001uh with an update from Dr Andy castle and from his uh Victoria lescher on the math pilot so ladies if you'd like to take a program so you want me to hit got it yeah all right so thank you all for allowing us to come speak with you and share our information on our math pilot my name is Amy castle in the secondary math coordinator my name is Victoria lescher I'm new to the role of elementary math report all right so we're just going to share a little bit of background information with you and an update on what we have right now uh as you may know uh our current adoption for our go math and our Eureka Math which is our K-8 programs is set to expire in the spring in May of 24.
002so an intention in in anticipation of that last year um Valerie and I started vetting some materials knowing that we have this big adoption coming up we started by vetting materials that were only scored um highly ranked in Edward Court from Louisiana believes and we put fourth four programs for public review and for the communities to review in the fall of 20 22. um so after a thorough review uh input from stakeholders teachers we had a recommendation to um cabinet at that point in time we were asked to do some further investigation so we went back um to the to the committee which was an expanded committee so we included more teachers more administrators parents um to review two products and at the end um the decision was made to Pilot the Eureka math squared
003program so that was what all happened last last year all right um so last spring upon approval from the board to purchase some materials for the pilot we had over 160 teachers that wanted to participate in this pilot from 20 different elementary schools into junior highs which amounts to approximately 4 000 students participating in this pilot at this time and stop me if you have any questions so all of those that asked for you yes everybody who put in a request the way we asked them to do through their principles we were able to accommodate and we got a few more in because teachers were nice and and we worked together so Tori Tori worked on that really hard this summer all right since that time we have provided four opportunities for a six hour
004professional development for all of these teachers that was in July and August um so we provided professional development on the large part of the Eureka squared program to over 160 teachers and 14 principals they were paid okay since that time in this fall we have seven additional two-hour professional development sessions scheduled throughout the fall so we know that implementing a new program requires professional development so we want to continue to do that and gather feedback because this is a pilot and so we want to have feedback to provide to you all um as well as our other stakeholders and teachers in addition we are providing opportunities for five town hall meetings this will um I believe you all have gotten an invite to participate in a town hall meeting the invites also went to the
005department advisory committee we've invited administrators and our fellow K-8 teachers okay any questions alrighty thank you so uh since the pictures worth a thousand words I thought it might be helpful to share some examples of math lessons being taught around the district so for years it's been commonplace for kindergartners to learn how to read and write zero to five when they come to school this is how it's traditionally been done using a paper or pencil tab like this over at Alta Vista um they're practicing that same skill but in a more Hands-On and developmentally appropriate manner here we see students uh counting beans on their two hands bat they do this every day to practice counting one-to-one correspondence and fine motor skills here students are sorting cubes into color groups and then they are counting
006the groups of the object or the county groups of objects and then finally they're drawing the groups that they've created in their math books so you can see how that looks different from how it would have been um last year in that kindergarten classroom yeah again what a skill would have looked like um from the go math program that we're using right now um this is a photo of third graders over at Fairview already working on making the connection between addition and multiplication so students spend math time each day working in small groups being given tasks to solve in numerous ways uh growing their conceptual understanding of what math what what it really means to multiply same skill but two different approaches to that over at Sunrise Elementary sixth graders learned to draw tape diagrams
007to represent ratios then they use those tape diagrams to model equivalent ratios so as a former sixth grade teacher I know that ratios and proportions is a really big deal in sixth grade that's the major new learning for sixth graders so it's nice to see and I appreciate that we see the students diving into that work right away at the beginning of the year and we see that in all of the grades is that this is designed to have them a big idea like third grade is multiplication on day one right at our Junior High program currently this is our Eureka math program this is the program that we adopted seven years ago and at this point um this is a worksheet out of their book it is really left to the teacher to provide
008and Implement any engaging activities or exploration okay Bare Bones type of thing however in the new Eureka Math Square program I get to highlight some of the digital lessons um so this is an example of a digital lesson where students were exploring how to um rewrite three thank you thank you how to write three to a power in different ways and so the students can see on their iPads all the different ways that their peers wrote them in addition the teacher can monitor what the students are doing so this is an example of the digital platform at the junior high level it's six eight this is an example of how students can take an idea and they're taking something we don't know what raised to the fifth power representing it what does to the fifth
009power mean um and then they expand that and find out that it's three to the fourth so they're on their way to discovering if you will the power to a power rule all right and they do this through in digital Interactive however you can see that students can choose to write or teachers may choose to write either their work in a notebook or this teacher chose to have them do it on their iPad so it's flexible we can do both and this final picture is um a consolidation of the lesson the teacher is presenting um two different ways that we can take 4 times 3 to the seventh and represent it as the quantity four times three to the seventh or four to the seven times three to the seventh so they've taken this knowledge
010that they've done throughout the lesson and at the end the teacher is pulling it together and having the students compare and contrast the two different versions so engaging inter um interactive digital experience all right so last week we met with our pilot teachers to collect their feedback from the first two weeks of school uh so uh conceptual understanding was a positive that teachers across the grade levels mentioned uh they liked that the lessons are Hands-On lots of manipulatives uh they like that the teacher books have clear explanations for students and that there are activities for students discover to discover why math Works uh they see their students thinking about many different ways to solve problems uh they like how it's building Independence there's opportunities to grow that and then they also like the digital and
011interactives and the video student discourse was another thing that was mentioned a lot teachers are seeing students talking about math and using math vocabulary and conversations and they also like that the kids are working together to problem solve and that they're working on their collaboration skills many teachers talked about the rigor of the lessons being a plus for this program um they felt like uh the levels the rigors at the right level of difficulty and that the lessons are developmentally appropriate they're reporting that the lessons are faced well for students to achieve success primary teachers K3 spoke over and over again about how they really appreciated the readability and how that was taken into account when the lessons were created we've heard um positive feedback regarding uh the variety of teaching strategies included in the
012lessons and then finally we've heard that the kids are engaged in the lessons there's a shift to doing math rather than doing math problems on Behavior uh kids are physically engaged in solving problems and there are lots of opportunities for movement and variety built into the program as a teacher talking about rigor was an increasing reader or yes an increase in rigor quite a bit from our previous so we also ask teachers to share what needs to be addressed and I came down to these uh three pieces technology has been a huge learning curve for all parties um our district Tech team has been working to ensure that the data is getting sent appropriately and our technology integration Specialists that team of people has been terrific about working to provide professional development and support using
013the technology pacing during the lessons is still quirky for a lot of folks trying to get that rhythm of how long they should stay in one piece before they move to the next um trying to find the balance of the program how much time to spend on each section and then uh reporting grades to parents is on everyone's mind uh this curriculum is a layered curriculum and so it's designed to give students multiple opportunities to grow and that means they're not just learning something in isolation here and then moving on to the next piece in isolation so that's really great for kids but what it means is that we're going to have to examine when and how student proficiencies are going to be reported using our proficiency scales and those priority standards so where do
014we go from here well we're going to continue monitoring and collecting feedback with our teachers um addressing their concerns we will conduct the town hall meetings kind of stakeholders we would like to give you a brief update on October 9th and then we'll go ahead and solidify our recommendation to the board in early November so we ask great minds to provide us with a demo accounts so that stakeholders have the chance to see any of the K-8 lessons out there so these links are up and running feel free to look at what the teacher's side and the student side of things thank you for your time and for letting us share the work that we've done I'm going to turn it over to Amy who is ready to answer me and every question and those
015accounts are linked so if you play around in a teacher's side and assign something it would show up soon okay yes sure um could you explain how losing our materials this spring is making for a bit of a deadline at the November meeting correct so um we know that our subscriptions to go math and Eureka experim May 24 so that means we need to put a proposal forward to you guys in early November that allows us time to order materials um if the pilot is going well to finish out the spring semester for our pilot teachers as well as seven years for the curricular materials for our teachers and students okay our timelines for shipping that we've been told we need to have those skin really early so that they're here in time ideally they
016want them in teacher stands before we leave in the spring so it doesn't sound like this is likely but if it if we end up feeling like it's just not but I know the technology is not working then what then we go back to the drawing board we did have four other programs that we looked at um so we would have to assemble our committee and basically start over okay and then you know what happens I renew what we're currently using until we get something figured out so we cannot renew go math it is there is literally out of publication um they've decided that program did not earn hybrid High marks in Ed reports that revamped their program and have a completely new program um similarly with Eureka Math which is the 70th program we're
017using now they've moved to the Eureka Square so just using what we have is yeah if we did not vote to approve this in November does the pilot program continue through the school year no the pilot materials that we were able to purchase only were for a person semester and what would those students do those students would go back into using go match for the rest of the year and we would have those materials available to ship out to teachers and then we would go with the process of figuring out what we're going to do and if the chairman bolin's request that's why we've also built in the October 9 update to get a sense with a little few more weeks of school under our belt how's the pilot going in case we have to
018radically alter course we've built in a little bit more time um rather than waiting to for the November date to give our recommendation so those links you showed available on the website everything which I showed you yes so those two accounts yeah this is the teacher this is the website this is a teacher login this is a student login and that's the password is there an internet on our website certainly no no no but we could we get um yes I know this is old school but do they do kids still learn to memorize multiplication tables and additional connecting so that they are quick and professionally so our ultimate goal is um in all of those skills right research is showing us very clearly that you cannot just ask a student to memorize something they
019need to go through a series of steps of building that conceptual understanding with the goal of reaching fluency um you know the problem is what research has shown us is that when you just make kids memorize things if they're not good memorizers they just mix it all up and then they don't remember anything wow but how are you I guess how are you um how are you testing for fluency how are you showing that somebody is fluent in those that's great um this program actually had the daily fluency routine that's built into the program for okay five six eight it has additional fluency pieces that the teachers can Implement if they need it um so it's all right there and built into the program I'm curious about the two things um I'm curious about you
020could speak to why you chose this program over the others like what were the outstanding things that you thought were important and different maybe from what we have okay and then you want to go with that person okay [Music] one of the things that really stood out to us with your reading Mountain squared was that particular very conceptual um it takes a very conceptual approach so like you speak to the idea they need to know the importance for 16 when we passed instead of teaching that first and then so teaching the facts first and then building conceptual understanding this approach is that we're going to play with those manipulatives we're going to understand how the numbers work we're going to understand base 10 and place value and as we build that conceptual understanding then we
021start to put those pieces of fluency we have places to connect to so we're building this broad base first and then making those connections so a little bit different approach kind of kind of the opposite in the sense of rather than fluency first and conceptual understanding later of that conceptual piece first so I think that was one of the big things uh I was on the committees as a sixth grade teacher about when all those discussions took place um the rigor is just more appropriate with this with this piece teachers are doing a lot of supplementing to teach go math and if they happen to pick good things to supplement with great but we aren't vetting those and so people are going out and it really depends who who your child gets as to which
022resources they might have pulled in and so we wanted to find a program that was good for all students but also good for teachers so that our kids are getting the same math education across the district So speaking personally and from what I heard in the groups that I was in last year those were two biggies so pretty much a great summer yeah does the district have a website where they can share materials they explain something good that works in one to carry it you can put that on the website and other teachers can find it sure so what I've got right now is a teams page set up just for the teachers that are in Eureka Math square and we're working on we're using that right now as a shared workspace for instance today
023I got a there was a post put by a teacher a third grade teacher saying he was having trouble uh being able to fit the width of the the you know the screen proportions and getting that all done so he put that out there that way either a teacher that knows that answer or one of our kisses or myself can respond also just what you're saying all those resources that we're finding that have been vetted those can go on there as well and then if this were to be what we put forth and it were to be adopted then we would take those resources that we've built as a pilot group and take those out of team games where it's just private for us and we would put that onto canvas which is the platform
024that we're using that's where we put all of the resources for the math teacher students so is there somebody that currently available to share materials seems like I remember there being something like that back when I was teaching yes so so right now any of the pieces that we have um that are available for teachers doing go math are all on the canvas website um it it mirrors a lot the public side or the public side of canvas of course we don't post the assessments on the public side but but the curricular documents the proficiency scales are all the same that's another question so in schools that are doing the pilot program what about the math intervention are they also using that are they just going into the classrooms in other words I don't feel
025the schools so this program actually has a really great program called equip which is a pre-assessment it's students can take it it prints out a report for the teacher and says students a b and c need to work on this skill it needs to be done by lesson five so it tells them when it needs to be accomplished and it provides them an activity to do it um so we've heard from some of our teachers who have done equip that they have pulled those activities and sent them with the intervention teachers um so that is a great option within this program um do you want to add to that I would add that it's it's also standards based as far as this is the particular standard that a student needs more work on in those
026pre-assessments so that um if the interventionist or the teacher that's doing the intervention were to utilize the resources for Eureka and still feel like they needed more intervention then it ties in very nicely which with the bridges intervention kits that are available across the district K-5 and very much the same approach that Hands-On conceptual let's understand why it works before we before we attach an algorithm thank you so trustee I just you know talked about the rear of this program so my mind goes to the students who maybe really struggle in math is the rigor of this maybe maybe the you know those extra resources are or not to make that well that Gap that is the rigor of it a problem for kiddos who you know do well in math so I can definitely
027give you more information the next time we meet but what I'm hearing is is just the opposite the folks that are having the hardest time buying additional resources are the people teaching gifted and talented because the um it's just so this this approach I get excited because I like this program this approach is that we're going to grow that knowledge for all of our kids rather than um it's this knowledge is only available to kids that are good at memorizing and so uh that's what I'm hearing more and more is that wow like kids that I wasn't expecting to do well are doing well now with that then you have on that opposite end I was just out at Pioneer Park today and we were talking about what are we going to do then for
028those kids um so we don't want to just put third graders and fourth grade materials and sixth graders and seventh grade materials and call it good um so that will be a conversation that we're going to need to have um but that's that's my initial feelings that I'm getting from teachers and Eureka Math Square does provide differentiation support within the teacher editions for both enrichment and Remediation um so there are some available resources within the teacher edition as well yeah so while I really like the approach um it seems that it would be a little different than what they're going to see on the assessments of ytop Assessments and things like that no no it's okay really nicely okay because they are doing those conceptual types of problems on my top did you read the
029quote um well I kind of she yeah yeah we rarely see on why top something where it's just gonna be what's four times four it's going to be it's going to be a real world problem with a lot of problem solving involved and so our hope is that this kind of practice problem solving these big pieces will actually um get get us to doing better on on tests like white okay I was just going to ask about your pilot classrooms and I was wondering do you bet do you take whoever wants to volunteer or do you bet and make sure that you have different types of classes like you know the Trailblazers versus maybe a title in school that is not low white top scorers so are you making sure that what we're going to
030see in early Assessments in this next month um are kind of across the board and not just you might end up with classrooms that just volunteered and they have to have good rights and we had the principals submit their requests um I can tell you we have pilot schools and bags and Jessup and Rosman and Sun Saddle Ridge and sunrise and sunrise um as well as um so very well represented across across all three Triads um so I uh all a k-6 folks and all that we have teachers that have been through the process from day one and teachers that have not been a part of it so a variety of that um we have teachers that are really gung-ho and teachers that are are not as far as you know uh like trying to
031figure where it was at at Fairview we had a teacher a burrito pilot that was very much against wanting to do that she had another program that she really wanted to do and that was neat because um she changed her mind already she's like oh I was oh she said Tori I was wrong about this um I like this I like the way this is going so um I I feel like whether I I wasn't in in on it to know how all of that was determined but it got a nice balance well we in October see where that schools I don't know how to how you'll do that because there'll be different students but we'll be able to see how it's working in that environment in some way versus so we have asked all
032of our teachers to do the end of module assessment um whether or not they will have completed that by October 8th so we can collect data for you on the night um we don't know where they'll be um we're going to at the seventh and eighth grade level I'm going to ask my teachers to collect some quiz data so I'll have have um some box plots for you at that level um same kind of thing so um depending on the grades some some grade levels will get through module one and two this quarter some will only get through module one uh just because of the pacing of the program they operate in six modules but they don't all get there at the same time and so we'll give you whatever data we have so that
033you can take a look at it the end of module one assessments and then we can pull some data from different foods from the quizzes as well yeah I guess I'm just curious to see if you notice any difference sure keep going on on the next presentation in October brings the teachers loan that have been involved in the project we have teachers scheduled to speak at the town halls but if that is something that you would like in addition for them to compare um I'm sure we could find people that would be willing to do that what do you think yeah I bet we had one teacher in the background do you recommend making comments right I'm just curious on giving the teacher access to the public as that's where we pull the questions for
034the GBC that's my only slight concern okay ladies thank you so much we're about at the halfway mark where we need to shift our gears here so I appreciate and your presentation and look forward to your updates coming up in a month or so right thank you thank you oh we've got a couple visitors here be a lot more entertaining than I am all right well well thank you so much for giving us some time I'm here tonight to talk about our summer programming and how some of the successes from the programming that we did this summer um but first I want to take a minute to thank Tori and Amy they have done an amazing job I got to jump into elementary math this year and I'm extremely impressed with their thoroughness and just
035their their work around the adoption that they're doing so I'm Amanda Hall I'm the assistant director of instruction and one of the um privileges that I have is helping with Summer programming and so we are going to briefly overview and then we have a little buddy here that is going to do a little presentation for you and like I said his is much better than mine all right oh see and he's like yes it is um so we our objectives for summer programming are directly aligned to the Strategic plan and so you can look over those briefly but one thing that I would like to point out is that one of our main purposes of Summer programming is that we don't have students sliding backwards so we're really looking at how do we provide that
036we are maintaining where we're at when we leave the school year or growing ultimately we'll want them to grow but if we can prevent the summer slide that is a huge success this year we had multiple programs that we were able to offer we had our more traditional programs of elementary junior high and High School summer academies and then we had the addition of several more programs which I will highlight through this presentation one of the first programs that we offered this Summer that was in addition to our traditional was around student skill building and sources of strength this was a two-week program we had about 20 students attend they were high school students and one of the highlights from this program was that they were able to collaborate with the boys and girls club
037and do some actual on-the-spot mentoring with those students as they were going through their field day so we had a lot of very positive feedback from parents and students on on the activities that they were able to do as they were practicing those skills of how what does it mean to be a successful student and how do I have those Coop like collaboration and different cooperation type of skills that we were hoping for all of our kids this little guy was our next big Coating in robotics additional program that we had this year it was also a two-week program we ended up originally we offered it to high school getting high schoolers to give out their summary voluntarily it seems to be a thing so we shifted it a little we went to sixth through
038eighth grade and then we had so much need we actually opened a second course up so we had two classrooms we have two of these little guys with us now um that we're going to be using in our schools this year so we're pretty excited about them and the students were able to code and then have they invited in their families to be able to do a presentation and kind of show off their skills that they had while they were doing in that camp for eight days we also offered some math and science Summer Bridge academies these were kind of aligned with Avid so Avid provided some of the lessons and different activities that they were able to do we had about 50 students in sixth grade that volunteered to be in these programs as
039well um and one of the highlights the kids really loved is for that science piece they actually had to solve Mysteries and go through this Pub Mission Impossible and that's how they got to have that hands-on experience and really apply what they were learning thank you all right this one is extremely exciting we've all heard of cap it's our comprehensive academic preparation program that we have that runs year round but we also run a summer component to that we have 16 students who participated in Camp this summer we ended up completing 123 semesters which were 57 57 were credit recovery and 66 were initial courses a total of 61.5 full credits were recovered in math English social social studies science PE health and electives and we were able to graduate seven students so one from
040the 2022 cohort four from the 2023 and two from 2024. so very exciting that we can get that accomplished over the summer and really get kids back computer program um no it's an actual program that runs out of Triumph and so yep helping kids that need a little bit of an alternative path to getting those credits completed we just graduated a student today I believed in high school yeah um this is one of our more traditional programs that we've had for many years we did adjust a few things this year um we had five School sites for elementary Summer Academy approximately 930 students attended these students are typically referred by their teachers using fast bridge data and so they get an opportunity to do everything under the Sun so they get stem field trips math
041reading um don't look at me Bob it's a Saturday program um this year we did experience a lot lower numbers in our jump start so our jump start is our our four-year-olds getting ready to go into kindergarten we have highly successful results in our pre-kindergarten programming last year which we think is a result of why those numbers were a little lower which is exciting so out of our Pre-K just a little fun fact for you we had 179 students in our programs last year and only four of them ended up qualifying for needing that additional jump start so 175 were fully ready for um kindergarten through that screening um a couple other just exciting Elementary highlights we added core five which is an intervention through Lexia and I actually invited Brooke Cheney here today with
042us she's the principal over at bags and she's had a lot of success with this program and so if you have questions I thought she would be a great resource for that she piloted it last year at her school and then also ran it as a summer school principal this summer so and I'll share a few data points here that's pretty exciting um in this online it's an online intervention but it actually gives the teacher targeted reference of what the student needs next to be successful it gives them full lesson plans with all of the resources and everything they could possibly need so they could say okay these five students are struggling on phonemic awareness here's the specific skill where they're at and here's a lesson to help address that so it really is interactive
043with the teachers so right then we had secondary Summer Academy probably a little less popular with the students when they're going to summer school at this age um but we had a lot of success in this as well we did some revamping of our Junior High program where it was a little more individualized and so students were not quite as frustrated being there we did see a decrease in behavior in our Junior highs this year which is extremely exciting um we had about um sorry we had about 600 students that attended between junior high and High School staff were able to recover about 470 first credits in high school and 120 credits or courses in junior high so they did they were working hard um we were able to get many students back on cohort
044with their with their cohort back on track with their cohort and then like I said we had adjusted that programming for junior high which seemed to help with some of the um first how many were recommended to go one of the half of the numbers stack up a bigger percentage of and how many actually come um yeah you know we have I think especially when they get to High School junior high is definitely a little lower numbers as you can see when we get to high school and they're like this is going to determine whether or not I can continue on and pass or I have to retake it course I think they they start to take battle a little more seriously so I can't give you the exact but I could advisement for these
045students to help them realize because I I noticed to Junior highs they're squarely and they don't always realize that what they are doing at Mid seventh grade is going to impact they can get to graduation and so um is there any piece of that in these secondary summer academies yes I would say that um they are addressing it there and I think we also would in Steve perk me from around but through our transition programs that we're trying to do for students as far as looking at where are those critical points were transitioning students that were really trying to align that K-12 and looking at that portrait of a student from when they enter our Pre-K programs all the way through 12th grade and how does that look as you're kind of creating that path
046is that they delivered directly to the student tour is that just the plan the district and you're talking about I would say um probably right now that's hit or miss and so I think there's definitely a more focus in some places but we're really trying to systematically get to it where we can approach that a little bit um really quickly some of our data and please remember fast Bridge um so it's used for elementary to identify students it's not a great indicator of in 22 days how much growth did they make so we were able to pull some data that was relevant um so looking at it a reading and a math are the tests that we would give for our second through sixth graders and we had about 415 students ish between the two
047I had some of the absent and about 70 of our students were able to either maintain or grow from their spring or winter testing until the end of summer programming so that's um successful we like to see those numbers and then for early reading and early math which is our Kinder in first grade students there are about 213 students we had about 70 percent um in that area too if you average those two for core five which is that program I was talking about through Lexia we were able to show some pretty significant growth so this does a diagnostic assessment and for every student when they get into the program so it's very individualized and it collects data daily we were able to complete 533 levels through core five and just to give you an
048idea at grade level so let's say a fourth grader would have four levels to complete in that fourth grade year so 533 levels is significant we had 168 students moved from below grade level to at grade level in 22 half days that's pretty significant and we had over 152 years of growth that we were able to make through that um so pretty exciting this is just another way to look at it and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this just because I want to make sure you guys get a chance to meet Bob um but just another way of looking at that growth and how we're tracking students a little bit of student feedback so I pulled some of the fun ones so my favorite part of making cool things in
049science and making new friends I was a fifth grader actually learning and understanding what I was working on and learning that was a junior getting the opportunity to get my credits back that was another Junior having a chance to redeem my grade and not have to take the class again next year as a senior and everything I loved it was the best summer and I was a six figure they're a little easier to impress sometimes a little bit of parent feedback so my children love the summer program they feel prepared and excited for the upcoming school year thank you second and seventh grade parent everyone is so nice friendly and welcoming we appreciate it so much that was a first grade parent and it helped her realize she was capable of doing the work and
050that wasn't as difficult as she thought she learned she better comprehends the subject of person learning than virtual and that is and we had a lot more I got pages of feedback but um and then a few things from staff it was great to see students excited to come to Summer Academy still in field trips help with the excitement of the acrobat teacher I had a student that was really struggling with her letters and sounds and before if I've helped her learn to grow or helped her grow in Reading she felt very successful as a bags teacher and then all of my students grew significantly and that was a David's teacher virtual students as well as our original students um we didn't do a virtual program this year we each other the program was open
051how about homeschool studies um you know I don't think we had any requests for that but we definitely we worked with students that maybe weren't referred by their teacher but were interested um the sign up programs we didn't really track if where they were coming from that was open to anyone in all csd1 so that could have been um huh and then just a quick thank you I learned this year that it takes a village to run summer school I didn't think I was like oh I'll just put some things together no it's a big deal um so a huge thank you to HR Transportation nutrition services technology facilities Administration and then all the staff that sign up to give up their summer and and go in and help our students so um so now
052and we'll have hopefully time at the end to answer some questions for you specifically but I want to introduce Shannon Brooke she's our new Elementary Ela coordinator and Shannon Van are coding and Robotics program this summer and so she is the master keeper of how this little guy runs you know um so I'm going to share with you the coding sequence that he is going to go through and Shannon will do a quick introduction and then um yeah he has about a three minute little presentation he'll do for you and then we can answer questions so I'm happy to answer any questions about the program later on but I do want to get to the presentation this was actually a program that was created by a sixth grade student at Meadowlark so uh this is
053the whole process of creating the code and you'll get to see what it looks like um the students named him Bob and we have another one named Potato I don't know that's junior high students for you so um I introduce you Bob oops how long did it take her to program this dude about an hour and a half okay members of the board I am Bob I will show you some of my skills that can help students of all ages I can make students love when they are down I can also help students show what they have learned and I can recognize people's faces and then call them by name want to hear some fun animal fans do you know what animal has a built-in snorkel an elephant but oh now I am going to
054tell a joke why was the elephant afraid to go into the computer store well now prosperation [Laughter] because they were selling mummies did you know a gorillas knows Prince is as unique as a human's fingerprint why should you never fight a gorilla because they know King Kong soon it okay thank you for watching if you didn't find Mojo's funny remember I was coded by a sixth grader community college students have a great night so we had a lot of fun with this robot we had about four other robots that the kids got to code over that during that summer program they all had different levels of complexity and difficulty in coding he was obviously the more complex one um kind of our future plans for the now robot is we it has the capability of
055recognizing facial expressions and then communicating so our dream is to get this into classrooms with non-verbal students to where they can we can code it to recognize certain facial expressions that they make when they have needs and then it can communicate for them um it's also incredibly engaging I mean the engagement in those classrooms during the summer program was phenomenal um and I I fully believe that that sixth grade student that said it was everything that I love best summer ever was in this program because we heard that almost every day so to see what the kids could do and we actually had some eighth grade students who had a lot more experience coding start with that code for facial expressions to help out our students with not with that are non-verbal so that's kind
056of our dream and our hopes he also does flash cards like he's this is very basic um skills but it's still pretty it's pretty cool pretty amazing yeah so all right so there's one of those you have the real number he's about fourteen thousand dollars we have two like this so we definitely want to use them to share him in the district and during the school year well that's a great question then we've been working with the special education department to see what some possibilities there might be um we've talked a little bit with the staff at Davis they have a couple of specialized programs and just getting them out there I actually um had one of these about 10 years ago and they are sometimes it's a reward and the kids just enjoy it
057it's just something to work toward like I get to go sit and reach the robot or I get to so some of it really isn't doesn't have to be super complex but we're hoping that yeah we can get them get them going and Shannon's hoping that somebody else learns how to run them any other questions yeah um I did where does the funding for these volunteer programs come from the summer so this year we were able to use mostly Esther funds for that and so um we're hoping to be able to either continue to expand or you know at least maintain some of the programs we started this year but some of that will determine you know be dependent on funding it's like this year I just kept going to Judd and thank you any
058other questions for user for um work back there too around cork value I know we're kind of cutting it close for you guys on time so thank you yeah thank you okay well that is the end of our participation work session okay he's staring at me grab something like 30 minutes Laramie County School term one Board of Trustees to order and we're going to be having the third graders from Deming Elementary School led by their teacher karaoke and principal Tina Hunter leading the pledge allegiance this morning [Music] thank you to the third graders that's great and you probably noticed the fan going on in there that's one of our schools that does not Heather and at the beginning of the school year I think it's gotten a little better in the last couple last week
059or so maybe but it was a little warm there to begin with so um do we have any adjustments Mr chair there are no adjustments to the agenda I move to adopt the agenda yeah Paul's favorite CI aye those opposed though question tests all right then we're going to do the recognition for the Pledge of Allegiance foreign good evening um I'm Mary cost and I'm the community relations director at Laramie County School District number one and I'd like to introduce Laurel Walter she is the chief marketing officer at Western Vista and they are our sponsors for the Pledge of Allegiance along with our student of the week and then do we have our Representatives here from um if you would come on up um principal Tina hunter from Deming Miller thank you and she's online
060for um our next award is for um the Wyoming Wyoming boys Allstate and it's from South so in principal South Carolina Dr Newton Sharon Bolin and the board members thank you so much for having us up here to present Caleb Greenlee I would really like Caleb Greenlee and Miss Freeman to come up here with me please um Aaron Freeman is our art lent I'm so sorry everyone knows everybody um Miss lent um is our AP Government teacher as well as last year's teacher of the year for the district and I brought her up here because she knows Caleb really well and this program and I invited her to just talk a little bit more about why we're celebrating Caleb today thank you Dr Newton chairman bowling members of the board um before I even start
061I just sat down with Caleb and he's a four-time national qualifier which is pretty impressive so he so sorry he has uh nationally qualified We the People Deca twice and now boys Nation so pretty impressive young man standing next to me it is my privilege to recognize an Exquisite young man tonight Caleb Greenlee is one of the students you experience in your career that leaves more of an impression on you than you then at South High I was warned that Caleb would be boisterous he did not disappoint foreign but he is an impact he has an impeccable ability to make the most dry content fun and engaging the past couple of years my partner teacher and I Dr Kaufman have coached We the People last year Caleb was a member of our historical Nationals team
062Caleb fundraised his entire trip on his own made Nationals for Deca competed in speech and debate and continued to show his perseverance in life and academics at the end of last year Caleb applied for boys state boys state is a Civics program hosted by the American Legion every year select males attend in Cheyenne and compete in mock Wyoming government learning the ins and outs of local gov some of the best and brightest of the state compete in a Civics demonstration at the end of the session the students across the state elect two members from Wyoming to represent them at boys Nation Caleb was chosen among his peers to attend which broke South High history as the first student chosen from South at boys Nation Caleb was able to experience the workings of national government in
063Washington DC he met the Wyoming delegation generals and other members of Congress but most importantly he proudly represented our state city and Community with pride Caleb also was close to achieving president pro tem which is an honorary role in the Senate leadership I frequently teased that having Caleb in class as an experience but genuinely my teacher in Civics heart is so proud to have been a part of Caleb's educational Pursuits we want our students to be engaged in productive citizens and Caleb has proven that the future in his hands we can all rest easy members of the board I would like to turn your attention over to Caleb and let him share about his experience thank you first I'd like to thank my teacher Miss Lynch and Justin rodafer I joined we the people on
064the wing I had no idea anything about civic education and frankly I was doing it because a lot of my friends were when I first entered the We the People competition though I was instantly invigorated what I could only explain as a competition of the highest regards is what has been placed in front of me upon this challenge I took my hand up and I said let's go I went to the national qualifying team or I went with my national qualifying team and competed on a national level thinking wow this was amazing so when Justin rodefer referred me to the boys state program I was convinced instantly when I went to the boys state program I thought it was going to be a little bit nerdy and only maybe a little bit about civics and
065that was not fully truly I went to the boys state program and I enjoyed 100 of the time throughout the entirety of that week I learned the inter machinations of local government and enjoyed every last second of it this inspired me to go to boys Nation being a highly competitive spirit that I've decided to become I believe that it was heavily important that I be on this National stand representing Wyoming the equality State and my favorite state thank you when I went to boys Nation being from Wyoming the smallest state I was intimidated I saw these big contenders like Texas which had 1 500 competing members at their boys state and I I was almost afraid but then my other boys state representative from Sheridan Wyoming jet West convinced me I'm already here I might
066as well keep pushing so that is what I did I went for the present pro tempore spot and what I got from that was a 42 votes one vote away from winning the position heartbroken I've got to say all of these programs have led me to where I am today I'm very happy to be recognized right here and right now in front of this wonderful crowd thank you all we have um Caleb's parents also stand if they're in the building and give them a round of applause because we can't do these great things without parents thank you I've known the green leaf Bentley for a long time starting with ahead his father is an eighth grade student and I would not describe his father as boisterous at all he hardly knew he was in the
067room but he was a very good student but I've had the opportunity to bowl with his grandfather who is exactly like him okay I knew it was going to be a long time with the microphone um that's exactly his grandfather is so congratulations Cameron okay we're going to delay the next thing we had for the facilities team that helped do the move to ARP and we're going to go to a resolution Mr chairman I move to approve a resolution of recognition for National arts and education September 10th through 16th 2023 whereas The Laramie County School District One Board of Trustees recognizes Arts education as a vital and enriching enriching segment of children's well-rounded education including Dance Theater media arts literature design and visual arts and whereas when lcsd1 schools deliver quality learning opportunities in the
068arts for children extraordinary results occur and whereas The Laramie County School District One Board of Trustees reaffirms the importance of the Arts as an essential part of a complete and competitive education and now therefore be it resolve the lcsd1 Board of Trustees hereby recognizes September 10th through 16th as National arts and education week and lcsd1 schools with its appreciation to Arts Educators classroom teachers and administrators for their efforts to improve Arts education in lcsd1 schools seconds okay we have motion second for a resolution to recognize arts and education any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye those of us know motion tests and uh and certainly in favor of always keeping the Arts in there I think it's a gives our students a chance to be you know get a well-rounded education I'm
069always amazed that my daughter had some wonderful artwork and neither of my wife or I have any talent for doing art at all and she was able to come up with some great artwork so thanks to some great teachers all right so now we have a second resolution here Mr chairman I move to approve a resolution of recognition for Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance September 11 2023. where is Patriot Day and the national day of service and Remembrance have been recognized on September 11th since 2001 and 2009 respectively and whereas 22 years ago the United States of America endured one of the most unconscionable tragedies in our nation's history and whereas The Laramie County School District One Board of Trustees remembers those lost in this tragedy and the First Responders who
070answered and continue to answer the call of duty now therefore be it resolved that lcsd1 Board of Trustees is proud to recognize September 11 2023 as Patriot Day and National Day of Service and Remembrance and to express its appreciation for the continued service of emergency First Responders and military service members in our community a second okay we have a motion a second to recognize Patriot Day at National Day of Service on 9 11. um and I think every one of us probably remembers first of all weekend all those in favor say aye does the pose know motion pass something all of us remember where we were when we first heard of that I remember walking into McCormick high school that morning and I was just walking down the hallway and I could see the TVs
071in some of the rooms in that second uh plane was hitting the tower and we're all thinking what it's a little tiny looking little plain but we later figured I'd say we're both sides yet so um I would like to take a little uh maybe 30 seconds silence here just remember all those people um thank you okay so our next thing is items from visitors only a few people who have signed up for the talking about the 10 items so the rules in our state your first and last name you can find those two to three minutes so others have time to voice your comments or their comments keep your comments General nature not directives Civic individual individuals and suitable language and content from K-12 grade students add additional information to protective try not to
072read to be redundant so what's already been said by the other speakers and our first one is catholiciana I'm sure I never say your name right Kathy cigliano if any of the books that parents have been finding or bringing to the attention of school boards or in the workplace environment left out on a table in a break room it would be immediately brought to the hr's attention they would find out who brought that book in and they would be asked to remove the book if a man brought a sexually explicit book to work and handed it to a woman co-worker and told her she should read it he could be brought up on sexual harassment charges he could potentially be fired and at the very least required to take a sexual harassment seminar I bet
073half of the people in this room would even support that if it happened to them at work we need to stop saying it's okay because it's school they are minors under 18 period end of story students in public schools are clearly covered by the First Amendment but the Supreme Court has also made clear that students do not enjoy the full extent of the First Amendment rights that adults do in several decisions the Supreme Court has balanced Free Speech rights of students against the legitimate need of school officials to maintain a safe functional and productive educational environment after all a school is not a Public Square where people can come and go and speak freely in general and speak freely a school has a particular mission to educate students and the first amendment allows schools to
074Institute policies and rules that promote the mission even at the cost of reasonable limitation on student expression minors do not have a First Amendment right to pornographic material federal law prohibits that why can't we use common sense when it comes to sexual content and minors obscenity is not protected under First Amendment rights of free speech and violations of federal obscenity laws are criminal offenses the U.S courts use a three-prong test commonly referred to as the Miller test to determine if given material is obscene obscenity is defined as anything that fits the criteria of the Miller test which may include for example visual depictions spoken words or written text let's please use common sense thank you next question is Wendy Volk and I think she's using online Wendy if you're online please raise your hand Mr
075chairman there's not a hand raise and I don't see that name okay real the next one which is a Marie probably also online Anne-Marie if you're online please raise your hand Mr chairman there is not a hand raise and I do not see that name this one is Margarita but I saw her here earlier today so I bet she knows these rules very well is this is this going to be adequate you can stay down hold of July thank you my name is Margaret Herman parent of three K-12 Laramie one students thanks to this district for an education that prepared them but for life and work in the wide world also thanks tonight for your Arts resolution so tonight I'm going to reference the proposed Library policies and my message is you've lost your way
076I'm sharing what I learned from eight years of acting for all the children all the time and all the people who teach them this is what it looks like from out here that you want to help some parents so you will create hardship for all children and families and District staff with dubious benefit the book policy being contemplated is the taking of parental rights and responsibilities you talk about public and parent engagement but it looks like you don't value it even when you get an outpouring of sentiment to keep the current Library policy you are self-proclaimed champions of transparency yet it looks like side deals with interest groups it looks like you are talking through vital policy questions and private side conversations legal yes but not a good idea you claim to have a broad
077mandate on the opt-in ban and yet it looks like you are acting on the directions of a few people it looks like you are dismissive of public input you claim to favor limited government and limited district-wide mandates but it looks like a Russian impose a requirement that is a struggle to Define and contrary to parents Educators and children that's what it looks like so my advice unsolicited is don't be seduced by national groups and their local agents by morality police by people who have no particular expertise in education in adolescent mental health beware groups that misrepresent the facts don't fall for the temptation to think that having been elected as a trustee you can now do whatever you want enact Your Personal Agenda and the agendas of interest groups because you have the votes your
078your seat is not a state of power it's a seat of service please listen diligently to the public and experience teachers and Librarians what is your mandate from the whole District what are the harmful consequences intended or not if you can accommodate the minority yes please do that too which is what our current Library policy actually does so and I understand the same find your way back focus on the children all the children thank you very much thank you Barb cookies good evening my name is Barb cook I'm a grandma of three students in the district and a retired teacher who taught for 21 years in the district I was fortunate enough to teach five and six-year-olds one of my main objectives was to get kids excited about stepping foot into my classroom to learn
079I created endless opportunities for students to explore a wide variety of subjects we did Hands-On activities webcams speakers books I wanted them to experience the world from a wide variety of ways so that they would love learning and pursue more knowledge I wanted to create lifelong learners one of my favorite things to do with the students was to read books I'd read fiction books historical books factual books about lots of things some of the things that had happened before the kids were even born we discussed the feelings of the characters might have had we had one of my favorite books to read was about Ruby Bridges she's a young black girl that was forced to go to an all-white School in the 60s we talked about how she must have felt it is some of
080our U.S history is something that actually happened we can't whitewash history historical events or forget they happen we must learn from them and make better decisions to repeat sad historical events my students were never frightened by the historical occurrences but my Hope was to inform my students of real happenings explore the feelings of those people and help my students be more empathetic towards marginalized people people please don't take that teaching tool away from Educators allow all sorts of books to be available to teachers and children but I also believe that parents are the kids first teachers so if they think a book is not appropriate for their child then we have the opt out policy in the district but please don't take those books away from my grandkids because I want my grandkids to become
081compassionate and informed human beings you've confirmed the hiring of principles these principles have hired professional teachers who have completed numerous hours of Education some of the education has centered around children's literature trust the professional people to make good informed decisions about the students in this District thanks for letting me speak tonight thank you invite for your years of teaching in our district Maryland who's here as a proud aunt tonight too good evening I'm Marilyn Burton I sub for the district I'm a little toddler like Caleb but not as tall I'm Caleb's Aunt so super fun to watch and get that I also have a cool picture of him with Senator Ted Cruz if anyone wants to see it later um I've been to coming to meetings think I've been to about five or six of
082them in the past year things get a little intense um and I just wanted to say thank you to every single one of you for all of the hard work that you do um listening to the passionate side of all sides and for trying to come up with a solution um that will meet the needs of hopefully all but if not the vast majority of those in the district so thank you for all that you do thank you um on Zoom we should have Scott Matson yes can you hear me okay yes we can go ahead excellent um good evening and I was a I was a teacher for um 22 years I taught at Johnson and uh South and taught government Civics I just wanted to ask everyone to consider something uh when I
083was teaching um at Johnson the uh the graduated driver's license came up it was decided that we needed more control over you know who could drive when they could drive that kind of thing um earlier than that the drinking age was changed from 18 to 21 because certain individuals had shown they just couldn't handle that kind of uh responsibility we also require a person to be 21 to buy cigarettes and alcohol and it just seems like you know we understand with a lot of the with sexually explicit material and information if not used responsibly you know we know that it can have um uh bad consequences unintended pregnancies specially transmitted diseases things like that we also know there are unscrupulous individuals out in our society that would abuse this type of opportunity and I'm just
084as we as we look at the availability of these resources is and just uh you know if if it's you know important to restrict access to other types of things for instance you know you don't leave a loaded gun out in your house you you uh you know you put it in a safe place you either take the bullets out whatever you get the point and so I just wanted to to add that to the to the conversation I appreciate your time thank you thank you all right we'll go back up to when people is she available now Wendy if you're online please raise your hand there are no hands raised and I don't like Avery Henry you're online raise your hand Mr chairman I don't see that name either there's no way yeah he
085works less available is there anybody here who'd like to speak under the agenda item well my name is Aaron waskowitz I'm speaking of the cup tonight so bear with me um I want to thank each and every one of you for what you've set out to do I think it's really really important for our community and the future of our children um a lot of people talk about how you hire professionals to curate these books and we hear a lot about professionals professionals are hired um the parents were hired by God to take care of their children and make those decisions um and I think that the current policy that you're working on is a great balance because it doesn't just put the responsibility on one set of parents it puts the responsibility on all
086parents across the board it really levels the playing field on that responsibility um so I appreciate what you guys are doing one thing that I do ask with um making this policy is to keep it simple because as we all know parents are really really busy most of us are working two jobs in one whole household and sports and all these other things keep it simple so that it's accessible to every parent to read and understand and take the time to understand what's going on but overall thank you for doing this I really appreciate it thank you anybody else Abby kircher um hello ladies and gentlemen on the school board I stand before you today to explain the reasons behind my recent decision to exign as a sped teacher at Laramie County School District I've
087spent many years dedicated to the profession of educating our youth but unfortunately it's been evident become evident that the school board's prior to prioritization of politics over the well-being of our students and teachers is it makes it impossible for me to morally continue in good conscience one of the primary reasons that led to my resignation is the board's tendency to prioritize the political agendas over sound educational practices instead of focusing on the needs of our students decisions have been made to appease certain interest groups or further personal political Ambitions and this has resulted in the implementation implementation of policies and curriculum that hinder academic growth critical thinking rather than fostering an environment encourages it furthermore the board's failure to address the concerns and needs of teachers has become increasingly apparent as Educators run the front
088line dealing directly with students their edu and their educational development however our voices are ignored overshadowed shadowed by political considerations we have valuable insights I've been doing this 20 years I have a masters moreover the toxic culture created by the school board by allowing and engaging in those who are attacking teachers and youth is detrimental to the morale and well-being of both teachers and students these actions have overshadowed the missions of providing and supporting inclusive learning has created an atmosphere of distrust hostility making it challenging to focus on what truly matters our children the education and growth of our students is disheartening to resign from a profession that attached to the ultimately I cannot work an environment such as this education is a vital pillar over society and is critical that we prioritize the well-being
089of our staff and our students none of these policies are doing that um thank you for your attention I won't be the last one and I definitely will still be coming to these meetings thank you and thank you for the years of teaching in our district anybody else right good evening gentle this I'll be very brief I just wanted to report uh that my seventh grader who is at McCormick Junior High uh had an open house a few weeks ago I was privileged to go meet his wonderful teachers uh his English teacher and geography teacher uh both offer uh books as part of their coursework they went through extraordinary efforts to make sure all parents knew what those books were offered us an opportunity to read them in advance and to choose opt out options
090if we'd like I also took the opportunity to go to the library at the urging of my seventh grader he is actually one of The Kindergartners of a former speaker who was set on that path of a lifelong reader thanks to herdford work luckily all of my children have been blessed with wonderful teachers in this District um he was very excited to show me the library because it's much bigger than he's used to and I spent some time looking around and you will again be shocked to know that there was not a single item of pornography in that Library I looked everywhere I looked high I looked low I looked in the romance section I looked in the kitchen fiction all age-appropriate because our Librarians know what they're doing they are professionals they look for
091materials to suit the needs of our diverse student body they do not look for books that indoctrinate our children they do not look for books that will cause bad behaviors they look for books that are age-appropriate so if my high schooler would let me look at his Library I would do the same however he will not uh so I will just have to rely on the tools that it already exist which are wonderful I can log on to his library account at any time I can see all the books that are available to him I can see what books we can have discussions about these books and I know that if there is a book that I don't want him to have access to I have a method to do so I have a very
092great method to do so I can choose the opt out form I can speak with my children's Librarians I'm very satisfied with that system I know that there are some in the community who want it to be stronger and I appreciate that and if we can do something to make it better for them I'm all for it and I will stand here every day and be obnoxious and fight for that too however I do not want access to books restricted complicated or I do not want books thrown out of our library or Not procured by our library because a small group of people do not like them that is not right it is not American it is not a part of our Wyoming values and that's it thank you so much Jen Solis wait or
093anybody else um so I'm just going to go by JB um you spoke earlier in this meeting about how you value literary Arts um I very value literary Arts too right now I'm taking a college English course I'm student in the district but I'm taking a college English course through the concurrent enrollment program um and my uh success in English class is largely is entirely due to reading books a lot of those books are being criticized right now a book I'm actually going to be reading this year for that English class is one of the books that's on one of the lists um that are being like what is one that I've criticized books sorry um you really value your students you'll leave this decision up to the parents and get the opt-out policy thank
094you thank you for being brave will speak to us anybody else that also kind of reminds me we are going to a little bit later in the year have a panel of high school students from each of our high schools that will be joining us as actually um they'll give reports to us on what's going on at their school and then they'll have a chance to ask questions and make comments about during the time but we haven't quite got that set up yet go ahead name first hi my name is burgette Paul and I used to teach in the district I left in 2012. um as things were coming up when parents um and and administration that caused me a lot of anxiety um I became a VA nurse so I'd like to speak a
095little bit to this idea that if any of these books that you're talking about would show up in a public workplace it would cause a problem because I take trainings every year constantly many times and none nothing like having a book that might be on a list sitting on a table or somebody handing a book to somebody would cause somebody to be fired or to have to take a class um on sexual harassment these if it was a pornographic book yes but any book that is procured by a library or that a librarian makes available to students or that teachers who have been educated would put into a classroom is not that type of book and would not be considered anything like that um I was um in the federal when I switched over I
096have a child with special needs and there was a situation where people where I was working on the floor were using the word the r word or using the word and I did go through my chain of command and have a conversation with people and I was told in that setting that that word could be looked at many different ways and um I said to my boss um that if somebody was talking to me about a plant being because it didn't have sunlight that would be very different than using the word to mean stupid in front of a general group of people and patients and doctors and nurses I was completely supported in that sense and that is what those policies are about they're not about stopping me from taking a Tony Morrison book and
097putting it on the break room table and telling people that it's a real really good book I would never get in trouble for that I love the school district I left teaching because I needed to take care of my family as a nurse right now after 10 years being out of the school district I've doubled my paycheck and I get every weekend free and I don't grade papers at night and I don't have to worry about parents telling me that they they also were in ninth grade and they know how to teach physics better than me because they were in a physics classroom and I'm really sad that our districts in this situation and losing Abby kircher as a resource to you was a horrible sad thing and I hope you stop making decisions that
098continue on that path thank you and thank you for teaching us you did a great job there anybody else okay we'll move on to board Communications and reports our next meeting will be September 25th at 6 PM regular gardening if you remember in our last meeting we changed it to the segment of course for both this month and next month so we can get two meetings in there so we wouldn't have our almost midnight meeting that we have in July October 4th to 6 30 PM is the parent advisory meeting in the boardroom and October 9th is a 5 PM work section followed by a 6 a.m regular board meeting all right now excuse me go to individual board Communications and reports something um a pleasure um of serving as the board's representative on the
099Cheyenne schools Foundation board and so I just wanted to talk a bit tonight about the Cheyenne schools Foundation um just to make sure everybody knows what they do but also to do a Shameless plug for um the 5K that is this weekend um anyway so if you'll just bear with me for a minute I want to tell you a little bit about the foundation incredible work that it um is doing and opportunities it's providing in our district and then a way you could be involved and help make some money for them to benefit our district this weekend the Cheyenne schools Foundation was formed in 1995 with the goal of empowering teachers who Inspire our next generation of leaders innovators and dreamers each year the foundation provides teacher grants to fund engaging and Innovative classroom programs
100that are beyond the capacity of the local school district's budget the first round of Grants was awarded to teachers in 1996. since that time the foundation has provided more than one million dollars to classroom teachers to fund Innovative projects we're currently accepting teacher Grant applications to apply teachers can visit cheyenneschoolsfoundation.org the deadlines oh the deadline is um really soon it's Wednesday September 13th once the grants are awarded then we'll be announcing the recipients at a board meeting this fall to fund the grants the Cheyenne schools Foundation works at the variety of community sponsorship partners and this is my Shameless plug we also host the foundation's annual run for number one 5K walk or run this year's event will be held this Saturday at Lions Park and it is not too late to register and actually
101I thought it would be fun to see how many board members might be interested in showing up early Saturday morning and walking or running I won't be running um anyway if you are interested at all um check out the Cheyenne schools Foundation website or race entry.com your entry fees will help support our grant program which benefits countless students every single year and I got updated numbers this afternoon we currently have 102 online registrations for the race we're also taking paper registrations and we don't have a good count on those but there are at least three so that means right now we're up to 105 but it's going to be a great event um Marguerite is on the committee as well it begins at nine right but if they if they are there if you're there
102to register by eight maybe eight thirty at the at the latest will get kicked off and run or walk and it'll really be a lot of fun and there will be music the the bands from the three high schools will have students there to to Cheers on and get things kicked off um I believe the ROTC programs and the cheerleader programs from each of the high schools will also be there to to help it really is it gonna be an awesome event so if you haven't signed up and you're free for just a little bit of time um Saturday morning it'd be a great way to spend your Saturday and give back to our district and help maybe provide some more funding to award special grants to teachers for our students thank you and those
103are some very integrative teachers we have out there that rent those grants every year so everybody else I would just like say we're hard to believe we're already starting our fourth week of school and it seems like it's up to a great start this year so keep up the good work everyone that's involved okay we're gonna move on to reports from superintendent staff thank you Mr chair for our first report I'd like to introduce our legal counsel Ms Amy pulling so thank you Mr chairman got a good night I'll try to talk loudly um thank you Mr chair uh Dr Newton Mr McKinney could I actually get you to pull up the draft Library policy because now I think my mic is moving or working as soon as you started moving um as a reminder
104to where we were and where we are now um you saw a draft of this policy at the infamous July meeting that went till almost midnight um so I forgive you if you don't remember what all was in there at that meeting we've made some changes based on board feedback mainly reordering um the parental options for uh students ability to check out library books as well as removing the procurement piece to tackle that at a later date following that meeting uh we sent the proposed policy to the policy advisory committee um we received feedback from 10 to 12 individuals I believe um went through it with staff um some of the feedback you know was just general I like this I don't like this um if there were suggestions we took a look at it
105to see were there multiple suggestions of the same thing are there multiple areas where people were confused um or or sought clarification um try to incorporate as much of the policy advisory committees input and feedback to the extent that we could to keep it consistent with what the boards directed were for the policy um that draft then went to cabinet for review and kind of final tweaks that process has has completed and we are left with the draft that you have before you tonight um I want to emphasize again at this point this is really just the initial presentation um I think we can I'll walk you through and highlight some of the changes from the policy that that you saw last time to what we have before you today um I would suggest if
106you have any areas where you think that there's room for improvement which I'm sure there is um that you you can bring those tonight we can discuss those or at the next board meeting if you want to bring specific amendments to the policy you could bring those at that time debate them adopt them into policy we still have time we're still on schedule for um getting this into place with the 45-day public policy or public review period before we start registration for the fall for the 24 25 school year so we've got a little bit of cushion in there to play with um I would I I think you can adopt your amendments at the next meeting give us a couple days to incorporate them get it into final form we would put that out
107for 45 day public comment period and then we'd still have plenty of time to get to your um adoption prior to online registration and registration in general so with that Mr chair um if you'd like I can walk you through the policy just really highlighting the areas that have changed since the last time that and then I'm happy of course to answer any questions that you might have and then um there's not a whole lot going on on the first page that's different we spent quite a bit of time looking at the definitions of sexually explicit um the first page really um there's some minor changes to the existing policy language which is literally those first three um very short paragraphs that that you see in front of you um we took out some language
108that didn't make sense to um us when we were reviewing it I'm not quite sure what that the library will allow for review of instructional materials um since that's not not kind of the point of what we use the library for now and we clarified that library media services staff will provide instruction um and again just remove some language that um we we as staff weren't sure what it was intended to mean and didn't want to leave something in those that we felt might be confusing um scrolling down is sort of the recognition of a parent's right to make appropriate educational decisions for their child when it comes to library materials um and a clarification that parents will be provided for options during registration related to their students ability to check out Library materials I'll
109highlight that part for you because that language changed a little bit um one we had a couple parents from the policy advisory and parent advisory groups that are part of the policy advisory point out that not everyone necessarily completes registration through the online process some call into the school some do paper and bring it in and so he didn't want to um make it seem like those parents weren't going to be given the same opportunities those questions will be asked at register whenever a student is registered for school within the district um we also clarified because there was a couple points where it seems like there's maybe confusion about um what we meant by access um does that mean access to the entire library or just access to checking out those books and so we
110really wanted to clarify um you know we can't logistically um opt students out of the elementary library or prevents high school or Junior High kids from entering the library so it's not accessing the physical library but being able to check out those Library materials so that's one change you'll notice there again we reordered the um or options that parents will be provided the first option will be that the student will have no access to to identified sexually explicit materials the second option is current limited access the third option would be open access and the final option is no access to being again access to checking out Library materials um those that kind of language change clarifying that it's act library checking out Library materials versus accessing the library itself were made throughout um we spent
111quite a bit of time previously going through the definitions of sexually explicit and sexual um conduct so I don't know that unless anybody has any specific questions I'm going to go ahead and assume we remember the definitions from before those have stayed um largely the same I don't know that I actually don't think we made any changes to the definitions um again we kind of clarify the checkout access the checkout access options for Library materials um reordered those options in accordance with the boards direct about the last or excuse me at the July meeting um so then we get down to the identification of sexually explicit materials um this was originally kind of a directive for the superintendent and staff to develop an administrative regulation with not a whole lot of um guide rails on
112there so this was an attempt to put a little bit more structure to that process what we would be what what we would be looking for there's still some room to flush things out within an administrative regulation um so the um the nomination process um the nomination has to include the title author and Library the title and author where the library material is located um and specifically requests that the parents identified which provisions of the material they believe are sexually explicit um so that we're not on kind of a wild goose chase to to figure out what that is um we will um have have the parent submit that nomination to the building principle so that we're again keeping things kind of consistent um and and starting starting resolution of disagreements at the lowest um
113lowest possible level so that'll go to the building principle and we'll we'll work through um the uh the English language arts coordinators as well as the the Department of Instruction to work with what that process looks like once once a material has been nominated what the review process by the district looks like which um is the second um I guess last paragraph that loads into the next page um so again it's um requesting an administrative regulation that timely processes and reviews those materials and um uh review by Committee of various stakeholders including at least one parent so that there's a piece of Parental involvement in that in that process um that determination or recommendation will be forwarded to the superintendent who will report that to the board um the list of sexual the identified sexually
114explicit materials will be um you know that book or material could be added to that list if it's not um sexually explicit that would be annotated on on the list that that book has not been determined to be sexually explicit by the district um the supporting documentation for that determination will be made publicly available um some districts who have gone through this process when we're looking at what other kind of best practices might be um I think it's helpful like to you know we've got this list and we've got all our supporting documentation so that there's not an idea that um the district didn't take it seriously or that the district didn't look at everything it's being applied consistently um whatever the material might be we're going to go through the same process and we're
115willing to share what that process looks like and what the results of that process were to the to the community at large and then you know parents can make their decisions further you know refine them based on what whatever they deem is important um that we then um go into this is the same language um just kind of clarified that the elementary level if a book The District determines that a book is sexually explicit we've said um we will move that remove that book from the elementary library that would then either go to a more appropriate library or you know something really fell through the cracks there we could remove it um but that's um where the elementary the junior in high school would be placed on that list that parents can then again opt
116out of the list for their student um to have access to checking out those books um we clarified the next section that it's an opportunity for parent Guardian review um that parents will have the ability um we will post the books that are in the libraries and um in addition we're going to post um the books that are procured um by the libraries I believe that we originally had regularly we decided to make that even Tighter and went with quarterly um just because different schools purchase on a different um timeline some might be purchasing more frequently others wait and do big batch kind of purchases this kind of splits um that you know range of win so we're not con you know one school is being updated constantly on other schools only being updated you
117know on a slower basis um just so we're consistent across the board um that is the update on the policy I can share um that on the district's website there is now a new button I believe and I did not tell Mr McKinney this though if you don't have it um so there's a library opt-out form on a button on the front page of the district there you can see it um right there in that cluster of books in the middle that will take you to the current opt-out form but that can certain that will be updated um as this policy makes its way through the process in addition the English language arts section page has also been um it's live now on the website so so parents can find more information um there as
118well so we've made a little bit of progress It's kind of exciting that we've now got this front and center on the website so that it's easy to find um uh let's say there's another um Miss Hall and her uh and the ELA coordinators have been working on internal processes um so what this process looks like at both the um School level the administrative level and an idea for parents of what the process looks like for them they're working on that getting that kind of finalized and and available for the public soon I believe and it looked really good I reviewed it so I think we're in good shape there um if you have any questions I'm happy to answer them otherwise if you have amendments um at the next meeting I would suggest you
119bring those and then we can get this policy out for 45 day comments hey Christy thank you Miss Paulie for walking us through the policy committee's comments and I if if anyone is listening that worked on those comments thank you for the work that you did on that um I thought when I was looking through them that I thought they were some good ideas they caught some things that you know were all amateurs and newbies at this and trying to tackle a very controversial issue but trying to provide parents options and not take away anyone's option to allow access but also give parents that want to restrict access that option so um um I do have a few comics and as far as suggestions but would you prefer I mean do you want us to
120discuss them tonight and then get you something for the board to see at the next meeting as an official Amendment um Mr chair uh trustee cloughman I think you could really do it either way if you have suggestions right now and you'd like um staff to work on a proposed amendment to it I'm happy to um kind of take down down notes and and proceed like we have previously where we kind of get a consensus that that's that's the agreed upon changes and um or you know if you want to contact me outside and we can work through that as well to bring it for the next board meeting well I kind of think that it's more appropriate to have my suggestions out there and then people can decide if they agree with it and
121then you have some direction is that how you think Mr chair that sounds reasonable to me um well then in that case I will um I've got a few wordsmithing things that aren't really content related um but under definitions there's a couple things I wanted to bring to your attention see the board's attention I should say um I think that um the the intro to that doesn't really need to happen I mean definitions is definitions so we might just want to say the following definitions apply to this policy and keep it keep it like that that's non-substantive but under Library materials um oh I'm sorry that's not right um under sexually explicit content the um I've gone back and forth on this phrase of gratuitous and pervasively vulgar and I know we've discussed this before
122it's hard for lots of folks to Define um everything I read it's pretty um confusing and has different meanings for different people and I think that we don't have to try to include someone else's language we can just make our own language and someone said tonight make it and worded in a way that parents understand it when they read it and so I would propose that we consider just saying sexually explicit content means textual visual or audio materials that depict sexual conduct or describe sexual conduct using and then skip ahead to more than a passing reference such as the use of a sex related explanative or allusion to sexual conduct and just put a period there I think that's simple if it's depicting or describing sexual conduct that is a little bit just clear I
123think than adding all that um the other stuff which is up for interpretation so that would be my suggestion on that one and then I had some suggestions under the checkout section check out access options for Library materials under no access and this again would be what's given to parents to choose for their child what is what they're most comfortable with under the no access to identified sexually explicit materials I would put um or I would get rid of choice because you get rid of choice in some of the other titles so just to be consistent I would get rid of that and then um that second sentence that says parents may also limit their students access I think that that would be more appropriate to move it to underparent limited choice or an apparent
124limited access is what you've changed it to because that means that a parent can curate a list with their like their librarian but they could also use it for that sense which means that they can limit their students accessibility um to library materials that have been nominated so I think it's more appropriate to be moved under that section that choice I guess and then what I would suggest is that that sentence that's under parent limited access um that sense that starts in order to assist wait wait sorry um yeah is it I'm not sure if this is my writing or not but is there a sentence in there that says in order to assist parents yes yes I think that that's just a explanation and it's not part of the definition so I don't think
125it's necessary there so I would just take that out thank you um and I skipped over what are you talking about the entire sentence or just those three words I always just take out the entire sense that starts in order to assist parents so that's like the salt there's two sentences so just take out the second sentence yeah sorry sorry I've got I tried to copy and paste the PDF and it got wonky so I was doing edits on my computer but um and I missed one sorry Amy but under parent limited access use State means the student will only have access to check out books and materials specifically identified by the parent um parents I think we should put parents may use this option and then start in to limit their student and starting
126with that since above in the wrong section okay yeah and then um under open access I was wondering about this that if a parent chooses that they want their child to read whatever they want them to read have complete Open Access they have that choice but do we as a district want to when they choose that open access do we want to have a prompt that asks or tells them that um they may they're by choosing this their child May um access content that has sexually explicit content to it just as a protection to the district so I guess I'm throwing that out there like if they choose Open Access do we want to have a prompt that says just letting you know there may be um sexually explicit content in this in Open Access
127go ahead I feel like that saying we don't you don't actually know you haven't read all of the options we just want to say okay you know we don't think you're bright enough to know what this means no it's not intended to do that but so okay then I'll just um I think it's the fact that we reorder these you already know the other options are there I don't think we really need that in this one okay um and then my last comment would be in the next section under identification of sexually explicit um it starts out that the superintendent another District leadership shall develop and administrative regulation I would like to see that we just state in the policy um that our library staff will make reasonable efforts to also identify materials as they're
128curating and going through the materials on a regular basis which I believe they do um to nominate and review materials that they discover might fit in definition so they can also be a help when they come across these materials and then um yeah yeah so I think that that would be added easily there as well and be in our policy so so what you're saying it should say the Supreme State and the library staff is that what you're wanting yeah I think I would move away from just developing regulation and just put in the policy that um you know Library staff can I I wrote they make reasonable efforts in the regular course of curating District Library materials to nominate or review any materials they discover that involves sexual conduct or sexually explicit conduct and
129may meet the definitions of sexually specific content so is that going to be the whole paragraph are you just getting rid of it I didn't give you a sense or two and you can tell me you know you can work at rb1 were you thinking about getting a whole paragraph are you just thinking about giving relates first sentence was there something yeah I think I would strike through that um superintendent and other District leadership shall develop a regulation and just put something in the policy itself okay but you're still going to leave the regulations can't provide that part of it um does it have to be a regulation maybe this is a question because I you know I was thinking just a process being in our our policy that we would make it part of
130our comings and goings the regular processing the process shall provide yeah Road regulation yeah I'm throwing that out there so those were the extent of my comments but I you know I appreciate you guys hearing them and and if you have thoughts right um so if there's things we can put in there to direct regulation I'm fine with I'm not a huge fan of putting process in policies if at all possible because then any time that the tax changes or the process has to change because we've restructured or something we have to go back and do redo the policy and put it back out every time um and so like if there is guidelines we can put in to make it clarifying but I I really don't like the idea of putting the entire process
131in the regular or in the policy Mr chair that's great yeah um trustee Ashby we can work on that and just um figure that piece out but I just wanted to make it clear that we can we can get at trying to identify these materials through regular process of curation too so but we can um we can clarify that thank you um chairman uh Percy Clawson we're going to be looking at the procurement piece anyway and I don't know that we need to put that into this policy this is just about the the access to books in the current Library System I think that type of thing would be through the procurement art and not from this this is just seeing what we're going to do once parents do uh nominate books for this list
132and how to get through the list um so I I think that part should be left for the procurement piece that's good actually that's a really good point trustee I think I'll I'll Reserve that for then thank you very much yes good I just have a quick question chairman bowling thank you so in this paragraph where it says parents May nominate why why is it just parents that get to nominate what if there's a grandparent out there that finds a book and wants to nominate that or there's a next-door neighbor or somebody like that why is it just apparent um Mr chair trustee uh Edgerton so it kind of goes back to um a legal principle of of standing and who would have standing to challenge an action of the district well generally speaking in
133order to challenge an action you need to be personally affected and when we look at who's personally affected um it would be apparent and and actually when you say that we can clarify a certain way parent or guardian and because we know that there we have several families that look different and have a guardian type situation rather than a parent um expanding it beyond that kind of opens the door um you know these are um you know the the parents the one that's closest to their child um and the one who's making the decisions for their child so we're trying to keep it at that you know this is um the individual parent and their ability to um make decisions for their individual child or children um that's why we've got it in there thank
134you so I I don't want a word Smith I did have a few areas that I just wanted to ask about or maybe give my thoughts on before we look at this again in a couple of weeks um I think the point you just made about parents being able to challenge we may want to look at the language in this to include Guardians um we do have a number of students in the district who do not live with their birth parents um and so I I think to to make sure the policy is clear in the beginning it should be whoever it was so legal um oversight of that child so I if we say parent slash guardians or maybe declare that up front and then um you know that would be all encompassing throughout
135but you might yes Mr chair uh trustee Smith about the fantastic idea and we'll be making that change okay would you mind if I asked a question okay thank you just on that point um sorry thank you trustee Smith for giving me the court so when you use the word challenge I know it can mean challenging a book and we have a process for that and that's very different than what we're talking about here tonight uh Mr chair trustee clotton yes that's correct and and I got a little lacks with my language so we're talking about nominating a book as containing sexually explicit or meeting the definition of sexually explicit materials um and then a determination by by the district whether or not so yes it's not a challenge that's still separate and distinct um
136if if the the challenge by a parent is um you know I don't believe that that this book should be in the library that's a different process that we look at um under another section of policy um yeah but Mr chair Miss Paulie isn't it our goal if we pass this policy to identify all books that may fall under the sexually explicit content definition and so does it matter if a parent or a neighbor or Grandma brings the to our attention since that's the primary way we're going to identify which books are in our libraries that might meet that definition doesn't matter because it's really just I didn't find it's just our way to identify those books and so the parent isn't challenging the book they're just presenting it and saying hey this book and
137then it'll go through the Review Committee as it's written in this policy draft and they'll make the final determination so I'm just pushing back a little bit on the legal and I I'm not a lawyer so I'm just maybe we should think through that or maybe you have the answer for us right now Mr chair uh trustee Clausen I I mean I I definitely see where you're coming from it's um I think you're you're and it's not it's not a bad thing to open it up wider but I think you you recognize that that it is opening up the store wider um and potentially um creating more um challenges that that might not affect directly a parent or student within the district um but you know if if I'm a parent of a Junior High
138student and I have I know what my student has access to or and I go through it and I I think that it meets a definition and and I present that as meaning the definition I have more of a vested interest in that than maybe somebody who um is going to go through and randomly select books or or go through and I'm not saying that that couldn't happen both with so when we limit it to just parents who have access and it's just a way to somewhat limit um run with that process too again those who are most directly affected by by the policy itself I don't I mean I don't it's I'm not saying that you couldn't open it up further um that's just sort of where we started from was was again with
139the idea that we're trying to keep it at the parents as these affected student level Mr chair I I would just say that um I I would be in favor of allowing our community to identify these books and then those of us that would want to choose that would have the list sooner to opt out of so thank you Mr chair and thank you trustee um chairman Bolin uh I I would just like to say however one of the concerns that was brought up during the presentation originally of this policy um is that there will have to be a review process for all those books that somebody is going to have to read these books to determine whether they actually are determined to be sexually explicit and then be put on an official sexually explicit
140list so yes there will be a nominated list but eventually all the books will have to be reviewed the more books that are reviewed the more time it's going to take the more money it's going to take the more uh time is going to take away from student education so if you want to open this up to every book in the library then why have a policy so it should be somebody who has a vested interest in what the children are reading in that school foreign thank you for all your work on this and your staff and others in the district I just would like to start with that because I know it's been it is a huge huge undertaking um parent advisory committee I mean I just know that hundreds of hours have been
141reported into this um so I want to want to leave with that um I'll just say quickly about you know who might have it I I understand that the the burden potentially of anybody nominating a book however as I look around this room and I I see the folks from our community who have come out who have a very vested interest in even our conversation tonight and why this policy goes I would venture to Guess that at least half of them maybe more or not parents of current students in this District so what what we're doing here and where this goes and the opportunities that we allow for our community members to be involved I mean it's already started and as I said I look around this room and many of you are not parents
142of current students you may be grandparents of current students or you've made have future students in this District someday but right now you don't like but your heart is is all in on this your emotions are all in no matter how you see it in your hair because this is important so I would I would I think that's my hesitation about limiting that just to parents um because this is this is not just a parent issue um say that let's see I um just I just read through all of this Miss Polly and I just had some random notes on things that I could give you those now um not really word smithing anything but some thoughts or questions um under the definition section and I don't have numbered pages but I think it's paged
143it's actually just page two um down at the bottom under sexually explicit content um we have the actual definition but then it it seems like we Veer into a couple of census that might be more appropriate in the identification section um we where we start I don't know if it's the second or third sentence um material shall not be designated as a sexually explicit based solely on the sexual orientation or general identification of the characters they're in materials I'm sorry I didn't contact her I've dried out materials that are anyway those sentences there I think it's the last two in that I wondered if those might be more appropriate um they seem to to go more with the identification um so I wondered about moving those um in that second sentence there that talks about
144the serious artistic significance or anthological significance um I wonder if we might tighten that up and just say that something like materials that are widely recognized as having serious artistic or anthropological significance or materials used in District approved curriculum shall not be designated as such explicit um I I don't know but I um I think widely recognized is important um in that because I mean who's to say right I I could read a book and go over this house it's huge historical significance or an apological significance you might read the same book and not see it at all so I think if it would be something that a wide variety of readers would agree looking at that text at that time that that's the case that maybe if we say that that's widely recognized we
145would but that more than just leaving that very open to interpretation [Music] um there are just a couple more things right something that um jumped out I mean I you know we we hear a lot that um those of us that would like to you know give parents the option to not have their children you know to identify these books and to say I want my kiddo to read these kind of things that we're taking away Choice from other students I love about this policy we're really not taking away twice from anybody we're leaving the same choice and the same opportunities for our parents um who are fighting with their children having Open Access we we've got that in here that choice never goes away and so for those families nothing changes at all but
146changes this for a family like mine to be able to say you know what I really don't want my little girl high school girl reading these kind of books and and now I have an option and I have a way without I said a great conversation with Mr Evans the other day thank you for your call by the way um but and I I was just able to share that you know this is this is really hard this as a parent it's really hard to come up with a list of every author and every book title and it's it's not it's it's a very cumbersome process and while I don't want my children to read those things I I really don't have the time to come up with all of those book titles and so
147it it's it's really the way it currently is is not it's not it's not fair for some parents this is great though because here you throw it all out there and it's um you know if you want your kids to read all the books or have access no limitations and find check that box if I don't want my kiddo to have any access to sexually explicit great you know what I'll check that box um but I had a question so parent limited access I'm still a little that one's harder for me to wrap my brain around but on here we say that District staff are going to create a list of Library materials that don't meet this above definition so that really hit me hard today when I read that and I thought if we
148can come up with a list of all the books don't meet this definition then the however many titles that do should be a really short list I mean it's not short but the other list is really big um uh Mr chair uh trustee Smith that's it that's a good um point and and what I want to emphasize is that list isn't meant to be an all-inclusive list of every other book that's within the library it's um you know um our Librarians are our experts in their field they they know books they love books they read more books and probably a month than I do all year so they they go through and they know you know I know that these books aren't going to come up to that line so I want to just make
149sure that um we're clear it's not that they're able to identify of the I can't remember now if we had 300 000 or if it's a hundred thousand discrete titles um you know not being able to go through all of those to to pick out the ones that don't meet it but it's we know there's a certain group of books that's a good starting point where we're we're pretty confident like this does not meet this definition so um you know that's kind of as an option for parents who are looking for I don't I don't necessarily want my child even if it has the book hasn't been identified or nominated I I just prefer that they not have even um potentially and so that's what the Librarians were were looking at is we have you
150know we know of authors we know of books that that don't come up to that you know to even be questionable um and so that would be the the option of that that list would be working with the Librarians could help you co-curate a list that doesn't meet but it wouldn't be um every other book within the library does meet it it's just we know these ones don't does that make sense yes thank you for clarifying so I would say maybe because this is policy and because I should be able to take whatever's in policy at face value and not have to think you know that there might be more meaning Beyond it than what is on the page um perhaps we could even say that you know District staff will create an individualized list
151of Library materials for students when requested or something because an individualized list is way different than when I read this and went oh my gosh you know that's like 200 and 000 however many books that are going to be on that list right um so maybe just change that so it's very specific I mean so we're really saying what we're thinking there yeah um Mr chair trustee Smith I think that's a great idea we can work to clarify that language thank you and then I I think I just had um one more thing um and that was on the identification of sexually explicit materials um on that paragraph I um my notes again here I would ask if we could perhaps remove the record or that requirement that parents have to on their on their
152nomination of books to be looked at that they have to tell where the library material is located it seems like an extra step for parents that our staff are very very easily figure out um so I just I thought that seemed like perhaps a you know a burden on parents is not even necessary if if their school doesn't carry it and the child my 15 year old doesn't have access to it then the folks at eska very easily say you know Mrs Smith that she doesn't have access to it so not even but maybe we don't put that on parents to have to identify where the books are located Mr chair of trustee Smith we can definitely take up that language out I think that's yeah all right go ahead yeah sorry um suggest that
153you make it optional a lot of the feedback we've been getting from all sorts of parents have already identified where some of the books are and so if it's in front of them right you could put it there but maybe not they are required yeah just an optional field you don't so right now it's requiring it so yeah sure we can yeah we can definitely um sorry Mr chair um trustee Ashby trustee Smith I think we can definitely um work with that language to make it an optional if you if you know where the library material is located you can identify that verse but no it's super easy for district Tech staff to figure that out sure so okay I did have one more it's a quick note that I saw on here um I
154just um the appeals process I'm glad that we have that built in here um I'm just wondering is there um any level of appeal beyond the superintendent's decision we want to consider a level of appeal where it would come to the Board of Trustees if the parent or a group of parents are adamant that they don't they're not happy with the way that is going I loved what we would be making the documentation available so parents could look at that but do we want to add one more layer of that appeals process Mr chair trustee Smith that's certainly up to you and that language is is kind of similar to the um book or or curricular challenge that it's a report to the board from the superintendent but we could certainly add an appeal to
155the board are you talking about the part where it's going to be designated whether we think it's exactly explained um this last because they can all be Nom mean right because it's a matter of whether they determine whether it's right because they're not determination um superintendent will show review the recommendation make a final determination reports resolution of the Board of Trustees um so I just wonder if it doesn't want to say that it needs to be marked then as once firmly reviewed the district will update the list to reflect when a non-ation native material was reviewed and whether it was determined to be sexually explicit it will make publicly available any supporting documentation so it's still going to be on the list if I ask that a book be reviewed and it goes all the
156way up and the superintendent says nope doesn't need the criteria and I really feel like it does is there another layer for me to say with one more group of people take a look at this book or weigh in on this it's still on the list am I right If so on the list just has a notation that it wasn't determined right so uh the way that that the policy is currently written is once a book's been nominated it's going to stay on that list and then it will be um if it's determined to to meet the the definition of sexually explicit it will be on that list and then there will be a notation of when it was reviewed um what the finding was and the supporting documentation to back up whatever the planning
157you want to say terrible and um two points um one is um that I think it could only come to the board if everyone's willing to read the book and so far that hasn't been the case two um you said five times in your explanation of this policy and as a parent you were making this decision for your child and it's a parents right issue and it's a parent so it should stay the parents uh choice to nominate not the community's choice that's fine my um trusted Eagle thank you my my point was just that this entire issue is is very much apparently right it is but it's also very much a community issue we have as I said over half of this room here that does not have a child in our district and
158they're here because they care very much about what we're doing here so I you know we can limit it to just parents but I I think we're doing a disservice to our community and we do represent more than just the parents of the community as elected officials taxpayers that's all I got thank you chairman so that's probably the other thing we really haven't convention on so how does everyone feel about whether we want to include um I don't know how parents and community members is that what we would do um Mr chair so we would just um modify the language to to include a more expansive group that would be allowed to nominate books um we could say you know parents uh guardians or community members okay so what I'd like I think whatever it
159is let's give a suggestion from you next time then we can decide whether we want to hit it around once we see a suggestion from you may I make one I think we want to make it as adults I don't think we win it's not many books we're there do we yeah I think so make sure it's adults I was thinking stakeholders but then that's our kids too so I was like okay maybe not it may be when it comes time to develop that Forum that you could even check a box what your affiliation is um you know I I believe we get a lot of emails from people that probably don't even live in Wyoming about this issue so um we um you know it might be nice to have them Define what their
160connection is to the district so that we can maybe prioritize a little bit goodness anything else like you've got no direction now wait so I do I have a couple of words then too okay so I I only really have one change and that's on page if you number the doors it's on page six and it's in chapter 9 section eight and where it splits out the schools to two word elementary schools and then Junior High and high schools I'd like to change that to either go K through 8 and then 9 through 12 or Elementary and Junior highs with no sexually explicit content and then high schools and if there are any that's in the junior highs then they could easily be put in the high school of their Triad thank you chairman Bolin
161and Amy I just want to thank you for all the work that you've done in your staff and again I know it's been repeated but we honor your time and are thankful for the investment that you guys have done for this um couple questions one in I can't remember which section it was but it talks about District approved curriculum and one of the definitions is that going to Encompass the Dual and concurrent enrollment as well so that for example that student would have the availability to read that book that she's required to uh Mr chair trustee Humphrey yes so District approved curriculum includes the IB the AP and the Dual and concurrent enrollment so if those are required readings for any of those classes those would not be placed on the list as as sexually
162explicit because a student has to read them as part of the curriculum for the district okay thank you another question as we're talking about libraries does that include um well so we all know that classrooms have their own libraries as well is there going to be a way for the teacher to easily see what the parent that student chose for their media access um excuse me Mr chair trustee Humphrey um we've we've been working through what that looks like so this will include an annotation within the the student you know I'm gonna totally mess up but the the system that people have that teachers would have access to so they could see that that this student has a limitation on on the books that they could check out um then Library staff would be able
163to explain what that limitation is okay perfect thank you um and just to clarify um there we're not removing any books if a book's placed on a list we're not Banning in books that the book's nominated books are going to stay where they're at and it's just making the the choice easier because when we first came to you we were the majority of the board were more interested in in policy and I still appreciate what you've done with income encompassing both to where the a parent has to choose period whether they I mean whatever they want their level of access to be so I just want to make clear that um the books that are going to be on the list are still going to be available in the libraries it's not like in a
164back room or on a shelf Mark band this is clarifying uh Mr chair trustee Humphrey yes you're correct the only place under current how it's currently drafted would be if if a book meets the definition of sexually explicit and it happens to be in an elementary library that book would be moved up to a more appropriate Library setting um but no there would be no removal of a book um they are not going to be housed in the separate section of the library it's it's really just an annotation um that these meet this definition of sexually explicit parents can either Grant or allow their child to check out those books or if they choose or don't allow their child to check out those books um that's that's where that policy comes at but that we
165won't be segregating or removing books okay thank you thanks for that clarification and again just I know that we originally came to you like oh we won't opt in or women's this is so much better because every parent is heard and every parent has a choice and has to make a choice regardless what that is for their kids so I just want to thank you for um seeing the bigger picture oh thank you it is a Parent's Choice um but also um I disagree completely with the um uh junior high being included in elementary there's a reason we separate those schools and part of it is that those kids are going through puberty those kids are physically developing and they are sexual things that come along with that and so some of the books that
166address those ages will have some things that certain groups find to be sexually explicit even though there's no pornography there's none of that but there will be books and there should be books in those libraries available to those kids um Mr chair I don't dispute the the comments just made by um Dr Hinkle in the fact that the kids are transitioning through their uh into puberty but I do think that um kids that are in junior high are pretty young you know I would say typically between 11 and 13 years old so I would support the idea of them having books that address puberty but don't have sexually explicit content and there's you know there's two you can have a book that addresses issues around puberty and things like that that doesn't include sexually explicit
167content so I I kind of like that idea everybody else I would also support the idea I mean I taught in junior high and now that we don't know the night story is in there anymore I think maybe they should be included with uh with the elementary as far as not having those books in there so any other questions or comments but agree with that okay are we all done with this topic I know we're spending an amount of time on this but you know this is a very controversial topic we want to make sure we get it right and for no other reason then make sure we stay out of course all right so back to you next topic thank you chairman Bullard a couple of quick uh additional reports for our next report
168I'd like to provide a bit of additional information on one of the Motions on tonight's consent agenda regarding the de 2.1 motion to contract for virtual occupational therapists and school psychologist services I'd like to begin by expressing our gratitude and appreciation to all our existing staff members who are working very hard to serve our students the motion tonight is emblematic of the Personnel shortages we are experiencing in some of our specialized areas for example last year we employed 12 occupational therapists this year we currently have 8.5 employees obviously we have students who still depend on these therapists for their identified needs in the last two and a half months we have had four applicants we hired one of them two turned us down for salary reasons and one couldn't fulfill the responsibilities of the position
169this contract will help Shore up some of those Personnel shortages by providing virtual therapists until we can get fully staffed with in-person employees on a smaller scale we have used virtual therapists in the past for speech language Services I want to reiterate reiterate that these virtual providers will provide direct services to our students in our schools in collaboration with our District employees these in-person jobs will remain posted on our website and we will continue to screen and hire new applicants as they come forward in the interim we will utilize these virtual services to make sure our kids receive services and we will scale back the virtual contracts as we are able the last report I have for you tonight is in regard to a 45-day review notice of secondary reading intervention materials in accordance with
170word policy the English language arts department will put on display for public review products and materials under consideration for secondary reading interventions these materials will be on review for 45 days beginning tomorrow September 12th through October 27th on the second floor of the Laramie County Public Library and outside room 212 in the administration building I mean was there any questions that concludes the superintendent reports thank you Dr Rebecca um in in a note a notice that we got um from uh concerned Professionals in the district is it possible as you increase the number of in-person people to um to cancel those contracts so that we aren't responsible over the entire financial responsibility of that yes chairman born Dusty Hinkle that's that's a very good question yes we do have the ability to modify the contracts
171and we certainly want to have as much in-person um therapists as possible and so um we will be adjusting those contracts back as we go and please know that this is uh tonight's consent agenda motion is a do not exceed amount we will not automatically be spending all of those salary dollars it will be as needed we were able to secure um one occupational therapist about a week ago and so there will be proportionately less virtual Services because we now have that new employee thank you yes so in that um correspondence that we received there was a concern that they were told um that because of the virtual contracts that might be in place that the job postings would be taken off so that's incorrect and the job postings will still be posted correct chairman
172bowling trustee Humphrey uh that it that statement was incorrect the jobs have been posted for months they are still posted and they will continue to be posted thank you Association thank you chairman Boland this is on a separate matter so if there's anybody else that has questions about what Dr Newton just went over there can you please or Amy can you please give us an update on the gymnastics that that was at Eastridge just so that the public knows what's happening thank you um Mr Boland trustee Edgerton as you know um our elementary school was was moved to Eastridge facility this past school year for the past two-ish years um the city of Cheyenne's gymnastics program has used the gym at Eastridge um for for that almost um exclusively that that program has used esearch
173gym um to to provide gymnastics for the community um the issue became most of their classes that they were offering were during the school day um I am not good at visualizing but if you can picture the back of Carrie um there's a access to the gym but that's also going having parents and others associated with the gymnastics program going both through the playground area as well as the Bus Loop um that's allowing us to drop off our students um in addition there's no separate bathroom facilities for the auxiliary gym at Eastridge so um kiddos and and their parents if they've entered these were mushroom during the gymnastics lessons we're going into the school to access the restrooms there this created some security concerns um for our district students some logistical concerns with um parents
174blocking the the bus lane um being on the playground when kids are out for recess um you know we we try to keep as best we can our our school limited so that we're protecting our kids during the school day um the Mr Knapp Dr Newton Mr sicarelli other District staff and I met with the city um I believe it was the first week of school along with uh Mr Lloyd who's the the principal at ARP and um asked them to come up with a solution to limit the hours that they were offering gymnastics to after school and on weekends that it wasn't feasible for us to continue allowing them to access the building um in that in the manner that they were accessing it um during the school day it's you know raises a
175lot of safety uh concerns for District staff and students and logistical nightmares frankly for the staff at ARP who are trying to provide visitor badges for individuals who aren't you know parents of art kids but parents of the gymnastics kid so we you know we had a meeting with the city we asked them to come up with a plan to get to that point um you know there was you know we clearly communicated that we were not asking them you know to do this overnight we understood that this would be a process and that their facility that they're currently uh well I guess it's it's in the design phase uh not even to construction yet recognizing you know that's about a year out that they think that they're going to be before they have a
176facility of their own um you know we asked them to work with us to come up with a plan um shortly after our meeting we heard back from the city um they asked you know if we could move a couple other programs that they run into that gym that are after hours during over the weekends if we could um they could then move the gymnastics program out um by the 9th of September we were able to accommodate their request for um their their programs to to use the gym after hours I believe there was one conflict where it was already scheduled for school use but apart from that we were able to accommodate that schedule they were able to move out um of the building I Believe on last Friday I haven't been over to
177check but but I believe that Mr Knapp thought that they had moved everything out over the weekend and so again we um you know Our intention was not to have them move out completely we just wanted them to shorten their hours that they were offering those lessons to reduce the exposure to our students for um to outside entities and that we don't have any control over um and their choice was to move the move the program out so that's where we are um hopefully um I assume that they've found a facility that's suitable for their needs and hopefully their their construction can get underway sooner than they anticipate so that they're in their own facility soon sooner run through them later thank you for that update anything else okay so we'll move on to the
178uh consent agenda all items listed on because all I was listed with designation of Sierra considered to be routine items for the gardening body will be enacted by one motion there'll be no separate discussion on these items if you haven't removed from the consent agenda will be considered in this normal sequence on the agenda has any board member request to remove a motion from the consent agenda I'm not see any Mr chairman I move to approve all motions listed as consent agenda by second go through the consent agenda all those in favor say aye aye aye those opposed no proportion passes amen yes okay uh Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission to contract for an HVAC feeding ventilation and air conditioning contractor time and materials basis with climate control and Johnson Controls Incorporated for
179an amount not to exceed five hundred thousand dollars a second there were both the second to approve an HVAC contract with two different contractors any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye as opposed note most passes Mr chairman I moved to approve the administrator contracts on the attached list for the 2023-2024 school year and to place them on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule a second to approve the administrative contracts any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye those opposed no Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission to enter into an intergovernmental agreement concerning the use of facilities with the city of Cheyenne second okay emotional secondary into an intergovernmental agreement we're sharing use facilities with the city of China any further discussion on this one right I
180just had some questions on this is this the um is this a new agreement or is this something we do every year Mr Bolin trustee Smith so historically the city and the district have had a series of mous and and sometimes just handshake deals for um the city to use District facilities to run some of their Athletics programs the the district to use City facilities um you know we use their golf courses we also use the Civic Center quite a bit um those mousse have have been kind of all over the place and housed within different departments and within the administrative regulation on your policy um it allows sort of for a reciprocal use um this is the first time where we've tried to consolidate that all into one agreement um to streamline the process
181to make sure that we're you know each entity has a single point that we're going through to schedule the use of those facilities um you know um this is an agreement essentially um the city can use the district facilities free of charge the district will use the study facilities free of charge um that has changed a little bit because traditionally um the district would would incur fees to use City facilities that he would would incur fees for district facilities they were usually somewhere in about the same neighborhood and we'd essentially write them off as a wash um so this again we anticipate that the usage will will stay similar um it allows us to utilize some of their facilities that we don't have access to otherwise them to do the same um and you know
182it's the first time that we've really Consolidated these all down to one single contract or mou or agreement that covers all facilities rather than trying to do this on a piecemeal basis so it's all we're everything's coming in so things like the softball fields then going forward that that we will be allowed to use those without special agreements or compensation uh Mr chair uh trustee Smith that's the intent is that all of the city facilities are open um subject to availability for district use and the same with District facilities subject to to availability and districts has priority over District facilities city has priority over City facilities but yes it would include all at this point okay great thank you anybody else okay I think we're at a motion and a second right now is that
183right all right all those in favor say aye aye as opposed no no so it's a good idea to get those things verified and uh I'm gonna ask Council to talk a little bit about what we're voting on here tonight on this next one um Mr chairboard um you'll remember a few weeks ago now you had a grievance before you um involving a matter um the calculation of um retention bonus for an employee um you have a recommended um findings of facts and conclusions of law that have been drafted um by Rob Piper with Coal Creek law who was advising the board during that proceeding because I had already advised the administration so the um what you're voting on tonight is that recommended um findings of facts and conclusions about whether or not you're going
184to adopt um those findings of facts and conclusions advise your own if you'd like I can I can kind of summarize what those are um or we can go is that right would you definitely absolutely um well this copy has gone out to the the person who brought the Greenwich right um yes I believe that that Mr Piper sent her uh the copy as well um so the grievance as I stated involves a disagreement between um the district and and the employee on what her long-term retention bonus should be upon her separation with the district so the findings um of fact and conclusions of Lobby for you tonight find that while there is ambiguity um within the contract um The District's long-standing policy and um both both the board policy as well as um the
185practice of the district um for the past 27 years has been to interpret the requirement as continuous years of service so you get a one percent um one percent of your um salary is paid out per times the number of years that you had continuous employment with the district um the The Grieving in this case had argued that it should be her entire employment with the district um which um there was um unemployment she was an employee um for two years I believe and then she was a sub within the district so not a permanent employee and then she went came back to the district and and taught for um 20 some odd years so um the the findings in fact recommend that given the language of policy the the accessions that are specifically provided
186there the fact that um ctea um has not asked for a change to the negotiated agreement or should the policy regarding how that is calculated this is again the long-standing kind of practice of the district um that um any ambiguity within within the negotiated agreement should be considered in accordance with the policy which would mean that the bonus should be calculated on the consecutive years of employment with the district not the total number of years of employment with the district so you're essentially denying the grievance at this point by adopting the conclusions of land findings effect which is a little bit backwards any questions yes it's good and I was not at this hearing so I will be abstaining anything else all right I wasn't we haven't done much yet Mr chairman I moved to
187adopt the findings of fact and conclusions of law in the matter of the grievance of Sally Slater a second okay second to adopt fightings of conclusions along the matter of the grievance of Sally Slater all those in favor say aye aye those opposed no no let's see whoever knows just so she's gonna written down okay so you have four to two so that passes Mr chairman I moved to approve the appointment of Steve Newton in the position of interim superintendent of schools for Laramie County School District number one effective September 12 2023 and to execute the necessary contract a second second to improve um Steve Newton has our interim superintendent any further discussion all those in favor say aye all right I suppose no congratulations uh thank you Mr chairman you didn't see my hands
188okay but I was delayed but I was just going to comment since no one else did that um we took um we took into considerations um a group of candidates and and I don't know Mr chairman you would probably be more articulate at this but Ford did consider and and want to just congratulate Mr Dr Newton for his appointment I believe he looked at nine people together had expressed interest in we looked real closely at five some that were in state somewhere out of state you came to the top right looks like uh we're down to our next regular board meeting will be held on Monday September 25th 2023 at 6 PM the business district is now done so we'll now take up our second public comment second I'll go back to see Wendy bolt
189is with us thank you Mr chairman she is online okay Randy in years do you doing Wendy if you unmute uh should be able to speak with you uh thank you so much Mr chairman I appreciate it this is Wendy bulk I apologize for not being able to comment earlier but I I wanted to just tell you I'm delighted to hear about Dr Newton I'm delighted to hear that Dr Newton has been approved as our new superintendent he's outstanding and all of my dealings I've had with him have been outstanding I apologize sorry we have a puppy in the background uh not intended to be part of the public comment but um just wanted to say also I really have always appreciated our historical um policy that we've had for public education and our Librarians
190and the opportunity to opt out as a parent if if ever I was uncomfortable with any of the material but I do trust our Librarians I do trust our educators and wanted to just Echo our support again for our public school education process our Board of Trustees our Educators it's just outstanding and I just hate to see us try to micromanage and get into the weeds um where if a family member if there's multiple family members for example trying to weigh in on what's appropriate or inappropriate for their student I like the the opt-out process but I just want to say I think it's getting overly complicated if you have a child in our public school system that has multiple family members and there might be a difference of opinion about what is appropriate or
191inappropriate for that student I think it's getting complicated and a bit of overreach and I've always felt that whatever we try to restrict students can have access in a number of different ways going to other different types of media online or in person to access material and I just think that our Librarians have done a very good job and I support our Librarians our Educators and our school district on the past um protocols that have been implemented so I not in support of going and overreach on these materials so thank you very much I appreciate your time tonight thank you thank you um do we have a Marie Morgan Rice Ann Marie if you're online please raise your hand Mr chairman there are no hands raised okay then we're going to move on to Candy
192Kessler hey guys um Prestige and share awaiting to the very end I usually come to these board meetings and I listen because I think a lot of listening is to understand where everybody's coming from and a good leader does they listen to understand even though they may not agree and I think that's very important and crucial to leadership something that I've learned and I've observed in the session is in these sessions is there's not a lot of respect to understand and I'm very disheartened by that because what maybe really I I work I've I feel like I have a good rapport with a lot of my kids teachers I have three kids that have been a district to have graduated and one is still in the district and I feel like I have a good
193rapport with the majority of the teachers and the principles and people in my district but also feel like what is very important to me may not be as important to them and I get that and I respect that but I also know that they respect me so if I come to them with a concern about a library book for example they will listen and they will honor and respect me they may not agree but they will listen to understand why I'm concerned and so you know I haven't had to bring a lot of attention to this with my kids and there's a situation that happened with one of my children I won't embarrass them but I will talk about it openly that they checked out a library book and they brought it home and they
194were reading it and they came downstairs and they're like oh my gosh mom this looked like a good book but it has stuff in here that I don't I'm not comfortable with and I'm like what's in there this happened a few years ago I read it with her but I exposed her sorry I read it with them and it was not I thought I was watching a movie that I'd have to fast forward because there was just my daughter's having bad dreams she was dreaming about things she was a really uncomfortable with and so we talked through it as a good parent does right but also told her you will no longer check library books out of the library we will go to or what is Borders or whatever the bookstore is and of course
195now they're closed but we went there a lot and we read through books together and we I don't mind if my kids are exposed to something I talk about it openly with them but I also want them to not have this now she was like not wanting to even check anything out of the library because she was very uncomfortable with that so I have another kiddo in school and I tried the opt out and let me tell you that is not an easy program it's not I had to go through 11 000 books to find what books are inappropriate or not I asked the library for a list they were uncomfortable they could tell me I don't have a list of what's inappropriate so I don't know I mean maybe there's a list out there
196I've heard that a lot I just hope we listen to understand each other instead of disrespect and hate each other what may not be important to some person is very important to the next so I hope we can honor that and sit with that and respect it as people that's what good leaders do really so I hope we can do that thank you so you type that exactly anybody else oh not seeing anyone anybody online uh if you're online please raise your hand like speak Mr chairman there are no hands race okay so we have one more motion Mr chairman I moved to go into executive session at this time prior to adjournment for the purpose of possible student long-term suspensions and expulsions personnel and litigation a second okay we have a second to go
197into executive section all those in favor say aye aye aye Mr President okay we are going to be an executive section we will reconvene