Menomonie Schools Board Meeting for 7/10/2023

SCHOOL DISTRICT OF THE MENOMONIE AREA

NOTICE OF A REGULAR MEETING OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION

ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICE CENTER 215 PINE AVENUE E., WISCONSIN

\MONDAY, JULY 10, 2023, 5:45 P.M.

This meeting will be live-streamed at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCq2Z68-Z717wExwN1mChOQ/streams

AGENDA

I. OPENING ITEMS

A. Call to Order

B. Roll Call and Quorum

C. Pledge of Allegiance and Reading of Mission Statement

D. Agenda Order and Approval/Revision

E. Community Communications F. Monthly Employment Report (June 2023)

II. CONSENT AGENDA

A. Action to Approve Consent Agenda

1. Minutes of a Regular Meeting of June 12, 2023, and Special Meeting of June 26, 2023

2. Financial Reports for June 2023

3. Donations Exceeding $1,000 for June 2023

4. Retire Policies and Exhibits 542.32 and 542.33, Wages, Hours, Conditions of Employment (Nonunion Executive Assistants- 542.32 and Support Staff Coordinators- 542.33)

The consent agenda was approved 7-0.

III. PERSONNEL CONSENT AGENDA

A. Action to Approve Personnel Consent Agenda

1. Resignations/Retirements

2. Requests to Hire IV.

ACTION AGENDA

A. Approve SDMA Education for Employment Plan

The plan was approved 7-0.

B. Approve 2023 Annual Meeting Agenda for Publication

Agenda was approved 7-0.

V. DISCUSSION ITEMS/POLICY REVIEW

A. Annual Review of Curriculum Standards

B. Discuss Strategic Planning Goals and Major Activities for 2023-2024

C. Items Related to Next Meeting Dates, Board Committees, and Reports

VI. CLOSED SESSION

A. Action to move into closed session, for the purpose of considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility, pursuant to Section 19.85(1)(c), Wisconsin Statutes

B. Action to Approve Closed Session Minutes of June 26, 2023

C. Report of Administrative Evaluations

D. Finalize District Administrator Evaluation

VII. ADJOURNMENT

A. Action to Adjourn The agenda as noted above was posted more than twenty-four hours prior to the meeting date. The most up-todate agenda information is available on the district website. This agenda is posted at the Menomonie Area School District Administrative Services Center, and on the district website at www.sdmanonline.com under the School Board link.

A machine-generated transcript of the meeting follows:

Thu, Jul 13, 2023 1:47PM • 31:35

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

strategic plan, board, year, plan, deliverables, meeting, questions, book, students, discussion, policies, move, standards, agenda, coming, school district, teachers, rachel, process, change

SPEAKERS

Amy Riddle Swanson, Joyce Uhlir, Mark Hillman, Abe Smith, Brian Seguine, Rachel Henderson, Angie Skillings, Josie Pillman

 

Amy Riddle Swanson 00:00

All right

 

Rachel Henderson 00:23

that's yeah, that's kind of what I was worried about

 

Rachel Henderson 00:39

Oh yeah.

 

Rachel Henderson 00:46

All right, it is 645. Let's call the meeting to order.

 

Amy Riddle Swanson 00:50

Actually 545 Five

 

Rachel Henderson 00:52

already bought it. It is 545 and queuing a call meeting until you get every number.

 

01:02

Alright, so we'll call Amy riddle. Swanson. Here. Mark Hillman. Here, kanji skillings. Carl Palmer at Smith, Dominique store here, Rachel Henderson here, Dr. Zaleski. Amber, we're staying here because of I, like the United States of America, to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice.

 

Rachel Henderson 01:54

On our mission statement, the school district of the Menominee area, but by embracing the unique means and using the strength of our diverse community is dedicated to preparing all students to become lifelong learners, caring individuals and responsible citizens. any revisions to the agenda order? Seeing none, we'll move on to community communications. So community communications is an opportunity to air concerns and express opinions on issues. Well, anyone has the right to share their beliefs, opinions and viewpoints that should not be a forum for attacking or the meanings that board members or members of the administration. The comments made by community members do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of the board or the policies of the school district to communication snipers of this choice will.

 

Joyce Uhlir 02:53

Wish you learn nominee book banning is bad right? Today I am sharing with you a book that a lot of people that would like to see bans irreversible damage by Abigail Scheider, a UC Berkeley English professor Grace laboratory tweeted that her followers should quote steal Abigail Trier's book and burn it on a pyre the ACL us Chase Strangio tweeted quote, stopping the circulation of this book and others like it is 100% A hill I will find a book. These books were donated to me by a concerned citizen to share with you they are yours to read. Return to Me, Verna pyre, throw out, pass along whatever. The book focuses on the sudden increase in girls and female teens coming out of this trance, often strangely at the same time as a bunch of other girls in our friend group. This has the appearance more of a social contagion than true individual discovery. I'm not saying that the gender struggle for some students is not real and deeply traumatizing that there's a lot more going on here. And this is largely playing out in public schools all over the country. Your own board policy number four 11.2 Gender support plan for students should really be reviewed and updated. In your plan, a student can decide they are possibly trans and be allowed to practice being the other gender all day at school. If the student thinks the parents would not approve in your plan, the parents can be completely left out of the entire process. The bus driver would know all kids and teachers at school would know that little bed Daddy is called Billy all day. Yeah, only people in town possibly would not know, by your gender policy are the parents. The parents are also the ones who know about other emotional issues going on in the child's whole life that might be affecting the trans decision. These are some of the same parents that just a month ago, Mr. Sablan said had the responsibility to know what was in every library out there child checked out. It is a parent's job to be super involved in that area. But now you're going to turn around and keep secrets like a name and gender change for parents. If you think a parent is that dangerous, you are mandatory reporters use that system. But son, thank you.

 

Rachel Henderson 05:56

Thank you, we have one more speaker, Jesse coming.

 

Rachel Henderson 06:08

From now

 

Josie Pillman 06:16

WPI reported this week that the legislature was holding funds to the universities until they agreed to stop giving Diversity Equity and Inclusion training or DVI training to their staff and students. That was part of the budget that sadly, Governor Tony Evers struck down. Diversity tries to make all people equal in reality it always discriminates against equity seeks to make the end result equal. Thus a highly motivated person is held back to wait for the slower and less motivated person. Those who are under achievers, the spirits the high achievers from attaining their best. That's everybody gets a trophy. We have no losers, everybody wins. We do not work through the character building process of being a humble winner gracious loser. Life in the LP desktop winners and losers. Inclusion all voices will be heard everybody belongs and is integrated into the group. This eliminates corrective comments. It could even intimidate the teacher. Every year much money has been allotted to the UW system to be spent on CDI training. When the SDMA has an opening for a teacher the most likely to drop out would be the UW system. These teachers are all indoctrinated with a dangerous ei philosophy that needs to stop. How does it apply to the gender policy plan? applying the principles of dei change would be calling wrong right and right wrong. The wrong a sexual perversions get a special pass inclusion. We don't accept cheaters thieves liars or homemakers or we actually celebrate the trans people. We include them but don't correct them. We let their voices be heard without contradicting words that are professionals choose books and curriculum to transform either those children. There's no DNA gene for homosexuality and certainly books against every person comes into it with the necessary parts that are in line with their biology. A small child or small child knows it's putting books in Napa elementary that suggest otherwise is wrong, and only needs a doubt or gender confusion or worse. What a horrible thing to do to these precious little knots. Let me close with a barnyard story. When I go together into the chicken coop. I wear a glove on one hand why? Because I know that they're really good booty My hands will peck at me when I tried to heal the way they're young. I don't want to get picked the nasty hand is being a good mom I instinctively protecting her offspring. I want you school boards to pack back to scrutinize the stma library and personal agenda policy plan. See if we find any wrong teaching on human sexuality or Dei, it is your responsibility to make corrections when things are falling off the rails in our public schools. Protect our little children. Thank you

 

Rachel Henderson 09:00

that at least myself at work president I don't I do not endorse that message. Our teachers or librarians and our other staff are excellent, and they're dedicated to the education and development of our kids. They have a support of the district administration. Our mission statement refers to all students and all is capitalized. We're a public school that does this for everyone in the community and our mission, vision and strategic plan. support in our mission, vision and strategic plan, support and care for all of our students is paramount.

 

Amy Riddle Swanson 09:31

I would just like to thank Rachel for saying that I agree with Rachel 100% I also am getting tired of hearing our teachers being put down and our students being called perverse because that is not the case. And I'm really saddened to hear these kinds of things. month that we get the week Thank you

 

Rachel Henderson 09:51

Next up we have the monthly employment report.

 

Abe Smith 09:58

Oh this is a statement agenda item for or jury duty can see there has not been a lot of activity over the summer, you can expect a lot more activity, hourly positions to be filled as we move closer

 

Josie Pillman 10:08

to the school year.

 

Rachel Henderson 10:11

And to the consent agenda, I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda.

 

Brian Seguine 10:18

So I'll second

 

Rachel Henderson 10:21

move by a second by Amber. So we have the minutes from the regular board meeting of June 12. And special board meeting June 6. Financial Reports approving general fund checks in the amount of $3,350,300.23. And cash receipts in the amount of $351,436.64 for June 2023. No donations exceeding $1,000. And then retirement policies and exhibits 542 point 32 542 point 33. Regarding executive assistants and support staff coordinators,

 

Abe Smith 11:05

Rachel Cruz follow up on the retired policies and exhibits. Those are no longer needed. Those positions were phased out of the school district. It really had to do with the change in the Fair Labor Law and how our district is not staffed. So those policies are no longer needed.

 

Rachel Henderson 11:24

Any questions or discussion on the Consent Agenda? is ready to do motion? Yeah, abled and Amber. Okay, seeing none Let's vote.

 

Abe Smith 11:57

So a question of clarification on the policies. That's the policy doesn't apply anymore to any employees. Is that something that that we should or have the power to remove in the future to avoid a three part homework? What's the status of that? Typically, in

 

Abe Smith 12:16

the school district have policies retired that we had before take action? If nothing else that provides public notice. Right. Laurie, are you able to access the 49 computer remotely?

 

Mark Hillman 12:32

Yeah, it's not it's not coming out. So I could do a voice vote. Okay. So free? Yes. Thank you.

 

Rachel Henderson 12:51

Vote motion passes. Seven to zero. And next. We have nothing on the personnel consent agenda. Right. All right. So we'll move on to the action agenda. First up, we have approval of the SDMA education for employment plan. Entertain a motion to approve. Motion by Amy seconded by nominee. Any discussion or questions?

 

Abe Smith 13:24

Rachel, I just like to point out that at the last meeting, Mr. sanguine, Orion stary and Joseph offski provided this report to the board is the annual update. Clusters. Any other questions that shouldn't be ready for your call tonight?

 

Rachel Henderson 13:42

Did you make you look like you put a hand up? Oh, no. All right. Sorry. Okay. No, there's no discussion or question let's vote.

 

Amy Riddle Swanson 14:05

I guess my hands anything. Nice report.

 

Rachel Henderson 14:11

Mark, do you want to do a voice vote?

 

Mark Hillman 14:16

Sure. Yes, thank you.

 

Rachel Henderson 14:31

Motion passes Seven to zero. Next, on the action agenda. We have approval of the 2023 Annual Meeting Agenda for publication. Entertain a motion. Second, move by day or second by week. Any questions or discussion or

 

Abe Smith 14:52

job? Do you want to make sure the board review this at the last meeting and you'll notice scandal. Monday, August 21. Six o'clock PM, economic High School in a tiered lecture hall.

 

Rachel Henderson 15:06

Any questions or discussion on the agenda?

 

15:15

It's kind of really fast.

 

Abe Smith 15:17

But that's pretty typical for the second meeting.

 

Rachel Henderson 15:23

All right. No more questions. Let's vote.

 

Rachel Henderson 15:33

Oh, Mark, do you want to do voice overs for the Annual Meeting Agenda?

 

Mark Hillman 15:38

Sure. Yes. Thank you.

 

Rachel Henderson 15:50

Motion passes unanimous. And on to our discussion agenda. First up, we have annual review of curriculum and standards.

 

Abe Smith 16:00

So each year, this time, by state statute, this needs to come before the board. Brian, go ahead.

 

Brian Seguine 16:06

All right, thank you. So included in your background and public content is a link that takes us to our district's standard curriculum standard page that identifies each of the content area standards that are currently used within the school district. As we look ahead to the 2324 school year, we are not proposing any changes to current standards that were used in the home to school year. Also included in the background, from your information is the timeline that the Department of Public Instruction has for conducting annual reviews of curriculum standards, you can see it's on a rolling basis. I think if you look at it, it's about every six years, they circle back around. So unless there are any questions, this is just informational, to provide notice as to the standards of earnings.

 

Rachel Henderson 17:03

Any questions or discussion?

 

Abe Smith 17:11

Fairly simple question. So I think we discussed last time how, you know, there may be there may be changes or your changes in the state budget package that might impact curriculum. Are you anticipating changes to happen next year that might be partially overcome? Or what's your aim? Just

 

Brian Seguine 17:29

so so thanks for that question. If you know in taking a look at what's included in the budget, it is in relation to student performance on board in relation to the standards as opposed to standards changes to the standards themselves. So if that works, its way through the process will result in changes in practice. But will that change the standards that are currently in use? Thank you.

 

Brian Seguine 18:01

For that,

 

Rachel Henderson 18:03

so you can move on to discussion of strategic planning goals and major activities for 2023 24.

 

Abe Smith 18:10

At the last meeting, the Board reviewed the progress that was made during the 2020 to 2023 Slayer. And now we're in the mode of setting goals for this coming school year. Tomorrow, we have our leadership team retreat with all the district directors and principals certainly will cover a lot of items. And one of the items we'll be looking at is the strategic plan. And all board members have made some comments in previous meetings about having the opportunity to perhaps share some ideas or information. And I guess, as we move towards that meeting tomorrow with the administrative team, I wanted to open it up for any discussion, questions, comments, suggestions that board members might have otherwise, working with the team, we plan to try to identify some goals to bring back to the board. And our hope is that before the school year starts, we will have a work plan for the board to consider. As we talked about previously, we are getting to the end of our strategic plan. We also know that despite the state budget being better than what was originally feared, we still are not looking at enough revenue to sustain our current programming. It's very likely that there'll be a large workload in terms of planning that potential referendum and working with our community on that and also developing a process for the development of a refresh of our current strategic plan. All those items are huge projects themselves. So that being said the board members have any comments tonight prior to the leadership team retreat, or would you rather discuss it once you see what we have for you in the upcoming meetings?

 

Abe Smith 20:00

So my personal view, we have this, I think the strategic plan for the last five years worked very well. And I still, I think, actually that I don't think it needs major reworking. Personally, I think the pillars are some. And even, you know what some updating the strategies are pretty solid as well. It's really top level actions and deliverables and work plan, where it's actually as an updated work plan to be more future looking, as this student plan is wrapped up. So I kind of feel like, No, we looked at the poster that summarizes that the top, you know, third of that poster is still really good. And it's really a question of how we want to look forward with new strategies, to new ideas and new opportunities, and each of the things.

 

Abe Smith 20:48

I think that's well said even and what I would encourage the board to do is really focus on the deliverables. And if you tell us what you'd like delivered, I am pretty sure that our team working with our staff can do a really good job in terms of developing strategies to achieve those deliverables. Another question that board may want to ponder over the next few weeks is, in terms of identifying deliverables, what kind of process would you like to use for that, you know, certainly the community elected the boards represent the community. Oftentimes, in a situation like this, we have some sort of collaborative effort. You know, whether it be a survey or whether it be listening sessions or something, to provide that opportunity, they can get pretty, pretty concept, comprehensive pretty quickly, depending on the type of process that we use. But certainly, I'm sure we want to have voices involved with this process.

 

Rachel Henderson 21:59

Thinking about the kinds of steps of the process ahead of us, which include, you know, the potential for working on building support for a referendum. And then looking at the next iteration of the strategic plan, I wonder what the thing I think about the most with respect to that is pillar four. And I think in the past couple of years, the parent community partnerships have been focused a lot on those sort of like partnerships with community groups, which have been really strong. And I wonder if it makes sense in the coming year to focus on and have a communications piece of that, that makes sense to think about action steps, and kind of the major activities where they're coming here, around building those opportunities for engagement in both communicating out is getting in or two way communication. Makes sense?

 

Abe Smith 23:07

Yeah, I think we would want more of a description. But I think I guess the overall idea behind what you're saying, Rachel,

 

Rachel Henderson 23:12

yeah, I guess I gotta have at this point, a description, a specific description to sort of thinking about if you want to, I guess, to take into the retreat tomorrow.

 

Amy Riddle Swanson 23:25

But I just like to say that I'm really pleased with how this might work out. I mean, we got a lot done, and even away from our COVID years. And so I got to appreciate it. And I think I really liked the idea. And I know, it's a lot of work to try to build new pillars or pillars around community. And but I think that is really helpful just because I think then the school district or the committee members would like to have a, say someone's voice in what, you know, our schools are doing for our students. So I think that is kind of a cool thing to see happen. But I understand that it takes a lot of work, a lot of meetings, a lot of different, you know, follows and targets.

 

Abe Smith 24:08

And I agree with you. And I think that also kind of ties into what Rachel was saying, is that, you know, through this process, essentially, we wouldn't be achieving a deliverable, at least on the initial part of the process. And I think that's something absolutely we would want to do. And I think most strategic plans most work plans are developed with that kind of input

 

Abe Smith 24:35

was very much on your mind, but thinking can we think through what actions deliverables need to be in the future? It's, it's worth discussing how you know, as I mentioned, last time, how to know the financial situation is not a one year actual cliff. It's actually a long drag on a combination of state funding and then and population changes and so on. So thinking through what what does it mean to have the five year plan and environment where we might see, you know, it's it's not, it's not crazy to think we might see, you know, a constant financial pressure on us, including ones coming here. So what does that look like over five years? And how do we make sure that we are that we thrive in an environment?

 

Abe Smith 25:29

I think that's a good point. And I know that that's one of the discussions that was had recently at this level, was being careful not to get out ahead of our skis. The I think there's a lot of wonderful things that we would like to do. But before we know what the revenue situation is, it's pretty difficult to anticipate what might even be possible.

 

Angie Skillings 25:53

And if I could just jump off of that to be on the financial pressure. And they get, I think, you know, this was a beautiful strategic plan, which is great, I'm on deliverables, I know how much work goes into something like this. But in terms of resiliency, with COVID, coming, nobody had any idea to expect that. And we don't know what's coming in the next batch of years. So if you're really sure that the plan has room to pivot to, and things that are thought about ahead of time, that could be moved around in terms of triaging and prioritizing. Sure, that's

 

Abe Smith 26:32

what it is. And I'm really glad you brought that up, because that's one of the things I'm most proud of, with how we've operated this plan is that we've had an annual process of setting a work plan, working towards those deliverables. And, you know, kind of no matter what happens, we want our deliverables to be solid. And you know, even with the funding pressures, or whatever else might be coming, I think we all have a pretty good idea of what we want to see out of our school district. But the key to having that flexibility is to bring it back every year, and not just let it be a five year plan that sits on the shelf. But actually, you know, provide status updates and provide an annual opportunity for the board to set that work plan. And if we have to move the compass a little bit from year to year, that's something that we can do. So yeah, I would highly encourage us to continue with that type of process.

 

Rachel Henderson 27:26

Thinking about that, and sort of with an eye on the next strategic plan, it didn't occur to me to ask this before the meeting. So I apologize. But do could we get access to the previous strategic plan? Because I think it'd be really interesting for me, personally, at least to like, see how it changed for the last iteration? Yeah, right.

 

Abe Smith 27:51

The previous strategic plan was called the grid conversation. And I can look at board docs and let you know what which meetings you maybe want to focus on or maybe even share the document. But what I can say is that the one of the biggest outcomes of that strategic plan was the facility referendum that was passed and the renovations there was more to the plan than that. But that was probably the most significant piece to it. But yeah, I could do that and get that to the board here in the next week.

 

Rachel Henderson 28:26

Thank you. I think it'd be enlightening to think about how the planets change over time, and what concepts you could share your doctoral dissertation

 

Amy Riddle Swanson 28:33

because I know you did it.

 

Rachel Henderson 28:39

I comfortable.

 

Abe Smith 28:41

I think you can find better.

 

Rachel Henderson 28:44

I got. Mark, I want to make sure you have a chance to jump in. Do you have anything to say?

 

Mark Hillman 28:55

Oh, good. Thank you. All right.

 

Rachel Henderson 29:03

Any other any other discussion regarding the strategic plan, goals and major activities? So in terms of timeline, process, will it be our next meeting that you'll come back with the results of what kind of comes out in the end? Really?

 

Abe Smith 29:24

Yeah, my my plan would be at our next meeting in July, kind of have a summary document, kind of a rough draft and what we're thinking and then from there, the board can provide additional input and whether or not it needs to be changed or updated and then potentially the first board meeting in August is when the board could potentially approve the work plan for 2023 2020 divorce lawyer

 

Rachel Henderson 29:51

will hopefully be easier to provide specific thoughts or direction once we have kind of an outline

 

Abe Smith 30:01

But from that timeline question and also looking at the next agenda item is your August 23 annual meeting. Normally a board meeting is better.

 

Abe Smith 30:13

In some years standalone meeting is the fourth Monday in August. So we have a committee meeting prior to the annual meeting. I think what we should do is get to that July meeting and see what the workload is looking like. Right now our staffing situation is looking better than probably most school districts. And depending on what we have coming forward with action, we may be able to do that and have a short medium before the the enemy of the 21st. If we think it's going to be a longer agenda than I think we'd be wise to schedule the meeting of the normal fourth Monday the 28th.

 

Rachel Henderson 30:52

That move us on to the next discussion item. items related to next meeting dates or committees and reports. We have a special school board meeting July 24. And as has been discussed by annual meeting on August 21. And for board members is a link to upcoming events and legal webinars to check out all right, I do folks wanted to break before we move into closed session

 

Rachel Henderson 31:27

so take three minutes, three to five minute break. Before we close out