This meeting was noticed by way of publication in the Waterford Post on Thursday, September 17, 2026, was posted at the District Office (Door #7), and was published on the District's website. Minutes from the regular board meeting of July 27, 2026, are posted on the District's website.

"Where Futures Thrive" (formerly known as Women for Tomorrow) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group serving Burlington and the surrounding communities. Recently, WUHS was notified that three of its athletic programs were selected to receive donations totaling $2,000 from the Where Futures Thrive 5K event. Girls Soccer was selected to receive $1,000 from the event, and the girls basketball and gymnastics programs will also each receive $500. Representatives from Where Futures Thrive will present a check to the groups at 3 PM on Friday, September 25 at Student Services. 

At this time the board would like to invite any member of the audience to stand with comments about items of interest or concern that do or do not appear on the agenda this evening. Please begin by stating your name and address. It would be appreciated if you would limit your comments to three minutes so that we can keep the meeting moving in a timely fashion and allow others an opportunity to speak. We ask that you remember that Wisconsin law prohibits us from discussing specific employees or their job performance. Thank you for your support of our school district.

Following the Board's June 2026 request for course-level dual credit data, our Gateway partnership is strong by volume: in 2024-25, 433 students earned 1,895 credits and saved $381,013 in tuition, a 49% participation rate. But students earned only 20 industry credentials, and four of our top five courses are business and hospitality. AutoCAD Mechanical Design Tech is our only technical course in the top five.

Regionally, the twelve highest-enrollment technical dual credit courses across Gateway's partner districts drew 1,648 enrollments in 2025 — building construction (263), small power equipment (232), wood construction (184), welding (396 across three courses), automotive service (107), plus metal fabrication, mechatronics, robotics, and blueprint reading. Waterford appears once, with AutoCAD at 142.

The gap isn't student interest or course offerings, since we already teach woods, welding, automotive, and manufacturing. Those courses simply carry no Gateway credit, because they have not been articulated for advanced standing and their instructors do not hold Gateway transcript credit instructor status. Where we have done that work, as with AutoCAD, students fill the seats.

Recommendation

That the Board affirms a clear expectation that CTE courses with a Gateway equivalent move toward dual credit status, and strongly encourages every CTE instructor to pursue either articulation for advanced standing or approved Gateway transcripted credit instructor status.

The attached board policy revisions are presented for a first reading.

Highlights include completed D-Wing renovations and mechanical updates, boiler plant consolidation, exterior concrete, door, and window replacements, ongoing roofing and fire suppression work, and the new loading dock nearing completion in mid-October. The project is 100% designed and bid and roughly 65% complete, with 42% of contingency used. The total contingency started at $1,235,122, and we now have about $720,000 remaining.

The building's academic goal for 2026–27 centers on reading growth, measured through the ACT suite for a common metric across grades 9-11.

SMART Goal: By the end of the 2026–27 school year, 100% of students will demonstrate growth in reading from their Spring 2026 baseline to their Spring 2027 result on the PreACT Secure (grades 9-10) and the ACT (grade 11). Growth is defined as a gain of at least one scale point, or maintaining a score already in the College Readiness range.

Instruction will be anchored in three ACT reading reporting categories — Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure, and Integration of Knowledge and Ideas — using the ACT Guidebook (pages 12-15) and High School Strategies as the shared resource base, so reading is reinforced across departments rather than isolated in English classrooms.

The Board should know that several staff members volunteered summer work time to prepare, reviewing the reporting categories, building aligned strategies, and readying materials before students returned. That commitment came on their own time and reflects real ownership of the goal.