So, I I think I I'm getting a little um emotional, but I'm I apologize because I don't mean to feel like I'm coming off as not supporting parental leave or the idea. I just feel like there are a lot of unintended consequences to something like this that we I think it begs more discussion. My knowledge I thought it was us individually. I didn't know it was a whole school. Um, I just as as somebody who uh has been in the district for a long time and also used my saved time for maternity leave, I was in the district for 14 years before I had my daughter and I had enough time saved up to take the full um leave time and I saved some of it. I saved an extra 10 days so that when I came back that if she got sick I could be home with her because I knew that my husband couldn't do that.
Right. That's my own planning. But I think um if you haven't used FMLA specifically for family birth um you might not know that it takes a really long time to save that amount of days. And the amount of people that aren't going to have enough time saved up when they give birth is going to be probably 95% of them. So, if we're gonna say like 20 days were donated and I don't know how many people had babies this year and I don't know how many people got cancer, but like I I I would think that every single almost every single person that has a baby is not going to have enough time to take the entire time and have days saved up. And I think I think our country should do something different for paternal leave. I don't think that our group should. Okay. Thank you, Kelly.
Um, after listening to the discussion, it sounds like there's more that needs to be uh worked out with this. So, I propose that this is added to what we could call like a parental leave package, which could include a discussion about changing this medical leave assistance program to include parental leave. Um, but it sounds like just like the parental leave itself has to be worked out in the logistics that this could be tabled to priority tabled priority tabled to be um to be just flushed out a little bit more. Okay. Um, would you make a a vote for that? We can Well, or we Yeah. I mean, I guess I'm not proposing to table it, but I'll make a a motion to um adjust the policy of medical leave assistance program to include parental leave. but with the caveat that if you put your thumbs down that it's going on the tabled as opposed to the done list.
I don't know what we're calling that. Okay. So, let's vote on that. Um Ariel, you want to vote? Okay. Okay. So, we're going to table that and everyone's okay with it being tabled as opposed to just dropped entirely. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, and I don't know if you want to put it with that other one, Joel, if that makes sense. Or I'll Thank you. Okay. Number four, and that's the long one. Um, uh, that's the class sizes for general education shall correspond to the following. Um, you have that information. I'm not going to read it all. We've been over it many times. Um, So, someone would like they would someone like to make the motion for the You want to reread it? Okay. And then Diane, we're doing first round vote and then discussion if needed, right? And then we can do another vote after discussion.
Thanks. Okay. Okay. Are we ready? Okay, someone make the motion. Um I motion that we approve option four of the non- finance options. Okay. So let's do a vote. Okay. We have let's have a little discussion if you um three. We'll start with Yeah. Could we get some discussion from the thumbs down? Yep. Who would like to start? Um, I'll start. Okay. I mean, I don't really want to. That's all right. We need to hear your voice. So, I I I think class sizes are really important. I think most of this is already happening at the sites. And when we're talking about the recommendations that we're making to the board and reducing the number of recommendations, I think that this should be one that we don't include in our recommendation until next year because this could be perceived as adult convenience and not as um what's best for kids.
Even though I I already know people are going to say this is what's best for kids. I 1,000% agree. I agree. I know that class size matters. I do. I just think that having this recommendation is going to um water down the recommendation that we are making. And so for me, it's something that I think is really important and should be communicated to all sites, but I don't think it should be a recommendation to the board. Okay. I think next is Ariel. Um I think it's great that some of us are making an effort to cater to the governing board and I get the whole governing board policy about adult convenience. Go ahead, Ariel. So, you're concerned that we're weighing our options on what the board I'm just going to take a step out. Okay. She's very rude and disrespectful every time I speak and I don't do it to her when she speaks.
So, I'm about to go. Okay. Um Dorothy. Yeah. On that note, I I do think we want to remind ourselves of the norms. Like if somebody's sharing, even if we disagree with what they're sharing, making a statement is impactful to them emotionally, psychologically, it's interrupting their flow of thought. So, I think just like we would ask others to be mindful of those norms, we need to all be mindful of those norms. Just my two cents worth because I I get her point. Um, the other thing I wanted to say is that I respectfully would disagree with um, Eve's position on this because I believe this is an area where there's clear research that class size has an impact on student outcomes that we could find and present to the board where some of our other things are a little bit more broad and more, you know, it's about teacher retention.
this is very clearly aligned to SOFG goals and I think that they would appreciate hearing us talk about and discuss something similar to like the ELLL weighted thing because that's you know basically we're in that same category in my opinion that we're talking about what is best for improving student outcomes and this is a place where we could open up that discussion more than some of our other recommendations. So, I think it is worthy of having that opportunity to say that that's what we were focused on with the board. Okay, Daniel. Yeah, I guess I would just address some of the concerns. Um, number one, uh, this is not happening at all sites. I had a very instructive conversation with Amy, um, because she was skeptical about this at first and then she came to agree that it was a useful recommendation because she kind of gave me the same answer of like, well, these are things that I already do.
These are steps that I already follow and even if we're assuming the best of intentions like we always have new principles and new assistant principles who get in charge of who who are put in charge of like you know balancing class sizes and they don't always know what to do or what steps to take and this is like a very clear list of some possible steps and then at its most restrictive it all it only requires is that written communication is sent to teachers about what is being done. Um, in terms of the comments about the board, I guess I'm just confused how you could say something is best for kids, but we are afraid that it will water down the other recommendations, and so we don't want to include it in our list of recommendations because that to me feels like, well, yes, this is best for kids, but I like I I don't really know what the barrier is here.
I know the board said we want to streamline and focus to the SOFG goals, but the board this this is like two paragraphs. So, I feel like I'm working with my students or something when I give them something to read and they're like, "Come on, you really expect me to read all this?" It's like, "Yeah, it's it's half a page. It's not I mean, this was I like again, this is work that I had to go do to go read somebody else's professional agreement and find something that matched our ratio and do the math and figure out the class sizes and lift it from there to put it up to here." And yeah, I'm not sure that that's what she said, though. I I don't think she's worried about the length of it and how much there is to read. It's just Am I wrong there?
What is that? That's my I all I'm saying and I didn't I didn't make this very clear. I'm trying to be strategic and prioritize things that we bring to the board so that we can be really focused and concise so that they understand the alignment. That's all I was saying. I think that makes sense. But I also think that we should treat the board like adults, like professionals, like people with, you know, some criteria that they, you know, at the bare minimum they were like elected. Well, when you when you say like I I'm sorry, but the only way I can interpret like well, we are worried that this will distract from or it will water down. To me, it seems like you are either worried about our ability to communicate something, which could be a reasonable like issue or you're worried that for some reason they will misinterpret.
I would also say I am worried about our way to communicate with the board because the past two board meetings it hasn't been received well. So yes, number one, I am worried about our ability to communicate concisely and with purpose and the outcome that we want with the board. That is accurate. Number two, I'm not not treating them as adults. I'm trying to be strategic in our communication so that we can negotiate and get what we want. So, I'm trying to be strategic and prepared. I'm not trying to not treat them as adults. And to me, that is condescending and that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is let's be strategic and let's negotiate strategically to get what we want. Can you explain what it is that you want that is a higher priority than class sizes? The 2% raise for everybody. And can you explain how that is more aligned to SOFG goals than making sure the class sizes are balanced?
I cannot. But we already approved the 2%. Wait, so then why No, but why do you personally want that so much that you need to be strategic about our other recommendations to ensure that the 2% raise is passed? Because I think if we go in there with multiple recommendations and things that distract from what we really want that they're going to say no to all of the things. I think that there are a lot of egos that are involved and I don't think that us trying to create a battlefield is the way to go about this. I think that we need to be strategic. In other words, watch the number of options. But um and I will say even in the past we have oh gosh we've presented up to 20ome to the board. We're way below that now. I mean if that makes I think that makes us feel a little bit better.
Yeah. And we're at like so we're not presenting nearly what we have. Um nine that should help. I mean, even if we were to approve all the rest of these, which I'm don't think we will, um, we're well below of what we normally present to them. Uh, yeah. So, I don't know if that's going to help your thinking or or what, but but I appreciate what you're saying, Ivon. And then Amy, you have something. I just I just appreciate all the conversation. I want to add to the conversation. Again, we know that there's a lot of research that said class sizes is important, but also there's a lot of research that says that teacher efficacy and that we have nothing that we're uh promoting like uh professional development or empowering teachers so they can be better uh in in instruction. And so sometimes I can have a big class size, but if I have all of the tools and the coaching and the mentoring, I can address them even though it's a lot of work.
Okay. Sometimes I can have a small class but if I don't have that support that mentor and those skills I may not be that effective. So I want us also to consider there is research for everything. Number two, I want to say that if going to um IPS's concerns that the number of uh options, yes, we have presented a several number of options in the past, but what's different right now is the guidance and the board came to talk to us to say align to the vision to the SOFG uh vision. And so if I'm negotiating and I want whatever I'm presenting to be approved, I'm not going to present something that is already being implemented with gaps of services because it's already happening. So I rather adjust at home and say hey on board principles remind that this is instead of using one space for an option because that may break or risk the fact to approve the ones that we really are all in consensus of doing.
So it's just a negotiation uh stratey and I think I think that that that's that's all the comments. Um, I I'm sorry. I I'll let you go first. I was I was next though, but I know you just came back, so you can Ariel is next. Oh, I was just going to ask how many recommendations are we putting forward so far? Also, we got that doesn't seem too much. Okay. Um, I was going to say that I think Ivon to your point about well, we don't have anything regarded to instruction. It's because our focus explicitly says we can't address instruction. So we could not actually like mandate something like like PD or whatever things like that unless we found a way for it to be a working conditions issue or a salary or wager benefit like this is one of the things that we have control over because it's a working conditions issue.
Um maybe some more specific PD um or instruction things we could touch on. I am again um asking like like I and maybe this is just from my experience so I want to explain further like reading other school districts professional agreements. We have like a 20 30 some page Google doc a lot of that is salary schedules. Other school districts have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pages legal. they go through hours and hours and hours and hours of bargaining and you know we're a smaller school district so I don't expect that of us but I again I think it is um difficult for me to swallow that I know the board said we want things to be focused and aligned to the SOG goals but a lot of what we're talking about is teacher retention a lot of what we're talking about is working conditions for our teachers to ensure that they can do their jobs and again I am confused as to what it means that we need to be strategic what are we trying to pass if not things like this a 2% % raise.
I really don't think the board will be happy if all we come to them with is a bunch of financial packages about giving employees more money. I actually think the board is going to go, "Well, where are the things aligned to the SFG goes?" We go, "Oh, well, teacher retention." They'll go, "Okay, but do you have anything that addresses the that addresses the conditions in the classrooms? Do you have even one recommendation?" And looking through our recommendations, we don't. This would actually be the only thing that directly affects a classroom on this entire list. The only thing, every other thing is a financial package. So, if you really want a 2% raise and you're worried about this um you know impacting that, then yeah, we kill it. But you're going to go to the board and tell them, "Don't worry, guys. We killed everything except for these couple of raises.
Message received." And that's not going to go over well. I promise you. And if you want to talk about being strategic, what I think we should do, sorry for my language. My bad. I what I think we should do is go back and kill our raise and then get six more teachers, right? like but that won't be good for teacher retention and I acknowledge that which is why I have this class size recommendation that I think will help address some of those issues too. I think that's the last thing I have to say on this. Okay, Ariel's next and we're going to spend about five more minutes and then we're going to move on. Ariel, oh I was going to say earlier I um I know some of us really want to focus on what the board thinks what the board wants and I agree with the board sentiment.
um students outcomes doesn't change until adult convenience. But just because something will positively impact an adult does not mean that we're just doing what's best for teacher and what's teacher um convenience. the mindset a teacher has in the classroom. The teacher ability to be able to pull small groups, do centers, do classroom management, report cards, contact parents, behavior chart, all of those things that really directly impact students and families is based off how many students are in the classroom. And when you have 30 kindergarters in a classroom, that makes one behavior issue seems like five. So, it's just better teacher, you know, just being able to be there for students and families. Okay. Thank you. I think I'm next. Yeah. Um I just wanted to add in response to the comment about how this may or may not be happening at certain sites. To me, that is the purpose of this body of mate and confer to um make sure that things are equitable across the sites that no matter which site a staff member happens to teach or work at that they are receiving consistent working benefits.