001before I switch glasses tonight that showed the three years. It just showed a trend and that made sense. But then he added the graph below that was two years and he had no data that didn't get you. Yeah, but it looks like he sent something else. Oh, I didn't see this. This is So I have four attach or six attachments. Is that what you have? No, I got three. He just I think he just sent another Oh, there's another one. Three and then six. Right. So he sent two or three. Well, I think two was a pile of attachments. I think two. Yeah. The first one had three attachments, right? I asked him, okay, what's the take away? Did you just get after it? All right. 601. 601. We're ready to go. All right. Roll
002call. Everyone's here. Um, we definitely have a quorum. Pledge of Allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right, moving on to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion for that? I'll make that motion. I'll second it. All in favor? I All right. And that covers B as well, I assume. Correct. Yes. Yes. Okay. Moving into unfinished business, Scott. U letter A, the second reading and potential approval of the new and revised policies and administrative guidelines. No changes since the last time we met. Um 383 animals in school, 384, therapy dogs in school, and 852 distribution of materials in school premise. Um, so if the board is comfortable, we would look for
003a motion to recognize those. Motion to recognize those. I'll make that motion. Second. I'll second it. Um, we don't need a roll call on that. Okay. All in favor? I opposed. Moving on. B, reviewing potential approval of 202526 school fees. But board members, uh, in your packet is the same document that was shared at our previous meeting. Um, no changes remain within the document. Uh, if there were any questions for Mr. Mark or I, we would gladly entertain them. Otherwise, we'll look for motion to approve the fee schedules for 2526. All right. Do I have a motion? I make the motion. I'll second. All right. Do we need a roll call on that? No. All in favor? I I opposed. Moving on. All right. New business step program update. So, this evening we're very honored.
004All right. Patty, just like that. Okay. Uh we welcome Patty Gman and some of her staff that have been assisting us with the STEP program this past year and previous years. We recently had a spring celebration where we honored our step workers here at district office with the lunchon and uh reflected on all the great things that the group has done over the past years. Patty plays a intricral role in that keeping things organized and working with members not only from the staff team but as well our uh teachers and support staff building level principles um everyone involved district office myself Mr. Barkwater included. Uh she is the conduit that uh keeps this program going. So earlier we thought great opportunity to inform the board. Uh we have a slideshow that Patty put together that
005we'll talk about this year, maybe a few other things and definitely have an opportunity to ask questions. So floor is yours, Mrs. Rosman. It definitely looks like a school teacher slideshow. Um, I thank you for letting me come in and just we every once in a while we wonder if everybody knows what it is that we do. The people who um have interactions with us know and and so it's easy for them to know, but maybe some of you aren't aware of it or aware of all the uh parts of it. So, um turning I think this is the Oh, that's the last slide. I am so sorry. I guess trying to turn done already. That looks that looks way better. Sorry about that, buddy. We uh we call turn steps into strides and the
006step workers really do give major strides to our school district. Go ahead. There we go. Um what is the step program? Um it stands for senior senior tax exchange program and it applies to senior citizens who are 62 years or greater. Um they can exchange volunteer hours for property tax relief. District residents, they must be district residents that pay real estate taxes. So in other words, if they're renters, it would not apply. However, I have some renters who are volunteering. they just do it to do it. They aren't necessarily looking for the money. We do do background checks on all of our step workers and if they work 66 or more hours, they can receive the maximum of $430 toward their property tax. Um they also can receive um it's $6.50 an hour. So if
007they only work say 30 hours, they'll get paid for that month. Um, what are some of the things we do? We'll be talking about them, so I'm not going to read the list to you. Mostly they do reading. Uh, they do a lot of reading and math. um whatever the teacher asks them to do or I don't know if you've been in the schools um they have these purple well in Lincoln it's a purple bin but they have these bins outside their door and there are clipboards there with the student's name on them and they can check off the student as they read with them the books are in the bin so they do a lot of that as well um this year there was a lot of math help too so um I would
008say the other thing that maybe people don't realize is we um assist in the lunchrooms, after school programs. Um they love doing health days. It's their favorite thing to do and um they do like working in groups or they also like working onetoone. Thank you, Scott. Um Jean is one of my newest volunteers. She helps out at Reedfield. I thought she was just doing reading, but it sounds like she's also doing math. She works with K3 and four. She just started like a month about six weeks ago. So, but the step program goes for calendar year. So, she can use these hours in addition to what she works in the fall to work toward her um her stipen. Next we have Nancy who also helps out in Readfield um in the and she also does
009the afterchool program. She loves the afterchool program and and I think she likes the creativity that comes with that. So she gets to enjoy that part of it. Next Denise, would you like to stand up and tell us what you do? Denise is also one of my helpers. I love when some of my friends retire and I call them right away. Hey, she asked me more than once. Um, so I work at Reed Field and I've done some work at middle school and I've gotten a whole managerie of things. I've been teaching kids how to count money, which is a struggle for a lot and maybe they don't need to count money anymore because everything's credit card, right? Um, and teaching them how to read an analog clock. Oh. Um, working with math, doing a
010lot of reading to non-readers, which would be 4K in kindergarten. And then there's some kids that are older. I've got one little girl that I worked with in second grade last year and now she's in third. And every time I come in the building, she'll say, "Can you read to me today?" Like, "Well, I've got an agenda with teachers first, but I will fit you in." And she'll actually take time out of their lunch to come and read something with me, which is awesome. Um, then I've worked with health days at middle school and then when there was some downtime one time I went in and they were doing testing so it wasn't the day they could really use me in some of the classrooms. So they put me into the nurse's office area off
011the office there in Wefield and had me do he hikes and weights because they didn't have time to get it done during health days. So it's been a whole lot of stuff. And then I worked in the library at the middle school for two days. They had a a conference for all the library people and so they wanted someone to keep that library open. So I did that for a couple days. So it's kind of whatever all over the place. Do you have a set schedule or do you kind of just show up? I have it my I go Mondays. Okay. Okay. So, I go Mondays, but then I tell the schools that if there's any special things that they need help with, like the health days, there was of all things, they were having
012a fundraiser at Reedfield, and they asked if I'd come and help with that because they were short on people in the afternoon till they get done with work. So, I've been all over the place doing things like that. I said, I'd rather do that than say, you know, I do the Mondays, but I don't want to commit every Wednesday or every Thursday besides that. So, it's like, tell me when you've got special things going on, and I'm not going to commit. So, now they did ask me if I would do some secretarial stuff. I said, "What kind of days?" And they said, "Well, full days." I'm like, "Um, no, retired." I don't know who's on the other line of the phone on that one. Plus, I'm gone a lot. So, and Patty's doing a great
013job just keeping us and, you know, telling us what's going on and all the places there's a need. It's fun. The the reward of working with the children and them being excited to see you is awesome. Most of the stuff workers have a pretty set schedule. Um, every once in a while they exchange a day for this or that, but otherwise the teachers don't know how to count on them and if they know they're coming, they can kind of plan around that. So, I think the set schedules always work best for sure. Um Pat is a retired teacher who helps as needed in Sugar Bush. And I think she's one day a week, I think, because then she wants to be fishing. Oh, yeah. Grandma Diane works also at Sugar Bush. We call her Grandma
014Diane because um Grandma Diane loves going in to read to all the kids, but every once in a while she gets to read with her granddaughter. and that's what she just hopes she actually sees a glimpse of her or gets to read to her. So, I'm hoping Grandma Diane moves to middle school. Um Karen is um I I wrote on this, you never know what tasks you're going to have when you help in kindergarten. And Karen's been helping in kindergarten for many many many years. And this particular day, they were rolling these marbles on circles to create an image that looked like the world, like the atlas of the world. And so these kids were having so much fun rolling these painted marbles around on circles. And so that's what she was charged with on
015that day. But usually she's um helping instructionally um either with groups or individually. She reminded us as she was leaving the other day that either in a parah role or her step role, she's been with the district 50 years this year. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. And I'm fortunate she talked her husband into doing it, too. So, her husband's helping right now at the high school in the techad department. Um, and he's helped me before at Lincoln. So, you know, we were really fortunate that he just said, "Yeah, I'll just ride in with her and I'll do whatever you need me to do." I'm like, "Be careful what you say." Um, when Sally arrives at Lincoln, she's prepared to help students um as needed, mostly reading. Again, on this particular day though, she's
016helping the teacher assess some work while the teacher is teaching. So, she came in early and the teacher was still teaching and she couldn't just stand there. So, she looked around and she found something to do. Next, um Laura is one of my helpers. She helps with art classes at Lincoln as well as the middle school and she helps in media studies at middle school. Um and sometimes it's just especially art class, just an extra pair of hands and eyes and ears because uh they're they're pretty goodized classes and the kids are working with all kinds of media. So, it's it's really good to have the extra workers. Um, I have a few people who help out in art. Next, um, Judy, you wanna Judy's been around a while, too. Yeah, I've been in the
017STEP program since 2008, and over the years, I've been in all of the schools. Um, my first experience was at the high school with the English language lab. Um, Lori asked me if I could speak Spanish and I thought, well, I had one year of Spanish when I was in high school. That was a few years ago. My experience with that, though, was that the kids loved teaching me Spanish when I was teaching them English. So, that was a that was a good experience. Um, now I am at Sugarbush one day a week and I'm reading with all the kids. I'm also at Lincoln and I read with my granddaughter's class and my granddaughter is the teacher. That's one granddaughter. Uh and then I also volunteer at the middle school with my other granddaughter who
018is a teacher and that's with a special ed student. So, um I guess and health days. I love health days. Um I feel like I've probably I've done it all. Um, and it's all wonderful. I I think one of the biggest benefits of being a step worker is being able to be in the schools in the classrooms seeing the challenges that our teachers face. And then when the kids the kids call me grandma, too. Of course, I'm grandma. Of course, grandma. So sometimes I see kids that I've read with before at the middle school and they're like Corna. Well, right there, right? It's it's the STEP program is very very positive and wow and thank you Patty. You're welcome. Judy's one who gets the really cool gifts. Well, she's not the only one. These guys
019get wonderful gifts from the students. Like they make them gifts at the end of the year. They make them Christmas gifts. Um, their favorites are the hugs, but they get cute little gifts, too. Um, Mike is also a retired teacher and Mike has seen step from both sides of it as a teacher. He had step workers in the classroom and now he's the step worker. So, he kind of has an idea of what he needs to do to help his cooperating teacher. On this day, he was, and I thought, John, you might enjoy this. He was working with a student who was studying careers and one of his favorite careers was farming. And so they were having they had these books out and they were talking about what careers um they would love to pursue.
020And this was second grade. So I was impressed that they were already talking about careers. All right. Next, um this is Mary. And Mary spends many hours helping students. She does math and reading at Parkview. She has helped at Lincoln. She has helped at the middle school. So far this year, January through May, she's volunteered over 100 hours. Now, I told you 66 is what you get maximum for. So, she's already almost gone 40 hours over what she's going to be rewarded for. But last year, she did 200. So, that's just what she does. She loves the volunteering just like these guys. I think one of you, Janet, you have 84 and a half, I think, hours so far. It's just incredible. These people during um after the last coordinator left during COVID when they
021weren't going into the schools, these people hung it out and as soon as they could go in or if they could help from home, they were doing it. And it's an it's very much a tribute to their um drive and to how much they love kids. Uh, next. Um, Mel, this day that I was here, Mel was listening to students read and kind of doing a running record, you know, listening and what mistakes and things like that. This really helps the cooperating teacher because a cooperating teacher trying to do 25 students individually doing this. And Mel has experience in this, so she is able to to help her teacher with the assessments. Um Dan is another one of my art instructors and as you can see he has a big smile on his face. He
022brings a lot of enthusiasm to the art class and he um the kids love having him there. Um his positive attitude and his smile are contagious. So encourages the kids to do their best. Janet also I mean these people, the three I brought tonight, they do pretty much whatever I I don't even have to bribe them. I've probably been with Steph about 16 years now and I really enjoy it. I don't do it just for the money. I love to volunteer and doing it and the staff over at Parkview is just amazing the way they treat you and they appreciate everything that you do and I enjoy really working for them over there. Um, I usually go in on Wednesdays this year and I usually try to get there at 7:30 in the morning because
023I like to get into the teacher's room before she has to start in with her classroom so she can tell me if there's something I don't quite understand what she wants me to do. I can get my questions over so I'm not interrupting her. But, um, it's just a great program. I like it because it's keeps me in contact with the young people and also with what's going on in the school district. And if you're any of you would ever like to visit someday when I'm over there working, I'd be happy to see you come in and I would take you around and show you just kind of what we all do. I mean, I I make bulletin boards. Sometimes I take them up and down. I laminate. I do a lot of prep work.
024Sometimes I'm in the office if they're behind on something. They got a project that I can help them here with my health days. So Patty said I'm kind of like the jack of all trades. But you do master some. So yes, um Janet does some work from home, especially before school starts. Um and we've kind of like okayed that because it's it's tasked by the teacher. Um and it's in preparation for the school year. Um and some of the workers have had to work from home because of illness or because of other reasons. So, we find ways to work with them. Thank you, Mr. Click. Um, Carmen is my newest step worker. Now, this is really kind of funny, but she is not new to Park View. She's been volunteering there, but we found out
025that she fit within the STEP um description. So, we signed her up as a step worker. So, now she's being compensated for her volunteer hours. She does a lot of work with translations. She does a lot of bilingual where she'll be doing she'll teach Spanish and she'll teach English and helps the kids with between the two. Um, and so I just met her a couple weeks ago. So, it's really nice that we have her on now. She's starting to talk about spreading her wings to other buildings. So, beware, right? Um Steve is one of the three gentlemen who assists the teachers at the tech ed department. Um Steve is especially helpful when they're working on the complete buildings and he helps with that full construction and then placement of the buildings and so he has
026been very helpful in that department. I think they just moved their last building what a week or two ago. Yeah. Yeah. And so he helps with that. One of the other gentlemen helps in the metals department and then of course um Karen's husband now helps also in this department. Um I do want to uh mention before I talk about moving forward a couple things. Just a recap of last year so that you know um last year 2024 I had 25 active workers and I have about six that are currently inactive for health reasons or one person had a new grandbaby needed to have some time off. go, but 25 active workers last year um volunteered 2015 hours and that averages 80.6 hours per person. So you can kind of have an idea of what they
027give to the district. Um Mary had 206 hours last year. Um somebody else 178.25 126 almost double. Um so I'm I'm really proud of these guys. Um they 20 volunteers earned the um maximum stipend of 430. So remember there are 25 20 of them worked 66 or more hours. So and I know that teachers feel that these guys are very valuable in the classroom. So um I just wanted to give you an idea of what what it is that we do. So far this year, we have put in 849 and a half hours. That's January through April because May is not in yet. And then um once again, I have somebody with 110 84 and a half. And so it's really kind of interesting how they already are putting in this much time. And then
028we'll have fall. So that'll be great. Um, as far as what we're looking at stepping forward, we would like to get some new seniors on board. I have two already that I'm working on to start in the fall. Growing our program, of course, is a win-win for everybody. It's a win-win for the schools, the teachers. Um, it's a win-win for them and it's a win-win for our community. So, I think it's important to continue to get more people involved and interested. Um, I guess I hope that this helped you understand what we do. Does anybody have any questions? Yeah. How many volunteers are you looking for? Like what's your sweet spot? How many What's my sweet spot? My sweet spot or the district sweet spot? Where where would you like or where I I would
029like to grow it to at least 40 where 30 of them are always active. Can you get me some of these? Yeah, we can. I was senior. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it nice? It is. Yeah, it is. Yeah. I was told at the beginning of the year that every non-reader had to have 500 books read to them throughout the school year. So, when you look at non-readers as being all the 4K, all the kindergarten, it's almost impossible to get to all. So, we could use people just to read. Yeah. I tell people that all the time. And they and even if they come like I had um I had some people who had an extra hour they they were working like in the morning and they were working like in the afternoon. So they just grabbed
030a kid that was sitting in the room and read to them and then they document their reading. So they are receiving credit for their time but the kids are receiving credit for their reading. Thank you for bringing that up. How are you how are you spreading the word like over the last few years like um is it just word of mouth or is it something like you could share? It's mostly word of mouth Katie and and I think um like I I do some active recruitment. Last year I laid off quite a bit in my recruitment. Um this year I'm going to put another step forward doing that. But um the people that I talk to the problem that they have is misunderstanding. Mhm. And um and secondly making a commitment and and I when
031I retired I made no commitments and and that's just once you're retired it's like the commitment part of your life you just kind of want to back away from it. So, a lot of the ones that especially the ones who just turned 62, um, they're not ready. They're not ready to make the commitment. And I think it's important that we continue to be commitment driven, you know, so that the teachers know when we're coming and they they know what they can expect out of us. So, is this the $429 is that per property or per person? It's where they live. So if it's a living couple both does it. It's that's the cat for the two. Yeah. They work together to get their 66 hours. Yeah. Like um Mr. and Mrs. Smiley, they already have
032their 66 in, but they both are continuing to volunteer even into the fall. So yeah, I have three couples on my list and they both work toward it and it's never stopped them from doing more. That's what I think is the biggest positive is they want to give more and they don't even most of them don't know that they've already reached their their maximum. They just want to do more and if I call and say I really need some help doing health days other than Judy all of them want to come and help. It's a morning and they get to see a lot of kids. So I don't want to keep you guys too long. Does anybody have any other questions? Feel free to um I do have school district email, so feel free to
033send me an email. And please send me a reminder email about the brochures. Um I know Jill has some, so I'll make sure I get some to you. I can just make some I'll just make some copies either way. Yeah. And then um there is a person in Sugar Bush who's been working for step or wanting to work for step for years, but she's not old enough yet. Oh, and she helps out um in her daughter's reading classroom. So, you know, so we'll have another one as soon as the magic age is reached. That's awesome. Anything else? I thank you for your time. I hope you hear lots more good stuff about stuff. I know. I know Scott, he's helps me. He's a great proponent. So, we'll continue to work on that. Thank you. Thank
034you. We appreciate what you do. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. And moving on to B, Board of Education, regular and special meeting schedule, Wednesdays or Mondays? Discussion. Board members. Uh about a year ago, we started the conversation about adjusting our regular and special meeting dates. And there were notes within uh last year's discussion to revisit this annually if we were to have any new board members come on board uh to to look at that schedule. So what you have in front of you is the 2526 meeting schedule and pretty much follows the same course uh throughout. There are adults in the month of November, an adjustment there. And then in the month of May, an adjustment like we are tonight following Labor Day with graduation following. The other adjustment would be
035in the month of April where we would look to have the meeting on the 3rd and the 5th similar to what we did this year as well. Uh but there um and then with the one meeting in December and as Mrs. bowler would always remind me um the July meeting of some years if not needed uh that 23rd meeting um is always a question there. So if we find ourselves in position where we may not have to have that meeting that would always be a potential option as well. I know I won't be at that meeting. We'll be on we'll be gone. Okay. All right. Have we you dialed in once but I'm not familiar with us ever not having a second one in July. Has that been in the No, we we was it
036not since I have been on I don't Yeah, it was it was a historical perspective. You were um you were gone fishing maybe once in Alaska one time. I don't know. Is that what you're talking about? No. No. We had and of course I've been on the board for three years more than you were, but I know at least one or two times in July there just wasn't enough. Sure. And a lot of people had stuff going on and so we just didn't have it. Yeah. So any further uh discussion points or content with keeping this Wednesday format again? I mean I can I can make either day work although there is conflict on Wednesdays for me through the summer. Uh but it's it's not a big deal. So really there's only three meetings that
037conflict with that every other Wednesday that I have. So I'm okay with it. But I will say uh the same meeting the second meeting or the the first meeting in July. that one I might not be at. The fish are biting. So I'm hearing a consensus to keep the Wednesday for format then unless something does change and we always been very good at communicating out in advance if something we need to adjust that. Okay. I would think Andy does that work? You could just work for you. You could just keep in touch. I I planned our calendar around that way but just because it's almost that would be a large undertaking to change that. My god, there has to be something pencled in like everyone. No, I'm just saying like cuz it's already almost due
038and you know your kids have stuff, but I would say you could just keep in touch. Are you in a position to dial in at all or anything with the conflict ones or um No, not really. Okay. No, I mean it's okay. It's it's one of Leah's bear races. It happens every other Wednesday. So, I missed one already and I'm going to miss two more. But it's not a big deal. I know. She'll be all right. I drop her off. I bring the horse trailer here and then I'll just run back and pick her up when it's done. Done. We're all miss we're all missing stuff on Wednesdays this summer, but I think there's Legion baseball every Wednesday. Why don't we see what it looks like for the for the for the month of July?
039Um and then at um maybe our next meeting or even the the the second meeting in June, we make a decision there because then you'd only miss you'd only miss two of two of them then. Well, the only ones that that conflict with me is uh July, no, June 11th, our next one, and then September 10th right now because I missed the the other. So, it's not every Wednesday. It's every other Wednesday, but it just happens. Yeah. Well, we do a good job of communicating if somebody uh knows they're going to be out or wants to try to connect an alternative way or being excused is being excused as well within that. So, all right. Well, we'll stay with that Wednesday format until we hear different work with me. Moving on update on act 20
040policy development. So board members, at uh our most recent policy meeting and the two prior policy committee's been working diligently to address state statute um and develop language to support the act 20 requirements. um made some really nice strides this last meeting and wanted to bring this discuss discussion forward to make you aware all right that we can anticipate a draft coming forward here at the June regular meeting with potential for a first reading potentially um and then that would allow another opportunity for feedback should the committee take feedback from that and go back to address a suggestion or recommendation And then ideally, all right, uh potential approval at the end of June of the state statute act 20 does recognize the board's responsibility to acknowledge uh act 20 fulfillment or recognizing it in policy
041language uh that is unique to local districts and or uh models that are created throughout the state. Um, and we will be ready and prepared to do that. I know of the other board members that wanted to extend that conversation of our work thus far. Um, I'll just weigh in that I really appreciated having Kirk in the last meeting and Kristen and Jodie. Um, I will be the first to say I was adamantly against like the hard and fast um, retention um, just for a variety of reasons. I didn't I mean I know where my kids were at that age and um, and then I started doing some of my own research and if you get a chance just if you're truly looking there's been this huge shift. It was on CBS. Well, I was
042telling the committee, um, I was doing dishes and Pat was watching national news and he's like, "Aren't you talking about this at some committee and it was on ABC or CBS? I can't remember which one, but they were like calling it the Mississippi miracle on what this has done for parent engagement of getting their kids stuff together and just even like the threat of they might, oh shoot, this is a possibility." So, I was kind of pushing for maybe a hybrid of some sort. And I think we can kind of do that to start out with. Like there there's a lot of what do they call it? Good clause exemptions. Like exceptions, the um exceptions. Yeah. You know, ESL situations, IEPs, like it's not hard and fast. So, I just encourage you all because it's
043a lot. It we've met so many times. It's a lot to take in. Um I was kind of bucking Chris for a while. I'll be the first to admit that I was just a really hard no. Um, but when you start researching, there's something going on. It's miss Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. Um, they've really moved the needle and the whole point of the national news was like something is going on and you can't ignore it. So, I just encourage you to look at it because it's it's a really tough decision, but I do think there's some teeth to it and I'm just keeping an open mind. Yeah, I'll uh add something to that. It kind of opened my eyes up too. Uh and looking at the Mississippi case, they were the first state to go
044start start going with what they call robust retention from third to fourth grade. It's not throughout the the school system. It's the pinch point being third to fourth grade that if you are way behind in fourth grade, the chances of you ever catching up by high school is not good. Um and um if you read our retention policy in the policy manual, the board here back in the late 90s developed a fairly uh robust retention uh policy, but it was in the hands of the administration, you know, whether whether to use it, but it was strongly encouraging um robust retention for fourth and eighth grade. In other words, before you go into middle school or before you go into high school, uh or at least what is now middle school. And um but it it
045kind of was one of those policies that gradually got ignored. And um uh and you know, we're talking about leaving that the same way with with the other grades, but adding a third and fourth grade retention. Um there's some talk about, you know, uh extending it to other grades, but uh probably what we'll come out with is something that at least first addresses third third and fourth grade and then see how that works. Well, just because that's within the act 20 like that's what act 20 is all about. And basically act 20 was modeled after the Mississippi legislation except that they gutted one of what the people in Mississippi say is one of the most effective parts which is robust intervention. Um and they do have those special exceptions in the law that Katie mentioned
046um for severely learning disabled and for um non-English speakers. Well, there's there's like five tenants. I just I think we need to just it's a lot to take in in the next meeting. So, I think we were trying to prep people just a little bit because it's hard to make a decision on this. It totally is. It's really hard. Was the impetus behind the success, the threat. So, the parents got So, the parents that's kind got be got behind. That's kind of what I'm getting out of all the news articles. There's a ton of articles out there on the news. And I just, like I said, I just started googling after Pat was like, "Hey, this is on CBS, like evening news and it's making national headlines." And then the reporter ended other states would
047do well to follow suit. So then I had kind of, like I said, I wasn't super on board with this. And I don't know that I'm 100% on board, but we have a nice plan that I think um it's really intensive reading, right? Yeah. uh intervention for the next year um to hopefully move the kids where they need to be because you're talking about a significant number of kids that potentially wouldn't be up to speed. Um I just want everyone to keep an open mind because it's a huge decision and it's so much to learn that I thought we should kind of cover some of the background today because it'll be a lot to take in and I encourage you to do your own and I'd like to point out that on the staff survey
048they some of the staff did say that why aren't we concentrating more in kindergarten? Why would it be third grade? right? You know, because kindergarten, first grade, second grade, we should be catching it before they get to third or fourth grade. Right. And that was and so I I eventually would like to see some language in our policy regarding the retention. The first grade teachers that talked to me at that breakfast we had that morning. They talked about the fact that it's real obvious that the kindergarteners and even the first graders are not getting any attention at home. Yep. And so they're coming in pretty raw. And so yeah, they're they're they're behind walking in the door. Well, that's why I asked the question if that's what really drove the success there is that the
049other thing is is that it it starts to form a habit for the for the for the parents going forward. And and if you listen any of Ted Knightsky's um uh podcast, he's got one podcast that was I think it was in February that talks about this and he's got statistics about kids whose families read and whose parents read and the statistics speak exactly to what's what's what's going on. The interesting thing is they have 10 years under their belt now of data. So what they're finding is the trickle down like okay there was a real push for this like fear factor initially but now it's become habit with the younger ones and they're it's just kind of like this natural wave that's occurring without as much effort. Mhm. Well, the the thing that um
050the states that are doing this, there's actually 11 states now, but Mississippi has been doing it the longest and Alabama and Louisiana next, but u Arkansas's their their retention policy just starts with the end of this current school year. Um so they don't have data from there yet but um there is a a paper that you can read from the uh Boston University's uh college of education called the effect of retention under Mississippi's testbased promotion policy and which is a scholarly study that that tracks the success in Mississippi and it attributes you know it talks about the the reading uh bill as three things. One, strong phonics in uh required in the curriculum. So, it's a curriculum change to strong phonics. Number two is uh the extra help that you give especially the third graders
051that have been not promoted, but there's extra help before that and after that as well. Uh and the the third thing and you know one of the most powerful things is the is the robust retention with with the exceptions the good cause exceptions but um so I it it uh if anybody I I've got it at home in my computer I can send it if anybody wants Scott you got a copy of it we we could also include that in the next uh agenda development with those five good clause exemptions because I do think that's important to digest. And and it's important to point out we're talking about holding them back one grade once, not twice. But you can't do it anymore. Yeah. You can't hold them back for two years in a row in
052third grade. They'd have to go to fourth. But still with reading intervention and one of the interesting I don't know what you do when if they hit fourth grade and they're still not meeting the mark in fifth grade, you hold them back in fourth grade. No, I think you do that really invive. One of the things that um that they talked about on this policy is that uh Oh gosh, I forgot my train of thought. Sorry. I'll come back to the I think what what you were saying. I think if even if you can get them on the right track, you know, and then they're catching up more and more with with each year, right? You know, and I'm with you, Katie. I was dead set against it cuz my big concern was is that
053we'd have a mass exodus from our from our district. They'd go and open rule somewhere else, right? We see that in special Latin, you know, and um and that. So, but if if it's if it and we still might have that, but it starts out, right? But if the parents early on recog have that fear factor and they recognize that they got to do something and they recognize that it's not a big time commitment to your point, they need to be given some type of prior notification. That's why you know we try it for you don't even try it. You let them know about it a year before we That was my biggest thing was the public relations angle. when however we write it up, we need to be able to make sure we write
054it up so that the board is to blame and then parents aren't outlashing at the teachers and the administrators and the teachers and administrators can say, "Well, that's the board's policy. I'm sorry. We have to hold that child." But but the impetus was the law. I mean, this is, you know, like yes, the board but we're addressing this because of act 20. Um, so I do I was very adamant about the education piece to parents because we have a year before it would have to um kick in and just understanding like no one is out to get anybody. This is literally for the benefit of the kid. All the research like kids who can't read, they don't they can't do geography, right? Science, biology, and then high school is a major struggle. So you have
055to be able to even if you're really into teched, like you have to be able to read your manuals. And so I think if people understand we're trying to do this for the kids' best interest, this is not a punishment, right? And then you have a year to get the word out. Yeah. What one of the things this Mississippi study showed is that uh kids that were retained in third grade and given the extra help, by the time they got to sixth grade, they tested out yes slightly higher than the average of their class. Uh whereas the prediction by people that did not want to go there for robust retention was oh statistics show that kids that are held back at at that age are likely to never um never graduate have a greater much
056greater likelihood to never graduate high school. And exactly the opposite happened. It it isn't just the retention it's the extra help given the third grader. Y um and uh they they've really uh they've really done some amazing things there and Alabama's come along uh behind it with some really good stuff as well. I I truly think the success is the trickle down in all three states of what it's done to the younger kids because it's just become a habit and you're like success breeds success. I have a question for Candy. Mhm. Um when kids are in interventions, um is there a policy that is there that says, you know, after um so many interventions that maybe um it's time to have a discussion with parents on having them tested? Yes, absolutely. So, um the students
057that go through reading interventions or math interventions, you um can complete the program with fidelity. Um usually that's 16 or 18 weeks backtoback interventions where the student isn't achieving. And at that point we would work look at a significant learning disability evaluation for the student. Okay. Is that that is something that's supposed to be brought up to all parents that so not all the students are in interventions. So I understand that we have that conversation with the students that are in interventions. So it's the program that we call it. It's our multilevel system of support. Um, so students that aren't succeeding in the classroom are recommended into an intervention. Then we try the first one. If that didn't work, then we try the second one. If that didn't work, we're looking at a special ed
058evaluation for that. I'm only going to bring this up because this kind of rings true to my my own situation with one of my kids. I mean, and we've had we have kids that, you know, WMadison, they're successful. My daughter, I think she fell through the cracks. I mean, you can look back at her folder or look back and see how many interventions she's been through consecutively. And it took me going to And I remember the first conversation I had with the teacher saying, "This is a concern. It's okay. It'll probably iron itself out. Don't worry about it. She's still learning." And I look back now and as a parent, I kind of shame myself because I'm like, I should have been harder on her or I should have been harder on the school with
059getting her tested. And so I mean if you look back and um I mean she's been in interventions she's in fourth grade you know and pretty much her whole entire sugar push career her sugar bush. So where did where did she fall through and how many other kids is that happening to was what I would ask. What grade was she in when you kind of had that aha moment? Um, it was it was really last year is when it was I Miss Tesh is amazing, but I I said maybe we should get her tested. And I think at that time she sat down and said, you know, there were I think she had they three consecutive, right, interventions? Two. Two. Okay. Um but it took her until fourth grade to get tested. So Holly, what
060you were just saying um when the principles were come come in here as this act 20 has um taken hold, that's what the principles start looking at. They're talking about it's a tier one issue, not a special ed issue that um we need to look at what's happening in the classroom. Um special ed is the one coming in at the end to kind of swoop up those kids. Um but the principles at the elementary schools are now really focusing their intervention and their look at the data on the tier one classroom instruction. But that is an excellent point. But we were we were talking about a shift to that right though major intervention with right. So this summer we have training that has been established to support setting uh almost like a new baseline and
061literacy for all staff taking select individuals from individual buildings to um set up our our non-negotiables if you will literacy instruction. This is what we have to do with integrity to ensure all students are getting great tier one ex um delivery of instruction in all buildings. So looking at that when we think back to our school report cards growth achievement and where those gaps were we you can see that we've talked about that and this is a solution or an idea that will hopefully come forward with more rigor relevance to that to all students not just students that have been identified that they're deficient. We're going to address all students with increased accountability on our tier one. And what was the name of that supplement that Jodie is getting? Oh you fly. Yeah, you fly.
062And that supplements arc, correct, for phonics. It helps support the phonics. It's a phonics. I was super impressed that she found that. Like I was like, this is Yeah, that's a good thing because the curriculum that we're using, ARC, is evaluated rather low. It meets the criteria of act 20, but it is in the low end of it because it isn't as strong in phonics as some other ones. By by doing that, the teamwork that people showed and that were working as a team to figure out, you know, what we were going to do once we lost our um uh curriculum director. They Yeah, they're the ones that came up with that idea. Boost a boost of of the curriculum. we can make ARC work because all we have to do is boost the phonics
063thing and it it seems to be working so far. You know, it it there's a test thing going on this spring, but it fully implements uh the boost fully implements uh this fall. Well, you know, I like what Nate had to say that this is a policy. It's it's the board that set this correct. It takes it takes some of the threat away from the staff because I I think human nature is is you want to tell people what they want to hear. Yeah. Even though the news might might be bad. And if they feel that now they're going to be targeted, you know, and they're going to call somebody, whether it's the principal or the superintendent or a board member, and now people are going to start it could they could start needling them.
064They're going to give you the good news rather than the hard the hard facts. And by by having that be the reason Mhm. it it takes it kind of takes the the handcuffs off him a little bit, I think. Well, you can kind of look at it as a three-legged stool. You have the the phonics piece. Um you have the extra help and you have the robust retention. If you just have two of them, it's wobbly. And that's that's what the problem is in my view with the Wisconsin legislation. It's it's just has it's a stool with only two legs, so it's wobbly. And um it it's by us as a board uh having the freedom under that act to add in a uh robust uh retention, we can stabilize this thing. Don't we anticipate
065bringing forward that draft at our June meeting? Okay. Yeah. I just encourage everyone to do a tiny bit of homework prior to that because if you've got something you can send us links I just started googling Mississippi success. Yeah, Chris has a lot I can off the resources that Chris is sharing. Chris sent the Boston thing first and it didn't sway me. Okay. Like it's fine. It's one of many. I think once you really start doing your own Well, when they first brought up Mississippi, when they first started talking about Act 20, I was not impressed at all because they had the absolute worst reading scores in the country. Yeah. They couldn't go anywhere. They couldn't go any lower. They could only go up. But now they're in front of everybody. And so now, yeah.
066And if it's been what, 10 years? Uh 2014. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, it's it's got some it's got some history. There's a lot of history behind it. And I didn't realize it was that long because when they brought it up to us at a CISA meeting one day, I got the impression that this was like within the last couple of years. Yeah. And I didn't pay attention till like I said Pat was like, "Hey, this is on national news. Come and come and peek at it." And then that's like you can actually Google N. It was last well two weeks ago. All right. But um I just think it's a lot of homework to make one decision in one meeting. So I'd suggested we review this. Well, moving on. Review of school perceptions executive summaries.
067So, board members, uh, in your packet, uh, I shared with you the three executive summaries, which should look familiar as in past u summaries from our district. Just to kind of recap where we were over the past two years, we made a real strong effort, two and a half years to start gathering some data to reflect uh from our different stakeholder groups from we started with our staff and then last year we gave two surveys in the fall and then in the spring with students, staff and parent guardians. Um, if you remember last year around this time, uh, we went over our spring uh, results and then we made that adjustment that going forward we would just assess once a year so that we could have apples to apples comparison rather than the fall versus
068the spring um, where attitudes experiences um, may look different depending on the time of year. So the information that's shared just to give a high level overview of this and then what I'll do additionally I'll share all the other materials with the board and if there are questions that do come forward uh that you feel are relevant to bring it back into the the board setting we can have conversations about that all of our uh principal teams have been given the data as well so they can start breaking things down looking at individual buildings uh within that overall as as a district we've made some nice strides going forward. Um some regression in some areas of a you know a percent or two and I'll just give that high level overlook which one included. So
069the staff one is our first one. We had 53% of our um staff participate in the spring survey and again that's from um all individuals within our district. uh if you're in transportation uh admin everyone in between had the opportunity about 219 respondents. Uh when you look at the metrics or the scoring indexes from academic engagement, support, student experience, staff experience. All right, we're looking back one year from previous score to current year accordingly within uh the percent change that was noted and then again that comparison percentile the refresh memories um that is taking like districts of our size with a goal to always be in that uh third and fourth quartile score um with your overall grade. So academics uh slight reduction within from uh 366 to 353 a little over three and a
070half% decrease and change from last year still within that third quartile engagement 1/100th of a point decrease and there you can see a line within that support just a slight decrease there again uh student experience that was our uptick uh from 388 to 39 uh staff experience just a slight redress from of 396 to 392. Uh again working through the individual item analysis of the three highest weaknesses and our areas of improvement and and strength noted below. Areas within remember this is on a fivepoint scale within one comment from uh Carrie who supports us with the behind the scenes part of this. Um the district itself and his scores are you know we're talking three plus to five within that range. Um in many t places there's not a lot of room to move forward
071within always we're striving for best results. Were there any questions of strengths or areas of improvement from staff perspective this year on that on the back side? This is where I look at I have a question. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead Mark. This is this is a different executive summary than what they gave us for the for the previous um yeah they actually had recommendations about what we should be looking at doing based upon based upon the scores and I didn't see any of that in here. The one that was the um Oh, it was for our group for for for Oh, that was for the um that was for our survey. That was from WSB. So WSB put they use school perceptions as well. Yeah. Okay. So So school perceptions this was our tool
072that we used for staff, students and parent guardians. So those those recommendations so those were the ASB recommendations they well they're generated from school perceptions through those recommendations. Yeah. So they they put the the synthesized out the data to say these are areas of focus to look at. Yeah. So that narrative is not included within this document. Okay. That's why I was I was curious. It was in the past. I thought there was a each section had its own list of comments, right? We do and we have that. Remember this is the onepage executive summary that kind of cast the stone over the whole I will forward you all the individual questions, the individual comments as it retains the two out of three of the areas for improvement that we scored low on that. It's
073very difficult to have any idea what they're referring to. without knowing the commentary too. Right. So again, executive summary high level we'll get all that that you will yes to to to go through that material in a in a setting like this might be a little unrealistic. So just giving that highle overview of where they're at. The second page of this is where we look at the summary satisfaction. Where we look at the um how would you rank the the district as itself and supporting or recommended a place of employment um note that it did increase from 7.16 to 7.24 um accordingly and then the noted schools and then the percent increase or decrease for individual schools for staff pertaining to that as well. student summary. Uh the next uh shows the same concept. Remember
074again this was a survey assessed over grades 5 through 12. So 1 16 students about 83% both Mrs. Pinch and Mr. Yorkie dedicated time to capture as many students as possible with the support of our staff to take the the survey uh and in the month of March. And again this is the comparison from last year to this year accordingly within um it's high threes mid fours within the uh the noted areas all of them are within a percent of this past year in overall scoring within uh strengths areas of improvement or opportunity are noted below um within noted this that are two of the three of our highest strengths just dipped just a little bit of couple hundreds of a point within that category as well. And um any feedbacks on this page here?
075The second page shows the overall satisfaction of our students in a 10-point scale. You know, most days I like my school. All right. So, this is going to uh students in grades 5 through 12. Uh 24 we had a 6.22. 25 a 6.12 about 1% 0.96% decrease in overall uh change within that and then specifically within the individual schools and where this was assessed you'll see the noted previous score and current score the one item that I'd like to highlight on there is the catalyst academy um so in previous years it said NA and that's based on the student size and the amount of students that took the survey that were able to um be nonidentifiable within that process. And this year we had um enough students to take that survey and a 7.86 which
076overall satisfaction within that group was the highest of all of our schools and if you'll note in that 99th percentile which is was amazing for that student group. So again, just to refresh, uh our catalyst program is our atrisisk alternative learning academy where we have certified teachers and support staff to assist our students through that alternative pathway for credit recovery job experience and life skills. Uh so often reports on that with our um charter school report and they're doing an outstanding job within that. So it's interesting when you look at the comp at the scores of the individual schools and then the district. So the high school and the middle school they they finish at 49 and 42nd but then the district's 29th. It I don't quite know how that math works to to have
077it drop that much when it's only the two schools, right? Well, and then catalyst, but I mean it's a it's a small number compared to the the middle school and the high school. How we would we would drop that far then by combining the the two. Right. So the comparison is based on the the overall likes schools and um comparability within I get that. But I mean when you look at how close the two schools are 49, you would think that the the district would be up in that in that that same uh range if you will. Yeah. Right. That's a question I can ask. All right. To see if that's accurate or if that was an area statistician question there. Yeah. Absolutely. The uh third session is the the parent uh survey and we
078had 331 respondents um which was I believe a slight uptick from from last year within uh looking again at that same um time frame of survey from last year to this year. very pleased with the outcomes of this within our indexes there all saw positive growth within you know often in this setting here you know we've heard comments before our our customers or clients our parents okay are looking for you know quality experiences and environments where um they want to send their children and be proud of and where they're listened to and support that um again improvement across all areas So from a parent perspective who contributed all within that third and fourth quartile response within um so good feedback there on the second page of that then okay you know the net promoter score
079which when remember back to to Mr. Wagner talking about that uh important factor of you know continuous improvement and individuals saying that uh would you recommend your school our district to um family or friends within uh nearly a quarter of a point increase from last year to this year a 2.39% increase within um and then noted within the individual schools um where that rank fell in accordingly within that room any high level observations that the board would like greater detail on at this point in time. So what I will do then all right I will forward it out and it's going to be more than a few um attachments you'll get that each one of those indexes will be broken down into individual questions and then there will be areas of comments for each section
080of uh parents staff and um students within and you can take the time to review those items and um I can work with John if this wants wants to come back or there's areas that we need to uh further take a deep dive in. I know one of our community members shared some feedback from his perspective. Have had a couple open records requests for everything we're talking about as well as comments as well which will go out now that I'm done talking with the board. Um and again our principal team, admin team are reviewing this data which will be a big part of when they start prepping and planning um with their staff for review this year looking forward to next year using this data to help support good decisions. All right, John. Uh just
081one one thing and back on the on the staff survey areas for improvement. The second thing is districts pay practices are fair. We get fairly low rating on that. And um uh a lot of you have seen the um teacher compensation reports that uh that have been on the Google drive that Mike Hansen prepared there. Uh and uh it comes out not quite a year later. Uh so right now we don't have the uh the 24 25 on there but we have the 23 24 and New London of the eight districts that seven districts that surround us and us um I was happy to see we're number one in average teacher pay. Um, four years ago we were number four kind of kind of towards the middle and we've we've come up the the last
082one that came out a year ago now we were number two and we continue to go up. So I'm not sure that that's an informed response unless they're talking about the says pay factors are fair. Maybe somebody thinks they're not getting the right amount compared to somebody else or something like that. I'm curious if you've been doing well to compensate teachers. I think and if anybody wants that, I made a few copies. Yeah, I agree. I'm waiting to to see the the commentary on that one if there's something we're not seeing, you know, on the surface here. So, any other questions, comments? All right, moving on. Um, review and potential approval of seal coating, patching, crack filling, and striping projects. Joe, the exciting part of the program, right? Well, it's it's something that we do
083well here in the district to keep maintaining the facilities or grounds that the community is invested in. You can see in the topic summary, we last did uh some of this work in 2020. This work is budgeted for this year. In the packet, you can see the sites that we're proposing work to be done at from Reedfield, the high school, park view, and then also the middle school and the admin lot. We kind of have it broke out on the the big tab of where the work would be done. If the board would approve tonight, we have $43,760 of the total amount that we're asking for. Uh we put up to $50,000 or not to exceed in the motion. Sometimes once they come out, there's a discussion of okay, hey, do you want this one
084patched as well or not? Or is there a spot that's missed? So that's why we've asked for an additional amount or if they're coming out and we want to add another area because something changes, we at least have that flexibility. I'm not thinking that's going to happen. But this would be good work to get done at our parking lots across the district. Unfortunately, with our budget, we can't do everything. That's okay. and we do our best every year when we try to keep the parking lots uh in good shape across the district. All right. Any discussion? Otherwise, uh motion to approve the seal coating, patching, crack filling, and striping projects as presented. I make the motion. Seconds. Roll call. Katie Madden. Yes. Markson. Yes. Nathan, yes. Uh Chris Martinson, yes. Yes. Andy Thor, yes. And
085John, yes. All right. I'll re moving on a report on the will conference. Okay. Uh Andy and I both attend uh and uh it was I believe a very successful um uh seminar. It's called their annual education summit. uh this second one, the first annual one was last year. I went last year as well. There was about double the number of people and quite a few vendors and um uh the the sessions were very good. I'll I'll focus in on a couple of them and Andy will probably have a couple of them to add that uh uh first of all um there was a a legal seminar um there with uh Luke Bird and Corey Bru uh Brewer and they talked about the the change on title nine and title six that has happened in
086the federal government with the new administration. Uh the most dramatic thing uh obviously uh title nine is to interpretation federal government has totally changed and uh no longer will they be trying to get school boards to adopt radical transgender policies. Um, title six is very interesting because uh you guys might remember a couple years ago when the DPI um find us and investigated us here because we had they something called disperate impact. They said that uh we had a higher percentage of and correct me if this is wrong, but they said uh that we had a higher percentage of um Hispanic students in uh special education than the general student population. Was that it's called disproportionality? Yes. Yeah. It's it's it's a concept called disperate impact that they they were using under the guidelines now
087of federal government. Uh it it is illegal to investigate us based on that. You can investigate based on did you appropriately uh supply services or inappropriately to this family. But you can't look at race anymore. You can't look at uh gender. You can't look at any of that stuff. It it is all that uh and and u we were told that if the DPI tries to investigate us again on disperate impact that we can file a complaint with the federal government and they will file then we'll follow up on it. So that um that whole effort that we had to spend a lot of time and effort trying to figure out how to defend ourselves and we were successful at it but um shouldn't have had to do it. Um basically uh they're saying no
088discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed, national origin, or sex. So um that's uh one of the many things they covered in the legal seminary. Uh the the next uh the one that I uh feel like I got more out of uh than most of them there was the school safety uh one. Um they had two speakers, one from uh Will, an attorney, and the other one was a member of the Florida State Board of Education, a fellow by the name of Ryan Petty. And um he he uh had a daughter that was slain in the Parkland High School shooting that happened uh and was killed. And he made it his mission. He's a he's a farmer in that county uh purebred Angus cattle breeder and he got fully into it and put a
089lot of his own resources into looking at every every point that went wrong in that and coming up with started a a a new foundation called the walkup foundation that is its whole mission is to uh improve uh school safy And it's it's it has many different facets. Um uh he found that they kept student information confidential from law enforcement when they knew there was a violent threat. Uh so one of the things that he stressed is f under furpa um violent behavior or expressing violent desires is is something that is not it is exempt from confidentiality. You you do need to share that with law enforcement. Law enforcement needs to share what they know with the school, etc. That's one of the reforms they've had in California or in Florida. uh he he wrote
090a bill that got passed in Florida that addressed a number of things. Um and uh one of the things that he um responded to on questioning is um he believes that in in states where where it's legal, you you should have your sheriff work with your sheriff and have um teachers or staff members that are willing to undergo extra um extra training in firearms and in u active shooter training. become kind of like the air marshals and the you know become uh marshals in the school. And um so uh the attorney that was present from will said the law in Wisconsin does allow that but the board has to contract with the person for it to happen. But are there still are there still air marshals on every flight? I don't know. No, not every
091flight. I don't know. They're rarely on every flight, but u but nobody knows which or which aren't which or which aren't. I I flew armed many times and other law enforcement would know other law enforcement on the airplane. Yeah. So, you know who the air marshal is. So anyway, I I don't know about the error, but you know, well, I just it's it's an he he definitely endorses that and um thinks that, you know, if it's legal, it it's it's something to look at as long as you've got people that are willing to do the extra training, be approved by your local county sheriff as somebody who's able to to do this. So, um, uh, the only, uh, I guess in summary there, um, uh, Dan Ross Miller was there. He's the executive director of
092WASB and and he saw me there and made a point to to, uh, say that uh, uh, he was there to learn and see if there's any speakers there that would would be good to bring into WSB. recognizes that uh will is is here to stay and and involved in education and their their involvement in education is primarily policy. They they they're doing model policies in order to have an alternative to the other two model policy places, Neiola and uh WB because those those policies on on some issues and many issues kind of lean to the left whereas they're they're going to be more leaning towards u uh common sense, you know, uh middle of the road type policies. So that's uh that's my report. And Andy, I'd just add to his the last one
093that he was talking about how he that one speaker from Florida was adding how if you've had an active threat, what what is your policies and plans in place? And um how how do you set them up? Are the police involved with them? like as far as like communication to what doors is is everything I'm sure but just something that I don't know that I wanted to ask but also if they have like the Alysa alert something um the uh the other one that I was also interested in was Katherine Price talking and She covered phones phones in the schools and like I don't know our policy if we are if they're on at school just just based off of what she shared and how the interruptions. Yeah. The interruptions attitude changes Yeah. and and
094how how schools have adopted policy to have phones off from bell to bell. Like I went to school and we didn't have phones. So you can do it. So So again, if you're listening to Ted's um podcast, his most recent one was with um neuros I think he's neuroscientist or whatever. And he was just talking about how kids learn and and things of that nature. But the last almost quarter of the podcast was about the phones situation and it and when there was talk starting about in the bill about passing a state law against it, I thought this is really stupid because we have policies and most schools districts do have policies. But listening to what he had to say um really flipped my my uh mind on that about the fact that um it
095is it's a it's a big distraction. It's because of the parents calling at 2:30 in the afternoon to say that your dad's picking you up today, you know, instead leave a message at the office. It can all be addressed. But he had he had the the the the scientist he had a number of studies where they were talking about this and there's there's no reason for the phones to be to be to be in the classroom. The other thing they talked about which really kind of caught my attention was getting rid of these. Yeah. And I'm not going to say anything more about it. Check that podcast out. it it's it's worth a listen because he had some really good information and I'm sure it ties into what she was probably talking about and uh
096so do you know in the high school I don't know that yeah so in the middle school they're in the lockers they're not coming out in the high school they're in the lockers during lunch they come out during that time so they're not an active part of the uh of the classroom setting Most recently, a year ago in the semester is when the high school mid year says they're in the locker and we're changing our approach to having phones accessible. I think some of those survey results tank. Do I have adequate technology? And the majority of the kids said no. You know, it was more of a reactionary and it you will maybe see some of that in some of the feedback that comes back from our students as well. But in the big picture,
097it's it's more of that controlled environment. We have Chromebooks which are appropriate if we need to access within. So we are that's our current policy within that. I know I'll be I'll get emails from my kids in the middle of the day. Hey Dad, uh don't forget we got to do this today or you got aren't you in school? Quit emailing me. Pay attention to school. So they they'll find a way. I'm sure on Google or Yeah. looking at something else instead of paying attention in class. They're going to find that distraction somehow. Do you do you know who the neurologist was that he chatted with or I could it's a uh he's a nationwide known one person. He's been on and he's been on his podcast. I think this is the fourth or fifth
098time he's had them cuz I was reading like the human brain was not ever meant to process a constant stream of information. like my voice no more show about the MLB and I have to talk like why like you you were never meant to have right if you're if you're interested in listening to it you don't know where to find it just shoot me an email and I'll send you the link link to it you know because like I said it was I'd imagine this topic will eventually come up again fighting it like Kakana's fighting it right now they have a lot of backlash parents oh the the Kakana district administrator was at our tables and kids. Yeah, the parents are kind of bucking the no cell phone thing there. That's going to happen. The
099teachers are from what from what the superintendent said like that that was great. That was a benefit too. Like just being with other board members, other superintendent like they're they're as I forget how many millions they're asking for. They're redoing every school in Kakana. And he he said flat out he's like because we didn't maintain them. So like hearing our projects that we're doing where we're maintaining it's like yeah I mean because who wants to push referendum and push t you know like don't really want to take care of your stuff and it'll stay nice. I think this we should we should um if this ever comes up again, which I I think it our I feel like I'd love to get a report from Ryan every year on like this is a staff. I
100think the staff would probably appreciate it, right? Does anybody know that their kids aren't constantly going I'm assuming you can learn better, but I don't have any statistics, but I would always make classroom engagement more authentic, you know, being able to take whatever the instruction is, you know. I'd even love to see it not at lunch. In my personal opinion, I think kids should talk to each other again and learn how to relate because that's the real world. Well, that was they talked about that. That what's lunchtime look like? Yeah, I know. I stopped in there and I'm like, this is like Yeah, that's the whole point of lunch, isn't it? Right. I don't know. I'm probably pushing the envelope on that one. Yeah. The person that spoke it was bellto bell. It wasn't. And
101and she ads come with cell phones. They turn them in and they only get them when they're going out. See, she seemed pretty. I mean, I'd love to stay on top of it because I I truly would be in favor of the lunch thing. You can call the office. You can, like you said, send an email. I mean, I don't know if we dare push the topic even more, but I'm in favor of it. Right. Um, pursuant to section small print 19.851C Wisconsin statute, board of education will convene in close session to discuss the employment and compensation of administration certified and support staff members over which the board has jurisdiction and exercises responsibility. Also, pursuant to section 19.851D 851D Wisconsin statute. The board of education will convene in close session for considering strategies for crime
102detection andor prevention. Motion to move into close session. So move. All sign. All right. All in favor? I uh you need a roll call. Um Mark, yes. Yes. Okay. Nate Grundy. Yes. Chris Martinson. Yes. Yes. Andy Thor. Yes. Benton. Yes. And yes. All right. Are you a Yes, sir. Okay. All right. We'll be back. We'll see if we get back. Yes.