BASD News & Information

As we continue to move into the 2024-2025 school year we would like to address an important issue regarding the language used by students in social settings. We have had students and, at times, parents using language that can be perceived as threatening or extreme. While some may intend these comments as jokes or exaggerations, it is crucial to understand that such language is taken very seriously within our school environment.

Even if students think they are speaking casually among friends, not everyone perceives these comments in the same way. What might seem like a harmless joke to one person can be interpreted as threatening or unsettling by others. Given the current climate of national and school-related safety concerns, we must be vigilant about the language used in our schools.

It is essential for students to understand that any language that could be construed as threatening is not acceptable, even if meant as a joke. Our priority is to maintain a safe and supportive environment for all students, and this requires us to address any comments that could be perceived as harmful or alarming.

We ask for your support in discussing with your child the importance of mindful communication. Help them understand that their words have significant impact and that what might seem like a joke to them could affect others differently. By reinforcing these values at home, we can work together to ensure a safe and respectful atmosphere in our schools.

If you or your student(s) is concerned there is a viable threat to students or the school, please remind your child about Speak Up, Speak Out. This site is a 24/7 type of hotline where information submitted will be directed to our School Resource Officer and building administration to ensure thorough investigation and response.

Additionally, a common thread across concerning situations has been the mental health of students and families. There are resources available 24/7 through the impact hotline which you can access by calling or texting 211 which would then connect you with a crisis responder to help families and/or students with your concern.

Thank you for your cooperation and for supporting this important aspect of our school community.

Burlington High School had a very successful Freshmen Break In on August 23rd! There were 150 Freshmen and 111 DRIVEN members in attendance! This was an increase in attendance from previous years! The incoming freshmen were able to engage in community building activities with upperclassmen and become familiar with BHS. Kudos to all staff involved in putting together this event to help with the transition for our freshmen to the high school.

WOW! We sure did have a lot of families and students in attendance at our Open Houses on August 28th throughout the school district. We are so thankful to have the opportunity to welcome our families and students into all of our buildings, especially with all of the necessary shifts in grade levels and redistricting that needed to occur leading into this school year. It was awesome to feel the energy and excitement across the district!

Below are some highlights in relation to our students and their engagement in extra curricular activities!

• Boys Cross Country: Jaiden Matchse won the Senior boys race by .02 seconds at Tremper Dog Days of Summer Meet at Kenosha Park. The team has had a good start with a relatively young team with some upperclassmen looking to finish strong.
  
• Girls Tennis is 5 and 2 overall. There are 38 girls out for tennis this year (this is about ten more than last year).
  
• Football is 3 and 0, non-conference wins over Waterford, Kenosha Tremper and Janesville Parker. The team is off to a great start to their season!
  
• Girls' Volleyball has started with a tough schedule to begin their season and is sitting with a 3-8 record. They are a young team that is working hard and focusing on communication and improvement.
  
• Boys Soccer: 5 and 0, non-conference wins over Racine Case, Janesville, Kenosha Christian Life, Big Foot, and Wilmot.
  
• Boys Volleyball: Boys' volleyball has 39 athletes this year, enough for a Varsity, JV1, and JV2 team. Varsity is 2 and 3 as they have only competed in 2 tournaments so far, but it is a very promising start.
  
• The Community Ed Department hosted a dance camp with over 75 youth and performed at the first home football game!
  
• The One Act Play started auditions and crew sign ups for the 2024 BHS One Act Play called The Lost Boy. This is a no-cut production. Most acts from other schools are 10-12 kids total, but we had 28 students audition and will be able to participate in the play this fall!
• Star Stuff Theatre started their practices at Dyer for Finding Nemo Junior - over 60 students were interested and are already in the midst of practices!
  

• New concrete was added on Alice Street by Karcher Middle School to accommodate for 2 more buses due to the 5th grade students now attending the middle school. s well as new concrete near the playground area at Karcher to help prevent damage to the building.

• The High School servery (student space of the kitchen area) was completed just in time for the start of the school year! As a reminder, this was accomplished using our Fund 50 account which can only be used for food service.

• Gateway Technical College donated 12 welders to the new High School Welding Academy and the B&G staff added 5 welding booths to accommodate for the program. We are very excited to continue to offer additional opportunities for our students! Students who complete the welding program receive a Welding Technical Diploma upon completion.

• The Cooper and Dyer PA (public address) systems have been updated with new speakers in each classroom, microphones in the principal's office, and microphones in the main office to speak to staff and students.

• As we head into the school year we simply want to remind everyone that we are a school district that offers the opportunity for all students to have a 1:1 technology device (chromebook) provided by the school district for all students in 1st through 12th grade. Our 5K students share a chromebook cart with another 5K classroom at each elementary school. Students are asked to take care of their district issued chromebook that is assigned to them. As a reminder, students who damage their chromebook will be billed for damages. The current chromebooks are part of a 4 year lease and need to last for your child for 3 more years (the 4 year lease started last school year).

• Additionally, we put a no cell phone rule across the district in place (with the exception of lunch time for our high school students). This has been put in place as we believe our number one job as a school system (outside of safety first) is to focus on student academics. Therefore, we are continuing to up our expectations within our buildings and appreciate your support. The no cell phone rule means students are not allowed to have their cell phones out or visible during any classes. Students who do not comply will work through our progressive discipline process.

Our health services department spent time during our August inservice with our staff to complete epi-pen and sudden cardiac arrest training. Staff were also reminded of the location of AEDs in all district buildings. Our team also updated all individual student health plans (IHPs) and held training sessions with staff on individual student needs.

• Within our Pupil Services Team was the development of the first ever Back to School en Español on August 27th in the Karcher Middle School gym. This event was hosted by BASD, Family Dental, Los Compadres Restaurant, and some community members.

• The event featured resources from the Burlington Library, Aurora Hospital, Los Compadres Restaurant, Burlington Coalition for Dismantling Racism, Family Dental, A Breath of Hope, Racine County Human Services, Dyer PTO, Racine Literacy Council, United Migrant Opportunity Services, Perla Tapatio, KMS and BHS Student volunteers, and Experience Burlington to support all of our Spanish Speaking families in our school District!
  

• Thank you to Diana Shay, the BASD staff, and the community groups that helped to make this event so successful!

Please welcome the below new staff to our team since the last newsletter! All of these positions are replacing a pre-existing position. Due to our financial situation as an organization we do not have the dollars to add positions.

Certified Staff New Hires:

• Zack Wedding - FRC - Alternative Ed Teacher - August 21, 2024

• Krista Roessger - Dyer - Long Term Sub Teacher - August 20, 2024

• Bridget Savaglia - District Office - Director of Human Resources - September 3, 2024

Non-Certified Staff Appointments:

• Yasline Bolstad - Dyer - Burlington BAC - September 3, 2024
• Oswaldo Chavez-Romero - Karcher - FT Custodian - August 20, 2024
• Brittany Christenson - Dyer - Full Time Paraprofessional - August 15, 2024
• Jackson Dempkey - Dyer - Burlington BAC - September 3, 2024
• Allie Fischer - Waller - Burlington BAC - September 3, 2024
• Benjamin Guerra - Waller - Burlington BAC - September 3, 2024
• Rebecca Headley - Dyer - Burlington BAC - September 3, 2024
• Weston Kairis - Waller - Burlington BAC - September 3, 2024
• Nicole Smith - BHS - Administrative Assistant - September 10, 2024
• Megan Weissenborn - Dyer - Part Time Paraprofessional - August 15, 2024
• Paula Young - Waller - Burlington BAC - September 3, 2024

Extra-Curricular Appointments:

• Hunter Anderson - BHS - Soccer Assistant JV Coach - August 15, 2024
• Andrew Brockman - BHS - Tennis Assistant Coach - August 13, 2024
• Ben Puffer - BHS - Freshman Football Coach - August 12, 2024
• Mark Strasser - BHS - Football JV Assistant Coach - August 13, 2024

Following the Annual Board Meeting on August 26 the school board held a Special Board Meeting for the purpose to discuss and take action in regards to a needed operational referendum for the school district.

The board is unanimous in regards to the length of the referendum (3 years), type of referendum (non-recurring), and dollar amount ($4.6 million). The board came to these decisions using the survey given to the community, parents, and staff in the spring of 2024. That survey pointed to the desire of the community to have a non-recurring referendum for starters. A non-recurring referendum is one that has an end date, in this case it would be a 3 year referendum. Meaning, after the 3 years (2025-2026, 2026-2027, 2027-2028) the dollars would no longer be in place from the operational referendum. The district would most likely need to ask the community for an additional operational referendum prior to the final completion of an operational referendum being put in place.

Additionally, the community survey was analyzed looking at how parents feel and how the community feels in relation to a dollar amount for a referendum. Parents were supportive of the highest option presented to the community within the survey which was $6 million operational referendum. Non-parents and non-staff were supportive of a $4 million dollar operational referendum. Therefore, the board unanimously agreed upon the dollar amount of $4.6 million dollars for the next operational referendum.

Lastly, the board discussed and voted on when the operational referendum would be presented to the community for vote. The two options the board discussed was November 2024 or April 2025. There was first a board motion to have the operational referendum of 3 years, non-recurring, for $4.6 million brought to the community in November 2024. Within the roll call for vote: 3 board members voted yes, 4 board members voted no. Then, there was a board motion to have the operational referendum of 3 years, non-recurring, for $4.6 million brought to the community in April 2025 for vote. Within the roll call for vote: 6 board members voted yes, 1 board member voted no.

Therefore, there WILL be an operational referendum on the ballot for the community to vote come April 2025 for a 3 year, non-recurring operational referendum for the dollar amount of $4.6 million.

As we progress through the school year more information will be shared as the operational referendum gets closer.

The following information is a synthesis of the items within the board agenda from our regularly scheduled monthly board meeting which took place on September 9 at 6:30 PM. Our next monthly board meeting is scheduled for Monday, October 14 at 6:30 PM.

District

• School supplies for teachers - Burlington 1st Church of the Nazarene
• Backpacks and school supplies for students in need - clients at Eric Thompson's Edward Jones office
• School supplies for teachers - Applied Material Solutions (AMS)

Burlington High School

• $4,494.90 - DRIVEN - Racine Community Foundation
• $6,000.00 - Football - Blue Devils c/o Sarah Gerber
• $500 - WBSD - Clinical Psychology Associates
• $500 - WBSD - The Jewelry Center
• $500 - WBSD - Fred's World's Best Burgers
• $500 - WBSD - Performance Tire & Auto Service
• $500 - WBSD - Jackson Wine, LLC
• $500 - WBSD - Burlington Dairy Queen
• Lincoln Aviator - Auto Program - Miller Motor Sales, Inc.

Dyer

• Thank you to The Coffee House and Baked Box for donating a yogurt parfait bar, muffins and cookies and to Best Bargains, the Dyer PTO, and Green Beauty Corporation for their contributions for the welcome back bags for staff.
• Thank you to Antioch Pizza for donating an estimated valued of $486.13 in pizzas and salad for lunch for the entire staff on September 6, 2024.

Karcher

• $259.43 - Demon Closet & Karcher Kupboard - St. Mary Immaculate Conception
• $259.43 - Demon Closet & Karcher Kupboard - St. Mary Immaculate Conception

Every year the school board is asked to nominate a board member to serve as the WASB (Wisconsin Association of School Boards) Legislative Liaison for the School District. The Board unanimously approved the nomination and appointment of Rosanne Hahn to serve as the WASB Legislative Liaison.

Every school year, as a District, we need approval of the school board for our school safety plan per the Department of Public Instruction (DPI). Our two safety coordinators for the District are Chris Weins (Director of Pupil Services) and Jess Warren (Director of Buildings and Grounds). Chris Weins presented the school safety plan to the Board.

Chris Wein's focused on sharing that:

• Every building has a secure entrance sequence that is used for visitors. We also utilize the raptor system for checking in visitors upon their arrival to every district building's main office. All exterior doors throughout our buildings are locked to also ensure security and safety of our students and staff.
• Within the buildings all doors are in the locked position so that, in the event of an emergency, staff are able to pull doors closed and rooms are secure.
• We will be using the month of October as our "safety month" across the District. Each week in October, we will be focusing on a different safety drill and we will be communicating from the District level to all families with information about each of the drills prior to the start of the week of that specific drill. We felt it was important to do these drills closer to the start of the school year versus spreading them out throughout the school year to ensure that all staff and students are trained and aware sooner rather than later in the year.
• The following are the drills of focus during October: Fire drills (required monthly), tornado drill, run, hide, fight, and evacuate.
• Note, fire drills do take place on a monthly basis throughout the School District.
• Chris Weins also shared that our safety team (made up of some directors, building principals, or assistant principals) meet with the Burlington Police Department every month to align our safety efforts throughout the school year.
• Last but not least, Chris Weins shared that we plan on having a practice reunification drill at some point this school year with some parents and students. The use of a reunification site comes into play if we have to block off a perimeter around a school building and parents are not able to come to the actual school to pick up their student(s). A reunification site is where we would be transporting all students, so that parent pick up would take place away from the building of concern. A few examples of when this would be used could be due to a gas leak, issue near by in the city/town, and/or due to another threat to student safety. Our reunification site is the Department of Public Works (DPW). Our district is the ONLY School District in Racine County actively working on training in relation to our reunification site - kudos to our team!!!

As a school district we currently have been utilizing a fully funded health insurance plan for our employees. As a cost saving measure, we have been exploring the option and potential opportunity to shift to going self funded. We were potentially going to shift in January 2025 but have decided that we need a little more time to finalize our plans prior to making the switch to self funded. We do believe it will be a strategic positive move for the school district and for our employees to shift to self funded in the future. We simply are needing a little more time to explore all options so that when we switch we are extremely confident and comfortable with our decision making process.

There are a few months of the year, namely the end of November and the middle of January, when our cash flow is insufficient, and we need to borrow money to pay our bills. There are a few reasons this occurs.

One relates to the timing of when we receive our two main funding sources. We receive the general state aid quarterly, in September, December, March, and June; and we receive our tax levy collections starting midway through the school year, on January 20 and February 20, and the final payment on August 20 (after the school’s fiscal year end). The second reason we must short-term borrow is that our fund balance is not sufficient to carry us through this time frame.

While fund balance and cash are different, cash makes up a significant portion of fund balance. Also, fund balance is not a savings account! Fund balance is the difference between assets, such as the balance in our checking account, and liabilities, or amounts that we owe and must pay out in the near future.

So, think of a fund balance as being your own personal checking account. You have money coming in to your checking account (when you get paid, etc) and then you have money going out of your checking account (when you pay your mortgage, car payments, cell phone bills, groceries, etc). Your checking account fluctuates throughout the year based on what you are putting into it versus what you are taking out of it.

This is the same for the school district. The district has to short term borrow because we do not have enough money in our "checking account" (our fund balance) to pay our bills at certain times during the year.

Assets, liabilities, and fund balance are reported as of any given point in time. Assets are items like the balance in our checking account and receivables, which are amounts that are owed to us (the right to receive cash) in the future, such as filing a grant claim to be reimbursed for expenditures we have already paid out. Liabilities are also known as accruals or payables, which are amounts that we owe others (obligations to pay out cash) in the future, such as invoices for instructional materials we’ve ordered and received, and payroll taxes and other tax deferred contributions withheld from employees’ paychecks. Fund balance is not static and will ebb and flow throughout the year based on the timing of revenue receipts and expenditure payments.

So, because we do not have a higher fund balance, we have to short term borrow. Therefore, Ruth asked the board for permission not to exceed $2,300,000 in borrowing for the school year. We pay the full amount back by September 24, 2025. The board approved this resolution authorizing temporary borrowing for this school year.

Committee updates since last board meetings:

• Board Governance / Communication Committee - Marlo Brown, Chair
• Met on August 29th to discuss mainly the superintendent evaluation process. The board will be trained from WASB (Wisconsin Association for School Boards) on the superintendent evaluation tool on October 8 and then utilize that tool for an evaluation. They will be sharing their evaluation feedback with me, Jill Oelslager, at the December board meeting in closed session.

• Personnel Committee - Noah Strohm, Chair
• Met on September 4th to approve the appointment as well as the resignations, retirements and terminations since the last School Board meeting.

• September 24, 2024: Policy Committee @ 5:30 pm
• The policy committee is going to get back on their routine of reviewing 7 policies per meeting along with other policies that are being suggested to the district from NEOLA to revise. We were off of this routine in July and August in order to review and update our employee handbooks for the start of the year.
• September 26: Teaching & Learning Committee @ 9:00 am
• The committee will be going to Karcher to learn about their bell schedule and understand the changes and pieces the district put in place with the shift of 5th grade going to the middle school.
• October 2: Board Governance / Communication Committee @ 5:00 pm
• Will talk about the community informational sessions I, Jill, plans on starting on October 2 in the morning. These community listening sessions will be held monthly from 7:00-7:45 AM for the community to come and learn about our system with different topics each month.
• October 8: School Board Workshop @ 6:00 pm
• This workshop is time for the board to be trained on the WASB Superintendent Evaluation Tool.
• October 9: Personnel Committee @ 1:00 pm
• Review appointments, terminations, resignations, and retirements and/or other personnel related items.
• October 14: Monthly School Board Meeting @ 6:30 pm
• Normal monthly school board meeting. We do plan on starting back with staff dinners with the board followed by school presentations about school action plans.
• October 17: Buildings & Grounds Committee @ 6:00 pm
• Jess Warren, Director of Buildings and Grounds will be explaining and sharing what our 5-10 year capital improvement plan looks like so that the board understands where we are in relation to what projects are having to be shifted to a later date due to our current financial state.

On behalf of the entire BASD team I want to thank all of our parents and members of the community for your continued support for BASD. There has been a lot of changes heading into the 2024-2025 school year and we know some of the changes were extremely difficult and tough for students and families.

As you know, we are all working together (district staff, students, parents, and the community) towards a shared goal: fostering our students' academic and social growth. Our aim is to ensure that, upon graduation, each student leaves BASD prepared to thrive and make a meaningful impact on the world. Thank you for engaging with us as we continue to make strides and progress forward.

BASD Proud,

Dr. Jill Oelslager, Superintendent

and...

Taylor Wishau, Board President

Marlo Brown, Vice President

Paul Kobernick, Clerk

Peter Turke, Treasurer

Rosanne Hahn, Board Member

Noah Strohm, Board Member

Aubrey Thompson, Board Member

• August 2024
• July 2024
• June 2024