001all right it is seven o'clock i will call the monday august 8th 2022 regular board meeting to order roll call please this is bob roth here mr richard here monday august 8th 2022 regular board meeting to order roll call please this is bob roth here mr richard mr kuchko here this is kozer here this is fisher here mr bowman here mr henkel here and mr jensen here and pat can you tell us if a proper notice was given for this meeting certainly please be advised that public notice of this meeting as required by section 19.84 65.90 of the wisconsin statutes has been properly given such notice consists of a notice and agenda to the official newspaper the rights of the contype to the oak road leader into radio stations wjmc and waqe indicating the date
002time and place in the meeting such notice was given 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 we have two people that have signed up to come to the podium we'll start with gene hello i'm gene farrell and i'm going to go through this pretty quickly i know three minutes go quickly so i'm a resident and taxpayer within the rice lake school district for over 35 years where our daughter went to school and where i was a substitute teacher and volunteer first thank you all for your service on this board and a special thank you to all who have been supportive of some of our most vulnerable students with resources like the gsa the gay straight
003alliance the group that students asked four years ago why do i think this group is so important my husband and i are allies in the community group rainbow alliance we are involved in this group as we know from personal experience that these young people and their families can face so many extra struggles i had a relative who suffered so greatly from lack of acceptance that he took his own life leaving a family behind as he could no longer live the lie indeed according to cbs news in may of this year 42 of lgbtq plus youth seriously consider suicide in the past year those rates are far above the rate of their heterosexual peers but if you add in demographics like also being a student of color those kids are even more at risk but it
004doesn't have to be that way at the gatherings for rainbow alliance i hear the students and families talk about what the gsa means one family member described the group as a lifesaver and how it has helped their child avoid truancy support comes in other ways as well a local teacher friend often gets thanked for the simple statement that she makes at the beginning of each term where she announces that her class is a safe place to learn no matter someone's race religion ethnicity orientation gender identity and she stops any bullying before it gets started well i never had a lot of i didn't have bullying to deal with when i was a kid and i know things have changed a lot not only is there online bullying but today's average teen hears gay and racial
005slurs regularly in the hallways how do i know this local kids tell me and my freshman students tell me that those slurs are rampant starting in middle school imagine a kid who hears that's so gay to mean something disgusting most every single day same for the n word which is also rampant back to the bright side in working with freshmen i note how many students over the years have become much more comfortable with their friends family members or themselves who do not iden identify as heterosexual a common theme for these students is it's not my place to judge others about that these inclusive students have a big advantage in life they can readily work with others so that they are well prepared for the diverse world out there teaching our youth that gay students are
006worthy and not judge a book by its cover helps them gear for success being a good team player is exactly what employers are looking for in today's put a political climate it takes courage to stand up for vulnerable kids it's kind of intimidating for me to do this but it is clearly the right thing to do thank you and if you have questions i'm open to that so thank you thank you all right next is an ariane hi my name is ariane peterson i'm also a resident of the district and a taxpayer i'm actually here on behalf of mary haft who is a friend who wasn't able to be here tonight but wanted to share a message with the school board with you all and um i do have written copies i think you may
007already have one um of her letter so i'd like to read that um mary says dear rice lake school board members my name is mary heft i have been a rice lake resident for 50 years i had two children who were enrolled in rice lake schools like you i was honored to serve on the school board three years ago at the request of the mother of a transgender student i agreed to form a support group for lgbtqia students family members and allies during those meetings i became acutely aware of the struggles our students face and their need for our ongoing support unfortunately i'm unable to be at the board meeting tonight i asked superintendent drost if he would make sure each of you received a copy of the letter i intended to read i had
008hoped to express my gratitude to faculty staff administrators and school board members who have demonstrated support for lgbtqia students if the school district were to take steps backward steps toward withdrawal of that support a loud and clear message would go out to our lgbtqia students and their families that their safety and well-being are not our priority worse yet withdrawal of the rice lake school district support would send a signal to those who hate the lgbtqia community that our students are now fair game for discrimination please don't let that happen please continue to make it clear to all race lake school district students that they have our support and that their lives matter respectfully mary haft all right thank you all right next i would entertain a motion to approve the regular session meeting minutes from
009july 11th and a special session in closed session meeting minutes from monday july 25th i'll motion to approve the meeting minutes for july 11th and july 25th promotion has been made is there a second circuit motion has been made and seconded is there any further discussion it's being done all in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed the minutes have been approved next we have our consent agenda where we have our monthly budget and cash reconciliation report the monthly board bills we have seven employment resignations and 14 employment recommendations i would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda a move to approve the consent agenda as presented i'll second it motion has been made and seconded is any further discussion none all in favor signify by saying aye all right post and the consent
010agenda has been approved next we have in our report section our 21 22 seclusion and physical restraint data report master drost yes so this was prepared by mrs lori johnson our new director of special education and people services if you haven't had a chance to meet her yet she's here with us tonight but every year in the state of wisconsin school districts are required to report to report to boards of education and then also submit data to the state of wisconsin to the department of public instruction on the use of seclusion and physical restraint in our schools during the previous year so we do this every summer and we have the definitions in that document seclusion is defined as the involuntary confinement of a pupil apart from other pupils in a room or area from
011which the pupil is physically prevented from leaving and physical restraint is defined as a restraint that immobilizes or reduces the ability of a pupil to freely move his or her torso arms legs or head and i'm just in the verbiage below there those are seclusion and restraint are considered to be emergency interventions uh we want there if that's needed there needs to be a clear present and imminent risk to the physical safety of the student or others and is the least restrictive intervention fees and so with that you can see for 2021-22 there were no instances of physical restraint or seclusion at the middle school or high school and so then at the elementary level uh combined there were i'll look at restraint first between the three elementary schools 12 instances of physical restraint and
012then i'm going to jump down about halfway down there so total students restrained was six students without disabilities there was one student and students with disabilities there were five and then for instances of seclusion there were 29 total instances of seclusion throughout the elementary and then when you jump down to disaggregate that a little bit total six total students secluded and all six of those were students with disabilities and so as i said this was reported to the department of public instruction they monitor that if any when we report it we have to break it down by individual school and if at any time they believe that maybe there were excessive instances of seclusion and or restraint at a given school they reach out to that school district and you work on an action plan
013to reduce those numbers in that particular school thank you any questions i do um how does our district fit in with the average source percentage um that i don't know as far as average i've never seen data from other school districts i don't believe that is shared publicly anywhere but department of public instruction keeps track of that and is this about in line with what we've seen in the past or is it less or more uh middle school and high school typically there are very few i would say the instances of seclusion were up a little bit this year and that's why we in the past maybe board members you may have seen we may be disaggregated it by each of the elementary schools we didn't do that this year because that the potential in
014looking at the data we would have had some personally identifiable data in there potentially so that's why we combined the three i would say the instances of seclusion is is up a little bit but overall um not totally out of line with what we usually see and then why why do you see absolutely none at the middle school if there's some elementary students that were having some issues when they get to the middle school magically they don't or how does that happen yeah i think there's there's a few things i would say maturity um is a piece of that as well um and i think there are um yeah i i know that's a big part of it i know kurt i'm gonna put words in your mouth here um i know kurt would say
015by the time students get to the high school especially that level of maturity they might see students get upset you know that's you know it's not that it doesn't happen but to the where to the level it rises to uh seclusion or physical restraint that rarely happens there and i i think josh would you say the same thing at the middle school level basically when we're trained to do this we don't put our hands on kids unless they're or um else and so we use de-escalation strategies that put us in a situation where we don't have to put our hands up okay so any other questions all right thank you for that report next we have the 22 23 warriors in wisconsin the wow program student informational booklet this will be our first reading mark
016good evening everyone mark bias the assistant principal at the high school and i also oversee the wow program this year for the student information book concerning the well program we don't have very many changes most of the edits that you will see in kind of the the appendix i have at the back of the information book is language that parallels the high school student information book that was approved in the spring of the year the only thing that is uh particularly new to the wow student handbook is that peace found on page 13 where we've added some language about the referral process and have provided a link to a referral if a parent thinks that our wow program would be a good fit for their student or if for example one of the middle school
017counselors wants to access that as well this does get published on our our website under the wild program so individuals or families that are looking for more information on the wow program do have the opportunity to click on our student information book that they can go through and then there is where they could see that referral or one spot to find it if they don't contact me first so with that being said that's pretty much the only uh edits to the booklet for this school year any questions all right well i i have a question on uh i think page 23 here is still part of the wow booklet it lists all uh the coaches for boys and girls sports so that's the um quick the co-curricular in curricular that we have listed in the
018high school handbook as well yep so that that is part of this wow handball yep any student that's at wow can participate in any of those groups or activities or or athletics okay i was wandering down uh just down below there i just asked the question to identify the page but student activities and organizations i'm most of them are written out there's at least one there that i don't know what the acronym stands for okay i'm just wondering if we can write out the names of all those student organizations sure sure can do that just at least change the margins and the spacing that's not a problem would you be able to do that i can definitely do that that'd be great thank you all right you bet in-house any other questions or comments all
019right thank you this is the first reading that'll be brought back to us with those recommended changes and uh for our second reading next we have a first reading for the employee handbook expanding yes and i wanted to there was one piece uh that i'm going to talk about that was included in your board packet regarding element schedules and then there was another piece i put a stapled um copy um [Music] at your place this evening and it just related to colbit and and some pieces that are outdated and so i'll start with the the elementary handbook and so we had made some revisions let me make this a little bit bigger we made some revisions to our language related to teacher schedules and so the part um that we needed to do some more
020tweaking with you had already proved this initial language the high school schedule uh the language related to the middle school schedule and so for the elementary schedule uh working on some prep time pieces and so on and fleshing that out but just had that the normal day for classroom based elementary teachers will include instruction in ela math science and social studies and when scheduled school counseling lessons and one weekly team collaboration period and then prep time and collaboration takes place when students are at you know phi ed music art library recess and then said the normal school day for specialist teachers you know fired music and art teachers teach a number of half-hour sections per week art teacher schedules our 45-minute sections library teachers meet with each class at least once a week and then
021the inner best interventionists and special education teachers shall schedule daily prep time consistent with other teaching staff and so just wanted to flesh that out um and address each group um individually and have that time in there so like i said the high school and middle school language was already approved and this is a first reading for this piece and then the other piece is what i placed at your location and it was and this came up after the board packet was out the addendum to the staff handbook concerning pandemic workplace protocols and i touched base with bob uh butler earlier today on this as well from wasb we had things in there like um or is it down the family first um [Music] like in in um one a number three uh things like
022family first chronic vitamins emergency response emergency leave that is not um that is not in place anymore we had some things regarding you know 14 days of quarantine that's not uh the current guidance and so i just talked to bob and i said it you know should we modify those pieces what are you recommending to school districts he said at this point the last school district i worked with we recommended just deleting that um you're going to work within [Music] within the confines of what you do locally he said i'm not sure that you need to have this in there but so those were my recommendations on those two pieces um regarding the elementary remove the addendum yes yes just remove the addendum yeah any other questions or comments all right these uh changes are
023our first reading for the handbook they also will be brought back for our approval at our next meeting and then continuous improvement plan update yeah so i wanted to touch base on a few things i'll also be uh talking about this on the first day of staff in service as well but you're familiar with and actually aaron johnson is working on a website where we can place our continuous improvement pieces on our website but our four pillars of student success our people families and community and finances and resources and uh one of the pieces and i think i've talked about this i don't know if i've brought uh the full score card back um to you publicly and and so that our public could see it as well but one of our let me get
024back to the top here one of our goals this year um was focused on elementary literacy and we wanted at least 70 percent of our students at the elementary level um in their cbm oral reading passages to score at the 40th percentile and above and so i shared uh fall winter and now we have you know spring data as well um and again this is let me make this a little bigger so people in the audience can maybe see it a little bit better um i'm gonna go back to you know why do we say 40th percentile and you've heard me say this before but from the 20th fifth statistically from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile is considered average and so if you just want to look purely from a statistical standpoint however
025we know a student that scores at the 25th percentile the likelihood of that student scoring proficient advanced on the forward exam or being where they need to be as far as act testing that's not likely to happen and so in working with fastbridge we want at least 70 percent of our students at the 40th percentile and so at the elementary level and second third and fourth grade we were right around that 50 percent of our students at the 40th percentile or above and i'm going to continue to talk our strategic actions are going to be similar to what they were this year you've heard me talk about letters training which is a science of reading based training at the end of this year uh almost all of our element entry teachers will um will have
026gone through that training also on the opening day of in service as kari danzi since i said could you maybe just talk for about 10 minutes on that and so that um everyone uh k12 or 4k12 understands the direction uh we're headed in uh with our literacy instruction uh throughout the school district i think that will be beneficial but that's where we're at there in terms of looking at k-8 math we've got fall winter spring again we wanted at least 70 percent of our students to be at that 40th percentile and above and in some areas we met that goal at some grade levels and in others we were close and and others we have a little bit of work to do but in general math scores are strong throughout the district i'm i'm going
027to credit at the k-8 level i'm going to credit chris britton with a lot of that which he's done over the years as our math coach in terms of looking at mathematical standards looking at mathematical practices and it's challenging but our chris and all of our instructors have have done an excellent job in preparing our students for where they need to be is there still room for improvement yes but we're doing well in terms i'm going to go back to literacy at the middle school level as far as spring and fifth sixth seventh and eighth grade again looking for we wanted students at least 70 percent to be per in that general reading column to be at the 40th percentile uh we're close in the 60s and and 70s there and fifth sixth seventh and
028eighth grade um and at some point too i'll talk more about forward exam testing and i'm going to look at you mr thomas because i know in terms of our forward exam our students at the middle school level made a lot of improvement uh this year from last year to this year and so we'll be talking more about that as well and then at the high school level um fall winter and spring we for the first time looked at a freshman and had them participate in the fast bridge screener as well and i will reiterate as the year goes on these screeners progress in difficulty so it's not the same one all three times it's expecting students to progress in their skills and so when we look at that general reading about two-thirds of our
029freshmen we're at least at the 40th percentile and so um you know happy to be including the high school and helping them see where students are at and work to improve instruction as well once you've seen some of that before um and also the attendance data before i've i've shared this with you but you can see where kind of pre-pandemic where our numbers of chronically absent students were defined as missing 10 or more of the school year and um then in you know in 1920 numbers looked really good but remember students weren't in school after march 20th and then when we look to the last uh couple of years numbers are not so great and so when you say generically you know what's one of the goals we're working on this year in the school
030district attendance as we uh i know we'll be doing interviews this coming week for that attendance coordinator position and working to streamline pieces i know administrators i did reach out to baron to see if they were going to be scheduling that annual truancy meeting that they have every year and they're going to be working on that but focusing on attendance will be one of our goals this year and i'm having students in school and bringing those numbers down some things you haven't heard about and i know board members um i have some they i can leave that i'll just leave that there and come back to this um some other pieces there was a scorecard the communication group and this will be coming out soon i know there was another meeting today with colleen and
031others to work on this or communication work with the donovan group a communications guide will be coming and that guide is going to be for parents for staff members for community members as well just letting them know what communications they're going to receive when they'll receive them and where they'll be coming from there'll be a communications roadmap so kind of a monthly not kind of a monthly calendar of what we're expecting to communicate on a monthly basis there will be common templates for newsletters and then this will be live as well i'll give it a click here but for our intranet site and i call this uh marty had come up with with this design so it's our happy cloud website uh but with this this will be a one one-stop shop where anybody uh
032in the district can get an update on what's happening with various committees and so i'm going to click on tech steering committee marty's in charge of that committee so as people select the various clouds you will see a purpose statement for that committee you'll see the committee chairperson and you'll see how frequently they meet you'll see a number you'll see a membership list for that committee and then you'll see meeting agendas in minutes and so um it won't be perfect to start with but i chose this one because i knew marty was in charge of this one and it would it would look the best um but uh with that um it's been something we've been working on and and some other things got in the way recently but with that i think it's going
033to help people so hey i'm wondering where can i find the minutes for that committee meeting or wonder who's on that committee who can i talk to if i have a question about something this will be a spot where they can go and we still have on our internet site as well all the board level uh committees so that will be coming as well going back to this also want to talk a little bit about some recent surveys you've got hard copy printouts at your desk at your spot this evening a parent satisfaction survey so the last time we uh distributed our parent satisfaction survey was 2019 and we wanted to do that again this year and so we did it we had with less participation it was toward the end of the year that
034maybe wasn't the best time but it is what it is at this point and so we had 226 respondents um the district's overall average across the board was a 4.00 our goal was to have that go up to a 4.09 from a 4.04 but it is what it is and and i would say the most important piece is analyzing the responses about 36 percent of the answers received were in that top box or strongly agree category and so when you look at all of the questions that are a part of that everything from my child's learning is a high priority at the school to my family is treated with respect at this school i would recommend the school to other parents um questions about leadership and so we get a breakdown of that and and
035you have that frequency distribution as well as an overall mean and with that then you say wow there's 17 questions there there's a lot of questions how do you break that down or or pick goals to work on and so you look at top five and bottom five is is one of the ways to look at that and so with the five highest means saying okay we want to look at those and what makes those high so the highest score of all was my child has the necessary classroom supplies and equipment for effective learning um that was a 4.3 with you know 45 percent of the answers and the strongly agree you know things like the school is well maintained is clean and well maintained my family is treated with respect at this school and
036those are important and so building principles will be talking about their building level reports and analyzing those at the building level when we look at across the district as a whole you know the five lowest ones um things related to a child is recognized for effort good behavior i receive positive communication school rules and discipline plans i regularly receive feedback from school staff on how well my student is learning again you know questions we ask for these is okay um lowest one i regularly receive feedback from school staff on how well my child is learning uh what would it look like if if that was a four or five what would we be seeing what would we be hearing and it's hard with these you know you'd like to be able to have individual conversations
037with parents but and we can do that on a smaller level but those are the kinds of questions we want to ask and you know earlier i said you know attendance and you know that we've been talking about that for a long time one of the areas of focus in a couple of areas here that i would um i would potentially link together we haven't had a lot of conversation about this administratively because we just got this about a week ago but i would say okay maybe is there a connection between you know the school provides a safe environment for my child to learn and school rules and discipline plans are enforced consistently at this school i don't know but that's you know one question i would have and you know attendance will be one
038area of focus uh definitely for the year um behavior in general is going to be another area of focus um you know across the district for this year as well and so and then we also take a look at employ at employee engagement and so employee engagement is a survey we survey we've given for the last four years and overall our score was a 396. you know our goal was to go from a three seven eight to at least a three eight eight um so sure maybe met the goal um but i again i'm less concerned about the number and more concerned about you know what are the responses tell us a little over a third of the answers were in that strongly agree category so in terms of the questions we see everything from
039my principal slash supervisor provides me good processes and resources to do my job sets clear performance expectations provides feedback there's questions about me as well or if given a choice i would recommend that a parent select this district for his or her child and then we also have some questions uh strictly on communication because i know in in working with um student education i'd say that's a that's an issue with any organization they work on and our scores have improved their over time but we know there's more work to do same thing we look at top five and bottom five and administrators at their buildings will be talking about these with staff members highest score was my principal or supervisor demonstrates a genuine concern for my welfare well that's good we would want to see
040that and and i would recommend that a parent select this district for his or her child those are good things and you talk about why those are good and then as we look at bottom five um a few questions related to communication um providing feedback and and feedback on strengths and i know with um you heard me talk about or maybe other principles talk about walk-through processes um and giving feedback that's that will be an area of focus this year for staff members but we want to talk with staff members as well about all right open and honest communication is important part of the culture if that's a four and a half if that's a five uh what are we seeing in the district and so those are the conversations we'll be having with staff
041and establishing goals uh potential future changes i've i don't know if i've mentioned this publicly you know the way we do employee engagement now it's it's once a year at the end of the year you know is that reactive could we be more proactive i've read some research articles on you know some of the best ways to address employee engagement would be maybe less questions maybe quarterly and having more conversation about that um we'll continue to investigate that but at this point this is is what we have i also want to talk a little bit i know some of you have had questions and i know i've had questions in the school district and beyond about you know the teacher landscape or trying to hire teachers in the state of wisconsin trying to hire teachers
042in barron county trying to hire teachers in rice lake and so just to provide a little bit of context there's about 829 thousand public school students in the state of wisconsin used to be you know quite a few years ago about a million but they're just less students in the state of wisconsin at this point there's about 60 000 public school teachers in the state of wisconsin so i looked on weekend last friday just a education site for posting positions as of last friday afternoon late in the day there were 110 full-time teaching positions in arsisa and so for people that are listening or watching our cis are there 12 ceases in the state of wisconsin ours is made up of 39 school districts right in this area mainly to the west and a little
043bit north a little bit south of us so there are 110 full-time teaching positions available in csu and 2057 in the state of wisconsin i know about 10 percent of those are in madison alone they're short about 200 teachers in madison uh with less than a month to go before school and so that's that's a significant issue and and i know wherever you work place of business or organization it seems everyone's having those same issues but that's what it looks like locally and in the state of wisconsin for teachers and you can kind of see what does it look like so i pulled some data from department of uh wisconsin department of employee trust funds and so as we look at that and and i just quickly tried to estimate but in 2019 there were
044about 4 400 teacher retirements in the state of wisconsin in 2020 about 5100 it dropped a little bit last year down to about 42.50 and so on average i'd say the last three years of about 4 500 a year uh when you look at people coming out of programs and i only have data 1819 was the most recent data but this is data uh put out by the department of public instruction and so this is all wisconsin programs where teachers could be licensed coming out of and so it's interesting data the top line is epp completers so people completing educator prep program and so for instance in 2018-19 there were about 4 800 people completed a program um only about 3 700 saw licensure which is uh interesting and telling in and of itself and
045you can see that line that's that middle line across the board and then the bottom line is the number who were employed in wisconsin the following year and so that's run pretty consistent from 1314 to 1819 and that 32 at the high point 3500 uh range but just remember i said for the last three years and i'm going to assume it's been consistent the last couple of years or maybe trickled down a little bit but with about 4 500 teachers a year on average retiring the last three years uh that's a difference of you know about 1200 uh teachers a year and we know uh we were short and and we don't see a great solution to this um anytime soon and so um you know when i talk with legislators talking about things to
046potentially do to make the profession more appealing to people in terms of you know there are some pieces out there with potential student loan forgiveness but are there other things we can do but that's just kind of a not kind of a gives you a picture of what's happening and so as you know you as board members or people listening or watching uh kind of understand uh what we're working through as well in the employment side of things for teachers specifically but i know that was a lot in a short amount of time but any questions yeah what are we short here um right now i know we need um uh for instance we have a high school english teacher position posting that's for second semester um so we're okay and we worked through some
047pieces with uw claire barron county uh for first semester in terms of offering some college courses and things um that and we're working through as far as teaching positions we may have one or two more um pop up but as far as teaching positions knock on wood we're sitting okay at the moment um but i know other districts um [Music] especially well i shouldn't say especially it's all areas i mean if you look on weekend it's everything from music math science english it doesn't matter the subject area uh they're all over the all over the board so yeah any other questions i just want to say thank you to marty when you showed us the cloud picture a couple years ago randy i had no idea what this is going to look like sure this
048is pretty cool to be able to click on this and make my way through it so thank you marty and the staff for putting that together i i jokingly call that the bob ross plan with all the happy clouds so any other questions or comments i have a comment um one important stat was omitted from the parents survey the second highest most the second most favorable response was that our administrator is an effective leader and i think on a modesty you admitted that i think it's a credit to you thank you yeah for all you thank you thank you any other comments questions all right see none we will move on to our district administrator written reflective narrative this is an action item tonight yeah so yes you had a chance to to review that
049at our last meeting but um annually you take action on that and so then that goes um personnel files i know we had discussion on that before but uh anybody have any questions if not or to entertain a motion to approve to approve second promotion has been made and seconded any further discussion see none all in favor signify by saying aye okay i post and we have approved the district administrator written reflective narrative all right next we have our finance committee meeting update uh yeah we met on the 4th of august all numbers were present prove the minutes went over our budget update and uh mr blackhawk was there and discussed the budget and in indicated that we are projected to come in under budget for the year so that's a good thing and those
050funds will be added to our fund balance which is essentially our check account for now uh we talked about the aquatic center and the budget for that and the timing of that uh we indicated that our mr black collar indicated that obviously there's more money is needed from the fundraising if we were to wanted to complete the project and that has begun and uh but things are you know that's a good thing and so we're going to keep moving forward with that we looked at our opeb trust which is a trust that's set aside for our liability liabilities for retirees and those are invested in you know the equity markets and obviously those performed weekly for the first half of the year but we're hoping that will recover and we're still on track for meeting
051those obligations and liabilities we then recommended approval of the transportation rates our busing company uh they they requested a 5.5 increase for the next year for busing primarily labor costs etc and uh they've been very kind to us and worked with us through a lot of different things and saved us money through different routes etc and so we're recommending approval of that 5.5 increase for the 2022-2023 school year we reviewed the bills clarified some things there recommended approval which they've been approved and then uh our next meeting is scheduled on the 7th of september at 8 30 in the morning we adjourned all right we do have an action item there so i would entertain a motion to approve the 2223 rice lake bus service transportation rate increase i think a motion to approve that
052increase second motion has been made and seconded is there any further discussion see none all in favor signify by saying i i i post and that motion carries so we haven't approved the 5.5 increase any other questions or comments from or for the finance committee all right then we'll move on to our curriculum committee meeting update we have a couple of action items there as well uh curriculum committee met on july 19th and was the first item that we discussed was the library long-range plan we heard from our librarians michelle john drew and aaron hunter and they updated us on the progress that they've made in the last year which is admirable because i believe they're both new in their positions and so we are thankful that they have joined us and they're working with
053our students and our families and then they shared what their goals are for the next year which is primarily just making sure our collection is up to date and continue to work with us our students on research skills and the digital citizenship and then we heard about pilot course updates and so when a new course is added to our curriculum for the first three years we have the instructors give us updates on how the class went and so we heard updates on a couple of year one courses including our fifth grade band which i think went better than the two instructors had ever dreamt and so if your child is interested in band they can start as early as fifth grade yeah both adam and jake were very excited about that and then uh we
054heard about steve adams many classes that he's offering for us many of them earn our students or allow our students to earn credit with northwood tech and pete peterson his engineering and robotics classes dave buckman sorry dan buckman's uh cad courses that should be all the ones that we heard about and as a committee we moved forward the classes that were in their third year at which point tonight i'm going to ask that we approve those to make them a permanent part of our curriculum and then uh the last item that we discussed as a committee on july 19th was social studies textbook adoption for grade two um i believe right the whole community had a chance to review the grade two textbook uh from savis which was recommended by our staff after they last
055year had a chance to run through three different textbook options this was their top choice it was the best fit for our students and so tonight we'll also also be asking for action on that item are there questions just in general about items from the meeting all right see none we'll start with the adoption of the courses following a three-year pilot can you list those off for everybody yes okay so for mr adams we have marketing principles word processing applications presentation and publication applications spreadsheet applications communication and databases microsoft essentials from dan we have cad 1 cad 2. sorry let's make sure i get them all uh and then it looks like from jeremy we've got from peterson we've got principles in engineering with digital fabrication and design and also independent study in engineering and
056emerging digital technologies okay thank you with that i would entertain a motion to approve those classes to go into our permanent list so moved motion has been made is there a second okay motion has been made and seconded is there any further discussion see none all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed and those classes have been adopted then the next item on our action is the social studies textbook recommendation for grades uh grade two and i would entertain a motion to approve the second grade social studies book so moved motion has been made is there a second second motion has been made and seconded is there any further discussion see none all in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed no opposed all right motion does carry the social studies textbook
057has been approved all right next we have our compensation committee meeting update oh yeah the compensation committee met on august 1st um all members were present proper notice was given moments were approved our first item was our co curricular and extracurricular pay schedules and so we reviewed those richard clarified co-curricular means that the activity is an extension of a classical curriculum then we discussed the current fargo plan and some thoughts regarding how the criteria was applied and so the fargo plan real brief history is set essentially signs points for different activities and those points then equal how you'd land on the pay scale and that pay scale hasn't changed uh necessarily for some time and so now we're looking for i believe there's emotion you know there's not emotion on this regards but we're asking
058for a little more clarification and uh you know let's dig into this a little bit better to make sure we're competitive and those you know we're incentivizing particularly our staff to fill those positions because you know that definitely seems to work better in terms of building relationships with the kids et cetera not that we don't appreciate outside community coaching et cetera but we definitely want to look at how that works i don't think it's broken but maybe we can just put a little more a little more eyes on it and maybe see if it needs a little adjustment so so there you know we're going to ask the staff or we're asking the administration to review at least the point system and see if there needs to be any adjustments to make it you know
059fair and competitive then we did review the substitute support staff compensation there were some increases and adjustments that were recommended by the administration for that and we recommended the pay increases to include support staff substitutes summer grounds paint crew student weight room and homeless transportation rates more to adjust them into line with other rates so they haven't they haven't been adjusted recently so we are looking for approval of that we have reviewed then the playground noon kindergarten and those aids their compensation we reviewed the pay rates for for those individuals and we're recommending a pay increase the committee will recommend to the board that these positions will be placed at a grade two on the support staff schedule again to attract people to work in those positions and main and retain the ones that we
060have that are there now we went into closed session came out no action was uh recommended and uh we adjourned our next meeting date will be determined and that's the meeting all right any questions if not in our packet was the different positions and what those rate increases would be as proposed so i would entertain a motion to approve the pay increases to the support staff substitutes summer grounds paint crew noon kindergarten playground aids homeless transportation and student weight room pay so move second motion has been made and seconded is there any further discussion say none all in favor signify by saying aye all right all right host and those rates have been approved next we have the buildings and grounds committee meeting update we met on thursday july 21st and we approved our minutes
061we talked about the aquatic and recreation center discussion um went over some design talked about the pros and cons of those designs and uh the committee agreed that the difference in price between the different options was not that significant enough to uh dictate what options should be chosen so we felt that it should go back to um committee at the uh as far as the um aquatics nonprofit and let them determine what is best for the functionality of the pool and and how it's going to be used and then we talked about the conservancy facility discussion the committee discussed the design of that space and the completion of the driveway loop that's going to be taking place and then the overall budget for that project and the committee has supported moving forward with that project
062as it was designed and then we also were updated on a middle school kitchen renovation discussion the committee has we discussed the renovation at the middle school to include an addition that would expand into that courtyard there between the middle school and and hilltop and that project cost for construction was approximately two hundred thousand dollars but that would uh not include any kitchen equipment purchases the committee was supportive of that project um and so that project would be slated for the summer of 2023 and then we got a update on summer projects from dan smith our maintenance lead and discuss some of the summer projects that the team was working on and the overall progress and he also discussed the effectiveness of our new summer maintenance crew it was something that we started where a
063couple of our custodial staff becomes they become summer maintenance team and so they report right to dan um and they work on maintenance items not on building uh cleaning and those types of things so that was working well so it was good to hear that and then we adjourned and our next meeting date was to be determined any questions for the buildings and grounds okay then policy and legislative advocacy committee meeting update we met on july 18. and we proved our minutes there was uh nothing happening in the state or federal level as far as legislative pieces uh at that time so we had nothing there to discuss we talked about the name change for director of special education and pupil services throughout our policies we have uh we had sue stroff's name listed because
064of her position since she has retired we now have laurie johnson um in that role so her name will be taking those spots or sue's name was being used lori will now be that person and then we looked at the update of the non-discrimination statement and once that statement is finalized and it's board approved the committee all agreed that the statement will be updated throughout the district with that new statement and we got into policy 411 as well as the rules and exhibits and after a number of uh discussions going on about those different units pertaining to 411 we did uh table that and uh that motion was was approved to table so that's coming back to us at our next policy meeting and then because of time uh we also tabled policy 430 and
065and rule 430. so those will also be coming back at our next meeting and our next meeting date is august 15th monday august 15th at 5 30. any questions all right say none we will move on to our information section our upcoming meeting schedule we have the district back to school in service thursday august 25th at 8 am the rice lake high school auditorium if you're going to be able to be there please let clean know that you'll be in attendance also there is a wednesday september 28 online event an employee political speech uh 12 noon registration is required and wasb 2022 fall regional meeting tuesday october 11th at here in in rice lake at layman's if you can attend that please let clean know because registration is required and then there is a public
066participation at board meetings online event for wednesday october 12th at 12 noon and registration is required so if you can attend any of those and you haven't already signed up please let colleen know she can get you signed up and then district administrator comments yeah some things as we start to kick off the 2022-23 school year some things happening next week already we have some trainings going on for guests and substitute staff next week also new teacher and service starts next week and i know katie wick had sent you an email about if you plan on participating board members in the new teacher luncheon next thursday please let her know um of course and and we'll have had a number of competitions already the following week thursday august 25th our back to school in service
067and and then we're rocking and rolling for kids on september 1st and 2nd a couple of other things as well and i know colleen has sent you invites but for general public as well we've invited local legislators to come in prior to the election and so at our august 22nd meeting dave armstrong will be here at at six o'clock in the board room to have a discussion with with the board and i know no one's running against him but uh wanted to invite dave in and and have a conversation and then on september 12th uh romaine quinn will be here running for state senate and then on september 26th kelly westland romaine and kelly are running for the senate seat vacated by janet bewley and so they'll be here on three different evenings to have
068a conversation with board members and as i said anybody is invited as well so those are some things coming up all right thank you with that any questions if not i would entertain a motion to adjourn a motion to adjourn motion has been made is there a second second motion has been made and seconded we are adjourned thank you thank you everyone what is your guys solution to this social studies this social you