001i know we are streaming no i'll turn it on and we're recording um all right it is seven o'clock i will call the monday september 12th regular board meeting to order i'd like to welcome everyone here to our meeting and roll call please all right steve bowman here phil henkel here kevin jensen here miriam barbara here richard here sarah turner here doug cooch go here diane kosir here abby fisher all right randy can you tell us if a proper notice was given for this meeting yes please be advised that public notice of this meeting is 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 the rice lake corner type to the eau claire leader and to radio stations
002wjmc nwaqe indicating the date time and place of the meeting such notice was given more than 24 hours prior to the meeting thank you it does appear that a proper notice was given for this meeting we are now at the appearance section of our agenda when you come to the podium please state your name and where you live and then keep in mind that you have three minutes to speak after that three minutes randy will be keeping time after that three minutes you will be asked to stop if if you're continuing and the board because of state statute we are not allowed to interact with you and ask questions and and answer your questions so please don't ask questions of us because we can't answer those it's not that we don't want to it's just
003that that's how the meeting has to be run so with that uh we'll start with abby fisher my name is abby fisher and i live in rice lake until tonight i served on the rice lake board of education i just resigned from the board it has been an honor to work with the staff and families of the rice lake area school district i hope we can continue to work together in a different capacity i am resigning to preserve my mental and emotional health i am a lesbian as such i can no longer sit quietly through these meetings as i listen to people at this podium and at that table speak willfully ignorant inflammatory hurtful and harmful rhetoric about the lgbtqia community i cannot listen as my lived experiences as a lesbian are dismissed i can
004no longer listen to and fight against the willfully ignorant hurtful and harmful proposals and actions that the board and the administration are proposing and or taking against the lgbtqia students and staff and our allies i am resigning because the mental and emotional damage that i have suffered while listening bogus claims and having my life dismissed is too much the anguish i feel while preparing for attending and recovering from the meetings takes too many days from my life i am resigning because i have felt unsafe at a number of board meetings including the most recent meeting and i am an adult i cannot imagine what our students feel i cannot imagine the strain stress and worry that the decisions and conversations in this room cause our students and their allies i said this multiple times at
005the policy committee meetings this summer and i want to say this in front of all of you that the changes being proposed for policy 411 rule 2 will codify bullying within our schools and make our schools less safe and less supportive for our students the changes tell our staff to disrespect the students wishes until the student pushes through the anguish fear despair and has found the tremendous courage that it takes to come out to a parent or guardian the policy will put our staff in the challenging position of choosing between supporting the students who have disclosed deeply personal information and possibly being reprimanded or losing their jobs i strongly encourage the full board to drop the proposed changes to a policy that is to the current policy that is currently supportive of all of our
006students and staff i condemn the actions of our administrators who are involved in the removal of a staff member's safe phone state safe zone sticker from their classroom door that sticker had been displayed well over 10 years without a problem the sticker is a reaffirmation that all students are safe and welcome in the classroom by removing the sticker we are explicitly telling our students and staff that this district is not safe nor supportive again it was an honor to work with our staff and families thank you eli uh eli schultz rice lake school district transgenderism is a cult and a false ideological lie with children as the victims by keeping this in the school you are legitimizing this lie apparently the school district didn't get the message last spring we the parents don't want this
007gender identity garbage being taught to our kids so now we have a new message we will not stop and we will not rest until this garbage is removed from our schools and our children are safe the activists who are perpetuating this dangerous ideological lie are using the public schools as a vessel to gain access to groom and brainwash vulnerable disenfranchised children you see these people desperately want to get to your children and they've realized that the best way that they can gain access to them is through the public school system and i'm sure josh and abby will parade their allies up here maybe even put some poor lost children up here for you make no mistake this trans cult has spread everywhere to our medical establishments to our communities and into our very homes instead
008of protecting the children the district seems bent on feeding them this predatory dogma why does the school district think that it's their place to sexually exploit our children you see instead of teaching anatomy and basic human physiology apparently you think it's okay to teach a dangerous political ideology instead i have a quote for you the division between genders is the very root of all inequity the only way that this inequality can be negated is where the sexual difference between man and woman is abolished that ladies and gentlemen is from karl marx you see the two main tenets of cultural marxism is to erase gender and destroy family i want you guys to wake up and realize that marxism is identifying as transgenderism transgender wasn't even in our common vocabulary five years ago there wasn't a
009single child that used words like non-binary if human growth and development stays in the curriculum it will be used to groom children it should be noted that state law does not require this to be taught in our schools so we're demanding that it be removed many good parents will not see an email to opt out thus leaving children as prey are actively promoting identity confusion lasting irreparable emotional damage and insecurity it's no wonder that adolescent mental health issues are a steep increase when children are overtly sexualized and taught to question their own identity believe me that this subversive behavior by the school district will be stopped and those held and those responsible will be held accountable thank you atlanta my name is lana shoals rice lake wisconsin yesterday we honored those we lost and fought
010to protect our country that frightful day thank you to all those who served and your families september 11th marks the day when terrorists attacked our great nation we could see our enemy we came together we united we fought back against those who attacked us today we are fighting against a domestic terrorism against our own we're fighting against those who have been conspiring for generations for communism and marxism they have been quietly making their plans and making their moves while we've been living our lives they are among us they have sought all levels of administration in government the cdc corporations schools city planning manufacturing just to name a few they have been pitting neighbor against neighbor they have they are trying to break up families and pit children against siblings and against parents they are trying
011to steal our kids we know we are in the cusp of a civil war to protect our constitution our bill of rights our family our chil our children from communism and marxist ideology that is in this town of rice lake wisconsin we have seen their uprising grow in bold measures while our city and school administrations sit idle one of which was the health curriculum gender identity misinformation by josh morley and the cdc sexualized content which included conversations about abortions for eighth graders all of this was supposed supposedly suppressed last spring which we thought was for good apparently not they keep coming and putting it in the curriculum health class needs to be removed from the middle school curriculum a second is the constant attempts in changing our language and removing our history from our lessons
012we have activist teachers in our school teaching our kids the most recent example is on the first day of school our new rice lake middle school art teacher is introducing herself stating her pronouns and asking what the students pronouns were the kids in the class said this does not belong in the school and they refuse to participate i am very proud of these seventh grade kids and their parents this is marxism right out of the manual we require this type of behavior to be removed and addressed by the administration immediately the parents are mad we are uprising take a look at what's happening in eau claire we will join them in order to protect our kids please hear us nancy there she is hello first i wanted to say thank you to the school board
013for serving i want to say thank you to randy drost and the principals and all the teachers really my name is nancy keeler i'm from cumberland i am a large business owner in rice lake i love kids i've taught public school for 10 years i've subbed for five years i've taught private school for 20 plus years i continue to teach my whole life is education and kids i love kids the rice lake public school system according to the internet has 2185 students about of those are maybe i don't know 20 transgender or 40 transgender or 100 let's say 100 are transgender that's four point five seven percent meaning 95 percent of the students are not of transgender identity the joy of teaching is reaching kids kids are so trusting of their teachers we are taught
014to learn from the teacher and not to question it teachers are taught to educate in reading writing math science social studies health pe art and music already teaching is extremely hard it's a lot different than when i taught in addition to more guidelines of how to deal with one to five percent of the majority minority student in the right sex school system is just too difficult so what i'm asking is first off i think parents should always be informed about everything important in their child's life so always informed him anything happening at the school and second i would actually like to urge the school board to take out the transgender policy in the handbook 411 this is just too hard when the teachers have so much other stuff going on and i would i don't
015know if it's allowed i would ask that you do not allow transgender education to be taught in the rice lake public school system please allow teachers to focus on public education of the core subjects and leave other teachings as religion and sexual identity to the parents religion and sexual identity should not be part of the public school system it should be part of the parents job and not to the teachers or the social worker if transgender education is required by the straight state i would like to apply for the job i am certified k through eight so thank you very much joan farrell sorry about that all right so i'm back and what i would like to urge is to help make vulnerable kids feel safe safe space on a door that's been there for
016all these years that kids that are feeling like they don't belong already that they're hearing harassment in the hallway they don't want to come to school and sometimes when well like last time when i talked tonight i mentioned truancy and that i've heard from parents say you know my kid just feels so picked on at school they don't feel safe there they don't want to come to school and that you know that we take and listen to those kids what is it well i hear from kids and they're hearing oh that's so gay oh that's so in racist terms and that kind of thing teachers like was just pointed out they have way too much on their plate already but i do believe that we need to make a safe place for kids there was
017back in 1996 in ashland wisconsin that was the first case where a school district was found they settled out of court for just under a million dollars back in 96 jamie to bosnia and um yeah it's he was not safe in the school and nobody wants to start all kinds of litigation one way the other way whatever but it just needs to be a safe place for kids to learn and yeah i just think that that's incredibly important and if you know like what abby said if she felt as an adult like she wasn't supported she wasn't being um just treated with respect how's it going for those kids let's find out from those kids why a lot of them are afraid to come and like at the last meeting we talked about you folks
018brought out the truancy issue it's a real really big thing so i ask that we make it a safe place for kids everywhere that we can thank you heidi heidi wise hi i'm heidi wise from chitech i'm a mom of a high school student inch tech i'm also a scout mom one requirement for adults involved in scouting is to attend youth protection training every year in that training we learn that abusers follow a consistent pattern when grooming potential victims number one they insist on secrecy number two they exploit victims insecurities and position themselves as the only ones who can keep their victims safe and secure and number three they work to separate victims from their families as i look back at the last two years of poor decisions by public officials when it came to
019our children many of whom have likely been set back decades by those decisions according to recent studies and all for no added benefit i might add you'll forgive me if i don't trust school officials to make the right call when it comes to individual students health and well-being that job is for parents who have the legal right and moral obligation to guide their children thank you anna peterson good evening my name is lana peterson i'm the mother of one child who has graduated and i'm just here to comment on the transgender discussions that have been going on i'm i'm not commenting tonight on what another person may be feeling or experiencing with gender issues that's not my place but after giving this a lot of thought i will comment on the overlooked rights of other
020people to follow their own conscience policy 411 rule 2 for transgender students states and i quote students will be addressed by the name and pronoun corresponding to the student's gender identity unquote referring to a biological male as she or her or a biological female is he or him would violate another person's rights to adhere to their own deeply held beliefs and convictions be they religious or otherwise that pronouns correspond with biological sex it should not be demanded of students and staff to state something with their own mouths that their conscience does not believe this i have a news story here here's a news story dated 11 days ago regarding a teacher in kansas that was suspended because she referred to a biological female as miz she filed a lawsuit against the school district claiming discrimination
021against her religious beliefs and was awarded 95 thousand dollars in arbitration this should be a wake-up call and a precedent to every school district in the country that there will be tangible consequences for trying to demand that people go along with violating their own consciences and as far as notifying parents parents do have the right to know if their child is wanting to change their name and or pronouns to be school again i'm not going to comment on the choice to change make those changes but again this would violate the conscience of staff members who believe it is deceptive to refer to a child by one gender at school but not use that language when speaking to that child's parents my final point i'd like to make is pretty simple get back to teaching the
022basics not controversial subjects like it or not this is a controversial subject no matter which side you land on i believe our students time and our taxpayer dollars should go toward the basics of education one of my son's favorite classes in the in high school was personal finance because it had practical application in life that he is still using to this day and will use it for the rest of his life let's have more of that and leave out the controversial or political subjects josiah moldenhauer good evening thank you all for what you do for the children in the area and keeping things going and i'm uh i did live in barron years ago and more recently uh just recently this year i'm a resident of rice lake and i just have a few short
023things to say i believe strongly that the parents are the ones raising the children and they are not children of the state so the parents ought to be the ones who determine what is taught and have full disclosure in the choices the choices that their children are making as their minors thank you armand kefmeier so we've heard a lot from parents and adults some who don't even have students anywhere near this school district but we haven't heard from a student i'm a student i'm a senior in high school at rice lake high school just across the street i'm here of my own accords nobody is telling me to be here i am full conscious i'd just like to say i think we can i hope we can agree that the school's priority top priority should
024be the safety of students education is a good second but safety of students should be our top priority that being said i i'd say the policy that the school board has come up with i commend it for being very supportive of students very safe for students especially of course the policy 411 that policy is very important to me it is vital to me and my peers that it stays how it is because it protects the safety of my friends my peers my friends and your students and that is extremely important that should be our number one priority is to protect our safety and we shouldn't be listening to like adults from other school districts who don't even have children in this school system right now we should be listening to students who actually care about
025our safety and our well-being and you know want to see a more safe respective school even if it is like five percent of the students that doesn't matter it should be a safe space for everyone we don't see kids with mental and physical disability and say that's only like three percent of our school district we're just gonna not care about them not teach kids to learn and respect those disabilities we give them the best shot we can because it is our duty as a school district and as a community and i think we need to give the same to transgender and all lgbt students as is is the right to a good public education as it is my right and every student at rice lake high school middle school elementary wherever every student should have
026the right to a good public health education and to have safety while um receiving that thank you justin pompero mayor justin funfara uh here in rice lake and they live just down the block so of course it's wonderful to see all of the kids coming and going um this time of year and i thank you for all of the work actually that each of you do i know these are sometimes troubling times but i know that the effective leadership that is each of you is actually very capable of will what's the best way to say it that each of you is very capable of the most effective leadership that you can possibly provide for our school district for our students for our teachers for education for our students um i thought i was going to
027come here and talk a little bit differently i i have to say that i um i'm not very well versed to everything that's happening in the school district certainly the city has a lot for me to do but i will tell you this the school district here in rice lake must be of top-notch importance to our community it must be a positive positive experience for all involved regardless of what backgrounds we have regardless of where we come from it it helps bring people the school district helps bring people here to the city for an enjoyable place to live for a safe place to live always so again i thank you very much for all of your work that you're doing here and hopefully all of you can come to a very good decision um this
028evening or or possibly in future thank you joshua carlson hello my name is joshua carlson i have three boys in the rice lake school system as a father i have three major tasks to instruct my children in the way that they should go number one i am to teach them god's word the bible number two i am to model god's word to them through my obedience to his truth in both word and deed number three i am to protect them from ideas and teachings that oppose god's word i am here today because of task number three there are harmful teachings and ideas that have been infiltrating the school curriculum such as sexual education lgbtq doctrine critical race theory etc etc i would encourage the school board to enact stipulations in which the school notifies and
029sends permission waivers home for parental consent relating to any curriculum that is not strictly academic there are things that i don't want my children learning at school and and this would be a positive step in the right direction for transparency the other thing for anyone that is in the lgbt community that's here i will say that there is forgiveness there's hope and there is peace in christ jesus i can understand feeling out of place and i succumb to the deceptions that the world pushed on me um and trying to mold me and and encourage me to become what a stereotypical black person is is supposed to be or what that the idea of a black person is supposed to be a thug a thug mentality and i fell into criminal activity and and almost ruined
030my life but but the lord redeemed me he rescued me and he pursued me and that same hope is and peace can be found in christ for you thank you richard peterson live west of rice lake have been here for 60 some years raised my family here raised three children in the school system very good school system it was and it can be and it will be it will be i'm just trying to figure out at 80 years old what are we what are we doing somebody said getting back to the basics getting back to when randy was going to school with my son i shouldn't put that out i suppose but anyway he wasn't quite that good a wrestler was he then we had the basics we had morals and i support these my
031black brother i support what you said thank you um ginny leave us you're not going to praise the last name yes that was very good um i came with some things that i wanted to say but i've kind of changed my mind while we've been listening and it brought me back to when i was a young kid and um my mom was a third grade teacher and we were at the school where she taught and there was a janitor there and it was a man he was a big man but he also had breasts and this just blew me away and i said to my mother what's wrong with that man and luckily she was open with me and she said well he's a hermaphrodite and i've never forgotten that word and it was a
032person who was born both male and female genitalia so he was made by god and made that way he wasn't groomed he wasn't influenced by other people it was what he was and scientifically in our bodies when we are in the womb there are any number of things that can go differently than the average so when i hear on words like trash these people are trash i'm very offended because they are not trash um [Music] i also know that uh in our community there are a lot of gay people not all of them are out as the word goes but there are a lot there are doctors and lawyers and teachers there are consumers there are business owners there are neighbors there are family in fact some of you in this room might have gay
033people in your families and what are you going to do to them are you going to pray for them until they are gone until they are suicidal because statistically scientifically that is what happens so i i was very disheartened tonight to listen to some of the things that are being said um i hope that the school board will see fit to protect all its students i hope that they will see fit not to groom a student to be something that they aren't don't groom them to be something they aren't thank you julie beaver what hi my name is julie beaver i live here in rice lake i have students at rice lake school district my husband is also a ricebook employee he teaches at the middle school in my family i have five adopted kids
034the first batch came to us in 2008. my son was 12 when he came to us he came out when he was 19. he was afraid to come out to us before that he called us to tell us he was coming out and he was like so i'm gay and we're like okay and what's like what's the big deal he's like no that was it we're like oh okay so let's just move on here so we did a few years ago we responded to a call from barron county social services saying they had a student who identified as a gay male who needed a foster placement the foster home he was in was trying to pray the gay out of him and then they said oh this isn't working you can't live here with us
035anymore that's a foster parent's right you can do that you can say this isn't a good fit for me this isn't a good fit for our family and i get that sometimes things aren't good fits but for those kids who aren't good fits they need someone to love them they need some place to feel supported and loved it's that child of mine is now transgendered transgender woman it has been a struggle it's been a struggle here in our community it's been a struggle because there are people that i thought supported us who don't i believe in god i believe in jesus i believe in all of that but i also know that it's not my job to judge any of that it's my job to support and love that's what my house is about and
036that's what i believe our school district should be about love yeah uh policy 187 uh president states that there's a 30-minute maximum on public appearances yes so i would i would suggest that we move on to our next agenda item and save all those who signed up to come back to our next meeting and they will have priority all right i can't believe this is that is that that it can only go 30 minutes that's our policy paul policy 187 section 4 30 minutes for public appearances so that we can get on to our other agenda items that's our policy anything else we argue so based on policy 187 section 4 we will move on to these other agenda items and uh the people that are left on the list there are three names on
037the list laurie kelly and jake you guys are welcome to uh come back at our next meeting your names will be take a priority on that on that list okay thank you all right so next we have the consented regular approval of the regular session meeting minutes from august 22nd okay um i was at that meeting and i hesitated down as upset i was there virtually no no we will correct that part of the minutes is there any other corrections if not i would entertain a motion to approve the amended minutes a motion to approve it motion 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 aye hi i post and the minutes have been approved next we have
038our consent agenda where we have our monthly budget our board bills and employment resignations we have one there and then we have 13 employment recommendations no 11. with that there is one change number 11 that seventh grade volleyball coach is not an assistant coach but it will be a co-head coach which is that number 11 8th grade volleyball seventh grade volleyball coach kelsey mccracken mr jensen okay if i just comment on that quickly yes um and that was due to um you know and it's a good thing uh i know there were a large number of girls coming out for seventh and eighth grade volleyball i believe about 30 uh per yeah per grade level and so we needed some extra extra coaching there a motion to approve the consent agenda motion has been made
039as our second thank you motion has been made and seconded any further discussion say none all in favor signify by saying aye aye all right post and the consent agenda has been approved next we have our report section of the agenda where we'll start off with our safe return to school and nasser 3 plan yeah and with that myself and mr shearers are bringing this forward just as a requirement under the federal esser well through the state but uh on esther funding for the state we need to bring this before you as a board uh every six months so we did that back in february and we need to do that again in six months and then one more time next fall but really no significant changes to it it's the the same piece that
040we put together back in february um i can answer any questions you have on it it's also in for anyone that's either listening or watching or here if you want to see a copy of it it's on our district website we're required to have it posted on our website uh minimally for another year and we just need to make sure we're reviewing that periodically so that's why it's before you tonight no action you need to take we just need to if you have questions or other pieces you want to talk about related to it i need to give you that opportunity any questions comments all right thank you okay next we have our finance committee meeting update mr goldman oh yeah we met on september 7th all members were present proper notice was given approve
041the minutes uh we basically had a lot of agenda agenda items but they moved fairly quickly we met with our new business officer victor drost and he explained some of the changes the first one was the electronic payment of bills so that'll make that more efficient they pay them electronically to the vendors better tracking uh and then we talked about a credit card purchase cards and we're moving away from our traditional ones to a new one that is sponsored through the u.s bank i believe it was it gives us two percent cash back so that will be a nice help in our budget uh we implemented positive pay which is basically um it just helps detect fraud the cost will be 125 a month but that will it doesn't allow people to cash a check
042twice as i recall we had some government deposit accounts that were um we're going to close because we weren't using those it just makes the audit more difficult we also had some additional dairy state bank accounts that were set up but not used so we're looking to reduce those to again make the audit more efficient we look to change the activity account procedures and close some bank accounts and so that basically all things get handled through our main office here and get rid of the middle school and high school checking accounts to again help with the audit and make that more efficient and you know check and balance if you will we also they're also requesting to change our fixed asset policy to five thousand dollars versus one thousand dollars and this is more of
043just an accounting thing so we're recommending to do that uh document management systems we will be looking at uh moving to a paperless option so things will be scanned i believe the cost there's an upfront cost of eighteen thousand dollars but it will it'll make our operation much more efficient mr blackhauler gave gave us an update on the aquatic center and uh that's moving forward we looked at and approved the bills our next meeting will be october 6th at 8 15 a.m we adjourn thank you any questions all right then next we have the board policy and legislative advocacy committee meeting update we've got just uh three items that are on the second reading so we'll need to discuss those and and look at the proving those it's policy 371 student organizations policy 430 student
044attendance and rule 430 student attendance procedures with that is there any questions or comments all right i would entertain a motion to approve those three items motion has been made is there a second second motion has been made and seconded any further discussion none all in favor signify by saying aye aye those three items have been approved next we have our upcoming meeting schedule colleen likes to try my eyes with this small little uh um we've got uh wednesday september uh looks like 28 at noon registration is required for that employee political speech online event we've got our fall meeting wednesday october 12th coming up so that's at layman's participation of at board meetings an online event for wednesday the 12th at noon registration is required also a legal and legislative video update wednesday october
04519th at noon and wasb legal and legislative video update wednesday november 16th at noon no registration is required for those two items and then the wsb education convention january 17th no tuesday january 17 through friday january 20th down in milwaukee if you can attend any of those please let colleen know so she can get you registered for those ones that need to be registered for with that we will turn it over to upcoming district events with our district administration yeah just uh just a couple of pieces uh but they're big ones so the forest run is this saturday and i didn't look up mr polky put you on the spot you know about what annual forest run this is i'm going to say rough which one that's what i was thinking about 10 thank you
046so about the 10th annual forest run this saturday sponsored by our fbla group future business leaders of america check out our facebook page i know mr polkey said you can register no they'd like you to register ahead of time but you can register on race day as well it's a 5k uh run and walk fundraiser you know funds go to uh help and assist in a number of ways uh with uh pieces related to brain cancer and so it's a outstanding event it's been very popular in the community well attended and it's gonna be a good time it's gonna be a great time and then also next week next week is homecoming week and so lots of things going on and fall formal would be saturday the 24th and if you've got questions if you're
047a student or a parent you can reach out to the high school office there's going to be a lot of great things going on next week related to that and then as always please check our calendar page if you go to our website that main page has calendars you can check out that calendar page and of course our facebook page to stay on top of everything that's happening all right thank you for that update with that i would entertain a motion to adjourn motion has been made is there a second