001thank you in a moment you can use your phone to listen and speak to the meetings just a minute rituals um that's fine [Music] he's coming into he was nearby so he's just come and turn it get the air conditioning crank in a little bit yeah all right we're in business what yeah okay i got you okay thanks sir all right it is seven o'clock i will call the monday august 9th 2021 regular board meeting to order roll call please okay mr speer here mr jensen here this is albert she's here but she's here this is auburn you're here correct here okay sorry sorry all right um mr richard this is turner mr mr kuchko here mr stream here fisher here mr bowman here and can you tell us what proper most was given for
002this meeting certainly 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 laurie sarconotype to the oakheart leader into radio stations wtmc and waqe indicating a date time and place the meeting such notice was given more than 24 hours part of 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 where the community can approach the podium and talk to the board and with that i just want to advise based on policy 187 for the board of education that with that policy we want to give everyone a chance to speak to the board
003and be heard you are limited to a five-minute opportunity and the board is not allowed because it's not an agenda item that you bring to the podium we are not allowed to speak at it at this time we may have it as an agenda item at a future meeting but we cannot have that conversation and debate and discussion with you we can hear what you're saying but we can't ask questions and and that sort of thing going forward because of the open uh meetings law so with that i know we've got one that was sent in uh by email so randy want to start with that one please sure this is from eric and kathy newbel they are parents of students in the district and so they just said dear school board member we reach
004out to the school board i'm sorry we seldom reach out to the school board but we feel compelled for the safety of our kids and community to recommend that you require mass use in public schools at this time as parents medical providers of concerned citizens of concern sorry as parents medical providers of this community for over 12 years helping to promote health and safety and community members concerned about its citizens we think it would be foolish to not require mass use at this critical junction especially with the delta variant being the predominant strain circulating in the united states only 12 percent of our school-aged children are currently vaccinated and we are seeing breakthrough infections in an increasing rate even with the vaccinated we also know that fully vaccinated people can now carry a high viral
005load spreading cover to unvaccinated people not having mass use in schools would put our children school staff and our community at needless risk we understand that everyone is tired of wearing masks and ready to put the pandemic behind us but failing to take simple precautions like mass use now further prolongs the pandemic and increases illness expectations and further loss of life numerous health care institutions regulatory agencies and the cdc are now currently recommending mass use for school-aged children we encourage you to please follow public health recommendations on the cdc to continue the masking school-age children until things improve and the cdc lifts its mask recommendation failure to do so will undoubtedly risk the health and safety of all involved parties listed above and will prolong this pandemic for all not having a mass mandate will
006result in increased coping cases increased student staff quarantines and will also put other secondary vulnerable populations at risk such as grandparents in our communities elderly and those with health conditions please leave politics and personal opinions out of the decision-making process and act on the behalf of the health and well-being of our children and community by requiring mass use in school thank you to eric newbold and kathy all right thank you now anyone from the community that would like to approach the podium go ahead hi i'm lana shulls and um i want to say that i am against the request of eric and kathy noble's request for masks leave it up to the parents to make that decision for their children this is not a cdc it's a guideline it is not a mandate thank you
007eli schultz father husband patriot i second that also regarding the mask mandate we won't live under medical tyranny in this country it's up to the parents to decide what is in the best interest of the health and safety of their families not the cdc not the school board and certainly not our government that being said i have two pieces worried tonight that i was going to talk about number one let it be known for the record that the stakeholders and the student body of the rice lake area school district do not acknowledge or support gender neutrality or the removal of his and her pronouns in the handbook or anywhere else that's right we will not forsake the english language or medical science to accommodate the musings of a very very tiny whiny minority that has
008a delusional mental disorder that is all i will say about that the second piece i have for you tonight perhaps even more important and disturbing this is from pbis this pamphlet i have i've spoke with our legislators in the state of wisconsin most recently had conversations at different levels most recently met in person with state representative dave armstrong about this exact matter and communicated through probably a couple thousand uh very angry american parents in the rice lake area school district that are very concerned about this this is critical race theory this is pbis and i know our school has that this we want the school board and the administration to openly condemn publicly the teaching of critical race theory in the rice lake area school district if this doesn't happen the parents and the community
009and the stakeholders will take it upon ourselves to publicly vet out every single teacher that we find out that is teaching this stuff in a very open and public way we ask that this be done so that doesn't have to happen we would hope that this type of neo-marxist this is basically neo-marxism in this pamphlet it's almost verbatim right out of something from karl marx this is rebranded communism and we don't want it taught to our children is that right that's all i have for you tonight thank you i'll take my mask off just for the purpose of my comments um my comments are strictly related to the uh kind of policy of masking in school this coming school year so my name is megan pesco i'm a family physician i live here in rice
010lake i take care of patients here in rice lake of all ages i have many pediatric patients in my practice i have many adult patients in my practice i take care of families [Music] so i feel also because i have kids that are of elementary school age that it's important to just kind of come to the board and let you guys know some of my concerns um i'm concerned about covid i continue to be concerned about covid particularly in the light of the delta variant you are probably aware that the cdc is recommending universal masking in school settings regardless of vaccination status of students or staff you're also probably aware that vaccination has been proven very effective in reducing severe disease hospitalization and death but it's not yet available to students who are under the
011age of 12 so they have not had that opportunity yet it is true that available evidence shows that students children are much less likely to contract severe covid be hospitalized with covet and die but a medical podcast i like to listen to there's an infectious disease doctor that says low risk does not mean no risk in my mind any child that is hospitalized with covid any child that dies of covid that is a preventable death this is not something that we want to take lightly there's also increasing evidence that there's a syndrome called long covid you may have heard about that in the news people who have had asymptomatic covet infection or mild covenant infection haven't necessarily been hospitalized they might develop symptoms down the road it could include shortness of breath it could include
012fatigue it could include brain fog difficulty with concentration symptoms like depression so there's really a lot that we don't know about the long-term symptoms of covid even beyond the acute illness phase it just seems to me that until we have more information it would be to our benefit to have kids be masked because we might prevent them from having long-term health issues down the road another thing that is you know to consider i think particularly in our community is the vaccination status of our county everybody is entitled to do what they want regarding vaccination but the fact of the matter is is that if you have a low vaccination rate in your county you're more likely to have outbreaks right now barron county's vaccination rate is 45 percent that's not great so if you get
013a bunch of people together in a school-based setting you know we're talking what 500 people in the high school at one time a lot of them are unvaccinated we have a highly infectious delta variant it just seems to be a recipe for disaster i'm also speaking somewhat selfishly i'm a working parent most of the people here are i really don't want to have to take time off of work to take care of my kid who's sick at home with what might be a mild respiratory infection or to sit with my kid at home because they're quarantined because of covid let's not forget that the ultimate goal here i think everyone has is for their kids to do in person school we know that that's super important in my mind the minor inconvenience of wearing a
014mask far exceeds you know the super inconvenience of having your kid at home for multiple days having to take off work and then of course the tragic inconvenience of having your kid be hospitalized or having somebody else in your family get coping and be hospitalized so let's just keep that in mind i guess i would also say last year we wore mass everybody got through it yes it was annoying but we made it through the school year the school was open for the vast majority of the year i don't think that we had a lot of documented in school spread i'm not sure if we had any documented in school spread it worked now we're dealing with a more infectious variant why would we back off just doesn't make any sense so i would like
015you to consider following the cdc guidelines and require masking for school-aged children all school-aged children this coming year if you can't do that i would like you to at least consider requiring that masking be for all those 12 and under and who work with those 12 and under until they at least have the opportunity to be vaccinated i'm hoping that that will occur in september so thank you for your consideration good evening thanks for letting me address the board i uh to my shame i haven't started to come to board meetings until recently and i want to thank phil henkel right that's right isn't it um i've been in the community for over 30 years i was a physician at the clinic for over 28 years i've had three children go through the schools two
016of them one of the several valedictorians one not quite as conscientious but doing very well they're all in the community and we have almost five grandchildren by now so we do have a stake in this i had a couple issues i was gonna i want to address tonight but for the sake of time i just want to address the masks and the in the schools thing um i i differ a little bit from the last speaker one thing i would like to say i read over all the recommendations of the cdc today and i do not believe they're requiring quarantining if you have a mild infection i think they said that you could send the patient you could send the child to the physician and if the physician's opinion was that it wasn't covid you
017wouldn't have to quarantine uh but i would double check on that um i just want to offer a little bit of common sense perspective with some supporting data uh the covet 19 cdc guidelines as of december 20 showed that hospitalization rates were lower than for adults and lower for children than for adults suggesting that the disease is less severe as was stated the data suggests that children with complicated underlying conditions are at the most risk there was an american academy of pediatrics report that was cited the new york post in august that severe illness in children appears to be uncommon as was stated in adults in school all have the opportunity to be vaccinated the death rate among children has been very low and according to a study a large percentage as already said had
018underlying serious conditions uh the cdc update involving k-12 recommendations and statements on vaccination in july twenties on july twenty seventh uh was that adults are substantially if not completely protected by vaccination as a bleachable as of late july evidence demonstrates that the authorized covid19 vaccines are both efficacious and effective against symptomatic lab confirmed coved including severe forms of the disease in addition a growing body of evidence suggests that mrna covid19 vaccines also reduce asymptomatic infection and transmission data from multiple studies suggest that vaccinated people who do become infected have a lower viral load and thus less chance of transmitting the disease vaccine protection against the delta variants seems to be somewhat reduced but still high anywhere from 70 to 90 percent and people with that have been vaccinated that have breakthrough infections seem to have
019a boost in immunity mitigation practices that make total sense are good personal hygiene and hand washing which a lot of kids need to learn stay home if if you think you are sick and give people space and don't cough in their face there's intense controversy about masks because among other things the wearing of masks markedly affects interpersonal communications and mandating of masks seems inappropriate in our constitutional society where personal autonomy is otherwise highly protected the august 4th cdc guideline for k-12 offers 10 references in favor of masks i've looked at nine of them and the other one wouldn't come up on the computer uh you can't really do uh case by case that uh studies so most of them are statistical analyses of various areas of the country you know they did mask mandates and
020didn't uh they they seemed to show a tendency for masks being somewhat effective but for something that's going to produce a mandate in schools the conclusions were not very definitive or impressive in my view on the other side of things there were a couple of prospective randomized studies one in in march that involved almost 5 000 citizens in denmark that did not show any significant protection of masks there was a new england journal of medicine article involving 3 000 marines last october they were confined to barracks required to wear mass social distance etc after two weeks despite all that still almost two of them tested positive for coved frontiers of medicine systematic review of five randomized control styles and trials and ten observational studies 11 countries 24 000 participants involving schools in flight settings their
021conclusion of surgical mask wearing among individuals and non-healthcare settings is not significantly associated with reduction in acute respiratory infection according this meta review now none of these studies involve children none considered serious interpersonal relationships none took account for uh what a report of the american academy of pediatrics in december reported as increased suicidal behavior and youths during covet 19 and 2019 then the physical characteristics of common masks are that the holes in the masks are larger than many of the spindle particles that carry viruses all right your time is done and you can eliminate it and you can't mask up forever so i i recommend just using common sense measures hello my name is diane vaughan i thank you for the opportunity to speak here and for your time spent serving on the school board
022i have a couple of concerns that i would like to address today first i recently talked with a family and heard from them about what happened in the classroom of their then fifth grade child i was appalled to hear about the things that this young person went through maybe you aren't aware of what's going on so i'll give you a couple of details this student was told they needed to have more white guilt why would they be encouraged to be ashamed of the color of their skin that was a very racist statement that should never happen anywhere let alone a school in addition this student was forced to complete assignments that promoted critical race theory contrary to their beliefs and felt bullied by their teacher throughout the year for personal beliefs as well as being
023mocked for having a traditional family with a mom and a dad who both worked is this acceptable behavior from a teacher in this district parents stated that they repeatedly contacted the teacher and the administration regarding these issues but were met with apathy we are here to say this is unacceptable in any school to ask and to ask for at the very least a reprimand in this teacher if you don't know which teacher i'm talking about you probably need to start asking some questions and get more information regarding what is being taught in your classrooms if you do know a teacher i'm talking about why is this racist behavior being allowed to continue you should never have this happen to any student in any classroom of any grade in this district or any other my second
024concern is that of the minutes from your previous june meeting it is noted in the minutes that language regarding gender was to be removed from the handbook i believe there is one of two issues present here after communicating with one board member i have the impression that these minutes did not represent the discussion that happened in that meeting so there seems to be either number one a move from the board to promote a woke agenda or number two and apparent falsification in the minutes by a member or members who are promoting their own agenda i was not at that meeting so i do not know for sure which option if either is correct or if the reason was something else completely for this reason we would like to request you to revisit the topic of
025this handbook change which removed the gender language we are not woke but we are waking up to what is going on and we will be watching i realize that it is not customary for the board to reply to comments during this meeting so i will be emailing a copy of my comments to each of you i look forward to your replies with plan to address these concerns thank you good evening my name is heidi wise i'm a resident in chitech but i'm also a mom of a chitech student and somebody who is rapidly in favor of optional masking now unlike the others who have spoken for masks i have followed the data i did not hear one shred of evidence that masked work not one shred i heard a lot of fear mongering i also
026heard things like well low risk isn't no risk you know what also isn't no risk riding the school bus you know what else isn't no risk getting on the playground getting to school is no risk there's there's it's low risk there's not no risk i guess we're now at a stage where we can never take a single risk and in fact we are asking everyone else to remove every risk from our children i do not expect that as a parent i know that every day that my son gets on the bus and goes to school that there's risk and to even suggest that we can't allow our children to get sick anymore are you serious are we here come on my son has gotten sick he's had to stay home from school i've been in
027convenience in the past that's the way it is do we have to quarantine probably not i don't even know why we're doing any of this stuff but i have followed the data and guess what guess what i know about rice lake school district i studied the data after the masks were dropped and baron and cameron whose cases went down baron and cameron who had the highest cases in their community rice lake rice lake had the highest cases and was the worst with them asking so don't talk to me about how there's a cause and effect relationship there isn't there is none none around the world i have studied this i have started a website embraced their faces.org go and look at more than 200 charts from around the world where masks made no difference in
028outcomes sweden the biggest control group that we have in the world nine percent masking hasn't had a death for many days among the lowest cases around highest vaccinated country one of the highest vaccinated countries in the world is israel this case is skyrocketing masking mandates being thrown in folks we're not even recognizing seasonality anymore i don't have to be a doctor to study a chart i can look at charts i can see seasonality guess what we're saying where cases are rising start watching guys cases are starting to fall i believe we've already passed peak because i study the data turns out looks like peak was on august 4th with 1500 cases statewide statewide 1500 cases in a state of 6 million people seriously people we're at like one-tenth or one-fifth the cases we were last
029year let's knock this nonsense off our kids need to see faces they need to breathe they need to be able to interact and we've been doing that without masks for the past four months on top of each other breathing spitting singing all of it the cases are rising not because of that because it's seasonal and they're going to fall in a in august they're going to rise again guess what in september into november they're going to peak in november and they're going to fall again no matter what we do start studying actual science not the science but real data real science no more masks for kids it is child abuse thank you okay my name is dave henningson obviously i'm a mass proponent i two topics i guess one um i just i don't know
030if this has come up before but kenny benarek are we doing anything about him i you know something a kenny day or i don't know a rocky statue or something like a whole bunch of skills there you go where everyone wear headbands right i don't know well my main issue here is just to talk about the masking thing um i've been a community member here since 1965 i've been a family physician here since 1994. i also have had three kids go through school one of whom was the valedictorian i'm not here as a representative of any group i'm not here i work for marshfield clinic but i'm not representing them i am not representing the american academy of family practice or any other group that i'm affiliated with i'm just here hoping that my experience
031and knowledge could be helpful to the board as they make their decision on this um there's a lot of information out on kovid and it's always hard to tell what to believe what's false and what's embellished and i guess the thing is you don't often personally know the people that are making these claims um i think a lot of you personally know me and hopefully trust me and so i'd like to share a little bit of just my straight experience without any numbers to me it's pretty clear that this is that we're in a pandemic um recent numbers suggested it's worse again maybe it's getting better i haven't seen over the past couple of days but um among my patients that i see in the clinic i have had patients diagnosed with covid several who
032have died i've also seen i've also had people come back from the hospital who have been in to see me for follow-up and among them some had pretty minimal symptoms um primarily the older and people with chronic medical problems have had pretty severe uh problems but i've also seen healthy people that have been required into intubation and and being on a respirator um i've had i have not seen severe symptoms in kids i've seen some mild to moderate symptoms again this is just my experience i'm not trying to push any anything um i've also seen some of the long coved thing i've i've seen some people with fatigue that they just can't account for otherwise and i'm assuming that's what it is and i think maybe most telling is that i don't think any of
033my patients who had kovid had put themselves in situations that one might consider careless they've all picked it up from family members friends or just being out in the community so that's my experience with people that have had covid uh regarding the vaccination again just in my experience i think it's effective mainly because i haven't seen anybody who's had a serious case or a serious illness who's been vaccinated and i also think it's safe because uh other than a few people who've been run down for a couple of days i have not seen anyone who's had serious symptoms re requiring help who's had the vaccination as far as mass are concerned i also can't say that i have any personal experience proving that it's effective against kovid but what i can say is that last
034year when kovitt hit in mid-march we were just starting the influenza season typically with influenza we see a gradual uptick then sort of a plateau and then it comes down on the day that the social distancing that everything stopped and the whole country sat down uh influenza stopped it just went away that was pretty amazing to me influenza and covid are both respiratory illnesses and so that's my reason for thinking mass are effective in summary we're in a pandemic we do have some weapons to fight the pandemic vaccination is most important in my opinion but social distancing masking hand washing surface decam decontamination there are a lot of things that will be helpful and i understand the hesitancy and the infringement on personal freedom that comes with mandates but not mandating i think gives the
035impression that the school board doesn't think this is an important problem i don't think that's the case i currently don't have any kids in the rice lake school system but i see a lot of rice like students in my practice and many of my patients have chronic medical problems that have connections with people in the school i care about those people i strongly encourage you all to consider all of them as you make your decision in my opinion your decision is likely to have a significant impact on the health of our community and the life that is saved may be someone you love or might be yourself or it might be me thanks for listening my name is kelly sellers i don't have anything prepared i just wrote down some notes i'm just fed up
036with the way our country's going the critical race theory is a bunch of hogwash i grew up as a white person if you didn't know and my parents were not rich i didn't have a lot of privilege and i don't think i should be feeling guilty because i'm white and none of you should be feeling guilty because you're white be proud of who you are don't be ashamed to teach this to our kids is just ridiculous you know teach them to be proud of who they are based on their character help them to build their character not not going by the color of their skin most ridiculous thing i ever heard well one of them the other ridiculous thing i ever heard is a mask can you guys see a microscopic thing floating around in
037the air right now no you can't but i've worn those masks that you guys have on right now i've worn them and i've done some things with uh like deep you know construction dem down mil demolition and i get dust in there and i breathe it in when i take the mask off my face is dirty and there's still dirt in my mustache so if that dirt can get through there what do you think a microscopic thing is that that's can go right through that mask just like someone else said here to wear the mask i think is detrimental to our kids it's just instrumental to adults when i'm talking to somebody i want to see their face i'm a little bit hard of hearing so i have to read lips also and and when
038you're t when you've got a little kid like this that's trying to learn how to get along in life he's got to see your facial expressions to know how to read you when you're telling him hey get off of that he's got to be able to see your facial expression to know how to react and to think that the mask is going to save us all no 99.7 percent people recover from this typically the people that get sick and die and i know our esteemed doctors here would probably have different opinion but most of them that die have underlying conditions so it the mask to to i agree with that lady that said that it's child abuse i totally agree with her it is child abuse to have somebody wearing a mask all day long
039to be running laps in the gym with a mask on okay that's just dumb we've all been exposed to this we've all been exposed every one of us it's been what over a year almost two years now that we've had this we've we've been exposed and this variant that's coming along you know what the cdc just i don't know what's wrong with them but they just want to control all it is is control and dr fouchy i don't know if you can believe that guy he flip-flops more than more than anybody else i've ever heard except for maybe john kerry the the mask is a control issue we've seen it in the muslim community they put masks on their women to control them they found this out many many years ago you can control somebody
040with a mask don't let them see your face and um i don't think that we should be relying on the government to tell us what to do this one lady said let it be up to the parents if we have a mask on if we're going to put a mask on our kids let it be optional i'm not saying take all the masks away but let it be an option don't force anybody to do it there's such a thing called the constitution and we need to follow that and when you start taking away people's constitutional rights by forcing them to wear a mask by forcing them to do things that you want because you want to control them that's just flat out wrong and that's your time sir thank you thanks my name is body
041shoals and i and i'm a student at grace lake middle school and i will not be wearing a mask and i'll no longer live on a medical tyranny anyone else my name is misty schleich i have two kids i actually homeschooled last year because i did not want them wearing masks and i think it is a great option if you would choose to do it but i do not think it should be forced i don't know i'm last my whole train of thought now but thank you good evening travis helstern my wife and i have two school age children in the district um i have lived my life showing respect and it's gotten me a long ways i am asking that you show the parents of this district respect and give them the opportunity to
042make up the choice for their child that is important it's the world is getting so crazy and as parents many of you are parents we are tasked with trying to raise our kids through this mess we need your help because you have been elected by us not you didn't get this position and then you get to make your own decisions you're going to communicate with us to make the right decision for the whole community let's be a community that rises above this and does the right move thank you hello i am vanessa aspesetter-helser and travis's wife and yes we do have two in the district now and we had two that have already graduated and moved on in life um i guess what i would like to see is less talk about mask wearing and
043more talk about like proper nutrition supplements we should be taking all i've heard for the entire nine months my kids were in school were about hand washing and mask wearing like what about all the other things that carry along to make our immune systems the way they are and if you can't afford to find somebody to do it i'll volunteer to do it for you because quite frankly i our kids vaccines are it's an option in our home we choose which ones that we do we're not saying we don't do all of them but with proper nutrition and the way we take care of ourselves you don't need to be vaccinated for every little thing your immune system is not doing its job if you are not allowing it to fight off certain things i
044i'm sorry but yup i did i i know for a fact i had covet i didn't go in and get tested shame on me but i know i had it because i was sick for maybe six hours and lost my taste for probably five days shame on me but i'm here to tell you five days without having my taste and six hours of just feeling like garbage it's because i take care of myself we are in the middle of summer where vitamin d is at its highest explain to me why we are sitting where we are right now in the middle of summer when vitamin d is at its highest and yet we're in such a terrible pandemic i'm sorry i would love to gather and talk to you people about holistic ways because pharmaceutical
045will destroy you it will absolutely destroy you it will destroy your health i do believe there is a time and place for it but not now and that's all i have so thank you anyone else all right thank you all for your input next on our agenda is the approval of our regular session meeting minutes from monday july 12th and the special session of the closed session meeting minutes from july 26th we've entertained a motion to approve those two meeting see none all in favor signify by saying aye and the minutes have been approved next we have our consent agenda we have our monthly budget and cash reconciliation report the monthly board bills and we have two no nine i'm sorry nine employee uh employment resignations and 23 employment recommendations so with that i would
046entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda from the consent agenda as presented motion has been made is there a second second motion has been made and seconded is there any further discussion seeing none all in favor signify by saying aye next we have our report section where we'll start off with the 20 20 21 seclusion and physical restraint data reporting mr gross yes and so that's uh that lengthy report is in your border packet and so on an annual basis this began with the 2012-2013 school year each building in a school district is required to report to you as a school board or school board in every district in the state of wisconsin incidence of seclusion and restraint used on pupils during the year and so that data collection is is an indication of
047the school's efforts to implement supports that prevent measures regarding student behaviors and so in that packet it's a lengthy packet there's frankly a lot more than you need but on the first pieces and i'm not going to go through all of these in detail but you can find the dpi revisions to wisconsin's law on the use of seclusion and physical restraint in schools that's the first bullet there and mrs strothen closed a document from dpi that outlines those pieces there's a summary of changes from previous law the third piece is during march of 2020 during an extended school closure there's a presentation there that was given to all peer professionals special education teachers related services providers school psychologists and building administrators on a proper use of seclusion and physical restraint and we do that on
048an annual basis there's also a copy of the race like area school districts and that's part of the policy but our seclusion and physical restraint data reporting form and that's completed by any staff member involved in a solution and or restraint there's also a copy of the district's incident degradation form so anytime there is an instance of seclusion or restraint with that you have to have an incident debriefing talk about you know what happened why it happened try to get to the function of the behavior and talk about what can possibly take place next time or in the future so that you don't need to use seclusion or physical restraint and then finally the last part of that is the dab from the last three years and so and i apologize normally i would get
049it for him to do this if you can't see my head that's my heart my ankle surgery so i'm doing it from here um so from 2018 uh the 1819 school year the 2019-2020 school year and the 2020-2021 school year so in each chart you can see for each building in the district the number of overall incidents of seclusion the total number of pupils involved in those seclusions the total number of children with disabilities involved in those seclusions and then we move on to restraints the number of overall incidents of restraint the total number of pupils involved in that restraint in those restraints and the number of children with disabilities involved in those restraints and again again all school districts need to report this to school boards on an annual basis this data is also
050submitted to dpi the department of public instruction and if there are ever numbers there that are caused for concern they may direct a school district to take uh additional action which would mean assembling a team maybe analyzing as a team again the incidence of either seclusion or physical restraint that took place within that building and possibly coming up with a plan to address those if needed anything you need to take action on but it is it's a requirement for reporting any questions randy a couple years ago at policy we made some changes for the families do you have a sense from sue or from our families if the changes that we've made have been positive and that they're working well for the district and for our families i think for the most part um sometimes
051you know there may be um an individual student i would say overall yes thank you overall yes sometimes there may be for whatever reason sometimes one student may be involved in multiple solutions or multiple restraints again they're having meetings after each and every one of those if it's a student that has an iep an individualized educational plan they may also be then having an iep meeting to talk more about that as well um so i think overall yes but there are some you know some instances where it's more intense okay thank you any other questions all right thank you next we've got our first reading on the student informational booklet for the warriors on wisconsin spicy [Music] good evening as you'll see at the a couple pages of addendums at the back end of our
052wow information booklet that highlights some of the changes that we've made for this year the very largest change you'll see which is is the the movement of the red cedar school program to the wall program so obviously i've updated a lot of that language to save the wow program instead of the red cedar school program i've also removed the online attendance app from the absence area of the wild booklet i had that in there last year for red cedar we had a lot of distance learners obviously things like that i've also moved removed some language and logistics of student travel in the past students did have once in a while a class at the high school and i wanted to make sure we had a systematic in place if kids wanted to try to jump
053in and ride with another student to the high school that parents were aware that by being in the administration building here the old administration building students will be walking at this point so that's a non-factor at this point i did change some of the staff mentor language to more of an advisory model that simulates what we have at the high school with our new remodel area i have also removed the language on the student cubicles and storage areas um you'll see that on the additional language i did add in the advisory piece that i talked about and then um similar to our high school handbook i added in the language um on our retention and promotion policy 344.41 has been added i've also on the front page you'll see i've put in our wow program
054vision statement which differed uh from our red cedar one so that is the changes pretty minimal for the most part any questions thank you i've got one question just not as much on the handbook how are you coming on your new facility i was i stopped down there last week they're finishing up some of the drywall painting electrical's been going in and doing some things there so we're we're on schedule it'll be tight as we know it those kind of things always are but we'll be fine the furniture is in didn't move it in obviously because we have flooring and things to do so i'm feeling good about things okay so yep all right so this was the first reading this will be brought back to the board for a second reading and next we've
055got our 21 22 school year plan this will be a draft that is being presented mr dost yeah so um again last year we had a school year plan to talk about as well and so again looking at our draft for this year just a reminder no action being taken tonight it's just discussion for anyone and so just kind of took pieces from last year and made some modifications to put a draft of what things look like this year so under health and safety it just said our hand sanitizing station will remain all commonly used entrances um base coverings right now they're optional in the district at this time and full disclosure department of public instruction recommends using the updated program 19 recommendations for next school year physical distancing will continue to be in place
056when possible as far as testing i just think cover 19 testing is readily available at all county health systems and multiple pharmacies there's a government-funded program for testing in schools which we are not participating in at this time and we strongly encourage parents to keep their children home from school if they are ill and contact their health care provider for contact tracing quarantines cobia 19 does fit as a category one communal communicable illness for dhs and according to dhs chapter 145 we're required to report a known case to public health but public health is is also contacted and then um contact tracing completed at the direction of public health as necessary um and then per state statute 252-21 students will be sent home if they're experiencing symptoms our filters and our hvac systems they'll be
057continue with last year we had upgraded merv 13 filters um yes they are more expensive yes we need to change those out four more four times a year four times a year and we do set our systems to be uh maximizing owner turnover and outside here brought into buildings so visitors volunteers you know allowed with um prior principal approval breakfast at this time scheduled to be served in the school cafeterias middle school considering options they used to do it mr home did you call it last chance breakfast after idla was that correct is that what you used to do and looking at doing something similar again this year some schools may continue to use additional tables incorporated last year just allowed students to be more spread out and even just forget physical distancing and covet
058it which just gave students more space and so they found that was a good thing social emotional support will continue to focus on connectedness and building positive relationships school counseling mental health support and resources that will be available um continue to identify and follow our referral systems for individuals who need targeted support are reported that up we're meeting earlier this summer you know a number of referrals amanda brown mental health coordinator her associate she presented in early june and i think last school year had about 60 some referrals for mental health services for students this past school year um you know that doubled to 120 some transportation i've talked with kevin fry and my handset hand sanitizer stations will continue to be available on each bus there is a federal requirement to recover face coverings
059to be more on public transportation my understanding is that it'll be reviewed in september and see where that goes at that at that point said students would have assigned seating they will take attendance for morning and afternoon routes buses will be clean daily and then transportation is restricted to those living on the route or those attending child care facilities babysitters etc for co-curricular extracurricular clubs and organizations you know we'll get current recommendations considerable planning activities for athletics we'll work with the wiaa and schools were competing with make any needed determinations wiaa did release some general guidelines for return to fall 2021 sports um but not last year they released sport specific guidelines for every sport and they did not do that this year technology at the 4k level so last year we made the decision
060to go one to one at the high school level i can start there so same as last year all right like high school students will be issued a chromebook and a charger at the beginning of the year and they can take that back and forth between school and home middle school students same as last year they'll be assigned the same chromebook for daily use it'll stay at school unless there's you know an extenuating circumstance or something but in general that stays at school and that is the same for students in your grades one through four they'll have a chromebook assigned for daily use at the kindergarten level same concept but ipads instead and then at the 4k level um they will use the same ipad between morning and afternoon sessions and so made a significant
061investment in technology last year to meet student needs and continuing and even expanding that some this year as far as learning platforms the ones that have been in use middle school and high school i've been using google classroom i mean regardless prior to last year using google classrooms started to use see saw last year grades 4k and 1. i plan to keep using that this year there's a lot of benefits for students and families and apex and alex if needed that's more at the high school level we've always had students taking impacts analytics courses that's where things are at right now and so again just a draft and taking a look at things and you know one piece mr schurz and i were talking about was you know potential options we may have depending on
062conditions you know last year we had a distance learning option available so at the elementary middle level high school had a distance learning option available we didn't plan to offer that this year at all some families may want to access something like that so we're pulling together i should say not work mrs sures is pulling together you know possible options for families so we'll be communicating those as well most realistically would probably we don't have a virtual charter school or anything in the district families may have to if they want to take advantage of that they need if they want a virtual option may need to open an open enroll out of the district to a different one or we may decide to do something in district as well but originally we weren't planning on
063doing that for the years so we're working through those options now isn't it possible i mean i know cumberland just contracts that out but they don't have to open a role out to do it yeah they have a virtual they have their own virtual charter school well they do that they don't contract it okay i can touch facebook there's there's only 50 some school districts in the state of wisconsin out of the roughly 425 only about 50 some have virtual schools um just out of iron maybe they're maybe they're up they're uh open and rolling so yeah but just basically i don't think they need i know they don't manage it with their own employees but it's just a contract sure if yep so i mean follow them all if we need an option but
064for instance birchwood has a virtual charter school baron has one chateauware out there cumberland has something i'm not sure exactly and so turtle lake has one at virtual charges but greensburg has one so there's quite a few in this area of the state we don't have one we weren't planning on that option but you may need to for some for transportation randy do you know if uh kids are able to get off the bus in the middle of school this year yes and yeah yeah right okay and we'll probably i mean we'll get to this but do you know what if our decision regarding mask wearing pertains to on the bus as well or is that an independent decision made by the bus technically that's an independent decision so i mean there there is that
065federal mandate like if you haven't flown that's a federal piece but my understanding is that's being reviewed on september 13th that's what i was told can i ask a question am i allowed to how does a state-run school bus fall under federal jurisdiction how how is that constitutionally anyone on the board have any questions what's what's our next step randy this is a draft tonight so over the course of the next two weeks you know it wouldn't be anything we take action on and really within two weeks if there's any other considerations or comments or things you want to think about either from the administrative side like i said possible educational options for families we may we need to continue to work on that considering other pieces for instance space coverings if that's something we
066want to make a go in a different direction on you'd have to take action on that because in june the action was to make them optional so if we were going to do something different that would require action does that have to be proposed tonight the action i'm asking i'm not not to vote on it tonight but i'm asking no okay but it could be up for action at the next meeting yeah if we're going to do something different it has to be for action okay can that be a thing [Applause] we're kind of going on a out of order situation having you had you guys had your chance to talk if you have questions save them send randy or myself for board members a question and we can take it that way because right
067now this is for the board and we have to make sure we follow everything appropriately any other questions from the board so discussion on action is going to be next does it take i mean what does it take to propose action one board member one board member can ask it to be on the agenda and then we would have that discussion and then vote on it and base that decision on and move forward based on that vote okay i think it's fair to assume the next board meeting will be discussion regarding something yes it's been it's already been asked that it be on the agenda so we will have it on the agenda for our next meeting to uh to discuss it further [Music] any other questions from the board i've got one randy i
068don't know if i saw it on there um are we still planning to continue that special ionized cleaning process that we were doing on a more regular basis no no no at this point yeah just to be clear um we had hired additional staffing for custodial staff for not bringing we're not doing that this year we're not going to be doing any specialized the ionized process of cleaning this this at this point so for now not intended at this point thank you any other questions all right we will move on to our safety committee meeting update all right we had the safety committee meeting last year tuesday july 20th and um pretty much everybody was well there that um needed to be we reviewed the district emergency cards their re reference cards that are placed
069in the classrooms in the event of an emergency that can be easily identified and action steps identified for teachers or whoever may be in there so that was reviewed uh some good changes have been made there it was suggested that guest teachers or subs should have received training about that um because you never know when emergency is gonna happen uh we talked about safety drills for the school year last year so we're required to have so many safety drills on different aspects throughout the year last year there was some flexibility allowed for that so we're making sure that those safety drills are getting taken care of and in the case of uh of emergency we always talked about that we need to make sure and address physical and mental impairments of students as well that
070might help hinder themselves or others from being able to take care to address the situation so that's being worked on go bags are available and they're constantly being reviewed to make sure the batteries aren't 20 years old etc august 11th coming up here i'm going to do the annual building safety walkthroughs those changes will probably discuss the next safety meeting um social emotional safety was addressed by making sure that we're up to date on our crisis prevention preparedness training up trainings and amanda brown's taking care of that in other we discuss tabletop drills this is where we get together the key stakeholders of our community it's you know fire police administrators you know whoever needs to be on board for that and then get together and say in this scenario what should we do so
071everybody knows had some plans about doing the alice refreshers that's basically again emergency response training and then we discussed a don't be scared be prepared book that's shared with elementary students during safety week we agenda and set uh agenda we adjourned and set the next meeting for tuesday october 20th at one o'clock thank you any questions josh you mentioned under b safety drills thinking about students with disabilities is that what you're talking about there yes okay so like thinking about a student in a wheelchair getting down the elevator yes yes or yeah yeah their ability to address the situation and um you know get themselves out of harm's way as well as not hinder others getting out of harm's way as well i just want to say i appreciate that it took a long time
072my professional career to actually get training about that so i'm glad to hear that we're talking about that and having that conversation so thank you please department um he was either part of that meeting or is going to be a part no jason wasn't able to be there that day someone else from the fire department was and so between andy jason [Music] building um they're going to coordinate that training for instance if someone is in a wheelchair on the second floor obviously can't use the elevator what are our protocols for helping and depending on the student each student has individual needs what are protocols and what's the best way to work with those energies to make sure that students can safely get to the first person do you think you're going to do the analysis
073do you think we will do the ali's refresher i think that's the pressure then you mean the board well no well not against that because it's kind of fun to do with andy andy johnson yeah a general one as a part of step back to space and service building level not a full-blown training where there's all kinds of surprises just reviewing for instance even 9-1-1 protocols and things like that and just and then also talking about alice so he'll review that with building principles or as a part of back-to-school staff meetings that'll be prior to the start of the school year when was the last time we did a full-blown drill with with our staff uh it's been a few years one of the things we talked about was doing drills at the buildings with
074volunteers just because some people are pretty upset by those those drills when you go kind of a full contact and so andy was going to be working at the individual buildings to set up an evening drill where it's live yeah i highly recommend it i did it with andy at our building and i was response i was surprised my response yeah any other questions all right thank you for that report next we've got our finance committee meeting update we've got a few action items on that uh update so mr bowman uh yeah we met august 5th all members were present notice was given or approved our minutes our first item was uh additional high school paris support uh we reviewed the request that should be in your packet and uh we're recommending approval for the
075high school additional hours for the so paraprofessional that i would entertain a motion to approve of that increased hours at the high school for the paraprofessional motion has been made is there a second okay motion has been made and seconded is there any further discussion let's see none all in favor signify by saying aye opposed and that motion does carry and then we next reviewed the obtainers additional aid hours so they're having a hard time filling and maintaining the playground aid but if they added some additional hours and then utilize those aids for you know staff allowing staff to be able to get together and meet about data et cetera they feel the administration feels that they'll be able to maintain the position as well as fill the position so we're recommending that and increasing
076ours as well i've entertained a motion to increase the tainter aid one from two hours to five hours a day and the other uh classroom aid from one and a half hours to five hours per day second have been made and seconded is there any further discussion scene none all in favor signify by saying hi all right post and that motion carries uh then where we discussed uh just some concepts about the pool and how the nonprofit is still working to proceed uh but we're working with the administration and in regards to a concept where we'd have new potential classrooms at hilltop and then attached to a new pool and then some of that cost would be obviously the pool cost would be through the non-profit pool committee but uh you know just looking at
077where that's going it's definitely not dead yet if you will it's still alive and so we're hoping to make that happen uh you know moving forward so we're we're just looking we looked at it from the finance committee of what it would cost from the school district standpoint so no actions there uh then mr blackhall reviewed the expected timing to the transition of the clinic to the new management company all the current employees of the clinic would remain the same so it would be fairly seamless uh and uh we're looking to be under everside management by september first that's the goal of this year and then uh dross presented uh the studer contract which is our kind of strategic planning consultants and uh recommended to uh approve an additional one year so committee recommends that
078so with that i would entertain a motion to approve that one-year contract move to approve one-year contract issue which enhances our second motion has been made and seconded there's any further discussion randy are we going to set some goals for this year with this group some serious expectations they're going to be held too okay because um sorry sorry so you've stood with scooter thank you all right any other discussion the motion and the second to approve that contract for one year all in favor signify by saying i opposed and that contract has been approved and then we reviewed our opeb trust [Music] which is money funds set aside to offset the liabilities of retirement purposes and just had our quarterly report and it looks good and then we discussed the committee discussed there are some
079montessori items that we have available for sale that we're in the red cedar building and birchwood montessori or baron montessori showed some interest so we are recommending that the administration target or allow the sale of those specific montessori materials to be sold directly to them without going on you know the open market because they both have montessori programs uh we approve the bills our next meeting is september 9th only journey all right thank you for that update any questions from the board all right next we have our board of education curriculum committee meeting update uh curriculum met july 20th first thing we heard was an update on choosing a social emotional learning learn social emotional learning screener uh for the district we've been working we've been working with a couple of current it's hard to
080understand i'm sorry i'm not taking it uh social emotional learning screeners is what we've been looking at and so marcia presented what we're looking at for this next year i know we've already been using mosaic as the current name i had a couple of the grades and so we're looking to extend that for a couple of other grades so that's one thing we heard we heard from tyler moore at the high school about a new physical education course called fit for life 2 and so this would be an expansion on fit for life one really looking at wellness across a person's life and not yeah looking across looking at last cross person's life and preparing them for wellness beyond high school then we heard updates on pilot courses dan buckman talked about cad and construction
081framing we were pleased with the number of students that are going through those programs and the number of students getting witc credit at the same time and then jeremy peterson spoke with us about engineering with digital fabrication and again he's got good numbers of students in there and the students are leaving with skills that they can use after high school our next meeting will be right before the next board meeting on august 23rd we'll meet at 5 30 in this room uh august 23rd any questions be bored all right next we have our information section on the agenda where we have the board of education in service date and time randy yeah i know just he talked about as a follow-up to some conversations about uh governance board governance potentially having another time this fall
082so my thought was that we would see if we could get the next speaker in um for either the second meeting and here in august or the second meeting in september and we would have just a small board meeting ahead of that and then go into the retreat session and do it the same night but minimize the the business part of the meeting so we can focus on what the speaker has to say because of the same speaker no no no we're gonna we're looking at trying to find a superintendent and board that are using um the policy governance and superintendent and board that have chosen not to that looked at it or were using it and have gone away from it that's what we're trying to find so we can have that conversation but
083it would be two separate nights for one one would be for one night and then we'd do another another one going forward so you're suggesting that both using august 23rd and september 27th if we can get the speakers for those nights otherwise we'd have to slide it back maybe to the october one well i just throw it out there given the gravity of what we'll be discussing next meeting i think we should push the policy governance in service or whatever back well uh the next meeting will be for oh yeah the next meeting will be we're going to be talking about it yes is it a possibility that we can get together and come up with a date that we could actually have both on site and just have it as one meeting yeah if
084you'd like to have a special meeting we could uh do a uh inquiry and find out if we can find a date that works and then reach out for a couple dates maybe and then we talk to our speakers all right we will look at doing a special meeting then for that and when you get that meeting request times respond to them so we can get get back to some speakers and see if we can pinpoint that all right any other questions on that okay and then our upcoming meeting schedule was in the board packet we've got a roles and responsibilities coming up on thursday the 12th registration is required for that to let colleen know um and then we have the legal and legislative video update on wednesday august 18th registration is not required
085for that our region one meeting is coming up september 29th the pre-regional meeting is four to six pm and then the regional meeting is six to nine pm that is going to be at the schooner civic center this year registration is required so please let me know on that we have a administrator contracts webinar thursday october 7th registration is required to let colleen know on the 27th of october we've got a online regional meeting and those times are at 5 00 and 7 pm registration is required and then the state education convention the board school board association convention january 19th through the 21st you can attend that please let glenn know and that is our upcoming meeting schedule next any board member suggestions or recommendations to be brought to the board at this time yeah
086somebody mentioned doc uh hints and kenny bernard um i've had contact with tim lipke because we've been getting calls at the chamber of commerce and i've been asked you know what's everybody doing and tim is trying to coordinate a meeting of the city and the chamber and a few other people because right now my understanding you don't know when ken's coming back i think he's traveling and touring so it'd be until that date is secured and we find out but tim has just got a handle on that and so you know if you're anybody that really has some good ideas the second thing i wanted to mention is i was really surprised tonight when i came down carson to see all the football players i thought that was fantastic so just mentioned that any other
087board member recommendations we have one at our retreats uh whenever we end up scheduling it i'd like for us as a board to have a conversation about how we can work best together we've had a difficult time recently and i'd like to talk about how we can work together better so i'd like that to actually be an item at the special meeting please anything else i'd like to say something um so i appreciate having an audience here because we never do they're maybe one or half a dozen of most people from the community so it's nice to have people out i think you know we've seen people on both sides which is good because that's that's who we are like we're we're normal people we're you right with people on both sides and i think
088it's important to realize that um and it's also the reason i'm speaking up is that i want to thank the board members actually um don't take this as like a pity party but i want to thank everybody for putting yourselves out there giving the time that you give to the community because that's why i do this we don't do it to you know get rich believe it or not and you know we give up a lot tonight is my well today it's my 13th wedding anniversary it's my son's 11th birthday and i'm here giving it to the community just so happens far less significant next meeting happens to be my birthday so we're you know we're not just giving our time we're giving our families time and we're trying to do the best for you
089that we can so i appreciate you sharing your viewpoints because it helps us do our job better and but just also realize that we get to do this twice a month plus committee meetings this longer longer three to four maybe more times a month as well so um you know if you see board members thank them thank our families and uh but thank you for coming up yes thank you yes and tomorrow night at committee it's my birthday i'll be here i'll be here uh celebrating my birthday with our committee of policymakers so anything else all right district administrator comments yeah just to follow up on the kenny van eric thing uh bert yes the main street association the chamber of commerce the police department the fire department the city of rice lake and as
090well as the school district all coordinating whether that's some kind of i think basically some kind of a welcome or a congratulatory parade at some point but i know we've got people reaching out to the family and trying to figure out okay when when is it logical that that he may be back in my slate and then also we had originally planned to have it on the agenda for tonight it didn't work out but the next board meeting rod olson will be here to talk about the generous donation he and his family are making to the district and so they'll be here to talk about the river dock nature conservancy up by dessert lake and so that'll be up anything else all right thank you next i would entertain a motion to uh to convene
091into closed session pursuant to wisconsin statutes 19.851 e to deliberate negotiate the purchasing of public properties and this is for an individual employee contract so i'd entertain a motion to go into closed session second motion has remained seconded roll call please okay mr jensen yes this is auburn going into mr bowman and mr spear by the way we'll be in close session in just a moment um