001[Music] so [Music] so [Music] okay i would like to call the meeting order and acknowledge that the tumwater school district sits on the ancestral ancestral lands of the disquali squawkson island and shahila's people i thank these caretakers of the land who have lived on and continued to live on since time memorial please rise as becky parsons leads us in the flag salute wow 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 thank you becky before we begin i would like to remind members of the public that if you wish to address the board during the public comment portion of the meeting you will need to email your name and topic to becky powell
002at becky.pal at tomwater.k12.wad.us comments must have been submitted to becky no later than 6 p.m when we reach the public comment portion of the agenda becky will read off your name make you a panelist if you're on zoom so you're able to be seen and heard and then you'll be given the opportunity to read your comment the initial speaker on a topic will be provided five minutes additional speakers on the same topic will be allowed three minutes for a total of 20 minutes on any one topic becky parsons will serve as the timekeeper and will notify you when your time is up if you do not sign up in the time and you're not able to address the board you're welcome to email your comments to the board and or the superintendent everyone has the
003same setup first name dot last name at tomwater.k.12 k12.1.us superintendent has there been any changes or additions to the agenda essential was published there have not okay is there any uh motions to make changes to the agenda for me and the board members no no okay we will now move on to the consent agenda the board has had an opportunity to review the items on the consent agenda i'll entertain any motion to approve the consent agenda as presented derby move to approve the consent agenda all in favor say aye aye motion's been passed thank you we'll now move on to the budget public hearing during this time we will hear public comment regarding the proposed budget each person has five minutes to read their statement if there's any comments now they'll be presented is that
004right sean yeah so okay working here so we'll start off as we go into this and give uh um give jennifer carrower a chance to just kind of do a quick recap on on in general and start us off with this hearing and then have the opportunity to hear anyone who wants to make comment on the budget and just as a quick reminder we're in a public hearing for the budget and then once this part is concluded they will then move into a regular normal meaning and then we would have public comment for other topics outside of the agenda good jennifer thank you yes thank you so i will be brief i gave a presentation a couple weeks ago and i do want to clarify this is for the purpose of adoption of the regular
0052122 budget as well as a budget extension for the capital projects fund for the current year so i will just highlight a few things for purposes of public hearing um so in the general fund budget adoption um we're presenting a balanced budget for the 21 22 general fund as well as all of our other transportation vehicles debt service um asb and um capital projects fund and for um we are also presenting our four-year forecast which i went over a couple weeks ago also and um just to mention that it does result in a negative fund balance at the end of 24 25 there's several assumptions that result in that decreasing time balances we discussed a couple of weeks ago um and we know we can only happen so we are doing a lot of work
006um we've already started the work of making yeah i'm sorry to interrupt but i can't really hear jennifer hold on just second melissa yep so we're going to see if we can get where you can hear melissa sorry here um here jennifer i don't usually need a microphone thank you so i was just talking about our four year forecast and that we have started on discussions already and we will be closely monitoring our fund balance um over the next um several months and year um and then i also just wanted to talk about our 2122 budget we have some federal stimulus funds that will help us continue to provide services to our students well as we return to in-person school and i just want to make the comment again as i have in the past
007that those are one-time funds that allow us to bring our students back to school safely and address learning loss recovery and then for the capital projects fund we have a budget extension request for 2021. um there were several projects that were delayed due to covert 19 we underspent our expenditures by 7 million in the prior year due to those delays and so we are starting to catch up with some of those projects um this year so we were asking for an increase of 3.745 million dollars to our capital projects fund and we have the fund balance available to um to account for those expenditures and if there's any specific questions on that bell is here to answer any questions um and i think with that i would we'll leave it open for public comment um
008i have a question real quick mel would you just um since i'm you know relatively new still and i was not around for the kovic would you mind just giving us a real brief rundown on what the what projects were extended due to coven so there were several the completion of tim waterhill elementary uh the remodel up there that was delayed the tumwater learning center was delayed we also had a project that to re-roof the old library at prg schmidt that got delayed into this year and we also we're purchasing furniture for black lake elementary and we originally were going to do it last summer and that got delayed into this summer and there and as well as the tumwater high school building c re-roof was originally slated to begin last year last summer but
009because of covid we did not have time to complete the architect didn't have time to complete the design documents in order to admit it in time so there were several okay thank you so much okay thank you mel any other questions regarding the budget okay we're still in the public hearing for the budget as i understand so we will now open this up at a public hearing is that right yes yes absolutely so if there's anyone here in the room interested in speaking regarding the budget um at this time uh we can make that happen and if there's anyone on zoom interested in making public comment i'll watch over here to see if anyone uh puts anything in the chat to say they want to comment on budget so we can open them up as
010well to do so and then then see how that is is there anyone here interested in making comment on budget okay okay for those of you off zoom land is there anyone who's interested in making public comment on the budget is it just melissa by yourself all right good all i'm not right anything i want to give people online they're putting the comment in the chance to do so say yes i will speak up okay last call for anyone want to speak up during public comment for budget okay thank you we will now move on to the public comment follow-up dr dawson do you want to go ahead um certainly so uh so that ends our public hearing on budget and so yes public comment follow-up so we had several people who made public comment
011at our last meeting and it was generally as you recall around the topic of department of health requirements and whether we should or should not follow those requirements and so uh based upon that tonight you'll have that opportunity to hear from lance andre our our school district's attorney from porter foster oreck as well as chris lawrence from propel insurance who will be able to provide some additional information uh based upon your request at the last meeting to continue to review that we'll have the opportunity for those who may not have had the chance to be heard a public comment to make public comment tonight uh in that so i want to make sure you've had the chance to hear from everyone interested and speaking so all right thank you dr johnson okay we will move
012on to the public comment portion of our meaning just as a reminder before we begin with public comments uh becky parsons will call on each person that submitted their name in topic by 6 pm via email allowing the opportunity to read their statement the first submission on topic will receive five minutes every submission after the same topic received three minutes for a total of 20 minutes for any one topic becky parsons will serve as the timekeeper and will inform the speaker when their time is up we try to give you a warning if we can the board does not discuss personnel matters or matters involving students discipline in open meetings such as banners are only addressed in an executive session concerns about such matters should be first addressed with the superintendent or design id who
013will then when appropriate in form and in all the board the board will likely not respond at as at this time for you to hear for us to hear your issue please note all submissions will be shared with the board and superintendent upon hearing your comment the board will take it under advisement and will as needed ask the appropriate staff members follow up with you becky did you receive any submissions online or in person for public comment yes go ahead [Music] thank you yes tara kimbrough thank you everything go ahead okay okay i'm good good evening as you all said i'm tara kimbrough a very concerned mom of two a lifelong tumwater resident and a graduate from tumwater high school for those that think that the government has our best interests in mind solely based
014on science and data i would just like to tell you a little story tonight for the last 18 months i was the facilities and safety director for a large state agency i was responsible for ensuring employees are ensuring our offices employees and customers were safe from covet exposure let me tell you it is not a fun job in may i was asked to create and champion a mask exemption process so essentially this is a process to allow vaccinated employees to remove their masks while maintaining masking and social distancing requirements for those who are unvaccinated what i now know is that this was the dry run for vaccine mandates logically i asked why can't we just leave the masks on for everyone until we can all take them off and citing my concerns about employee morale
015mental health and treating factions of our employees differently based on their vaccination status also at that time there was no proof that the vaccines prevented transmission we now know they reduce it but they do not stop it additionally creating such a process when everyone could just keep their masks on in my opinion wasted state state resources so after consulting with the ag and all top leadership i was told our governor wanted to incentivize vaccination so despite the knowledge and awareness of possible risks that i detailed and both the physical and mental from both the physical and mental perspective i was asked to not put any of it in writing and to proceed jay inslee demanded it and i said no yesterday was my last day with the state after 13 and a half years i
016decided to resign in july i refuse to sit by idly as the state pretends to care about your health and well-being while playing games with masks purposefully limiting vaccine vaccine exemptions required by federal law denying people's unemployment and firing people for a condition of employment illegally added under the guise of an emergency after the vaccine mandate was released agencies were directed to limit conversations about it as much as possible and do not discuss the legality what you just told people that you would be firing them if they did not take a vaccine and yet we shouldn't be allowed them the opportunity to ask questions or provide justification for its existence that seems a bit nefarious if you ask me now what does this have to do with our schools you're probably thinking i know what
017is next and so do you as soon as the vaccine is approved for children 5 through 11 kids will be required to be vaccinated for covid to attend public school our governor will deny your children the right to an education just like he denies you the right to a job by the time it's released for emergency authorization each vaccine will have been tested on roughly 4 500 kids let me repeat that 4 500 kids before it could get to a point where he's saying everyone has to have it a lot of parents will rate weigh those risks and benefits prior to vaccinating their children and in many cases parents will choose to wait citing low risk of severe illness and maybe you know no long-term data on the risks this is unethical i know many
018parents are pulling their kids from public schools right now for a variety of reasons on both ends of the spectrum i'm sure the school district has fears they won't have enough funding to sustain how they won't have enough kids to sustain funding just wait until the vaccines are mandated for attendance and you know what you might be thinking i don't agree with this lady and i respect that you may be thinking i love our governor and i love what he's doing i'm content in the sweet embrace of our government and the sense of security he's providing me and that's great so let's find some common ground we can all agree that every single child in this district matters every single child deserves equal access to public education and this is what you the board were
019elected for and our tax dollars demand it i'm pleading with you and i i'm saying this to prepare you for battle for all of our kids i was told for months at work we would never require you to get vaccinated to come in and look where we are today so stand up enough is enough no more mandates it does not have to be this way thank you very much for your time tonight i appreciate all of you thank you tara becky you have our next speaker sure and so she'll have three minutes on that [Applause] yeah okay i'm up here today because i would like some clarification on some of the guidelines set forth for washington public schools right now to my understanding with the current covid safety protocols in washington state all children in
020a classroom are going to be set home and expected to quarantine every time one classmate tests positive or shows symptoms and kids won't be allowed back to class until after the quarantine period unless they test negative or if they have the vaccine they won't have to test so you're telling me every single time a child runs a fever or has a seasonal allergy or the common cold they will be sent home along with all of their classmates and expected to quarantine then get the swab jabbed up their nose every single time except for the youth who get the vaccine they'll be allowed back in school without needing to quarantine or take the test like i said is this correct this is just my understanding and what exactly do symptoms include and furthermore how is this
021affecting our children and youth psychologically learning to be afraid of anyone who has a slight cough being afraid of getting sick because then they'll get kicked out of school and all of their peers will blame them that makes me absolutely sick and it's the exact reason why i've already decided and finalized my intent to withdraw from tomorrow public schools and you're probably thinking oh well just another student gone but last summer my daughter who is go now going into sixth grade volunteered at tumwater high school to hand out sack lunches during her summer vacation she even got recognized at a zoom board meeting for that so that's the kind of student you guys are losing have been a licensed child care provider since 2012 and i have experience teaching my children along with about a
022hundred other children preschool and kindergarten readiness i have absolutely no hesitance that i can homeschool i've looked into it and there are a multitude of resources for parents so parents whether you are in person or watching on youtube live stream if this is an option that has crossed your mind and it is something your family can afford but you don't know where to start come find me look me up courtney williams i will help you we can do it together it takes a village our kids deserve to be kids they should not be forced coerced bribed or incentivized into a public education they deserve to play together to smile at each other this new normal is not normal and my family and i refuse to participate in mandates and guidelines that are immoral and unethical
023board members staff and parents what is it going to take for you to realize that these forceful mandates are wrong currently our government is threatening the livelihood of our teachers and staff this is unethical teachers town water families stood behind you when you took a strike a couple of years ago and we will stand behind you again to fight for your medical freedom i'm scared to think of what's coming next but i think we all know masks for everyone except for the students and staff who are vaccinated segregation is at its finest are you waiting for that day to come before you finally stand up and say i don't believe this is right thank you courtney next we have dave morris and he's speaking to the same topic so he has three minutes dude i'm
024promoting you up to panelist if you're doing this so that if you choose to use camera you can there you are there i am very good okay are you ready first of all i wanted to start and say i really appreciate everybody in the room and on zoom who's taking time you know like i am away from being with their children to be here advocating for their education i appreciate everybody and the time that you put in the school board and people who i may feel are horribly mistaken but certainly care my wife's an emergency room nurse and she's seen a significant uptick in cova cases among kids we didn't have a positive case that i'm aware of last spring but i think it would be foolish to count on luck again this year uh
025i'm going to do everybody one other solid and get done here in well under three minutes first of all i'd like to make sure you hear from the other residents of tom water who send their students to tumwater schools and are committed to attending we support the state mass mandate and we certainly expect the tumwater school board to use its moral authority and our resources that we pay to enforce the state health policies especially when they're consistent with cdc and wh recommendations it shouldn't be the responsibility of parents who want to follow the law to withdraw from the public school system to do it and i have a series of questions that i am waiting for answers to one of them is what are we going to do to support teachers and make sure that
026mass mandates are enforced and that kids do in fact wear masks how are we going to handle social distancing at lunch when kids are not masked and they can't be are we going to be doing hepa filters and things like that like they do in the olympia public schools of them finally i'd like to share the concern that the first parent talked about what is our plan uh for reporting and tracking cases as they come sooner or later a parent is going to send a sick kid to school i start started out as a kindergarten teacher a million years ago back when dinosaurs run the earth and it happened then and it's going to happen today what kind of accountability is there what what's the reporting strategy where's the transparency how do we know that
027uh when a sick kid is identified in school and there's reason to be is going to take place finally what's the plan to make sure that students who are in quarantine which is seems inevitable will be able to continue learning um i'd hate to see us in a situation where for a second year last year the stat option but to me [Music] i'm sorry i didn't get the the young woman's name who spoke second courtney with that any why courtney okay [Applause] [Music] um [Music] it says i can share screen i'm not going to share quite yet but i will in just a minute okay perfect it looks yup we got that setting on perfect so catherine is signed up to speak about okay um for five minutes all right you guys ready great go
028ahead katherine okay so as we go into another year of covid i think that um it's important but we've had many years of um equity challenges and time letters so i'm focusing on that tonight um it is vital that tumwater school district practices inclusive hiring inclusive hiring practices will help the tom water school district hire diverse staff some ways to be inclusive are to have larger font to include job descriptions instead of requirements do not use gendered language have the job description available in a variety of languages adhere to web content accessibility guidelines to be clear about inclusion goals as well as diversity in tumwater school district as of now and when hiring a having a diverse interview panel i know that this is being worked on however it is important that tomwater school district
029continues to work on being inclusive it is important for our students as well as our community and systematic discrimination to stop discrimination we know that we need to make changes to the very systems that put them in place such as hiring procedures i would like to share some data from tomwater school district so i will share my screen now and this is our ospi um i'm just gonna be sharing the disciplinary and um our enrollment so this is our enrollment screen right here our our report and you can see that down here we're at 72 percent white 8.5 two or more races 17 hispanic and one percent eight so you can see all of those here um and then we can click over to our disciplinary so keeping this in mind um and then seeing
030where our disciplinary is so we have two or more races being disciplined at twice almost twice the rate as our white students even though we know that we do not have um they're not the same as attending and this is something that is just showing um there's a disproportionate rate of discipline on five poc students um many of you know me from many of the the board members know my story and know i've been involved with the equity work in the district i have a biracial son in the district that has experienced many ignorant and racist comments every day when he was in in person school in 2019 i met with the principal in his school and even though my son didn't want me to his mental emotional health was greatly affected by everything going
031on at school so i felt like i didn't have another choice um we ended up changing school districts a few of the main kids were had just not been attending the school anymore so he came back to school right before kobet however him and i know other students that are not returning to in-person school not only because of kobud but due to the fear of the social climate in tumwater school district right now specifically around racism and racial equity um we know from our child water school district data that our bipartisan students are not returning to in-person school as much as our white students and that is just something and that is pretty much statewide these these concerns are not unique to tumwater school district you can see these report cards all over the state
032um and i do also want to thank the district for the equity work that they have been doing and the data that i pulled is right on the equity diversity and inclusion tab intel motor school district and about the hire that we hired for the dei position and now we aren't able to hire anyone new i just want to know that i i want to say that push going forward that we will be able to hire that position as soon as possible because the weight load of all the equity work and some water is too much for somebody to handle that doesn't have the time to dedicate to that position and i know there's many parents that have been voicing their their um ideals on masks and i would just like to say that i
033support the district using masks and i'm really fearful for our kids moving forward that we'll be in um attending in-person school especially those not vaccinated do our due to the hospitalization of most coveted patients are not vaccinated um and along with other parents i'm curious how you guys are going to be handling keeping kids safe at school and thank you guys for your time thank you catherine okay we are done with public comments this time we will now move on to the reports to the board john dodson will present on the doh requirements in the follow-up discussion from our last meeting i'm yes go ahead and take a minute just to put uh information up here but um oh doh requirements so we are we're sitting let's see we're at uh 6 30. i'm going
034to take a look and see if we have any of our presenters on right now okay i thought it was so loud oh yes okay we do so um so as you know i'll go ahead and promote lance in here in just a moment so as you know in our last meeting we had some discussion we we decided to bring our attorney and someone from our risk management pool to the table to have some discussion share some information uh and help us better understand what what um our authority is in relation to these guidelines so uh lance is joining us i'm gonna move you up to the panelist and then we have um [Music] good evening lance i think we have you on our panel now so hopefully you should be able to join us
035there you are good evening good evening um thank you for joining us uh so lance as we spoke i i shared the the board of seeking some guidance regarding the um the law and the board's authority related to mask requirements doh guidelines and requirements and uh and where that resides and i know i wanted to give you the opportunity to share some information have the board ask any questions they have regarding that so we can make sure that we have clear understanding so thank you for being here well well thank you for having me and and i i was able to hear some of the public comments uh on on these issues and i think the comments i heard were mostly related to the vaccine issue and the memo that i provided to the board
036really focused on questions that had been raised around the mask mandate from the state so i'm i'd rather answer questions that the board has uh than the ones you know that i'm assuming they might have but i can go over some of the frequently asked questions that were addressed in in the memo lance um i have a board member who wanted to just go ahead just real quickly lance could you just say your your whole name what what your title is and what you do for the district please sorry absolutely yeah my name is lance andre i'm an attorney with a law firm called porter foster roarick we're in seattle washington our practice is exclusively serving public school districts throughout the state of washington and so i've been doing that for since 2003 and uh
037so i represent the tomwater school district uh as both general legal counsel and you know for labor relations and things of that nature and i also represent a number of other public schools thank you thank you lance so one of the questions that's come up frequently around the mask mandate is where does the authority come from does does the governor or the department of health have authority to issue these mandates to public schools there are several legal sources and and i've outlined those in a frequently asked questions to ask document for the board but the short answer is yes there's statutes that are passed by the state legislature empowering during a state of emergency that's been declared by the governor at this point empowering the governor and empowering the department of health the state department
038of health and local departments of health to take necessary steps to stop the spread of infectious diseases and so that's the situation we're in right now where these mandates do have the authority of law the usual means of uh enforcement for that that is set forth in the statute anyways is actually a criminal penalty uh it's a gross misdemeanor for anyone to violate the uh governor's mandates during a state of emergency it is a uh what we call a simple misdemeanor or just a a regular misdemeanor to violate the mandate of the state department of health or a local health authority and so there's a clear statutory basis and it's not you know optional um with regard to another question that often comes up is there's a statute called rcw2832015 that a lot of folks
039have been talking about lately around this question of the masked mandy it grants school districts broad discretionary authority to adopt policies that further the goals of the district and one of the questions that's been raised and there's been some things posted on social media by politicians and things like that questioning whether school districts could under that authority adopt a policy and then if we have a policy does that then supersede the mass mandates from the governor or from the department of health the short answer again is no public school districts only have such authority as they're granted by statute by the constitution and that one rcw gives us authority to do things that will further the educational goals of the district but only to the extent consistent with other laws and those other laws that
040i've just talked about clearly require everyone to obey these mandates during a public health emergency and so it would not be uh prudent and something i would advise for a school board to adopt a policy that purports to adopt a different uh mass policy than has been said by the state it's just not something we have the authority to do and i hear a lot of concern and and points being made by people who who don't agree with that policy and what i say is the comments that we're hearing they really need to go to the state because the state is where this policy is set and i and i feel quite a bit of you know um concern for the school boards of the state right now that are getting a lot of pressure
041put on them to do something they just simply don't have the legal authority to do and so it's important that people understand that that's where those comments really should be directed [Music] does ospi have authority to withhold funding if a school district chooses to disregard the order that's another question that comes up very often the the superintendent of public instruction has said uh that he will withhold funds from school districts that don't abide by these mandates um that's a question that has not been well settled in the law and i will you know not stand here and say that it's it's absolutely 100 certain that that would be one of the consequences that could be imposed there's a process that would need to happen at least for that to happen and it's not clear exactly
042what that process would be but what we can say is that there could be other consequences including um the fact that you know there's these criminal penalties out there that so far there has not been a lot of enforcement of but they are there in the law finally a question often comes up about constitutional rights what have the courts said about the constitutional right not to wear a mask isn't there a freedom that goes along with that and yes generally speaking the government doesn't get to tell us what to wear right and so um in normal times when we don't have a state of emergency in a pandemic the government would have very limited authority to tell us what to wear from one day to the other but during a state of emergency courts have
043repeatedly said during pandemics that states do have broad authority to do what it takes to sort of stop the spread of infectious diseases and uh though the case that i cited in the memo it's from 1905 but it's never been reversed by the supreme court actually upheld mandatory vaccines for the general public during the smallpax vaccine or smallpox uh epidemic in 1905. and so that case has been cited repeatedly and and quite recently by a number of courts that have upheld similar mass mandates in other states and other pretty extreme measures that governments have had to take in order to try to stop the pandemic doesn't mean that those decisions are all right or wrong you know the courts don't get into whether or not uh it's good policy what they get into is whether
044the authority is there for the executive the the governor to to make those decisions and the courts have repeatedly said that that's something they leave to the executive if you don't like the way the governor is handling the pandemic the remedy is not to go to court but to vote him out of office and so that's what the courts have basically said um and i'm not trying to make a comment you know pro or con with what the governor is doing i'm just saying that's what the courts have said the remedy is it's a political remedy not a remedy in court and not something where there's a constitutional violation that's that's occurred so in conclusion you know we we hear a lot of concern about about the mask mandates and you know again it's appropriate
045to bring those concerns to the state government and people certainly have a right to express their concern about it during school board meetings as well but in terms of what the school board has the authority to do uh my analysis and the analysis of every attorney that i've i've talked to on this is that it is not within our authority to defy those mandates i'll take questions from the board at this point if there are any any questions from the board i have two i don't want to take up all lance's time though so i have two uh kind of topics areas lance can you hear me okay i can yes great so the first one i want to touch on is the emergency order this is the same emergency order that was enacted by
046the governor himself early last year in 2020 is that correct and we are still you that's the the same law that is essentially binding us to every order is that correct that there was an initial order and it has been extended a number of times um none of us hoped the pandemic would last this long um and then finally uh a few months ago and i'm sorry i don't have all the dates of all those orders with me and if anyone has all those memorized um my hat is off to them but finally after you know kind of some serial extensions there was a legislative decision made to go ahead and extend those indefinitely and so uh yes we're still under um not the first order but kind of the last order that was issued
047before that that legislative act was was was made to extend that and the state of emergency that's been declared by the governor continues to be in place it was january 22nd um so that order can only be changed by legislature that is correct we would have to have session and law that would either limit or restrict that before it could be changed at all and the only one that can lift that is the governor himself is that correct i think what i heard is the state of emergency was the question whether or not only the governor can can lift the state of emergency yes i know we can do it by legislature i assume but the governor yeah that is the yeah correct that's the yeah well certainly the school board doesn't have the authority
048no no no um the the question of whether or not the the legislature could uh could reverse it is a separate question um and you know there are there are procedures certainly that the legislature could go through uh and then there would be a you know basically a separation of powers issue at the state level between the executives you know sort of authority and the legislature's authority it's kind of not within the scope of you know my analysis of this situation so um but you know i i'm really focusing on the school board's authority at this point um and and that is clear uh clearly not there great thank you lance i'll go on the second topic then real quick so we know that essentially the board can't go against or or change or you
049know go against any mandates do we have the ability to enhance those or make those um let's say stronger or better or safer or more economical for the district and the students or the kids yes within within reasonable limits right we know that we have a duty to educate all children you know within our boundaries and so anything that would exclude people we you know we'd be limited by that we we know that we you know probably would have some constitutional limits on the district's uh authority you know and actions that are beyond the governor's authority uh but for example you know a school district that wants to mandate that employees wear masks in areas that the state might not otherwise mandate in order to be safe and to stop you know to to be
050extra careful about the spread of any infectious diseases outside the context of the public school program would have the authority to do that those rules can sometimes legal ramifications uh when we act above and beyond what the what the state has told us to do but yes there's authority to be more careful than the state has required if we focus that just on the kids and the students would we have to bargain that if we made the kids more safe by enhancing these requirements would we have to bargain that uh not necessarily it would depend on the specific type of of change that was made and and i would i would suggest that that would probably want to be something that where the the discussion would happen at the administrative level and uh you know
051have some privileged advice of legal counsel about specific pros and cons of things that might be considered um you know i i heard some discussion for example about kids and whether kids without vaccinations might be excluded and at this point there is no right to exclude students um who are not vaccinated from public schools so that's another decision that is not within the authority of the school district we have to take kids as they come to us if they're not vaccinated we still educate them and we enforce other safety measures you know mass requirements the state does have mandatory vaccination laws for certain types of vaccinations and exemptions from those for um sincerely held religious beliefs uh health issues that kids have measles etc um and it's possible um around attendance for example thank you
052lance okay any more questions from the board just thank you lance thank you for being so thorough in your in your report to us thank you very much for being here everyone i think i just hit the new button [Music] um i if i look at our list of attendees i don't know if we i'm not sure that we have chris lawrence on the chris if you're in the attendees could use give me a note in that shot so i can promote you back to town we may not have them on the on the zoom at this time was he expected to be in here my understanding is we were going to have them on there and i'm wondering if something happens okay so so we can keep an eye out and see if they
053jump on in a few minutes we could always go ahead and get into our policies that we have up and uh we can check if we've got that opportunity to bring them onto the panel in a few minutes okay let's move on to uh and we'll move back and forth to the board but we'll move on to action items uh sean bastille present policy 411 school safety and services program go ahead yeah your second reading for three policies 43 11 311 concerning school safety and security services 3207 the prohibition of harassment policies correct all policies 3207 prohibition of harassment intimidation and bullying 3241 student discipline so i do have a question or a topic from 3207 okay i wanted to discuss about paying vaccination status to that category and getting the thoughts from well probably
054bullshot um and see if that's our we think that's already covered in there or if we feel we need to add that in specific yeah thank you for asking take a look at the first paragraph of the policy things that's often true about policies is you can't always account for every situation that would come up so many times in the law policy they will yes done like prior to would you want that i moved and bullying is presented do you want to do anything sure i will make a motion to approve 207 prohibition i stole it i am presenting the resolution for the i want to continue we'll continue to build from that to make sure we're getting good feedback on follower last winter this is the highest peak we've experienced in thurston county and
055with that we get some questions from people per the executive order we will be open five days a week and i know some people are feeling like gosh almost we're back to where we started keeping the spread down in our schools is to use what we call that swiss cheese approach there's a variety of mitigation measures none of which are perfect but when you put them together they help us reduce the spread in our schools um and and that has proven to in school settings weren't necessarily the the perfect what that long-term social isolation how hard that is on our kids and so when we put those things together that is what's behind our decision to go forward and so with physical distancing with masks having kids one door we're not going to do the
056temperature checks because we learned that that wasn't um that wasn't an effective way for us to really identify students who might be coming to the school with covet we weren't that wasn't helping us significantly in that area we are going to continue to emphasize the important measure of parents checking kids for symptoms before and keeping them home if they're sick and we will continue to keep to if there is a student that we see who is experiencing symptoms removing them right away getting them to a place where they're safe getting them a safe ride home so that they can uh uh and then we have test we do have testing available through esd-113 we have a drive-through site that continues to be available for families who wish to get uh so if there's an exposure
057that they are able to undergo testing and we did have some questions tonight that were posed that are really good ones about what are our plans for um for students to so for example um i i heard what's the plan for reporting and tracking cases we work with the county health department on that and our nurses are in constant contact with them so when there is a case it's reported to county seating charts for creation they've shifted the guidance to where a close contact last year while students could sit three feet spaced a close contact we've been successfully doing that over was covered positive now this year they've adjusted that so it now matches it's three feet if students are separated by three feet they are not considered a close contact and don't have to
058quarantine so that certainly helps us in that the it there is a strong remnants they would recommend testing if they're inside three feet positive and if someone was sitting within six feet of that person math for that 15 there's so that the guidance is shifted and we're just getting all of that classroom it's back to help them say we communicate it out to parents as part as part of our safe uh the information to know what is it we're doing but as with and thank you aaron for helping us with that shoot um and and then the parents um even just had a quick but i don't want to steal your slide but the thurston county health officer quarantine is right they you an appointment on our website people can also keeping it down uh
059and i i expect us to have excellent success again in the fall uh the challenge will be it will it will we will have cases come into the school and to expect zero transmission is also unrealistic so um what we're all seeking to do is minimize it as much as possible and have our nurses ready to support throughout this process i want to shift briefly to some work we started at our july workshop and that was to say okay we just ended a five-year strategic plan now what and and saying what does it look like going forward do we go through another five-year strategic planning process and we had a discussion about developing something that would be that would identify our clear goals and so this is a draft what i'm showing you is not
060a finished product that we've been working on naming and so this i showed this to you previously now what we've come to is really identifying that as around instructional excellence which is challenging all of our students and preparing them with skills to succeed in life beyond graduation systems of support which is creating welcoming and school and district culture where students social and emotional needs are met and then fiscal stewardship where we manage and protect our public funds and assets through efficient and effective use of our resources and all of that is underscored by this focus on educational equity which is really about saying how do we make sure that we're increasing the achievement of all of our students while at the same time closing the gaps between different groups to make sure that you can't
061predict a student's chance of success by their family's income by their race by their gender or any other distinguishing characteristic those shouldn't be i mean kids aren't always all going to perform the same but we shouldn't it shouldn't be predictable based upon any of those factors so this is kind of what we're putting in place as a framework and our intent would be then to set goals in those areas to help move our work forward monitor those goals on an annual basis to say how are we doing are we making progress and we can always adjust these pillars if we determine at some point that they should be starting to become some 12 30 to 3 30 on monday and if any of you are interested we'll certainly give you the links so that you
062would have the opportunity to join our staff for that training and just to give you a sense of what so jamaat conley and potential unlimited i was familiarized with them through regional superintendence trainings last year where he was really sharing um doing some training for superintendents around cultural competence diversity equity and inclusion and was really impressed with the approach he brought and one of the things that uh just give you a sampling of what he really believes in beginning by framing this around a set pact and for if when i'm speaking to others or when i'm taking actions that affect others that can help me be more aware that when i speak or act i need to not only think about what my intent is but also i be understanding of how i might impact
063other people and on the flip side of that when someone is acting or speaking in a way that impacts me when i'm impacted poorly i can be more understanding and more forgiving if i understand that a person's intent might not be the way it hit me and this is this is just a both and lens when we when we start to come there we can come out of our corners and start to communicate better we can start to work together more effectively and so he's going to spend time with staff on a set of eight of those and and those can really help us as we come into equity work do so when we have very different perspectives and come at that in a way where we're able to see each other's points of view
064and do the and engage in equity work effectively together so really looking forward to that discussion and i just if jamal were here he'd say no no sean there's a much better way of putting that than what you just did but hopefully that just gives you a sense of that so if you have the opportunity to join us it will be i think a really good start off and yes those are they'll all be zoom in sessions those will be zoom in sessions okay our staffs will the way it'll be is he'll be doing this and there'll be some activities built in as follow-up um esd113 has developed a cultural competence diversity equity and inclusion training series that actually is using uh the same team the same consultants to to create that curriculum and i've
065participated in some of that curriculum previously it's really well done and we're going to have our staff throughout the year at some with some app times some of our act times actually participating in activities using those a five module series that will extend on what we learn at tomwater u and because we're working with jamad some this year in that training our intent is to meld both those online modules and some of the in-person trainings or or synchronous trainings uh live trainings that jamaad might run to really give our staff a seamless um experience where we leave with a common foundation uh and background for being for improving educational equity in our schools and really making our schools a welcoming place for all students because as you heard one of our speakers tonight the concern
066is how do we make sure every kid feels welcomed and cared for in our schools and that has to be one of our priorities and i think everyone every parent who sends their child to school what they want is they want to know my child is safe my child is cared for my child is respected my child is welcomed and and that has to be one of our beginning points for for moving forward so uh staff will be able to receive clock hours for participating and we're working thinking now about what are our opportunities for extension and differentiation because not everyone's in the same place in this work so while we need to give people a common foundation there's also that there are people who may want to extend and study further and we want
067to have those opportunities so that's the work in progress right now so any questions there and that's what i have for you tonight for the superintendent report great please keep in mind that melissa is not physically present so you get as much time as you want tonight [Music] who would like to go first uh excuse me i can steal time from california i'm sorry i couldn't hear you [Music] um i'll go first if nobody's jumping to do it i will go um here tonight whether you were fully here i'm sorry um but i am happy that i can attend over zoom so i i agree with oh are you going to put me on screen list right now bringing my baby and our kiddos to go wherever they want we are doing this for everyone
068while it gets hard our kids appreciate it so that's all i had to say thank you and we need to respect that as i'm going to follow the science medical community mitigating measure case studies that are cited by scientists help me arrive at and continue to shape my position in contrast voting at me cornering me in public or providing hearsay to change my position as i stated during our previous board meeting i'm very thankful that we have had civil conversations and i truly truly hope that continues going forward um i'm always open to like lori said we're always open conversations as long as those conversations stay civil and we act accordingly i am a processor which means i need time so if you have data if you have case studies by all means email it
069to me scott dot killo at timwater.k12.wa.us so that i can read it process it digest it and have a chance to think about it thank you director killough darby you want to go next sure hey so i'm going to do something similar to scott i'm going to draw a little bit deep and look here so as scott mentioned you know we oftentimes do get asked for our opinion on things and lately a lot of this discussion has focused on school boards and their role and authority what i'd like to share this evening is my guiding principle so again mine and my own that is most core to my approach to fulfilling my duty as a school board director which i'm going to draw on from reading the first paragraph of the board of directors policy
0701000 legal status and operation the board of directors of the tumwater school district is the corporate entity established by the state of washington to plan and direct all aspects of the district's operations to ensure quality in the content of the district's educational program and provide students with an opportunity to achieve those skills recognized as requisite to learning i started on this board in december of 2019 so i was here in march of 2020. i imagine the board of directors pre pandemic likely had a different experience and perspective about what this policy means in practice throughout the past year i learned things about the human condition in the realm of public education operations through a pandemic that i never imagined would ever terrified terrified that we were going to lose a kid and not to coven
071to a mental health crisis public conversation comments emails news articles etc that parents teachers students and finally the