001Ladies and gentlemen, it is now 6:45 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 here. Miss Schulz here. Mr. Cidle here. Miss Spindler here. Mr. Zalinski here. I would entertain a motion to recess to close session. I move to adjourn into close session pursuant to section 19.85 A5 1 C E and F of the Wisconsin statutes to consider A the approval of close session minutes of March 10th, B the employment performance and compensation matters pertaining to staff and C preliminary notice of intent to non-renew. Second. I have a motion by Miss Crosby and a second by Mr. Cidle. Please call the role. Miss Crosby,
002yes. Mr. Sidle, yes. Mr. Helmer, yes. Miss Kik, yes. Miss Schultz, yes. Miss Spendler, yes. Mr. Zalinski, yes. We're move excuse me, we are moving into close session. We'll return to open session around 7 o'clock. It is now 7:04 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 will join in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. All those who are able, please rise. United States of America to the Republic for it stands nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. And now for those who wish to prepare for the meeting, we'll 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 last Friday by
003providing 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 Wauaawa Freeman, and the Waka Now, all of which have filed requests for all public notices. We'll begin this evening with um a recognition of the Eisenhower DECA. Yeah. Melissa Bonsson, please come on up and tell us all the awesome things that you guys are doing. All right. Good evening. Um tonight I get to present to you Tanya Ider. Uh Tanya recently competed at the state DECA competition in back in February and earned first place in the food marketing event. She's a series champion which is a very rare uh thing to achieve and very exciting. She along with six other Eisenhower DECA members will be competing at the
004international uh career development conference later this month in Orlando, Florida. Uh Tanya earned a medal for her score in her marketing cluster test, a role play, another medal for being a finalist, a plaque, and a banner. You want to show them the banner? Our first ever banner. So very excited. Uh she's letting me keep it, so we're going to start a wall um in in this competition. So we are very proud of Tanya's success and thankful for the recognition of the school board. Tanya's success is no accident. She has been a four-year DECA member and has served on our DECA leadership team for the past two years. Eisenhower DECA has strong traditions and goals that we hold ourselves to each year. This year, our membership grew 65% going from 98 members to 162. She has
005been our vice president of community service this year, and our chapter has been a strong contributor, earning us several awards and recognition under leadership such as hers. One thing instead of ringing all the obnoxious like plaques and certificates I grabbed uh the badge that that we earn. So uh tradition at at state DECA is that you earn badges for different initiatives that you do and the goal is to be the coolest kid with the longest ones. So the goal is to your knees. Okay. So we were really close to our knees but we did not quite make it. But um everything from here on down are different initiatives that our chapter was recognized for. Uh we were within top 10 for raising funds for musculardrophe. Uh we were a diamond level chapter which is the
006highest level chapter where we had to again hit several initiatives. Um, trick or can is a big event that some of you guys may participate in with both New Berlin West and New Berlin Eisenhower and which students go trick-or-treating for food items and we're usually in the top three in the entire state. So, pretty cool traditions that um, you know, students do and so Tanya not only was a part of uh, success in the competition aspect but as a chapter too and the others. Um, so thank you uh to our very supportive admin team at all levels um the building and district levels and for your guys' efforts to make this possible for our students and members. Tanya has been dedicated to DECA these last four years and I'm proud of her achievement in the
007food marketing competition this year. She will compete against 20,000 students from 13 countries with three to 400 students in her uh category alone. So ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you Tanya [Applause] Ider miss looks like this too. So offer transition. So all right. So um Tanya, real quick question. Um what are your plans for next year? Hi everyone. Um, next year I'm going to be going to WMadison and I'll be majoring in data science and I'm planning to add a double major in actuarial science. Oh wow, congratulations. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks for introducing me here today. Okay, on to privilege of the floor. Do we have any today? None. All right. Uh, president's message. don't really have anything this evening, but uh welcome back. We had a bit of a a break and
008so we got to get back into the swing of things here. Uh we'll move on to the administrative team reports. Yes. So um because we canled the last meeting, we did have a school update scheduled and so instead we have two today. Uh so I'll have the Popular Creek staff please come up first and share with us uh the great things happening at Papa Creek. Good evening everybody. Um, thank you for having us this evening. I will say it's a bit different. The last eight years I've always had Matt Buckley do the introduction and then hand me this. So, um, my first one as a building principal. So, my name is Kevin Jeminyani. the new building principal Papa Creek. To my right is my friend and colleague Jennifer Trojan, the associate principal. And we'll introduce
009our team later, but we do want to uh thank you for inviting us here for a board presentation. Uh as we do every year, we give a quick highlight on all the wonderful things that are happening at all six of the schools. And so it is our pleasure to tell you all about Popular Creek. Um as you can see, uh right below is really the big motto for us. Lead, believe, and achieve. This is something that staff, students, parents, the entire community does follow and believe in. You'll see it in the building. You'll hear it in the hallways. Um it's a big cry for our parents. Our PTO, which is very active, will use it, too. It's actually um on my lanyard, so we live it every single day. But the bigger thing for us
010is what our our core beliefs are. And again, this will be no different. Reagan will be celebrated and they will promote the same ideologies that we do. But the types of things you appear, that is the work. And so if you're talking about the day-to-day life, yes, there are some specific things this year that we've brought to PC that all of our elementary schools are doing. Uh, two Thursdays a month are dedicated specifically to professional learning. The second Thursday of each month is what we call tier one support. And what our grade level teams will do is they will sit and they will go through the ELA curriculum. They'll identify specific places that they can do small group work. It could be uh pre-teaching, reteing, uh extended practice. finding those little opportunities for a little
011extra boost for our students primarily working on literacy. And so that is as you see those bullet points, that's an action step that all the buildings are doing this year. We've also added uh Wednesday AM planning and so our grade level teams along with a case manager. Something very unique to Popular Creek is we do have grade level case managers. So they one case manager, one special ed teacher is assigned to one grade level. It really strengthens that collaborative work. Uh they get to work as a team on that group of students. So am planning uh every Wednesday is time for them to sit down and do that true co-planning co-serving work and that's something all of our elementaryaries do as well but again that's part of the work that we have and uh we
012just finished this last week what are called our SST meetings where we pull the data and we look at students and their growth and Jenny will speak to that in detail later on um but identifying students that are below benchmark and what can we do what interventions are available what can we try to get them that leg up but also students that are growing and and getting stronger in their literacy skill literacy skills, excuse me, but what else can we do for them? Just because they've hit that benchmark doesn't mean that we're done with them. Keep them growing. And so those are different things that we're doing weekly, monthly, and daily as we look at that work. Uh something else that we ask all of our grade level teams to do as well as our
013case managers is what we call our collective commitments. Again, it's not unique to PC. the Orchard Lane team shared these same things. But as you look at those categories, what we're asking our grade level teams to do is to find specific statements, specific commitments when it comes to student learning and growth. So, if you were to go through each of our grade level teams, you would find these common threads, but you'd also find common language even to the point where uh they are focusing on how we can use our support staff and leverage them that day-to-day work they're doing with our students, whether it's our special education assistance, working with our students to qualify for special education services or student learning assistants that are doing a lot of the dirt work when it comes to
014the interventions. So, all these collective commitments are something that we ask all our grade level teams to do and and recommmit to every single year. But again, within there, you're going to find the same statements regardless of grade level with those different topics. I'm going to turn it over to Jenny to just talk about some of those specific highlights this year at PC. You want to drive? No. All right. Who's got the clicker? It's a big day. Hi everyone again. I'm Jenny Trojan, the associate principal at Popular Creek. Thanks for hearing us tonight. Um, so just some highlights along with some pictures on on the presentation. So this is our fourth year now where we have um a really solid data analysis process at our building. Um and that that's with teachers, but that's also
015with students. So as you can see, we do have data all over our walls. The kids are excited about it. Um there's some healthy competition. Uh and it's just cool to hear kids talking about about the things that the adults are also talking about. We also had uh two winners, our general music team and our sped student services team. they were awarded um the grant, the impact grant from Education Foundation of New Berlin. Um so we will be having bucket drumming next year and then we are also getting a sensory path in one of our hallways. So come hang out in that hallway next year if you would like. You're welcome. Uh we also have some amazing um special ed assistants who have started up a Best Buddies chapter. Um this is something that's much
016more common in middle school and high school. Uh but we are really proud to have a chapter at our school now. Um it's a ton of fun. We actually have a a walk coming up in a few weeks. So join if you would like. Um and then the last thing on this pres or on this page is that our building leadership team has grown this year. And that's not just with Popular Creek, that's all of the elementary schools. But we along with our literacy coach, now we have a math coach, an English uh learner coach, special ed coach, social worker, school psychologist. So kind of every subgroup of students within our school is covered at this weekly meeting that we have which has been really valuable. Our PTO continues to be incredible. Um they are
017hosting events all throughout the year. It's also a great source of funding for Popular Creek. So we have some fun pictures there including some slime. That was sort of fun. No, it was fun. It was fun. His parents were there. His parents were there. um calming corners and then our creek crawl which I do we do every year and then the reason we were slimed was for um for for earnings or fundraising that much money for for that year. So um but the rest artisan residents, guest speakers, our carnival um snack shack which is new this year. Um so just a lot of great things that our PTO continues to do for us. Okay, so the best part of the presentation is our first grade team. Um, an unbelievable team of women. Nancy Bowman, Jenny
018Ferschel, Paula Neprath, Mackenzie Schicker, Alli Zimmerman, and Jillian Kek. All of these lovely people are here to join us today. Um, so they are committed to strategies and solutions that lead to student growth and they are going to represent and celebrate the collaborative work that all the teams do at PC. So, here they are. Kevin, to keep clicking, got the clicker. Kevin has the power. Hi, I'm Nancy Bowman. I wanted to talk to you a little about literacy in first grade. First of all, we are super excited to have CLA as our curriculum. We love CKLA. It really gives our students the foundational skills they need to be successful readers and writers. And I know that Kevin and uh Jenny will share some of our data with you later. We love C. Kelly, but we
019also know that we are always looking to do things better. what can we do better and one thing that we have identified is vocabulary knowledge for our children. So as a team this year our PPG is centering around how we can improve lit our vocabulary strategies in our literacy block. So we are actually reading it's listed up there the bringing words to life book as a team and hopefully next year we'll be implementing strategies that will improve their vocabulary scores. Another thing that we have found that we needed to enhance was just getting books into the hands of kids that they can read and share at home with their families. So last year we asked for um some funding to purchase a whole bunch of decodable books that are just books that our kids can
020take home to share with their families and show how much they have grown and how many skills they have developed as readers this year in first grade. and the kids love it. It's something that they can also use as a bonding experience with their families. We have a whole system set up for it and it's working really well for all of our kids. Um, another thing that we have found we wanted to enhance was just celebrations in first grade and having fun as well because we know that you've got to have fun in first grade to keep kids engaged for the rest of their life in in school. So, two things that we have added this year is um the reading superstar celebration. This was a collaborative effort with our third grade team and we
021worked with them to pair up our kids appropriately and strategically so that they could read to each other and show off all the great things that CKLA has done for them in the last two years. The kids loved it. We um gave them um starburst of well as superstars. Um so it was a really fun day. Um Kevin and Jenny came down and got to read with some of the kids too and see all the growth that kids are making with this curriculum. Another thing that we added just for fun, this was also a national day this year um was schwa day. So if you don't know what schwa is, I encourage you to make sure that you go home and find out what it is. It is the most common vowel sound in our
022English language. And it's just another great thing. We talk about it a little bit in first grade, but we really wanted to enhance that. And we had about an hour's worth of activities and just some really good learning around that to help them with their encoding as well as decoding. Hi, my name's Paula and I'm going to talk to you about math. Math is my jam. So, we've been together as a team for six years and we found out that kids are all at different um levels of math just like they're at reading. So, we have worked to develop math groups and we use the fastbridge scores. We look at what they do in class, not just on tests, but how they're responding during um large group instruction. And then we divide them off into
023groups. And this year we have four groups. We have a real we have the high group and they do extension activities. And they also do like problems using larger numbers versus like 8 minus 3. will give them like 18 minus 12 so they learn all their facts up to 20. Our goal in first grade is fact fluency and so they know their facts. Um our other groups we have a proficient level group so they go in they do a couple retach or they work through the problems together and then we have a lower group where Alli's going to talk to you about that. Hello, I'm Ali Zimmerman. I am the um or one of the first grade case managers. Um and I've had the privilege this year of working with this first grade team and
024um in math I've been able to co-e with Paula for that lowest group. Um a lot of the students in that group do have IEPs so I'm able to service a lot of their needs within that group. Um the smaller group allows us a lot of one-on-one support. So like the kids are really getting that extra support that they need. We have a group of about 11 in between the two teachers in the room like the kids are really getting that extra support. Um we are also able to go what we say um deeper and not wider. So we're really able to hone in on some strategies for the kids and get them really comfortable and proficient with it as opposed to kind of covering that like wide array where we're kind of skimming over
025the top of everything. We're really able to dig in and get them comfortable in doing the math problems and going through things. Um, it's been really cool to see some of the light bulbs go off in that room. Um, I have seen tremendous, tremendous growth from these little sixth graders who were coming in really, really struggling. Um, so watching them kind of light up and get that has been great. And working with Paula has been an amazing experience in just the collaboration of it. and me and her go back and forth all day of this kid would benefit from this and this kid would benefit from this. So, um the math groups as a whole have been really great and being able to work as a team has been incredible. Another thing we do is
026fact fluency days. So, once again, we're trying to build the foundation for facts. And what's really nice is we have sixth grade leaders come down and they work with small groups of kids. So, it's a win-win. The kids love having their math buddies come down and the math buddies love using their leadership skills to work with the kids. So, that is fun. And then another thing we always do too is in a take-home folder, we send home our games. So, we tell the kids, "Take this out. You need dice. You need this. You need that." And if they don't have them, we give them examples how you can take from other games you have at home or we we send dice home. So it's a collaboration between our first grade and families. Thank you, first
027grade. Uh and just real quick before I give it back to Jenny, um the things that they're talking about it, it's wonderful. It's super effective. It's also a model uh that we're bringing to other grade levels. the flexible grouping especially is something that we want to branch out in the rest of Popular Creek. So, not only are they sharing that with you, it's been a great uh model for how we're going to move forward next year. Jenny will speak a little bit more about that. As Paula said, math is her jam, data is Jenny's jam. So, she is gonna talk about our highlights. Makes me sound so exciting. So much fun. Um so, our academic highlights so far this year. Um, I'll start off with uh special education services. So, in kindergarten through first grade
028in the winter, we had 10 out of 15 students at or above benchmark mark on the Ames web plus fluency test that we um that we all started using this winter. So, 10 out of 15. Um, if you came and spent some time at Popular Creek, you would understand that that is an amazing accomplishment that we're very, very proud of. um fourth through sixth grade, 41% to 56% proficient in FastBridge auto reading. So again, um a huge jump that's just really exciting to see. Uh moving on to our district screeners for all of our students um in we've got I would like to highlight second grade. So this winter 73% of them were at or above benchmark um for the oral reading, which is a big goal for us. uh fourth grade 93% were at
029our above benchmark on fastbridge auto reading. What we didn't add to this slide as to not make it too jumbled is that this score for this percentage for fourth grade has grown significantly over the last three years. Um and it's just it's amazing it keeps going up. So 93% is pretty awesome. Um, in third grade, 88% of our third grade students are at or above grade level in fastbridge CBM math. So that's that fact fluency and automaticity. Then fourth through sixth grade, 92% of students using something called Alex Pax have shown growth on their FastBridge math screening. Um, so that again, a huge shout out to our new math coach who's putting together indiv individualized Alex packs for students who need that extra support. Um, so of that 92%, 58% are now at or above
030benchmark who who were not in the fall and 52% of those kids grew 15 or more percentile points, which is a lot of points to grow from fall to winter. Um, last but certainly not least, 17 students who scored below the 25th percentile in reading in the fall have now exited formal intervention, which means that they are having data um around the 40th percentile. So, a lot of growth there. And that last one, we do a great job celebrating at PC. For that last one, we actually at a Thursday PL, Jenny puts a quick presentation of the faces of all the kids. And so, it's each grade level, they get a big round of applause. And then we celebrate the teachers that work with them. Of course, um as as excited we are, obviously every
031building in the district always strives to do better and grow. So there are some things that we have been focusing on. In fact, all six buildings for their um for their school action plan picked uh math automaticity as a as a target. So we're all working that together. You heard Paula talk about it. You heard Jenny talk about we continue to do this. Um Jackie Ziggler is our math coach that we share. She is leveraging Alex which is an online program to create um packs and paths for individual students that teachers can use with them as a way to help their boost their um their math growth. One of the things that we've committed to this year as a district is literacy and I will use the word it comes at the expense of but
032not as a negative. Our students are in reading intervention uh which doesn't allow for a formal math intervention for many of them because they can't be in two interventions at once. So, our BLT team, our building leadership team, um specifically Jackie have found new ways to help support uh math growth. And so, that's what those Alex packs are, leveraging Alex, that online program. The other thing is, you know, we piloted even though we know we're going to use it, the Ames. Um so, we've gotten a lot of great information from that. Uh we're still going to do FastBridge in the spring with Ames because we want to make sure that we have our data aligned so we can make that move. Um, but as our first grade team talked about, sending decodable books home has
033been a great boost for kids, extra practice at home. Uh, we're also looking in uh with our SST meetings, we have what's called coyote time. Every elementary school has their own time, that intervention time. So, how can we use that uh independent reading, different opportunities during the during the day to get more small groups, either reteing or uh pre-teaching, more practice for our students. So, that's grade Y, all grade levels. And again, we can't talk enough about our building leadership team having those experts in their content areas. They schedule meetings with all of our grade level teams. So, we're not just meeting as a BLT. Each of those coaches are reaching out and scheduling uh consistent structured meetings with each grade level to work specifically on the content, helping them find new and novel ways
034to make the curriculum not only more accessible to the students, but the students can find more success. So, always growing, but we've been g been, excuse me, given a lot of great resources uh from the district and the coaches, the teachers, support staff. So, very proud to be a member of the PC community, very proud to be a coyote. So, thank you for your time. Appreciate it. [Applause] All right. Thank you. And any questions? I do have a question. And so you said that that last one the as web plus that's is that taking over fast by replacing mass bridge. What is that? Yeah. Oh it is. You almost wanted to answer. Yeah. Well Matt's nodding. So part of part of act 20 right. There's certain screeners. So um and I'm probably the least competent
035to talk about it because I'm new at it. But um we're still using fastbridge this year because we want to make sure that over the course of time we can still use that data which we've been using all year. But come spring, we will run another round of AS for kindergarten through second grade and then then we'll transition next year. So fast we'll Yeah. No, you got it. Yeah. So Ames web plus is the one that the state says we have to do for kindergarten through third grade. Okay. So did that in the winter. We have to do it in the winter and the spring. Yeah. So yeah, great job. It's been a learning curve, but there's been some really great data and um a lot of help. You know, our first grade likes it.
036So, there's a lot of really good things that we were able to use just in the winter to help us prepare for intervention and find out where kids are. All right, thank you. Thanks for being here. Ronald Reagan team, come on up. Hi, everybody. That's hard to follow, but uh we will do our our very best because we always admire and and look up to our wonderful Popler Creek colleagues. And so we're we're very thankful to be on the Calhoun side of town. There are Calhoun buddies. We have Calhoun and Sunny Slopes slight competition there between between the schools. So always thankful for Popular Creek and thank you for setting the stage for some things that we can kind of gloss over because like he said, we do a lot of things very similarly among
037all of the elementary schools. Um, I am Angela Patterson, proud principal at Ronald Reagan. And I am Matt Stick, the proud associate principal at Ronald Reagan. So, to start us off, we want to make sure that we highlight the district mission because this is the foundation for all that we do. Like Popler Creek, we do also have our own core values as well as our beliefs that our staff work through. We eliminated those out of our presentation for today because it was getting a little bit long. Uh, but they're very similar to Popler Creek and I know that they highlighted those, but our staff are amazing and dedicated and um truly put children in the center of all that we do. All right, so a few highlights for the school year so far. All right,
038so to start us off, we've had an additional focus on math automaticity this year. So, we wanted to highlight some of the great data that we've seen on our uh winter fastbridge results. That includes five of seven grade levels that have increased their fall to winter percentages on meeting benchmark in early math or math automaticity. Um we've had 53% of our students with IEPs and 50% of our students um that are English language learners that have increased their um a math percentage from the fall to the winter. And then similar to what Popular Creek shared, we just wanted to really highlight um how we've uh worked with Jackie Ziggler this year. She's really helped us to utilize uh Alex and Redbird and make sure that we know how to dig into the data and support
039all learners. Up next is literacy. Um, we had some amazing achievement for our students with IEPs on our FastBridge A reading assessment, which is the general a um overarching kind of reading assessment, not as much phonics based. And this would be applied to grades two through six. Uh, so in the fall, we had 42% of our students with IEPs at or above benchmark. And at winter we had 52% of them at or above benchmark which was a really really really nice jump for our students as we continue to work to close that achievement gap. Um in addition to that 56% of all of our students with IEPs increased their A- reading percentage from fall to winter. So we're very proud of that. And then 50% of our students that are English language learners um also
040increased their A-reading percentage from fall to winter. And similarly to Popular Creek, we we really want to celebrate that since fall, we've uh this winter we exited 36 students from intervention who started the year below grade level and are now, you know, showing that data that's at the 40th percentile or higher. So that is a really great achievement that we want to make sure that we celebrate. Up next, the highlight of our show of course is two members of our five member third grade team. Um a huge shout out to our third grade team. They are always on the cutting edge of everything that they do. Emily and Katie in particular present at the Slate Conference every year, which is a technology conference that's held in Wisconsin Dells put on by Osaw. So they write
041proposals and are accepted to present some of the great things that they're doing in third grade. Um they are experts at relationships with kids, analyzing data, um universal design for learning. they they truly have a gift at taking something that could be maybe boring or sit and get or maybe not as engaging for kids and really flipping it on its head and and getting kids engaged and and all kids love third grade. So very very honored um to have them at our school. So Emily Barber and Katie Burke. Okay. So I'm Katie. This is Emily. So, we're just going to show you a couple snapshots of how our third grade team is using the technology that Angela was talking about to foster the four C's of education. Okay. So, for the first C, we're going
042to talk about communication. So, this year we tried some online forums. Um, so whether it's using online forums for the entire class or for small groups for class discussion, online forums can really encourage students just to communicate. We know that not all students are comfortable speaking up in class. Online forums can give shy students a platform to express themselves without the added pressure of speaking in front of the entire class. If you take a look at that little that cutie pie, um she's definitely one of those students I'm talking about. She's very shy. She hardly raises her hand. Um this was a discussion using our earlier CKLA unit and she just came alive. She just really showed her voice and gave so much confidence using that platform. So that particular day we used Fig Jam.
043So the second C is collaboration. So we like to use online peer review. So usually students have to do a writing assignment or some sort of an assignment with CKLA and then they're asked to get peer feedback from someone in class. Um so this particular picture was from last week actually. Um a CKLA lesson. and the students were supposed to record their favorite um chapter from the CKLA reader using a storytelling voice and then they were supposed to get peer feedback. So, we just took the workbook page, we put it on Seessaw um that way the student was able to record themselves and then when it came time their partner could listen to the recording um and rate them based on the same scale that was in their CKLA workbook. So, again, it's a way
044to get some of those more quiet students that don't want to stand in front of the class um incorporated in things. So the third C is creativity. Um this was actually our PPS or PPG was the digital breakouts. So we found a way to gamify those really boring review days. Um so we created digital breakouts using Google forms. So this is similar in concept to escape rooms. Digital breakouts encourage students to think just outside the box, use resources, come up with innovative solutions. Participating in this creative approach really allows students to review concepts in engaging and in enthusiastic ways. So this also was just taken on Friday. So we ended our CKLA unit on Native Americans and it was what's called a pause point. So you're supposed to pause and kind of find ways to
045review major concepts throughout the unit. So we made a digital breakout. So this is two kiddos. They gathered the resources they thought would help them solve those tricky questions um and they broke out within I think 2530 minutes. The last C is critical thinking. So school district of New Berlin started using code HS this year. Um and so it really allows students to think critically because they have to debug a code or troubleshoot some sort of coding. Um this particular student um was doing loops and so she there was a mouse at the bottom and needed to go up the stairs over and over and over to get the cheese. So that was just the regular thing. Um critical thinking part of it is she was able to understand to put in another animal that
046was chasing it. Then she even had a third animal that went up and decided to turn around and say, "Oh, I forgot something." Um, so they were just using critical thinking skills within our curriculum of code HS. Sorry, now I got to get to my page. It's hard to follow that. All right, you're up. All right, so next we want to go into some areas for continued growth. Our subgroup data in both ELA and math are an area that we will continue to target. Um we've seen an increase from 42% at benchmark to 52% at or above benchmark on our AE reading um for our students with IEPs. And we attribute that in part to um co-planning that that is done with our special education case managers weekly and special education SST meetings that are
047held every six weeks. And then we also just want to highlight um in the improved IEP goal setting um collaboration that we've done with our school psychologist Ashley Baker and our special education instructional coach Patrick Demer. So, very similarly to what the other schools are doing, we we did implement that weekly co-planning this this year for our special education and general education staff and it's really been a a very huge value ad for us as everybody is working for all kids. Um, and that that's really been really been positive. Um, so friends who maybe don't have a student with a disability in their class are able to collaborate and see some of the strategies for another student that maybe does have a disability, but that scaffold or that tool that they help generate can help
048not just a student with a disability, but another student that may also be struggling in literacy. So, it's really been powerful. Um, another area of continued growth for us was our math automaticity. Like Popular Creek talked about, all four elementary schools were focusing on our math automaticity scores. We noticed that there was a gap between our uh CBM math automaticity in FastBridge and then our Athbridge. And so we wanted to try to tackle closing that gap. Um fact fluency is such a foundational piece of all mathematics. And as kids were getting older, especially into a math, uh tackling some of those trickier, more complex math problems were becoming less efficient because they weren't as as um efficient and effective with their their own math fact. So, one of the things that we did similar to
049Orchard Lane was we are piloting the Rocket Math Fact program this year. And so, Rocket Math is a daily fact practice um that is studentled. Students help practice with each other. They take a one minute test. There's two-minute test uh once a week or once every other week. Um they move up levels. Um we are focusing on addition in first grade, subtraction in second grade, multiplication in third and division in fourth. Um obviously if kids are moving through a little bit faster and they want to move on to some of those other levels they they are um welcome to do so as as at the discretion of the staff but we have seen some really nice growth in both our CBM and our AMA. So comparing from the end of last school year to winter
050of this year for our automaticity CBM in uh fastbridge we increased from 75% at or above benchmark to 79% in that short time. And then our AMATH from last spring to winter of this year went from 79% to 81% which is a really nice significant jump when we're talking about lots of grade levels combined together. So we're really proud of that. But again, it's an area that we're going to continue to focus on and grow. But we're happy with the results that we've seen so far. Oh, yep. Oops, skipped one. There we go. Um, and then next we want to talk about uh literacy as well. So, some action steps that we've taken um have been to add small groupoup instruction to various times of our school day um and we've also as a building
051leadership team met weekly to really dig into student data um and plan to move forward with how to support all learners. Um the results so far have been promising uh from the winter of 2024 to to this past winter. Um in in um the winter of 24 we had 73% of students that were at or above benchmark. And then we are this past winter at 78%. And that's on the A reading assessment which is that general uh overarching reading assessment in grades two through six. And then similar again to to Popular Creek and all of the elementary schools, we have a really fantastic HSA. Uh we have lots of other things going on in our building. Our HSA uh has really been stepping it up the last few years and adding so many different family
052engagement nights. They they did a pazingo. If you've never done pizzingo, it's pizza and bingo and it's really fun. They had hundreds of people. They had to have two sessions. It was so popular. Um and families came and they had a great time. Multiple dances. Obviously, our fun run fundraiser is a huge fundraiser for us like the creek crawl at Popler Creek. Um they implemented a STEM night this year and and so many other events. We have some really fantastic clubs at at Ronald Reagan as well. Battle of the books which Katie and Emily also lead at the third and fourth grade level. Um we have a mindfulness uh co-curricular. Obviously our choir is phenomenal. Talent show for sixth grade. This year at the talent show we had a staff flash mob in case anybody
053didn't see that. Don't look for us because we kind of tried to stay in the back. But it was really really fun. We had a great time. Uh new this year we also have a basketball club that one of our PE teachers is leading. Um and and so many other things. and and like we've we've third grade has highlighted our computer science implementation. While it was a little rough at first because it was a lot of heavy new learning for many of our staff, especially those of my generation who've been at this for 25 years, um that was really new and really hard for me um and for some other staff too. But it's really been fun to see the student engagement and and the problem solving and the communication and and the way that
054they they tackle problems in computer science has been has been really exciting. Um, we also uh can celebrate the music department as one of our education foundation of New Berlin grant winners with the bucket drumming. We also had our first grade team that was a grant winner and they are focusing on bringing in additional play-based learning into CKLA and bringing in puppets and some other hands-on activities to support CKLA. And our fifth annual all school read is underway. We are reading The Wild Robot this year. And so that's a really popular choice. Um, it was an award-winning book. It's it's a beautiful story. So, our our annual family literacy night will be at April 30th and you are all invited to join us and that's what we've got. So, thank you so much. [Applause] Anything?
055Any questions? All right. Thank you so much. We all have a very long week ahead of us, so feel free. Thank you all for being here. Very much appreciate it. Not kicking you off. Yeah. Permission to leave. Uh why don't we go ahead and uh Oliver, why don't we go ahead with your update? As the weather is getting warmer, excitement is building as we prepare for upcoming events, tests, and sports. New Berlin West students in grades 7th through 10th had state testing last week on Wednesday and Thursday. 10th grade students also had their preac tests. On these days, 11th and 12th graders had the opportunity to attend online college visits and in-person AP review sessions as the tests are coming up early May. As many classes are preparing for exams, some are learning in unique
056ways. AP bio students are counted cars in the parking lot to learn how to calculate biodiversity. And AP government students got the opportunity to virtually meet with a Wisconsin legislator who is actively helping change Wisconsin laws in our state. Many clubs are also very active in our school. Elso hosted in an inschool March Madness competition where students could form three and three basketball teams and compete in a March Madness style bracket during flex. Three members of Educators Rising Club participated in the state competition at W Stevens Point and qualified for the national competition in Washington DC. New Berlin West Headspace had yoga and board games during flex to help improve and promote mental health in our school. And NHS hosted an Easter egg extravaganza at New Berlin West football field this weekend with face painting,
057coloring, and a large egg hunt on the field. Even though many seasons have just started, sports teams are already dominating on the field. Girls soccer had an exciting first game, tying a notoriously tough team, McFarland, by scoring two goals in under three minutes. and the New Berlin West track team took second at indoor conference as a team and had their girls 4x4 team place second at indoor state. Thank you. I did want to just uh give a brief update related to federal funding and the reduction of the uh department of education at the federal level. uh just like I had assumed and similar to the the previous the existence of the department of ed back in 1980 dollars were actually given to the states to be distributed. Uh unfortunately, our re newly reelected state superintendent
058uh is playing games and um is uh basically not willing to do away with DEI, which is what the expectation of the Trump administration is. And as a result of it, and quite honestly, the president has not um has held states accountable when they are not following through with the policy initiatives. And uh my hope is that the state superintendent will come around and come to her senses that playing political games over dollars to support students uh shouldn't get in the way of that happening. So, uh, my hope is that, uh, she gets the clarification that she's seeking from, uh, the Trump administration, which is basically that's what her rationale of I'm not following anything until I get more details. That's what she stated in a recent article. Uh, but hopefully again that gets clarified
059so that we get the funding. Uh, I know Matt shared an article with me last week that was uh posted online and the biggest school districts that have the biggest dollars are the big urban school districts with dollars that come from the from the feds. Um, why again she would be willing to do that to negatively impact kids is beyond me. Uh, and it's unfortunate that um that that's happening, but uh I will certainly keep you posted as we learn more. Yes. So, no, it's it's a little bit more than that. So, we get $3.5 million of a roughly $70 million budget, 75, you know, so it's a little bit more, but at the same time, it's really directed at specific students. So, you've got students with disabilities or students that are um that have
060high needs that that we need that funding for, which again, it's not a lot, but it's not something to sneeze at either. So, again, just hoping that we can come to our senses and and do what's right on behalf of our kids. All right. Right. So then the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda which includes notice, approval of minutes of the board meeting on March 10th, the Costa Rica 2026 field trip application, and the WIAA co-op sports renewal for girls lacrosse. Are there any items that should be pulled out for separate consideration? Do I have a motion for the consent agenda? Motion to approve. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Cidle and a second by Mr. Helmer to approve the consent agenda as presented. Any discussion hearing? None. All those in
061favor raise your right hand. Motion passes. On to the regular agenda. First up is a first read of policy 52000.01 revision. So the reason why we are bringing this to you is we were asked to update this policy from our auditors. Uh so we are we're kind of just revising this for that fact before the next audit. Uh it's a first read so we're not seeking approval tonight but we will be seeking approval at the next meeting. All right. So if there are any questions please let Mr. Garza know this week and then the 4K update. Yeah. I'll hand it over to Matt. All right. So we have 145 students uh registered for 4K. um about 51 registered for wraparound care. We are working on class placements this week to figure out which school and
062which session the kids will be going to and then from there we'll decide if we need to hire anyone else for uh for like staffing needs. Right now we have um enough staff for about 125 of the kids. And so we're going to figure out you know special education along with general education and um student learning assistance what else we may need. So, we have posted for the position and then we're going to look to hire after we figure out where the kids are going to go. Questions? There isn't one. Yeah. So, we're always open. How many less students is that than we have at kindergarten across the district? That's a lot smaller than the district-wide kindergarten, right? Yes. So, so 80% would have been So, if we would have gotten 80% of what we
063normally expect in a given year, Yeah. It would be about 210 was it Patrick? Roughly 210 would be 80%. So the enrollments and the registrations are getting there and I do think we're going to get an influx to get us closer to that amount. Uh but again, we're not going to be hiring staff until we have the need. Uh so, you know, we're navigating that. And then we're also working with the bus company too to to solidify, you know, the routing and so on and so forth. U other questions. Yeah. Can you remind me what you projected or what the goal was for student? So regardless of how many kids we get like we we anticipated that 80% number because that's approximately what other districts in Walker County are roughly experiencing. this is our first
064year and so, you know, part of it could be did they already make plans to attend a different 4K program like at Holy Apostles or or just child care or daycare. Um, so, you know, again, I think we're a little lower than we anticipated, but it's hard to say when it's still only April for September. Um, and so we've got, you know, we've got some time to get us there. Uh, and we've I think we've done a really good job of messaging and getting things out there. It was in our midyear newsletter that we send out to every resident in New Berlin. Um, but regardless of the number, it will still be a net positive revenue builder for the district. Ron, was there something else? Okay, I may have missed this, but did we land
065on the YMCA doing wraparound care? Correct. Yes. Yep. and they're who we partner with for the before and after school care. So, it's works out very well. Anything else? All right. Uh, then we have an action item from close session. Do I have a motion for that? I move to approve the employment services report as presented. Second. I have a motion by Miss Spindler and a second by Miss Crosby to approve the employment services report as presented. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion passes. Then we have our future meetings and dates. Board meetings are generally held the second and fourth Mondays beginning at 7:00 p.m. in conference room E at district office unless noted otherwise. Our next meeting is April 28th. Then we have May 12th, May 27th, which is a Tuesday
066due to Memorial Day. Uh then also on other important dates, remember that Memorial Day is May 26th. Do I have a motion to adjurnn? So move. Second. I have a motion by Mr. Cidle and a second by Mr. Helmer to adjurnn. All those in favor, raise your right hand. Motion.