001projects that engage students in hands-on science. Your dedication, creativity, and passion for learning truly embodies Wildcat pride. Thank you very much. [applause] So Ben, we are really thrilled to have the school forest now that we have access and we have a pavilion, we have space, but none of that matters unless we have teachers who are creative and have the vision to be able to get out there and get our kids there and you clearly are one of the shining stars in that. So thank you very very much. We appreciate it. >> I would just say too, Ben, thank you for helping children fall in love with the Kenny. >> Yes. >> [applause] >> All right. We also have some reports this evening and the first ones will be from our student representative. So bang data.
002>> Yeah. Uh I'll talk a little bit about um [laughter] this makes me feel good, you know, [laughter] personally. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, I was talking a little bit about the school and all that stuff. Um, you know, uh, things have been going good at the school. Uh, I think people are starting to get that, uh, tired a little bit, you know, leading up to the break as they always do, especially after ending the first quarter and things are getting all those tests and everything. But, um, I think students are pushing through. I think teachers are pushing through, which is good. Um, our unfortunately, I think all of our fall sports are, uh, closed for now. um football team just uh their season ended to a very very very good Notre Dame Academy team. So
003I talked to many players on the team and none of them were super upset about the fact that like that the season ended the way it did because they all felt that the results throughout the season is what really mattered and not what the final goal was. Especially knowing how good that Notre Dame Notre Dame team who has been to the state championship I believe three out of the four past years. So, they've been a very solid team. Um, I think the volleyball team's uh season ended as well. Um, but once again, another thing where I don't think they were necessarily like obviously at that point they loved the season and they were proud of how it went. So, no ill feelings towards that you could say. Um, but yeah, everything at the school from
004my perspective has been pretty solid. You know, just like said, the fatigue leading into the break has been something noticeable, but that's expected. So, >> all right. Nice. Thank you. Yeah, as we begin the second term, students are settling into things and routines, the new transition into the second term. As of student council at the moment, we are planning the upcoming winter wonderland week. And we want to do a full spirit week with dress up themes uh winter related with door decorating competitions as several winter themed activities offered during late starts and win. And our goal is to create a fun positive atmosphere to bring more students together during the winter months. We also recently just celebrated World Kindness Day. student council members stayed after school and we wrote personalized kind notes to students. Um,
005and we put them on every student's locker so they could come to that in the morning. Um, and that's all I have for today. >> Okay. >> Well, we did we got to see a picture of some of the notes, the sticky papers um, in a board update. They looked great and they all looked unique. So, I'm sure that took quite a bit of time. but also my guess is most people recognize that it's even more than the sticky paper itself. It really is the kindness that is reflected. So, thank you for that. Thank you both. >> Okay. Uh administrative reports and I I think it's Meer Middle School first. >> So, I was going to ask did we uh there's nothing that says cell phone use high school. I just wanted to make sure
006we didn't miss over that or >> like I I don't know. I didn't know that's something like you guys want to talk about if you're ready to talk about it. >> No, I was just I was just like I didn't want to do that another time and then we'll talk with you about the kind of information that we're hoping to hear from the two of you. >> You're the ones that can give us some good feedback. >> All right, Mark. >> Good evening everybody. >> Um those two Wildcat Pride Awards just remind me of the amazing teachers we have because my daughter Emma had Mr. topple and just adored him and learned an except exceptional educator. And then my son Matthew was in the marching band for four years and just had such an amazing
007experience. Um, you know, his confidence really grew, his leadership abilities grew and being part of being part of something bigger than yourself is really cool. So yeah, kudos to to Jacob and to Jake and to Mr. All right. So our Wildcat goal, wild important goal. We are >> we uh we decided to pivot this year and I would say hindsight's 2020 was a leader. Three years ago we laid out a plan. We rolled out standardsbased grading and then we were going to focus on our common summit of assessments and then we're going to work on our common formative assessments. And if we just did standardsbased grading alone last year, that would have been enough on our teachers plates. And so if I had a doover, I would have started with this goal because it more
008closely aligned to where we should should have been going at that time. And there'll come a point where we're going to focus on midyear cumulative and end of year assess cumulative assessment. But for this year, u we're pivoting and focusing just on our common sum of assessment data. And we did also change it to be more aligned with the [clears throat] rest of the schools by shooting for 100% of our students will be proficient on 90% of the standards measured by their unit assessment. So we're moving away from that midyear and end of the year focusing on that that summit of assessment in every unit tied to our standards. So each core teacher has already designed their their um unit assessments. They're aligned. One of the things I'm really proud of with our teachers is
009our collaboration time that takes place every Thursday. They're really It's just part of what we do now, which I think is is great. Um we're starting to see some really great results. We'll do a quick shout out for our math department. Um for years we've been trying to compare ourselves to OciOla, one of the best middle schools. And there was a time we were 30% lower than Ocula. Now we're just 3% lower in terms of proficient advance or meeting advanced than Ocule on their math scores for grade six. something we're really proud of as well. So, as you know, we we transitioned to standard based grading. So, this fits really really neatly with that. Part of that is looking at that disconnect that we saw between letter grades and how our kids were performing on
010the forward exam. And so, that was one of our our ration or why for why we didn't transition to standardsbased grading. We've been tracking that data for a long time. Uh so we're asking teachers to use a common data protocol uh after they give a unit assessment compare what's going well. Um if one teacher is is you know doing really well one standard and want to learn from each other as part of what the PLC does. Um I've linked our our forward data that's almost nine years worth of data. Now if you're really bored you can dive into that data. There's a lot of trend data there. the qualitative factors that influence our decision um again is uh in that sequence of looking at building really high quality common summitive assessments. But the other part
011of that is where we're going to get the biggest bang for the buck is creating common formative assessments. And that again aligned with our three-year plan that we had planned out anyway. And so um one of the things I want to jump ahead to is this slide here. And so we call response days, you can call it workshop, you can call a lot of lot of things. I think elementary does a really good job with with small group teaching based on assessment data. So if you look at students that you know majority of the classes not meeting the standard, you're going to do a whole group reteing. If 50 to 74% you know mixed mastery, some are getting it, some not. We got to look at doing some flexible grouping, some small teaching. 75 to
01289, again that's a pivotal point. What are we doing with that information? And so we're asking teachers to do small group uh instruction and then if 90% or higher of the class is doing well, we just we just move on. So um how this aligns or how the uh I'll back up to the the commitments um what is their belief that all students can learn at high levels. I mentioned our PLC meetings with conversations around student learning, how to best respond with students aren't learning that those are those response days. We're following a common data protocol. Um, we have a a common assessment calendar. It is pretty amazing. As tricky as this can be, our teachers are within a couple days of teaching the same lesson um and giving the same assessments, which is I
013think challenging to do, but our teachers do a great job. And then those use of response days. Um, we selected these because they have a high effect size. If you look at John had his research and they also answer the the big four questions, especially those last two questions are what do we do if kids are learning and what do we do when they're not learning? So, not just the kids that aren't learning, but what do you do to enrich and challenge and push those students that are? You can do that through response day type of lesson. How we're tracking this is through artifacts. We have PLC notebooks that each team has um through their data collection and classroom observations. So, that's our goal and we'll we look forward to sharing with you where we're
014at with our unit assessments. >> Thanks, Mark. >> I have a question for you, Mark. So I'm imagining on the responding to data each one of those categories presents its own challenges. What happens when we have 90% of the kids who are there but we still have some students who are not getting it. What happens then? >> Yeah, I there's a couple things. Um we have our win time which is one thing that we're doing. Uh so win >> is um about as low as 10% better that are for math and reading. We don't do it for all subject areas, but for math and reading, they're getting extra interventions during that time, which takes place daily, and then they have to hit certain thresholds before they graduate out. Our sixth grade math teachers, I'm really
015proud of them. They they have volunteered during their study all time to pull in what we call the tier 2 intervention, which is something that's been lacking in our middle school. And that's that's the next group up from that lower 10th percentile. and they're taking that group from 10th the 24th 25th percentile and they're either doing um pre-teaching um some of those skills or strict you know um deficits that the kids might have right now um they are so they're pre-teaching and they're doing some reteing [clears throat] Katrina Bell who teaches six blue she just mentioned there's kids that don't normally raise their hands after doing some pre-teaching they have the confidence to participate in class which is just a really good qualitative piece of information that I thought was was really good Um we're
016hoping to model that then in in both um seventh and eighth grade math next year as well as reading. So we're this is a great pilot. Again, we have some teachers that are stepping up to volunteer to do this. I I think it's it's going to pay dividends. >> So is it an accurate way for me to think about this that this is what's happening in the classroom, but then there are additional structures of our multi-tered systems of support that go that kick in >> for those kids. Is that accurate? >> Universal good instruction, high quality teaching and learning. Some would say that that those responses are a tier 2 intervention. Um we also are doing some of this you know study all time. We're having kids get extra support that way as well. >>
017Okay. Thank you for that question. >> Um in the inside the data I just was opening up the data. >> Is this forward test the one that changed? What? Okay. So it looks like it's up like 13%. That doesn't really mean it's up 13%. Um if you look at so what I do is I compare the state and then I compare to other districts. So there was but you'll you'll notice in reading writing the percentage of students that were reading or scoring advance went up across the state. The scale scores change. >> So >> we look at that right but then we also look at okay how much did Hudson go up? How much did the original go up? How much did we go up? [snorts] And we look at how much the state went
018up. >> Yep. >> And so we've if you look at our scores the jump that we made in the last two years is >> darn good. Yeah. >> Great. >> Yep. Okay. >> All right. Thanks. >> Thank you very much. [snorts] >> All right. River Falls [clears throat] High School, you're up next. >> Good evening, everyone. Uh, we're just going to I'll give you a quick recap and then um Heidi and Lisa are going to kind of talk about the data that we have this year just a little bit. So, for our fall update, we did make some changes to our wildly important goal. One of the major changes was we were embedding assessments within classes as academic practice and trying to pull that data uh became challenging as we shared with you in the
019spring when we had uh thousands of examples of that trying to aggregate that data for individual students became an extreme challenge for us. We have still embedded our teacher practice in that. So the students are still having those literacy uh like assessments embedded into the curriculum. We know that that is still valuable. We saw that throughout uh all of last year in our wig this year with uh the conversations that we've had both with you central office and others is we are looking at it differently with whole school data. So now we're having three different checkpoints for us. Um one we just had in the fall. We'll have another one uh coming up roughly in December, January. December, January. Yep. And then one with our regular March. So, we have three assessments that all students
020are taking um which we're going to share that data with you tonight. Uh and then we're really excited for our second uh round of assessments because having just one point of data isn't really something that we're feeling confident of dropping in and making huge adjustments to at this particular point in time. Um but again, our goal is to have all of our students sustain and have mastery of reading comprehension. the terms the leverage performance of that the activity level performance has not changed. Uh we have all of our students falling into one of three categories either basic, proficient or mastery. What we have done is align those two uh redacted assessments or or other types of standard assessments. If you recall last year, we had our staff create those assessments and again with the fidelity
021of that across classes, across teachers, we have increased fidelity with that coming into this year. So, we're really getting uh baseline growth and we're seeing where our students are at. Uh in the transition, one of the things that Heidi's going to talk about that we also did is we did tie our assessments to specific standards and I'm going to let Heidi kind of introduce that first portion of that. So staff have been really excited um being able to have like a standard building assessment, right, for each grade level to be able to have that comparative data. And one of the things that was really important for staff was it to for it to be related directly to reading standards, right? And so all of the reading standards are actually like written in two-year clumps. So
022nth and tth grade standards were together in one and then 11th and 12th grade standards are together in one. Um, so one of the things that we navigated when creating the assessment was trying to look at the specific articles and which one we thought particular grade levels would be most appealing to [clears throat] grade levels. Right? And then also the identification of the specific standards now the standards that we picked that are out there, you'll notice that there's six of them. Um, the main focus ones though were R1, R2, and then R8. So the first two at the top and then the one at the very very bottom. Um so those are pertaining to like key ideas and details right being able to have that. Um the other one was summarization and then the evaluation
023of an argument. Um many of our teams when we were identifying this with our PLC leaders in terms of the focus areas, it was those standards that we thought not only that we noticed in the ACT from last year from our summer data dig, right? but also for classroom teachers when we started looking at content reading um those that they thought would most directly align and carry over. So taking that information and those specific standards then we created particular blueprints um for the tests and so each one of the tests had 10 questions and each one of those questions um focused in on one to two specific skill areas and that will carry for each of the assessments that we give in the fall. um and then in the winter and then the spring assessment
024is the statewide assessment, right? But it allows us then to be able to um really identify specific question areas and the growth for students in those particular areas. So you'll notice for the priority ones that um teachers had selected that those are tested on or um focused on more readily. So the R1, the R2, and then the R8. Um, one of the other areas that through this that we've noticed is vocabulary. So, one of the conversations that we'll be considering for subsequent [clears throat] years is do we like tweak that blueprint um in future years, but we know the R1, R2, and R8 will stay consistent as we move our way through that. Um, so now you'll be able to see the data. Lisa's going to also hand around though um specific ones where you'll
025be able to see a figure for each of the trade levels um because we know that it can get small in there, but we wanted you guys to be able to see the pie chart side by side um for the data table that is up there. So on here you'll notice the specific results for each of our grade levels, 9th, 10th, and 11th grade. um because we only tested those knowing that they're going to have the spring test here um coming up. So that we would have those three data points in the data that's there. There's two different tables. The first one is the pie chart and that shows the overall classroom performance. Now remember last year when we talked and all of a sudden it was saying that like 70 and 80% of our
026kids in every class were proficient and they're saying but on the statewide performance piece it's only saying that like 40% of our kids are showing that proficiency of scoring above a 19. um these tests were used creating or pulled um from actual test database that are directly aligned to the ACT right and have the standards embedded and give direct feedback specific to each of those standards. So, we were able to then know right where those are. And you'll see that the level of mastery um that's identified on there is much closer to where our students are actually performing, which was the part that our teachers um were greatly like impressed by or that they was very um good for them to be able to see. Now, there was a number of learning pieces as we
027went through this too. So, one thing that you'll notice is looking at the pie charts that are up at the top for our 9th graders, it shows that there was a 51% level of mastery, right? 10th grade is 64.7% mastery and 11th grade was 50.4% mastery. Now, we know that our 11th graders last year um when they took the ACT or the practice ACT were at a 40% level of proficiency, scoring above a 19 um or 20 or above on the ACT. So showing some growth from last year um but being a lot closer in alignment there versus our sophomore class um that was there had shown a 44% proficiency last spring um on that practice ACT. At the bottom you'll see the actual skills that were tested and the performance bands for each of
028those specific skills um that we identified for the standards. Okay. Now, like I said, when we first created these assessments, we looked at the specific articles that we thought kids would be most intrigued by. You'll notice at the bottom, though, the 10th grade one had four specific area skills that we were honed in on. 9th grade had five, and then 11th grade had six. Once we actually delved into the data, one of the big points of conversation that we noticed was probably in subsequent years we should actually consider flipping these two, right? And having four tested in nth grade, four skills tested in nth grade, five skills tested in 10th grade, and six skills tested in 11th grade versus what we did this year um focusing more on the specific readings, right, that were coming
029out for how they were initially created. and that might um influence some of the data there as well. Um but teachers were actually then able to go in for their specific data and they were able to um have theirs disagregated to be able to um delve specifically into each of theirs and we did a data walk with our teachers. So they were able to see those performance bands across the entire building and then they could go into the software and they could pull the data specific for the students that they were serving in each of their classes to know bandwise where their students were, what specific skills were their students struggling in. And one of the things that you'll notice is we have two particular grade levels where vocabulary was a heavy need. Right? So
030then our PLC teams like Mr. been talked about um we're able to actually have data do our discussions um on that. Okay. And one of the beautiful things that we've been able to do is throughout the summer and um came to this fall partnering with Mr. Chapen and Cat was creating standard data protocols that our staff have been able to use at both the middle school and high school. Um which has been really really nice. And so those have carried into our PLC's um where staff were able to discuss those. So the other handout that you have there is [clears throat] the actual wave discussion sheet that we use with our staff um where you can see they were able to record what was the performance of our 9th graders, our 10th graders, our 11th
031graders and then specifically comparing the classes that they serve and what the needs might be of those students. And then they used that data and they jumped into their teams to then be able to discuss like what are the needs of the specific students that we're serving and how might that vary in ninth grade or 10th grade, right? Science versus maybe in an English or a social studies class and specific to the students that they're serving right now in this term. Um, and then our teams were able to then go back and say, how am I going to respond to that and what am I going to do with that data knowing the specific needs of my students? And so that's going to come into some of the things that Lisa is going to talk
032about here in a little bit um for how some of our teams have morphed and shifted their content literacy focus areas, but really all of this into that PLC process, right? And on the back of that data sheet, you'll notice that the individual reflection questions um that we were asking a number of our teachers to really reflect on or how could they possibly [laughter] influence the data? What might be a shift in their specific practices? Overall, we had a ton of celebrations um to look at compared to where we were last year, right, when we were trying to figure out what that baseline might be. um staff were incredibly appreciative and we are beyond excited to have norms building data and knowing that it's pulling from um verified you know question banks that are there
033the next path dashboards and to be able to have the pie charts and then to be able to have the data specific to the questions um and question distribution is incredible. Um and that actually has like classroom dashboards for the teachers as well as Renaissance DNA. And so we give a special shout out to Mary Beth um on that one for bringing that to us here um because that has been a huge gift for us um knowing that it's directly aligned to standards to assessments and then now that we can actually track student by student exactly how they're performing and what their growth index might be. Students can log in and see exactly where they performed and which skill areas they were struggling in. And then that consistency of the blueprint for us to be
034able to then pull and say, "Oh my goodness, students have struggled on R1 mightily both in the fall and then in the winter." That'll really help us to be able to identify the specific standards that we need to hone in on at each grade level, right? Um and then really being able to have those conversations for us as administration. This has been a huge gift too um because it's given us the opportunity to actually model data conversations across the building um with our teams and then to be able to sit in with them as they're doing um their data conversations as well. Um when we talk about the data for that initial piece that's giving us pause when you look at those subskll breakdowns the specific areas where we do have um some pause when
035it comes to vocabulary specific academically vocabulary um and a number of our teams have really delved in and discussed that. And then just overall in the same way that when when we look at our reading data that led us to identify this as a focus area for the students in reading who are struggling. Um, we learned a ton. We also learned about uncoupling standards and things like that. And I won't get into all of that, but like we learned a ton. And so we're continuing to improve that. Um, but we also learned the power of giving our teachers that focus and that ability um to really identify the content literacy strategies. So these we'll talk more about that. >> So I'm curious. >> Yes. Um, so if like a couple of these grades looks like
036the larger opportunity rests with vocabulary. >> Yes. >> So what would an example of what a teacher would do to enhance students vocabulary? >> Yeah. So like our science team specifically when we were sitting down with them at their PLC um they're talking about actually like breaking down, right, and being able to look at individual chunks and be able to decode, right? And then they're also talking about there are specific academic vocabulary words that we know that are out there that are really beneficial for students to know, right, and understand. And so that's one that they're looking at and saying which ones particularly relate to their content area that they can adopt and embed across each of their courses to make sure that students then have those and they're not feeling like they're floundering or
037lost when it comes to that academic vocabulary. Right. So the so the teachers know what words we're talking about, what vocabulary words. Like in elementary school you get vocabulary words, right? >> Yeah. >> High school you don't really. >> Yes. They're talking specific academic vocabulary words. I mean if you were to Google there's like a long list of them that comes up for that. Um but then they're also saying within their specific content or disciplinary area, the big one science was looking at like homo sapien, right? And being able to say homo means this or mono means this, right? and being able to help students really be able to understand so that they can decode words based on those individual meaning pieces. Um, so that was a big one for vocabulary. And then just saying
038within each content area, sometimes there are ones that will kind of make kids flounder. And they were also talking about like synonyms within academic vocabulary because oftentimes a teacher might use one word to constantly describe something and then if they use a different word on the test, right? Or when they're assessing sometimes students have a moment of pause. So oftentimes teaching students not only the words but the synonyms that can go with it so that they're not feeling quite as lost. >> We don't actually teach Latin roots and origins anymore, do we? >> There are spots where they're doing that. Science is one of the less specific English as well. English and science both have >> med interesting. >> So in the last year some of the things that we've kind of got more specific
039on um content literacy we went um if you recall and there's another slide I'll just jump to real quick. Um this slide was last year. So how we started giving professional development to our teachers and teaching universal lit literacy strategies. The three highlighted ones were the ones that u ones that all content areas are easily able to incorporate and have really big success with that. One of those is the Q vocabulary. Um and that's where we started. And then last spring we um we took our PLC teams and let them go specifically into their content area. And so that last um sheet in your packet is the content literacy um page. And what it started out as is a resource page for our PLC teams. And then last spring they did research in their teams
040and their PLC teams and they um adjusted this sheet to go with the things they found that they could utilize in their content areas to teach literacy and to focus on and they did that again as well and that's the the result is the sheet that you're looking at now. So it started with a resource and then they updated it what they found. So those are the areas in each of those content areas. Those are the key um literacy pieces that they're going to focus on or are focusing on to teach literacy in their um content area. Um I went kind of out of order, so hang on. So we're going to continue to work with provincial development for our teachers on universal to strengthen those to practice those more but also to delve into
041more content area literacy. um looking at um data per student, having the the different points of data throughout the years can be very helpful to see which students need support and then being able to develop an MTSS system at the high school to provide interventions for those students so that we can bring them back up to or hopefully bring them back up to grade level and help them to read better and raise those scores as a result of show that already. Um, in this slide you see before, this is the commitments we made. We have updated just a little bit. Um, but we're going to continue with the commitments and practices that we outlined um, last year. Um, again, our focus for PLC, one of those focuses as content literacy and really digging in and
042being able to utilize best practices that work for our content areas that can show them growth can show growth in those um, in literacy. Um, and so we're going to continue to collect that data, monitor it, see where the gaps lie, and then work on that, developing that system of supports that we, you know, what do we do about that? How do we adjust that? Um, some of the things are obvious, you know, one-on-one and reteing, but how do we dig in deeper? Because reading strategies and reading interventions are pretty strong in elementary and even in middle school, but there's not there isn't stuff that's already set out there for high school. Not a lot. um we are finding that you can take things that are that are created for elementary and gear them up
043to high school but that doesn't work for everything and so that is what the work we have to do yet is not only looking at the data and what can we pull out per student but how do we address the need I'm curious I'm thrilled to see that there's a timeline on on building up [laughter] the tier 2 interventions. Um looks like this year into 2027, hopefully we'll see some really positive things coming to support kids that are struggling. Um I'm curious about the staffing implications when you're trying to build those systems of support. How what does that look like at the high school level? >> It's different at every high school. This is the biggest challenge that we're facing. High school intervention systems are vastly different. There's few resources that are available. One of
044the things our building leadership team is doing is going to go up for site visits coming up here in December and in January. Uh we've identified key keys and districts in the state of Wisconsin areas that are either being really high quality intervention systems that play specifically to tier twos and threes or the comparable schools that we are looking at from a school report card standpoint. Uh the other team that we're bringing along is our crosscategorical special education teams to look at what can we do from that standpoint and learn from other buildings and districts from a more inclusionary model. uh we still have a lot of skills development time in our schedule and we believe that if we put our students in the regular ed classrooms more often with key key targeted interventions, we're
045going to see greater results also with our special ed population which we know at times may struggle with literacy or other types of uh building academic goals. So, we have five different site visits that we're scheduling with our building leadership team and our uh special ed staff with hopes to come back and report and really see what is out there to that we can find and adapt. >> Fantastic. Great. I jumped over my comments about tier one, too. So, sorry I had that question looming, but the work that you're doing with with tier one high quality instruction is great and and that's first and foremost. So, well done. Thank you. >> This is not exactly connected to your data, but I'm just wondering, are we are you seeing a shift in your experience? You're all
046experienced educators in students just reading books. >> Students, [clears throat] >> I mean, that's an important way of building vocabulary and understanding sentence structure and discerning decoding text. So, what do you think? I see a lot of freshman, eager freshman that come in and they pick up their books and they read and all that stuff and then by the time they get to their senior year, a lot of uh I think it lessens quite a bit. Um but freshman, I mean, like my freshman year, I remember seeing kids like during the breaks and stuff like that, they would um but like I said, as you get through the years, it it definitely lessens down. Um, and I think that as your work increases in high school, you have less time to pick up a book
047and um, read that. And I don't know what kids are doing outside of class. So, um, but I say it starts at high school pretty well and then as it goes through it, it dies down a little bit. Do >> you think primarily due to other demands of course work? >> Yeah, I think other demands of course work, how long that course work is taking. freshman year, some individuals, especially the kids who are going to be reading, tend to get through some of that freshman level or or entry level stuff pretty fast and then they're able to pick up a book. Um, and I think that as [snorts] uh as the courses get harder and as the demand in those classes uh becomes more, you have less time to do so. Um, and that's that's
048truly what I think is happening. I also think that there is a certain fatigue these like they call it senioritis, right? Seniors just get tired of of high school, right? And so I think you see that especially starting um even halfway through high school and their junior year really. It's just like they don't want to necessarily think of something academic when they don't have to, right? So I think that's where you're seeing that. But you always have the freshman that come in and being really eager. So I think you see that starting early but not later on. I think that what we we find on our side of things is just the what they're stating is the core academics. If I just use junior year as an example with American literature, US history or a
049push, whatever the student is taking, there's a heavy amount of reading in our language arts and social sciences. Um we do still see students reading for enjoyment, not as much as maybe once was in truth. Would you agree? >> Yeah. or will be >> people kind of come back to it after they >> did it >> depends and I again it's the priorities of the student and some students that's what they love to do >> and other students have chosen other things along the way >> I mean not to use me as an example but I used to have a ton of time to like read at night and so I I would read at night and then as my schedule course work and other things and like as my interest for other things uh
050became more there's just less time to sit down and focus on a book. And so then over time, that habit that I had built up of reading overnight kind of dissipated. And then now I'm at the point where it's like I don't read as often as I probably should or even want to, but my schedule just doesn't allow the time for me to sit down um with a book and read for fun and out of pure enjoyment rather than sit down with a push book and read an thing that I have to for school. Right. So I think I think my experience is similar to a lot of other high schoolers. Um but that's from my end and I yeah but [clears throat] the way that students are interacting with text has right like >>
051tech interaction with text versus like paper. Um I would say the the phone pieces that you guys will talk about like this year I can say that I've noticed a little bit more so like because you can't take out a phone during work time to be able to look at something. So, we have had some more students going down and getting books or they'll be, you know, delving into whatever's going on in their Google classrooms. >> But I I also mean just reading [clears throat] on a I mean reading on an iPad can be a beneficial thing because you've got a built-in dictionary right there. So, that can be helpful. But I'll I have another question switching gears. So, Lisa, you brought up that some of the strategies that we use to teach reading to
052elementary students can be geared up for high school students. I am sure that's true. Can you give us an example of something that's really effective? >> Well, we talked about vocabulary, for example, and teaching vocabulary ahead of time frontloading. Um, >> in elementary school, you see that front loading happening with connecting students to the material. What do they know about this topic or this type of whatever before they read and then teaching those key vocabulary pieces that are found in the reading and then making sure that they're just ready with those pieces because then they get into it with some knowledge. they know kind of what's going to happen, at least an idea of what the topic is. And then the words that might they may stumble on, they get those ahead of time and
053they could probably even access them, you know, have them available um to be able to um utilize when they're reading. Um there are some other ones that are more elementarybased that are um a lot of like coral reading and things like that that maybe aren't as popular in the high school, but but might work more for oneonone. Um where student, you know, who's fairly low having that either reading like the adult reads a line and then the student rereads the same line or they take turns depending on their level tracking when they read. So even when somebody else is reading out loud, they're tracking so they can see what words being read. Some of those pieces can be brought up to the high school level. Um but you have to do it carefully so that
054they don't recognize that it's an elementary um strategy and all of those universals, right, can be applied across. So the purpose of reading um teaching kids how to annotate, right? usually in fourth and fifth grade like we're easily teaching kids like how to not only be able to track but how to be able to understand the IDs and details and those sorts of things too. >> Yeah. I wonder too as the world gets more auditory um u with technology the auditory and the seeing visuals of things and pictures but when you take the tests it's all the written word and I wonder if that's different for kids nowadays for people in general. I mean, I listen to podcasts all the time while I'm doing other stuff rather than reading the newspaper. Um, and then but
055then when you take the test, it's all in writing. I don't know if that makes a difference. >> I think it definitely does. Like if I I see it in myself that it's hard to stay engaged sometimes reading a book, right? But listening to something like you said like like a podcast you said it's really easy to um >> listen to a podcast while doing something else like cleaning for instance like I when I clean I do a podcast and that's really easy because I can do both things at the >> your mom is not [laughter] >> and then um >> and then also I it's the same thing with it's really easy like uh having if you have a phone next to you while you're reading you get notification on the on your phone
056to pick it up and just like look at it, right? And so it's that easy to get disengaged from books. I think that's definitely seen at the high school level. Um especially when like kids get distracted really easy, even if they're given like an excerpt on their Chromebook to read and something's happening in the class, a kid gets up, sharpens his pencil, that's super distracting for some kids. Um and it really throws them out of the loop. So I think that whole like auditory and visual thing definitely has changed a lot from other times, you know. So, >> last question, I promise. I'm looking at these at these charts and I like the color coding, but >> does it it surprises me that there's so much variation in it. Does it surprise you? >> We
057we feel feel the same way. That's why we're excited for assessment number two >> because we don't know we don't know really where the bullseye is on this, right? So, I think when we take a look at the second assessment, make some finer adjustments, we're really going to be able to hone in of who really does need the interventions and where our students overall by grade level are performing both individually and as a grade. Um, we think we'll have a better read in January of where things are at there. >> I see that especially when you look at the blueprint because for a couple of those specific skills, there's only one question that was used to test that particular skill area, right? So the student did poorly on that is off. >> Right. >> So
058it comes back to what we talked about the last time you came. How do we know what we're actually measuring? >> It's still coming down to quality questions, right? We picked some assessments that we thought were engaging. We made some changes like maybe we tested a few too many standards in certain spots or if you test three standards out of 10 on one, there's more of a likelihood of people showing proficiency versus one time on that out of 10 question. So we're learning by doing again in this. I think the goal, just so you know, for next year too still is really looking at the tier 2 and tier three interventions. Now, once we're able to identify students, we got to do something beyond the classroom and we're looking for your support in that. And
059again, the big part of that, too, is providing professional development for our staff. There's three of us plus Zach and a few others in the building. We're really going to need to provide that coaching model at some particular point in time, not only just in literacy, but in our curriculum work, our assessment work, and others along the way. >> Anybody else? >> Thank you for your work. Thank you for being here tonight. Good luck on the next stage of this. >> Okay. All right. So, we're going to move on to Renaissance Charter Academy. >> Thank you. Thanks for having me. my um counterpart is is unable to join me today tonight. So I'll just go ahead and go through her slides as best as I can. Um we established our goals to be um in
060three part this year. Academic which included the reading and math, behavioral, phone usage and vape reduction and then our pro program presence within our community. Uh so by the end of our reading goal for 1A is to um by the end of term two have 80% of students will increase their scaled score in reading. And what we have been able to do this year have is to to provide to our students the star uh reading um test so that we can establish some baselines. And this the reason we decided to move with these goals was because we realized that we have we had inconsistent data in our building and we also realized that our students were struggling across the board in the majority of our content areas. And if this is the baseline data for
061our reading that was just taken just a couple of weeks ago. And as you can see, our ninth and tth graders are really doing well at 60th percentile with our 12th graders crushing it in the 70th 71st percentile with the grade equivalencies being 11.5 and 12th grade being 13 plus. Now the grade equivalency, don't um read too much into that. That is when our students are able to achieve their highest peak. It's not a sustainable type of of reading um goal for them. So the scaled score represents the the norms that are associated with skills that our students would need to be working on. And by utilizing the STAR testing, our ELA teachers and our um BLT team will work um collectively to put together some strategies to u move forward our reading scores. Our
062uh so this just talks about what we're going to be doing. We're going to be doing um star data testing four times a year and we revised our reading logs from last year. Um we mentioned about uh previously that we do reading twice a week for up to 30 minutes in our advisory time. After advisory reading is done, they have to fill out a reading log sheet and identify the different types of reading strategies that they utilized um on that particular um day in time. What we did, what we didn't do last year is that we just allowed a students to pick um whatever strategy um they liked to use. This time they have to pick a sheet and that sheet correlates with a specific strategy that they have to use. And by utilizing that
063um strategy, we're hoping to increase their their their strength in reading. When we are jumping to math, by term two, 80% of our students will increase their scaled score in math. And our sub goal for this is to have 80% of our students that will take at least one P math class per year. In the past, we've had some struggles getting some continuity in regards to our math. And by going to grade level math and doing more sequencing, we feel that we're going to have more success. And we're really excited because we got new curriculum for algebra and geometry [clears throat] and our staff has been really receptive to it. And we're really excited to say that we have 15 students taking geometry this year in the hopes that they'll go on to algebra 2
064and maybe even a higher level math by the time they're a senior. So, we're excited to be seeing that. >> When we are looking at our scores for our baseline data for math, we can see that our 10th graders are in the 45th percentile. 11th grade is 38th percentile with our 12th graders, our seniors being in the 22nd percentile. Our 12th graders um haven't had maths since probably the beginning or the end of their um mid of their junior year. So, their skills probably have lapsed a little bit and our 12th graders have struggled in the past with um the our math. So again, by putting in the sequencing for our math program, we're hoping that we won't see a percentile um in that um position moving forward. Let's see. Phone usage. Well, I'll just
065touch on this super quick. Last year, we were um we were excited to implement a a phone policy in our in our in our building. Like I said, last year, I lost sleep over it over the summer. This year, I slid into the beginning of the year with with no concerns. Our students came in ready to uh and ready to um surrender their phones and they have been really great about um accepting the the norm as to how we're going to utilize technology in the classroom which we're not like this is a an instructional time. You're going to have your phones put away please and thank you with love. [laughter] I I just tell them I tell them if I catch you with your phone that's on you because I wear clicky shoes and if
066you can hear me coming and I catch [laughter] you that's on you. So whatever like don't come crying to me. [clears throat] Um so our phone usage has been um we're excited to see our phone usage down. When you see the next slide you'll see what is what we started out last year versus what we started with this year. And we're excited. And then our second um port portion of our wig is that we're going to you know try to reduce or even stop vape our vaping. And by that we've had some sensors put into our our building and we've been successful with that as well. Um our goals are we're just going to monitor it by um writeups in infinite campus. And again we're going to have the fiveday surrender on the third write
067up. Uh, and to this date, we have not had anybody have to have a a a surrender for the the rest of the nine weeks. We're excited about that. And to date, we also haven't had any fiveday surreners. This is the data from last year versus this year. As you can see, last year we had 32. Um, and of course, that was a lot of poking and proddding. Put your phone away. Put your phone away. And then as you can see, the data um indicated that students were really good about keeping their phones where they should have been um with the exception of term four. Well, we had a student teacher and we had a long-term sub. So, boundaries were pushed during term four. And then this year you can see we've had um one
068uh I'm sorry one fiveday surrender and then for um 20 sorry 2024 2025 one day one fiveday surrender and then this year we've had zero fiveday surreners and the asterct is because we actually had two students at the high school who brought down um two violations already and that was included in our data but I wanted to exclude them from the RCA program because when they were in our program, they were not in our program when they received the the five um their second violation. So, they're I think I'm really proud of them. Not I think I know they're um they're handling it very well. As you can see, we've got some vape um violations and some information and the data is right up there. We've had four this year, which is up from um
069last year. You might be wondering why that is. I think the sensors are helping. I think um students are uh reporting that they're seeing it more frequently and they're wanting it out. So therefore, we are quick to act on it and um have the conversation as to do you have a vape? Can I have it? Surrender it. And we do um searches um as needed. Um our program presence, we continue to want to be out in the community. We continue to want to see more and more people get into our building. We're we are committed to getting more uh students into our program. And so our goal again is to continue to have growth by 10% and to continue to in to continue to participate in or at least host um the different community events
070and increased collaboration uh efforts with Meer Middle School and the the River Falls High School. And I think that's um we've started that those talks already. Um we just know that we need to redefine who the RCA is and who this those types of students that we serve. And I think we've um made some really good progress as to where our program has been versus where we want it to be heading. And I'm excited to see that trend continue in a positive direction. Um we are seeing student growth from the number of students from the high school to the RCA. We're seeing more and more families inquire about coming to the RCA through open enrollment. and our presence at being at a variety of community events and hosting community events and the partnering has is
071definitely being um noticed because we're getting a number of phone calls throughout the course of the of the year. So these are the numbers so far as you can see um we start out kind of low and then as um the terms go on we we jump up. I think we had 13 or 14 new students for term two and we're going to we're excited to see that those numbers continue to move forward. Um when we talk about the community events, we've listed some of those for 25 24 25. Um and then we are starting to keep track of track of the data for how we are promoting the program. And this is just a very um short list so far. And I think one of the things um we're really excited to um say
072is that last year we hosted the the STEM camp for summer and I got a phone call from a parent not too long ago and they have a fifth grader and an eighth grader and they want to come tour our school and I asked how did you hear about our program and they said my my child took the STEM camp at your building and they thought it was really cool and the stuff that you had in your classroom. So, we're excited to get people in the building so they can see the things that our students and our staff are working on. You know, as we continue to go grow, we're going to look at teacher consistency. We're going to continue to have administrators administrative support. And we're going to continue to um juice up our
073educ educational components with all the testing um and the different strategies. and our staff is excited to be part of the curriculum cycle and you know kind of laying things out as to where we've been versus where we're heading and collaborating with the high school as well. >> And I will take any questions if you have any. One of the things that I was wondering about on the data, the reading and math data, you have a relatively small number of students in each one of those categories. And so >> you're vulnerable. Yes. >> To changes or performance of individual students and what that does to your >> weird. Yes. >> That's hard. >> It is hard. It makes my heart sad because then somebody gets a a hold of that information, they want to, you
074know, claim that we're not doing good things by our students and we are. And we get a lot of students in the influx um students that are in transition students that are um homeless and transition I mean like group homes to our to our program and so those students directly affect some of our our data and it's hard to combat that because nobody sees the true um the underlying factors when we're testing our students but our students are working hard. I just I had mentioned that the number of students that tested for the ACT a few years ago um was like five and like last the year just uh last year I think we had 14. So we are getting more and more students do are opting to take academics seriously and it's just going
075to take time for us to establish better data for people to acknowledge. >> And I'd imagine you can look at this and not in a conglomerate fashion. You can look at the the range and look at the the mean and so you would be able to see >> correct >> where the students are. >> Correct. >> Yeah. Which way it's skewing. >> Correct. >> Yeah. >> Is it surprising to you to have such a big difference between your reading and math scores? I mean 71st percentile to >> I I'm >> Is it just that it's really not fair to compare those at all? >> I think um we reading was our goal last year and so that we worked on that a lot last year. So if you were to look at the data from
076last year with what little data we had versus here we're very excited to see this big jump. It's our hope that when we are done with term two because we're offering pre-alggebra and geometry right now we're excited to see what that does. And so, um, our math teachers have decided that we're going to test, um, every 3 weeks for for math just to kind of see how things are moving. And they're also collaborating, um, with each other in and utilizing the math 180 um, software, not software, but textbooks that we just received. So, that's exciting to have new materials in the books because we haven't we haven't had something new in math since 1986. >> Okay. But we're excited forward. So, [clears throat] >> anything else? >> Good. >> Thank you for your work and
077for being here tonight. >> All right. Superintendent report. >> Peggy. >> Gotcha. >> It's been really hard for me to sit quietly. >> Uh, one thing I wanted to note is, uh, school report cards were publicly released. I love that we had our uh that conversation about all the lead measure work and all the the the work that we're doing to ultimately influence some of those those broader um standardized test scores. That's not our only measure and that's why I like that we spend so much time on that because that's that's the multiple measures approach that we're talking about. Um, but we will send some information out uh and put some information out on on where we stood and then at our EDPRO December meeting. We'll have a in-depth analysis and then at our full
078schoolboard meeting in December, we'll have an analysis. But just broad picture is our district report card is at the exceeds expectation level. Uh we were up five we were exceeds last year but we're still we're up 5.4 points from last year. So we're at 76.2. all those numbers there you can I think we just need to take a deep dive into that to get into it but the broad uh announcement or the broad communication is that we're at exceeds expectation and within exceeds expectation we we grew as a district so um a lot to celebrate there but to to really do it justice we got to dig into it a little bit more so that's one piece so my I I knew we were going to have lots of long conversations so I just wanted
079to touch on two pieces the first piece is last week was Veterans Day and one thing that's really awesome about Riverfall school district is that every student within the district has an opportunity to to um participate in some level of Veterans Day programming at the middle school. Uh it's a very organized program. Uh Mark Chapen's here. He and his entire team. I'm mentioning you, but I know that it takes a whole bunch of people to put that program together, but it was it was very very good this year as it is always. Um we had a Riverfalls High School graduate, David Raspersonson, who's also a US Naval Aviator, uh speak. I thought he did a really really good job of connecting um service and how we recognize Veterans Day um with a very Riverfalls focused
080feel which was which was fantastic. And then we had four wonderful student speakers, Annie Bells, Grace Rener, Maline Curtis, and Zoe Ashley who also did just a wonderful do job touching on um what Veterans Day means to them. And again, a lot of personal uh uh components to that. That was wonderful. um Meyer Middle uh the band and the choir did an excellent job and then the student council takes that extra step and and invites veterans to stay after the program and have that onetoone piece. So it was awesome. So um wonderful middle school program at the high school um we're lucky to have the American Legion uh post 121 do their honor guard and uh a speech from the commander uh Kit did a nice speech and then we have band and choir performances
081as well. Renaissance Charter um does local outreach to to veterans creating buttons and thank yous and then has an honor slideshow as well. >> And then at the elementary schools, our our American Legion Post that they are busy that day. [laughter] >> They get 13. >> They do 13. Yeah, that does not surprise me. It is It is awesome. Um and I and I love to see I love to see that our students interaction with that. um whether it's a fairly long program at the middle school or or shorter programs at the high school and elementary that the level of respect um is awesome and and it's really fun to see the the multi-gener generational component to that. In addition um different buildings do different things. Uh Westside um had different student speakers. They had
082an a hero's hallway which is still up is pretty cool to see. Um at the Monasuri they have a veterans reception. Greenwood does a breakfast as well as some other components. Um and there's different speakers at each place. So really an awesome opportunity for all of our kids to recognize uh the importance of Veterans Day and also kind of interact with uh community members. And then the last piece is this week is American Education Week and so we'll celebrate that at each building. Uh we're thankful to our food service department who will go above and beyond and and host a lunch at each of the spaces and Pat does a really nice job of trying to kind of zero in on what would be a good kind of special lunch, something extra above and beyond.
083So we would invite any of the school member board representatives to attend the lunch that if it fits their uh their schedule to attend that building lunch. And then the other piece I wanted to highlight is uh we normally try to do a recognition, a thank you bookmark to promote reading. Um so we send uh bookmarks out, but we also um highlight some really cool art. Uh and so the two art pieces there are from Haley Perfect, who was a ninth grader at Riverfalls High School. That's the frog. And then um >> she paint that. >> I think it's a drawing, but it's really good. >> Yeah, it's really good. >> I like both. [laughter] had Ellie Bailey who's a second grade student at Greenwood. >> Isn't that awesome? >> And that's a that's a
084wonderful uh so we thought just really awesome artwork and um if you've been a teacher for a long time, you kind of get the the history of them which we know there's a tradition but um we just think it's really neat also to highlight the the artwork. So >> um that's how we're celebrating American Education Week this year. >> Thank you, Dave. All right, we will move on to action items. Is there any board member who would like to pull an item from the consent agenda? All right. Then is there a motion to approve the October 27 regular uh school board meeting minutes, November 3 special school board meeting minutes, bills that have been submitted for payment, um employment recommendations, all of the items that will be second readings of policies under item five and
085then all of the items in number six that will be the first reading of revised school of revised or new schoolboard policies. Is there a motion, please? So moved. >> Second >> Lindsay. Who second it? >> You did Ellison. Okay. >> All those in favor? >> I posted. The motion is carried. All right. We have this is an annual responsibility that we need to rem uh review our district's comprehensive safety plans. And so Zach and Kate Oh, Zack. >> It was a party for you. Now it's a party. >> Okay. I guess [laughter] I guess they trust you. Um, Zach Campbell, district safety coordinator. Um, before we talk about safety week, I just want to kind of highlight some things and I stood here a year ago and what's really happened since then. A lot
086of stuff behind the scenes. So, I'll quickly highlight these and then I'll get into the drills and what happens. So, uh, leading into summer, all of our building principles set action plans for their buildings for safety and security measures and carried all those out by the beginning of September. Um we had our building our annual building security audit along with all the additional safety measures that took place in our buildings and so um audited them. This year we developed a common language with our building operation modes. So what we talk in one building is the exact same as the other building which was similar but now we're exactly mirroring everything. So when a student goes from one building to the next they're familiar with that language already. I met with the fire chief and updated
087our fire evacuation process which was mainly um just making a couple tweaks and adjustments to to updated needs. We developed our family communications matrix that is shared amongst our building leaders and then as all of you were most sitting here and got calls during our our district communication testing earlier this year as well was a piece of that speak up speak out. I know it's been talked about before and I'll probably hit on that here. We have 20 reports this year. of really having our students own own the building um and what's going on behind the scenes with things where they can feel like they can anonymously um report things or things that they see here or things that they hear um so that administration can act on that. Amongst our buildings we have 16
088Alice MK evacuations, some more major drills that have happened this year. We've had 16 of them occur. So our students are getting are into that routine and should be well aware of of all of our safety measures with that. And then as of today, our digital maps have been submitted. So, um, Dr. Sherman a few years back got a grant for us. We've been waiting for the construction to get done and all of that. And today was the first day we're finally able to ship that. And we will have all all new digital mappings for our buildings here in the coming month hopefully. So, um, building wise, uh, with our safety drills, our staff at the high school was trained, uh, in service this year. So we had everybody from RCA in the high school
089that we we took time during inservice in August and trained them in Alice training and that was done by our school resource officer um Amaro and Jensen. So at high school with our students the first week of school they get a safety overview and then they do a complete tour of the building so they know all exits. They get to enter some areas of the building that they're not completely aware of. um and and so they're all aware of during passing times where they may need to to exit certain um areas of the building that they know where they're at. Within the first month of the building, we did a full spa full scheduled um evacuation of our building. So all of our students took off to our our fields in the back um so
090we can get to rally points and kind of understand at least where where we're at in our teachers protocol. We learned some lessons through that as well. Uh and then officer Mau took time and um trained all of our students through our ALS program through um our wind time that he did at loom during. So the week of our drills, we do a mental rehearsal day and then two days later we do the full-fledged drill with our with our students. Um from the middle school side of things, they lump it all into one week where we kind of map it out there. Day one on Monday is fire um evacuation for them. Day two, they introduce speak up, speak out, what I've talked about before, so students know where they can find that and locate
091that. Day three, they get into their Alice intro where they teach the students um the Alice process within it. And then >> what does Alice mean? I'm sorry. >> Yep. Um Alice is alert, lock down, inform, counter, and evacuate. So that's all of our um if we have an intruder. Yeah. All nonsequential. If we have an intruder in the building, that is our that's our students. If you say Alice, every student from kindergarten to high school should know what what Alice Alice means. >> Um, so middle school and then they they finish it with their block and barricade drill where they um we simulate intruder without an intruder coming in and then they move into what they've trained on uh and then they block and barricade their doors. So I was able to take part
092with the middle school team and the high school team within that. So with numbers uh within that we send everything out to parents within the first three weeks of school I believe give them the opportunity to opt out in between from RCA to middle school and high school we actually had zero opt outs uh this year that is in my my time that I don't recall that ever happening before. Uh we have classroom discussions with with everything. Uh so we follow things up where we have staff discussions. The following staff meeting we talk about staff with what went well, what didn't go well, uh questions that they may have run into and they have uh classroom discussions with their students as a followup. Elementary treated similar uh but a little bit a little bit different
093within that and they go sequential three weeks in a row where they spend week one talking about uh I'm not I'm not scared, I'm prepared. And so um speaking at their level and they go through actually actually an activity book with the elementary students to kind of get them prepped for for what we're doing and making it age appropriate for them. The second week at the elementary level uh it's all discussion based activities. So the students do the tours just like I talked about at the high school. They will do that at the elementary levels as well. Um and then where students are allowed to um ask questions about certain areas of the building within that. And then week three is when they actually perform the drill. Uh, and obviously what we do at the
094high school level and what they do at the elementary level, while we're using very different languages, they're doing a lot of the exact same things from the block and barricade style of things. So, working at the high school and doing that side, it's kind of interesting to come home and have a dinner kid talk about how pumped he was to be able to to act on some of these exact same things. You timing it up perfect and just wrapping up the elementary. [laughter] >> He's doing a great job, kids. Yeah, >> she needed to bounce over for a commitment there. So, um, if you I can turn to the last piece, the lessons learned since you were living it. I've got everything except for lesson. >> Okay. Uh, sorry, I had to go do my
095live read aloud for our old school book club. >> Um, one more week. Um, so just a few of the lessons learned at the elementary level. um we had, you know, a few windows that maybe didn't have coverings amongst the different schools and so those have been ordered um revised um if they weren't quite big enough. I believe there was one window situation at Westside that Rachel's working on. Um and then as an administrative team, K12 really, we've been talking about the locking of doors throughout the school day. Maybe you already mentioned that, but just what our practices around keeping doors locked and then pulling them shut in an event where we might need to. So just keeping up those practices, >> pardon, they're keyed locked and then they're either shut or they're keyed locked
096and opened. So then in an case of emergency, they can be shut. >> So you're not having to fumble with your keys, lock your door, shut it. It's it remains locked all day. and whether it's held open by a doors stop or whatnot, then it can be pulled shut. >> Yep. >> And we ask that sight lines remain open. So we want those inside the classroom to be able to see outside the classroom but still have the ability to close blinds, right? >> Um if needed. That's a >> Yeah. And and every obviously every building, every classroom is a little bit unique. in our high school, some of the zones have lots of windows, which is really good for sightelines, but also creates um issues of making sure that we can quickly change that. Um
097and then other buildings which are maybe like for example the middle school, maybe different vintages and different eras to the types of doors. And so that's why it's nice to have uh it's nice to have different um drills to to mentally prepare for each classroom that you happen to be in how you would respond in that situation. >> I'm from an opto standard eight elementary >> five total. Five total. >> Um two at westside they were from the same family, two at the monastery and one at Greenwood. We had another family at Greenwood that opted out of the presentations but not the actual drills themselves. So there's just a in that particular case, it was more about just not wanting their 5-year-old to have a sense of something bad might happen at school. They wanted
098him to remain a safe place in their mind. So um that is the we have five districtwide at the elementary opt out. >> One of my and I raise this periodically. I think one of my real concerns I think that um because opt out can can present a serious security issue for the rest of the students if in a case of an emergency we have one or two students who have no idea what's going on and freak out because they've had no experience or training. So I'm always concerned about the ability to opt out. There are other things we don't allow students to opt out but for some reason we allow students to opt out of this and that always concerns me. I I I I'll defer to your judgment on it, but um >>
099I just I wondered so what do we do in those cases? What do we do with those students? >> So I would say our main message in all of this in partic I can speak at the elementary level. Our main message is is that you need to do whatever your teacher's asking you to do. And if your teacher is asking you to go to this side of your classroom and then the teacher is closing the door, whether or not you were at the drill, you're going to listen to what your teacher tells you to do. Um, so that's the main message of the elementary and we have we as adults are checking the other places, the bathrooms, the common areas where a student might be on their way to do lunch count or maybe they
100are going to the library to exchange their book. Um, so that's our responsibility as the adults practicing that situation. Um, but at the elementary definitely more about follow directions. Whoever is giving you directions, that's who you're listening to. High School, we didn't have opt out, but they're still, if they were to opt out, they're opting out of the drill. So, they're still receiving that multiple weeks of information leading up to everything. They're just not taking part in the actual drill. >> So, that's opposite. The kids who participated in the drill, but they didn't take the training, right? >> That was one. >> One. Okay. >> Correct. >> Yep. >> Do you have anything else? Any questions? I wish you didn't need to do this, but I'm glad you're doing it because that's how we're going
101to stay safe. So, thank you for your work and for your oversight with all of the schools. So, thanks to both of you and for being here tonight. >> Thank you, guys. >> All right. Um the policy ad hoc committee. >> Do we need to do an approval? >> Sorry about that. >> I'll make a motion to approve the 2526 school. >> Is there a second, >> Monica? Thanks. Any discussion? All those in favor? I >> opposed. The motion is carried. Thank you for keeping me organized here. All right. The policy ad hoc committee met and we have we these are the 10 policies that we had at least some conversation about. So the plan tonight is Dave is going to go through um policies that are listed in numbers 1 through five. Let's let
102him get through all of his conversation and then if there I will take a motion in a second and then we can have any discussion and then we will go back and do the same thing with numbers 6 through 10. All right. So, we're just going to wait till he gets done talking. All right, your turn. >> Broad uh feedback here is there are only slight adjustments to what was proposed at the ad hoc. Um, so the first one is 2210, which is curriculum development, which is 147 if you're following along in the big packet. Uh, the the last sentence of the first paragraph is where we added uh information that wasn't in the initial policy, and that is that um any curriculum development is consistent with and designed to achieve the district's philosophy and
103goals. So that's the that's the language that was not in the initial policy that is in there now. So that was the adjustment to 2210. Moving on the uh back page of that the the second to last paragraph um we we changed the language of of how we what is presented to most accurately reflect how we present it and that's that the superintendent and the director of academic services will provide a curriculum cycle status report to the schoolboard annually. So that reflects that work. Next policy is adoption of course study 2220 and the adjustment here was in the third paragraph of that policy and that's that uh second sentence each new course should demonstrate a clear alignment with essential academic competencies such as reading, writing, quantitative reasoning and critical thinking. That was the only adjustment
104to that one. So moving on then to 2260. That's non-discrimination and equal uh access to educational opportunity. The only adjustment that we had to that was um uh the adjustments that we had to that started on page 152. Under definitions, we added the definition for compliance officer to be an employee designated by the school board to be responsible for coordinating the district's efforts to comply with state and federal non-discrimination laws and for receiving formal complaints of pupil discrimination. So generally the update to this policy is that that compliance officer role is maybe a little bit more prominent in the investigation phase than what was in our prior policy. So we wanted to be very clear uh what the what the role is. So that was on page 152. If you go to 154 under investigation
105and complaint procedure, the second paragraph, we as we have done with the other ones that involve the investigation and complaint procedures, we added the language a detailed description of their understanding of the facts to be consistent with other complaint procedure policies. Uh that that was the only cleanup language there. So that's everything for policy 2260. So if we move to 22601, this is kind of an adjacent policy that uh in more detail says that we prohibited discrimination based on disability. So there's the broad non-discrimination policy. Now this one is specific to disability. And so what we added here is the same definition for compliance officer on page 159. So that that person's role is the same there. And then on page uh 160 we clarified under qualified individual with a disability we changed the language
106to be with respect to public early childhood and then the rest of the things because that's more reflective of the language we use uh for for learning prior to kindergarten. Um and then the last piece that we added was the same understanding of the fax language under the complaints procedure. So that was 22601. And then the last one we have before we get feedback is 226101 which is the parent and family engagement in title one programming. And that one is um first just to highlight that that clarifying in the second paragraph that the proposed policy will be reviewed and approved annually by the school board and distributed to parents and families receiving title one services. So we've done the distri distribution piece but we haven't maybe formally adopted the plan and we understand that that's
107the [clears throat] practice that this policy expects. And then the other thing that we added here was um to kind of update language around I think the prior language talked about te watching television and we know that that's maybe a little broader. Um we had talked about screen time but I went [clears throat] with monitoring digital device usage. I I was really proud of that. I'm so serious. >> I was nicely done >> sufficiently [laughter] brought so vocabulary. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> All right. Uh that was in that was in item M on page 169 as well as in F number two on on page 170. So um I think I think that's good. We kind of laugh about it, but I think it's a it's a good um component to that policy. >>
108Television seemed outdated. >> Well, you still got to watch how much we watch television. Not only that. >> All right. Are there any questions about items in one through five that David has just gone through? >> Okay. So then is there a motion to approve? >> Second. >> Anything else? >> All those in favor? >> I motion is carried. All right. Numbers 6 through 10, please. >> Okay. So, moving on to 226102. That's the title one parents right to know on the on E number two. Uh there was not a definition for highly qualified even though we have a definition for highly qualified that we respond to. So we just added that a highly qualified teacher meets state qualifications and licensing criteria for the grade levels and subject areas in which the teacher provides instruction.
109So that's the piece where if that wasn't the case that we would give notice to families. So sometimes it's that a teacher's out of area out of their subject area and sometimes that it's that they're on a provisional license and that's the notice that we give to families in that situation. The next policy is district sponsored clubs and activities 2430. The only update is we just cleaned up the um the policy. The number was wrong on the second paragraph. It should be policy 21105. So we just corrected that policy. It's calling back to the purpose of district sponsored activities. And then moving to um 2451. This is program or curriculum modifications. We clarified the second to last paragraph which really just shows kind of the process by which somebody could uh appeal a decision. So
110the initial written request um goes to the building principal who gives it to the superintendent. the superintendent makes that initial decision and provides in writing the response to the family and the student within 90 days and it's 30 days if the student has a disability and then if the request is denied um we have to be clear why it was denied and then the parent or the student could request reconsideration um and there's a timeline for that and how they would go about doing it. So we weren't quite as clear in that and we try to just streamline it. So that was that one. You think that's clear enough? The school board is required to render its determination upon review in writing. >> Yeah, I think that would be the we're playing the game of
111making sure that we don't put in something um from a timeline standpoint. That's tricky. Every time you're talking about the board convening, it's it's it's a little trickier from a timeline standpoint as opposed to the superintendent rendering a decision and those types of things. >> Yeah. Can't guarantee that the board can convene in a certain amount of time. Normally, I mean, we would obviously in situations like this, we would make every best effort to do that. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Any other questions on that one? >> Okay. So, now we're on 2521. Um, this is a policy that we extensively reviewed very recently, so there's not a lot of adjustments, but we did have a really good conversation on the um under selection of supplementary instructional material um the the language where we're not discriminating.
112we just we cut the word student, right? So to make it more clear. So that that's the only adjustment that we had there. Ultimately, that uh policy stays substantially similar to how it was before. And then the last one is student assessment. And we just cleaned up the optel language. I don't know why it's I don't know why that student is bolded. It's not We'll [laughter] clean that up. That wasn't like in a bigger like the student. That was not intentional. Sometimes you just get my thumbs are big and I probably bolded it too much. But um essentially that just we before there was confusion over what was there certain grades you could opt out and can opt out. In practice a parent can opt out uh students from these assessments in grades 3rd to
11311th. So we just made sure we were clear on that and the process by which they do it. >> Thank you. I'll take a motion first and then we can have discussion. So, is there a motion to approve the first reading of Neiola policies that are listed in items 6 through 10? >> So, move. >> Thank you, Monica. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Thank you, Alison. Any discussions, questions, or comments? >> All those in favor? >> I opposed. The motion is carried. All right, Alan, I'll turn to you for an educational program update. On Monday, November 10th, the ED program committee met and we had um several items um to work on, only one for action. Uh each um every two years we have to approve the girls hockey co-op. And what the
114hockey co-op is is uh Riverfalls and Baldwin Woodville and St. Christ Central High School share um a hockey team, women a girls hockey team and um we need to approve that. So David Krill was here, our our activities director to talk us through that. This has worked very well in the past. Um, we answered some questions and um, we approved it as a committee and um, and in fact before I move on to the rest of them, I would move that the board approve that hockey core agreement. >> Second. >> Thank you, Alison. I'll take Lindsay. >> I mean, Alan, thank you, Lindsay. Any discussion? >> All those in favor? >> I post motion is carried. All right. >> And let me two really good updates. One was on act 20. Act 20 is a
115legislation that was passed last year by the legislature that um has some specific requirements regarding um reading and literacy in our schools and um we've been working very closely with uh uh the state requirements on that. Um our team has been doing an awful lot to make to put this in place. So we had an update on that. Um Amy Weise, co-director of academic services, um talked to us about it. um we're really making some progress. There's some very interesting things going on in that. And then we had a a curriculum review u Amy also presented and along with four of our teachers uh stage five of our K through 12 EL program. And not only did this kind of give us an update on where we are with teaching language arts in the district
116and how that's going, but we really had a neat presentation by four of our um classroom teachers um and people involved with classroom teachers as to just how this takes place and examples of how it takes place. And one of the fun things about being in that committee is to just hear from our teachers and staff members periodically about what they're doing. It's really kind of exciting and it was kind of rewarding to it was very rewarding to listen to the presentation. So, um, some good progress there as well. >> All right. >> Thank you, Mike. >> All right. We also met our finance and facility committee met also on Monday, November 10th. Uh, first up was kind of a review of the uh, facility projects update. Um the summer of 2025 projects are at
117a substantial completion and they're beginning the process of looking at what else we need to complete for 2026. All of our funds must be spent by the uh June of 2027. And so um we're just in the planning process for that next wave of next summer uh projects. Um, we had uh discussion regarding the the uhformational nights we had at our new facilities. We had um an open house at the bus garage. We had an open house at the high school. So, the um we had we had a few visitors, not a ton. So, uh there was a lot of nonschool activities or uh a lot of activity at the high school going on. So, we had some visitors stop in that just happen to be there for a swimming lesson or for for a
118practice of some sort. So, we had some visitors there. Lynette talked about the the highlight of the transportation center was a family that came in with two little boys that really had a had an interest in school buses and wanted to see the inside of school buses. So, uh they had a great and they also wanted to see where the school buses slept at night. So, that was the highlight there. So, uh, it was good a good discussion there and, um, we appreciate people stopping in and taking a look at our new facilities. Uh, we also went through the 2526 budget update. We've received the first of our four state equalization payments that we get throughout the year. Uh, the first special ed, uh, re aid reimbursement uh, we will be receiving it this month.
119And our final item was fund 80. fund 80 is um has to do with our um our um >> kids club revenue. Well, kids club and our uh community eds. So, we just had a discussion regarding kind of the history of those revenues and expenses. We had a discussion right now the the levy is set based on a lump sum. we've discussed potentially instead of just doing a lump sum looking at percentages um of the overall budget um to set those to set that every year just because if you have keep at that lump sum if you don't increase it you're kind of falling behind and so we've seen that happen a little bit with those funds. So we're talking in the future going to be talking about potentially uh having the levy set by
120based on a kind of like we do with our fund balance now and our and our general fund uh as a percentage of overall revenue. So those will be discussions we'll be having at future meetings. >> All right. Thank you, Mike. Uh personnel also met on November 10th. It was the third in a triple header. We did not take any action, but we still had good discussion. We heard uh a report about the parah professional mentor program that we have that um is doing really important work supporting the mentors that we have. Um, Nate is keeping track of all of that, engaging, uh, looking at the one-on-one meetings that we have to help them become confident in the work that they do with our students. We also discussed the um, studentto staff ratio and comparables
121to other districts so that we could see where we rate. And one thing that is very clear is we do not according to the when we compare ourselves to other districts around us, we certainly are not too heavy in terms of um the ratio of student to staff. Um so we do we accomplish a lot. It's an important thing for us to be proud of. We also talked about some preliminary staff planning for next year at least in terms of the process. There are no definite things yet. Um and the committee also talked about the district wellness program so that we have a wellness program that has a variety of components. Um the individual buildings are able to come up with plans that are then reported to the districtwide wellness team and then the financial
122resources are allocated to the schools according to the percentage of employees at that building of the percentage of the whole um employees in the district. So um and then we also went into a close session to approve an early retirement request or to consider that. So anything you want to add? >> No, that was great. >> Anything else? All right. Then we are going to move on to letter G which is to approve the second reading of revised schoolboard policy 8:30. This is the rule um which governs the use of district facilities, grounds, and equipment. You'll perhaps remember when we talked about this last time. It's very minor changes. is adding amounts for our new spaces. So, is there a motion to approve the second reading? So, move. >> Thank you both. Second. >> Thank
123you, Mike. >> Any discussion? All those in favor? I opposed. Motion carried. It's really exciting to be able to offer those spaces. Okay. Do we have any proposed items for future agendas? Then we are scheduling the upcoming meetings. The policy ad hoc committee will meet Monday, December 1st at 6:00. Educational program committee will meet Monday, December 8th at 6. Finance and facilities will meet Monday, December 8th at 7 o'clock or immediately following the educational program meeting. Personnel will meet Monday, December 8th at 8:00 or immediately following finance and facilities. So, another triple header. And then uh the next regular board meeting will be Monday, December 15th at six o'clock. All of those meetings will be here in the conference room. And at this point, I do need to read this whole thing, but I would
124like to have a motion to move into close session. So would somebody please make the motion pursuant to Wisconsin statute section 19851C which permits convening into close session for the purpose of consider considering the employment of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction to discuss an early retirement quest and pursuant to Wisconsin statute section 1985 1E which permits convening into close session for the purpose of deliberating concerning a case which was the subject of any quasi judicial hearing before that governmental body and Wisconsin statute 19 uh 851F which permits convening into close session for the purpose of considering disciplinary data of specific persons which if discussed in public would likely have a substantial adverse effect upon the reputation of any person referred to in such data to review and to approve the
125November 3rd 2025 Special school board meeting minutes covering an expulsion proceedings. >> So move. >> Thank you, Lindsay. All right. Is there a second? >> Thank you, Monica. I need a roll call. Monica B. Allison, Lindsay, Mike, I'm saying yes, Ellen. All right. >> We are. >> Thank you everybody for coming. If you want to close the door on your way out,