A six-hour school board meeting: in brief.
Just the highlights…
→ Public Comment: Overall, public comment on Monday evening was mostly sunny with occasional bouts of invective.
A mother:
I've been disappointed to see the nature of comments, particularly comments at the opening where people do not use their words very carefully, and I hope that we'll have a meeting tonight where people use respectful language and respectful terms and don't get [into the] interpersonal attacks that I've seen online.
School Board President Muehlfeld approximately two hours later after parent berates school board member:
I would ask members of the public, please, to direct your comments respectfully to the subjects that we have on the agenda and refrain from any sort of personal attacks—in any regard—to anyone in the room. Thank you.
The general tenor did seem to be that there’s a lot of good things going on in the school district and that Mr. Meier should relax a little and try to get along better with the rest of the school board. This was a complete 180 from previous school board meetings, so either something changed and everyone is satisfied now, the disgruntled parents and the satisfied parents have agreed to some sort of joint-custody arrangement of local school board meetings, or there is a sociological El Niño event currently developing in the community.
→ Rewarding and Celebrating: Students in the American Public Policy Special Emphasis (APPSE) course at Wauwatosa East and West High Schools were recognized for their accomplishments at a national-level academic civics competition. Wauwatosa was also recognized as the Best Community for Music Education for the fourth straight year.
→ Mental Health and School Safety: Superintendent Demond Means gave a presentation on the district’s efforts during Mental Health Awareness Month and recent concerns over school safety. He said that 85-90% of students “make good decisions every day” and that most instances of school violence have to do with fighting and disruptive behavior in classrooms. He thinks the biggest solutions are more focus on mental health and creating a culture where good behavior is rewarded. He also acknowledged that data on fighting is not consistent across schools and that more training needs to be done with teachers and administrators who record it so that the analysis of such data is useful for decision-making. Regarding a policy that students involved in fights would be issued citations by the police, Board Member Hoag said:
I do want to ask a question about the citations. That has been raised as a concern by some of our community who are worried about creating a school-to-prison pipeline where we're creating arrest records or citation records for students for things that are happening in the school building.
Dr. Means:
The reason why we included the citation piece is that that's the usual and customary practice when students decide to get into a physical altercation. I've never been in a school district that does not engage law enforcement to provide some type of citation. Mainly because we're not quite sure how violent those fights are going to get, we don't know who can be harmed if they get too out of control, and the the order of the building is shaken when you have those types of fights. I think it's important for us to send a message that not only are you going to have discipline that you have to deal with from a school perspective but there's a societal responsibility that you have.
I am very conscious of the fact that we could be perpetuating a school-to-prison pipeline issue. I'm sensitive to it. At the same time, I'm more sensitive to families who have shared with me that their children are afraid to go to school, they're afraid that something violent will erupt at any moment. […] One of our parents actually utilized the line, but I believe in it wholeheartedly: we welcome all students, but we don't welcome some of the behaviors that we've been seeing this year.
→ Strategic Planning: After many listening sessions, Dr. Means has identified Academic Performance; Diversity and Inclusion; Social, mental, and emotional health; High Quality Staff; and Community and Culture as the district’s high-level goals.
Low-level plans: Coming August, 2022.
→ New hires: A new principal at Wauwatosa West High School hired for $150,000 per year. A new Director for Diversity hired for $110,000 per year. The new principal was previously the superintendent of the Menominee Falls school district. An article last week about violence and cover-ups at a Menominee Falls school caused concern since it occurred while he was superintendent and involved another new adminstrative hire. Dr. Means spoke to the staff and teachers at Wauwatosa West and relayed that, “they came back today and said this is the person they want.”
→ More public comments: See Above
→ Cleaning: Labor costs are rising. Material costs are rising. Equipment costs are rising. The district’s cleaning contractor wants an additional $29,000 (original price: $150,000 per month) per month for its services over the next three months and another 30% increase after that. After some negotiating, they settled for $15,000 more per month for the next six months.
Mr. Meier said we should just hire our own people, because they would get better benefits. Dr. Means said it really wouldn’t cost that much more. Discussion continues.
→ Recess: Board president suggests 5 minutes. Dr. Jessup-Anger says, Let’s make it 7.
→ Police in schools: Chief MacGillis presents a draft memorandum of understanding between the school and the police department that lays out the responsibilities, training requirements, and operating procedures for School Resource Officers (SROs). There were questions from board members on when the police will come to school to arrest a student (not if they can help it) and when parents get contacted if their child is being questioned (afterwards or when they take them into custody). My take from the ensuing discussion following the last question was that, legally, police officers have some limited ability to talk to juveniles without their parents present and that if the goal is to keep students out of the legal system, impromptu and informal conversations between students and officers to ascertain facts facilitates that.
→ Food: Labor costs are rising. Material costs are rising. Equipment costs are rising. Board discusses whether to increase lunch prices by $0.30 this year and $0.30 next year or hit ‘em all at once with a $0.60 bump next year. Board opts for the former.
—> Preliminary Budget for 2022-2023, and beyond: I’d like to look into this in more detail, so I’ll just say that the projections included budget deficits this coming year and the next and required bringing in over 120 students from outside Wauwatosa.
Mr. Meier’s comment after the presentation:
There are six to seven fundamental assumptions here which run contrary to everything I have come to understand while serving on the board. So, with that out there—other board member—you will think what you think, but I'm shooting off a big distress flare here. A lot of things have to go perfectly for this whole thing to work, and some of these things have never happened before—realistically. We would have non-resident enrollment at the highest level ever. We would have resident enrollment at the highest level in over 20 years. We would have an increase in pupil aid which we've been praying for for many many years. It has cuts in health care benefits, decrease in base wages. I don’t know how. It’s late. I’m done for today.
More detailed discussions will continue at the next meeting on June 13 with an official budget hearing on June 27th.
→ Filling the board seat vacated by Steve Doman: Board members debated and approved interview questions for applicants. The board is accepting applications now and will begin their selection on June 27.
That’s it.