001join me as the students from Freedom Elementary in honor of military child month um are going to do the Pledge of Allegiance Force you can either join with them or you can just listen that was great for those of you who don't know um PR Elementry is actually build on base property and it mostly serves our students that um are military dependent so great school over there so next we'll have uh Mrs quas come up for the award good evening I'd also like to invite uh principal Chad delbridge from Freedom Elementary to come up and lurel Walter um she is the chief marketing officer for Western Vista Federal Credit Union and they sponsor the uh pledge of allegiance videos again it's always a great way to start our meetings to remind us of what we're
002here for all right next we're going to be doing um the agenda so are there any adjustments to the agenda Mr chair there are no adjustments to the agenda this evening thank you all right so I took this little order we should have adopt our agenda first all right so let's go ahead for the motion Mr chair I move to adopt the agenda Mr chair I second okay we have a motion to adopt the agenda and the second all those in favor say I hi oppose no motion passes all right now we're back on track so now we're going to the student of the month and the first one's going to be from car Junior High Mr chair members of the Schoolboard Dr Newton thank you guys for the opportunity to celebrate one of our
003most amazing students in our building um when I send out an email saying hey it's our time to get ready for student of the month again I usually get one email reply per core and when I sent it out this time I got 17 emails from 17 different people all recommending one student and I know I get one brief sentence but those 17 emails were so powerful for me like I could sit up here and talk about some amazing grades I could talk about um joining clubs and Athletics but one of the things that struck me the most just how often her students even came up to me and said here should be our student of the month so would you please put your hands together for car Junior High student of the month 4y
004wo um thank you I'm very happy to be getting this um as you know I soon at Carri junor High I plan on going to East High School and then after that I'm hoping to go to BYU atah hope or udub for musical education and I was inspired by my teacher Miss Wagner she's an amazing Orchestra teacher and I love having her my Orchestra teacher and hoping to have her for the next four years well every morning when I come in to the building Courtney and her cohorts are busy getting ready to practice every single day and that's amazing um we could describe Courtney as determined and dedicated and sometimes you hear the word grim determination or stey der determination but what sets Courtney apart is that she is determined with joy and she brings
005joy to our classroom and makes it a wonderful place to be so put your hands together again for Courtney Walton we would also like to ask Courtney's parents to stand up if they wouldn't mind so we can give them a round of applause I think she had the whole cheering s Andy next up we have Triumph High School good evening I'm leano Jetta with Triumph High school and our student of the week is Chris Burke Chris is a junior at Triumph who is scheduled to graduate early he is an outstanding student he is the son of kin and and FK and he sets an example of what all Triumph students should be um in and outside of school unfortunately Chris was unable to make it tonight however his favorite teacher Brett is here so he
006can speak a little bit more about him Chris um is a really good student at Triumph we go by something called the six P's at Triumph and one of those P's is producing and Chris has produced enough in the two years I've known him that he's going to graduate a full year early um he's wonderful at chess and math and science I love his problem solving and intuitive thinking that he has brought to my classroom again thank you Mr Bolan members of the board and um I will invite lurel back up and she has a few words to say on behalf of Western Vista they also sponsor the student of the week good evening everyone well Courtney wearing my Western Vista hat I'm I support all of the Triads but as a mom I am
007an East Triad mom and my daughter went to Cary and had Mrs Wagner as a teacher so um I think that's really fantastic and incredible that 17 nominations came your way I I know that student of the week is very very competitive at the schools and it's a rigorous process to get all of those nominees in and then selected so um kudos to you because you sound like you truly are an outstanding kid um as for I wish I could meet him um I actually just heard a speech by the head swimming and Diving coach at the University of Wyoming and he actually correlated his speech to parts of of all the different chess pieces and how they like res represent things like grit and focus and things like that I just sort of feel
008like that he that he needs to hear that speech because it sounds like it suits him as well anyway it is our honor at Wester Vista to sponsor student of the week congratulations to both recipients take a picture go take a picture down here heard okay next we have the Central High School National qualifi speech debate hey if Central High School could come on in for speech and debate I'd like to introduce to you John Watson so John Watson is our brand new speech and debate coach this year and he is going to take some time and introduce his coach and come on up I've never known a speech and debate group to be shy so come on up front they like to be Center Stage this is such a great group of kids and
009um occasionally I get to go in their classroom and get to watch them and I am always in awe at the talent of these young men and women so I'm gonna let uh coach Watson take it from here hello committee my name is John Watson and we are the National qualifiers from cheyen Central High School speech and debate all year long these competitors work re relentlessly for a chance to compete at the District Tournament which determines whether you move forward to Nationals or not and I'm proud to say that this year Central High qualified an impressive 15 competitors for Nationals so here before you we have qualifiers in various events Austin Winstead in Duo interpretation Dalton dolman in big question Caroline Fay in public forum debate her partner Kempton Peron in public forum debate Wyatt
010Miller in Duo interpretation Meredith Paul in oratory abalene Odell in public forum debate Isabelle Conwell in dramatic interpretation and Porter Carson in humor and just we have a few kids that weren't able to make it tonight unfortunately ano Glenny Sima witty Madison La Thomas Smedley and I believe that's it so thank you very much it's okay I wanted to step in just really quickly because there's another individual who gets to get recognize tonight my name is Marcus Biney I'm the coach at East so I'm the enemy kind of right now I'm also the district chair of the whole in the wall District which is the place where kids will qualify through Nationals all these wonderfully talented kids but we also recognize coaches every year so Mr Watson is a brand new coach to the district
011uh and our district got a bunch of nominations for him as the new coach of the year and the committee decided to vote for him and it's no small feet it's a really big award that recognizes how much work he's done it's really difficult to step in as a speech and debate coach it's even more difficult to step in with such a a program with such a legacy so I think we have to give him a huge round of applause for being new coach to you and um last but not least I just want to say thank you for the parents and their continued support and my wonderful assistant coaches Whitney Brooks and Bryce trampy is here with us tonight so thank you again guys and the parents in the audience would you please stand
012to be recognized congratulations thanks for all your work your work thanks for all your hard work yeah of course okay next we have East High School for the speech and debate um Champion team and also their National qualif I'll introduce Mr viny again so he can come up and introduce his state championship speech and debate team thanks so much I'm back uh what you see before you are the National qualifiers for the Cheyenne East speech and debate team uh but they're also the state champion team which is a pretty cool feat so I'm going to start off with Sadie Casey qualifying in big questions today next is a ninth grader qualifying to Nationals Addison Goodman that's in humorous interpretation next up is a senior who's qualified four times in a row that's a really big
013deal it's hard to qualify the Nationals it's even more difficult to qualify four times in a row our team has only had under 10 in general from all I can remember and we have four of them up here so I'll be able to uh note that when I can so Ella Goodman in informative speaking four time qualif next is another senior who's going to be going on to college in speech and debate another four-time qualifier in humorous interpretation Olivia Hardy next is Solomon Henderson in program oral interpretation natala C pack qualified in Congressional debate and couldn't be here with us today but we can clap for her anyways next is Clara kersner qualifying in informative speaking she was also the state champion informative speaking her younger sister Ellie kersner qualified in original oratory next is
014Braden leay in policy debate and his partner in crime Adam Pearson in policy debate next we have another four-time qualifier uh Oakley Simons in dramatic interpretation and Josh Thompson who was the 2023 national champion in expository speaking qualified for the fourth time in Duo interpretation next is Junior Christina Welch in dramatic interpretation next is Josh's partner in crime Ben woy qualified in Duo interpretation and last but not least also a national champion from last year Rosie zubad in informative speaking we'll be going to National I just want to take a quick moment to thank the other coaches our building Mr Mir the school board the district and all of the parents of course so thank you to everybody all parents parents would you please stand to be recognized all speech and debate parents thank you
015for your support congratulations congratul congratulations congratulations conratulations thanks all your thank you in addition to giving awards to our students we also occasionally give Awards to our staff so um if we have our math and and our math coordinator Amy cast come on up for um few awards for some of our staff chairman bow and members of the board Dr Newton it is my pleasure tonight to present to you um two of our state finalists for the presidential award in excellence in Math and Science teaching um each year uh this is the highest honor bestowed upon the US government specifically for K12 science technology engineering and Mathematics teaching the awards were established in 1983 and the president has the option of awarding 110 um this award to 110 teachers each year um Wyoming is allowed
016to submit um three math and three science finalists to compete at the national level and I am so excited to tell you that larmy W had two of the three Math teachers this year that get to proceed to the national award so it's a great honor um they have to demonstrate their um deep content knowledge of mathematics as well as their ability to motivate and enable the students to be successful in those areas it's been my honor and privilege to work with these two ladies all year um I've been in their classrooms once a month and they are just phenomenal teachers so at this point I'm going to bring up their principles to talk about them and um if I can invite Don Brinkman to come up and Heather CI would you guys come up
017our first recipient is Miss Heather Cy from metal LK I want not here as a as a principal more as a prospector and I always I've metel has been a leader to me Dr new they always talk off with some typee of analogy or a story and Miss CI is one of those people you hear about the great things that she does the way she supports kids and I have a pleasure this year of discovering all the the talent and stuff that Miss coldi has and her experties and her love what you see there's more to her than what you get her heart is bigger than anybody in this room and as big as this room she puts kids first she takes care of things and not just the kids that she works with in
018her classroom but the kids that work with in her building she'll be making a step to the next level where she I think she's going to have more of an impact on more students and have some of that um impact and then knowledge and math and Heather thank you for metal Arc and all our staff we greatly appreciate it good luck we hope you're successful I'm much better at talking about math and science than I am about myself um but just thank you very much it is um just was really honored that Amy would even think to nominate me this year and have enjoyed the process of working um through this with her and uh definitely just appreciate the I guess the acknowledgement of the work that I try to do and um anyway I'm
019just excited to be um I guess at this point so thank you so much and that's all so lar me lar me one had um to my knowledge at least six teachers who applied and they are all phenomenal teachers so um this is if any of you have wonderful Math and Science teachers to nominate every year you're allowed to nominate um next year's a secondary um cycle so if you are looking to nominate a 712 teacher um it's always great to have lar me one recognized um recog our awesome professionals that we have here so at this time I'd like to bring up our second state finalist Miss Beth McKay from Pioneer Park and her principal Holly burningham all right sorry I'm a little shorter than some of the others all right good evening Mr
020chair members of the board and Dr Newton I am honored to speak to all of you about Beth McKay Beth McKay is one of those teachers that you think of when you're in a training and the the trainer says think back on that teacher who inspires you the most you who is that person you know that you think of that that resonates in your mind and that's Beth McKay um I could talk about her but instead I I reached out to um some colleagues and former students and parents and I'd like to share some of the words that they have to say about her so from colleagues when there is a need in our school when there was a need in our school to house Junior High math she Beth stepped up to do the
021junior high math practicums and assessments to be en endorsed to teach our students in-house she has taken on the role with determination and is always seeking feedback from District math leadership to ensure that she is delivering the highest quality instruction and engaging lessons if I were to describe Beth's teaching in two words it is dynamic and engaging Beth is an amazing teacher because she not only is an expert at her content she works hard to make the content interest interesting to her students any day of the week you will hear her singing and la and and laughter watch students recording videos or or writing parodies see students building science with Hands-On activities or Miss McKay dressed as a medieval queen which is true look at our yearbooks she is enthusiastic about what she teaches and
022her students a true asset to any school these are the special special ones these are from from the students Sorry Miss McKay is a dynamic teacher even the kids who don't like to learn or aren't engaged become interested in the material she teaches she is charismatic and fun and you want to listen to what she has to say Miss McKay could teach anything and make it interesting algebra can be hard to get into but miss McKay makes it fun and easy to grasp with peer-to-peer teaching and using several ways to explain the steps it's also so cool that she took the time out of her summer and her personal time to learn how to teach seventh grade math so that we could do it at Pioneer Park I loved Miss McKay's class because she always
023made class interesting I didn't realize until until later how much I learned from her Mrs McKay is overall the best teacher I've ever had my favorite one of her classes was science whether it was building Adams out of pipe cleaners or studying the scientific method she always found a way to make things fun and interesting Miss McKay is one of the best coaches that that has ever coached me not only is she kind but she helps everyone and this next student was one of the students we got to see recognize tonight so I thought that was really cool to see this come full circle I had the privilege of being miss one I I had the privilege of being this person obviously the better speaker than me since they were in speech and debate I
024had the privilege of being Beth McKay's student for fifth and sixth grade during my time at Pioneer Park in addition to being a phenomenal teacher she's also a great writer and cultivated a love of writing in me at a young age that I have carried with me I think a good teacher makes you want to work hard and be better but also make sure that you know it's okay to fail Mrs McKay always made me feel like it was safe to fall because I knew she would help me back up again she has remained my favorite teacher throughout all of middle school and the three years of high school and I am forever grateful to her from some of the parents I promise I'm almost done our family was so fortunate to have Miss McKay
025twice while in her class both of our kids regularly came home excited about what they were learning in math science and social studies and confident in their building knowledge this is a testament to Beth's enthusiasm for the curriculum and skill as an educator she is both inspired and inspiring and that is a gift to her students and colleagues th through her modeling our kids have learned that there are many ways to be in the world and to contribute to society there are so many unique qualities that Beth McKay shares with her class but one of my favorites was a culture of curiosity the students were encouraged and rewarded for trying new things and learning new skills from every resource that wandered into their sphere Miss McKay comfortably challenged everyone and supported successes and reframed what
026we usually call failure into another chance to learn and growth Mrs McKay helped in inspiring students to believe in themselves spreading kindness to others and in being confident with the decisions that they make when speaking of her child one mom said the student that once would hide behind another student to prevent from being called on in class is now confidently standing in front of her entire class presenting book reports and speeches her fear was silenced and her creative her creativity blossomed because of the learning environment created by Miss McKay as you can tell there is no one more deserving of this recognition than Miss Beth McKay I am honored to be her principal and Pioneer and Heather I and Pioneer Park is a stronger school because Beth is in his ranks thank you that was
027a lot and thank you I don't have anything interesting to say other than thank you Amy for nominating me and for encouraging me through the seventh grade math experience and thank you Holly for being an amazing instructional leader and guiding me through this new thing and encouraging me I do it thank you to my amazing team that came out here to a Schoolboard meeting that they didn't have to be at they the most amazing humans to work with on this green earth and thanks Meredith you were a killer student and you remain a killer student are there any family members of these two amazing teachers that are with us tonight to be recognized conratulations [Music] yeah most of our recognitions come from secondary both students and staff so it's great to know to to beight
028to recognize two of our elementary because those other students would not be here without a grade base put out by all of our great Elementary staff these are two great examples all right next up is um add some visitors and we do not have anybody signed up for this part of it which is the agenda topics but I'll put it up there is there anybody here who want to speak on one of the agenda topics tonight anybody online please raise your hand if you're online no okay so we do have a number of people signed up for our second time of C so we will we'll get to that towards the end of the meeting okay so now we're com to Bo Communications and our next meeting will be uh May 1st 2024 that's the
0296:30 parent advisory meeting here in the boardroom on May 6 5: PM is a work session followed by 6 P PM regular board meeting and May 20th is a 6m regular board meeting okay we will now do individual board Communications reports anybody like to give a report go ahead me we go with you okay um so I've gotten the opportunity to do a couple of um fun things and then we uh finish up one of our committees this week last week uh the teacher of the year committee uh completed our finalist interviews last Friday and there you can all look forward to announcements on that in the near future um very excited about that we had some fantastic finalists uh for the teacher of the year um again not this year but all the years
030I've done it so that's been very exciting um and then I've had the opportunity U my schedule doesn't always allow me to pop in and out of some of the fun things that the different schools invite us to but um over the last month I've had the opportunity to pop into a couple of things um at metalark they have a quarterly Encore session where they do um Project based learning during the half days um that was a great deal of fun I got to help watch them uh make all sorts of things and do all sorts of things and reminded me that uh the American Red Cross still teaches babysitting 35 years later um so did some of that and then I got to uh pop into Arps assembly today as well and watch them
031with some of the fun activities they were doing and the awards that they received uh today around their PLC uh so I want to thank the principles and the staff at those two for invite continue to invite us and it was really fun to come out and and see what you're up to juston thank you chairman Bolan I just wanted to say thank you to the people sitting in the back row who were instrumental in putting together Elevate Sports over a thousand children in track wow thank you so much I'm so impressed good Mr chair I I just want to um mention that the support person of the year will also be announced we've got two this year and um our committee has has decided on our finalists and or our our awardees and they'll
032be announced by um by the end of this week so looking forward to that as us we're going to have some surprise celebrations with those people so that'll be great we'll have a c the board members there as we usually do anybody else okay I just want to let everyone know that I was a but my Wednesdays for about the last six weeks have been very very busy because for Wednesday seems to be a day we do our unit negotiations so um last week two weeks ago on Wednesday CTA finished up their negotiations and this past Wednesday the per group finished up their negotiations so we we've completed now all the negotiations and they're going to be out for ratification by the units and also a vote vote by the board to accept those attended
033contracts so we have tended contracts for each one of our units and uh it's always interesting for me to sit and listen to all that it's hard for me to listen because I've been a negotiator on the for CTA at one point so it's hard to sit in the back and just listen but I do enjoy hearing the issues that are up there and how they the team can come together as a team rather than two separate teams coming together they all come together as one team to to find solutions to those things so um that was a great thing to be able to do um also I sent to the board um the wsba bylaw U proposed bylaw changes and asked whether were you to bring any suggestions you have to those because I
034will be going to the exciting town of Riverton on Friday and Saturday toh discuss these and and we're just going to be voting on whether to take them forward because they're actually voted on by the full assembly um next fall but we'll be um deciding whether we give the board approval to them or not so any suggestions on any of those yes U Mr chair I I looked over the the changes just briefly tonight and I was curious um is the proposed increase to the dues something that they um they're going to take suggestions on or is that is that something that a committee has come up with where where did they get the $7,000 increase to the annual dues um it was based on a a percentage so both the minimum and the maximum
035were both increased by I think 3 percent so it was a percentage that someone came up with so it would be fair on both ends originally they were only suggesting we raise the the limit at the top and I suggest that maybe we need to look at both so we have we're going to have a raise in both of those and I believe the one at the bottom only affects maybe one or two districts once the top is going to affect a lot more districts including we're we're the top one of course so it'll have the most but the nice thing that we that they did put in there was that um it can only go up 5% a year so it won't go up $7,000 for us all at once it'll go up little
036,000 per year for several years until we reach that Capal 28,000 so and it has not been changed I think since the late 2000 so it's been quite a 15 years at least since it's been changed so thank you any other questions and again if you have suggestions on other ways to do it I can certainly take those forward for you that's the reason we're having the meeting so and that's the reason I brought it to you guys to see um one of the other main changes in there for the audience is that they're now going to allow um the charter schools in Wyoming to become black better a charter member and so they're not going to be a full member but they can be allowed so they can take part in some of the
037benefits that W Schoolboard Association offers one two of the benefits that uh that are there is they have an insurance program for their employees that they can participate in makes it a group Insurance makes it better for some of the small schools like our charter schools and they also have um the investment they have an investment board where they can take invest some of their monies that they have during the year um and until they have time to actually use those so but of course the way they give us our Mone these days it's never sitting around for on at all so pretty much using it all the time so any other comments on the changes okay anything else anybody wants to say all right so we'll go on to superintendent reports thank you Mr
038chair just have one short presentation tonight I'd like to invite Miss Vicky Thompson up to discuss one of the agenda items on some new HR software and while she's coming up front I should mention that it's so nice to see the the kids and the adults getting the recognitions tonight I'm sure they'll do very well at Nationals but either way one of the young men that as we were shaking hands uh performed his imitation of uh Mr marriage and he ought to received a special recognition for that alone so uh I don't know if we can uh maybe run him back through with the Mr merage imitation should be a category unto its own so um with that I've stilled long enough Miss Thoms please looking to see there's a microphone okay hello um chairman
039Bolan Board of Trustees uh Dr Newton um I'm here tonight to tell you about um we're real excited in HR about some new software that we would like you um to bring forward tonight to approve um we currently have a pretty Antiquated process to onboard hire um and evaluate employees uh this new software we went out for an RFP will be replacing our older software program um but this one does have the capability of H you know onboarding staff as they're coming on board we can automatically send out onboarding paperwork and forms that can be completed electronically right now our system is um we use DocuSign and um when we get all the forms back we print them and we start figuring out which form goes over to benefits which form goes over to HR
040which one goes to payroll um this new system will um automatically um have working um systems in it so it'll automatically send those forms once they're completed to the right individual electronically um the other part of this new uh platform is an evaluation system as well so currently our all of our evaluations are um they're on some fillable forms but the principles have to print them out have to have them um signed manually they print them out bring them to HR drop them off we have to then scan them into files then put the actual paper into the employees personnel file this new system again has um the capabilities of having all the uh electronic evaluation or all evaluations electronically um as a teacher a teacher can go in and see what the process of
041their current evaluation or what their status is they can interact with the principal sending messages back and forth when the principal goes in and just does a simple walkth through the can put in a a little note the teacher can see that um right then in real time um the the evaluation can also be um signed electronically the teacher can upload any artifacts that they wish the um principle to look at as well so we really think that this is going to improve our our level of customer service um the speed that we um can get documents to our employees and just hope it's a win-win for everyone thank does anybody have any questions I don't have a question but Miss Thompson thank you for that and I just want to say I'm really pleased
042that we continue um under the leadership of our new superintendent and um with ideas like this to make our systems and our um District more efficient so thank you for the work on that thank you else okay thank you m thp thank you and Mr sarelli because you were at every one of those negotiating sessions um and I know you did that on top of doing your regular job because I I saw you trying to sneak in there and check your emails occasionally during the association so I know it was quite a an additional burden to you but good job there okay so now we're going to go to um the consent agenda so all items listed with the designation oh I'm sorry you fin didn't mean to catch you out there all right so
043consent agenda all items listed with designation of sier considered to be routine items by the governing board and will be enacted by one motion there'll be no separate discussion on these items any item removed from the consent agenda will be considered its normal sequence on the agenda does any board member wish request to remove a motion from the consent agenda Mr chairman I move to approve all motions listed as consent agenda I second here a motion to second to approve all the consent items all those in favor say I I those oppose no mo pass okay so now we're going to go to new business Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission to purchase two regular cab pickups with snow plows from keng Garf Cheyenne for an amount not to exceed $127,600 second okay we
044have motion second to purchase two pickup trcks any discussion on that or questions these things do wear out and have you have replaced every once in a while so and I believe the old ones are going to be sold at Surplus at some point so um all those in favor say I I those oppose no passes Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission to purchase commercial kitchen steamers for Central High School from culinary Depot for an amount not to exceed $ 78,3 67 second okay motion second to purchase commercial kitchen steamers for Central High School any discussion or questions I'm assuming this is for the food service not for the culinary classes okay I see a head noding back there all those in favor say I hi those oppose no your Mr chairman I move
045to approve the administrator contracts on the attached list for the 2024 202 school year and to place them on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule second okay we have motion the second to approve the administrators on the list and there are four of them um is there any further discussion all those in favor say I I I oppose no motion passes do we have any of them here to be recognized M Mr chair I see Miss Sarah lenhard the new principal at diming Miller um is in the crowd Sarah thank you about the others Miss Thompson are you aware if any of the others were able to join us this evening no okay thank you thank you for coming and whole things you can do as administrators come to these more often so
046welcome all right go ahead okay Mr chair I move to Grant permission to contract for and purchase Human Resources software from Power School Group LLC an amount not to exceed $230,100 one50 second okay motion second to improve um human resource software from Power School group any further discussion just heard about it all those in favor say I I those oppose no power school is a very familiar name we have several programs from them including our grading programs at least we used to anyway so I think it probably they work together so it's probably a good idea okay our next regular board meeting will be held on Monday May 6 2024 at 6 p.m. so the business of the district is now done and so now we have our second time for items from visitor several
047people signed up for this one and hoping that I can that's always one of the things I feared as a teacher on the first day of school was doing names correctly excuse me if I don't get it correctly all right first one is going to be Megan Hesser chairman members of the board I'm Megan hler two years ago we waved into Hobs because it was the only Elementary School running a real reading intervention now we have to choose metal ark or Coyote Ridge the new principal seems great she seems to be trying but she has to build a school from scratch when we met with her she said she's going to use a lot of things from metalark because if it's not broken why fix it but it is broken less than half our kids
048are reading on grade level broken you are about to have two buildings full of students who started school still getting fondon panel which is bad and then they missed weeks of school for covid during the most critical time for foundational reading skill development one interventionist and four sped teachers per 56 building isn't enough a 25 minute block of intervention time isn't enough for most kids needing support but especially those in IEPs I don't know of an effective reading Intervention Program that can be delivered with Fidelity as intended in minutes to miss Cox's credit when I asked if those 25 minute blocks are back toback for students who may need more time she thought it sounded like a great idea but will she have the resources you have to stop trying to force our very different
049children into the same round hole maybe our tier three resources aren't what our tier three kids need maybe they need the only dyslexia specialist that you have in the district even though she's considered tier two and maybe she needs a few additional colleagues at her level you have to start using the resources you have differently the number of kids receiving support this year isn't going to change as drastically by year end as the level of support that will be available to them next year this board claims to prioritize literacy the last superintendent and the current one claim the same there is no action behind your words and you have to stop throwing principles priorities under the bus when they are following the lead of those above them we used a lot of local and federal
050money to letters train teachers but did any of our principls or administrators take that there is one designed specifically for them how can you best serve the principles to best serve the teachers to best serve our students if you don't know yourself you also need to make sure your policy is in compliance with federal law and interpret it correctly no child should have to wait three months for services because a department was required to put out an RFP that is a denial of fith a federal law violation if you don't have the staff you need to support kids and need to contract outside Services great but you need to streamline the process before you have yet another due process complaint and maybe I should thank you for this mess because my tutoring business is booming
051but there's only one of me and my wait list gets a little longer each week did you know that 10 families in this District over the last several years have spent nearly half a million dollars to do what you want how many people can afford that in this District if you are here tonight because you have a struggling reader please stand up you have to fix this this is your problem stop making it ours thank you all right next up is Annie mlam Mr chairman members of the board and Dr duon thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk uh what Megan said my friend is true I'm not going to read anything I'm just going to give to the point um we're grandparents that's my husband back there with the white hair and
052glasses and we're raising a beautiful grandchild we've had him since he was one he's almost athlete creative his vocabulary is probably better than ours expressively he has profound dyslexia so um I just wanted to share um and at the end maybe just point out that they're probably is some solutions that people put their head together I uh We've we are one of those families in that have a million dollar thing we have an excellent attorney from Colorado we have always been collaborative and easy to get along with I think Mr Brinkman could I hope verified that but he went home so but um it's been a struggle financially and we've got dipped into our retirement because we've had to hire attorneys I know Co happened but when he was in he attended first uh kindergarten
053first grade at Saddle Bridge the first grade teacher said you know there's something wrong with Jaden because he's so Bri but he can't read um then Co happened so we did online I was his job coach uh we noticed something that was really wrong so but he still took all the state state tests right you know the the fast bridge and what you know 1% 1% 1% Talent reading how can this be he's so smart I mean you he can throw a football better than breed I mean he's he's amazing and of course that leads to emotional and mental health problems so we initiated everything initiated the evaluations paid for the evaluations from neuro psych and you know from California from Colorado Dr blay came up from Casper two-day evaluation from a neuro um PhD
054uh and their Associates profound dyslexia this is what he needs so obviously we take all of the tests even during covid the state test because he wore a mask he went into test you know give it to the district and say we need an IEP and actually he did get an IEP online from K12 but then we went to um online through the district their program here um so we took all the tests there and say we you know and we've done our homework my husband's a researcher by by Nature this kid has dyslexia I didn't even know where it was I have a child with autism who's 38 I that's that's what I know but this dyslexia so we educated oursel we um went to the first verse meeting to talk about you know
055IP and all this and we were literally told by the child psychologist well the state of Wyoming we don't recognized dyslexia in this state okay really okay well that's funny because I just got out of a meeting like five days ago with the governor Proclamation photo shoots papers there legislators there look what we did token nice but token so I met with somebody at the governor's office five people M MCL could you kind of wrap it up here with okay but long story short we've had to pay $25,000 so far out of our retirement just to get dyslexia on the IEP just to get them to the very basic accommodations that were recommended okay and a teacher a dyslexic instructor who is highly trained to teach him now he's on level six and used to
056refuse to go to school headache time ache crying slamming doors now he can't wait to go to school because he's learning to read he comes home and he's reading to us and All Over My Dead Body will the district take that away from him he's on step six and it's a 12 step program so I'm one of the lucky ones I have the money to pay for an attorney I shouldn't have to do that but my heart goes out to all these other kids because I get calls from families just like Megan does except I don't Tut her I just say here's my attorney's number so thank you I appreciate it but I hope that there's some sort of effort to create a task force something because there's a lot of kids with dyslexia it's
057not just a small number thank you thank you next up is Kristen Edwards good evening members of the board my husband's actually going to speak on behalf of our family but I have a letter um that's Anonymous to a parent who is also a district employee so she asked me to read um her letter to you say as I stand before you today not only as an educator but also as a parent deeply concerned about the lack of adequate services for dyslexic students within our schools my passion for this issue is not solely professional it is deeply personal as I am am the parent of a dyslexic daughter I believe our district has failed to provide any early detection for dyslexic students my daughter started to fall very behind in Reading in second grade it
058wasn't until the second half of fourth grade that we got her diagnosis and that was only after I had to seek a diagnosis for my daughter independently and at my own expense this was after doing my own research and seeking out a psychologist who could screen her on my own time I often wonder what would be different now um I L place if we had screened her sooner and I can't help but think of families who do not know to even seek a diagnosis or who cannot afford to finance a psychologist what about them this lack of proactive intervention is not only unjust but also detrimental to the academic and emotional well-being of dyslexic students moreover dyslexia is often referred to as a silent disability unlike other disabilities that may be immediately apparent dyslexia can
059go unnoticed or misunderstood leading to its needs being ignored or pushed aside within our educational um system it is not a rare condition it does affect approximately one in 10 individuals World worldwide it is imperative that we take immediate action to address this issue this includes training and professional development accessible resources qualified reading Specialists I urge the members of the school board to prioritize this issue and work collaboratively with Educators parents and Community stakeholders to implement meaningful changes that will benefit dyslexic students now and in the future thank you from an anonymous lcsd1 parent thank you must be mat must be the husband that's coming up d Edwards good evening name d Edwards um father of five amazing children um thanks board and thanks Mr chairman and Dr for your time um really want to
060preface everything I'm about to say with hey let's do an autopsy Without Blame and put our heads together and come to a solution that's going to work because I know there's a lot of people suffering through it uh my daughter uh during Co we found out that when she was reading she wasn't reading she was guessing and trying to make stuff up and uh we were told by the kindergarten teacher at the time hey no worries she'll she'll come out of that that it'll be just fine unfortunately she didn't so first and second grade uh learning wasn't happening reading was continuing to be very frustrating for her by the time she had third grade uh she didn't want to go to school with literally um Mom would try to drop her off at the school
061she'd cling to Mom's leg I mean you literally had to peel her off just to get her to go to school she'd go to reading we'd get a call from the teacher uh oh reading's coming I'm sick all of a sudden and hated hated school and was just so frustrated she felt stupid and this is a kid who before she was one could get in and out of a five-point harness so I I I know she's pretty smart kid when it comes to figuring some stuff out so I like okay what are we going to do well we hit third grade and we finally decided hey we got to get her tested we got to figure something out so we tested she tested for dyslexia she had ADHD and and a physical eye problem with
062her eye but there was no way to get her the help so we tried to get her squared away at the school that we were at and plugged into something that would work um and found out that hey when it comes to dyslexia there's really nothing uh available at the school district and and as we were doing research about hey how do you teach a kid with dyslexia and uh eyes that make her see double how do you get her to read um K found some curriculums that were out there and discovered hey there's actually a teacher in the school district that can do that well so we waved her from the school that we were our home school to to um hob so she could get that education and that training and since then
063she's been on that Education and Training she is flourish she actually enjoys school now she's reading much much much better um but she's now just digging herself out of this hole that she's been in for the last 3 four years and so she's in a situation now where she's progressing we're taking ground excited about that and but she's going to fifth grade next year and we don't have a we don't have somebody with the training um at that school uh to get her squared away and Tak care of and we desperately desperately need that because we need to see her to continue to read um I'm an Avid Reader so it's really hard for me to see my kid uh not enjoy reading as much as I do because I can read a book in
064a day because I love to read and so to see her struggle so much with that that's really hard for me to know that she's as smart as she is and having trouble reading that's really difficult so my my encouragement and my my admonition tonight is just to say hey uh it's not just us there's other folks and whatever we can do uh I just want to encourage us please let's put our heads together and find a way to not leave kids Behind like this thanks for your time appreciate it um Charlotte Martinez good evening chair Mr chair members of the board thank you for your time this evening um the question I want to pose to you tonight is why is regression necessary for intervention I'm the mother of a second grader who has
065struggled with reading difficulties over the last year uh we spent the first semester of her second grade year uh watching her and monitoring her reading closely um it was in December that I finally decided to take things into my own hands because she was not progressing I out of my own pocket paid for two two separate evaluations and she was diagnosed with dyslexia in February um I will give credit to my home school of Goen Elementary the teachers and the staff um were very receptive and um very communicative when I asked for an IEP and I appreciate their time and their hard work excuse me but her progression is slow and she's not getting the help she needs because she's still progressing and that's because I am paying for tutoring I am spending my evenings
066with her and pushing her to get her what she needs she doesn't qualify for her extended school year because she's not regressing so again this summer I will take extra money out of my own pocket to make sure that she's getting the tutoring she needs because the school cannot provide for what she needs because she's doing good enough she's doing just well enough a second grader who is not reading at a second grade level and is reading at the first semester level of a first grader should not be good enough regression isn't enough um so that's all I want to leave you with is why is the the district prioritizing prioritizing regression over progression thank you thank you next is shandel Pine even me you all notice that I did not stand when Miss Hesser
067asked for those who have a struggling reader to stand I had a son who struggled with reading Paul Kenneth Pine he was a fifth grade student who died January 12th 2023 what if I told you that it wasn't the music teacher it was the impulsivity from his ADHD or maybe it was the avoidance of his very first IEP class that was after lunch that killed him what if I told you that the cause of deaths was dyslexia often referred to as reading struggles because most people can not afford to pay a neuros psychologist to evaluate their child for dyslexia Paul's death was preventable in many ways Paul was never identified with a learning disability until after Paul's inpatient stay at be at Highland's behavioral health for suicidal ideation we had learned after the impatient day
068that Paul was at a first grade reading level at the another intervention meeting and it was at that time that I requested he'd be evaluated for an IEP Paul's first year of kindergarten was here in larmy County School District number one at lebart elementary his second year of kindergarten was at Sunrise Elementary and then first grade was also at Sunrise we moved and he was a student at Carpenter Elementary for the remaining years of his education until fifth grade when Paul finally received an reading evaluation not from any public school it was determined that he had not master mastered letter sounds he was still struggling with more than one short vowel sound Soft C insulating short vowel sounds in words by doubling consonants and other basic phonics rules he should have learned by the end
069of third grade he compensated by using his tremendous background knowledge to make good guesses at words he did not know larmy County School District number one was using Fus and panel for tier one reading curriculum when Paul was a student a program that has been found to be unsuccessful for children who struggle to read the authors themselves have stated their programs are not designed for dyslectic students and this put Paul even further behind on foundational reading skills Paul had likely been aware that he was struggling more than his peers since very early on maybe even before he repeated kindergarten and doing everything he could to hide the struggle from his classmates and teachers it is not uncommon for struggling readers to act out in class be the class clown talk too much find excuses to
070leave the room or bully other kids all to cover that they cannot read the effort to hide the secret can cause anxiety and depression that they will also hide during the school day they just want to look like the other students and there is a stigma attached to needing help at school that only adds to their determination to hide that something is wrong Paul was being hit from both sides people with reading difficulties are more likely to struggle with anxiety and depression but so are people with ADHD Paul was very aware that he was behind but young enough that it was impossible for him to process that he had a learning difference not deficiency that was beyond his control and had no bearing on his intelligence it does however show a bearing on Wyoming public
071education specifically laring County and the inability to teach kids how to read prioritize funding for reading support and put students first we founded Paul's Mountain nonprofit organization late in 2023 and we started providing services in January at no cost to families for evaluations and tutoring and no cost to teachers for our professional development days which are based on science of reading if you don't know what that is Google it we are now at the capacity for students we can't help anymore after school we we can provide evaluations and T tutoring during school hours what are these families supposed to do Mississippi if any of you have a Facebook page go to Paul's mountain and there is an article on there by PBS about how Mississippi fixed their reading you need to teach teachers how the
072brain learns reading and once the teachers understand how the brain learns reading then they can apply the tools they need to teach every child how to read thank you thank you thank you for what you're doing to help our students next is Sheila kler good evening my name is Sheila kler and I would like to thank you for your thoughtful work on developing a procurement policy that is proactive in preventing sexually explicit materials from being sheld in our Public School libraries over the past several meetings and years I have been carefully listening to the meet to the debates over these types of books and I cannot help but have a strong opinion on this topic you see I have been and am a dedicated employee of ly County School District number one since 1993 and
073I am strongly in agreement with the need for this policy to be implemented although I am a mother of three grandmother of 13 and a great-grandmother of one I would like to speak to you as an employee of this District I have spent tireless hours and years as a teacher and a principal to ensure my students receive quality education in doing this I have followed District policy and have spent hours taking the required Vector safe School courses as all employees are expected to do in these courses I have been taught that I have been taught that the distribution of pornographic material is a criminal offense and can be punishable by fines and that person can be brought up on criminal charges this should not be something any quality staff member should have to worry about
074if in addition I have heard countless debates on the need for these types of books to be accessible to students for them to cope with topics that may arise in their lives however we must remember we are talking about library books of which no instruction or guidance is given to the student this is not our place as classroom teachers nor Library specialist and according to section seven of the district policy manual like library media Specialists are responsible for purchasing materials that support and are consistent with the general educational goals of the district and of the objectives of specific courses the materials must meet high standards of quality in factual content and presentation we must keep in mind that we went to college to teach academics and not to impose our personal ideology on our students
075we must stop being expected to step outside of our certification areas but rather expect parents to be responsible for addressing these types of topics with their children so again I want to thank you for protecting the teachers students and all staff members by not putting us in this predicament thank you for letting us do what we were trained to do to teach students how to be critical thinkers and to learn skills necessary to be productive members of society thank you yes kayy re hello my name is Kaylee ream um and I wanted to discuss the procurement policy um mostly I wanted to discuss some comments that were made um in the last board meeting uh first there was a book that was specifically spoken about by the board um I believe it was called Mondays
076not coming um my understanding is that this is a book that was currently in review uh the point that was made was that schools should allow a book with two pages of sexually explicit content because it was an award-winning book to me two pages of sexually explicit content is too much there should not be any in books that we have in our library I wanted to thank the board members who pointed out that we can have award-winning books in our libraries without having sexually explicit books we 100% can have one without the other book Banning was also an argument that was brought up by the board again I wanted to thank the board members who pointed out that if a book was available at the local library and was also literally in a board member's
077hand it is not a band Book I wanted to voice my opinion on the adults who stood up here and spoke that if there were sexually explicit books available for them when they were in school they would have been able to understand their own sexuality better unfortunately school is not the place to learn about sexuality we have to trust our parents and allow them to do their job it does not make sense to procure books that are known to have sexually explicit content as was pointed out in the last meeting a simple Google search can give the librarian an idea of if a book has controversial material and allow them to do the additional research before purchasing it is okay to set a standard for our schools and for our libraries thank you to the
078board members who have made Common Sense arguments please keep speaking The Voice of Truth and reason for the sake of our children thank you thank you yeah that's all the people that were signed up ahead of time so is there anybody else here who would like to speak on any topic anybody online please raise your hand if you'd like to speak on any topic to us oh come on up and we always start by first and last name good evening ladies and genten of the board chair ban my name is Dylan ort I have a son at Hobs Elementary um I have to say that you know we're we're privileged that we have a son going there you got great resources amazing teachers that have been there and support our kids we have the a
079lot of the same issues that these parents have talked about but my son suffers from dysgraphia rather than dyslexia which is the inability to to write clearly and cleanly and it has a strong TI with dyslexia but with it you know it I was moved to see all of the kids here tonight who had the opportunity and had great teachers and great uh leaders to be able to come up and do the um the speeches and presentations I'll take a second to read some of the notes my wife wrote down she wasn't able to be here she's ill tonight um she wanted me to point out that you know even with the the excellent progress that he's made with help from interven interventionalists he's still in a 24% at math and a 26% the reading
080this this week and they're still going to pass him forward that's passing that's what is good enough here our now fourth soon to be fifth grader was in kindergarten when uh Co hit and I got to put my glasses on I apologize and was shut down due to the shutdown he is behind in his reading and writing and has been since the uh and since the shutdown because he lost his fundamental foundation and I'm sorry her handwriting is somewhat difficult to read sometimes for reading and writing as explained to us by uh staff within the elementary schools uh group thankfully he now has uh received great help and support thanks to the interventionalist program and really I cannot say enough how much further he's come his his reading went from I hate reading to I
081want to read a whole book to you during our next car ride we've received news that lcsd1 is discontinuing the interventionist program and additional help this is a terrible idea especially if we have a school SCH full of kids uh grades five and six all shut down uh in kindergarten first grade during covid without immediate help the plan for coyote ridge's uh interventionist for the 20 plus kids uh for 20 plus or 20 minutes is is not going to be uh sign U enough this is pure disgrace uh to these kids that they won't be given a chance to keep uh this so with that I don't have anything else to add tonight thank you guys for your time I really do hope you consider other ways to address this I've been asked to say
082that the what was it the Wilson curriculum has really been the key in in bringing him ahead thank you thank you do we have anybody else here yes one then we'll go online is there anybody online waiting Mr chairman there's nobody online okay one ahe hi to the school board and Dr Newton uh sorry this is my first time speaking um I'm also here for the reading I have um two daughters that first and last name please oh I'm sorry my name is Kim Colter sorry I have two kiddos that go to Prairie Wind um I have two daughters that are similar and um they have same reading difficulty difficulty but uh you know we've asked people like what is it like what do we do I paid for tutoring they still struggled I was
083told this year 20% t good good to pass she doesn't need any evaluation that's what I was told there's nothing more frustrating than having your kid cry and not want to go to school because she's scared she's not doing good she's being made fun of by her peers it wasn't until I met Megan R shandelle because I'm friends with them that she was able to get an evaluation and she is now on the correct track my younger child also has some difficulties but she's still better so is it dyslexia we don't know what the school diagnosed her with is a reading difficulty she has some sort of reading difficulty so now I have to go pay because I don't know what's causing it is it chemical is it my family's traits that have led this
084has it been her schooling that's been happen what happened but I had to fight for it and luckily her teacher helped support me in this because I was told by the school no originally and then I went and talked to Megan and Megan like no legally they cannot tell you no so I went back and said no you can't legally did that and that's what got me my evaluation and there's nothing harder than watching your kids struggle and to not have any support and not know where to go that's what most of these parents have difficulty with with we don't have that support or the education both my husband and I are college educated I just got my Master's Degree I love reading I'm an Avid Reader I read probably two to three books a
085week but not having my kid not wanting to read I don't understand it so if we can find a way to support these kids identifying them early on and just supporting them would make a huge difference and if you guys can please consider that because the school the curriculum that's in there right now which I can't I just went blank on it wit and wisdom does not help these struggling readers at all wit and wisdom is probably one of the worst things I've ever seen to help my kids and I tried everything we practice reading every day they didn't even get to play sports because they needed to read because that's important to me but they still have never gone above the 20 percentile so please consider that in your future when you're looking at
086these curriculums thank you for your time thank you anybody else either here or online yeah look like we had a theme of talking about reading difficulty need dyslexia and I'd like to say first thank you for your kind comments by some of our staff that are working above and beyond to help our students that are reading and secondly I'd like to say you have a lot of our senior staff administrators here that were listening tonight and we have a board that's listening so we will try to do whatever we can all right uh we're gonna go on [Music] to turn it Mr chairman I move to go into executive session at this time prior to adjournment for the purpose of possible student long-term suspensions and expulsions Personnel legal advice and litigation I second okay we
087have motion and a second to go into executive session this time for what was listed um all those in favor say I I those oppos no we will be back um in regular session