001Okay. And it is 6 o'clock. We will call the Monday, April 14th regular board meeting to order. Roll call, please. Kevin Jensen here. Miriam Barbara here. Bert Richard here. Nelly Shier here. Doug Kuchko here. Diane Koser here. Don Kusky here. Andrew Coupe here. And Phil Henko here. All right. And was a proper notice given for this meeting? Yes. Please be advised that public notice of this meeting as required by sections 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 of the Rice Lake chroner type to the OKAR leader and to 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
002was given for this meeting. We'll now stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Not have anyone sign up for appearances. So, we will move on to the approval of our regular session meeting minutes from March 24th. Have a motion. 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. Post. Opposed. And the minutes have been approved. Our consent agenda. We have our monthly budget and cash reconciliation report. The monthly board bills. We have eight employment resignations and seven employment recommendations. And I would entertain a motion to approve the consent
003agenda. I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. 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 opposed. And the consent agenda has been approved. And that'll move us into our report section and we'll get started with our online gaming presentation. So we have our police school leazison officer Stephanie Mo and Andy Jandro. Uh I this it's it's just a PDF so I'll have to scroll through for you. So all right. So I'm Stephanie I'm a school officer for the middle school head. I am Andy John. I'm at the high school. Today we're going to talk about some of the dangers of online gaming and things to look out for playing online. And I think
004this just to note as well, this was a presentation, maybe a shortened version of it, but can you talk about where you offered this and and because you offered it in a couple of different places, but did this presentation at Hilltop and then this last Saturday we did it at the public library. So this is a very very few months. Thank you. This is Stephanie's creation. I'm just a dean. So, these are some games that we're seeing at the elementary level. Um, Fortnite Farmville, World of Warcraft, Minecraft, just to name a few. Um, one of the things that all these games have is the ability to online chat with strangers. So, if the kids are going to be playing online, we do understand we can't stop them from playing online, nor do we want to.
005What we want is for them to be able to play safely and for their parents to know what things to look out for. So things that parents should be watching out for and kids should be watching out for is online strangers asking for personal information, asking kids to move to another platform such as Snapchat, Facebook, um WhatsApp, all these other things that they can chat on. Asking the kids to keep secrets. Hey, don't tell mom and dad I'm talking to you. Don't tell mom and dad we're moving to this other platform. and then wanting to meet in real life. So, with talking with adults comes grooming, um oftentimes the groomer will initiate and maintain sexual relations with victims in secrecy. Um they'll slowly overcome those natural boundaries long before abuse will actually begin. And then
006a lot of the times this looks like a close relationship between the offending adult, the child. And if we're seeing this like locally, it will actually be the parents there as well that are getting grouped. So some of the tactics these island gamers are using is they're testing boundaries. They're joking, roughousing, tickling, sexualized games. They're encouraging kids to break rules, asking kids to keep secrets. And a lot of the times they'll use these secrets later on as blackmail against the kid. um communicating secretly. Again, they're going to be moving to those other platforms so that if parents are monitoring the online chats, they don't see that they're still chatting on different platforms. And then intimidation, they're going to use fear, embarrassment, or guilt to keep the child telling. Some signs that a kid might be
007getting groomed, um the kids secluding themsel, they're constantly bringing their phone into the bedroom only wanting to be in their bedroom. um drastic changes in behavior um whether it's these drastic mood swings or just something very out of character for this child and then sudden increase in materialistic items. Sometimes when somebody a kid is getting groomed, they're buying them clothes, they're buying them toys, all these other things that maybe they didn't have before. So parents are starting to see an increase in packages coming to the house or increase in maybe the kid got a new phone and the parents weren't paying for it. And then the protecting of the phone where the kid doesn't want their parents to go through their phone [Music] whatsoever. Some reason these things are going to be hard for your
008child to report it to you. They're afraid that they're going to lose their online access and that they can't be trusted. They feel like an adult can't help them in the situation that they got in. Maybe they sent a photograph of themselves or something or they're being blackmailed, so they're scared to report that. um it's an awkward conversation for them to have and they're also afraid that their parents won't be able to help them. So, these are some parental resources for how to play online game safe and then some really good online games that um are out there. Anybody have any questions? So, a lot of this is Yep. about or a lot of the resolution to it is parents being interested in what their kids are doing, paying attention to what they're doing, and
009being nosy, not being the friend, but being an actual parent. So, that's this seems to be a lot of what can kind of curb a lot of this right from the get-go. And it might not be um a parent that they go to. It might just be another trusted adult that they can go to and vent to. Um, we did learn uh when we gave this presentation on Saturday that there's a couple entities in the city or within the area that aren't mandatory reporters um that embrace uh if they go to them with certain things that they are not mandatory reporters um but then like foster parents or people like that that are. So that was something that I learned Saturday. You know, when I when I taught high school, um we had in place
010if they're the first thing a lot of students would tell you, don't tell my parents. Then the second thing that we would discuss with them, you know, hey, I'm keeping it until you tell me what to do, but I need to have you tell somebody. So we had in place to tell the leison officer in case of medical pregnancy or whatever the school nurse but at least they had somebody to go to other than the teacher handling it themselves. I don't know if that's in place or not. Y all staff members are mandatory reporters. Okay. So they they have to notify somebody. Sometimes it's administration, sometimes it's us. Um, as long as they're not just kind of sitting on it and trying to to handle it themselves, that's when further issues occur and have occurred.
011When you presented this, you so you presented at the library and then at the schools too. Was it well attended and were there? No. Oh, that's so sad. At the schools, we only had about two people each of the presentations, but they were like the two parents that showed up were very engaged. Awesome. like at each of them. We had two at each, so six parents all together. I think we ended up just chatting back and forth the entire presentation. They were taking pictures, asking really good questions. And then the library, we probably had about 15 people at Oh, nice. So, this isn't something that all of our students have been have seen. No, one online. All right. Um, just initially was intended for parents, I think, initially, but yeah, keep going. No, just I
012mean it's been in the news a lot lately. I mean with boys in particular that have been sexed. I mean and and it's concerning for me because I have boys and um they're at that age too where they just don't I mean literally these boys are killing themselves overnight because of of what they've done and they think it's they can't fix it. So, um I mean I think it's something that all our students need to see and understand that it's not there's never a situation that is um you know so terrible that they have to resort to that. I agree. Is there a way to do like some assemblies and whatnot to get it? There certainly is. And I haven't seen the the long form version of this yet, but uh I mean I know
013could depending on questions and things like that, but the longer presentation like at the library on Saturday ballpark. I don't know how long was the presentation. Okay. Yeah. So, it's not that that long, but and I do present to like the eighth grade AODA of the alcoholation I did today and I did add sex abortion in there and I talked about like a lot of these times they're getting threats and I told them I said you you don't need to be scared to report this to us and you don't need to feel like this person's actually gonna I've never seen a sortion case where the person has actually followed through with it. Right. Right. And I was really trying to handle that at home with the kids. Yeah, they might be threatening you, but you
014you need to come to an adult for help. So, I do try to touch on it in other presentations just because how important it is. Mhm. Yeah. Super sad. Do you have any suggestions as to how we can help get the word out? I mean, you're you're doing these presentations, but um we have some newsletters going out. I mean, we even have the Skyward site. Is that appropriate? And you said you have a recorded version of this. It was on our Facebook page. Okay. And uh we can easily send that out to, you know, anyone we want to. Oh, send it out to the board, too. I'd like to see it. That was a live recording of me doing it, I think. Or even the short version. So, the one that's recorded is the long
015version. Yeah. But it's half hour give or take or maybe even less if you had no questions or anything if it was just Yep. So we could think about the different ways that we communicate with the community and just not put the whole presentation in there but just little blurbs about how parents need to make sure they know what their kids are on and they shouldn't have their computers in the bedroom where they're unmonitored and things like that. Yeah. because I I know our building administrators for sure get comments like that. Um you know my son or daughters in the room all the time and and you know describing that exact scenario and yeah so that's not healthy. There's a for on a on a number of fronts just a it's a gaming and social
016media topic. I mean you can almost lump a couple things into one when they're discussed and Yep. support for mental health. Yeah. The groups that were not required to notify, is there any plan to engage those groups to try to get them if they're interacting with our kids? So, it's a lot of like I say that it was the um embrace that's more of they're a sexual self advocate. Um, so like for whatever reason they weren't part of that like state requirement that they have to report these things. Do they? Yes. Um Okay. And especially if like there's some physical harm or anything like that, but more on the lines of, you know, if they come to us with, you know, something like this, they're not required to, you know, to come to us like
017a staff member is or a teacher. Do you guys do undercover stuff? I mean, maybe not you, but is there within the state people that are going online and Yeah. So, we actually have an investigator at Brace Lake Police Department that is internet crimes against children certified and he does do undercover chats with just Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Well, the current chief of Cumberland, um, Heather Wolf, she did that. Like the the sheer volume of people that when she was pretending to be like a 14-year-old girl on there that actually came here to meet her that were arrested, it was absolutely mindboggling. So when she worked for she actually got a internet crunch against the year. So it is in this area. Thank you. We have a a gaming club. That's is that just board games
018or that's some online gaming too, right? There is actually my wife is one of the coaches um for the the esports group and that is only they don't there's no chats allowed that aren't monitored. So any of those tournaments or any of the stuff like that is closely monitored and it's um yeah and I and I think that's with other high school kids in clubs and gives her and other advisors a chance to talk about it but you know if someone's at home at night I mean it would be anyone there but but those kids that are doing that are obviously getting warnings and this type of presentation also, right? Or I mean you is Michelle talking about these kinds of things with kids. I believe she I can't that would seem to be a
019perfect opportunity to integrate this at least for those kids. Seems to know we do have literacy security safety lessons various places. So the library media specialists teach lessons are does classes, teach lessons, our health teachers have done that in lots of places. It's embedded into internet. Yeah, they get a lot of it. It's just whether or not parents enforce it. You know, we only get that certain amount of time. One, I think the scammers too that target these kids just get smarter because, you know, the initial threat was, you know, send me a picture, you know, then I'm going to show it to everybody, you know, and and then and then it escalates to, well, you're going to go to prison cuz I'm a 14year-old girl, so they just get smarter and twisted. Any other
020questions? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for keeping it in the news. Yeah. Yes. Yes. All right. Next, we have the child development day and 4K enrollment update. All right. Um, back in February, we held our annual 4K enrollment event. This is a time when families can come, the children can be in one of our classrooms and meet the teachers and and experience what a day might look like in a a little snapshot. Uh, it's also a time where we can support families and help them to complete the enrollment for 4K for the upcoming school year for their child. So, as part of this event, we also do what's called our child fine. As a district, we are required to um locate um students with disabilities. And so, we when the the the students
021come in, they um get their hearing checked, they get their vision checked. They also get to play and interact with our early childhood staff as well as our speech language pathologists. and they kind of just do a little observation. Um if they feel like um maybe their speech is not quite where it needs to be, uh we'll connect um you know we'll talk to the parents and um talk about potential referrals and get that process started. Um so this year we um with the moving of our 4K to um Hilltop next year, we did an event at both locations. So we um had the evening event at Hilltop and then um Friday during the day was at Tainer Elementary. So Thursday night we were open from 6:30 3:45 to 7:30 and then again 7 8:30
022to um 11:30 at Tainer. We promoted this through various events um social media, postcard flyers. Um Katie Wick was busy getting that sent out to everybody. Um it takes a lot of people to to host and run this event. Um we had numerous staff there, but also Baron, we also invite Baron County birth to three. They um work with children in our community of students with disabilities from the age birth to three. So it's time for parents bring in children that young to also get assessed by the birth to three staff. And then public health helped us out with our um aiology and the hearing test this year. So, we also give them little goodie bags. When they leave, they get, you know, little toy, uh, information about 4K, about our summer academy, and then,
023um, just some fun toys for the kid, and they all walk out with a a book as well. We had good attendance again this year, as we often do. Um, 49 children came Thursday night at Hilltop. That was a very busy evening. Yes. Um but everyone was very happy. The Hilltop families were very happy to be coming to Hilltop school and knowing that their child will be going to 4K at Hilltop. Um and then Friday 20 children came that morning. Um so 69 children in all. Last year it was 64. So a little little larger number which was good. Just a little promotion here. 4K enrollment is open. If you know of any four-year-olds, soon to be four-year-olds, any families, encourage those families to enroll their children now. Enroll now. Yeah, we we do have
024a few times enrollment coming in. Lots of notices have gone out. Um, but we're still trying to find more. So, some that we have on our census who aren't enrolled yet. Um, and and there's probably some other families out there that we don't even know about yet. help us get the word out if you're listening online. And I know going to the if I could just have you com going to um the all day format next year, I know um and families could only bring their child for half the day, but I forget the percentage or if you happen to know it off top, but it's like 90% of the families said sign up my kid for the full day. I think two out of well I wrote down two out of 45 who have
025enrolled at Hilltop will be picking up their child midday or dropping off midday. Um and all but four who have signed up so far at Tainter um said they want the child to stay all day. So it was a very popular very popular option offering. Yeah, families were very excited about it. Are we still working on the wraparound or We are that's offered and we did share information about that um for the afterchool day wraparound care. So we plan to offer that at both sites. Um we will need to have enrollment to warrant staffing that but that is our hope that we will have enough families to offer it. Some of the families are some have indicated interest yet and we'll do some more promoting on that as as that gets closer too. All right.
026Just lastly, a quick thank you to all the staff and um people that helped out. As you can see, there's quite a few people that were there both e that evening and the next day um staffing different rooms. The kids kind of bop from one room to the next. And um I think they all had a good time. So, lots of smiles. Lots of smiles. Good. They they go there and play, so it's good. Any questions for us? Great. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we have a proclamation for military child month. April 1st through the 30th is the month for the military child. And I would entertain a motion to proclaim military child month from April 1st to the 30th. So moved. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has
027been made and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. And it has been proclaimed. April 1st through the 30th military child month. All right. Next, we have the 2025 academic excellence scholarships and technical excellence scholarships. This is an action item. Um every year we have these opportunities for our students. Um the academic excellence that one is that one is through the four-year colleges and then the technical excellence is the uh technical colleges. So with that, is there any questions? We've got two recipients at Well, a recipient and an alternate. No. Make sure you can share names or Mhm. You want to? Yeah. So on the academic excellence we've got our primary recipients are John Gruden and Pierce Grundon and Pierce Hger. And then on the technical excellence
028the primary recipients are Cameron Coons and Nathan Vanderen. [Music] And so with that, I would entertain a motion to approve. I just I'd just like to mention that Nathan Banner is one of my most active young chamber ambassadors and I'm proud that he's on here. All right. Entertain a motion to approve those recipients. So moved. Has been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? See none. All in favor signify by saying I. Opposed and they have been approved. Next we have our preliminary staffing report. Second reading. Yeah. And so with that, I just wanted to add, you know, as compared to uh the current year, um we have six people retiring that at this point in time, just uh looking at our budget, and um we have
029declining enrollment. Uh 75 to 80% of the districts in Wisconsin do. And so um with that, we have six uh positions retiring that at this time we do not plan to fill. Uh also we have another three and a half positions uh where people have planned to leave uh at the end of the year and we're not planning to fill those but there may be a little bit of um you know for instance the 4K piece um our 4K enrollment is is trending up and so we may need to bring a half a position back there uh due to enrollment due to enrollment which is a good thing. But overall as of today uh down about nine and a half positions. Um but again that's primarily due to declining enrollment. Most of those are at
030the elementary where people retired and we will not be replacing them. All right. With that I would entertain a motion to approve that staffing report. I would move to second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed and the staffing preliminary staffing report has been approved. Next, we have our warrior connection committee meeting update. Okay. So, we met as an entire committee on Wednesday, March 26. um we approved the minutes and so on and then we got updates from the data collection subcommittee and the area of action subcommittee. So those two committees are meeting at separate times. Um April 3rd the area of action subcommittee met and that includes Mark Biscy, Randy Dross, Phil Hinkle, Josh Tomesh and Tanya Jensen and at that
031time they reviewed the goals of the subcommittee. They discuss topics from the warrior connections committee meeting and one of their goals is to develop a partnership between Rice Lakeake High School and the Rice Lakeake Middle School leadership teams. Um they also there was an update for Mark Biscy and Tanya Jensen. Basically what they're doing is they're going out and sharing our plans or discussing ways to connect with the kids and the staff um or I guess how the staff can connect with the kids more so. Uh and then there was discussion on activities that they can have. Do you have anything to add for that Phil on the area of action subcommittee? Um not really too much. just that I I think we're working toward prioritizing a list of suggestions that we want to bring
032for action pretty soon. Does this committee has a sunset at some point? Yeah, at some point. Yes. And then the data collection subcommittee also met on April 8th and present was Adam Beaver, Nelly Sh, myself, Blinda Cernick, and Susan Franco. Uh at that time we heard from Adam Beaver. He's been working with students and groups collecting data and Belinda is also Belinda Cernick is going to be helping him to work together to interview students. Um our hope was that beginning on April 14th that the high school staff could meet with students. I'm not sure if they actually did that though because they also had the YRBS today. So, they were hoping to meet with students at the last 30 minutes of home room, but I'm not sure if they were able to. But that is
033their plan to meet with students interested in talking about ways to improve the the climate and to bring about more community involvement in the school. So, that will either happen today or will be happening. I'm not sure. and also they just discuss ways that they can meet with staff and get ideas of ways to connect with the kids. Our next subcommittee meetings May 6. Our next overall meeting for the wire connections committee meeting is April 23rd at 7 a.m. Any questions? Right. Thank you for that update. Next, we have our finance committee meeting update where we have several action items. Um, we'll attack those as we go through them, Doug, when you get to them. All right. Um, but before we get to that point, we do have one that we're going to table until
034our next meeting, and that is the 2526 busing rates. So, I would entertain a motion to table that action item until next meeting. 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. opposed. All right. Okay, Doug. All right. Uh, yes, we met on Thursday, April 10th at 8:30 in the morning. All members were present. Uh, approved the minutes and moved into the updated retirement language. Uh, we approved changes to the handbook to make it uh, compliant and add new language to support for support staff and salary employees hired after July 1st of 2024. Um, we'll be discussing the retirement handbook language for staff prior to July 1st of 2024 during the next year or so to
035bring back some potential recommended changes to to the full board again at that point in time. Uh, so just to let everybody know that that we're really not changing anything in its entirety right now, but that there will be potential changes coming down uh in the near future uh to give staff ample time to look at uh potential options that they would have and may like to pursue. Um, we looked and the committee is recommending approval to using an HR vendor as part of the process with the updated retirement language uh that we needed to do to implement those changes. Um, and the district retirey HA HR account for the annual of $1,7500 for the contributions. Uh, we reviewed the county building lease and I don't know, Randy, did you want to kind of give
036a summary as to what we're doing with the county? You bet. And and uh, you have a a document at your place. Uh, just I know I I shared this with one subcommittee. Honestly, I don't remember which one. Maybe it was buildings and grounds. Um but just as we talk about the the buildings on the campus, you know, one is a student center which um you know pending approval um we would take over and uh with that we would plan to um start a child care center uh in that building. have met with and in here I said Dave Armstrong uh twice met with him twice recently in totality have probably met with him a half a dozen times uh throughout this in his role as executive director of Baron County Economic Development uh corporation
037uh that that side of his life um and he has repeatedly said uh you know any child care centers that are in the area they have waiting lists u all of Baron County has been designated as a childare desert And um you know if this moves forward uh we would serve infants up uh to the time that students are able to go to kindergarten because at that time then they can go to Boys and Girls Clubs of Baron County is going to have a a new facility. And so um with that that's the the age range we would be looking to serve. would anticipate um the center to be open and again this is preliminary but you know 6:00 am to 5:30 p.m. Um in there I gave the rough costs of of what childc
038care centers in the area are are currently charging about 2:10 to 225 in that neighborhood for instance infants and toddlers and and around 190 for older students. um plan timeline. Should this move ahead, uh we'd need 2 to 3 months to design and um draw up documents, another four to 6 weeks for state approval, potentially uh start remodeling in September, and potentially uh take occupancy early next year. Um it's important to note this would have no impact on our uh regular fund 10 operating budget. Um and our our hope would be to break even. Um and in looking at the projected financials for this um I give people who run childc care centers credit. I think in my earlier years I was naive and thought they maybe made money hand over fist. They are not.
039So um it's uh it's a challenging business to be in. Um, but one that I know, um, you know, we get asked about a lot, uh, hear a lot from our own staff even, uh, let alone businesses and it's, u something we, we feel would would make our community better. Um looking also potentially um uh looking at taking one of the new classrooms and this would be a shortterm piece but at Hilltop Elementary to get started this summer. Maybe taking one of those rooms and offering 3K uh child care um until the the center would get up and running um as a as a way to continue to work on it. When you move over to the gymnasium side, uh gym space is is within the school district and the community is is always at
040a premium. Um for instance, I know Lori Leaf, athletic director at the middle school. Um for middle school athletics alone, they're always using, you know, the two gyms um at the middle school as well as Hilltop Elementary. Uh at the high school level, we've been using the the college gymnasium uh for a few years at least uh for different practices and and clinics and camps. Um and it's also currently used by community groups. You know, the pickle ball group has a a strong presence there. Um, and I know in talking with Abby Fischer, um, they would need it a few a handful of hours per week uh, for classes and and there are community events there like, you know, men's club wine tasting has had a history of, I don't know, 25 or more years
041of of being there. And so, we would we would want to continue to work with groups um, as much as possible. Um, a couple of other pieces, you know, the county has committed to putting new roofs on both buildings. They're in need of it. Overall, the buildings are in great shape, but they need new roofs. The county is taking care of that cost. Uh, also in a conversation with Jeff French, you know, talking about the the heating piece, like um I don't know if you remember sometime this winter or maybe it was last fall, a couple of articles in the chronoype about, you know, their underground lines being compromised down the line a little ways. Um, and some potential issues there. And Jeff confirmed, he said they're the county buildings. The county would take care
042of that. He said right now they're investigating uh placing um individual standalone, you know, boilers um at each building um and taking a look at that. They said that would be the the county's responsibility. And so um would have new roofs and and the heating is responsibility of the county. So um and then also included in that um just a rough layout of the building um the student center as far as a child care center you know upstairs would be infants uh three and four year olds four and 5 year olds uh downstairs would be you know the 2 and 1 half to three and two to two and a half and and one to two year olds and then just included u documentation if if you care to read um you know like things
043on the um on the the ratios uh for instance and square footage and things like that you need uh for a child care center. So other questions I thought about ventilation is ventilation going to be adequate all those kids in there and all little rooms that'll be that's the HVAC renovations are included as a part of that. Yes, you would you would have to ensure that that's taken care of and we're already starting to work with a couple of the individuals um who are responsible for childcare centers in this area um to start addressing those things. Any other questions? Randy, we would probably have to hire someone to manage that, I would assume. Yep. We would have a child care center director. You bet. Yes. That'd be a position just like any other district position
044we would post for and uh take applications and work through the interview process. You bet. And I just was reading in the paper uh that some of the county supervisors were a little nervous about giving us too good of deal on this because they thought we were going into a money-making operation here. Can you assure people that? I I can I can assure people um like I said best case scenario if you're completely full and have all the right staffing ratios like take babies for instance it's one to four um you know so if you have five babies um you need two people and so optimally um everything maxed out everything perfect numbers wise you're about breaking even and that's about it and that's as as we've dug into that and Victor has experience uh
045doing the same thing in both Luck and Prairie Farm uh when he worked at CISA. And yeah, he he had a few I told you so moments as we as we work through the finance pieces of it. So yes, I can I can assure you this is not going to be a huge money maker for the district. You know, I've said before um I think many of you feel the same way. Um to me, it's more about helping our community and some of the other projects we have going on. Uh it's about making uh the Rice Lake community and the Rice Lake Area School District and yeah, selfishly talk about the school district. We have to um but it's making things better. Uh the writing is on the wall for northwest Wisconsin. There's going to
046be less kids. We're going to have an older population over the course of the next 20, 30 years. We need to do things to either attract people to come here or maybe people went to school here um and moved away. u maybe they live for a while and now they want to come back to Rice Lake because it's a great place to raise a family. We have to have um some amenities for those people. So, thank you. Yeah, thank you. And I think it is important to let our public know that if the facility is not making money and it is losing money, um that that is not coming out of the general fund from the school district. that is operated off of a separate fund that has nothing to do with our general fund.
047So, it will not affect teacher placements and having to do cuts um with our general fund because it will not draw from that. So, with that, I would entertain a motion to approve the agreement. So, move 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. Opposed. And that motion carries. All right. The next item on our agenda was the Boys and Girls Club. And we reviewed that uh lease uh and are recommending uh moving forward with approval of that as well. Do we have any questions on that contract? Is your computer not working? We got it. I knew that. Okay. I'm sharing. Got it. Anybody have any questions? If not, I would entertain a motion to approve
048that agreement. 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. Opposed. And that agreement has been approved. All right. And then we tabled the uh we had a discussion about the bus rates but uh we are having further discussions and and looking at options uh with the bus company on that. Um and then we discussed uh the usage rates of for community groups and what the new pool are going to look like in rates and hours and and rates and so forth. Yeah. Um then we reviewed the and approved the bills and scheduled our next meeting for Thursday, May 8th. Doug, do you need us to take action on the pool hours and rates?
049Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. I was going to make a motion. I would entertain a motion to approve the uh pool hours and rates that was in our board packet. I would make that motion. Sorry, I was early. I'll second it. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? You are the vice president, Don. It's okay. Okay. That's all right. Filling my fulfilling my desk. Thanks. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Opposed. That motion carries. And and just uh for anybody listening or watching just and I know you heard it have heard it before too, but the pool is going to be open, you know, roughly twice as many hours as as the old one was. And so, um it's going to be a great facility and we want people to have access.
050Yes, it's getting close. Tile is going on the walls on the second pool. Making progress. All right. and the first reading on the employee handbook update on the retirement language that uh was in our board packet as well. So, make sure you read through that and then that'll come back for a second reading. Any questions? If not, we will go to Diane on the uh curriculum committee meeting update. Okay. Thank you. Uh we met on Tuesday, March 25th and all members were present. Um we approved the meeting minutes of February 25th. And then we just had two agenda items. Um first of all, we had a report from Marsha and Natalie Springer regarding the summer academy. So, they kind of explained um how that was going and gave us the dates. I'll just give you
051a few highlights on that. Uh session one will run from June 16 through 19 and then June 25th through 26 and session two July 28th through 31st and then August 4th through 7th. And just a reminder, this year it will just be Monday through Thursday. They will not have summer academy on Fridays and the hours will be 800 a.m. to 11:45. A couple of new things this year uh for offerings was uh they're going to have a biking program and a tennis camp. So, I'm sure that will have a lot of interest. And then the other new thing is they're going to offer lunch and um that will be at both Hilltop and the middle school. They're also working on plans for drop offs and pickups, trying to just coordinate how that's all going to
052work with um parents bringing their children and picking them up and um just dealing with the transportation. I don't think that's all ironed out yet. As far as discipline, uh Josh Tomish and Lauren Lee will be responsible for discipline at the middle school and Natalie Springer's going to handle Hilltop. she's gonna have her hands full ones. Um, another thing that um is very helpful is Boys and Girls Club are going to be assisting with getting kids to summer school from their program. So, we thank them for doing that. Registration is going on now through May 9th. And I'm wondering if Marca has any update on registration numbers for us tonight. I don't have specifics, but um registration is coming in. It'll close May 9th. A lot of our classes are filling up, but there's still
053space in most classes. Okay. Thank you, Marca. Um then the second item um that we discussed was enrollment and staffing updates. Most of that everyone has heard um through Ry's report and then Marsha and Lori tonight speaking to us more about the enrollment um regarding kindergarten and 4K. But there are just a couple points of interest I thought I would um point out that you may not know about. And that is at the 4K level. I was told um in March and maybe it's changed since that we have six students uh in the Hogan area and that is not enough to have um 4K there next year. I believe Marcia said that one is even now open enrolled to Baron. So we need more Hogan students to enroll or we're going to have um an
054ongoing problem there. um because that means if there's don't if we don't have enough students for 4K this year then there won't be enough for kindergarten the following year and then first grade the next year and so on. So it presents quite a challenge for a Hogan's future. And so please have more children in Hogan. We need you. And Diane I can I can update that. We've had uh three at this time interested in Hogan. Three maybe four but okay four. No. No. Three total. Three total. Okay. Three total. Okay. Yeah. So, and that's all I have as far as staffing. Our next meeting is tomorrow night at 5:30. Nice. Any questions? Thank you. Next, we have the compensation committee meeting update. Miriam. All right. And I So we met Wednesday, April 9th at 5:30.
055Present was Andrew Cob, Bert Richards, Nelly, and myself, and also Randy and Victor. Um, basically we just went over well, first we nominated a compens compensation committee chairperson and I was nominated and accepted. Yes. Thank you. And um, honor, right? I know. Um, so we reviewed a draft proposal for teachers and support staff compensation for the 2025 2026 school year. This is something that we've been working on for a while, but we just went ahead and reviewed it for the new members. Uh, we also went over items from the handbook committee. Um, just things that were proposed by them and just we discussed them as a committee and we will discuss them with the full board. Did you want to go over that now? Yeah, I can. If you're okay with that. Yeah, for sure.
056Yeah, you bet. So, yeah, this is just the the slide. Come on. There it's coming. Just the slide deck from that portion of the meeting. Um, and for any staff that may be watching, we'll do a board update this week. I'm sorry, staff update this week as well. Um, and send this out. But, um, this was just a reminder. Our teacher compensation used to be, you know, a two-lane uh process. Um created lots of issues over time, especially as we hired new staff and where they were placed. And so several years ago, uh we went uh for any math afficionados, uh basically went to a a linear um linear function approach where uh we take $1,500 times the number of years uh added in the starting pay and then you know up to up to
057a certain amount. And this current year was the third and final year of um a process where we um leveled everyone out uh based on their total number of years of teaching. And so uh we knew actually that the total increase moving forward would be less. Um but as a board you committed to uh adding to that for the last three years. And so uh we're at this place. So for next year, uh we would uh advocate um for again um a person's salary would be if if they had a bachelor's degree, $1,500 times the number of years. Um this 42,000, that's our base starting salary on a bachelor's scale. So moving that from 415 to 42,000 and then upping the top by $1,500 as well. when someone comes in or or earns uh either
058a master's or a national boards, uh that's an additional $3,000 for them. And then up to uh that amount, which was $1,500 higher. And then if someone had a master's and a national boards, um it's pretty rare. Um but um you know, they would be another $2,000 higher. So we were just promoting um recommending moving along that that same line. And I know there's some uncertainty with the state budget, but uh we f pretty good about where we're going to be at. Uh when you look at a total dollar figure there, it's uh just under $400,000. Ends up being a 2.963. It was higher than that the last few years, but uh that was with that evening out process. So um and we looked at this afterwards, but CPI for this year is at 2.95%.
059So basically it's at at 3% overall. Um and then when we looked at support staff, um you let me jump to So this was this current year. You've seen this grid, uh before. One second. You've seen this grid before where someone is hired and it looks like they're frozen at the same salary for three years. They're not because every year we keep making uh increases to each cell. And so this is what it looked like for 2425. We just took that same the the 3% uh on the teacher side and applied it to each cell. So there's 2425 and I can send this to you individually. Um applied it to come on. All right. Um applied it to 2526. And so it just added a straight 3% across the board on every cell um including
060the end of the year u uh meets expectations uh bonus on their evaluation. So we were looking at that um and then yeah with that um and then that financial impact again at a 3% was about $149,000. And then as we this is more just a reminder se a few years ago um we tied basically everything to um the base teacher salary and because there were things like curriculum pay and summer school pay and some of those things were kind of nebulous. So we tied them to the base teacher salary as well as like you know middle school athletics, high school athletics was already tied to that. Uh co-curricular and extracurricular clubs they're all tied to that now. So, as that base increases, so do those other pieces. And so, uh, that that was a
061that was a great move because I know like for instance, I was a middle school wrestling coach almost 30 years ago. The the pay was the same pretty much for almost three decades. And so, um, and then there's longevity pay in those situations as well. Um, and then, uh, cash in le of health insurance. Uh there is uh we do provide uh an amount for that in the district and the recommendation is to offer that to all benefit eligible employees meaning if they qualify for health insurance they qualify for that benefit. Um and then there are a couple other pieces that uh Miriam mentioned. I mean, you already heard tonight about the H uh contribution for, you know, teachers hired prior to, I'm sorry, after July 1, 2024. And then support staff um also providing
062an amount for them of $500 a year in an HR. Um we did have a request from support staff members that, you know, you can talk about more of us to make that the same for everyone. And that yeah, that's my last slide. So with those kind of a recap, thanks Miriam. Yes, thank you. So then we moved into close session at 6:24 and moved back into open session at 6:43 and no other action was taken and our next meeting is to be determined. Any questions? Right. Thank you for that report. Next we have our second reading of the policy and legislative advocacy committee. uh the policies that were brought forward um at our last meeting with the rules and exhibits. Does anybody have any questions or comments? If not, I would entertain a motion
063to approve those policies, rules, and exhibits. Move to approve the policies and exhibits as presented. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor to signify by saying I. I. Opposed and they have been approved. Next, we have the April 1st school board election results that is in our board packet. Congratulations to all of our winners, including Lori. Welcome. And any questions on that? Doug did a good job. uh certifying and canvasing all of that and big shoes to fill. I know. I'm sorry. And one knee. How big are her shoes? Short of a canvaser. All right. Next, we have the WSB public policy correspondent update. Uh there are weekly capital chats. Now, um the one on April 4th wasn't too
064earthshattering. I know some of you think none of them are. Uh they're informational. Um one item that was mentioned, it's sort of an ongoing thing is changes in Washington um or may affect the way some of the the funding is conveyed from the feds to the local school district. Um, the budget is moving through Washington through the reconciliation process, which again means that the Senate passes one version, the House passes the other. If they're not identical, they have to reconcile them by going through that process. It takes 51 votes in the Senate, so avoids a filibuster. So, that's moving forward a little bit. And and people are wondering whether funding is going to be reduced uh or not. Um we don't know the official word is that um funding is supposed to be some of
065it sent back to the states and some funding that's critical has been moved to other departments or will be. So we'll just have to see how that works out. Um the uh Department of Education that continues to exist in Washington right now um has pushed back against some um states that um have uh interpreted title six the 1964 civil rights act in a way that uh they can uh use DEI to discriminate in hiring practices And the DOE wants uh the DPI in Wisconsin uh to certify and probably some other states too to certify that uh school districts are not practicing uh discrimination particularly racial discrimination in their hiring practices and the DPI is pushing back against that. You might have heard in the news, Jill Underlay uh has emphasized that she wants DPI to
066be continue to be used here. Um so there's going to be a little back and forth there. Um usually the feds win that battle. Um, and another issue where the the uh current department of education sent a letter asking uh chief school officers to and superintendents to clarify that um information is not being withheld from parents under the FURPA act. I can never quite remember what that um stands for. family something educational rights and privacy act. There we go. Thank you. I was waiting for Bert to jump in there too. He loves pneumonics. Yes. Um but it wasn't related to fishing. So um and the the reason for that is some states have uh passed laws uh saying that you can re uh and their DPIs uh have passed policies that uh school districts can
067withhold information from parents under certain circumstances. And the notable one is if uh children want to transition their name and gender that can be withheld from parents. and the uh current department of education wants uh the uh education establishments to certify that information will not be withheld from parents. So we'll see what happens with that. Um then moving on to the state um there has a bill has been moving rapidly through the legislature. Uh it has been passed in the assembly and is moving to the floor of the Senate requiring schools to prohibit the use of wireless communications during instructional time. Well, we're kind of ahead of the game on there, so I won't elaborate on that. There are various exceptions. WASBY is neutral on that and uh uh WBY has actually worked with them
068to try to make it workable and because WASBY says that the legislature has made good faith attempts to make it workable, WASBY is neutral on that. Um there is a public hearing for an assembly bill which is kind of interesting. Uh the bill would require higher education establishments to furnish data usable by high school counselors provided to juniors and seniors for academic and career planning uh and to the higher educational aids board. uh regarding the cost and debt burden and benefits basically of higher education. And some of the things they would like to track is the average salary of college graduates um 6 months after graduation and then again 5 years after graduation in aggregate and by major. The average debt at graduation. Uh the graduation rate in aggregate and by major. the average total
069cost uh for uh graduating from an institution for a degree, the available financial aid and the 10 most popular degree programs in each institution in a format so that uh it can be easily compared between institutions and if this would go through um it would be information that would be provided to high school juniors and seniors in the 27 28 year. So, that's interesting, but we'll see where that goes. I wonder if it'll get through the governor's office even it gets through the legislature. Um, referenda. Uh, maybe you uh you all know about this, but there were 81 referendum 81 districts and 89 questions. Uh, 52 of the 89 questions passed, which was 58.4% which was down from 70ome% uh back in November. I believe uh capital referenda passed more frequently than operational referenda and
070nonrecurring referenda passed much more frequently about the same as the general passage rate 58.5%. There were five recurring referenda and only one of those passed which some of you may recognize as a 20% passage rate. So that is my report. I hope you found it as at least as interesting as usual. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you for that. Upcoming meeting schedule, there's a number of webinars that are available. Um there's one uh tomorrow, another one on Wednesday, April 16th, capital chat on April 25th, and a couple more as we get into the end of April. There is one uh that I'd like to point out. There's a WASB new board member uh gathering over at CISA um 11 for Lori and Andy. You were on after they did the one last
071spring. So um that is next Tuesday. So if you can attend that, let Colleen know and I'll uh take the time off and we'll head over to CISA and and take in that meeting if that'll work. So, that is the upcoming meeting schedule. Next, we have one of the best parts of our meeting where we get to hear from our students. Sam, this isn't going to be the last one, is it? You're going to come back next month, right? It might be my last one. Oh, no. No, no, it might be. You got to come back one one more time. We'll see. We'll see. So we had a word leadership team meeting uh about a week ago and talked about kind of the remaining year and how we want to move forward within the next
072year. Um so we kind of celebrated our events that we hosted. We had a uh food drive um in conjunction with the big rivers conference. It was a each school um it was a school v school competition to try to uh have a food drive. Um, we have a home room activity on Wednesday. So, the freshman and sophomores will be uh doing preac testing and we'll be at school and so we wanted to plan home room activity for them. The seniors will be doing community service that day. Um, there was a WC state conference. I did not go. That was for juniors. Um, as you can see, there are no juniors present to talk about that said conference. So, I apologize. Flackers. Yep. Um, we will be looking at having some bonfires as the weather
073uh attempts to get nicer outside and we'll make the best of that probably either the end of April or beginning of May. We also talked about a movie night utilizing the uh scoreboard outside if they can figure out how to make it work. Um, and a few other things. Uh so the uh state conference it was schools from all over Wisconsin and the juniors got back some really good feedback for how to run not only student government but meetings and how to be more efficient and to be uh better leaders. Again can't really say too much on that but they said it was a great conference and they uh brought back some really good ideas in our Friday meeting. Um that bonfire usually is accompanied with uh grilling. Last year happened to fall on like
074the day of a baseball and soccer game, I think. So there was quite a few people that just kind of lingered. Um got to serve the Hudson baseball team some hot dogs on their way out. Kind of felt bittersweet cuz they beat us badly, but that's okay. Um I believe so we've um a few weeks ago we gave the administrative ladies, the secretaries in the school building um flowers and a gift card and appreciation for all that they do. Um earlier this year we gave crossing guards some donuts and hot chocolate and I believe uh we were looking at the lunch staff ahead um to celebrate them and all the amazing work they do. uh senior letters. We're going to have senior members of the war leadership team meeting or word leadership team uh write
075letters to a an educator. It doesn't have to be from high school. Um as a kind of thanks and gratitude for these last 12 years and try to give uh give back some appreciation for all that they do. Um as far as next year goes, we want to be a bit more structured with the war leadership team. Um it's very hard. Really the only teachers that are running it running it are Mr. Mr. Shrele and uh Mr. Thirstson and Mr. Vuza help out. They're more um prioritized with the seniors and with the class reps. And so that there gets to be a lot of things to do and a lot of kids to manage um for just Mr. Stradle. Um, and so we're looking at kind of hammering down a a guideline, almost a constitution
076of when you sign up, of responsibilities and standards to be upheld, um, kind of revised from this year. And, um, also looking to have more connection. I think it was brought further with the middle school and the other schools to kind of promote school pride. So when they come to high school, they're excited to participate in school events and not just find or find assemblies to be a early dismissal day. That's kind of it. Um there'll be more details hopefully in the next meeting. I may or may not be here. We'll see. Sam, did you guys have a blood? We did. We did. We had we had a smaller blood drive. Um and we actually managed to reach a threshold for a second scholarship. Um I believe Congratulations. I believe the scholarship funds up to
077$1,400 at this time. I'm not for certain on the number, but we did. Yes. In March, they did say they were disappointed more board members didn't come to the blood track. I gave blood out my knee. I think just because you have one knee doesn't mean you can't donate. All right, Sam. For you next year. All right. Thank you for that report. Any questions from Sam? him in the hot seat before he long as he's not coming back next uh next month. We'll see. All right. All right. Thank you for that update, Randy. District administrator comments. Yeah, just a few things and and the things I'm going to mention are also found on our um our district Facebook page. Uh please encourage people to go to there. Uh and Aaron also does that at the
078beginning of each week. Here's some of the highlights of things coming up. Uh you click on that link, it takes you to a calendar of of everything in the district going on. But uh Riverdock Nature uh conservancy kind of a grand opening uh Friday, May 16th, 4 to 6:00 p.m. Uh reminder to everyone, Sam, I know you're going to be sad. No school on Friday this week. And on Wednesday, are you seniors community service? Yes. So we will be doing that. We'll get back to school about noon, have lunch, and then we are off after that. Yeah. So, uh, freshman and sophomores take the preac, right? Is that what it's called now? Work on that letter, Sam. Yep. Okay, that's all right. Um, and some other things. This was this weekend, but forensics competed um
079this past weekend at state and they won 10 medals. I must say that's the only thing in high school I regret not doing was joining forensics. So, um, things about pro, prom, and postp prom coming up on Saturday, April 26th. Um, and with that there's also uh every year we have our uh DC or eighth graders have the opportunity to go on a DC trip. I was able to go on it once. It's a it's a great trip. There's a spaghetti fundraiser Thursday, May 8th from 5 to 8 at the Masonic Lodge. So, purchase tickets at the door. If you happen to uh know an eighth grader that's plans to go, you can purchase tickets from uh from them as well. Any questions? Thank you for that. And now I would entertain a motion to
080convene into close session pursu pursuant to Wisconsin statutes 19.851F. That is for the approval of our close session meeting minutes on Monday, March 24th. And our second item is uh statute 19.851E and that's individual employee contract. Move to close. Motion has been made. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. Roll call, please. Mary and Barbara here. Richard, yes.