earlier. We say like achievement gives you a good way of like how did we do but you're looking at the patient and there's you're looking at their old work where more and more these multi- measures give
059you a way to actually um get the indicators about how to serve the people right now and to make a more adept kind of leading u movement. And then lastly um why it matters I think to any board commitments that's deep into the work. I mean you have you are demonstrating to your families huge value ad go back to I mean again there are very few systems very few systems I and I I don't have a number for you but I look at enough of these to know this is fairly rare air where you get into here's where it is again you get into like you are showing value ad not just for all the kids the big groups but for every subgroup and um and then you know that's that's a heck of a
060statement to be able to share for your commitment to families and I think you also when you get into target groups particularly your ability to accelerate growth for the kids who are um the lowest performers traditionally again that shows the commitment to expect excellence here that I see um through that I also get into um you know growing and preparing all the students we serve again that's the target group piece as I mentioned um and I get into this this last piece about responsible stewardship you know living your me your mission. I see it lived. Um you're safeguarding the district brand and value. I mean I think in general again where you are with your five stars now in every school and then ultimately with your continuous improvement and thoughtful oversight. So I've as Joe
061mentioned um Mr. Garza mentioned I've had the honor of working with them u with him and his team and I can assure you they're not resting on their laurels. Um they're working hard. Their schools are working hard. your schools are working hard to um you know really um build off your strengths and uh get better at the areas where you see some opportunities to continue to have more impact. So um there's a lot there. Uh I hope it's been helpful to unpack some of this. I think we have a little time for some questions maybe um and so happy to take some. >> Yeah, we don't have um much for close session so we can spend a little bit of time here if needed. >> Um I have a question. So, as a school board
062um in the Indian district, what what should a school board look at on the state report card to um you know, like what should we be looking at to help the district get better or f what to focus on? >> Yeah, that's that's great. >> As a schoolard, >> I think I think one thing I would suggest is is again just kind of understand, let me just go this way. um is that you have just the structure here like we try to do. I think the overall knowing that every every um district like you has a cover sheet here and this this cover sheet can tell you a lot. I basically you know if I if you think about what I just said Amy I went into um a lot of detail to describe the
063cover here. Um and so I would just start with those two those things and then um you could also do the same for each of the six schools. you'd see a lot of similar strengths because again the schools um but sometimes districts have like we have a lot of strengths and we have a school that's really struggling like that's I would you don't have that right now from my view I mean you have every school has things to work on every systems have things to work on sure absolutely but I would I would start with always um the the cover sheet for your system and school and if you see something pop up that you're wondering about then get into the weeds because I just showed you a few screenshots of things that would be
064further down into the reports. But honestly, that's what I do. I usually just go to the cover sheet and then I know where to drill down. And I hope you have enough now to kind of know how you could do that. And even just to know that we have a similar thing for each school and the system. And I hope you also can tell like if you look at systems like you want to compare apples to apples, make sure you're understanding like again know that the context around around students experiencing poverty varies this a lot. Like you know that now, right? Um, and you would also know some things around um, where you see growth and value add. I think you'd have a lot of things here too where if you ever saw like sometimes
065we'll see this page and this page will be in every report card. That would be another place I would go and find like is there anything that's way below the line that what's that telling us? And you could look by school or by system. So those are a few things. That's a great question. I hope that helps a little bit kind of know where to go big picture and then figure out where to drive in and you know lean on your people here that you have that they're thoughtful. They know this stuff. if you could just I think help um with just kind of knowing what you might want to know more about. Any more questions? Nothing. Um okay. I hope I can formulate my question. Um sure. >> So if you go go back
066to that like cover sheet >> um and you're mentioning that >> the priority are areas are weighted differently. Um it's weighted differently for by each school district. Has there a different weight or is it per school? >> So it's it's again the the district will be a com kind of a combination of all the six schools in the makeup of that. So you're seeing the this is the big umbrella and then each one might but they have similar four priority areas of weight. >> Okay. So, I understand it's the same four priorities. Um, but every district is going to have theirs weighted differently. So, for instance, some school districts might weight growth more so than other districts. >> So, what happens is typically every of the four um the bottom two are almost always 25%
067each. So, that'll be common across all the systems pretty much. The variance will be in the top two and that's basically uh and I'll give you an example to make the point here in a second. So it's basically the connection of your percentage of economically disadvantaged which is basically how many students uh uh qualify for free reduced lunch. >> Um it's also a factor 175% of the I think the federal poverty wage that these are some of the qualifying things something like that. Um so that gets into your percentage here. Um so when this is low like this again you might not think that's low relative to the state it's low. Um and so that's why when you see a a a percentage a lower economically disadvantaged percentage you'll see a higher um amount of
068weight towards achievement in your system. So let me give you an example like for you you see here it's 14% economically disadvantaged students and f um and then the state has 39% of the weight of your overall score being on on achievement. In contrast, I have it here just in case this question came up. In contrast, Wacaaw has 39% so pretty much three times the amount of poverty and their um their their achievement level um is at 23%. And they're they're close to about the state average. I I don't I don't know for exactly but I in my head I think it makes sense like it's state average last I saw was maybe 30 some percent poverty. So those are the folks who have like 25 growth, 25 achievement and then you know there are
069other systems like West Alice who has um 68% 68% economic disadvantage they are here they have um I have it here as well just as an example um 45% on on growth and 5% on achievement. So when you get that far into poverty and again the reason for that they're trying to find um a fair way the state is trying to find a fair way to show what um research has shown for decades is the the the unfortunate correlation not that you accept it but you try to work against it but again this high correlation of of poverty and educational outcomes. And this is again over time they created these weights to try to help everyone find an appropriate like way to keep on focusing on on good work and dealing with the context that
070you're working yourself in and because when they used to do differently but honestly would do is like and I worked in some of these systems and I also I'm from poor I grew up in poor systems in the state. I won't bother saying which were there but both of them now are would be high poverty systems. I grew up in I was a working class kid all that. Um but uh in this before they did the weights like this you could not that we were doing it but a system that had high SCES could pretty could coast a lot of ways because they would just be compared like everybody else compare yourselves to other contexts with three to six times more poverty and you know you probably would be better with outcomes and they're trying
071to find a way to make this again fair across the state with all the variances of context. So that's I the one you asked Janet was a really that's a good question because that's a key part of you understanding this and it's really linked a lot to the metric around economically disadvantaged. So again bottom line is the bottom two are typically consistent. The top two vary a lot around poverty. If this would change greatly in your community you would see some variance in the in the weights and that's how they do it. It's really a function of who's in your community in terms of um economically disadvantaged status. >> Okay. Any more questions? >> That's it. >> Can I just say then in wrapping up again I hope you you know congratulations on really strong
072work. Um again I had a chance to work with these folks now and I I've known of you. This is the most I've ever got to work in with folks. I've been working with Elmer the last four years um pretty closely as well and um so there's some really thoughtful work. some of the very best work in the states going on around cycles of work and I appreciate your support of that because I think you're you're strong and you I expect you're going to continue to see strong results and improving results. So again, thanks for the honor of the time. Appreciate it, Dr. >> Thank you. All right. So now we're going to adjourn. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Helmer, a second
073by Mr. Cidle. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. This part of the meeting is adjourned. Okay. So we'll move in Now 6:50 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. Helmer >> here. >> Miss Kik. >> Miss Schulz >> here. >> Mr. Cidle >> here. >> Miss Spindler >> here. >> Mr. Zinsky >> here. >> I would entertain a motion to recess to close session. >> I move to adjourn into close session pursuant to section 19.85. 851 CE and F of Wisconsin statutes to consider A the approval of close session minutes of January 26 and B the employment per performance and
074compensation and banners pertaining to staff. >> Seconded. >> I have a motion by Miss Crosby and a second by Mr. Zillinsky. Please call the role. >> Miss Crosby, >> yes. >> Mr. Zillinsky? >> Yes. >> Mr. Helmer? >> Yes. >> Miss Schulz? >> Yes. >> Mr. Cidle? >> Yes. >> Miss Spindler? Yes, >> we are moving into close session. Return to open session around 7 o'clock. It is now 7:16 p.m. and we are returning from close session into open session. In recognition of the serious and important nature of our efforts here, we would join in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. For those who are able, please rise. >> United States of America to the republic for it stands nation. >> And now for those who wish to prepare for the meeting, we'll have
075a moment of silence. This is a public meeting of the 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, the Walker Shell Freeman, all of which have filed requests for all public notices. Do we have any privilege of the floor this evening? >> No. >> All right. Um I do not have a message. So we'll move on to the administrative team report. >> I uh did want to just uh share that we may be looking at another speaker for the board. So we just got done with a work session and I am working with uh uh Will Flanders who's a research
076analyst with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. uh he's been following the ACT 20 literacy work. Um and I'm still trying to solidify to see if he may be like part two of the two-part series of digging into the data. Um other than that, I guess I'll at this point I'll hand it over to Payton. >> Good evening. Uh uh Eisenhower students are starting the semester strong, just wrapping up exams two weeks ago. Uh our English 11 classes are learning how to write poems and our orchestra at the end of last month every uh orchestra in the district uh played together at Stringfest in the Fieldhouse at West. Um next week we'll have a career day where all 7 through 12 students will have the option to select three different uh like jobs they
077want to go into or field they want to go into and get to learn from that. And our juniors have been working hard on uh ACT prep as it's the at the start of next month. Our clubs have been active too with uh HOSA running a blood drive last Friday and finishing up their winter carnival uh in January. DECA had over 20 state qualifiers from districts at Homestead. And they're also selling serenades where members of the Eisen choir will go and sing to a person of choice. Um, Eisenhower Theater will have Bye-Bye Birdie over the next two weekends producing six shows. And our girls basketball team has won four out of their last five games. Um, our annual Ike West rivalry, uh, our girls teams won both games. Um, Ike Tier just got back from
078their national competition in Orlando, Florida. And Ike Dance concluded their season, uh, by being state champs in division four palm and placed third in division 2 Jazz. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. And we have our consent agenda. Next up, it includes the notice, the approval of minutes of the board meeting of December, I'm sorry, January 26th. Um, and then the 2026 Young People's Continental Congress field trip application. Are there any items that should be pulled up for separate consideration? Do I have a motion for the consent agenda? >> Motion to approve. Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Cidle and second by Mr. Helmer to approve the consent agenda as presented. Any discussion? Hearing none, then all those in favor raise your right hand. Motion passes. On to the regular agenda, we have
079the discuss approved financial statement audit for fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025. Any any um >> I'll hand it over to Patrick. Um, so we have our our representative from Baker Tilly here with us tonight, Paul Frons. Um, Paul has been uh leading our financial audit for the last two years. Uh, we appreciate the work that he's done in the district and I will turn it over to Paul. All of the documents that he's going to reference are in board books for you and as soon as you approve, I'll forward them to David that he'll post on the website. Perfect. Thank you. Uh again, Paul France, principal with Baker Tilly in Milwaukee. Privileged to be with you tonight. Uh all good news to share with you this evening. Uh we did complete our our financial
080and single audit for the district as of June 30, 2025. Issued those reports in early December. Uh the district received an unmodified opinion, also known as a clean bill of health. That is the highest level assurance that you can receive from an external auditor and ultimately the outcome you look to to hear. What that opinion means is that within the financial statement document, all necessary disclosures have been included within there, that all accounting principles have been uh adopted and applied consistently year-over-year by management, and that the document itself is free of material in misstatement. So again, all what you're looking to hear when you have an external auditor look at uh the financial records and ultimately the financial statements of the district uh in relation to the single audit because the district receives more than
081$750,000 of federal grant dollars in a uh fiscal year and spends that. The district is subject to a federal and a state single audit. uh also issued an unmodified opinion over that. Uh the single audit looks at the compliance of the grant dollars received and make sure ultimately that they're spent in conjunction with the rules uh that were in place to receive those dollars. Again, no findings to note from that that audit and ultimately led to the the clean uh opinion on that. Financial health of the district uh is is strong. You're in uh line with your general fund policy. uh of more than 10% of your expenditures. It was 32% at uh June 30, 2025. Um so again, strong financial position there. No concerns to note. Um we received nothing but cooperation from management
082throughout the audit process. they were ready for us when we came in. Gave us good financial data to start with uh and ultimately uh were very kind and easy to to navigate through any questions that we had. And so we didn't have any material journal entries or concerns that came up during the audit process. And the best thing I can tell you from that is that means that you have good financial data throughout the year that you're not waiting for your auditor to come in fix the books to give you good information. that's six or seven months old by the time you get it, you have it at your fingertips by management. And that's the best thing I can give you uh in in a statement is that again, you have what you need to
083make the the decisions that you need to. So, with that, I'll pause there. Certainly go into more depth if you have items of concern uh or things that you would like to pick my brain on, but um nothing else to specifically add immediately. So uh this is the board's audit >> uh of our books and you know given the information provided. Thank you very much. >> We recommend approval of the audit as presented. >> So move. >> All right. So we have a motion of a second. >> Seconded. >> All right. Uh so I have a motion by Mr. Cidle and a second by Mr. Helmer to approve the financial statement audit for fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025 as presented. Is there any discussion? Then all those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion
084passes. Thank you. >> Thank you. If I can, um I'd like to to thank a few people uh for the the financial audit. First and foremost, my comproller uh is the equivalent of uh uh finance director Crystal Reid. Um she does an absolutely fantastic job um keeping on top of all the district revenues and expenditures. We have I I believe the best financial department in southeastern Wisconsin. uh from our accountants who our APS uh our um uh accounts payable, not associate principles. Um I believe we've got the best of the best. Um and I appreciate the board allowing me to build such a strong team. I also want to thank Paul with Baker Tilly. If you remember a couple of years ago, our auditors dropped us uh the week we were going to send them
085uh or request information for the upcoming audit and Baker Tilly stepped up to the plate. They were the only um group that stepped up to the plate and uh we really appreciate their the way they work with us. As a matter of fact, um they are the first audit team that we have given um access to our auditor access to our financial programs and they grabbed that information and ran with it. Um we maybe have auditors on site for two or two and a half days where this used to be like three weeks. So, I appreciate all the the work. >> Fantastic. Thank you. >> All right. Next, we have discuss approve the 2026 27 board meeting calendar. >> Uh, did we actually have a vote, Janet? >> Yeah, we voted. >> Oh, you did?
086>> Yes. >> My apologies. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> No, no. I I was just giving, you know, Patrick like add a boy, Patrick. Way to go. >> All right. So, do I have a motion for the 202627 board meeting calendar? >> Motion to approve. Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Cidle, second by Mr. Halmer to approve. Is there any discussion? And all those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Uh, and then we do have an item from close session. I move to approve the employment services report as presented. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Miss Spindler, a second by Miss Crosby to approve the employment services report. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Our future meetings and dates. So, we have board meetings generally
087held the second and fourth Mondays beginning at 7 o'clock p.m. here in this conference room in the district offices unless otherwise noted. Uh the next one is February 23rd. Then we have March 9th and March 23rd. Other important dates to remember is that February 16th and then March 13th are staff in service days. There are um no school on those days. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> So move. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Mr. Cidle, a second by Mr. Helmer to adjurnn. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. This meeting is a