NPSD Board of Education Meeting - 2/23/26

001Good evening and welcome to the February 23rd, 2026 regular board meeting of the North Board of Education. Will you please join me in the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisibley andice for all is here here. >> Yes, it has. Thank you. That being said, I just need to entertain a motion to approve the agenda. >> I'll make a motion to approve the second. That motion has been made and second. All in favor, please say I. All right, we're gonna start with a presentation. >> I just want to mention that uh we're grateful Stuart took time to come up here. something some of the board we we used to do this every year and then got to a point of where little less

002frequency but we think we haven't done it. Tara and I brought to finance into the committees like we think it was a good time that all board members and our community builds trust. I know in the news you'll see certain districts are struggling with their some of their financials um especially Milwaukee right now. So, we just want to make sure we continue to build our trust with our community and and you as board to know what we're doing. And um the good thing for us, we've had a long relationship and um really have been very fortunate. Um the only other thing I'll want to say before Stuart goes is uh when I say relationship, it isn't that they just come and do the audit. That's a major component, but Tara reaches out to Stuart for

003questions, advice, how how to do things. So, we're very grateful for the ongoing, not just when they come as an auditor. So, just wanted to pass along. I'll turn it over to Stuart. >> Well, thank you. Um, can I just say used to come here in August? It's a bit different here. >> I'm only so it's not that different, but it's enough different. Um, so I'm Stuart Randall. I'm a manager with CLA. Um, and I'm here to discuss the results of the uh audit for the year ended June 30th, 2025. So this past summer and the previous school year and it's usually around this time when school district audits are wrapping up. DPI has a regulatory deadline of December 15th for issuance of the financial audit. There is a second component which is the single

004audit which is the grant internal control compliance audit that this year there was at the national level a little bit of delay in that and that usually the federal government releases a guide of telling us how they want us to audit things and that came out a bit later than usual. comes out in May, came out in November this year. So, a lot of school districts had that second component issued late. We were able to issue the district's single audit at the same time as the financial audit. So, that's essentially the two different aspects of our audit that I want to go over um for tonight. So, as the agenda says, we have the financial audit results. We have a couple of financial highlights because I'm an accountant. Can't help but talk a little bit

005about numbers. We have the single audit and a couple things just to take into for the 2526 school year and beyond. So, if we could go to the next page, kind of went through this a little bit in my introduction, but within all of our we we issue a lot of paperwork audit. We issue the full financial statements which have an opinion. We assess the district's internal controls over the financial operations. We have that single audit opinion which is the grant internal controls. And then there's also a governance control letter. The first three, if you have the PDF open, it's in the giant 70 page document. And then the final governance communication is about 10 pages long. Fully acknowledge most of you probably did not curl up with it at night and read it. It

006is a bit dry and you're talking to the guy that prepared it. Next slide, please. So the big thing is the results of the financial audit. So the first thing to note is that the financial statement audit opinion is modified. That is the best highest level of opinion that we can give. Essentially, what that means is that the financial results within the financial statements accurately reflect the financial position of Norman School District as of and for the year ended June 30th, 2025. So that means that we were able to come in, perform our audit and say yes, these numbers reflect the financial position of the district. That is no small feat that not every single district can get that without significant effort. And comation the district Tara Scott and the entire administrative um department business

007office within the district here. So that being said, second aspect of what we do is we assess the internal controls and in most regards everything was working perfectly fine. Um there is one thing that I I will say about 95% of districts in the state will have and that is just an internal control deficiency related to the preparation of these financial statements. Technically, it's responsibility of the district to prepare them. No district prepares them. If they do, it's about three or four in the state. And they're all a little crazy. If I'm being honest, it's not a worthwhile investment of time and effort on a district to prepare something that is technical. And when their time is much better used, making sure that you and management have quality information on the day-to-day basis. We're the

008experts. we can come and we can assist with the preparation of that. So other than that, we didn't have any internal control deficiencies, no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies, other big significant deficiencies on the financial a through um to some of the financial items. No, sorry. What was different? So every year they come out with new rules in terms of the accounting rules in terms of you know people think government is the same from one year to the next but there are always some differences. So in terms of the new accounting rules that just change some of the reporting mechanisms and this is to essentially help people that want to take their 2024 financial statements put them next year 2025 and see what's different and the big difference was related to compensated absences. What are

009compensated absences? They are essentially accumulated time off your employees or whether it's sick leave, vacation, PTO, whatever you want to bucket that off as paid time off. Doesn't change your policies. It just changes how it gets reflected within this statement. And the big change was previously the liability reflected for these time off um this time off was focused only on time off that would be paid out upon separation. The standards change to say they want us to include a factor for time off that will be used as time off. And so with that reevaluation that was done and this this comes down from the governmental accounting standards bureau which essentially sets the accounting rules for all governments. So whether you're north school district county river the town of XYZ if you're issuing gap financial statements

010for a government you're following these rules. So every single government did this reevaluation. We did this reevaluation here. We put a little liability on the post to reflect the accumulated time off for some of your benefits. Nothing significant. It doesn't affect your day-to-day operations. It doesn't affect how things are reported on 10 or 27 or 50. just reflected in this little book. And so that is one of the things that is different from last year to this year. This year being 125. The other thing just in terms of your own internal operations and this is a big thing for a lot of districts was this was the last year that you had your esser funding. You had about $10,000 worth of expenditures related to ESSER. And so now we can pretty much say there's no

011more CO reflected in your district's financials. A lot of districts there was a little bit that was left over for 6325. Like I said, $10,000, not much more. And finally, I'm sure a lot of you are happy, but this was the first full year without your referendum debt in here. So, that changed things with your um that service funds a little bit. There's a lot less activity. Any questions on that? If not, this is a graph essentially showing we're in the number This is essentially what your revenues and expenses have been each year for the last five years for your fund 10 and fund 27 combined your general fund. And you can see the top line is your revenues, your bottom line is your expenditures. And essentially the highlight of that essentially says you have

012been consistently under your revenues for your expenditures. Meaning that you have been building your fund balance which is a good thing. you've been conservative with your budgeting and your planning and that is not what every single government, every single district can do and so you have been able to keep ahead of the curve in terms of what your operations are. You don't necessarily have to make immediate big cuts from budgeting perspective. However, that doesn't make things always easy at the budget level. The next graph essentially is a comparison of what your current year expenditures are against your unreserved fund balance. This essentially indicates how long you can operate on your reserves throughout a year before you might run out of money. Essentially, if the state doesn't pay any of your aid or you don't pay

013your property taxes, 55% is a very healthy reserve. Now, having healthy reserves doesn't balance next year's budget, but it makes it simpler in that you don't have you're not starting in the whole you don't you're not starting at a 10% expenditure ratio when meaning that you have to build up your reserves to a healthy level. Most districts try to keep in that 20 to 25% ratio which is what that's kind of what the industry recommends. You're well above that. Now what's also a bit unique with North School District is your revenue structure. You don't get general a you are in a very high property value area meaning you have different factors than most other school districts come in from a revenue perspective slightly different factors means a slightly different financial situation. So just because like

014I said you have those reserves doesn't make your day-to-day jobs easier. focus continues to be on building that balanced budget to make sure that your revenues at least match it if not exceed like you've done in the past the high level numbers I know not everyone likes numbers so went through that kind of quick >> I just want to point out for new and current or people have been here for a while remember you also are unique in that you go to operate referendum every three years so that healthy number in the third year of the referendum Tar and I built a budget that may it should the way we built it have to dip into that fund balance knowing that we didn't we we wanted to make sure the taxpayers we were not sitting

015on the taxpayers's money completely. We want to make sure we don't borrow have to pay for borrowing money and also know that third year typically in our referendum cycles are we build a negative budget that is going to go into there. So it is healthy, but it's also knowing that third year of the referendum usually dipping into that. So I I just want to make sure that we understand that it's not like we have all this extra money and we're going to be well in our three to five year planning. We look at this of how do we get to that next referendum and how do we keep it either at or hopefully someday be able to hold it or dip it. But um you know just want to make sure the full story is

016that third year of the referendum makes a difference for us and our uniqueness as well. >> And and what this reserve allows you to do because because of your need to operate six months of the of your school year, your fiscal year before your primary financing mechanism receives the property taxes. Your first payment of property taxes you'll receive in early January and you just received the second one in midFebruary. you essentially have to from a cash flow perspective finance six months half your year of operations from reserves. A lot of districts uh resort to short-term borrowing to make payroll to make dispersements. You don't do that. And so you're saving the headache of calling the bank. You're saving the headache of paying the interest. You're saving the headache of worrying about the cash flow perspective

017by having these reserves as well. >> And we used to do that. >> Yep. Uh so So next we're going to talk about the grant compliance audit which is collocally referred to as the single audit. Now, every single entity that receives over $750,000 of federal awards, if they spend that within the fiscal year, this secondary single audit triggers and we live in state Wisconsin, the state also says DPI says let's tack on a state compliance audit as well. And so, your district along with a lot of other districts greatly exceed this every year. And so, we have this additional internal control and compliance. The difference between those two, and I keep saying those two words, so I better explain them, is compliance is making sure that you're doing the grant in accordance with the grant

018rules. You're spending the money correctly. You are filing reports correctly. Only the eligible people are receiving the grant activities. The internal controls are your internal procedures and processes to make sure that you stay in compliance. is someone reviewing the reports, the eligibility determinations, the allowability of the expenditures. And so if we have a compliance issue, we have an internal control issue because something went wrong as internal control issue. If we have an internal control issue, that doesn't necessarily mean a compliance thing. It could just be documentation thing, could be you got lucky, could be there's mitigating controls within there, but federal grant rules require that every single grant be administered with adequate controls. And so we need to test that. And so while we had an unmodified opinion on a single audit, we didn't have

019any material weaknesses or compliances, we did have two internal control deficiencies um related to the child nutrition cluster, which is the reduced lunch program. Essentially, it comes down to that no one person should be doing the entire process without documentation of review. That's what we found. You file monthly reports to DPI saying these are the number of meals served. There was not documentation to say that someone other than the preparer has reviewed it for errors and mistakes. And so all that needs to happen, I believe Tara has already implemented this is service director prepares the report, goes to Tara, she reviews, she signs off. The key is the documentation to say someone has double check that these numbers are correct. Same with the eligibility determination. Your students, your parents, they fill out the form, someone

020determines whether they qualify for free and reduce. Someone double checks that determination before it goes into the system and they start receiving the benefit. That was the two significant deficiencies that we when testing child nutrition cluster. It's been a bit of an adventure this year with school districts because like I said this was essentially the last year of Esser and for the last four years we've been doing nothing but COVID grant testing and so we have essentially gone back to some of the regular routine of testing title ones and ideas and child nutrition clusters and it has been generally interesting across the board to see yeah some of these internal control documentations have slipped because we have not the auditors haven't had to test And so I'm fully expecting to see as these grants get

021tested again for the first time three or four years to see some of these findings get widespread across the um and a lot of districts. So none of these findings are too unusual. Um but I will pause if anyone wants to ask any questions. If not we'll continue on to the future. And so of course for county we have to have our lingo and essentially this is our way of saying we can support you the district in a lot of specific ways or a lot of general ways let's get to the specific ways which first one they talk about new accounting policies and so next slide for 626 there is a new accounting standard we get lucky with our 1231 year which are counties and municipalities another year we have to deal with this but

022school districts. Gazby 103 is going to be in effect for 63026. Now with school districts, it's going to have a minimum effect. It's essentially clarifies the definition of what is unusual or infrequent and then it changes the presentation of the budgetary schedule in the back of the book. Nothing too significant. We are we will help Terra implement this. We're not worried about school districts and counties will be a bit more pain but that's not And then the next thing I just want to talk about, you know, briefly is cyber security. Everything is involved with computers. The risks of something going wrong, whether it's ransomware, a hack, whatever, you don't want to go down that route. And so we are here to support the district. If they want an assessment, if they want additional testing, anything

023in this regards, we have a robust cyber team that works a lot with various So they know the challenges that entities are dealing with and we just want to make sure that the district is protected and so if there's any concerns whatsoever, please reach out to myself, John Troutman, who's the principal on the engagement. Um we can connect you with our team and see if any assessments or if there's any concerns. Not saying that we found any, we just know that, you know, just like you did an audit of your financial statements, not might not be a bad idea either. That's essentially my feel about the audit. Um questions, feedback, if not uh the next slide has the contact information for myself and like I said, John Tman, who is the principal on the engagement?

024Um as Scott has said, it's not just the one time right now that you have the chance to questions. If you have concerns, if you have questions anytime throughout the year, give us a call. more than happy to hear from any of you. >> Stuart, I can't speak for behalf of everybody here, but thank you for presenting to us. You've realized or now made me realize my day job is okay. >> Hey, I come to River. >> I was going to add that thank you for explaining things in a way that the lay person that is not always good with numbers and those words that we don't understand always in concept. Thank you for for your thorough presentation. >> Yeah. And thanks for letting me present. And uh there's anything else? >> I just want

025to point out Tara is at the federal funding conference in the Dell. So she's an exciting things with grants and numbers. Those of you that have attended know how exciting that conference is. So um if you think this was we got the better end of the deal than we had the federal fuzzy conference. So >> where's the water slice? >> Yeah. I dodged that one. >> Yeah. But thank you so much. And like I said, it is a relationship something that um and I'm glad that you think this is healthy and good for the board to consider on a on a rotational basis. Thank you. Thank you. >> Miss you'll be back. So our next item actually um at this time I will make a motion to acknowledge receipt of the audit and financial statements

026for the period ending June 30th 2025. >> Motion has been made and seconded. Any other discussion? Not hearing any. All in favor please say I. Motion carries at this time. Do we have anyone that wishes to speak this evening participation? We do not. We'll move on to the board communications. >> Um there is something at your table. Um this is a change. So annually and I don't I don't know who's been with me. It's been a few years since we sent anybody because it's always been at Medford. So Medford traditionally hosts the legislative dinner which is a dinner and then usually some districts share out on some key topics in education and then a actually pretty big amount of legislators from a very large area show up and then give their feedback maybe even ask

027for some feedback. Um unfortunately has been in Medford so it's a two plus hour drive one way you know get done 910 and drive back and we got to go to work in the next day. So um There is a new superintendent as of last year Medford and she put it out there if anybody would like to take it over. She would have been happy to give up the tradition to somebody else and um Casey Ny down at um DC ever said for a little bit for a few years maybe u but he's also changing the format a little bit too in a good way. So um it is Monday April 20th. It's a pink taff sheet that you're you don't have to tell us today but you're interested um I certainly would go. I

028plan on going. Um, with the new format, I think it'll be healthy um to learn and get feedback from a wide range of legislators. Um, it's a little bit shorter drive. Thankfully, it's an easier drive to go to to Scoffield or Weston um and go. So, if you're interested, if you for sure want to go, let us know right away and we'll they haven't requested RSVP yet. There's a dinner with it. Um, it's in you typically the auditorium type setting and then there's people on the board. Um, we've talked and brainstormed last Friday of how We might make changes in Casey's working on that right now. So, but u I think it's would be worth your time to go. It's shorter. It's guaranteed 5:30 versus sometimes it went pretty late in the past. So just

029wanted to put that in board communication that it's a great option and obviously you're busy people and I understand that >> any board member receive any communication that they would like to share with any other state that our minutes of all of our committee meetings are in the board packet. Are there any questions that any board member has for any of the committee members which they don't serve? All right, I'm hearing we'll move on to our consent agenda. Is there any item that any board member would like to remove from the consent agenda? Acknowledging that we can still discuss any hearing. I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll make a motion to approve all items containing the consent agenda. >> Second motion has been made and second. Is there any other discussion?

030>> Just reminder, there's a large batch of 34.1 of new policies. Those have been looked at twice already. So, it is the second time you've had to review it. Policy reviewed again. Finance reviewed some of them last month as well. So, just wanted to point that out that this will get done and then um we have a few specific ones and then there'll be one more batch probably before the end of school year that we start working on as well besides a couple individual ones. They we want to do one more batch so Mr. Dufek is ready for taking them on next year and doing them in this chair. So, Susie and I and maybe we'll talk later in the agenda but maybe by then we'll have Susie's replacement as well. So, be a chance

031Sus and you as a board to look some over. But there are a couple we just got a notification right before we came up. There's a couple that the we have to hit some deadlines with the state that we'll bring up and also future discussion. The next one in March will be cell phones and devices and things like that also. >> Any other question or discussion on any item in the consent agenda? Not hearing any. All in favor, please say I. Any oppos will be the achievement gap reduction report to the board regarding St. J and River Elementary Schools. I'll start off talking then I'll hand the mic to so first off just a reminder about achievement gap reduction AGR it's federal funds that we receive because we have uh reach a certain threshold of

032poverty within our schools so schools that reach a certain threshold of poverty they get federal funding and they can use those funds in three different ways we can use it so the first document there lists basically an overview of ADR I'll just kind of summarize that um but three different ways. One is a smaller class size. So small class size is 18 students to one teacher ratio or less. It can be used for instructional coaching or it can be used one for one ting. So those are the three different ways that it can be used. Uh and then in your board packet you also have the three charts for each of the elementary schools St. Germaine Lakes and for Eagle River. We don't don't have one for monastery because we don't receive AG funds for

033Monas Learning Center. Um, but what we have to do is we have to report to the board. A part of AGR requirements is that we report to you by the end of February. A midyear review of our goals. So, we create goals for the end of the year. We report to you by midFebruary what those goals were and how our track is, if we're on track to reach those goals or not. And then we report to you at the end of the school year about that data as well too. So, I'll explain St. Germaine first and then if Carrie and want to add anything about theirs, they can as well too. So, as you can see on far left, we got our grade level. the columns on those charts. Then the assessment, whether it's math

034or literacy that's being assessed. The third column is the AGR strategy. So what strategy we are using each of the classrooms and then baseline data um for each grade level in each subject area, math and literacy. That's the data that we collected from students with basic math literacy scores in the the fall and September. And then we created the goal, which is the next one. And then winter score is the update on our progress towards the goal because we just gave the assessments in January. Um also just reminder that this year we used as web data. So it's kind of comparing apples to oranges compared to last school year because last past years we used star assessment but then with act 20 we were required to use as web for literacy starting last year and

035then it just made for sense for us to use as web for math and literacy starting this year. Um for students through fourth grade. So this is the first year we used Ames web for math and literacy. So it's not the same data, not comparing the same data to the star last year. Um so then I'll just share maybe like the celebrations and what we're working on at St. Germaine. So in some of the celebrations I'd say that you know the areas that we had in the fall that were the lowest showed the greatest growth. So for example, kindergarten math went from 46 proficient uh proficient to 62%. First grade to 72% and in third grade 50% to 62%. So the areas that we scored the lowest in the fall also showed the greatest growth

036which is good to see because that's how we had to close the gap. Um other things to celebrate overall the scores were pretty good in the winter but area of growth are not where we want to be to be honest. I mean we would like that this obviously be about more in the 80s or 90%. Um the good scores are good but not as good as we would like to see. So that's why we use this data for things that we can do to improve upon in the future. So one of the doing at St. Germaine. Last spring, we looked at our data and over the summer and into this fall, we developed a literacy improvement plan for St. Germaine Elementary School. There's a variety of things that we're doing this year. Uh some of

037the things I won't go into great detail about all of it, but some of the things we're doing instructional coaching with season 9. So, all of our schools have some instructional coaching. We've also implemented our teachers 4K through second grade. We're all trained in Ulop, which is literacy intervention that they're using small groups. We also implemented a win time which we're going to use us as well too. It's a what I need time but we put uh interventionists instructional care and teachers all together working together in one classroom at a time. We're doing that first through fourth grade and all those kids are working in small groups on what they need. Some kids as enrichment some retaching some kids interventions. So those are just a couple of the examples of things that we've implemented this

038year part of that plan. There's more to it. I can definitely share with all of you example how we take the data from these assessments and use it as well too. So any questions about AGR or St. Germaine otherwise I'll bring >> I just have one quick question. These are all percentages. >> Yeah. >> And without creating a whole bunch of work for somebody, is there is there a way to look at this in student numbers? So there's 18 students and x amount are doing uh on target approach and minimal. >> How many students rather than percentages? >> Yeah, we we could we can we can provide that for you. >> Okay. At some point it'd be easier for me to read it that way >> rather than the percentages. >> We don't have to

039be careful if the class are too small. So you that I say we don't do it for the full school for the full board meetings public session percentage wise especially land if you have eight kids in a class and then you can start to identify kids share something with you >> it's just maybe it's just me but I could I can mentally kind of understand a little better >> the numbers to the same point like the percentages in small schools fluctuate quite a bit one way or the other because of that class size of eight. You know, two kids a big percentage compared to class size of questions. >> Okay. For Eagle River Elementary School, um for our celebrations and most of the content areas, all of those proficiency scores are increasing from fall to

040winter and all of the content areas um the percentages of students that are scoring in the minimal range. So when we're looking at students that are scoring below the 25th percentile, all of those numbers decreased. That means that um the our it reflects the strong movement of of our most at risk learners in those areas. Um the school has worked um to strengthen the MLSS process. Um we do have the groups like St. does as well and that's that what I need groups um as well as using um stronger processes for data driven instruction and our collaborative team meetings that we have with the professional learning communities um we're strongly focusing on those core foundational skills. Um when we look at areas of growth um we're focusing on kindergarten math and third grade literacy those

041two areas have been identified as areas of growth that out of our data chat process that we run um each trimester. So when we did our winter scores um Brooke and I met with the teacher teams and talked through um the the scores and and where students are falling and what skill groups um students need. And so kindergarten was um primarily focused on reading for what I need groups for the win groups where other areas were focusing on both ELA and math. And so also decided to make a shift. Um so they're running those skill groups um during their math small group instruction as well. Um and then also we identified for third grade literacy um that group has a higher level of need. So we took our title staff um to push in during

042the win time. So we do have more supports in that area to support those students to hopefully increase that proficiency rate um at a greater at a greater rate. Our growth is not as high as we would like to see at this point. >> Are there any questions? >> The lights. The only thing I think I would add a couple of these um kindergartens great example of a very small class that's not listed on there is six students and K is six students. So together they're 12 but then the data fluctuates significant that there's one student you know that doesn't we have a student for example that didn't attend 4K that can make a significant impact. So I would expect over the years and even our kid that's not on here of the small group

043about 70% of them have summer birthdays which means a lot school if you just barely qualify. So that'll be interesting to kind of watch those patterns over time. Um but the other thing is it's a great celebration and I would just um tag team off of what both and Tony said that a significant impact I feel like in our building is our instructional and the time that they spend with kids doing very intentional work when there's kids that are either struggling or the other side of things working ahead. Their time is very purposeful. not walking around just kind of checking worksheets or making sure kids are doing when you walk in the classroom during literacy and math. They are targeted kind of working with students all the time. The other thing that I think is

044always a celebration for Linda Lakes is our title one teacher and she spends oneon-one meetings every morning she's in with one of the three teachers here talking specifically about what are you doing? What are you going to do next? Is it working? Is it not working? What are you teaching? And a significant difference always. She's a phenomenal teacher and she doesn't you don't have an opportunity to not be successful. So she she does a phenomenal job and there's always room for growth because even though it you know I highlightly say 100% are on target. What that's reflecting is 100% are above the 40th percentile which isn't it's good but also having a middle school in the building know that order continue that success rate. We really need to get them stronger than middle school and

045beyond becomes incredibly challenging and we see lots of information. I like the idea. Well, thank you all so much for your hard work and information. Anybody have any other questions? All right. Next is our update on our board goals. >> Yeah. So, traditionally, um, ever since we created the dynamic of having annual goals, um, the board approving them, um, we've always done a February and typically July. um this year we might move it to June of a wrapup. But I also want to thank Sue for helping compile this data and supporting me and as we go through this. Also, I will look to the whole administrative team because unfortunately I was unable to attend our latest district continuous improvement team due to some things going on in our district with students that our whole high

046school team and I focused on that day. So, but I do want to start with the academic goals and and kind of we use a lot of numbers and these are kids with lives and lots of things going on. So, as much as tonight we're also about numbers, I want to give kudos to our staff. Um, as Carrie mentioned, um, every staff makes a difference in these academics. It's our professionals, our teachers, our building administrator assistants, all the people that make sure our students are able to be successful and be at school. So, with that being said, As you look at our fall data for um ELA, English language arts, um that's the first box. You can see um in certain areas we're progressing and that's probably where we should be. We did increase by

0474.7% star reading. Um some things have been implemented to get our middle schoolers a little more engaged with the STAR process. So I think that's helping. It doesn't Sometimes that's when you'll get data. You got to remember when a student cares and tries the data is probably going to get better out of the gates but also I think we're getting better reflection on what how hard our teachers and our students are working and the support our parents give their kids or encouragement. Um so I would say there are some definations there. Um remember with these assessments the proficiencies levels continue to rise. This isn't like a snapshot. Did they pass the questions today? I'm going to get the same questions and again next time. Expectations continue to rise throughout the year. So, as Carrie mentioned,

048this is as the year goes on, we have to keep them growing. That's why we hear that word grow so much. It's proficiency is important, but if we don't keep them on a positive growth track, love learning, love to read, love to do math, and also then work hard, we don't get where we want to go in the time they're graduates. And then the next one, you notice under fall for math, we do have an asterk there. um we hadn't administered the math yet for the younger kids. So us transitioning and doing that from fall to winter all of a sudden you're going to see an increase if they go ahead soon. >> It was actually transitioning fall from SCAR last year to in fall >> right but the testing yes thank you the them

049just taking it the second time you're going to about because they've seen it before. How they've taken it um I think is a we want to be transparent that you know we didn't have this huge it's all on the back of our teachers and we made these huge growth. We saw good growth because of our teachers but also know there's some testing pieces to that. I just want to be we always try to be transparent and and honest with you what we're seeing and look at our data but also kudos to our math department. We're seeing some nice growth there. Um if we go into I mentioned the DCI team. This is um something that we would like to bring to you in March and possibly have some district two district improvement team members come

050and speak. I know you'd much rather listen to them than me. So, but want to just highlight our um attendance. If our students aren't here, we're not able to help them grow. Um so, u you can see three commitments. Our district continuous improvement team has really been working hard to get this into a long range plan, not just a snapshot. What are we doing this year to make attendance better? It's been a really good process. It takes hard work. Uh really proud of the administrative team and the staff team that's part of this process. We highlighted the year because we know that it's going to be a multi-year process. What we're creating needs to be implemented, tried, adjusted, and then see the results. The other thing I want to point out, our trimester not end

051of March 5th. So, we don't have trimester 2 data to share with you at this point. I think we'll tie that into our presentation in March with DCIT. Um, would any of the administrators like to comment on DCIT and the work being done in attendance since you are really been the leadership of it and also been there to be part of the process more than myself unfortunately. whatever you're doing. It looks like the elementary schools are doing at least current multi-year really excited to see. >> All right. Then the next goal was in North Pines review and implement strategies retain employees to consideration of paying benefits. Um that ironically is kind of the start this month. We we've done administrative contracts based on state statute. will be doing certified staff this month and next month.

052That's on your agenda tonight. It's just first review. Um some things you've done also is one, we've looked at different ways of doing health insurance. That's also going to be ongoing. You're going to hear more about that at the board meeting. Nothing we're asking to vote on, but just kind of that educational process. We've been exploring options to keep high quality service for a price that will help the board and our taxpayers. Also, we did approve a school calendar with consideration of how staff could be do their best job meeting the needs of our students. Um, the next goal was community survey. Um this is something that we originally and I I highlighted it and put April or May because originally I thought we'd do it around December but um with the way things are

053working the amount of other things going on um Tony and I discussed and just felt best to bring the survey for you um and have discussion around it later in the spring as you start leading into Tony's change of change of our position. So you will get that. Um, we also asked that you ask that all of our departments have a five-year budget at finance committee last this month. We did go over everybody's five-year budget. Tara and I have been using those to make decisions and bring things to you as a board and finance committee. So, they are important. They're there for this three to five year planning that others in the district have done, including our fund 46, which you approved last month, changing the plan. And then also the last one is how

054do we proactively continue to improve our district? I think we've always tried to have a longer period of time thinking not just in the moment. You saw the budgetary stuff tonight that goes hand in hand. How can we help our students and staff if we're not looking ahead and one of those is coming up. We know declining enrollment almost every district in the state is suffering from declining enrollment. Um if you if you watch local news or state news, you see a lot of emphasis on budget and challenges schools are facing. So on March 6th here at CISA, this is a workshop being put on by a different CISA, but they're bringing to CISA 9 to save us travel. Mater Tony and myself and possibly another board member or administrative member will go to that

055and kind of work on one learning some strategies and techniques and also start creating that plan which then back to the board committees and be shared the information we learned at that meeting. So we'll keep you in the loop on that but that's something we're signed up and ready to go and um a lot of districts are signed up because this is some big challenges ahead. Bless you. >> So just wanted to keep you up to date. Any questions about any of our goals or any data shared? This is kind of the snapshot. It's good for us just like the principles do with the student data to look at these. What can we be doing? booking changes um also coming up on some of the goals with staff. You have handbook work is coming up

056that's also takes place in April May. So we're a lot of things in those later goals come these coming next couple months. that we haven't been trying to meet staff needs, but >> yeah, I had a question um regarding the um the goal around attendance. When you look at the numbers, obviously I really appreciate that this is just one year snap or one trimester snapshot. And I understand that we need to, you know, look at a few years to get a real cycle and a real trend, but when you look at just trimester one, you see so middle school, sore high school have they're the outliers, right, with our attendance rate. So I'm wondering is there to capture some data like generally speaking without uh you know can you look at the population that's coming

057into the middle high schools what is their general um attendance rate coming in is it higher or lower and then what change at middle high school >> Har and I just had this conversation so it's perfect timing because we talking like that tells me one thing but to your exact point like are these schools making a difference are they hindrance are they helpful what is the you know pattern. So, >> so I mean Carrie can speak too but um yeah we were just talking about this that um and that's a number that we can put in this um in the future to say like well what's their attendance rate coming in and you know have we improved that at all. I can tell you anecdotally that's a reason a lot of students come to sore

058high school is we've identified some kind of like whether it's whether it's culture whether it's academics and I'm avoiding school for some reason. So then we um that becomes the conversation around sore high school the the academic model with being largely and I've talked about this a lot with it being largely self-paced and independent learning that academic model is um much more um forgiving for students that um miss a lot whether it be medical or family or or other things. Um I was also like the snapshot you have tonight for sore high school um you know with it not being the second trimester snapshot. I was really excited that you know in second trimester we did see a lot of growth. So we're you know excited that we were starting to see some turnaround for

059for some kids because some of them is like I've developed some habits and then we're you know trying to change that over the course of the year. So I don't know if Carrie has other things to add for her but um >> I don't know that I could say it better than you other than I would agree that um I would agree there's there's certainly a students and families that choose sore in more recent years as um the other option isn't working. I need help. Uh can I try something different? And sometimes absolutely attendance is one of the things that they've developed patterns of I have a stomach ache. I'm going to stay home. It's okay. I don't need to be there. Um that are it's kind of like monumental work to try to overcome.

060So um yes and yes. looking at that data specifically, I think would be really helpful just to see Arlin and I were just we were talking about a student last week in particular that it was like, well, it's not great yet, but holy cow, is there celebration because it's better than it was. And so, yes, I think there's more of >> the other thing that happens in trimester 2, it's very much, and we've seen it in our staff and our students, unfortunately, about two months illness rate. So I get a weekly our school nurse track illness rates and you can see go through schools last Friday we were short multiple staff in both these two buildings and the if you look at the data for students it would make sense and then Tara did actually

061add on this tracking log now our staff numbers for illness and we're it mirrors so what school is being hit the highest for students is also mirroring it for staff. So, we'll keep an eye on that. That's, you know, what can we do? I know we've tried we our custodial staff does a great job with cleaning and disinfecting and but we've also done some targeted things when we see these waves come through and it seems to linger. I think that's a known thing in the world right now. These colds and these and respiratory things just been a lingering thing this year with students and staff. Unfortunately, that's what we hear from our medical when they come back from their appointments. >> I just have one follow question still around attendance. Is the say it's 95%.

062Is that a daily average? Is that every day average like 95% of the kids are here? That's 95% of the students. the attendance like if you look at a whole week and student one student misses one day they would they would have 80% attendance for that week. If you look at it across all students in the school, it's how many how much they are here. So each student averaged out >> students have attended 95% of the school allotted days in this year. We debated this heavily, Erica, if you came to the original DC what to actually use as a number, but we went closer to what the report card would go with because that's where a public sees. So, we've kind of settled on it. We debated lots of information. We've also debated how accurate

063um at our inservice last week we met was our admin assistants because consistency and coding can change your attendance rates really quick. So we didn't have them do it because we wanted to hey we'll fix this we'll just code it differently. That's not what we did. What we found was when you have this many buildings to code things the same. It's just human nature. We have some new admin assistants. We have some veterans. we have it the way it's been done versus the way one admin not even admin assistant but admin give directions. So we're trying to get better a team agenda tomorrow is a followup to that of what our admin assistants told us. So um just making sure we're reporting accurately and getting them in the building when they're healthy and safe. And

064then when they do take on learning outside of the building, what do we code that as? If they're off learning, does that count as their attendance? So just some of the things that you got to take it sometimes with a grain of salt, but this is something we know. Our teachers are telling us they have concerns. We have concerns. So that's why it is a targeting role. >> And I'll also add in regards to numbers because they have the smaller enrollment numbers. One or two students that are having significant attendance problems will significantly overall school rate. So that's also Okay, now my mind is flying all over the place. But so if what what accounts for a student to attend? Is that half a day, 3/4 of a day? They just got to show up

065when attendance is taken or >> it's divided out by their class. At the high school level, it's by their attendance period. So our students are taking attendance for, you know, their five regular periods plus home room plus um at the end of the day. So, it's in segments. So, a high school student, you can get a lot more granular with that versus like an elementary student. Correct me if I'm wrong, elementary principles, but it's an AM and a PM attendance. >> Okay. But then when we look at the sore schools in that case, because they're learning with a different method, attendance is exactly the same. >> Yeah. But it doesn't necessarily reflect uh their percentage of efficiency, does it? Are you saying because they may leave school but still continue with learning outside? >> Yes,

066because they're doing it at at more of a self pace. So, does their attendance really affect that at all or >> correct? And I shared with the charter governance board last week that um in a certain grade level that I have um my students that are labeled as chronically absent are actually my highest achieving because they're super motivated when they're outside of school to continue working. So sometimes that number works to predict success in school and sometimes it doesn't. >> And that's what I So when it comes to sore, we really don't want to get hung up on that as far I mean we want the attendance obviously. >> Okay. >> And we want that number for much more than just academic success too. It's good for them socially and everything else too. So we

067want it to be better >> um even if they are you know getting high school credit. >> Sure. Sure. But then we want them challenged too during that time. >> All right. Thanks. Any other questions? Thank you for the information and data and discussion. Our next item on the agenda is the approval of the purchase of the camera door security items. Do we want >> we did make the motion to move this to the full board finance. So, I will go ahead and make the motion to approve the purchase and installation of cameras, door controllers, building entry ins from Heartland Business Systems for an amount not to exceed $455,2166 noting that this will come out of the 2026 2027 fiscal year budget. >> Motion has made second and will give us information on Yeah. So,

068this is uh this has been a project that's been on our radar with myself, Scott, Tara, um and now Tony for quite a while. Um got some feedback from finance um and then we went out to bid. Basically, the um the reason for kind of pushing this along is that um our door controllers, so every door that somebody opens with a fob in the district is end of life. I can't buy a new one and have it talk on the same system anymore. So, basically, that's pushing us to say, um, we at least need to replace the door controllers, but in this world of, you know, door access and cameras and intercoms to get in the building, you want all of those things to be on the same system and talk to each other. Um,

069and it's, you know, super helpful for principles, admins when you go to look at, you know, who scanned on a door, who tried to scan in on a door, that you can match that with a camera and have that act. So, it makes a lot of sense to have these things all function together. Um, so it was either spend a bunch of money on door controllers that we have to replace or look at the larger piece of, you know, all of our cameras, all of our door entry and our intercoms that come into our buildings and should we look at the larger project to do it all together so it's all updated and all on the same system. So, um, I worked with the building principles to put a bid together, got their feedback on

070different locations and things of what they were looking for so that if we were moving cameras or putting in new cameras that they had the views and things that they were looking for. Um, so we put it out to bid to replace all of the cameras in all of our buildings, all of the door access controllers and all of the intercoms at the entrances to the building where you push the button and then you can talk to the secretary and then they can let you in. So, um, put that out. We got two bid responses. Um, one from H Heartland Business Systems who we u work with very frequently, the other from Quantum Technologies. have not been uh familiar with before, but uh did a really nice job with their walkthrough and their um bid.

071I did note in finance that it's pretty frequent if you get two bids from on the same product from two different vendors and the way technology works now um one vendor has probably been given preferential pricing on that due to their size. So in this case, Hartland has a higher level with the ricotta solution that they proposed. So they're always going to have the best price on that. Um unless the other vendor chose to fit some other product. So um they all both of them bit a product called Vata for cameras, doors, and intercoms. Um that's a cloud-based system which is quite a bit different than what we have right now. Right now every single camera is connected back to our server room and everything there on a huge storage device in our server room.

072This is all cloud-based um with some on-site storage where there's storage at each individual camera, but then it's also backed up in the cloud as well. Um since it's cloud-based, number one, I don't have to do anything special for vase county dispatch or anything to access those cameras or if anybody from sheriff's department were ever need to review film or anything like that. It's much easier for me to give them access on any device. Um, also Chromebooks. A good example of this is a couple weeks ago when Mr. Tilly was supervising the musical, he said I heard him say something like, "Well, I can't check that right now because I'm sitting out here at the musical. I have my Chromebook. I can't check cameras right now." Well, with this system, he would be because it's

073web- based. So, um, lots of us admin that use the Chromebook as our kind of walking around device would be a lot easier to check cameras. We can also do that from home without doing any special VPN work or anything like that. Um, it also eliminates the need to have that large scale uh storage that's in our server room. So, you know, in the past five years, we've put around $30,000 into that storage and every time that you add cameras, you have to add more storage. So, that eliminates the need to do that since the storage is locally on each camera. It just makes it a lot easier to scale if we ever need to. I use an example like to finance if we need to add cameras in the future because you say this

074is a big need for us we need to go in this place we wouldn't need to add storage because um that's the way it scales the storage would be at the camera um you know when I got these references back um I did reference checks back uh with the Walkshaw school district who has ricotta cameras as well as Manitto uh usually when I do reference check I try to look at schools that do more complex things in us to say like, okay, if they're doing it really well, they really like it, they have more to do than what we do, that it's u it would be easier for us to manage as a district, and all those reference checks came back um really good. Um couple other things I'll add on this. All of the

075hardware comes with a 10-year warranty. So, as long as we don't add a bunch more cameras for the next 10 years, we won't have to put money into cameras that fail or even the the door controllers, the um intercom stuff that the secretaries use. We wouldn't have to put more money into that. Um but then we also get just some different search capabilities. Um there's some AI type tools built into it where you can search for certain things happening within the buildings. You know, person wearing this type of clothing and it will bring up all the use. It just makes a admin or somebody who's looking through the cameras makes their job a little bit easier and more efficient to do that. Um, you know, other districts, this is kind of happening all over as

076different districts in the state of Wisconsin do this. They're starting to go with the same product. So, you know, Three Lakes has got a build going on right now. Uh, they went with Ricotta with their um new construction that they're doing. Rhyander has rata cameras and um, like I said, walk Those are larger districts that use them as well. Um, so I guess that's the generalized. I won't spend too long on that, but if there's other questions on specifics on this, I'd be more than happy to go through it. >> Is it still fob based or does your smartphone now become your fob? >> It will work with our current fobs. It can do the phones. I guess my strategy going into this is I'm going to make it work exactly like it works right

077now first and then start going into those things because there are um so like all of the fobs that we have right now, the sheriff's department department fobs, those will continue to work. Um they have some different cards that we can use that we could print people like we could print a photo on the card and they could use that or they can use their phone. So we'll scale into that as we're ready. >> We were at a school some people that had been using don't work anymore from your department. So >> if you can search like terms to find footage, does it also have alerts and like risky incidents like >> uh so you can set uh for sure I don't know about like fights. Uh you can definitely set like people of interest,

078you know. So as principles every year we get people like that may need to get permission from us as principles to be in the building and it's always kind of like well if there's a huge basketball game how am I going to know? You can set that face. It has facial recognition. So you could set that to be and it would alert you and it would bring up the camera view that that alert went with. >> Do we have any idea on It's all complete. What What support would cost us in the event of that being needed? >> So, the support is included in the um the contract that you're purchasing >> for the for how long? >> So, the the the warranty is 10 years. The support or the um the licensing that we're

079purchasing is for five years. >> And like so that's the support that comes directly from Vicata. We'd also be supported by Hartland if there was something higher level that we needed for that and we'd pay asis for that. But the feedback that I'm getting from everybody on rata is it kind of takes hartland out of the equation a lot and we would be able to do most of that ourselves internally because we have the support for >> and then would you talk also about what you had told us at finance about being able to do buildings kind of two or four like starting with lakes. >> Yeah. So, um, because it does scale, you know, we can scale each building. Um, and you know, Scott can talk probably more about how this needs to work

080from a board and a budget standpoint. So, we budgeted for this in the 26 27 school year, but um, Hartland, if they get the bid and they we approve it, they probably would like to if they can do pieces of this prior to July 1, um, just from a scheduling standpoint. So, we they come to you in May or June if Hartland has the capability and we can get the equipment to say okay they can complete Land of Lakes and St. in June and then we would have to pay that and we'd have to come and get the approval to pay in the in this school year's budget. But that would help us just timewise because we're in a crunch to get everything done, especially Eagle River Elementary, prior to summer school or at least

081mostly done prior to that. And I did it was in the bid that August 14th, which is the week before new teachers are here for mid- service, that's when we want it done by. So that's the target date. So to Har's point, your motion on the table is to prove it all money out of next year. Um if in some years we've had the conversation, maybe some things came in less than we thought. You know, we didn't fill some positions for staffing for some reason. Um you know, we didn't have subs unfortunately, so our sub budgets under spent or you know, Dave and Harland maybe didn't get to a project or the equipment didn't come or something. if they do work in a different fiscal year, then you really need to pay for it. It's

082part of the accounting that you learned about. So, if that would happen, Tara and I, and we have not done this for quite a few years. We've always stayed within our budgets in a in a way that we haven't had to do a budget amendment. If Terry and I and we would be talking through this in finance if we feel from a time in logistics and financial that's a big asterisk we could come back to you do a budget amendment we have to post that meeting a little different we would do a budget amendment and then you would vote on that the amendment and then also the dollars but know that you've already approved those dollars but it would be very transparent to our community and to you as a board that's a possibility I

083just want to share Because in a tech standpoint, a summer school standpoint, and just realistic, our buildings are used, especially these two, almost all summer, we want to manage our resources wisely. So, if any of that's possible, um, maybe we would do that. But I just wanted to foreshadow, not guarantee it's going to happen, but I didn't want to surprise you in May or June and say, "Oh, by the way, let's pay for the cameras, some of them now." It would be based on logistics and how our budget's doing in the next three months. >> Proactive questions or discussion on purchase of the cameras and door controllers. >> This does help make our administrative assistance job easier at the door. >> So that easy from the use mechanical. it they were very happy with it

084because right now they have to pick up you ring the buzzer they have to pick up the phone sometimes in the high school office they're trying to put calls on hold pick it up like it's they're very good at what they do so they can do this but um it's a challenge for them so we're taking the phones out of the equation for them they'll have what amounts to an iPad there where they can see the person on the camera talk to them but also let them in directly from that device this will be the same at the wellness center too they'll also able to do that where you just take the whole phone out of so they could literally be talking on the phone and then let somebody in on the iPad at the

085same time. So it kind of makes their lives a little bit easier. >> Saying as administrators can help their assistance in all the buildings. >> Yeah. All the buildings. >> Well clearly from a safety standpoint the idea also is improved. >> Yes. Yeah. I don't put anybody on hold if I manage the desk. No, in general with cameras and the technology and the door locks and everything working together and access for the sheriff's department and all of those things clearly with safety is our highest priority. All right, any other questions or comments or discussion? All right, all in favor please say I. >> I. Any opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. All right. Our next item is our update on the hiring process for the administrative assistant to district administrator and board of education. >> Yeah,

086this is no action and um through our personnel committee and and just talking to some of the board members here tonight. Um this is a unique position and that this person Susie works for you and us as administrators. So, um, for people in the audience, as Susie's retiring on June 30th, um, her position does um is the admin assistant to district administrator, actually helps the business manager, helps the director of buildings and grounds. So, a key part of the office, but also does respond and is assistant to the seven members of the school board, including all the legalities of postings and all the other aspects, including communication and things that happen for this board. Um, and also over the time Sus has also done some HR and some other things in her role of being

087here for 120 years. Just kidding. Um, for 30 um, but we thought Tony and I discussing this, we thought um, normally we don't just bring positions to you to discuss, but um, personnel felt comfortable with who we hire would be somebody you'd want to work with. Otherwise, why would Tony hire them? So um in the district office will be engaged in the process um those that work closely with this person but we just wanted to make sure you as a seven member board had a chance to say um there are some changes with this coming both responsibilities um those have flowed and changed over my whole years they changed and float Susie could tell you prior to that but you know uh some things with graphics and other things that we need now more than

088ever would be part of that um Sus is currently a salary employee. This we're moving this to an hourly employee. Um that's something that was talked about and and decided as a board and as a administrative team. So there's just some of these changes that will also take place in this transition. But this is for you and the seven river board and Tony's here obviously as well to um answer questions and create the vision and in the process. We would like to post this tomorrow and start the process. Couple key factors. This came out of the schoolboard convention and also as you're currently as you look at your board docs. I don't want to scare you, but that program is going away. There's a similar program, same company. So, our documents will all transfer over

089to the new one. This platform has run its course for being able to update, make changes. You'd probably shake your head when Susie and I are in there. Doesn't even have spell check in it. It doesn't have some simple features. That's what they're not any more resources on coding this product and switching all the districts who have it or any new customers for a long time now have to use the new software part of it. So this new person, they figure three months. We would like to, if it's an external, get them in for at least two months to kind of go through two full cycles of committee meetings, board meetings, learn the new product, learn from Susie, some of the other pieces of the job, work with Megan over at enrollment, you know, work

090with Mary Lady, all the components of people she would probably interact with over a given year. Um, so that's why we'd like to hire this sooner or later. If it's internal, it's a little easier to peace meal it and then really focus on some of the components and then have to replace that person. But that's why we'd like to post it sooner than later. I don't know, Tony, if I missed anything in that short. >> No, I mean, you pretty much said it, but the start date will be April 26 rather than May 1st. Like Scott said, we just want to make sure they get the person gets two cycles rather than just recommended the 26 for that person to get insurance in May, which if you're coming on board, Most likely you're transitioning from

091one position to another that has benefits. So if you come on that week, you get benefits in May. That's Terra's recommendation. >> Will technically be the 27th of the post? >> So we'll post this um ads in our local papers. We post it on Facebook, social media. Um, and then we do boost that with ads and money. And then we also put it in we can is where they can apply. They contacted us if they're going to be in this position. It is a highly skilled position. They need to be able to post their stuff. They need to be able to use We can. It's a it's not that complicated and it is something of skills that would be related to the position. Um, the other places um we have put things in deed. That

092would be another option. can put it in there. But those have typically this typically doesn't draw people from a long distance. Usually it's somebody Rylander Monaco here waters me kind of the circle that we typically see our candidates from. It's typically more of a local. Not many people would move solely for this position. Maybe if their spouse was coming for a different position, maybe we get a candidate that way. But >> thank you for the information. important we talked about our personel to give everybody opportunity everything exciting things moving forward all next would be administrative reports is there any principal or director supervisor that wants to share anything um or highlight anything other than what's in their reports Dr. Marine put in his report about the building trades but also musical and I just want

093to give a shout out to our entire music community for just an amazing show. Um, so many hours, especially those costumes with Mrs. CL. Um, just unbelievable. And I'm not biased because I have a character, but it is an unbelievable show and so much hard work and just um staff and community and volunteers and musicers and parents and the kids and just an unbelievable presentation. And then >> I just want to shout out if you don't I know the board reads them all but um community members these are in board docs public view. If you really want to get a pulse of what goes on in our district these are I think not only the newsletters of quality but really more important is the stories and the information in there. So kudos the newsletters this

094the administrative assistants and the admin network on these do a fantastic job. Um, I know Mrs. Roadie in particular uh kind of has started a newer one. Um, if you haven't had a chance to check hers out, that one really I think we talk about staff morale showing staff how to one what goes on with part of their job. I just another one um that's been shared out that I think it's a great addition to our district in addition to the great job that the principles have been doing as well. >> We'll move on. Oh, thank you principles by the way. Um, >> I did read it, >> by the way, just so just so you don't think I wasted your time. >> Um, all right. So, a district administrator's report article from the last.

095>> Yeah. Kind of ironically, this is how fluid everything's changing rapidly. So, I told Susie or asked Susie to put these in here um beginning of the month, and it's been a kind of daily update with last week, everything coming to a head. Madison. Um there's a lot of debate on how to fund still what they Let's back up. Remember, we're in the first year of a two-year budget cycle. What they committed to was their big spend was going to be in special education to schools. However, what it came out is what was supposed to be 42% is somewhere we're guessing around 35% reimbursement. So, we're still 7% off of what was promised. Um, also what also has happened is the estimated budget they went in with, they thought they were going to be short

096money and need a budget deficit. They actually are exceeding revenues and they're the large surplus that they didn't choose to spend in the budget is now even a bigger surplus. So, not only did they not spend it, they're getting they're growing it faster than they know. So, or they knew they were going to and this came directly from somebody on the joint finance last Friday. Um, so when I put this on here, there's a lot of conversation. There was a big debate between the um the the Assembly and the Senate on whether they should give the money in taxpayer relief or give you income tax relief or both or and or give some to schools. Uh so in the end, the compromise within the two houses because we live in divided government in Wisconsin by

097party. um the governor's office, the two houses are typically the two houses in agreement. They were not in agreement until like the last hour of the night that they finally came together and agreed to something. Um and what they said was kind of a compromise of all those things. Um then the governor, it sits in the governor's hands. Um so what we're waiting right now is if the governor's going to sign it to give us more money in special ed and the forms of tax relief that the the two assembly and the senate came to agreement on the details are still very sketchy. We don't have all the details. So, it's still a wait and see. I was hoping by today maybe we get some new story or some feedback today and I can give

098you a complete update. But this is fluid. Keep your eyes on it. Soon as I know something, I'll share out with the board and our finance ter and I very much closely work on this. Our associations um always keep us up to date and also we watch the news on that. So, kind of keep that in mind. Um, with those things going on, couple other things that are not on my report tonight, but something that's really important. Just a reminder um that you were asked by email, so sometimes you get behind on those. I know we send you quite a few of those, but um some of you have seniors. If you have a senior, you can ignore the smart. Those you have not um if you would like to participate in the capstone senior

099capstone presentation which is I think one of the highlights of the year um that's on Tuesday March 17th from 4 to 6 p.m. So if you don't have a senior and want to do that Amanda Tibble did email you. You should let her know that you are interested in doing that and we'd love to have you. If you've never done it before, it's really a great night. You sit in a room and listen to around six to eight kids. >> Five or six. Thank you. Um how many and the seniors. It's really a depth reflection. It's really impressive. If you haven't done it, I highly recommend it. I think it says a lot about our staff, you as a board that set these kids up for these opportunities. Um, I'm really proud of our seniors

100because I think a lot of them really go in depth of what they have to share. So, some of you have done this as a parent already and some of you done as a board member, but Amanda needs to know because they have to schedule all these rooms and then solicit other community members if you haven't done so. I was asked one time, I think the first year they did it when Molly was a senior, and someone asked me, well, why are they making the kids do that as a graduation department? And I think my answer was, no matter what you do in life, whether you're in work force or you're in school, you're in tech school, you have to learn how to present yourself and speak. And I think it's just one way that

101we're adding that to our students, preparing them for life to say, hey, whatever you're doing, and it can change, but this is your time to um to make a presentation and learn about public speaking. Um, so usually it's a parent and community member and a teacher. So, so it's very definitely very worthwhile. >> I agree. And I think as a board member, it's one of those um nights that kind of just like are a highlight of the year. You have graduation, you have scholarship night, capstone presentation, the musical as always, and of course the financial ait that we hear tonight, but you know, honestly, that is a real highlight. Um, just getting able to hear those captionations. Um, I wanted to apologize. I just added into your administrative reports. I forgot to add Sue McKay's

102teaching and learning communication report. So, I just did add that. Paul mentioned that it does I know you all didn't read these but I just added it now so when you get a chance please take a look at that sorry about that my mistake >> so 4K um that this team here has had two weeks of hard work and putting together getting for some of our families the first time we have a chance to engage them there's some tears sometimes um a big step. It's your first one or maybe your last one coming to 4K. I talked to a parent that was pretty emotional that their last one was coming to 4K as well. So, it can be either end of the spectrum. Um, but just want to give you a quick update because as

103we talked about declining enrollment this evening and one of our goals, um, Eager River Elementary had 32 um, in there. We have some some of these numbers include some interd district transfers that we have not approved yet. Those typically get approved later before the school year gets out. Um, and this was only first day of or first time through. We do do a second day in April and other families can sign up any time, but this is usually our biggest push. So, Eagle River Elementary had 32, Lando had three. Um, seven at the Monastery Learning Center, remember, they're capped at 12 and they have much more than five wanting to come in. The seven are siblings that are guaranteed spots and agreed to sign up again. And it sounds like they all have. So, we

104have a lottery. When is do you remember when the lottery is? >> March 3rd. Thank you. And then St. Germaine had 15. However, some of those are also um applied at Monasuro Learning Center. Just waiting to know if they get in. So, we we still have some shuffling to go and then those in district transfers to kind of figure those out. But thanks to the team that worked really hard. If you saw any pictures, super job. Eagle Elementary had a really great setup. and then out the old nine buildings. They kind of move forward with that as well. But kudos to the the fun interaction for maybe for a lot of families first time that chance to be with our staff in our building. So, thank you to everybody for that. Um, we if you

105heard noises, we do have basketball. So, done with me. If you'd love to see North Pines boys basketball play early, they're in there tonight. Their tournament season, we just found out yesterday our first playoff game is March 3rd and we got a high enough seed to host the first game. So, that's good. Unfortunately, our girls did not get a high enough seed to host and they're in Altuna tonight. Don't talk to me about the BIA playoffs. I'll go up to a rant and you want to go home tonight. So, we won't talk about that. And if you thought the USA hockey stuff was great over the Olympics, check out the North Pines Eagles. Um our girls had a big um um they were lower seed but they or higher seed but they beat um a

106large co-op last week so that was a huge win. We're really proud of them. They are going to play the Storm tomorrow night at 5:00 in Wasa. Um we do like that rank as a location but um they are very excited. They feel they have a great chance. It was a very close game the two times we played them this year. So we'll play the Wasa Storm tomorrow night at five. And the boys are in their second game. They beat Rylander last week for their first round game as well. We had two wins on Thursday night. Now we have both of us playing. We are home. Um, tomorrow night we host Lakeland and the winner plays on Saturday at the dome to go to state no matter who it is because sectionals is location isn't

107who's playing. So sectional finals um you have to put in for that. So AJ put in for that hoping maybe we would get there have a little home ice advantage. So, we're excited to host that and um the team will be helping AJ host that next Saturday when we're it's really a lot more front working if it's the North Pines Eagles on the ring. So, we're hoping to do that. So, just some great things going on and athletics um as we kind of hard to believe, but if you look outside, spring sports are going to come Sunday. Um baseball games in April and different things already. indoor track meets coming and so lots of things happening as we kind of celebrate close up the musical and some of the others and then the eighth grade

108play practice if you came in they were already practicing and that's coming up in March as well so we'll get you a reminder of that date and time and another great performance a lot of the actors you saw at the musical start their theater their their career in the theater and that eighth grade play so it's a great place to check them out and they do a great job that concludes my report Okay. And I see that you just put some revenue limit school funding property tax information in there too. >> Yeah. Um Tony and I did go to Land of Lakes last week on Wednesday, I think that was and uh talked to the town of Land of Lakes. I've been to New Bowl just having some good conversation about taxes. They're facing the

109same revenue limits as you as a board. That's a theme. Um, if you saw the articles in the paper talking about how the county also and the cities are facing those same challenges and how do we work with our legislators to realize that a lot of our expenses and costs are really hitting home and getting harder to keep up with inflation. So, um, we had a great conversation lake. So, it was great to be there place I spent, you know, five years and a lot of names and faces are still the same. So, got to see some people I haven't connected with in a while and it was a nice night to be up there and that concluded my township tour at this point unless somebody reaches out. No, I take that back. We're going

110to the city of Eagle River this spring. We want they want to wait till spring. So, we will one more to go the city of Eagle River and then we'll have made our tour of the places that wanted us to come. >> All right. Well, that concludes business of our regular meeting. Thank you all for being here. At this time, I will make a motion to go into close session. I will make a motion to convene in close session pursuance to statutes 19.85 subsection 1 and C to discuss certified staff contracts and compensation for 2627 and to discuss administrative staff compensation for 2526 as related to evaluations and performance. Is that correct? And I will do a roll call. I need a second for a second. Roll call. >> Yes. >> Pay yes. Yes.