Work Session Public Meeting

001thank you katie can you please start us off the roll call yes mr badger here mr bliefeld i'm here mr frank here ginsberg here mrs hayman miss carrionicus mr stolloff here this is walsh here mr antonio here alex good day here carly meltzer here president juan absent and two student board reps tonight thank you it's time for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i'd like to welcome everyone to the october 25th 2021 work session of the whistle hicken school district's board of directors tonight we will review action items which we will formally vote on at our next board meeting on monday november 1st i also want to note that the

002board met in executive session earlier this evening to discuss collective bargaining matters item two on our agenda is the list of meetings since late september while item three is a list of upcoming meetings through the end of november that takes us to presentations and we have one tonight it's a monthly update from our student board reps carly and i alex start us off so i know we talked a little bit about spirit week um in my last meeting which i guess was not last but the one before that but just to recap we had a really great spirit week leading up to the homecoming that was on a homecoming game that was on october 8th and i also thought it was super important to give a proper shout out to the homecoming court so the

003people who ran for homecoming king and queen just for their enthusiasm and spirit they definitely kept us entertained at the pep rally and homecoming game with their dance moves and thoughtful interview responses so i wanted to recognize them quickly and also seniors can now order their graduation cap gown and tassel it's crazy to think that they can already start doing that because graduation seems far away but it's coming up closer sooner than we think and those orders are due by november 5th and it is also important to remind students and families of the support services at wizard hicken math and writing labs elt after school tutoring stars tutoring and offers office hours give students the opportunity to get help in a variety of subjects i know i love these support systems i use them all

004the time i'm constantly going to the math lab for help and i just thought that with the marking period coming to an end we have three more marking periods ahead and it's really important to remind everyone that wissa hicken is providing the support and since they are giving us these resources it's really important to use them and it's just also crazy that this marking period is coming to an end and it's gone by so fast and i'm looking forward to see what marking period two and the rest of the school year is going to bring the add-ons to some more highlights that just recently happened uh two whs students uh recently i like started interrupting your audio is really soft is there a way you can turn up the volume is it better now tiny

005bit um is it better if i talk like this is it better a little bit okay we'll try the best then um two whs students received the hha scholarship reward um this was aaron nyah pending grass and nevaya lazardy and they had their whole tuition and textbook charges for the montgomery county community college fully paid for so special shout out to them also just recently the girls field hockey team and the girls soccer team finished first place in their division so that's a huge accomplishment for the high school alex is that it yeah okay great any questions or comments for either carly or alex i had i had a question um did i just see something did somebody just make it to states one of the girls i know i saw water polo did just

006make it to states which is i think they're competing again the 30th maybe before then too but yes states is a big deal so it's another notable mention all right well carly and alex thanks thanks for the update on what's happening alyssa hicken um i agree with you it's crazy to think that we're already doing some advanced planning for graduation um but i'm sure it'll be here before we even before we know it so uh enjoy it savor it uh while you can uh that takes us to the first public comment period of our agenda where we'll hear comments on agenda items only and by agenda items i mean topics that are listed on tonight's agenda comments on other school related topics not on our agenda should be held until the second public comment period

007later in the evening we're going to alternate in person speakers with speakers on zoom and you will have up to three minutes to speak and a timer on screen will display your remaining time when you are called to speak please be sure to state your name municipality of residence and topic please note that it is the board's practice not to engage in back and forth dialogue with speakers and with that i don't think we have any registered speakers in person for the first comment period so katie can we check on the zoom queue if there are any there's no one in zoom okay great and that takes us to the board president report and for this evening i have no informational items or action items to report on so we'll go right to the superintendent

008report jim thank you mr antonio uh two matters related to coven 19 that are actually going to help us a lot in our continued mitigation efforts the first is as you know we had the survey out for interest in student vaccines for students under 12. and we had over 1 yes we'd be interested responses yeah that's 1400 yeses now the fact is that some number of these will by the time we get our clinic rolled around um go find the vaccine elsewhere which is fine but we do have two tentative dates uh i don't know if they've been officially confirmed but it'll be november 9th and november 30th we need three weeks between our concept is to have these the clinics open 2 30 to 8 so it would be after school hours and again

009i don't know how many the 1400 will show up but that's going to be a rather large operational logistical challenge but we're going to we're up to it and we are partnering up with the local pharmacy to to do this all the people um providing these shots of course would be uh either nurses or pharmacists who are certificated do that but there will also be a number of volunteers just helping with logistics lines and paperwork and whatnot also we have in the works a staff vaccine clinic for boosters don't know yet what date that will be um we're trying to get that one hopefully on a friday uh concept is that after you get the booster you still many people still have the same side effects so we would prefer that to be not on

010a school day because you can't really predict staffing needs if that happens but we don't have a date for that yet we do have an interest survey out and there is i think over 400 staff members who express interest again many might get boosters on their own but in any case we'll get that date scheduled and publicized as soon as we can the other covet 19 related matter is this this development that will be coming to us soon known as test to stay which is also referred to as modified quarantine now that's uh something that's being developed at the county level the county office of public health would have to approve this and then i would say many if not most or all districts in montgomery county would definitely like to pursue it including us

011and what that means is that students who have to quarantine now that those rules wouldn't change you still have to quarantine if you're a close contact and you're unvaccinated however you can elect to test to stay which is meaning and the details aren't entirely firmed up yet but it would be something like test every other day or maybe every day and at the beginning of the day and if you test negative then you go to school like normal that's because a lot of studies across the world have shown that students who were had to quarantine didn't very often at all test positives so as long as we can have that assurance test um it's pretty good reason to do that because that would drastically cut back on the number of students we haven't quarantined which

012is going to be awesome now what that's also going to be affected by having all the younger students vaccinated so between all students vaccinated and remember if you're vaccinated as a student according to their rules you do not have to quarantine unless you feel symptoms if you have symptoms well then you're sick so it's not a quarantine matter that's actually you have to isolate so we're going to cut back on quarantine numbers drastically by having all students vaccinated and also this option for modified quarantine i'm not sure when exactly it will be approved at the county level i've been participating in a like a superintendent task force to get the logistics down i think they're very very close to nailing something now permanently i'm pretty excited about this even though we won't have as many

013students needing the quarantine this will cut back on those students out even more more significantly so i will share out with the community and the board as soon as that gets finalized i would anticipate a start date of i would say mid-november maybe but not sure jim i just want to clarify um because i know the subject of vaccinations can be a little bit controversial um you said you made the reference to that we will have all students vaccinated um what i believe you meant was that all students will have the opportunity to be that correct what vaccines are required and what what ages that's all covered by the state the state level so we will do whatever the state says i have not heard of any inkling at the state level for this to

014be required so all right okay i have a question um since we're talking about what are we doing right now have we relaxed the cleanings that we're doing or is are we still doing the cleaning that we were doing last year or is it different this year how are we working that we are still cleaning surfaces uh more often than we would in a quote unquote normal school year i'm not really sure what a normal school year is anymore um we are not or given what we know about the science of how the virus is spread through uh aerosol inertialize droplets it's it's not as much of an issue across i guess the world or at least our country to to to clean touch surfaces we still do it and we do it more than

015we normally would but it's really much more about what's in the air so we're not doing it as much as we were last year when when we first opened up last year it was a bit of an army every day going through the school and so we are not doing that now we do have extra staff during the day but not as many as last year okay are they cleaning at night every night okay jim i have a question also related are we still encouraging our teachers even though it's getting cooler to still take the students outside for classes they have some task breaks yes and how are we doing that how are we encouraging them because i have heard from some parents that they've had teachers that aren't doing it as much as they

016would have liked so what are we suggesting to our teachers well um we're not requiring it we are we are pointing out that uh as many opportunities as you can to get outside the better some to your point some teachers have a style that uh lends itself to that while others are you know not quite the same if anybody has an objection to how often or how their lack of often um and frequently their student is getting outside absolutely just talk it over the teachers see if there's any way they can do if they don't get the answer they want of course the next step is the principle share the specifics you have to be specific it has to say mrs smith's class i feel is not getting outside enough because for us to chastise

017the old school when mr jones takes his class down often is not fair to him and that's what i have been telling parents to talk through the teacher and then if necessary approach the principle um that there is an issue but i just want to make sure we were still encouraging them jim just a couple of questions regarding the response rate on the survey do you have a number of what the percentage is who responded to the serving and number two of everybody who would be eligible what is the percentage you mentioned 1400 what percentage does that encompass within the total amount who would be eligible so that survey was sent to um families of all k sixth graders and the reason i would have a hard time answering is we did not require response

018if you if you didn't want it if you if you already had it somewhere or if you were not interested in it we didn't say please answer no so i don't know about response rate necessarily we could divide 1400 over the total um six population but that really wouldn't get to rate because there's a number of people who would answer no if we would acquire it fourteen hundred in grades k to six a little math on that but percentage-wise this will be pretty high i believe we have about 2400 kids um k-6 yep that's correct again some some might not want it at all some might uh run to their pharmacy the very first available option so i don't think we can conclude anything from 1400 other than it's pretty big number in absolute terms

019other questions or comments for jim well jim thanks for that update sounds like some good development's happening i'm also intrigued about the whole test estate protocol i think that'll be good to have that kind of nail down and formalize because that'll help again like you said reduce the number and uh kids in quarantine or isolation and if they are then potentially the number of days that they have to do so all right so moving on to the assistant superintendent report uh let's go to many way good evening thank you i have two um informational items um both of which have a brief presentation so i'll start with um sharing with you the ways in which our schools have honored hispanic heritage month which is from september 15 to october 15th it's a wonderful time to

020give special recognition to many contributions with roots in hispanic and latinx heritage so we'll just go through our schools bluebell elementary and some of our bluebell classrooms they spent time exploring hispanic artists listening to hispanic spanish music children's books that featured hispanic authors and hispanic characters some of the students shared their personal family traditions as well that were related to their cultures and they gave a whole list of books that they enjoyed in their in their school including one that i'll highlight sonia sotomayor a judge bros in the bronx lord gwyneth elementary school they pulled again lots of books you'll notice the theme throughout this uh presentation they pulled many books that displayed and displayed the literature to feature hispanic people and books about hispanic cultures and so there's a picture there of what the

021librarian told each week during morning announcements an influential hispanic american was featured with information about the person's life and contributions to the united states and there are just a few of those individuals along the side there at the classroom level teachers use many different resources and a variety of activities to engage students including research projects for our older students at shady grove shadybro featured projects displays and library materials again the image on the left is one of the culminating projects from one of their from their fifth grade classes and the image on the right is featuring influential hispanic people from 19 different countries and that's displayed in the hallway you can see one of the teachers there um having engaging the students lastly their school library featured texts again written by hispanic authors and stories

022that featured hispanic characters in both fiction and fanfiction stoney creek um fourth and fifth graders did research projects and presentations you see them there their projector second graders learned spanish greetings and third graders learned taino petr petroglyph necklaces they created to honor indigenous people of puerto rico at the middle school i received a list of many many activities across various content areas so they're listed there but in the visuals you'll see that the the top two images shows the middle school atrium display case with banners of influential hispanic people in history and present day and the bottom is an image of an activity where students learned about mexican folk art there were lots of different activities throughout all of these departments that are listed on this on the slide here and at the high school

023level um students in the high school casa club that's celebrating all students achievements they had a festive celebration for hispanic heritage month including student presentations on the contributions of hispanic and latinx americans as well as food and the pinata trojan times covered the casa event recognizing the kickoff of national hispanic heritage month and it was also discussed across many classes including journalism the social studies department explored activities in history across all of the grades including virtual tours and videos as well as rich discussions to evaluate historical perspectives and current date issues regarding hispanic and latinx people our department explored the impact of the growing latinx population in the united states project lit selected the text i am not your perfect mexican daughter as their first book of the year recognition of national hispanic heritage month

024i have the book it is a great pick so if you're looking for a book there you go and finally there were some highlights on social media for with bedtime stories here's two um the one on the left is miss kazaya latour our district's first um director of equity and cultural responsiveness she was a special guest reader and um the one on the right shows a story that we reposted from an earlier recording from 2019 and honors national hispanic heritage month where shady gross school counselor miss triford read with the student mindy so thank you for [Music] is there any that on that presentation i'll transition to the next anyway um that's all sounds great i was just curious that the month is from like the 15th of september to october 15th it's kind of

025kind of unusual just curious yes it there is some history as to why that is um i believe in some of the um hispanic countries september 15th is the launching date because of the independence and i don't want to speak at length about it because that's not a part of my presentation and i want to show my limited knowledge of it but we did do some research around that and i know that the conversation in the classrooms included why those dates specifically and i recall learning as i visited classrooms that the 15th of september is significant in many many um many of the countries great thanks thank you for your question all right i'll transition now to my next presentation my next informational item the board asked for me to bring this topic as a

026point of discussion for the board for this evening so i have here um some information about how we're providing support to students who quarantine and then of course i'm happy for questions and and ideas and suggestions as we move forward so we'll take a look first at um our data this is the snapshot data you may be familiar with um it's showing across october 1st 8th 15th and 22nd so those are the snapshot dates i pulled out the data for students specifically snapshot data typically has students column a and staff column but of course we're focusing on supporting our students when they're quarantined so i pulled out the student data and you can see october 1st across those that we had 70 total students at that time and as we move through the numbers have

027been around that 22 23 24. so we're very pleased to see a significant decrease in the number of students um who are out and of course that total number includes students who are required to quarantine and students who are required to isolate um and we know the difference between the two with students who are required to isolate um are are identified as positive and so to the extent that they might be engaging in any instruction may be limited um because they're not well and we want students who are not well to to the resting and so focusing on the students who are quarantining all right um and we wanted to just highlight the adjustments that were made for our lunch plan of course that helped to significantly reduce the number of students who are required

028to quarantine and then coming soon dr chris phil mentioned the conversation around test to stay and the fact that vaccinations will be um for students who are under 12 years old they'll be eligible to be vaccinated and so we anticipate to have this number to continue to reduce in terms of the number of students who will be required to quarantine and of course these numbers are k-12 across the district okay so our model includes as we know asynchronous assignments and supplemental resources we ask teachers to focus only on essential content and of course to be flexible with deadlines and tests that's a question that we frequently are asked and by by families are they are going to get an extension on any test dates and the answer is yes we ask teachers to be flexible

029and to work with students i mean so these are the platforms that are used across k-12 and then we know that there's conversation about what is available in terms of synchronous support and so for synchronous support we have made sure to first and foremost think about the social emotional and mental health needs of our students this year we certainly have recognized across k-12 for students and staff that this is an area that we need to provide more attention to and so one of the first things we thought about as you know is what are we providing for our students in terms of their wellness around social and emotional and mental health and so students when they are required to quarantine they still have access to our ultrascape mental health services which all students have access

030to and and of course we have the teacher and counselor check-ins with students we've talked about that and those check-ins vary in terms of amount of time you know some students require less check-in time some students require longer check-in times we need that to be between the teacher and the students to decide what that student needs but we also make sure that teachers and counselors are connecting students with any academic support that they may need help with and so our next slide will show the synchronous academic supports that are available and so where we have in place as we've talked about before opportunities for tutoring for the elementary schools we're working on um partnering with the high school for high school students for um providing tutoring for our elementary students and of course that be

031virtual while they're out and then at the middle school level we have homework club and the stars tutoring program and then at the high school the math lab and writing lab i know carly mentioned earlier that is available for students who are required to quarantine because they can access that virtually as well okay all right so those are the synchronous opportunities that we currently have in place for our students and i know there's been lots of discussion questions um so we'll certainly open the floor thank you hi um so i do have one question on that last slide it says for the elementary schools that we're exploring having the high school students and tutors but what are we doing other than that so we have um what as issues have arisen so so far we

032don't have the high school tutors in place right now um but as students have expressed a need they've really managed it at the school level with connecting with their teachers and working out whatever their needs are we would like to provide some systematized way to connect them and that's why we're working with high school actually talked to dr blair and she's already alerted the um the advisors of some of those clubs of students who to see if we can make a match and so as students express need or families reach out to teachers and counselors we'll connect them with those high school tutors thank you doctor one i'd like to return to the question i've asked the last couple meetings which is can we look into some sort of synchronous look-in for the students who

033are at home for an extended period of time um from our last conversation i got the impression we're going to be looking into that i don't see anything on this presentation i'd like to know where we are on that there's a lot of questions that we get about allowing children an opportunity to log into class not necessarily having an interactive opportunity but at least if they're home alone learning an opportunity to log into the class and watch their teachers watch their lessons can we look into that thank you for that so we have had some conversations about that and we have looked into it and having conversations with teachers and considering what that experience might be like we have concerns for what the experience would be in terms of the quality of turning on a

034laptop and just facing it for students who are not in the classroom to see or hear the quality of that experience would not be very good um or it would require the teacher to stay right in front of the laptop in order for the students to see and hear so we in terms of logistics of it we are finding some challenges unless we want to you know further explore that and we could certainly do that in terms of equipping classrooms with various technologies to be able to do it successfully i think that was my point last time i'd like to see an exploration whether we're able to do it or not i think we at least owe it to those students to explore the possibility well we know it's not ideal well we know it's

035not what we would like to see them do optimally the opportunity to at least engage whether the teacher walks around and they can still hear them or or see them uh i think at least gives them an opportunity to not be home alone without any interaction however many days they may be and again we're gonna we're in a different time now um so even though in years past we may have said well somebody had a broken bone or a pneumonia or other you know reasons that kept them out over time we've seen that over the last year and a half these things are possible we can do these things why not implement them over the long term if we can create while may not be optimal an opportunity for kids to get at least some

036interaction with their students uh teachers in the classroom so i'd like to see that and i would agree dr juan as a parent i think it would be very challenging to have my child at home and learning completely asynchronous and thinking about just the spring of 2020 how challenging that was but at least we have a teacher on the screen teaching the lesson now we're once never removed from that and we don't even have the benefit of having a teacher teach the lesson now i as a working parent have to find time to teach my children the lesson i would really like to see even if at a minimum for now we had voice recorders so that the student needed to listen to the material to understand what they needed to do and that would

037at least be something at a minimum we could do right now um it would be helpful to our students and parents another way to look at it is um something is better than nothing right so even if it's not optimal even if it's not the going to be the best experience for them it will be something more than what they would have had so even if they can i'm not saying that the teacher should sit there in front of the computer i don't think anybody is saying that but if the students are allowed to log in and just listen to what's happening maybe their focus is on the whiteboard so whatever's up on the whiteboard they get to see um and then parents just have to know that this is better than having nothing at

038least you can hear the teacher sometimes you know when you're reading something you don't get it but if somebody's explaining it and you're looking at it then you're like all right that makes sense i don't know it's just something like i said it's just something is better than nothing so um i i have to interject here we've sort of gone back and forth on this topic multiple at multiple board meetings and i think moneyway is trying to be polite but in essence her and the administration have looked into it and it's the feasibility is not the issue what she's trying to say very politely is that they don't recommend doing it because they don't believe it's a good option and so i think that's that's essentially what i heard again so it's they've looked into

039it and they're telling you that they don't recommend doing it um the second thing is that um tracy you said it's better than nothing but that implies that otherwise they get nothing but i think whenever trying to demonstrate that they do get something and i'm just talking about it i'm talking about synchronous learning instead of asynchronous learning yes they're getting asynchronous learning which is very helpful right to be able to read and to know and to keep on track with the rest of your class but to get just a little bit of i wouldn't even call it synchronous learning because they're not going back and forth that's something more than just reading i have an idea what is true we don't we don't think that this is a a viable or we don't think this

040will be um a good learning experience and it would take away from this classroom however what if we pilot it somewhere part of the challenge here too is we have 12 students in quarantine so that would probably be like one in a grade level on average maybe possibly more in the younger grades across four schools so we'll find some classroom where a student has to quarantine and we're or maybe even not just for the pilot and we'll take a look at what it would look like sitting at home either voice recording and or video maybe the smart board whatever um this is this will be something the teachers would need to do they need to coordinate they need to figure out who's in quarantine they need to turn on their no to turn it on

041or not is johnny out because he's isolating or is he out because he's quarantining we have to figure that out we can do that we can just see what i would also recommend is that for the dozen or i think it was like two dozen students that are currently quarantining 12 um for 12 okay 12 students that are currently quarantining ask them if if they believe this would be helpful and appreciate it or i can get their feedback um i think a lot of us who've been talking about it haven't actually had any kids warranty so we have we have a market a test market that we can get direct feedback from and get their thoughts on it or even try it with them right we can we can you know we can look into

042it further we we have had discussions with teachers we can't figure out a way where we can find it to be viable to have it be a good learning tool we are concerned about the other students in the classroom at the same time but it's worth a shot as a pilot i wouldn't want to commit to doing this across the district until we get a sense of if it works well or not uh as far as the uh question about not being able to hear uh a lapel mic might probably be the best meant for uh so the teacher would not have to be pinned in front of the computer and still walk around uh it would include uh it's always brought up the uh whatever's on the whiteboard so that uh the combination of

043what the teacher is saying and then uh of course when the uh the teacher when the classroom breaks up into small groups uh that wouldn't apply at all because you can't have uh have the small group experience when the kid is not in the group but for the uh for the larger group experience that might be a way to uh to try doing it i think we can follow something like you're speaking and see how to see it as i again i don't want to jump into this full scale without really having some sense of whether it works or not is it something we can try out this week for a meeting next week we can we can try to to do that i i do want to also share something that is important for

044everyone to understand here that's that um this isn't as easy for teachers as it seems this is definitely not as easy to implement it seems like it should be but teachers now have many more things on their plate every day than they normally do so this would be adding something we can do it we can try it and we will find a teacher volunteer who thinks that you know it'll be viable solution i i don't want to commit to any time frames because we need to have these conversations with teachers without their input we're just adding another thing to their plate now i think that's a recipe for more failure than if we do it in a measured fashion so does someone else have their mic under so i appreciate all this feedback and all

045the thought and all the rigor the one thing that i did want to also have the question about is okay now what what's our catch-up strategy for that child and how do we kind of get them to where that child needs to be hopes this experience is something that we should also be looking at so it's not just the moment in time of that child being out but moving forward as well thank you other questions or comments from anyone or jim i'd just like to say i do appreciate the opportunity to at least as you said pilot this instead of coming in and just simply saying we don't think it's gonna work we don't know how it's gonna work it may not be feasible let's look into it first if it doesn't work we'll know

046but if we at least look into it we're gonna appoint technology we should be able to at least look at these things from that perspective i appreciate it okay anything else no thank you all right thank you so we're moving on to the board solicitor report jeff i have no report okay great board secretary report wait uh thank you there's no informational items there's uh three items that will present next week for approval the facilities transportation committee the work session and the regular public board meeting uh they'll present them for the next meeting for approval all right um board treasurer report wait thank you there's no informational item and at the next meeting we'll be presenting the uh september 30th uh treasurer's report which should be 11-1 thank you any questions or comments for wade

047on those two items for reports okay uh jim i know that danielle's not here this evening so for the director of human resources report we drew straws dr dewan wins okay anyway back to you thank you there's one informational item um document 12 1a will reflect the sds staff guest teacher list for the 21 22 school year that's something that is annually uh presented to the board looking at the action items for which we will be seeking approval next week item one is again a typical annual sort of item where there's a list of resignations retirements terminations appointments etc um as well as appointments for extracurricular items that's document 12-1 item two is um we'll be seeking approval of additions to a volunteer list again this is pretty typical that's document 12-2 item three is

048approval of a new addition to substitute listing for 2122 school year that's document 12-3 and item 4 will be seeking approval of a teacher assistant on special assignment agreement um between the wea and that's michigan school district that's per document 12-4 that's a unique situation where we have an instructional aide who's a certified teacher whom for whom we'll be seeking to assign as a as a classroom instructor for an interim period i'm hopeful that you don't have any questions at this time we do have a blue sheet item there's a blue sheet item um 12b5 thank you that's approval of the sts addendum agreement for a high school hall monitor that's to support our high school uh transitions and students as they're moving throughout the building so we'll be seeking approval for that that's item

04912-5 and that's for the remainder of this school year any questions that i may or may not be able to answer but my colleagues here i'm sure a teacher or i'm not understanding this call monitor one sure we we have uh the need for for people to be um in the halls not as security guards but as all monitors see who's coming going the the greatest time for this need for this is enter a rival dismissal his eyes on the doors and rather than have a security guard per se which has a whole lot of other training requirements this would just be adults who can monitor things jim is the purpose for that uh safety reasons or is there uh an alternative reason um yes in a broad sense paul it's uh it's it's an

050awareness of what's happening maybe eyes and ears in the building we wouldn't expect these people to do anything should the an emergency arise but they would communicate and have we'd have team on the scene quicker than if we didn't have eyes uh i don't know if that's been determined yet it does need to be a rival dismissal and it would probably be the same hours as a substitute aid and they're during the middle of the day clutch has some uh egress concerns too coming going so i would say probably seven yes any other questions okay um thank you for that that takes us to the communications committee report stuffy the first numbers here that we see is on campus in person positive the current period which is october 11th through the 22nd the next slide

051shows off campus put positive cases and so these were not on campus within the 24 hour period and here we see a total of nine um um here we're looking at what our counts are for quarantine versus isolation by building and the orange or the dark darker color on your left is our current snapshots what's happening as of october see that we've had 27 in total that were either quarantined or isolating and of those 27 staff members the remainder was students that is also broken out by quarantine and isolation by building which is our october 1st snapshot and i'm so happy to see this there's been a significant difference in our numbers and as a reminder to reverse so all that my recollection was that um i think we had a board meeting around near

052october 1st and we were looking at the numbers and they were they seemed you know pretty high and so i think as a board we were concerned where the trend was going to go at the time jim i think you were talking about changing some of the protocols of how we do lunch at the middle school in particular i believe in maybe elementary schools as well which we were hoping would decrease the numbers of students that would need to point you know isolate going forward um and the good news is that we have a dramatically lower number as of the end of last week um how much of that do you attribute just to the to the lunch thing or what else is going on or might be happening yeah most of those if you

053look at those two numbers the the the earlier october first one had 18 students at blue belt and by getting that just that school alone lunch period up to six feet which means that there's many fewer students to quarantine and you can see they're down to zero i think that's a real test testament to that stat this the leadership and the staff of blue belt and then the others the other schools uh middle school has one student currently in quarantine and one student at the high school or yeah and now i don't know if that's lunch that not necessarily lunch but the difference there is the students who choose to be vaccinated don't have to quarantine so um i don't know if there's a statistical difference or when it has four next week it could

054be two who knows but the numbers are appreciably lower than they were and i think that's a large part to the lunch distancing as much as anything else yeah i mean certainly a huge improvement and encouraging to see the numbers the way they are um zephy is are all these data tables i think a lot of this information is available on the district's website right okay is that right yeah yeah they're all on the 19 tab so and that's updated i don't know how often weekly um positive uh case counts are updated daily and then the snapshot is updated once a week every friday great yeah i know there's a lot of people who are interested in overall trends and data um and i'm glad that we make it available easily available in a dashboard

055for the general public to see as well so great other questions for uh katie or zeppy god i have no other items thank you very much thank you the curriculum and technology committee report i know ronnie's absent tonight so when yay where are we going back to you again yes thank you we have no informational items and six action items for which we'll be seeking board approval next week um item one is um receiving the excuse me um a list of the 355 grad students who received the mistaken diplomas so we'll be requesting board approval of that list of graduates for 2021. item two we're requesting approval of an agreement with gomo educational services for professional development training in the area of restorative practices for the 21-22 school year and 22-23 school year at the

056racial equity oversight committee meeting last week our admin team shared some disciplined student data which unfortunately reflected the racial disparities in student data discipline that we see across the nation so we're seeking to take some intentional steps to provide restorative practices training for administrators and staff and we look forward to working with gomo educational services to facilitate this training which is designed to build staff and administrators capacity and social emotional learning habits fostering reflection and approaching discipline in a different way to help students resolve conflict and resolve harm in most districts turning into like an informational item i apologize but in most districts um student discipline is typically punitive and the punishment oftentimes pulls students is exclusionary and pulls students away from school and so we're looking to um to make some changes in that

057regard not to remove those suspensions completely but to find alternative ways to discipline students and so um this sort of practices training is going to help benefit all students and increase positive school climate in schools i just wanted to provide the board with some background on that item three we're requesting acceptance of a way off donation of five thousand dollars from lockheed martin item four um we're requesting ratification of a 21 uh 2021 esy contract with lakeside for a student item five we're requesting approval of an outplay student tuition contract again with lakeside for a secondary student with uh significant needs requiring mobile support therapy and item six uh we're requesting approval for an increase to the mciu cost plan for the 21 22 school year the board previously approved the 2122 mciu cost plan

058in may of 2020 for 182 000 plus dollars the new service plan um would be an additional 159 plus thousand dollars and this is uh this increases due to the services that we are needing to provide for students who are in the wva program who require special education services they receive their related services um through that wva program with the mciu as well as two students who are in the virtual autistic support program and so that's what the increase in cost is any questions two comments um first and then a question first i just wanted to congratulate the 355 students that graduated last year big round of applause for them because they went through a year um that was very different than any other student um other than probably the class of 2020. um and

059then i did have one comment i just wanted to make sure that we're very clear um with the restorative and punitive uh that we are not getting rid of punitive for certain um infractions um that that is still there we don't want the parents to think that you know no matter what you do there will be no punitive punishment there there will be for certain things but we're trying to you know take it a little differently for some of the other items and then i had a parent ask me just today they wanted to know if the sro if we were doing away with the sro i said not that i know of but i was bringing them here tonight so i just wanted to make sure that is definitely not okay i i thought

060so but i just wanted to make sure all right thank you um when you have a question on uh item six this actually might be more for wade is that uh based on what i'm reading and what you said it's that our um the cost for this set of services is about 159 000 higher than we had originally planned for or budgeted so i guess what i'm wondering is what funds are we using to absorb this unexpected increase um so thank you the um in the special education area specifically in the budget there are certain unforeseen items this would be one of them um just like if we had a student that needed to be placed mid-year so there is a certain amount of discretion in the special education budget that is needed every year

061and that would be where we would look um in addition as you uh are probably also aware there are certain funds um that we potentially will be able to use to keep it out of um as an increase essentially so we'll look there first but at the end of the day there will be sufficient budget to allow for this increase great thanks okay i've been uh told that uh it's hard to hear everyone or or just me in particular everyone okay so everyone's speak louder and closer to your microphone any other questions for when you have it regarding any of these other items all right thank you so we're moving on then to the facilities and transportation committee report tracy yes there are no informational items there will be one action item uh and that

062is the approval to award the stoney creek elementary hvac unit ventilator replacement project to the lowest bidder which we have in our attachment asl refrigeration for a base bid amount of 700 and 3 hundred dollars per document fifteen one and that's it okay uh many questions about the action item uh joe i don't have a question about the action item but i did have a follow-up question from our facilities meeting sure i just wanted to follow up i had asked about if we could look into possibly a larger venue for down the road um have we looked into that mean right now i realize we don't have large attention these meetings i do foresee you know possibly in the future depending on the nature of the meeting and we may be in a larger room

063and i certainly want to make sure we keep the zoom components i'm just wondering if we've had an opportunity to look into that um jeffy or katie i just do you wanna um we are still exploring this um we're working through right now some of the logistics of it to understand what the capabilities would be but we're hoping um in the next couple of weeks we'll be able to share some of those insights thanks katie yeah and i think um the last i recall is that there was there was an estimate for potentially outfitting the high school audion or auditorium with um some upgraded audio visual equipment so we could do the board meeting there um it would come with a price tag and i think that's something that you know we as a board

064would just would have to discuss and decide if we wanted to approve that and we could do that once those estimates are nailed down and we could do that at an upcoming meeting okay so that takes us to the finance committee report david thank you joe uh the finance committee has no informational items we have four action items we'll be asking for approval next week that includes approval of the financial reports and a routine approval of list of payments for the month ending september 30. and there are two approvals uh will of agreement to increase the property assessment um and both of those uh well they they result in increased property assessments that's all questions for david okay we're going to the policy committee report marshall thank you joe um tonight i have one informational

065item and it is a summary of the policy committee meeting on october 20th as many people know we are in a multi-year review of the entire district policy from front end to back end including every policy that we have this year we are starting with the 300 series and the summary for that includes um revision of some of those policies related to employment that includes revisions relative to the superintendent and assistant superintendent district staff co-curricular program staff employees in summer school student teachers and interns assignment and transfer of all employee groups as well as reduction of staff relative to all employee groups uh that encompasses the 300 series um those are revisions that we will be presenting for review um in addition to that we also take a look at recommended changes from the psba

066those included multiple uh provisions uh really related to threat assessment they're in the 200 and 800 series they are relative to weapons defenses a threat assessment team hazing bullying emergency preparedness and response and as well as the school security personnel including the sro that tracy brought up so those were also reviewed for uh recommended changes and then we also took a look at recommended revisions um several of them zero zero six zero six point one and nine zero three relative to board meetings including um how they will take place moving forward in both hybrid and virtual virtual uh as well as public participation so we reviewed those for revision as well and finally there are a set of uh recommended for deletion uh policies um simply because those that we are uh reviewing and revising

067uh that i've already laid out there is no longer a need for those particular provisions so in order to clean up the system those will be deleted so that is a summary of what we went over at the last policy committee meeting and my action item for tonight is that we will be reviewing um and seeking approval at the next meeting of 17b one through 24 which is an approval of the first reading of most of those provisions as well as the deletion of the provisions i went over as well toward the end so that is a summary of the policy committee report and what we will be seeking next time unless anybody has any questions i have nothing additional to add all right that's quite a handful so i appreciate you and the committee's

068work on that marshall um okay if there are no questions we're going to move on then to the racial equity oversight committee report paul thank you joe uh the racial equity oversight committee met on october 18th uh we had an excellent meeting very well attended we had several topics that we covered during the meeting first of all was a discussion of the upcoming topics that the district is recommending that we cover in our in our ongoing committee meetings um we had some input from the committee members as to things additional they may want to see uh or other items they might want to cover uh and we do have a robust list of items that we will have in upcoming meetings and so that's being formalized as we move forward we also secondly had a

069review draft of a board policy that was is intended to formalize the committee into a long-term standing committee that will be written into board policy and so we had a chance to review the draft as that item is finalized it will be presented to the board and hopefully in order to get board approval to adopt the policy as a formal ongoing committee so that will be forthcoming thirdly we had a district update for the administration we had two main items that was were covered during that topic uh number one was plans for a student well-being survey which is intended to kind of take the pulse of our students within the district understand how they are feeling in terms of their ability to assimilate into classes into the district into our overall community here at whistle-hicken

070and as that continues we tend to get a very good glimpse into how students really feel about their experience and then from that we'll be able to have action items to move that forward in order to ensure that our district is warm welcoming and encouraging for all in order for them to be able to thrive here within our district the second part that we discussed under that topic of district updates was the plan to fulfill to fill vacancies that have occurred on the board due to one person's time commitment in their uh secondary educational roles in college uh which is precluding them from being able to continue on the board and to others who had to actually roll off one uh left the district and the other had other commitments as well so we talked

071about the plan to fill those vacancies and lastly uh we got an update on uh the racial disparities in student discipline that many way referenced uh earlier under communications the survey is ongoing on behalf of the administration uh as she alluded to but we look forward to getting more details as that moves forward as well as again getting a plan of action to really write some of the course of action that has occurred not only in our district but in districts across the country when it comes to discipline and disparities on how students get treated under the current and past systems joe do you did you have anything uh else to add social um a couple comments the educational equity policy um once once ago it goes through some it's gone through some discussion in

072this committee but we expect hopefully to put it into the queue for marshall the next policy committee or batch of policies that the policy committee will review so to go into that cycle uh upcoming that's number one number two is um we we spent the majority of time i think in that meeting talking about the district's uh data around student discipline so this is information on the number of disciplines disciplinary incidents i mean students that are cited for some kind of disciplinary reason as well as then the i guess responses or punishments uh as a result of those incidents and the data that we saw was was glaring and um i guess maybe in some respects not surprising because it mirrors trends across the entire country of wide disparities of uh who gets disciplined and

073who gets what response to the same disciplinary event the bottom line is that again like districts across the country in our district district is just as prevalent black and brown students get cited for discipline at disproportionately high rates and tend to receive harsher responses um for those incidents than their white and asian peers um and again it's seeing it in the hard numbers um was you know a bit glaring but i think it's important because that that is a call to action for us as a district to figure out how we can improve that um one of the things that we need to mention earlier with respect to restorative practices is that that's one piece of the puzzle that we hope over time will improve the disparities in student discipline that that we've seen um

074and have been in place for for many years here at westerhicken so uh that's the i guess sort of the cornerstone of what we talked about at the last meeting and more information to come on that as we move forward any questions or comments for paul okay thank you that takes us to the report of board representatives extracurricular tracy nothing right now amy mciu board of directors we don't have a meeting now until november 17th okay great and ron anything for the mciu legislative committee uh yes uh there are um some um uh the general uh there's a uh a bill uh being produced now where the uh it seems to be a stalking horse for uh a way of uh attacking the uh the supposed critical race theory being taught in schools uh the

075idea of all the curriculum being posted online and it seems to be a way of of saying uh aha we gotcha even if it doesn't exist uh there is also a uh some work being done with the charter regulations to make them more transparent for two bills one uh more effective than the other but then neither really gets to the heart of the problem and that is how uh cyber charters most especially are are getting are charging uh their home schools far more than it's costing them and that that is a fight that goes on and on that's it thank you thank you uh north vonco technical career center ronnie's not here so david any uh anything to report thanks joe uh the joint operating committee met last monday they conducted routine business and i

076think the highlight of the evening was acceptance of the audit for last year's fiscal year ended this past june they got a another clean audit and things are looking good the fund balance is up they've started a capital reserve uh project there our fund and that's all thank you psba zephy okay that then takes us to the second public comment period where we'll hear comments on any school related topic again we're going to alternate in person speakers with speakers on zoom and you'll have up to three minutes to speak and we'll have a timer on screen to show your remaining time when you're called to speak please be sure to state your name municipality residence and topic again it's the board's practice not to engage in back and forth dialogue with features all right we

077have several people who've registered in person i'll go to the first one and i have paula blata okay so we'll come back to her the second one is maureen bogut not pretty i apologize it should be 10. this i speak today to some materials in the library and i apologize for the graphicness of some of the pictures i'm showing you i want you to look at those packets open them up now because this is a book that i found fully displayed in high school and to my horror there are extremely graphic pictures if you look at the packet are any of you looking at the packet i don't see anybody looking at the packet well i then have to unfortunately talk about what's in the packet there are graphic descriptions of um and i hate

078to say this acts of oral sex anal sex masturbation and extremely graphic descriptions of of these acts in the book and this is front and center and our high school and this is the book genderqueer and this is just on display it's not even in a section that is you know off to one area where people have to sign it out have parent permission this this is pornography i want everybody look at this it's right in front of your face like so i called the high school i was very upset obviously like this is what what is this i don't understand what this is this is not education this is not literature this is a graphic novel they can't even hardly write a sentence it's so pathetically written but anyways to that knowledge i spoke

079to um i emailed our high school and i was initially thinking they would absolutely respond say this is horrible i did explain the nature of what was in these books i wanted to go through the proper channels i didn't want to just you know make a big deal but i wanted to go through the proper channels i spoke to the high school i expected some response and they did respond but it was took some days to finally get back to me saying well you have to fill up some paperwork so there's a protocol to go through for i guess school board policy 144. so for a parental or citizen complaint so i did fill out the paperwork and it is in now for review and there's apparently a committee but what's horrifying to me is

080that obviously somebody had to review this book to improve it there are policy in your own policy there's different criteria for having these things be in a school library well someone know this is there the librarian must know this is there i don't know how it fits any of the criteria that is listed in your board policy there's about six of them i can tell them another time but this doesn't fit it i i come to you today because i don't think we need to wait to have a committee review this i think i'm asking you as the board to review this pull it from ourselves this is unacceptable to any parent that would see this event any parent with normal decency i want it off the shelves and i'm asking you guys if i

081come here tonight superintendent directly review this please i don't need a committee to tell me this is disgusting material thank you katie do we have any speakers on zoom we have two so first up is hello this is beth can you hear me yes great thanks my name is beth burlinger and i am a resident in blue bell my comments this evening are about division in our wissa hicken school district community social media proliferation brings a type of communication that we'd probably not participate to participate in if we saw each other face to face a keyboard warrior can be someone who behaves in an inflammatory manner in a discussion forum another explanation is that a keyboard warrior is someone who posts angry messages or likes to get into arguments on the internet misinformation is defined

082as false or inaccurate information especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive in our community on unofficial local school district community pages we have seen an intersection of keyboard warriors and misinformation this is alarming to me because of the tone that the behavior behavior sets in our community parents and children including pre-teen and pre-teen students i've seen very targeted comments toward members of this school board just today in regard to this school board meeting there is a comment directing others and i quote if anyone sees a school board director unmasked indoors in a public setting not following their own directives please send pictures these comments and interactions are noticed noticed our children notice not everyone who reads them will comment school board directors and candidates should not be subject to harassment i believe that there

083is a small group of people in our community who are particularly loud in regard to these negative comments perhaps it's time to tone down the divisive remarks and actions there must be a better way to discuss issues that are important to us disagree respectfully and offer possible solutions to those issues without anticipated fallout i support the guidelines to limit attendance to in-person school board meetings not only because covet is still in our community and infections continue to occur but also because of the division in the community there are organized groups who seek opportunities to record videos of school board meetings with altercations or shouting in order to display division this is not acceptable also the last two meetings had attendance numbers in the single digits that doesn't really demand an increase in the number of

084in-person participants the online opportunity participate is adequate thank you for giving me the opportunity to comment i leave you with a question to ask ourselves are the words that we write something that we would be proud to show our children are we are are we okay if our children who look up to us use the same tone and words to others we can all do better thanks again our next speaker is in person and is paul bleda back in the room paulo blade with payne township um i just want to let you know no i really can't because of the fact that nobody can hear you on zoom and i want to make sure i'm heard clearly [Music] sure so i'll just so first of all there is technology where the teachers it's called owl

085it's a thousand dollars you can buy it where the teachers do not have to sit in front of the computer so i don't understand we've been encoded for a year and a half and our technology department have not been current with all that is going on in other districts have been more current these meetings we are all taxpayers so therefore these meetings should be expanded to the entire community it should not be limited including the seniors so at this point your policy 144 the books state supplement interest and enrich the subject matter in the curriculum reflect the extracurricular interest of the students encourage devotion to an appreciation for before informational and recreational reading represent the finest choice available in authority scope illustration and format represent various points of view on opposing sides of a given

086or controversial issue provide for the range of reading abilities and reading skills of students and encourage and develop good literacy tastes so now i'm going to read to you from a book that maureen has just put up for you and for the everyone that's listening this is rated x and i did not know the dewey disciplinal system has a porn section i got a new strap-on harness today i can't wait to put it on it will fit my favorite dildo perfectly you are going to look so hot i can't wait to have your in my mouth i'm going to give you the of your life holy then i want you inside of me this is the most turned on i've ever been in my life i am dying why is it these books only show

087front and center at the high school there are also books like this at the middle school so i suggest you fire the librarian or you research all of this and pull them all off the shelf thank you okay gonna go to our next speaker on zoom please yes it's kara finn hi can you hear me yes hi my name is cara finn i live in lower gwened um i have two comments or sorry i have comments on two separate topics coveted safety measures and school library books first of all i would like to thank the school board for supporting extensive coveted safety measures including masking alissa hicken there have been two separate instances of a child with coveted in my daughter's classroom that were way too far apart to have been in classroom spread in

088both cases my daughter did not catch covet given that she is in kindergarten and enjoys playing closely with other children i credit her health to the safety measures in place i also want to tell you how helpful it's been to my family that you have been notifying entire classrooms of cases and you ever we are a rare school district to do this um even those not considered close contact my father is immuno compromised and in both instances we knew to avoid seeing him until we had a negative test done five days after pause positive can't talk possible exposure on another topic i have heard rumors about an effort to remove books from classroom and school libraries i did not know which books i wanted to note that before i can continue my comment first i

089would like to know if these rumors are accurate about an organized effort being undertaken in regards to book availability beyond the one being spoken about um if they are i was going to quote the school board policy from 144 but it was already read so i'm going to skip quoting it and just skip to what i wanted to note about part of the language that said religious ethnic and cultural that doesn't quite encompass all of the groups included in elisa hickens diversity equity and inclusion effort i would like the board to consider amending the language in in the school board policy 144 to be reflective of the dei effort while ethnicity is mentioned in policy race is not in addition to other groups i notice missing from the policy are those with disabilities and members

090of the lgbtq plus community i would also like the school board to consider transparency around the removal of books from classroom and school libraries that were previously considered to qualify under the school board policy as notifying the school board as to the outcome of a book challenge is part of your policy at minimum consider adding that information into school board meeting notes i believe that everyone would be better off with transparency over rumors thank you for everything that you do for our school community and that's all i got our next speaker is in person and is stephen coleman good evening my name is stephen coleman i live in whit payne township i have four children in the wissa hicken school district and i'm here this evening to join my voice in expressing astonishment over material

091featured in our school libraries material that to any reasonable person would be considered nothing short of pornographic this material is not only made available to for our students in our school libraries but is actually promoted to our students as somehow helpful edifying and educational my 14 year old daughter encouraged to learn more about the lgbtq experience read at least part of a book entitled genderqueer was mortified embarrassed and disturbed by the images and content of this book when she approached the librarian to raise concern over the content of the book she felt shamed she was put on the defensive and told that pornography is in the eye of the beholder my question for the school board is this is this the position of our school district that pornography is in the eye of the beholder

092and if so is there any line is there any line at all that we can expect not to be crossed are there any images that we can have confidence our children will not be exposed to in our public schools in the name of education is any content off-limits for children as young as 14 years old i assure you that if a man was standing outside with the hicken high school handing these images out to our kids he would be arrested and we'd all be relieved but apparently this it's perfectly fine for our librarian to set these books on display for our kids to read and rent a quick amazon search offers the following reviews these are just the first ones that appeared not specially selected this is from carecare not for most audiences purchased it

093and got a disturbing surprise it left images i understood but didn't want to see not recommended returned quickly for refund pen name writes this pornographic children's book horrific so disgusting if you like porn then this you'll like this book stop sexualizing our teens with your pornography their children and children do not need to see these graphic images annie she's to the point she writes wtf is this this book should be burned next one kindle customer no stop indoctrination april writes this not appropriate for children parents beware no stars julie porn for kids question mark absolutely disgusting she says this book is not appropriate for kids only a seriously confused person would write center book shopper mom writes this this is pornography the images and languages in this book have no place on a bookshelf or

094anywhere near children which is the target target audience for this book it shows oral sex homosexual sex etcetera police do not think this is teaching material it is intended for grooming thanks shopper mom but apparently our librarian was a hicken high school knows better my understanding is that it's a school's job to protect children from harm and to create an environment that's most conducive to their growth and thriving both physically and mentally countless studies have shown that exposure to pornography at a young age can do irreparable damage to the development of children's character and future growth in maturity and relationships all this without even mentioning the clear violation of religious and ethical values that many in our community including me and my family hold very dear i would appreciate a response in writing on the

095website to these concerns that outline any steps the board is taking to address this issue and steps you are taking to safeguard our children's consciences thank you hey do we have any other speakers on zoom we have one more on zoom um we have one more speaker in person and that is carrie coleman hi i'm carrie coleman i'm in whitman township i actually just have one quick question to switch topics um i think the language that we use is very important and i would just like to know the answer um of why you've chosen to use the word equity instead of equality in your discussions and in the names of your committees and if you answer that on the website that would be great thank you and that wraps up the speakers for the second

096public comment period so we're moving on now to board comment any comments from my fellow board members joe i had two questions yes sir one i just wanted to follow up with wade um to see if we made any progress with mr murray and the bookside academy sure uh so i uh met with um probably about 12 to 14 brookside uh residents along with two people from emperor yards and the touch-up manager from lower blended and an intensive manager uh excuse me the township engineer and we had discussions trying to formulate a plan going forward and i have a memo on my desk which was typed up but not sent to the board yet as an update and then one more question for you about questions have we had more problems um [Music] i think

097it depends on from when we do have i believe it's one additional cdl driver but we have one drop and um we had potentially two additional cdl drivers that were making inquiry going forward but i would say at this point really no substantial progress other comments joey tonight i understand is tracy's last meeting on the board and i just want to say that when i joined the board tracy was very helpful to me in navigating what it is to be a board member how to become a good board member and how to get through all the things we deal with it's been an honor and privilege to serve with her i wish her well and i thank her and i think the school district should thank her for her service as a school board member

098if you want anyone to deal with mr president uh i'd like to second that uh as well it's been uh eight years uh since tracy and i have been uh before the match and uh i'm sorry i won't see your next uh the next meeting but uh being on the board is uh the second most rewarding experience i've ever had in my professional life that one the one that's uh more rewarding of course when i was teaching for 35 years but being able to uh to work with uh with board members that those that have come and gone and uh we've all had one thing in common and that is the best interest for our students our and our taxpayers in the community at large and uh i know tracy and i have worked hand

099in hand in these uh last eight years and uh i will miss uh tracy and i will miss all of you but uh but you won't get rid of me quite uh quite as quickly because i'll be here next week anyway thank you thank you do i have a uh a comment and a question yeah paul um i would like to echo the comments regarding tracy and also want to wish you well uh as you move forward we appreciate your service and all that you've done for the district um and then secondly i do have a question regarding um the school's policy for following up on uh some of the concerns that we heard tonight about materials within our schools whether it be in the library whether it be in the classroom um is there

100a formal mechanism that we have now where concerns can be raised and then uh maybe that could be explained a little bit for clarification for everyone yeah jim can you uh yeah there is a uh policy as was stated but on this instance i'm going to recommend that we um take out the one provision of the policy there's a provision in the policy that makes a lot of sense it says any book not this one um that is under contest or is being questioned stays in circulation until the committee has a chance to to review i think uh given the nature of this book we're going to pull that last provision have the committee review i think the outcome will be pretty obvious and meanwhile it will not be in circulation while the committee's doing

101its work thank you we we appreciate everyone bringing these books to our attention and we will do that we we need to have a fault we have the policy for a reason and we'll follow it as the policy actually has a quick turnaround time five days and we will meet that in this instance we're going to do whatever the five days just pull it immediately thanks jim for that clarification thank you jeff thanks jeff yeah great um tracy it's been great working with you one other update that i don't know if we talked about um but i know was put into place was the mics i don't know if we publicly gave that up but i thought that was did we share that zapier you referring to the mics for teachers yeah yeah yeah i

102mean um that wasn't you didn't mention that in your report do you want to elaborate a little bit for the meeting here and the public yes thank you and so we did make the purchase we uh surveyed the teachers in all of the schools to see who was interested in the um the microphone amplifiers amplifiers thank you oh thank you the voice amplifiers um and we did place the order and the amplifiers have come in and just have been distributed um to the the teachers uh who have who have requested those so yes thank you thank you for that right i have a comment i'm glad paul brought this up because i was going to bring it up too and i'm glad dr chris field has taken this stance with this book and um you

103know some of the parents were saying that there are other books of this nature so if you want to send titles to those books to the administration to take a look at because obviously this should not be anywhere near our children um i totally agree with that um i did have a little speech a lot very long but i started off going in case you didn't know this will be my last comments well now you all know um i just wanted to start off by saying that it has been a pleasure to serve you um things were very different when i first was elected we've had many struggles just to name a few would be kovid kovid do we build a new high school do we not build a new high school and covet um

104but there are others i'm sure that i couldn't think of um but i'd like to concentrate on the positives uh while i've been here at wissett i was able to witness or be part of many great great things um one of the things that i know i was a part of was the athletic task force that was established and we identified many areas that could use some real freshening up in the district like our logo our uniforms our fields hopefully we'll keep going with that one i've seen a new natatorium and central plant be built in addition to the stony creek modification that we're doing right now and the modifications that we've done to all of our schools really some more than others but we are one of the top districts in the state while

105also having one of the lowest village rates in the county we have many merit scholar students and students that have going on to very prestigious universities and i'm very proud to say that my son and daughter are wishing alumni and i hope that my children are proud of me and my service here and then i did want to say that my hope in moving forward is that we can eventually get back to normalcy and say goodbye to covet i hope that each child in this district each and every child in this district receives an excellent education while having an awesome awesome experience here i found that even though these past eight years have been a huge time commitment i don't know the people at home understand the time commitment that goes into being a board

106member but it's a huge time commitment um it's the it's the biggest time commitment i've had other than of course you know being my mom being a mom but it has been the most rewarding thing other than that that i have done in my life my advice to the future boards is read everything stay informed ask questions and speak your mind no question is a stupid question always be polite and respectful there will be tough times but there will also be times that will make you very proud um my last thing was that i wanted to say that i'm thankful that you elected me twice to be your voice and i know that today and every day that i i've i've been proud to take part of something to make a difference to each and

107every one of your children's lives and i hope that i did a good job any other comments all right student board reps carly and alex if you're still there any uh comments to round out the evening i don't have anything else to say i don't have anything either okay well uh tracy um just as a final note uh i want to thank you for your years of service on the board also for your years of service as a vice president on the board um being a little bit of my uh partner i won't say in crime for my partner in uh in this endeavor for the last several years and uh you will be missed um you did a good job you did a great job for everyone in whistle hicken and your parents your

108kids your family and we all are proud of you thank you all right uh with that can i have a motion to adjourn the meeting so be moved second all those in favor say hi hi meeting adjourned thanks everyone have a good night