001the two. Now the mics are live. Thank you. Thank you for not capturing the two. And then he says and I say it again just in case they missed it. They missed it. And Doug, you can hear us. Okay. That would be a negative. Doug, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yep, we're good to go. Just making sure. All right. All right. It is 6 o'clock. I will call Monday, April 28th, regular board meeting to order. Roll call, please. Nelly Shy, here. Doug Kuchko here. Lori Zuckerbach here. Don Kusky, here. Andrew Coupe, Phil Hinkle here, Kevin Jensen here, Miriam Vabra here, and Bert Richard here. And Randy, was a proper notice given for this meeting? Yes. Please be advised that public notice of this meeting as required by
002sections 19.84 and 65.90 of the Wisconsin statutes has been properly given. Such notice consisted of a notice and agenda to the official newspaper, the Rice Lake Chronype, to the Oaklair Leader and radio stations WJMC and WAQE indicating the date, time, and place of the meeting. Such notice was given more than 24 hours prior to the meeting. Thank you. A proper notice was given for this meeting. We will now stand for the pledge. I pledge algiance 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. [Music] All right, we will get right into our student recognition. One of the most exciting parts of our opportunity as board members to see some of our students get recognized for some
003of their great works. And so we will start off with the Rice Lake High School. And uh parents, grandparents, family, you want to take pictures, video, you can come over here by Mr. cross right in between the two desks. Get a great view. Good evening everybody. Mark Biscy, Rice Lakeake High School. And tonight I have the honor of bringing forth our student recognition tonight for Miss Nicole Resnik. She is a junior in our building. She is the daughter of Alan Resnik. And tonight she is being brought to your nomination and recognition by Stacia Cross, our attendance coordinator coordinator, Andy Jondro, our school resource officer. I also want to make sure that I'm nominating you as we've worked together. Areas of achievement, creativity, innovation, community service, leadership, and citizenship. I'm going to first start off by
004writing what Miss uh Mrs. Cross and Officer Jandro put together, and then I'll add a few things. Nicole has been a part of our teen court program for the past several months. She's been a significant contributor to discussions and continually provides a fantastic perspect perspective on appropriate consequences for the actions of her classmates. Recently, Nicole brought up an excellent idea on a consequence for a student who had illegally passed a school bus. This involved having that student spend a certain amount of time with our crossing guards just to see how dangerous that student's actions were when it came to other students safety. Nicole set the perfect example of the creative thinking we are looking for in the teen court program and is the type of student who will continue to make this program successful. And
005I'll kind of add what officer Jandro and I talked about. She's also had a 100% turnaround since the start of her high school career. She's been actively getting involved and contributing through her service to her fellow peers. Her attendance and grades have skyrocketed. You'll always find Nicole with a smile on her face and we're happy to have her at Rice Lakeake High School. Congratulations [Applause] and then pictures. Yep. We're going to do some pictures. Just wait. Look at look over here. going to have that smile. Yeah. Now look over [Applause] there. Rice Lake Middle School. All right. So, my name is Angela Soyovich and I'm here with Jaylen Grahamberg who is a sixth grader at Rice Lakeake Middle School and I am nominating her for her leadership and citizenship. Jaylen is a great leader in
006the classroom. She's a hard worker and make sure that her work is done well and on time. Jaylen is also incredibly kind to her classmates and is always willing to include others in her group and work with anyone in the class. Jaylen sets high expectations for herself and she meets those expectations daily. Jaylen is a great example of what it means to show the warrior [Applause] way. Go over here. Stop more pictures. [Applause] Hilltop Elementary. I am Katie Driggs. I am a third grade teacher at Hilltop Elementary and I have here with me Emma Lung and she's in my classroom, but I'm also um putting forth this recommendation from Mrs. Larson and Mrs. Olsen who are also third grade teachers. Um, Emma's being recognized for her academic excellence and her perseverance and resilience. She's the
007parents of Chris and Bianca Lung. Emma's a wonderful third grade student. She follows the warrior way every day and makes sure that others are as well. She's a great helper in the classroom and around the school. She's a hard worker in all subjects and works well independently and with her peers. When she's presented with a challenge, she perseveres and advocates for herself. when she needs help. She excels in extracurricular activities outside of school, too, including but not limited to soccer and piano and many, many, many, many more. Um, Emma's a well-rounded student, and we thoroughly enjoy having her at Hilltop [Applause] Elementary. All right. [Applause] And I believe our other two students were not able to make it tonight, so they'll be on our next meeting. Um, so congratulations to the students that won this
008evening. Your names will be added to a drawing at the end of the school year and we will be drawing for three names will be coming out of that drawing for a chance to win a um Chromebook. So, good luck on the drawing at the end of the school year. And then student achievement awards, our third term recognition for those students. So, believe it or not, we already have term three student awards to go out here for our student the term and we're already halfway through term four. So, 2425 is definitely going quickly. So tonight, I'm here to uh list off 17 incredible students from the high school who were nominated by the different departments for their great achievements in those specific areas of study. For our art department, we have DOS Santos, student of
009Jesus and Amilda de Los Santos. In our health education area, we have Leah Dietrich, student of Darren and Karen Dietrich. Business Education Department is recognizing Samuel Wallace, student of Kurt and Stacy Wallace. Family and Consumer Education, Jahil Dlo Santos, student of Jesus and Aldo Deo Santos. Language arts, we have Grayson Stafford, student of Emily and Jason Safford. For mathematics, we have two students being recognized tonight. Ellis Smith, student of Todd and Elizabeth Smith, along with Tanner Kulunky, student of Gan Hills and Kenneth Kulunky. Music area, Autumn Wilcox, student of Brook Hughes and Thomas Wilcox. For physical education, Owen Brunette, student of Edden and Rebecca Brunette. In our science area, we have two students to be recognized. Daniel Broker, student of Michael and Cindy Broker, along with Ava BMI, student of Jeremy and Celeste Bammy. Social
010studies, two students, Ka Del, student of Dr. Jonathan and Angela Delph, along with Leighton Peters, student of Dr. James and Amy Peters world language area. Samantha Wendorski, student of Renee and Jason Wendorski for our agriculture department area. Emma Alexander, student of Tanya Alexander along with Scott and Kelly Alexander. Technology education, Lauren Wymer, student of Daniel and Jesse Wymer. And to round off our night from our WOW programs, Naomi Walker, student of Daisy Walmsley. Thank you and congratulations to all those term three stops. All right, congratulations to all of our students that were recognized this evening and we will take a brief moment if you guys want to stick around and watch the rest of our exciting meeting. You're welcome to. Otherwise, we'll take a pause and let you guys uh head out. Congratulations. Just for
011a few of them. Just for a few. I'm not writing a novel just for the ones I've known. I like congratulations. It's my friends that Hi up family did pretty good [Music] help my You're on TV. Trying to get to see it before you're on TV right now. Cute. Have a good night. What were you saying? All right. Watching. You can tell he was trying to figure it out. All right. We do not have any appearances this evening. So, we will get into the approval of the regular session meeting minutes for Monday, April 14th. I have a motion to approve. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. I. I. Opposed. The minutes have been
012approved. All right. Now we get into our new year. So, we need to do an election of officers. So, I'll turn the meeting over to Mr. Dross. Yeah. So, I'll kick it off for uh the office of president of the Rice Lakeake for the board of education for the Rice Lake Area School District uh for the coming year starting now. And so, at this point, I would take uh nominations. I nominate Kevin Jensen, president of the school board. Second. So, Phil Hankle nominates Kevin Jensen. Bert Richards. Are there any other nominations? Any other nominations? And for the last time, any other nominations? I would move to close and cast a unanimous ballot for Kevin. All right. So, I have a motion from Don Kusky to close nominations and cast the unanimous ballot for Kevin Jensen
013for president. Is there a second? Second. Nelly Sher seconds. Uh, with that, all in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? All right, that motion passes. Kevin, you're the board president. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Next we have vice president. I would entertain a motion to uh for vice president. Nominate Don. I'll second it. Have a motion and a second for for Don. Is there any other nominations? Any other nominations? Do I have a motion to uh cast a unanimous ballot for Don? I move to cast unanimous ballot for Dr. Don Kusky. Oh, thank you. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. All in favor signify by saying I. I done. Welcome back. Thank you. All right. Next, we have the clerk. I would entertain
014a motion for clerk. I'd like to nominate Miriam Barbara. We have a nomination for Miriam. Do we have a second? Second. Have a motion and a second. Do we have any other nominations? Any other nominations? Motion to close and cast the unanimous ballot. I have a motion to close and cast unanimous ballot. Do I have a second? I'll second or no I don't take trash. I'll second. I'm just so used to it. Sorry. Maybe we should do this over. I have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying I for Miriam. I opposed. Miriam, welcome back. She wanted that. tell she's going to put herself there if she has to. Yeah. Right. And now we are now at treasurer and I would entertain a motion for treasurer. And Doug was our treasurer
015this past couple years. I'll move to nominate Doug again. I'll I'll second that. Motion has been made and seconded. Is there any other nominations? Any other nominations? Is there any other nominations? Seeing none, do I have a I move to close and cast the unanimous ballot for Doug for treasurer. Can I second that? We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed and Doug. Welcome back to treasure. So then in our board packet we had the standing committees. I had readjusted those. Um the changes that we had were actually uh minor. We had um Bert Richard moving to curriculum to take Diane Koser's spot there. And then compensation, we have Lori Zarbach taking Andy's spot on compensation. Then Andy moved to a policy and legislative committee to take
016Dian's spot on that committee. And uh I then took Bert's spot on finance as he was moving up to curriculum. And then district administrator observation, we've got uh Lori Zarbach taking Diane's spot there. And then public relations, we've got Lori taking my spot on that committee. And then going on to the Well, we'll stop there for now. So with that, I would entertain a motion to approve the committees as presented. So moved. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Um any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. All right. The committees have been approved. Next uh appointment of our board secretary for the board minutes. I would nominate Colleen. And yes, I did talk to her before. Second. Tessa. unanimous ballot.
017Close the nominations. Don't let anyone else in. Just wondering if she could refuse it. No, that was a discussion we had before. Whatever other block I can put in to make Colleen elected, I would like to do. We do have a motion to uh second that with a pretty please. motion and seconded with a pretty please to cast a unanimous ballot for Colleen as our board secretary for the board minutes. All in favor signify by saying I I I opposed. All right. Thank you, Colleen. Thanks. Appreciate it. You do a great job for us. Yes. All right. Next we have CISA 11 representative and I've got Don Kusky pencled in for that. So if that unless somebody's really excited I will do it again. So I'd like to nominate Don for that. Is there a
018second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any other recommendations? Any other recommendations? See none. Um I move to cast unanimous ballot for Don as a CIS 11 rep. Is there a second? Second motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Opposed and Don will be our CISA 11 rep for another year. And then um this is this is a hands down public policy correspondent. There is no one else I would rather hear from than Dr. Phil. So I will nominate him. We have a nomination for Dr. Phil. Is there a second? I second that. We have a motion and a nomination and a second. Any other nominations? Any other nominations? Any other nominations? I would move to close and cast unanimous ballot. We have a motion. Is there a
019second? I'll second that, too. Motion has been made and seconded. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. I. Opposed. And welcome back to your public policy correspondent position. It's great to be here. I have a speech already. All right. Perfect. Perfect. We'll get we'll get to you here just a moment. All right. W ASB um representative at the delegate assembly and I have done that the last several years. Would be willing to do that again if uh I would like to nominate Kevin. I will second that nomination. Motion in the second. Any other nominations? Any other nominations? Seeing none. All in favor? Oh, we got to do a Yeah. I will close the nominations, make the motion, and cast unanimous ballot for Kevin for WBY. Isn't there a limit on those motions for
020one person? No. Okay. I think so. Oh boy. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. All in favor signify by saying I. I. I. I. opposed and that has been approved. And then the uh designation of the OPED trust that comes from our finance committee. So they'll be making their recommendation at our next meeting and then we will approve that. So I would entertain a motion to table that until our next meeting. Motion to table. Have a motion to table. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. that has been tabled for the second or for our next meeting after finance has a chance to make that recommendation. So with that um that gets us to our consent agenda. Uh we got six months
021worth of motions in in like 10 minutes. Holy smokes. We have no employment resignations this month. And then uh employment recommendations we have two. And with that I would entertain a motion to approve our consent agenda. So moved. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. I. And the consent agenda has been approved. Now we're going to get into our reports. And the first one up is the uh high school peer mentorship program. Tyler Moore and students have asked to have that tabled for our next meeting. So I'd entertain a motion to table. Motion to table. Got a motion. Is there a second? Second. Motion has made and seconded. We'll table that one. Also the
022Rice Lake Middle School student council Green Bay Leadership Event. I would entertain a motion to table that for our next meeting. Move to table. We have a motion. Is there a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. That has been uh tabled until our next meeting. Yeah. Do you need to vote on those or no? On the table. I believe so. Not to table. Okay. All right. Good enough. Just checking. Uh national teacher staffer. This is got to get to me reading. The proclamation. The proclamation to read. The king must speak. Stand up. Heary. [Music] All right, we have a proclamation for the National Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week, which is May 5th through the 9th, 2025. Whereas through their dedicated efforts to ensure our children learn knowledge and skills needed to be
023successful in college, careers, and life, school district staff are vital to building the future. And whereas, because of the increasing diversity of students, school district staff must be constantly learning so they may adapt to meet the everchanging needs of our young people in our schools. And whereas school district staff play a crucial role in shaping our children into the people they will become, supporting them through their youth and teaching lessons that have an impact on students they will carry through life. And whereas school district staff fill many roles as listeners, explorers, role models, motivators, and mentors. And whereas school district staff prepare young people to become contributing members of our community. And now therefore, the Rice Lake Board of Education serving the parents, students, and communities of the Rice Lake Area School District do hereby
024proclaim May 5th through the 9th, 2025 as National Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week. I urge that we observe this week by taking time to recognize and acknowledge the impact the school district staff have on our lives. And I would entertain a motion to approve the proclamation. So move. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. All in favor signify by saying I. I. It has been It has been proclaimed that May 5th through the 9th is National Teacher and Staff Appreciation Week. Kevin, can I ask Natalie or Josh or maybe Kurt, I know we used to do lunchons for the teachers on during this week. Do we still do or the parents did anyways? Are they still doing that or they do? Okay. Sometimes different things during this
025week. Okay. Any other questions? All right. Next, we have a first reading for the 2526 Rice Lake High School student informationational booklet. Hello, I'm back again. Uh Mark Biscy representing the high school with our first reading of our student handbook. Um I've de developed an addendum on page 35 that kind of lists some of the different changes I'm proposing. Again, not a lot of changes, just things to continue to make our student informationational book um more userfriendly and more efficient. So some of the things I've done is just uh I know the board has passed some new policies particularly contain uh about the student behavior and student dress. So I've added links in those sections for that. And with that I've removed some redundant language that kind of there was always times where the policy
026and the language didn't always match. So I wanted to make sure that matched. So I've added those. Um, I've added another um behavioral piece to uh page 17 about inappropriate use of technology including email chats and social media just to make sure that's pointed out that that is a discipline infraction. Uh some kind of housekeeping things with our financial literacy and our freshman success changes. Uh added one very clear-cut statement about cell phone policy. It's listed there, but I also added a clear-cut statement just that they are banned during instructional time. That's really one of the points we're trying to drive home. And as I've looked at other Big Rivers conference um cell phone policies, that's one consistent factor we always see. We do not want those phones during instructional time. Uh did clean up
027a couple things about start of the year procedures. We no longer use like a yellow physical card um that kids would put their or parents would and families would put their emergency contact information on. That's all updated in Skyward electronically. So, I cleaned up that language um mostly for parents. But that really wraps up the majority of the changes for next school year. I would certainly um love your feedback or input if there's other areas we need to look into. I had just a couple things, Mark. Uh as on the policy committee, we streamlined our mission statement a couple months ago. Okay. Just to try to clean it up a little bit. So, if you could edit that in or put that in there, that would be nice. And then the other thing I would
028just call attention to page nine of our handbook, which discusses the skip day, which is it's that time of year, and so we just want to remind all those lovely seniors to try to not do something that they shouldn't. Yep. We've we kind of already started those conversations. We do allow for that senior trip now which is actually Friday May 16th and that's sort of that replacement behavior for the skip day. So we had Ironic you mentioned that because just today Mr. Pokei sent a fairly lengthy email to senior parents and that was one of the pieces. I just happened to be reading it uh this afternoon and I'm like oh it's that time of year. Certainly is. Anything else for me? I have one more. Yeah. Um just for the inappropriate technology, do we
029have a definition of what that is anywhere in policy or anywhere in question book? We do have the we call it the acronym the TOGA statement T Auga which is a technology use agreement that telecommunications telecommunications act that a lot of those things are specifically put in there. I don't know if there's like a super very specific list. It's kind of something that we use as administrators, you know, about different things, but there's the technology agree uh technology agreement that they sign and they see it covers a lot of that. Okay. Thank you. I had a related question. I I think shortly after that statement or in the same vicinity, it mentions appropriate use of AI. Now AI is is there a reason to have that separate from the rest of technology or you mean
030it's there? I just question the separation. Yeah, I I added it to that because that was a specific list of potential infractions and then later on in the handbook where we talk about academic integrity, AI comes back into that mix because that's a large part of it if that makes sense. So to me it is included. It's just in a separate place. I mean, if it's there, right, at least we're talking about it is integrity associated pretty heavily. So, so that was just more of a comment question. Yep. And when I came to you in the last, not this year, but the two previous years, we had additions to the handbook in the terms of academic integrity. We came out with one version, then as AI's kind of blown up, we added some things to
031the handbook for this school year that are now in there. So, we've done a pretty good job of tweaking our academic integrity type language where we didn't have to specifically address it this go around. Any other questions or comments? Thanks for doing it. Absolutely. Thank you. All right. Next we have the 2526 board of education meeting schedule. This is the first reading that is in your packet if anybody has any questions. Uh there's certain uh certain things we have to do at certain times of the year and so that is our general layout of what that meeting schedule looks like. If we don't have anything that has a first reading for that, we'll move on to our district safety committee meeting update. Doug, yes, we met at 1:00 on Tuesday, April 15th. Uh we reviewed
032our minutes and then uh touched on reports from the buildings on drills that were conducted throughout the year and got feedback from the principles. Uh then we had a discussion on any health concerns that the school nurses uh had uh and we addressed they addressed those. Uh and then we discuss protocols and procedures and followup uh to on accessing building uh PA systems from a cell phone as well as emergency communication procedures for before and after school events that uh we would like to get addressed. Um and then uh then we touched on the presentation that uh our our school resource officers had given us on the gaming presentation and Randy was going to work to make sure that that gets shared with parents and staff. And then uh we've set our next meeting for
033Tuesday, October 21st. Any questions? Doug, I I just have a question. What was the um the the circumstance or uh around the um addressing the PA system and cell phones? Uh yeah, so some of our PA systems were outdated and we had some issues. Randy, you want to touch on Y on those specifically? And so with that the PA systems and this would be um administrators using cell phones and I don't know if they have any other staff members trained in it right now. Um so say um you know whatever Mr. Bissy is down in the high school cafeteria and something happens where he needs to uh access the PA system you know some sort of emergency or something he can do that from his cell phone. And so they can access the PA system
034u in the building from their cell phone to make announcements. So So there there will be a procedure so that embarrassing phone calls don't get connected to the PA system or something like that. Right. Correct. Correct. But the PA system has been updated there in some cases. Yes. And and in fact that was one of the grants Marty Helguson had applied for. I I don't think with federal freezes or anything at this point there's a chance we'll get it, but we had applied for um a $500,000 grant to totally replace the PA systems at uh I think it was middle school Hilltop. Maybe the high school was included in there as well. Um so with that, we're kind of going on to that's not going to happen at this point. So um or not right
035now, we're not going to hold our breath. And so with that, we're going on to plan B to uh to systematically start to take care of some of those pieces. Thank you. Any other questions, comments? All right. Thank you. Moving on to the curriculum committee meeting update. The curriculum committee met on Tuesday, April 15th. Um and we had um Marsha and Chris Britain joined us for that meeting. We went elementary school math and middle school math and high school. Just got to review. Excuse me. So, excuse me. We do have a recommendation. Take your time. It's all part of the master plan. There you go. There you go. All right. All right, we do have a recommendation from the committee and that is we're recommending the illustri illustriative mathematics for grades 1 through five. This
036is an action item. They went through the process that we've been doing the last few years with our curriculum. when we go to update it, we uh typically the committee um the stu the teachers and Marshall work together and find a couple that they would like to try. Then they do some test runs on them and get to feel for how they work with the students as well as the staff and give some feedback to the committee. And then based off of that recommendation, we hear what they've got to say, ask some questions, dig into it a little bit, and then come up with our recommendation. And so our recommendation from the committee is to uh move forward with the illustrative mathematics for grades 1 through five. Um, do we have any questions on that?
037I guess I if someone from the curriculum committee has some specific comments, I'd like to hear them. Um guess I not being on the curriculum committee. I feel a little bit like a rubber stamp. And I also wonder what the other members of the board and curriculum committee would feel about having someone from the curriculum committee being included in the discussion and selection process because a lot of work goes into it. And by the time it gets to the curriculum committee, it's not much different getting to the board. I mean, what's what are they going to say? There's a lot of study, spend a lot of time looking into this. Um, it's hard to go through materials and textbooks over a period of a few days or a few weeks. It would be easier to
038be included in the process. Um, so that's my thought on that. That is definitely something that the committee can talk about at at their next uh at their next meeting. Okay. look at that and what that would look like. Um, I I did send Marsh a whole list of questions because not being a member of the committee and already having a chance to bore you all for a few minutes, I didn't want to take up more of the board's time. But thank you, Marcia. You you spent some time. I sent her nine questions and she gave me some good answers and I really appreciate that. Um, one of the questions was one of my first concerns always when we switch math curricula, and that is, are kids still going to learn their math facts? Um,
039there there's just a natural human tendency if you have technology to do stuff for you that it's going to be easier not to. And I I did hear one comment that was staff related and this was third-hand but reliable thirdhand that they'll still learn math facts but you don't have to work as much at it because of calcs and that that bothers me because I think we've all had personal experience where something was just plugged in for us and it wasn't checked. and wrong data in, wrong data out, and nobody catches it. And of course, something like that can happen. But even even thinking about these self-driving cars and things like that, who wants to be in a self-driving car if the people that designed it just plug things into the computer and really didn't
040push came the shave have the ability to figure it out on paper or manually. Um, I also, and this is not professionally related, but I ran into somebody this spring, an older fella that should have known better, and we were talking about schoolboard issues, and he said, you know, all this stuff about our math scores going down. He says, "That's a bunch of bunk." He said, "Kids don't need to know math anymore. All they need to do is learn how to do the math by opening their computer." He said that. He meant it. And that is so scary. I hope he was the only person in Rice Lake that thought that as an old math teacher. I hope so as well because I am a firm believer. I mean the if the power goes out,
041the stupidest person in the room is going to be the one that depended most on his computer. You you just have to be prepared for that. So, sitting on that committee and listening to Chris explain the whole mathematics throughout our district. Um, I'm pretty confident that our kids are going to know their math facts. Um, she's talked about it many different times. Um she yeah there you know we we actually talked about the finding answers and doing it different ways. So you know we learned it one way but now there's other ways to get to the the same answer. And they do teach those other ways but they do teach the old school way if you will as well. And then the kids will decide that most likely that old school way will eventually become
042their way because as they get into deeper more in-depth math projects problems they'll and the right answer is still demanded from the process. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And I had those questions during that committee meeting as well. So it's they start out with problems like real life problems to figure it out. So they gave an example of fractions and showing here's a circle or here's a line and then you work your way from that problem back down to the math the basics of the math and reiterate it after they've learned like how to conceptualize it in a real life situation. And then I did ask about the specifically um how are they graded on the test? is it coming back to one single answer in the math and it's not arbitrary and they affirmed that it
043was the case. So good and a related question I had was group solving. I mean it's good but will that tend to get the kids that maybe aren't doing as well lost? You might be quieter, reluctant to speak up, and the group kind of comes to the answer, but maybe the the kids that really aren't understanding are able to, you know, sort of stay in the shadows and not be noticed for extra help. That's and Marcia said that that wouldn't be the case. So, I hope Yeah, that's that's only a the group. My understanding of the group piece is it's just one part of that class time and it's not, you know, it's not a big part. It's just a part of that class. So, there'll be times where they'll be doing individual work. There'll
044be times that they'll be doing group work and it's um helping our kids learn multiple ways to get to the answers that we need. And um they it's up it's still up to the teachers to make sure that our kids all of our kids are learning what they're supposed to learn as individuals, not as a group. And I would say teachers know their kids. I mean they they know who's given a particular concept who's you know struggling or or who um is pretty proficient in that area. and and there may be sometimes reasons for grouping certain groups of students and you know for some students that maybe are struggling sometimes that additional conversation and working it out u problem solving as a group can help their comprehension as well but I would say it it
045comes back to our the teacher and they know their students they know who's given a particular concept who's uh maybe who's struggling and and who's more proficient I can certainly see we're discussing the practical application of math and it sounded to me like that was part of it too. Yeah. Is a real positive. Correct. Yep. Yep. The other part with this new curriculum that we are recommending, one of the things they've got in there in the teacher side of the book, the teachers book is ways to, you know, if a student is, you've got a student struggling with fractions, there's different ways to help try and get them to where they would understand what it is that they're trying to do. And there's different pieces in there that will help the teachers quickly determine, okay,
046you know, the student is struggling here. We can try this or try that. So, any other questions or comments? All right. This is Thank you for the information. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, this is an action item. I would entertain a motion to approve the new mathematics for grades one through five. So moved. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? I do want to add one thing. The illustrative math um is also what we have just recently adopted last year. I believe it was for the middle school math. So they'll be able to be basically now it'll be illustrative from uh first grade all the way through 8th grade. So it'll be a nice transition year after year. It's the same same concept just adding on
047to their works. So how did it work out at the middle school last year? Pretty well. Yeah. even had staff talk about um and you would have worked on pilots the year prior to that, right? Correct. Have the timeline, right? So, okay. So, this is Yeah, this is year one right now. Right. Sure. Okay. Um, one of the things I had heard was that with the group piece, getting the kids up and moving a little bit, um, that takes a little bit of their energy and we're having less class disturbances, um, because of it. So, there's a there's a plus an upside to that as well that they've seen so far this year. All right. So, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I.
048I. I. Opposed and that mathematics have been approved. And then like I said, we talked a little bit about the middle school Illustriative Math implementation. Um, and our current publisher that we are getting the the math books through will no longer be doing the publishing for that. The illustriative math is a concept and there's multiple publishers that put their spin on it and uh they um uh McGra Hill will no longer be doing that publishing that. So we will be switching over um to imagine learning and uh we'll be getting our resources through them instead. Um so that that was our middle school and then Marsha provided some information at the high school with the math math resource review but uh we really haven't made any decisions on that. And our next meeting is scheduled
049for May 20th at 5:30 in the conference room here at the administrative administration building. And we adjourned. Diane did her final adjournment and uh we closed the meeting and went home. Any questions? All right. Next, we have an update on the Warrior Connections Committee meeting. So we ma met Wednesday, April 23rd at 7 a.m. The whole group was there. Um we have two subcommittees, data collection and areas of action committees. So we all met. We heard from the middle school first. Um really our focus we wanted to be about the kids and what can help the kids feel more connected to school. But some of the group felt that we should ask the teachers and staff members how they feel we can get the kids connected and what we need to do. So as of
050now the middle school spent their time talking to staff members and um asking them questions on how to get the kids connected. So they reported that the results to us and then next Adam Beaver and Blind Cernick are going to focus more on student data collection. So, speaking with the students at the middle school, um hopefully they're hoping to do that during lunch hour and then at the high school, Susan Franco gave an update on collecting feedback from high school staff members. Same thing, just asking their opinion on how we can reach the kids or what they feel would be best um as far as what kids to interview and so on. Um and also at the high school the plan is to have additional conversation and data collection with the students ideally during home
051room. And as far as the area of action subcommittee, Mark Bison gave an update on that and they have a few things that they are working on and our hope is to continue a student data collection and to come to the board with a list of recommendations for action in the near future. Any questions? All right, thank you for that update. Next, we have our finance committee meeting update. We do have one action item on that uh topic as well, Doug. Yeah. Um I think that's just a followup from our meeting that we had earlier. Randy, do you want to touch base on the what we're trying to This is this is just a followup. Uh this is just a followup um from first reading changes last time and um with that uh not changing
052anything per se, but uh making sure that um that credit towards health insurance runs through an HR plan uh so that it satisfies IRS requirements. And with that, I know uh Victor also wanted to add just because we've had some staff members ask about it. Um the possibility that um you know, could they make the the choice, you know, even if they were hired prior to July 1, 2024, um and they wanted to make the choice to go the HR route um instead, could they? And I said, I don't think that would be a problem. Um, but he wanted to add that in there formally just because some people have expressed an interest in that. Any questions? If not, I would entertain a motion to approve the employee handbook updated retirement language. This is the
053second reading. So, do I have a motion? I move that we approve the language as presented to us. We have a motion. Is there a second? I would second that motion and a second. Any further discussion? Just a question, Kevin. Um, do we need to include that amended language in as a motion or can we just how do we need to go about that, Randy? And we could. I mean, we'll be bringing the full handbook to you for approval uh prior to the start of the school year as well. We could have it included in there and point it out when we do that as well. Um yeah, we could we can approve it like we are right now going forward and then it'll come back as a full reading with the book um later
054this summer. Yeah, we can do that. That'd be fine, Doug. Okay. All right. Thank you for that question. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, signify everyone saying I I opposed. The handbook uh retirement language has been approved. Next, we have our first reading board policy from our uh board policy and legislative committee. We have policy 210 administrative goals. Policy 221, recruitment and hiring of administrative staff. The rule to go with that. Policy 223, administrator development opportunities. Policy 225, administrator evaluation. The rule to go with that. Policy 231, district administrator. Um, policy 383.3, professional therapy dogs. policy 411, student non-discrimination and equal educational opportunities along with the rule one and two and exhibits 1, two, and three. And that's it for first reading. If you have any questions or any
055concerns, comments, let Randy know and uh we can take those up and then we'll be coming back for a second reading at our next meeting. So with that uh information handbook committee minutes anything you want to put in there? So with you can see those the handbook committee meets uh up to four temp meets quarterly and uh with that any pieces from there uh go to the compensation committee before they would come to the full board. So yeah. All right. Any questions on the handbook committee minutes? Seeing none, communications committee meeting minutes. Same same piece there. Communication committee uh meets quarterly as well. Um and we talk about the happenings uh at happening with the leadership teams at at at each level and talk about other pieces we um should potentially be uh communicating about.
056So with those again that meets quarterly. Any questions? Seeing none. Next, we have our WSB public policy correspondent update. Phil, well, now's the time if you want to get up and go to the bathroom, your acceptance speech. Yes. There there there was a lot um four score and 20 days ago. Um there's a lot of interesting stuff really. Um there there was first at the federal level there was an executive order. I was unaware of a couple. Advancing AI Education for American Youth. Um, it established a White House AI task force composed uh partly of several federal agencies to coordinate federal efforts in K through 12. and their goals are to incur en encourage AI literacy and proficiency by integrating AI into K12 and offering training for teachers. They want to create public private partnerships
057to facilitate this. uh they want to utilize grant programs under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act with money that's available through that. And some uh advertised uses are to reduce administrative task time, improve teacher training and evaluation, provide professional developments, um and integrate AI into all subject areas. and and some of those I think certainly could make sense. And then there's a um a dear colleague letter from the uh well no I let me start back um the continuing to exist department of education uh wants to uh again enforce title six of the civil rights act 1964 so that student discipline should be based solely on student behavior and actions. And that was deviated from starting in 2014 when a dear colleague letter was sent out that said discipline could not be disproportionate basically to
058race or you lose federal funding. So if you had 10% of white rate uh like whites in trouble and you had to have 10% of the other races, if you had more than that, they were discriminating. And um I know someone that used to work down in Oaklair who said that was in effect and it made discipline very problematic. Um then it uh of course that was uh not followed as much in the first Trump administration. It was reinstated in 2023. And now the Department of Education wants to again get back to disciplining solely on the basis of merit or lack of merit. I don't know what you'd say. Um so I found that interesting because I wasn't aware of those actions. Now on to state issues. I think you're all aware of the uh
059letter that went out from our federal department of education requesting that state education agencies certify that their districts are all in compliance with the above mentioned title six of the civil rights act. In other words, that schools don't discriminate on the basis of race, etc. Uh race, color, and national origin. and three organizations filed lawsuits against that which were somewhat successful and there's now a nationwide injunction against educational agencies having to reply to that letter and the organizations were the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association, the NAACP and possibly the ACLU. I wasn't quite clear from the video whether that was the case or not. So, uh, our national education organizations would like to, uh, continue with with DEI and that unfortunately is what makes people suspicious of our local school district sometimes. But
060local school districts may certify individually. Were you aware of that? Uh, and some local school districts have have done that. Um, so that's also an option that that maybe should at least be discussed. Now, as far as a state budget goes, you've all heard about the 400year veto that was upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court to the surprise of few to no one. Um, and that comes with with possibility that state property taxes can be increased. It doesn't have to come the increase doesn't have the $325 does not have to come from state aid. And the legislative leaders, I guess, are working somewhat with Governor Ivers talking a little bit on getting a few things done, namely a tax package before they do the the whole budget because, as I've mentioned before, because of the
061um line item veto that can turn a page of one thing into a page of almost anything else, the legislature wants to come to an agreement about tax cut with Governor Evener Ivers and get that signed before they do a budget. And apparently that's not totally um out of the question. So, we'll see what happens with that. It sounds like the legislature would like to get a budget done at some point, but it's probably not going to be by July 1st. Okay, just a few uh legislative acts in the state to mention. There was a bill that required local candidates to submit their ethics reports directly to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission instead of the local clerk or in our case would be Miriam. And uh I guess there were some problems with imple implementation. So
062one of the bills is pushing that back to uh December of 2027, I guess. So that's a while. Pushing it way back. Another bill created a wider open open enrollment procedure for military families. Gives them 90 days instead of 30 days, I guess, to switch school districts. The Assembly Bill 166 passed a bill that requires higher educational institutions to publish data regarding the costs of their education and a lot of other data and what the outcomes of graduates are and what their debt load is uh after graduation. Then a few years later I expounded on that uh the last time. So, I don't think I have to refresh your memories because I'm sure you all remember that. And that has bipartisan support. So, it may actually go through in some fashion. So, has a joint
063finance committee hearing in Hayward already happened today. Today, that's today. I ended up not being able to go. But wasn't there one in Hayward today? That was today. They're in Wasaw tomorrow. Um, but as Baron County uh school districts, uh, we had talked and diane Trembley from Baron had drafted up a document. Um, we all signed off. She mentioned us and she went and presented it today um to the joint finance committee. uh specifically talking um primarily one of the pieces was the the reimbursement for costs related to educating students with special needs. That was one of the one of the main pieces because that would be a significant assistance to all school districts in the state of Wisconsin. So done and back to the certification for the title six piece. Um, with that if
064and if you're okay, I talked with uh Kevin about it last week. Um, with that and I sign those asurances every year and wise grants is what we use. Um, it would just be basically I've already done them for 2526 because I have to otherwise we're not eligible for federal grants. Um, unless anyone has a significant issue with it, I'm going to sign it and send it in. um just because I'm not going to stand at the at the podium at some point and tell you and our district and and all our taxpayers that I didn't sign it. Um and now we going to lose 2 point something million in in federal grants. Um you know, we we sign those asurances at on an annual basis. This would just be um in my eyes um
065you know, emphasis on that and yeah, I would say we're following everything uh that's there anyways. So yeah. Well, we don't want to discriminate. So, exactly. Yeah. Mhm. All right. Any other questions or comments? All right. Thank you for that update, Phil. Next, our upcoming meeting schedule. Uh we have a handful of webinars available throughout uh the next this next week, week and a half. If you uh want to get on and take in those, no registration is required for any of those. so that you can just jump on and listen away. All right. And then uh we don't have any students with us this evening, so we'll move on to our district administrator comments. I'm just going to point out a few things and and I believe uh all of these um things are
066located on our on our school district Facebook um site as well. We've got the RiverDoc Nature Conservancy open house uh Friday, May 16th, 4 to 6 p.m. Uh please respond. RSVP to Kate Lucas um at her email address if you're interested in coming. Uh there's an eighth grade spaghetti dinner fundraiser for the DC trip Thursday, May 8th, 5 to 8 at the Masonic Lodge. Um with that, u uh they're raising money for that for that wonderful eighth grade DC trip. Uh this Thursday night there's a math and literacy night at the middle school from 4 to 5:30. Uh they've got food, information, different things, but oh, there it is. I stopped on it. Um, math and literacy night uh at the Rice Lake Middle School. Um, and always a big event, the Rice Lake High
067School horiculture plant sale starts this Thursday. There's going to be a line at the W7 doors. Uh, goes from 2:30 to 7:30, but if you find the post on here, um, there are there it is. Um, if you click on it, there gives you all the dates and times, but it starts um at at 2:30 this Thursday. Uh, Rice Lake High School parent teacher conferences Thursday. Um, and summer academy is on there. Just a reminder to anyone who may uh have children sign up for summer academy. Um, that is uh available through May 9th. And the last one I was going to mention was the uh let's I don't know. Wait, maybe I didn't do that right. I am not a Facebook guru. So ah Whoops. All right. I'll just scroll down to it. you,
068some of you maybe are laughing at me and that's okay. Um, uh, but Care Solace and I'll do it this way. Um, the district utilizes Care Solace uh, to help students and families find the mental health support they need. So, and this is open to anyone who lives in the Rice Lake Area School District. So, the the we state there if you or a loved one um is looking for mental health services, uh there's information from Care Solace to get you started. And so, anyone uh you can click on that. You have to live in the district. Uh but it's open to anyone. And it's been it's been pretty successful this year. There is there's work to do on your part uh to continue with it, but uh it's there. And so, uh, please feel
069free to share that information with anyone. I have a question, Randy. Mhm. With a plant sale, would you consider selling horse manure with it? I've got plenty. You can you can uh that could be a wire leadership. I've got uh I've got a big stack from this winter. I I I show my farmer side. I spread a couple loads yesterday afternoon with with the horses. So, and my ground drive manure spreaders. There might be a good senior prank in there somewhere. There is plenty there if you need some, Dr. Phil. Yeah. Tomorrow the uh SE Rice Lake seniors are going through a test drive sponsored by RCU. And if any of you get a chance to go, it is fantastic. It's they learn how to budget. They each have a checkbook. they have to buy
070certain things. Some of it's based on the spin of the wheel and uh I think it's fantastic. So if you get a chance, it's at WITC Northwood Conference Center. I participated last year and it was pretty worthwhile. Yeah. Volunteered. Sorry. Yeah. Good. All right. And with that, I would entertain a motion to convene into close session pursuant to 19.851F. And this is for the approval of our close session meeting minutes from Monday, April 14th. So moved. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Roll call, please. Doug Kuchko, yes. Lori Zarbach, yes. Don Kusky, yes. Andrew Coupe, yes. Phil HL, here. Kevin Jensen, yes. Miriam Barbara, yes. Bert Richard, yes. And Nelly Sher, yes. All right, we are in. Happy birthday, Josh. Yeah. Is it missing? Miss us.