School District of Ithaca

SCHOOL DISTRICT OF ITHACA

24615 State Highway 58

Richland Center, Wisconsin 53581

School Board Meeting

Minutes from November 14, 2016

1. Meeting was called to order by Mr. Huffar at 7:00 p.m. Verification of meeting notice – posted on web, doors of school, community gym and faxed to WRCO and Richland Observer.

2. Roll Call: Mrs. Burch, Mr. Huffar, Mr. Louis, Mr. Magee, Mrs. Mueller and Mr. Manning were present. Mr. Huebsch was absent.

3. Motion made by Mr. Louis to approve the agenda. Motion seconded by Mrs. Mueller. Motion carried 6-0.

4. Motion made by Mrs. Burch to approve the October 10th and October 24th board minutes. Motion seconded by Mr. Magee. Motion carried 6-0.

5. Citizens Forum: No one spoke

6. Policy Committee Report was given by Mr. Smudde – Policies highlighted were 1) Animals in School, 2) Capitalization Policy, 3) Open Enrollment Policy, 4) Building Key Policy, and 5) Bullying and Harassment Policy.

7. Finance Committee Report – Mr. Louis reported on bills of note. Ck #44919 to Kessenich’s in the amount of $32,595.61 for Food Service equipment, Ck #45017 to Richland School District in the amount of $18,434.13 for September meals provided, Ck # 45043 to Jones Chevrolet in the amount of $2,076.93 for work on the 2000 Chevy Van which has over 116,000 miles, Ck # 45065 to WRCO for Help Wanted ads for bus drivers in the amount of $877.50. It was noted that there were numerous invoices in regards to expenses resulting from power outages during storms.

8. Administrator’s Reports

8.1. District Administrator’s Report – Mr. Smudde shared that the holiday season is now upon us and school has just finished the first quarter of the year. Chromebooks have been put in the hands of the high school students. Mr. Hess and Mr. Coenen as well as the staff should be commended for the persistence and patience it took to make this a reality. Staff and administration are learning and adjusting as this progresses and are hoping to continue to give students the resources they need as we move forward this year. Special Education staff met on November 8th and discussed several things that we could do to help facilitate teaching staff the needs of our students with special services. This group will meet on the second Tuesday of every month. The district has submitted a TEACH – Infrastructure grant for $30,000 which will help with our technology infrastructure with would include things such as the wiring of the community gym, a secondary POE server to help with redundancy, and several items in regards to our wireless capability in the school district. Mr. Smudde talked about the exorbitant amount of time and resources that has been spent on Bus Driver Recruitment. Mr. Bob Butler presented information in regards to the process of building a compensation model and will be working on the process of building a compensation model. Mr. Smudde emphasized that we are experiencing inconsistent service from Alliant Energy and this has caused some costly issues such as a server crash, transformers on HVAC system, compressor coil on our freezer and a blown compressor in the bus garage. The security system keypad has failed and needed to be replaced. He is in the process of working with Alliant Energy on a resolution of these outages. Mr. Smudde shared with the board a concept regarding distributed leadership and he and Mr. Coenen have started the process of involving staff (teaching) in the process of being educational leaders within our district. The hope is to empower teaching staff to become more active in the decision making at our district.

8.2. Principal’s Report – Mr. Coenen Reported that Fall sports have come to an end and he congratulated the teams on their successful season. Winter sports are getting started. Chromebooks have been in the hands of the high school students since Monday, November 7th. Thanks went out to Mr. Hess and staff for helping to ensure the rollout of the chromebooks went smoothly. The school forest pavilion got its new concrete floor. Thanks to Mr. Robert Burch and the guys from Burch Concrete for a great job on the concrete. A server failure caused some communication issues and informing our families about that cleared up some misinformation regarding staff returning messages to parents. Mr. Coenen reminded everyone that the district is providing a supervised place for kids to go if they want to stay at school for practices on PLC days. Mr. Coenen also stated that the new food service program has been popular and he continue to get positive reports from kids and parents.

8.3. Business Manager’s Report – Mrs. Richards reported on the reports that have been submitted and are being worked on. An application for the 2017 EPA School Bus Rebate Program has been submitted so that if the district budgets a replacement bus for the 2017-18 school year we might be able to reduce the cost if awarded this rebate. Mrs. Richards has made hotel reservations for the 2017 School Board Convention in January for Mr. Smudde, Mr. Coenen and Mr. Huebsch. Convention registration was completed for these individuals as well. Mrs. Richards gave a brief overview of the Food Service revenues and expenditures for the Months of July through October as well as participation counts/rates and a historical view of participation rates over the periods from 2011-12 to 2015-16.

8.4. Athletic Director’s Report – Mr. Rice was at the annual WADA conference for School District Athletic Directors so was not present

9. New Business

9.1. Motion made by Mr. Louis to approve bills and balances with receipts of $274,992.37 and Disbursements of $353,811.74. Motion seconded by Mr. Magee. Roll call vote – Mrs. Mueller-yes; Mr. Magee-yes; Mr. Louis-yes; Mr. Huffar-yes; Mrs. Burch-yes; Mr. Manning-yes. Motion carried 6-0.

9.2. Motion made by Mrs. Mueller to approve 2017 Prom Location request to have it at the White House on April 8, 2017. Motion seconded by Mr. Manning. Motion carried 6-0.

9.3. Mr. Bob Butler presented information to the school board in regards to the steps to working towards a Compensation Structure for Instructional Staff.

9.4. No action was taken on an Ad Hoc Committee selection for Compensation Structure until the board has set financial parameters, goals and objectives which will be done at a special meeting of the board in January 2017.

9.5. Motion was made by Mr. Magee to approve contracting with Town & County Sanitation for waste disposal and recycle services for a one year period, striking the auto renew language in the contract. Motion seconded by Mrs. Burch. Roll call vote – Mr. Huffar-yes; Mrs. Burch-yes; Mr. Manning-yes; Mrs. Mueller-yes; Mr. Magee-yes; Mr. Louis-yes. Motion carried 6-0.

9.6. Motion made by Mr. Manning to approve the placement of a Vita Ice machine in the community gym by Pepsi pending legal opinion on the contract. Motion seconded by Mr. Louis. Roll call vote – Mr. Louis-yes; Mr. Huffar-yes; Mrs. Burch-yes; Mr. Manning-yes; Mrs. Mueller-yes; Mr. Magee-yes. Motion carried 6-0.

9.7. No action on the policy for Animals in School.

9.8. Motion made by Mr. Louis to approve the revision of the Capitalization Policy. Motion seconded by Mr. Magee. Motion carried 6-0.

9.9. Motion made by Mrs. Mueller to approve the Policy on Open Enrollment limits for the 2017-18 Open Enrollment Application Period. Motion seconded by Mr. Magee. Roll call vote – Mr. Magee-yes; Mr. Louis-yes; Mr. Huffar-yes; Mrs. Burch-yes; Mr. Manning-yes; Mrs. Mueller-yes. Motion carried 6-0.

9.10. No action on the Building Key Policy.

9.11. Motion made by Mrs. Burch to approve the revisions to the Bullying and Harassment Policy. Motion seconded by Mr. Magee. Motion carried 6-0.

9.12. Motion made by Mr. Manning to approve a search for a person to provide School Medical Services. Motion seconded by Mrs. Burch. Roll call vote – Mrs. Burch-yes; Mr. Manning-yes; Mrs. Mueller-yes; Mr. Magee-yes; Mr. Louis-yes; Mr. Huffar-yes. Motion carried 6-0.

9.13. Motion made by Mr. Magee to set the next regular board meeting for December 12, 2016 immediately following the Choir Concert. Motion seconded by Mr. Louis. Motion carried 6-0.

9.14. Items for the next board meeting were discussed.

9.15. Motion made by Mr. Louis to set the next regular Finance Committee Meeting for December 12, 2016 at 6:30 p.m. Motion seconded by Mrs. Burch. Motion carried 6-0.

10. Old Business

10.1. No old business

11. Motion made by Mrs. Burch to adjourn to closed session under Wisconsin Statute 19.85 (1) (c) for “Considering employment, promotion, compensation or performance evaluation data of any public employee over which the governmental body has jurisdiction or exercises responsibility”. Motion seconded by Mr. Manning. Roll call vote – Mr. Magee-yes; Mr. Louis-yes; Mr. Huffar-yes; Mrs. Burch-yes; Mr. Manning-yes; Mrs. Mueller-yes. Motion carried 6-0.

12. Motion made by Mr. Magee to reconvene to open session. Motion seconded by Mrs. Mueller. Motion carried 6-0.

13. Motion made by Mrs. Burch to adjourn board meeting. Motion seconded by Mr. Louis. Motion carried 6-0.

Submitted by Pat Magee

School Board Clerk

November 14, 2016Page 2