SKSD June 16, 2021 Board Meeting

001That's on mic four. He wants us to wait for a second. Matthew does. If you'll just bear with us for a moment, we're coming through an issue with the microphone. So I'm on mute you guys right now because we're gonna be going. I can mute. Yep. Okay. Mr. Miller, are you unmuted? I am unmuted. You're so special. Oh, I forgot to bring my water. Where's the shirt? Sorry. One, two, three, three, two, one, one, two, three, three, two, one, like two. Why don't you try again? One, two, three, three, two, one. Mr. Berg. One, two, three, three, two, one. Good. Are you an alien? Testing one, two, three. Testing one, two, three. No. Anyone using Zoom? No, I'm on. Are you on Zoom? I'm on email and board docs. I wonder if we could even

002pass a mic back and forth. It can be a handheld. One, two, three, three, two, one, one, two, three, three, two, one. Good evening and welcome to the June 16th, 2021 school board meeting of the South Kitsap School District. We appreciate your interest. Attendees will have the opportunity to address the board, whether attending in person or via Zoom. For those attending in person, please complete a yellow card. For those attending via Zoom, pre-registration for public comment was required by noon today. Public comments submitted in writing have been shared with the board. If you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Item 1.02, establish

003agenda. Are there any additions or changes if needed? I would like one. Director Dewey? Can I please remove 5.03, Addendum 2, superintendent's contract and take it to our executive session? Can you say that again, please? Item 5.03, Addendum 2, superintendent's contract and bring it to our executive session for evaluation of superintendent. Okay. Item 5.03, move to 9.8.02 for executive session. Yes, please. Although we wouldn't be able to take final action in the executive session, my proposal was to move it to the next meeting. So we'll have our executive session to evaluate the superintendent. Then we can address the extension of this contract to the next meeting. Director Dewey, is that acceptable? Is there any objection? No. Item 5.03 will be removed from tonight's agenda and added to the meeting for July. Any other? I'd like

004to add a second public comment portion at the end of the meeting before the executive session. Some people may not be able to make it, you know, at five o'clock because it's a work schedule. You're proposing that item 7.02 public comments? Right. Yeah, 7.02 public comments. I have a question about that. Weren't people that were going to make public comment required to register before noon? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. If there is no objection, item 7.02 public comment. Any other changes or if there is no objection, the motion to approve. I've got one other change. We made an addition 4.06 in the consent agenda overnight travel for the South Kitsub High School girls basketball team to attend camp in Spokane. That's been added to the consent agenda, similar to what we did in the last

005meeting with the volleyball team. So what was the proposal? It's on the agenda in board docs. 4.06 was added to the agenda. I just wanted to draw that to our attention. I'd like to discuss 4.03, 4.06 and 4.07 when we get to the consent agenda. If there is no objection, the motion to approve the agenda as amended will be adopted. Hearing none, the agenda stands approved. Item 1.03, staff and student recognition. Superintendent. Thank you. So I have the opportunity tonight to recognize one other retirement here in the South Kitsub school district. This is Becky Jepin, who is retiring from the office of special services. She has served more than 37 years as a speech and language pathologist and 36 of those years in South Kitsub. Thank you so much, Becky, for all you've done for

006our students in our district. And then last Thursday, the South Kitsub High School Athletic Department put on a national college signing day that was done out at the Kitsub Bank Stadium in front of the Rose Garden. And you see a list of students here who were recognized. And here's some photos of signing their letters of intent for athletic participation post high school graduation, all going to different colleges around the country. So another way to celebrate the students in South Kitsub. And that is it. Thank you. Item 1.04, public comment. Public comment is an opportunity to direct comments to the board and is not intended to permit interrogation of the board or its members nor to engage in a dialogue. Any specific questions raised in public comment will be addressed to the chair, the president, who

007will typically refer the question to the superintendent for detailed response to the individual at a later time. The superintendent will then also report the response to the board at a subsequent public meeting. If attending in person, anyone wishing to speak will complete a yellow comment card. They've been forwarded up here to me as we're going on. If attending remotely, the speaker will be moved into the view in Zoom and asked to unmute and start video. Those who have completed a comment card or pre-registered to speak will now be called upon. We have one speaker via Zoom. Ms. Miller, could you bring Amy Maston forward into the Zoom? Each person will be granted up to three minutes of time to comment. Hello. Ms. Maston. Can you guys hear me? Hold on one second. Can you give

008us a short count? One, two, three, three, two, one. One, two, three, three, two, one. Again, please. One, two, three, three, two, one. Much better. Okay. Ms. Maston, you're recognized for three minutes. Thank you. Hello. I would like to address the board tonight in regards to some of the misconceptions about teaching equity, cultural competency, and systemic racism in schools. Because I only have three minutes to speak, I would like to focus on two misconceptions, the idea that white students would be shamed or blamed for the atrocities of the past and that teaching about racial inequities would divide students and cause conflict. I teach a cultural geography class at South Kitsap High School. Over the course of the school year, out of the 190 or so students that I have had in this class, I have

009never had a student blame themselves or their family for what they have learned about the impacts and effects of colonization and conquest around the world. Instead, they see their new knowledge as a path to understanding the people and cultures they currently interact with and may interact with in the future. At the end of the course, I ask the students to reflect on what they have learned by asking them to explain how their perspective or understanding of the world and other cultures has been changed, challenged, reinforced, or deepened as a result of taking my class. Here are some of the responses from my fourth quarter students. I am reading these exactly as my students have written them, so please forgive some of the syntax and grammatical errors. My perspective of the world has been changed because

010I have learned how to better look at cultures and people from multiple different perspectives instead of just one singular perspective. For example, the danger of a single story has taught me that things may not always be as they seem, and looking into those different stories from a different point of view may teach you something you didn't know or consider. I think my perspective changed because now I know more about why people dress or act or worship the way they do, and being in this class really makes me look back at what I have thought about people before, like sometimes I would stereotype before getting to know a person. Well, I was always told that Muslims were dangerous because of what happened on 9-11, but I don't think it's right to judge someone solely off the

011color of their skin or what they wear on their head, and those religions are actually very peaceful. My perspective has changed on cultures in the world because I never understood some people's cultures and why they do the things they do, but now that I have a better understanding of it, it has helped me see them differently and that they are humans too. They just do things differently than I do them. As you can see from these responses, learning about the impact and histories of different races, ethnicities, and cultures leads to a deeper understanding, allows students to see past cultural differences, and make a deeper human connection with others. When students learn about and understand these differences, they're able to transfer this learning to current issues within society. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Ms.

012Mastiff. Now, we have quite a group of comment parts here for in-person comments, so as I call your name, you'll be recognized to come up to the microphone and be recognized for three minutes. Emily Johnson, and the next person will be Jeanne Gerard. Okay, Ms. Johnson, you're recognized for up to three minutes. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you for working with us. My name is Emily Johnson. And one of the things that I think is most important to the education of students is their access to different perspectives. So, I've come before to give a couple resources reference to a little bit of information that I got to learn from an academic teacher that might impact your understanding of diversity, inclusion, and equity in our schools. The first is the user of a single story,

013which I noticed our last public comment person mentioned as well. This is a beautiful type of talk, and I highly recommend anybody to look it up, The Danger of a Single Story by Tamanda Adichie. And this story gives a real connection to how a student might be impacted by only seeing people who look different than themselves in what they are learning and studying. People who are learning something need to be able to see themselves in what they're learning, and they also need to be able to see other people's perspective because we all have a different story. So, the danger of a single story is that students won't have the window to look on the rest of the world or the mirror to see themselves in the education they want to receive. I also want to

014connect to the International Society for Technology and Education student standards, which encourage us to build students who are global collaborators, creative communicators, and empowered learners. These are standards that Washington State has adopted for including technology in education, and I believe that having multiple stories is a very important part of that. Thank you for your time. Okay, thank you, Ms. Johnson. Gene Giroir, and the next person will be Joyce Spice. Thank you. Recognized for up to three minutes, Mr. Giroir. Can I do that? They're allowed to speak. My name is Jordan Cart, and I am a current member of our South Kithap Schools equity team. I am speaking with the hope that by sharing my experience with this community, I can help to provide some context and food for thought as you have conversations about diversity,

015equity, and inclusion tonight. When I first moved here, I walked around my new neighborhood and people were yelling out their car windows the N-word at me. While this was unpleasant and an awful experience, it had little to do with the impact of the outcome of the trajectory of my life, because I have a choice about how I allow these experiences to penetrate my consciousness. However, when I went to go purchase a home in South Kithap, we applied and were approved for multiple types of loans, including a tribal loan, and when we went to make an offer, the realtor of the seller discouraged them from accepting our offer because of the type of loan that it was. There is a perception that because of my ethnicity, I was somehow less reliable or unlikely to follow through

016with my commitment of buying a home. Instead of allowing the bank to her final say on this, others felt entitled to make further judgments. My experience with housing discrimination is an example of what I consider to be part of what we call institutional racism. A person in a position of power and persuasion, the realtor held a bias that directly impacted my life and my family in such a way that it had the potential to limit my life. Where this person is able to purchase a home and live affects the schools their children can attend, their safety, and the length of their commute and their time. The individual realtor's bias had little to no effect on my life except that she was in a position of power that allowed that bias to infiltrate a system. It

017is likely that this bias was held by this person was like all biases. It grew out of the narratives told over time. Narratives that present one perspective and leave out other versions that allow people to see people as human. Biases are likely to exist where there is an absence of multiple perspectives and where they are allowed to persist because systems allow them to. When we talk about making South Pittsburgh School District a more equitable place, we are talking about making sure that we remove any that we. Your time has expired. Okay. She has three more minutes so didn't he give her his three minutes also? He traded his three minutes and gave it to her. And then she has her three. They could speak separately for six minutes, three minutes each but. Does she have

018a card up here also? Say again. Jordan has a card in the stack also. Can she continue now? She can be recognized for up to three minutes but she was. You may not give your time to that person. Joyce and the next person is Tara. Tara. You are recognized for up to three minutes. Okay. My name is Joyce. I live in North Kitsap but this is a very important topic and I wanted to come down. I want to say that calling something, well, like if I know you have seen this before, if I take my cell phone and call it something else like a frog, it doesn't make it a frog. And if you call a racist curriculum anti-racist, it's still racist. I'm speaking against some people call it the critical race theory. Other people

019call it this diversity, equity, and inclusion. But I hope you will not promote this theory that will cause racism in the schools because you're defining people by what race they are. And that's the definition of racism. As a child in school, I felt people trying to promote anti-racism, I suppose. And I don't fault them for it but I felt it was very condescending and embarrassing because they would pair me up with someone else who was Asian thinking that I am unable to relate to someone who's not Asian. They talked a lot about this is what I think Japan is like. Well, first of all, they were completely wrong and they didn't have to do that. They could just be themselves. The danger of one story is that whose story are you going to tell? We

020all have stories and it is true. I'm not saying that racism doesn't exist. Of course it exists. This is not a perfect world. But I don't think that focusing on it and focusing on all the ills of America is the right way to fix racism. Also, this gets into parents' rights. It's the parents' right to shape a child's belief system. And by the school taking it over, they're usurping parents' rights. So I hope you will not support this. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Feast. Tara Lucas and following is Dan Smallwood. Ms. Lucas, you're recognized for up to three minutes. Thank you for the opportunity to speak here tonight. This is clearly a very, very charged emotional topic and there's lots of different viewpoints on it. I am here today as a concerned parent, grandparent and

021taxpayer. Our school board members are elected by the community to serve our students, our future. Trust is earned through transparency and dialogue. As such, CRT, Curriculum Race Theory, and CELS in our schools concerns me. Not calling it CRT does not change the reality. House Bill 5044 has mandated equity, diversity training, and implementation of the SELS in our schools. Yet we have no structured curriculum on CELS nor access to said training. Adults assisting children to understand cultural differences is pretty vague. What does that mean? Or that skin color should be celebrated? Her 5044. Does that include people not of color? MLK said, judging them not by the color of the skin, but by the content of this character. I agree. It was true then. It's true today. The board and superintendent stated in the 6-2 meeting

022that CRT would not be implemented, and Mr. Burke asked how to ensure that in the classroom. No clear answer was given. But it is already happening in our district. Reports of a parent being called a racist for objecting to the portrayal of race in an elementary meeting. In the Shoreline School District, Julie Barrett, a friend of mine, emailed the teacher and principal after his science class, introduced the wheel of power and privilege and a worksheet for students to identify their privilege. Julie stated in part, our children will not be taught guilt and shame for the color of their skin or the family into which they were born. The principal acknowledged teachers were encouraged to incorporate these teachings at their discretion. I stand with Julie and many more stand with us. No child should be shamed

023for the color of their skin. This is the wheel of privilege if anybody would like to see it. It's pretty enlightening. Racism has no place in our schools, has no place in our society. Yet I don't disagree that some of the teachings that are being put forth and some of the bias of our teachers could actually end up shaming or blaming young students especially. So I have a few questions that I know won't be answered for tonight. The first is, when will the South Kitsap School District make this training for district employees and teachers available to the community and parents for us to do as well? When can we expect to be provided the cells curriculum for viewing? And finally, what checks and balances does the board plan on putting into place to ensure that

024biases, whether against people of color or against non-people of color, are kept out of the classroom and that indeed we are just talking about different cultures, different places? The time has expired. Okay, thank you for your time. Okay, thank you, Ms. Lucas. Mr. Dan Smallwood and the next up will be Paula Basanza. I don't think I pronounced it correctly. You'll be following Mr. Smallwood. Mr. Smallwood, you're recognized for up to three minutes. Okay, tonight I'm sad. I can't believe I'm standing here having to jump in on this discussion, but I feel I have to be here to talk about what's obvious. It should be obvious. Unfortunately, it's not. The subject's been implanted around the country and the wording was clever. Many have heard of critical race theory and are unsure what it is. When some

025discovered how harmful and racist it could be in itself, there was pushback. Now the name has changed. A whole new name is diversity, equity, and inclusion. The state legislature pushed through with this bill this year, which is primarily controlled by the Seattle districts. Now diversity, equity, and inclusion, it sounds great. I mean, I'm not going to lie. I think it's great. We all want to be included. We all want to be equal. I support diversity, but it could be as good as treating everyone with love and respect. I could truly get behind that. Teaching kids that were all equal and respect each other is great. However, it could be very divisive as it's been used in some places all around the country. I was researching the subject. I came across different accounts across the country.

026While I was doing this, I found a claimed documentarian, Christopher Ruffo, who did the Seattle is Dying document. From his article, The Truth About Critical Race Theory, critical race theory, training sessions and publications have deeply pushed a deeply ideological agenda that includes reducing people to racial essence, segregating them, and judging them by the group identity rather than their individual merit. Now that's for grown groups and adults. I don't find that productive or fruitful, but it's not for children. Without specific guidelines and boundaries, we'd leave the whole subject wide open to teachers. Teachers vary on their feelings, and unfortunately, there are some we're more than happy to push their versions like the one above. Though most probably wouldn't, once it is done, it can't be undone for these kids. We know the teacher will not receive

027any repercussions, though we've protected it if it falls under the broad guidelines that are provided or not provided. The public should be planning, should see the planned training material for the teachers before we implement anything and see what we're looking at doing and how you plan on watching it. We have to remember these are kids. They should not be taught to judge by race. That is divisive action. It's racist in itself. As Reverend Martin Luther King said, we should not judge by the color of a man's skin by the content of his character. We need to start getting back to this. I believe one of the board members wrote up a resolution to address the subject, and it's not supposed to be addressed publicly, but in the executive session. I've read the proposed resolution. I

028don't see a reason the board should be afraid to discuss this publicly. It's out there and could be shared publicly, so why not discuss it? We can have dialogue as an adult. Excuse me. We should have dialogue as adults, and I don't see any reason we shouldn't be able to do that here. Thank you for your time. Let's work together to help all of our children be the best safe. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Smallwood. Okay, Paula Fasanza, and next up would be Kirsten Otherhue. Okay, Ms. Fasanza, you're recognized for up to three minutes. I've been a teacher in the district for nine years. I took a bit of a leave of absence mainly due to the stress and fiscal motion from trying to be the best for every one of my students under the

029circumstances, like the beast. Okay, that's okay. Can I start my time over? I brought this book I picked up in my classroom today from 1991 written by a kindergarten classroom, and even back then, we're all alike. We're all different. It's a school aspect. It's something that I've used every fall when I work with my students, plus a lot of other curriculums purchased over the over 30 years that I've been here. I don't have any answers for what's going on in our country. I wish I did, but I do know that in my classroom and in the buildings I've been in the district, the educators that you've hired are professionals. They're highly educated. We're not here to damage young minds. We're here to hopefully turn them into productive, responsible adults and help them with that to

030make good choices. That's what we have in our questions that say, you know, be safe, be responsible, be respectful, learn from your mistakes. I'm getting close to retirement and I tell them, hey kids, please treat your education as important because you're going to be taking care of me. I hope when I'm in my eighties and my nineties, if I make it there, how we teach diversity and taking care of each other. It's bigger than a curriculum. It's a societal thing. It's something that we've added on a daily basis. Can I change the world? Probably not. But can I make a difference in how I treat the people in my community? Yes. How I treat people who are hurt. Yes. How I treat your children as if they're my own. And I've just, you know, I've

031seen curriculums coming though. I've seen books coming though. I have to read classics and change the words when I'm reading them to my children because if it says, and they were gay, like in E.B. White, I have to change it to happy. You know, if we could just, I don't know, get off of our, I want just what I want and take a look at who we are. Your time has expired. Thank you. Kirsten Otterby and following will be Jordan Carte. You are recognized for up to three minutes. Thank you. I'm an English teacher here at South. I'm not sure who actually wrote the resolution about teaching critical race theory in schools, but I'm disappointed by the implication that teachers would not provide balanced explanations of the issues that, yes, are inherent in American culture.

032On the resolution about critical race theory, there's a list of items that the board opposes teachers talking about. And I wanted to start first with the letter V. This states that teachers are not allowed to teach as fact, but there is a hierarchy of straight white males at the top. Here are some statistics for you that you might be familiar with. 100% of our presidents have been males. 98% of them white. 98% of our vice presidents have been males. 98% of them right. I'm not exactly sure how these facts alone don't constitute a hierarchy of white males at the top. Now let's move on to letter D. Apparently, quote, those at the top should not be taught to feel guilty for the, quote, sins of their ancestors that gave them their, quote, privilege. First of

033all, if there is no hierarchy, how can there be people at the top? Who are those people supposed to be? I think maybe straight white males. What about these sins? Are we admitting that our ancestors perpetrated horrible things on people who are below them on the non-existent hierarchy? But then that flies in the face of letter C, which says that we can't teach that oppressed groups are not responsible for their conditions. So which is it? Were sins perpetrated or did oppressed groups, which somehow became oppressed in a non-existent hierarchy, create their own situations? Let's not forget that letter D also acknowledges privilege. Apparently, the sins, which I'm assuming is referencing slavery, have actually led to privilege and hierarchy, but we're not allowed to teach that as fact, even though it is basically stated as such

034in these statements. So it seems that there are some huge gaps in logic here. To top it off, we are presented with a group of white people who say they are not at the top of a hierarchy, who want to make rules about what we can and cannot be taught in schools, specifically as it refers to people of color or marginalized groups. It seems to be the very definition of letter A on the list. I'd additionally like to comment on the resolution about the IMC. Mr. Daley's resolution indicates that the IMC is dominated by district personnel. This is not the case. The IMC is made up of six district employees, two carol librarians, and five representatives, one for each school board member. So a change to the IMC seems like an unnecessary power grab as

035the district employees are already outnumbered in folks. Their voices are important and should not be removed from the IMC. Therefore, I urge you to vote against this resolution as well. Jordan Cart and following will be Anita Ross. Ms. Cart, you've already been recognized for three minutes. Essentially what you've been trying to do is to get six minutes assigned to one person, which is not allowed. I asked a board member earlier today and they said I could have my friend read something. An individual may be recognized for up to three minutes. You have been granted that. If the gentleman wishes to speak for three minutes, he may. When we talk about making SKSD more equitable, we are talking about making sure that we have systems and processes in place that limit the amount that any individual's

036bias can limit the likes of individuals who have in the past been marginalized. This includes biases toward BIPOC or black indigenous people of color, differently abled, certain gender identities, religions, et cetera. Individual beliefs and biases, in my opinion, are outside of our sphere of influence as the equity team. We are able to offer education and bring to light new perspectives, but we have no control over what the individuals receiving this information will do with it. It is almost certain that we will not eliminate some individual biases towards or against others. However, we are interested in changing the frameworks for the decision making so that we can decrease the likelihood that these biases will have direct impacts on our students, families, and staff. We are working to make sure that when we make choices and decisions,

037they are made when everyone's voices are invited and considered. During this school year, I've been accused of selecting and using materials that were inappropriate for children. Materials that were referenced were the materials selected by our highly skilled and knowledgeable educators who do copious amounts of research. It was then vetted by administration, the community, and the school board. I carried out my job to the very best of my ability, and I did exactly what I was hired to do. I was accused of shaming individuals for being white. I never for one second held in my heart or mind that intent. It does not characterize my actions. I was adopted, raised by white parents, and brought up in the community, surrounded by wonderful white individuals who showed me nothing but care and kindness. I don't hold any

038of them accountable for limiting my life or opportunities. It is the systems that exist in education, health care, government, business, that have the most power to limit and impact the lives of BIPOC individuals like me. That is what can change if the next generation of students is given more than just one narrative about how events have unfolded in our history. This work, for me, has never been about shaming anyone or manipulating individuals. It is about finding out if we can take away the- Mr. Gerard, your time has expired. Thank you. Thank you. Anita Ross. Following would be Jessie Rude. That's Rose. Rose. Okay. Ms. Rose, you are recognized for up to three minutes. Okay. It's conventionally understood that history gives a group of people, a nation or a state, a sense of identity. For that

039reason, schools commonly require the students be taught a national history. But personally, I wonder if teaching a national history is a good idea. The content of national history textbooks seems to glorify the nation, to explain why we are better than anyone else, and to justify why we should impose our religion, our system of government, and our values on other people in other parts of the world. In this sense, national history is transformed from an honest intellectual understanding of both good and bad accomplishments into dogma and jingoism. I think it's extremely important to teach kids how to really examine history through facts and not to do as a doctor would with someone who had cancer and say, oh, well, since this is uncomfortable, we shouldn't tell you what we really have. When you have a cancer

040in a nation, then we need to say, this is what it is. These are the facts from people, from historians, all through time that's not from non-historians, and finally, to get rid of the cancer. So away from jingoism and away from non-history, and let's try to really go to the facts and not bar kids from learning what real facts are. Thank you, Ms. Rose. I stand here today in opposition to CRT, critical race theory. I cannot even begin to explain how disappointed I am that CRT is up for consideration anywhere in the United States. I'll be the first to admit that society is not perfect. It never has been, and it never will be. We have well over 300 million people in the United States alone, 300 million unique minds. We are not a collective

041or a hive mind. Hence, a perfect society is impossible. That being said, I stand firmly in opposition of CRT because I strongly contest that critical race theory is itself inherently racist and deeply divisive. Discrimination and racism are inherently evil, and it always needs to be spoken out against. However, the impact of colonization is over. We are not living the 16, 17, or 1800s anymore. We do not have cultural disadvantages in our current society. We have one of the, if not the most diverse society in the world. We are a melting pot, a successful experiment made by our founding fathers that built a republic that became the most free and just society in the world. I understand that critical race theory has good intentions behind it. However, in this ridiculous cancel culture, I have no good

042faith in its implementation. We all have the privilege of being Americans, sharing the same equal opportunities afforded to all citizens regardless of the color of their skin. We all share the same dream as one another, that being the American dream, the dream that with hard work and commitment that we can achieve great success in life from any walk of life. Thanks to government interference, the American dream is becoming harder to attain, but that is a radical I would not go down in this discussion. In closing, I just want to say this, abandon the ridiculous critical race theory idea and start teaching the American dream and ways it can be attained. Jesse LaCrosse Lambert followed by Chris Bins. So this is LaCrosse Lambert. You're recognized for up to three minutes. Hi, can everyone hear me? Nice.

043My name is Jesse LaCrosse Lambert. I'm a junior at South Kinsett High School. I'm a regular at board meetings and I would just like to first thank the board for having this open forum, giving us the opportunity to speak from our perspectives. I think one of the most important perspectives is the students. With that in mind, I won't pretend to be an expert on critical race theory or equity training or racism, especially as a white, cisgender, straight, middle-class woman, able-bodied middle-class woman. But I do think it's obvious that inequity and racism and and discrimination exists and is very, very present in our district and the rest of the nation. I think that from my perspective as a student, I have seen it in my classrooms, from my peers, from my administration, from my teachers, and

044that is a white person. Imagine students of color, right? So students from marginalized communities. I'm not being directly harmed by these actions of discrimination, but I'm viewing that. So I think that the question isn't whether or not inequity exists. I think we're all, hopefully we're all on the same page about that. But I think that something definitely needs to be implemented. I think critical race theory is a large misconception that it's meant to judge and make white people feel guilty, but instead it's meant to educate us, educate us on the mistakes, or not mistakes, the atrocities that have been committed in the past. And right, that's why we learn history, so we don't repeat our mistakes. And I think that's something that we need to start including in our curriculum. I've taken a lot of

045history classes. It's my favorite subject currently in AP US history. And there is a large, large gap between what we're learning and what actually happens. It's a lot of sugarcoating. And I think that as a white student, I'm not the best person to speak on this, right? But historians of color have developed this curriculum, and I think it's time especially recognizing the demographic of this room, this district, and this community. We need to start listening to voices of color and to marginalized voices, because we as, you know, people with privilege don't know what it's like. We don't know. So we need to start amplifying these voices. We need to start using the resources that are available. Ms. Lacrosse-Lambert, your time has expired. And I think that we should vote in favor of equity training. Thank

046you. Followed by Sasha Smith. So Mr. Binns, you are recognized for up to three minutes. I'd like to thank the school board for allowing me this opportunity. The school districts by necessity have strong element of local control as they feel diverse community needs, desires, and taxation. It's desirable to maintain, maintain as much control over the manner they train teachers and staff as the needs of parents and children in other places, Seattle, Olympia, and academia may well differ from ours. The board, superintendent, principals, teachers, and valiant staff should be mindful that they are all in leadership positions, have authority, and are being watched and analyzed by observant, intelligent children. We all need to be clear, unambiguous, exhibit integrity, and involved in achieving achievable goals so that not to appear foolish and weaken the children's trust. The

047board's aware of the definition, so I'll just like to give my advice to the teachers in regards to these subjects of diversity. I would have them internalize and remind them that everyone is different, have different challenges and concerns, gifts and blessings, but here at school, you're an individual who needs to have a desire to learn, control themselves, so that the results and consequences of their actions are positive. Not all similarities are good, not all differences are good. Make sure that children understand that. Discussions on that should be by age appropriate, depending on the subject. As for the issue of inclusion, demand that teachers show civility to one another and encourage those with individual needs and backgrounds not to isolate. That's a good example for the children. Demand the same. On cultural competency, make sure everyone

048knows that not all norms, values, and culture are considered equal in this society, and some people will have a greater challenge in assimilating. In the matter of equity, I just talked about fairness, and I just stopped right there, because fairness is so subjective, and I get to decide what that is. Also, the teachers, they want to teach, let them. Principles allow teachers to get control of the classrooms. Children must respect their authority. Mr. Bins, your time is expired. Thank you. And then followed by Courtney Nicholas. You were recognized for up to three minutes. Okay. I live in the district. I have children in the school district. Currently, I'm a home school leader. I do have great concern about what's being taught in the school, so I grew up in California, which is truly melting pot.

049We did not have social media or even internet at that time, and we didn't have all these issues with diversity and equity. My grandparents actually came from Mexico. You can't tell by looking at me. There was never any issues in their life that they felt that they were disadvantaged or oppressed. They worked hard. They were successful. They were families, and I'm very proud of them. I am opposed to CRT being taught in schools. Critical theory has been used by communist regimes to divide and demoralize the population. I believe it is a cancer, not a cure. It takes old wounds, opens them, rubs salt in them, and never lets them heal. We do not need to revive and live in the past. This ideology is reviving racism and impartiality, not fixing it. My grandfather once marched

050with Martin Luther King, and I believe, as he did, that we must judge people not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character, as a few others have mentioned. I teach that to my children, and they do not view people based on their skin color. If you view everything through a lens of racism, you will find it. Racism is not inherent. It is taught. CRT teaches kids to view skin color before anything else. The device in the classes of oppressor and oppressor based on their immutable characteristics. Children around them, to theirs is burdened, will have guilt, fear, and resentment. They have no choice in the color of their skin. They have no choice in their ethnic background. I am not at all opposed to studying other cultures and viewpoints, but

051diversity, equity, and inclusion actually teaches ethnic partiality and teaches kids who are white, but they are responsible for the ills of society and the sins of their ancestors. It teaches them that they are either privileged or unable to succeed based on their race. Everyone is given the same opportunity to succeed in America. We can learn from our history and our past mistakes, but our children do not need to pay the price for those mistakes. Ms. Nichols, you are recognized for up to three minutes. Hi, my name is Courtney Nichols. I'm a teacher in South Pixar, and I am going to finish reading Jordan's comment. So this work for me has never been about shaming anyone or manipulating individuals. It is about finding out if we can take away the limits that we sometimes place on

052certain humans by sharing more than just one voice or one perspective. Understanding the impact that institutions and systems have on us is an essential first step in making South Pixar equitable for all. We are doing this work because all of our community members, children, and adults deserve opportunities without limits. And then to add my own comment, I feel that it is extremely important that I do that work as a white educator to teach my students to be accepting, loving citizens. And I think that's it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Ms. Nichols. Followed by Kimberly McMorris. So Mr. Parker, you are recognized for up to three minutes. Good evening, school board. My name is Michael Parker, and I come before you as the grandfather of one of your students. And I'm a little bit shocked that

053we're even having to talk about purple race theory. I've done a lot of studying on it. It's a poison pill for our kids. And I can tell you that if you allow one level of opportunity higher than you allow my granddaughter, it won't be in me. Because what they're attempting to do here is to segregate people out by their race, create equity. And when you look at equity, let's talk about fairness in no two minds are the same. Some are going to succeed more than others. It doesn't mean that we dumb down society to slow it down to the lowest denominator. I'm not calling anybody dumb. What I'm saying is, we should boost each of our students up. If some need extra training, okay, I'm good with that, but not because of the race. And

054that's what we're really talking about is a race issue. And we should not be segregated by race. And I'm not sure if all of you really read up that much on CRT here, but Montana's attorney general has just called that unconstitutional against the 14th Amendment and against the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Currently, there's a court request from one of our senators to get a same determination of my attorney general in this state. I would say if you are to not pass this resolution and do the right thing, then you at least put a moratorium in place until we get a full attorney general's opinion. Because this school district, if they start segregating by race and using all this CRT garbage, it's based, when you look at the history of it, on Marxism. We don't

055have that in this country. I spent a lot of time in the military to ensure that we don't have that in this country. It's insulting that I have to come here to this microphone to defend our great nation, which other people I've heard tonight say it's not a great nation. No, we are the greatest nation on this planet. And no one should be recognized as anything less than that. Thank you, Robert Parker. Okay, thank you, Mr. Parker. Emily McMorris, followed by Judy Arbogast. Ms. McMorris will recognize for up to three minutes. Okay, I hope that I'm allowed to speak because I did send in a letter about the IMC. So I don't want to double dip, but I'm going to if that's okay. We have a great country. I am proud of my country. But

056to say we are not a racist country is ignorant. We have done things in our past, and I'm not talking about before I was born past that have been unfair. And five years ago, I married a wonderful man. He's black. He has been a basketball coach in our community. And I have seen firsthand the way he and his children are treated differently in our community. I don't think it's a white, black issue. Whites are not bad, blacks are not bad, but we have been racist in our country, and we still are. And to deny it is ludicrous. I have taught my students things over the years. One best example was about the immigration from the Asians into America, the Chinese coming here. I taught in sixth grade for years, and now I come to find

057out that what I taught was not true. There were things that were not said. It was whitewashed, and it embarrasses me. We should be able to talk. South Africa talks about what they did with racism. We should honestly admit it was there. I'm not saying pay people back and make differences, but dang it, it happened. And we need to admit it happened and move forward. I don't know what CRT is. I just wish people could treat people like people, but we don't, and we need to. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Mr. Kessler. Okay, next up is Judy Arbogast, followed by Herbert Willett. So, Ms. Arbogast, you will recognize for up to three minutes. My name is Judy Arbogast. I taught in this district for more than 30 years, and I just, I want to say

058that we are all very much aware of the Constitution. We are very much aware of laws, but what many of us have realized in the last few years is there is not a fair follow-through of these laws and the Constitution. I hear a lot that we work equity and justice. That is encoded in law. However, the reality is that it's not. I learned history like everybody else. In my day, and I'm 73 years old, we learned about manifest destiny. We did not learn about the massacre of the many Native Americans across this land who were in the way of people who wanted property for themselves. It was not until I was in college and I took a Black literature class that I learned the many realities faced by Black people in this country. The curriculum

059has been whitewashed. This CRT is to allow true history to be taught, not the whitewashed history that many of us were raised in. Biases are implicit. We learn them from our parents, from our churches, from our neighborhoods, from our schools, and when history does not include the viewpoints of all races, of all cultures in this nation, those implicit biases grow and grow. We need to realize that the Constitution lists our desires, our goals, our aims. I have talked to many history teachers since this has come up, and many history teachers feel that if the opponents of CRT have their way, they will be forced to lie as teachers. They will be forced to continue to teach the whitewashed history. We need to be honest. Thank you. I have a guest, Herbert Willett, followed by Alicia

060Bennett. Mr. Willett, you're recognized for up to three minutes. Thank you. My name is Herbert Willett, and I have been in the community for 20 plus years. This time I decided I was going to take a run for District 3 school board. I have two kids who graduated from Suffolk, Christopher, and Portia, but I heard a lot in the news about CRT diversity and inclusion, and I thought I would come to listen, but I kind of felt I just got to say something. I think what we need to consider is the real version of American history. The real version. If we talk about the real version of American history, then we could get to the bottom of the CRT and diversity and inclusion, but diversity and inclusion is not really a racial thing. It's about

061getting people of all genders, male, female, like in a rotation so that you can get along. I spent the last five years outside of the U.S., and I've got to see a lot of school systems and a lot of the way people do things. They kind of get pretty much involved. The kids are their thing. They're all involved in their kids, but my personal thing, kids are like amplifiers. I'm an engineer. If you put a good signal in, you're going to have a nice signal out, but if you put noise and garbage in, you're going to get garbage out. So I'm saying if we can just talk about American history and where it actually happened, just to make people aware, we are in an academia environment. Education is supposed to expand the mind, not trend.

062So that's my thought. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Director. Mr. Beech, if you would, your next up, followed by Doug Err. Ms. Bennett-Beech, you're recognized after three minutes. Thank you, Mr. Director. I'm a speech-language pathologist. That word language is all about words. So I'm going to start with words. In your resolution, you mentioned that CRT isn't defined, and it is. You can Google it. It is a theory that is taught at graduate-level legal courses for people who are going into the law to look at laws. That's what it is. You've followed that same bullet point of that resolution by stating it can be also all of these things. Therefore, the South Kitsap School District School Board gets to define what critical race theory is, even though there's already a definition on the books. And then

063you say there's not a definition, and then there's kind of some overreach in trying to define it in that same bullet point, saying it could also be considered all of these things, which it never has been before, up until the past few months when it's come to light for a new topic of discussion. The next word I'd like to talk about is sin. I work in the public schools. There's church and there's state. I was raised Catholic. I know what sin is. I do not teach children about sin. I do not talk about sin. That is not a word that I use in the public schools because I don't teach at a private Catholic school. This resolution talks about sins. That in and of itself is limiting the scope of who we are talking about

064and who we are talking to. We are saying we must all know what sins are. We must all understand that definition. And if you are raised to believe in the divine, you are left out. I thought we were supposed to have separation there so that we aren't changing kids' minds. Their parents get to talk to them about church. The other piece of words that I want to talk about is equity and inclusion. Critical race theory is a different set of words than equity is and then inclusion is. We are talking about providing training on equity and inclusion to staff and then a couple years later to students to make sure we've got this right for our kids because that's what we are here for with all of our students. I'm a straight, white female. I

065don't feel guilt. I don't feel shame. I feel my privilege. The honor of having this privilege is that I need to share that privilege with everybody else by dismantling racial constructs so that they can have equal privilege, equal opportunity, and be in an inclusive environment. I grew up in a school district where I wasn't taught about my mom. Thank you. Followed by John Richardson. He was recognized for up to three minutes. Hi. My name is Doug Erner. I teach computer science here in the south. And I'm concerned about this because the history of our country is complex. There's many things that I learned in high school and later on were just wrong. If not, outright lies. There's somebody I don't remember who wrote that history is written by the victors. And as we take a

066step back and try and make our country more equitable and more inclusive and to lift up everyone, we will needlessly have to look at that and question how we wrote the history because nobody wants to feel bad about their history. I don't even think the victors are bad people in, quote unquote, whitewashing the story. They would like to be able to look back on the story and feel good about it. But the only way we're going to be able to do that is by looking honestly at our story and hearing from all of the people who make up this great country and understanding what their experience was like, how we got to be where we are so that we can move forward and build a really good, strong, and equitable country. I'm sorry, I don't

067remember a previous speaker's name, but as I learned about this, I was fortunate. I was taught by people that understood that you don't learn well when you feel bad, but that sometimes you have to realize that things were not as you would have dreamed they were in this country so that you could see them and change them. So I'm a white man. I'm a straight white man. I don't feel guilt about that, but I am aware that I have less to navigate because of that, and that I would like to use the power that comes from that and the thinking, the freedom to think and not to worry about my moves to help lift up my students. And I'm very, very concerned that the proposal before the board will cause massive confusion in the community,

068that it will undercut our efforts to build a strong, viable, vital school, and that in the end it will actually completely, the intent of the proposal I think will lose it. We will damage the school that I think that you are trying to build up through adopting a policy like that. We cannot have strong schools. We cannot raise good, strong thinkers if we tell them they can't look critically and carefully at our history. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Richardson. You are recognized for up to three minutes. Thank you. I'm John Richardson. I wasn't sure what to say today. I just got to see this document about three hours ago, but I've been thinking about it a lot. I know that nobody in this room wants to be racist, right? I believe that anyway. I should

069say that, but I believe that. However, the document that's being put forward is extremely racist and it's concerning. I want to start with the CRT piece. CRT is a manufactured controversy. It's not a real thing. It is, as Alicia spoke about, a curriculum that was formed in the 70s and used in college. That is true. It is. It really looks at how our laws intersect, or racism and our laws intersect. To be honest with you, I think we all know that's true. The history of our laws definitely were connected with racism. We know that. I don't think there's anybody in this room who did not, but we're not doing CRT down here. We have been doing equity, diversity, and inclusion for a long time. This isn't anything new. We are working to do a better

070job of it. That is for sure, but this is nothing new. It's a manufactured controversy put out by talk radio people to try and get people wild up and excited. You're being used, the people who are out here talking about CRT. Honestly, I think our board is being duped a little bit on this thing. I don't mean the entire board. I just think, and I don't mean that with any disrespect too. I want to make sure I say that, but I want to just say that talking about diversity, equity, all of these issues are important. In Germany, they study what happened in World War II. It was the darkest time in that country's history, and it just required that every student know about it in deep detail. Why can't we know about things in our

071past that we did wrong, that we all agree were wrong? That's how we get better, and that's how we come together as a community, as a country, and we do be the greatest country in the world by knowing those things and making things better for not just us, but for every single person out there. Please, I beg of the board, do not put this proposal forward. Thank you very much. We're going to take a short break until 6.30. We'll be back at 6.30. Item 2.01, presentation on ESSB 5044, Superintendent Winter. Thank you. So at the last board meeting, I was asked to do a presentation on what this means, why we're having this discussion. So I'm going to talk about ESSB 5044, which was a bill that was signed by Governor Inslee that I think

072is the foundation for why we're having this conversation. So the intent of ESSB 5044, and normally I wouldn't read the slides, but I think it's important that they're verbalized as well as read. So the intent is that it directs WASDA, the School Directors Association, the Professional Educator Standards Board, OSPI, and school districts to increase awareness, understanding, and effective practice related to equity, inclusion, diversity, and cultural competency in school settings through professional learning for all staff. I think the awareness understanding is an important piece of that. So I'm going to share the definitions as provided in the legislation signed by the governor. Cultural competency includes the knowledge of student cultural histories and contexts, as well as family norms and values in different cultures, knowledge and skills in accessing community resources and community and parent outreach, and

073skills in adapting instruction to students' experiences and identifying cultural contexts for individual students. Diversity describes the presence of similarities and differences within a given setting, collective or group-based, on multiple factors, including race and ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status, age, educational status, religion, geography, primary language, culture, and other characteristics and experiences. So again, I would point out that this bill is not a race bill. It is a diversity cultural competency inclusion and equity bill. Equity includes developing, strengthening, and supporting procedural and outcome fairness in systems, procedures, and resource distribution mechanisms to create equitable opportunities for all individuals. The term also includes eliminating barriers that prevent the full participation of individuals and groups. And inclusion describes intentional efforts and consistent sets of actions to create and sustain a sense of respect, belonging, safety, and attention

074to individual needs and backgrounds that ensure the full access to engagement and participation in opportunities. So I'll go back to the bill, Senate Bill 5044, and its subtitle is Professional Learning for Public School Employees. I think that's important to remember. So what does that mean for us as a school district? In our strategic plan, we have a bullet that prioritizes an equity committee. In our collective bargaining agreements, we have prioritization of an equity committee. We've been meeting for the last year as an equity committee. We have a lot of work to do, but I'm proud of the fact that we're doing the work. So in 2021-22 school year, so next fall, school districts must use one of the professional learning days funded under RCW 28A 150-415 to train school district staff in one or more

075of the following topics, cultural competency, diversity, equity, or inclusion. Nowhere in that does it state anything about critical race theory. Nowhere in that does it state anything about curriculum or instruction. Again, I go back to what it says, professional learning for public school employees. So beginning in 2021, every other school year and every other school year thereafter, school districts must use one of the professional learning days to train school district staff in one or more of the following topics, social-emotional learning, trauma-informed practices, recognition and response to emotional or behavioral distress, consideration of adverse childhood experiences, mental health literacy, anti-bullying strategies, or culturally sustaining practices. And I'll echo what somebody said earlier that we are being trained as the adults, the professionals, so we can better serve our students. Beginning in the 2023-24 school year and

076every other school year thereafter, school districts must use one of the professional learning days to provide school district staff a variety of opportunities for training, professional development, and professional learning aligned with cultural competency, equity, diversity, and inclusion standards of practice developed by the Washington Professional Educator Standards Board. Under the RCW listed, alignment with the standards of practice must be evaluated using the rubrics developed under that RCW. And the opportunities must also include training on multicultural education and principles of English language acquisition. So in March of this year, the school board adopted an operational expectation on equity. And in that operational expectation, and that is how the district is monitored, it's how the superintendent is monitored. The superintendent shall ensure an environment and culture that values and respects the diversity of its students and staff, addressing

077factors affecting student achievement and well-being. Accordingly, the superintendent will, and there are four bullets in that policy. The first one is develop and implement strategies that promote an environment and culture that is committed to every student having the opportunity to reach their full potential through educational equity. That's what our policy says we should be doing in South Kitsap. It also says develop and implement strategies that promote an environment and culture that supports and encourages effective engagement of all families, including those from diverse backgrounds. Again, part of who we are as a district. The third one is develop and implement strategies for effective partnerships between home, school, and the district seeking out diverse perspectives on district initiatives, practices, and school climate. And lastly, develop and implement strategies that promote a workplace environment and culture that supports

078retaining a highly skilled and diverse workforce. And we've heard from some teachers tonight that retention of quality staff is really important. And a lot of that has to do with working conditions and how they're valued and treated. And then a lot of that has to do with how the students are valued and treated. So what about critical race theory? It is not something that anyone at the district level or at the building level from administration has talked about. We haven't used those three words. There is no curriculum for critical race theory in the South Kitsap school district. I'll echo another word that this idea that has been manufactured from a Senate bill that deals with professional development for staff on equity, diversity, inclusion, and cultural competency. So the bill does not mention critical race theory.

079The bill also doesn't mention instruction or curriculum. While there is a definition of critical race theory, our state does not have a functioning definition for K-12 schools on critical race theory. As I mentioned, South Kitsap does not have a critical race theory curriculum. And nothing in our curriculum prescribes or mentions critical race theory. So we need to separate out what's been manufactured out of this bill and what the reality is. I think it's important and again, it was interesting to listen to and I appreciated the comments that were made tonight. But really, and this is I guess me and my statement, we are called to love each other. We are called to love all people and treat everybody with respect. And so what this bill that really is the crux of the conversation tonight is

080saying is, educators, we have high expectations for you. We have high expectations for you in the way that you treat students and the way you teach students. And our job as educators, professionals who have been highly trained, is to make sure that we are creating and developing students for a better society in the future. That's what this professional development is about. So I think it's really important to make the distinction between what the law is telling us, which is the Senate bill 5044, and what has been created of some stress and strain, not only in our community, but across the state and across the country, that is called critical race theory that doesn't exist in our district. So I would hope then that we would have in the last slide says questions and discussion. I

081would like the board to have some discussion and possibly ask some questions of each other so we can, as was stated two weeks ago, put this to rest and move forward. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Superintendent Winter. Okay. Director Siebert. Well, I guess I could go to some of my comments that I was saving for discussing the resolution that we have in our board discussion. I believe that just now, Superintendent Winters just addressed all the questions that we had about what we're doing in this school district in regards to critical race theory. We don't have it. It doesn't exist here. And I think that that should be the end of the conversation. That should be all that anyone needs to know. That's the bottom line for what our district has. The rest of them

082are pretty much specific to the resolutions. So should I wait until then to discuss those? Probably. Maybe. Because I've got specific references. So just my feeling is I will not be supporting that resolution. And I'll give my feelings about that in my observations when we discuss that. Okay. Thank you, Director Siebert and Director Daley. Okay. Can you hear me here? Okay. So we have a lot of people here. So if it was that simple, then we wouldn't have an auditorium with a lot of people in here. So something is happening. So I guess I'll use the I word here. So I have been getting phone calls. I have people who are taping teachers, taping lecturers, and flat stating that this is happening in our district. Okay. So if we have no curriculum, if we have

083no this isn't happening, then why am I getting these telephone calls? And why do we have all of these people here? In other words, parents are either either misunderstanding or something is happening, but parents are concerned, especially young children, that they're being told different than what they want as far as their values are. So either we're not paying attention to what's going on in our classroom, we have a gross misunderstanding, or if we don't have a curriculum, then it shouldn't even come up. In other words, there shouldn't be any discussion of any of the comments that we heard this evening. So I'm kind of in a quandary here. If it's not happening, why is everybody here? And why are we having the discussion? And why do we have a, apparently we have a resolution? So

084something doesn't work here. So maybe you can help me understand what I'm misunderstanding here. So you and I had a conversation yesterday and I'll share what I said tonight. So as I mentioned, there is no functioning definition for critical race theory in the state of Washington when it deals with K-12 education. So therefore, it's opinion-based to call out that something being said in the classroom is critical race theory. I'm not arguing that you can't disagree with something being said or taught, but to say it's critical race theory, that's where I think we need to draw a clear line because there isn't a definition of that. So if a parent sees something happening in a classroom and says that's critical race theory, how can it be? We don't have a definition of what that is. So

085are there parents that maybe are unhappy with math, science, English, P.E., art? Probably. That's the nature of the business we're in. And we do our very best to make sure our students are educated in the best way possible. And again, I think I'll go back to the PESB, Professional Educator Standards Board. There are professional educator standards. So I want us to be careful in saying critical race theory is happening in our schools. And that's why I'm confident saying it's not because there's nothing in our curriculum that uses that language. There's nothing in our, there's no definition. So for a parent to say, yes, that's what it is, that's an opinion. And it's difficult to say that we can't say. None of us can say that that's what that is because there is not a definition

086that works for us that that's what that is. Okay. So I'll continue on here. So a lot of what you said was there's training coming. So folks are going to be concerned of what exactly does that training consist of and what's going to be in that training. So I'm going to guess that they're going to ask, for example, what is the curriculum of that training? So how do we, before I go back to one of my comments in a minute, so how do we get the word out on what we're going to tell our educators, our administrators and our school board since we have to be trained too? So there's a lot of opportunity for training. There's a lot of, when I say opportunity, a lot of people who can conduct that training. One of

087the things we're struggling with right now is because there's so much happening in August to find a day to do it, but we know we have to do it. And we know, and I'm not saying have to because the law says we have to, that's one piece of it, but we have to because we have a responsibility to our students and our community to do it. So how do parents know what that training is? I think I'll go back to my 30 years in education. I don't know that there's been training every August and in October and throughout the spring and that training covers a variety of different things. So I don't know the answer to your question short of saying when we're done training, we're happy to give the materials to the community. But

088I don't want to be, I don't want to be bound by having to get something approved by the community when we as educators, it's like the discussion we had on math, that the IMC has educated professional educators on it to choose curriculum. There may not be community people, there may be, but there may not be community people who have the same amount of knowledge as our teachers do. So when we choose who we need to come in and provide training for, it's not me making the decision, it's a large group of people providing input. I got an email from a teacher today that said, hey, when we start working on equity training, I would love to be part of that conversation. That's how we're going to do it. So I don't, that's not a very

089clear answer, but that's, I think that's the mindset behind this. Okay. And then my last comment is we need to keep in mind that perception is reality. While I hear what you're saying, we also have the taxpayer and the parents who provide the students and the money for the district. So if they feel that this is happening and we dismiss the fact that maybe it's not happening or they don't understand, you force a parent to make a choice and that's either stay in the school district or withdraw their kids and go to another school district. Facebook and all the other social media are pretty powerful things. So I think we need to be careful when we mention that, yes, we all are professional educators. I was one for a long time, but it's the community

090that provides the students and the money for the school district to function. And if they're unhappy with whichever part, whether it be students, staff, teachers, whatever, that's the folks that we need to please because the purpose of the district is to educate the public's kids. Okay. And I'll just respond. I haven't heard anyone talk about dismissing comments. I don't think that's been said because I don't think anyone dismisses concerns. I would push back on that. That's a common phrase. Perception is reality. I think perception is perception. Our job is to make sure people know what reality is. Okay. Okay. Director Diehl. Thank you. I just wanted to say that I am very pleased with the presentation. Thank you for bringing that to us so that we can understand and we have our definitions. And I

091did want to ask because this was quite the event tonight and I appreciate everyone who came who has come and all of your comments and the written comments and everything. So thank you very much for participating in tonight. And I wanted to ask how, when the next question comes that someone who missed tonight or missed the discussion, how will it be directed or where will it be directed to? So this presentation's on board docs. It'll be available as part of the minutes of this meeting. We also have the video. So someone could watch the video that we're recording the Zoom meeting tonight. So those are two options. And then I think people can always reach out to, I'm happy to meet with anybody at any time. I think board members are as well because I'll

092go back to the comment. We're not dismissing anyone, but I think it's important that we have conversations and we talk about this. This is an important issue. And I think we need to talk about it. I appreciated some of the comments that basically said that same thing tonight. We need to put it out in the open and talk about it. That's an important piece of us moving forward as a community. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, Director Diehl. Vice President Burke. I'll save my remarks till we get to the discussion on the resolution. Okay. As will I. Can I make one more comment, please? Yes. I'd just like to say that our school district has professionals and really highly qualified staff from the district office all the way down through our classified staff that

093are there for the kids and there for everyone else. And we are working to provide the absolute best educational experience for all of our students. And to get those students to stay here, we're going to continue to provide the best education and the best that we can for them. We always have people that leave the district for different reasons. For sports, because we have such a large high school that their children don't have a chance to play in those sports. There's all kinds of reasons that people leave our district. But I believe that if we have the best staff and we have a wonderful education for everyone, we'll bring people to our district. So I just wanted to give a little balance there. Okay. Thank you, Director Sebring. Okay. Item 3.01, board linkages. Director Sebring.

094There have been several. I think one of my highlights was at Marcus Whitman when they were having their eighth graders moving up to the high school. There were carloads and carloads of people and inside those cars were grandparents and siblings and uncles and aunts, not just the people that were graduating. They were so excited and the entire staff was there. It was decorated. They had a goodie bag for each of the kids and they were able to have their picture taken. As I went through, when I first got there, I couldn't find the admin staff and I thought, where are they? They should be here. And then I went to where the cars were first driving in and the admin were all there with these yellow plastic bags over their whole bodies. And there was

095this little game thing that they'd turn a knob and it was full of whipped cream. And if it clicked the right way, the whipped cream hit them in the face and the kids got to pick which admin they wanted to have the chance of having that happen too. And that was exciting, I thought, because having worked there, I had my own personal ones that I would have chosen. But anyway, it was a delightful sunny afternoon and I was so happy to see that after all the kids have been through for this last year. It was really a celebration. Okay. Thank you, Director Sebring. Director Daly. I thought you said somebody else there. So I have, as others have been attending the Explorer and Discovery graduations. And so once again, I want to congratulate every one

096of our students on what they've accomplished. And as you know, some of them have had to overcome pretty good hurdles in order to graduate. So congratulations to all of our students. For some students, graduating is a little easier than others and some of them have persevered for years to graduate. So congratulations to all those students. Okay. Thank you, Director Daly. Director Deal. Yes, it is graduation week and I've been at Explorer Academy and congratulating students and talking with staff. That's it for me. Okay. Vice President Burke. I've just been communicating with folks in the community and I think it's been kind of focused on this CRT issue. Okay. Thank you, Vice President Burke. So for myself, I want to say, is Principal Goodwin still here? Or did he already duck out? No. So anyways, the

097staff here and the district staff, Superintendent Winter have done, I thought, an amazing job putting together the prom for the seniors this year. Obviously, I had an insider inside of that event and had nothing but great reports back about that. They were made to feel special that it was an event that was appropriate to what could be done given the restrictions and everything. And I just wanted to thank the staff for having pushed the envelope and made that event happen. It meant a lot to all of them and yeah, my personal as well as my thanks as a board director. So thank you very much. So so item 3.02 legislative report. We have general assembly coming up, which would be our part of our legislative, not the conference where we go and vote on the

098proposals. So is anybody interested in going to general assembly? It is at the end of September. So we need to let Robbie know if that's what we're doing and I will be doing that. Yeah, that was, was not up on the website as of last week. Correct. It was still information pending. So the information I have is that it's in Spokane. It's the 24th and 25th, but yes, the conference schedule is not posted quite yet. Robbie, have you seen any information yet? Okay. So we want to be thinking about who will be going to that. So I will probably send you. Okay. Anything else from that legislative report? Okay. 3.03 WIAA. Haven't had a meeting. Okay. Item 3.04 board discussion. Okay. First item that we have here is a board referral form on revision to

099the board IMC process. Director Daley. Yeah, all I'm asking is that we take a look at the IMC process. We already have a capital projects committee. We run that committee differently than we run the IMC. And I'm looking to align the two. And I think that we, the capital projects committee kind of runs its own and we have a lot of community members on it. And I understand why we would need more district members on the curriculum committee, but I think it could be strengthened up and work a little better than it has been. Some of the comments that we've heard this evening talk about curriculum. So I think this is an ideal time to take a look at that committee. And that's all I'm asking is let's look to align that a little bit

100different and improve some of the processes that go with that committee. So it's exactly that simple. Okay. I have a motion from director Daley on the IMC board referral form discussion. So obviously you have anything else you would like to add director Daley? No. Okay. Director Seabrook. Well, I would just like to direct your thoughts to the guidance, the decision the board will make. And it says the board will make a decision and vote on to adopt an operating procedure for all items submitted to the board for approval. And I'd like to remind the board that our governance, the way that our policy governance works is that we do not do the operational procedures. We are focused on results in the ends. And so I think that that would not be something that the board

101would be doing. I also heard that it hasn't been this IMC committee has not process has not been working well. I have not heard any information about that. And I think it's important to have teachers, there's an observation on here that there are a lot of people that are district employees on there. That's because our teachers know what the curriculum is required by the state and by the federal government to teach our children. And most people just as a parent, if I hadn't been an educator, I would not have been aware of what that was and would not know how to decide what curriculum was appropriate. So I plan to vote against this motion. Thank you director Seabrook, director deal. Okay, so I am see and facilities committee are very different. The IMC committee hasn't

102been working very well because we haven't had the board appointees on there. And we don't have community members that are dying to get on the committee. So but their spaces are available. The facilities committee is the community members that are going to bring a recommendation. And they are looking from the outside in because the assets of our community should be looked at by the community. So they're very, very different. So let's take the math. You have math department, you have the heads and people on that committee to pick the curriculum. And then it comes to IMC and it's vetted by the instructional materials committee. And yes, there's district employees from all parts, librarians, secondary, primary. And then we have board appointees and we all need to have a representation on the board and be on

103the committee and be in contact with them. My understanding is to have a board representative there to pour over the curriculum. The ultimate vote decision is for the board. So if they're let's say if there's something controversial, it can be brought up. But ultimately the board does vote on this. But we do trust our educational experts to bring the curriculum, to vet the curriculum, to pick the very best for our kids. And then we ensure that that is good and then we vote for it. And I believe it's been working well. It can work better and we can have better, more input from community and from our board representatives. So I am not in favor of changing our process. I'm in favor of ensuring that the right people are in the right places to make

104sure it works better. So thank you very much for the opportunity to talk about this. Okay. Thank you, director. Vice president Burke. Yes, I concur with the objective of the board referral forum to get a little more, you know, public input into the curriculum development process. However, I can't support this board referral forum because it is very unclear exactly what direction it's giving to the superintendent. It talks about review of forms 26-12.2, which I have not been able to locate anywhere on the district's website. I think it's too vague and it basically just dumps it on the superintendent and says, here's a problem, you fix it. Therefore, I move to postpone indefinitely the main motion. Okay. Is it a substitute motion? Well, it's a motion to postpone indefinitely. Just drop the discussion unless it's reintroduced.

105Okay. A motion from vice president Burke to postpone indefinitely discussion vice president Burke. Any further discussion? No, no further comment. Okay. Director Seabrook. I think we should just vote on the motion that's already presented. Okay. Director Daley. Yeah, I think we ought to vote on it as it is. Sorry that it's not in the perfect language that everybody likes, but the intent is clear. Look at the committee and see if it needs revised. You know, we're not all the great words, Smiths. So take it for what it's worth. Look at the committee. Let's revise it. Okay. That's all we're asking. Okay. Director Diehl. I would like to vote. Okay. On the motion to postpone indefinitely, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. No. Okay. The noes have it. The motion

106is does not carry. Is there any further discussion on the motion to consider the board referral form? Okay. On the motion to approve the board referral form, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. No. Okay. Motion is not approved. Next item. Okay. Continue discussion on item 2.01. Vice president Burke, if you want to introduce your draft resolution and start discussion. Yeah. I move the adoption of the resolution. I think I agree with superintendent Winter that we're not teaching critical race theory. We don't have it in our curriculum, but there is a great deal of concern over what is being taught and there's a lot of misunderstanding. So if we're not teaching it, we might as well go ahead and assure the public that we're not teaching it. And so rather

107than trying to define critical race theory, because everybody seems to have a different definition today, it simply outlines as this is what we will not teach and this is what we will teach. I don't believe there's any intent to handcuff the teachers. We want accurate history taught. I don't anticipate a final vote on this. I would prefer to have it postponed until our first meeting in August, but I think we can have some discussion on it and then postpone it to the first meeting in August. And that will give a little more input, opportunity for a little more input from the community because a lot of people have only seen it, you know, in the last 24 hours. Thank you, Vice President Burke. Director Seabrook. Well, let's see what I have here. First of all,

108I don't believe it's the board's job to determine the truth of CR2, whatever it is, and I don't believe it's the board's job to argue with concepts that are being taught. And if I look at number one, A through G, down in the resolved, everything that's mentioned there that America is inherently a racist country with white supremacists maintaining power, everything that's given in those seem to be almost contradicted in four A through D, which says it's okay to discuss and direct teaching of these concepts. So the only difference I can see is that in one A through G, we can't teach them as fact, but in four A through D, we can teach them as concepts. That's very confusing to me. And then number two, that all training and instructional materials used are available for

109public inspection. That already is. If any parent or any member of the community wants to see the materials that the teachers are using in the classroom, it's always available to them. And the statement number three, that equity of opportunity should be provided to all, but equity of outcome is up to individual achievements. I remember when I first started teaching, I had that quote on my board, but it was that equal opportunity should be provided, but equal outcome is up to individual achievement. And at that time, that made sense with equality, but this confuses equity with equality. And there are two completely different concepts. Equity takes people where they are and sees whether they're at home and they have no internet access and they're trying to access their school. Whereas they have equal teaching going on

110to them, they just don't have the equity to have the access to that. So equality and equity are really different concepts. And so I would not agree with number three, using the word equity. So that's my opinion on and my observations on that resolution, that it's contradictory and it's not our job as a board to decide what equity is and what, well, let's see if I have anything else I've got written here. Okay, that was all that I have, except for number five, the district already has in place a policy to address individual acts of discrimination and we already have that too, so. Okay, thank you, Director Siebert. Director Daley? Well, since we're focusing on the resolution right now, I guess the question I need to ask is, are we worried about the way that

111it's said, the way that the, in other words, is it wording or are we worried about the intent? I guess that's kind of what my first question and I'll kind of push that Director Berg here in a second. But the second part is, I disagree very much, one of the primary jobs of the school board is to educate the district's children. Okay, so we are responsible for everything in the district, including curriculum. Okay, so it's our job, okay, and it's not the districts to decide what it is, it's our job. So pushing the curriculum thing down to somebody else is, and that's why I introduced my previous motion is, you know, that is one of our paramount duties, the second one deals with the finances, of course. So if we're arguing over the way that

112the, if we're arguing over words that are untrue, that are confusing and stuff like that, then we just need to rewrite. I am concerned about the word institutional racism. Okay, institutional bothers me. When I was growing up, we didn't discriminate on anything with race, creed, color, or sex. So it's pretty simple to me that we shouldn't have broken this out, not necessarily here, but the world of systemic racism and structural racism, and all of this stuff is just confusing the issue. You know, it's, to me, it's growing up, it's very simple. I have my own story about, you know, inequity, but I'll pause on that. So if we're worried about the concept, then that's one discussion. If we're worried about the wordsmithing and the fact that there are issues there, that's another one. If we

113need to pause because we did not write it as good as it could be, and we need to put some input into it to make it exactly correct, then that's okay. But unless we are dramatically opposed to what it says, then I think we need to press forward. If there are inaccuracies, if there are outright, you know, poor statements, then that's fine. But unless there's a conceptual issue with this, then I vote we move forward. So when we get to Mr. Berg, I have a couple other questions on what was the origin of this and how did we get there. But this is your opportunity to ask said questions. Oh, okay. So, Mr. Berg, how did we come up with this? Where did this come from? The issue was raised previously in the board meeting.

114Yep. Okay. Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. And so some of the director deal had mentioned some, our director Sebring had mentioned a couple things. So do you feel that those are in conflict? Do you see a conflict between some things that once again, we're looking at the written word here that you wrote? Or is it pretty clear to you what your intent was? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Yeah, I think the intent should be clear. Okay. Were you not able to hear my original remarks? Just that the intent is not to handcuff the teachers in teaching correct history. We want history taught correctly. You know, we want to teach about the Ku Klux Klan. We want to teach about the Trail of Tears. We want that accurately taught. I was visiting my daughter in Germany. Outside

115her apartment, some of the stones or bricks in the sidewalk were replaced with little brass plaques with the name and information on people who had lived there and were taken by the Nazis to never return. And those reminders are there in the sidewalk to this day. In Germany, it's illegal to deny the Holocaust. You know, our history, you know, we've got some bad things that were done. We need to gloss over. We can't gloss over that. I have a daughter-in-law who's Japanese and she commented that they didn't really teach her much in high school about the second world war. They just kind of skipped over that as an unfortunate incident. But we need to teach our history accurately and fairly so that we don't repeat it. It's still your floor. Good. Thank you. Thank you.

116Okay. Director Diehl. Okay. What I noticed about the resolution, it says we will teach these things. We will not teach these other things. And that isn't the process for our curriculum or how the board does take care of its job with curriculum. So I'm against the resolution because of the process. We have a process of which I want to ensure that we are using our current IMC process to the best of its ability. And we have stated tonight, we've addressed tonight in the new law coming from the state. So I would be opposed to this resolution. Okay. Thank you, Director Diehl. Vice President Burke. I move to postpone this until the first meeting in August for a final decision. And in the meantime, we can tweak the wording. Okay. I have a motion from Vice

117President Burke to postpone this until a future meeting. I have a substitute motion that I move that we vote on it tonight as written discussion. Okay. The motion to postpone would need to be addressed before the substitute motion. Okay. Then we have a motion from Vice President Burke to postpone discussion on this until not earlier than the meeting in July. The first meeting in August. Oh, first meeting in August. Okay. Discussion. It was your motion. I think if, I mean, obviously the folks who are opposed to it are opposed to it and a delay is not going to change their mind. I believe if there are those who have concern over the specific wording, we can address that. And I would, in between now and then, I would, you know, welcome suggestions on how to

118clarify the wording. Okay. Any further discussion on the motion to postpone? Okay. On motion to postpone until the first meeting in August. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. No. Okay. Motion does not carry. So I move that we, I don't want to say this, I move that we vote on the- To adopt. Take a deep breath. To adopt the- On the adoption of the resolution. You had a substitute resolution or a substitute motion? I do not, I just move, I move that we move to a vote on the resolution. We're going to vote to vote, vote on voting, is that what we're doing? I want us to, to vote on the resolution as, as written. Okay. So discussion. Just to clarify, we're voting yes or no to adopt the

119resolution as written. That is the intent of my motion. Thank you. Okay. Director Deo. So as written is where we're going to go. Is that right? Is that what your motion is? Okay. All right. Okay. Director Deo and vice president Burke. No further comment. Okay. On the motion for adoption of a draft resolution. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. No. No. Noes have it. The motion does not, motion. Resolution is not adopted. Okay. The next item is the art of governing coherent. Am I on? Okay. Well, I would like to apologize for not having a board referral form. We are having our professional development with Aspen group. And I wanted to discuss very simply about the book that we will focus on in regards to this professional development.

120And as we get board members that come on board. So I would like to recommend the art of governing coherently. I, yes, that is the book. We all should have this one, but I just wanted to make sure that we were focused on it. Anyone can read any of the books. We will get them the books, but in the work, especially the work that I want to be persevering in, it's from this book. So I wanted to state that and then just talk about that. If somebody had opposition to that, but they can also read all the books where there are three, maybe even four. Okay. I'm having a bit of a time trying to understand what you're saying. I vote for this book to be the first and primary book that we are working

121from for our governing model, which is coherent governance. So it will be in our professional development on the 25th, which is next Friday. And that would be what I would be referencing and what I recommend to our new board members. Okay. Is that in the form of a motion or how do we intend to handle this or just is there, does anyone have a differing opinion? Does anyone else have an opinion? So, okay. We can direct receiving. No, I, I, since we've had a couple of different books that we've used, I, that's the one we used at our last training and then we can use that as a reference. And so can the trainers if we're, so if we all have that in our possession and we are going to the training at the district

122office, correct? Right. And we'll be in person. We've trainers are on zoom. Yes. So have that book with us. Okay. Okay. Director Daley, director or vice president Burke. Sounds good to me. Okay. There's, I guess there's no, okay. Thank you very much. Okay. The next item is a public records request. Superintendent Winter, I'd asked you to put this on here and hopefully come with some, some numbers that you had discussed at our last board meeting for further discussion. Yeah. You had said that our number of requests had gone up. Yeah. So, so director Lyons and his technology report in, in the, under the category of things, keeping us up at night reported that we were at a 400% increase in public record requests. Okay. And are the, the nature of them, are they actually for

123records or things that we have the ability to be accessible or copied or? So, so by law, we are required to provide any documentation contained in the request, but we are not required to create documentation. So sometimes the questions that come up are simply questions that don't require or don't, we don't have any documentation for, I'm going to say those are ignored. I don't mean to say it that way, but we, we don't have a legal responsibility to respond to that. However, there have been times depending on the request that we have made a response in, in the form of an answer to a question rather than a document. So for example, how much does something cost? What is our, what is our obligation in that scenario? If there's a document that shows how much

124something costs, it's our obligation to share. If there isn't, we can report that as an answer or we can just ignore it. Okay. I just, perhaps I'll take this off of the discussion and bring it up again with a little more specifics, because I don't think I'm have enough information to ask any further questions. I have one question that perhaps you can answer now. Is it public record of who asks for public records? Yes. If someone made a public records request, a public records request. Yes, that's public. So is there a place that we could go to just, do we have to ask a public records request to get it? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Well, a board member would not need to make a public records request. All we need to do is ask the

125superintendent for the information. We don't need to file public record requests. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Director Diehl, any discussion? I guess I'm withdrawing the topic. So Director Diehl, Vice President Berg. Yeah. I think, I think the key is that the request has to be for an identifiable public record. As the superintendent said, we're not required to create a record. But if there is a record, which could be a computer record, it could be electronic. But if the record exists and it's identifiable, then they have access to it. But the problem is with the public record requests is that we have to redact anything that is not disclosable. If there's confidential information, personal information, that sort of thing. And that can be extremely time consuming for the staff to have to go and redact that

126information. And that's why as board members, we don't need to make public record requests, because we can request a document and it does not have to have personal information redacted, because we're trusted to keep confidential information confidential. And perhaps this will be something that we bring up as a training to us in the future. Any further topics on board discussion? Okay. Item 4.01, consent agenda. Director Diehl, you had said you had a few questions or comments in regards. I do. For 4.03, when we get to the human resources reports, what is our process for exit comments? We don't have an official exit process that we go through. There are times when we do, but there's not a database of comments or reasons for why people leave the district. We know why people are leaving. But

127as far as, I think what you're referring to is a sit down exit interview where we ask questions about what was your experience like? What has been good? What has been not so good? Those kind of things. We don't do that. So if I ask for why people are leaving the district, we don't have that. I think we have that information. We just don't document it. Other than a resignation or retirement. But somebody may say I'm resigning and here's why I'm resigning. And it would be verbalized. But it's not something as far as a process goes where we sit down with everyone who's leaving the district and have an interview. So there really is no, no, there's no documentation that we show that. Okay. So there's no record? No. On 4.05, on the surplus equipment,

128so what is our main criteria? Do we look at service life or repair or replace costs as criteria? The reason I'm asking is obviously for computers, if they're five or six years old, then yeah, it's time to move those along. But right now we're talking about, we have students in desks, we used to have them at tables. And I don't want to surplus all the tables and then put in desks. And then all of a sudden we go back and say, oh, we need a whole bunch of tables. We don't like the desks that we put all the students in for spacing. That's kind of where I'm getting at. So how do we avoid buying the same equipment twice as where I'm heading? So first thing I would say is furniture is a hot commodity.

129We hold onto it dearly and we use it until it doesn't work anymore. Interestingly enough, last night with the facilities committee, we were in Manchester, we had that conversation of how we purchase furniture in the district. Right now it's purchased out of building budgets. I think it makes more sense to purchase that out of a district budget and have some similar furniture for lack of a better term, because there may be an increase at one school and we need to move furniture or maybe a decrease and we have extras. So I think that's something as we move forward, I would like to see us do is to get into a position with furniture that we are doing more, I guess, group decision-making, group ordering. A, we have better deals that way. And B, it's better

130off, I'll say, mix and match. We can utilize it in a variety of different settings. But I think you ask anyone, they would say it's hard to find new furniture anywhere. And we use it until it can't be used anymore. And then we kind of force ourselves to replace it, which I don't necessarily think is the best way to do it. But I think we're getting our money's worth out of our furniture for sure. Okay, last, actually 4.06. Are we paying for the meals in the mileage for the girls for that? I couldn't see where we were. No, this is again funded by the student. This is similar to the volleyball one that we approved. Now, that's why I was asking, because on that one, I think I recall we did fund the meals. This

131one, I didn't see it. So I'm just looking for consistency. If we do it for one group, we should do it for all groups. And I would say because this is the same coach, coaching children of sports, it's the same situation. It may just not have been documented the same. Well, that's what I was thinking. I think you're right. I just didn't fill out the form. Okay. All right. Last one on the contract for the central kitchen. We very much need the backup generator, but I am unhappy with how the project was handled. I understand the cost overrun situation. We're having that everywhere. You know, everybody who's been shopping lately knows what the costs have gone up, but this is about our third cost overrun on a large project. So at the next meeting, I'm

132going to propose a motion that we pause and look at all the projects. And the one I'm looking at with biggest concern, especially the pool. Okay. So if we went a hundred thousand dollars over on a, even though I still think, I'll just leave it that the process, you know, the person who needed the generator looks like they were not a big part of this process. Maybe we can fix that, but the pool especially bothers me if construction costs are off the wall. And I don't know how many other projects we have, but I don't want to see a, I start the pool and then we have a huge issue with- Okay. Director Daley, is this germane to the consent agenda that is in front of us? Yeah, it is. A motion that you're going

133to bring at the next meeting on- Oh, well, okay. You're right. I'm sorry. You're right. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah, you're right. But basically we, we need to stop the cost things. Thank you. Deal. Vice President Burke. Nothing on the consent agenda. Okay. If there is no objection, the motion to approve the consent agenda will be adopted. Hearing none, the motion stands approved. Item 6.01, new policy 3.1.1.2, social emotional climate, second reading. We're actually at 5.01. Sorry. Oh, bad president. 5.01, discovery alternative high school, school improvement plan. Superintendent Winter. Thank you. I've asked principal Oster to be here today. He is on Zoom and can answer any questions. Again, I just want to echo Pat, while you're here, I want to echo that some comments were made. The graduations at Explorer were phenomenal and we look

134forward to Discovery's graduation tomorrow. Talking about taking a situation that's not ideal and making it great. Those families and students were extremely valued. And so thank you for that. So I'll turn it over to you, Pat, to talk about the school improvement plans. Sure. So these, these plans are just a continuation of our annual school improvement process that we do on each of our sites. And, and as you know, from last year, when I discussed this with the board, we've been, been in an assistance program through OSSI, looking critically at our graduation rate as our most alternative schools in the, in the state of Washington. But so what, what we're tasked to do is, is to look at data, look at information, find ways that we can leverage improving our, our graduation rate, our on

135time graduation rate is what specifically they're, they're looking to improve. So what, what we have done is put together three goals at each site that we have developed based on the data from grad, from the graduation rate data that we've done, the perceptual data that we've done with our families, our students and, and schools and our, our students at the schools and, and with the assistance of Anne Ranker, who is a consultant that we work with this, these two documents of the results of that work over the course of this last year of updating and looking at information and providing new goals. And, and so essentially there's, like I said, three goals at each site that Discovery, they're focusing on our graduation rate, our health services for students and social emotional learning informed trauma at

136Discovery and that at Explorer Academy, similarly our social emotional learning at that site. And they're looking specifically at professional development next year, they're looking at how to reduce dropout rate. And then again, our final one there is looking at our graduation rate and improving that course over time. As you know, this has been a tough year for every school, I think in looking at on-time graduation rates and, and over the course of the last year and a half, I'd be surprised if any school didn't see some dip in that. But, and so as we did, and so, but we continue to work on that and continue to find ways that we can improve the work that we're doing and, and learning with each other and the support that we can provide our students and our

137families and our staff to increase those rates and provide more success for our students. So that, that essentially is a nutshell what those school improvement plans that we put forward to you for approval for submit, submission to OSPI for this year. Okay, Director Sebring, questions? Just in, in the future, as we've got our, our top five destination priority plan, it would be nice if you could start to align just for us to be able to see how those improvement plans align with this top five. That would just be a way cool document to have. Sure, that, that's another piece of data that, that we can use and do. And I, and I will tell you that many of the, the goals that we have here align directly with some of those top five destinations. Right,

138and I saw that. It'd be great to have it on a document though so we could see that. I understand. So let me just, can I just add quickly that what Pat's using is this, it's an improvement plan template given to us by OSPI. So we don't have a whole lot of leeway, especially with the grant funding. But I do think the connection to the priority plan, as Pat mentioned, is important. Thank you, Director Sebring, Director Daley. So, so how did, how did the year go? How, how did you make things better for students? What, what's improved? Well, so I think for us at, at both schools with last year's goals, one of our focus was how can we adjust what we're doing in this COVID-19 crisis time to work together to develop curriculum and

139courses that are provided to students remotely in a way that works for our alternative, our alternative students. So that was primarily what we focused on. So, and I think in the process of doing that, I think what we've come up with this are some really good additions that we will add to our toolbox of how we can support families in the future and even take care of some of the things that we've been struggling with before about how to manage some of the requirements in ALE. You know, as you know, we don't require students there every day, but we do require the same amount of work for students throughout the week. So with some of the processes that we've done and things that we've put together with the curriculum and remote learning that has provided

140an avenue for us to really check off those boxes in, in ALE as far as providing the additional support on those days where students are not on campus. And so that's kind of been a benefit as we've gone through this last year. So that primarily was the focus over this, the course of this last year was to how to put together a course of study for our students in a remote fashion, and then reintegrate them back into our school as we went back into in-person learning, albeit a little bit more limited. But then again, even here again in the future next fall, getting students back on track and putting, getting them back into the the system of in-person learning that we've had previously. And we just know that families and students are going to need

141a ton of support because they just are out of practice doing that. So a lot of this addresses, you know, how do we provide that support for those, those students and families as we come back to in-person learning fully in the fall. So at the very end, there wasn't much, I realize this is the template. So I'll pass these other questions on to the, to the superintendent. But do you have enough money and space up there and enough teachers? Are you expecting more people is where I'm going? Yeah, so that's a question we've been, we've been discussing. And I think, you know, with Superintendent Winter, we've discussed that recently, even more mostly at Explorer Academy, just because that's been kind of our spotlight on the district. I think over the course of the last year

142and a half of being a school that provides online instruction for our students. And, and so what I, what I've talked with him about is I would expect that, you know, we've seen about one third of our student population grow at Explorer Academy over the course of this past year. What I expect is that we'll see that same growth level next year. And so I have been working with Human Resources and Superintendent Winter about providing the level of staffing that we increase to this year to be able to support that in the fall. And then put in some, in some opportunity for discussion later, if we see continued growth there that, that we would then also continue to grow the staff there. Then you run into, when you start growing staff and students at those

143facilities, we run into space issues. So those are things, you know, physically that we'll have to talk about how to solve and manage in the future. But I think right now it's manageable. And I think that, you know, next fall we'll, we'll see some increases in students, especially at Explorer Academy. And I hope to see a lot of students that we've lost at Discovery this past year because of COVID-19 and just the fact that students need to work and, and we're out working and they kind of just waned on their, their instruction. And so we're, we're going to do everything we can to get those students back into our classes over the course of this summer, and then in the fall too. So I'm hoping to see us, us get back into, to some higher

144numbers there as well. And, and at this point, I think Discovery is pretty well supported with instructional staff at this point, as Explorer is too, based on the increases that we've made over the course of this past year. And last question, it says you guys have a Discovery health clinic. Is that the same clinic that the, that the district is looking at? So the, so the district clinic is going to be at Discovery? Yeah. Okay. That is correct. Yeah. The school based health clinic is housed at Madrona. They have been in practice now one day a week for the last few months now, which we've already had students benefiting from, from them being there and getting support and services there. So that's, that's where the district health didn't help. Okay. Thank you. Yes. That's all

145I got. Thank you. Thank you, director Daley, director Deal. I just want to say thank you for your important work and being with the families from tomorrow with Discovery and Explorer and what you do. I just appreciate it. And it's been wonderful to read the school improvement plan. So thank you. Thank you. It's always a pleasure. I enjoy what I do. Okay. Vice president Burke. I know questions. Thank you. So I did have a couple of, I don't say questions, but kind of some thoughts in regards to, you know, I understand these are both for their, their standard forms that we have to fill out to get, you know, the, the quest for, for additional fund for grant funds. I guess I was a bit, I was a bit caught by surprise that the, you

146know, the, the reason that we get these is because we have low graduation rates or lower graduation rates, but it seems like this was the only time that that was really kind of brought to us for anything actionable. I just, I would have liked to have at least had, had some chance to have had the discussion on additional resources or stuff from internal prior to, to this. It's the calendar, the cycle to get these is, is what it is. So. Yeah. And like I said, that most, most alternative schools across the state fell into this category with, with OSPI and OSSI. Just, just looking at, because they specifically look at on time graduation rate. And just as a practice with the most alternative schools, we're looking at, at continuing education for students who have fallen

147behind. And so I would say a large part of the students that come to our programs, at least at Discovery, not as much at Explorer Academy, more at Discovery, but we do have those at high school at Explorer too. They come to us behind in credits for a myriad of different reasons. Just, they didn't, didn't quite fit in the, in, you know, the size of a high school or anxiety, or there's a number of reasons that, that they come to the alternative school programs, but typically they come to us behind. What I'm particularly proud of though, if you, if you get a chance to look at the graduation data is our continued graduation rate, which then starts getting up into the 70 and 80% of our students that, that do get to graduation before their,

148their term out at the age of 21. So I'm particularly proud actually of that with our students. And so, and I think that there's credit to the work that our staff does about Discovery and Explorer and the support that we have in our district and just focusing on, on keeping students moving forward. And that's kind of been our goal. And like I said, I'm pretty, I'm extremely proud that, that we do have those type of percentages for students that continue on and do graduate with a diploma, you know, from South Kitsap School District. Yep. And I just wanted to end with it, you know, it was my absolute pleasure to have signed off on all of the diplomas from both Discovery and Explorer that, you know, it says diploma, it doesn't give any, it's that

149you met the standard and that you are, you know, a graduate and everything. And I couldn't have been more proud of every single one of those students. So thank you. Thank you. As am I, they're great kids, all of them. And let me add that I asked Pat the number of graduates. So Explorer, 60 graduates at Explorer this year, which are, or Pat, if I'm correct me if I'm wrong, but those are big numbers. And then 50 at Discovery. Yeah, our largest graduating class at Explorer previously was 27. So to get up to 60 students this year, it shows where the, where the growth was this year. The growth at elementary, early ages and at high school, middle school, a little bit of growth, but not as much as in those two ends. And so,

150yeah, it was a large number of kids that graduated this year. Okay. Is there any further discussion? So I would recommend that we handle 5.01 and 5.02 and block. I'm on the motion to approve Discovery and Explorer Academy school improvement plans. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. Motion's approved. And item 6.01, new policy 3.1.1.2 social emotional climate second reading. Superintendent Winter. Thank you. So again, this is a second reading of a brand new policy, 3.1.1.2 social emotional climate. I do have Mona Johnson available if you have any questions, but she did a great presentation two weeks ago in the first reading. So I'll just throw it back to you, President Gattonby, and if there's questions, we can pull her forward. Okay. For discussion, Director Sieber? I have no

151further questions. I certainly appreciated her presentation at the last meeting. It was very thorough. Thank you. Director Daly? No, I still have the same concern though of, it's a pretty nebulous thing. I don't know how we're going to monitor and I don't know how we're going to measure. And I'm not sure how we're going to know when we've succeeded to get there. Okay. Thank you. Director Diehl? I am confident that Aspen Group will help us with that. They did the seminar on that. So we have benchmarks and I know that we will, it won't be as easy as say math, you know, data, but we will. And thank you very much. I have no other questions. Okay. Thank you, Vice President Berg. Okay. If there's no further discussion on the motion to approve new policy

1523-1-1-2, social emotional climate. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say no. Ayes have it. Motion is approved. Item 7.01, superintendent report. I want to start by just yelling to the back. Thank you to Matthew Swager and Sarah Lloyd and Kyle Smith and Amy Miller. Erica Patton. Rondo's back there too. I know that Scott Camacho is back there. Lucy Hastings, our custodian at district office came over to help. There were a lot of people who at the last minute said, yes, we can. And we needed to. So thank you everybody, just for your support of what we're doing. It's really appreciated. And it really was last minute. And then Amy and Robbie, I think deserve special recognition too, because they picked up the ball and made sure this happened too. So I

153feel pretty blessed to be surrounded by some great people. So that's a really nice thing. I want to give a couple updates on a couple of things. One of those is summer school. So we have, I believe it's 320 students signed up for summer school at this point. So that not only will that be a great opportunity for our students in learning and really in preparation for next fall, but it's also a great opportunity for our staff in professional development to get some really good training that's relevant and meaningful as they move forward. So that's happening. Superintendent, can I ask what rule set will they be following? Is it the same protocols that they're following for in-person today or is it? They'll be following the in-person protocols for today. So that's a three feet mask

154must be worn, attestations, temperature checks, all those kinds of things. Unless, because it happens the end of July, unless something drastically changes, we'll adjust as we go. But we're going to go with the rules of the day, I guess is the best way to say that. What was the number again? I'm sorry, go ahead. What was the number again? 320 roughly. Pardon? 320. 320. Thank you. We did a survey of, so we had originally talked about next fall having the default being in-person learning, having Explorer as an option, and then a remote situation similar to what we did this year. OSPI came back and said for the state you have to have 70 percent of synchronous learning time. So that means about five hours or so on the computer for students. They also said a

155student has to have some health or safety conditions in order to be qualified and that all has to do with basic ed funding. So we did a survey of all of our current students who are in full-time remote. Those are the ones we asked. We had 138 total responses. 11 of those, this is K through eight, 11 of those said yes, they're interested in a continuous learning model similar to this year. There were 10 that said yes, I want to go to Explorer. So that left quite a few that said, I'm coming back. So we're now putting a delay on our third option. So now we've got two options and we'll be sending out some communication at the end of this week. The default is in-person learning for the fall and Explorer is the second

156option if someone has an online preference. So I just wanted to share that as well. Did get some star reading data results and I'm going to share that more as we decipher, but what we're learning from the data is that our students in reading are continuing to excel and I will share some of that data with you. There's a lot of it there and we're kind of working on deciphering it, but I think the key there is we're all wondering across the country what's the learning loss been, what's recurrent learning recovery look like, and what opportunities do we have for our students. And right now, as far as reading goes, we're looking that students have done a really nice job. I mean, our staff has done a really nice job. Math, we still have some

157work to do and I think that's one of the reasons why we've adopted a new math curriculum K-5 and we will continue to work hard on that, but those are some things I wanted to share. Pool update, I did have a meeting yesterday to talk about the pool and I've got a slew of information I'm going to share. I think we're going to get to a place with the board where the board will have to make a decision to say what are we going to do? Because as we've talked about before, what was identified in the pool and the total pool cost, those were 2018 numbers and probably, it was probably a little bit overestimated what we could get done for the cost. Probably not probably, it was overestimated what we could get done. The

158other thing, we were really looking at just the pool basin, the hydraulics in the pool and the roof and the locker rooms and the pool deck and everything else really needs to be done if it's going to be done. We've got a little bit of an issue in my opinion is that if we don't do that job correctly and don't do it well, we have no chance going out for any kind of levies or bonds in the future. So I'm going to share that information that I have. It's not all that specific as far as numbers, but I'll give you a ballpark number and then we can have a conversation as we get into July about what that might look like and we will bring Brett Palmison forward to have a more detailed discussion of

159where we are with the pool. So I did want to address that as a question. Graduation, like we said, Explorer graduation was awesome. So good to see staff and kids and really celebrating together. And then we've got Discovery tomorrow, which I'm looking forward to. And then Saturday, we've got graduation at South Kitsap High School at noon at Cheney Stadium. So it looks like right now we have 439 students who will be walking and there's a little over 500 graduates. So we've got some that are choosing not to walk. But that will be a fun day on Saturday and the weather looks good. And yes, bring some sunscreen. So that's what I have to share for tonight in my report. Okay. Director Siever? No questions. Director Daley? Yeah, just whenever we get down to the pool

160thing, I know we're going to talk about it a little bit later, but since we continue to call it the community pool and we have possibly an issue with funding, I think it's time to start talking to the City of Port Orchard and the County of Kitsap to say, if this is a community pool and we've put forth this much, maybe y'all ought to look at contributing to. I want to do some research on how that name came to be because I think there's two ways to look at it. One, the community is all chips in to make it go and the other is as the hub of the community, which I believe the school district should be, we provide an opportunity and a place. So let me do some research on the naming, but

161we can talk more about that as we look at the numbers and kind of the situation that we're in. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Director Diehl? I'd like to know when you would like us to graduation on Saturday, when you would like us there. So the graduates are arriving at 10. That's probably a little early. I would say if you're there by 11, that would just be safe and just planning for traffic and everything else that might happen. We will get underway directly at 12 and get going. So yeah, if you could be there by 11, that would be good. Thank you. Okay. President Burton? Yes. Are we going to continue to meet here in the future? Is this a permanent change or are we doing it just one step at a time? So I would

162like just to consider, and maybe it's not tonight we consider, but one of the things I would like to consider is for July is that we would use the high school library as our boardroom. I think it could be utilized as a community room as well. I know that the high school has some ideas about that, but we've got two students coming on board and they'll be at the table with us too. And our boardroom just doesn't have space. And that's why we changed tonight to accommodate. We would have to shut the meeting down tonight if we would have stayed where it was. The reason we weren't in the library is they're utilizing that as a staging area for collection of books and Chromebooks. So my proposal is that we would deck out the library

163of the high school as a boardroom and then can be utilized as a space for the high school and maybe even community events when the board's not using it. I think President Burton, this was a question for the five of us that we had made a decision to change the venue. Is this something that we as a body think is the right idea going forward? And I personally do based on space constraints because our current space is adequate for if it is just the board and the ex-officio members to support. But having anything as far as like doing nibs or something, we suddenly have a number of people per square inch problem quickly, so. Right. Yeah. And when and where we meet is a board decision. Yes. And should be made by the board. Well,

164and to piggyback on that, in the past, before last year, once a month at least, we met in one of our schools. And I don't know if we're going to start doing that again. Would that be a calendar issue? Because I think that's really important too, is the board to get out to the different schools. Yeah. We've been for the last 17, 18 months, obviously, that has been. Right. But I personally would like to see us do that because when it gets us out to the buildings and gives us a rather unvarnished, you know, view of what's going on there. So, but. I think the logistics of streaming the meeting, you know, is a little more complicated for changing locations. I'm not going to speak for the SKTV folks that are back there, but, you

165know, streaming from the library, does that present a problem? I think what Director Berge is referencing though, if we're going from, if we're doing a tour of the district. Yeah. If we're meeting at different schools. Yeah. Okay. I understand that. So our next meeting, July 16th, will be in the high school library. There's no objection. I would like to say. It's a public meeting for the budget, right? Yeah. Why don't we have it here? We certainly could. Within a 150 feet of here. It could be right there. Well, yeah. Yeah. Because we're having a public hearing on the 16th of July also. I think it's the 21st. 21st, whenever it is. Yeah. So should we meet here in the auditorium? It probably would be prudent to say that we would do that meeting here and

166then it allows the staff to come up with some options for if the library would be and some layout kind of options. So we've done an ad hoc before there. So. Okay. Okay. Any other questions for the superintendent? Okay. We have item 7.02 public comment. The second portion of it. We have two. Matthew, you want to go first? Okay. Matthew, you're going to be recognized for up to three minutes. Okay. We good? Okay. So just a comment here because we normally don't go on to the mic, but SKTV this past year has covered 90 different sporting events, JVC, team, and varsity. Equally up to about 108 hours plus of high school sports edited. And I say edited because that does not mean time, halftime, pre-show, stuff like that. We've also streamed several hours of other

167schools just competing that are not south, thanks to the setup we've had. That does not also include stuff like the concerts we did last week or the ROTC's passing review, the play, which we've helped and got that going, and several other things. So it's been a very active year for SKTV, including the first time ever putting the board meetings on live on SKTV. So it has been a very big struggle, but as we've gone through it, but the main reason to comment here is that starting today, 22 graduations dating back to 1999 are available on our YouTube channel for people to watch. Included with that is our old series called Wolf Tracks, which has 140 episodes of SK content dating back to 1998 as well for people to watch and see SK history. And because

168this is the 100th year, I thought at least getting that knowledge out somewhere, in some way, was worthy. So that's it. Thank you, Matthew. And one thing I do want to, you know, from personal, I follow the YouTube channel and try and catch, you know, as I can, as you guys put the events up there too. So, okay, Kimberly McMorris, three minutes. Yeah. I'm sorry, but I just really feel I love South Gitsap. I moved here when I was 18. I've lived here, raised my family. Children went through the whole school. I believe in my school board. I believe in my district. What I'm seeing tonight and I've seen on several nights is seeming to be a need to inflame or to provoke, to make things big and ugly. And it bothers me and it

169concerns me. And that's why I'm speaking. I don't know what was going on today with the IMC suggestion. I read the law and found out what was required. I don't know what's going on with the, what is that called CRT? CRT. All I know is that I see dissension. I see divisiveness. I see it in our country, but I'm seeing it here in my home and I'm tired of seeing inflammatory. Facebook is not a place to get a feel of the community. Facebook is a bunch of sick people doing dumb things. I think we've proven that. If you have record of teachers who are speaking inappropriately or you have recordings of them, I hope and pray that you are sending them to the appropriate places because that should never be allowed. But to say that

170that is happening in our district inflames things. I just, I would love that we can get along without having to be divisive. We don't need someone to say no, just to say no. We need to be able to work together. It doesn't mean we're thinking the same. It means that we have a common belief and we're working together. I just, I'm so sad. And what I wonder, what is chasing people away from our district is this. This is divisiveness, this ugliness, not all of you. And I bless all of you though, for doing this. I wouldn't do it. I don't know why you're doing it, but I'm grateful that someone's doing it. But could we try to be more civil and could we try to be logical and really research what the law says about

171the school board? I don't know. If I'm out of line, I apologize. I thank you for your service, but I would like to see a little bit more working together. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. McNorse. So that was the last item there. We're up to item 8.01 for executive session. Due to the, I would say delay, but for the very robust public comment period, we're getting pretty late into the evening here. I would move that we not do the executive session this evening and do it the hour before our training on the 25th. That I think would be more fair to the district. I just, Ms. Robbie, because she'd have to stick around for, to get the final time and everything for this. So I just think to be considerate of all that, that would

172be a better time to do it. So 11, 11, posted in a way. Are we making it? We're making a decision. I can hear you, but they put your little thing in front of your face. Can we post it in a way that we can make a decision because we're making a decision, correct? We were running into the same conundrum that we have for tonight that the decision will quote unquote be made on the 20th meeting on the 21st. Cause the executive session is not open to public. So we will make no decision coming out of that into the, just the working session, just the discussion of it. Yes. And so the contract will be moved to another date, the 21st of July. Okay. Thank you. So we'll start at 11, go into executive session.

173Then at noon, we'll go into a work study session. Yes. That's my proposal. If there's no objection. Works for me. Okay. That concludes all business before the board. We are adjourned. Thank you all. Don't forget, Judy.