Greenwood School Board approves Title IX updates, counselor agreement, schedule change and more
By Valorie Brecht The Greenwood School Board took action on several agreements at its last meeting to bring the school district closer to being ready to open its doors to students on Aug. 26.
At the July 31 meeting, the board discussed the new Title IX regulations that the Biden administration handed down, with schools supposed to implement them by Aug. 1. Title IX is a landmark 1972 civil rights act intended to protect women and girls from discrimination in school and extracurricular activities.
Among other changes to Title IX, the new regulations would require schools to recognize “gender identity” as a protected class. Opponents of the new regulations argue that the regulations would require people who identify as transgender be allowed to use the restroom or locker room of their choosing, as well as mandate the use of a trans-identifying person’s “preferred pronouns” in a school setting.
The new Title IX regulations are in the process of being litigated. As of this writing, 26 states had filed injunctions against the ruling and succeeded in halting the implementation of the ruling, not including Wisconsin. In addition, independent groups such as Moms for Liberty, Young America’s Foundation and Female Athletes United, as well as individual school districts and universities have filed lawsuits against the new regulations.
“These policies are being litigated and will continue to be. The current recommendation from lawyers is to have it in place so we’re not in violation,” said District Administrator Joe Green at the meeting. “I am guessing this is not the last we will see of Title IX updates this year. But this will bring us into compliance starting Aug. 1.”
The board voted unanimously to approve the Title IX updates.
Local school boards have taken varying approaches to Title IX, with the Spencer School Board recently voting to approve the updates, while the Loyal School Board voted to “abide by the federal Title IX law, but not the unlawful regulations currently being contested in courts throughout the U.S.” and to revisit the policy when the litigation is resolved.
Other board approvals Also at the meeting, the board approved a 66.03 shared services agreement with Loyal to have Kaila Fitzl come one day a week and deliver elementary guidance lessons. The Greenwood School District will pay 20% of her salary.
“The money will come out of a mental health grant we’re getting and it sounds like it will be an annual disbursement,” said Green.
HavingFitzlteachguidancelessonswillfreeupGreenwood school counselor Madelin Nikolai to meet with students one on one, or respond to situations that arise in the elementary or middle/high school buildings instead of being tied to the elementary building while giving lessons.
The board accepted several resignations, including that of Amanda Schlough as softball coach; Stacia (Jacoby) Oppman, who resigned from teaching second grade after accepting a third grade position in Stratford; Amanda Kosar, fifth grade teacher; and elementary music teacher Nick Peters, who submitted his resignation letter just before the meeting, before he started the position. The board also approved hiring Erin Shafto and Danae Stieglitz as substitute teachers.
The board was briefed on the varsity football schedule. There will be two home games at Greenwood and three at Loyal. Because Greenwood will have one less home game, the administration of both schools agreed to have the homecoming game at Greenwood. However, the two options for homecoming, Sept. 27 and Oct. 11, were originally scheduled as in-service days with no school for students. Green requested the board approve changing the Oct. 11 in-service day to Oct. 24, so students would have school on Oct. 11 and could have homecoming activities that day. The board approved that change. Green said it would be up to the student councils of each school to decide which homecoming activities were done together or apart.
As of now, parent-teacher conferences are still scheduled for Oct. 24, a no school day, but Green said he would talk to staff about what made sense for conferences.
The board also approved a new middle/high school social studies curriculum.
“Our team came up with a recommendation for the social studies curriculum that has more digital resources and should be more engaging for students,” said Noah Werner, 7-12 grade principal and career and technical education coordinator.
“It also comes with new textbooks, so it’s really the best of both worlds in that you get the textbook but also all the online resources. It’s a five-year digital license,” said Green.
The new curriculum will cost $19,000 and is being funded through Elementary and Secondary School Education Relief (ESSER) III funds.
Green said that Werner and social studies teacher Ryan Joten were also looking at possibly reordering the government and U.S. history courses, so students would take U.S. history first before diving into the intricacies of government.
“When we make the switch, we’ll have kids that already took the one that need to be accommodated. So it’s not an easy switch, but I think it’s worth exploring,” Green said.
Among other action items, the board approved a contract with Adult Development Services (ADS). Individuals from ADS help each year with vacuuming the elementary school after school and washing dishes at lunch. The price will increase from $69 to $71 per day to vacuum and from $33 to $34 for dish washing. The board unanimously approved the contract.
The board also completed the first reading of Policy 33.2.
“A lot of these are technical corrections or updates,” said Green. “For the valedictorian and salutatorian, it changes the semester language to trimester.”
The new policy will state that the valedictorian and salutatorian will be determined after the second trimester of senior year, and that in order to be eligible for these honors, a student must have been attending Greenwood High School by the third trimester of their sophomore year.
The policy change was prompted after there was confusion last year in the naming of the valedictorian and salutatorian, when the school had switched to trimesters but the policy still had language referencing trimesters.
“The way I look at it, it was four semesters that they had to be here, which is the equivalent of two years, but now it will be six trimesters, which is still the equivalent of two years,” said Green.
The board voted to adopt the Wisconsin ModelAcademic Standards as the district’s academic standards for the school year. This is a vote the board must take every year.
The board tabled a contract with Greenwood Bus Service. The contract would be for five years. The district is only three years into its current contract, but typically the contract is renewed at the end of the third year. The bus service requested that the new contract have a clause stating that if there were to be a mass shutdown, the district would continue to pay the bus company as long as it was receiving transportation funds. The bus company also wanted to have a clause stating that in the event Greenwood were to consolidate with another district, the contract would be null and void and a new one would have to be re-negotiated. Green wanted time to sit down with the Loyal School District and the bus company and come up with appropriate wording for the contract, so that’s why he requested the board table the issue.
Sick pay upon retirement discussion During public comment, middle school teacher Michelle Johnson requested the board look at its policy for staff sick pay upon retirement. According to the staff handbook, retirees are paid out $15 per sick day that they have banked, up to 110 days.
“We pay $16 to someone to sub just for one hour, so it just seems like $15 is a little low for a whole day’s worth of savings. Your subs are costing you $125 a day. I would just like the board to take some time before you approve it. I’m not retiring this year, but I’m looking at people who may or may not be retiring in the next couple years, and $15 — otherwise, personally, I’m going to take the sick days and it’s going to cost a lot more to pay a sub, you know as opposed saving them and being here, which as you know it’s a lot more valuable to have the teachers here.”
When it was time to discuss handbooks at the meeting, including for certified staff, support staff, elementary students, middle/high school students and athletes, Green addressed Johnson’s comment.
“I think the sick pay is something we can work through (the) employee relations (committee),” he said. “Because it is part of how do we recruit and retain people, and give them something to look forward to when they’ve completed their time here? The $15 probably is outdated. It’s probably all over the board, as far as what other schools
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are paying out.”
Board member Eliza Ruzic asked if the board should hold off on approving the staff handbook because of that issue.
“I think you should approve the handbooks, because the meat and potatoes are the same. As we evolve with sharing athletics, we’re going to have to change things anyway to make sure we are holding our athletes to the same or a very similar standard,” he said.
Ruzic made a motion, seconded by Luke Smith, to approve the handbooks and review them in November. That was approved unanimously. The board will at least revisit the certified and support staff handbooks at that time.
Administrators’ reports In his report, Green noted that the air handler installation was finished and he could already tell “a positive difference” in the building. He also said the school was able to take money from the athletics budget and purchase cushioned sideline chairs that would be a nice addition to the west gym.
He said interior summer projects were almost complete and now the custodial crew was working on exterior projects such as mulching, weeding, painting and cleaning trails at the outdoor classroom.
Green also briefly touched on a joint board meeting recently held between the Greenwood and Owen-Withee school boards.
“We were invited to Owen-Withee’s regular board meeting to open discussion about the possibility of opening our doors to each other, just as we have been trying to do with Loyal, to create a larger network of support for each other. This was simply initial conversation to talk about what kind of needs our districts are facing and how we can work together in the future to help overcome these challenges,” he explained in an email.
“My overall take was, it was a very positive conversation both ways. I think they appreciate us coming up there and sharing some things,” he said at the meeting.
The board agreed, but was not ready to schedule another meeting just yet.
“I kind of felt they wanted to talk with their staff and see what they thought,” said
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Greenwood board member Jamie Gardner.
The board did not take any action on collaborating with Owen-Withee and tabled the matter.
Recently-hired Elementary Principal Christy Zierer gave her first report to the board as principal. She said the school district was working on taking care of all staffing vacancies, including interviewing for the second and fifth grade teaching positions. There were three interviews scheduled for Aug. 1 and six applicants as of the meeting, including two from the Philippines.
She also said she was keeping up-to-date with her non-violent crisis intervention training, a requirement for her position. She completed half the training online and planned to do the other half through the Cooperative Educational Services Agency (CESA) on Aug. 2.
She and other staff members from Greenwood and Loyal attended a High Reliability Schools (HRS) conference recently. She said it was beneficial.
“A lot of the researchers I’m familiar with already, so it was exciting to see that,” she said.
She noted that Act 20 had been signed into law this spring, which will require a universal reading screener for grades K-3 that must be administered at the midpoint of the school year. She said she was working on coordinating a joint training on that, led by CESA 10, for Loyal and Greenwood staff members.
Zierer said the building was looking great and the elementary cafeteria was almost done being painted.
She also was planning on attending a restorative practices retreat on Aug. 7, put on by Rural Virtual Academy (RVA). Restorative practices are “an environment and style of discipline that holds our students accountable to high expectations while providing them the support they need to achieve it” (TheResponsiveCounselor.com). It is focused on fostering a sense of community in the classroom and offers specific strategies for how teachers should react to misconduct.
Green further elaborated on restorative practices.
“The training put on by RVAon restorative practices — we are required to send someone to that; it just so happens that it’s a really good training so a few of us are going,” he said. “It’s dealing with student behaviors and how do you manage, how do you get the root of the problem of what kids are facing and what kids are presenting teachers with and causing disruptions on a daily basis. So, looking forward to that.”
In his report, Werner shared some more about the HRS training Zierer referenced.
“Last year, we kind of focused on Level 1, which is the safe, collaborative school district. So we’ll continue that. It’s very important that Level 1 be in place before we move on to Level 2. But we’ll kind of do some quick checks and monitor that system as we move forward.
“Level 2 focuses on effective teaching in every classroom. That gives us a model of instruction that most of the PD (professional development) this year is for our staff. The language is to essentially create instructional language that, when you move from classroom to classroom, you’re hearing strategies that are similar. So we’ll work on that this year with our staff in our PD and in-service days.”
Werner also shared some testing data with the board, particularly in regards to ACT and pre-ACT tests taken at Greenwood. In 2022, Greenwood High School had an averageACT score of 20.4 out of a possible 36, ranking it 80th out of 511 high schools in Wisconsin. Greenwood’s averages for subject areas were: 19.3 for math and English, 20.7 for reading and 21.6 for science.
The state average for 2022 was 19.4. “The state average is typically in the high teens, low twenties and that’s trending down, if you kinda look across the state. Those numbers are what they are, but as we go with Level 2 of HRS, part of that is identifying priority standards, and a layer behind that is looking at the standards that are on those state tests. Not that if we have to focus on those particular standards, but if we’re missing something from a state assessment that is fairly important, we need to make sure we’re covering those things in there. We’ll talk about that as a staff moving forward,” said Werner.
