so here's our isolation room each campus has an isolation room which includes two cots two a room divider a bin full of supplies it has direction arrows we also equip them with their own trash can we also have a signage and sign out sheet we ensure that they have a handheld thermometer inside as well as either a walkie-talkie or a phone to call out in the time to call for a parent our guardian to pick up so who's the person that's going to be um in this room sure so right now the isolation room will be equipped with based on the site each site has the ability to determine who that person will be but the isolation does not have to be staffed it's only when someone is in there when we actually need a person in the isolation room and that was a question i had also so when there is someone in the isolation room let's say that there's a there's a student that's isolated who how is that how is that staffed and and then is is that person who's staffing it then also isolate it i'm just how would that work so yes so if staff based off um short answer is staff based off the um site's recommendation so it could be a nurse it could be whoever is gonna be designated that day um that person that's working in isolation room has additional ppe so they will have on a gown they're having a face shield they're having the gloves they have also a mask um and then they won't they only would have to be isolated if we have a confirmed positive case so the person just went in there because they had a fever but nothing comes of that that person will not have to be isolated so is the is the person that's gowned um is there some sort of uh you know how how are they um coming in and out of that space with their with their gown and are they taking it off every time they come in and out that's just not clear to me the that process yes so um best way to answer so if i was let's say we were in room three we said a kid had a fever they were sending someone over to the isolation room before i went into the isolation room i'm going to make sure i have with my um my additional pp e then while i'm in there i keep that on i make sure that student or that adult is safely transitioned to whoever's going to pick them up at that time i will take off and i will go to my normal duties or i will take off and replenish if i have to go in to attend to the next person so is is that um going to be the house aid or um any classified employee and are they being trained um can you elaborate on the question when you say are they being trained uh would the person be the health aide that would be in there because you know our schools do have health aides or a um i would say office manager and um the person is going to be monitoring these students so there is no required training and there is no classification that's required to be in the isolation room in an isolation room we just have to know how to take a temperature make sure we have our pp e and we call the next can on the emergency card to have that person pick up so we're not administering any medication we're not providing any testing we're just literally making sure that person stays vital have no uh doesn't pass out or anything and they stay in the isolation room so they're able to get picked up so it could be any classification okay thank you any other questions on the isolation room so here is our water bottle units so right now we have disabled all of our water fountains so to have another option for everyone to have a good drinking water we have installed floor water system in all of our cafeteria this system goes through now i lost the word uh i was stuck on thank you osmosis uh many have tasted this water i have not but i have heard rave reviews of this water the temperature the quality everything has been great um so here you would just bring in your own water bottle you don't have to touch it as a sensor as soon as the water bottle is since there the water comes out in addition to this unit we're also still going to install two outdoor water bottle refillable stations but that is just replacing the water fountain so that's not filtered water but it's just now going to be an automated water system where they can put a water bottle up fill up but it'll be the same water that they would have received out the water fountain and are we moving are we moving in this direction i mean somewhat permanently because as far as the water fountains that are on hannah it's my understanding that if if they're if water isn't circulated through um fountains that they can kind of degrade and so are we are we maintaining those or are we intending to no longer use them moving forward our goal is to maintain these so our investment right now is going going forward so we want to always have an option for if someone does not want to use a water fountain if that ever comes back allowed to use that they have another source that they could receive water by filling up a water bottle right so more more specifically if we are going to return ever to having uh water fountains um is do is there a risk that because we are not maintaining and running water through those fountains that over the course of of time that uh i mean it's already been it's already been a number of months now that over a course of time we may come back and find that many of the water fountains are have degraded so so are is are there any steps that we are taking and or that need to be taken to maintain the the water fountains not not these uh water filled machines yes and one of those steps will be um adding a rotation when we're walking our campuses meeting our department mot when we're walking through we're literally putting our hand underneath just to make the sensor go so the water can come through same thing that we typically do like if um our campus was closed for a while we'll go through flush toilets we'll run the water we would have to do the same thing for the water water fountains outdoors did anybody else have a question i i have a question okay so so i know that um we're seeing you know we're anticipating and asking students to bring their own water bottles um how about if they don't bring their water bottles will there be a plastic disposable cup for them or what are what will we have available that's a great question we won't have a disposable cup but what we are going to do is provide our school size um cases of water so that way if a person comes without a water bottle we can just give them a bottle of water for the day thank you and here are hand washing so we want to emphasize and encourage everyone to constantly wash their hands so we have begin to install outdoor hand water washing stations at all of our campus everyone will have one and we are currently finalizing this installation as well as adding soap dispensers as well as a paper towel dispenser any questions here and how often will these um sinks be cleaned that is going to be part of our normal nightly cleaning yes just saying the fountains that we've had before this covet were not very clean i've seen many of them i will take that as a point that outfitter and here is how we're going to talk about our lunches so this is miss fabulous elizabeth williams who works in our cafeteria at slauson middle school so all of our in-person um students that come on campus they will receive a grab-and-go meal as they exit the campus um it will be individually wrapped in ability package all they have to do is just grab a bag and go as they walk off campus in addition to this we will continue which will be on our next slide the full weekly meal distribution so this does not mean just because they receive an in-person meal to go their families can still participate in our weekly meal distribution that way they will still have a healthy breakfast lunch and dinner whether they're in person or not any questions on our grab and go meals so when the students group a comes they'll be the ones grabbing the grab-and-go and um so the families can still come the days uh that that we've assigned um and still it's uh it's free or reduced lunch we will continue just going along with that a weekly distribution will continue on wednesdays and fridays and on in-person instruction in addition to the weekly we will be providing grab-and-go meals for every student in person great thanks all right any questions here all right now i'll pass it on to mr jorge rankill assistant soup of hr thank you miss satasha and good evening board president members of the board of education i will be discussing health and safety specifically vaccination testing contact tracing and communication i'm going to start off with vaccines we have been fortunate to partner with mercy pharmacy laco and the city of hope and i'm going to go in chronological order we were able to offer the vaccines to our employees that are 65 years of age and older through the city of hope on february 20th and 21st this was during the period of time when the it was the vaccine was being offered to individuals who were 65 years of age and older so we were able to to launch that prior to march first when the education sector opened and through our partnership with mercy pharmacy i'm happy to report that we've been able to vaccinate just about all if not all ausd employees that have requested a vaccination through ausd and that's a and that's been a collaborative effort um by by many people here including um the our administrators and members from the hr staff who have really been putting forward all their their effort to uh to make sure that everyone who has requested a vaccine through uh mercy pharmacy who is our partner here in asusa has been able to to access that uh it's uh also important to state that we prioritize employees to receive the vaccination based on those who would be coming back to work with our students first and so we looked at our teachers our classified employees at elementary school sites and administrators and then just continued the the steady drumbeat of offering the vaccine um and and it was it's been it's been a very good partnership the reports that we have heard from um mercy pharmacy has been um very positive and we've also heard some very positive reports uh from our employees who have cited uh very favorable conditions of walking in very organized very fast a very fast process so i'm very happy to to say that we're we're happy with our partnership we have our last offering of the vaccine through mercy pharmacy scheduled for tomorrow um and again we've we've threw out a large net uh to see if there's anybody who's either uh missed the first couple opportunities or for extenuating reasons needed to wait until um this week to to to get the vaccine um and so that we're making that available as well and lastly um i also want to give a nod to our friends at the los angeles county office of education who have provided the district with over 140 vaccination codes on that our employees have been able to use either at a large site they referred to as mega sites or through kaiser to receive their vaccine through through them so all told the vaccination process has been a a very good process any questions so so as as of now the employees have received their first dose correct correct uh the employees that have the employees that have received their vaccinations through uh mercy pharmacy have received their first dose um in the survey that i sent out today i had a question as far as how many have already received their second dose and many of our employees have already received their second dose based on responses to that survey um so a good number of them and the vast majority of them have received the first dose and many have received their second so is this is this the last week that we're going to be offering the vaccines then through mercy for the first house for the first step that is correct any other questions i'm going to move on to covet testing um the there are three different reasons to administer covid tests uh the first is a screening test uh when they're when the tier assignment is in purple the district has to conduct screening tests also known as surveillance testing either once a week if the adjusted case rate is over 14 per 100 000 or every other week if the case rate is between 7 and 13.9 per 100 000 um and i have to apologize there's a there's a slight typo in the right underneath that screening test bullets i wanted to call that out that it's not a um either twice a week it's either once a week or um every other week based on the tier assignment per 100 000.
i have a motion from jennifer have a second from diana all in favor that's also unanimous thank you thank you appreciate your help information recommendation item 3.3 recommendation to review and approve the early graduating of a blue ridge high school student dr wright we have a student that has met all the graduate requirements um lauren has reviewed it and his recommendation is we allow the student to graduate early and so you've had the backup data i don't know if there any specific questions can be answered in general lauren would be glad to answer them you know i read through it sounds like an outstanding student one one that's really going to be missed really made me feel old because i can remember when he was born just a sad day when kids grow up but looks like he's grown up well any questions from the board if not then we need a motion to accept this early graduation for the student item 3.3 a motion from chuck second from diane hall in favor that also has passed unanimously item 3.4 we're down to uh dr wright a report from you thank you if it pleases the board i'd like principal hoffmeier to give us an account of the spelling bee we had a champion and a third place winner could you bring us up to date with that courtney you bet we had our um we had our navajo county spelling bee we had to have it virtually um so we proctored it from the school grace smithson eighth grade student um came in third and jackson woods was our was the navajo county winner so saturday he'll be um back at our school virtually again uh he'll be taking the state spelling bee um so when he wins that we'll see if that's going to be virtual in washington dc or not um so that was exciting and then our girls basketball team uh on march 6th beat st john's for the champion uh the championship and it's the first time in i'm not sure how long for the girls uh eighth grade team so that was really exciting win we're proud of them thank you i'm excited that girls basketball win that speaks well for the future congratulations one of our one of our elementary teachers sam rodriguez coached that team and so we're congratulations i wanted to also give a shout out jackson woods's mom as rebecca woods one of our teachers those who never bet it's unsurprising that she would have a very bright kid and so uh we we're thankful and then our uh having a first and third is is really pretty remarkable so we're proud of those kids and of our girls too so thank you courtney i want to provide a number of updates to the board uh with respect to some events that are upcoming and also to provide a little bit of detail and visibility perhaps for the upcoming months and so every everyone i'm sure is asking are we going to have a prom are we going to have morph in some of these seasonal traditional activities the answer is yes some changes and some adjustments will be made but they will they will occur and these are optional the volunteer including the staffing of those so the district office staff is going to pitch in and the principals to help i'm sure we'll have teachers that will volunteer but this is a voluntary activity and the kids are already exposed i would like mr webb to give a little bit of color around that provide some details if you would just his perspective we visited about this at length and one of the things that we agree on is that we need to start returning to some level of normalcy with our kids as quick as we can do so that has been our commitment all along given the relatively low frankly very low levels presently in our immediate community and the progress that's being made i do believe we could do so safely uh mr webb can you give us a little bit of just a preview on those upcoming events for us sir yeah so met with student council they are they've been planning in the hopes that we could have a prom and some of these other activities that typically go along with school so they are in those planning stages and as dr wright mentioned we feel that we're in a position where we can we are back to school in person the same precautions that we're following at school we would have in place at the prom activity or any of the other student activities that are coming up one of the things for example they want to give the seniors an opportunity to kind of get together with their classmates here in the last couple months and and spend some time build some memories so this friday they're they're having an event it's meet the sunrise so they're going to be out at the football stadium and be out there for the sunrise and just have some budding time with them bring their blanket because it's going to be cold but just get that opportunity to meet and have you know those memories that maybe they weren't able to have at the end of last year the beginning of this year and so those are things that we're looking forward to so we're going to have the safety protocols in place and whether the venue is a combination of indoor outdoor will have it fully staffed with those that are willing to participate and take that that added risk to be able to do that thank you mr webb as far as the graduate graduation commencement exercises they will look much more like a traditional exercise we will use both sides of the stadium position the stage in the middle it will read the student's name where they're going and what they plan to do will be in the program this year instead of you know nate is going to wherever he's going to and he plans to do this and whatever that takes time we'll just read nathan neal he'll take off or read another student it'll enable us to move the students through quicker we won't have photographs before graduation on the field like we've had that'll cause congregation we're trying to stay away from that but we will allow family members to bring in and we don't believe we're going to have to limit that number using both sides of the stadium i think and and the track as well we're sure we can space people out allow kids to have a more normal commencement exercise and proceed that way for the lock-in that will also is going to occur it'll be a combination of using all of our space both new gym old gym the area at the high school where the main commons we've got a lot of square footage there will keep kids spread out frankly the risk of them getting in an accident or involved in something after graduation is far greater than being in an area like what we were watching over them and and so we're very thankful to dr brown and doctors laura and john bratch and others that always pitch in and are on top of this so we will we'll move forward with our lock-in we'll also have our baccalaureate i believe on the 17th graduation is on may 21st i think those have i captured all of the high school events that are forthcoming prom and morph are prom prom okay we'll have prom and then we'll have the last walk at the junior high traditional around the lab okay good are there any concerns from the board or questions or comments that that we might be able to address for you are there going to be other events like mr yellow jacket or the peach fuzz and whatever those things are called we haven't discussed those i don't know if we're there's a lot of activities planned for the seniors and with that probably some of the others that will involve the other younger classmates i may be limited so i'm not sure if we'll have all the full spectrum of what we've had in the past chuck there going to be a senior trip to walmart [Laughter] no we're actually not looking at a senior trip they're they're actually looking at doing a senior field day and trying to do something here on campus keep it safe that way but still give them something different if there's something we can do to mr webb southwest foods is always looking for someone to help maybe we can provide food barbecue something like that too to help more willing to do that okay great if there's no further question about that i'll go on the next topic are there any others okay thank you we have a really unique opportunity to have our staff members and community members receive the johnson and johnson vaccine or the pfizer vaccine those shots will be given at no charge without appointment beginning march 23rd at 10 a.m until 6 p.m there'll be a large medical unit transport from the indian health services parked out here we'll need to make sure that we have that parking lot free of traffic so that allows the medical unit to be parked and the traffic to form and lines all is needed is id if they have insurance great if they don't that's okay too they need to have photo id and they have a choice do they want to have the one shot johnson johnson and that that shot is developed differently than the other vaccines and so there are some there are a number of people and over staff members that were waiting for the johnson jones so i'm excited that it's coming to our area we've placed that on social media we'll get that on our website we'll campaign that on the also the the all call and whatever vehicles we have we've also posted this information with the local newspaper so hopefully we'll get good participation everyone's welcome no appointment bring your idea if you have an insurance card bring it to even without insurance it's free of charge and i think the capacity is pretty significant he said a couple thousand or more shots he has okay which would be really meaningful for our little community any questions on that all right yes sir members will members of the public be allowed to join in yes sir anybody 18 years of age and older is may get there receive a shot good i also wanted to mention that nav apache dropped off a check for 14 000 today as a rebate part of the program we've been a customer for a length of time there after a period of years you qualify for a percentage so i got a nice check for fourteen thousand dollars which we'll use for junior high and high school extracurricular activities so that would mean music and sports those programs and i i i want to thank dav apache for that i got 12.
um but you can see we're setting aside based on our um our ghost rates we're setting aside more than enough money to be able to cover vision and is probably creating a little bit of a buffer for you if you go to the next slide i'm going to use this next one is a kind of an introduction piece as you look at who is doing most of the work for your school district i think it's no surprise that a lot of people in the two districts really like dr jones it's almost the dr jones show now having said that we have added two providers in your area but they're only materials dividers uh we added the sam's club and the walmart now there's not a doctor at sam's club so people will not be able to seek their their professional services at sam's club there is a doctor however at walmart but dr clarkson who's the doctor there is already disk out to the end of may and he says this year i don't want to come on to see providers i can't handle the people that i have right now but if people want to use the materials benefit at either locations sam's or walmart they can we have trained the offices knowing how to access your eligibility as plan members uh they seem to be up we've seen this happen in other markets where walmart and sam's club seem to be an option for people who are looking for contact lenses in particular now if you could switch screens to bullhead city we can go through this slide quite quickly as you can see the savings is about the same going to the second slide our utilization there is um not where it was a year ago in in the case of bullhead city it had been trending up since its inception um this year we're off and i don't know what to attribute to it because in most of our other clients across the state we're seeing that as offices have opened up our plan members are our providers are pretty busy so i don't know why your trend is lower you may have some insight for the people who are at the meeting may have some insights and let's go to the last slide again and you can see dr jones is once again far by far and away the preference um amongst your providers he's a great provider he's got a stable awesome staff now one of the things i would i would like to ask is as your folks in the billing office know we also have a plan that we added as a benefit to your employees where they can purchase an additional materials benefit um i haven't been reporting on that because it isn't a responsibility of the school district but if you would like i could give you a quick overview on what's been happening with those plans would that be helpful or interesting uh seems that it would we're seeing some indications okay thank you um the first year uh we had um roughly 1290 which is not a lot of money that ran through that program but we did save people about 50 on their extra income 2019 which was the the next year we saved people about 1600 um would you like i can go ahead and send a subsequent report with the numbers in it out to everyone who's on the call great dr stewart i'll go ahead and get that done i can see you not in your head um what a tilty like for example in 2019 where you save sixteen hundred dollars on materials that people would have had to extend out of their own pocket beyond what we've covered so they're they're leading the benefit it's been becoming a more popular benefit this year in 2020 we're trending slightly above what we were even in 2019 which doubled 2018.
suicide rates for teenage girls meanwhile rose 8 annually between 2000 and 2017. tragically teens can be vulnerable to suicide as they navigate the emotional pitfalls of growing up and a new u.s study suggests black teens might be the most vulnerable of all suicide rates among black girls aged 13 to 19 rose 182 between 2001 and 2017.
He's going to explain a little more to you, and if you have any questions, you can also help us. Again, the government funds— I want to clarify so you understand— are 10.1 million. Okay, this is what the state has given us. So, what we want to distribute is to open the schools, which are already fully open, and also to cover the losses that have occurred during this entire pandemic, which is related to copyright. And not only that, that's what we're trying to see and try to spread. Okay, this resources, software interventions, dressing rooms, rider, Witis Maris, young expert on Twitter, as he says, we have to be very careful with how we're going to distribute This money will have restrictions because those people bolt Spanish and English, it doesn't matter to you, look or help already [Music] but wang wang a different ouija of welcome to stay with love of aid for comfort we continue I'm doing the summary as Mr.
uh just by way of comparison uh los angeles county as of today is reporting a um a adjusted case rate of 4.1 per 100 000 so we are no longer in the uh purple tier by by the the ranges that um in the metrics that are put out by the state uh so as it applies to testing this means that we administer the covid19 test when a student or employee is either symptomatic or is um or has been a close contact to someone who has tested positive for covin 19. on the right hand side of this slide i'm illustrating our our partnership with valencia branch laboratory and it's i just want to share with you that each test costs 21 per test it is a test that is self administered um and i i included some graphic some graphics there to to illustrate what the test looks like it is uh the uh administration of a swab into uh a nostril uh i wanna emphasize that this is not a swab that goes all the way to the upper cavity of your of your nose cavity but it actually just intended to go around the entrance part you swab and you do you swirl it around in one nostril switch it to the the next nostril then you put it into a vial place that vial into a plastic bag and then it's sent off to to the office to then get picked up and get sent to valencia laboratory yes so i just want to clarify so with the close contact testing when do we do that so i the thing the reason i'm asking is it do we do it when the close contact happens on our school sites or are we saying that let's say somebody's exposed in their personal life that we actually asking them to come to our site and be tested my understanding is that we test for close contacts that were originated at the school site okay and then i've you know the recently the state has come out with the information about rapid testing so this is not the rapid testing correct this is not the rapid test okay but i i was sitting in on a um on a presentation today by valencia lab um and this is the uh the test that they use and i forgot that the chemical that they use is the highest grade that has the highest sensitivity to kovid 19 so a positive test um on on to one of our one of the swabs that are administered during this test um is uh has high the highest accuracy for coven 19.
did you good if you want to throw it in the hat that's good too dave we'll take it as as far as any other items of business as an update there have been no reported cases for any staff members students or family members of students for the last almost three weeks and so it is virtually absent in our schools at least undetected we have the effort the administration teachers support staff and students have made to do their part has been exemplary we're proud of them the question is are we going to have these masks next year i don't know the answer would be as soon as we can get rid of them we will i don't know yet it's too early to tell if we continue on that current trajectory our hope is maybe we wouldn't uh we're not going to uh as much as we love purple it'd be nice not to have to have these we don't know yet but we will have uh i'm sure by the middle of january we'll have greater visibility the the new schedule that has was introduced a couple of months ago a couple of tweaks was made to it but that has been also distributed widely for the 21 22 school year and it is aligned with npc is aligned with the navit programs and the surrounding school districts reflects it more closely are there any questions from the board on any of the updates provided if not thank you appreciate the time i do have one question about this survey can you give us an update on the survey that you sent out to the parents and uh regarding scheduling yes sir schedule absolutely absolutely it's a it's uh that's a great question i've had close to 300 responses so far and of that number 75 in 75 of that number are requesting some type of flexible friday meaning students have to qualify in order to participate in some type of independent whether that's online or some other activity on friday they earn their way into the program and so there's a there's a number of things and data points that we could look at to make it fair and equitable but also to incent student engagement and to make sure that there's to be clear this is not a what was that called reteach this is not a reteach friday that was a categoric disaster we're not doing that or suggesting that however we are suggesting that the students are perhaps proficient or highly proficient on the arizona merit their gpa is where it needs to be their attendance is good the behavior they're operating in such a way that we have confidence in their ability to do that we are looking for ways for those students in that group to be able to have uh experience a different friday different type of a friday and uh there is another uh about uh roughly 100 families are still wishing to remain online online only next year so we're working that plan k through 12 to figure out how to do that we have put out the notice for teachers if they're interested in doing that that will come with enhanced compensation given they're going to teach multiple grade levels it's a different body of work and a different skill set and that what we'll be taking those applications and determining how many will be need once we understand where they are per grade level but we will offer an online only component we're hopeful to be able to offer something along the lines of a hybrid or a flexible schedule at the high school it is complicated if you remember we do not have a block schedule we don't have a seven period schedule we have a hybrid of two schedules it's complicated already we may not be able to do it and so i don't want to create any expectations that are unrealistic i will say however if we had been appropriately funded by the state we would have had the budget capacity this year to do that we will not just by virtue of adding additional teachers for that expressed purpose we have to do it within the current allocation of funds which makes it more challenging but we are going to do something different one at a minimum create something flexible on fridays i've reached out to teachers the administrators are working with their staff to see what that might look like at the various grade levels the other interesting piece of information that came out of that was well there's clearly an appetite to get back to school and for activities but there are still a number of uh parents that are willing to volunteer out of the 300 i had about 15 20 percent that said they want to volunteer and one day a week so we're going to reach out and see what shape that takes we can use it especially at the elementary school level and in our classes where we're remediating math and some of those other things so our volunteer efforts we're trying to ramp that up as well were there any other areas the survey that the board might have had any questions on i that i could address as an update if not thank you i one other question about summer school what period of time during the summer would that happen early in the summer or right before class starts again good question the summer school will begin on may 17th that's almost that's the very next monday after the last day of school and for the k through six it'll extend for three week period for the high school of four week period and during that time we also provide transportation meals meaning breakfast and lunch and i think we might send them home with a supper for the high school four weeks high school junior high four weeks k through six is three weeks and and and that will be at no charge to the families how many hours a day and how many days a week monday through thursday and it's about it's roughly a half days so five hours a day roughly all right thank you you're welcome thank you any other questions from the board regarding anything all right uh next uh item on the agenda is announcements and just to announce our next board meeting will be april 13th 2020 on 5 pm at this location uh next item would be item number four in adjournment can i have a motion to adjourn i have a motion to adjourn from chuck have a second from diane all in favor of adjournment unanimous we're adjourned thank you
um so it looks like it's going to be a a very favorable benefit going on so i'll get that out to you after the call dr stewart thank you any other question uh charity has her hand up now that i can see all of the all of the little screens charity was your question about uh vision actually my question was about cairo's before oh okay i couldn't see or i couldn't see your hand so if you'd send that to a send it to kim in writing and we'll get it answered for you and we'll make sure everybody here gets a copy of your question and the response okay okay okay any other questions for the vision the question uh reid is do you anticipate the rates changing no um i don't especially because of the way we're funding this you're actually building a surplus over the last couple of years based on our our ghost rates so we write actually because they're not using the benefit as much as they could it's having a favorable effect on your budget we would however encourage people to have their eyes checked and get the materials they need to be able to see clearly and especially when they're having to spend so much time at computers these days that can be a okay so kate mentioned kate mentioned reid that there might be an increase in in usage in the next couple of months because it has been difficult to get into any of the eye doctors you know in the last few months be probably because of covid and they're they're just they're scheduled very very full not just the doctor at walmart i think the doctors at any of our vision places have been packed i saw board members saying something so i don't know they may have questions for you too lori did you have a question i didn't i i just thought with half the usage you know was there a reduction in the rate that's my question we may want to wait until the end of the year you know the end of the cycle to see if in fact people can are getting in and and i mean i'm just suggesting this message i would sure maybe we would see a reduction in the rate okay did you hear me get a report at any moment did you send a request my way and i can update it monthly for you if you'd like just so you can kind of see how it's trending okay that would be helpful i'll make a note and make sure that at this time next month and months i'm sending an updated report that probably would be helpful for the board so that they would have ongoing information okay i will i will include a fourth slide and as we as you'd request dr stewart to make sure i include what's happening with the um the uh the additional benefits the second material benefit i'll get that out to you too and i know that there might be limited use on that but i know that the people who are using it are very appreciative of having that service well it's a pleasure to work with you folks thank you okay okay any other questions all right thank you for your time i have one for read real quick please go ahead um as far as our open enrollment will we be able to get the sign up sheets from you do we need to give you the open enrollment dates um we can go ahead and get the forms out to you absolutely we're trying to move as much as we can online have you moved to any kind of a online format yet um yes and no we do have a number of employees that are not comfortable doing that so i'd like to have the paper forms for them um even if it's them filling it out for me so that i can do it for them online um that's helpful i'll get to i'll make that as the third note thank you okay any other questions all right thank you for your time thank you okay do we have someone from emeritus um uh mr waters we don't have a person apparently our the representative we've had for a while has changed positions and there is a new person kim has been in touch with the representatives from emeritus and the brand new person uh it doesn't feel real comfortable making the presentation however they did send the information for us so uh kim can put that up and we can just we can look at their information and i think you have a copy of it in front of you as well all right thank you why don't we take a minute or two to look at it and then see if we have any discussion or questions kim is this their uh is this their plan for next year or is uh did they tell you they didn't tell me okay carolyn are you able to share that so we can see it at home uh yeah james is getting it for you thank you he was reading it himself and got carried away and is this planned for both districts yes yes it is for both districts yeah it looks the same to me thanks and and while you're looking that perhaps uh michelle could uh let you know first of all if we've had concerns about this plan with uh with any of the high school folks and then darlene could let us know if we have any have had any concerns with this plan from bullhead folks on the crush side i've not had anybody bring anything to me regarding dental it seems to be going well my only question would be do we have a rate increase or are we the same for next year darlene what kind of have you had any questions or concerns from the bullhead side none nope everything's smooth failing with this okay it does not look like they've given us any rate information here so we would have to provide that for you get that information from that new rep and provide that for you okay does anyone have anything to add on this all right if no one has anything to add let's move on to discussion from administration and trustees i i think this is a very good time for you all as as uh trustees and for our other representatives to uh indicate any issues that you have and uh to kind of give us a little direction for uh what you need us to do i do have something that i'll bring up afterwards but if you've got things let's go with those first well i think it's probably a good thing that we and knowing unknowingly that we were going to have covet it's probably an excellent thing that we were locked into the seven percent increase because healthcare has gone up way more than seven percent so i hate to see what's going to go up after this year so it's kind of a blessing i think that we have the two-year thing even though um uh united healthcare is actually very very well very established here just because of of casino plans most physicians are united healthcare providers i doubt people are going to have a problem having united healthcare um most hospitals and most people in those hospitals are united healthcare providers except for the ones that are never anybody's provider like the anesthesiologist you know radiologies united healthcare all of those people are um i just don't appreciate that they switched to united healthcare without you know i mean half the reason we picked them was because they were blue cross blue shields and right so and i know one of the questions that was real critical last year had to do with uh if there's coverage at mayo and nobody brought that up would you like me to bring that up with them and find out if that's still an inclusive carolyn yes carolyn i did ask that and mayo is covered oh excellent thank you thanks michelle for doing that i just want to make one comment about united healthcare i'm the only one in the room that's retired but i am and have been on united healthcare through the arizona state retirement teacher system and have had zero problems i had a stint put in two years ago was in the hospital overnight cost me a hundred dollars so i have had no problems with united healthcare i think you actually be very pleased that's good to know and i suspect that you know our school representatives will be happy to be able to share that with their with the people that they represent too when would we expect new rate uh information for next year when would they let us know that well we saw the new rate information for kairos that was there the following year rather if it would have changed dramatically uh probably about this time next year okay we usually we usually see it february usually february so is the next year on their side go ahead michelle sorry this is chris from cairo i'm still here i just joined my camera yeah we actually need two full years so next year would be a full year and then the third year is when we would rate you individually so yes so we're not we're we're talking then if i'm understanding you chris is that we're really looking at because this is a full year and then we'll have next year which is a full year for you all to get enough data to even talk about what happens with the rates after that point but uh that but that you would probably have some idea what march next year february next year yeah that's correct right about this time next year and and just so you know um some people got rate decreases and some got rate increases but the average and overall increase was the seven percent so um most people's rate increases were right around that area oh charity had a question and we didn't know you were still on chris so charity you want to ask your question yes um i noticed one of the things with kairos that was was very disappointing to a lot of the members was the fact for families the cost was really really high and i noticed on the family for next year it's going to be almost three thousand dollars do we have something in place because you know when we were talking about the vision part of it i have a feeling that's why we've dropped on some of these other things because our families are not signing up they cannot afford to do a family insurance with this is there something that you know is kairos is there something kairos can do or is there something that we need to do for our families sure that's a great question so you are rated based on each individual tier and unfortunately spouses and families tend to be the most expensive which is why they are rated that way if the districts would like to contribute more to families and less to maybe employee in children they could do that so you know it it could work out whatever way they want to fund that plan we still need to get x total x amount of dollars but your um your districts could decide how they want to fund those plans but your rates for families are generally higher on every plan but do i do agree they're they're exceptional for you guys and then i would add to that uh from the discussion a year ago that that this uh this board really considered all of that for both both companies that presented to the board and to the stakeholders that to keep the rates lower for our employees we could do a trade-off and i don't know if board members remember this or not but the trade-off was we either keep our rates that the district pays for the districts pay for employees to keep those costs down the trade-off is that the family part is higher and at the time i remember i don't remember the percentage or the numbers but i remember that [Music] the board was presented with the number of employees who insured their families and and compared those numbers so uh charity perhaps you don't remember that conversation but that was a long discussion with this board about you know are we going to are we going to raise the rates that the districts pay and and bring down those family rates or or keep the rates for the districts low um greg's nodding his head so i i think i'm not the only one recalling that this time i do remember that yeah that was i do remember that i just was looking at the numbers and you know it is going to go up you know 60 dollars for us but it just seemed like that family amount went way up and i'm i'm worried we may lose some more members because of just because of the insurance yeah i understand i mean like i said we can work with the districts on funding if that's something that they want to do to help them try to help even those costs out but um you know unfortunately again families just cost more but there are strategies we can work with them on to help with that chris i know last year um miss brown and i had reached out we got this gentleman jason's phone number and he put together some family plans on their you know he's the insurance person put together some family friends that quite a few of the employees like desert valley and a few of the other elementary schools and i gave the information to the teachers at the high schools that had asked for it as well to put them on a family plan that was much less than the 2200 or what not that it is that through kairos to put a family on united it's not the same type of plan that we have as employees of the district but at least it was something that was giving them some coverage for their children in their spouses are you talking maybe like a critical illness type of plan and not an insurance plan you know i don't know i um i didn't sit on their personal meetings as to what they chose i know he gave them different options based upon what their different family needs were at the time or whatnot so i'm not too sure what those were but it was you know they were able some of them were able to take advantage of it and have insurance for their their spouses and children through them okay anyone happy no please i was gonna say we don't really have any other options in the medical plans we do offer critical illness style plans but that's not something that your group uses with us and i'm not if you're talking like maybe some type of um individual marketplace thing there's always those options but that's not something that would go through the group and i think that's what kate was talking about was those uh independent you know those uh mark open market accounts gotcha it was something that everybody thought about and you know took into consideration and you know went with what was we went with what was best for the majority you know that was a very long discussion i mean you all really really gave serious consideration to those options because that was a tough one and it was a tough one from both both potential vendors it wasn't just tough one side or the other right okay anything else on that topic um the only thing that comes to my mind is just a question of um do we have a president who who should be sitting in this seat no i don't think there's anything we have to do but i thought i'd ask if anyone had any thoughts on that you're doing a fine job i'm sure you don't want to okay mr president the one ques the one thing that i didn't want to bring up was that i'd like for us to proceed with what we intended to work on last year but then covid hit and that is finding a template and to redo this the declaration of the trust to make sure it has all the elements that it's supposed to have because we we learned last year in this process that it is missing some critical pieces uh and to get a template and and start working on that so i would i would work on that if it's your pleasure to continue to do that as i say it was the intention at the time and then the step that goes with that is when that when that document is created that says what you want it to say that that would include the way of choosing a broker to represent this board because lord knows i don't want to continue to do it and the intent at the time was that that only be about a two-month process and then it got stalled out so that would be a piece then that would follow follow in that process well i know this initial document originally came with mr stewart to the district um who do we have who can make sure that the uh basically that everything's legal that we try to put in i think we could reach out to our contacts at the arizona risk retention trust because we get legal advice from them anyway we have both districts have you know ongoing legal advice from the trust and since that's another insurance concern i i feel confident that we would get really good advice from them okay good anyone have any objections that do do we feel we need to vote on it or okay just give us some direction dorne and i will you know yeah we went through it i think we had actually voted on that before about getting that done and then hope it happened so i i think definitely that needs to happen so i would get back on that and definitely move back towards you know getting a broker thanks i just didn't want to proceed or even to recommend to dorne that we proceed with that without touching base with you again all right so how about for the purposes a minute should we consider that a motion i make a motion that we revamp the the trust to have the contents that are necessary and uh to be seeking out a broker all right is there a second on that all right it's been moved and seconded all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed okay thank you it's best okay anything else on that no no that that was something that i knew we needed to proceed with but i didn't want to go ahead without your you know without your direction thank you the other thing is is um even though the dental person wasn't comfortable making the presentation we didn't see the claims so we need to see the claims and we need to see the projected um you know what the what it's going to look like for uh what our premiums are going to be so we need to see that from that all right so we expect that i'll probably be ready by the next meeting yes all right so can i ask are we going to be able to push out our open enrollment or do we need to wait until the next meeting so that you've had a chance to look over the dental before we can get this done i guess you're all kind of looking at me so i guess my recommendation would be they haven't raised the rates either either emeritus or um they haven't raised the rates in a couple of years yeah they haven't raised the rates in a couple of years i can't imagine it would change very much um so if you're you know if we can send you the information i don't know that you would need to have a meeting unless you emailed us back and said what we need a meeting to discuss this and let them go ahead and roll out they're not raising the reins right yeah as long as they're raising the rates okay so michelle and darlene what we'll do is i'll have kim check on those rates and if it's the same then um you know then we can then we can proceed with that thank you okay good all right do we have anything from site ambassadors we need to discuss yeah see mr ross here mr president actually i want to put mrs business on the spot for a second because of the questions that charity raised and kate had on the family plans are the rates that you've seen on the family plans within the norms for a pool that's about 350 to 400 people or are they they hide them any suggestions on how to mitigate it other than the districts kicking in more money that they don't have i'll point out i did a great deal of insurance shopping for uh husband and wife outside of a plan and i was able to look at what the arizona state bar can do with roughly 30 000 members and the husband life amount was within 50 dollars of what ours is and that's the blue cross blue shield i don't i that may be that may be slim you know slim uh good feelings for other people but at least we know we're in the same ballpark as everybody else and of course i also just helped my uh daughter-in-law who's not a district employee signed up for obamacare last week and again husband they didn't she only put herself on because of the family cost i've been in the district for 15 and that's been for 15 years it's not anything different um it's always been around this 1200 to 2000 mark depending on what we had for insurance that year it's unfortunate anything else we need to discuss okay we've already discussed some future items are there any others it looks like all we need to do is set a time for a future meeting date do we need to have this is pretty much cut and dried this is the way it is and whether we like the rates or not this is what they're going to be do we need another meeting before fall um i i don't know that you do unless you want to you know consider a template and a change before fall but if if not fall would be fine to to present all of that at the same time so you know you might want to think about september maybe sometime in september see i'm not dying to have meetings but if we were suddenly told we have a catastrophic increase or if one district was triple the other district we may need time to recover from of course absolutely but since we kind of know that that's not happening we're not going to know that right another year we won't know that for another year um stakeholders in the fall because we need to get that trust document short yes yes and have a broker well i think you want to get the document that tells you how that says how you're going to select a broker because right now there's nothing in there that says how you select a broker right so it probably is going to be a two-step process but it doesn't have to go months and months and months between those two decisions but i think we should do that like sooner rather than later surrounding everything once you get that back from the attorney as to what needs to be done yeah and then you know i think there must be a meeting and a broker probably needs to be hired before september especially i think we're only locked into cairo's for the second this next school year then we'll and if we're not happy with it then somebody's gonna need to be representing us to look and see where other insurance can take us or what not so i think the earlier on that the better so my district is wanting to have that audit done yeah well which is something cairo said that they were going to do for us yeah where is that on yeah and i don't know like the world stopped journey but kairos had told us that they would go ahead because the lady that was here from that spoke to us from the city or that insurance said that they do that on the side right yeah we were gonna have to pay him and cairo said no no no we can do that ourselves and they were and we gave we told cairo's or you guys all told cairo yes please do that okay yes right now my district wanted to make a motion the other night to just pay that that one from the city the eca people to do an audit and you can't just pick somebody like that so that got stopped thankfully and i'm you know and one of our board members said oh you know they offered to do that for you for free and i was like no it wasn't for free it was like eight thousand yeah eight thousand they said they would do it that they were gonna do it but cairo said they would do it for us so that would be helpful for me and my discussion with my board about where we are in that audit so because they did say they would do that as part of the thing so so um you and carolyn can get that from okay no yeah i'll talk with tara and um tara promised us that yes she did and that's yes she did we need that really so if i can get a template and and get some of this fed in you know the current is put in a template so then we can see where the gaps are and send you a draft of that it's middle of march [Music] early may is that okay to send you a draft by early may and then and then refine it and then maybe actually have a meeting are you all willing to have a meeting in early june sure sure early june just for that purpose okay is that is that okay mr waters sounds good to me okay i can let tara know that you're interested in that thanks chris um uh and and covet happened and it i'm sure it slipped just like all kinds of other things did so but we'll get you know we can follow up on that okay okay i have my marching orders thank you okay oh if there's nothing further do we have a motion to adjourn a second all right moved and seconded all in favor hi anyone who wants to stay here and thank you all for putting up with our first attempt at this with both streaming and google meets and i'm hopeful that we can be more people in person the next time so thank you and thank you board members you
while the rate among black teen boys rose 60 percent during that same time so i think it's important to have this conversation around youth suicide because i think that we have again been socialized to believe that black and brown children don't die by suicide not only do they die by suicide but i think because of social media things have become so much more clear because of mass incarceration and strategic drug infiltration black families and communities have been decimated because of social media black and brown children are bombarded with such negative images and beliefs and i think all of this has a lot to do with why these numbers continue to rise i want to just also talk about the impact that the last four years have had on our immigrant children and the horrors that they've experienced um coming into this country and how those traumas are gonna affect them and their families for generations to come i want to talk about the anti-hate that we're seeing across this country for our asian children and brothers and sisters again because of the language and the images that we've seen for the last four years it's important to understand what we're talking about when we're talking about systemic racism we are essentially talking about anybody who is not white so what that means is again we can all be discriminatory and prejudice and bigoted but people of color do not have the collective power or privilege to show racist behaviors and because people of color don't have that power or privilege they are indeed the most marginalized in this country regardless of what category they fall in whether you're black indigenous american indian or a person of color the experiences of racism are different but racism affects everybody in this country who is a person of color and those who are impacted the most are our most vulnerable which our our youth so what do we do right the horse is out of the barn i mean you know we've been dealing with systemic racism for more than 400 years now we understand that race is a construct therefore racism is a construct we understand that all of us white folks and people of color have been socialized to believe in superiority and inferiority right and more or less right we all walk around with this concept like life is a giant pie and if i give you more then i'm gonna have less right but if i i can be philosophical for a moment i i want to share with you that i believe that our world has enough for everybody we all have the ability to be affirmed we all have the ability to receive equity in life i believe that it's not a matter of well if i give black folks more then i'll have less or if i give the immigrant more then i'll have less or if the asian comes over and opens up another store then that's a store that i can't open up you know all of that is um distorted thinking because equity affords us everything that we need in this world it's a matter of changing the way we view the world from who is superior who is inferior to how do we provide life affirming systems how do we as a community of change makers create life-affirming frameworks that support not just all our youth but more specifically our black brown and urban youth who are our most vulnerable and marginalized and when i say life affirming i mean giving life value positive and optimistic quality of life optimistic understanding that you have opportunities that you have choices that the world belongs to you the same way it belongs to people who don't look like you right and frameworks are structures what structures and systems think policies and practices that we can put into place that not only support but empower our black and brown and urban youth right if we begin to think not what's wrong with this child and their family but what has happened to this child and their family and how can we empower them because the truth is people aren't interested in being saved people are interested in being empowered and people are the best experts of their lived experience and if you listen long enough people will tell you what they need so i want to share with you three strategies that i think are really really important to affirm students of color and incidentally i think that these are strategies that are not only for educators but also for our community leaders our parents and our caregivers these are strategies that all of us should be embracing and practicing to empower all students but especially our students of color so i think anti-racism is important and the reason i think anti-racism is important is because if we don't address the elephant in the room if we don't recognize the dragon that we really need to fight then we struggle to really implement diversity equity and inclusion right so it's important that we recognize what racism looks like where racism came from and how to begin to dismantle it and replace it with equitable and just practices equitable and just infrastructures equitable and just systems right it's important that we have the education and the awareness and the knowledge racism is a scary word because we think of men riding in the middle of the night with white hoods and burning crosses and absolutely that is bigoted violent brutal behavior but real racism is an infrastructure and when we begin to understand that then we can begin to work to dismantle it i also think that aces training for educators is very important again because we have to know all of us as community members and as change makers have to know what trauma looks like right that angry black child is probably traumatized and they're not disrupting your classroom just because they don't like you they're probably in pain their humanity is saying please listen to me so understanding what adverse childhood experiences are and how to respond to that how to create empowering environments for our most vulnerable children who are dealing with the most heavy of these experiences in their lives and then specifically for our students teaching them what wellness resiliency and self-advocacy looks like and that's important again for all students but let me explain something most black and brown folks in this country have not been taught what self-advocacy looks like we've been socialized to believe that you are a person of color therefore you do not have a voice and you are in a place of service we've been socialized to believe that we need to make sure everybody in the room is comfortable because for centuries when white folks were uncomfortable black and brown people were murdered so we've been taught to be quiet and keep our heads down and when i say that i mean that literally and figuratively so many of our black and brown students have not seen self-advocacy modeled in their homes and in their communities we need to teach our students to have a voice and that their voices of value and that they have a right to bring their voice into the room and into the table to speak to what their needs are they need to learn how to find trusted sources trusted adults that they can go to in confidence when they're struggling we need to teach our students what wellness means physical wellness emotional mental wellness psychological wellness financial wellness spiritual wellness right that needs to be a priority because when our students understand what wellness is then they understand what crisis and illness looks like and then building resiliency now we all know that children are very resilient but what if we were intentional about teaching them resiliency right we know that if a child has just one adult just one adult that they trust that respects them that appreciates them that empowers them an adult that they know is going to hold their confidence their resiliency level is skyrockets now imagine having an entire school system and an entire community of adults that do that for our youth for all of our youth our black youth our brown youth our white youth what a generation we would build so for resilience we're talking about confidence right having feelings of confidence effectiveness in coping with stressful situations and strong self-esteem are inherent to feeling resilient social support building good relationships with others and seeking support can help individuals overcome adverse situations adaptability flexibility and adapting to changing situations which are beyond our control are essential to maintaining resilience and purposefulness having a clear sense of purpose clear values drive and direction helps individuals to persist and achieve in the face of setbacks and self-advocacy speaking up for yourself staying informed knowing your rights finding support problem solving self-determination and asking for help so for seven years um i was the uh founder and volunteer executive director for the urban mental health alliance that's one of the things i am the most proud of and we uh advocated for mental health and wellness and mental illness and substance use disorder recovery specifically in urban communities and when i say urban i mean black brown impoverished communities right um and so we did a lot of workshops and panels and we had a health and well mental health and wellness conference and we did festivals um and i had the pleasure of meeting so many people and one of the things that i learned is that many people didn't understand what self-advocacy and resiliency was as adults as adults right and so i began to design programs around what self-advocacy looked like what resiliency looked like right so that adults could begin to learn this what if we were to teach our children this while they're young so that when they became adults these are skills that they've already mastered how different would our families be how different would our communities be so i love um this slide this is uh from moving forward building culturally safe organizations this is actually in vancouver this was a conference that was back in 2014 and i just think this slide is so powerful right it talks about healing tools and methods for youth right so it talks about music and um building strong minds and bodies and spirits and teaching children that they are beautiful people and looking for positive teachers right creating healing tools for ourselves hearing our own anger right finding somebody that you trust finding art being in nature decolonizing the way we view education right i just think that this is such a powerful slide um and it talks about all the ways in which we can continue to build up our communities and in turn empower our youth another powerful slide talks about how we can strengthen our communities right so strengthen economic supports for families change social norms to support parents and positive parenting provide quality care and education early in life enhance parenting skills to promote healthy child development and intervene to lessen harms and prevent future risks now i'm going to go out on a limb and say that amherst pelham is is more than likely working very hard to put these infrastructures in place right just by virtue of the fact that you reached out to me and said bring anti-racism training um speaks to how you value your students and their families and their communities so a lot of this may not be new to you but i want to validate and affirm how important these these practices are and i also want to validate in a form and affirm how difficult it is to often institute them right because there's so much injustice that has to be dismantled in order for us to put these positive infrastructures in place so i don't want you to get the impression that i think any of this is simple because i know it's not but it's important it's vital it's necessary any organization business company um sector discipline that is going to remain relevant and continue to operate from a place of integrity is going to have to focus on three things wellness dismantling racism and building diversity equity and justice so we're coming to the end i want to share some resources post-traumatic slave syndrome by dr georgie grew is one of the most powerful books you will ever read if you have not had the opportunity to read it if you're like me who's you know like a bumble bee flinting from here to there and you don't have time to actually sit down and read a book get the audio book um it gives you a real bird's eyes view into why black americans think and behave the way they do it has a lot to do with the generational traumas that have been passed down from times of colonialization and enslavement when african and african americans were literally kidnapped and enslaved and sold like chattel in this country right and that's a part of our history that we don't like to discuss but that history still is impacting black families and communities to this day and if you really want to dig into how that affects your black students and their families i strongly encourage you to read this book dr nadine burke harris is also powerful um and she is now the surgeon general in california and in her own words she said she never set out to be a superstar she just began to notice patterns in the children in her communities and that's when she began to really understand what childhood adversity was and and the long-term effects that it had on children in the communities so the deepest well is all about adverse childhood experiences and really beginning to understand what that looks like and how we can begin to heal our children and their families so two excellent books to start with uh the center for racial justice in education if you're not familiar with them at the center for racial justice and education we strongly believe that every educator has the power and potential to create racially just and equitable learning environments for the children in their care they did not pay me for this little um mention but i strongly believe in the work this organization does has been i've been following them for a while now um great organization to reach out to and potentially partner with and then here are some general anti-racism resources for you and um i will actually after this uh presentation is over be sending a um a pdf of resources for you guys uh and it will also have my contact information in it if you ever wanted to just reach out to me and you know you had a question or wanted to have a brief conversation i'm very open to that um i think that education as i said is so important and these are some areas where you can really find a lot of information right let me just make sure that you understand that this is not a sprint this is a marathon we are all responsible for doing the work and we're all complicit in the systemic racism systems that we live in white folks are complicit because they have privileges whether they realize it or not whether they want it or not and people of color are complicit because if we really wanted to revolt we'd be running around with torches burning buildings down but we've learned that when we revolt in this country we're often killed so we remain complicit but the way you make change is to become educated and knowledgeable and then you can become strategic and intentional about dismantling the most oppressive infrastructures and building equity and justice not just for ourselves but for our children and our grandchildren i have six grandchildren two wonderful children who grew up by the grace of god and got married and are doing so wonderful and between the two of them they've given me six grandchildren and it's those six grandchildren that i think about every day when i do the work around wellness and anti-racism because i probably will not see the ideal world in my lifetime but i have to believe that if i continue to do the work my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are when they're going to see the world that we all deserve so i encourage you to view this as a marathon within the emotional and physical bandwidth that you have do the work to understand what racism and trauma looks like and so i'm gonna come into the room um and i'm gonna open the floor up to questions and this is always the most exciting part for me because i love engaging um with my change makers in the audience but i want you to i want to leave you with a question of your own right i want to ask you how can you the change makers of amherst pelham regional school district begin or continue to create life-affirming frameworks to support your students their families and their communities right so this question is for all of your students your white your white students your black students your brown students how can we create frameworks that are equitable and just that are life affirming that support all of our students because when we support all of our students in equitable ways then we lift the entire community so as i come into the room and answer your questions i want you to think about this question and i want you to take it back to your respective schools and i want you to begin to think about how you can continue to do that and how you can be strategic and intentional and unabashed about doing it and with that i'm excited to come back into the room and answer any questions that you have we can't hear you mike sorry can't be a virtual call without needing to be unmuted right um but i wanted to say i hope you're able to now see the comments on your screens off just an incredible number of appreciations um this should be coming on the right side to your screen ms carlos for your presentation today there is a little overwhelmed yeah they have a they have a shirt they sell and a mug in amherst ms carlos and it says amherst where only the h is silent our folks will let us know how they think uh there's no no concerns about that here at all and again thank you thank you for your presentation uh thank you doreen uh cunningham tim she and others who uh contributed to this way this day and making this presentation uh happen for for our staff and so um now at this point if people do have questions um because you know ms carlos couldn't see those while she was presenting because that's what she was doing so there's a couple in there but but certainly any present any questions comments that people like uh miss colors to respond to we do have about 25 minutes or so for more interactive dialogue which i think we all really enjoy so i'm going to start as people because it's going to take a little while to for these comments to come through um so i think one of the things that's a challenge for for everyone and including myself is that when you have a uh when you're working in an organization sometimes you can feel like individuals are you know sort of it's a challenge in a large organization to make a difference and i don't know what advice you'd give on an individual staff person i'm talking about any staff member not necessarily a specific role what would be a next step that you would you know recommend on the personal growth side of things about making that that difference for students families in our community yes excellent question so um the first thing as i shared is is the education and the knowledge piece right and so whether you do that individually or collectively as a district you want to begin to do the learning around what racism looks like and what trauma looks like because they literally go hand in hand right so you want to begin to do the work around what that looks like and as i said i'll share resources but there's a myriad of resources out there okay because once you have the education then you can do the next best thing which i think is so important and i call that find your lane okay what that means is within your passion and your expertise that's where you want to begin to do the work okay so i'm going to assume the folks in this room are passionate about education right because we have educators so that's one lane where you want to begin to do the work to dismantle oppressive barriers right but what about personally what are you passionate about and if you don't know then just think about what's made you angry in the last four years right is it women's reproductive rights is it voting is it environmental justice is it immigration what has really made you angry and got you thinking that there needs to be a change right that's your lane because systemic racism is so ingrained in the very fabric of our country you could pick any area to begin to do the work okay um and it starts with a foundation of understanding what racism looks like and then looking at the different opportunities to make that change and there's organizations that are doing it that's um here in new jersey we have an organization called social justice institute of new jersey we have um not in our town you know and a whole host of other movements and organizations that are really doing the work in the communities i guarantee you um amherst did i say that right impel him also it has organizations that are doing the work right align yourself with organizations that are doing that work again within your emotional and physical and psychological bandwidth some folks are going to say you know what i just don't have the emotional bandwidth to do that but i've got finances i'm going to find an organization that i want to support financially because i believe in the work that they're doing i also think it's important and and i actually teach a four-hour anti-racism training class and so i couldn't give you everything i wanted to give you in in one hour right but one of the things i think is really really important is for our black and brown folks in the room our black and brown educators i see you i hear you i know you're exhausted i know you're dealing with trauma i know this is frustrating i know that you often feel like your voice is not being heard so i'm gonna give you permission not because i'm anybody important but because often when we hear it out loud right then it validates i'm going to give you permission to make your wellness the priority which means you are not obligated to do any work around dismantling racism before you are at a place where you feel healthy emotionally and psychologically please understand that do not feel like well gee kimmy carlos told me as a black man i have to run out and i have to fix everything that's not what i'm saying your wellness is absolutely the number one priority before you ever have to make a decision around doing any anti-racism work but within your emotional capacity start with the knowledge and the education first and then find your lane because when you're in your lane it's not gonna feel like work it's gonna feel like empowerment so i'm gonna i'm gonna post some questions and there's a lot of them so i'm going to try to do my best but i apologize if uh they're coming in fast and furious but uh here's a question what advice do you have regarding balancing the attentive to aces and other traumas while holding high expectations for students oh that's an excellent question so i again am not an educator so it might be a little hard for me to answer that question i also want to say that i understand that educators were not taught right to to handle trauma um and handle racism right so i'm sure you're looking at your plate like this is not what i expected to be doing you know um so i think that's an excellent question to have with your superintendent and your other senior leadership around what are constructive ways that you can begin to build that yeah thank you i'm going to skip around a little bit another question thank you so much for your presentation also wondering how to promote an asset model of students versus a deficit model especially as viewed by white educators so talk to me about asset model versus deficit model so i think so i'm not irene but i know irene and i think where this is coming from and irene i know you're watching if i get this wrong please put it in the chat so that i get it right but i think that sometimes we when when educators are viewing students who have had some traumas that that we talk a lot about the traumas and and perhaps i think it's related to other questions in my opinion you know lower expectations is a concern like are we lowering our expectations around this and how do we focus on the strengths that students bring not not only the challenges they've had because sometimes that can lead us to some some thinking that doesn't actually promote their growth if we're only thinking about the deficits and not all that the value valuable aspects that every child brings to our district so right i mean i apologize you would have said it much more uh much more succinctly and probably clearly if you were on this end of the call but i think that's where irene's uh headed with that question i i love the language and so i'm going to go back and do my homework on asset model versus deficit model but if i'm hearing correctly what we're talking about is implicit bias right or unconscious bias right and so if we're looking at those children who have had some challenges we might not necessarily recognize their potential and their and their capabilities right and again that has a lot to do with the way we've been socialized right so we see a little black or brown child who's what are quote misbehaving or acting out and we immediately think you know that this child has no value they have no capacity to rise to the level of where we think they need to be right that's where you get um um micro aggressive um comments like oh they're so articulate oh they're so capable you know because it's it's almost as if you're surprised to realize that that that's um true right so this is what i always tell people in every sector that i work in whether it's education or banking or retail or think humanity first when you see this little child and i don't care how old they are if they're five in kindergarten or they're 17 in the 11th grade when you see this child think humanity think human being think heart think eyes and ears and and mouths right think spirit think soul think vision and dreams and beliefs think about the opportunities that could be afforded to them right focus on the child and not the behavior because the behavior is separate from the child right so you want to find why that behavior is happening so that you can empower the child that's being hidden behind that behavior because we have a child who gets angry and they're throwing chairs across the room we're focused on the chair we're not focused on the child and i understand that you've got 20 other children in the room that you need to keep safe i totally get that so what practices can we create that will empower that child who's in so much pain that they're throwing chairs across the room right and i can speak to that personally because i've had a child and a grandchild who's done that in class okay so you want to make sure you're looking at the humanity behind the behavior and it's going to take you some time to have that mind shift and again the more education you have the more you'll begin to normalize making sure that there's equity for all of your children thank you another one for marcia appreciate your explanation why much we must teach parents and students self-advocacy uh what suggestions you have to empower uh by poc caregivers around that advocacy piece yes excellent so i have the wonderful opportunity of being the board vice chair for a charter school here in trenton new jersey and um one of the things that i've really worked hard with the school is doing just that empowering not just our students but our our parents and our caregivers and our families right that these students go home to every day and so what i believe is every opportunity that we give our students to learn we need to be giving our parents and caregivers and families the opportunity to learn and how easy or how much easier is it to do right now while we're in remote learning right and so if we're teaching advocacy courses to our students is there an opportunity to teach those advocacy courses to our parents if we're teaching finances to our students are there opportunities to create short finance workshops for our parents are there certain parenting skills that we can teach to our parents and caregivers without judgment and in a way that would be empowering how can we invite our parents and our caregivers into the school to feel like they have a voice when it comes to the education of the students how do we invite them as volunteers are there committees that we can create that they can come and sit on to be a part of right you empower people by bringing them to the table and giving them the resources and the information that they need now what that means is you have to take your savior hat off because again people and people are their own best experts of their lived experience so you don't want to assume that you know what their parents and caregivers and families need you want to bring them to the table and then amplify their voices so that you begin to hear what they need and you begin to work with them to empower them thank you next question comes from amy how do we prioritize the emotional well-being of students on the heels of a traumatic year on top of existing trauma and i think this is uh you know all these questions are excellent and i think this is uh on the top of our minds as we know that students are undergoing multiple traumas that are novel in addition to the traumas that pre-existed covet yeah this is man this has been such a difficult year um not only for our students but for you know their parents and their caregivers in their communities and for our you know our educators and our administrators and our healthcare professionals and you know such a challenging year and the isolation of being remote and virtual certainly does not help right and then if you think about those students and families who may have already been in crisis because of poverty or because of abuse or because of um you know substance use disorder or a whole host of other you know traumas and crisis that families go through um it come compounds it even more right and so one of the things that i think is really really important that i encourage educators to do is partner with the mental health organizations in your communities okay so the national alliance of mental illness that's the organization where i actually got started as an advocate i had a child that was actually threatening suicide and we ended up in parent child group therapy and i was very early on in recovery so i was just trying to stay sober and also they had this child that doesn't want to live anymore and um i was introduced to the national alliance of mental illness and that is where i really began to learn about what mental illness is and how to advocate for your own mental health and wellness they are awesome organization they have a national office in virginia but they actually have a chapter in every single state and then also the mental health um association is another national program that also typically has a chapter in every state so in new jersey it's the mental health association in new jersey these are two awesome organizations that that school districts can reach out to and find out ways to partner to bring programs into the school that will not only teach your educators but will also work with you to teach your students and their families right what healthy practices are for your mental and emotional wellness but also how to recognize crisis the next thing i would offer is mental health first aid which is another awesome resource and there is a youth mental health first aid training program which i i am actually certified to teach it's a day-long program that actually teaches you what youth mental illness looks like what youth crisis is so how to recognize a child who is um potentially suicidal who is in substance use disorder who has anxiety disorder eating disorders bipolar disorder psychosis schizophrenia it's an awesome program again it'll teach you how to recognize mental illness and it'll teach you how to prioritize getting help for families and youth that need it um as well as how to empower people with managing and making their mental and emotional wellness a priority so those are all suggestions that i think are extremely helpful for our school districts especially you know now right now great thank you time for a couple more questions this one kind of goes on two slides when we return to in-person school we need to take drastic measures to help our students cope with the trauma and lasting mental health impacts of the pandemic what can we do to prioritize joy community and connection oh man i'm so happy you said that i'm so happy you said that question i tell this story all the time so a couple years ago i had the chance to meet dr angela davis she came to princeton and i was so fortunate to be able to go to dinner with her and so i asked her i said you know this is hard work being a change maker you know trying to disrupt you know systems and and create a better world this is really hard like how do you you've been doing this for 50 years you know you've been doing this right alongside my dad for for decades now but there are folks you know like me who came to this game late in life i didn't start doing this works i was in my 40s you know um as well as students you know who are just embarking on this journey how do you do this and she said to me you chase joy you keep the joy in your life right you make joy a priority because that's what feeds your soul and your spirit to do the hard work so you make time for joy right so for me joy is my grandchildren no matter what i do i build them into my life as a priority and i make room and space for them yes come run around my living room make all the noise you want because that is a joyful time for me okay so as a school district think about ways that you can build joy into the lives of your students and into your community as a whole how do you partner to create joyful events how do you build a joyful culture are there joyful activities right and that again is going to take a lot of communication with your students and their families to see what brings them joy right and i i agree i think that needs to be an absolute priority now what does that look like well there's a difference between joy and happiness happiness is temporary right it's fleeting right i am very happy about my cup of coffee that i had before i came on this morning but the coffee is gone right but joy is meaning you find joy and meaningfulness that's where the joy comes which is why joy is often long-sustaining because there's meaning within joy we find joy in meaningful things my grandchildren are meaningful to me they are my legacy they are my immortality so i find joy in that so what do your students and their families and their communities find joy in and how can you build partnerships to create a joyful culture in your schools thank you it's time for one or two more um so allison asks and i think this is a nice segue from where you were uh because i think this is this is a place where you know uh i've heard a lot of folks get stuck which is we want to have high expectations we want our support students to be able to have choices and whatever their post-secondary steps are and the joy and and you know i think everyone myself included believes that's a false dichotomy but i think any thought you have about what makes that dichotomy false about having you know providing what students need to be to have choices in their lives after they leave us but also maintaining that joy so i'd love uh you know allison's question but i appreciate and agree with and i wonder if you could offer us any tips or pearls uh about how those two aren't really in opposition because i think it's a hard this one's a challenging one for us uh in the education realm right right i think there's a good question and at the risk of sounding simplistic you know i i don't think that they um um are different you know i i don't i don't understand how high expectations can't also be joyful right um and so for me it sounds like you know again not being an educator the way i envision it is you normalize education and the high expectations and then you make that a fun thing right so in other words this is not punishment you know this is this is um a joyful fun part of life for you growing and learning and development right it should not be either you can be joyful or you can have high expectations but you can't have them together right and so you're going to have these high expectations and you're going to go on and do wonderful things in life but you're going to be miserable right or you can just be joyful and keep your expectations low i don't i don't believe that i think that you can marry the two so how do you make those i expect high expectations a joyful thing right and again this might sound simplistic but you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar so how do you get your students excited about these high expectations and how do you not judge those students who may not rise to those expectations as easily or who may learn differently or who or who may need different resources in order to be equitable right how do you manage all of that in a way that's going to be empowering and exciting and fun for the student right um i don't think that they are on opposite ends for me i think they're they should be one in the same right who wants high expectations if i'm going to be miserable right thank you and if i could jump in just to add to that i mean i think when i was a new teacher at fort river one of our elementary schools here 20 years ago and think about the mentors i had i think one of the things i learned was about the authenticity of self can marry those two that that that you know i was you know 23 years old and i spent 23 years on the call that's not an aegis comment just where i was at 23 and i thought i had to had to be a certain way and what i saw from the educators who i learned from is if they were truly authentic in themselves they were able to marry those two really well they were joyous rooms and there certainly was high expectations and so i think we've had a lot of experience this year in a remote setting of being uh sort of by as i kind of reference at the beginning sort of by default people were seeing our bedrooms or our living rooms or you know all those things and i think we've had a lot of experience sharing more of ourselves uh it's really good these washington post article of the day about this sharing more of ourselves with our students and their families than we ever had before but by the nature of the pandemic and our instructional model and i think how to bring that back to the classroom as we go uh as we uh head in that direction you know sooner or later um is going to be really critical but i think i think utilizing what we've learned this year about how to connect with students is going to be really helpful and just think of those models that you see and and i won't mention names but those of you were in fort river uh 20 years ago will know who i'm talking about because they know what great i used to teach and just really really they were themselves and they were able to bring that joy actually and that contributed to the high expectations in the realm um you know i want to i want to speak to that for a minute i want to say two things if you'll allow me so the first one is um yes one of the things that we've all had to learn is that we are going to be showing our real authentic selves in this virtual world right um i have a cat she's my furry best friend and i have been in like real serious board meetings or presentations and my cat will suddenly decide to run across the screen and also everybody's like oh you know because it's something real it's authentic it's human right so yes there's a lot to be said for authenticity however i don't want to i don't want us to be naive i want us to understand that not everybody is given room to be their authentic selves and our black and brown folks often don't feel that we have the freedom to do that now i've reached a point in life where you know i am who i am i mean if i'm going to talk anti-racism then there's not much else that scares me except maybe spiders and snakes right but it took me years to get here because i have the emotional bandwidth to do this work there are black and brown folks in this room right now who are saying i don't have the psychological safety to be authentic i don't have the physical safety to be authentic i don't have the emotional bandwidth to be authentic because it makes me vulnerable so if we're going to talk about people being authentic we need to make sure we're creating a safe culture for people to do that it's really important yeah thank you for that additional piece it's incredibly helpful um i think this is 942 i know tim's going to make sure that uh we we transition on time but i think we have time for one more question if that's okay with you kimmy so grace asked how do we keep liberation of our students and families of color at the center of our work asking as a white educator looking uh to disrupt how i perpetuate white supremacist culture excellent question so i'm when i send over the resources i'm going to send over a couple of um sheets that are going to talk about what it means to be an ally now i know that you know there's a little bit of controversy around the word ally and you should really be a disrupter and blah blah blah but i believe in the word ally what ally means is i'm going to come alongside you and i am going to empower you with my privilege and i'm going to amplify you and your voice that's what ally means okay and so i'm going to be sharing a few tips around how to do that but again i know i sound like a broken record it goes back to the education piece because folks who live with a sense of privilege and entitlement understandably believe that they have all the answers it's you're gonna have to shift your mindset and understand that you don't have answers for experience you haven't lived so it has to start with the education piece right to begin to understand what racism is what the lived experience of racism is what the history and construct of race and racism is starts there and then you can begin to build your skills as an ally right and that way you begin to amplify voices and empower voices as opposed to saying oh i'm gonna pull a rabbit out of my hat and fix it for you okay so do the work and um i'll make sure that you have resources that will help you you know begin that journey or continue on that journey as an ally well thank you so much um for being here this morning thank you for sharing more resources uh because this is going to continue you know we all need to continue to learn uh and thanks for contributing to that and you know there were incredible number thank you for letting us you know into your home quite literally um but but but most importantly thanks for sharing all the thoughts that you had that don't make us better educators tomorrow when our students are in class so oh it was my absolute pleasure i would love to ask if it's possible if i could get a copy of the comments yep um i will after we get off this i can follow up offline but i can email you uh how to access that um i would i would love that just because i see i see so many wonderful comments and i really want to make sure i get a chance to read them yeah absolutely um and so um i'm gonna pull tim on but i think before i do just one other comment i'm not able it's it's too far to scroll up because as you note there's so many comments but i just want to appreciate carol uh carson's comment that uh it was a long time ago but it was i'm in for the marathon right and i think that's the spirit with which we need to enter the work so i appreciate carol for that perspective and i think that that framing that you had i think uh it sets us out with an ambitious but long-term path that um will be better tomorrow for for today we won't be resolved tomorrow and that's not the goal the goal is to to be working as hard as we can as fast as we can along that path to be the district that we want to be so thank you for your contribution to all to everyone on this call in the district i really really appreciate it and i will follow up with you offline to get the comments in the recording um so you have that as well it's absolutely been my pleasure thank you again for your time and for having me and um i wish you a wonderful spring thanks to you as well okay i'm going to hop off i'm going to have tim come on i'll hop off with you kimmy and we can follow him and tim uh thanks for your work in this time and tim's going to describe some next steps uh for everyone else on the call all right um thank you kimmy and and thank you mike for running that for us this morning that was really spectacular um i know that i could have listened to kimmy for several more hours it went by really quickly i uh it was beyond what i imagined so so much incredible information for us to think about uh and so thank you everybody for joining us this morning um take up you're gonna have some time to take a break now um we have breakout sessions starting at 10 o'clock and um i will send an all staff email in a moment with the links for all the breakout sessions that you got the other day um please join the session that best fits your role uh for some of you overlapped different roles in the district so feel free to choose the session that that's that best matches you um give each other space i'm sure a few people will be running a little bit late uh entering their sessions uh there are facilitators in each group and thank you to the facilitators for being willing to to help to guide the discussion in those sessions but really we set these up so that everyone would have an opportunity um to reflect on kimmy's presentation and how we can use the information that she gave us to push forward um so facilitators have questions um but it's to guide the discussion it's not meant to box you into a particular discussion so please use the time enjoy interacting with each other as much as you can online if folks have questions feel free to reach out via email or text or google chat i will be at my computer and enjoy the rest of the day thank you all
Watson says we just have to be very careful with the restrictions on the expenses that will be made, we can't spend with the teachers, we just have to see where from this fund it has to be spent, we have to be creative, we have to be very active and see how to spend this money but always very carefully and with the steps that have to be followed in the anac zweiten that was sexual feeling in the morning post the topic of him or what he did what my doctor says is that these are the priorities, okay, this means they have to look for academic support in learning loss and one in accelerated learning and how to recover that, right? The other point we also want to help is how to try to find with families and the community the connection that has to exist between a family and a community, between the school and between the school and also The families involved in the health of the social and emotional aspects of human beings, or of the students, are a priority, right?
mr romquillo is it also safe to say that um although they say that the goal is to have the results within 48 hours they say that they're actually turning that around quicker is that correct correct they are moving as quickly as possible to turn to turn their results around um and um they the question was asked today as far as their capacity because early in the pandemic there was a there were some insinuations that there were laboratories that couldn't keep up with the demand um the valencia lab is uh probably saying that they could keep up with all the demand that's that's currently being um being being asked for them to test i want to spend a little bit of time talking about contact tracing and the steps that we take with regards to contact tracing the process is a a coveted positive employee we've had mostly employees in this situation or student uh notifies the district that he or she is positive um that could come by way of to the hr office to the site administrator site office staff and then the covid positive employee or student is contacted and interviewed for information we in the hr office are trained on how to do this and we also have a group of employees that are in our health aid group and also our nurses have gone to their training to also be able to to do this contact tracing process well our intent is to interview the person who has tested positive to get information obtain information that we could use to make determinations we ask the person to let us know who he or she has been um exposed to who they've interacted with um and then the date of the covid test uh that's that's important and that's important if the person has been is not symptomatic because then we start looking at two days prior to their covet test is the period of time that the person would have been contagious we all if they have symptoms we used to ask them when the symptoms began we also asked when the last time they were on a ausd site um and um and if they know how they contracted the the virus after we go through all this these questions uh determinations are made if people who um the person who's positive were exposed to covenant 19 and whether or not the exposure constitutes a close contact or or possible exposure um the the direction that we've received is that if a person is within six feet for a total of 15 cumulative minutes over a 24 hour time span and that would constitute a closed contact uh and a a person that is possible exposure would be people who were in the area where the person was either working or the classroom where they were at uh we also take another step too to uh interview the supervisors uh and notify um to know uh to to get we interview the supervisors regarding the kovid uh employee um we really our intent is to try to see if there's any other uh information that the supervisor could provide it was for to corroborate the stories to see if there's people that may have been left out um and if there was any discrepancies in what the uh what the person the person who tested positive shared with us then we contact that person once again and then we we go through this process again uh we have to understand that um if you contracted covered 19 there's it's a highly stressful situation there's a lot going through a person's mind so they may not remember every single detail so we we have this additional step so that we could we could corroborate the these stories to see if there's some someone that was left in the process any questions and then communication um we we i want to first communicate with the person who has tested positive sharing with them different covid related resources uh about isolation and quarantining on the um and we send this information to the employment we do a lot of follow-up work with with the employees and with the students and that's largely what we will be doing with um our staff that's being trained um to to do this work with students uh notifications are sent uh via email uh to to let people know that they may have been possibly exposed and we also make personal phone calls to the people who were identified as closed contacts and give them direction on um on on needing to quarantine uh the email message is sent out to the employees uh to notify the staff so all the staff is is provided that that direction uh that that there was a a possible exposure at the school site um and then we have required communication that has to go to the county department of public health uh via what they and this is relatively new if you have a line list and red cap that's what's new and then tell osha also is notified when we have a severe hospitalization severe case with hospitalization or death and then we we also communicate with our bargaining unit leaders um as is required what does red cap and line list mean that is a um kind of a system that is through the department of public health that's like the title of the system so we um type in the uh information that we obtain through our contact tracing that then gets sent to them and it's now kind of a more organized system you used to be a spreadsheet that we would just fill in and they would read from but this allows us to provide more information that they could then use to either contact us for further information some more of the name of the program any more questions i i have one so when say a student becomes exposed so would and they are in model a so would just that classroom be going through the you know contact tracing that you know that teacher would would be staying at home what would hap like can you do a scenario what would happen so um and this that's a very good question because that uh the language around that has changed from last week to this week um so previously when you say change you read from the county or locally from the county okay sorry so from it it was uh required that when we had a case from um in one class the class would then continue instruction remotely for a period of 10 days during the period of quarantine that is no longer required given the new guidance from from the county because as recent as last week they announced it at our meeting last thursday yeah so then what what what's required then so uh what which required is the the contact tracing so we would follow the steps that i outlined earlier in the contact tracing so if we have an uh a a student that was next to another student for a period uh within six feet for a period of 15 cumulative minutes during a 24 hour period then that person would have to be quarantining not the whole class i could add a little bit of nuance to that um so the like like jorge said the automaticity of it is gone but um the decision to to shut down for a quarantine of 10 days would now be in collaboration with department of public health and they would guide that that decision to say you know based on everything that we see here you're good there's no need to shut down for 10 days or based on what we see we are recommending that you shut it down for 10 days so the autistic the autumn the automaticity has gone gone away but it may be shut down or it may not be shut down depending on and in collaboration with the department of public health is the way they explain their lessons that's a very good way so and i hear what you're saying like that but how fast of a response right so say we do have an out you know we have a case in a classroom again group a there's a student right next to another student how fast would they determine that to be able to to let the other students know that it's okay to come back or it's not okay to come back yeah that's an excellent question because um time is as of the essence when we're dealing with the with the situation like this so yes excellent question uh these decisions would have to happen uh within a couple of hours of finding out um what um what the uh of the case so um and like uh mr ortega is mentioning uh the fact variables that are involved here uh really matter uh and uh we don't do this make these decisions in isolation we do this with in collaboration with the department of public health and i will tell you that they have been very responsive uh when it comes to these these these phone calls um and then matter of fact they follow up many times multiple times a day to make sure that we have addressed every aspect of of the of the case i have another question on contact tracing so um since it's important that we have uh you know parents and employees you know correct email their phone number their email are are we testing that to make sure that we have their correct number you know that's not uh suspended i mean so are we going to be testing or how are we going to move forward with that if you don't mind i can i can maybe provide a little bit of information on that mr monkey um for the parent side we use blackboard as our primary method of communication within i'm sorry can you hear me no can you speak up here oh i don't know why i couldn't hear you sorry jimmy now no yes okay great um we use blackboard for our primary method of parent communication and we do have the ability to go into blackboard and run what is called a bla a bad address report and what that kicks back to us is any parent who has maybe accidentally blocked us maybe the phone number is no longer in use maybe the email address is invalid so we do have the ability to do that per site uh one of the processes that our school sites are in right now is they are contacting each parent to see if they are sending their student back for in-person instruction so as they are doing that they are also able to confirm whether or not they have the correct phone number and email address for the parent awesome great thank you if there are no further questions thank you very much and i'd like to turn it over to dr mitchell thank you mr ankio hello everyone good evening i'm going to be providing information regarding educational services i'm going to give you some information about our schedule alternative programs our think together program and then talk about the professional learning and support plan that we have all right so we are super excited to transition safely from fully distance learning to a hybrid environment that alternates between a group a and a group b for in person and at home learning so two days a week dana i'm sorry is it possible to move the schedule to the center because i just see the half of it i don't know if you see it all but i see um i just see half of this the schedule i don't think we can it's not okay that's okay we also have it in our school reopening guide um so it's also available um and that is what's on our website if you wanted to open that up and take a look well i'll have to locate it but that's okay okay no worries all right so i'm going to let me just i'm going to describe it okay okay two days a week each uh a and b group will receive three hours of in-person instruction from eight to 11 a.m and two days a week of asynchronous learning at home from 8 to 11 am while one group is learning in person the other group is learning at home asynchronously additionally during the week each group is going to receive additional synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities including our emerging bilinguals who will receive synchronous english language development so when our students are participating in synchronous learning it means the students are logged online with their teachers when students are participating asynchronously they're working independently on what has been assigned by their teachers during this time all classrooms have a 15-minute schedule break and so that's an opportunity for students to be able to go outside to go to the restroom and there's also if students need to use the restroom they'll be provided that opportunity as well can you hear me okay yes i can repeat that yes yep and i'll repeat it one more time and then uh we can ask can you hear me can everybody hear me can you hear dana can you hear me is that a no can you hear me can you hear me board member pena can you hear me yes i hear you okay perfect okay thank you very much all right so so during the week each group will receive additional synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities and that also includes our emerging bilinguals who are going to receive synchronous english language development so what this means is when students are participating in synchronous learning it means that students are logged in online with their teachers when students are participating asynchronously they are working independently on what has been assigned by their teachers and just for clarity because um you you sound like you said something and there was some confusion around this within the community you said that there that during synchronous that students will be logged in with their teachers but you're saying that's for online synchronous when students are at home that's correct that is not necessarily what you're saying is going to happen when students are in the class with their teacher that is correct yes so so in person learning um now if teachers want to have the students log into let's say google classroom and access platforms such as pear deck or seesaw they're able to do that right but the primary mode of instruction is in person when we're in person that clarify okay so on wednesdays all students are at home and they will be participating at home online for synchronous learning with their teacher from 8 to 11 and then they'll also have an additional hour of asynchronous learning at home our schedule also has built in four afternoons of what we call parent connect time and that's very similar to what we're doing now where the teachers have an opportunity to connect with parents and be able to provide assistance or any additional support that they may need the schedule also provides teachers with planning time which is time to plan for both in-person and synchronous and asynchronous instruction and then on wednesdays our teachers have time to meet in their professional learning communities they can attend staff meetings and or professional learning as well so any questions around that i have a question will the virtual academy schedule match this schedule in person or or is there a different schedule for the virtual academy students so the virtual yeah so at this point the virtual academy schedule is going to stay the same we do there are some some considerations that we're going to be talking about in terms of the shortened day but essentially the schedule will remain the same thank you for the question any other questions around that okay let me go to the next slide thank you all right so now let's talk about alternative programs so for families who have chosen not to return to in-person learning we have alternative programs beginning last august to align with sb we launched a virtual academy for students in tk through 12 and students who attend the virtual academy are going to continue with distance learning and currently we have 562 students in grades tk through 12 that are attending virtual academy this year we also continue to have an independent study program as well as a homeschool option and in the independent study program the students meet with a teacher each week who provides the curriculum and the instruction and currently we have 55 students who are in our independent study program and then we have a homeschool option and this is this option is where um the the families they use our ausd curriculum but it's the parent who is providing the instruction and right now we have 30 students who are in the homeschool program any questions around that okay let me go next slide all right so let's talk about think together so for many years azusa unified has benefited from a strong partnership from think together who through a grant has provided after-school enrichment programs in elementary middle and high school and due to the pandemic they were able to meet our community's needs by shifting how they provide services to our students typically think together has provided programmatic programs after school okay thank you programs after school and so they were really able to meet our community's needs by providing a model um during the day and this was a community learning hub model so since since october think together has been able to provide in-person learning hubs to seven of our school sites we um we have appreciated everything that they have done they have been a model of safety of organization communication social emotional academic support for their for our students and we just really can't thank them enough for their commitment to making sure that our students have a safe and a stable learning environment so as we transition to in-person instruction think together is also going to transition back to each elementary site so they're going to be providing the same service to the existing cohorts of think together students so the students will arrive to think together that are part of those cohorts and each elementary site has two cohorts so for a student who attends think together if it is their day for in-person instruction the students will arrive at 7 30 and then at 8 o'clock they will go to their in-person learning and then after that they'll return to their think together cohort conversely on days where think together students are receiving uh the distance learning portion and the other group then they would stay in their think together cohort just as they are doing now does that make sense yep i have a question sure so we'll think together be offering their program for students that are currently not in thing together so um so right now based on need we're going to explore to see exactly you know do we need to have more seats right now we're at the capacity of what our grant is however we are going to explore um you know additional offerings um based on you know what the need is at the sites so how are we going to asse how are we assessing the need so that would be um think together keeps a list of um of students of families who would like to attend right so that's how we'll know um if there are any students that are on a waiting list and um when we've been in um the learning hubs we have had a waiting list with some students so anytime a student moves they're able to put another student in to uh to program so i mean the reason i'm at the reason i'm asking is because so i guess my other question would be how are we going to communicate that with parents because i mean i would assume that now that students are going to be in person right there may be some families that could handle it because it's a couple hour it was online at home but now transportation so how are we going to communicate that with families and then i would just say as a board member i think we are getting significant amount of dollars to be able to support families and so to me this is a priority right if our families need this kind of wraparound services then we should be we should find a way to be able to support them sure agreed actually kind of the same lines um you know uh parents that are are making that decision to come back in person and that will need that extra support right so for example um tk through second starts next week and no parent has been contacted that you know that they can submit their application to think together okay so so how do they do that and how do we communicate that to parents that are having to you know to shift their schedules for work and make this work for their family how are we communicating that to them i will reach out to think together and find out what their communication strategy is they had one um you know as we were shifting to the in-person learning hub so i will find that out and i will put it in the packet for you so i just i like to ask a question regarding so students that are already there that are on distant learning and want to continue then um are they already at their capacity so if students are going to come back next week like we say uh tk um how do they fit them in or again are they in the waiting list are they going to be able to to uh be in the thing to get the program or that's a great question uh board member pena so right now each site uh based on how we have the grant situated has two cohorts of students at each elementary site so what we need to do is talk with think together to see how we might be able to expand that based on the families that are interested and as i'm hearing you say to um to ask what their communication strategy is as well sure um just to be super duper clear um uh board president uh the the cohorts begin on the 28th you said next week just to be clear 29 i'm looking at 29 correct on the 29th the week of the 28th that's that is that's the the week that we come back yes yes that is correct so i just want to suggest maybe more than suggest that that i don't think this is a think together responsibility to to gabriella's point right i think this isn't our responsibility and if we're going to survey families around whether or not they're coming back if we're not informing them that there there could be this potential opportunity they may make decisions based on their personal exp wherever they are with their family so i i feel like it's in our responsibility to communicate this yeah and i would agree with that what i what i would add is as we're talking about how think together would be assessing the need the needs are the needs are changing and evolving now that we're coming back and so and so the current wait list may not be an accurate um means of determining the need now and so yes how are we communicating that out and and allowing for for our families to communicate what their needs will be in the coming weeks as we shift back in person um so that we can accommodate and i agree this is something that that we as a district need to be uh taking uh responsibility for sure all right let me do a let me meet with the think together staff and come up with a plan to to see how we might be able to you know meet the needs and survey the families and get the communication going sound good all right and time is of the thank you dana oh you're welcome that we do you know um i thank you for for reaching out but i think it's really really important that we communicate with our our families our you know our parents um and and make this a very positive experience for you know for all so thank you thank you all right next slide all right so now um i'd like to talk a little bit about um our professional learning and support plan a plan we're um we're very proud of that we have implemented a robust and a rigorous professional learning plan for both certificated and classified employees that actually began last august so throughout the school year our district has had many different offerings some include social emotional learning and support we've had trauma-informed care and practices facilitated by ucla our own internal mental health department and foothill families and our mckinley partners have all provided professional learning around that we've uh had training for all of our distance learning platforms and programs and many of these um will easily transition when we come back to in-person learning and so i mentioned earlier um applications like pair deck and see saw and and google applications we've had many professional learning opportunities throughout the year around our curricular programs how to facilitate small group instruction during distance learning um specific content area and grade level support for professional learning communities collaborative planning for grade levels combination class supports formative assessment and we've also had some high quality professional learning opportunities that have been provided by our work with the california education partners for example we've had a series of mathematics sessions with megan franke who is a ucla expert for early education mathematics and she's done a pk through third grade series we've had many of our teachers attend that series as well we've also had um a a series around academic language and that has been facilitated by jeffrey zweers who is a professor at stanford and he's one of our thought partners with california ed partners as well our tosa team is outstanding and they have provided something called tosa live and every week what they do is they have a google meet and then the teachers are able to just drop in whenever they want to ask questions get you know individualized support and help um and that's actually been very popular and we've had teachers say is that something that we can continue um even when we go back to in person and so um one of the other things that um our california ed partners uh some of the work that we've done we have been able to um uh teachers have opened up their classrooms other virtual classrooms to one another um we've had teachers go in and observe and that's a that's a very strong professional learning model as well so as we transition to in-person learning our teachers on special assignment have been also leading and developing something they're calling it countdown to hybrid learning which is providing supports not only for in-person instruction but also meaningful asynchronous learning as well and so what i mean by that is what they've done is they have taken our unit maps that the teachers use and they have um inserted many different components um that the teachers would be able to use for asynchronous work um starting uh this thursday they're holding thought partner sessions for uh k through fifth teachers they're going to review the new resources they're going to help them with how to design and plan instruction for the week and then they also have several after school professional learning sessions for planning asynchronous instruction as well um so they have um a um a whole uh a compendium i like to say of of resources for teachers that they've put together whether it's around language arts or mathematics flipping the classroom videos how-to's all kinds of things so many great resources and so much support just really proud of the work that the team tosa has been doing and and supporting the teachers as we get ready to transition back to in-person learning any questions around that all right thank you very much and now i'd like to turn over to lika juarez our director of community engagement and communication thank you dr mitchell good evening board parents and colleagues um can i get a thumbs up in the board room if you can hear me okay are we good okay i'm going to provide information on our communications efforts regarding reopening plans we have three goals that we always want to keep in the forefront with our communication we want to ensure that we are communicating frequently we want to keep this topic at the forefront of everyone's minds and we want to make sure that this information is accessible that it's available wherever our community looks um so that they can easily access it if they are more of a website person and would rather go to our website we want to make sure it's there if they are social media people and are more apt to go to our social media we want to make sure that it is there and we also want to make sure that we are communicating in a timely manner we want to get information in front of our community with enough time for them to plan ahead for any decisions that they may need to to make so when it comes to our reopening communications we had kind of two different communication pushes to double down on our efforts to get information out one push was from the district level and the second push was from the site level to start we'll take a look at our district level communications push as mentioned before blackboard is one of our primary communications platforms so we use blackboard kind of as an umbrella term but it's important to note that within blackboard we have several different communications modalities that we used to communicate our intent to to reopen our reopening plans and our reopening meetings so we use the all call function and this is the voice call system that we use to call families with either a pre-recorded or an automated voice message uh we also use the text messaging system through blackboard which sends text messages to our parents that we have phone numbers on file for uh and then the app function which enables information to be um to appear in our app uh the information that appears in our app also appears on in on an individual's phone as a pop-up push notification for those that have subscribed to that and then blackboard also includes an email function which allows us to send the information an email form to our community as part of our communications push we hosted two town hall meetings to inform our community of our reopening plans we held one meeting in spanish and one meeting in english both of these meetings were reported posted and actively shared with our community via our blackboard platforms and we actually had close to 600 attendees between the two meetings and we also had a large number of people who were watching the meeting live stream on youtube so these were two very well attended meetings by our community during the town hall meetings we did have the opportunity to answer questions live but we also enabled the q a function in zoom which allowed our community to type in their questions for us to access at a later time we had over 500 questions submitted between the english and spanish meetings and we are currently in the process of compiling all of those questions and weeding out the duplicates and we're going to put those together in an faq so a frequently asked questions document which we'll post on social media the website and send out to our parents via blackboard we also use social media as a way to engage our community in the reopening conversation we posted our reopening announcements our town hall meeting links and information as well as links to our reopening documents were posted on on social media for our community to access our district level communications push also included the creation of a reopening guidebook so the guidebook covers safety guidelines protocols and it contains a lot of information on what students and staff can expect for returning to school these guidebooks were shared via our blackboard communications modalities on social media and they are also currently housed on our website um for those who wish we can make printed copies of this of these reopening guidebooks available it's important to note that these guidebooks may change depending upon guidance from the los angeles county department of public health if and when changes occur we will update the documents on our websites and we will send them out again via our blackboard modalities uh one item that i missed that i didn't add on the slide is that we also created a reopening video i'm using our principals as our our star actors and some wonderful think together students to give an overview of some of the changes our community can expect within the school day do we have any questions about our district level communications push yes i have one so if someone wants a printed copy how do they get that because i this is the first time i've heard that they're available like friend i know when i was at my school site call like one parent was saying um in spanish she was like i haven't received anything yet like like i i i think um implying that she was expecting to get something in the mail like i so i i'm just wondering how are how are we ensuring that people who need a printed version get a printed version uh we can make sure that we have some copies that are readily available in our front offices at the site level i can also post some information on social media and on our website including a contact email address for those who wish to have a printed copy well i think the difficulty is the people who probably need it the most are not going to be on social media or on you know electronic methods to communicate so i just i'm pushing us to think about how do we make sure that we're informing those people who may not be accessing information that way is there a way where um as we're reaching out to parents right that you know to ask them if they're going to have their child come back or not can we include uh what do you guys think of including something if you would like a copy of the guidebook you know to let to let us know does that make sense yes um i i would defer to mr ortega to see if that is something that we are able to add to our questions we definitely can um but just to note some sites are about 93 percent done with contacting all of their families so it would be a re-contact uh in terms of letting them know that hey you know there's a guidebook on the website but if you need a printed copy just let us know we can do that but but again some sites are are close to 100 done uh with their uh phone calls uh to their families or perhaps maybe an all call or an email um like a blackboard alcohol yes that that is that is definitely doable you uh look at you you mentioned the faq do we have a any kind of timeline or or turnaround estimate as to when the faq can be made available my goal my goal is friday but certainly no later than monday what is an faq it is a frequently asked questions document so what we did was we took all of the questions that our community submitted during our town hall meetings and we are answering them and putting it into a document that we will have readily available i was thinking or maybe maybe each school site can um notify their parents or um regarding the the the book um you know during their their meetings i mean if they're having meetings with parents and um you know i don't know put posters around just you know not everyone attends the meetings also so it's just hard um to reach the people that do not participate do not come to the pta meetings you know do not have social media those are the people that we're looking for you know that you know how do we reach those parents i think we can do we can do both so i know that some of our sites have already um already had their meetings but for those who have not uh we can ask them to include that information in their meetings and then we could also do as the board president suggested and and do an all-call regarding the information do you have any other questions on our our district level communications push no okay uh next i will briefly touch upon our site level communications push i know some of our principles will build on this a little more further into the presentation as a whole we wanted to ensure that we were communicating the same things at the site and the district level so our sites were given a communications plan template to help them plan their communications efforts it included suggestions and recommendations of details uh to include in their meeting so that we ensure that our community is hearing things multiple times so just as an example of details included in the site communications plan template we included a reminder to the principals during their site meetings to mention to parents that students should bring a refillable water bottle to school each day since the water fountains will be inaccessible our sites are hosting two different types of meetings a one a large town hall type meeting and then a second follow-up meeting to allow parents to ask any additional questions they may have and since our principals are very in tune with their sites they know how their sites respond to communication best we ask that they employ a minimum of three communications methods to advertise their their site level meetings and their site level details regarding return to school and reopening plans do we have any questions on the site level communications push no not at this time thank you and now i will turn it over to laura clark principal of dalton elementary good evening everybody can you hear me yes yes okay wonderful thank you so much um good evening azusa board azusa cabinet and azusa community it's my pleasure to share with you tonight uh the plan at dalton and what this looks like at a school site as i get started i really need to give a lot of credit to our classified and certificated staff a lot of work has gone into this already are classified have been working every day on campus to get everything ready so i just want to give a big shout out and thank you to them thank you to my certificated staff as well for everything that they're doing shout out to greg cahill who's been my my um big supportiveness as well as patricia and sylvia and vanessa and miriam and everybody else lucy and hilda this has been a lot of work and i just appreciate everything that the staff is doing they're working very hard to make this great for kids so thank you so much okay i will share with you what the entry points looks like look like at dalton so we have two entry points one is for the cafeteria and earlier latasha talked about the big thermal scanner and we have that in our cafeteria so half of our students will enter through the cafeteria and half of our students will enter at the east gate and you'll see that on the right hand side the reason for the location of the two entry points is that we want to make sure that students are given enough room to be six feet apart while they're lining up and getting ready to go so in order to provide that social distancing i need to spread out the classes across the front of the school to provide that social distancing the students will be supervised by staff there are markings on the ground with color matching with their classroom color so that they know exactly where to go signs are posted that show them an additional an additional visual to show them where they go the second gate will have a hand no touch thermometer so they will all be scanned as they enter the campus gates will open at eight o'clock students will enter and they'll be scanned as they come in teachers will meet their students at the gate or at the cafeteria front area there at eight o'clock they'll walk their students in and they'll go straight to class again there'll be plenty of supervision out front to monitor while students are lining up and gathering any questions about the entry points yeah okay thank you staff will enter through the office they will also be scanned you'll see on the right hand side in the photo that is our staff thermal scanner or for any visitors who come into the office there is also a binder right next to the thermal scanner that you get in the photo right now but they sign in to show that they've entered campus that helps with contact tracing if any issues come up and we know who's on campus at any time so they check their temperature as they enter the campus we have four exit points for students this is uh for two reasons one we don't need to take temperatures when they leave so i don't need to concentrate students and it also allows for us to space students apart at the exit points and have the grab-and-go lunches ready there for them on table so it really helps on several levels to have two entry points but four exit points the staff they do not need to leave to the office to have their temperature taken but we do want them to sign out in the log again just so that we know who's on campus and who is left this is placed outdoors under eaves inside the campus so they can come sign out and then leave any gate or door that they choose our classrooms have been set up for social distancing the clock the desks have been set up um four feet apart that's leg to leg four feet apart you can see tape here on the florida show where the desks need to be returned in case they get bumped or moved or slid for some reason these plexiglass have been double double taped down to the desks as latasha shared i um i wrestled with one today just to see how strong they are and it's very strong i don't think that these will be um flopping on the floor at all the tape that was provided was really good and what you don't see in this photo is the arrows on the floor to mark the traffic flow through the classroom those have been placed since this photo was taken you can see on the bottom the teacher teaching station since the teachers haven't returned you won't see all their air finally on the desks but on the desk at this point but you can see that they do have the plexiglass in place to help give them some protection every classroom has also been given a set of gloves and those sanitizing wipes that natasha shared earlier so that we make sure that they have the protection that they need in each room any questions so so how um i mean if they have books or i see she has materials in the back how are those i don't know how to explain it but you know how are students being able to to utilize them through the teacher what you're looking at here is that they get the student the teachers materials that they keep they will not be able to share materials so the teachers won't be able to pass out books and collect books or you know collect papers there won't be an exchange between the teacher and the student back and forth students will need to bring their materials from home they currently have their textbooks and their chromebook that they have at home and so they'll need to bring those every day but they will not be able to check out library books or or exchange they won't be able to you know share blocks or any materials like that at this time i i have a question um i i don't know if this is a for who this is but um since students will be bringing their their their books and there won't be any exchange um every requiring you know sometimes the students um don't have pencils or crayons so what does that look like that's a great but we can't give them things that they can take and keep and the district has provided us with um really cute bags um each student has a bag full of materials and we've already put those together and we're putting those in classrooms now so they'll be given a set of materials as a site at dalton we've also made a huge purchase of supplies for the classroom so they've received each classroom now has a huge a few several boxes of supplies so they can certainly pass out pencils and erasers and crayons they just make them back so the student will keep them in their backpack and keep them with them and they have the cute bags that the district provided so they have they'll have what they need they just won't be leaving them behind okay and then my next question is since they're going to be you know when the students come into the classroom for in-person learning at times they mean they may need their their chromebook to go into a specific site or they're you know reviewing um a book or or something online do we have extension cords readily available for for you know for these uh to for students that will need the extra um what is it an outlet is the district or is that a site thing i don't know that's a really wonderful question i've been working on that to um to order some more power strips and to work on extension cords because that is an issue that if the kids don't come with them already charged and i know some parents have said that some of them don't last the entire three hours they need to be plugged in so that that is an issue that i'm working on at this time okay thank you no problem any more questions about the classroom not at this time thank you okay thank you our social distancing outdoors we want to make sure that students and staff are not passing each other in the hallways and so to do that we have traffic flow directions at dalton the way that our school is configured it's very easy um to create some circles so we have some ovals some long ovals of traffic flow so yes it will mean that people have to walk at quite a distance when they're you know they use the restroom and then they have a long way to walk back around the classroom but you know we need to stretch our legs we've all been stuck at our computer so um i don't think that that will be a problem at all um we have the the way that i've done the traffic flow is the youngest students have the the restroom the closest so they won't have as far to walk um to get to the restroom and then they can walk the rest of the way so when students are entering campus exiting campus using the restroom they will all need to follow the traffic flow staff as well we also have markings along the around the campus so that when students need to line up um whether they're entering the classroom or exiting we have places for them to stand um six feet apart and maintain that social distancing we have plenty of signs up around too we have max capacity signs for each room based on ensuring that folks can stay six feet apart from one another the classrooms it's determined by how many desks are in there including staff desks these signs that you see here these are for the lounge for restrooms so we're being very conservative to make sure that social distancing can be guaranteed so if someone um will just say um needs to go to the restroom when there's only three um people can go the person has to wait outside till next person comes out and right that's exactly and that's why same with students that's the same thing with students restroom yes exactly it's the same thing with students so that's why i wanted to make sure that the hallways have um markers along them so that when a class is waiting um to use the restroom they have a place to stand while they're waiting because there probably will be a wait so they'll be going per class yes we we have a schedule already set so that each class has a um an assigned restroom that they will always use and a time that they will go as a group and that time will also serve as their recess time mixed in together if a student needs to use a restroom outside of that schedule we have a walkie-talkie for every teacher and staff on campus and so the teacher will say on the walkie talkie room 12 has a student who needs to use the restroom and so the staff that are assigned including myself and and other office staff and other staff who are available will then respond yes i will be there so we know that someone's covering it they will the teacher will send the student to the bathroom and they will be supervised in terms of not the staff won't go into the restroom but they'll make sure that there there isn't a uh traffic a bunch of traffic at that restroom at the same time exactly yes thank you remind them did you wash your hands and you know those little things but yeah we'll be there to make sure that we don't have six kids all you know in between the schedule lined up thank you no problem indoors we uh while we want to make sure that staff have adequate places to take their breaks we also want to make sure that staff aren't gathering that they're not getting together and having a party in the lounge so we do have that max capacity lounge the lounge is available for people to use the microwave and the refrigerator and get any anything they need um we have a couple of stations set up with plexiglas for those staff who are here full time who need a place to go eat but their schedule is staggered so that they will not um we won't violate the max capacity but staff will be allowed to take their breaks our office is also [Music] marked very well with not only the max capacity signs but marking where to stand and where not to stand where to go to make sure especially for those who are seated at their desks that their space isn't violated so in addition to the plexi glass we have markings to to make sure that um that the rules are followed and social distancing is being maintained so let me ask you um back to the last picture you know someone's using the xerox machine who wipes it down for the next person to come and use it that's a great question because you know in the morning you know teachers will be using it right that's a great question exactly thank you for bringing that up we have one of those buckets that latasha had shared earlier in the in this work room and so every time somebody uses the copy in fact you can see i don't know if you can read it but right above the copy machine there's a sign that says please remember to sanitize the copier each time you use it thank you so there is a bucket right behind i see yeah okay yeah now i see it yeah okay good so indoors again there's there are plenty of uh space between the desks and the plexiglass is in place it's set um the classrooms are are ready to go i also set up lines inside the classroom for students to line up there isn't enough room for all of the students to line up at the same time but at least it gives the teacher the opportunity to have the group start to line up before they head outside so then they can excuse each row one by one and allow for that space we have signs everywhere it's almost obnoxious we have signs everywhere to remind um regarding hand washing and staying six feet away wearing masks and do not enter if you're sick um this has been a daily job for all of us to to put up more and more signs so um we've put the sign people in business so there are signs everywhere every room you go i don't think you can look anywhere on campus without seeing a sign so since you know you have elementary school and i know how hard it is for the little kids to you know stay away um 60 uh um six feet away who's who's monitoring these students or or how's that gonna work supervision is very important and supervision is has been one of my number one um tasks to make sure and ensure that we have enough supervision for each student and and for each group um the numbers have been a very key for me um yesterday was our due date for tk through second and i was just waiting until 12 o'clock yesterday our due date for parents because um with supervision being so important i really need to have those numbers and it needs to be hard and solid so um i will ensure that that there is enough supervision to ensure six feet and that that students are following these rules so that's that's a big one i'm sorry so this probably goes to um mr ankio so um does that mean that the um i call them new duty eights but uh i i think uh zuzia unified comes from different but but but the aids that are out cactus aids are are they returning when when the students return mr okay yes uh noon supervisors are their advisors thank you and uh yes we um we have uh our new supervisors are going to be front and center as our part of our elementary supervision um and um i saw workflows from ms clark come through not too long ago to really account for the extra hours that they would need to be working thank you very much for that we also have the isolation room that latasha shared with you earlier with our cots um for for us we have a very large room you can't see that in this photo but it's there there's plenty of space for social distancing and keeping it safe since this photo was taken we've also put up the plexiglas for the the person who's manning this desk and i heard earlier on the question regarding who will be assigned to the room and i know for every site it will be different for dalton because our office is very small we haven't been modernized yet um one of my considerations was um making sure that my staff is is able to have six feet of distance between them and so it actually makes sense for me to assign my health aid to this room not because she'll be needed most of the time most of the time this room will be a quiet place but it allows for my office staff to have distance um between them so um we the health aide and i have had a discussion about um for students who have health needs other than needing an isolation room how we will address that um again we have our walkie-talkies we have some picnic tables right outside we have other spaces that she can utilize for that but this is actually a great place for her to work and be safe herself and keep her safe self um social distance from others within the office so we will have our health data signed at dalton daily scanning protocols so again when students enter they will walk by this the ones who enter through the cafeteria will walk by this thermal scanner it's pretty nifty it's pretty neat i recommend you check it out sometime it's pretty fun you can have a whole group walking towards you and right above their forehead it says what their temperature is and so it's it's um it turns red if they are above the 100.4 so it's it's it's um it's easy to administer and easy to use um it's not tricky and it's kind of fun actually so it's it's an easy one we have the handheld no touch for the other gate and that's pretty quick you don't have to touch it you just hold it near the forehead and as the students walk by it registers very quickly it's very doable we have a closet full of ppe and like latasha shared earlier as soon as we get low we ask for for new a new supply and that's pretty quick and easy so and everyone knows where this is playgrounds cannot be used the kids cannot um you know share items they can't share things that they touch so they will not when they do go out to recess they will be able to move but they will need to stay six feet apart and they won't be able to use balls or frisbees or other things that can be shared these are nifty these hand sanitizing stations you can see on the the bottom they have a foot lever and so we have 11 of these for dalton school so we have um locations all around campus they're brought in every night because i'm sure they'd be you know pretty popular they're pretty neat um so we do bring them in every night but you push the foot lever you put your hand out it squirts right in your hand and so you don't need to touch anything to get some hands on it this is great when hand washing is not feasible um in in the moment for example students are walking into class at the very beginning of the day instead of sending everyone to the restroom to wash their hands they can just get some hand sanitizer and um you just put them throughout your campus exactly i put them at the end of every hall i put them um right outside the front office right inside the front office um oh gosh i mean i have 11 of them so right outside the cafeteria a couple places it's they're all around okay thank you [Music] claire could i could i actually uh can we go back one uh slide looking at the playground i'm from your from your vantage point um can can you describe i'm trying to imagine our you know six-year-olds out and we say that you know but they can they can be outside on the playground uh but keeping distance how do we how do we manage that how do we supervise something like that so one way i'm working on it is because it's on a schedule and it's spread throughout the three hours and only two classes can be out at once and given the numbers that i already have um some classes have as few as six kids coming um and as many as as 15 so but because they're spread apart and i have i'm assigning supervisors um to to keep the classes separate so they'll be going to two different areas so the blacktop over here the grass over there depending on the weather so already it's going to be a very small group six to 15 students and so then that supervisor will give the rules for that group um in terms of you know you you you know this group can play over here these this student can play here so it's going to be very strategic depending on that group of students um to make sure that they're kept separate thank you yeah that visual is actually very helpful thank you no problem instructional groups um ms mitchell uh already dr mitchell already shared that um with you so um our instructional groups will follow exactly what dr mitchell shared earlier um that won't that won't be any different at dalton cleaning schedule we have a very strict cleaning schedule we're going to make sure that i know the conversation earlier was about after the students leave but we also um in the recess schedule that i have laid out there is time in between for the bathroom to be cleaned between that group and the next group that comes in to have their recess and their bathroom times so it's a very strict schedule that needs to be accomplished in a short it they have 10 minutes to clean the bathrooms i have two custodians um who will be working on that between each um break and we'll also be cleaning the door handles and services that are touched throughout the day so there's a very strict regimented cleaning schedule to ensure that that all happens while students are here in addition to after students are gone um there will be a break schedule like i shared earlier so that staff are not um having with their breaks all at the same time the bathroom rotation so when i mentioned that that classrooms would be assigned to bathrooms and not use any other bathroom other than that bathroom that's true for staff as well so we have three staff bathrooms here and so um you know mrs smith will only use the bathroom at the end of room 10.
And also our staff within the school, right? Learning at their own pace, that is, distance learning, and how can that be done? Staff development and the digital division, for example, school repairs, the facilities, things that break or happen at school, things that need to be repaired for the well-being of all our students, and how to improvise, too, because how to do it better, as they say, amen, in stress, Viva Paris, with the companies in 2006, in the part here is the process of the large fund that is being given, all the trains in the planning of the committee have priorities, as they say, they have a group of interested parties, we are just looking for feedback right now, it means everything you can give us to be able to do what we want to do, right? With this fund that you have given us, it's all the recommendations, suggestions on how it can be done, none of the things you say are good or bad, it's welcome, this is feedback, right?
um i don't have a mrs smith i was just trying to think of a name but um we are going to be assigning staff to restrooms as well so everyone will have that designation and the signs will be placed on there to designate who uses that communications plan like lika shared we do have a communications plan i had a parent meeting last week i had a great turnout my best turnout ever for a coffee with the principal it was it was pretty amazing between the two meetings i had 100 100 people present it was great because teachers came as well and it was wonderful to have teachers um share their their plans and their thoughts and their ideas and and really collaborate as a group that was really that was wonderful to see i didn't ask them to come but they just volunteered their time and and some of them came for english and spanish it was amazing to have that collaboration i have another meeting coming up right before on the 29th that's on march 25th um two meetings again for the parents i send a parent update every sunday we've been posting on facebook and um on peach jar to ensure that parents have enough information i have a written plan for our reopening and that's currently being translated as soon as that's done that's going up onto the website that should be going up tomorrow so that information's on there like like i shared i recorded the parent meetings and those are up on the website as well i also have a communications plan with my staff i've been meeting with the entire staff every monday yesterday was our second monday in a row just to make sure they have all the updated information i send a daily update to them as well as a weekly update so they get plenty of information our parents again through those blackboard calls they get the text the emails the information through the app the phone calls so we've been blitzing with the communication to make sure that everybody has all the updated information that they can they can get everything i know they know mask wearing is no by the way these are siblings so um the parent was so kind and to take this picture for me at home but mask wearing is going to be um enforced and the full face covering and the proper wearing of the mask and clean mask we do have we will have masks on hand in every classroom and on campus but we do already and if a mask becomes soiled or breaks they'll have that but we are encouraging everyone to bring their own masks to campus i think that's it for me so thank you thank you laura that was great thank you thank you okay i think that means i am next this is dr ristinas over here hopefully you can all hear me so we can hear you okay perfect thank you well thanks for inviting me to share a little snapshot of our amazing ellington campus um like laura mentioned as well everything that has been implemented at ellington has been a complete team effort a big shout out to my custodial staff who i think i have a new request for them about every 15 minutes um but they have been amazing at checking and rechecking along with my amazing resource teacher my entire front office staff it's really been an all hands on deck approach so um before we even begin it's a huge shout out to them with a huge thank you um with regards to tonight's presentation i've broken it down into three different areas with regards to reopening ellington those three are areas that i have broken them down in an effort not to be redundant are preparation communication and training and logistics um as you can see here on the front picture uh what's important to note about ellington is it's really separated into three larger wings um so that what you see there on the screen on the left hand side is the tk32 wing on the right hand side they're behind our cafeteria we have our three through six wing and then all the way in the back of our campus is our middle school area which is our seventh and eighth grade so did you have to remove your your little book uh thing out that you had outside there no we didn't we actually have kept those out there and they get cleaned every afternoon thanks to my custodial staff and they keep that on their cleaning schedule as well because we want to encourage our community to keep reading so we ask them not to give us any books but go ahead and take them so we refill them for them and they get taken out almost every single week great yeah thank you for asking i like that thank you and that's thank you a huge shout out to mrs hagian um for for putting those efforts in and um getting those on our campus and in addition to that refilling those books every single week so a huge thank you to her with regards to preparation we can move on to that next slide here that i'll show you pictures uh these signs as laura mentioned we have 386 signs i have counted them you're welcome to come on by ellington's campus with your mask on and make sure your temperatures take into account them with me we have counted all of them because we want to make sure that it's specifically across every single corner of our entire campus most importantly the signs that you'll see right at the beginning right at the front of the campus of course you see a huge red hand but it means to please make sure that you're staying away if you are sick the number one importance of some of these signs of the very front of the building are for prevention we want to prevent the spread of the virus first and foremost before we even think about coming to the campus so if you're not feeling well that is first and foremost extremely important the signs are also in english and in spanish to ensure that comprehension is across the entire community for whoever is uh has a student on our campus to make sure that they understand what they mean um and of course wearing a mask is alongside every one of these signs at ellington if you drive by our campus you should be able to see them from your car you'll see my fancy glamour shot here on the left hand side because i wanted to give you an example of how easy it is this is the tiny temperature scanner that is within the office so as laura explained one of the new procedures for our faculty staff and any visitors that come to campus is a couple of unique different steps that are new of course due to coven so faculty and staff are not allowed to enter their classrooms first they must come through the office first to have their temperatures taken they often also fill out the symptom checker through a google form before they come to school we ask for that symptom checker to be taken before they come as principals do as well before you get to campus to ensure that you're checking your symptoms before you even arrive on the campus you'll notice on the right hand side that is just a snapshot of the front office um those have actually been upgraded since this picture was taken uh thank you to latasha jamal she came by and made sure that they were installed correctly they were nicely installed last week so they're a little bit higher and they are nailed down to that front office as well as the office staff that is working in here our custodial staff has also measured out the desks in there laura mentioned it as well we've had to move around some folks in the office because they were not six feet apart therefore we had to find a new location for them to ensure that their safety and to ensure that six feet apart measurement um within the office itself this is a fancy picture of the workstation i know it might not seem super important but it is because every single spot across the entire campus has to abide by the six feet of distance um some of those red signs that you see on the ground there we have posted those throughout our inside of our office as well as inside some of the classrooms there to ensure if that teachers know where to stand when they're working in the workstations they're also you'll see the blue x's throughout the floor that will make sure that teachers know where to walk and how to space each other apart so that they are not standing near each other within the work room there's also a maximum occupancy sign that's above the doors to make sure that teachers know not to go past the maximum occupancy for the each of the given rooms um as was mentioned before the entry and exits have changed significantly for our students per dph in cdc the entrance and exits cannot be the same so here our entry is in the cafeteria therefore the exit cannot be the cafeteria so we've made that extremely clear with the signs that say welcome and enter here both in english and in spanish to ensure that parents and students know where students are entering we've talked about this mega scanner before which you see here on your right the mega scanner of course is new we love it uh it works extremely well we try it out with our own staff when we practice using it so that everybody on the campus knows how to use the machine is extremely easy to use actually and we test it out often to make sure that it's working properly the mega scanner as we stated before can scan up to a very large amount of students but we are training our students to walk in in a line to ensure their safety number one and two to make sure that they're practicing staying six feet apart within the cafeteria on the floor there are arrows particularly to ensure our little tk's and first graders can kind of walk along those arrows that will show them what six feet apart looks like along with the signs for the older students that are up along the cafeteria to make sure that it's completely covered when you walk into the cafeteria we have flipped our cafeteria tables uh vertically as you can kind of see there in the entrance and we've covered them with signs so that they know to one wear a mask and two to make sure they know which direction they're supposed to be walking in our new nades staff will be manning that mega scanner in the morning in our community liaison she gets a shout out too we'll be standing at the door at the door there to ensure the symptom checker has been taken and that students know where to walk uh of course this mega scandal will be new especially to our little ones we want to make sure that they understand what that is and what it does after they walk through this cafeteria you'll see the next picture students uh will know uh where to be because their teachers names are out there the the names are really for the teachers as well so the teachers know where to go and that the new supervisors know exactly where to go because indian supervisors need to know exactly where the classrooms are located you have a question no okay no okay um also on the right hand side you'll notice um we've made tiny signs um that we've placed along cones we have approximately 40 across the campus that will guide the students around the entire campus the ellington campus is pretty big and we don't want our students to get confused with regards to where they go to kind of keep them on the tk2 wing so these cones have been um especially made for our little ones to kind of guide them around the building but just note that the teachers will be picking them up um where their names are here at these cones you'll also notice that there's blue tape behind mrs haken sign here the tape there is to ensure that as the supervisors are out there watching our students as they line up to make sure they know exactly where to stand and each class is spaced out with an additional skip of a line so that we're ensuring that they are six feet apart currently we have a small amount of students that are coming so in terms of the lines it will probably be reduced until we get that final count but certainly for now um this is working with regards to the number of students that we have returning here you'll see a snapshot again um as we've seen with laura's classes to reinforce the plastic partitions that are along each of the student desks the blue x's that you see next to them some of the tables at our school are double like they are here in this picture again i'm picking on mr hayden's class here but she has her class is beautifully organized and it's super neat so i wanted to make sure that you get to see all the little details here the x's there are required by dph to make sure that they know if a student can't sit there how will a student know well the huge x's alongside them know that no one else is allowed to sit there even though those are considered double desks that is what students were used to before so it needs to be really really clear extra signage i know it seems like lots of x's and lots of signs but the whole purpose is to be able to understand that there's no one that's going to be sitting next to you at that table um like laura said too we've tested these out to move them around to make sure that they're not budging however we have been supplied via the district with extra tape to make sure that we have these on hand should any of them come down we can easily fix them the teachers desks and workstations also have similar plexiglass as well the teachers may adjust them accordingly to their workstations they all have designated different areas in their classrooms when they came in uh they they let us know and the custodial staff know exactly where they wanted to work in their classrooms so we made sure that it was organized that way so that the teacher can access their materials and can access their space in an organized way and also in this particular room she can also turn around and write on her whiteboard if she needs to so there's no need to be fussing around with anything and also making sure that if she needs to adjust that plexiglas she can every single classroom at ellington has a sink um so it's really important about this picture i know it's a picture of just to think but it's more than that it's important to recognize that we've bagged up those water fountains because they're not allowed to be used so it has to be more than a sign we actually had to cover them up to ensure that they are not being used to ensure the safety of all of our students in addition to that all the water fountains across the campuses are covered and they have caps that will be coming as well but they are covered currently with um bags and they are taped down so they do not get removed um the hand washing uh is also encouraged with the signs here it becomes part of the routine for the teacher for the students and the signs are in english and in spanish as well with regards to communication and training one of the most important things to remember is to make sure that we kind of overdo it with communication i encourage my parents to reach out via email and call me personally to answer any and all questions that they have so even before our town halls we've asked them just call us so that we can share information with them and certainly when they have questions that we don't know the answer to um arturo will tell you i will email him directly and then i usually ask vika to add it on the faqs because they might be really great questions that i think everybody wants to hear um ellington town hall went very very well we actually did that today and we also have another one planned for next week the faculty has been trained as well i've gone over all of the entry and exit procedures with them very similar to the snapshots that you got here as well and gone through their protocols and procedures also very specific to the teachers would be of course their class lists as we finalize those and we decided to personally call all of our parents um from k-6 as we're working our way to the end of that list we thought the personal cause would be just a better way to communicate with parents um so if they've got a voice message from us please call us back so that we can help them also every sunday if you have not watched the guillermo in the show you should you should tune in every sunday i do a video with guillermo where we share this information any kind of information that we have coming up that way they have dates on hauls information and what's most important to know about the facebook account um is if you don't have an account it's okay because it's scrolling on our website so you don't have to fuss around with logging in or any of that you can just go onto the ellington site scroll to the bottom and you can watch every single video that i make every week yeah of course you can call our office from 824 and blackboard messages have been sent out one of our amazing teachers also keeps up with their instagram and our meetings have been done over google meets today's town hall was also recorded and has been posted to our facebook and of course i encourage them to ask any questions that they might have missed from that give us a call directly or to post it directly there on facebook you'll notice there's a ton of messages throughout our videos that we do every week that we i usually get an answer to them right away the same information has been shared with faculty with staff with community and we're asking our teachers to also help with uh sharing this information with our students i pop in every every week to talk to our students to ensure that i answer their questions as well because the students are curious too about coming back and they're pretty excited so i check in with them often and certainly pop in there to support the teacher to answer any questions that they might have so all stakeholders have been included with regards to the mitigation procedures all the protocols that have been put into place and of course we're going to continue to repeat that up until our opening dates that next slide showed you uh walkthroughs walkthroughs have been a significant part of covid all of these procedures that have been put into place have not only been shared with principals in writing and through our weekly meetings but physical actual walkthroughs on our campus and that includes um our amazing district office staff who comes to support us and also tells us hey you guys forgot some tape here so we go back we make sure that that's checked upon it and at ellington i included my entire front office staff my think together partner so thank you to mr e and his team my custodial staff my front office staff and my health aide who i figured if i'm missing one day the show must go on so i wanted everybody to be included in that walkthrough so that they can see everything that's been put into place and everything that needs to be put into place if we find areas where we need to fix something or upgrade something that way everybody's on the same page because it's really important for everyone in the office to know exactly the same information that i do because when parents call it shouldn't be a wait to answer the question everyone should be able to answer some of the same questions that everybody has so entry and exit establish the floors so what's you depart in the classroom versus outside the playground the equipment and what's on the checklist has been shared with my office stuff so everybody knows exactly what needs to be completed in one as far as logistics um laura also share this briefly with regards to our breakdown of tk or three four or five six again on that next slide here you'll see again the front shot of our school and the improvised here uh blue tape that is down still which is great um because of course we're getting rain so we upgrade that uh the tape to make sure that that's staying down so that's checked upon daily to make sure that the signage is really really clear um our tk2 3 4 and 5 6 have been the parents that we have contacted up to this point and again as laura mentioned as well with the lunch grab and go those exits for our students are unique to the grades so the tk2 has its wing for exits are three and four and then our five and six due to as well so there's exit signs that are clarified they're not just for the students and the faculty but also for nutrition personnel because it's nutrition services who are going to be handing out those lunches so they need to know exactly what grade levels are exiting where so it has to be really clear for everyone that's involved with every single protocol and they have gotten a map of the ellington school to know exactly where each of these gates are to be able to grab those lunches and go for exit and then last but not least we encourage our students to have a great day of course i know they're really excited about coming back and we try to make every sign as clear as possible and encouraging to every student even the exits so um thank you for allowing me to share a little bit of the ellington uh campus for you to see all the hands that have been working really hard to make sure that the campus is ready to go thank you thank you for that thank you and now it's my turn good evening madam president ariana's members of the board superintendent ortega cabinet fellow colleagues and everyone watching from home i am diana rojas principal of lee elementary school and i am delighted to join you tonight tisha nim so as we know the purpose is for the safe return of students and staff for on-campus learning these are some of the preparations that we have made safe ingress and egress plants have been developed with the science basis for maintaining social distancing requirements consistent restroom disinfecting sanitation sanitizing schedule develop no shared spaces beyond the classroom and restrooms our entire campus has been deep clean custodians have been trained in proper disinfecting sanitizing techniques and our classrooms and office spaces that are in use are clean daily our drop-off procedures are going to be that all of our students um will be dropped off in front of the cafeteria doors mass will be worn at all times students will stand six feet apart on blue x's that have been labeled on our floor floors um throughout the campus our covered 19 symptom daily check questions will be asked before they come through students will follow the blue arrows as they enter and walk through temperature through our temperature scanner and our students must independently walk onto campus our pickup procedures our students will be dismissed at the south east gates by the parking lot and a sac lunch will be provided at their exit and here's some pictures to show you um the progress that we made so here you will see the cafeteria entrance um has been labeled with the signage um to make sure that everybody knows that they are to stand six feet apart not come in if they are feeling ill and to wear a mask you can see here on the floor we have designated x's that have been marked six feet apart my custodial team has done an awesome job of labeling these excess all the way to the public sidewalk here you can see we have designated the x's on both sides of our entrance of the cafeteria so that we can have two lines going at the same time here you'll see that entrance to the cafeteria um the blue arrows have marked the path of entry and exit um and you can clearly see there's a sign there for the kids that says follow the arrows here's our cafeteria temperature scanner that my colleagues have already informed you about here's our amazing custodian mr danny hartman being our model as we use the temperature scanner so you can see how it clearly reads the students or the person's temperature you can't see it too well on the screen but it creates a a frame around their face um and if their temperature is appropriate it will be green um and if they have an elevated temperature um it will turn red so it's color coded and also as well the temperature is shown on above their head which you can't clearly see there um once they come into the cafeteria um they will have a designated line where they will line up um they are the same lines that they had before but skipping a line so that we can maintain that six feet apart i mean you can see here the multiple lines have been clearly marked with an x showing where they should stand we have also designated flow travel mark markers in the hallway um uh our latasha and the mlt team got us these fabulous big arrows um that clearly indicate the flow traffic as you can see one side of the hallway is for going down and the other side is for coming up um here you can see the designated flow of traffic also to the classrooms has been marked um so not just in the hallway but also as they walk to the classroom the markers will indicate which way to travel coming up and down the hallway and entering your class here's just some more pictures showing the hallways and their markers um hand sanitizers as laura had mentioned have been located um throughout our campus um and in the hallways the fabulous thing about these sanitizing stations is that there are no touch so the kids can easily just press um step on the pedal and the sanitation will come out for them here are some classroom preparations that you will see next room occupancy signs have been posted entry and exit doors labeled classrooms have been prepared for physical distancing student desks are four feet apart from one another plexiglas has been installed on student desk and the teacher's desk or the table flow travel markers are in place and non-use items have been labeled or turned and ppe is in place here you can see all the signage um that my colleagues were talking about um all of these assignments have been placed um on the outside windows of the classrooms um here um i have the good fortune of having two doors um in our classroom for our students at lee so one door has been clearly marked to enter and the other door to be used as exit here's just another example of classroom signage um and the arrows um also indicating um which way to walk when the the students walk into the their classroom here's the classroom flow travel markers um um from the entry point you can see how the path is clearly marked showing which way to walk as laura had mentioned um there was markers on showing the path of for them not only how to walk as they come through the classroom but also um the designated way to get to their desks um you can see here also as well the plexiglas and the wonderful kind of um half square um that our custodians have placed there to make sure that um the students are placed i mean not the students the deaths are placed the desks are placed back um in their proper location um four feet apart um if they are removed when cleaning also here you can see the picture um that shows the cl the classroom flow of traffic markers um to indicate the way the students should exit the room and you can also see that the door has been labeled with an exit sign here's just a picture showing the student's desk how the plexiglas is on every single student desk and also on the teacher's desk or table as i mentioned before all of our sinks in the classroom have a hand washing signage in both english and spanish and the water fountains have been covered to indicate to the students that they are not allowed to use it non-used classroom items as ms pena had asked what about the items that were showing there um behind the teacher's desk and one of the pic pictures um here you can see they have been clearly marked with caution tape um to indicate that they are non-use or they have been turned around if we can easily do that here's some more non-use equipment you can see that our picnic tables have um signage on them or caution tape and even in our lounge you can see the couch has been marked as a non-used item now break some restrooms a schedule classroom breaks and sanitation has been established at each school as my colleagues mentioned hand washing station and signage has been placed bathroom occupancy signs posted one stall and a seat closed in each of our student bathrooms water fountains have been closed the water dispenser has been installed and our playgrounds are also closed and designated areas for breaks and stretching have been clearly marked and now we'll show you some pictures so here's our amazing hand washing station that we have in our primary hallway with the sinus they're reminding the children how to properly wash their hands in both english and in spanish here's just some pictures of on the restrooms um you can see outside of the door the signage has been posted it's clear to the students to remind them that only one person should enter the restroom at a time inside the restroom there's one stall that has been marked as non-use since we only have two stalls in our in our school and then a sink has been designated as non-use as well you can see that on the faucet is covered and taped and there's signage on the wall i just want to ask a question regarding that yes um mr ross that i notice it um dalton school they had three students entering the restroom and you have one student and how how you determine the size of the restrooms or um how many um restaurants you have available is that how you determine how many students can enter yes exactly so in our um at lee we only have two stalls in our individual restroom um and so then out of the two only one is being able to be used um so that's our occupancy number there thank you you're welcome i'm here you can see that there's signage put on the water fountains we will also be adding a bag or a cover so that it's more clearly obvious to the students about not being able to use the waterfall water fountain along with the signage and then here's our wonderful flow water water dispenser that has been installed as my colleagues have mentioned everyone is very excited about this they've tasted the water it tastes delicious and also another non-touch item there's a petal at the bottom where the students will be able to just press the pedal and the water will easily dispense and the students will know that they can bring a water bottle to school to refill during their breaks here you can see our playgrounds um are obviously cautioned off um to indicate that they are closed and not able to be used at this time here's our um kinder playground that also has been designated as a non-used item here um if you can see um there's um markings um of six feet apart um and designated areas in our asphalt area where um students and classes can go for their break or for stretching and those areas have been clearly marked and shown with the x is six feet apart here's a picture of our isolation room as laura had mentioned um it is bigger than it actually appears here um but you can see here that there's a divider um and on each side of the divider there is a cot so there's two cots in this room and then all the great ppe supplies that we have been um given are in also in this room and here is just um showing our office entrance and just um like the cafeteria entrance and all the signage around our campus we have the similar signage in front of our office um reminding people um to obviously not enter if they do not feel well to wear a mask to keep social distance here in our office door you can also see their signage again the occupancy that our office can hold at this time we are asking our parents to call us if they have any business and that way we can assist them as much as possible over the phone obviously if they need to come into the office we ask that one person at a time or one family at a time come into our office once they come in you can see here the temperatures scanner that dr rusinos was talking about our mini version for the office and then there's also a sanitation station placed in our office here's the changes that have been made to our school office um there's the plexiglas that has been installed here on our counter and i know that every single um desk in our office will also have some additional um plexiglas that will be installed um as well as on my desk in my office and they were here measuring the other day to make sure that each of our desks in the office have that plexiglas oh and you can see the arrows here marking the path through our office area here's our staff lounge um you can see and on the front of the door the signage there um also reminding our staff about social distancing wearing a mask um the occupancy um within the office um and here in the staff lounge you can see how the tables have now been rearranged and um there's markings about six feet apart um and so right now you can see that at this time there's only a capacity of four people um in our lounge at one time here's a staff workroom um that has been also clearly marked with a flow of traffic um and indicators on where to stand um to be six feet apart while you're in the work room on their signage above as you can see in our bulletin boards reminding our staff of the occupancy keeping um socially distance um i think you can see right there on top of the copiers there's um some packages of wipes so that every time someone uses the copier they can wipe it down these are all the many forms of um ways that we are using to communicate to our parents we have decided that lee to use a google form as our first method of communication regarding our parents choice of whether they would like to return or stay in distance learning which they have until this friday the 19th to respond to that google form and then we will begin calling um and then they all receive through email on friday the reopening guidelines from our district along with the dates of the reopening and the link to the google form we also share all of our communication through peach star facebook and the robo calls and so um here at lee we are very excited to welcome our students back um my awesome custodial team of danny and all have done a fabulous job getting our classrooms and signage and arrows placed everywhere around our campus and my amazing office staff and my resource teacher stacy are working very hard to get the information from our parents so that we are prepared and ready to go on the first day back so we can't wait to welcome our lee lyons back home thank you ms rojas so how ready are we well we hope that tonight you were able to gauge uh that we are very ready and we are very excited to welcome our students back i would like to take the time to thank all of the classified i think you heard that tonight all of our certificated administrative staff that have done so much uh to to help us be ready for the reopening i also want to thank personally ms clark dr rossinez and miss rojas for joining us tonight and give us an insight and a just different perspective into the site-specific preparations that have been made ready for our reopening at this point in time we are all available including the principles if there are any further questions or comments from the board um i have a few questions um first of all yes i do want to thank um laura clark and um they let us see they're seeing this and daniel how they did a fantastic job that was really good i would be safe to be going back to their school for sure um i just wanted to speak about the teachers um back to the um plexiglas that they're having in front of their desks i think it's really i feel it's important that they should have sides on there because who's to say that the student is not going to walk up to them or go to i mean or or give teachers the option if especially elementary um if they would want one or not and um also regarding the the stations it's like one uh station per 500 students is is that is that right um natasha michelana can you elaborate on when you say one the the the the water stations where the kids gonna put the you know uh feel their um the water flows the flow waters i guess you know is it one per 500 students is that what i heard or not so not one per 500 students but there is one um in every cafeteria as far as the flow water and then we'll have two outside in the play areas throughout the campus so that will be three water bottle refillable stations on every campus so who would monitor that to to say that you know kids will be in line waiting or you know even playing around with it you know kids are kids yeah so um i agree and it will be a collaboration effort um through supervision um and at the same time we also have staggered time so it wouldn't be all the kids out at the same time but it will be a collaborative effort to monitor and supervise oh okay great and then i just feel back just to the uh isolation room and i i i think that they should um i know you mentioned that it'd be different step you know me in that room i i think we should be consistent in you know um see who is going to be um in that room with these students and and training i mean not everyone knows how to use a thermometer i don't know what kind of thermometers you're going to use um some of those things um you just don't use anymore just to go in there and start taking care of a student or you know that's i feel we we should be consistent and have again the health aide or or someone that we know that's uh familiar with whatever you're going to use in it whatever equipment you're going to use in that room yes ma'am thank you that's all i have to say uh i have a series of questions first let me say great job um appreciate the hard work it's it's very evident i mean even looking at every inch of tape that had to go down to every sign that was was hung up and and clearly there was a lot of work and attention put in um to every classroom and i and we're just seeing three of our sites and knowing that this has happened across across the the board is is incredible um so great job um just a handful of helpful questions um so to be clear students are going to be this is a question i heard from parents students are going to be asked to carry their chromebooks to and from to school and back home i thought there was concern about wear and tear so so can you speak to that sure um i'd be happy to can you hear me yes okay um that's really up to the teacher if the teacher wants those students to be able to bring those back and forth um that's perfectly fine they're able to do that um the students um who are in the think together program for example are bringing those back and forth as well and so we're perfectly comfortable with that okay um and then yeah going back to a question that uh the board president brought up around power and i know that i think she you asked laura clark about what solution she has um i'm wondering if that's something that we should be centrally thinking through and and and thinking through solutions and not leaving it merely to school sites because that that it that is going to be a systemic yeah i think yeah thank you for that question i think that's a great idea as a matter of fact i wrote that down to be able to communicate with the principals to see kind of what their situation is and what kind of support because we can we can order those very quickly for the for the site and just as a piggyback on that because thing together has been coming every day i mean there's also lessons to be learned there uh because they're there from 7 30 to 2 30.
And it has Being consistent means being communicative, and that's vital. It's a vital aspect for us. Those who are going to do what they're going to do at the forum will need their surveys, which we'll send them later. They'll also see a group of raid plans that will collect data, which means data such as, like, what kind of people are participating in these activities and the strategies they're based on. And finally, they have to approve everything that we—I include myself because they're also mothers— we're going to try to approve, everything that the State Department of Education, Jones Racing Gloves, and Terrible tell us about this, and the SOP greens. Right now, for example, as you know, some of you always participate, and here on Thursdays, you'll hear our talks. Don't forget, you can send us a chat, or you can use your hands in the chat section where you can say you want to raise your hand, or you can just let go of the microphone and ask your questions.
perfect yeah okay uh there was conversation around there was once a requirement that if a student was if if there was a an incident someone was diagnosed with with covet in a particular room that that whole room would be quarantined and now that's no longer happening can we speak to what happens if i'm a student and i am i'm exposed and so now i am quarantined for 10 days what is my learning look like over the course of those next 10 days certainly that is another great question and so that would be very similar to a student who was ill right from i mean in any situation and so um that would be a situation where we would get the work from the teacher and then if the student you know when the student's well enough to be able to complete that work um and be able to you know provide that work for uh for the student so they would be able to complete that at home there's some nuance on that just to for clarification um if i'm like asymptomatic right i was just exposed and they're at home for 10 days they can also participate in the distance learning is that correct that is absolutely correct yes on wednesdays only they would be able to participate in um because there's two groups there's one group that's in person and one group that is um uh online right the synchronous and so they would be able to participate in that right that makes it yeah okay and then a question a question in regards to lockdown so if if a school site were to go into lockdown are there any modifications that we're making to to down or or is it in essence the same as it as it would be before uh so right now if there were to be a lockdown called by either our own staff or um a school i'm sorry a police department uh those procedures would be would be the same that's an emergency procedure okay and then last i just have a few questions in regards in regards to special education um so there there are some students who we have um who who require additional accommodations um and and even you know engage in you know certain aspects of stemming or or or other things that can be challenging inside of a a classroom setting especially if we're trying to maintain distance um so so i guess it would be helpful to know i mean what what are some of those you know limitations and so i i've heard people ask about fidget spinners and hand fidgets and some of those manipulatives how will that be handled if those if there's those small pieces that can't really be exchanged and and gone back and forth um so so with that type those types of equipments or other types of stemming i've heard there's some students who need to walk around or sometimes even run around you know in a room or space how will those types of situations be handled that's a great time that's a great question and so um to the you know to the greatest extent possible right we're going to be able to um provide the services that are outlined in the student's iep so let's just say that there is a student that has one of those um you know the device right so we would want to make sure that that student maintains their own device right that and there's lots of different things we can do we can have maybe there's a special um you know a bucket or a bin or something or a cubby where if the student need to put something somewhere um so yeah so students would be able to you know have access to those things that they need and then if they need a break if that's something that's in their iep then you know that's definitely something that you know can be arranged so um it's gonna it's gonna be a case-by-case situation but really to the greatest extent possible to really you know be able to provide those services for um students that have an iep thank you i i have a couple of questions at the uh from from the presentation but i but i also want to first uh thank um the principals uh raciness clark and rojos for for putting this together and i see a uh uniformity um across and so that that's that's really nice to see that that schools are are doing you know accommodating to to their to their environment but directly having the same protocol um all across so i do appreciate that great presentation um i want to thank the cabinet um for for putting in all this time you know for to bring to bring us up to date in how we can reopen safely for our students and for our teachers being able to partner up with um mercy pharmacies was was just amazing i i saw the amount of people that went to go vaccinate it it was it was great and the most important thing i think is we're giving parents the choice so there there's there's no right or wrong way it's it's prof it's just a preference for that family and respecting that choice and it comes down to to that to respecting that choice so i truly appreciate how asuza unified has come together and all of you guys have have worked hard to to to move this forward and it's going to come here before we know it but i do have a few more questions so kind of speaking on an emergency do do we say say we um we are you know we're open and uh there's an earthquake because here here in california do we have an inventory for earthquake preparedness for the supplies so that's one thing and when was the last time that it was updated so um first answer yes we do have inventory the last update i would have to get that for you and i can provide that in my board update okay thank you and the second question is a parent drop off so so i see that that students are are coming in like through the cafeteria and and so forth so i did not hear in the presentation how parents and i know it's individual to each school site um but but i think it's really important that like for example i know some parents walk their children to to school they don't use a circle drive and so at what point do the parents like you know not stay with their children anymore i i don't so that just came to my head you know is there something is there something you guys have talked about can can you share something that you guys yeah i'm going to actually turn to our principals miss rojas dr racinis or ms clark anybody want to address that question um i can do that go ahead um during my parent meetings i informed our parents that they will be able to um obviously wait in line with their children if they choose to um up until they get to the door um of course reminding them that they also have to maintain social distancing and how about for pickup because it gets a you know i i know we're going to have 50 of the students but it gets a little um congested and so what what does that look like dr racinis or miss clark you want to address that one sure and just to go back to the the drop off where dalton is going to have signs to tell visitors where they need to stop and can't proceed because what i'm what i'm concerned about is i'm concerned about groups gathering people haven't seen each other in a long time and i know some of our families um you know love love and miss each other very much so i want to make sure that that we're not having a gathering party out front so there are going to be signs saying you can't go past this drop-off is actually going to be i'm sorry pickup is going to be identical students will stand on the same exact spot where they were dropped off in the morning so as i said each class has a color code so um like ms pose class is read so any student that when they were dropped off they would go to their red marks and then at pick up they go back to their red marks and i strategically placed all the marks close to where the parents walk and where they drop off so that they can easily you know you know hi mom i'm here and they can leave their mark and go with their parents so that's why we're so spread out across the front inside of the school to accommodate that wow that's that's a lot of strategic thinking thank you for that i i really appreciate that and my my last question would be for miss latasha jamal you had you had answered answered that we have the m8 and we have the equipment that partners up with that um to to be equivalent to an m13 so um how do we know that it's equivalent how we tested it and do we have the results that you could share with us yes so in 2017 the district study initially to um upgrade to the ionization which identified that with our current system plus the ionization we'll have the equivalent of merv 13 and we also are and once the installation is completed we are contracting with a third party administrator who would do a testing to um test the surface and the air circulation for us to confirm that we are equivalent to a mark 13.
Okay, remember not to play games. Sometimes we do it this way. So, welcome, and everything you want to do Okay, with him, what he wants to let you understand is also that the people who are listening in English, yes, yes, they understand Spanish well, and if not, on Thursday there will also be another forum that is also only in English, but everyone is welcome. Okay, that's it, Estela, you have to start, or do you want how we do it today? Hello, good evening. [Music] And it seems to work, and then sometimes it doesn't, but here I am, present. Late, if you start, and between the two of us, if you want, I'll write it down, I'll write it down, and you have the questions, are you okay with that? Yes, I have one, or how do we do it? Yes, then welcome, please don't forget that questions, you want suggestions, I want you to tell me what you really want to do with this fund that has been given to us.
and do you have that to share with us share the results the result after is that will be after installation we'll have a third party to come test oh okay so we're going to do that okay and after the installation could you please share that with us i'm sorry i'm not following a question so so what i'm asking you're saying that it first needs to be installed um and then tested to see if it's if we are at m13 is that correct correct okay so then my question is after it's tested just so that way we know we have peace of mind that it is m13 would you be could you share those results oh yes okay great thank you um i think those are all the questions i have um yeah i just have some questions about next steps um so so when are we when when can we as a board get a report in terms of how many families are choosing to continue virtual how many are planning on coming back in person um um i mean the more detailed information the better right so at least by the site level but i mean even understanding like grade level i you know i want to get a sense of of what's happening so just so when when can we expect that and is there a way to get interim information are you are you going to wait till you have the final information yeah i was actually going to recommend that uh that we can start in your weekly board packet updating you on a weekly basis on the progress for each school where they're at in terms of how many students are requesting in person versus distance learning by granville and then i'm i also want to just express my appreciation for everyone's hard work i know a lot a lot of work has gone into making this happen to even be where we are today um but i also want this to be future looking right and so we're already in the red tier right so people can't start looking at reopening middle and high schools um other districts have like already dates for those reopenings um and i mean i i think last i heard we might even be in the orange tier in a couple weeks right so so where are we in terms of thinking beyond i'm glad i'm very glad that we have an elementary plan like so where are we in thinking about the middle and high schools yeah we have definitely started to think about that um and we're hoping to to be able to to provide something here uh soon uh we're just again just trying to kind of parallel parallel this with the the elementary plan that we currently have right now um so again hopefully uh we'll we'll be able to to to share something soon but we have already started working on that so when you say soon you mean like within before the end of the month you mean after spring break at the first board meet like whatever before the end of the month okay does anyone have any more questions from the board um okay thank you again um it it has been a year since we have been an in-person uh learning uh one of the things that i i do want to express that i forgot was that um i i understand that there's been some you know uh why only three hours there's been questions right why three hours why not the full day and and so um i think it's important to to to understand that um when we are given restriction when we're given protocols that you know we follow them from not from l.a county from the cdc and i i know that we are doing the best that we can and you're constantly communicating with us the board and i truly truly appreciate the communication uh not only with the board but with our community um the way that the communication has been rolled out i i i have been here for 20 years um as an adult i have been here you know for for a long and i this is the first time that we carry something like that that we we've never done this but the communication has been great um at the district level and at the site levels and i appreciate the the principals that have taken the time to you know to address every single question and not uh hide or not try to you know every question is valid because we are asking parents to bring their children back and so you know their children matter our families matter and i can see that each one of you guys has taken the time to make sure that they feel like they're valued so i i that that's um the last thing i want to say i'm really really grateful for for that so with nothing further i would like to tell our isuzu uh tell our season families um that we're ready and we're ready to to open and whether you are at home whether would uh you choose to stay home whether you choose to whatever choice you have for your child i know that you will do the best that is for your family and at this time right now i would like to say good evening and this meeting has been adjourned at i'm sorry let me go ahead and i would like to go ahead and ask for a motion to have this meeting to be adjourned so moved we have a first by mr adrian board member adrian greer and can i please get a second second shall we head on here second by board member uh rodriguez pena any discussion none let's go ahead and cast our vote oh i logged out by accident oh you know what no worries okay we'll go ahead and start with board member cruz gonzalez i vote yes board member uh rodriguez pena yes i knew myself board member agreer yes and board member ariana i say yes there is four zero one absent we move this forward it is 8 10 this meeting has been adjourned have a great evening everyone
So, for example, a priority of number one is academic support, how would you like that academic support to be, how would you want your children who have lost, for example, a semester or, I don't know, a week, who didn't understand what they were supposed to understand, to be able to do that support? How can we look for acceleration and recovery with respect to that? I don't know who would like to tell us something, participate, you can take The microphone and you can give us your opinion, no problem. Hello Carmen, I'm Alexandra Paul Alexander. Good evening, welcome. We don't have your face, Astori, it's because I'm handling the problem, but we can hear you. Yes, limping, look at me. Well, personally, I would like it if you could give some extra classes, either in math and reading, I mean, like, how you can help the children because, since they were in this social distancing, sometimes they didn't understand, and well, I'm talking about my daughter.
It's hard for her to raise her hand to the teacher, and she kind of stays there, and she was receiving tutorial classes that they were giving her in reading, I think it was, and I see that she is learning, I mean, she does focus on that. So, I would say that there should be some extra classes that could help the children also with their routine. Do you want to do it in English, or only you point to " Iweekend ander way," or do you want to see " speaking of the world" now that we were out? Yes, yes, " wandering way" to have extra help, especially in reading. If anyone wants to participate, please use your microphone or raise your hand, and I'll see you, okay? That's in the Second in the second priority as they say is the family and the community and the connection between the family and the school community and the faith within the family that you think is missing that we could change or that we could add what do you think how can we do someone who wants to participate jaguars choose freedom [Music] connection to Haiti of programs by d cristian to program viking encore of power in how the work expression when leaving mol distension or desert my father looks different in the Germanic cables [Music] and workcenter maybe from the north [Music] on the day d to the when unhooking knows that in gel for hours Hawaii that today schumaker question is guilty that the public powers minimum neither parents nor downs on iTunes endure has left my program and the day itself the program made in medical programming plan that angel publicly the apparent rich of the fingers lets see hart lane devils 1 the makers sets carmen summer time baby planet center for the summer center of parkinson for the kid 21 and patricia diaz alperi there These are days when what Patricia was saying is more extensive.
There are many programs that have existed here in Berlin, just like they've been offered in Denver public schools. For example, the classes you heard about, you know, these are classes that work a lot with families, and they also teach how children can get involved in the community and how they can participate more. And of course, they talk about their families, how they can take a break, right? And someone raised their hand, please, can you take out the microphone and suggest something, you can speak, no problem. And Margarita or Josefa, okay? Do n't forget, mothers and fathers, please, if you want to speak, don't raise your hand, or if you want to speak, also raise the microphone and we'll listen to you, okay? That's what we're here for. It's me, someone on the air with Carmen, who's trying to raise her hand. Okay, can you take out the camera on my iPhone, not just the microphone, and give me your suggestions or ideas?