001stay there want to get off I'd like to stay excuse me I'm okay stay give Renee into the meeting and who was it besides R [Music] and that I have 911 yes that is her Renee can you hear us you want to unmute her Dr No Rene are you muted yeah but she's on her phone so it's there we go yeah yeah are not muted can you hear us you should be unmuted now I also resue Renee can you try speaking again she says she can hear us can you talk her is the speaker turn off on that computer see it has the a down on the bottom yep now try talking she can hear us but she a telephone can she text okay so Rene right now we're discussing legislative liazon and you were
002one of the three on legislative liazon do you want to stay on that you can text or Som voice Tex about voice texting then you have yes she said she'd stay on okay so we got those three next one is the Giants Foundation board and that's I've been on that I'd love to stay on it if okay unless anybody else just really wants it be my second year TR community recreation District so that one is Susan and and I and I'd love to continue on and out for another year yeah so all three of you want to stay there yes that's on a committee is Britney and suan he you all right okay that's one that's really determined by your positions whether you're on that or not so I think it's the treasurer and the
003vice Treasurer right yes so that one mess so that one is unless unless something changes later par well leave that one is is ex committee yes yeah so that one was Britney and Susan Britney and Susan Curr yes because you're the right and then executive committee and I I forget about who it is because we've had two different ways of doing this so position that's chairman Vice chair CL okay okay director Barry won W Schoolboard Association I think I was loaded into that so that's me starting at the end of oh already there right end your term ended at the end of November U calendar committee that one's me and Britney right now I'd love to stay on we're right in the middle of kind of calendar processing for the next year so don't know
004time out about boundary I'd like to take that I'll give it to you don't like might be little somebody gives it up that quickly fine actually there only two meetings well sometimes there's um email meetings where you have to look at them on email but there's only one meeting during the year right then like the fall that's where you do most of them so everything and then the transportation advisory and I'm on that this is my third year so I'll stay on there supposed to be a three-year term um teacher of the year me I would love to keep that okay um and Sport Persons Of The Year that's that's me and I'd like to speak that one okay and insurance committee be else want that one even see this whole presentation all you're waiting
005for is is there an increase or is there not an increase just got to wait to this whole presentation first and good news at the end was there was no increase for this year pent advisory committee we're all welcome the best one person okay so pretty much we're leaving them the same AR we Susan's taking Susan on Boundary now we're coming to officers so we generally start at the top so the chair I'm willing to St onest chair for another year I don't want to go beyond another year but I will stand for another year if you would like for me to do that I think that's worked really well over the last continu 10 years now probably for two years for two years you know early on when I was on the board it
006was yeah probably been about 10 years there were people did it for one year but I think it works Welling two years that way you get a chance to see what like Vice chair and that's now that's me I I'd love to stay on it you don't mind anybody objecting we're not voting right now so that'll happen out there we're just kind of getting us slate so what we'll do out there is we'll n somebody will nominate somebody and I guess if we don't have any more than one person wanting it for we can just say we just vot on the Slate if that's what we can okay okay so treasur be next NOA cl cl cl and I'd love to continue on if that if nobody any objections and vice clerk I'd like to
007stay on that and you had that do it was once or twice already and and I've been taking notes now so I know how to be the first time I did I'm like what am I supposed to say so then I started paying attention to what but now I have it the only tricky is those resolution you finally got that down it took a bit and those are new wer doing those before either until just recently I think you got on that got see anybody Elum it a few times though okay so treasury treasur that's Britney right now I like I've got get your group right years just Le one thing and that's Renee for the justy right so we're not Chang is she Renee are you good with that are you there so we
008were going through all the the positions we'll be reelecting or electing tonight for the the positions on the board for the next year so right now you're the trustee so we were going through the different positions it sounds like everybody wants to stay where they're at for at least one for at least this year okay all right but we are done with our business at 520 so get yourself something to eat got a long time we're done Rene okay by got go too fast chair 6m and call this meeting of the lar County Schools one Board of Trustees to order and please stand and and join as the first graders from Pioneer Park Elementary class from U Mrs Susie schaer say the Pledge fors you can join them or you can just listen to there
009[Music] always great to hear those little voices and the rest of you also uh the last meeting they not only said it but they signed it at the same time so there are some of these younger kids are setting the bar pretty high those are first graders there all right so we have adjustments to the agenda Mr chairman there are no adjustments to the agenda so question Mr chairman I move to adopt the agenda I second have a motion to adopt the agenda with the second all those in favor say I I those opposed no passes and one of our trustees is on her way back from Nebraska so she would be here shortly so okay so now we're going to do the classroom recognition for the Pledge of Allegiance so if we could have
010H principal and I guess the teacher come on up good evening I'm Mary Quast and I'm the community relations director here at larmy County School District number one um I would like to invite Holly burningham and Susie schaer to the front of the room for the Pledge of Allegiance uh recognition and we do have with us our Western Vista representative Erin Espinosa she is the branch manager at the Sparks location and she is going to present a gift certificate hi Ain thank you so much W this is very generously giving a little gift card to the teacher so they can um as they always do in elementary school they always need to purchase supplies more over and above what we provide for them you so little extra thing for them and for the trouble they
011go through to and those delightful little kids giving us our legible Allegiance and that's supposed to inspir us to make sure that we realize the reason we're here is for the kids in our disc so all right next we're going to be doing student of the week and unfortunately we have one of our students who can't be here today and we'll recognize that person at the next meeting so I call up e well it's my pleasure tonight to introduce our student of the week AA herig um Ava is at sophomore East High School and she is the first ever sophomore that we recognized as student of the week since we started the program and and so she has stepped in at East High School and just had a huge impact she got a dynamic personality
012and she's really taken advantage of the high school experience so far she's in AP courses honors courses concurrent enrollment as a Soph more so she's really working extremely hard she's also volunteered to be one of the students that goes to one of our offices that that shows new students around our building gets mated to what's going on in our building come on up Mr Stringer great timing I'm just very very proud of AA first I'd like to introduce her parents Paul and Courtney thank you for being here and now I'm gonna let Ava tell you guys a few things about herself hi um I'm Ava I've been doing karate for 10 years and I really like um I really like take pride in my education and I plan to go into biochemistry when um I
013go to college and I want to go study at Yale um yeah a b but um I'm really thankful for this opportunity that I get to share my passions and my goals who I look forward to in my future also this is Mr Stringer and I chose him as my um teacher because he sees people he sees students as people and he treats us like we're one of them instead of just like kids all right hello okay I am uh Riley Stringer I teach science at East High School in coach football and girls wrestling um I was fortunate enough last year to have AA as a freshman in my honors biology and just to talk about her academics and how hard she works there I was constantly trying to find in honors biology ways to
014challenge AA because she was always so far ahead of everybody else um and it was getting to the point where I would go back to my old college textbooks I'd go back through my old College homework I'd give it to AA she'd go home and do it then she'd bring it back and say yeah that was pretty hard took me a couple hours and I would just respond with well that's really great work and I wouldn't tell her that it took me about seven hours to do the same work when I was 22 years old um but also just her as a person she's one of the most hardworking people I've ever met not one of the most hardworking students athletes one of the most hardworking people um she consistent is in the building at
0157 7:15 every morning just in case she needs to help someone just in case she needs to talk to a teacher um and then she will go through her full day she comes to wrestling practice after that and then oftentimes she will go to jiujitsu or karate practice after that so AA is really really hard worker go get her and the best thing about it is she does all of that while treating others with respect and kindness um and I just feel very lucky to be up here and talk about AA to all of you so thank you well we will invite Aaron back up and and she's got a few words from Western Vista thank you so much I'm GNA read my script because as you'll notice through me talking I get really red
016like your shirts I'm super nervous so um I'm Aaron Espinosa I'm the branch manager at Western Vista the Sparks location we like to honor and support the school district's student of the week program once again this year each week we are delighted to learn about the amazing kids we have in larmy county in recognition of the efforts put forth by the student of the week we are proud to present a certificate of achievement and a Visa gift card to the recipient we'd also like to present a certificate of appreciation and Ziggy's gift card to our recipient nominee for favorite teacher we congrat congratulate you both on this honor thank you so much for everything you do yeah thank you thank you all take hands thanks for all your hard work thank you very much okay
017concludes our recognitions today so we'll be going on to items and visitors and we have a a long list of items visitors I want to speak on I believe one particular item on our agenda tonight took my list okay so we have H 20 people signed up so there's 10 normally on the regular list um the the waiting list filled up too so I will let all 20 talk but please make sure you don't go over the time and I would ask Cooperators from the audience and please kind of stay quiet while people are talking and uh so we can get get on to and really not much posy we get on the next one because this is going to take if everybody takes the three minutes it's going to take an hour so I
018want everybody to be able to be heard so everybody would cooperate in there first person is Margaret Herman okay and our solution today was to set up um the two TVs that are in the lobby out there for people to watch the be from out there so it's nice that uh Kyle was able to fix that technology for us so that we can do that so got a full house today good evening uh board and um Madame chair chairman ban and administrators Etc um my name is Margaret Herman um longtime interest in the school district former trustee um as you you know I am one of the thousands of people in this school district who want to keep the current books policies as a policy that gives maximum discretion to parents and families you have
019read the public comments that you collected yourselves on the proposed book policy change that is on the agenda tonight the objections are well reasoned principled practical frequently eloquent I'm here tonight to remark on how very lucky you seven trustees are many decisions you face difficult you get strong arguments on two sides maybe more uh you sometimes opinions are are divided in the community sometimes are even divided among the school The District staff maybe you cannot figure out how to pay for a decision that you know is a good one maybe you end a program because no it no longer has the support and attendance at once had maybe you are stuck with education and facility actions by the state that you don't agree with at all um and then what about improving graduation rates always
020an important and difficult thing perhaps during your terms you will face a dire health and safety emergency that requires immediate and districtwide action with very limited optout options but this with the book policy the way is simple and clear the solution can accommodate students right down to the inividual family it is Affordable it works and it's already in place the current opt out book policy is principled practical educationally sound and physically respons responsible it is constitutional it can be delivered to individual students based on individual parent and family rights and responsibilities it is carried out conscientiously by our District staff it is in place it is sustainable staff and administrators are eager to help families use the operating system so that it reflects their wishes for their students and even better it is supported by
021an overwhelming majority of the people in the district that you serve it is popular and it works meanwhile the proposed policy is unworkable unconstitutional educationally unsound expensive timec consuming with no payoff and it is opposed by an overwhelming majority though you are very lucky the way to serve all stakeholders ERS is so clear with all the very difficult and complicated decisions that you struggle with as Trustees of laramy County school district one I hope you will appreciate this opportunity to vote for a policy that clearly is worthy of your title of Trustees thank you next person is Danica he again as you come up here please state your name and make sure you don't use any references to anybody any names thank you okay good evening chairman bolon and members of the board my name
022is Danica hect and I'm the parent of lcsd1 student I'm here tonight to voice my concerns about the proposed changes to the library media policies while I appreciate the board's intent to ensure that parents and Guardians have the right to limit the library materials to which their children have access I believe the draft is flawed ambiguous and potentially misleading for starters it does not detail how the district committee to review materials nominated as sexually explicit would be comprised or selected does not make clear whether a parent or Guardian could nominate only those materials that are actually available to their student and does not specify whether or how classroom libraries would need to be cataloged it is worth noting that I have seen little to no acknowledgement or real understanding by the board of the massive
023workload increase in undue burden for both Library staff and classroom teachers that would result from these proposed changes secondly the fact that elementary and Junior High are lumped into the same category is absurd junior high students who for the most part have begun puberty and are receiving appropriate sexual education curriculum instruction have no business being restrict restricted to the same blanket policy and Library material standards as kindergarten students I'm reminded of the mark t quote censorship is telling a man he can't have a stake just because a baby can't chew it additionally since policy draft states that materials that have been nominated but not yet formally reviewed would be preemptively placed on the restricted list there's a potential for many students to lose access to books which may in fact not turn out to be
024deemed sexually explicit while I'm not a legal professional I do have concerns about whether the proposed changes could potentially present an unconstitutional violation of students First Amendment rights if the review process were not executed very carefully to follow the Miller test and be in alignment with the pre principles and precedents set by the 1982 Board of Education versus Pico case I would hope that the board the superintendent and Council would take every possible precaution to avoid such an issue I've been told that the board does not need anyone to analyze the comments received during the 45-day feedback period but I think the analysis published by the Wyoming Tribune Eagle Bears repeating the review found that about 77% of the 1500 plus comments were opposed to the proposed changes with only 21% in support of them
025some folks claim there's a silent majority in favor of the policy changes they can't help but wonder why the supposed majority apparently chose to remain silent and abstain from voicing their opinions during the public comment period on an issue that they feel is so critically important it also seems suspect to me that so few of this supposed majority have seen fit to utilize the systems already in place to protect their students from what they see as concerning or inappropriate Library materials if parents wish to provide their students with a road map to handle heavy topics rather than allowing them to work through these issues with the help of books that they don't approve of that's perfectly fine the current systems and existing policies already respect the rights of each parent or Guardian to limit their
026own children's access to library materials without impeding access for other people's children or overburdening staff I urge you to vote no on the policy thank you for your time thank you next is Jordan Evans Jordan Evans I'm a girl hello good evening my name is Jordan Hammond or also known as comment 191 according to the public comment form I am a former student and a current mother to two children attending lcsd number one I am hoping your vote today mirrors that of the public comment respond which has been clearly made that the current opt out policy is the best option and needs to stay in place I have personally reached out to current and former Educators in our district and the response has been unanimous that the proposed change will be a nightmare for them
027and is going to cause some to leave specifically our English and librarian Educators they feel unseen and that their education in their fields is being disrespected we need to have faith in them for their profession just like we would have faith and trust in a local roofing company that has been in business for nearly 40 years or a board certified OBGYN that's been practicing medicine for 20 years our libraries are not full of porn and our Librarians are not villains they work hard with students and are in complete oversee of iPads as well with any technical issues lost or stolen that students deal with they work hard in building literacy rates Texas who has the most Bann books has a literacy rate of 71.8% which is the third lowest in the the nation Wyoming currently
028sits at eighth highest at A literacy rate of 86.4% you were elected onto this board by the public to represent the public you offered the public comment to response to hear from us and we have spoken by voting yes today you would be failing at what you've been asked to do I was a daughter to a single father and when I had female issues I was a little uncomfortable sharing with him I had books to help when I went through difficult friendships at times I had books to help to me it is asinine to judge a 300 page book by three pages of difficult material all students experiences immaturity levels are different which is why it is unfair for someone else to say what my child can or cannot have access to if for some
029reason one of my sons found solace in a book or a specific character when he didn't feel comfortable enough talking to me about it and it was on the brink of suicide but that book or character helped him through I know for a fact that would be more than okay with me and and how devastating a loss that could be for someone's child who felt they weren't seen or understood mental health is also child safety I'll end on a quote I found in hopes that you can try to understand it says blessed are those who share their stories so that others can feel less alone thank you and God bless and and by the way that was Jordan Hammond I had called Jordan Evans so Jordan Evans will be the next come up so those
030two sound a love like so thank you she was on the list so it's okay like be a minute or so to realize it can you hear me all right hello my name is Jordan Evans and I'm from Cheyenne and I attended larmy County School District 1 kindergarten through my senior year my daughter is a fourth grader here now I'm also the current chair of the ly County Democratic party this summer I was lucky enough to travel to Berlin Germany while there I encountered two memorials that are relevant to today's discussion the first was in the middle of a large Public Square at humbal University on the ground there you'll find a window look down into it and you will see set into the ground a large room filled with empty white shelves an empty
031Library this was the spot where on May 10th 1933 the German students union using their nationally distributed Blacklist gathered books that met the criteria of being and I quote Jewish Marxist socialist pornographic Sally explicit Pro democracy liberal anti family and anti-german authors like France kofka Albert Einstein and Helen Keller were among the dozens on the list additionally Berlin's Institute for sex research where the first woman to receive gender affirming surgery had been murdered by a mob four days prior had its entire Library added to the pile in all 25,000 books were burned in front of 40,000 people at the other end of the same street I wandered through the massive concrete blocks of the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe this was was a profound and overwhelming experience that day taught me that the
032environment that leads to the censorship of books is on a straight path to crushing war in the systematic kidnapping and murder of six million innocent human beings back home in America 91 years after that horrible night what do I find a farri group of so-called Patriots is attempting to curate and distribute lists of so-called dangerous anti- family and pornographic literature these lists are being distributed by groups who want to use the power of the government to enforce their narrow worldview on every citizen so what are we to do I know what I say here will change nobody's mind tonight so all I ask is that if you are a person who finds yourself thinking that this policy is a compromise and your preference would have been that the books targeted by this policy were removed
033entirely from every school not purchased in the first place or that they had never been written at all please reflect on why that would have been your preference if your answer to yourself is that these books are Jewish Marxist socialist pornographic Sally explicit it pro democracy liberal anti family or anti-American and therefore dangerous just know that your thinking and actions are in line with those that gleefully warmed themselves by the fire of burning ideas almost a century ago what you do with that knowledge is up to you but I hope you don't dismiss it as hyperbole as I hear people are already doing behind me I hope you hold it close to your heart and I think about who benefits from your complicity in this circus because it certainly is not the children of larmy
034County thank you all right please refra from the comments please while people speak next person gonna be Jen sess this is unfair and unjust Ken soless is next one to speak please sit down let her speak would you please sit down go ahead greetings Jens um happy to have uh followed protocol and called in to reserve my public comment spot um which is widely known to be the process to securing the spot um I've been here before um not a ton more I can say at this point for you guys um but I did want to just one more time because I will any chance I get and I think every one of us should do it would just be to commend our Educators here in laramy County um we have Educators that are second
035to none um my husband and I are proud to be raising three little wyomingites here in in lar me County uh we have had nothing but incredible Educators um all three of our kids are wonderful readers they are venturous readers they choose their own books they read about subjects that interest me they read about subjects that I have zero interest on um that's fine that's the freedom to read That's the freedom that we've all had our entire lives uh and that's the freedom I'd like you all to protect this evening now I know that that's easier said than done I know there's some folks here that are real mad uh and I also know that there's some folks here that believe some really pervasive misinformation about what kinds of books are in our schools um
036and I'd ask you to contemplate changing a policy based on folks who are so loudly spreading this pervasive misinformation there just is no pornography in our schools save the comments so as a parent as as a parent I have full access to the libraries of all three of my kids my elementary school student my Junior High student and my high school student today I spent a good little bit of time uh perusing the library of my high schooler um the tools are there I can see every single book that this district has cataloged in our library um the information is there if I have questions I can contact My Librarian or my school principal they are more than willing to help they have helped me in the past they are professionals they are educated they
037do their job they respect our kids they want them to grow up in a country that is free just as we have enjoyed free people read freely there is no pornography in any of our schools there may be books that you don't like and that's okay there is a system to prohibit your children from accessing those books if we can make that system stronger let's talk about that we can do that without a policy that comp Ates access to books for 14,000 students and that 77% of our community does not want thank you so much I urge you to do the right thing it's not always easy to do the right thing but I urge you to do the right thing this evening good night thank you next person is Josh Fitz Joshua Fitch evening
038Mr chair trustees I wanted to speak tonight in support of the library opt-in policy my father recently wrote uh and sent in a letter to the board in favor of the new opt-in policy and I want to speak to a few of his points that resonated with me his first was that typically both dads and moms have both the responsibility and privilege to supervise and guide their children's reading and viewing material if in any school any of the books or material are considered questionable controversial pornographic ideological then the parent should be able to decide decide the appropriateness of such materials for their own children parents raise children not governments and having a liberty opt in and having a library opt in policy parents are essentially involved in providing guidelines discussions and choices regarding their own
039children this new policy makes this true for lgbq uh plus parents Democrat parents Republican parents parents that wear purple parents that wear red libertarian parents Muslim Jewish Christian parents parents of any flavor with the current policy parents aren't easily in the loop if I as a parent in this sress to try to opt my child out of something topical The Librarians in this District can't support me if I asked to remove a book of a specific type parents in a district are told that Librarians can't know every book they have and I need to review the thousands of books and give them a specific book if I question that process I'm told sometimes by this board to trust Librarians and they know what they have in their libraries both statements cannot be true now I
040fully support Librarians this is not an attack on them but right now the president of the American Library Association is a self-confessed Marxist that has publicly made statements about utilizing libraries and public schools as centers of of radical agitation and socialist organizing she has made statements in support of collective power with no parental Authority she likes to speak at conferences that Advocate a child's rights to prostitution she and I disagree and that's okay our society allows for that but I don't just blindly trust anyone I don't just blindly trust any group so we need policies to keep the right conversations in the right sphere in actual practical application the current policy does not work as I've mentioned there are multiple flavors of parents people can legitimately have different views concerning what sexual attitudes behaviors and
041services and religions are appropr for their children that's good discussion is good one point my dad made made was that parents are owed the opportunity to discuss books ahead of time with their children parents need to be able to put such materials especially sexual and ideological material into their proper context of frame of reference and relate it to their personal and family values again all parents parents of any flavor should be able to have conversations with their children before they are exposed not after I've already had I've already not had that opportunity in this District my seven-year-old child was exposed to sexual material out of context on a school iPad if I were to describe what she saw in school in class with no parent or teacher to give her content where she was exposed
042with no parent or teacher to give her context you would cut off my microphone because of your fear being blocked on YouTube so when we talk about books and libraries this covers digital material as well so in closing I would encourage everyone listening to this to read the policy ignore the impressively massive disinformation campaign that's ongoing that says the policy is against certain sexual groups or religions or Banning books or Nazis a catchy phrase not in reality this misinformation campaign has tricked good people into thinking this policy is something that it isn't this policy doesn't take away parental rights of any flavor it gives them back thank you next name is Lindsay Hamlin hello my name is Lindsay hlin and for two years people have come here to read what they think are the worst
043parts of books they're trying to shock and to prove a disingenuous point to say if I can't read it here why is it in our schools as if there's a copy of me and Earl and the dying girl lurking around in a kindergarten classroom which is the level of language that we're supposed to be using in this room this tactic lacks context and framing I learned in Cheyenne schools that is the wrong way to understand a book which is unfortunate because it's how most of you have decided that you and your Review Committee will understand books you are perfectly content reading a couple paragraphs out of 250 pages and passing judgment so today I am going to use my time to show you the contacts that you have been missing from the people reading aloud
044in this room the pages that you plan to take away from our students prank by Ellen Hopkins rated for grades eight and up by professional reviewers have you ever had so much to say that your mouth closed up tight struggling to harness the nuclear force coalescing within your words have you ever had so many thoughts turning inside you that you didn't dare let them Escape in case they blew you wide open have you ever been so angry that you couldn't look in the mirror for fear of finding the face of evil glaring back at you me and Earl and the dying Girl by Jesse Andrews rated for ninth grade and up by professional reviewers who else is there to lead the masses the smart kids please they have no interest in politics they're hoping simply
045to attract as little attention as possible until high school is over then they can escape to some college where no one will mock them for knowing how an adverb Works allegedly by Tiffany Jackson rated for nth grade and up by professional reviewers when people feel insecure they create a grand self-image in an attempt to compensate for what is lacking internally they present this facade to the world in order to to hide the emptiness they feel thus falling in love with the idea of themselves but if you threaten their self- image threaten to expose the thing they love most themselves they will react often in a hostile manner I'm sorry that so many people are responding in a hostile manner to these books I have to wonder what these books threaten to expose that has them
046and you so scared and so unwilling to let people see thank you thank you next is Patricia McCoy okay it's great to have such a big crowd here it's a bit of a walk my name is Patricia McCoy and this is my third time speaking to you on this same topic and I want to say thank you for another opportunity to be here after raising four children in larmy County School District 1 since 2007 I'm honestly appalled that this conversation is still unresolved we voted to elect each of you to represent our families protect our children while they're in your schools and ensure that they're getting the best possible educated keywords here are protect and education why are we as adults wasting months and meetings debating back and forth to whether or not inappropriate materials
047should be allowed in our schools when 65% of our students are testing below average in Reading Writing and math Common Sense tells you if it can't be read to you here it doesn't belong in our schools you have been provided proof that the opt out forms are not being followed you've been given proof of the books being in our schools why are we allowing certain beliefs and agendas to be pushed on our children instead of teaching them love and pride of their country and basic life skills we have teachers who are openly pushing teaching and celebrating socialism and communism in our classrooms and yet our children cannot read and write cursive they don't know how to do basic math and they don't know how to write a proper paper or a letter we don't need
048agendas pushed explicit materials in our libraries or indoctrination of our children we need teachers who are going to teach a proper curriculum and educate our children we need administrators who hold teachers accountable for their classrooms no more teaching to test no more distractions in the classrooms that don't belong there get rid of the iPads and bring back pen and paper go back to the basics Reading Writing history math science life skills and patriotism for our country I encourage encourage each of you to remember Joshua 1 19 when you vote today to be strong and courageous for the Lord is with you everywhere that you go if you as our board cannot ensure the proper education of our children then we will vote in those who will I urge you all to vote Yes tonight on
049the new proposed Library policy thank you thank you next is Darren Smith is he online Darren if you're online please raise your hand Dar you can go ahead and unmute all right howdy can you hear me yes we can go ahead all right good evening my name is Darren Smith I'm speaking in support of the porn opt-in policy I'm a licensed attorney and very well vered in case law surrounding this the Constitutional freedoms in question tonight you've heard the Mark Twain quote there's lies stinking lies and statistics well in Cheyenne it's lies stinking lies and misquoted US Supreme Court cases removing porn from schools or at least making it opt in is not unconstitu I repeat it's not unconstitutional as board members you have a fiduciary responsibility to protect our kids this board and Community
050have talked about this issue till we are blue in the face it's time to do something the indoctrination of our kids and the filth was exposed over two years ago and we are still waiting please take action and find your way back to focusing on Reading Writing and arithmetic what's the worst thing that could happen if you take action you could be sued by on faulty legal grounds and this District might have to spend a little money to defend itself against frivolous lawsuits uh with no strong legal basis who cares it's time to do something this district has plenty of money but sadly most people do not know that here's the fact uh about school district number one's U budget that I found out by asking a straightforward question your CFO after paying every light
051bill in every building project and and every last thing there's still at least 295 million in discretionary funds left over to educate the less than 14,000 kids in the school district that's 21,000 $500 per student that can be spent solely on education how'd I learn that I asked hard questions I implore this board to start asking the hard questions it's time to do something here's our hard question how is it that our how's our school district done in the last 10 years well guess what um our scores have plummeted over the last 10 years in 2022 our average District white toop score was was 7% behind the rest of the state it's time to do something anything start tonight um whyever score is fallen for example so drastically in the last decade I don't know
052but it's time to ask the question for the sake of our kids uh if you need to be liked get a dog it's time for this board to kick it an overdrive and pull this District out of its nose dive for the sake of our kids last Point since I have little time there are more prolific authors in this country that uh are not in the school library like James Dobson Frank Prett Max L uh and they're much more popular and the porn in question why are they not in the library well because they're Christian books and at some point our our society decided that we were going to keep everybody out of the culture War not indoctrinate our kids one side or the other but let our kids get educated let them make the
053decisions but that has gone the way of the dodo bird so please please bring back some balance to our district thank you thank you next versus Dylan Ford go right ahead you can just hold the microphone through that's another way do that's nonsense uh Mr chairman members of the board my name is Dylan Ford and I'm a teacher here in the district tonight I have the rare privilege of being able speak on behalf of the cheyen teachers Education Association if you don't know us we are comprised of about 800 Educators in this district and we represent all certified staff during negotiations in other words we represent the people who have carried this District on their backs to make sure that the kids in this town are getting the education that they deserve for years our
054color which we have worn for years and which we wear wear tonight is red for Ed I am here to announce that our members Representatives voted last week to take an official position of opposition to the proposed Library policy and what's more the vote was unanimous let this be a clear message from me from CTA and from the incredible Educators in our schools and the ones behind me wearing red who have dedicated their careers to creating opportunities for the children of this town this policy should not pass and I'm sure that there are many in this community who would ask why teachers would unanimously oppose a policy that keeps kids safe from sexually explicit content and it's a fair question and the simple answer is is that this policy doesn't do that what does that
055good parents Librarians and teachers do that what this policy actually does is Grant political power over our students through a national political agenda what this policy does is add one more like no way more a ton of different things to a ton more things to our plates um of Educators who are still waiting on the Promises of many board members to do the opposite and I think and this isn't official but I think I also speak for educators when I say I have no interest in getting involved in politics really none I wanted to show up when I was just wanting to become a teacher it was because I wanted to show up and make a difference for my students but this policy has heaped Politics on on us but a strange side effect of
056that if it is a silver lining is that this policy which seems almost designed to split our community and half you've heard it here tonight as actually United Educators in a way that I've never actually seen before I understand that you have the votes to pass this policy and doing so will make uh one of these groups in the community very happy but you do so alone you pass this policy against the advice and expertise of your teachers of your Librarians and your Educators who care enough about this district and who know enough about this district and our students to know how much this harms them thank you Bob wison Bob Wilson you he didn't Bob Wilson trustees thank you for hearing us tonight and thank you uh chairman Bolan for for expanding the list
057I was on the waiting list so thank you for allowing some of the other voices to speak um I'm Bob Wilson I'm a grandparent I'm missing my granddaughter's musical program to be here tonight but I'd spoken up enough that I thought that was important to do I wanted to relate that um as I did to you trustees that the call-ins the call-in line to be able to get on the waiting list to do this was was full with less than 24 hours certainly the next morning at 8:40 after it was the agenda was put on the list was full but you did allow a waiting list so thank you for that I also wanted to point out that the blitz of opinion letters to the editor were expressing a fear that this new policy was
058going to have Mal was based on malicious motives to cancel perspectives of people that would disagree um it was as a policy supporter it was easy to assume that the people that were writing in those letters um were being deliberate that they were deliberately setting up strawman attacks exaggerating motives of people like me that it but in our mind in my mind at least it was about removing age inappropriate sexually explicit books of whatever persuasion whether they're heterosexual they're homosexual whether they're about whatever religion you're about that that's not what it's about and so it's easy for me to assume that the opponents of the policy were motivated by the desire to indoctrinate other parents kids with a different ideology about sex now what if both sides are assuming too much my eyes were opened
059up because I'm a member of the newspaper editorial Advisory Board another member of that who opposes this policy is on that same board what was remarkable was the things we agreed on we agreed that parents are best positioned to decide what's best for their students not the professional Educators we agreed that students should be guarded against being age inappropriately sexualized we agreed that an opt-in policy is an acceptable policy provision we agreed that parents need help from their school system to help them make informed decisions things like the category that's being proposed as the opin policy tonight that parents should be in deliberate conversations with their kids it's not we can't just delegate the responsibility to talk to the kids about these sensitive issues to the schools that the district implementation of this policy must
060be trans transparent and that we must not let this controversy demean our respect for our teachers and Librarians and there's many many good ones so in closing this conversation needs more light and less heat we should be talking to others looking them in the eye and let's pass this policy and move on to things that you all want to get to thank you thank you next is Susan scar chairman trustee superintendent my name is Suzanne scar our meeting parts of an opinion published in a Florida newspaper and written by Melanie wicker as an open letter to Ronda santis of Florida legislature and all those who supported hb1 069 I'm sharing this because some members of this school board seem to be leading the fight to be just like Florida I hope our community stands up
061to this thinking before it becomes board policy and state law our library media Specialists took the state created training and boy they went at it every book with the sex scene got removed funny thing is HB 1069 doesn't ask whether the sex scene makes sense in terms of the overall book it doesn't ask whether the book belonged in the Canon of world literature it doesn't ask whether this book has won any awards or brings new voices and viewpoints onto the shelves nope it just wanted everything 100% sanitized you all like to point to your Bibles and talk about judeo Christian values well here's the thing the Constitution protects your religious ideas and beliefs in your home and your place of worship and at religious conferences but when you're elected to do the people's business you
062cannot craft laws that trample on other people's rights and values that's just the way our founder set it up you are required to look at the First Amendment not to religious Doctrine but you didn't do that did you you took it upon yourself to legislate the morality of public school students by controlling what they can or cannot read in their schools how dare you this is not legitimate legislation this is an exercise of dehumanization why would you want to strip from our young people the very essence of what it means to be human what a cold cruel agenda and a frightening one as well the truth is this bill was never about pornography no student wanting to see porn patronizes a school library no you wanted to purify all the books in A desperate effort
063to return to an imagined golden past you wanted to demonstrate yet again that those who are straight and self righteously judao Christian still have the power to silence all other voices you wanted to trample the line between church and state because you don't respect any limits on your Authority anywh who a great taxpayer expense and at the cost of hours and hours of Staff time our school district took Classics of American literature off the shelves popular award winning books many of which have been made into TV shows and movies books by lgbtq plus black and Indigenous writers all gone I wish the public school district had stood up to y'all and said no sex is part of life and part of literature exploring sexuality is part of life and belongs to our shelves we're not
064Banning anything see you in court but ccps did not do that you have cost us a ton of money and harmed our students immeasurably when they limp into college their roommates will say you went to school and Southwest Florida oh man I feel for you do you want to borrow some books thank you next spot M Scott Matson I'm not necessarily nervous I just have a condition that affects my hands seriously members of the board thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight during my time teaching us and Wyoming government in this District my class is engaged in many discussions on the topics of why the school staff could limit certain student rights our curriculum specifically took us through many of the note worthy Supreme Court cases that involve public school students whenever we study
065this topic I always had to make clear to the students one very important fact a public school is most often a very diverse place which requires the administrators and faculty to restrict certain student rights because all students are required to be at school by law this makes the school a legally unique environment where no one can do or say whatever they want without consequence student and staff cultures Lifestyles religions or abstinence from religion make it imperative that certain actions speech and materials be limited so distractions are minimized and the primary goals of the school might be achieved in a um shoot uh might be achieved in an environment conducive to those goals since the last time the school board addressed this topic citizens were given the chance to publicly comment on a proposed change to
066student access to certain library and classroom books I read through the first 1,000 comments myself and and it's already been reported in the media those commenting against the proposed changes outnumbered those for it by a large margin but majority opinion cannot be the end all in this issue it doesn't eclipse the rights of the majority or minority for the very reasons I already discussed all I am a Christian I hold a leadership position in my church and I know my Bible I've talked with Christian parents about this issue and I've examined enough of the books in question to know that the contents in many of them go strongly against our scriptures for that reason these parents have tried the optout procedure and found it to be cumbersome and timeconsuming to come to a resolution on
067this subject a compromise must be reached after reading uh the opinions of those for and against the proposed changes I believe that solution proposed by the board is the best we're going to get I'd only add a request as a former teacher that the board allow teachers Librarians and staff at least until the beginning of next school year to do any cataloging and administrative work necessary to carry out the new policy then at least give it a chance thank you thanks next is lorine Wilcox Marine Wilcox John M okay welcome you may have to lower that a little bit oh maybe my name's line wox and I'm here and supported the new proposed changes but that should be no surprises I've spoke on this topic several times however some things that I would like to
068address that I've heard just tonight it seems odd to me that we are accused of only nitpicking or cherry-picking certain topics or sentences out of books yet the majority of the things that have been discussed in this room in which parents have been shut down can be seen throughout the book yet I guess that's only approved to cherry pick when you're picking scriptures when you're picking a line out of a whole scripture to try to prove that the Bible is pornography yet we say pornography is not in the school but YouTube has higher values than those in charge of our children yet that same seven-year-old on the other side of that screen listening to the same material can go straight to her school library and read that same exact book