NFDL Board of Education 10-27-25

001Good evening everyone. >> All right, good evening everyone. We are going to call the order of a regular board of education meeting for the school district of North Lac today on Monday, October 27th at 6 pm. Uh so we'll do roll call Rick when we're [clears throat] ready. >> Here >> Matthew here German >> here. Uh and then next item is public notification of meeting >> postings at the district office, FLC, BAMS, Trefford, Horus man, and the village. Everybody, please rise for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Our next item on our agenda is our board mission statement and agreements. >> And I'm

002going to go over agreements. Uh so our three agreements are stand up and uh Kersy Grill and we are one. Uh these three are our beliefs. And the beliefs then drive our experiences for the people that are around us. And as a board when we act within here, we have candid yet curious conversations. uh we learn from what we're going on and then we do this together to best serve our our whole community and our district. >> Awesome. Thank you for sharing. Uh next item is the approval of consent agenda. Um we only have one item on our consent agenda this time and it's approval of the regular meeting minutes from September 22nd, 2025. Uh so I'll look for a motion to approve consent agenda. >> So move second. >> All right, then roll when

003we're ready. Matthew, yes. >> Yes. Uh, next item is our treasurer's report, which is found in our packet. Um, which also I guess because together, we need to make a motion to approve our treasures report. >> I'll make a motion. >> Got to add a line in. Okay. So, is Katie? >> Yeah. >> Steve, >> yes. [snorts] >> Uh, Gellings, >> yes. >> Hawk, >> yes. >> Matthew, yes. Grier, >> yes. >> All right. Uh, next item is board members share a moment of pride. So, I don't know if anyone would like to kick us off. I guess I'll start. Um the first of course was homecoming. Um always a fun day, a fun week I guess for depending on your perspective I guess around the buildings and that but um it's always great to

004see the crowd tends to double or even triple I think. I I don't know what the numbers are but it's great to see people back coming back and just having fun. kids having fun. And and the other thing is I completed my principal visits um this week or this month and enjoyed that very much. You know, we see the principles around a little bit, but to actually just sit down one-on-one um very enlightening and just I was struck by um where we're at now at the principal level. I and in my years that I've been uh doing this as a whole, I don't think we've ever had a more talented, more quality group of principles um than we have right now. So that that's a just a great thing for the district and that. So

005>> awesome. You want to go >> um cross country finished their year and I believe coach Drews this is her last year. Oops. Sorry. my hearing aids or anything. Um, so shout out to her. The the team had a good year this year. The boys finished second in the conference. Two of the two of the boys made first team all conference and one made second team and one of the girls made second team all conference. So, they had a pretty good year and I know Coach Drews has put in a lot of time at team and appreciate all our efforts. >> Awesome. Go Katie. Um, yeah, I also finished up my v visits with the principles. Um, I've been kind of sharing some of that through the months here. Um, so I wanted to share

006that. I met with Tiffany at Treffort. Um, and I really appreciate their space over there and the innovation that they have with that space. The space isn't super conducive to what, you know, a class typical classroom looks like. Um, but they've been really good and innovative with what they've been doing over there. I got to walk through and um see when the kids are learning in in the environment that they're in. So, it was pretty cool. Um and then I got to help with popcorn Friday at FLC. So, for anybody who doesn't know, it's the kids get to bring a dollar, buy a bag of popcorn. Um and then it's usually like one Friday a month and the money goes back to the school for uh student engagement type things. Um, but what I thought

007was really cool and made um I think North Lawn a really special place is that there was so many staff that came in and were like, "Can I throw in a couple bucks to, you know, get any kids that didn't bring popcorn popcorn?" I thought that that was pretty cool. Um, we covered all all the kids in the whole school got popcorn that day. So, that was pretty cool. >> Awesome. >> Yeah. I just had two additional things. One was just our incubator program with Mr. Whismer. I know obviously he does a wonderful job, the kids do a wonderful job, but also the mentors from the community that come in and spend time with them, I think is just another unique thing that we offer here in our district. Um, and then just the teachers.

008I got to experience parent teacher conferences from horse manside. So, I can only speak to that experience, but it was outstanding, wellrun. I really like that. And we used to do it where all the teachers were sitting in the commons. I think now you get your own individual space and I think the conversations are are much better with that and I know the other schools equally probably did a great experience as well. So just thank you for the teachers on those really long days. I I totally get it. So awesome. Uh next item we're going to move on to is band students community service projects. So >> I'm gonna welcome up two of my amazing students. So first quarter we have been really busy at Bessie Allen. Um this year we launched a new um

009class called community service focused on kids giving back to their community in some way, shape or form. And um this year Mrs. Bolan has done an amazing job with her class. She actually takes on an eighth grade class for community service. And I would like to re um introduce to you Annabelle and Charlotte and they're going to tell you about the community service project that they implemented this quarter. >> Hello everybody. Three weeks ago, Charlotte and I took a snack around me. >> Our snack cart had chips, candy, bas with the snack cart. We are hoping to raise money for Sandy Paws. Our main goal was to raise $100 or more to support Santa Claus. After only a week of selling at our school, we raised $62210 to donate. We hope this donation can help

010get food with toys or pets for the dogs less on the street and help the staff. We then presented at our school to show our amazing work was raising this morning and hoping to present to s. We were just trying to get in contact with but very proud of how it turned out. We first got the idea for this project in Mrs. Bow's community service class. She wanted each of us to create a project that would help the community. We planned out our project, talked to lots of people, and got the approval. We made posters, put together the car, and started. After the week of settling, we did a reflection, and realized how much of the animals and staff we would be able to help. We are hoping that once we give the money to

011Sandy Pow, it will really help them greatly. We'd love to say thank you to all the people who have helped us throughout this project. >> Um, this includes Miss Bolan, Miss Escoel, and Miss Vanderpass, and everyone who donated to our project. and thank you for taking the time to listen to us um talk about this. Have a good night. [laughter] >> And I have to say, these two ladies were so well organized. They really set the bar for how to take an idea from just an idea on piece of paper and make it come to life and they did a great job and had a great impact for the Sandy Paws community. >> That's awesome. So before I got a question, >> we got questions. You can't believe this week. >> Yeah. Yeah. First off,

012great job on $672. You said >> 62 >> 22. Awesome. Awesome. This is a kind of random question. I heard you smile when you said bubblers. What's your favorite bubbler kind? >> Um the orange. There's like an orange >> orange one. >> Yeah, there you go. Awesome. Well, hey, great job on it. So >> So did you I don't know maybe you mentioned this, but did you bring a Did the puppy come to No, we didn't have it. >> Okay. but they wouldn't come through this. [laughter] >> I know they were so anxious and I had to leave before that so I was like hoping they would come through. Um and I also want to recognize Kelly Bolan. She's here with us today and like all of her work. She's uh just an an amazing

013person for our district who just makes it happen every day for our kids. So appreciate you and all that you do as well. >> Any other questions for >> All right. Awesome. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. [laughter] >> All right, we will move on now to Horseman High School student council. So, the floor is yours. >> Um, good evening board members. I'm excited to share some highlights from student council as well as updates from other clubs and the activities happening at harassment for student council fall musical. The fall musical casting crew have been working extremely hard to prepare for their upcoming performances. [laughter] Rehearsals have been going on for weeks and everything is coming together nicely. Tickets are now available for purchases in the high school office during school hours and audience members

014can pick them up at the will call table on show night. Performance dates are Friday, November 7 at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, November 8th, 700 p.m., Sunday, November 9, 2:00 p.m. This year's production comes to be a great showcase of our students creativity, talent, and team. We had trunk or treat. It was a community success. Our annual trunk or treat event was a big success with over 100 children attending. Students and staff decorated their vehicles and handed out candy, providing a safe and fun environment for local families. This continues to be one of our favorite community building events and a great way to engage younger kids in a positive school experience. Turf War starts next week. Our annual Turf Wars competition begins next week and runs through the end of November. Each home room will collect

015money that goes towards purchasing Christmas gifts and essential items for students of or families in need. The home room that raises the most funds in each grade level will win daily bars as a prize. Pink out will be February 13. Student council will host our pink out event on February 13th to raise funds for breast cancer awareness and research. Activities will include raffle baskets, baked goods, and pens for sale as well as home room collections. A prize for that type the top fundraising home room will be announced closer to the event for NHS. The National Honor Society recently completed its first round of Halloween readings at friendship which went very well. Members attained students with themed stories and plan to return for Thanksgiving reading later this month. NHS also held a Halloween donut sale which

016had great participation and helped to raise funds for upcoming services projects for S. S is currently running a food drive through November 7th to support individuals who may lose their SNAP benefits due to federal program changes. All donated items will go to local food pantries and community organizations to help families in need. For student accomplishments, the soccer team finished 108 to three overall with a 70 to2 undefeated conference record, finishing second in the conference. A major accomplishment for the soccer team was advancing to the second round of playoffs by winning their first ever playoff game two to1 against Green Bay Southwest. All sports wrapped up strong seasons and students are transitioning into winter activities. On behalf of the cross country program, I am excited to share a summary of our 2025 season and extend our

017heartfelt appreciation to everyone who made this year so special. Boys team highlights conference achievement. The boys team plays second at the 2025 flyweight conference championship at Willie Meadows finishing with a total of 65 points. All conference honors Logan Putty and Case Scrago earned all conference first team honors placing fifth and sixth overall respectively. Eli Hartwig Oakfield was named all conference second team with 11th place finish. Jackson Chapman 20th and Kaden Andrews 23rd received all conference honorable mention sectional per performance at the D2 sectional five in Portage. The boys placed 12 out of 17 teams. Special congratulations to Logan Putty for running a personal best of 1710 which now stands as the fastest boys time on that course. Girls team highlights. The girls team high team placed six in a very tough field at the conference

018championships. Abby Winner earned all conference second team honors with a 13 place finish. Violet Lane received all conference honorable mention for her 24th finish. >> A season of transition this year was especially poignant at as it was marked at the end of both eras in cross country. It was a heart-wrenching day at sectionals, but also a moment to reflect on the legacy and pride the team has brought to our schools. Gratitude and acknowledgements. Coach Drew would like to extend sincere gratitude to the following individuals who have contributed to the success of our program. Coaches Doc Foresight and Britney Gibson for starting the co-op in uniting our districts in supports of Quiz Country. Former athletic directors Mr. Vitram, Mr. Anderson, Mr. Dotock and Mrs. Esel for their unwavering support and dedication to scheduling. Current athletic directors

019Mr. Mock and Mr. Paula with special thanks to Mr. Mock for seven years of exceptional support. Mrs. Emil, athletic secretary, you rock. Thank you for all you do behind the scenes. Parents for trusting us with your students athletes and for the endless support that is the backbone of our program. athletes. Most importantly, thank you for every athlete who has worn the O jersey. You have represented our sport, schools, and community with honor and pride. Has been the absolute best experience coaching you. Thank you to everyone who has supported the O's cross country program. Your commitment and encouragement have made our success possible and created memories that will last and lifetime. with sincere gratitude, Coach Drews. Overall, harmonic students continue to make the school proud both academ academically and athletically. And that is it. Any questions

020for [laughter] >> It's a lot in a month. >> Were you at trick or trunk? >> Okay. >> Trick or treat. Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. What was how what was the numbers like and were you know I think the years before there was lines and lines of people. I think this time there's more. I think there's a bit more of a spread of a word than previously. I think like more than I think it was more than 50 kids than last year as that's my estimate. >> My son was the last kid and he got the most. [laughter] >> We came home with a lot of stuff. >> And isn't there usually a contest of like who's decorated the best? Like how did that all turn out? >> I'm not sure if it was already

021announced as I've worked on like the afternoon, but yes, there's like three baskets. one for the best costumes like overall and the scariest theme. I'm not sure what was the third basket for, but yes, there's prizes. >> Is there anything else? >> Nice job. >> Thanks for coming to do that. >> All right, our next item on our agenda is the clerk's report. [clears throat] So Rick, if you have when you're ready, >> uh, donations for Backpack Buddies, Wayne and Janet Shingan, $50 and all tools NTD inspection, $1,000. >> Thank you to those guys. >> Yes, absolutely. Thank you. U, next item is our citizens comment. This gives an opportunity for anyone that would like to make a comment. Just ask them to state their name and address and then keep their comment to three

022minutes. So don't think we have anyone. So we will move on. Uh Dr. Mino, it's all you superend. >> Good. Thank you, John. Appreciate it. We go through the superintendent's report uh via our buckets for our strategic plan. And we walk through them. The first one we're going to cover tonight is learning and academics. And we're grateful to have uh Julian Escoel, principal of BAMS, here tonight to present, but also Cara Hartoff, who is our literacy coordinator, and a couple other folks here in the room that will get announced and introduced very shortly. So, it's all yours. >> Right. You gonna switch? >> I will flip to you. >> All right. So, we're gonna go through a variety of things with you tonight. Um, in particular, we'll start with achievement. Um, talking about both, um,

023ELA and math. We'll talk about what our action steps are based off of the data we um, had this fall. We'll talk about how the work that we're doing in these two areas align to our universal tenants and then we'll cap off um our time with you talking a little bit about culture and belonging at Bessie Allen and this just talking about like looking ahead. What are we going to do? Oops. Here we go. So, we're going to start with our um ELA data and I we'll we'll go through two different data sets. We'll look at our forward overall results and we'll look at our I Ready and we'll talk more about I Ready soon. But according to our forward results um that came in with our assessment last spring, 35% of our students are

024proficient in reading. And the important thing to keep in mind is this is just one dipstick, right? We we're trying to develop several dipsticks to get a a better understanding of where our students are at um with these um different skills. And so that brings us into a brand new diagnostic that we introduced this year. And Cara is going to talk more about that. Keep in mind last year we did Ames Web. Um and we had some struggles with Ames Web. It wasn't really user friendly in terms of the adults trying to dig into the data. it was hard to really like laser in on what specific skills our students were struggling in. And so I'm going to put Cara here on this on the hotspot and she's going to tell you more about our

025um ELA data. Awesome. So we also did the I Ready assessment just like at FLC and Trevor, we did it at Bessie Allen as well. This gives us our baseline data for the school year. This is our overall placement of where students are landing. We have also been working with I Ready closely. We've had some of their professional development come in and just tell us more about what these numbers mean, how we can best service our students based off of what our specific district is seeing from our um diagnostics. So when uh his name was Joel, when he came and talked to us about our data, he really just let us know that that yellow section um doesn't necessarily mean that they are below grade level. That could mean that they're testing at end of

026year um of the of the grade level that they're coming from. So anyone in the red we are 100% concerned about and have a a strategic plan in place for all of those um students. And then our tier one instruction is going to support um the percentages in the yellow and the green as well as the students in the red. Are there any questions on the colors? Anyone need a refresher? I know you kind of learn a little bit about iori already, but I want to make sure you understand the colors. >> So if I read this right, we're at 35 46% on this test would be proficient. you want. Do you consider yellow and green proficient? >> As of right now, we do. Yes. So then midyear that'll change. The yellow will no longer

027be proficient. >> Okay. I was trying to match up the forward number. >> Yep. >> Oh, sure. >> Yep. >> These are like our our students who tier one instruction is going to be enough, you know, like giving them that solid tier one instruction um is going to get them to proficiency. So, it'll be really interesting to look at how that yellow shrinks once we do that mid-year diagnostic. And our goal is that yellow's minimal when we get to the end of the year diagnostic in the spring. So, then this is just a breakdown of the grade levels as well. It's similar to sorry I was just going to add it's similar to FLC where we notice that the lowest um gap of achieve you know like we're starting with first grade the gap is

028lower we kind of see that with the sixth seventh and eighth two once the um standards become more progressive we see a larger gap in the eighth grade as well and then this is what Jillian was talking about with the breakdown this is what uh teachers are able to use to see what are we going to provide not only um in addition to our tier one instruction, but also to support students um who are below grade level as well. What areas can we um decide as a school we're going to um initiate in all across all content areas? It gives us a little bit more of a snapshot of what our students need. >> Can you just walk through those >> specific so people I mean we've heard it but I think it's important to

029go through those components. >> So that funological awareness um is not tested. it is when I say cat that a kid can go at you know it's any of those oral oral um pieces that come in in addition to phonics. So then we are testing in phonics um in at the middle school they start with vocabulary and either go up or down from there. So not all students are tested in phonics. It is if their vocabulary is testing below grade level enough that they are testing in phonics. Our high frequency words is similar to that and then our vocabulary is where all kids start um on their I already diagnostic. >> Thank you. >> And then comprehension. Yes. So the comprehension piece is that is the end of the test. Um just something to be

030aware of too. It's when kids stamina might be getting lower. Um and we know that it's beginning of the year. It's something that we're working on as well. And then it breaks down into um fiction and non-fiction texts as well. And so that bottom um bar that you see there, thatformational text, that non-fiction test, is really where we see the greatest need. And that's where we're going to really put a lot of time and energy in this year to making sure that our universal instruction practices around that in addition to other interventions and things that we're doing that those pieces are in place to help move that needle. Um, so as we take keeping this in mind as we move into trying to determine what is our SLO going to be this year and so

031there's one of the great things about IRA is it gives you projections based on what your results are in the fall. Where do we think you'll be by the end of the year? And it gives you two different ones. Typical growth. Okay. So if all students just make typical growth, we would get to 36% by the end of the year. >> And typical growth is a year's growth from wherever they're starting. So if they're an eighth grader who's starting at grade two, a typical growth would be a year's growth from that. >> Okay? And then it also does something called projected stretch growth. And this is where students are going to gain more than a year's growth. And so how do we figure out where do we land on this? So, we had a lot

032of conversation because we know there will be some students that will make typical growth, right? But we also know that students are going to push themselves and some are going to reach that stretch goal. So, we're going to land somewhere in the middle. So, keeping that in mind, like if every single student would make their stretch goal, they say we could get to 67% by the end of um of the year. But keep in mind, is it feasible that every student's going to make their stretch goal? Probably not. It's going to land somewhere in that middle ground. And so with that in mind, our goal would be that we would be at 45% by the end of the year. And that would be pretty um significant change for Bessie to go from down in those

033um low 20s up into the 40s. Um, we are going to focus on IRA being our main diagnostic because forward results, we won't get that until closer to the end of the year. We want to know more and because we are living in the I Ready world. I'll talk more about that later. We're going to be able to track students progress throughout the year. So, it's really an awesome tool. I'm grateful that the district was able to find a way to bring this on board because this tool is a gamecher for us in terms of letting us know what do we need to work on and we just have to take that data and put it into some action plans. >> On the slide before it talked about like level one, two, three, four. >>

034How does that like what is what are those levels? >> Can you go back a slide? >> Sorry. Because it would be the one before. >> Can I do that before? >> I think we can. But there you go. because the one before was like grades below and now we're in like what equals a level four or level one. >> Yeah. So, it's the um the I'm just going to look quick before I >> You're fine. [clears throat] >> I'm sure you said it and I just didn't. >> Yes. And we um >> So, this is students who are proficient and not proficient. And then there's that well above proficient like the above grade level is that dark blue. >> Okay. And then yeah, the level four and then the level three is proficient and

035then the not proficient and the significantly below grade level. >> Okay. So they just took out that yellow section from the last >> kind of put them in two different camps. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So that is our SLO for this year for Bessie Allen. Um, I'm really looking forward to as we launch Power Hour, and I'll talk more about that soon. Um, to do that midyear diagnostic, I know I don't want to rush the game, but I'm really um interested because I'm watching kids and they're putting the time in right now and I'm like, "Oh, I just I want to have a progress update right now, but um in January it'll be exciting to come back to you in the winter and kind of give you an update on where that needle is

036moving." I don't know if you're going to touch on this, but can you tell everybody what they're doing right now from Okay, perfect. >> Yep. Cool. >> I'm getting there. Getting there. >> So, what are our action steps? So, one of the big things that we want to do is make sure that we give our staff time to collaborate um in their grade level teams and across content um levels as well. And so, that's going to take place in two different areas. We were able to bring team time back to Bessie this year so they do have a common time where they can get together and talk about literacy strategies. It doesn't matter if you're science or social studies, everybody teaches literacy, right? And so talking about what kind of vocabulary activities are you doing?

037How could that relate in my area? They're having time for that. And we are also focusing our um CT time on Wednesday mornings around that collaboration as well. and teams are also they um selected anywhere from three to five students that they're really focusing in on those students that are really struggling and they're collaborating around those students to see how they are universally supporting them across and we'll be following those students data too to see how they improve with that intentionality um behind the instruction and the good thing about that is what you do for those kids are also good for other kids. So that's just good practices across the board. The other thing that we will be doing with ELA is implementing coaching cycles um on universal instruction. As I mentioned previously, everyone is

038a literacy teacher. We need to read, write, and communicate in every content area we do, not just in CO skills, but also in health class and art class. And so we are going to be working very closely with our amazing instructional coach, Jen Towell. I know she's here today. um and digging into the data with her, we know what work we need to do. Our PD day that we had, what seems like it was a while ago, but like a week or so ago, she already started teaching them instructional um strategies to try. They're tasked with going back and trying that, gathering evidence. When we meet back in November, we're going to revisit that. So, you're going to see that cycle with our PD always coming back and revisiting and growing. and we'll um expand

039on that toolbox that they're creating um with the help of Jen and Cara. Um if you if you think back to those charts that we showed you where those students were in the red, those students we are going to be progress monitoring. Um they were in progress monitoring students today. That literally is just a quick like one minute test that they do with those students where they read aloud a passage and they are just marking are they reading it correctly. >> What that is going to tell us is >> and then how many words per minute because we know fluency matters. >> And that information will tell us what we're doing if it's working or not for that student. And for when it's working for this student, awesome. We stay the course, right? But when

040we find that a student is still struggling and not making the gains we anticipate, those are the students we know we need to do something different for. We need to do something more intensive to try to close those skill gaps. Okay. Tied in with all this is just building our professional development focused around universal best practices. You'll hear me talk about it a lot and I've said it already a couple times tonight. Everyone is teaching literacy at Bessie Allen. That's a non-negotiable. Um, and when we all start pulling in the same direction, and I'll tell you right now, the staff has been so resilient this year, taking this on because we piled a lot of new stuff on them. They're taking it in stride. We're going to see the needle move and that's exciting for

041our kids. Um, we need to um create additional opportunities to have student focused data conversations. Like when we meet for CTE, it needs to be intentional. It needs to be talking about the data because the data is telling us a story and that story is going to indicate what we need to do. It can't just be those general conversations anymore. It needs to be data specific and we can go into Ire right now. We can see the students that what lessons they're working on, the areas that they're struggling in. All that information is going to tell us the things that we need to be doing um differently, whether that be with our power hour or OT time or even just additional supports in the regular ed classroom. Um and that gets to the last um

042part which I think Cara and Jen Tell and I are super excited about is power hour. And so I know I talked um to a lot of you when you came to meet with me at Bessie. Um, but knowing that our data is where it's at, you know, we have low percentage of our students that students that are proficient in reading that that's our current state. We accept that. We have to do some heavy lifting to move that needle. And so recognizing that we knew that we needed to restructure what was our enrichment hour where things like community service were happening. We need to find time to focus on I Ready because I Ready in itself is an intervention tool and 80% of our students according to our data need an intervention because they're significantly

043behind. Um the reality of the situation is that in comk skills and in math we can't reach the minimum minutes in a given week because our class periods are 49 minutes. By the time you come in, get settled, do attendance, we can't take out 15 minutes a day to get 45 minutes of I ready in by the end of the week. We need to find additional time where there can be some intentionality behind the implementation of that. So today was the first day of second quarter. That's when we launched power hour. And so Monday through Thursday, all students are going to be in it's essentially going back to when they had a win time, but this is more systematized and it's very prescribed in terms of what happens during that time. So the first 22

044to 23 minutes of that class period, they're focused on I Ready minutes. So in I ready they have something called teacher assigned lessons where we can assign them things based on what we're seeing or they go in my pathways wherever the student landed on their diagnostic that's where the pathway starts. So it's meeting the student exactly where they need to be. Nothing's going to be way over their head or way underneath unless they kind of just click click clicked on the test. But we can easily adjust those when we notice those things that are happening. And so students go through a series of lessons um each day and slowly start closing that gap. On Fridays, we've reserved for that is your free time if you've met your goal for the week of reaching your minutes

045and you're maintaining accuracy. Past lessons and I ready are considered 70%. I can tell you based on the data that I'm seeing, a majority of our students are 90% or higher on their lessons, which is great. Um, we do have some students are struggling. Those are the ones we got to lean in and figure out. Is it because you're not buying in or is it because there's a more significant skill gap and that's where we can do some um progress monitoring to figure out what's going on in those cases. So, in the first half of that class, that's where they do their I Ready. The second half is when they do something called a choice board activity to focus on making sure they have enough time to get their homework done because that is one

046area that I will tell you at the middle school if homework doesn't get done at school it's very rarely getting done at home unless you are in a very small percentage of the population that actually does it at home. kids come from all backgrounds and they have all different scenarios happening and not all of them go home to an environment that's conducive um to doing homework. So, our teachers do a great job of trying to narrow it down, but there are things that we're noticing with our new ELA curriculum. We just don't have enough time to get to now. They'll have some time to do a little bit extra. Now, during that other time, that's where myself, Cara, Jen, or other teachers that have intervention backgrounds, we can go in and push and work with

047some of those students that are struggling or that are more in that red area as well. Questions on power hour? >> Yeah, it's exciting. I know had a chance to talk with you what a month ago and yeah, it's exciting to see that it's happening. I guess what I'd be interested in in the future is what now that once it's going, what else is needed to support that to sustain it. So, >> and that is something I'll mention more in the end. I think there's a lot of question marks, right? >> And I think it's too early to tell. I think we can kind of anticipate some of those needs, but I think we need to get to the midyear diagnostic and see where that number shrinks because I think that is going to tell

048us more of what those additional needs are. So, um, you can anticipate when I meet with you in the middle of the year that I'll kind of be highlighting some of those future needs that we might need to focus on. Right now, it's just speculation. I just think, you know, >> you know, the data is pretty, you know, when you see it, it's significant, right? When we have so many kids that are behind and so, you know, and I like to roll up our sleeves. I'll tell you that. >> They can only roll up so much. >> Yeah, I know. Yeah. So, I mean, I I'd like to think that we are going to make some big gains just focusing. in I I ready right now. It'll be interesting to see where kids land in

049the middle of the year. [snorts] >> Um coupled with all of this happening in ELA, we launched a new um curriculum tool um across six, seven, and eight. Um and it has been a pretty heavy lift, I have to say. And so, um, and it's what's really great about adopting Amplify or piloting Amplify this year is that it is a direct continuation of what they're doing with CQLA at the elementary and that was a missing piece that we had across the district that we weren't always pulling in the same direction. It's like good work was happening here and then all of a sudden rather than continue that and find something that pairs well, we changed it up and did something completely different and now kids are struggling. And so now we really have this bridge

050that was built that I'm anticipating in five years we're going to see a major shift um with all the work that got started last year at FLC and what we're starting here. Um but we have just a fantastic literacy team um at Bessie that has taken this heavy lift because I can tell you as a former teacher that has had to implement a new curriculum that is a big ask. That's you're you're essentially flying the plane as you're building it, right? And you never know what the end goal is because you're just trying to survive day by day, week by week as you're learning the curriculum as you go. Um, and so you know, all of our ELA teachers, Lee Score, Adam Mickey, Jess Wit, along with our sped crew, Staca Weber, Staca Weber, Sarah

051McDall, Molly Gratz, and then our ML teachers, Jessica Little John, and Marggo Goff have been um, immensely um, supportive of each other and communicating well, learning from each other because even though you're in different grade levels, there's things that they're learning about our platform um, that are um, helping each other out. and we've been having great um sessions with Amplify. We meet with them monthly kind of like troubleshooting what are our pain points. They walk us through it. It's been super helpful. Um and none of this would be possible if it wasn't for Cara and Jen that are in there coaching up and supporting our staff. Um because this is like I said, this is a huge change. We haven't had an ELA adoption at Bessie from my understanding since 2000. That that's mindblowing. So,

052it was time to bring something on and to help us understand a little bit more of amplify because it's really an awesome platform and I as much as I know it can be stress stressful for our teachers as they're learning it. I wanted to invite Lee Score who is a shining star on our lip team to kind of share with you about amplify so you can understand from the teacher perspective um what's going on and seeing how different it is for our students and how they're learning literacy now. That's really exciting stuff. >> Where would you like to be? >> Do you want me to come up here? >> Wherever you want to be. I'll just give you the control. >> Oh, the great poweribility. >> If [laughter] I pass out, forgive me. I can

053speak to 300 kids. No problem. Group of adults. I'm [laughter] already hyperventilating. >> So, you've heard these these terms ELA, CKLA, amplify. What amplified just is is the continuation, as Mrs. Esquil said from the K5 program now through 68. So this evening I brought some of the different materials and answer any questions you might have about what we're teaching, why we're teaching it or how the program works. So the Amplify program, I happen to teach four sections of sixth grade and one section of eighth grade. So I kind of get to see both the beginning and the end of the program. We have it available both digitally and we also have it available in print, which to me is really important because there are some times that you're just flat out like today we're going

054to be annotating. We're going to be working in the story. I want you to highlight this. I want you to find this in the text. The students can access the material both here. So, for example, it took us a little bit. Now, I can pretty much say today we are in unit 3, lesson 12. Everyone, can you please find lesson 12 with me? So, we had just finished last week um our narrative unit where we have been looking at some different authors and then we were trying to write a little bit of our own personal narrative. They have kind of mapped out here is the following here. It'll have like the same readings. So, sometimes we are listening to it digitally. Sometimes we do read it here in our book. The students can complete work

055and this is part of both the fun and also the stress of it. Sometimes we decide, you know what, today we're going to brainstorm. So like some days I'm like, today we're going to brainstorm in our writing journal first, then we'll come over here and we're going to type it out online. So each student has both their book as well as the writing journal. And oh, >> yeah, absolutely. That's just the eighth grade and this is the sixth grade one here. Um, within a typical lesson, the students will work on We start with some kind of vocabulary work first. We know that vocabulary is one of our five pillars of reading. [clears throat] And after we do that, throughout the course of the lesson, we'll usually come back to a text where we have been

056practicing our close reading skills where we will look at a text through different lenses. So today, we might be rereading this text and we're looking specifically for what the author's intention was. Or today we're going to reread this and we're looking for sequencing of events. We're looking at how we can summarize the text. Usually within each lesson, we also have a writing prompt. Sorry, I'm like the board's not liking me there. So, within a lesson, we'll also usually have some form of a right. Oh, this because this one was introduced in the text. Of course, that one didn't. Um, so we'll have a right. This little pencil with the plus sign. One of the things we are able to help kiddos with is depending on their level, we are able to adapt. So, for example,

057one student might need sentence starters. We can give them sentence starters. Sometimes we'll do that as a whole class just to get their brains going or sometimes the kids can access it on here. Uh light bulb means this is a time for us that we turn, we share, we'll go through our writing together. Sometimes we'll revise our writing in class. Um Mrs. Espel mentioned homework. The Amplify program does almost have like a daily assignment. They're called solos and it took the kids a little bit of time, but these are the type of questions that students will be seeing on both the Ford exam as well as in high school the ACT. So, a lot of like sample type questions that we'll work through together after they've read a short part of a story. We'll go

058through and we'll look and answer some of those questions together. All this stuff comes together in the end. One nice thing about it is I do have like a running portfolio of each student. So I can pull open a student and show them here's your writing from the beginning of the year to now. So even if we do work on paper, we'll come in here, we'll type put it together here so that we have a running if any parent asks here's your child's writing from the whole year. Um so as you can see there's six big units. uh after talking with some different educators can't always get to everything. So we're trying to do what's called the 100 day plan or even learning through our first slide that 100 days is I'm a little ambitious.

059So we are taking parts of the different units. So we're making sure that we hit like writing literature but we also haveformational text units. So like here in sixth grade we haveformational [clears throat] unit on chocolate as well as Titanic. all over in the eighth grade. We're going to be looking at um our next unit is actually going to be narratives, but historical narratives as well as reading historical documents. So, we're going to be practicing our reading fluency with the Declaration of Independence as well as the Gettysburg Address. We're going to look at excerpts from the narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas and also narrative of soldiers in the Revolutionary War. So, we can look at major events in American history through both narrative and historical fiction. So, we're bringing in some of our

060own stuff, too. So, we want to make sure we still cover some of those [clears throat] things. Um, I guess, do you have any questions about how the program's running or what we're doing with it? >> How are the kids accepting it? >> Um, it is a lot more running. So, at first there was a little bit of but as we're getting going with it, I've actually been really impressed with the just Okay, let's go. Let's do it. And we'll do like a 10-minute write. I'll set a timer because your goal is to write for the full 10 minutes. And I'd say at this point, well over 80% of kiddos can write for 10 minutes going. So, you're still there to provide support as What else do you think we can add? So, some days

061we'll come back in. Let's look at your writing from yesterday. We're going to revise it. We're going to look for a spot where we can slow down the moment or where can we add sensory details? How do we write dialogue at this point? >> Building up that stamina is it's a big thing at the middle school level. And they're writing now more than ever using Amplify, which is great. I was in Lee's classroom just a few days ago though and they were looking at text and analyzing and putting it together and I think Lee got to every single kid in that classroom. Everyone had an answer for that specific piece and it was right on check with what they were doing. So there's engagement happening and I obviously it's partially the content but it's 100%

062the the educator and who's facilitating the action. So kudos to Lee and all his work because he's a phenomenal educator and we're lucky to have him in North Alask. Um but sorry. Um so again I invite you in at any point if you want to see it in action or see exactly how it's being used or what's being done with it. Absolutely. Please come on in. >> Thank you. I just [clears throat] give you that. >> I didn't. >> Well done. >> All right. >> Okay. Jillian, >> still going. >> Okay. >> It's like the energizer. >> So that's ELA. We don't want to leave um math out of the mix here. So we'll start just like we did with ELA. We'll look at our forward results. So on our forward results that was taken

063last spring, we are at 37.5% of our students are proficient in math. Um now we keep that number in mind as we compare it to our I Ready fall diagnostic. Um and here is where we are sitting. Remember the yellow at this point we're not concerned about. This is kind of where we would expect students to come in at the start of their year. What we want to do is see that shrink as we go through. So we'll do some comparisons when I come back in the mid year so you can see um how that data has changed. Um but still um somewhat consistent with what we have with forward. So here you can see the breakdown by grade level and then from there you can see the different domains that they focus on in

064math. So here you have number and operations, algebra and algebraic thinking, measurement and data, and then geometry. And so we are able to break down and see where students are getting their I Ready minutes. If they're doing like geometry lessons, we can see like if all of a sudden they're struggling, we can dig into those skills and know specifically what we need to be doing um to support those students. Now, if you think back to that 37.5%. Now according to ietti um the typical growth if everyone just made one year's growth we would land at about 49% proficient by the end of the year. If everyone was getting that stretch growth then we'd be at 68. Now eventually we're not quite there yet. We aren't doing two SLOs's um but we will get to a

065point next year I'll talk about where our goal would be to have um a math SLO as well. Um, and here's the reason why we are not doing one yet. We right now are doing an audit on MAP. Okay, we know that like I had mentioned with CQLA and Amplify being that bridge. They're working together. We use big ideas at the secondary level and they do bridges down at FLC. They don't bridge well together. Okay. Um, and we know we need to find something that is going to be a continuation that's going to continue to support those skills and maintain that momentum all the way through high school. And so we are looking at exploring a new math tool um for 612 and we've already visited one site in our October PD day. Matt was

066able to take our math department out as well as ML. I don't know if any sped teachers went with you. I think from the high school. >> Um they they went to Manasha and saw CPM >> in action. The other tool that we're looking at is illustrative and they will be going out to a site in November to see that in action. Um and then from there we hope to finalize an adoption in the spring, do training in the summer, and then launch this new tool in the fall. So my plan will be to come to you next fall with a math goal and an ELA goal. Now that that curriculum tool will be in place. Now coupled with all this, keep in mind power hour is not just ELA, you know, focused, it's ELA

067and math. So students are still going to be getting a math intervention there. Um and then eventually with the help of Dr. Mino working with Brad Ranky as well and Dwayne Harkov at the high school trying to determine what are some intervention tools that we can start exploring and experimenting with. uh we just don't have an interventionist right now that can kind of feed us those things. So, we're just kind of doing our own research and stuff like that. And so, stay tuned. More to come on that end as well. Any questions on math? [snorts] So, um with all of this, I know Matt has talked to you about our universal tenants and so I want to talk to you about how is everything that we're doing ties into our universal tenants. And there are

068two main areas of focus when I go into classrooms and do observations. What am I looking for? I am looking for the evidence of the high impact instructional strategies. So, when Jen comes to us at CT and PD days and she's showing us vocabulary strategies and all these other literacy tools, I'm expecting if you're doing anything with text in your class, and you should be doing stuff with text every day, that I'm seeing one of the instructional strategies that you learn that you're implementing it. Okay? And so, and I will be able to give feedback to that teacher based on how that's going and what I'm seeing. Um, and then depending on how things are going and some teachers already reach out to Jen. Hey, like you showed us this during CT time. Hey, could

069you come in and help me plan for this or could you come in and model this for me? That's what her job is and she's a rock star at it. So, I'm really excited because she has developed some amazing relationships with our staff, not just at Bessie, but at the high school. Um, she makes it so comfortable for her to come in and coach it. It doesn't feel like an evaluation. It feels like a support. And that's what you want that relationship to be between a coach and a teacher. So that's super exciting work. The other thing that I'm looking for when I go into all classrooms is that the learning target is posted not just as a visual display, but teachers are also verbally reviewing and engaging students in that throughout the lesson. Because

070what we know about teacher clarity is if students understand what they're doing and what the success criteria is, they're more inclined to be engaged because they know what the end goal is. They know I by the end of class I got to be able to show you this. And that is really important that all teachers are very clear um with what that is for every class. Um another piece just to kind of give you an update in terms of culture and belonging. Just a quick update. Um Carrie's not here. she'll come and visit with you um at some point, probably midy year. Um but I did um ask for just an update and how are we doing with attendance. Um and I have to say like 96.6% attendance rate, that is unbelievable. Our students are

071getting to school and if our students are getting to school and they're doing power hour every day, that makes me super excited because we're going to be able to reach those students. Um because I've been in districts where attendance was down in the 70% and really hard to close gaps when you kids aren't in school, but that is we're just knocking it out of the park there. Um and then you can also see that 93.2% of our students are not at risk for chronic absenteeism. So I mean we Carrie and I talk every week and she updates our SST meeting and we always say what's the update on attendance and truency letters. She hasn't had a lot to report lately which is awesome. But a big shout out to Carrie on this because she is

072proactive with reaching out to families, setting up a meeting if she if attendance seems to be faltering, gets plans in place. Um she really does an amazing job at that um part of her role and to plays many different hats, but that she does a great job of connecting with families and that's why our rate is where it's at. Couple other fun things to um keep in mind. Always trying to find ways to connect our students. our students that maybe are struggling in other areas. And um kudos to Kim Road and some of the new things she's doing this year. She developed this fam jam lunch hour. Um we have students that have you know some struggling family dynamics at home and they don't always relate to with their peers and she's been able to

073identify them and bring them together so that they can be like I'm not alone and there's um been a lot of comfort for our students in that group. The other one that she's been working really hard of, and this is a new idea this year, and it's just been awesome. We have some students, some of our multilingual students that, you know, they're immersed into our culture. They're pushing the boundaries of language acquisition, but, you know, English doesn't always sound right when they come out and they're a little self-conscious and it makes them to be a little bit more on the quiet end in class. She developed this group of some of our ML students with our high school Spanish five kids and she is telling them, hey, like they're learning Spanish, but they feel a

074little funny sometimes when it doesn't count come out well. What if we come together and you guys meet and you play some games and you practice English and Spanish on each other? And it's it's just started. Margot Goff is also a player in this. She's um welcoming these students into her room. Um, and it is a gamecher for our ML students to start, you know, feeling comfortable with not always being perfect with their language. And it's great experience for our older high school kids that they can be leaders, too, and show their vulnerability that, hey, it's not easy learning a different language because I'm trying to learn yours, too. So, just some awesome things that we're really working on in terms of building a sense of belonging at Bessie Allen. So looking ahead, um we'll

075continue to focus our professional development on those universal instruction practices. Everyone's a literacy teacher now at Bessie Allen. So you'll hear us talk a lot about the different tools and stuff that we're bringing to them. Again, I mean, I just happen to be a supporter in the room, but Jen and Cara are really the heavy lifters on pushing that instruction forward. Um Power Hour just started today, so like the jury is out. Um, but I am excited to monitor the effectiveness of that. Um, I blocked off a lot of time in my calendar so I can be in and out of classrooms. Um, teachers are making their goal sheets available to me so that I can just pull a folder and then go meet with kids and here's what your goal you wrote. Like let's

076talk about how you're doing. Um, just to kind of get a level um of involvement from me. Um, I did meet with all of our home rooms um via Google Meet when we launched this just so that they know that I'm 100% on board with this and I'm in their in in the trenches with them and we're all we're all rooting for them to do the best work they possibly can. Um, from an SEAL standpoint, we did complete our next path survey. Um, we didn't quite get through all the data analysis of that. I'll report out to to you on that in the midyear uh meeting. And then I did mention it further. I know John you asked like what are some future needs? We'll know more after that midyear diagnostic as we plan um

077for next year. So I'll be able to share out at that point. Questions for me? I don't have a question, but I do have a comment. I appreciate the fact that you're like noticing the gaps and that we weren't doing the same thing at the elementary level as the middle school and like bringing that continuation in. I know like CKLA, speaking for my kids at FLC, my son did not have CKLA when he was in kindergarten. My daughter did and I can notice a difference in the way that they learned how to read and like their literacy. And I would say that my son is probably more >> he's a stronger academic student than my daughter is, but she learned how to read a lot quicker than he did and did a lot better. And

078I think they're both really interested in the lessons. And I think it's really awesome that that's continuing. >> The future is really exciting. I mean, I know we are just anticipating, but five, six years from now when those kindergarteners get up to middle school, I think we're going to see and totally we're going to have a different conversation because that there won't be the intense need for intervention like there is now, which is great. Um hopefully we're talking more about enrichment opportunities, but yeah. >> Yeah. And just a big shout out to the teachers who are implementing that. I know, you know, last year at the elementary level, they were like, "Well, we're learning this as the kids are learning it." And, you know, as you mentioned before, I think that that's awesome that we

079have. >> Yeah. I'm sure it's a lovehate relationship right now. [laughter] >> He probably wants to like, you know, go after me, but um they're persevering even through the struggles and um they're we're just learning and growing together. >> Thank you for doing that. One question I had is I got hit a couple times with conferences coming right before trick-or-treating the other day >> is and we talked about this a little bit about not doing GPA anymore right now at Bessie Allen. >> So if you could just talk about that thought of where that will end up or they coming back down the line or >> Yep. And so we did remove GPA um from our report card starting this fall. And I know we've had conversations. There was a huge discrepancy between our honor

080roll and what our achievement data is. You don't have 20% of your kids that are proficient in reading and like you know 75% of your kids are on the honor roll. Like that doesn't equate. And so, um, we have to just dive into our grading practices and kind of one of the things I think our teachers do a great job at. They they recognize effort and, you know, time management and all those things, but that is like that's a separate form of feedback than it is the academic grade where you a student can demonstrate their knowledge and skills, right? And so, we have to navigate that. I would anticipate once we are calibrated, we can bring back a GPA and you can be confident if your student got a 3.75 that and their their achievement

081scores are showing that we can be confident that those two are aligned. Um, and you know, one of the things I try to tell parents like K8, that's all skill development leading up into high school when it's credit bearing and you're earning, you know, credits to graduate. I I I I'll say it publicly. I'm not a huge fan of grades at the middle school because I want kids to learn and grow and have the skills successful so that when they get to high school, it's not, oh my gosh, freshman year I'm struggling because I can't read this. Like I want those skills to be all filled in so that they don't have the stresses of that. Um, you know, there's always the talk of standardized grading and things like that. I would love to see

082where we do an academic and an effort grade have two different buckets. I think both are highly valuable. I mean, the conversations that you can have with kids around their effort and their cooperation and time management, those are like those are the skills workers, you know, employers want, you know, for people that own businesses. And I've been a part of districts where they do surveys and ask area employers, what do you want to see? And that's how they develop their life and career skills or college and career readiness grade. I would like to see us as a district start playing in that arena. I know I've talked with Matt. I think that's kind of the next step because then we can actually really get down to an accurate academic grade. [laughter] That was a long

083winded answer. >> No, I think you know people were wondering so I think you explaining it like that helps appreciate it. >> Then just the last thing I say is I really appreciate this and I I like the way this is formatted and the way we're going through this. One thing I would add, kind of building on to what John said, and it's probably too early in the year, but maybe we could add a section if the principles think there's something the board should be doing or could be doing or would help. And I don't want to put you on the spot now time to think about it, but moving forward, if there's action steps that the board can do that you guys would recommend, >> I think you're going to see that mid year

084definitely. So when we start seeing this data come in, Rick, I think there's definitely going to be some uh conversations to say what can we do to make the lift better for everybody. >> Right now we need to see how effective this intervention tool is and once we know that we're going to know what else is needed to, you know, close the gap further. >> All right. All right. >> Did I was I good on time? Yeah, [laughter] just great. >> No, it's it's just so great again as we we talked before and this is so important to get under the hood of the instruction uh and really understand this and our district is going to a data driven cadence now. We're starting to really look at these numbers so that we can best help

085our kids. We have to own our current state but then acknowledge that and what are we doing to best help every single one of our students through that process. Lee, thank you so much. appreciate it. Thank you everybody else. Cara, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um, so it's exciting as Jillian, thank you too as well. Appreciate it. Uh, as Jillian mentioned too, just as we're getting started here and watch out in five years, as Barry Alvarez said to his ticket holders, you better get season ticket season tickets now because before you know it, you're not going to be able to get your hands on it. Uh, all right. Uh the other quick I'm actually just flip to bring our insurance presentation and I know she's been waiting patiently here. Rian is gonna come in

086and share a little bit about where we're at currently and some of the things uh we're looking to do. So >> it gets a little small on the screen. So it's a little small here too. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. My name is Ran Bodri. I'm here from USI Insurance Services. You may recognize the fact that I'm not the usual insurance consultant. Alex had a baby girl uh last Thursday, so he's taken a week or two of paternity leave. So, I'm filling in for him. >> Yes. Um we're going to just go quickly through our um our budget projection and what we call our medical experience report. We have um the projection that shares exactly what if we had no other factors the district would need to budget for um for the upcoming

087year of 2026 for the medical insurance. However, when I'm taking you through this first set of paperwork, what I want you to pay attention to is the fact that we're significantly behind in our fund balance from what happened in 2024 and quite frankly a little bit even before that. We've had some difficult years and so we're going to be recommending a different increase to the budget than what you're going to see on the final projection. So if you take a look at this this first set of papers, what this is is this is what we call our medical experience report and this is for the medical experience period ending September um 30th of 2025. So this is all the claims that have been paid in that time frame and it's comparing the total calendar year

088of 2024. So we look at um the first column here, it's total FIE are fully insured equivalents. So if you had if you took the premium equivalent that the district deposits each month if you will into its medical account they take what the district budgets their 88% along with the 20 or the 12% that the employees participation requirement is they put that together and that's the total FIE or the fully insured equivalent. So for 2024, our net total for all claims paid was 3,473746. Net means it's after stop-loss reimbursements, after prescription drug rebates, after any other kinds of reimbursements, employee deductibles, etc. The net plan costs were 4,55758. That includes all the administration um all of those uh stop-loss premiums, all of that uh kind of expense. So our total fully insured equivalent was 4,164849.

089Um so our net cost against the fully insured equivalents gave us a medical loss ratio of 109.4%. Prescription drugs as a percent of the gross claims were 23.3%. A little bit high. The average these days is about 18 to 22%. So just a smidge high in 2024. You can see as we move to 2025 that's increased. Our net claims per employee per year is $22,74. Um, and we had the average employee count of 153 in 2024. As we move to 2025, this is for nine total months of data. So, we're missing three. Uh, and we're looking at the total fully insured equivalent of 4 million2986. So, we're down. Our net cost is an 85.3% loss ratio. Um, prescription drugs as a percent of gross claims uh is 26.5%. We had a significant increase in the

090cost and utilization patterns for specialty medications over the last year and that has to do with some of our large claimments. Um, so our net claims are down on this piece of paper. What you're going to see when we come to the end is it's up to about $28,000 per employee per year um to 17,330 and we are down our average employee count on the health plan is down to 141 employees. In 2024, our stop-loss deductible, so that is a per belly button on the plan, if you will, stop loss deductible. It was $75,000. Our number the number of claimants that hit um 50% so they were hit um 375 at least were 24 claimments in 2024 and 12 so far in 2025. The total number of claimments that were greater than 50% um of

091the stop-loss were uh was 1,830 uh to $83028 for 2024 and 874570 in 2025. the number of claimments that went over 75,000, five in 2024 to the tune of 398,273 and three in um 2025 year to date at 104,475. So less hits this year um and certainly a lower amount of dollars. Some of that is very much reflective of the things the district did for 2025. We added Garner to increased employee participation with going to high cost lowquality providers. All of um all of those things uh we added a different pharmacy benefit manager and we're moving things in the absolute right direction here. So the next page then just kind of goes through this in a month overmonth way. And just if you take the total along the bottom, our total administration fees for the

09210 months or the nine months, sorry, is 100,325. Miscellaneous fixed costs, these would be um different things such as quite frankly the consulting fees uh are are a big part of that. And then stop loss premium the fixed cost total 721,751 medical claims a million504 prescription drug claims 514,000 prescription drug rebates 76,081 over the stop lossless reimbursements 75,954 claims runout so this was would have been claims from uh 2024 paid in 2025 Five. This total of all claims, total fully insured equivalents, the actual cost, um the fully insured to actual, we're we're running at about an 86.2% loss ratio for 2025. Then we are looking at paid claims. Um, you can look at, if you look at the center here, the little box, this shows you the percent of claims and the dollar amounts for

093all other claims versus those that were 50% to 75% of the specific stop-loss deductible, 75 to 100 and then over 100%. So, just like if you remember the [clears throat] old days of insurance, I've been doing this for close to four decades now. It used to be that we would say 20% of the claimants were 80% of the costs. it really still holds very much true. Doesn't change a whole lot. And then these are some of the conditions that we're seeing as high-cost claimants. And you can see as you look at these, not necessarily worrying so much about what is happening with folks that are high-cost claimants because quite frankly that's what insurance is for. But if we look at how many of the claimants, for example, number two and number three, um the medical

094cost is literally half to a third of the cost of their prescription medications. So um it's the way of the the way of the space now um that we're in is prescription drugs are going to be taking over a significant portion of the healthcare cost. The [snorts] next uh the next page is just a little bit more of a breakdown of uh the number of large claimments and and how that breaks out. So, we've spent enough enough time on that. Then pages five, six, and seven are the same pieces of information, but for 2024. So, as you look at 2024 on page on the bottom of page five, we were running at 108.7% loss ratio. And our total of all of our claims plus our fixed cost was 4,164,849. Uh we had budgeted significantly less

095than that obviously. So, we're we're in the hole about a half a million dollars just in the course of one year. And the plan, as I understand it, has not been in the black um for a while since starting self-unding. So, as we move this further and further behind if we only take an increase to exactly what we need, we're not going to have the right amount in our fund balance to make your auditors happy or to make the district feel like there's not going to come a time when we're going to be taking significantly more money from the general fund than we than we want to be in [snorts] under the under the law. And um the way this works is you you'd be well advised by I think your auditors, by us, eventually

096we want to have a goal of 9 months of claims plus fixed cost in the bank. Um because we've seen how claim cycles can really fluctuate over the course of one to three years. Obviously, we're not going to pick up a million dollars in um one year overnight. It it can't be done. So, what we're what we're taking a look at advising the district to do is as we go through the second set of papers, this is our budget projection. The first page literally explains everything that you need to know about what this calculation is. Um I we shouldn't have let the math teacher go walked us all through this but the reality is um this is an actuarial science and the way the underwriters do it is they give certain weights to the year

097and even if we use two rolling 12 months so we use August of 23 through July of 24 and then August of 24 through July of 25, you've got that bad year that's still at least 6 months of the claim data. And unfortunately, the six months that it is is the last part of the year where everybody's met their deductible. Things are clicking along. I'm having those I'm having those surgeries or at least we're paying for whatever we had done in the summer. As you work your way down, it's saying all we would need, how well the district's managed, how well things have um turned around with the various new partners and vendors that we've established this year, we would have needed a 1.12% rate increase. What we're advising the district to do is to

098take a 10% increase this year. We realize the um impact that that has on both the district and the staff. If we look at this at as um adding basically another $400,000 10% would add 400,000 to the budget. We're at I believe the number was around negative300,000 this year. This will put us 100 to 150,000 to the good. So that's what we're advocating as a start. We'll look to incrementally continue to increase those reserve funds and um and and measure that every month of the upcoming year with when we talk about these new medical experience reports and make sure that we're continuing to trend in the right direction. We do have some u some plan design uh tweaks and and other things that we can share and implement with the district should we need them.

099But at this point, um, we feel just the average rate increase across the state of Wisconsin in our school districts, and we work with 112 of them, has been up roughly 15 to 17%. Um, that's where the Wisconsin Counties Association has been. Their group health trust had an average of 11. Um, the state went up on an average 11. Um, in this area of the state, it's been a little bit more like 14 to 16. So, we're looking at being lower than average, but keeping up with medical inflation and medical trend at that 10%. Any questions or comments? >> Add 10% in there. And we're not changing what we're doing with the employees as far as any of the >> the plans or anything >> design changes or any of that. >> Your employees, I

100will say, have been absolute rock stars at embracing the different cost stabilization um vendor things we put in last year. They've uh they've been terrific with Garner. they're they're using the applications, they're making the changes that are necessary and we're seeing it in the data. So, um we're we're just hoping again claim cycles are about every 3 to 5 years. You've gone through it seems like the difficult one. We're hoping we're on the right trajectory and as if we can be reasonable and prudent through the next couple of years, I think we'll be u making a really some really good progress on getting that increase to the plan reserve balance right where we need it to be. Thank you for having at home. >> All right, I'm going to move on to Mr. Cuadra who's

101jumped in here to talk a little bit about Hall of Fame boards. We we mentioned this a little bit uh a while back, but uh just want to come back to it and share an update of what's happening. So, Matt, the floor is yours. Awesome. >> I'll just pass this around. Um, take a look at some designs we've had drawn up. >> Um, so one of the things meeting with a bunch of coaches and a lot of different people in the community, um, one thing kept coming up was our record boards. um recognizing our student athletes and making sure they're up to date and they're easily seen. Um so this is the draft that we've kind of gone with. There are some tweaks with like on that girls track and field you can see some

102missing spots. Um so we are still working with them. They took pictures and um updated what we currently have. Um these are actually slides as well. So as a record is broken, they can be slid out, a new one's put in. Um, and so we can kind of keep up with that as we're going. Um, [clears throat] right now we the only records that we currently have are the ones that are in our gym. So that's why it's only reflecting so many sports. Um, we want to try to collect more data and try to find all that stuff um to get everyone recognized at some point. Um, these um, as well, if you look at the powerlifting one, it looks like you can't put any more people on that. It's the last one on there.

103Um, I'm having them adjust it so we can keep adding state qualifiers. That's a state qualifying board. Um, so we can keep adding those to it. So, um, the goal is to make sure we can access them really easy, update them, um, as soon as someone does break a record. Um, the turnaround time is about two weeks to get one of these plaques put in, so the student athletes that are breaking the records can be recognized. Um, and they're pretty decent size. Um, they're aluminum, so they last as well. So, another thing we're talking about is does the track and field go out by the track and field? Do we let them be utilized out there? Kind of seeing that. So, we're getting some feedback from coaches and athletes. Where do they want to be

104seen and represented? Um, in the gym as you walk in, the bleachers are off to your right, the big ones. There's all those banners right up on top. And talking with multiple people, those are sponsors of the past. um they're not all donating to us anymore. Either we didn't keep that connection open or what happened. Um so we want to make sure that we're going to actually take those down, put these record boards there. So these can be seen, easily seen. Um if you look at the record boards that are out there, they're tucked away and hard to be seen. Um but with that, the people that are currently donating to us, we are going to get a banner put out there by our concession stands. um more visible areas all around. Uh with talking

105with Oriental Nation, we figured that would be the best option. We instead of just housing them in one spot in the gym, get them out to our concession stands. So that is our record boards. Um and on top of that, I've been working with our Hall of Fame. If you had a chance to go in the school, it's up and running. Um and if you actually click in there now, you can go in there and actually look at all the records and go through that. see the conference champs, the conference champs banners are in there. Um, all the different record, even if they're not on here, there's maybe some other ones that are a longer tally. We have them all in there. Um, so it's easy to be seen, um, accessible and we've got some

106really good feedback on that Hall of Fame. So, yeah, questions about I'd also say that this creates more consistency in the gym. We get different styles of them right now, too. And so the consistency and matching and mirroring that's I think a very important thing just for look and aesthetic as well. >> Sorry Katie for interrupting you. >> No. Is this a new logo and I've been like >> yeah seen it everywhere. >> Yes. Um so that is a logo that when we hand out actually an athletic letter that is the logo that we use. >> This is an old logo. >> It's an older logo that we're kind of >> retroating retro. Um, and I really like the idea of keeping that with our activities because if that's the physical letter we're handing out

107is that logo, >> kind of branding it that way as well. >> That makes sense. >> Um, talking to people, just kind of getting a new brand out there and everything along those lines. Just >> um, and I like the style. >> Yeah, I haven't seen it. >> Yeah. If you were to put the events that happened out here >> at [laughter] that like where where would they go? And then my other question is would we include all our sports? You know what I mean? We don't have girls boy soccer. We don't have >> I I [clears throat] don't know where it ends. You know what I mean? Like what what's included? >> Yep. So the idea would be basically the ones that can compete at a state level. So the boys and girls soccer,

108we would have to collect those stats. The really big issue with elbow football, there's no records to be found anywhere. Um, and then the football platform and even the soccer platform that they were putting all their stats in just got bought out by another company and erased all the stats. So, we can't even go back right now and try to find it. So, we're digging trying to reach out to different community members that might have those from past. Um, yeah, the goal is to hopefully this is the first >> batch of those and then we're trying to work on the back end of we want to recognize all the sports. And John, were you asking like out by the stadium? >> Yeah, I mean that would make sense to me that like our track would

109be out there, our outside sports that use that facility would >> um and that's one thing that we kind of have to pick out where we want this to be seen and go um I if we can make it work underneath the bleach is kind of an area where I'd like it stay out of the weather. Um they could be high enough up kids can't play with them. um if you went to one of the youth nights or anything like that, there's a lot of them over there. So, keeping that in mind um with them. So, that would be the kind of thought process of when we go over there. Now, we got this measured out, we know where we want to put them. How does this actually all look >> at the end there?

110>> Yeah, I think they look great. >> Awesome. I know if you I hope it shows up a little better, but the the oral head is in the background of the I just don't know if you can't see it. And yeah, it's supposed to be a little >> It's like a watermark on the back side. You can just see it in the middle. >> So, I'm hoping that when they actually print the boards, they're going to be stand out a little bit more. Um, that's one thing we're playing around with trying to >> He's ensuring me that it will stand out more. Um, but >> and you said the conference like banners that we have, championship banners, those are staying. >> The conference championship banners will stay. Yep. Those got to be updated. I got

111to get a couple more numbers up there. I know boy soccer wasn't updated last year. >> Um but those should be updated now in the digital hall of fame. >> Okay, cool. For currency there, >> not changing it too much here, but um football team last week they had the extra game. I did email you to ask about that, but >> yeah, it was really exciting. Um we uh principal Harov, myself, and another coach actually got to go and work the chain game for that game. So, we got to go on the sidelines and we were the away team, so we played at a neutral site. Um, we played in Mustin. They're two hours away, so we found a site that was an hour away. Um, played at 4:30. Um, played it like it was

112a varsity game, and the kids really responded well, and it was really encouraging to see when we that team only had the same numbers we had, and we played a very competitive game. And um talking to both coaches afterwards, there's like this is what we need to continue to build our programs. Um good games like this um competitive um fun. No one would really um if you watch the Packer game, anything like that too much during the time or anything. So, um it was really cool to see the kids excited and like um the buzz in the school the next day. Did you guys actually win? Did you guys actually win? That's amazing. So cool. And I gotta give a lot of credit to Matt and just going out and extending and finding that next

113game too because to give our kids another opportunity, another experience and then obviously coach Jabara and everyone else just encouraging those kids to continue to play and and uh getting it done uh last week. So it was great for the squad and for the future too for that, >> right? [clears throat] You know, something that common sense, but I'm sure you're looking at that concept with the non-conference game. Yes. As well, right? other schools out there. >> We got two new new conference games next year. We're not playing the same non-conference games. So, um we work really hard at finding the right fits for us. >> That's great. >> Yeah. Um just highlighting some other sports as we talked about it. Soccer. Um got the first playoff win and they're saying it's first ever. I

114went back for the records as far as I could find and I couldn't find a win other than a forfeit we received a couple years back. But it's really exciting that things are going the right direction there. Um we're looking at some other options to help continue that team grow in the right direction, but they're doing some good things. Um volleyball, they ended their conference uh year with a win against another conference opponent. Um so that was really cool that the motivation. Um they're they're starting to strum it all together. Um who else? Cross country. We saw some really good uh times uh some PRs happening at a tough course. Um so it seems like everything's going that right direction of what we're trying to preach and trying to get um talking just about all

115sports in general. Um I started a student leadership committee and they we got to meet last um two weeks ago I want to say and I just let them have the floor since it's the first one ever um what they wanted to talk about and I was just shocked with how much they had to say and in a good way of like they really these people were nominated from whoever in our uh schools and then selected off that but they just had so much they wanted to get off their chest of we need to do this. this is the way we do it and when it just opened my eyes that these kids really care and really really want to be good but they all said we just have a losing mindset and I challenge

116them to hey how can we change that and what can we do so in this next month they're working on talking to the other students of why do you think that way why does this go on and we're going to kind of approach that topic next meeting um but one thing we want to do is bring in a minds set leadership uh coach and have anyone that wants to attend, not even athletics, just anyone um come in and listen to that because there's some pretty cool things that they can have. >> After the Dodger series, I'm connecting with Lucas Jaden and try to get him back down too for our kids and Steve Jones like because that's if you're going to get he so he's Dave Roberts's like coach 101. So, he's busy right now

117a little bit with the World Series, but uh he I talked to him prior to the series and we just discussed like how can we continue to help and that's one of those things and those areas and he does such a good job with students too, not just adults of really connecting and as a coach himself too. It just makes a lot of sense as well. So, >> they're really they were really excited for that. So, um we call ourselves the flight crew. So there'll [laughter] be some different things you'll start to be seeing some apparel for just those students that got nominated. Um but they're starting to take off. >> But these are the things that are happening under hood in activities and athletics, right? And not to mention like our speed and strength

118and all the stuff that's going on the weight room. There's just a lot of good stuff that's happening. And if we can keep that up with fidelity, just like the learning as well and watch out just as they all went because they were clocking in tonight. She said it's going to be a little bit, but we sold a lot there. >> All right, [laughter] sweet. >> Yeah, just keep continuing opportunities. >> I just want to just thank you. I know it's been feels like you've been here forever. Uh, but it's been three months and just the amount of effort that you put in, but you also put effort that gets result. I think that's pretty cool. And I you can see the kids really bought into it and just I mean it's just a completely

119different feel. So, just thank you. >> Yeah, it's really um I'll say it's kind of corny, but I kept talking to the kids about this mindset and we just are just starting to say to each other and starting to catch on a little bit, but it's cool to care. >> Um, and that was one thing is like the kids that cared were bogged down by the kids that didn't care. Um, so we just kept talking about it's cool to care and now kids will randomly stop in the hallway and say, "It's cool to care." Like, absolutely, it's cool to care. Um, so >> sounds like you need a shirt that says >> it's cool. >> It's coming. It's coming. >> I'm a shirt, guys. We'll find a way to get that in here somehow. >>

120Market that baby, >> right? Yeah. >> Well, Matt, thank you so much. And uh >> Yeah, >> I have one question. Cross country with the co-op ending with Oakfield. >> Are we going to have enough to field our own cross country team in the future, you think? And what's >> The numbers are definitely right on that border. Um, now we could always feel a cross country team like I'm not >> biggest win score. Yeah, >> correct. Yeah, that's >> sport that's near and dear to my heart. >> Yes. So, the kids, >> um, trying to find ways to increase those numbers and what we can do is going to be something that we're going to work for. Um, we're doing our end of the, uh, season um, meetings here in the next week and that's

121one thing that's how we going to continue to improve those. Was there Shield's idea to cut it? >> Um, it so co-ops are something I'm learning a lot about and how they work and everything. Um, but the conference has to agree to it. >> Yep. And in the transition they took a vote. >> Mhm. >> Cuz before we got them to stop it. Um, and now with the transition they voted it down. So, it's always something that can be brought back to the table and discussed. Awesome. >> All right. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. >> Absolutely. >> I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on the North BLAC early literacy plan, the remediation plan. We talked about this. It's already part of our policy. We just have to have something in and on

122our website as part of act 20. Um, I don't know if you have any questions about this or this was even included for you, but we already established the policy in terms of like if students don't make that cut. It's not like they're going to be held back from where they're at. We're creating those plans. This is what Lauren's been talking about again and again. It's all a process. We're there with the student. We're not just throwing them to the wayside. We're really trying to figure out how to help them out. But this lays all that out in a nutshell on a a few different pages and how we analyze that, what we're doing, um the assessments that we're using and where things are at that you've heard time and time again. But the this

123has to be laid out and put on our website as every other school district has within the act 20 bill um to make part of it. Any questions specifically to this? >> Okay. All right. Fair enough. Uh that brings I think we are all done with my report. So on to new business. >> Excellent. All right. [clears throat] Well, we we have two items for new business. So the first is to consider approval of the early literacy plan that uh Dr. Mino had shared with us before and just went over getting that on our online site. So look for a motion uh to approve that early lit literacy plan. Yes. Hawk >> yes. >> Killings. >> Yes. recommended. >> Yes. >> Um our next item, Ria, did you want to share anything on this before

124it's for the consider approval of the budget budget amendment and tax levy? >> No. Um just if there are any questions. I did put notes next to your document that just outlined um the changes. There really aren't any surprises. I would say the biggest surprises are or the biggest surprise was that the vouchers actually increased. Um I thought I had built enough in there to cover the vouch vouchers but they actually came in even higher than what we thought. >> We know how many kids that is. >> We don't they will not release that. Yeah, we would like them to so that we can just, you know, double check and because we do for open enrollment and there's always kids that are caught that we have to adjust. So, >> I just side note to

125that too. I mean, I know we've been saying for how many years like would it be nice to show transparency in our tax bill? I met with Nick Leonard uh just a week or two ago and just said, "Hey, how would we go about doing this? Can we do this from the village level?" um and he wasn't even aware that that was happening. So, uh it was kind of insightful for him to just know that that much of our um taxes were going to that. Uh but what we need to do is go to the county. The county is that agent that actually controls the tax bill. So, I'm going to work with Matt Steinbart too from Fondelac and then um also Nick Leonard and a couple other people from the village to see how

126we can move that along and uh change it for the future. just so again transparency and you know of what is actually out there so people can actually acknowledge like what that is. So just a side >> it's going to try it'll be interesting to see how it goes. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Ricky can help me too. [laughter] >> I don't think my people. So what you have in front of you, those last two columns of that document just show what was proposed at the annual meeting versus um what is being amended tonight. So we just need approval of the amendments. Okay. >> Um and then the final levy amount which we had a lot of discussion on last meeting about bringing that mill rate up to $7.55. Um so that's down at the bottom

127in the last column. Okay, >> right there, Maria. >> Yes, darker highlighted. >> And I know this was all in our packet, so I don't I'll leave it if there are any other questions. Otherwise, I'll look for a motion to consider the approval of the budget amendment and tax levy called out in the document. >> I'll make the motion. >> I'll second then roll when we're ready. >> User. Okay. Gillings. >> Yes. German, >> yes. >> M, yes. Huck, >> yes. >> All right. [snorts] Uh, our next item is to go to close session. So, look for a motion to go to close session at 7:40 p.m. >> That's correct. Your last vote. >> Yeah. Shout out to Maria uh puts her for all her time, dedication to the district. This is the last time

128uh she gets to do this with us at this point in time unless we consult her out and come back in. But she's always welcome. She's always an oral and we so appreciate everything she's done for the district for the last what how many years now? 14. >> 14. Awesome. So, thank you so much. >> November meeting. >> Yes. >> Well, we'll see [laughter] >> if I can sit back there. >> Yeah, absolutely. You're all welcome. >> Yeah. So, it's been it's been an amazing journey. It's I I have absolutely no regrets. I um I was glad to start my career here and end my career here. So, >> I'm not going anywhere though for seven weeks. So, >> sure. >> Um, I'll be around and I'll be around after too to help where I

129can. But thank you everybody. It's a great board to work for and a great superintendent to work for as well. So, >> wonderful district. >> We're lucky to have you. >> So, all right. Uh, we will look for a motion to move to close session. >> I will make the motion. >> Second. >> Okay. >> [clears throat] >> Yes. Yes. >> Yes. All right. We are now and going to be going into close session.