001I mean we are going to begin with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance Allegiance on public for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all hello Mike do we have any visitors or delegations who would like to address the board this evening please come up tell us your name and limit your comments to two minutes please my name is Jackie nicum and I've been here before I live in the city of River Falls we all care about our children and that's why we're all here this evening I wish there were more parental input obviously over the years schools have implemented Common Core and more recently Eid and now it's social emotional learning what is the result of all the time money surveys and testing our vulnerable students any
002better off because I'm willing to speak to you parents have confided their disappointment in what is happening in our schools and certainly let me say there are many wonderful teachers doing a spectacular job but if you say furries or preferred pronouns people in our community community look at you and wonder what you are talking about I've been told that parents of ninth grade students are very upset with a recent reading assignment I think I could say that they believe the topic is totally inappropriate for a school assignment my question is who chose the book what is the goal behind this content another question I have is are parents aware that the transgender policy was adopted in October of 2015. as of that date and I would put this in quotes all students including transgender students
003are allowed to use restrooms that correspond with the student's gender identity have there been any changes to that policy since that adoption how and why did preferred pronouns come into being and why is the school going along with this none of these things encourage strength of character character or practical skills that help students pursue a vocation into adulthood if anything they discourage individuality and encourage victimhood please focus on basic skills Reading Writing math history and Civics thank you for your time none of the issues that you are addressing are on the agenda tonight but I will very briefly explain that this board and this school district relies heavily on board policy so if at any point there is a question about a book or a part of the curriculum we rely on the procedures and
004policy to be able to review them the other point that I will make is at any time if a policy is adjusted you will see that in the dates that are on the policy in on the on the district website that are available for all of the people to see and the public who would be interested anybody else like to address the board this evening all right then we are going to move on and we have an informational item that is a spotlight on education and I would ask Mr Chapin to come up and talk about character education please all right I'm sorry that you weren't able to come down to the conference because of the weather but we missed we were going to go and cheer you on oh thank you I appreciate that
005yeah the weather kind of kept me at home but I appreciate that all right um I'm co-presenting tonight for those of you that don't know me my name is Mark shape and I'm the principal at Meyer middle school and we have Carly melstrom who is a seventh grade science teacher and she's working on her admin degree as well she's going to be wrapping that up from UW River Falls in June right so she's helping helping with this with this presentation so tonight I want to share with you a resource that we're using um during a teacher advisory time in the morning it's a it's a character strong and um to our Our Guest the person that came up and spoke it is about character education and social emotional learning and I just I'd like to
006just say if you want to learn more about SEO I'd be happy to sit down and share with you our resource and curriculum that we use be happy to do that at your leisure so um so it's really two parts it's about character development and it's about LCL and when we talk about LCL what do we mean these are the specific competencies or skills that we're teaching um they include self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision making and that's from the castle model is probably the most renowned scl model that's out there if you look it up they have a lot of information on their website um not only that but the resource is also really about engagement belonging and student well-being so those are three things that that are important to us
007and uh we started off this fall we had it outstanding some of the best professional development that that I've had in my 14 years here um from characters strong and that was very much appreciated I'd also say that the the resource also aligns really really well with our mission statement at Meyer middle school and that's that we're collectively committed to the academic growth character development and well-being of every student every day and it also ties in really well with our vision as we want to operate as a high performing professional learning community in a caring environment where students and Staff feel safe connected and engaged the other thing I wanted to connect to that we often hear about character education and District um we are a recognized leader of character education in the state of
008Wisconsin the connection with character strong and the 11 principles framework which is really the road map for us and our district I wanted to make sure that we connect those two dots as well and there's three specific principles of the 11 and the first one um is that the school is intentional and proactive about social emotional and character development so that's one of the reasons why we purchased this and went through the professional development the second one is to make sure that our staff are providing opportunities for students to understand reflect on in practice core values and our core values are are those that those nine character traits that we had Community involvement in back in 2010 we did that again in 2015 and those are the nine character traits that we still have to
009do this to this day and then principal Forge talks about creating a caring community so those are the connections to the 11 principles with that I'm going to turn it over to Carly and she's actually going to take you through the warm-up activity that's probably the favorite part for our kids and then she's just going to take you and hit some of the highlights from one of the lessons all right okay so like Mark said the beginning of the lessons is really kind of like the intention getter it's what really um ignites the engagement from the students and so you can see down here they have icons for us as teachers to see and that's like the recommended engagement getter um we always read what we're reading um up front with the students so we're
010going to start today with a check-in using a certain number of words think about or write down how you'd answer the prompt on the next slide and I'll say I'll call in one or two of you to get us started you can always pass so this lesson's prompt was in four words share what you value most in your closest friendships um I don't know if any of you would like to share like one or two qualities you you value most in relationships or friends or maybe act as a seventh grader and think what you they would say we got a lot of like laughter humor being funny trustworthy honesty those types of things um and so then here it says this is the recommended game give feelings so there are other games on there that
011you can click as well if you don't want to do the recommended game after a while we're familiar with all of these so if a class is like I don't really like that one as much or you can tell your class gets more into another one you can go against what's recommended but we'll go with what's recommended because our class not really likes that one so you choose um one of these numbers and then you will see a gif and you share a story about the last time you maybe felt that emotion so you'll see an image you think of what that image is showing as far as emotion and then the students would share a time that they have felt that emotion does anyone want to pick a number three three the best number
012so then the students would say what they think SpongeBob is feeling and then excitement um super eager and then we'll say Okay when's the last time you felt this way I'm sure they said it after all of their snow days they felt that way yeah Mr Benson did too yeah okay and so then we get into like the actual meet of the character strong purpose like what is the lesson and what is it really how are we going to get deeper um into what the lesson is is for us so this one was called the value tree um the goals are to dig deep into what values are and what our values are where they come from and how we put them into practice it also always starts out with the teacher um responding to
013something um so here it says values are what we individually and collectively judge to be important in our lives it gives some examples and then it says okay I will answer these questions talk about a value you have so I think I set a value I have is self-improvement where does it come from I think it comes from my upbringing knowing when I made mistakes and my parents talk to me about it I wasn't identified as that mistake I worked to get better and then how do I practice it I think I continue to hear what my parents told me when I was younger and then I also try and see that in other people when I think somebody has made a mistake like see growth in them and not just see that mistake as
014the last thing about them um okay so we are going to create a value tree they draw the outline of a tree they make it big enough so they can write within the trunk within the roots and on the branches um be creative make sure you have three Roots one trunk and five branches and then on the trunk they write down the one value they have and at this part the students really were were questioning what is a value and so we kind of took a detour and we went and looked at just we I posted on my screen a list of values so kids could see the different values like Dependable reliable enthusiastic and all those different things and we had a really good discussion on all of those and students just talking to
015one another about oh I think this one or oh no that one and then they would see another one and they would just go oh crazy about that so then they picked one and then they go down to the Roots the Roots are what has influenced you so when I answered where did that come from that's what they got to think about is okay where did that come from why do you think you have that and then we get to the branches the branches is how you put it into practice I I reiterated it to them as this is how you see it so how do you see it um in action for yourself or for others and then they held up a number between um one and five and then this kind of just
016goes through how it it helps them pair up with people that they wouldn't pick this I think this program does a really good job of getting people to move and move around and interact with other people than they would just choose to because when you're in Middle School you want to stick with your friends and who you're comfortable with and so that's what this does and it goes on to um to have them share their trees with somebody else and then they listen to somebody else share their treat and then they put it down and then we did like a gallery walk where they would walk through and look at everybody's um and yeah and then we had a classroom discussion on did you see anything that that you didn't know about somebody or did
017you put something on there that you didn't think very many people knew about yourself or did you have any discoveries about yourself or others and that's kind of where the the lesson went to so there's there's 35 lessons per grade level so they don't Loop so there's 35 for sixth grade 35 or 7th grade 35 for eighth grade and again a couple challenges one um our T is 19 minutes if I had a do-over and I was King for the day I would try to stretch that out to 26 minutes um just so we have a little bit more time to do it and then the snow days of hampered us a little bit but what I did to make sure we're all on the same page I laid out the schedule for each of
018the grade levels and you can see we have other things going on we had Veterans Day we want to make sure we honored our veterans we wrote a thank you cards to our veterans that week we did Penny Wars which we raised a lot of money for our food shelf during that week so we don't do it every week but it's scheduled every Tuesday though when we don't have an off week we also do character kickoffs once a month that takes the place where I do a sixth grade presentation seventh and eighth grade the first week typically of the month um but those are just some of the things we're doing with with character and SEL so that's it questions so Mike who leads this then and is it each each teacher does that and
019then the curriculum helps them to support these conversations and their right user friendly yeah and so this conversation started from our care District character education steering committee where a lot of this work has been put on the shoulders of our counselors and teachers and those in the building level committees and so that's where we started exploring some other resources so it's really a lot of a lot of push and play there's just a very little prep that's involved but it's not very much a high quality resource for our for our teachers mm-hmm um thanks Mark to both of you for for doing this um this this brings back to a couple of things and we've had updates on character Ed quite often over the years here and and um I'm careful to say this and
020I I so most of the board members have heard me say it many times but I think it continually needs to be pointed out that Mark you in the middle school have been real leaders in character education in this district and as you mentioned we're recognized across the state as one of the districts that's way ahead when it comes to character education this is something that's come from the community to us as a board over the years in our all of our strategic planning Community input sessions all of that sort of thing and this community really values that there's strong support in the business community in this in in among parents and all of that so this has really been important for us and it's a key part of that social and emotional thing I'm
021reminded as you're mentioning this um looking at the other Mark in a way but was it December or November that we had this biggest social and emotional learning update remember it was the November board meeting we really had a real thorough conversation and and and discussed that and how critical this is but all the other kinds of things that we're doing in that so um really appreciate what the middle school is doing appreciate your efforts in this not just in this District mark But Statewide and how this comes off so yeah thank you thank you yeah thank you very much to both of you thanks Carly this is very important for our kids all right we are going to move on and we will get to reports should we yeah okay we have some administrators
022who need to go to a really important basketball game and so we're going to reorganize this a little bit and the first presentation will be from Mark Chapin at Meyer middle school and it will be an update about it will be a 90-day progress update about the goal 3.1 enhanced mentoring and coaching and support for new certified teaching staff so if you could tell us about how that's going at Meyer that'd be great yeah I think you're gonna probably see a lot of similarities with all the schools we do a lot of the similar things um and part of our ee process educator Effectiveness process we meet with all of our new teachers at the beginning of the year we meet them at the beginning middle and end of the year for their e process
023um we have uh also meet with our new staff quarterly then in between at the end of each quarter we meet we check in to see how they're doing that's another thing that we do at Meyer Middle School probably very similar to the other schools one thing we started last year is we have we encourage our our new teachers to do classroom visits so getting a sub which has been tricky getting Subs but uh I heard from Mr Yang last year he said that was some of the most valuable PD was the two days that he had a chance to go in and observe other teachers he was able to just glean so much um so many different strategies from other teachers so that that is I think really important um we have this year
024our weekly PLC collaboration meetings I think right now it's really helped with our new teachers keeping up with the the pacing schedule with the scope and sequence that's been really beneficial as well if you want to scroll down a little bit more and then we're one of the best things we have going first in the middle school is our daily team meetings so I know in a lot of other schools it's sometimes hard to connect with your Mentor they get up to meet with their team every single day and for that first month or two like how do you run the copy machine how do I set up my voicemail like all those little things that um you kind of take for granted as a veteran teacher those things can be you know they can
025be supported that way so that's been a huge strength for us with that that team time is there one more on there I can't remember there's a excited okay those are some of the main things that we're doing with our our new staff feedback do you get from them um one the super they're thankful for their team is always the first thing I hear like how supportive the team has been um and sometimes we hear that from teachers that have come from other districts it's just how how supportive our teachers are and I hear that from a lot of other buildings not just ours but I just I think it's just part of our culture in our district that's great thank you all right now the elementary school folks and I know Ashley is leading
026the charge here um and then Nate when that's done you can get to the game too [Laughter] um yeah you guys can chime in I just these are notes between all of our buildings um like Mark said all of our new staff are on their educator Effectiveness observation Cycles we also tried to meet with them in August ahead of time just to go over like expectations culture routines and kind of a general q a and then check in throughout the school year there's also an expectation for new new to the district teachers to do a coaching cycle so they can choose between math literacy or technology and then they're expected to do at least one throughout the school year um we are trying to give them an opportunity to observe other teachers so providing coverage
027whether that's just internal or getting Subs that they can go and observe their team or other teachers in the district um Iraqi Branch we're trying something this year where because we had five new certified staff so kind of a little cohort of new people so um fall winter and spring the coaches are leading a Friday morning 20-minute meeting with donuts where they just talk about different topics they kind of can choose from a list of things like grading using our online platforms parent communication behavior management just kind of like a just-in-time PD it's supposed to be laid back not stressful just a time for them to be together to set training so teach your child integration interaction training is available typically used when support is needed in the area of behavior management and that the
028Montessori nates working on more intentional time for collaboration between parents and teachers so and I think feedback that I get sometimes it's hard feels tricky to increase support but not make it feel like you're using a lot of their unnecessary time so the balance between supporting but not overwhelming or making it feel like another thing so an organic organic support else it sounds really good yeah no it really does oh there's yes and what your role is yeah we're all principals I'm at Rocky brand Ashley yes yes Prince of Rocky Branch [Laughter] I think so yep thank you very much and and most importantly thank you for your work on that on that goal all right last but not least the high school gets to come up and run hi most of you know us
029but uh for those of you that don't I'm Carol gretz I'm assistant principal at the high school and uh just a reminder that we had the honor of doing our highlight our Spotlight for Education that we previously presented on teacher support and collaboration and I would say that there's a lot of for like front end planning Mr lidke in particular does a lot of strategic thinking with the master schedule to always align a new staff member with a veteran staff member so that there's always someone that feels very established and has roots that can lead and help kind of guide and also learn from the new person that might be assigned to a new content area Amanda if you'd be willing to click on that link honestly that there's been a lot of collaboration and
030lifting on supporting and retaining and quality staff one thing that we're really proud of it was kind of like an aha Epiphany moment and I think we showed it to you in the fall was our color-coded calendar where we hand it to all staff and they know every uh day of the week what specific collaboration meeting is going on and if that is a meeting that applies to them or interests them and that they want to attend they have that all at their their use and we lean very heavily on veteran experience staff in our high school and I'd like to specifically do a shout out to my colleague Lisa Goyle who is unfortunately sick with the flu she does a lot of heavy lifting and I'd also like to do a shout out to
031Amanda whipkey and give her a little bit of a chance to describe her role in mentoring hi I'm Amanda whipkey I'm one of the teachers at the high school and well this wasn't my idea this is from the admin team but to do these teacher connecting meetings and I'm just lucky enough that I get to participate and I've been able to help lead a few of them too but it's just a chance for teachers to get together new teachers and then teachers who have been in the building just to get together and talk about topics and learn from each other and so what we've been trying to do is grab staff who have certain interests and certain skills that they are great at and some things that are working in the classroom and then we
032pull in other teachers and it's just anybody can come it's not like um it's a specific invite or something like that anyone can come it's not just the new teachers and so we've done everything from Universal Design for Learning which is really trying to meet the needs of all Learners kind of like differentiation but more planning on the front end for that and then we've talked about incorporating discussion into classes just just different ways to do that so it's a little more variety in class is that way and then also looking at creating concise summative assessments because sometimes we can make tests a little bit too long and really we can make them shorter and get that same information by really drilling down into the standards and making sure we're checking what kids know and
033so having some opportunities for teachers to see what other teachers have been doing and so you know people can bring their items to the table they can bring samples of their work and they can learn from each other and that's been really great to see just the teachers collaborating in that way and the whole goal for this is really just intentional support and opportunities for professional development because we can do book studies we can listen to speakers which is all great but sometimes that day-to-day conversation with a staff member and seeing what's going on in real time is some of the best PD I've seen so another thing is new teachers are assigned a mentor or a buddy and it kind of depends on if they're brand new to teaching or if they've been teaching
034already but I can say as someone when I was new it was just super valuable to have a buddy but also we have such a great staff at River Falls High School everybody just circles around new teachers and it's just there's always somebody to ask a question to and so yes people get assigned buddies or mentors but the staff just really you know wraps around teachers so but those mentors and buddies really help with just all those little questions like where do I find this and who do I talk to about that and so that's just really helpful for new teachers one other thing that's not on the slide is we have two teachers Sarah Plum and Jennifer Powell who have arranged once a month donut drop-ins and so they make it really fun by
035actually emailing out the day before the brand new teachers to say hey hint hint it's going to be in so-and-so's room and then the next morning everyone else gets in their inbox the location and so they get the uh they get the tip off so they know to get there right away and so thanks to Wiley's common ground and the admin team we have donuts and coffee and it's been really cool we've had anywhere from you know sometimes it might be 15 but I I swear there a couple times there were like 25 30 staff members in there which is really great um just to support I think the next uh slide this is also a follow-up from our Spotlight and education that really helping new and certified staff learn how to collaborate with the
036student services team learning how to collaborate with school counselors learning how to collaborate with special education teachers and admin to support struggling Learners that are in 9th and 10th grade we decided to just strategically uh Target the the younger students versus the upperclassmen and really finding that when we share information that one pattern that we might see in one class might be a pattern that's repeated in another class and just to learn how to try different strategies that I had the success with a student and this is something that you might want to repeat and then I think you know to maintain the students privacy but to also let them know from the student services support team that we are offering services like the restorative Services therapy and um we're so grateful for the four
037to six sessions that are provided free by the school district through the Lions Club donation and so uh we noticed big changes in academics when kids are supported emotionally um and are able to talk about the things that are bothering them then they can you know focus on the learning later so those are the types of things that we share and collaborate on to really help move students forward so um you know things that we have done strategically over the years but it was like we needed covid to reflect all of the things that students needed and this was a school year we really said what have we learned from the past and then we just put it all together on this collaboration calendar and I know that we won't go back from having that
038collaboration calendar that's a that's something that we'll keep forever moving forward so I'm it I guess okay so a lot of the things that we're doing at the Renaissance are have been mentioned but I will say that um each of our um teaching staff contains an add-on license called Alternative Learning so so teachers come to us with a specialty and then get trained in terms of working with at-risk student population High needs population so that's a little tricky at times because we get a wide variety of skill levels and learning needs and a huge Variety in terms of the circumstances that kids come to us with and sometimes you know it takes a long time to understand that and to work with it so we put a huge emphasis on on having fun and collaborating
039we meet every Friday in our PS PLC format but it also gives new teachers a chance to um as Terrell has mentioning and and Amanda that uh that discussion about what worked in one class where they could be brought over to another so there's there's a lot happening at the Renaissance both in terms of meeting the needs of you know our high needs population but also um we're encouraging our our science teachers to to go to workshops and to and to learn new strategies as far as their content area so we got kind of two things going at once we want to support teachers in the process because we know it's demanding um but we've also enjoyed a really low turnover rate so the last teacher we brought on board three years ago um and
040I would say the biggest challenge in terms of new people coming on board is paraprofessionals so we've had a fair amount of turnover there and that role is critical in our program so we want to make sure that you know I know uh the new handbook the new in-services that are offered to paraprofessionals have already proven to be really useful so we want to make sure that we're treating those people well and making sure that they're feeling supported because they're they're in a role that's pretty high demand at the Renaissance I noticed two things it sounds to me like when you're talking about supporting teachers in general that it lands either in the nitty-gritty how to use the copy machine how to use the phone but also in terms of the that supporting teachers is
041so connected to supporting students and that is impressive to me so thank you all right we are going to go back in our silly way that we're going through the agenda tonight and we will pick up the superintendent's report thank you we've had a lot of uh snow related weather related uh decisions and so I thought tonight would be wise to bring the board up to speed on where we're at in some of the calendar revisions for how we're making up some of the time lost due to weather every every District in the state has to comply with state law that requires X number of minutes and hours of instruction in a given year it's a little different at the elementary middle high school but by and large we we have um you know we've
042been trying to listen to staff the parents the students and coming up with ways to revise our calendar given the fact that we've canceled School six times and we're not through with the month of January yet we've had four other days where we either sent kids home earlier brought them to school late due to weather and road conditions and so a little bit of a um having a flow to some of the decisions we appreciate everybody's patients that when we're making those decisions we're obviously focused on safety and sometimes the safety side of road conditions has as much to do with a couple hundred uh High School drivers would that be a fair statement for me to make as much as it has to do with buses on the roads and so on and so
043there's um if we're going to make a mistake on making a call with whether we're hopeful that it will be made on the site of safety that people no wonder why in the world that we got at school today as opposed to why in the world did you bring students in today and have a bus roll over in the ditch or have somebody in a bad car accident it's a lot so attached to the agenda I included a link you don't need to pull it up now Amanda but there's a link there it just shows a letter that we have sent to All parents that talks about the decision-making process that goes into those weather related decisions but if you would pull up that one that you did have up there please the main thing
044I wanted to just share with the board you know initially we we were avoiding frankly and not real keen on jumping on the bandwagon that we were going to have at home learning days to make up for lost instructional time due to weather I think most would agree that a day at home learning for a second grader is really not the same thing as a second grader coming to school face to face with their teacher with their peers and having the engagement that they have all day long it's not the same and we've made a bit of a compromise there given the unusual winter that we've already had and so this little chart here gives a little outline to describe some previous canceled date we have scheduled that already to have it be a makeup
045date in February um January 11th we canceled School we're pumping on April 7th that was going to be an in-service day and so we're going to teach face-to-face in school on April 7th as opposed to an in-service day that means the staff in service day it gets bumped June um on and on the cycle goes I don't need to read all of them for you but we canceled last week Thursday and we're making that up on June 7th now the next couple of days this is where the compromise comes in uh where we're saying okay we'll do a couple of these at home learning days we can pull it off we can comply with the requirements for hours and minutes and we can do it all legally we've got a lot of winter ahead of
046us frankly we're trying to avoid the second week of June as a face-to-face requirement for students we think that um we don't think we know that that's a preference of parents and different summer activities that go on um that's just a week that second week of June we're trying to avoid with with our plans here and so that gives the board a little bit of an outline as to where we're at in the coming days and the event that we have any additional cancellations been a lot of thought a lot of consideration uh like I said like I I'm admitting a little bit of an ebb and a flow to the thinking process and we appreciate everybody's patience in that decision-making process does anybody have questions on the board regarding where we're at with our
047plan currently to make up those days I just have a quick clarifying question because I just want to make sure I understand this correct so if and hopefully it doesn't happen but if we do have another snow day I said it now so there you go um but if it does happen that at home learning day will be the day of the school day that has been canceled correct yep that question because we could have said that on April 7th we could have said we're not going to come to school on April 7th but we're going to have an at-home learning day on that day instead we're not doing that and therein is also an example of I guess what I myself am considering some compromise to say we've got a day on that April
0487th day that was slated as an in-service day we're going to bump it and we're going to have kids face to face we're going to compromise if we have another school cancellation that simultaneously instantly we will say we're going to count this as a school day students are going to learn at home our Administration is working with staff to Define so what will that day look like for a second grader versus a high schooler very different obviously our principles will be communicating with parents in advance to describe okay here's the plan if school is canceled I'm sure in my announcement I will describe for the first time ever this is now considered an at-home learning game and you know we know of the need to communicate clearly what the plan is and how that will
049work for students and to be clear in our Communications no doubt there will be a glitch or two but that is the plan is that on the next two days if there are a day or two more we're going to do the at-home learning approach after that we'll go to day three we're bumping into June 8th and after that we're not being committal at this point let's see how it goes some of the other approaches that make the decision at that time if needed thank you Jamie I think it's important for people to understand that calling snow days is a really complicated process and I'm not sure that everybody realizes just how Hands-On Jamie is when it comes to this decision that he regularly gets out and drives the roads along with Todd bernab who
050gets out and drives the roads to figure out what they're like what the conditions are and if they're safe for our buses and our high school drivers so area can you call a four-wheel drive or two-wheel drive I actually purposefully I put my truck in two-wheel drive to test what the roads are like for somebody that might not have four-wheel drive there have been times this year that I needed to put it back in four-wheel drive to get home making my decision a little easier can I ask another question um do we have a good sense of what other districts are doing I mean is there a I'm guessing it's just Ellsworth does what works for them Hudson does what works for them but I'm curious to hear what that would look like if there's
051kind of a universal way like um Hudson I I'm just saying this is an example maybe Hudson hasn't every snow day they've had this year they've they've done a virtual learning day so it hasn't impacted their calendar at all or are we aware that any districts have gotten to that point or or is it still yep close proximity to us I would say I'm not aware of the district has done that okay I recently spoke with on weather related days there's some communication that goes on with other superintendents as well when a storm is coming from Southwest it's beneficial to know what's going on in Prescott for that you're particularly under the late start early release issues I would say um but just in the last week talked with no less than five Regional superintendents
052what are you doing with at-home makeup days and I would say the majority have been staying away from it but are moving in the same direction that we are that they're making some compromise to say okay we're getting deep enough into these makeup days that we're willing to find a compromise and have some of this time made up in an at-home learning environment but not all yeah it would be interesting to me to know if if we could survey parents and and teachers and and just hear you know knowing that some of it's possible or to a certain extent it's possible after the last couple years um having different versions of in-home learning uh it would be curious for me to know my preference with elementary kids would would be they're they're getting not nothing
053but very little at best out of an at-home learning day so I just was curious if if somebody's adopted this as kind of the universal way around snow days and makeup days what what method they're they're using to do that to make it worthwhile or or if they just feel like they're doing it to to meet the requirement because it it's not apparent to me even after we've gone through it what what the method is to to accomplish a real effective date at home for some of these kids for some districts I can't name them there are some districts again I'm not suggesting local regionally necessarily but there are districts in the nation northern half of the nation presumably that have adopted the process of having an instant we had a snow day it's at
054home learning right now yeah the the other you know some other considerations that go into all of it is the need to really so what we learned part of what we learned from covet and even prior to that some of the ways that kids can learn at home particularly in grades 6 through 12. um it can be a little more seamless a little more productive a little more meaningful I would argue at least for those upper grades then I keep using second grade as an example to suggest that uh we're going to do at home learning I I try to say a little bit bluntly let's be honest that our kids are not getting a second grader is not getting the same kind of learning experience when we do an at-home learning day they're just
055not uh but an appropriate level of compromise can be found here and I think we're trying to find the balance for all parties involved the other thing to part of your question you know we are smart enough to learn from others too we're not necessarily Reinventing the wheel on how to do at home learning we we're very good at begging borrowing and stealing from others and so we certainly have looked at what other districts do for their at home learning plans elementary through high school and we're crafting our own model what we think serves our children best here in River Falls I think Jamie as you say that you know we talked about this a little bit the other night at the Personnel committee meeting because their personnel considerations of this and and you hit
056it there um there are a lot of other districts around who are doing this and that we can learn from I appreciate the caution that we've had as a district not to just jump into this because I think it's um I think Todd expressed it real clearly especially for younger kids there's not a lot of learning that takes place we also know that if we have to go into another week of June quite frankly there's going to be a lot of learning that takes place in fact an awful lot of families will be pulling their kids out because of vacation and all kinds of things so um I worry about that I know in Minnesota if you listen to the cancellations in the morning on the radio all kinds of schools doing it that doesn't
057mean it's good but that what that does mean is there's a lot of districts out there that we've got to learn from so I appreciate our caution in moving into this um what I what I was going to ask though on part of this uh because we're just in Milwaukee last week and I didn't hear anything about whether or not this the state might provide some leniency or flexibility if there are more days here because the reason we're doing this is because there's a required number of minimum days we got to go to school and sometimes in hours okay yes hours yes sometimes in the past they've provided some flexibility in a bad winter but I haven't heard any talk yet that there might be some flexibility that you're right I have not either the
058other notable is that inside of a school calendar year Wisconsin schools cannot start school before September one yeah that shrinks our possibility if we also want to end school by the second week of June 1st of September and we all want to have a spring break and we want to have time off in the holidays you're boxed in with a limited number of options just aren't enough days I don't think we're ready to have school on Saturdays that had a good suggestion though I think getting feedback from parents and I'm sure you're thinking about that already and the teachers as the year goes along because this is really we're thinking it's an exceptional year but I in my time in the business there have been a number of years quite a number of years like
059this so this happens um and we got to be prepared for it so anything else thank you Jamie we are going to move on to number six our action items we have the minutes from the regular Board of Education meeting on December 19th we have bills that have been submitted for payment as well as employment recommendations so at this point is there a motion to approve minutes bills and employment as presented thank you Cindy thank you Todd any questions or comments all those in favor I opposed the motion is carried we have concluded the process of interviewing a new Director of Finance and Facilities the board is asked tonight to approve the administrative recommendation that Lynette Edwards become our new Director of Finance she comes to us having eight years of experience as a director
060of facilities and Finance in two different districts she has expertise she has knowledge we think that she is going to do a really nice job I was part of the second round of interviews Mike and Todd you were in the first round and what was clear to me is she also has a sense of Who We Are as a school district and what our values are and she's eager to participate so it's it I think it's going to be a really nice combination at this yes I was just gonna just gonna say because this is such an important position and we've always been really solid with our money here and very conservative for the way we do it but when we were in Milwaukee this last week I heard and more than one occasion people
061who knew her and said boy did we get a good hire so this is not just us that think we got a good hire so fingers crossed we're making a good transition here so I was pleased to hear that and when Mike and I talked to her in Milwaukee she was excited to come so that's that's nice yeah I'll make a motion approve on it as a Director of Finance and Facilities thanks Mike is there a second second thank you Lindsay any further discussion all those in favor aye opposed the motion is carried and I will turn to Ellen to talk about education program meeting education programs this was a good meeting is as they all are that program or a short one yeah it's because we've got such a good committee um we really
062we really go through some some good topics on this and um the two committee members who were there the three of us um Lindsay and Cindy the other two but I think almost all of us were there I'm looking at who was there just about all I think almost all of us were at that meeting um first off we got our annual report about Open Enrollment how many seats we're going to have we're real careful with that and um allowing open enrollment in a number of areas but not in in others so for example we there are no open enrolled seats in special ed and help me was there another area that we weren't providing open enrolled seats is that just it and special ed sorry I was I commented at the useful special education
063we had also there's a limited number seats at Ren yeah and uh Limited in the East wall yeah okay sorry I was just testing you I'll see if you're paying any attention um and then there's our annual discussion of and and approval of the notice of educational options which has to be reported to the the state um our our schools our three Charter Schools we have within the district the Renaissance Academy the Montessori and the E school um and those have to be out there and made public and they're on our website and those things then we had a really good conversation about the district report card and um that is out there both Amy and Mary Beth are acting directors of academic Services we're there and um really had a good discussion with them
064they could kind of hear where we were coming from and vice versa there's this information has been out there for quite a while there was a good story in the um Hudson paper the star the the thank you yeah um last month I think it was in December and um we're doing okay um we're above average for most of the districts around here certainly above average for the state but there's still work that can be done we also had a conversation that testing that the specific tests the state requires us to do can provide a guide for us but they are not the be-all and end-all because sometimes they don't test the right things or tell us the right things and as we got into the weeds we begin to hear there's all these qualifiers
065that the state allows on this so we really need to have a good plan to address our students who aren't scoring where they're at and as I say that the data at least based on the test scores like that show that we're doing fairly well but as with every school district there's not a hundred percent so we talked about the plans we've got in place to address those students who are behind falling behind Etc so good discussion about the district report card um briefly talked about the the resolutions uh before we went to the school board meeting last week in Milwaukee that was ended up being um Lindsay was a good representative for us and and read through the resolutions but that ended up being a very robust it went on forever but there's lots
066of good conversation and I thought gave us a good idea of where other districts in the state because this is a real critical time politically in the state nationally to some degree but we're most interested here in the state what's going to happen with the state budget which is the biggest and those resolutions were basically around where's the Wisconsin Association of school boards going to focus their efforts in terms of working with the legislature this coming year so I think that was all um would you like to make a motion Ellen um so I'm gonna move oh yes okay so we have one two and you can take them to do one and two you could take them as one motion a move to approve the memo on established open enrollment seats in the notice
067of educational options thank you is there a second thank you Cindy I will draw everyone's attention to on the page 15 of the board packet the top paragraph on the on the letter has been I just edited slightly based upon the conversation that we had in Ed program it references policy 423 as well as the related rule so that we are making sure that we are following our policy any further discussion specific preference that there would be guaranteed seats if you had a sibling in the district that was already in under open enrollment and our policy doesn't guarantee that if there are restrictions listed on this sheet where there are no open seats our policy is pretty clear that it says it doesn't guarantee that just because you had a sibling here that you too
068will be allowed to come here special education regular education whatever so thanks for pointing that out that that memo that was presented to committee that sentence that was on that memo is now replaced by the second sentence on this panel it just says we're going to follow our policy and that addresses all of those kind of decisions anything else all those in favor I opposed the motion is carried I will give a report about the Personnel committee meeting that was on January 16th we did a variety of things um that meeting we also talked about the 22-23 school year calendar we had a staffing update that was focused on the timeline for searching for and then hiring a director of academic services we reviewed the job description for the director of academic Services it's the
069appropriate time to do that as well as school board policy 130 legal responsibilities or board responsibilities and legal status there were just very minor changes but we made those adjustments we also then looked at the exhibit for school board policy 2 51. we then went into closed session and we approved the 2023-24 bargaining goals and continuing letters of employment to administrators so that's what we did during the meeting and at this point I would like to make a motion that we approve the revised director of academic Services job description is there a second second thank you Todd any questions or comments all those in favor I opposed the motion is carried I will also make a motion that we approve the first reading of revised School Board policy 130 board responsibilities and legal status as
070well as the revised School Board policy 251 exhibit is there a second second thank you Lindsay questions or comments all those in favor I opposed motion is carried and you'll note that Ellen is not present at this point all right and I will turn to you Tad for an update about finance and Facilities so we met um prior to the the Personnel committee last Monday we went into a closed session right away to discuss um Let's see we talked about a timeline for possible referendum which is being considered we talked about some options that could be included there's there's some ongoing research being done in regard to district facility needs enrollment study those kind of things we're waiting for a few of those pieces to fall in place before we might know where our needs
071are and and how to prioritize those moving forward and then also talked about an operational referendum consideration that that we're looking at here too so both of those items were considered there there is a timeline attached to the packet that Jamie has shared kind of a preliminary timeline on on what what that looks like and there's probably about a dozen different different things included in there and and there's yellow shaded areas for the the timeline it's not going to necessarily be new to any of the board but anyone who wants to go on and and see that is I believe they have access to it thank you Todd and there was no action on the information items yep all right letter F we are actually going to wait on that because the documents are not
072quite ready we will approve this in February um once all of the documents and the legal description is included but Jamie's simply going to give a very brief overview about the issue that we will vote on next month talked once before the board above the city is approaching the district regarding a easement on our agriculture land west of town straight out Highway M near man Valley our FFA alumni Health our students gain experiences by literally farming that land growing crops on that land the city wants to put an easement along the southern edge of our property that that easement would allow them to put infrastructure in for utilities Water Somewhere electrical and they need a place to do that obviously and so when when you'll you'll notice in the packet we're tabling it now we
073just the city did not have all of the information prepped for the meeting tonight and so we'll bring it back in February when we have uh all of the the legal uh exhibits attached and so that's what that's what that's about I think the the board has indicated we as a district want to be good partners with the city if coincides with further development in property that's already been identified beyond our acreage that they need to get the utilities to and so it's a it's just a Act of allowing an easement to be in place they'll break ground probably depending on weather but it will be spring May June perhaps to put in that easement there is a pitcher in the packet if you wanted to see a a big picture here it's 43. and
074so it's uh it's the white outline narrow white outline that runs East West is where that easement would fall you can see a big part of it is actually Woodland area it would chip in a bit to some of the existing Farmland but I'll bring it we will bring that back next month for your approval the city did bring this to our attention when we had our joint meeting last summer so it's not brand new all right we are at this point now going to consider and potentially approve a 10-year District facility maintenance plan this is something that was part of the conversation last week in committee um Administration made a few adjustments based on conversation and Jamie's going to walk us through it yeah to be clear this is and frankly uh what's Illustrated
075here inside of our District's budget annually we have about six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to apply towards maintenance projects we don't want to just defer maintenance projects we want to stay on top of that annually so about 650 000 and the board has been pretty proactive in recent years we've tried to stay on top of a roof replacement plan that's where a lot of recent year dollars have gone as sorts of rough so this outline shows essentially what that in-district budget of 650 000 annually could accomplish in a 10-year sequence or cycle and so in our committee discussion when we talked a little bit about this um it was brought up wisely that we want to make sure that we aren't portraying a public pitcher to suggest like this is all of the maintenance
076needs that we have in the district it's not just as the piece this plan shows how it aligns to the existing budget that we have we have other needs that we don't have money to accomplish Todd alluded to the fact that we're doing a facility study we're doing an enrollment study we're gathering information um and the other thing that this plan complies with there's a law and the board has been wise over the last five years to park money into a trust fund basically like a sinking trust fund and by putting money into that account you can only spend it on facility needs you can't decide later on you're going to spend it on something else and so once you put a dollar in that account into that trust you have to continue to maintain
077that trust for five years that's a legal requirement Thou shalt not spend any money until five years has passed the other legal requirement with this fund it is called fund 46. is that the you must have a 10-year plan and so the other purpose of this document is that it we're meeting a legal requirement to tap into that trust fund which by sheer coincidence is roughly 650 000 not to be confused with our annual six hundred and fifty thousand dollars and so we're getting bids right now on a roof section it's really uh we call it a penthouse on top of the Middle School inside of on top of the roof this Penthouse is a structure that sticks out of the top of the roof and inside of it is our HVAC systems and the
078walls of that um of those units are very Antiquated and old and uh to prep we've been patching um water leaks and we need to put a formal fix to that we can't continue to put a Band-Aid on the problem and so we as we talked to the committee about spending fund 46 trust fund dollars towards that project we're getting bids on that more information coming so this document does a couple things one is complies with the state requirement related to fund 46 for us to be able to spend that you must have a 10-year plan in place and it also outlines just a plan for the existing dollars that we have in our ongoing maintenance Budget moving forward it certainly does not identify all of our facility needs but it provides a general outline
079and last thing I'll say disclaimer is this is just a plan plans can change and plans do change but right now this is the long-range plan thank you I'll take a motion I'll move for approval of the 10-year cap uh yeah Capital facilities plan thank you Todd I'll second thanks Mike questions or comments all those in favor aye opposed the motion is carried all right um at this point we have before the board the first reading of the new school board policy rule this is a rule now that is attached to a policy 352 the rule is regarding overnight accommodations for student trips this is attached to policy 352 which is about field trips so the policies about field trips rule number one provides guidance for extended trips and now rule number two will be
080about um accommodations for student trips it's basically about our hotel accommodations and again we want this to comply with board policy so at this point do we have a motion to approve the first reading of the new school board policy 352 rule number two overnight accommodations for student trips thank you Cindy is there a second thanks Todd questions or comments we haven't had this rule in the past this is a new completely new rule this is one of those where when asked what's your rule what's your policy and your rule here and we've identified it we need to come up with something rather than after the fact so this isn't coming up because we had kids in a motel last week and suddenly we need a rule I'll tell you where it came about actually
081had to deal with high school band going on a week-long trip down to Florida and wanted to have a procedure in place that clearly outlined and defined exactly how those hotel accommodations would be specific to overnight accommodations and it can be applied obviously not just to a trip to Florida for a week but to any and all moving forward future overnight hotels it'll be for high school it'll be for elementary if they go to the mild United Nations whatever it's going to be so we have a motion that's been moved and seconded any further discussion all those in favor aye opposed the motion is carried all right we now have in front of the board the second reading of revised School Board policy 171.1 related to the public notification of board meetings we approve the
082first reading last month and the the change is simply to add that we will also provide notices to the Pierce County Journal so is there a motion please thank you Alan a second second thank you Lindsay any questions or comments discussion it's a good move I think it is too I think it works out great all those in favor I opposed the motion is carried Ellen I'm going to turn to you about the actions taken regarding the 2023 spring School Board election okay so um the process of candidates announcing um to run for a school board in the April election happens in December um before the deadline which was I think Amanda January 3rd that was a Tuesday and um so there are two vacancies this year and three candidates have announced for those vacancies
083so um once they've filed and have been filled out all the paperwork and those kinds of things then Amanda calls me Amanda is the Deputy clerk for the elections here and we get together because one of the things we have to do is draw names out of a hat to how they're going to appear on the ballot so this is a process that just doesn't happen randomly but it's it's not it's something that we want to do open in public so all three candidates were invited to be there I don't think any of them were there but this happens every year we do it the same way we come in we bring in several people here in the room so we have plenty of witnesses Amanda puts three names in a basket somebody else draws
084them out one at a time and we write them down and that's the order I never touch them but um anyway so the order of ballots this year excuse me so the three people are Cassie Erickson Allison page and Stacy Jensen Myers are three people running for two slots their order of names on the ballot will be Allison page Cassie Erickson and Stacy Johnson Myers so what we have to do on this is for the record acknowledge the actions that were taken for the 2023 spring School Board election and have you just made that motion I just and I just made that motion yes thank you Ellen is there a second second thank you Lindsay questions or comments all those in favor I opposed the motion is carried do we have any proposed or suggested
085items for the next regular board meeting or future board meeting agendas they don't have a suggestion for that but I wanted if I could please just to make a couple comments about you know our new strategic plan and part of that strategic plan development our district in view as a board committed to some values some very clear values that will come conduct your business how you conduct your business how we function as a board as a district as administrators and staff and among those values we talk specifically about people matter and people include our students and our staff our parents and our community members on our values we talk about respect including the ability to have reasoned debate and discussion or um some tough issues we're committed on our values formally talking about integrity and
086that character does matter and being honest and being responsible matters and then we also talked about being transparent if we're going to build trust in our community we have to be transparent in all that we do and so I want to I want to say thanks for those in attendance at the meeting tonight one way to learn is to be present at board meetings and the other I would encourage you to call me with me would love to answer any questions you have or listen to your feedback or your ideas and know that change happens one of my favorite quotes change happens at the speed of trust and with that trust is a two-way street and so we need to make sure that we're communicating if we're going to continue to build on our trust
087and assume best Intentions by all is is really important so thanks again for those of you that were here tonight appreciate you being here and taking part in our School District activities actions there is one item that I know that will be coming up next month and that's that it is time for the board to conduct itself evaluation and so that will be on the February meeting if you have not turned in your survey please get that done so that we can compile it is there anything else we should add to the agendas all right then we're going to schedule meetings so the educational program committee will meet Monday February 6th at six o'clock finance and Facilities will meet Monday February 13th at six o'clock Personnel will meet Monday February 17th at I'm 27th it's
088right in front of me at six o'clock please notice that's a bit of an adjustment compared to what our usual pattern is and the next regular board meeting will be Monday February 20th at six o'clock all of those meetings will be held right here in the district office now at this point I request a motion to move into executive session pursuant to Wisconsin State Statute section 1985 1 c and e for the purpose of discussing the District bond financing options and contracts related to the Future potential referendum process and for approving the 20 23-24 bargaining goals and continued letters of employment for administrators is there a motion please so mood thanks Todd is there a second thanks Cindy I'll need a roll call Mike Lindsay Todd yes Ellen I'm saying yes Cindy we will be
089in executive session thank you everyone and the public part of the meeting is adjourned