I implore you to reconsider your plan to repurpose Hooker Oak and stay with the status quo please value Hooker Oak for the amazing school that it has been and will continue to be if you allow it thank you thank you do we have additional public comment at this time just also a reminder that our public comment policy is 30 minutes we have a public commenter coming up sorry Julie uh it is 30 minutes so um I signed up for a speaker card but I think I signed up under the wrong section okay can you tell me your name please yeah Michelle Conquest I'll check it out okay can I start thank you hi I'm Michelle Palmquist I have a kindergartner at Hooker Oak and an incoming tker for next year in case you don't remember me from the last meeting I ended up at Hooker Oak by chance and we choose to stay at Hooker Oak by choice last month I sat through a very long meeting and listened to each person tell you the reasons why their school needs funding and updates we heard a lot of the same things it appears that our school and our program are now at risk not just our buildings but our whole program I'm back tonight to share with you what is unique and special about Hooker Oak I'm sure you know that we're a choice school no one is owned to go to Hooker Oak but each family applies to get in and chooses to be there we host many families throughout the district Hooker Oak is a great option for families interested in the charter like School environment but we're able to keep them in the district our our program I hate talking to you guys I'm sorry our program focuses on somatic learning and Community involvement our units are all broken out with the theme and Hands-On learning for each of these units the kids are never sitting at a desk but always learning and growing with their own creativity our school offers electives for all the grades music art garden and the kids really love them our kids are encouraged to share ideas and teachers support the creative minds of these young children I sat in a PTO meeting in October and one mom expressed that some fifth graders had an idea of doing a holiday store it was crazy because before I knew it the PTO ramped up an entirely new event that never existed before just because a few kids mentioned they were interested in selling their own products I was shocked that kids K through fifth grade had to apply for a space budget for their supplies and then execute their ideas one Saturday morning in December we had our very first sprouty business market and I wish you could have seen the Amazing Ideas these young entrepreneurs came up with Hooker Oak encourages parent involvement it's great for us to get into the classrooms and get to know the kids and the families I've only been at Hooker Oak for two years but I've already found my people we have play dates and Mom nights outside of school we're a community and it feels really good to be a part of it we also have looping classes the kids have the same classmates and the same teachers for two years giving students and families a great opportunity to really Bond and get to know each other this really helps the kids feel comfortable and learn to grow we would love to see some funding come our way but most importantly we want to stress the impact of our unique program that offers to this community and our children thank you [Applause] thank you [Applause] get up here hi I have some friends here my name is Beth geise and here are a few of my students Gwen and Evelyn and Gwen's sister who is in second grade at Hooker Oak good evening board members thank you for having us and thank you for letting us share our concerns tonight Hooker Oak has nurtured students as Stacy said since 1948 and we are a Cornerstone in our community our school benefits Chico by providing an alternative well-rounded education in an enriching Hands-On environment because of this style of teaching as Stacy pointed out I was it's a long it's a long one here I was recently honored with the California Council for social studies outstanding Elementary educator of the Year award and and because of that because of the way we teach I really think that was a big part of me receiving that award keeping our school open is the best way to ensure that the continued success of one of only one of two alternative programs left in this District let's talk about what makes Hooker Oak special shall we we are an integrated thematic Learning Community as others have said we include opportunities for our Learners to choose theme-based projects that tie into our standards and the curriculum this student-centered approach helps kids develop ownership of their learning responsibility and strong time management skills through family and Community involvement along with field trips our students develop a strong sense of their place in our community did you know that I have taken this fourth grade class on 17 field trips this year and I have three more to go three more to go and maybe four if one comes up that relates to what we are learning about this is an example of an integrated and thematic learning community and it is very powerful at Hooker Oak we loop as you've heard where I get to keep these two kids for a whole other year and hopefully someday I'll get this one in a year and a half or two years so we do loop I love looping I love connecting with these kids I know that I get to just start right off when they are in fifth grade and just hit the ground running right even after 26 years I still keep in touch with some of my former kids and I follow their successes such as we have a hooker Oak alumni teaching a first year writing seminar at Northwestern we have another currently studying Harvard at Harvard Divinity School another former student who is a Princeton graduate is now running his own company and my very first class at Hooker Oak we now have a sweet kid teaching at Chico State living here in Chico that is what a lasting impact is that is exactly a lasting an example of a lasting impact here students build confidence they reach beyond their capabilities family involvement and Community connections are made my own three kids attended Hooker Oak they're all very successful living in Philadelphia thank you that's your time I know what do we say do we say thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you let's go I'm seeing no additional public comment well there was one hand I'm sorry I didn't see it I can't see anything sorry thank you um yeah I just am we we have do we have a district person addressing whatever is happening in the back I have to wait for my time here to come back thank you and I do want to say thank you for letting us know we don't always see the everything that happens especially in the back thank you for letting us very difficult to see anything beyond the speaker for me so thank you um okay uh let's uh Mr Hanlon are you prepared for the next speaker okay thank you yes so thank you for letting me speak tonight I'm a current parent of a one hook Rogue student I have four older children who went to Hooker Oak as well um in fact actually my oldest son was in uh kindergarten first second third and fourth grade with best oldest daughter um Jennifer rosavich who is Educator of the Year this year was my oldest son's kindergarten teacher who's in attendance here today these are amazing Educators this isn't a program you can take and put on a different campus this is a community it's a home it's not just a school I lost my house up in Paradise Hooker Oak took us in I never have looked back since then and I'm supposed to be sending my TK student who unfortunately because of IEP limitations was not able to go to Hooker Oak this year he is scheduled to go to kindergarten there and it's scary to think that it's going to close and he's going to have to adjust and be sent somewhere else I don't know what else to say other than that that I'm just so happy to be a part of that community and I'm happy that I was able to get back to that family and I'm so thankful every day to be able to Traverse the miles to the school through other neighborhood schools to get there to drop my son off and he loves his school he loves his teachers and he's so glad to see everybody every day the older kids students the younger students that are there my goddaughter goes to school there we are a family and a community not just a school so I hope that you take the chance to do a walkthrough of our school and to see the amazing program that these amazing people have built for us please thank you [Applause] all right oh there is still time left I'm just making sure that there's no additional comments okay [Applause] I sent my public comment in via email but is there anything we can do for historical preservation for the school it's old that's all I got foreign [Applause] I already sent you guys a letter I am a teacher at Hooker Oak I have a TK student and two more that hopefully will be coming through the program after hearing all the comments tonight personally I ask you guys not to take action because if you take action to repurpose us where are we going to go there's no plan right now I would rather see a plan that shows we stay together as a program because we are a family and I worry that if you make the decision tonight then it's going to be well where are we going to put them we'll be scattered and just thrown anywhere that has space because looking at your numbers who has space for our entire program who at this point I don't see anybody so please do more research figure out what is your plan to do with us before you make the decision to get rid of our building for us thank you [Applause] are there any additional public comments okay thank you um I know I'm very stoic but I do always appreciate our public commenters um it's my job to keep a poker face I think uh but I could smile um okay so that being said sorry I'm getting a little uh Yancey um let's uh move to the portion where we we um call for a motion but I before I actually am calling for a motion um Julie Kissel was approaching the podium and I just wasn't sure if there was additional things that you had to say and and like I said there's there will likely be additional questions um so we do have a discussion portion once there's a motion on the table may I ask an additional question of clarification before we even absolutely I think that that's appropriate we could definitely ask continual questions for clarification for from staff I appreciate uh one of the last speakers because I did see the email about historic preservation question and I didn't bring it up I apologize for that and perhaps this is for Miss Kissel I'm not sure who else might be able to answer it um have We examined the possibility of historic preservation or any sort of uh historic status for the building and if not what's the process for finding out if it's eligible for such status I don't have an answer for that question it as far as I know has not been I did identified as a historical building for our town a new community we can research and get back to you on that information on how how that is achieved and what the criteria is for that thank you I would appreciate that I'm sorry that I didn't bring it up or what I don't mean to do a gotcha I just glad to slip my mind and I apologize to all of you for that I have a question for Miss Kissel um the Inspire High School idea populating Hooker Oak from Winston does that idea originate and do we have any idea if they have an opinion about Hooker Oak School and whether they would like to be there um the first question is how how did that originate so um Inspire School of Arts and Sciences is currently housed on the chico high school campus it has been for the last 10 years I believe under our facilities use agreement with Chico Unified School District um that facility does not meet the needs of inspire it lacks student dining it lacks storage it lacks many privacy student privacy issues and counseling and administrative services to the students um the district had decided on the board approved its use of portion of our property out on Bruce Road at our future Canyon View High School site and Inspire had plans developed plans and specifications developed and approved by the state of California to build their future school on that property however there is not enough funding available for them to implement their plan and it does not appear that they will have enough many with combined resources that they have to implement that plan anytime in the foreseeable future Chico High School in the meanwhile has facilities needs and a master plan of its own which intrudes on that property that inspires currently housed on so it is in Chico High School's interest Chico unified's interest and inspires interest to find an alternative location for them to be housed in the long term so that's how the conversation was generated would they like to go to Hooker Oak School I don't know if they would like to go to Hooker Oak School or not we have not had that conversation with them get would anyone from Inspire like to speak at this time in two more things so we'll be able to deal with that question of what to do with Inspire in a couple minutes I just thought I'd offer since we're making a decision that could affect them if they had anything to say it sounds like they don't I'm sorry Matt was this second part of your question you've given me enough information thanks okay thank you I have a question about how essential it is to or what is the level of essential wisdom that's not probably another word is it to make this decision right now tonight rather than if we were to ask you to go back to to bring more information to us in the future in a near future meeting um it's always of course possible for us to take your questions and bring back further information we are in the middle of planning our facilities master plan to bring back to the board in early May for consideration and approval so if this decision is put off until a later date and we're sent to do more homework and come back it just means that that date will be extended that will bring us into the summer break where we don't have as much staff and public participation so likely it will push everything into the fall would this affect drastically any of the further action items that we have on the agenda for facilities Master planning tonight some of them yes the prioritization of the elementary campuses for renovation will be affected you'll just be um having more schools to prioritize I'd like to get clarity when is Inspire going to opine whether they want to go to Hooker Oak School or not on the agenda tonight regarding inspires ability to build permanent structures on the chico high school campus or not so that could be an opportunity for inspire to weigh in on this topic if you wanted to wait until then I personally would like to do that this very much affects them and um you know I I respect the staff recommendations I think that you're dealing with real dollars and cents if you say that we've got too many elementary schools in the middle of the town and we're over capacity and can't afford to to fix every school to the degree that it needs to I'm inclined to think that you're probably speaking truth but um it's not fun to stand out here all alone you know as being the person who you know didn't go to hook a rogue I'm not feeling it the way that these parents are because I haven't experienced it the way that they have and I need to know who I need to know who's in favor of closing this in our community and um since Inspire High School seems to be a potential beneficiary to that I think that they should State an opinion so I'd like to hear that you know before I vote on it I just I'm I have a little concern about putting Inspire in that sort of position so I just want to in in to ask Inspire to come up here and state that they would like to take your school is not very fair at this time I think that what it would be fair sorry I would like you to please allow us to have our question and answer time and deliberation um yeah I think that um I don't I I have questions still but I don't know that they can be answered in this space right now um may I actually miss Robinson okay okay put me in line well I I would um is now a time when I can attempt emotion no ma'am because we still have whoa we still have board members who have questions of our staff so I've not called for a motion yet okay okay so my question is actually not a question for us staff um somebody that's a question for you um who's you you oh I'm not taking questions at this time yeah thank you well I'll take questions once there's a motion on the table um and I'm not called do you have a question for staff or clarification I guess where I'd like to see more clarity is um and maybe this would involve just making a motion to suspend action on this because wanting to more information about maintaining the Integrity of the open structure program and what that's going to look like if moved to an alternative location and um are they going to be considered a separate entity at the school location I just I feel like that would provide more clarity from for my decision so the question for staff is would we be able to ask for a draft plan uh for transition more clarity on some of these questions it sounds like there's a lot more questions from the board that probably are going to require a bit of research to bring back for not just the board but also the whole community um if it is that is that something that is something that you know there there's more information that could be provided if we can give that direction yes the facilities Department doesn't make uh educational decisions and implementation for the education side so we will partner with ed services to discuss different options of the how and the when and the where and report back to the board we could do that yes are there any more questions for stuff Julie you mentioned are delaying a decision pushing back other decisions and processing into next year if we delay a decision on that is is the question that was just asked for more information part of what would create that delay yes okay I call a motion may I yes thank you um because we all seem to want a little more clarification about this I recognize it on the current agenda this is broken down into six different action items um I would like to move that we temporarily suspend the rules hear all of the presentations on each of these items and then address them in order to presented four motions so that we kind of have a bigger picture of exactly what might go where second additional discussion so sorry let me repeat that the the motion is to suspend the rules and move through all of our items without taking action uh to hear the full scale of of what's being asked of us for decisions this evening we will take all the public comment on each item and then revisit them for Action um after we go through those seven one seven okay after 7.7 thank you and we have a second from um from uh member konkin any other input from the board before I call the vote okay seeing none I will do a Voice vote again because it's been a while so I'm going to start with member tennis dollby I Robinson I konk and I land away okay and with that I'm actually going to ask for a brief 10 minute break and then we'll come back and we'll move through that presentation um and those of you who gave public comment um about Hooker Oak we have had public comment for that item so you know we will take our public comment for the additional items after after the presentations thank you I call the meeting back to order we were on a brief recess Julie okay just just so we're clear we're going through the entire presentation at this time and then we will come back to 7.1.3 great uh will make some apology because the order assumes some action was being made on the previous items so there may be some assumptions in the ass that we have interim housing was brought up a number of times as one of the motivations for some of the recommendations we have the opportunity as we look at renovating the elementary schools to renovate them in multiple phases we're about to embark on that at McManus Elementary School and it's probably going to take about two and a half years to get through that because of the moving of students from newly renovated spaces and out of those spaces we're going to we've investigated briefly the ability to build on existing adjacent land I.E build on the fields while the remaining School remains operational as a way to shorten the timeline we heard loud and clear throughout our community meetings that the work that's been done has been great but it hasn't happened quickly enough and we discussed that last month as well to some to some length and wanted to bring back recommendations that would accelerate any kind of renovation or replacement and then the other was to um uh use alternative housing or interim housing to make that happen so replace or renovate if you recall we had four schools we called the quadruplets Parkview Rosedale Sierra View and Chapman because they are a similar existing buildings around the same era same the same bones if you will and so in the category of replace or renovate again taking two to three years to renovate in phases one to two years to rent to work on available land with maybe one building that needs to wait and the other is to relocate students together to an alternative location so our recommendation for interim housing was to replace versus renovate Chapman Parkview Rosedale and Sierra View and utilize Surplus capacity at Hooker Oak for interim housing and or building on that Surplus property or the field space where it's available to accelerate even potentially two schools at once to move in parallel and together and the other was to renovate Citrus and using the Surplus capacity at Hooker Oak for that renovation as well I have a question um when you say and or the or build on Surplus property for all or most of the campus buildings do we or do you already have an idea of which campuses those would be where the that could take place on site without extending the project time uh to too much we've done some preliminary test in fit and Rosedale Parkview and Chapman can get most of the way they are there might be a kindergarten building or a small building that would have to wait and Rosedale has that opportunity too it's just going to be in maybe a quicker phases to make that happen again the master plan just sets out a framework but early test and fits would indicate that obviously if we went to denser buildings or you know multi two-story buildings you could do it more quickly but we're using a traditional campus style similar to the work you have for the buildings you have here in campus Sierra View Chapman Parkview and Rosedale are the four we're recommending for replacement versus that two to three or more year renovation of existing buildings and that if you recall is because the cost of renovation of those facilities because of the code mandates is starting to approach the cost of replacement and with the ex the extension of the schedule starts to bump it over that replacement value I don't I just want to ask I don't think that that was her question if I interpreted it right yeah no I think her question was was a repeat of what the answer was to my question which is which campuses have the space to to build on site while maintaining the students on site so all four campuses have the space I won't say they're all equal in terms of how that space meets the future needs of the school so I would say that all four of them can do most of that work on the fields there might be one building that would have to be phased after some of the campus buildings are brought down there are other factors like I said density of the campus and other things so what I'm hearing is that without interim housing that those campuses if we were going to be building them in a shorter period of time the buildings would have to be built on already vacant land and so that really restricts the planning for the planning options for those campuses as far as entry and parking and streets Street facing type situations and everything you can also build interim housing like an interim portable campus if you will but I have a one of those projects right now going on and that's about six million dollars of investment that isn't going to the permanent solution is just going to a temporary solution your numbers might be different but it is something that does take away from the ultimate and permanent solution yeah I don't know if it would be helpful it would be a big ask up front for all schools but to to just take one of those schools as an example and say with option one a by building Surplus occupancy on-site to then bulldoze the current building and and rebuild there or close to there or over that footprint somewhat it would be this to just completely build the new school on that vacant land on that site which would be 1B would be this would basically be this cost on this timeline versus you know option two which is to relocate that that school for the 18 months to an alternative off-campus site those are sounds like the three options that we really are facing for each of these schools that are basically these six schools that are on this list if we're you know taking it all into consideration so um is that would you like us to I think it was I personally feel like it's asking too much to do to that for each site but it may be helpful to see an example to understand the numbers that are attached to those decisions because it's timeline wise right how long are we disrupting a school for us in terms of construction or moving them or you know temporary housing as well as the cost that the probable cost differences associated with those options what we were asking for tonight was the opportunity to utilize any and all of these options in the development of the long-range master plan so having these options in our toolbox then we're talking about the exact work that you're describing we'll be digging in to each campus and further exploring how can the renovations occur where are the footprints of the new buildings to occur what can be done within what timelines when we bring it back to you in May for review you would see which options were applied to which schools and why so tonight we were asking for the opportunity to use any and all of the options provided in our development of the master planning and we could potentially approve all of these options if they are available or come available without the assumption that we would actually vacate a campus we could say if there is a campus that is that becomes vacant that would be a big if so don't don't don't get upset about that but if then then the board has already approved that as a potential option and therefore here are the details I just asked for correct thank you so so the last item we were talking about is not dependent on this one but that one is that that option wouldn't pan out if we said Oh no just option one and two not option three correct it's very complex shall we keep going um are there any other questions about this this item yes of staff um so if if what I'm getting the answer to Caitlyn's question is if we give you a framework a global framework within which to do the the next step of planning that frees you to have to keep coming back to us for approving the next look and what it um if if we say okay take these four schools our our four that are the the top ranked and do what you can to give us a plan to get them built within the 18 months which is preferable that saves US money and doesn't disrupt the programs for as long um that would be a parameter within which you could work and come back to us in May yes okay thank you please the next one is the approach the approach to inspire the board has been asked by inspire if they will allow the construction of their permanent school at Chico High School in order to facilitate planning for their facility they ask is for the board to give direction on that Julie mentioned this earlier but as a reminder that area circled in red where the pointer is located is where the current Inspire campus is on Chico's campus and the building you see there in Orange hatched is the future master plan for Chico high school so it is the first Domino if you will to any kind of implementation of the master plan at Chico High School is Mr Williams still here he is not okay I'll just throw the question out there and anybody can answer that feels like it we have been investing a lot of grant money and uh Bond money and stuff in in doing something that has brought us some amazing CTE programs I've been visiting unbelievable what our kids now have available in the way of CTE options I've also visited at Chico High where some of those CTE programs both present and existing and planned are just kind of um two-thirds implemented because they don't have the facility that would make the program like you know some others that I visited recently so what what this area could be used for if Inspire isn't there is the build out of the buildings that are necessary to enhance the CTE programs at Chico high that are desperately waiting for space I see your head nodding Julie yes so we've had many discussions with Chico high school regarding the housing of their CTE programs off the top of my head the medical program is one that is undersized and they are not able to purchase the specialized equipment for instruction because they have nowhere to put it so that's one program also the sports medicine program the AG and natural resources program and several of the Digital Arts programs that are Career and Technical education at Chico high would be part of our our planning for the chico high school campus in hopes that we could leverage our bond dollars with State CTE grants in the future to expand those facilities and provide adequate education space for those programs thank you would that also open up it for improvements for our special education program at Chico High not under their career in education Career and Technical education grant program but yes the special ed program would be reviewed and accommodated as part of the implementation of their master plan I think my question was just if if we know yet or if this is a question that comes up down the line if opening excuse me expanding space for our CTE program out into that area where Inspire currently is housed opens up housing or ability to to improve um because is it my understanding that our special education housing at Chico high is a little bit um not not the most ideal or a little tight yes um in the J and K building the two-story buildings there's two classrooms that were specially constructed for special ed but as you know the program has grown over the years right now the sh program is currently housed in the I.T building and I had a phone call about that earlier this week we're meeting in early May to discuss accommodating especially one student that needs a lot of special equipment that equipment is is large and it's hard to accommodate in the space so we'll be brainstorming on how to accommodate um that program when uh in early May and can't wait until the master plan yeah and yeah right you have to master plan decisions have to be made and so is it also so it's it's also my understanding that inspires is seeking Direction essentially from decisions that this board makes um and what you're asking us to to do here is to determine if inspire would be allowed to move forward with building permanent a permanent School site on the chico High campus yes that's what we're asking and if we made that decision or when we make that decision one way or the other that will then give Inspire some guidance to move in a Direction well they will know that that um you know how that direction is provided they could either start their planning putting their resources together and their funding resources together to build at Chico high school or knowing that they need to find an alternate location to put those resources into okay thank you any other questions okay I think we can move on the next um piece is the impacts on school size confirming the special education assumptions we heard from your Special Education team but specifically focused on transitional kindergarten at the right sizing of the school sites and especially at Shasta Elementary School so confirmation a special education at the elementary school will have two special education rooms at each Elementary School and the campus and eight campuses will have additional space for the mod severe programs and that's what we're planning around right now for the master plan when we look at back at the model right sizing loading scenarios you could see that each of the campuses has transitional kindergarten indicated one less typically than the kindergarten for that 65 percent capture rate we were looking at the issue is if you recall from our last meeting we did a very complicated map of Shasta elementary school but it doesn't have space to add the transitional kindergarten that it needs for either its current population or a projected population there so we have two options at Shasta the first is to not add transitional kindergarten and let that campus rise to the large model of 672 students which is a little higher than where it is but the numbers align with that and the other is to add the TK which would in order to maintain that cohort through the um through the entire time would mean a smaller campus or a smaller population at Shasta so we're asking the board specifically on the issue of Shasta whether we want to go forward with a TK program there and understanding its impacts on model capacity I think we can move on okay and then this is just shows in red what they currently have at the site so you can see they're already pushing on the large size it's just that transitional kindergarten piece uh the prioritization um the board has saw at our last meeting the implementation plan from the 2019 master plan that if you recall was focused a lot on growth and dealing with growth especially at the elementary school level as you've heard over the course of these last two meetings things have changed demographically and so we're looking for changes to there's likely going to be changes in the implementation plan for the facilities master plan so this is the facilities master plan 2019 implementation schedule and that red arrow is right where we are right now which is McManus is going out to bid as the bar two above that arrow and the implementation plan had listed Hooker Oak as the next facility to be um to be handled I I will point out for the next item since we're not taking action on these there isn't enough current Bond money to do the Hooker Oak campus even if it was up in line so we'll be asking you for different um feedback on the remaining Bond dollars but you can see why the timeliness of this issue is important to the board we did want to bring back the prioritization categories that we showed earlier this happens to be the one sorted by condition assessment but we can go back to the ones sorted otherwise if if appropriate just to clarify what you just said the previous board that approved this facilities master plan timeline had prioritized based on need handling growth growth okay projected growth projected and some of those things those some of those projections have changed many of those projections have changed okay thank you keep going okay are there any questions about prioritization um the last issue is the one I just tinted at and that is understanding that um there is uh some remaining Bond dollars currently and uh as we [Music] gotta figure that out you awake I am there's about 50 million dollars remaining in this in the bond dollars right now five five zero uh five zero and the board has asked for I mentioned that Hooker Oak next up on the implementation plan there are aren't enough dollars to tackle that or any of the priority um elementary schools and so uh the board asked that we bring back recommendations uh those recommendations are to complete uh Safety and Security initiatives many of those are in process across the district but there's still remaining uh initiatives there you saw the student and staff surveys uh in our last meeting our restrooms always rise to the top in terms of what's needed on campuses so that recommendation that if we're going to wait some period of time to tackle schools can we at least go in and do some upgrades to restrooms implementing transitional kindergarten campuses that are not slated for replacement can we begin the process of transitional kindergarten expansion on those campuses addressing smaller renovation projects up to the board we we mentioned Citrus and we can talk about the reasons for that um but we wouldn't be investing that 60 70 80 million dollars at the Citrus campus and then um we would recommend you we defer the next phases of implementation as I mentioned to a future bond with perhaps allocating some funding to planning and design of those next up facilities sorry Caitlin um we would just be asking the board similar to the other item to evaluate those recommended options um and provide Direction on whether we could use any and all of those as recommendations for using utilizing the remaining 50 million dollars of measure e funds would this be something similar to when we had a menu to choose from with the SR dollars and said here's this chunk of money here's the estimated cost to do these items let's as a board we need to pick and choose you know from that menu list of items what to utilize those funds for or are you asking us I wasn't exactly asking for it that way I was more of a yes or no um allowing our Master planners to assist us in the allocation of those funds into all of those important items given the constraint of the 50 million dollars how far could we get on implementing those recommended priorities for those remaining dollars but it seems like we would need to know what the priorities of these five items are for as a board right if you were going to go that route rather than giving us a cost assessment to basically like like I had mentioned because it's fifty thousand fifty million sorry 50 million is is a fixed amount you know we can't just say yes please do all of those things because there's not enough money to do all of those things and so we will you will have to bring it back to us to determine which of those items gets done with that 50 million right yes in the draft master plan it would be brought back to you okay and so today would be this decision this action would be just about uh saying yes to explore all of those options or know take this off the table correct okay interesting okay that is it thank you it was very helpful to hear it all at the same time all right so that is my cue actually to pull it back around uh I'm gonna ask for any other further questions for clarification on the presentation I'm sure that it will also come back with further questions of clarification if we hit here anymore as we hear additional public comment Ms Robinson um presentations there was mention of if inspire accepts an offer to move to the Hooker Oak campus they have the ability because it's it's one of our facilities and our land to utilize money that is not available for them out at Canyon View did I hear something wrong only partially um the prop 51 dollars that Inspire has been lucky um to be approved the current the grant dollars do need to do need to be utilized on a field act site which would mean they need to be on a Chico Unified site or an approved California by the California Department of Ed as a School site both Canyon View and any of our campuses are yes ma'am grades that it's any upgrades that Inspire made to theoretically hookaroke would need to be that what you just said yes I.E more expensive right yes but they don't have the dollars to fund them without without it so okay hearing no further questions from the board um uh I need actually some input how we want to do public comment do we want to go item by item or just go through them all at the same time I I I'm stuttering okay um I think that I think that what I had originally said is that we would just hear the whole presentation open up for additional public comment um beyond the Hooker Oak discussion because we did hear the public comment for that um and so I'm gonna go through our list for um uh action item request number two which is 7.1 Point interim housing option approval um and then see if there's any remaining yeah 7.1.6 7.1.7 and some of those folks have spoken already um but I can also ask for additional public comment in this time so um for the sake of brevity unless the board decides to move against me and and roll me back uh I would like to set this at a limit of 30 minutes just like any other item um and uh go with who has already pre-signed up for public comment um so I have Olivia Phillips that signed up for the item 7.1.3 interim housing option approval is Olivia here to speak oh did you speak already okay um and then Beth spoke at the last for Hooker Oak no sorry very clever you must work with students with those smart workarounds um Emily um I'm gonna say it wrong weissner and the Michelle Palmquist spoke um and and those were all our sign ups so are there any additional folks who signed up on those items to speak to facility Master Plan update action items now is your time to step to the microphone okay seeing none um at this time I think I am looking for a motion of some sort on how to proceed for taking action um sure Mr Orlando Paul sorry guys um I'm gonna annoy everybody probably Julie the most sorry Julie um but this is a a big discussion there's seven action items here with a lot of different moving pieces um I would like to move that we schedule a special meeting to address only the facilities master plan topic and that we invite um both representatives from the elementary schools and Inspire as well as someone to talk about my one of our bond advisors to talk about planning for future funding so we can have all this facility stuff in just one place and not have to worry about it while we're trying to get through a bunch of other things as well I think that's uh yeah that's a motion special meeting for these seven items I'm gonna second your motion for discussion um so I just seconded it oh I second it Dolby seconds the motion um and I I don't know that yet I have a a specific way I want to vote but um I think I want to just hear um some information from staff about how that might look timeline wise and availability on the calendar so we do have a another board meeting scheduled for um mid-april I don't have the date in front of me um and then the 15th I thought it was the 15th but that's doesn't sound right thank you um for April 19th I don't know yet really all of that looks all of that agenda looks like if there would be even time to just put it there um or to maybe pick and choose actions to take tonight that we may feel more prepared to take and then the the lengthier ones to then ask to be brought back at the next board meeting if there's time to allow for that or if it would make more sense to have a special meeting and what time frame the staff would would need or would request for that tell you that your microphone okay the April 19th board meeting is a packed one as well so I think we'd be back in the same situation if we added this to that so we would be looking at the 12th is next week so that's probably a little too soon um although we do have all the information ready to go or the 26th if we wanted to do it in April would we be able to fit anywhere from one to three items about facilities onto that meeting if we were to make take some action on some of the items tonight and um and ask to postpone action on a few of the other I'd have no idea how that would go or if the board would even agree with that but just curious if that would be possible or if that really is just too packed to consider for on the April 19th this is a I mean obviously this is a big agenda item and we do have a full agenda but it it depends on if the board wants to start early and be committed to staying late again we can do that an alternative would be to find a special date to do a standalone special meeting as Mr Orlando has requested correct another discussion or questions from the rest of the board sure um these are all tough decisions however um staff has given us decisions that um have parameters so that they can come back and and work within the decisions that they have brought to us tonight and come back more ready for the next step of final approvals which is what we need to do to keep our timelines going so that if we decide to try and go for funding obviously we can't do this without funding means we have to go back to the public for another Bond there are timelines for doing that which are pushing us out into 2024.
nope that's not right from um one three two three tens and that's you know we've got blackout days in there um you know there was a break you know before and and at the end of the tell of that but my point of asking that question is that that's a lot um and also we just approved the last board meeting to increase our our budget for Subs to get more subs I'm just curious are we not getting Subs if we have this many instances and it seems like a long time but it really wasn't especially with blackout days foreign yes um vice president Anderson I can address that we are getting Subs but there are times when the sub pool is saturated because we use ESI other organizations other districts are using ESI as well and we may be in a situation where they're just covering one class and they have to do that based on the the we don't have the availability of a sub for just one class we would also save money by using that because then we don't have to pay a sub for a half a day because covering one class we have to pay a half a day so that's that is our dilemma still and other districts throughout the valley are having the same most of them are using ESI so we are basically still competing for the same Subs in our area I I know it's not an item for discussion it's just the um but maybe next time we get an update on Subs we can have further discussion on to what are some plans to remedy to us we can't keep putting this on teachers especially during not you know this I'm just saying this out loud I don't want to see this to keep just even one period what I see on here there are teachers that they sub multiple times over other teachers and I just that's tragic to see yeah and I'm sorry um I mean let's we could have that discussion maybe later but the question was maybe they want to they like to have that income or that additional time I don't know but God bless them if they they want to be in class during their prep we could find that out too we just get a spreadsheet in the morning be like nope show up to this class you're covering this class so I don't know if it's the same in Higley my second question is for another agenda item it's regarding uh 5.15 they issue damage with the increase that we're paying which is severely unfortunate um we're not losing anything any I wrote it oh gosh my words are words Services provided and um with that increase are we gaining any Services provided are they just literally taking money from public schools just so that we can have a graduation in their facilities Dr Philly president Schultz vice president Anderson they are raising the costs and there's new individuals there that we're working with I know that we have additional information about that as well um Dr Foley I know um Mr Lawson Heiser has been working closely to get further explanation maybe if there's any way we oh good you explain what you've been doing I know we've been it's been multiple conversations so we've kept them with the individuals this isn't something anybody's happy about yeah yeah vice president Anderson we started this process you know the the it says ASU damage really we're at the at the arena right and the reason we will like that is uh we don't have to worry about weather and we don't have to worry about space where we limit our families and so in the past the rates have gone up since I've started doing this six years ago it's continued to go up and then this year unfortunately I believe it was two weeks ago we got an email that said hey all of your prior points of contact are no longer your points of contact we have an additional point of contact now that has taken over that program and then they raised that estimated rate to us and so that's why we're putting that in there we'd have a meeting on the 13th with the new team from ASU and with our individuals from our high schools and myself so we can understand initially what they've said is their vendor costs security audio visual the custodial all of those different rates have increased and therefore they're putting that onto us and so that is that is why we're looking to expand that when we look at venues that are possible to fit the number of people that we need in order there's not many out there the sons Arena won't do it we could drive perhaps if we get a day to the Cardinals stadium but there we don't even know their costs Veterans Memorial Coliseum so really there's only 4 locations within the valley this is the closest one and this is the one that's been servicing our needs president Schultz vice president Anderson if you'll recall we've had these conversations multiple times when we talk about graduation our families like to be able to bring multiple people to there to the Celebration to the graduation and when we've when we host them in our own facilities and known you know football stands we have to limit the number of people who can come plus it's also very very hot so hence the in an indoor place where people can have air conditioning as well as as many individuals in the family come as possible has always been desirable however cost continuing to shift and change are in mid-stream are also frustrating and challenging obviously we're hoping not to have to change anything for our families for this year but it may cause us if costs and prices continue to rise as they are for future graduation ceremonies to have real serious conversations about whether or not we can continue to to accommodate the air conditioning and as many individuals as you want at a graduation ceremony because of the fact that the cost is prohibited and that's a reality of no matter where we go um that's just a challenge I I wasn't making a comment about having it there I think it is nice and I'm glad that we're doing it my just I was surprised by the increase so were we no of course um and do we not sign a contract when we commit to that space and it can we ask for a contract so that we don't get slapped with these um last year what they do is they give us a quote a general quote and then they updated that quote for us as we were putting in the PO and so that's why we're having this additional meeting to go back it's always negotiable a little bit because of the amount of people that can actually count who goes and so last year our total cost one school was at forty thousand the other schools at forty four thousand dollars last year because one school had more people show up and then they had us they changed their force on that ASU also a couple weeks ago because I got assignment they increased tuition so I would assume they sent all those at the same time so all of their costs for everything and I do know talking to my peer districts who also go there there might be one that you're associated with we all got the same letter said here it comes and so uh that's what we're trying to work through oh are all the I think I talked to Mrs Richards about this but that um possibly working with the other schools to see about a discounted rate for this year or something that's a little bit closer to our original proposal or have you heard from the other districts at all yet at this point um we've heard that they're having the same conversations that we're having okay and you know unfortunately we don't have a ton of Leverage you know we've we've promoted this our families are going to be there I would hate for a family who's having a large group fly in from out of town and then all of a sudden this switch and I have to say I give you four wristbands and come to the stadium I think that's where we're a little bit stuck on this year definitely what are we going to do next year that's where we have some leverage just if we can all say we're not going to go then you're not going to do it all the schools districts maybe we have some Leverage thank you thank you any other questions comments concerns okay uh second all those in favor uh all those opposed the consent agenda all those in favor of the consent agenda okay it passes five to one no worries I just I I didn't hear yes we did a lot of comfort a lot of conversation during it I mean five to zero I'm sorry five to zero excuse me all right moving on oh I'm sorry Mrs Johnson presidential members of the board I'd like to present Mrs Nicole Johnson she will be the new assistant director of human resources and she's brought with her her husband Mr Johnson um I she brings a wealth of Higley information and experience and history I look forward to working with her she also brings a wealth of human resource experience and working with others and relationships so we're so happy and excited she'll be starting with us soon thank you congratulations Mrs Johnson [Applause] I just want to take a quick second and say thank you to our donors the Higley instrumental Association for the hipe California trip sixteen thousand dollars for Higley High School thank you for that and again the Higley instrumental Association for the winter guard California trip as well the way oh and Central Christian Church for our Teachers Lounge at Chaparral for that so thank you very much to our donors and our gifts we appreciate that as well moving on to 6.1 information items presentation of benefits for fiscal year 23 24.
under special education you will see that the special education salary Surplus has been has been reduced to 36 682 for the year-round projections of sub costs special education benefits remain the same with the surplus of ninety one thousand three hundred fifty six dollars special education services had a deficit last month of thirty thousand dollars this has been reduced to zero with the use of excess cost funds the special ed supply line Remains the Same special other line remains status quo from last month with a deficit of 8 211 special education has ended the month with a surplus of one hundred and seventeen thousand eighty dollars under operations and overhead there is no change to the salary projections operations and overhead benefits line is now showing a surplus of twenty five thousand one hundred fifty eight dollars due to the final billing of our Workman workers compensation policy with surma the operations Services lines deficit of three thousand nine hundred thirty dollars has been reduced and is now showing a surplus of one thousand nine hundred twenty dollars due to the release of unused disability insurance funds operations and overhead other line is now showing a deficit of one thousand dollars due to the purchase of some necessary equipment all other lines for operations and overhead remain status quo from last month operations and overhead ends the month with a surplus of eleven thousand seventy eight dollars the overall budget is showing a surplus of 267 468 which is a decrease over last month mainly due to the purchase of software upgrades and the necessary costs of substitute coverage the remaining Surplus is still largely due to savings and salaries and benefits we are still anticipating a second excess cost payment in early May Since the special ed services line is already expended the second payment will not impact the budget with additional savings as the money is already allocated for unbudgeted additional expenses for nursing and the aid for one of the special needs students with regards to the year-end budget we meaning Brandy and Kay will be meeting with department heads this week to start discussions on year end in regards to the budget they will work with them to determine what funding is needed to get us through June and whether or not surplus funds are to be utilized for any wish list items my goal which I the goal is to get the majority of our spending squared away by mid-may community school so at the June finance committee meeting they will have a best estimate of our final numbers then at the end here we have 2023-2024 budget proposals health benefits first proposal represents the budget revised with only one family plan cushion for health dental benefits the proposed budget number would be an increase of 2.46 percent for an overall budget increase of 178 904 dollars second proposal represents the budget with zero cushions in place for health and dental insurance benefits the proposed budget number would be an increase of 2.06 percent for an overall budget increase of 149 961 as a reminder the current proposed budget with all cushions in place is at 3.58 percent for an overall budget increase of two hundred and sixty thousand nine hundred and two dollars anybody have any questions okay when you go back into department heads what's your wish list what is your goal last year's budget or any things that have come up as a result of students coming into you know we one of our potential wishlist items would be something like if we have to if we don't have our reading waiver approved we we would wish this item you know you know any reading program so it really depends on finding additional softwares it could be specialized equipment it can be any number of things and so they come with their request request books and all of those things and then Randy Knight and we look at whether or not it's actually something truly truly necessary stuff we have another slide on the playground or prioritized and then we discuss them amongst ourselves that well my second part of that question is have we given any thought into funding of teachers I have a dream um I know every teacher in every class has that thing that they would love to have that would make the experience students much better have we given any thought into polling each individual sixth grade the fifth grade we figure out what the teachers want to make their experience in their day better and actually let's reward them for the work that they do here I mean simple thing at work you know they came to us with money and they said hey we got some extra money what do we want you know what a poll with 12 guys wanted 139 water cooler and a refrigerator have we given any thought to doing that let's find out what the teachers want not what Fred wants not with facilities I would like to know what that our staff wants by great and come back to the board that would be something that would come can we see that I would love to see what the teachers will like I was up the staff specifically are you thinking grade level or teacher by teacher I would say let's pull the grade they have to work together and if they can achieve a common goal of something that they each want come with a proposal I'm good with that okay well let's let's focus on what our staff needs to do their daily thing they all want something to make the experience better in their classroom and I'm pretty sure it's not a large number so I would love to know what they all want by Drake yeah it was um one of the overages that you mentioned something about schoology Power School cost what's that I know a trilogy empowers but what's the cost that all of a sudden um additional modules so we're getting oh so you're starting that now as opposed to next year okay yeah when you save money going into 23 24 and 24.25 hey just a move to get away from like Google and Google classroom and just start the transition so it's all One-Stop shopping and it's also One-Stop shopping for teachers with some of the additional modules okay thank you move the Board of Education to accept the report of expenditures and adjustments to the 2022 2023 operating budget through March 31st of 2023. hi opposed no motion first we need a motion she made the motion [Music] everybody in favor of accepting the budget the operating budget through March of 23rd 31st and 2023 say I I opposed State here we go [Laughter] okay on to negotiations we have not met recently but we are we have a few dates coming up soon for fire negotiations first meeting of teaching about teacher negotiations for staff so that is coming up and we'll hopefully sorry Kim have something to report soon on that policy Lynette is not here but I know in our agenda we'll be talking about some of the revisions and our first readings so that will come up transportation reports there is no unfinished business for us to go over at this time and your new business healthy food option is recommended under new business pursuant to Connecticut General statute section 10-215f the Bethany Board of Education certifies that all food items offered for sale to students in Bethany Community School and not Exempted from the Connecticut nutrition standards published by the Connecticut State Department of Education will comply with the Connecticut nutrition standards During the period of July 1st 2023 through June 30th 2024.
its collection needs to serve all of those students not every book in every library is for every reader that's why there are so many of them every student deserves access to books that reflect who they are their experiences their feelings they need books that they can relate to it's empowering inspiring and affirming to see characters going through what they themselves are going through also every student deserves access to books about characters and experiences different from their own to develop understanding and empathy and kindness what is appropriate for one student is not appropriate for all students libraries should not limit their collections to one kind of student or one age of student a high school collection that only contains materials for example appropriate to ninth graders does not serve its entire Community it serves a small fraction of that community it goes without saying every parent has the right the responsibility to determine what their child consumes for media and reads in books that goes without saying it is not every parent's right to determine what other people what other people's children are reading or what is appropriate for them if there is a book that a parent does not want their child to read then they shouldn't be allowed to read it but that doesn't mean that nobody else is thank you okay next up is Mary capiello this is capiolo Mary Cappiello 135 Candlewood Lake Road good evening thank you for all that you do for our students teachers and staff how do you raise children to be great readers with Rich vocabularies you let them read how do you raise children to have advanced reading comprehension skills you let them read how do you raise children to be creative you let them read how do you raise children to be problem solvers you let them read how do you raise children to be critical thinkers you let them read how do you raise inquisitive children you let them read how do you raise children to be interested in history or far-off places they may never visit you let them read how do you raise children to be kind caring supportive and empathetic to all people you let them read how do you raise children to know that what we all have in common is so much greater than our differences you let them read you might opt your child out of reading something but you let other people's children read you let them read thank you [Applause] okay um next up is Mr Korea where are you um you're up next but we're on a roll on books do you want to go now or do you want to wait to the end since you had a different topic huh I'll leave it to you okay and Mrs Korea yep foreign Korea 45 West whiskey near Road I'm here to discuss the condition of the BHS guidance Wing roof I attended parent-teacher conferences at BHS on March 9th and was shocked that the number of buckets collecting water in the hallway not only their buckets but missing and heavily stained ceiling tiles all along with missing floor tiles and stained walls from water seepage I can only imagine the damage I could not see above the drop ceiling and the possibility of mold growing in the building I watched the board of selectman meeting this past Monday on April 3rd when a board of education member presented the history of the ceiling condition at BHS the district was made aware of necessary bhf Roofing repairs in 2017 by Techtron that would be eight hundred thousand dollars in roof work that would need to be budgeted even though it was carried in the budget in early 2021 conditions deteriorated in the guidance wing the Boe brought forth 325 thousand dollar appropriation for the guidance Wing repaired repairs the beer we waited to send out an RFP in July 2022.
this is 25 more than our state's average for example in one of my classrooms at the beginning of the year we have problems getting enough chairs in these desks to ensure all students have a seat there was basically three students to a table which basically happens table at one point and students shouldn't have to worry about finding a place in the classroom they should only be concerned about their education especially for those who mandatory forces such as Civics and Capstone that are overflowing with students just when I tell Tina imanson graduate funding is not only needed within our classrooms but most recently aligned with me personally so I don't know if you've seen this this is my wonderful Grace right here I had just under my ACL reconstruction not even two weeks ago one type I had chosen to go back to school I was welcomed to the industibility of Danbury High School between broken elevators and given being given keys that didn't even work for the first few days that's been definitely a struggle that it's on top of coming back from surgery there needs to be accessibility for all students including temporary Arts yay but for the students who don't do not have the privilege to be like as well as the fact that all students deserve the opportunity to be educated without having to worry about those simple aspects of getting around to the classroom this deals with the caution and inability feel safe in school whether the irking experiment of wondering if I'm going to make it to class endocrine or if I'm going to get pushed around in the hallway due to overcrowding thirteen thousand one hundred twenty three per student is not enough we are so much more than collecting from our city we deserve the recognition from you the Board of Education and our state representatives as we all just want to fulfill our high school experience to be well-rounded students for my extracurriculars such as Sports and clubs for classrooms that open A New Path for PhD and knowledge thank you for your time thank you for your family and consideration I hope this is a new step to our beginning a new beginning that is interpre solution for just one year it needs to be permanent for it to actually make a change thank you guys [Applause] hi my name is Eileen um I'm a UNICEF officer at Danbury High School but most importantly I represent the significant portion of students of the student body in Denver high school for a first generation low-income students I'm speaking on behalf of students involved in the public school system when I say that your primary focus should be on already established public schools that lack basic necessities and services like guidance rather than expecting 600 000 on charter school buses you should fund the necessary academic and emotional support for students in public schools all students need to have the same opportunity regardless of economical and social see all the sociological factors yet the students at Danbury High School are not afforded that opportunity because despite having 3340 students Danbury High School only has 13 counselors at DHS 300 students are assigned to one single counselor which is contrary to the American Council association's recommendation of a 250 to 1 ratio it is even worse for the middle school students who have one counselor for 375 students more so at the high school the distribution of the students is inconsistent so some counselors take on a greater number of students the classes get overloaded and frequently one at a time to meet with the students the excessive amount of students prevents counselors from fulfilling each student's needs this increases the burden on students in high school particularly during the college application process even if a student can get by without a counselor throughout High School they still need to establish a connection with them for college recommendation letters however many many students fail to do so which puts them at a disadvantage when applying to colleges in addition to failing low-income students Denver High School is now fulfilling its El population we help students make up one-third of the student body at Denver high school because there is a significant language barrier in education for English Learners they require extra attention only two of the 13 counselors work with the ell population this is shocking because Danbury High School takes pride in its diversity yet we are feeling the students who are from other countries and we are not providing their resources last but not least high school can be a pretty intimidating environment as we become more conscious of the world the world around us we are more prone to up to facing problems and our teenage hormones only make the situation more stressful High School is meant to be a safe a safe place where we can discuss these issues and come up with Solutions yet without guidance from responsible adults these issues spiral out of control and become much greater issues as evidenced by the rise in fights and social emotional issues at Danbury High School students deserve better mental health support at DHS that can currently be provided with insufficient staff to adequately counsel students as it is how will the school be able to address behavior issues many of these fights might have been averted if someone like a counselor or a social worker have the time to listen to the student's concern or form group discussions will run social emotional Circle groups or Council students one-on-one even more significantly students would feel safe in their learning environment think for yourself thank you good evening professional and use a paper but I have a conservation um hello board members I'm a junior at Denver high school so first I do want to say that we appreciate your time and consideration on the financial decisions meeting the very things that make us up as a student body the very things that allow us to express ourselves and grow into responsible adults adults that overcome representatives of Denver on a personal level I'm a part of theater at Denver High School you may be familiar with last year's sales assistant or this year's recent collection of constantly mattress I came into high school at a quarantine completely confused theater was a place that I could express myself and my compassion for music and feel free to be the person I am but to imagine something the whole fall apart because a lot of fun for all of you something that motivates something that gives you fulfillment so think for a moment what it would be like to lose that to get it taken from you because of something that you lack or something that your community lacks something that Community can't can hear me [Music] you said here today because deadly should be a community where students can come and receive resources that allow them to crush we need funding for our ell students we need toilets that work and don't flood the bathroom floors we need AP classes that get our students to excel we need our clubs where we feel United with our school water fountains that don't pour hot water stairs that aren't probably never cheerful one of them is we haven't been holding rallies Gathering petitions sending social media posts and attending meetings atomologists to have fun we are here fighting for the funding that we deserve that our school deserves not only for us but your kids our kids our grandkids your grandkids and a community as a whole so we asked you tonight to make the right decision and find us we can continue to be 169 at 116 School thank you anyone else left in the audience that would like to come up with participate so wheelchair before I jump to the general Lefty when I take this opportunity again to myself this last night but I also want to say this evening thank the students for their advocacy for the for the general budget or the Danbury public school district amazing example of Civic discourse over these last couple of days and really appreciate your participation in this process so a couple of General updates for the board and for the community let me just start with adults and continuing education we have a new director starting with us in May as we need this main course that May 5th his name is gray reducci thanks his name is and he is reducing and Rick is from Milford Public Schools and you joining us on in May like I said we he's been in District with us for the last few days working on a submission of the grant to the state of Connecticut really excited about his arrival in town he has a currently working in Milford as a part-time teacher and part-time Adult Ed director knowing that we had a full-time position available here I think that's why we were able to secure them here at Danbury excited about his arrival he has a currently we spoke with his uh advisors number one they shared with us whenever we were getting a gym a director but also shared with us that it's going to be very they couldn't imagine how they were going to fill these shoes so their loss is our game and looking forward to finding time for the school years out to introduce them to the reward um the the next item Danbury High School attentive graduation date so short of any unexpected whether related delays during the break or when we first come back we are projected to have our last day of school on January 15th season okay sorry yeah last day of school is June 15th and high school graduation will be June 14th again those are tentative um we will be back in front of the board in our first board meeting in our first board meeting in our next board meeting in this campaign sorry April 26th and at that time it will be up with more consideration to the boys consideration to adopt so again last day of school tentatively is June 15th and high school graduation in just June 14th so I'm really excited about those two deals and last but not least many of our board members are already aware of this we have some new board members that may not have been familiar with our Coda event encoder Festival that happens here in the district annually every year and so last year first year as a superintendent year I had the pleasure of working with with these two young ladies who were in the audience they're going to come up and talk about Coda they are our department heads one through a music and one for Fine Arts k-8s and that's Rachel way in jail Russell and they're going to come and talk to us about Dakota event in which all of our board members are certainly invited but they can share the details with us and we're already there one there's only one chair there so you guys are going to prepare people on the other space as he was staring at the microphone please come on up thanks [Music] and she was introduce ourselves but I think that you call this one it goes younger good evening thank you for having us here many of you from other faces I am Rachel Lee Ka department head Joe Russell Center music department head for the past two years Joe and I really have taken the lead organizations yes please we want to hear everything in yourself normally no we're still in front of children um so we've taken the lead on organizing Coda and it continues to be an amazing event and though Kevin already invited all of you we were going to importantly invite you to come on May 20th it is now back at Danbury County school which we really feel is the place event that is K-12 so it represents all of our students in the district we continue and I've been in the district for 20 years when we were first but at first evolved or when I came in it was a Marjorie Chapman show so only the video so it really has evolved over the past 20 years to an amazing celebration of the visual music DTE ROTC we have our Community Partners that support us through this event they come out and we want so um what's really exciting about this is that we are you know we're talking about student Community event and that's what um and that's what the Arts do they run the community every member of last year we just need to do the feeling of joy to encoda and bringing everyone together and we're excited to bring that back together and have a lot of the community vendors our former career till 11 has a Care Group and it runs from fatherson read hello [Music] um what is the date again thank you it's a great great it's a great event I'm glad it's back at the high school but that's a that's a great venue to have today you'll be if you've never attended the constant concerts and and stuff going on there it's it's pretty pretty amazing thank you [Applause] all right and so while two chief of schools are joining us this evening to talk about their work with our principles this revive typically 8.
I feel we ought to be ready tonight to make some decisions within the parameters that we've been presented I think it's time we Fisher you know so that people know what the heck they need to do moving forward and um that's my position I agree with that Julie um from the from the questions that have come up particularly surrounding the girl decision and or that that process how much time would you need or your staff need to be able to respond to some of those more direct questions about what does what does a plan for the hook rope program look like if the board were to to take action on on that campus um for example I know that was one thing I'm pretty sure I saw you jotting down notes on some of the questions we felt like we need some more information about um I am sure there are at least some board members who feel like there's um and definitely what we've heard from public comment tonight that there are some questions surrounding that particular action item that that do need just a little bit more context for what the next steps or what that what that decision will look like moving forward um because it does feel fairly um intangible right now if that makes sense so I don't think there's any doubt in the chico Community about the value of the open structure educational program that's provided here in Chico I heard a lot of fantastic people up here talking about the teachers and the curriculum and there's no doubt that that's all very very true I can only stand up here in front of you and say that the district would make the best choices possible about where to place that important program for its future viability for families and for students and for the teachers and principal and staff at the school um I don't know how long it would take to bring back a plan because the plan isn't up to me to decide we would need to work with ed services to discuss you know how how that would happen I do know that everyone that has discussed this topic has mirrored that same sentiment that I just stated about it being an important program I think we heard at the last meeting from several of the representatives from all of those elementary schools that are still needing upgrades some of them said well just just tear our school down let's you know tear it down and build us something new that it really speaks to the condition of some of these schools in bringing that that item to the board for discussion I had asked the master planners to help us to come up with a way to spend the bond dollars more swiftly to support our promise to the voters the taxpayers of the community and our ability to implement facilities upgrades for all of our students and have equity district-wide for all of our elementary school students so that all the students have the same opportunity to learn in a new clean environment so I'm the culprit I ask them to come up with a way that we could Implement these projects in a Swifter way so that we're Implement we're impacting more students in our district faster so that's where the idea came from may not be a question for you Julie I'm sorry we've been talking a lot about the timeline for a new Bond does anybody know it when the heart next heart deadline is in terms of like when would we have to have a master plan that we all felt comfortable with that was approved in order to go out for a bond in 24.
Ms Johnson I didn't turn that on okay I turned this on all righty so we have a presentation of our benefit update for our employees this coming fiscal year effective July 1.
this certification shall include all food offered for sale to students separately from reimbursable meals at all times and from all sources including but not limited to school stores vending machines school cafeteria and any fundraising activities on school premises sponsored by the school or by non-school organization organizations and groups any information following them you need to provide to work they'll comply with and move the Bethany Board of Education improve the Connecticut State Department of education's healthy food option detailed above for the period July 1st 2023 through June 30th 24. all in favor say aye and then second so so I'll make the motion okay everybody in favor say hi hi everybody opposed any abstentions [Music] okay it is recommended doing your new business this is regarding the exemption for food and beverage items the Bethany Board of Education will allow the sale to students of food items that do not meet the Connecticut nutrition standards and beverages not listed in section 10-221q of the Connecticut General statutes provided that the following conditions are met one the sale is in connection with an event occurring after the end of the regular school day or on the weekend two the sale is at the location of the event and three the food and beverage items are not sold from a vending machine or store an event is An Occurrence that involves more than just a regularly scheduled practice meeting or extracurricular activity for example volleyball games and school plays are events but volleyball practices and play rehearsals are not the regular school day is the period from Midnight before to 30 minutes after the end of the official school day location means where the event is being held and must be the same place as the food and beverage sales information to that again that's the exemptions for our events so when we have spring clean and different things okay those are not foods that we're getting from Chartwells but they're still okay which I know I knew and probably our board members but I wanted to make sure that anybody in the audience watching also can I get a motion okay sure awesome Angelo okay so now I'll move the Board of Education approve the Connecticut State Department of education's exemption for food and beverage items detailed above for the period July 1st 2023 through June 30th 2024.
once three bits came back higher than budgeted I'm quoting the Boe here we decided to wait the roof is literally a sieve and the Boe decided to wait the price has since increased even further and because the Boe decided to wait students must navigate buckets on their way to class and be careful not to trip on missing floor tiles this is a disgrace every Boe meeting the members sit at this table talk about new elementary school and tour Azo floors while 900 students and staff at the high school work around these terrible conditions this board and administration repeatedly State world-class schools this is clearly not the case for our high school students this board and administration have kicked the can down the road too many times this board has moved forward with Paving the locker room projects while the weather Integrity of the building was literally failing in front of them one of the core statutory responsibilities of all Boards of Education in Connecticut is to provide well-maintained buildings and you have failed your high school students and your staff with your decision to wait thank you foreign coffee hello Sarah coffee can you hear me yep thank you uh 116a Tower Road um I do want to say before I start that my daughter tends to read her library books before she gets home so I don't really know what she takes out of the library um to your point but um anyway we we hear it every day as parents Educators and health professionals and we live it kids are becoming more and more withdrawn there's a significant increase in depression and emotional issues byproducts probably in large of a society that idolizes sexuality and emphasizes sexual identity introducing it at younger and younger ages and inserting it everywhere you turn and in our school libraries mature content is not processed the Same by an adolescent mind as by mind of an adult when kids become desensitized to graphic sexual images and wording and when it loses its shock value there's a moral shift that puts a child in way of potential harm and maybe this is my background but um I I think of a victim here how does an adolescent brain differentiate between the appropriateness of viewing graphic images and sexually explicit material in a school library and sending that same type of content of themselves via Snapchat or text who's there to tell these kids and explain to them why one of them is okay but the other behavior is risky can destroy your life and is illegal according to state law if a student at BHS made a copy of one of these pages of the books and handed it to appear and it made that peer feel uncomfortable that's considered harassment but it's confusing because it was content from a school library per federal law exposing minors to obscene images whether drawings photos videos paintings or even cartoon imagery is illegal say some adult on social media starts messaging your freshman the conversations begin to escalate sexually and those blaring warning sirens that are supposed to go off in their heads are not there they no longer exist because the adult author that they read in the school library talked about the same thing by allowing easy access to sexual content we are misguiding our most vulnerable and precious population and setting them up for potential trauma that cannot be undone is there no other literary content that can expand Minds strength and character support representation and help build positive relationships that does not contain pornography and don't we owe it to our children to make it a priority to put those books on the shelves so I'm asking the board to just share in my concern and the concern of 282 other parents most of them who could not be here tonight I know you said as a board member at board members there's a process we can't ask you to remove the book because that's not something that you can do but I'm sure you will be hearing from about 282 people on how to start this process these books should never have been allowed in schools in the first place and it's really disturbing to think about what could be appropriate in 10 years if we do not draw a line in the sand thank you all right thank you next up is uh Mrs Adventure I'm gonna I'm gonna mutilate this Mrs ventresca did I get that right okay thank you I am Kristen ventresca of 23 Arapahoe Road I am a former educator a mom of three and a resident of Brookfield for 20 years I attended whiskey air middle school as well as well as Brookfield High School when my husband and I had the opportunity to stay in town to raise our three children and have them attend school and the district and Community very near and dear to my heart it was a very proud moment for me needless to say the decline in morale and honestly lack of common sense that I've witnessed over the last few years when it comes to educational decisions made for our children has made a once very proud moment and extremely upsetting one my oldest son is currently in kindergarten learning the basics of how to read how to write how to be a kind Community member within his school to his peers but at this rate once he reaches westmere the high school God forbid Candlewood Lake Elementary not only will he be learning how to write a five paragraph essay he'll now be able to go to the school library and access pornographic reading material virtually and physically all it'll take is a few clicks to access an ebook in our catalog find the book this book is gay fluff to page 171 where he can learn tips such as and I quote a gentle spring Breeze can be enough to inspire a stiffy in a super sensitive organ but keep in mind sex doesn't begin to end with your dick be creative or up your bum you have a prostate gland which feels nice when massaged the anus is also sensitive in response to being played with or he could pick up the book Funhouse and see sexual images of two girls having sex while commenting that one another tastes delicious almost like peaches it's cringe-worthy and it hurts me to read this in front of adult as an adult to a group of adults and I see similar reactions in this room tonight how can we possibly believe that children can appropriately handle this material let me make myself clear this is not an attack on the lgbtq community any political party or any identity sexual preference and I find it absurd that people are even taking it there I would just be disgusted and Disturbed in material that was just as explicit regardless of it being homosexual or heterosexual material Bottom Line This is pornography never had a place in a school setting it is not the same as book Banning this is not teaching safe sex practices this is not how to respect people of all kinds both of which I strongly encourage this is straight up pornographic material never had a place in a school library or an online catalog for our students 18 and under access when they access outside of school is beyond our control I'm not naive but if signing up for a porn related subscription site requires you to be 18 the news say the books containing the same material have no place in the school with our children all underage it should be straight up illegal which sounds like it is I know we're not the only District dealing with this situation but I certainly hope that Brookfield makes the moral decision to put some sort of audit and system in place for how these books even wound up in the hands of our children we need to do better foreign [Applause] thank you Mrs Lopez hi Elena Lopez nine summer pasture Lane as we speak our school district is providing access to sexually explicit material to our minor children without parental consent if two consenting adults were reading books like these graphic novels in their place of employment and a supervisor walked in it would be considered sexual harassment we create laws that protect adults from being exposed to uncomfortable and unprofessional content in their place of work so how is it possible children aren't afforded the same rights in our schools shockingly there are community members fighting to keep vulgar content accessible to all minors in the schools parents who want to have access to such material have the right to bring their children to a public library or to purchase it which is why referring to this as book Banning is completely false if we were to snap our fingers and remove all this content from the school library tomorrow please understand those parents have access and options but what choices do parents like myself have at the moment none you tell me I can block access by blocking it from being rented by my child but all that does is stop the material coming home for me to see this content being accessible in a school even if rented by other students could be shared with my children in the school hallways in their classrooms on their buses also if a few parents advocated for all children to have access to Pornhub on school Google Chrome Chromebooks would you allow it there's a line it has been crossed are there sexually active teenagers yes I don't deny reality but there are also teens who smoke pot yet to my knowledge our school libraries don't contain graphic novels on how to build and use various types of bongs the only anatomical images in the school should be scientific in nature and handled during health class when proper discussion on the topic can be insured currently Health curriculum is shared with parents who can opt their child in or out of health class based on their beliefs on how to have those conversations it is imperative that a district provide a safe Public School environment with standards for Content which is inclusive of families like mine I was going to ask for the the complete review and removal of any sexual explicit books after hearing Mr belden's comments I am going to ask that the board set policy on book standards immediately I'd say that there's a level of professionalism in decorum that is lacking in our school libraries but it's more than that this is sexual harassment of our children in their place of work their school this is dissemination of pornographic material to minors both are illegal and a huge liability for this District this is a massive conversation about what's right and what's wrong and one that I can't believe we even have to have [Applause] this is perversion this is grooming and the parents of con and concerned citizens of this town have had enough we will not be silenced and roll over as you Aid in desensitizing our children so they can be easier targets for pedophiles and can you if you could finish your thought you're over here three and let me be clear a stance of inaction by the border the district will be [Applause] next up is Mr Hoffman good evening my name is James Hoffman H over Road I would like to speak about the books our children are being exposed to in the schools I'm coming to you as a 15-year educator from teaching health education sex education and currently I'm a district-wide administrator in New York I have witnessed firsthand that inner workings of what's taking place within the nucleus of the school districts I'm not coming to you as someone from the outside I've been inside the graduate programs with two masters I've been inside the schools and what is happening this goes deeper than most are aware hence why many politicians are against a parent's Bill of Rights I am against these non-educational books that are in our schools and or the library to be anywhere near our children if someone could please explain the value the educational value I'm listening I'm all for inclusive resources this is not about diversity it's porn this book along with others have no educational value but have serious potential harm moving forward I just want to give you insight to What A Book Like This along with other factors can lead to we are on very thin ice handling in the most delicate of life our children it's just a book what harm can cause here's just a summary of some potential serious ramifications as history has proven if the goal is to destroy the family sexualizing the children will help in reaching that goal in America there's an agenda to educate children to accept sexual content in their lives and early impressionable stage in the name of Freedom children are being exposed to erotic images and encouraged to engage in sexualized Behavior think about a bill they tried to pass for mandated sex ed which would have had no opt-out we wouldn't have had a choice if that passed is it making sense yet promoting early sexuality in children and then sending them back into what is a non-sexual environment their homes places pressure on the parents and siblings that was not present before in the most vulnerable populations a sexualized child may be forced out of the family or worse create damaging situations within the family where witness we are witnessing the destruction of the family structure they're trying to confuse our children in certain cultures throughout history excessive sexualization has come to dominate life the disconnect of reasonable boundaries to sexual behavior within the family and general Society creates overarching permissions that have led to all sorts of abuse suffering despair substance use and disease we should also have known from the study of history that caution is necessary at every turn but we don't do that anymore what has happened above all please think of our children their freedoms future and innocence thank you [Applause] good afternoon Alan de Liberty a 118 Tower Road um I got a message today from uh on email that said for me to come here and uh I didn't realize how one thought it was going to be but I'm going to be talking about book Banning in general but not the specifics of the people who have made some valid references to pornography and um and I think we're only talking about maybe a handful of books uh and I think that I I agree with the the the the the members and people have talked that that that that uh that deserves some uh Merit um but on the other hand we live in an open Society we do live in a social network Society we live in an internet Society uh and it's naive to think that our kids particularly in 17 18 16 year olds aren't exposed to images on the internet among friends and themselves um I've I've a father of two daughters I was now one is a high school English teacher in Brewster and she's 46 years old and the other one is a registered nurse a nurse in Tucson Arizona the reason I bring that up is that my wife and I uh had very liberal views on on what they could read and not read particularly when they got into high school and pre-college um you know we realized and my daughter went to college when she was 17 in New York and um you know it's to have a naive young lady go into New York City not knowing the realities of life is not doing our daughter's Justice and uh not I I say that with all due respect to the people who have spoken but I think there's a balance um and I'll give I'll end with one story I I when I was uh 63 years ago I was a 13 year old skinny pimple-faced freshman um my father gave me believe it or not a Catcher in the Rye and uh back then it was very controversial it's probably still a controversial some people some kids some schools around the country banned it I think it's one of the most banned books in in history of books anyway that that that really impressed me and in the the the the story of Holland Caulfield and his world and his life made me feel not alone and it impacted me for the rest of my life and that's not that's some people think that's pornographic or some elements of a pornographic and blah blah and I know that's not what you're going to people over here are talking about but I think we're into modification moderation and I think the people having a a a mood like this can extend beyond pornographic pornography and go into other things and somewhat some per people's pointer group potent pornography is some other people's acceptable behavior and I think the the what the Board of Education in Connecticut and Brookfield I think you have a tough job but I think I encourage you to be moderate and listen to everybody and particularly at the sides of the parents who are talking about graphical images in the library I think that's very specific I think it's very one-sided and I think it's valid argument but don't let it extend to other people or books like groups of Wrath or some other things so thank you so much thank you [Applause] next next up is Mrs bossio and we're almost at the end folks Patricia bossio to Whitetail Lane April is National Child Abuse Prevention month and what actually does that mean it means the maltreatment as in all forms of physical and or emotional ill-treatment sexual abuse neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation resulting in actual or potential harm to a child's health survival development or dignity that's a World Health Organization March 8 2016.
this goal is 2.2 for the superintendent goals and answered under professional development and then secondly they will be talking about updates the code of conduct thank you superintendental health and Board of Education I appreciate you allowing us to speak 10 on behalf of the support that in schools and talk about the start of the division of the Danbury public schools because I think it supports around the work in division and what your vision is for a public school system the first position orders application as far as we're here um it talks about advancing all Learners right so a condition has I guess it's always eluded us as the alternate uh reality is the identities of the currency is what we're striving to accomplish right so if we look at that through the lines of all students and we look at each subsequent side of this presentation through the lens of all students being successful I think that will help us around the work in alignment with this content of schools so the purpose today is we're going to talk to you a little bit about the work that the chiefs of schools are doing that'll be followed with a code of conducts perhaps consideration and approval or consideration and then we'll talk a little bit about all the work that we're doing our customers so with that in mind if you can look at each slide we'll go through this a little bit through the lines of the visions of our focuses [Music] good evening everyone so tonight we are going to discuss how the work of superintendent's goals aligns with with our vision and Mission along with our strategic plan we are our Focus this year is on free of the superintendent's goals welcome to plan a new process to provide feedback on systems goals and strategies engaging principles in professional learning and updating control of the content policy to reflect focus on increasing the positive School climate and equity so you do a copy this presentation in front of you um that will Aid in and following them off and send us on the writing will be small but um next time we're going to talk about enhancing principal advocacy and when we talk about food so after consumer talk about the impact on our whole losses and achievement in the building um through the lens of leadership practice with that we ask the question Dr Rocco about constantly asking principles and asking ourselves is the school is the organization better because we lead it is the school better because the principal needs it and the answer to that is he has to remove it in the right direction the answer to that is if you don't know that we've got some work to do right so we're looking at through the lens of culture and climate creating a collaborative environment a safe space a place for principles to share their practices um and talk about Focus acts of improvement versus random accident Improvement having feedback detective evaluation uh conversations as principal supervisors and support that would be that and rather than focusing on 7000 initiatives focusing on a few high levels High impacts Focus areas of improvement for our school muscles so a lot of our work is focused on jobs and professional development for principals we are working very diligently this year to provide opportunities for all of our administrators to come together and have a facilitative conversations with the colleagues around highly diverse leadership practices we have spent time this year studying the PLC Playbook the tax attorney s we are using the podcast outliners in education with the center for educational Effectiveness we are using the work that we are doing through the center for Equity diversity inclusion and all of that work is grounded in the data wise process so we are in schools just about every day we are working side by side with all our administrators and our administrative teams and that's really the exciting work that we've been here today personality kind of at some point in time and it's used in a far ride or somewhere along the way but we're sharing the things that we're seeing in schools the great practices they're having in our classrooms the great practices that our administrators are immersing themselves in and we're excited to have those conversations every day because Chris has a set of schools and I have set of schools there are portfolio schools as every person but we're seeing some great practices coming out of schools we're having opportunities to highlight those practices and share those practices with administrators bringing them together and facilitated conversations so they can have more collaborative and financial conversations we feel like we're doing that more than ever before having come out of buildings we know that particularly the elementary personal strip is a very isolated one because we don't have a leadership team you don't have a lot of other people to talk to on a daily basis about things as they are rolling out so by bringing people together we're seeing a lot of commonalities across schools and that's really a guy named our work and it's informing the work in the district the district departments District leadership on the budget process it's very informative process and we're very excited about it so one of our major emphasis this year is on instructional records in data performed decision making so we've had the process of instructional rounds and showing uh shown up there for you and what we start at start with is by looking at data sets so we might start by looking at Esther data I ready data Devil's data we might look at the Lost scores from our English language Learners look at student work one of the things we spend a lot of time talking about with administrators and really everything so when we see our kids in the morning and we watch them as they get off the buses and come in and watching their affect Disney entrance available for my state so it's driving us to make instructional decisions based on the students sitting in front of us so sometimes it comes from that mirror but they know that wanted to the freedom and sometimes it's from that qualitative data we'll begin sense of appeal from from our kids but it is always grounded in data so we start by looking at our data sets we start with some notices we wonder about things we can start from the comfortable point of curiosity why might we be seeing this what might be affecting this and then we take that or with a side by side with our Administration our building principles assistant principals who have them sometimes our coaches and our district leadership team so today for example we're doing a building and it was myself Cara wander who used to see a lot of Art District elementary supervisors work with us that principal had invited principals from other schools to join us in those instructional realms and we went into classrooms um teachers knew we were there as a team coming through today they didn't know exactly when we were coming um but that's been another thing we have teachers are opening their doors they're very excited to have us in um they're asking for feedback what are you soon can you give me some feedback they're asking for things um like ways you think they can improve into practice so we go through in a very structured way um with noticing some orderings looking for things that the teacher is doing what is the instructional practice that teachers are engaging in how are students responding to that instruction and what's evidence do student learning so if those are really the three high level questions that we want again what is the teacher even instructionally how are students responding to the instructions and what's that um today I think we visited 16 different classrooms when we join better together as a team we come back together and we discuss what are we seeing the strikes that we're seeing we're at areas that we want to dig a little further we have medical questions about what we saw what particular practice we saw we're in the curriculum that fell and we can ask teachers while we're in there we spend a lot of time talking with kids what are you learning today what are you working on do you have a goal for your learning today and kids are very eager to share that with you they're very excited they have they don't hesitate for a second when you ask them what they're learning okay sometimes it's not the exact same thing the teacher might tell you an hour today um but the kids are excited to share is it done as a team and we do what we call it people trying to look at the strengths that you see areas where you want to look a little further and then we ask the crystal what do you think this information is telling you where is it leading and what decisions is it leading you to make next instruction is for your teacher teams what are the needs that you think from this does this solidify what you're thinking does it make you think something different do you want to explore another area or look at something so that all is in the hands of the principle that they do without just that information that they have at the time we're there to support them in the decision making and we're there to help them look at resources that they might have available to them in the building also resources that we can provide residents that's really what guides the next level of work and that's what feeds that PLC process so I'm going to talk we've done work in the PLC plus process our principles are participated into the certification training so as well as certification I'm leaving a lot of this process in their buildings but this work within the instructional rounds really feeds that so for example the principal that we were with today happens to have appeals since tomorrow so I was able to then have a conversation with that principal this afternoon saying what came out of these instruction around us this morning that you think you want to now take back to your teacher kids tomorrow when you're sitting with them and we were able to talk through that what resources might you need we want to connect approach with you during this time is there something that I can help you with the other piece that this work guides us to is not just the work within the building but it really helps us to look across schools so we have all of our schools Chris is into middle schools and animal City Elementary Schools I even do work in Ace and some more of the Hill Ed but it helps us to really kind of tease out trends that we might see are we looking at systems that might need to be ReSound are we finding that there might be a common issue across schools it really is a professional development issue to see you know teachers need more work in this area because they just don't have the knowledge of a new program or a new support that they have so we need to provide more professional development for teachers um it could be curriculum related so we've seen post-pandemic that some students are coming in lacking some foundational skills so we take that information back and share that information to the Paris team Paris team and some of those participating in the walk through the instructional rounds but they use that information to then make the curricular decisions so it's really a cohesive process that that really feeds information to all of our systems we look at teacher practice are there areas where we can provide instructions our support to teachers to kind of treat instructional strategies that like better meets student needs it's an ongoing process but it is very informative so it really informs everything that's going on in the schools it informs our work as she's kind of influence [Music] so when we started this work it was sometimes it was like why are you coming in here what are you looking for are you going to tell you what I'm doing wrong so we wanted to share with you is what instructional rounds are and what instructions so what instructional rounds of R is really a professional process it's looking at high leverage practices and practices that we see and accelerating large scale instructional Improvement so when we see practices that are in place there are really moving kids we want to really bring those practices to scale and the best way for teachers to respond to a practice is to see another teacher engaging in that practice and seeing such interest Australian celebration at AIS why don't you go over and take a look at that entrepreneurs we work within totally in relationships across schools and principals and having them engage with the same processor the process is focused on the instruction report so it's really helping teachers to understand what the standards are and then great little standards some kids might need more help in those standards so they might need more scaffolding they might need different access points um if complements our current Urban strategies it's not a separate thing it's not one-off it's not one more thing it really is the coefficient process so all of the things will be doing right now it's collegial and inclusive it's all about shared practices and understanding when it is not is cancer we never go into a class from a safe and secret why are you doing that or you should do something this way we'd never do that um it's not about isolated topics we've been teaching it's about seeing good professional practices and being able to roll them across the schools across it is not evaluative so we do not go in through any value to funds with teachers that's a customer's responsibility they might Point things out to a principal that they might want to have conversations with the teacher about their order and grow a teacher's practice um but not in any evaluative manner it's not just a checklist so we don't go in and say are there are there anchor charts check you want to know is the teacher using supports for students and what are those supports are they meeting students so it's really not just a checklist it's not absolutely isolated it's not a One-Shot table you don't go in and say you're in your classroom for 10 minutes and this is what we saw we were in your classroom for 10 minutes and this is what we saw tell us about what you're doing tell us about what you're excited about right now for your learners um we don't but we use that when you see a couple of Snapchat of something that that's what happens in that classroom for six hours a day um and it really is not about independent teacher practice it's about building everyone's Effectiveness it's teacher Effectiveness it's student Optimum is students so it's it's an administrator offendedness but it's built really really about building professional practice for all of us as with both of our schools thank you so the purpose of these rounds in the the collaboration that goes into this is to identify best practices to enhance student outcomes sometimes words lie numbers don't so when we look at outcomes on tests that's that's what matters as we look as an achievement right so with respect to what I have on the screen right now Dr casimiro it was a brilliant move to bring I ready into the districts and what what we're seeing from this particularly at the middle school where they're really full force you know with my path at the in reading and math social security real-time intervention based on what they need when they need it during the course of Alaska and what we've seen is growth at a level that even the average representatives were chopped just being staggering and exponential levels of Positive Growth if you talk to doctors Lolita or any of the medical principals Connecticut Association of schools was that one of their meetings discussing data with them and they're just doing a phenomenal job looking at Middle School growth and middle school you know these other performance was and they took that as a challenge and they've been an amazing job as for our elementary school but what we have on the board I already is a diagnostic tool but like I said it's also an intervention and supplementary tools that help students it's also uh predict this it's got predictability meaning it it assesses what it seeks out to assess and it measures um in a way that should predict how students to inspire about successfully so if you look at all those numbers up there if something is over 0.70 or 70 it's it's statistically significant or it's the likelihood is very high as students will eat at the levels are predicted in those bar graphs so it's useful to predict success on Smart Balance but also as a Interventional results teachers are teaching and to provide levels of support right it's very challenging so my path will provide that support the students in a way that's impactful info as what they need at that Snapchat time to scaffold up to the real standards thank you next we go into Data again data doesn't lag um as we look at it this will help communicate and help really inform the mission of vision are we operationalizing are we implementing what we're we set out to do in accordance with the certain tennis schools and are we achieving that a level that we said who would achieve that it's important to note that mlkwonzer has presented as we've seen this a number of times but it's important for us to highlight success also to highlight areas of significant growth that we need to put in place if we don't we're complicit in the failure to to improve so it's important um what we need to know about this particular scorecard is Teachers excuse me students get report cards schools get report for those just get reports so we all have a snapshot of how we do it overall standards okay this is a year-long goal this is at the final exam for the school the final exam for the district this is how we did as we look at that bottom number it's not working right there um that would be the index or low index and if we can increase that certain percent that would be equivalent to one year's growth overall adding an additional years worth what we also need to know is this is based on this is a growth heavy index 42 or 42 is derived from just growing so everybody has an Eco likelihood of growing doesn't matter where we start with in terms of deficiency the growth is growth whether at a very available or a low level so that's an important relative like this um again this is a year where we've really brought significant certainly in focused data in a way that we haven't before and it's got a lot of collaboration a lot of discussion around meeting standards around students achieving around growth and it's important that we continue to emphasize this because only when we bring Focus to something that doesn't improve so some of the things that we've seen kind of deals online very closely with the research practices and the high leverage practices that we're seeing taking place in our schools are really the use of data to inform decision making and inform conversations about curriculum and instructions um in schools where that's working at the highest points that's where we're seeing the greatest success so we're really working to um help all of our leaders become much more data informed um learning how to use the data systems that we have now with our ready is a new platform so they're getting used to that our deals assessments um was a new platform last year but we're still working through that because it's a little interpret data to use for working readily on using estimate assessments and interpreting the data as an assessments and using that to afford decision making and really the conversations and principles are leading to plc's is centered on data so what again whether that's a an assessment that a student has taken or whether they're bringing student work to the table very often we see them come with what we call exit tickets students are really examining those exit tickets how many students were successful almost there when these students had a long way to go and then using that data to inform instructions so it's turning it right around to say the next thing we're going to do with these students or these students or all of these students is this and those conversations are really um encompassing everyone in the building so you at some places you'll walk in and see a PLC operating in a building and the ESL teachers are sitting at the table the srbi people are sitting at the table and everyone's a part of that conversation to see how can they best inform that instruction so that's to that particular student or that group of students are the most successful that they can be it's also um administrators are providing more specific and actionable feedback to teachers they sound like they're seeing in the classroom doing side by side walk through the certain point schools all the time and having conversations about how what we're seeing fits into there's no improvement plans that they identify the right problem practices the school Improvement plan um is what that we're seeing in the classroom mirroring the identify strategies and it's really thinking about how to build a positive School climate and culture not only the place where teachers are happy and kids are happy because we want that first and foremost right but we also want to make sure that there's a culture of high expectations for all kids so when kids walk in the door they know when I come to this place these people here are going to help me to be the best version of myself that I can do and they're going to elevate me and they're not going to give up on me and they're going to stick with me because it's hard and they're going to stay with me when it gets easy because it is going to get easy to perform so those are the leadership books that we're looking for in our administrators the teacher moves the mirror those moves so what we want is for teachers to be safe to inform those instructional decisions in the classroom we want teachers to provide specific and actionable feedback to students so students are clear I am here I want to get here this is my goal of having them set their own goals that these are the things I need to do in order to get to that place and teachers are creating positive clients to get their school in their classrooms and creating cultural students are feeling successful and know that the teachers stand your economy school and contribute to their success every single day and just to reiterate when we're seeing great examples of success and growth we're studying or you know working amongst our physical to get into those buildings to see what's going on so that the growth that achievement increases we keep putting uh School leadership a second so we'll go teaching practices in school in terms of the outcomes you know what else is up there too is but when teachers work for a principal that they have the greatest degree of respect for their credibility and even though they are going to move to school the school moves the teachers want to work there all right so it's a wonderful retention strategies are built for the mechanism for a school district at this point in time uh would pause before we get to the cookies because of conduct um but I think it's important just just lastly with respect to principles it's not what I'm doing this on a wishful thinking conjecture guessing and trying to figure out things on the class is focused in the same intentional and we are pushing schools to achieve at a level they have into them questions thank you very much a question is under leadership moves build a positive School climate and a culture of high expectations through a lens of activity what does that mean so it means a couple of things the positive School climate apart means that that's a teacher students families are happy to attend the school culture of high expectations means we value success and models and so she's at a really high level through the lens of equity means we serve all students if we do all students what they need what idea thank you again collecting data uh when will you have enough data to project success or failure of the programs for let's say a three-year period yeah so if we're talking specifically our Smart Balance it would probably at the conclusion of the year we'll have an indication of sourceful programs thank you any other questions move on to the closer conference we did that provide those for you on the tables we lost a lot of reading but um yeah just a number of arts and um a couple points that they've scored goodness if you miss Ed yeah I would love to uh these are not absolutes okay they're administrator there are some that are Guided by law all right there are others that are discretionary in terms of the principles uh decisions being found situational consequences on the Behavior Uh we're going to have a nuclear offender that we're working on we're going to have a stakeholder Group found in support this will provide not only consequences but also both upon the um you know the relationship he's into this students come back we want you know there are suspensions there are consequences for our actions we come back we need to find a way to Let's re-enter positively and come to school attendance goes up that you've got a high level so one of the superintendent schools is the update the code of conduct policy to the reflect the focus line and peaceful and positive Integrity in alignment with this reminds me attendance goals um kind of create a bridge which means a new code of conduct and the existing public contact so again not to say that there will not be consequences consequences reliable conduct um but what we're hoping to do is to bring that code of conduct those two kinds of codes of Conduct in alignment with an emphysical sign of teaching [Music] so Dr Rocco alluded to there are consequences there's a framework for Behavior we do have codes of conducts in place or our rules however we also have to do our part teaching what are the expectations for students how do we walk in the hallway what is the volume level of that sort of thing so we go back to this example of if a child doesn't know how to read we teach them that's good with the other examples if a child doesn't know how to behave we do we teach do we punished we do both right so that's an important point and something that we we have to do is something we've set out to work on with all principles and putting in a framework for the middle school and Elementary School in terms of teaching uh positive behaviors to students like how to walk in the hallway how to get gain positive care attention how to gain the attention of the teachers those are all things after the exclusively talk not assume that every student comes to school with that skill or whatever yeah so what we know for research is the generally there are two requirement causes of this context um one of them is what a skill deficit bumps up against sex meditation so we are expecting students to be enough particular way but they don't yet have that skill set to respond to off the students will react in a way to remove themselves from them or to get themselves attention diverted so for example if we're expecting a five-year-old to sit in a chair and attend to a teacher for a long period of time but that five-year-old isn't quite emotionally regulated yet to do that we have to first build that skill in that five year old similarly if you have a middle schooler who is in a social environment but they can't quite master that yet that comes up as a skill deficit hits up against Mexico for them to behave in a particular way we need to teach the skill set to that student to help them to be successful the other reason for this conduct often is an unmet need so if we have students who come to us with food insecurity with a lack of with housing instability with mental health issues we're just not feeling well on a particular day we know according to Maslow those needs have to be met first so behaviors are a prerequisite for academics if we have can't get through those behaviors and get students to be able to present sitting in a seat it's hard to teach it's hard for them to go as Learners so we first have to tackle those issues with students we have to make sure the skills are there to meet the expectations and we have to make sure that we have met their needs and their business to learn we do that by creating procedures and creating routines and structures for kids we know we know that repetition is the key to learning which schools skills for a child to learn something new it needs to be repeated on average eight times for a child to unlearn an old behavior and replace it with a new behavior that new Behavior has to be repeated on average 28 times and that child needs to experience success with that new behavior in order for it to take hold so as we move forward into this report of conduct we're going to be doing that with these things in mind along with Kelly and her team and collaborative stakeholders we're looking forward to developing again this bridge between the existing student code of conduct with its consequences and an instructional approach to success for all students so this approach would really guide what we want students to achieve socially emotionally behaviorally it'll deter the social skills and behaviors we expect all students to learn and display that will serve as the vision for what it means to be a model or successful student this setting a common set of expectations for students in our school so when you walk through our doors no matter what school you walk into at Rogers Park this is the expectation for our students when you walk into haystown this is the expectation for our students but we're going to help you to understand the expectation and we're going to teach you the skills to meet the expectation so what you see on that slide in your package is the list of six kind of guiding principles um looking at number four it's thinking about how this work will guide staff decisions about discipline and what that means is when a student does something that costs for lack of a better word violence the code of conduct we're going to look at it and say have we provided your expectations for the student so they understood clearly what the expectation was but how we taught into those expectations and have we supported the student in reaching the goal then we'll move to the code of conduct so it it is a bridge really between the existing code of conduct and consequences and setting the foundation for what we want our schools to look like and feel like and building that bridge so the students are successful and that's all students so those principles that were on the last page really moves us into what we call a multi-tiered system of support an ntss system all of the things that I've just talked to you about or the things the six things around us so I would live in that tier one core instruction as a common set of taught expectations and support behaviors that's what everyone will work on that one code and everyone the expectations are all there now there will be some students who can't really grasp it in that first time around or that second time around there's third or fourth and especially for our youngest Learners it could be our fifth sixth seventh week kind of intervention where students might be in small groups to have the anchors reinforced to be taught us to socialize with each other or whatever whatever the expectation is is not being met in small groups could be with the teacher could be with the principal it could be with the guidance counselor it could be with a social or school psychologist we may have a small subgroup of students who still have a hard time meeting the expectation and that would go to a tier three or intensive intervention that's more of a targeted intervention one-on-one um consistent monitoring for improvement of behavior positive reinforcements but this is all work that lies ahead for us um and we are very excited about this work because it is the right place for kids it is the right room for all of our kids to be successful who just to visit finally next year at a high priority Planet so we're great about that for that framework in place for all schools positive behavior with clear expectations that'll be a team approach and every student staff member will know what's expected of them as they arrive so if that's like traffic lights stop signs Universal rules right if we understand what's expected of us we've created the likelihood that we will follow the rules uh this will be the implications around here will be a joint Capital across departments at least in the PPS curriculum administrators ourselves principles and teachers all working in unison to help reduce the incidence of suspension and expose them to a clear expectations for positive behavior for all students I'm going to do this through convenient and community of stakeholders to meld the two systems one being addition more punitive code conduct consequences with the small theater system support knowing that our actions have consequences but when we come back we should afford to repair that relationship hopefully doing this will minimize suspensions explosions increase attendance and increase student outcomes so one of the things that we could recognize is that this year we brought together that memory stakeholders um with um some challenges in our schools with having enough support you know we've had trouble finding social cancers uh tutors things like that we felt that this was not the best time to move forward in the world this year next year will be a planning year because we know that it really begins going to take a lot of professional development for teachers and a lot of planning to make this successful we know next year we are rolling in new literacy curriculum the new math curriculum and it's going to be a heavy look for teachers to learn new contents working a high priority for this will be planning for this the current code of conduct will take us through next year but next year will be your priority planning for the following year of implementation so we are sticking with the same code of conduct that you have in front of you um but this is the work for the future for the direction of the in alignment with the superintendent school one good question can you give me an example or a situation where the new same situation how we deal with it now and how you propose to deal with it foreign [Music] but also the piece of our returns is for both in that relationship so that we don't have you know subsequences exactly so it's basically basically basically an addition some other kind of support absolutely the consequencing system but also the support to try to mitigate that and also want students come back to you know making sure that it doesn't happen again it doesn't become problem right because there are there are consequences in life that we want to make sure that uh you know they learn that and and while they're here in school to prepare them for the real world that's right and a lot of again a lot of the left is that terrible one is that that core piece where there are the expectations set in every school that every child should talk and how we teach into those expectations and support students to understand know and understand those expectations when something occurs and consequences are applied but then we also want to go back to re-teach at the same time excuse me thank you um will we be communicating the code of conduct of parents as well so they you know I know I know when my kids were in the school they could get you know something to take home with that that will be doing that as well so that's a large piece of this it is communicating with parents what the code of conduct is in our schools it is available for two parents now um but it's also helping parents to understand how this system works so what are the expectations in school for student behaviors afterwards and then how will we help your students and then how can you also about your students to understand what the expectation is in school and what the consequence will be if it can be better didn't mean to parents have to sign at one point my kids are only out a couple years no no I'll tell you at one point yes yes so so how do you know the parents get it our website okay is there any metric in place to reinforce parental buy-in of the program okay right at the moment to reinforce Jeremiah what I'd like to be looking for am I looking for parents in the auditorium and maybe for a meeting yeah kilometers into Podium the parents in the auditorium and trying to reinforce what we're trying to establish and we established that code of conduct with them call me skeptic a lot of things going around documents going to backpack and they never make it out of the backpack okay I think that that's an excellent point not something that will add for the stakeholder group that we need is how we can measure that over time by having parents I have a community coming to auditories if you suggest to talk about what it is that we expect one of the school expectations whether their parents um supports and again as we said there will be a new sort of combat that's going to move forward next year um but I think that's a key piece of the other parents that everybody the same room for that communication and uh you know multi-directional thank you thank you yeah I'm unfortunately I think about it and that that might be [Music] and I'm reading here about students who don't know how to behave how again how are you going to bring parents and and help students because just because a student does not know how to behave at some point punishment is not always the right answer you might make him get more agitated more discouraged about going to school if you want to punishment punish that person so I guess my course again it goes back to what was uh Anderson how do we work parents and students into letting them know okay this is not the right thing to do because pleasure is what we don't realize that a lot of parents are working and some of them don't even see their kids want to get up with them okay whenever they have time to spend with it and I have a five-year-old and I have to tell him listen when you're drinking juice and you're getting ready for your breakfast you get your juice you put it on the paper you put a napkin up under your juice so you won't spill it okay those things are taught and so now when you go to school and you have a little friend and you see it's using you on a Snapchat you know so it's it's your it becomes your juice so how do you work to to get these two pieces that come together I think my scope of the part that you just brought up that's really important because when you decided and drinking that drink is something that has to be taught like eight times the presentation right so it's got to be a specific talk and as you know like students will some students they um experienced a daycare setting for preschool and others it's their first time ever in a school setting right so so the expectation is we're going to teach all behavioral stuff to all students and then break families in for that discussion because it's in consequences obviously are proportional to the the age right so like taking a childish juice whatever it would not result in any kind of suspension but to your point I think it's important that um you know we don't take anything for that and teach students the expected behaviors whether we think they know them or not and also communicate to parents that bring us together right it's not about punishing a child but teaching those behaviors and those poor social behaviors up front so that you highest location thank you so now the question is Miss Cooper Cooper what happens what happens to a five-year-old yeah I remember I understand you know any other questions so I I did want to add as Chris and Anna were talking about next year will be an important year for planning I do think it's important that we're a little bit more intentional about the existing code of conduct that we have and given our experience these last two years kids coming back post pandemic but you think it's important that we're going to get more intentional about the code of being consistent code of conduct that we have and so I'll be talking to my team talking to principals in schools around the district sure we were sitting down with our kids and I think it's important as Anna and Chris walk us through talk making sure it's clearance with our students and they're aware of the expectations um I think we've gotten away from making sure we have a date where we review the code of conduct with our kids across the district they make sure we can find an opportunity to do that so it's clear those expectations are clear in our schools and then make sure part two well this is what our kids can do this is our teachers will support them but also make it clear to our families what they can do and how they can support them we have a means to get an increases point to reach all of our families that they have touched a button to appearance square and we could actually we will know really every single family who has hoping hope is part of our emails but I'm sure that there's also a way we can get them to click something from us to um indicate whether or not they agree or they have read it and so we will work with the team to make sure we have kind of consistent of what we've done once before where they've signed and they have reviewed the code contact so in the meantime what we're looking forward to in a couple of years that you will be a plan A year of the year after will be an implementation year but in the meantime I think you have to pay attention about the existing code of content where we have so if you're working with the teachers okay and I do want to say that a lot of these practices are going on in our schools it's not that none of these things are happening what we want to do is just bring more cohesive and comprehensive answer to it so that we know that it's happening in all of our schools in separate ways so that a lot of this work is occurring at this time but it's not occurring necessarily under a systematic way a very comprehensive way so the hope is that this work will make it more complex thank you so much guys thank you for the presentation by being part of all the exposure parents this past year I am as I've been told that we're currently have this many um anything being too way way all these instances I mean you're saying you're working at it but I know it's hard but the number of expulsions hearings is high-ended everyone sure hello sorry um testing my technology so um certainly the number of explosions that we've experienced I think last year and this year has been significantly higher um we are currently experiencing explosions about 20 annually right present to date um but I think we need to put that in context of the number of students in in our district um and also acknowledge that about half of those are due to community instance incidences that don't occur in our school district but pose some type of safety risk that we then need to follow through on um so certainly it's concerning the number that we have and we want to intervene so as a result of some of the expulsion hearings and receiving the board members feedback is making sure that our principals are having ongoing conversations adding it to their open houses adding it to their Community meetings in the school reinforcing it through Flex periods and things like that getting the message and reminders more frequently what Chris and Ann are referring to is an entire District reset um so right now it's being done kind of building by building by building and to have some uniformity across the district would be helpful um the other piece of it is really looking into the not just the consequence but what do we do we do or is the teaching component of that and and where's the intervention if needed um you know fold it into a mental health need an addiction something like that and so it's not so much just about the consequence but also about the follow-up care and we are seeing um right now just the behavioral needs of children in Dental not in Denver across the country uh post pandemic as a significant object so I you know I hear your concerns and I certainly share those concerns but I I have to say it is not due to a lack of follow-through or trying or behalf remorseful leadership team well I do want to say um you did a great job telling the parents if you see if the kids sneeze keep them home so they're hearing you and I think they got to hear more about what your folks are trying to do um part of this and sharing that information with the parents um but especially in instances which means expectations of the building we have to partner with Americans in order to help all right let's move forward it's just our foreign by Kate seconded by Al all in favor
I see our financial Wizkid is not here yes Declan is not with us tonight and she would have the answer to that I know that our goal was to go out in November of 2024 but backtracking that to when we would have to have a decision I do believe we should have a strong Master facility Plan before we go out so the public knows how we are going to spend our dollars and so that's kind of why Julie is pushing now for us to have that plan but I do not know what the current deadline is look we need that plan and I'm definitely in favor of every every student in an equitable and excellent facility but we are talking about closing a school that's big people are upset about it and they should be at least concerned I don't think it's too much to ask that we take a completely separate meeting to really get into this and have a plan hey where are they going to go because the concern is real we say hey this place is Surplus and we'll decide what to do with the kids later that if if those were I mean my kid I would be really upset with that plan I think we need to have a good plan and to do that we need to have a time to sit down and just talk facilities I wouldn't I guess what I'm saying is the idea that we're asking that we would ask the public to trust us with another Bond without really planning what we're doing with the money we have currently I struck me as a Hard Sell um the questions that I had written down earlier that I would feel more comfortable making a decision on this request for Action are the question that came up about historic preservation I think it would be nice to have an answer about that just to explore that option or that what that means what that even means what guarantee can we make that a new site for Hooker Oak will be sustained I think that that would be very important to be able to express out front for the Hooker Oak community that to demonstrate that there is a um a deep desire to sustain the program of Hooker Oak and that that will lead to developing a robust plan to um to essentially look at other school sites to transition to adopt that model onto an entire campus possibly or or you know what does that even look like what is that what is an even a framework of that plan look like I don't think that it's reasonable to say can you come up with a plan for that in three weeks but at least some ability to allow us to visualize how that transition might look uh which leads to another question what would be the soonest the transition would or took could take place what does the timeline look like when we do something like that I think those are answers that our families really need before I personally feel comfortable taking a stance one way or another um and so I don't I don't exactly feel like we need to wait to take action on all seven items I think that there are a few that we could take action on tonight um I don't know um if there's any other thoughts or feelings about that from the rest of the board or from Julie so I do need I feel like I need to speak up here can you go back to slide eight um because it did say in I feel like we've maybe glossed over this a little bit stay status quo and address Surplus capacity site by site as the modernizations and we know that's going to take longer and cost more but that is an option um and then the other option was to repurpose I don't think that there's enough this is my personal opinion I don't think that there's enough information for us to choose between those two items those two choices without knowing the questions that I've posed tonight between the cost variations between if you do a site you know when I ask for a sample School site if we took Parkview for example and if we did this if we did parkview's renovation this way versus this way versus this way what are the cost differentials what's the timeline differentials I know that that that information will be forthcoming but I don't know that I feel like I'm making an informed decision without at least seeing an example of how the status quo versus utilizing a a separate campus could really benefit the community as a whole when it comes to utilizing these public funds to upgrade our our school facilities for several schools that are very much in need I just think that the community would have more confidence in Us in making that decision if we're feeling a little bit more informed based on those questions so a question originally was what kind of timeline could we could we bring some of these choices back he said this discussion back at a special meeting April 26th for example or would that be too soon would it need to be between the would it be could it be the May Workshop or between those you know I don't I I need some I need some sense from the staff what that looks like or I say I should say we probably need some sense what that looks like I think we're going to need at least two or three weeks to do that and part of it is going to be working with our facility master plan part and part of it is working with our ed services to look at what the program transition could possibly look like and I know that there are some um you know Staffing things happening this month that might also extend that some some key stuff that I think might be going on a vacation or something along those lines and so I just yeah wanna I wanna make sure that we're being mindful of a timeline but also making sure that we're getting the answers that we need to make an informed decision Julie do you have a sense of of that and and I maybe the rest of the board will vote this down anyway but I just need a better idea of what timeline we should be aiming for I would say a minimum of three weeks from now which would put us at April 26th so I was just checking uh the May board Workshop is grading philosophy practices homework philosophy policies and local assessments so there's always the possibility if the board wants to make a switch and postpone that to later they could do that as well that'd be the May third board Workshop because now that you remind me I do recall that we may have somebody out of the country a key person Julie I feel confident that we could be we could be ready for a May third date I would really much appreciate any other input from the board regarding the the concept of making some decisions tonight and postponing others but because these are all separate action items decisions tonight or the majority of decisions tonight and maybe revisiting Hooker Oak I know it kind of makes it complicated with this slide but if we can at all um yeah I like that I think we could probably and I mean this is just we could probably move on items uh like two three and uh well sorry not two three and seven the other ones four five and seven without kicking too many Hornet's nests at once so sorry I say that again so I've been uh four or five and seven I think are you you're talking the item number the agenda item numbers yes the questions of uh whether Inspire can build permanently um whether we put TK at Shasta and uh what to do with the remaining bond funds that aren't enough to redo a school with those three I think probably we can dispatch fairly quickly Maybe I'm Wrong um and I I was also thinking 7.1.3 which is the interim housing option approval which is just asking if if that option were available to have a separate interim housing site that we would we approve the use of that site um and that's just if that doesn't that's not dependent on us actually having an interim housing site okay so 7.1.3 7.1.4 0.5 and 0.7 um so given that can I am in my motion yes please oh good um I would like to amend the motion such that we move item 712 and 716 to the May 3rd Special meeting Workshop 712 is he wants to just move those two items and take action on the other four items tonight 716 the list of prioritization when we're surplusing if any we don't know how to uh 7.1.4 is inspire D yes okay um so to repeat in fewer words probably the motion is to postpone action on item 7.1.2 and 7.1.6 until the may I didn't write the date down May 3rd the May 3rd meeting um and then take action on the other four items this evening second I think that that's totally appropriate so I think I will just call that a new motion instead of a we'll just call it sure yeah okay okay thank you you rescinded your original motion made a new motion and uh yep remember conking let's do this all right um okay so we'll uh do a Voice vote starting with member Robinson Robinson I konk and I land away question passes um four to one and we will move on item 7.1.3 which is reread this uh action on item number two facilities master plan let me rephrase so I just so clarification we just moved to the Hooker Oak decision to be made for May 3rd so I just wanted to reiterate that for everybody in the audience because I'm gonna start going hyperspeed um facilities master plan interim housing option is 7.1.3 um and so I'm going to call for a motion okay I move that we um adopt the recommendation to okay all possible options for further study in the draft plan I'll second that okay we have a motion in a second are we clear on our motion no okay the motion is to um to accept the record seven 1.3 marked easily on here oh that was a great slide that was on there I liked that slide that was on there who moved that someone's moving that because that's it right there on the screen so the the motion is to approve all three options as potential options When developing the the master plan you can you can renovate in a school in multiple phases you can build a new one so we have a motion in a second all right um this time I'll just call for Voice vote all those in favor signifies by saying aye aye aye opposed neither thank you sorry dang it uh just kidding we're gonna start with uh member konkin aye aye Lando Channel all right moving on to seven we're good unanimous that time all right 7.1.4 this is the decision about Inspire permanent build of inspire School of Arts and Sciences at Chico High um this uh action that's being asked of us tonight is to determine whether or not we approve um Inspire to build permanent housing on the chico High campus do I have a motion yep I mean terminals can move I've been hogging the microphone he has been hogging the microphone go foreign that's okay um I move that we deny inspire continuing to occupy the land at Chico High Beyond there let's see has we extended their agreement one more year um just point of clarification the request was to take action on whether or not we will allow them to build permanent permanent facilities yes that's keep it simple is that you're moving to um I say I'm I'm moving that that answer is no okay so simple yes so to decline the request to build permanent structures permanent housing for Inspire on the chico High campus is there a second I'll second that um do we have discussion briefly um I will say that I think that Inspire is a special Institution for Chico it occupies a unique and generally positive niche and so I'm I'm going to vote with Ms Robinson on this I don't think that Chico high is a good place for inspire to be long-term but I do wish them all the best in a similar way and I remain optimistic we can find a long-term or permanent home for inspire but it's not on the Chicago eye campus Inspire also feels like they have outgrown their their space at the chico High campus and I think it would benefit everybody if Inspire and win Inspire and I think that we all are um invested in in seeing Inspire succeed and Thrive with their own site and we will continue to hopefully work with them in in exploring options any other input can I move the vote for voice unanimous last time okay um so the motion is to we already asked for public comment um I did it all at once okay okay um so do we have sorry now you threw me off okay I know um okay I was repeating the motion so the motion is to decline inspires requests to put permanent housing on the Chicago eye campus all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed none it's unanimous it's a big decision you guys um okay 7.1.5 is the direction on impacts to elementary school size capacity the decision that is being asked of us to make at this time is whether or not Shasta Elementary School will have a TK program do we have a motion I'll make a motion that Shasta not have a TK program just that I will be voting the opposite way and that I would like to see TK on every campus I think it makes sense to keep families in the same space and to keep all of our schools with Equitable programming so I definitely have been torn on this one and flip-flopped a bit in my own head about the pros and cons and the the long-term impacts and what would be required if we did um make sure that TK was on every campus including Shasta and I think that what really impacted my decision that I'll be making is the input that we got from the folks from Shasta at the last meeting when we had this discussion and and the sense that I got from them because I definitely was leaning the other way in the sense that I got from them was that they would prefer to um to stay status quo and not have TK on their campus was was the impression that I got and so Shasta folks if I'm wrong I apologize that that is um the sense that I got so um if there's no further discussion I'll move the vote that's my same impression I got um both from when they spoke at our last meeting and City members I have spoken to members who feel both ways about it and I'm I think this is one that a lot of people are split on yeah because I mean people with more than one student who already have a student there who have a TK eligible kid who are excited about the idea yes and I would say that was my that was my trepidation too is that you know if I had two children and one was already at Shasta and I had a tker coming in I would really want them there but there are some great alternative sites that are relatively close um so um you know we'll make do with what we have and revisit this probably in the future as our population continues to fluctuate um okay so uh were we ready to vote was it unanimous last time I lost track nope oh yeah yes it was last time it was unanimous there's one before that you voted against I think oh that doesn't make sense either sorry everybody I'm losing steam all right so uh we were unanimous last time so all those in favor um of uh approving no tkb at Shasta uh please signify by saying aye aye aye opposed nay we have four to one with um Lando declining uh next item is 7.1.7 that is the designation of remaining bond funds and just for my clarification what you're asking of us right now is just whether or not we approve exploration of any and all of these options with those remaining Bond dollars yes got it another option would be to say no slash bullet number three okay um do we have a motion we give them all the options I'll second that motion we have a motion by member tennis and a second by member Robinson um our mics are kind of cutting in and out I apologize for that they can attest that his mic was on but it was not working um okay the last bit was oh let's discussion on this yes please yes um briefly um we've heard repeatedly from different School sites about uh roof leaks and I don't know if that counts as possibly smaller renovation repairs but I'd like to have some kind of idea about yeah I know um how much that would cost and where we're at in terms of which roofs need the most attention right away if we could add that to the list then I'd be happy to vote with this four when it comes to prioritization if we say we need to endure some of the roof leaks for a little bit longer because they're going to get a whole new school for example I just want to make sure it's in the discussion we're talking about how to spend the money yes thank you right so roof replacement for maintenance sites uh scheduled Replacements that isn't typically done through Bond dollars and facility master plan that doesn't mean it can be identified as a as a topic for discussion to investigate which roofs are experiencing significant leaking and we could bring that back um as a recommendation for implementation with these remaining Bond dollars but typically that is not the way roof's replacement of roofs are tackled what what pool of money does usually fund those projects routine restricted maintenance dollars so that's three percent a minimum of three percent of the general fund needs to be allocated to routine restricted maintenance annually for those types of projects are there any other pools of funding that come in that are not those two bonds and the three percent maintenance fund not professionality no not that I'm aware I don't remember every budget income line item sorry um okay any other questions for clarification no uh we were not unanimous last time so I'll call the vote starting with a member konkin oh sorry could you clarify uh exactly what we're voting on is that to add our RM the projects we're giving Julie Kissel and her awesome team the option to go through and look at all these possible uses the ones that come back and make and then come back and make specific recommendations to us on which ones I think what's up here on the screen yes so if you hated one of those options up there you might vote against this motion now I'm clear number pumpkin I Robinson I oh Dolby aye we're going back Lando eye all right thank you same thank you that was unanimous all right um and so with that uh that it concludes our facilities master plan decisions to make this evening I appreciate everybody's patience through that entire process it was a massive undertaking just now in my poor tired brain we're going to move on to item 7.2.1 which is a discussion action on resolution number 1600-23 a resolution calling for school and family Partnerships and I'll open it to staff for presentation sorry okay we're bringing forward um that was Come To Us by board member um tennis a few weeks back about possibly we're doing the resolution one correct yes yes thank you so um came to us with um a nearby District that came through with a resolution um and he asked us to take a look at that resolution to see if we could come forward with a resolution to the board so we're coming through with resolution number 1600-2-3 it's a resolution to affirm the commitment of Chief Unified School District to a strong school and Family Partnership fundamental to the education of students I think I'm going to have here that we had a lot of input um and I'm green okay there we go we had a lot of input from the board over the past year really encouraging us to reach out to families to hold meetings to listen to different groups and Jay will have to clarify but I think we've had over 20 meetings with different members of our community this year really trying to make sure that we're listening to all segments of our community and of course we're also now getting into lcap season which is yet another opportunity to hear from our families on our Chico Unified goals so this reaffirms that a point of order I guess a a procedural question point of order um I feel that that between this agenda item and the next one item number six that generally speaking are our constituents are here um with the same issues in mind I don't particularly like the draft resolution and I've heard from parents that don't really like the draft resolution either and we wrote this draft resolution for them kind of and and the ones I'm hearing from don't particularly like it have we had much positive feedback on the draft that you're aware of Madame superintendent I'm not aware of much feedback on it one way or the other the intent was really to demonstrate that at least as a staff and as a district we value our Partnerships with parents and we strive to have those whether or not that does that I think is up to the individual reader and whether or not there is one issue I would ask that we looked at the district as a whole and all of the Outreach that we have done but that said it is a board resolution it is completely up to the board you can table this you can change it you can discard it you could I mean I'd like to bear with me for a second I'm trying to maybe tighten the meeting up a little bit if I if I'm if I can is there anyone out there in the audience who has reviewed the draft resolution and is in favor of it maybe those are two questions um is there anyone out there who's reviewed the resolution giraffe resolution you can put your hands down thank you so I don't know if I need to ask for a waiver of the rules for this I there were speaker cards presented for the resolution and I think those people want to be heard tonight I think they might like to be heard on the next agenda item just the same as they might have liked to have been heard on the resolution so I move for a waiver of the rules you help me out here Madam president because because you've sat through those csba meetings about how to do all this um I think we should just erase agenda item number six or Amalgamated if you will in with number seven to the extent that we allow those speakers you know that 30 minutes allotted time if you will to to comment under item seven and I think that'll just shorten the meeting up and and put our focus on where I think it kind of is so would that mean pull this item we will not be discussing or voting on this item this evening but take the speaker time allotted to this which would be 30 minutes and add that to the next digit item that is my suggestion yes I'll second that motion I um well we have a discussion time because we have a motion in a second um I just um just to one two three four five six seven eight nine so there are nine speaker cards submitted for this item and for the next item 35.
as you know we work through Kairos and their representative Jenna is here tonight and so we that is basically a pooling group that represents public entities in benefits strains in numbers reducing our cost and then maintaining our independence so as you can see we have three plans available this year for our employees and what the district has decided to do is to take on the cost of the increase of 6.1 percent in these three plans that is for the employee only that was to based on a survey that we did here at the district we found out that our employees were really suffering from paying too much for their dependents whether it be a spouse a full family and so instead of passing that cost on to our employees the district will absorb the 6.1 increase through the employee only structure and so there will be no increase to the employee paying for their spouse children or family there also will be if you notice from last year if you remember last year there was actually Four plans we have reduced it down to three plans this year anyone who dis did select the choice zero PPO plan will still be grandfathered into that plan that will not be available any longer some of the other changes that we're experiencing this year is based on an IRS requirement the choice High deductible plan we must move that up a thousand dollars from fourteen hundred to fifteen hundred dollars and also for the family deductible will go from 2 800 to 3 000 that is not something that the district has a choice in it is something that the IRS requires again the dependent rates will remain flat and there will be no changes to any of the other plans as far as uh last year it'll be continuing this year as well so some of the things that have increased one is Delta Dental has increased their price by three percent the employee will have to pay that additional three percent if they choose Delta Dental they also have the option of the total Dental administrator's plan there's no change to that plan and there'll be no change to the vision plan as well or Health Equity and as far as meth life is concerned we will see a decrease actually in the cost to employees for MetLife and the basic life insurance some of the things that came up through the survey as well was could our dependents be covered now on on critical care illness that will be free Independence will be covered now other the hospital Indemnity no longer has a pre-existing exclusion or age reduction so that is another benefit to our employees that select that and the accident insurance now covers um includes a 25 benefit increase for organizational Sports And for those who have children we know once in a while if that happens you need that insurance in place so the rates for dental Delta Dental as I said went up by three percent so the employee would now pay this is a monthly cost the plan went up to 42 dollars per month and just so we're clear on the monthly cost that is taken multiplied by 12 and then for any plan it is spread over either 18 pay periods or 22 pay periods and that's how the employee pays for that the total Dental administrators that remain the same an employee can still cover themselves for ten dollars a month on a basic plan for dental we have the vision VSP and that remained the same again the employee can cover themselves for 7.19 per month uh MetLife supplemental that plan is based on age and they can buy ver buy insurance based on per thousand and the benefit is available to employees and they can add their dependents if they'd like to and then we have uh MetLife short-term disability this rate did not change either this is available to all employees to be able to purchase short-term uh disability if they believe they will need that I always recommend that it's a good benefit to our employees for a very low cost and of course we have accidental insurance again a benefit to absorb some of those it's kind of a financial cushion to absorb some of those expenses deductibles co-pays if if an employee sees maybe that they're going to have a year that something might happen or that they just prefer to have this insurance and Hospital Indemnity that's at a cost as well these are all optional benefits no employee has to take any of these but if they think they will need them they are available at low cost and then we have the critical care as well this is based on the employee's age and other um uh aspects as you can see of how much they would like to purchase and then this is for again financial protection during foreign out of pocket costs for defined based on critical illnesses and then of course we still have the guardian cancer plan that's available to all employees they can select that as well and bankers whole life what we're looking at currently is Isabelle and her team will go ahead and head up and open enrollment during April 24th through May 10th we also will have a passive enrollment that means that if an employee is not changing anything this year they do not need to select anything that will just roll from one year to the next uh Kairos has put together some great information and a guidebook and videos and flyers and we're going to put him in every site everywhere that an employee might be so that they know that it's open enrollment time and it's time to register and then of course the great benefits team that I had up and that existed before I got here they're going to do one-on-one support with employees that really need that one-on-one contact to maybe walk them through the steps of how to do their benefit selection it may need additional information we will also still have our EAP program that we have had all this time that's the employee assistance program we still have that and we will be adding a wellness program we haven't selected one yet but we will have one for all employees and we're at the end any questions I actually have a question first I appreciate the hard work that goes into this I feel like uh the Health Care system is really Difficult by nature and so understanding that is hard um I ask that you forgive me in my ignorance of asking this question because it may sound impossible and quickly get dismissed I think one of the reasons we struggle is because we have such a small group of people to pay into this plan and so the question I have and I recognize that it's handled per District but is there anything in theory legally stopping us from working with other districts to have a larger pool of employees or petitioning the state to have our employees be part of the state benefits like it has never made sense to me in the grand scheme of things why we have to have such a small portion when we all essentially work for the same system at the end of the day I'm gonna let you take that thank you so much for the question actually your question is right on par Kairos was actually founded for that purpose and we were founded on a successful history based on the trust which does very similar things for property and liability so the trust itself covers about I believe 99 of the school districts in the state and covers their property and liability insurance for them about six years ago Kairos was funded because those board members said can we do any can we do the same for health insurance so Kairos now is 68 members strong Higley is one of the self-insured groups but you have the leverage buying power of those 68 school districts municipalities and fire districts in the state so we are doing that actually we have about 20 000 members in the pool today and it is a pooled product designed to help create better buying power for those school districts is it and again It's probably hard because I I can't conceptualize things that I cannot see my brain does not operate that way if that so we are going or choosing to do it individually which I recognize given things the way they were in the past that that was financially a feasible option what does it look like if we all buy into the same program the reason I'm I'm asking that essentially is because in Maryland where I taught previously it was by counties not districts and so our County had 284 000 employees that paid into that health care and my Healthcare was 117 a month for my full family so I'm just trying to understand essentially how many employees paying from that from those 84 districts if we were all to be in one and as far as like a a presentation from from you I guess my question is or from us who is in the position of like who has the the greatest stake in figuring out what that is does that make sense so I feel like if all of us were individual districts and I'm like hey girls we should be together to talk about this because collectively we are better than individually and it benefits each of us in this regard so like what does that Financial breakdown look like if we were to no longer be on our own and join with those 67 other groups or whatever you already are so Kairos is a pool and Higley is one of the 68 members in the pool so there are 67 other entities within Kairos but they all join together to create about 20 000 participants purchasing health insurance rather than just tiggly going out and procuring their own okay that's that's why I misunderstood okay and actually because it's uh self-insured I think is what you were thinking so that's why you were thinking that we were on our own instead of uh uh correct me there's 20 000 so Kairos actually has some flexibility in that we have the ability to have a what we call a shared risk pool and it's generally made up of smaller entities that don't have the great risk or if they have one large cancer claim for example their Claims can fluctuate so extremely those increases are really not sustainable especially for a school district or a municipality or fire district so we have the shared risk pool but then we also have three self-funded groups Higley Scottsdale and Chandler are self-funded so they take advantage of the leveraged buying power for all of the benefits that you learned about today but they can stand on their own in that they pay their own claims they manage their own risk but they get the the benefit of the um increased buying power but you do have some flexibility to set your own plan designs whereas the shared risk pool chooses among six health insurance plans so you have flexibility but also that that buying power is there any way for us to potentially share risk because that's really where the benefit then comes down right is if we're all paying into that pool and all are financially responsible or is that is that a State issue I guess and I'm nowhere near aware of the laws that that require that I just don't understand why we all campaign into the same thing and pay the same risk because when you have a larger pool of funds in theory that's what that's for right currently Kairos is set up in two ways and the shared risk pool members can be brought into the shared risk pool and they're rated based on their demographic information um so age and gender and location is a big part in the state of Arizona but then also their claims history and that happened with Higley as well Higley came into the pool we took a look at all of their demographic information their claims history that came from United direct and just having that contract and rated accordingly and we're able to actually forecast that by coming to Kairos last year we forecasted that you could save about a million dollars and while claims are still immature we have been able to hold good on that number so by making the move to Kairos you have realized I hesitant to say you've realized because claims always fluctuate but as it stands today we are on budget with that number and for the next year we're focused excuse me we're planning to budget another million dollars in savings foreign is there any effort at least on your end I don't know who would be the one making the effort or if we have to of including the rest of the districts that are larger you know hitting up Mesa other places to be able to include these types of things tell me the time and the date and we will be there right there well I just look at it from our perspective we're we're set up in a way that does not benefit our our employees so I like the idea that at least it's a discussion so I appreciate that thank you yes and if I may just add we are governed by a board of directors as well made up of superintendents CFOs from school districts fire district Chief so we do have good representation and again governed by a board any savings that are realized by the pool go back in to help stabilize those premiums and create long-term hopefully sustainable premiums I welcome you to attend one of our board meetings if that is of Interest that's always available to you I have a question um so as a state employees do they have the option to to be insured by the state policies versus that's a little more technical um I know when you retire you qualify as a state employee for asrs and oftentimes we do see people once they have fully retired and they are no longer eligible for benefits as an employee they choose asrs specifically Medicare so that would be 65 plus years old but in terms of if you were just an employee working at Higley could you also get insured by this state I am not aware of that option interesting thank you yeah thank you um I do have another question though um do they have the option for long-term disability employee does pay into long-term disability and that is effective after six months that becomes effective and they can apply for that if they've been out of work for six months okay and is that is that it like 60 at 60 percent pain that's um I don't 66 and two-thirds that's yeah 66 and two-thirds of your regular paycheck okay thank you any other questions no thank you Mrs Johnson thank you all right moving on to 6.2 strategic Plan update goal 1.2 this is Richards Mr Walker president Schultz is going to give this presentation this evening he works closely with Miss Morgan and the other counselors across the district so thank you thank you Ms Richards president Schultz governing board members of The Good Fortune tonight to present a brief update on our strategic anchor one teaching and learning Student Success indicator 1.2 providing resources to support social emotional growth of each student in the development of positive student Behavior so like the portrait of a graduate presentation a couple weeks back from Dr treat um social emotional growth has taken on many different definitions depending on where you look and I'm here tonight just to explain what our take on it as Higley School District um our updates for this school year so far the way that we approach this indicator is that we've developed what's our Higgly our healthy Higgly Wellness initiative that is involves Partnerships with agencies and Community Resources we've identified themes that include parent information sessions around topics such as resiliency suicide awareness and Drug prevention we've successfully implemented our tiered approach to our staff suicide awareness training and we focus on proactive and preventative ways to overcome obstacles and to develop positive life skills this year the Community Partners that we've worked with preparing information sessions Our Community Bridges who presented building resiliency strength over stress to our parents drug Trends and identification for our parents we've brought in the Arizona high intensity drug trafficking area they came and presented about one pill can kill which addresses the dangers of Fentanyl um the Army National Guard has come out and presented on the dangers of Snapchat for both social media misuse the dangers of that as well as the drug trafficking that can occur through that application and then through La Frontera who's provided supporting Teen Mental Health suicide awareness to our families so the biggest takeaway from this year our biggest Focus has been to initiate the suicide awareness using a tiered approach so this was done in conjunction with compliance to the Mitch Warnock act and we've done a all some few approach to implementation of suicide awareness so all of our staff members have received more than sad training um what the what the what the law calls for is that we train Any teacher staff member that works with students in grades 6 through 12 once every three years as a school district we've elected to train all of our students annually I mean I'm sorry all of our staff members annually and then for the sum approach we've trained our general Administration team on a more thorough approach to Suicide awareness called safe talk and then for a few our crisis team has received training um it's called assist training it's a more comprehensive training protocol foreign moving forward is to continue on with the theme of resiliency one of the biggest takeaways feedbacks from our parent Knights has been how can students be exposed to this information about suicide prevention suicide awareness drug misuse dangers of social media so we'd like to move forward in the future to offer a parent presentation to include students after school hours at both district and school events and continue on some of the sessions are designed specifically for adults and so we want to continue having those as well and then partner with additional Community agencies such as local police and fire departments Arizona 211 that can help provide resources for our families in times of need thank you I just no no I just first want to say that these programs are amazing that we're doing I mean I'm sad that we have to do them but I've attended several of them and the education and around it is just wonderful for parents and I'm glad that we're including students moving forward as well thank you Mrs Anderson um I'm glad that we have programs in place I know by state we need to have programs in place and we've trained employees um where I'm sorry and I've been thinking about this all day for a while and it's going to be a little extra transparent when we got my staff got trained at a different school district for the suicide and information and prevention it was um informative but not life-changing I felt like I walked out there and I wasn't any better for the wear and I don't know what um you showed your stuff and and I know the states should be posting I meant to go look what training programs are out there because they should be providing them but here's what came it popped into my head and for those those of you that know me suicide is very real in my household um but here here's where I've had some Enlightenment and I don't know if you know this Miss Miller's here she probably knows it suicide rates suicide attempts are higher in special need students students learning disabilities students with physical disabilities and um when we talk about future plans going maybe you can speak on this going through the education field in college and I think I had one maybe two classes on special education walked out I had and I still feel like a failure working with students with special needs in any way and if this is the highest group and of adolescents they are higher than their peers if this is the higher group watching a training video is not enough and forgive me I'm not telling you how to do your job I'm just expressing my concerns I can clarify one thing so there was no training videos for our staff it was all live direct training through Sikes and counselors that work at the sites and that's one of the reasons why we elected to go that route and use this this method of of implementation because then the staff is connected directly with the individual to have follow-up as needed as the school year progresses as well it's an interactive presentation too right as far as that's great and that's way better but what I'd like us to see is um let's get our staff trained on better trained on how to work with students with disabilities and learning disabilities one of the best professional developments I have received in my nine years of teaching and over 18 years of education in working education is how to read and utilize an IEP changed everything I've been doing it minimally this whole time and to know again that this group is the group with the highest risk we should be educating our staff on how to we're a school district and these are the children that are suffering of course here and this this carries over again through my personal experience and families and to their adulthood so as we see the shifts of suicide rates we could probably follow those those individuals with learning disabilities into life's struggling feeling left out feeling different my God you know just getting through school and trying to fit in and understand your differences and knowing that you've worked harder than others and you're still you know barely trying to keep up and then you got to take that into life I'm deviating I I ask that we be mindful as a school district our job to educate every student no matter their abilities be mindful of class sizes be mindful of scheduling um I I've I'm fighting or I'm not fighting that's that's the wrong word I am making it known that as a chemistry teacher I should I feel uncomfortable having a high load of students with special needs in my first period class chemistry like I feel like that's an injustice to those students and then again in my in a seventh hour class like I feel like there needs to be more mindfulness and schedule there needs to be mindful mindfulness and and how to help these teachers reach every single need in that classroom and again class sizes is a real quick way to address that so when we talk about future plans and suicide awareness there's there's the warning signs but let's the warning signs are there because of the root of the problem and I just I would love to see us be better at it and really change these lives and as we see these I want to make sure that we are incorporating family just coming in and being a school district and and saying hey we have these practices we're going to talk to you and we're putting things in place they still go home to their blood and their genetic you know roots of their life and it goes right back right so what what is that process um I'm talking a lot I just wanted to to put some vice president Anderson uh president Schultz this is timely because Miss Shawna Miller is out here in the audience and we have had discussions about the training that she's putting together to take to the sites he mentioned IEPs okay sometimes teachers haven't had enough training or understanding and so she's already on that in fact she has information and status that aligns to everything you just said so you did a little spoiler which is perfect yes presidential vice president Anderson I appreciate that perspective and one of the things that we can also do is bring back some of the presentations when we're talking about professional development aligned to the work that we're doing here for you to have an understanding and to kind of see as well uh because it can't just be a one and done it is it is ongoing and it has got to be very supportive and we're working really hard to also build that infrastructure so that we can continue to build on it so it's not just that annual you know check the box but whether okay this is our understanding now how do we how do we ensure that we're taking this to the next level I will tell you that our team took this our team our entire team took this very seriously in the training this year and and have provided feedback to us along the way so that we can continue to make it better obviously our goal is to not just to do it but to do it very well and we're making sure that it's sustainable and continues to be something that we're not only doing for compliance because we have to but because we're doing it to for the very very best of everybody our professional development as well as for our families and our students hence why when we did the work aligned with the Strategic plan it was also creating those resources for families and parents because the feedback we got was their sessions are nice but I not may not be able to go but when I need that information I want to be able to go back and get it and have it there and and connecting with those additional support resources because when you have a crisis you need additional levels of support that that that require expertise and so we feel like we've been building our our our I guess your our closet of resources here to be able to customize and provide support something that I'd like to add that I can like email we don't have to discuss it here um something that is beneficial um in the state of Maryland we used it but they've done it in multiple places it's called sources of strength um and the idea behind that is usually when we talk about suicide and suicide prevention we use shock and Trauma more than anything and that's counterintuitive and so really what it does is it helps on campus and so it's a student-led group um and the students are the ones who do these things so like one of the things that we did is we had the sources of strength the kids come on campus and it was like leading up to I don't know some sort of thing but they did shock messages all over the board or all over the sidewalk and those types of things but then we also it's like a pie chart and it it creates avenues for kids to know places that you can go to because sometimes a home may not be the place that you can go to to get the assistance that you need or to get somebody to hear what you're feeling and it talks about you know things you can do to help that and so it creates a space for kids to be able to feel more comfortable in talking about these things to seek out some of these options and I recognize that like at High School in Middle School well this seems you know easier to accomplish and obviously that would be harder to accomplish at elementary and unfortunately it's also needed at elementary but in something to do that helps the kids kind of take ownership as part of it in a positive fashion is I mean at least it was successful at the high school we had so um to that point I at the same time I don't think that I think that parents need to be notified when there is a situation to where their child is experiencing something um first and foremost parents must be notified and and be included in it and I know even with my own Daughter behavioral issues growing up um it was it was very hard to find psychologists that were willing to work that that is the hardest part and and I get that um I can't tell you how many times the doors were slammed in our face without them being able to assist us um so being able to provide when when children come with those needs and contacting their parents and being able to provide resources to their parents to um you know outside of the district to be able to seek that help um I think would be would be great but again like it all for me it and and a lot of people I know like parents have to be involved in in all of that to be clear I wasn't trying to Advocate but legally we have to if we know that a kid is is suicide risk those types of things legally that is 100 the process we don't want that kid leave until we've contacted parents and those kinds of things what what the program does is basically suicide and the thought of it the ideation everything doesn't happen in a day right and so it it creates opportunities for kids to at least maybe find safe spaces they can express to it and it was because of this program that a kid's friend went to a teacher to say I think my friend needs this help so it it creates I think ways for kids to look at it in a different way so it's not something that we just don't talk about or we just don't have those things and it also creates opportunities for more people to be aware and then once we are we I mean that is the process we go through completely and I think that's important because I mean at the end of the day they do leave here and they are at home and home needs to be aware it's just the idea of identifying it you want as many eyes and as many hearts as you can to care about you know the people in your orbit and that's essentially what what that was for so I I did not want to make it seem as if I was advocating to not inform uh because I agree with you that that matters yeah and and I I know that every the suicide numbers on all their badges correct their student IDs yes and and are they made aware I mean I I'm sure these kids check out their IDs but I'm sure there's also kids that never look at their IDs um so are they told that you know there's all this information on their IDs and to take a look at it yes presidential it's board member Van Hook they they do and are also signs and things that we're putting up all over the schools and I think even working with uh Gilbert leadership is also working on something like this as well but to your point I wanted to to to hit on one of the things that you said earlier um and I know that um Mr Walker wants to also tag on but I don't want it to get lost um the comment that you made about those resources for families and for parents out I will I will Echo that what you are saying is exactly what we heard from from families when we were in the part of the Strategic plan process is like we want to know about it we want to be aware of it but we need those additional resources outside of the school which was why when we talked about our goal for this year was to build those systemic resources as you saw that slide we've been systemically building the infrastructure of those resources Dina was added last year and she from day one I actually remember it was March 28th of last year it was my birthday and I remember thinking because she started and started providing us resources for community outreach for things that we hadn't had systemically before so this is one of the things that has been a huge priority and that we're sort of proud of the work that's been done and that we continue to do but yes awareness for the support on how to get for students to get that is on their IDs as well as all over the school as well as other safety posters like see something say something we've made a real push for helping people reach out for help so and then providing the infrastructure behind the scenes to make sure that we get the help consistently across Mr Walker did you want to add anything and I'm sorry real quick so I've seen the 988 signs that are in the schools um is this how did how did we find out about the organization to is that is like is that a national okay so it's not like we've vetted the organization before um this is a National Organization whose information it used to be like 1 800 suicide prevent like something long and they've simplified it so it's easy just like 9-1-1 so that you don't have to memorize or look something up you can help someone in need right away thank you president Schultz members of the board um 988 is is likened to 9-1-1 if recall in the last two years they've made some changes the dialing protocol for area codes and so sometimes use a one sometimes you do 480 or sometimes you do 602 they did all that changes to prepare for the rolled out of a nationwide 988 so it's not one particular entity it's a national crisis hotline and then that's manned by crisis teams uh depending on the jurisdiction similar to how a 911 call center would be it's not always that direct police department but it gets routed to the agency they can support So since 988 came out and it's a quick easy to remember a number to dial that's just working in conjunction with the Ade and and Arizona 211 is this a resource that we can put that's a quick uh easy to remember easy to navigate number to call um 911 always trumps that if there's an immediate emergency but 988 place to call for resources and then going back to the other point about parent notification that's another piece of our suicide awareness uh just our foundational statements is that in addition to the knowledge that we're trying to have everybody acquire just by presenting the information through safe talk and through more than sad and through assist we've also made sure that we're we're cognizant of what the role is in this whole process and who is best equipped to take over once the school has been made aware of a situation so any and all students any any type of Crisis is taken serious and that is the expectation is that parents are made aware and they're the first person that gets the phone call and then there is a soft handoff between the school and the parent and so that that is the number one priority is to get the student to their parents and the parents can help them get further resources that supersedes what a school can offer and when they call this let's say a child decides to dial 988 um does the do they immediately contact the parent do we know that I think what they do is more triage they take into consideration what the call is for they might immediately dispatch uh EMTs to the school but beyond that I don't really know what the next step is I'm assuming there's probably some liabilities in dealing with minors in confidentiality that there is some sort of relationship there I'm assuming that they're obligated to report just as we are and so I'm sure that that would be in the best interest but I can't speak for the the crisis okay thank you presidentials Mysteries thank you I know you've done a lot of work and I know a lot of our conversation up here has been about suicide and suicide prevention and that is just one piece of our social emotional learning it's a very big and important piece there's there's no doubt um but you had a slide on there with um our crisis team and and the pyramid and um I know people have a lot of concern about social emotional learning and where we've tried to speak about terms and words it's not a curriculum or social emotional support we had a horrific situation over spring break with one of our students and those kids returning to the classroom without one of their students needed social emotional support they needed a crisis team how to explain to a first grader we don't explain what happened but they wonder where their friend is so there's a lot of social emotional support that has to happen and if a student can't process if they can't figure out why their friend isn't coming back um It's A disruption to the classroom and when there's a disruption to the classroom It's A disruption for their learning and it's okay that there's that disruption because we need to help them learn how do we how do we learn from this so how do we how are we okay and and how do we move on so then that learning environment can continue and return and they can continue to flourish if we ignore it if they continue to struggle and they can't process their that delay in returning to that a learning environment will happen and so there's a lot that goes into it that we do have to um provide that support we have to help them identify those emotions and put them to words and then they can also have those conversations when they go home and their parents can also support it but we have a lot that happens outside of the classroom that impacts the classroom everyday life there it's unfortunate I mean for people who've been in the district for a long time worked with kids and families for a long time the stuff that you realize and you experience um those kids go through that too and so we need to have those mechanisms we can't just pretend nothing happened and just move on we need to to provide that support and help them and and that's all ages I mean this was a first grade class that had to try and understand um we've dealt with um car accidents with high schoolers and and suicide with high schoolers and middle schoolers and you know you go to a student's funeral a child's funeral and that's not any fun and we think about how that impacts us as adults that impacts that learning environment and the old way of handling it is we ignored it and we just moved on okay you know I'm sorry they're not here today get your math books out let's go and that's just not conducive to how kids are going to learn so um putting things like this teaching teaching the suicide awareness but the other social emotional pieces that Dr treat has done that the schools do help these kids learn how to handle things like this and be okay and move on and so that we can continue to grow so I know a lot of the social emotional we've talked about tonight is is the suicide which is it's great and yes it's state mandated we've been working on it for for quite a while covet kind of interrupted that but um it's been a passion for several board members for quite some time after having to deal with that and putting the resources and having these parents um presentations sometimes they're not always greatly attended but we keep going and we keep presenting and it's here if they want it when they want it so Mr Walker thank you for the work that you do there's so much to it and it's it really is life-changing so the support that you're in that you've been doing in and all the coaches and everything and Dr treat with professional development so that people get hung up on the social emotional learning but it's very important in these aspects so thank you and to that point I I agree like what you know there's when there's instances kids do need that support um my concern is when it's taught as a lesson um and it's across the whole school and we're treating every child like they need that support versus in individually when something occurs or if the child seeks that being able to have that one-on-one with a specific child that's requiring that's that support um for instance in my case it was added to my child's IEP when she was five that she needed you know training on how to you know deal with emotions and and work with other children so my only concern is and it's not just mine you know many parents is that it's being taught to every classroom every student and and we're treating like every child needs mental support um when that's not the case so that's the concern parents have when they think of social emotional learning because when you look at all the information on it that's what it talks about there's Data Mining and there's all these social emotional competencies which leads to other things but if we're talking about an incident occurring and kids needing support absolutely like that we should be able to provide that to those kids that need that support because it's traumatic or individually when a child needs it due to you know whether it's medical reasons or you know IEP individualized attention yes but it's the other stuff that comes into play with SEL something that I'd like to uh at least throw out there to consider all persons benefit from being able to identify the emotions that they're feeling from being able to express those emotions and I think it's wonderful and excellent when you have students who come from a home in which they have these types of conversations we have to serve all students and there are some students in the classroom who are not given any of these things and these are the types of interventions that decrease drug use it decreases the risk of suicide it overall improves learning environment because we have people who are dealing with Big T and Little T traumas at home and we have no way of understanding that and what those are and when they come in here we're doing the best we can and kids are often dealing with pretty heavy things and I recognize the importance of doing that when specific instances happen but from a teacher perspective every single person in that classroom is better off by learning how to communicate to each other and understand it even if the things that we are going through are for a small percentage everybody benefits so the idea that we look at it and I recognize that there are a lot of conversations that are being had and expressions that are being made on things that are in fact not happening but from a teacher perspective every single day you can ask any single grade level and any single teacher you see kids who are overwhelmingly stressed some of it is self-imposed some of it is from things that exist beyond the classrooms and if they have a space in which they can learn how to process what they're feeling take a moment Center yourself so you can get back to the task at hand not only is that improve their overall learning they're feeling as if they are connected shows long-term success and so many things but from a teacher perspective a kid who normally might have disrupted my classroom for 15-20 minutes now is not even a disruption or it is a conversation to which they say hey I need to have an opportunity to take a walk today I'm just a little overwhelmed great go to the restroom I'll see you in a minute those types of things are are what we talk about and why these programs benefit all persons in our district both staff and students alike regardless of the specific situations and the idea is it stops the trauma situations from happening and it it literally helps academic achievement because they are capable of processing and then going back to because if you are emotionally overwhelmed you aren't learning anything it doesn't matter how hard you try when we are inserting scl and almost every curriculum when do we find time for actual actual academics um we need to be able to concentrate at some point on on the academics on the core subjects that these kids are supposed to be learning and I don't like the idea of turning our schools into mental health facilities yes Provide support to the kids that need it but we need to also concentrate and make sure that these kids are you know learning what they're in school to learn I think there's a misunderstanding on the length of time these things take so for example I taught High School there's a 55-minute class period how's everybody doing today to start your day right those types of things because what we also know is grown adults don't have an attention span Beyond 20 minutes so instituting these breaks not only allows them to center it helps us improve because we now can come back you've given them a break and they're ready to learn the next topic like it I recognize that there is conversations that's around that makes it sound alarming and I'm not saying that that that that conversation doesn't exist but what I'm trying to convey is that the length of time you think is happening isn't it is not an overall disruption to have little bits of things that you are providing as a break or an opportunity for these kids and then the larger programs of drug awareness or bullying these types of things that impact so much are the ones that we might take a day here and there and those are literally already built into the program teachers are made aware of them hey this day granted we're not given enough time often but we're made aware hey next Tuesday your third period is going to do this and we can work around it to make sure that we're still achieving our curriculum and as a district we've been doing it we've been doing get an education for a while and our schools are performing well we are so the concern that we're losing track in academics and I recognize that we are not where we are that is a national problem not a Higley problem we're doing great BR like uh Bridges was on the the list like I mean we're we're not failing our kids academically we're we're failing them as humans by saying they shouldn't be able to be human thank you every it's a very passionate subject and um I appreciate Mr Walker and all of his um everything you're doing for the district and I know Mrs Reese you mentioned that sometimes parents don't come to these things but I attended dangers of Snapchat and one pill can kill and it was a packed packed room so I know that both of those are also I know like we've been talking about suicide but both of those are extremely important subjects um and I know parents learned a lot from it and maybe some even chose to to not let their children do Snapchat um are those available to watch were they recorded at all uh some are and some are not the ones that are not recorded are the ones that we don't want to be used against us so some of the stuff would give put it into the wrong hands of how to counteract some of the dangers of um attention Snapchat one teaches people how drug dealing takes place over social media so those are not available through our partnership with the Community Bridges there are presentations and that's part of our plan for next year is to offer both in-person and virtual and then also recorded sessions we've we've debated that because one of the things that comes up is it loses its emphasis if it's just a recording and we want to be still be able to have that personal connection and have families come out and have that conversation and then speak to the presenter afterwards or just the recording I I mean it wouldn't hurt to have it but I would be hesitant to have that replace the in-person presentations as well I just I I think people have gotten so used to doing things over Zoom so they preferred to watch from the comfort of their couch versus in person they would be missing out though because of the interaction and the questions that you're able to ask and the feedback and the information that you're able to get by being in the audience it it it's very important I think as a mom of a 12 year old and well soon to be 13 and a 10 year old then that I attended that as far as the Snapchat and Fentanyl scares me more than anything um so I think that's important if the community can attend and that will continue to be amazing I mean I think there's like 200 people that watch online I mean it would be amazing if they all showed up here but reality is you know it is comfortable to watch from home so if we could when we do these things to offer an online option um or if we can record so that they can watch later that would be wonderful sure yeah definitely consideration and and we had over almost 250 people attend this past year so that was kind of the calendar to like nobody will come if we do it well let's try it and we did it and we had a good turnout for it so thanks for the input on that and I don't know if you saw but the Attorney General today banned Tick Tock from all agency phones so this is Anderson nope go ahead I was just gonna move on but not yet use her there it is um Anna thank you for that question about the recording and interestingly so I've been working at my working with reaching out to my principal trying to get access to that video we watched I would love to watch it again no idea so um next up is district office and then a deep dig into my emails to see if I can find the link but yeah that it's not necessarily it's for the public and for everybody else but also for his staff they'd like to go back and get that information again I mean that's a lot to intake at a time and if you're going through things or if you're thinking about things and you're going to miss a part because you have lost on that train of thought then yeah it'd be nice to have that um as as something to access um I don't know if this is right but this is just when I put my ear to the floor because I try to stay off social media a lot in the news is the discomfort with the SEL from what I've seen and heard is that the potential that it can and I'll address this in a second that it really tries to cover a certain group of people over others and I will tell you this in my video in my training that I watched every reenactment they did was for a student that was wanting a different gender or not comfortable in the gender they're with or they were gay that was and I don't mean to make this room uncomfortable but I'm wondering if that is someone's not someone a lot of people's concerns is that it's going to address a certain group and not address others and it's or bringing light to groups and not others like I stated with learning disabilities like none of the training I watched had to address individuals in that circumstance and how to overcome in ways to cope in all this so I don't know if that's right again I'm just saying what I see and what I hear um and then I'll just literally turn my mic off Mrs Anderson I I can't speculate on what makes people uncomfortable but um it sounds like your District might need to call Mr Walker to go over what we're doing at Higley because I know that Gilbert leadership as Dr Foley mentioned um looked around at what the districts are doing and how far ahead Higley is right now and what we're doing and what Mr Walker and his team and everybody in the district is trying to do to accomplish so maybe you could ask the people in your District to call and we can only control what happens here so I'm not president Schultz I appreciate that comment because I think we can get hung up in semantics and what we've been working on is trying to build systems and what we've done very clearly and is one of the very first things you heard Mr Walker say is let us help you we made this as part of our strategic plan we use the words that we heard from the community from our teachers from our children from our families what do you want then we defined just as he outlined for you what is the progress you've identified the goals we want to accomplish here sir is to identify what are the resources what are the systems how are we defining it so what we're doing is providing that update for you I think this is very big and Broad but we're talking about defining very clearly what are the steps and the systems that we are building and making progress on and we are doing an exceptional job and I would say from our peer districts we are we are we are leaps we were behind and we are now Leaps and Bounds ahead thank you Dr Foley thank you Mr Rocher for the update we will be moving on to 6.3 amendment to policy gdba staff wage and salary schedules foreign members of the board I bring before you this a policy that is currently in place supports staff wage and salary schedules there is one sentence in this policy that I am recommending to be removed from this policy and the reason being is the board did approve a new salary schedule for fiscal year 2324 and in that salary schedule is an additional dollar for 12 month support staff if an employee would be hired today at the current rate they would not be eligible for an increase on July 1 with the statement still in the policy they would be making less than their colleague who starts July 1st and that decrease in salary would continue for their span of time that we they would be employed by Higley School District Johnson they could just essentially quit and be rehired at a different rate so it doesn't make sense I know this policy started I we I had Mrs Richards look for and it was at 2000 in 2001 it's been on our books so it doesn't make any sense to question to um right I know to um uh somebody could get a job right now and get paid a dollar less quit and then get paid a dollar more if they started back in July that is correct thank you questions comments concerned moving on to 6.4 this is our second reading of amendment to policy jlcb immunizations of students Mr Walker president Schultz member of the over the board tonight to bring back governing board policy jlcb for a second read we brought this back for a first read in February we had updated our policy request based on some changes to the legislation that asked to include Copa 19 and the immunization of students policy board member van Hoke provided some input to bring back for a second read so we came back to the policy committee uh and called and consulted with our attorneys to ensure the request was compliant we did receive confirmation that Although our first request was compliant the second one is as well with the exception of this one part that was just grammatically incorrect so we bring forward the updated policy for a second read thank you questions comments concerns thank you Mr rocker moving on to action item 7.1 a 10 I make a motion to approve a tenant approval of fiscal year 2024 capital outlay budget second questions comments concerns all those in favor will you be able to answer questions about financials uh president Schultz board member Van Hook we have Tyler Moore on the phone and we also have we have him on the phone we also have our assistant director here as well who might be able to help answer questions perfect so my question is on paid I don't have it up but we don't have it up but on um page six of the presentation um um thank you in the capital budget it looks like we have a two million dollar carryover after 2024. um which is down um from the 4 million from previous year my question is has the mno carryover um 26 million changed and what is that supposed to be at the end of this school year Tyler your question is about the m MOS Tyler King Tyler here are they able to get Tyler up yep good evening there he is what members can you hear me okay yeah so the carryover for mno as we approved in the tentative Eminem budget we're estimating 26 million um so that has not changed since you've last approved it okay so that won't change after this school year and again that that is an estimate so you know we still have uh three months of or now two months of expenditures and encumbrances to get through the end of the fiscal year but with the state being on current year funding we have to take a you know estimates in consideration so it may fluctuate um slightly but we anticipate that um being 26 million going into next fiscal year so okay yeah and maybe a plus or minus but we always come back to the governing board and show the true and actual amounts in October when we reconcile our books and compile the annual financial report for the district okay thank you anybody else have a question on this page before I move on my next question is for page 11.
favor say aye aye opposed extensions under new business we have our school calendar which is included in your packet it is the current school calendar which now has the concluded last day for students will be Wednesday June 14th which is early dismissal I believe that is the only change from the previous calendar correct yes it's just I'm requesting that the board forgive one day for the students making Wednesday the 14th of June the last day of school we've had one additional day out of school from our boa colleagues because we had the burst pipe on February 5th so we're giving that one day for students would allow the teachers to do their final professional development on the Thursday and Friday and not have to come back to work on Monday we'll be heroes for the kids correct because we have extra days so we still will be our instructions can I get a motion please Sean and then I got in a meet up so now I will move to Bethany Board of Education shorten the student school year from 182 to 181 days allowing the last day of school for students to be Wednesday June 14 2023 all in favor say aye aye opposed and the abstentions House of committee met on March 7 2023 and are recommending the following policy for first reading what is normally Chris what exactly do we read through this I mean it's a lot what is normal the force for this usually they just read the policy just that right down there I didn't think it was all this it's just like you okay so under revisions we're looking to just uh approve our revisions for policy 4112.6 421 2.6 regarding Personnel records policy 411 2.8 or two one two point eight regarding nepotism policy 4115.3 regarding evaluation policy 4116.2 sudden Cardiac Arrest awareness I'll see 4119-4219 prohibition on recommendations for psychotropic drugs policy 5120 non-resident staff policy 5145.12 search and seizure policy 6114.1 fire emergency and crisis response drills policy 6114.81 pandemic economic emergencies can go right into adoptions need to be separate motions okay so do I have a motion for us to accept we can have a discussion I do oh yeah uh why are we removing the power of the board and making that decision and giving it to the superintendent politics usually it comes to superintendent and only in the case of having really large Plus Sizes Etc concerned that it might be refuted or what have you it comes to the board it doesn't have to be removed but certainly if you wish in the future to know every staff member who might request I would like to know as a board member that possesses a financial on the town because they're getting 25 percent of the total cost right but I think it should be aborted it should be a board decision it's a financial impact upon the district and our taxpayers that's for you to decide does that mean that has to go back to a revision State like if there's not I've never done this one so that's why I'm a little bit like I understand so if that's the only policy there's a question on can we accept revisions on all the rest and then that can either be tabled for the meeting what's the right way to handle that okay okay so it can be approved the way it is right now and then further discuss before it becomes a finalized policy okay so that should have brought up as a question any other questions regarding the other policies under revisions what's happening now exactly so if I have this correct we can approve this is first reading so we can approve the first reading and then it can goes back to the second reading for discussion right yeah so it it can be discussed at policy about changing that back to it being the board decision rather than the superintendent and then brought to Second reading that that vote that's when it becomes a final revision correct anybody else have questions under any of the policies for revisions I would say if we're going to bring it back to policy though that maybe if um information can be collected because I know working for a local school district that The Amity School District I know that they have a policy like that that's in there that they have a similar policy so I'd be curious if there are other policies like this that are in the you know in their that's her you know in their policies or is it something that goes at the discretion of the board is it voted on be curious to see what other people have in helping to inform any decision we make regarding the policy that'd be cool serious any other questions make a motion to in order to get a vote about the revisions on these policies for the first meeting second vote on the first reading correct paper it's recommended under new business move the Board of Education accept the policies from revision for first reading papers AI thank you next two are under adoptions adopt policy 4116.4 exertional heat illness awareness policy 4116.5 emergency action plan for athletic events okay um can I get a motion for us questions remove the Board of Education accept the policies for adoption for first reading all in favor say aye ready opposed extensions under deletion looking to delete policy 5141.231 prohibition on recommendations for psychotropic drugs anybody have a question regarding deleting that policy to get a motion to move to a vote in the deletion of that policy thank you there's no questions move the Board of Education accept the policy of the deletion for first reading under deletion the action item all in favor say aye opposed wow okay under technical revisions or no changes policy zero one zero zero mission for Bethany public should what I don't have to do that one oh thank you [Music] I I'd prefer not but I don't want to you know do the wrong thing so as board members we'll see in your packet there are a number of policies 34 to be exact listed under technical revisions or no changes question on any of the just something to just say just to make you know kind of get it out there being a part of the policy committee one of the things that I asked is that why are there things in here that are no changes that's because we're trying to make sure that we're looking at everything and seeing if there is any need for changes and it still has to go through that says that we read through it so that we're keeping everything recent even if there is no change involved so there's a lot of no change on this paper because some of these policies are mandated by state statute statute is there some way that we could get a footnote policies who know whether they're mandated or just recommended or maybe just you know mandating just to help understand what everybody's looking to required by law or if this is just a preferred way of doing business I think that's easy enough to do okay okay thanks okay thank you Susan there are no other questions regarding any of those technical revisions or no changes can I get a motion for us to be able to move on to a vote John second the Meetup move the Board of Education accept the policies that have technical revisions or no changes for first reading all in favor say aye imposed and Now we move on to our administrative reports bird it's your turn superintendent as of March 31st 2013 BCS enrollment is at 4 six as you know in your package you have a historical enrollment that shows you snapshot for the prior years for each of the reporting months from August through March at this time our kindergarten enrollment for the fall 2023 is projected 255 students so we still anticipate three sections currently there are 53 enrolled which puts the class sizes at 17 18.
so I think this is an appropriate time to discuss the sexually explicit materials and teaching being introduced to the children or educational system which I am sure is being taught under the guise of health or whatever else you want to call it and it's still a form of sexual abuse this information is given to our youngest impressionable and pliable family members and is nothing more than perversion pornography and pedophilia which I believe there are laws against in this state and Country the Declaration of the adverse childhood experiences this study refers to one of the traumatic events or circumstances affecting children before age 18 and causing mental or physical harm is sexual abuse not just physical but mental exploitation and indoctrinization some books in the school library shows graphic sexual acts we've been told that totally inappropriate for any school-aged child I will conclude with a scripture verse from Jude 1 4 for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sexuality and deny our only master in Lord Jesus Christ and on that note I will say get rid of the literature and the sexually perverted materials and get back to the teaching of what really matters the essential subjects of Reading Writing and arithmetic thank you all right Mr Korea back to you sir uh Andy Korea 45 West Whiskey Road I came to talk about actually the in the executive session there'll be discussion about collective bargaining and strategy um something I wanted to bring up is a long time failure of the Board of Education and the district with respect to the contracts of the administrators and the teachers um there is no provision and the teachers and administrations administrators contract to address improper behavior of teachers um we've had a lot of that in the district over the past 18 months there's been about eight issues that have harmed girls that the administration hasn't handled properly um and the board has covered some of it up and I've come to the board and spoke to them and they've basically done nothing about it other than cover it up and except for two coaches that were not teachers so they didn't have a Union contract they were like quietly dismissed but these are ongoing issues and think about it is all of these as far as I've been able to tell through foia's haven't even had letters put in their file right so if this Behavior continues there's no way to track it as administrators come and go you go and look where's the trail bread crumbs in many Union contracts they have predetermined ways to deal with disagreements behaviors Etc right typically there's things like you know longshoremen showing up late teachers berating a child things like that they have lists of infractions lists and description of how it's handled and consequences for that with escalating consequences many Educators contracts have that and in other other states and municipalities there's like a process to get a letter in your file that is like last and final so if you have a teacher that does something that's inappropriate three times in a row they get a last and final and then it's not a negotiation in Brookfield it's a negotiation because at the contract signing everybody's going to agree that child sexual abuse shouldn't happen in the schools right but if there's a problem right and it's somebody you've known for 25 years and they're sitting there and there could be a he said she said situation it's a negotiation right and that's happened in Brookfield it happened within a couple months within the past few months okay so the request I have for the board is when they go in contract negotiation especially considering you're probably going to be looking at you know higher cost of living increases because the inflation this is the time to ask for that addition to the contract which which the union may obviously push back and fix it so that you know the reason one of the reasons I believe that the administration isn't dealing with it appropriately I think it was two one is we have poor administrators the other one is I don't think they have this tool and in the contract we should have that tool as well as an expectation on administrators to use it okay thank you all right that's it for public comment um thank you all for your input we appreciate it as I said at the beginning especially on this book topic the operational term is I'm going to make sure I get it right a reconsideration of materials and contact the library I'm sorry it's a sign up at the beginning man can I say something no no um I thought there was going to be a discussion no it's not it's public comment no ma'am our kids and they are mutilated they are sold 8 million children in this country alone and then there are the children that are being molested every day you're out of order man stop grooming our children okay that's not your job get that all right um we're moving on uh three main points I thought we 'd cover the CE C app present and the CLE s update and Dr Burrell's update by um Rosa and do you think we ought to put a pointer toward this all this public comment the Spotlight by Center School so this we can leave off to pick my kid yeah I think their policy for reconsideration of books is important yeah I think I think that's always an important discussion I think it we ought to not not hide from it okay it just wasn't it was a memorable I mean that's very memorable probably the most memorable in my seven years on the board so it just wasn't a board discussion yeah I gotcha yeah everybody okay with that so we'll do the spotlight the second one was the clas update and the third one is uh very significant input on book discussion um yeah include something about uh the request updated policy yeah okay upcoming events all schools are closed for spring break Friday April 7th through Friday April 14th at Center School on April 22nd a Saturday is the Out of This World birthday event which is at Center School from two to four sponsored by the PTO Monday April 24th through Friday April 28th is the book fair with a family night on Friday April 20 28th from six to seven Huckleberry has Christine's Critters coming for all grades PTO sponsored on April 20th and 21st and the science fair on April 27th in the evening and in the morning on April 28th for students to view at Whiskey near the week of April 15th to the 22nd 48th French exchange students will be visiting Brookfield and attending classes at whiskoneer on Wednesday April 19th the exchange students and host family students will be going to Hidden Valley Preserve in Washington Depot the week of April 24th to 28th is a Scholastic Book Fair Tuesday April 25th is the PTO meeting 6 30 Via zoom and April 27th and 28th as a fifth grade field trip to the institute for the American Indian studies in Washington and I think at BHS we just Mr Belinda's at St baldrick's on the 27th 27th of April is the saint baldrick's event that's all I have okay thank you all right um that's it for the regular part of our schedule we do have a uh executive session anticipated so we will be ending our broadcast at this moment we will do our executive session in the principles conference room and uh so we will not be adjourning here so thank you all for coming and thank you all for coming in we need a motion to go I will move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing strategy and negotiations as it relates to collective bargaining and discussion and possible action regarding attorney-client privilege information and draft agreement with the Brookfield Police Department second any any discussion hearing none all in favor okay so we'll take a five minute recess to relocate and maybe
um with a little bit of overlap um there are some um actually many that overlap um from from both so um just for awareness of how many speaker cards there are signed ups for for the next item as well so I think it probably will bump us up somewhere near uh 40 or slightly over 40 speakers in total um however my other question would probably be um well I guess if this were to come back the speakers that sign up for this item um just wouldn't be heard tonight on this item they would be speaking to if they signed up for the next item they'd be speaking toward that item I'm suggesting as part of my motion that we give them a chance to speak on the next side yes yes basically doubling the amount of time allotted well many of them are also signed up on the next item well then I I I'm just going to go out on a limb here and suggest that he'll be content to to only speak on the one item thank you that's what I was kind of addressing was that some of those folks may not feel content about that otherwise they'd be speaking twice on the same item does anyone here I mean are we gonna people are does anybody have an opportunity to to comment on my proposal that we basically get rid of item number six and and move all the speakers down to item number seven or am I basically proposing that we overrule in the objection with this procedurally you've complicated it um and so I'm just processing um did you have input Mr Lindo okay looked like you were gonna mute yourself I mean I just feel like I'm now speaking to the audience if no one favors the resolution I'm proposing we pull the resolution and move all this give all the speakers who are in that category the opportunity to speak on on item number seven below that which is the actual policy that that many of you are interested in commenting on so yeah so yeah okay so really the motion is just to pull the item the motions and move all the speakers to the following item sure so instead we're not doubling the ones that signed up we're allowing the ones that signed up for this item to then go first on the next item just so I'm clear um sure yeah okay I guess raise your hand if you want to speak on the resolution which nobody likes but you don't want to speak on the policy change right they only get once thank you I'll just withdraw my motion madam yes uh I move that we table the resolution 1600-23 to a future meeting um do you have any other direction for staff with that uh no because um if it hold on sorry um I'll second it for discussion I just didn't know if you had any further clarification for why why we are tabling it uh well I'm tabling it because I believe there were two different intents and bringing forward the resolution 1600-23 because it restates a you know 40 years worth of policy on the behalf of Chico Unified School District and I don't want to see that get mixed up with the issues of the next item okay I understand um so if we table this to another meeting we would be tabling all of the speakers with it as well yes that doesn't however prevent the speakers that were signed up for speaking at the end of the other one because you can speak um so so my um just for clarity I think that there's nothing wrong with this resolution I think it's a nice resolution um I I don't quite understand what prompted the need for this resolution because there was no board member request to agenda as an item that we took action on I don't remember did we take action on that as a as a like in a board member request to agenda as an item okay Mr tennis just came to staff and said can you write this resolution actually this was something that I put on to reinforce what we have been working on at the direction of the board based off a resolution in a another neighboring District okay um okay so the motion is to table this uh item to a future date I didn't have a date certain because I can't see what our agendas look like over the next number of months and it looks like we're very full so I did not intend to table to uh you know a date certain if at the end of every meeting board members are asked about things they want to agendize if they get to a point where a board member wants to say okay let's agendize resolution 1600-23 then it's appropriate to bring it back at that time or we can add it to the lcap discussion because it also ties in very nicely I was gonna I was gonna say that also so let's um let's so the so the motion is to table this to an undetermined future date yes yes okay and there's a and there's a second I'd like to offer a friendly Amendment um would you be willing to um allow the parents to in some way or or other people besides the district to to supply a draft their version of a resolution so we have a draft resolution before us right I don't I I don't think that's not necessarily that that is I'm asking her she would decide if it was a friendly Amendment right yeah I I don't consider that a friendly amendment I also don't consider it in order to as a parliamentary thing that you know members of the public have can um write us letters you know can can petition for things you brought forward and then that's up to the board to decide and we do have a history of that we've had resolutions submitted in the past I believe we had some during covid that were attached as public comment to our agenda and then were discussed by the board so there is a process to do that and following that past procedure from the recent past what came of that typically seems it had been um board direction or request at least to agendaize an item to incorporate aspects of those draft resolutions or to even request to work with staff to draft a resolution um and and we could do that at a future date during the board member request to agenda as an item yeah yeah all right how about a alternative draft provided by a board member such as myself you you have the right to do that at the end of every meeting as a part of the agenda item though this would be something that would be in the agenda packet something that was a viable option you know under that action item to vote for my my resolution Mr tennis that would be part of what you would do when you say you want to agendize an item you do the topic you do the stuff and and then you know if it's approved it gets done this is an item that's already going to be on the agenda so no I wouldn't bring this up for a new agenda item this would be whenever this this is rescheduled I'm asking you know can I Supply my own draft agenda that would be supplied alongside the district agenda is there a history of that you've done that so again that could be something that is submitted or look at whatever when we get we have that agenda item come up again modifications that you would want to make to the existing resolution um and submit those as well all right so there's a couple of ways to do it thank you forward without I'm going to start you guys for 10 seconds he's out of order yeah no sorry thank you we're ready to vote yeah I think we have a motion on the floor is that correct and the motion is to table this to a future meeting can you just do that are you allowed to just say oh it was on the agenda it's an action item yes do you need to ask for like some kind of rule waiver or something like that no it's it is to vote to table an item it's an appropriate parliamentary procedure to to table an item and so people who came and signed up to speak on this item they will not have the opportunity to speak on the next one we're basically telling them that they just came here for nothing they can speak on the next one I'm not making the motion at this point I think we should move forward I went through and I think we should talk about it let's go ahead and get back on track here and take a vote on the motion that is on the floor Dolby I Robinson I concur night landawi Tennessee okay all right so we're gonna move on to item number 7.3.1 this is the discussion action on cusd board policy number 5145.3 non-discrimination and harassment okay I'm going to go ahead and kick this off and um we can get the PowerPoint presentation up here I'm going to ask everybody to bear with me I am getting over a cold so my voice kind of comes and goes so I may sound like a teenage boy at times but I'll get through this uh District staff clearly now we've heard from hundreds of people on board policy 5145.3 which is non-discrimination and harassment and in particular how it applies to transgender and gender non-conforming students and really at the core of this issue is philosophical differences between student privacy rights and increased parental inclusion so it's very clear that there is a division in our community and in fact there's a division in our nation over this issue so for Chico Unified over the past few months we've listened and we've identified three possible options for consideration by the board and I recognize there may be many other options as well so one option would be to retain the existing board policy and admin administrative regulation 5145.3 another option would be to adopt a brand new board policy an administrative regulation to go with it focused on student privacy rights a third option would be adopt a new board policy and administrative regulation focused on increased parental inclusion and I believe there's also a fourth option and that's wait for either case law or the judge in our current matter or legislative action to take school districts off the hook of getting sued on a decision because it's going to continue to help in school district after school school district and we heard earlier it's costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that ultimately come away from our schools and our students so I know I know we all know there's strong emotions surrounding this topic so we're going to go through first I'm going to just start with some definitions so if we can go to that I won't go back one so board policies cover all aspects of our district we have board policies for business and facilities for education and if you click down at the bottom there you can see they start with the zeros the 1000s and go all the way through the nine thousands so there are lots and lots of board policies and the board policies keep us in the light in alignment with law they keep us in alignment with California Department of Education guidelines they keep us in alignment with everyone's region case law so when we go down to next slide please there we go what is board policy board policy is determined by the board and it is the what we do and the why we do it where our administrative regulations are set by staff and that is the process that follows once the board sets a policy so I included just a very small example there and we don't need to click on it but if we have a board policy on work permits and basically it says the board believes that our students should have the right to apply for jobs and work even while they're students and then in the administrative regulation it goes into the steps that we have to do to be legally compliant in allowing our students to have work permits so just wanted to clarify for everyone the difference between board policy and administrative regulations so for Chico Unified there's 90 mandated policies for all districts probably over that by now and for Chico Unified we have over 350 board policies so with ever-changing laws with ever-changing cases going to court and setting precedence with um guidance from our state changing we don't have the ability to in-house to stay current on all of those legal implications for all 350 board policies so we contract with the California school boards Association or csba and their legal team to draft board policies and draft administrative regulations and I will tell you the vast majority of districts in California use csba because it is the school boards Association to draft School Board policies so in Chico Unified our process is when we get policies from csba we bring those forward to the board the board revises them as necessary and then approves the board policies and it's usually at least two are typically at least two board meetings where the public has the opportunity to have input before they're adopted once they're adopted the staff goes back and looks at the associated regulations the administrative regulations that go with that board policy and we make sure they align with the direction we are given by the board and then have policy or have procedures that follow that so again that's our process for going through this I just want to take on to the next slide in reviewing the board policy in AR 5145.3 Educational Services team received input from the following educational partners again we've heard from a lot of parents at previous board meetings we've received emails from parents we've seen the public input on our board meeting so we've taken every one of those comments into consideration we've talked to students and we've heard students at board meetings we've talked to students at lcap meetings we've we've listened to community members that have spoke here about the board meetings and also looked at their public input John has done a great job with meeting with classified Mr Shepard here has done a great job of meeting with classified staff including counseling assistants and office assistance we've met with certificate certificated staff including counselors and teachers we've met with all the elementary counselors and all we've had meetings with our secondary counselors our counseling DLC our district Leadership Council for counselors we've met with all of our district Leadership Council teachers at the elementary level and the secondary level to get input from them we've met with our elementary principals and assistant principals and we've met again John has done a lot of this leg work so I want to make sure he's getting he's put a lot of time in me with all these groups he's met with all the site principles and assistant principals from the secondary schools and against and he's also talked with all of us at services and all the different departments inside the district office so we got a lot of input moving forward with these um the the board policy and the administrative regulations let me go to the next one and this is really just a visual of what I always I already talked about with uh just some options that we were able to come with up with looking and listening to what we're seeing from our community and the first one is to retain the current board policy and administrative regulations on board policies uh the 514 5.3 the reason again we're looking at bringing two different um uh two board policies because at 51.45.3 does not specifically the board policy itself why most of the people are here tonight on the process of transgender so what we brought on which again and then AR the administrative regulations really doesn't even address it until page four of the of that AR so what we're bringing to you guys tonight is two different board policies that just goes along with just that situation of transgender so we wanted this to have we've heard from all those different community members and staff and we wanted to bring you two two different options to take a look at to make it its own board policy and its own AR to you guys tonight as an option okay here we have the links of if we want to pull up the first our current on board policy again it's a short on board policy and again it does not address transgender itself as okay then then administrative if you can link on the next one and again if you scroll through it and I'm not going to read through every one of it but it again it doesn't address it until we get to page four right there again so again if we bought the other two to you would specifically deal with that or we can again we're asking the board tonight if we wanted to stick with our current onboard policy in our current AR or the two um options for 0.4 I'm just going to go with 0.4 so I'll say all of it again but it's 0.4 would give you an option where it's just as a new board policy and a new AR and I'm going to have John kind of go over that okay so what I really want to focus again on this is mainly for audience members just to be sure we understand we're talking about board policy the what and the why and then the administrative regulation AR which is probably how I'll refer to these as we go as the process it's really important that people distinguish those those two definitions as we're working our way through these because as was described earlier if and when the board makes decisions adopts board policy then we go back as a team and develop AR that appropriately identifies process all right so I want to make sure we clarify that for tonight so we're going to start with what we have done we've deemed the student privacy right board policy and administrative regulation so I'm going to try to do tonight is really call your attention to specific language within those to to adequately Define the differences between the four documents that I'm going to describe so starting with the board policy 5145.4 student privacy rights and you'll see in the first paragraph gender status shared by a student 11 year 11 years of age or under will not be disclosed without student permission so that's the key language in that first paragraph however we want to be sure anytime we're dealing with kids that if if there's a as we have with all of our trained professionals and I think it's important to point out right now that going back to the wellness excuse me the mtss presentation when you saw all the credentials that our counselors need to provide that when they're in a position to have these conversations with students it's really important to remember that we still have the Cal the California child abuse Reporting Act in place all right as we're going through these so I want to make sure I I highlighted that so that's the board policy these policies are linked and the ARs are linked in the presentation everybody needs to look them up okay so administrative regulation that would then support and I want to reiterate I'm going to keep saying it that these ARS would be developed you know based on what the board decides okay so the key language here that the staff shall in the following order and it's really important that this order is followed because in number one you're going to see that the staff will initiate the completion of our gender intake form all right now that gender intake form is a document that essentially will guide the conversation with staff and the student we know that gender intake form will change based on Direction okay so I want to make sure we understand that's a guiding document to facilitate the conversation between the student and the staff member all right so Mr Shepard yep is that gender indict form brand new or has it been in circulation for a while I seem to recall seeing a version of that from 2022 yes yeah we've been used staff have been using it to guide that conversation thank you so I think it's important to highlight in this paragraph that um and this is going to be become more important we talk about the the other direction the board can take that the conversation will include a discussion with the student to share the student's gender status to the student's parent and guardian so that would still be a requirement within that process so the staff member would have a conversation with the student about disclosing with parents and Guardians so it's important to highlight in in number two that if the student grants consent right then as soon as that student grants consent that the communication will be suspended and then include the parent and the guardian okay any questions so far all right and finally under the administrative regulation number three I think it's really important to highlight that this whole section should the student decline to Grant consent for disclosure the staff person still has an obvious obligation to determine why not what's going on what are the reasons for the the students um declining that that consent and really if you look at the last couple of bullets the focus there is ensuring that that the student will be safe from self-harm okay student privacy BP and AR Ray we're going to shift gears here to another Direction the board can take and this has been labeled increased parental inclusion again I want to reiterate multiple opportunities for input from the varying groups that that Mr Marchant referred to in the key language here it's uh it's bolded and italicized that the the information will be disclosed to the student parent and guardian it's not an option and then again and you can stay there just to highlight that if if any time the staff member feels like there's a reason to consider the um the Reporting Act that the staff member can do that all right and we're going to shift now to the increased parental inclusion AR and I want to reiterate the importance of the language here initiate the completion of with the assistance of the student so the students involved again that District gender intake form and that there's a discussion of the plan not an option for a plan so it's very clear that there will be a plan to disclose to parents and Guardians all right and then as soon as that conversation is held the staff member will will suspend communication until that conversation with the parents takes place except where a situation where suspending it could cause harm to that student in any mental or physical safety or well-being all right and then number three under thank you for for going to the next slide is very similar to the student privacy AR what you'll see here though is there's an additional number four we want to be really clear about a timeline for staff when that communication will be initiated so I'll give an example it's a Friday afternoon a student comes in talks with the staff member that within three school days there'll be initiation of communication with the parent and guardian if this AR BP and AR are adopted then a staff member would have three days to initiate communication I think we would all agree that that kind of conversation should not happen over the phone so we'd want that conversation to take place in person but the initiation to set the meeting to have the conversation needs to happen within three school days we'd also want to be really sure that the initiation of the communication is documented so the staff members protected um for that for those timelines so that's my walk through and I know we have another conversation about next steps what about can you go back to the part about 12 and older please this these two BPS and ARS are strictly about 11 and younger so what is the situation then with uh parent information or parent secrecy with regard to students 12 and older so our our current VP and AR are very clear that 12 and under they are protected 12 and 12 and over sorry how's that can you can you explain that please well we have federal law we have Ed code and I'm not being facetious those are that's what's guiding our what are the federal laws that say that parents can't be informed that their student is in a similar way to what we're talking about for 11 and under I'm going to defer to Mr Gantt to be sure we get the exact language because I don't want to mislead anybody I want to learn about that law um so so we do have FERPA the federal educational records protection act which has limitations of disclosure of private educational information we also have the uh from parents California Education Code which uh limits the disclosure of information shared with counselors uh for students who are 12 and older if they don't Grant consent and we have numerous other areas in both particularly state law that do allow students that are 12 and older to withhold consent for their private educational information to parents so that's the theory or the philosophy in developing at least the potential for dividing the student population based on those students who would be under the age of 12 versus those that would be 12 and older which is that it is at least theoretically possible that you can derive legislative intent from these other similar statutes that would indicate an intent by the legislature to view students that are 11 and under to be more vulnerable less mature and therefore more in need of perhaps parental input than those that are 12 and older so FERPA I'm pretty sure would not preclude the school district from informing a parent that we were going to start treating a child according to uh a different gender identity do you disagree with that do you think that FERPA does preclude the school district from telling parents about how their student is being treated in class um if if if if the question is does it appear that the law provides students particularly those that are 12 and older greater protection and privacy over their educational privacy I would say that I think that there that is it clearly does in several areas but every every teacher is going to should share with the parent how their child is treated in class I feel like maybe you're telling me that FERPA precludes teachers from telling parents responsible parents of their minor children how their child is is addressed and treated in class and I just don't agree with that I I think I think what staff tried to do here in developing at least an option for the board was to provide an option and not necessarily recommend but to provide an option that the board could consider that may be legally defensible although I would say that there is significant uncertainty on that point um and that the division between students that are 12 and older versus those that might be 11 and younger is a division that has been recognized in other similar areas of law and that therefore that that could be a defensible um distinction to make that it would be harder to defend the disclosure of information for students that are 12 and older that they have asked to um have privacy over so this is not really a clear legal mandate this is actually your Council this is legal counsel that we're being given here based on it's risk management it's saying you you are of the opinion that this is a safer course from a from a from a lawsuit or litigation standpoint then then a clear law I would say that it's an option the board can consider that may be more legally defensible we don't know yet because we simply do not have statutes or case law directly on point as the superintendent indicated so what what I believe staff tried to do was to present an option for board consideration on the requests of the board to bring back options to look at and so um it is it is in fact another conversation as to whether there's any guarantee that even the approach with 11 and other under students would be legally defensible so are there any lawsuits that you're aware of where a school district or a teacher has been sued because they shared information with a responsible parent about how their child was treated in class well I think there are there are many many lawsuits over over the disclosure of educational information um in violation of for example FERPA or other laws is as far as the issue if the question relates specifically to transgender privacy there is very limited case law on that particular limited issue but we do have a wealth of case law both at the federal and state level that indicates that um that there is a zone of privacy surrounding the issue of transgender status and gender issues that that both the federal government in its enforcement and the state in its enforcement view the privacy of of students who have identified as a gender that is different from that that they were assigned at Birth or based on their birth certificate that they view those issues as being covered by discrimination laws we have statutes that confirm that um and we have a number of cases that came up in the employment area that have clearly identified a zone of privacy and protection around gender issues what we don't have to my knowledge is a specific case on point as you describe where there was a disclosure over a student's objection of their transgender status to a parent um that resulted in a lawsuit that has led to a reported case at this point I suspect that those are issues yet to come because these are fairly new issues um so do I do I do I suspect that if that were to occur that there would be lawsuits I I believe that there would in fact I I can State quite firmly based on what I've read from groups that support uh those who identify as transgender that they feel strongly that the Privacy interests that's been identified over transgender identification extends to students at school it just seems that um the way a child is treated publicly in class you know is is certainly something that you would think it would be their responsible legal guardian or their parents you know right to understand from a teacher or from an administrator how this child is being is being treated and to keep parents in the dark seems very deceptive on the part of the school district so I I can't I can't imagine any Improvement to this administrative regulation or board policy that would lay out a plan and codify for our purposes a plan for keeping and training our the school communities to keep secrets from Individual parents that pertain to their children and I'm not convinced by any any legal evidence that you've presented Mr Gantt or anyone else that there is a lawsuit waiting to happen pertaining to this do you have additional questions for clarification on the presentation from the board thank you I have teacher ears I can hear a lot not always but sometimes um okay that moves us to the next step in our order which is public comment [Music] um so I have taken a just I think a benign request really to look at the speaker list from the previous item that we did table just to honor people who are here to speak and added them to the list and I think I counted I counted twice but I still could have counted wrong I think it's 39 on the list and so yeah we're at 9 30 and our rules are to allow for 30 minutes of public comment on an agenda item with our public commenters speaking at three minutes a piece and so with that um same spielas earlier please um do respect the comments made by your fellow community members and um we will open the floor starting with oh and just a reminder of the 30 second Bell um we will start the uh the public comment period sorry with um Jackson straws straws bow I'm so sorry if I put your names I'm so sorry [Applause] good evening I am a current Chico Unified School District student I'm also a transgender male I came out when I was nine years old the best decision for me was to have my name and gender change within the school system without the notification of my parents five years later I still go by these names and pronouns but me doing this was never influenced by my teachers I was never forced into being trans the secrecy of policy allowed me to come to my parents on my own time I'm lucky to have extremely supportive parents many students who are slash war in my situation are not as lucky the secrecy policy helps protect many students who could not tell their parents these students keep secrets because they're afraid they're afraid of parents like many here in Chico who do not support their child people come up here and ask why would my child not want to tell me that they are trans before telling their school and let me tell you it's because you follow up statements like these with vile hate speech if you want to take action if you want to take action against policy 5145.3 then you should think about real children like me who are affected by your decision we deserve protection too and we deserve to feel safe in our schools you are not protecting children you're putting children in danger by keeping the secrecy policy in place you'll you hope the 45 of lgbtq Youth in California from becoming part of the 14 that did attempt suicide please allow our schools to become and remain a safe space for queer and trans children I request from the bottom of my heart no action be made on board policy 5145 uh dot three thank you [Applause] thank you um next up um I'll call Adrian giannola Adrian who's a student it's gotten really late so I apologize for just the longevity of of this um for folks who have been waiting to speak and maybe couldn't hold out as late as it's gotten hmm okay um uh next up we have Laureen Johnson [Applause] hello my name is Lauren Johnson I am a parent of two students in the Chico Unified School District and I'm coming here tonight because I am concerned I'm not concerned for my own two children or for their children of people here tonight I'm here for the kids who don't have parents here tonight the kids every parent here is concerned about the welfare of their own children and it's proven it by their willingness to get involved in their child's educational process by coming here your kids are not the kids that this policy is for this policy was written for the kids who come home to be yelled at belittled or bullied by their own parents they're kids who don't know if their parents will still love them if they come out to them they're kids who may well find themselves homeless if they come out to their parents the kids this was written for find their main source of stability and adult support from the school system whether we like it or not there's a lot of kids out there who fit this profile and Social Services is willfully underfunded understaffed and under equipped to help them all this leads me to my next concern there's a great deal of confusion around the different types of transitions for a transgender individual there are two important transition types the first is social transition in Social transition the trans individual May Begin by asking for different pronouns and a different name to be used they may also begin dressing or wearing their hair in a way that more closely resembles the gender that they identify with none of these changes are medical permanent or non-reversible in nature let me repeat that social transition is not MediCal permanent or irreversible the second type of transition medical involves the taking of puberty blocker and hormonal medications this is not the type of transition that the school has anything to do with whatsoever you have heard other experts better qualified than myself speak about the very real dangers that transgender for youth based based from society their peers and in some cases even their parents these kids have no other caring adults to protect them guide them and care for them other than through the school system it is their last chance at finding the one adult that resilience research has taught us to make or break a child's life please don't take that adult from them by forcing them to notify a child's parents about their gender identity without that child's consent that consent is important if your child is unwilling to share with you what their gender identity is I would suggest that you think about why that is children are unlikely to refuse to give dissent consent for a counselor to speak to their parents without legitimate reason while it is true that the brain doesn't finish forming until 25 or so we wouldn't expect a kid who loves baseball to decide they don't love baseball till they're 25 years old thank you thank you I'm going to call up Sean MossMan Sean MossMan seems to me that the what the mortgage decide is what the position they're going to take concerning this idea of secrecy up front incisely that you insisted that there was no secrecy policy the superintendent said an email insisting that there was no secrecy policy and yet we can see it is abundantly clear that we were lied to then that there is in fact secrecy policy and guidelines in place at our practice and have been for years my daughter has been violated and compromised in this school system girls and boys were violated and compromised today in this school system and now you're talking about excluding parents from their most natural right our constitution guarantees that that that those rights that are given by nature and Nature's God are to be protected can I please have orders please have orders the the rudeness the rudeness and the mocking I was sat quietly and I listened to you respectfully and I expect the same the idea of Parental secrecy is is is is kind of silly because the parents gonna find out what position do you want to be in when the parent finds out that you have lied to them and deceived them and manipulated their child without their knowledge that you have undermined their Authority that you have increased the animosity between that child and their and their parent you've increased the animosity between that parent and you you have created an animosity and and an adversarial relationship with that parent and I've heard over and over as I sat down there through this whole meeting that it is the desire of this this school district to work in partnership with parents parents going to find out now there's a there's a there's a case right now that's already costing hundreds of thousands of dollars it may cost millions of dollars you want to have a difficult conversation with a parent up front or do you want to deal with a really pissed off angry parent because you went behind their back for perhaps months and months before they finally find out what you've been doing behind their back you violated their rights you violated their trust you've been you violated their family you violated their family their their their children the most basic of righteous parents I understand there's cases there's difficult cases there are in every facet of life and I'm not against any trans student I saw a flyer that said we need to protect trans students trans uh uh uh children I'm here tonight not because these children are trans but because they're children and Men protect children as a man I'm a lilish I'm a little ashamed that we've got Mama Bear after Mama Bear coming up and you husbands and fathers stand back there behind your wives and let them fight this battle for you there's a battle to be father thank you [Applause] up next I'll call Aurora Ridge you know [Applause] just to acknowledge that you had signed up for the previous um item but I wanted to I moved all of those two to under this item thank you I appreciate it um hi for those that don't know me my name is Aurora Regino and I am the mother that filed a lawsuit in federal court against Chico Unified for transitioning my daughter without my knowledge I'm here today to tell my story so parents in the public know what is going on in our schools last year my 11 year old daughter was in elementary school here at Chico Unified in her Elementary School transitioned her from female to male behind my back shortly before this happened my father had recently passed away and I was diagnosed with breast cancer my daughter was distressed and began questioning her sexuality so she decided to reach out to a wellness counselor at her Elementary School the day my daughter shared her guide shared with her guidance counselor that she felt like a boy the counselor immediately affirmed this new identity from then on the counselor continued to have one-on-one meetings with my daughter without my knowledge during one of those one-on-one meetings my daughter told the counselor she wanted to tell me about her new identity the counselor ignored her request and did nothing to support her in letting me know what was going on at school throughout her transition my daughter changed very quickly was bullied and as a result was very unhappy and because her school kept this transition a secret for me she was on her own I'm a busy working mother just like the rest of you before this happened to our family I would have not believed this was going on in our schools especially at the elementary level I want everyone to know I understand that I I want everyone to understand that I want a space for our lgbtq and trans community members to feel safe and supported but the policy currently in place at Chico Unified has been damaging to our family and I am not up here talking about what could happen if you continue this policy I am up here telling you what did happen to our family this was a time when she needed me the most and you kept it a secret from me I understand that you are trying to find ways to create a safe environment for all children within our district by keeping secrets from parents is not the way to do it treating every parent as a potential threat to their kids is wrong I know it's easy to make up a narrative when it comes to my case I know it's easy for people to judge and say my daughter must have not felt safe or supported and that's the reason for telling her counselor but regardless of what people say I love my children and there isn't anything they could ever do to change that I wouldn't it wouldn't have mattered to me whether my daughter continue to identify as a male I would love her the same it's a slippery slope to allow any adult in our schools to keep secrets from parents for any reason the actions the School Board District took to immediately exclude me from supporting my daughter was very damaging to her and her family she was very young and didn't understand what being transgender really meant or the obstacle she would face going through a transition the school transitioned her and left her to figure it out on her own it seems to me the district is getting it wrong on both sides you don't know how to handle these very serious and sensitive situations because once you transitioned her you left her to handle it all by herself the bullying and the staff even outing her thank you [Applause] Olivia Phillips good evening as an educator I believe it is my duty to educate based on the whole child approach this approach values the development of every aspect of a child and understands that a student's education and life outcomes are dependent upon their access to safe and welcoming learning environments and Rich learning experiences inside and outside of the school setting in order to reach their full potential all students need to feel safe and valued as individuals for this to happen we as Educators and service providers need to cultivate an environment where students feel trust safety and acceptance necessary to be unapologetically themselves without repercussions or backlash as professionals working within the public school setting we are automatically considered mandated reporters for those who are unfamiliar with this term this means we are required by California state law to report if we suspect or know a child is being abused neglected or whether a child intends to hurt themselves or others those are the only acceptable and required reasons for bridging a student's right to privacy everything else outside of the safety of a child of the child should remain confidential especially a student's identity according to an article from 2021 by the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute 30 percent of trans youth have attempted suicide and just this past year I repeat 30 percent of trans youth have attempted suicide in just that past year exposing an individual's sexual orientation and or gender identity before they're ready otherwise known as outing is a known risk factor for self-harm and suicide people who are outed feel blindsided and forced to reveal a deeply personal part of their identity without their consent and under someone else's terms which is why it is vital for us to focus on nurturing the whole child with unconditional acceptance and empowering with them with the knowledge that they have the right to choose if when and how much they want to reveal about their identity this is why we need to protect our youth and continue to support the confidentiality of gender questioning non-conforming and trans youth in our district I'll end by quoting a thought-provoking statement I came across online if your kid comes out at school but not to you don't ask why didn't the school tell me ask why didn't my kid feel like they could tell me thank you Tom iorso [Applause] [Music] hello there I'm here today as a future teacher a current educator and a human being to voice my deep concern for this prospective legislation when I chose the vocation of educator when I decided that I would commit my life to this field I chose to do so because of an alarming Trend I myself had seen during my time at public education here in the North State far too many kids with different socioeconomic situations racial and cultural backgrounds and different gender and sexuality identities did not fit whatever ascribed Norm was in place at the time and far too often those kids ended up falling through the cracks I'm sick of seeing bright and talented kids who have so much to offer their Community pushed down because of how they dress or identify I'm sick of seeing kids and even peers discriminated against and assaulted because they look or act differently differently quite frankly I'm sick of discrimination against my queer and transgender friends forcing staff members to inform on students compromises everything beneficial about having school mental health support for those who would be discriminated against this sets an extremely dangerous precedent for access to these Resources by our most vulnerable students who in case you all missed the data from the beginning of the night are unequivocally lgbtq plus students we need to ask ourselves what comes next should staff inform family on other hot button issues like religious choice on student relationships revoking any sense of privacy for our students is only going to discourage them from seeking help as it would for every single person in this room what is left for these kids when suicide rates are skyrocketing and when they're taking a risk just stepping foot on school grounds yeah I brought it up look deep inside yourself and ask is this issue really about parental information or is it about stopping something that we all already know is coming to deny the rights of trans people is deny the rights of human beings and as the wise man once said you better start swimming you'll sink Like a Stone Loretta Ann Torres [Applause] I said uh Loretta and Torres it's okay your time doesn't start until you approach the microphone okay I'm Loretta Torres and Tori's I'm a grandmother I'm 80 years old I love my grandchildren I have two of them in your school system at this time and I have some comments last month you heard from a very caring mother who'd gone the extra mile to ease her nine-year-old child through this very confusing time the most important statement she made last month was with the school's help either she was informed or she did the informing when issues arose with her child parental information this is all we really are asking for your schools and teachers have taken it upon themselves to purposely skip parents in this issue the state would like school board members like you to think it's okay because they passed a b 1266 and 2014.
so here are the highlighted items you indicate will be paid out of the capital repaired fund first did that funding come as a result of the refinance of the lease and what was that amount yes it did come as a part of the refinance of the lease if you remember James Higley as a part of the lease required the district to pay approximately 175 000 for each School into a maintenance Capital repairs Fund in which they manage because they they own these schools um after the District closed the lease agreement and brought those onto the district via the cops deal um jmf Higley cut a check for the district for about 1.1 million I apologize I don't have that exact amount on the top of my head but um 1.1 million so and how much will the highlighted items cost um as far as after the the capital funds so those three items alone are going to cost anywhere from uh 1.3 to 1.6 million depending on when at what time we procure those and what time we received bids back and would would these expenses be the responsibility let's say we didn't do the refinance would they be responsible for these repairs no they choose what they wanted to what we could repair jmf Higley the leaser yeah they would be um we did propose and submit these expenditures to jmf Higley they denied them so we did there was nothing that said that they would be responsible for these no it was up to the discretion of James Higley as they owned the schools and they owned the discretion of the capital reverse fund part of the lease agreement was that they were able to choose what could be what the maintenance and repairs funds were for so we had to pay it but they could choose it so when we submitted it they denied it wow yep um okay because my next question was going to be well if they were responsible what what's it going to cost us going forward but that's the role they chose to do [Music] series window replacement cheapest item on the list they chose I I can't remember we asked for all of these and they chose to do they did sossaman's Roofing because it was thank you pretty much yeah failing to the point where we were they had to yes experiencing water leaks yeah and part of the the lease agreement there is we could put we could request these repairs or anything they had it on their own timeline so if just as an example the exterior weatherization and painting if they felt that it didn't need to be done until year 15 they were not going to do it until year 15 even though we were saying this needs to be done now so that's why we those funds were held for that reason for those types of things but we had to request it they're the ones who had to approve it because they were the owners of the building so but those that those funds have been since returned to us so that's those are the funds that will be used first for Cooley and Sossaman so we didn't lose those funds um so those funds have since been returned to us and I think Tyler you have here 4.3 million for major maintenance projects is that in addition to that money we got for quillian Sossaman or is that including 4.3 million is the the capital obligation um those three items are so that money is in addition to the 4.3 okay thank you it's unfortunate that we're going through all this to get these buildings on our name and have these buildings and sadly that the workmanship on it when they were built we're not getting great buildings we're not getting good craftsmanship and yeah I do want to know we are we are continuing to work with the school facilities board um to ensure that you know one submit submit these buildings um and get them recognized under the district so then at that point uh we can submit grants and to see if these projects that we have listed here qualify for State funding um which we feel after several assessments that they will qualify so we anticipate continuing to work with the school facilities board and other grants um to to supplement this funding source and you know ideally you know maybe save some Capital funding um as as you've noted member van hope the carryover is decreasing so we're continuing to work through options to try to fund these projects and utilize all our resources Tyler that's great news hopefully um that comes through yeah I'm just my my biggest concern is what large projects are are we're going to be seeing you know going forward where we're not going to have any of those leftover funds that now we're going to be responsible for so I'm just gonna yeah it's scary to think about especially about when you mentioned the workmanship what are we going to see president Schultz board member Ben hook that's been a lot of the work that's happened over the last several years when we did an inventory of where we are identify the yearly replacement and maintenance schedules within that budget in order to address what we do the best that we can obviously the one of the things you know you are tentatively approving because we start moving these projects forward because we have we try to get some of these things done in the summer and to get these in the system and organized ahead of time and then again you continue to approve these as we bring them back because some of the costs and things may may shift by the time they finally get finalized but we do earmark and move ahead as we need to with the essential projects that have been identified and then the priorities within the funds that we have okay thank you Dr Foley any other questions yes all those I just wanted to figure out what number I was at thank you all those in favor of the tentative approval of the fiscal year 2024 capital outlay budget I need a post motion carries five zero 7.2 I mean I move that we approve the issuance of classified work agreements for the 23-24 school year questions comments concerns all those in favor aye any opposed carries five to zero 7.3 approved policy gdba staff wage and salary schedules and make a motion to approve policy gdba staff wage and salary schedules I'll get it right soon thank you uh questions comments concerns all those in favor aye all right all right motion carries five Sarah 7.4 I move that we approve policy jlcb immunizations of students second reading second thank you questions comments concerns and uh all those in favor aye all right motion carries five zero future agenda items so you can see we have a couple things on here is there anything else it is April May so it's going to be busy thank you for the art in the district office for everybody that brought that in it's beautiful I walked in and said oh Michelle ordered art and Michelle got art so it looks great it feels like I wanted go ahead oh I'm sorry um soon on the community presentation attendance and just how those are going I I think I'd ask for several meetings ago you may not have been at that one actually my last one but anyway just if we can just get some numbers how many are showing up to to the community presentations got it absolutely thank you we will get that for you I didn't bring my papers away I don't have anything something that Mrs Anderson asked at the last meeting they were saying I don't have a recollection of that yeah just let's play the meeting now we'll all watch that we thought we had everything or put it in status I think so we will I thought we did but we will double we'll have Mrs Zimmerman help us make sure we got it covered usually I have a pending note sometimes those status reports can be substantial and we think we've got it in there for you and um if we've missed it or there's more questions we're always happy to answer that for you really fast I I'm not sure if this is legal uh or it's okay I and when we did the consent agenda I was remiss in not thinking Community Education for 5.14 um I was told how much they have gone out of their way their team to look for grants that not only benefit uh them but also our school as a whole um and so um they have gone uh and I'm so sorry president Schultz thank you this is Richards for rescuing me assistant director Kimberly Ohanian yes as Kimberly that charge with that department and really seeking to support our schools for they have needs three grants and our playgrounds and grants and so I know that we so we can update all of our equipment so our kids have an outlet and a release from the school day so that they can have equipment to play on that not only again benefits Community Aid but also our schools so um thank you for that and I apologize thank you [Laughter] thing all right uh a move that we adjourn the meeting all those in favor word is there have a good night thank you [Music] all right
um 15 of those students were not on our enumeration as I've reported previously I have been in contact with the kindergarten teachers talking about what it would look like if we start to hit 1920 for those whether it be you have to add a 4 th class section or we try to find three instructional means as we've done in the past the idea of having a fourth class is appealing to them but nobody wants class sizes under 16 children right so it's trying to find what that balance will be so we'll have a better idea once our kindergarten registration and other activities are so I hope to be able to give you some additional numbers and some guidance and as far as a Personnel update um we had a vacancy from a custodial position a part-time custodial position we have hired Curtis Mabry he's joined the PCS team he brings five years of custodial service to the Department we have received some notifications that we're going to be having some staff leaving us in the fall all of them have indicated uh they are all within the special energy compartment and they're all indicated that they're leaving for personal reasons not connected with any displeasure or anything working in Bethany and I can assure you it has nothing to do with this diesel they said so but in order to kind of also protect their privacy give them an opportunity to share with staff tomorrow and then with the families that they directly work with I'm not sharing their needs this evening but I certainly will share that after that notification has been made to families specifically and then once that is done then I will work with books on our team to post I do wish to say that these are not you know any kind of underperforming teachers or any issues going on they've been wonderful for us to work with and we wish them the best as they move forward uh by way of facilities even though facilities did not meet I do have some exciting things to share our gym air conditioning project is finally 100 officially closed all the bills have been paid the it has been done the system has been tested it's really well hopefully those people who came and joined us weekend for the drama club presentation notice a little bit better temperature control and comfortability in that space I know the students and the staff are going to be very excited about having a cooler gym as these months get public team summary uh The Pavilion we're finishing up those structural electrical touches they're being completed and we still remain hopeful that we're going to be using that space in the spring especially for graduation now that we know when the last day of school will be it's got plugs and light fixtures and locations for access points so we're well on our way there and as soon as that is wrapped up we go to painting it would be the final stage for that speaking of craving last Thursday we held our bid opening for the running track Paving project we had four bids submitted and after verifying the packet materials and checking references the contract was awarded to asphalt repair Solutions of Oxford we're very excited they're starting next week will be a running track for us to use for the spring with you know PE classes certainly I know I see lots of people in our community walking around the track we're super excited um you know and then we'll work with you know PTO and the family that the person's check is being named for to try to have some sort of you know event to kind of to kind of take that off but we're super excited also that it's happening during April break so that it won't disrupt construction because Paving as lovely as it is it's kind of smelly um so we're happy that uh that's getting done um I have a question sure I know that we are hiring a sixth grade teacher because it's necessary so that means another classrooms needed for sixth grade if we ended up with enough kindergarten students our okay I have some I have some questions for you um a couple months ago our faculty came in and presented a report for us basically the survey that was done which I thought was absolutely phenomenal and I'd love to hear from our staff more three things came out of that thing that really hit home to me the first one was that our students and our faculties don't feel safe talking to more than one person in the building the second thing was we don't even have 85 percent of our staff and our children feeling safe in the building that is highly alarming and the number one thing that came out of that is why is the building not clean and why does less than 50 percent of our staff and our students feel the building is dirty along with our bathrooms in my in my world I work firehouse and my other world I handle facilities the key things I learned with that is if people don't feel safe they're not going to stay and if the building is not clean and the bathrooms are not clean that's a problem it's been 60 days have we done anything to address that yes so we're now fully staffed with our custodial team so that's definitely helping we did have some shoes I get that you're having right so Fred has had Plumbing things in the fast bar is the safety piece that was one of those things where I don't know if you recall Miss mapman spoke to you got to take that with a little bit of a agreement it's not like kids are afraid to come to school but maybe they don't have relationships with as many teachers as we would like you know when we say they don't feel safe talking to the other adults we want them to feel safe talking to any adult that they come into contact with a big lift with their social emotional learning stuff that we do here at the school as far as the other safety pieces as they alluded to they've been digging a little bit deeper with the kids to find out what it is is it it's a lot of The Kindergartners reporting they're afraid of the Bears because if they don't like the buses is it because it's thundering and raining outside and kids are scared of thunder and lightning they're digging deeper with the children to find out what that is and we're hoping to have that reflected in the results of the spring survey so there will be another survey of the sea we've made any confidence let's get back to the cleaning who was responsible to make sure it's done how does that chain of command work within the building and do we have a policy in place to ensure that these things are being done sure we have our Elite custodian Mr Fallon and we have our guys during the day and at night and they go back through and they check and if they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing they handle that with the gentleman and make sure that's the chain of command and certainly if Mr Reed's whale or the teachers see anything in the school that is I'll say I don't want to say Regis but it's something that hasn't been done they report it to him and then he takes flights Mr bartolin so we're not just I hate to get into bathrooms but it's it's a big deal to me in my world it is huge and so are we checking these things multiple times I want to get to the bottom of why that is that less than 50 is a big deal to me that that is alarming that people don't feel a simple thing is a bathroom is clean who was responsible to make sure this is done at the end result who was responsible okay but it's a clean and you go in at 9 30 and it looks like a pig step Pig style it happens something happened between 9 and 9 30 and then it happens in the school so some you know the issue that we had if we know that some of our but if somebody went in there and they saw that mess they would presume that it hadn't been cleaned by the facility when that actually was not released but it became once it was made known the custodians win anything so I mean we're not just cleaning them in the morning and walking away for the rest of the day from us basically what I'm getting at no no it gets it I was very taken back by that and it wasn't even 50 percent of everybody across the board off the same thing I just want to make sure we're getting to the bottom of that and someone ultimately is accountable one of the interesting things with those surveys having been on both sides of it taking it as a parent seeing the results as a teacher giving the results as a teacher one the surveys are always horrible true or do you feel safe yes or no no why why not there's no there's no follow-up question um and also it depends on what just happened when you take those surveys if all of a sudden you hear that there was something that happened in a community that's close to us that puts you on edge and you start to go I don't know I don't know if I feel safe but the day you take the survey everything is like schools are awesome they're the best place to be ever and oh yeah I'm so happy at school oh wait no now I'm scared because something just happened down the road the other day like it it kind of it varies what's happening so if there was a particular issue that was going on the bathrooms at the time when they took it it might be the impact that's where the follow-up pieces are important to make sure that there is follow-up but really looking to see sort of what happened and see if it was something that was happening at the moment if done or is it continuing to still happen yeah it comes back and says hey we still have a problem it's not clean okay that wasn't the issue it's now clearly an extended issue right and I've learned over time you know I have almost 400 000 square feet of space that I maintain I've learned to sort through reality of somewhere in the middle is the truth but I just found that number to be very low to me and that to me that's a high expectation in my world so I was just curious what we were doing about it we were addressed it immediately to me that's a it's a huge check box [Music] yes that'll be shared with Miss Kiesel oh wait yep thank you on March 17th the entire School focused on social emotional learning received a lot of positive feedback on that day the next professional learning day that we have is tomorrow April 6th Dr Marie alcas will be coming to work with the teachers on setting learning strategies and self navigation tools and the special services department will be continuing their work with CT said which is the state system new system this year um on a curriculum update on March 29th and 30th and if you've alluded to this um I traveled with the kindergarten team other sniffing Catholic Albert Rebecca grab and Andrea Hubbard to the reading the New England Symposium of teachers we were asked to present and we did on the magnetic reading program that we started this year and we were able to share the strengths and the needs of the program and give honest feedback to it and we had the CEO sitting right front center and after that he came back and talked to us and we are going to be working with them and starting a partnership where they're going to hear our feedback and have developers come and work with us to improve the program to make it as strong as it can be and they the piece that was impactful to us was this will impact 11 million children so I'm pretty excited about that and in the world of special education as you had mentioned um on Monday we had a part-time social worker from Connecticut behavioral health started and it's going to start out as a part-time and then over the summer being a part of the summer Senate school year program and then starting full-time in the fall and we're really excited to have this resource to be available to our families and to our students and it's all thanks to the grant that we received so we're really excited about that so I can I can work on getting that so we have a part-time person who will be starting that just started and then we have the full-time person we started so two different people based on availability so I won't be able to get hold of those through so um the focus is going to be working with we have Odessa screener which is allows us to see students who might need additional help and so they would be working with students to make sure that their needs are being met as well as if a teacher makes a referral for extra concerns or if a parent were to have a concern make a referral they might work with them that way there might be certain classroom teachers that they're working and supporting but really working with students on the general education and end of things supporting them to make sure that we're doing as many proactive supports as we can in place so it might be working with families provider supports we're also going to have them working doing some parent events starting next school year so it might be events on topics that are coming up how do you support your students with coping strategies how do you whatever topics they're seeing as need they might put that out there for the parent population or is that not very because depending on what the situation is um you know so if it's the parent events they can choose to come if it's during the school day and if it's typically if they're leaving their classroom yes but if they're going into a classroom supporting then no they wouldn't because they'd be supporting the whole class thank you just one other thing but yeah I was really interested in the Spanish teachers program and how she Incorporated she so on these kids are singing getting into the class at the end of the class very Interactive incorporate you know I know there's a lot of concern because of the music before and after school things starting until the next school year if I understand correctly so it is is there some other way we can incorporate music involvement in your social emotional learning segment in the morning or you know somehow to to interact more on a music level because she was her enthusiasm for that came through and I was thinking that's a really good thing to do because because he ate a lot of stress the typically they the teams are planning together and they're Focus that might be on how to have agreed appropriately have different skills or tasks so you could fit in they might you know if it's something like that but um I'm not sure if you yeah I mean I think I think what we see is that in our younger grades especially kindergarten and first grade it helps make things sticky um you know and I think the goal is always trying to have something that engages students and so that's definitely part of that you know and then you might involve the kids you know they're not learning an instrument necessarily it might help bring some other music involvements yeah I think I think important just to notice even even with that as we're working to try and bring that back for next year um we're we're really seeing some really great work in the general music from a lot of things uh so uh uh steering committee update we are continuing our work on the our three uh subcommittees uh area focus with Equity uh social emotional learning and high quality instruction also at this time of year we're also taking a look um as we typically do uh at both our professional learning plan for the year coming up and we're also have starting to have discussions around the teacher evaluation process um TiVo and then we'll be sure to review anything that is shared with us from the state of Connecticut um as you know we've been hearing that they're working on some revisions and weren't there uh for BCS events uh our family wellness so it was interesting Family Wellness hit like literally the day after um the board meeting but it was a hit uh not as uh as as well a large of a turnout as we wanted but we're trying to take a look at a lot of things that were successful there think about how we can promote it a lot of of feedback from the folks who were in attendance so we were really excited to have those folks we had Zumba going and yoga and um you know and um DeLuca had out we have a company called Kirsten that basically makes interlocking indoor jungle gym equipment and he was able to get a bunch of that out that we've purchased over the years kids had a ton of fun going through that so a bunch around nutrition as well so we had a really great event and our goal is to continue that work and try and get the greater participation a huge shout out to Donna Richard who is really instrumental in getting that plan our trimester II report cards were distributed uh on March 16th we had conferences on the 22nd and the 23rd we had we had all but um but nine students connected with their families for conferences it was 98 of our students having a conference either by phone in person or through Zoom we did have several families that have other meetings around their child's programming that they considered in lieu of a conference but some pretty high participation rates that we were really excited we also celebrated National chip and dip day VCS staff uh so you know just adding a little levity to our lives um I can't I can't remember how it came up but uh there's nothing I think we were she was looking for um just some things uh and it came up that there was a national shipping today who knew um but you know just one of those fun things that added a little levity added a little bit of uh quirky fun to our week uh we also um we're really excited to have our uh BCS drama club performances of Halloween again on Friday and Saturday really well attended the kids were amazing just so awesome to see them up performing having such an awesome time they've been working so hard since January really proud of them proud of all the work a huge lift from everybody involved a huge thank you to Deb Sansone who was taking the lead on that so we're really excited we're now kind of in the debrief stage you know we've we got through we're taking a deep breath taking a look at um you know what went well how can we do it even better um and really looking to to have that continuing next year I think it was a really positive event for the kids and so we're really excited to keep that going we had our March community meeting celebrating the theme of trust women's History Month disability awareness month um and our Leadership Council students continue to take a greater and greater lead for that they're taking the pictures they're the MCS they're running the technology they're you know they're doing all the things so we're really really proud of that um and then continuing uh some work with Eagle Scouts uh from town just finishing up some of the work for our Outdoor Classroom space over there we've got our two raised beds they're working on getting some soil there some native plants and getting to finish up so we're really excited there uh upcoming uh we've been sending out information about uh as you heard we've got kindergarten numbers and our pre-registration so we're continuing to um hit the pavement and try and get as many people responding for that and we're starting uh with all of our uh our incoming kindergarten events uh starting with a parent night on the 19th after break um then we've got our screener we've got our link kindergarten orientation in August so we're really excited to kind of get all of that on the calendar as well uh and then uh this uh week as well we sent out the information of families just around our Smarter Balance assessments and our testing window and all of that information uh and it's going to be starting up on them so uh that's exciting oh and as several students have made me aware this is the 25th when the building and um so in 1998 they're very excited so they I've had several that are yeah so they're um I know what's in it I personally am hoping for like a Backstreet Boys or nothing CD movie in there um but we're really excited today I mean so right so um so I think you know the real fun will be one the unveiling of it and then I think the other part you know that we really that you know we're really excited about that because we're like how do we get it I'm like Emerson I think um but you know just uh I think it'll be a really fun thing uh that's kind of what's been going on and uh what's coming up and then you know now is we have um dates finalized for the last day of the year for the calendar [Music] uh graduation uh field day and all of those things and really see they're trying those dates on the calendar getting those plans going and really getting there actually had a question um when I was property earlier today there was work being done on the playground for a swing for some of our deceived children with disabilities correctly but I heard about it so I know about it but I decided you or Mr reads will could just share about that to our audience sure go in the parent newsletter but we can share it now okay so so we're really pleased that we were able to we're always wanting to be all of our students I work with Mr bartolini and we acquired a wheelchair Suite for our playground outside and what's really really nice about that is I just happen to be outside day before yesterday and there was a young woman from Team Summit and she was like this is bird what is that are we getting a tire swing she was so excited and I said actually no that's going to be a wheelchair she's God I love it she said I love that you did that she said that means and she mentioned a particular student she said that means that student is going to have all of the same things on the playground that we have I can see that student sitting in the wheelchair and swinging and being so excited they're gonna love it and I love that we did that it wasn't me it was it was a collaborative effort and she said we need more of that he said well secretly I said it I guess now it's not going to be so sweet I would love to you know expand the playground over by the town hall side of the camp Pacific but you know that takes some time and some planning it's a and some money she goes don't worry she and this other little girl they're like we got we'll do a garage sale so I have these two amazing uh young ladies in in the fifth grade they're fifth grade students and they were so excited about this being an opportunity for some of the younger children that we have here in school that they happen to know and they love the idea so much and they think that they said you're doing a good job you're going to include all the kids we're going to fundraise for you we're going to have a garage sale so I I've had to tell the parent afterwards um if you if you if your child should come home today and say Mrs bird really needs some money so we're going to have a garage sale for her it's not anything related to anything other than they want us to put them into it they want to support expanding the playground so that all the kids at PCS can I heard from that parent and apparently that child went home and has a giant list of ideas on what she can do to fundraise so she died today and she hasn't she's decided that she and this other little girl are going to start a business and she showed me the flyer today for all of the things that they can do she said but don't worry I know what you're going to say Mrs bird we can't do this during the school day but we can do it on the weekends and we should probably just wait until the summer we have testing coming up so we'll wait yeah so it's just further Testament to how amazing you know our children and families are here that they want to do so they know it's good that's one thing and then since I'm sharing I also want to share I did I did get a little notice but I was going to say it anyway um we are very excited about the drama club here but it's also worth noting that amity's presentation of the Beauty and the Beast has also been extremely amazing the lead from Bethany um but also Beyond just having the lead be a former Bethany student in that play we had a third grader Brooklyn Adams from Miss Jessica tissue's class she was Chip so it was the the person playing chip in his is one of our very own PCS students yes so how did you obtain the swing or ask no questions I'll tell no lies so um actually I want to give credit to Jamie Bowen one of our special education teachers came up with the idea they were able to find some grant funding to be able to do that's awesome I have to I have to applaud you on your grant funding it is in the years we've been here this is unbelievable the amendment it even goes back to the social work again right I mean just to kind of reiterate what a mental health crisis we have for Children and Families right now be able to obtain these grants it takes a lot of work so many other questions from Mr Isabel move on to our Chairman's report the only item I can report that Dr pittinger would have spoke about is all the Board of Ed members should have receive the email about the spotlight spectacular coming up on May 17th I attended last year it's an opportunity where all the staff is invited or the members are invited Administration and it truly is just a moment where the staff are here firstly five years ten years awards are given who just putting them in the spotlight and evening for them so hopefully you received the email there's details in the email as to what time I believe it's it's a it's an orange at a country club there you go birchwoods so do we have to RSVP to them to you at some point that's coming up next okay okay so watch your emails for that coming up that's all it's in the Chairman's report there is no correspondence to be read we've now come to our second opportunity for public comment if anybody in the audience would like to get up and have anything that they would like to address the board no one wants to accept the challenge [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay
no it's been massaged into leading school boards to interfere with parental rights there are only one to two percent of transgender adults in our nation who are influencing and confusing our children I know you worry about bullying and of transgender youth we all should we all do there are scary things out there in this big world and you want all of your children to be to feel safe but to leave the majority of your students who are not in distress in order to Shield the few is wrong if you're thinking but there's more than one to two percentage transgender students in our schools I believe you're fooling yourselves because Studies have shown that more than 70 percent of children go back to their original sex when experiencing gender dysphoria studies are also showing that the incidence of suicide in transgender youth goes down when parents are their guiding support here's an idea here's an idea set up and encourage parental support groups for parents of children who are going through gender confusion places where parents places where parents can come together to talk about how they can support their kids through this very chaotic time I truly believe that the state of California is using the transgender issue to come between parents and their children don't let this happen change your policy parental participation and no secrets from parents is the best way to go [Applause] Silas zelling [Applause] good evening members of the Chico Unified School District board my name is Silas zelney and I'm here today as a member of the chico community and a transgender person I am here to express my opinion on item bpar 145145.3 and argue for increased privacy rights for transgender students as a transgender adult and I apologize I'm going to talk about some hard subjects as a transgender adult I have personally experienced discrimination isolation shame abuse and sexual assault due to my gender non-conforming nature as early as nine years old unfortunately my story is not unique transgender adolescents experience home violence and sexual assault at nearly twice the likelihood than cisgender children according to the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2021.
it is common for transgender individuals to experience harm at home and seek a found family elsewhere while hiding and not fully understanding their identity even children in good or normal families can face these challenges as administrators responsible for writing policy you cannot assume what happens behind closed doors in a student's home is safe for them however you can determine what is safe on school grounds in the non-discrimination policy the district prohibits unlawful discrimination and provides detailed descriptions of what constitutes discrimination for example the policy even addresses discrimination based on the texture of a student's hair this demonstrates the district's commitment to accommodating the diverse needs of its students however the current policy does not adequately address the Privacy rights of transgender students disclosing their identity to their parents May pose a risk to their emotional well-being at home and can reasonably affect the student's educational performance and ability to see to succeed at worst disclosing their identity when they are not ready can pose a higher risk for potential physical abuse and sexual harm than for cisgender students I urge the board to expand the non-discrimination policy to add the safety needs of this minority group also groups of students including transgender students should feel safe supported engaged and meaningfully challenged in the district schools to prioritize parental involvement without considering the unique needs of students with alternative gender identities would be to ignore the factors that contribute to the discrimination and harm of this minority therefore I urge the board to seek policy that supports the students right to privacy and support the student's power in deciding if it is safe to be out to their parents it would be beneficial for the district to draft policies and workflows that support transgender students such as preparing documents and policies for secure document storage that allow students to decide whether to disclose their identities to their families or not for appropriate parental involvement the district can draft policy to support the student's decision for guidled Parental involvement only if the transgender student provides explicit and verified consent to share their identity in conclusion I hope the board recognizes the the importance of increased privacy rights for transgender students in the district schools by doing so Chico Unified can better achieve its goals of increasing parental involvement and improving School climate for all of its student subgroups thank you for your time thank you thank you I have an office of Congressman Doug lamaltha [Applause] I am going to preface this with a request for the the audience to please stay in order thank you thank you board members for allowing me to address you here tonight um I am this is a this is a grave situation we're facing here and how we've gotten to a place where we can interpret State policy as such in Chico California that keeping secrets from parents about their children's involvement at school about their children's decisions that are so grave remember these are minors who are making lifetime life-changing decisions in a particular case that we know about here after just a few minutes of time with a counselor and so you want to talk about privacy as we just heard about when after a short counseling session the child was marched allegedly right out into the classroom and said this child has decided to transition to a different sex with a new name and this is what parents who have whether they're holding down two jobs or a single parent or the other struggles we're facing especially these days have to contemplate that's what's going on with our kids at school is that we don't have a right to hear and know ahead of time what my child might be thinking when basically coerced by non-stop assault on media on the internet was somehow thinking that your choices are fluid no it's either XX or it's x y the proof is in the DNA all right now we can please retain order folks we can contemplate these things as adults but for the school to be helping to coerce children as minors who have so many other lifetime decisions they have to make after they're 18 years old key decisions that are not allowed to make until they're 18 years old in some cases 21 years old and we want this to happen at a ripe young age of 11 12 10 9.
schools have really overstepped their bounds overstepped their responsibilities when they're doing this when they're contemplating this when they're pushing their pun and you're breaking the trust that you have with parents here in Chico and all over the state so I stand with folks like Aurora Regino and all the Aurora Reginos and her daughter all over this state and all over this country and so we will soon your time thank you okay [Applause] I didn't see a timer [Applause] Michelle Cooper is the next speaker I did not see a timer we don't therefore there's ramifications fiscal ramifications [Music] calm down I've called the next speaker is Michelle Cooper please Michelle Cooper there's no doubt that the current policy needs to be changed you've been hearing for three months now from parents who are opposed to the secrecy policy that you have in place a policy that was developed on guidance and not law I personally have talked to people from all sides of the aisle which includes teachers and therapists who agree that keeping parents in the dark is wrong telling kids to lie to their parents is wrong and the age of the child does not matter any child under the age of 18 deserves and is entitled to the protection that only their parents can give them I cannot support a policy that includes language that would remove a parent from any conversation for me the answer is simple adopt a policy that does not exclude parents period for some however this has become an issue of spreading false narratives that all parents are abusive and that no parent will accept their child that only adults who are not their parents can understand them these accusations are not only false but are dangerous since when does it become okay for adults to tell children to keep secrets from their parents if you're doing that you're doing something wrong I think this topic is far too important to be placed at the end of an agenda on a late school night like the resolution item this should be tabled for a special meeting invite presenters to give insight as to what the laws really are why this issue is so important to parents and hear and have discussion that is Meaningful if you're under this you are under the spotlight here locally and nationally and you need to get this right and further I want to add that the reason that we are awarded the freedom to speak here tonight is because of our U.S Constitution and the brave men and women who fight for our freedoms I am a mother of a military veteran who and he attended Pleasant Valley I'm very proud of my children while it's voluntary to participate in the flag salute I find it rude and offensive when board members and others Here Tonight Show complete disrespect for it thank you [Applause] so that is the end of our 30 minutes time allotted for public comment how many speakers are left on the list please extend it I am I'm in a mood to extend the time to hear all speakers [Applause] thank you I'll second that um we'll do a roll call about starting uh with me uh Dobby I we're oh sorry let me just repeat we are moving to suspend the rules to hear all speakers at the three minutes however I will not be asking for additional public comment at the end um it's who submitted a speaker card that I have on my list right here just um that's for clarification so the motion is to suspend the rules to hear all the speakers I'm better on the list that are on the list thank you yes and we have a motion in a second and I vote I Robinson I if the speaker's already on the list konk and I landed by Tennessee all right um our next speaker is Deanna Lindstrom [Applause] thank you board members one of my children's when my children started school never in my life did I think I would be fighting the school yes yes yes it is this person has spoken here almost every meeting thank you when my children started school never in my life did I think I would be fighting the school district to keep me informed of what my children may be experiencing during their time at school let me be clear that this isn't a transgender coming out issue this is simply about keeping parents in the dark we have had our fair share of experiences from my children eating an x-ray being stabbed being bullied being punished being pulled out of class for a social emotional learning Council session and being given surveys and not being allowed to do his schoolwork unless he answers those surveys this is just a small list of what we have dealt with with the district keeping parents in the dark before I was placed in foster homes I was in a family that sexually abused me mentally and physically you know what I was always told don't tell anyone here you're saying you won't tell parents when it comes to issues a child may be experienced and take it upon yourselves to make judgment calls I have worked extremely hard to not repeat family history and here you have labeled me as an abusive and neglectful parent that I am guilty until proven innocent and that I cannot be trusted based on my past I have taught my children that I love them and support them no matter what though we are a team and we will get through anything together I have taught my children that anyone who tells them it is okay to keep secrets from me or their dad they are the enemy and that they have something nefarious to hide themselves if I am deemed fit to love care support be financially responsible and house my children then I am deemed fit to care for my children regarding any issue that may arise while at school the ones wanting to keep secrets regardless of what it entails are the ones that cannot be trusted thank you uh the next person I'm calling up is Brandy McCann thank you no you're okay and you are another rollover from the previous item that I wanted to give you the opportunity to to speak yeah yeah okay uh let me know when I can start right now okay my name is Randy McCann thank you for having me I have two children that attend schools here I want to talk about this resolution um I do not think as it stands it's functioning properly to meet the expectations of parents it's vague your primary focus as Educators should be education when you say that you will serve families within the parameters of state and federal law why are you not providing information for families that they may need regarding which state and federal laws you have left out of this resolution when you say you will uphold this partnership between teachers students and parents by providing opportunities to communicate and participate in the education of their children do you mean fundraisers drivers for field trips or when our children are the problem and it's really vague as as vague as the terrorist threats emailed parents received just recently without any follow-up of whether our kids were safe to return to school um I want to say this on a positive note since we're appreciating Educators soon anyways always the teachers who help provide my children the most excellent education were the ones who took the time to communicate with myself and partnered with me regarding any areas my children may have been struggling with and were able to provide each other Insight on home and school and collaborate ideas and plans for the success of my children you know I would like to know what the opportunities that you're going to be providing for parents is I want to know what that's going to look like what instances will you not include parents in accordance to the law as listed in that resolution and um information in the current resolution for parents is vague it provides loopholes and a lot is left unsaid and I understand that Educators and staff all play a role in our children's lives let's not use those very same folks to bring divisiveness into the homes between children and their parents we the parents want to support our children schools the staff and the children in our communities please reflect before you appease either side if Educators truly feel that us parents are unsafe then we will see shortly the road going forward please create a resolution that reflects the expectations of parents and not only guidance that you interpret as law thank you [Applause] Virginia Thomas oh sorry Virginia Thomas smelley my name is actually Maddie Hinckley I am reading on behalf of Virginia because she couldn't be here tonight because she has covid so Virginia is a seventh and eighth grade teacher at Marsh junior high school and proud to be an educator within Chico Unified School District the following is her message I know those of you who are demanding the revocation of our school district's policies regarding children's privacy at school think you are protecting children but the statistics don't lie according to the Trevor Project fewer than one in three transgender and non-binary youth found their home to be gender affirming nearly one in five transgender non-binary youth attempted suicide an lgbtq youth who found their school to be lgbtq affirming reported lower rates of attempting suicide your demanding children not be who they are while schools are trying to keep them alive do you fear your child being indoctrinated at school or do you feel that your child or schoolmates of a child you know may be transgender being transgender is not a flaw it is not a pathology it is a fact of the world trans people's existence has never been safe or celebrated in recent history in this country because of fear and bigotry but in many societies before hours trans people were accepted and celebrated supported trans children can grow up into Happy trans adults do you hear this so-called social engineering or do you fear being out of touch both with the times and with your own child if you fear your children would keep this from you focus on healing your relationship with them build trust with them don't scapegoat some of the most vulnerable by attacking their right to privacy trans children are not the boogeyman they are young people learning about themselves how they might live happily in this world who should be able to be seen fully as who they know themselves to be they are working to form positive self-images around their identity and grow their self-advocacy substitute any other protected group for the word Trans in the statements you're hearing tonight and you reveal the cracks in these anti-transgender arguments the tone and logic is the same as racist sexist segregationist and separationist propaganda foreign sect that does not represent the majority of the country is waging a two-pronged attack to legislate trans youth out of existence and dismantle public education this is the Civil Rights issue of our time those of you who are opposing our school's current policy will one day wake up and realize that your stance is no different than white parents fighting School integration during the Civil Rights era to not see these issues as being similar and these oppressions is intertwined is to be lost in your own fear and hatred thank you Suzanne King [Applause] to the board thank you for allowing me to speak tonight to everyone here and listening from home while I teach in front of a group of 30 plus students five times a day tonight is definitely outside of my comfort zone thank you for listening to what I have to say with openness and kindness for the rest of my message I will be speaking to the students of Chico Unified my name is Suzanne King and I use the pronoun she her I've been teaching for 16 years the past six as a science teacher at Marsh Junior High School I have focused my adult life my meaning on teaching middle schoolers because it's a tough time for many students as if puberty weren't enough middle school students could be mean heck humans can be mean but you students are surrounded by teachers admin campus supervisors counselors and other students who have your back seek them out support one another Spread spread positivity and acceptance and make your campuses better to all students listening no matter your level of academic achievement your gender your race your age your sexuality your social status or any other piece of your identity my message is this I care about you your teachers care while we may get caught up in the subject that we teach know that most of us teach because we enjoy helping students grow and develop into good people science is just a vessel through which I teach I care more about your whole being than just teaching you about photosynthesis I care about how you feel I care that you experience success inside and outside of the classroom I care that you learn to work hard and give your best effort always I care that you are proud of Who You Are I care that you know that you're not alone I care that you feel supported I will not coerce you I will listen to you I care that you are free to be the person that you are without judgment with outside out without outside pressure to be something that you are not and that is why I will continue to show up for my job for my students day after day I care about you come and find me if you need an ear to listen a high five or a hug or someone to help with your math homework and if you aren't on Marsh campus find another teacher that cares about you we are on every campus in the district and we will continue to support you because you are awesome exactly the way that you are thank you um next up is Rob Berry [Applause] I suppose it's my turn now to be heckled so here we go I guess I could talk to you as a former teacher a former board member and a parent but I think there's plenty of emotions that you've heard in testimony tonight so tonight I'm going to talk to you as an attorney the question that Mr tennis asked was about case law and and how uh how this comes down in terms of case law and statutes my message to you is that you are wading into extremely risky territory legally and that you're if you're looking to avoid a lawsuit in litigation the more that you involve yourself in trying to resolve this this dilemma the deeper you're going to be in your own legal risk so let me give you an example in your own administrative regulations you have taken that the basically the Title IX concept turned it into an anti-harassment policy and then Define what harassment is under penalty of disciplinary action for parents staff students and administrators and you list the kinds of things that constitute harassment the number one thing on your list is refusing to use the pronouns dictated by a child who who identifies with a gender different than their natal sex that becomes grounds for disciplinary action in this school district that is compelled speech it is exactly against the First Amendment and you are subject to constitutional challenge the first time that you try to discipline a teacher for using refusing to use the the pronouns dictated by a student so that's just one example I'm not going to talk to you about Title IX and what the the confusion of natal gender has done to the intention of Title IX which is to create an equal playing field for girls and boys sports and now by confusing gender you are now putting boys on the playing field and in the locker rooms of girls that was never the intention of Title IX and so and you also have the degendering cases I think the one thing that I want to bring to your attention is a district one case that has to do with social transition and in that case the court found that social transition is a mental health intervention and as such it is required to be subject to the diagnostic procedure which hits five diagnostic points before any intervention is possible also you've talked about the over 12 age there is an enumerated list of Rights of 12 year olds there are things like abortion birth control pills and so forth and so on it's an enumerated list you get down to the bottom of the list and it deals with a very vague issue of professional time thank you thank you [Applause] up next is Julie Anderson Nelson good evening my name is Julie Anderson Nelson I am a retired cusd teacher and Community member I've been here before I want to thank and honor the youth that are here tonight their voices are the ones we need to listen to my three children now adults attended cus teach the schools and my youngest daughter as I've mentioned in the past is transgender she is not gender non-conforming she wholeheartedly lives as a female and identifies as a female she grew up in a gender affirming family it's important for me to express again that cusd was supportive and communicative during the years of my daughter's attendance at cusd schools and during her social transition I trust cusd the current School Board policy 5145.3 that follows our state law ab1266 that has was implemented 10 years ago is thorough and protects trans and non-binary students right to privacy Educators and counselors are already mandated reporters the policy also prevents them from being outed without their consent and allow School Employees to help and protect them without negative consequences it's working the gender intake form is already in action the policy's intent is to protect students it does not take away parents rights as a parent of a transgender female I never experienced any of my rights taken away from me or denied me I am requesting that no action be made on the current board policy it's clear that an important next step for our community is continued education with education comes understanding and with understanding comes compassion and reason in raising a transgender child I cannot communicate how much I've learned and I'm still learning about being transgender so much of our Lives is gendered dominated by male female blue pink the binary of gender it's ingrained in us since birth to be transgender or gender non-conforming and experience living in a body that is not the gender you identify with not that gen not the gender that everyone is convinced you are and should be is complicated it's confusing and it's scary we need to listen to them this period of time reveals that we especially as cisgender need more information more training and how to be better at listening it's our duty as humans to ensure our youth who are transgender or gender non-conforming are not discriminated against but rather receive the support they need to live full healthy lives thank you Rylan moribito Rylan [Applause] [Music] hi my name is Rylan and I'm here as a parent of an 11 year old at Parkview Elementary a graduate of the Chico Unified School District in a transgender Community member for some of you sitting board members I have been your neighbor I have made you coffee at the coffee shop my partner and I opened in 2018.