Staff News & Information

Kiwanis put on another amazing Safety Town experience for 4-5 year olds at Dyer Elementary School. There were over 100 students who participated in the event and it was awesome to see the City Police Department teaching our youngest learners within Burlington about street and sidewalk safety! Also, kudos to our BHS high school students who did an amazing job assisting with the art work on the new and improved little buildings to assist with creating a realistic environment for the students!

Summer School started on June 17 and runs through July 18, Mondays through Thursdays, at Karcher Middle School our only air conditioned building. BASD is offering 18 different summer school courses and we have 373 students participating! Such a great turn out and opportunity for our students!

Community Education has been AMAZING this summer with over 100 different opportunities for students of all ages ranging from Robotics, Legos, Art, Music, Theatre, Film Making, Sport Camps, and many more! Checkout our Communication Education Webpage for additional information on continued opportunities for both students and adults!

BASD offers an opportunity for families who are in need of childcare to have their student attend Summer Rec at BHS. Summer Rec is a very affordable program (40 dollars per day) and the students are able to engage in numerous activities and games with the awesome high school and/or college staff members! On average Summer Rec has 60-65 students present each and every day! For more information about Summer Rec click HERE!

Congrats to our Burlington Demons Shooting Team!!! The first of the State competitions was Skeet... and... they nailed it! EVERY SINGLE DIVISION placed either 1st or 2nd!! Awesome job Demons!! SKEET STATE CHAMPIONS X 2 . Five of our athletes made the 2024 All Scholastic Team, which recognizes achievements in the classroom, community, and on the range.

Burlington High School had 231 students who took 412 AP exams during the 2023-2024 school year. Based on past data the school goal for the 2023-2024 school year was for 75% of AP exams to have a score of 3 or higher. Well... BHS students significantly surpassed the goal with 83% of all exams taken scored a 3 or above!!! A score of 3 or higher allows students the ability to receive college credit!!!

Karcher held their 2nd annual Karcher Kupboard Golf Outing on June 28th to raise funds for the Karcher Kupboard. The Kupboard provides students with needed food, clothing, and hygiene products that students may need either during the school day or after school/on the weekends. Over 50 golfers participated raising $5,500 for the Karcher Kupboard!

Cooper remodeling is well underway due to the $185,000 donation from Rhonda Sullivan. There has been asbestos removal, walls taken down, new walls rebuilt in new locations, drywall being put up, painting has started, and carpet is set to be installed starting July 22!

The BHS Kitchen Servery remodel is also underway. As a reminder, the funds for this project come from Fund 50. Fund 50 dollars can only be used for food service, you cannot shift the dollars to any other district accounts. And, if you do not use the dollars the federal government takes dollars from the district.

Additionally, the gym walls at Dyer have been painted using prior PTO dollars. The kitchen water heater was replaced (using Fund 50), and a fence is being installed around the playground due to all of our 4K students being at Dyer Elementary come this fall. The fence at Dyer is funded within our yearly capital improvement budget.

After the school year was over, Cherie Wiley-Deal decided to retire. Cherie has been with the Burlington Area School District for 40 YEARS - spending most of her time in 5th grade. Cherie is still assisting the school district by teaching 4th grade summer school at Karcher. If you happen to be in town between 8:00-11:00 Monday through Thursday, you can pop over to Karcher and thank her for her years of service (summer school ends July 18). THANK YOU Cherie for all of your loyalty, commitment, dedication, wisdom, care, and time spent with students and staff of BASD. You will be greatly missed but know we are all excited for you to start your next chapter! Congratulations, Cherie!!!

Chad Redmer, current Wellness Education Teacher in BASD (and former BASD student) has accepted the role of head football coach. Chad was previously the wide receiver and special teams coach and will do an outstanding job as our new head football coach. As a reminder, Eric Sulik was our head football coach but once appointed into the role of Activities Director, he stepped down from being the head football coach. Congrats to Chad Redmer on the appointment!!!

We are wanting to continue to build upon leadership capacity within our team. Therefore, we are doing some restructuring within the Buildings and Grounds Department. As of July 1, James Farrell will be transitioning to custodial supervisor for the district while also remain the building engineer for Karcher Middle School. Please reach out to James with any custodial needs moving forward.

Also as of July 1, Mike Wallace will continue to oversee all events setup for the district. Additionally, Mike will be the building engineer for Waller, PAC, FRC and the District Office. If you are within Waller, PAC, FRC, or the District Office and/or you need help with event setup please reach out to Mike!

Burlington High School

• $50.00 - Forensics - Burlington Woman's Club
• Six boxes of Easter eggs for next year's DRIVEN Easter Hunt Egg - Connie Brietzman
• $100 - GTS Sports Training Summer Program - Debora Chapdelaine
• $500 - GTS Sports Training Summer Program - Mather's Improvement Service
• $500 - GTS Sports Training Summer Program - Reesman's Excavating
• $500 - GTS Sports Training Summer Program - Frank & Laurel Solofra
• $500 - GTS Sports Training Summer Program - Jeff & Patti Tenhagen
• $500 - GTS Sports Training Summer Program - T Painting, LLC (Steve Tenhagen)
• $6,600 - Koral Klub - Anonymous Donation
• $5,000 - Koral Klub - The Burlington Performing Arts Fund of Thrivent Charitable Impact & Investing
• $2,500 - Scholarship - Aurora Health Care
• $50,000 - Turf Project - Kelly R. Kahl
• $350 - WBSD - Bigelow Appliance Sales
• $250 - WBSD - Todd & Elizabeth Gilding
• $350 - WBSD - Redmer & Sons Recycling, Inc.

• 5350: Suicide Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention
• Recommendation to the full board is to accept almost all options throughout the policy accept those that do not pertain to our practices within BASD.
• 5505: Academic Honesty (This is a new policy)
• This policy relates to the importance of students submitting work that is their original work.
• 6236: Community Service Fund (Fund 80) (This is a new policy)
• This policy simply protects and supports our Community Education Department.
• 6610: Non District-supported Student Activity Accounts
• This is a policy NEOLA simply updated and the committee recommendations taking NEOLA's recommendations.
• 6611: Student Activity Fund (Renumbered)
• 7250.01: Memorials for Staff and Students (This is a new policy)
• A main component of this policy relates to the importance of avoiding permanent memorials for any staff and/or students who pass away.
• The committee also thought taking the last paragraph that refers to not memorializing suicides is important to keep in the policy (section recommended by NEOLA but there is an option to accept).

• 7440.02: Smart Monitoring Equipment (This is a new policy)

• This policy relates to installing smart sensor devices for student safety. One example of this is vape smoke detectors. We do not have these at this time but not a bad idea to have it in our policies in the event the district ever decides to install something of this nature.
• We do have sensors on our doors currently if they are ajar and/or left open.

• 7540.08: Artificial Intelligence (AI) (This is a new policy)

• 8121: Personal Background Check - Contracted Services (This is a new policy)

• This policy refers to contractors and/or subcontractors and the importance of having the ability to ask for background checks for those on site.

The high school team, lead by Amy Levonian (High School Principal), talked to the Board about the idea of removing the requirement of 40 service hours from BASD's graduation requirements. We want to ensure everyone understands that the desire to change this requirement does not mean we do not value the importance of service. The team simply believes it is important to evolve and change how our students engage in service so that it is more authentic within our system versus compliant (just checking a box) for students.

Additionally, there is a growing concern with this being an equity issue, especially in relation to our special education students and/or our free/reduced students. Over 85% of our special education students at the high school level are not on track to complete their service hours. Over 85% of our free/reduced students are also not on track to complete their service hours. We cannot forget that some of our students are having to take on one or two jobs after school and/or take care of their siblings.

The purpose and goal for changing this is to embed service throughout our district, from elementary through high school, where our staff can assist with the facilitation of service to the community in partnership with all of our students. A good example is with the DRIVEN program. The service projects students engage in through DRIVEN are all still supported by our DRIVEN advisors. As a system, we would like to be more intentional about what service looks like and embed the importance of service throughout K-12.

This change will honestly be MORE work on our system and staff but we believe it will create authentic experiences for students and ensure all students are engaged and supported throughout the process of providing service to the community.

After researching how other districts embed service, Amy Levonian provided some examples of what the team believes are ways to honor students who go above and beyond in their service hours so we can still encourage and celebrate the importance of service.

This was a discussion item for the school board and will be an item for action at the August board meeting. The action would be to remove the requirement of service hours for graduation.

As part of the districts strategic plan one of our goals within the community pillar is to increase our business partnerships by an additional 20 partners come 2029. Therefore, I met with MT Boyle (from Experience Burlington) and she has assisted with pulling the largest businesses in the community together along with the City of Burlington, Town of Burlington, and Burlington Mayor. Meetings started in April 2024 and have been running every other week! The focus of the meetings have been around two main areas: housing shortages in the Burlington area and workforce development needs. When it comes to workforce development needs this is where schools come into play. Within the meetings we have first and foremost spent time ensuring businesses understand our current state. What are we already doing, what is on the horizon, and what needs do businesses have that our K-12 system could support. Additionally, one of our strategic goals has been to have shared responsibility when it comes to our parents and the community of BASD. Therefore, I asked each business to share 5-8 traits/skills that they are seeing as needs for employees. Traits brought forward are things like dressing professionally, being present and on time for work, not being on personal devices, putting others above self, being adaptable and flexible, along with numerous other traits/skills. Once the traits/skills were collected I asked businesses to form small groups and work together to narrow the focus to 5-6 traits/skills of most importance. The group is continuing to work to refine and define the needs and then once they are established the plan/goal will be for BASD to infuse these traits across all grade levels as areas of focus. Additionally, what the group is coming together on is the importance of uniting and supporting BASD when we work to enhance and expect these traits/skills from our students. That the desire to elevate expectations does not just fall on the desire from BASD but also is the desire of the City, Town, and businesses within Burlington.

We have already had some additional 1:1 conversations with some of the businesses in regards to ways they want to partner with BASD. One example is with Applied Material Solutions. They want to assist with providing real world financial literacy experience to our middle school students. Therefore, Applied Material Solutions has now had additional meetings with myself, Kristen Dixon, and Nick Ryan in order to see how we can partner together to provide an awesome experience to our students! This is simply one example of how the businesses are wanting to partner with BASD.

This has been an amazing group to be a part of so far and has really elevated BASD's presence and partnership with the City, Town, and local businesses. I am excited to continue this work as the group is simply growing stronger together with every meeting.

An additional partnership (this one is because I am on the Experience Burlington Board) is with Faust Heating and Air Conditioning as Ty Faust would like to assist with providing the district with some HVAC equipment and potentially team teach with our staff to assist students in understanding how HVAC works and providing a lens into the work of HVAC.

I am excited to continue the work happening within the Building Burlington Leadership Council (BBLC) along with partnerships taking place due to being a member of Rotary along with being on the board for Experience Burlington. Engaging our businesses is the RIGHT work to be doing!!!

With the new Title IX requirements, NEOLA shared an updated policy with the school district after the June board meeting. The new policy must be in place within the district by August 1, 2024. This is being asked by all districts. Therefore, this went to the board for a first reading on July 8 with the second reading taking place on July 22 as the board is already meeting on July 22 for a Board Workshop to ensure the policy is in place by August 1, 2024.

The board approved the addition of a new school code that will be named: Burlington Alternative School. This school would have the following three programs within the new school (school code): Fox River Consortium (FRC), Project Active Citizen (PAC), and Project WIN (What I Need). The "why" for the addition of this school is to ensure the programming that is taking place across the district reflects the correct data for our school report cards based on the students physically attending each school and/or program within the school district. The addition of this school will be noted starting with the 2025-2026 report cards.

This fall BASD report cards will show the following schools (based on 2023-2024 school year):

9-12 Burlington High School

6-8 Karcher Middle School

4K-5 Dyer

4K-5 Lyons

4K-5 Waller

4K-5 Winkler

4K-6 Cooper Montessori

K-12 Wisconsin Connect Charter School

The fall of 2025 BASD school report cards will show the following schools & adjusted grade configurations:

9-12 Burlington High School

5-8 Karcher Middle School

5K-4 Winkler

5K-4 Waller

4K-4 Dyer

4K-6 Cooper Montessori

K-12 Wisconsin Connect Charter School

K-12 Burlington Alternative School

We also submitted to DPI the closure of the school code for Lyons Center Elementary School.

Per the requirement of the state of Wisconsin every district has to approve what academic standards the district will utilize for the school year. Our district utilizes the standards put in place by DPI called the DPI Academic Standards.

Because of board policy, 9700.03 Naming Rights, the school board took board action for the approval of the Cooper Montessori Library to be named "Sullivan Library" due to the significant donations from Rhonda Sullivan and the Sullivan Family Charitable Fund to Cooper Montessori. Rhonda Sullivan donated $30,000 during the 2023-2024 school year and an additional $185,000 this summer for the remodeling of Cooper School. To honor and recognize her contribution to the school district we will proudly display and call our Cooper library, "Sullivan Library". Thank you to Rhonda and the Sullivan Family Charitable Fund for their continued support and commitment to BASD!

Certified Staff

The Personnel Committee met with the BEA on Wednesday, June 26, to negotiate base wages. The initial BEA ask was for a 4.12% CPI increase. The board and administration explained that due to the reduction in total work days (from 189 to 178) the daily rate increase for certified staff will be a 6.18% increase, even with no CPI salary increase for the 2024-2025 school year. The district also had budgeted for steps to take place for the 2024-2025 school year as it is a step year. The BEA proposed that the board take the combined step dollar amount and spread it out equally to all staff and in lieu of the step. After further discussion, the School Board Personnel Committee wanted to uphold the commitment to the steps and lanes structure put in place for certified staff by committing to the step moves for the 2024-2025 school year. Lastly, the removal of the BA +15 lane was recommended as the BA and the BA+15 lanes were the exact same salary amounts. Therefore, anyone with a BA or BA + credits would be in the same lane with the first lane move being to the masters column.

The Personnel Committee and BEA ended in an impasse as the board members on the Personnel Committee wanted to commit to the steps and lanes schedule. The full board discussed in closed session at the July 8 board meeting and then unanimously approved in open session the following: no CPI increase due to a 6.18% daily rate increase with the reduction in contracted days from 189 to 178, maintain the step commitment within the steps and lanes structure, and remove the BA+15 column as it is the same as the BA column.

Salary Adjustments for Support Staff and Administrative Staff

Additionally, because most support staff are hourly and will work 9 less days, and those that are salaried do not have a reduction of 11 days to increase their daily rate the board unanimously approved a 4.12% increase for all support staff along with a few market rate adjustments. As the administrators also do not have a reduction of 11 days to increase their daily rate, the board unanimously approved a 4% increase for most administrators. Most is noted as one administrator took a lower increase and combined the dollar amount with the .12% from the full administrative team to provide market rate adjustments for a few administrators below market rate. Therefore, the CPI increase was unanimously approved by the board for both groups. I, Jill, will communicate with each individual that has a market rate adjustment.

Committee updates since last board meetings:

• Finance Committee (Peter Turke - Chair, Paul Kobernick, Aubrey Thompson) along with Ruth Schenning and Jill Oelslager met on June 13.
• The committee discussed different financial topics the group has interest in understanding or learning more about when coming together as a committee.
• For the next committee meeting on July 11 they asked Ruth and I to focus on learning about BASD's Fund Balance, what is the State average, and discuss where the District stands in relation with other districts around the area; along with reviewing and discussing the data from other school districts that asked for an operational referendum to learn more about patterns and trends.
• Personnel Committee (Noah Strohm - Chair, Taylor Wishau, Marlo Brown) along with Ruth Schenning and Jill Oelslager met on June 26 for BEA Negotiations.
• Noted above is the summary and recommendation that was brought to the full board.
• Board Governance/Communications Committee (Marlo Brown - Chair, Taylor Wishau, Noah Strohm) along with Jill Oelslager met on June 26.
• As a committee they discussed the following:
• I wanted their thoughts and opinion as to how often we should put out a district mailer. The thought was to have three mailers per school year. One in September/October, February, and then May/June. We did just produce a mailer that went to all BASD residences in the past few weeks and we will be calling the mailer, "The Focus". The committee would like us to add a board piece to every mailer to include some board voice.
• We discussed the new BASD Smore, what you are reading right now. I shared that I will commit to sending this out monthly after every board meeting as it can only help us to share more information with the community every month. They would like the addition of their names at the bottom of the newsletters.
• They discussed that they would like to continue to send quarterly letters to the staff. The months picked were August, November, March, and May. Once they are written Nora will share the letters with the staff.
• They would like to continue the "Adopt a School" but felt it makes more sense to have their adopted school for a two-year time frame, switching schools after two years. Additionally, I suggested that at one of our monthly 1:1s (I meet with every board member monthly for a 1:1) we invite the building principal of their adopted school. Additionally, the goal is for each board member to attend an event at their adopted school once per semester.
• Adopted Schools for each board member:
• BHS: Rosanne Hahn
• Karcher: Marlo Brown
• Cooper (Montessori/WisCo): Paul Kobernick
• Dyer: Peter Turke
• FRC/WIN/PAC: Aubrey Thompson
• Waller: Taylor Wishau
• Winkler: Noah Strohm
• Desire to bring in state representatives once or twice per year for a Board Workshop. We did do this twice this past school year. Goal is Mid-January 2025 and Spring 2025.
• Discussed a Superintendent Evaluation with the goal of the formal evaluation taking place in December with an informal evaluation in June. This would be a new process for the board.

June 24 - Board Workshop Update:

• The board engaged in two presentations:
• First was a presentation about the district potentially shifting to going self-funded for our health insurance. Brown and Brown came in to share the pros and cons of going self-funded and it was evident it would be in the district's best interest to explore going self-funded for financial reasons but also to allow the district to be more flexible (potentially) with plans. Therefore, Ruth and I have been meeting with Brown and Brown to learn more and will circle back to the board as they would need to decide if they approve the shift to self-funded at the August board meeting. Then, if that is decided we will want to pull together a small team to assist with decisions as we move forward, first pulling from the finance pillar team. Our current insurance plan runs to the end of the calendar year.
• The second presentation was from School Perceptions about the community survey given to provide us with feedback on next steps for an operational referendum. The board did not engage in discussing options at this meeting but rather took in the information from the survey and asked questions to School Perceptions.
• The board will be meeting again on July 22 for a little Q&A with Brown and Brown and then time for the board to discuss options for the operational referendum. Know that they all do agree that an operational referendum is needed for the school district. The discussion will focus on determining the dollar amount, when the question is asked, etc.

Also know, when the board meets I am always in attendance with them and then depending on the committee, sometimes Ruth also attends and/or a director if it pertains to their department.

• July 11, 2024: Finance Committee Meeting @ 6:00 PM

• Focusing on learning about BASD Fund Balance, what is the State average, and discuss where the District stands in relation with other districts around the area; along with reviewing and discussing the data from other school districts that asked for an operational referendum to learn more about patterns and trends.
• July 16 & 30: Policy Committee @ 5:30 PM
• Focusing on reviewing the updated Employee Handbooks for the start of the 2024-2025 school year.
• July 22: Board Workshop @ 6:00 PM
• Discuss the 2024-2025 operational referendum options.
• August 1: Teaching & Learning Committee @ 9:00 AM
• First time this committee is meeting since the reorganization meeting. Jill suggests the committee learn about the schedules used at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.
• August 7: Buildings & Grounds Committee @ 6:00 PM
• This will be the first committee meeting since the reorganization meeting. First set goals for the committee.
• August 12, 2024: School Board meeting @ 6:30 PM

Also, the Annual Meeting has been set for August 26, 2024.

• Nora is working with Dave to determine the best location for the annual meeting. In the past, it was in the auditorium at the high school. However, we do not have the right equipment to livestream located in the auditorium. We are going to check how 8th grade recognition went with the livestream at the middle school as we may shift the annual meeting to the middle school as the sound and live streaming capabilities we believe will be better at Karcher. Stay tuned!

As a reminder, the following information is presented at the annual meeting:

• Superintendent's Report
• Approval of the minutes from the 2023-2024 Annual Meeting
• Treasurer's Report for the 2023-2024 school year
• Presentation of the budget for the 2024-2025 school year
• Resolution A: The 2024-2025 tax levy
• Resolution B: Board member salary
• Resolution C: Board member reimbursement of expenses
• Resolution D: Date, Time, and Location for the 2025 Annual Meeting

The board and myself want to thank you for your continued commitment to BASD and I truly hope you are enjoying time with family and friends this summer!!!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jill Oelslager, Superintendent

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

June 10, 2024