LCSD1 School Board of Trustees Meeting - June 5, 2023

001okay well Mr chairman any members of the board thank you for inviting us uh to your meeting today um we're excited to talk with you about the value of membership being members uh and then answering some questions um that you have so I think we'll start the time uh with Dr kasare um talking about membership uh and then I have uh some information for you um about uh our national affiliations and then we'll be happy to answer your questions thank you so I'm Julie passark I'm the director of Member Service in lithography School Board Association I know a lot of you it's good to see you this evening and I will be very brief because I know I want to have time for description and questions so um the first thing I want to touch

002on and what you are receiving right now is um with benefits and service of the wsbh provides and so um the depend assets on the card stock has a list front and back of a lot of those Services all of those Services um a lot of times I think people think that what wsba does primarily is Lobby the legislature and while we do advocate for Education legislature that's certainly not the only thing we do maybe not even the main thing we do and so as you take a look at the flyer that you have you can see that there is more to it than that when you're a member of wsba you can participate in the programs on the WSS eyesight and I'll need you to remind me what that stands for so Wyoming school

003boards Association has a for-profit arm uh our for-profit arm is Wyoming School Support Services Incorporated so the business that we engage in that is beyond the scope of our non-profit status um earns revenue or us and then we're a tax paying entity we have about a million dollars worth of business that we do primarily uh related to insurance and uh government fund investment uh but also nutrition services uh cooperative and we uh we look for ways to save districts money um so that they have more money to spend uh inside we we sell products that you would buy otherwise on the market but we try to do it at a cost cheaper for the market and better for uh the client and so even if you look at that participation grid there are some acronyms

004that are a little bit hard to figure out what the heck into those things is Wyoming school boards Association Insurance trust that's our health insurance program sir is the school risk retention program that's our Property and Casualty program uh we have a long-term disability product uh life insurance accidental uh death and dismemberment uh Insurance widget is our Wyoming government investment fund um we have a workers comp program where we sell workers comp coverage our p-card program uh is kind of like your personal credit card but for your school district so your cash back uh that you earn on purchases uh goes to your District CNC is the Child Nutrition cooperative and then by board is a Cooperative purchasing program that we partner with nationally so all of those programs are intended to save money for

005districts uh and then again we pay uh taxes as a matter of fact we just wrote a check to the IRS for uh 250 000 uh so um as a as a corporate entity uh it is beyond the scope of our non-profit uh existence uh and so all of those programs uh by feeding a member you're eligible to participate uh and either save money or make money uh doing things you already do some of the other services we offer to members as a policy service so we provide model policies for districts that they can take and revise to fit their district and um one of the things that we will be adding to our policy service later this summer is the um like a policy audit service so districts who want to make sure that

006maybe some policies they haven't looked at are revised me quite some time are still aligned with the current rules and statutes um as you know we do superintendent searches we also provide climate culture surveys with that we do the reporting um and the uh the uh the analysis um and then we present to the to the board we do strategic playing we provide evaluation tools for uh superintendent evaluations and we also provide tools for board self-evaluations um some of that is um I think I've already sent to Tim recently um the superintendent evaluations we also provide yeah we also provide a lot of board development trainings full board trainings individual uh board training such as new board members new board members board chair workshops for people who are Orchards Vice chairs are just interested in

007learning what that's all about we provide a lot of virtual opportunities one of the things we saw during the pandemic I think everybody did was there was a need for information and there was a need for information to be accessible in a lot of different ways so we continued on with that even after the pandemic providing a lot of virtual trainings um the majority of those are free of charge they're also recorded and shared out afterwards so um the trainings are probably um one of the biggest contributors to board development but the other thing we do is we provide Consultation Services for just the day-to-day questions that come up for boards about governing their districts and so as an example Brian you just left on Friday to go eat with plot one to help them

008with their interim search they called they had a need and you uh drove up there and spent the needy out of them we our real goal is to be available to boards whenever they ask for help so if you're going through challenges you you need assistance then we want to be there to provide assistance and all of those we we are professional recommenders and we're never going to tell any of our member districts how to do anything um simply provide you options uh and information so that you can make the best decisions and that's very similar to the Consultation Services that Julie was talking about we get calls uh every every week almost every day from school districts across the state that are looking for information resources or just have questions they want to to

009know for example about Oath of Office when are we supposed to pay both of office how is that supposed to work so we can provide uh that kind of information or some people might want to say hey do you know of any in any states that do this or that and our connections with other states I this was down in Denver uh yesterday and today um at a meeting of my peers from our surrounding western region states uh and so we talk about uh things that are happening in their state so that we're able to share resources and share information about what other states are doing yeah and we also share information and resources about things going on in the state that um mattered to boards whether it's legislative updates or state-led initiatives such as

010the State Board of Education what they're doing with their profile of a graduate and the impending revision of graduation standards and requirements that are going to come with that that's going to have quite the impact on school districts and so we remain involved in those initiatives and provide information as we have it to the awards and to all of our members so that they can be prepared for any changes that will definitely impact you know the way districts operate going forward we also share resources around things that we get from the national level such as the U.S Department of Homeland Security based on a lot of resources for cyber security and school safety and things like that and so those of you who get my updates every couple of weeks and then uh the update

011from wsba every week we we often provide links and descriptions to resources that as well um how many of you familiar with Ignite Wyoming any of you heard of that okay so that is something that we started uh back at late 2019 early 2020 it's a public advocacy campaign designed to highlight all of the good things that our public schools are doing in the state of Wyoming so that is something that we provide and we ask districts to share with us some of the things they would like to brag about in their District in their schools WE Post those on our social media uh we provide reports to the State Board of Education about those efforts and so that is something that has been really exciting to watch grow we have a lot of social

012media going out around what's going on with graduation or across the state and in fact the district last week sent me a video of some of her graduates and um but she said man that got a lot of shares Statewide and so we didn't really want to emphasize that the public schools and the school boards leading them are doing an excellent job so that's what I ignite Wyoming's all about we have a pretty exciting uh student learning opportunity with that as well where students will take over that social media in the fall so they will have opportunities to learn about marketing uh and uh promotion um and and how public advocacy works and so um we're working with what five school districts um yeah I thought maybe seven but okay we're we're working on that

013um as next fall approaches so it it will become a student learning opportunity as well as something that promote um the good things happening in education and so I'm going to wrap up my part by talking about advocacy um because that is certainly a part of what we do and so you've got a couple more handouts coming around I promise this is the last of the people you'll be getting at least for me um so one of the things that we do is we do advocate for our membership and so I'd like to explain a little bit about the process and the delegate assembly and how that works and what you're receiving is the um the norm that we used in 2020 so you we update these every year um we don't necessarily do major

014updates because they give you an idea of how it works and so I want to explain to you just from start to finish how we arrive at our advocacy agenda and then what happens during the delegate assembly so um what we do is we get um together every July with Wausau so the wsba board of directors of which Brittany is a part and the WASP executive committee wee every July and we look at our our existing advocacy agenda which you also have in front of you and we talk about kind of our long-term plan and as we think about what's important in education we look at um do we need to make any changes are there poisoning pods are there things that are no relatives no longer relevant on our advocacy agenda and so we

015make those decisions um we get improvement from our board on those decisions we also share the advocacy agenda during the fall Regional meetings or what you know as they'll call around us with all of the districts who attend those fall Regional meetings and we ask them to provide feedback um for the delegate assembly and so the way you do that is you talk about the any resolutions in the advocacy agenda with your board and you vote on your support for or not um for the items on the advocacy agenda as well as any resolutions that are brought forward resolutions sorry yeah districts do do that differently um some do um formal uh board votes others it's discussion um but really the idea is um we ask each district to identify voting delegates and their voting

016delegate is empowered to to vote at this sort of annual meeting this delegate assembly and uh how districts make decisions about their voting is really a local decision um but they uh have they identify a voting delegate uh and avoiding delegate casts folks on behalf of the district this is the piece that when I was talking about earlier that I think we need to do differently that I um don't know I think it would be beneficial to maybe not have the board member be the voting delegate um so that we have more people involved and that we've had more detailed discussion about what we're voting on before it is possible for this board for every member of the board uh to be a delegate at delegate assembly um that is unique um there are not

017other board there's actually no other board um the full board has enough uh allocated delegates that they're full board um would be eligible to to be a delegate so as a delegate you have the ability to speak to items um and um and and then to consult with your voting delegate um about your votes so um speaking means if you want to offer amendments if you want to uh if you want to uh engage in the debate uh any any delegate is able to do that so would you have some uh districts that have quite a few delegates and and some that are only allocate did one delegate so if you choose all of you certainly can show up and be delegates um and one of you to be the voting yeah thank you I

018it's one specific question in my mind is the voting delegate get designated on a regular basis or is it just year or every meeting thanks for asking so every year I I reach out to the board chairs and the board secretaries and I say who do you want to be your voting delegate and the the reason we started designating a single voting delegate is because we started using an electronic platform to vote and it was a weighted platform so um if Britney was the voting delegate as soon as she put her vote in it carried the weight of your District which is what is it is it it knows so her vote was worth eight votes whereas the um the district next door to you Larry me to their voting delegate would be worth it

019in two votes so it was a single name that would go into the system and they would be assigned a wait so Britney would be assigned to wait a minute and somebody can learn me too if you sign a weight of Two And so that is why we started asking for what was called a voting delegate um but there but you were all still delegates and still have the opportunity to come and as Brian said you know speak offer Amendment and things of that nature um but if you've been to a delegate assemblies before the last couple of years and I think some of you have you might remember the fans and sometimes we still use those actually we might sleep sometimes yeah technology doesn't always work and so um at that time then we

020have you know maybe all of you would be holding up a fan if you could do that um but that's how that's the distinction between a voting delegate and delegates does that yeah that's helpful yeah thanks um so there's not a way if you have a diverse board to break it into you know some of the eight votes go this way and some of these areas they do allow for split voting oh you do it's the voting delegate wishes to split their vote then they would just have to tell us that oh okay questions yeah and if we use a platform like an electronic platform like we have in the past um usually I have the capability to set it up so one voting delegate would be assigned to four votes or however this order

021to split it and then another button though like that would be assigned to the other court or you know however that where it's a breakdown so there are capabilities of doing that whether it's with fans or electronically or things like that it's easier if we know ahead of time that that is the intention because I build the platform before the delegate assembly and one last question are these votes then made available or public are they transparent to our community no um we just just like most of your board votes we record um the result of the vote um that it was unanimous or that it was motion passed um but we don't um keep a record of how individual delegates vote yeah so what would be the deadline for letting you know you're going to

022reach out to us right so yeah I mean did you know me at all you know like 10 years ahead of time because I have anxiety and I'm planning things um but yeah so usually um in September I I uh started that email and I say hey who your voting delegate going to be and if you want to assign one and then um a tentative number two you could do that even if you don't know that your vote's going to be split if that would make you guys feel better that's fine I can make that work um and we we have made adjustments about the meeting yeah I mean if you tell us you know that you want to vote seven yes and one no um we've made those adjustments at the meeting as well

023I go along with Whitney's remark the board member gets a vote also right in addition Dory votes or it's just one of them so there's really no reason to separate it then I mean to have multiple voice because the board will have had it had some say in helping put together platform the one privilege that the board has is the privilege of being able to speak to matters so for example um Lusk gets one vote one delegated but we have a board member from Lusk and that board member is able to participate um in in the debate so that's the privilege of the board is to participate in debate um but not necessarily but not in voting unless they are their districts delegated um person so the only reason separated would be to have one

024person speaking on behalf of the district another one voting or one or two more voting on bad districts and multiple people speaking because the delegates can also speak right yeah in our district just it doesn't add much because we have enough votes for all of us but for his example where lust only gets one vote then they also have a board member so they have another voice your voice Senate board member actually represents uh Goshen County Laramie II and nine bird and so they represent multiple boards and in addition to voting on The advocacy agenda as you know um the delegate assembly um we also build on the resolutions that originated from most of the time from multiple School boards and um so we send those out ahead of time as well so that each

025board has an opportunity to review all the resolutions coming forward and you know take a position on that as well ahead of the delegate assembly and the delegate assembly is where the officers or vote report also yes when is that November every November so our conference is the week before Thanksgiving uh and this is uh this occurs on the Wednesday of that week well the conference is on Thursday and Friday well Thursday half of Friday and then this is the day before right all day uh delegate assembly is uh in the afternoon we have three sessions in the morning so conference pre-sessions are in the morning delegate assembly uh and the uh requiring education Trade Fair in the afternoon can you speak to your board brand and how people are put on to the wsba

026board because I think one of the things we've had is some timing issues um if when the board members and when elections are yeah so or um some of our boards um the the representative is a representative of a single District so for you uh you have one vote but again um there's an individual who represents uh Niagara Goshen and Laramie too so some people represent multiple districts um for those that represent a single board like yours uh the decision is entirely up to your board um that decision um is made at the delegate assembly a district says uh Brian we're not able to make that decision now um we would like to let you know later um that happened in Natrona County this past year uh and so Natrona County let us know um

027uh later but what happens is that seat then becomes vacant so if there is any business of the board uh it's conducted without that seat filled until such time as the district bills it in the case where it is multiple districts um then those districts are allocated boats in accordance with the waiting of delegate assembly votes um so uh Goshen County laramie's gonna get two votes and sniper only gets one vote and that they get a life there person with each board accounting uh weighted votes that right so those votes again occur at the at the delegate assembly uh and uh so the we ask the districts to notify us um of of that uh at the Delta assembly so our board should make the decision about who our delegates going to be and then

028the form you and then they're not actually installed until delegate assembly remember in the delegate are different yeah board members what I'm talking about so we would we would make this about who our board members going to be yeah then we would inform you and then but they're not actually installed until delegate assembly correct okay and then there's terms yeah um so the the term is a two-year term um unless uh somebody is finishing an unexpired term so Britney is finishing uh an uninspired term um I think it is in uh odd number of years we elect the odd numbered areas uh you are area number one so you would be in odd number of years and an even number of years we select those areas in even numbers so asper is area two they

029would be selected in an even number a year or going is always going to be a year off from the cycle if actually being elected possibly right I'm sorry I missed when when are they put on the network of certainly what what one or um that uh selection um it's it's for your board it's a selection for the multiple District boards it's an illustration um but those happen at our delegate assembly in November so if there is an interest um somebody from your board would be selected to our board of directors uh in November of 20. selected by us or something and you're only you vote on them but you're um I think this is what Tim's trying to get your delegate assemblies after election time it is okay after the uh November elections is

030that what you mean yes was our board member we would then pick somebody we would have time to do that before we go to assembly yeah is it we're we're willing to work with districts based on more need so if somebody runs for a re-election in November uh early November they're not re-elected or um they for any reason um leave a vacancy uh they move out of district and cease being a school board member uh their family life gets really busy and they can't continue to serve um in any time that you have a vacancy um we will work with you to build that vacancy the normal occurrence is that uh it happens about the third week of uh November that you guys will be making your selection for who your representative will be and

031then we just need to let you know right afterwards so yeah it's only going to be an election year issue when somebody doesn't like Roseanne is halfway through return yeah and usually new board members on it sworn in and players [Music] that's a interesting issue in Wyoming um yeah so we will if your designation is somebody that is newly elected um then if that is your selection we will um accept them to our board um even if they have not been sworn into office um yet for your board the the reality is between the third week of November um and the first meeting in December we generally are not conducting business of our board of directors they meet quarterly will they meet as part of delegate assembly uh no um our our board's meeting is

032prior to the conference that happens in October okay see I would do with the former one then I don't know I don't really know in the past what's happened with this because I don't remember what's ever talking as a board about who our representative was going to be so it must have been the chair making that decision because I I never knew how it happened until this year we got a little idea that Roseanne had chosen you to be the successor without checking with the rest the board at all to see if that was the case so so I didn't know that it's been chosen until I think when he went to they'll get assembly right or right right about that time so from the future we need to make sure that as a board

033um we're looking at it and taking action and making sure that we are the ones that choosing the representative correct and the other the other piece that at least in my four and a half years is is having the issues that will be voted on brought to our course so we can discuss them because that's never happened at all they went out as an email last year but I know I don't think they were brought forward an email um attempts did you release Brian actually I think about the resolutions yeah okay so yeah technology um we uh we have uh new technology now we exploratively relied on free resources for communicating with you with your chair um with your board support staff uh and with your superintendent so those have been our traditional means of

034communication with the regular board members across the state uh and asking them to make sure that they share with their local boards because of our new technology we will be able to send stuff directly to every board member that we have an email address for it I guess what I was getting at though is is it would be really nice to have the conversation I mean we get that you send the information out but I'm not sure we've heard the tradition of talking about it before um about how we as a board want to weigh in or who's what we're going to say or anything other than the ones that came out the resolution yeah other than our own resolutions yeah we've been pretty good about stuff so as a chair I need to make

035sure that if those if our residents are not today get those out the board to make sure they're aware of what's going on when do you make a call for Resolutions that uh is uh first at our all regional meetings which happen uh in either late August or early September and then we do sort of an all-call after the regional meetings where we send it out to all districts one other piece of information we did want to update you on is uh our affiliations with national organizations um we have been a member of the national school boards Association uh for I would say probably 80 years um the organization has had some uh problems in recent years prompting us to write a letter uh sharing our concerns with them uh about those issues they have

036made uh quite a number of changes to that organization uh and so on an annual basis we have been making that as a year-to-year decision uh in the last couple of years our board of directors will make that decision uh in July um and we will have a meeting actually uh later this month to talk with our area directors about communicating with their uh boards that they represent soliciting uh feedback from their boards um the same will be true of Cosmo uh the Consortium of State School boards associations we were a founding member of Cosmo um that was something that we felt like uh we wanted to explore uh we will make that same decision uh in uh July of this year whether or not we uh continue membership in that organization as well um

037so uh I think for most folks there are connections with those National organizations are conferences um we did have attendees from Wyoming participate in both of those national conferences in uh April um and so uh we have uh certainly diverse perspectives of uh those those two organizations um some of our members in Wyoming um are unhappy with our affiliation with National School boards Association and have asked us uh not to expend any of their their dues on our dues to nsba we honor that that was something that we kind of had the sense from this board last year that that was your uh intent and so we uh did not do that um no dues paid by Laramie one went to paying dues to the National School awards Association and then any affiliation of a

038local board member would be at the choice of a local board member uh if you want nothing to do with them uh then you don't have to have anything to do with them uh if you do want to uh engage uh again the national conference is your primary connection uh to them and the same with Casper uh we have one District uh who is presently unhappy with our affiliation with Casbah and has asked that none of their views be expended for that purpose and we are um we're honoring that um so it's it's tough for us because we know that there is diversity and perspective um and we are trying to serve all of our boards in Wyoming uh our board of directors voted last year um on a very narrow margin um we have

039a 19-member board and it was a ten to nine vote to stay with National School boards Association uh and were um not sure what will happen this year um it will continue that membership uh or not it could could go either way when's that vote going to take place uh our July board meeting is the 15th and uh that'll be in Riverton this year another question um I know what this was concerned with the nsba is what were there other issues other than just that resolution they have regarding the yeah so the the issues have primarily been over their letter um from uh September 2001. um when uh the former um president former executive director uh wrote a letter to the President Biden um we shared that that did not reflect the values of Wyoming

040and that we were upset um asked for some changes saw lots of changes that is what we've seen from membership across Wyoming um primarily related to that however um we've also um had uh discussions about value of membership um our our national organizations on both sides providing a valuable membership to our state Association uh and I think some of the resources that they provided to us um our connections with other states what's happening uh in States across the U.S providing us uh information because of the fracture we are now building new ways to have that communication that was part of my meeting just recently uh in Denver is how do we how do we continue to collaborate uh outside of national affiliations there are still six states that are not affiliated with either organization how

041do you how is the wsba been paying two memberships when you have districts that are choosing not to have their part of their dues go to one of the organizations so remember dues make up uh a little less than 30 percent of our Revenue um so we have uh revenue from other sources um that we will pay membership do is with our dues to the National organizations are both uh we haven't actually gotten a bill from nsba yet so I don't know those dudes last year was about twenty eight thousand dollars um our cause Badu's are around twenty three thousand dollars um so um that represents less than two percent um of uh our overall budget uh and so we're paying for that from funds that we um raised through other sources thank you and

042the highest um any district is assessed to Purdue's uh is tapped in the 21 house um if uh if if Laramie one were charged the uh the actual uh Jews value of the formula um you wouldn't you wouldn't pay it it would be a member it'd be 95 000. um I can't provide you ninety five thousand dollars worth of benefit um but we feel like we can provide you uh a point of diminishing return and so we said a cap and say that you'll pay no more than that any other questions any of you have I think for us the things that were um most proud about um are uh being able to share information and resources with districts when they need it um so uh for example uh flat one Wheatland has been in

043some very challenging times here recently uh and we're just there to help we're there to support them um maybe say oh what are you going to charge us for this we see we're not going to charge you when you're at your most dire moment we're there to help how can we how can we help you through that um and I think our advocacy campaign are at night Wyoming is something else that we're really excited about because it it shares what's the good stuff that you guys are doing um what is it to be proud about uh about uh education in Wyoming so uh and I would also say work with the profile of a graduate um we have have given a tremendous amount of support from the State Board of Education um as they've gone

044through that endeavor uh and hearing from Wyoming how do we how do we want to transform education in our state what what can we do differently um to give you at the local level more Choice more empowered um and and that's that's helping your voice be heard um for policy makers that's that's the thing I think that we enjoy the most Brian sorry I have one more question but it was something you said just a minute ago we do charge the certain Services we do okay yeah as I remember when we did a superintendent research and what we do on uh things like that is we try to charge less than the market rate um assuming that your dues cover some portion uh as well uh and so uh if you look at sort of

045the market rate for something like that uh it could be anywhere from uh 15 14 uh fifteen thousand up to 30 000 uh and we charge six thousand five hundred so we subsidize um those Services through your member dudes that's great yeah no it's way lower than anything I see we do executive searches for various entities you have any questions thanks for coming well our last thing to you is thank you all for what you guys do um appreciate the service of local board members thank you um since they're going to call us in September we need to have a cover in our last August meeting or I guess our only office meeting and decided to be first of all they're going to have one or two vote our voting people and then who they're

046going to be and then we might as well go ahead and pick our delegate at that point too even though you'll still whoever it is yeah there's only one board member we can select that person even though you would continue to serve until the whatever your term is we could pick it at that point and say who this is going to be what we want you to continue so but we can do that at the same time I think and then uh well so no we haven't chosen a delegate oh the last round Roseanne was the forward one of the Anne there's a board there's a voting magnet and there can be another delegates up to eight delegates there's only one voting yes but they're supposed to reflect the right the board which we oops

047at least he was the board member or the buildings you got on it when was he off the board so fun fact it rains my we'll call my grandpa but my uncle's so way back um I did it's been three years since he was on okay again thank you sometimes listening extended thank you guys thank you thank you thank you very much um yeah it's sufficiently and I thought we were here there was yeah um [Music] they call this meeting of the Laramie County Schools government Board of Trustees to order please stand and join our students from Freedom Elementary Matt Peterson's class and saying the pledge allegiance I like this um okay do we have any adjustments to the agenda chairman we have one adjustment to the agenda we'd like to welcome our local Santa

048Club to present to our South High School administrative staff promotion um I second to adopt the agenda adopt the agenda with that change discussion all those in favor say ugly those opposed no motion passes so we're not going to the student of the week and this will be from Central High School bridge will be coming up messages along with the student and the teacher good evening so I'd like to introduce Abigail Ford so Abigail are your parents here tonight yes okay so Brad and Therese where are you okay I'd like to give you a round of applause thank you so much so our student of the week is so much about also parents parents are just such an integral part about what we do at Central High School so Abby is um one of our

049Stellar students has such a heart of gold and she's one of our FFA students she's in Deca she's an FBLA she's a National Honor Society and what what's so wonderful about Abby is that she has a heart for everyone and she's a friend to everyone and so she chose Mr Cress as her teacher that is her favorite so I'm gonna let Mr Crest speak a little bit about her and then we'll let Abby speak week thank you thank you Dr delbridge well it's sure an honor when you get to come speak about a student of this caliber and I've been blessed in my career to have a lot of great students and Abby ranks at the very top of them um you know in a time where it's pretty easy to get negative on social

050media and treat people the wrong way she chooses not to do that um she is good in every way every way and she treats people right I've seen situations where she's on bigger teams for me where it isn't going well and kids want to get after each other and she screws away from that and uh she is just a great kid to be around and and we're really glad to have her at our school and she lives the One Tribe and I've seen her help kids in need and treat people right and she treats grown-ups with respect and I could just go on forever but if you ever get a chance to visit Abby Iyer Abby have her on your team if any of those things in the future I'm not joking um they don't

051make students like her every day and we're really blessed to have her so I'm glad she chose me but I know that a lot of teachers have done a lot of great things for her and and I just appreciate getting to say nice things about her too but what an outstanding individual our District's so blessed to have her so foreign I'd like to thank Western Vista for sponsoring student of the week it's a privilege that not a lot of people get to have and I'm very thankful that I got the opportunity to have this and I'm also thankful for Mr Cress and Dr delbridge for even nominating for me for this I gotta pass to the principal's office and I was a little nervous and then I walked in and she said you're not in

052trouble I just want to congratulate you for student of the week and I'm just thankful that I got this opportunity and I'm thankful that I have such amazing people at my school that are so supportive and help me and give me opportunities like this good evening um so for our last student of the week presentation from Western Vista Federal Credit Union I'd like to bring Dan UCam up Sam's here and he's got some special certificates for our winners Dan became a question of the State Credit Union we've been so pleased to sponsor the student of the week program and we've been so thrilled to recognize so many students and so many teachers that are so talented so hard working and we're so excited tonight to recognize Abigail and Mr Cress and and you know for

053the for their gift a small gift a certificate and congratulations fantastic congratulations that's next okay next we have the South High School video production team recognition oh I'm sorry let's believe this Dan don't don't go yet no not there was an error sorry not South so we're looking for Freedom Elementary's representative thank you sure you're the classroom award is the teacher here yeah yeah Freedom has the great opportunity we say the Pledge of Allegiance every morning I'm sure like most schools do in unison so it's kind of cool walking up and down in the Halls listening to the kids as they recite the pledge Mr Peterson here is our sixth grade teacher and uh he's kind of got a neat story he's a retired Air Force served 20 20 years in our air force and

054now serves the students at Fe Warren Air Force Base very hard-working and dedicated and great teachers so thank you Mr delbridge come on up for a picture I'm sure and what's the results gives a classroom contribution for the efforts you went through to make the video for us thank you and you're welcome to stay down if you want to exciting okay now we're going to do the South High School video production team recognition thank you there we go so I'd like to introduce Miss hushbeck with her team of great students who um participated in azonta um video competition dealing with some domestic violence is what I've been described and I'm such a it's such an honor to introduce these students in this teacher for such an honorable cause so thank you so much for contributing

055to this program I'll let the ladies who are here talk a little bit more about um the cause and what we produce these videos for but uh all of my students produced PSAs for this project and you may see them um right and actually we were just interviewed today for um the news so we know that one's gonna run tonight so um but I this is not all of them by any means we had graduation and kids are working and things now but I do have some of them Mackenzie Leibovitz David Darlene Maddie Rutan and Angel arenas so it's not a club of Cheyenne approached the high schools in town and asked if any of them would like to produce some 32nd or 60 second videos that talk about the impact of domestic violence on

056Youth and and the children in the Home South High stepped up and they produced 12 videos and they are amazing they're moving and they really captured the essence of what we were looking for we plan to use these videos on social media and to the extent we can get other media to run them we would be grateful just to raise awareness about domestic violence in in um to think um bison broadcasting which is what the the team is called South High We would like to present them a thousand dollar check to to buy new equipment or do whatever you would like to do to to um further the broadcasting education of your students so and um my name is Denise parish and Kathy Orr is also a sanchan with me working on this project and

057we have some other assumptions in the audience as well that's good thank you and do we have parents that are leaving students are there parents of any of these students in the audience if you can't if you're standing this way but if you're sitting stand up so we can recognize you so thank you great program for our kids babies okay our next award is going to be for Central High School getting their purple star um School award and I was actually there when they were just headed to them at the dedication for their uh memorial for their fallen soldiers from Central High School so um if we could have was discovered to come out yeah I'm not really sure what this award is except for a great service to our um families uh in the

058military there's students that are here but maybe you can tell us a little bit more yeah so being recognized purple star school is quite exciting the governor came to our school and presented the award it is quite a prestigious award we have two other schools in our district that have really paved the way for us and that's Freedom Elementary and McCormick and so we're so proud that Central High School is part of that and sergeant major uh harder and Colonel Johnson really took the lead on this and we are just so proud to service our students in the military and we are very proud um not just for that but then also to help them with the transitions that when they come in and when they leave and they just have special hearts and have

059great experiences and insight that really help strengthen us at Central High School so we're very appreciative and we love our military so thank you okay now we're going to have a good sportsmanship award for um Central High School so if you have Chad Whitworth come up I guess he's not here today okay so is coach Maori by chance here nope okay um so is Hayden Fleming here okay all right well it's just me then so um I am going to take I am going to take a moment and recognize Hayden so Hayden received um the Wyoming High School Activities Association award for being really polite throughout the competition he thanked the officials and those retrieving the diss every time he noticed uh people cheering and he was cheering his teammates and others throughout the competition

060and so just having the recognition of going above and beyond and what it really means to be a student athlete Hayden is exemplary of that so we'll congratulate Hayden um thank you so much very many things so our next one is going to be Central High School uh girls track and team state champions Dr delbridge Central correct yeah all right coach Wilde's gonna gonna take it from here so I am so proud of our young women at Central High School um I'm so glad that coach Wilde is with us and so I'm going to let him take it from here so thank you coach Wilde for being here sorry these are some pretty incredible young women that are here because uh you know there a part of that group that you know from the freshman

061year they were pretty darn good and uh you know this was the uh the central women's fifth state championship in a row so they uh have built quite the Dynasty and it's pretty impressive you know these seniors they had a lot of state champions among them Brinkley on the very end she won the pole vault and then you got Madison Bailey who won high jump and the hundred hurdles Parson Temple who won the triple jump and you have Sydney morale who won the 3200 the 1600 and the 800. thank you but it's kind of hard for me to talk about them because you know you know every year going to the state meet we were never the favorites and every single year these girls stepped up and got the points that we needed to to

062be Champions and this year was probably a year that I was the least confident that we were gonna do it but um it was actually the year that we won by the most points and from the very first event we got into the lead and we never left first first place that entire meeting so it was uh very impressive that you know these young women did that and I'm very thankful to their parents in the community and all that they do for us because you know if it wasn't for you guys we wouldn't even be able to compete and do this and be a lot more worrisome when those distance girls and those girls are out there running around on the streets or even driving themselves so I appreciate you guys looking out for them

063looking out for us and doing everything that you can but um the other girls that were Point scores that didn't win a individual State event you have right next to Brinkley is Emma Hofmeister she scored in the 32 the 16 the eight and on the 4x8 Ryan Cordell she was on our second place four by eight team uh Lauren Clark was on the scoring four by eight team and Avery periton scored in the 300 Turtles 32 16 and 8. so pretty impressive young women Dr delbridge am I missing anything all right again I want to thank you guys I want to thank the school board for making sure that we have a uh an establishment to compete in as well as uh you know a school that we get to go to every single day

064in jobs so are there parents of any of these by young ladies here either wave is where you can stand up how many of them how many of your seniors or well some of you back in experience got a good nucleus for next year Stephen sounds like so I want a pretty good chance of being incredible next year so I'm I'm very excited we don't understand yeah thank you so much coach Wilde thank you ladies and thank you parents um just like coach Wilde said we couldn't do this without you I know we'll go to East High School so Mr marriage see you here yeah there he is okay our academic challenge team had a great year and a tremendous uh state tournament and it's such a great group of youngsters and I'm going to

065let one of the co-coaches Mr David whisker talk about this group hello I just want to clarify very quickly that um I had this year I actually was just kind of a helper on the side so our our coach Dr Ashley Breton could not be here tonight so she asked me to be here but I do want to make sure that she is recognized because she is the one who worked most with this team and took him on to his State Championship uh we got a pretty young group last year we had all freshmen and one sophomore and they won third place so they were excited to come back this year and win first place as one Junior and four sophomores is that right uh one of our one of our team members could not

066be here tonight David haberkorn I want to make sure that he is mentioned he is one of our sophomores this year and if you don't know Wyoming academic challenge it's a it's a competition where students some people think it's trivia but it's really not it's it's academic knowledge that the students have and academic skills that they have and each of these competitors up here each of these students has their own sort of Niche talent and academic capabilities and when you combine them together they are state champions obviously um I'd like to recognize each one of them we have okay so we're good um sorry Carson Costa he is a sophomore Kensington dobler she is a junior Simon wolf he is a sophomore and Thomas Dixon he is a sophomore as well parents and family members

067of these students would you stand to please stand and be recognized or wave great we have so many different things that they're it's gonna read it all right next we'll be East High School again this will be our national speed and debate National speech and debate champion great to have such great attendance up here that we have to assemble in the hallway so I'll just passed your speech and debate team just had an outstanding year um through the entire year and they qualified several people for Nationals and there's actually two Nationals that occur and one of the national competition already occurred and we had a young lady be a national champion and so we're going to have we're going to have Mr Bunny right here speaking about this young lady right here who is unbelievable

068in Minneapolis a few weeks ago and tell you what she was able to accomplish Mr viney all right thanks everybody my name is Marcus feiny head coach of speech and debate at East I'm absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to brag about one of the most talented young ladies I've ever met in my life this is Rosie zubrod and as Mr Merit said we competed at a tournament called the national individual events Tournament of Champions We affectionately call it Nationals before Nationals and Rosie here won her event an expository speaking making her only about the 10th kid to come out of Wyoming being a national champion we just want to thank everybody that contributed to her success but she's a truly outstanding competitor and now would be a really good time to Buddy up with

069her and say that I knew her before she got really famous so congratulations to Rose Rosie parents would you please stand and be recognized Rosie parents and just looking at the list that they provided for us five of the last 10 from Wyoming have been from East High School so okay good evening everyone my last one I would just like to um take a moment to invite Cooper Pig up here foreign so I wanna as he's coming up I want to share a little bit about um Cooper if you often times in our life we are um faced with adversity or faced with a difficult time and how we come out of that is what really makes us um special and profound and Cooper's had the opportunity uh going through adversity at home many of

070you may have read the article recently in the paper regarding um his family his mom's situation please feel free to read it it's a really compelling story and from that um copper went on to Cooper when I apologize Cooper went out went on to write um an essay and actually was recognized Statewide he has received the 2023 letters about literature first place award and we are here tonight to just say thank you very much for your representation and what an incredible incredible story thank you very much thank you next we have a an appreciation resolution and move to approve a resolution recognizing Juneteenth is a holiday for Laramie County School District number one whereas June 19th has been celebrated in communities across the United States as Juneteenth and has also been designated Freedom Day Jubilee

071Day Liberation day and emancipation day and whereas Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States and was first celebrated on June 19 1865 when Major General Gordon Granger announced the end of the Civil War in Galveston Texas more than two and a half years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and whereas the date provides an opportunity for reflection of the accomplishments inventions triumphs achievements culture and contributions of African Americans in the nation's history and whereas in June 2021 the United States Congress approved a bipartisan Bill to approve Juneteenth as a Federal holiday and the bill was signed into law and whereas governor of the state of Wyoming Mark Gordon signed a proclamation proclaiming June 19 it's 2021 is Juneteenth day in Wyoming now therefore be it

072resolved that the Laramie County School District 1 Board of Trustees recognizes June 19th or Juneteenth as an official holiday within Laramie County School District One to commemorate and celebrate the end of slavery in the United States Mr chair I second the motion okay we have a motion and a second to recognize June teams any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye those opposed nope question taxes okay normally our next item on the agenda would be visitors um I'm going to um possibly change that so without objection from the board I would like to to move one of our reports from the superintendent from our Council up to do it now before we have the um so is there anybody on the board who is against a change in the order it's like we

073only have one so we will change the order and we'll now have our Council talk about the um the update on the um the book issue Mr chairman Mr chair before Council um begins uh could I just ask those two gentlemen to move over because we'll have somebody come on coming up to present thank you so much really just appreciate it so people can see the screen there are a couple of empty chairs if you have an empty chair next to you you just holler okay there's one up here if that's helpful because we're going to need that whole area for the screen thank you very much and I've decided to make this change because I'm sure most of you here to speak on this YouTube tonight so I thought maybe it'd be a good

074idea to have the update before you spoke so what happened thank you Mr chair uh Board of Trustees um if we go back in time to about February March um the charge to the district by the board was to um look at three things regarding library books one was to explore defining uh sexually explicit when it comes to library books uh second we were charged with um clarifying and simplifying or improving our current out policy and third was excuse me um exploring the possibility of moving toward an opt-in policy we've given you a definition previously on sexually explicit with direction from the board we have two alternatives for you to um weigh in on tonight but we also have um some updates on the progress that we've made um you know really over the past

075school year and looking forward to how we can really improve um I'd say the transparency surrounding our library books um and providing parents the information that they need in order to make an informed decision for their student so we've taken kind of the previous comments from board meetings the the input that we've received thus far from the public and have really tried to take a hard look at what we have and what we can do to increase awareness around our library books and increase um involvement and partnership with our parents with that I'm going to turn it over to Mr Joe Evans who is the secondary Ela coordinator for the district um Joe and his team and particularly hit the team of librarians within the district have done really an amazing job looking at at

076our current systems and how we can improve those so I will turn it over to Joe now uh chairman Boland trustees and Dr Crespo hold on just a minute if we could have everybody there just move back that way a little bit because you're covering the screen and some of our people won't be able to see that besides I'm sure that light's not good in your face anyway so there are also a couple of empty seats if you're interested in sitting down great thank you go ahead yes great so chairman bowling trustees and Dr pressbo um as a council has said I'm just here to report on the work that we've been doing uh all this year and trying to understand parent concerns um and what we are doing currently to expand that uh as

077well as to um inform those parent choices okay so uh starting with uh some of the things that we've been doing so as you know we read all year long in our libraries to um to try to bring uh fresh resources and make sure our libraries look look and feel as good as they can but this year we've spent especially some attention on um the comprehensive Elementary reading project we were able to do that because we were able to hire our elementary library mediatosa position so teacher on special assignment um that position allowed us to do so much more in our elementary schools to um to fulfill parent requests and just to update those libraries as best we can so that's been instrumental so nearing completion is our new library media website which is going

078to be a great tool and a key role in increasing transparency and increasing what parents can do and what parents have Choice over so that should be coming soon um finally uh this year we also did we tried out online an online opt-out option during our registration as you all know uh and through that um through that online registration we we have 41 offouts currently in place uh and that's uh those are currently operational in our schools our Librarians are fulfilling those parent requests and those parent choices um through that process this was our first time trying that right and so through that process we've learned a lot as as our community knows as our parents know um we're building this as we go right um and uh we really appreciate the feedback we've received

079and we're going to take that feedback and we're going to work on improving our processes making things uh cleaner simpler and more um more informed for parents uh more on that as we go along and all of this is um so far trying to fulfill the current policy so that it functions best for um for everybody okay so what we've been doing for these last few months and really for uh if you really count it back a year or two we've been spending a lot of time researching trying to understand um this um this issue um so we've spent a lot of time looking at school district policies and practices around the nation um because these uh these parent commissaries um are not are not local here right they're um this is uh something that's

080going on everywhere and so we've also been following uh so with those School District policies we've been on the phone we've been on Zoom meetings and an email with people across the country who are building processes who are filling out these things um and uh it's been a great learning process for us we've also been following the state legislation that I'm sure all of you have been seeing as States um path laws regarding this we've also been following the existing legal filings and and case law um regarding this because all of this has been truly instrumental in us trying to understand this this issue and trying to move forward deliberately and also it's helped us to avoid some of the missteps that some other some other districts have fallen into um so where that leads

081us now um is uh is really into one of the key pillars of our strategic plan right which is community engagement uh so what we're trying to do is create a team-based environment with our parents right our parents have vested interests here our parents uh want to look out for the best interest of their children and we want to be a partner in that because that's what we want too so what we are trying to to um to Foster here and have been all year is trying to find uh ways to help our parents to be active participants here active Partners in in making choices for their students um and what we've heard based on feedback is that that needs to be a more informed process and more informed partnership and so that's one of

082the ways that we're trying to move forward and uh and are currently putting things in place to do so um what we're going to be trying to do is try to create more informed choice for our parents as we move forward uh and inviting them into an active participation here so we tried with our online registration we're improving that by offering um offering some more choices and informing parents more and building upon what we learned last year about our online registration okay so uh that form that we created it's going to continue but we're also going to make this make this a change that parents could make at any time we're going to open this up so it's not just on online registration but parents can make these choices at any point in time that's

083partly what our our um our website will be able to do right um it'll be a kind of a one click to the form and you're right there because that was one of the one of the struggles right um some other things that we're going to be doing as well on that library media website um is we're going to um take our entire library and we're going to try to put it into a spreadsheet which which we can do it's going to take us a little time to clean it up but um we've heard from the community and from parents that Destiny our our program that takes care of our libraries is difficult to manage it's difficult to find out what's in the library right and so we want to make that easier so what

084we'll do is we're going to create a spreadsheet and you'll be able to sort that by your school by um by reading level and be able to find what you need there okay that's going to take us a little time because we have to clean that up we have to um to process that make sure it's accessible but that will be available on the website as well so um this again is continuing the work that we've been doing and so um what that's going to look like as we offer and as we invite our parents to be active participants and active Partners um in this work for their for their students um is um is we're going to offer for four new choices or well really they're four choices that we're trying to expand upon

085what we're already doing the goal here is to recognize that every parent you recognize every parent's right to make an informed decision regarding what's best for their child and so we're going to ask all parents to make uh make one of these choices and uh there's gonna be a lot more here in the next slide I know this will probably have questions bear with me and we'll get to those questions and then of course I should be answering lots of them so um open Choice that's access to all materials in the schools Media Center parent limits Choice which means we're gonna have a list of clean reads I'll explain what that is in a moment uh and along with a parent selected list or opt out another option available is the no access choice right

086that's no access to school of media center materials and an identified list Choice um so give me just a second and I'll explain how these are a continuation of the work that we've already done and how they expand transparency uh and informed choice for our parents okay so the Open Access uh choice is fairly simple students will have a free and unrestricted access to all materials within their schooled Media Center based on parent choice okay uh parents limited choice or parents limits Choice um so there's kind of two parts of this so a librarian creative clean reads list so what this means is we would exclude we would exclude books that fit the this fit any implicit definition that the board would come up with or the board would adopt uh but it would include

087a variety of genre Choice taste reading level aligned to student interest um still with challenging pecs and engaging reads for our for our readers okay uh we would also do different lists for each age group all right um and this these lists right so this would be another place where parents can collaborate with our Librarians okay where you can alter this you can add to it you can exclude certain books if um if a parent so chooses this would also include any any previous parent opt-outs from the 41 opt-outs that are currently in place we can just continue that work there it would also uh could also include no or it would also include no access to the identified list I'll explain the identified list industry okay um the next option is the no access

088choice this is always a choice for our parents is that the student would have no access to the school of media center materials right okay uh now the identified list okay um so parents can opt out of all books identified as sexually explicit for the definition that the board might adopt uh also along with that parents could have the option to opt out of the books that are in the queue to be reviewed so this is going to matter because um there's gonna have to be a cue let me I'll explain this here in just a moment that's kind of part of this process uh it's going to matter because we can't we can't review this and put this in review books overnight right this takes time but we can still notify parents of which

089books we are are going to review I'll explain kind of how that goes here in a moment so this process is going to of course it's per the adoption of a policy regarding sexually explicit definition right this is this is dependent on that um if the board chooses to do that then we would go forward with writing an administrative regulation detailing this process um and what that would mean in a timely manner um of course it would involve a committee review process and other other things that we have to um work on and build collection of books to be reviewed um because reviewing our 300 000 titles is um that's a that's a bit of work so um selection of books would be by parent nomination um and would proceed in the order in which

090they're received um a running list of books nominated that's the the queue that I'm talking about a running list of books nominated would be published to the media center website and parents can opt out of those books on the nomination list okay um this queue is going to be necessary of course because of all those reasons um and because we have limited resources to handle this right um to handle um reviewing each book and doing that in a way that's um that's faithful to to um our what our parents would like and what our board is is going to might move forward with okay so speaking of those limited resources and the cost of this this is something that of course is not um not without its cost and not without it uh its resources

091right so um just as a quick review in this last year 2023 we reviewed um we had two challenges that we uh negotiated and and fulfilled um and that we estimated that cost in Personnel to be about ten thousand dollars per book um because this is a labor-intensive process it's uh it's a people intensive process okay so um the estimated capacity of what we can do within the resources that we have um currently um is to do 10 books a year I think that we can do that once a month um to the cost of a hundred thousand dollars okay um so this is an estimate of what what this cost us last the last challenges we've had um and of course that's um something to be to be discussed amongst the board and and

092administration um so at this point um I'm sure we're going to have questions uh I think at this point I probably need to pass it back to council for the next uh the next slides um and then I'll be happy to field questions at that point thank you um thank you Mr chair thank you Mr Evans um so now we can turn to uh the two potential definitions of sexually explicit content um and again this isn't something that we're asking the board to vote on at this time this is something that we're asking the board to um provide us a little bit more guidance um you know last time we we kind of had a Direction but with some some modifications that were requested this is that Direction with hopefully modifications that meet the needs

093of the board um so we'll walk through both of those options um so um and really the the difference is you'll remember um from the previous definitions there's kind of a laundry list of sexual conduct um that could be considered sexually explicit um and this will vary based on the two options on the definition really of um pervasively vulgar that was kind of our hang up as we've now found sexually explicit but pervasively vulgar is also a little um squishy and subject to interpretation so how do we further narrow that definition down so this first option um should look familiar to you um pervasively vulgar manner would be for purposes of textual or audio materials more than a passing reference or allusion to sexual conduct but rather an extended description involving more than a word

094or phrase um then Mr Evans can you switch to the next Slide the and that should be option two that should be option two that should be out yeah that should be option too um so um this the definition of pervasively vulgar would mean textual or audio materials that contain extensive or gratuitous descriptions of sexual conduct that may be considered offensive or inappropriate for minors or in the context of visual media materials that gratuitously depict sexual conduct that may be considered offensive or inappropriate for minors um really so I think that when we started looking at that first definition um would it when we key in on that language that it would be more than a word or a phrase um that could be something um as short than as maybe a sentence or a

095paragraph and um though the worry and I don't know that it's a worry but there's a potential that that could Encompass um within that definition more materials um within the library I don't know that that's good bad or otherwise right and the second definition the second option you have before you um is kind of taking a more holistic look um and and kind of the more typical definition of pervasive which would be um you know something that that permeates or is found throughout um a given uh book or audio material so those are really the two um differences between the two the two options for definitions um again that bottom that you've seen before which it was really long to put on a slide so we didn't put it but all of that would remain

096the same it's really we're trying to key in on that pervasively vulgar so that we're not leaving it um uh as Loosely defined as before so um you know I will say um thank you to Mr Evans for for again he he's spent a lot of time and his team has spent a lot of time looking at this um you know we have and and where we are right now is when we can get the direction from the board on a definition that can kind of inform the rest of the work um if the definition is more is um you know that idea that it's more than a word or phrase that can that kind of shortens um the amount of time you would necessarily need to spend reading a book um so that costs

097could potentially go down we have some other ideas for how to address the costs in a way that's not so um cost prohibitive to to the district to um work through the process we're batting around some ideas and hopefully that's our intent would be um that that would follow the formal adoption of the definition and policy so with that I think that both Mr Evans and I would stand for any questions that the board has Steve Classen thank you Mr chair Mr chair um I really like option one I make comments before just clarifying I agree with Miss Paulie and and by the way let me start out by saying thank you Miss following Mr Evans for the presentation and the work you've done so far on this um I liked the option one because

098I think it's more specific and clearer and the whole point is transparency so everyone depending regardless of your opinion um knows what we're trying to do so that you understand if you want to opt in or opt out of these kinds of materials so um I would I would argue for that as feedback I do think that it's it's a good idea to perhaps um change the word pervasively in the first definition of option one if you I don't know if this is up or not is this option one okay to use your language from option two and just say sexually explicit content means textual visual or audio materials that depict or describe sexual content in a extended or gratuitous vulgar or or vulgar manner so just add those two words from the other definition

099you used in the other option to this and then we're being more specific and getting to the point that you just made um okay so that's that's what I would say I would recommend we do but I I really like the language you come up with um thank you for including input from us the the last time we discussed this um and um I do have a question for Mr Evans if if this the right time okay Mr Evans I um or or Mr chair I'd like to ask Mr Evans um to explain the identification process costing ten thousand and what actually goes into it that would cost ten thousand because that seems like a lot of money sure so um so for one let me say that's an estimate of what we've of what

100this would cost so um it's a little bit tricky partly because um there's there's the costs that we actually pay out to somebody right like so if we have teachers work on this it's beyond their their hours right we can't just ask them to do this extra work um so we have to pay them if they're reviewing a book which has been part of the process so far um so we have to pay them to do that um then another part of this cost that we've considered is the cost um to um to for administrators like myself like building principles like um like Mr Fraley and and Dr Newton all the people that are involved in this process from the top down how many hours that this takes for um for us to build this

101to put together um each committee and make sure that it's fair that it's representative that we're we're considering um different perspectives and trying to to weed out bias and that sort of thing all of this takes time right now now does that bottom line of that work does that come out as as ten thousand dollars per book um no I wouldn't show that because my my salary doesn't change right um however uh there's a lot of other things that the district is trying to do right um like uh next year we're working on uh on uh working through improving all of our reading interventions and and improving our tier one instruction through lots of professional develop standards prioritization and all this other work um and all of this work detracts from all of that which

102made at the bottom line might not look like a monetary cost but it is a cost on our resources and it's a cost of our district and on our students so um trying to trying to what we've tried to do is we've tried to calculate how many hours did this take somebody at my pay grade what how many hours did this take at somebody um you know at the assistant superintendent office how many hours did this take at all those various places in a building administrator um and then we've uh We've crunched those numbers to try to come up with that we have a spreadsheet that we've kind of tried to to estimate with that and actually share that with the board um at another time if you would like Mr chair good I have

103one more question and that's related to um well your answer was long and I lost my train of thought let me think for a second uh no but I appreciate the thoroughness of your answer um I'll come back here it's gone okay one of the next questions of questions I would like to thank the staff has put a lot of time into uh putting this all together and our board because each of the board members last week put in an hour at a study session to discuss this and to get updated on what was going on and I also attend all those so I got to do four hours of that so but I enjoyed every minute of it because we had a great discussion and I think we came this is a really good

104um compromises in how we're going to go ahead so other questions even get yours yeah okay go ahead let's finish you up first thank you for that break so I can catch up with myself here um Mr Evans I assume though that initially that will be upfront costs to identify books that might have explicit content that some parents might want to opt out of but as we identified and then then that cost will go down it's just that you're understanding yeah trustee Clawson so as um as Council has said um there are ways we might be able to make that more efficient as we build a process and build an infrastructure but as we've said before we're we're building this right this is this is something new um and so uh as we build that

105process there's there's a possibility that the cost could go down um and that's something that we are looking into and looking at trying to to make some more efficient ways we can make that happen and make that less costly on um trustee Pleasant I think what's key for this is the resource allocation so what we did also was look at what are the challenges that we've done in the past and what were the costs associated with those and the time that it took and then since they were not very recent right they weren't in the last couple of months and there's a cost increase with all things uh we put a little buffer in there in case the next one that comes is further down the line and often we think about it as a

106cash payment and then sometimes that is the case if that individual is getting extra hours but in most cases it's a re-allocation of resources of man-hours person hours to do that work um and and that depends on you know the size of the book the length of the book has the book been checked before so we anticipate that eventually that will go down of course because as we purchase books as we look at books but right now with so many titles out there in our libraries and any book could be challenged we want to make sure that we're being clear on what that cost would be for the foreseeable future okay I think we're probably all going to ask some questions let me just start at this end I'll work my way down there so

107trustee Smith lunch go ahead thank you chairman bowling and thank you Miss Polly and Joe and to all the others who I know you've been putting in countless hours and probably a lot of late nights and a lot of stress kind of maneuver this for us um so thank you for giving us something to to react to and for your presentation the information about what this looks like in practice once we get a definition um between the two options um I also would prefer option one um I do um well I just prefer that I do I mean I think we've defined pervasively vulgar which which is good um I don't love that term but I do wonder where we say more than a passing reference um or an illusion to sexual conduct where we

108say um no I'm sorry hang on my eyes are jumping here at my page oh I'm sorry the extended description um in his definition really an extended description is just involving more than a word or phrase I think if we leave the terminology extended description in there that could be up for debate between different committees who are you know maybe all over the district looking at books that parents have challenged um so I think you could simplify that and just say um but in involving more than a word or phrase and leaving it that simplistic instead of throwing a terminology extended description in there um we've been told on more than a few times um that our Librarians are intimately familiar with their collections um and I love this about them they're they're actually over

109the years have been choosing these books for for our libraries so you know for what we're offering our kiddos so um that may Aid in the process if we already have the knowledge of many of these books um you know if they would provide that information hey you know you might look at book a because it has this kind of language and more than a passing reference um so we might draw in that knowledge base um if they're willing to share um so that we could maybe know what books to look up first but I wonder with this um perhaps to simplify the process and to not spend tens of thousands of dollars and to perhaps be able to respond to more than 10 parents a year or 10 titles a year that would come

110up um if in that process where a parent could object to a book or anybody could object to a book if they can provide proof of the words or phrases in that book that would meet this definition of sexually explicit we may not need a ten thousand dollar committee to review it for months on end we might be able to say but we might be able to say committee here on page 26 it has this language and here's a photograph of it or I mean it's real easy to get a screenshot now with your phone um here's a and then on page 43 it's got this and on a page 122 here's this whole paragraph that should be enough proof that that book would have more than an extended description of sexually explicit texts so

111that that might ease that process and save a whole lot of money for the district yeah that's awesome comparable and trustee Smith you're absolutely right our goal is to save the money the realities that we've done two book reviews in four years that the last four years so we don't anticipate in being in inundated um to the extent of having to do 10 we just want to make sure that we're being good stewards of the fiscal dollar when we look at other districts across the country we have examples of 70 books and they're not able to get through them and we want to be very transparent up front that really it takes a long time to do this thoroughly with the work component included I'll also add that I think one of the benefits is

112we flesh out this conversation around option one or option two it will allow for us to have better clarification around is it a single phrase what does that look like is it pervasive um and that also will help the Librarians and the staff make decisions regarding what we have already on file thank you are you done yes thank you so I think the problem I think for the problem for me continues to be the fact that by trying to Define it we're making it even more vague as we go is that people can submit the text that they think fits the definition but some of the text that we've gotten I wouldn't consider fits this definition and so I think we're going to continue to have this issue I I like option two because it

113better fits the larger National definitions in the National guidance that our Librarians are already using and I think that to me using that expertise is continues to be I think the best the best plan es yeah okay thank you chairman um I have several things to say um first of all thank you guys I know there's been a lot of hours spent on uh Miss Polly I can only imagine how many hours you spent and what that class has been already on just this definition so you can imagine once we get going with this process how expensive that will be overall um to um the point of um 10 per year um uh Mr Evans said that we would be uh opting our parents could choose to opt out of any books on the nomination

114list that's put up so it would be an easy process for parents even if they've not read the books which many people haven't um would be to opt out of those books that are on the nomination list so that shouldn't really matter how many we get through per year um a question I have Mr Evans is are you planning um to separate these books um once they if any of them are decided to be a sexually explicit will they be in a separate part of the library will really be indoors will they be something other than just when they go check it out they can't or will it will it be somewhere that if someone wants to go read one of these books that they have to go through a sexually explicit book don't worry

115to get to all right um trustee Hinkle um so uh the way we've thought we would handle that is very similar way to how we handle opt outs right now so if uh if a parent um their child out of uh whatever books we go into Destiny and we put a note on that student's record uh the note exists on the student's record because that's the only way to investing um that that a librarian will know when a um uh when a student comes up to check out a book that there's that there's something to do with that student right that's how we know uh because that's that's that's the system they operate in um and so we would operate this the same way so if uh if a parent opted out of the secretary

116of the um the books defined as sexually explicit by the district um or uh and the the you know the waiting list of those that are that are waiting to be to be reviewed um when that when that student would come uh this you know the um the librarian would put in their their ID number and up would pop a note um that would say the student is opted out of um this actually explicit list um and by the way another comment on the list is that would be an evolving list that the parents would not have to monitor um in order to stay updated once they've opted out of the the list of sexually expliciting content that would be done for uh for whatever exists on that list should we add a book to

117it then the parent doesn't have to go and physically have you know add that we would keep track of it but by the students who are who are open access they would not have to do anything special to get to those things uh no thank you um and then what is the makeup of the people who who would be doing the reviews so that's a process we would still have to Define through our administrative regulation um yeah that's something that we would have to Define in our text review processes we've included um we've tried to include stakeholder input including parents including building administrators including teachers um and so um that would be something we would look into and try to understand and that's how that's to do that Mr chair Dr Hinkle I also want

118to add in students just because I I know that's something we've talked about um we as we know we've got the the board group that's working okay thank you um I just have a couple more um and then um uh I just want to say of the two definitions I I prefer the second one for the same reasons that uh has to be at trusty Ashby mentioned um and I think it's important um given some of the uh emails and letters we've received to kind of reiterate a few things number one the sexual explicit definition basically would be only necessary for secondary books we do not have any of these books in the elementary um or early secondary uh years so this is not something where your kindergartner is going to be able to read

119a sexually explicit book I think that's a little bit Overkill when people are saying I don't want my kindergartner reading psycho explicit we don't have any of those books available to them in those libraries so I think we're talking about secondary books we're talking about this this is not a kindergarten level those are already age appropriate by librarian choice and National book list choice and those types of things so that's the first thing to say the second is this is incredibly subjective thing especially explicit means something different to every single person in this room um you know I've had people writing to me saying that we have pornography and our book for vulgar and our books are are obscene and we don't have those books our books are chosen by frame Librarians who use nationally

120recognized lists we do not have one of those responding and I think um just you can see from this that both Mr Evans and Miss Polly have put in hours and hours and hours not just for themselves but many other people in the district and the admin in this teachers have put in many many hours trying to get this right the reason they're trying to get this right is so we don't end up on the list of lawsuits people who are suing the school district over lawsuits for limiting books um this is a First Amendment right issue this is a this is an issue of people um you know being able to choose what they read and yes parents should have choices but kids also have choices and the Supreme Court has said kids have

121choices as well so we have to keep that in mind and you know the reason for the careful process the reason for the hours of review the reason for the hours of trying to find the definition is to keep us out of the courtroom so we just have to keep all of those things in mind thank you first of all I too would like to say thank you to Mr Evans and to miss Paulie for all of the work that they did and an extra shout out to miss Paulie who sat in a meeting with Burke and I and chairman bowling for 75 minutes thank you that being said I like Alicia Smith Rusty Smith's add-on to definition one where she said more than a word or phrase now to be clear Mr Evans we

122are having every parent check a box or we are having 7th through 12th grade parents check a box as far as what they want for their child to read right right the interesting we've uh we've planned on having every parent be an active partner in this which means have every parent make a choice thank you thank you okay and then when parents submit a book that they think may contain our definition of sexually explicit language there will be a place where they can take pictures or put page numbers and paragraphs how will how will that work Rusty I think that's something that we're still working on trying to understand how to do best it's something that we'll probably have to work with Department of uh technology on to find the the cleanest most simple way

123for them to upload pictures or or text um and to um and to find that easily and get it to my office easily or or whichever office it happens to be going to first so that's something that we would uh we were welcoming feedback on and would love to to hear about as we build that if we are moving forward thank you okay okay trustee Humphrey okay seriously in case you're wondering do we have a little button in here we have to press turn our microphones on and you can't see it when you're sitting here so yeah when you're sure like that you can't see it um so I also just want to thank not just um you Amy Pauly and Mr Evans but everybody who's put forth effort into this initiative it's it's not

124just two people and we are very aware of the team effort that it takes we're really appreciative of the district for doing that um a question that I have and and correct me if I'm wrong but having to explain sexually explicit don't we have policy to where children are not me or students aren't allowed to access sexually explicit material on their iPads and if so I just like to ask let's see if the Applause right now this process is going to take a long life anyway with by the time we get the public input that's delaying it so please um so my question is just kind of wanting clarification on the differences of the definitions if we've already defined that for our iPads um the definitions that we're looking at now how do they differ

125and if we haven't defined it for our iPads uh well maybe why haven't we um I guess because if we're using that language and policy for our iPads and maybe we're not again correct me if I'm wrong um but it's my understanding that there's there's blockers on the iPads where our students aren't allowed to access certain material so if that's the case I would just like to know if there's a definition attached to that so that we can maybe compare what we're looking at here um but I would also agree with Alicia um the option one with the few changes um just so that we can be fully transparent in that there wouldn't be any room for a gray area or vagueness and we can just keep it cohesively um transparent but I mean again

126just thank you and we know this is time extensive and we're really appreciative that um the district is backing us on what the board is wanting to do so thanks Merry Christmas or somebody who can answer the question about it so uh I'm gonna invite Kyle um McKinney up to the podium well Kyle just usually like to stay in the back and make sure everything's working for yourself Mr chairman of Christina agree we don't have a definition we have categories on the web filter so there are several billion websites um we rely on our web filter vendor categorize websites so basically check the boxes to make sure they align with cipa and and then evaluate it Mr chairman it's very similar to the system that we use for any materials that we adopt those filters

127kind of let us know when there's an access issue or when there's something that we're trying to eliminate from that access point and part of it is constantly updating similar to what we do when we're ordering or purchasing texts and Library materials throughout the system so very similar awesome thank you for that clarification thank you Mr chair I just wanted to ask my fellow board members about my suggestion to clarify what pervasively vulgar means in this option one definition to add Miss Paulie's language from the other to add uh extended and gratuitous or vulgar just to be specific because I think I heard one of the trustees a couple of the trustees mentioned that this pervasively is a little bit confusing and I know Miss Paulie had suggested that too foreign I would like to

128say that I prefer option one also and I like full suggestions on how to change it up here so um that's what I feel about that one but I have a couple questions with Mr Evans um one of the things you talked about um or one thing I heard talked about was that in addition to having the um all the books listed there we're also going to have any new books that are purchased each year available at the beginning of the year and when they're purchased right throughout the year so that parents can go through and look at those two uh chairman I I assume you're talking about when we when we buy books for the library yes procurement um so that is something that we've discussed is and uh and plan to uh to

129proceed with is to publish on that media website um just a list of the new books that we're buying um so um yes that said and that would be a searchable list just like the other one yeah yeah okay um secondly I know in our discussions we were talking about the fact that once it's put up once it's been the challenge form is put in there it's been under that list that we're just going to keep those books there um regardless of what happens with the actual um investigation um but is there a possibility and I think this almost what one of the trustees was asking over here is it possible we could actually remove a book and I know we it's rare but I know when we first started this process we found a

130couple that were really misplaced books that we actually got rid of but and that's a rare thing but is it possible that we could find a book that we might um just take out of their collection uh so uh so it's possible um there are we have a process if a parent would like to challenge a book right that's right we're careful not to use the word challenge here because it's a different process um so challenging a book is something that's always a possibility and that's a step to where the community a parent is asking us to remove a book okay so but the challenge process is going to be different than the nomination process as I created yes because these are different purposes it seems but the nomination process will be to put it

131on the list it'll stay on the list but we're still going to investigate to look to see how serious it is that right yes okay and then the list will automatically update anytime to somebody puts in a new nomination okay I'm glad we got the depth I wasn't aware that we had the two different things okay so the challenge and the nomination are different so go ahead um just for clarification so yeah print it off I can try to talk loudly because I don't do that well but um one thing that to keep in mind and that challenge process goes beyond sexually explosive there may be a good that um has been inappropriately placed in in one of the libraries for a different reason so um not to exclude like you know if there's something

132that should occur if someone feels should not be in the library that's also available but we want to make sure that we're we're not combining the two because again this would this is an identification process that this book or material meets the definition of sexually explicit a sudden inborn policy um but there's also still that option and the challenge process so again this is an identification process on the one hand um and then a challenge process to actually remove access or to change grade levels um for a specific book within the library so so that would be more in one mind what would cost ten thousand dollars right that challenging uh Mr Cherry that is correct I think that in that case we have to go beyond um you know uh you know a couple

133words or phrases um and and really examine that book based on a Fuller challenge um and so that I think would be where you would have um a more extensive process rather than just this book meets those definitions if anybody else have any more comments thank you chairman Bolin I I just had one I've I've just maybe overthinking this and confusing myself sitting here but um with the four choices that you're suggesting we would offer parents um there's the parent limit Choice and then the identified list Choice um both of those involve a list of books that have previously been identified so the parent limit choice you said was a list of clean reads and so I'm assuming clean reads we've already decided don't have sexually explicit content in them um and then the identified

134list Choice um is one where we can opt out of certain books if if there's sexually explicit content for either of those lists to exist though there's going to have to be some research I mean are those only coming about after challenges I mean because then they're very short list for the first 10 years or so um Mr chair trustee Smith and Joe feel free to uh jump in here if you'd like um I think that the idea of this uh the the clean reads list is going to be something that um I it's it's um something that's easier to identify um we can we can find books our Librarians and and frankly there are um several Library systems that provides similar clean reads um there's actually a division of a publishing company that only

135um publishes books that would be considered um or or not have any sexual conduct so those books might be those books that we would identify as clean reads would probably go beyond even the the definition of sexually explicit and um that can be a list that it'll be a work in progress that we're identifying but we anticipate that we could have a pretty good list um toward the beginning of the school year so that parents know that that list is there the um actual um sexually explicit book list or or identification of books that would meet the definition again that will take a little bit more time because we'll have to look at those books but that list of challenges we're not going to I I don't think the intent is to limit the number

136of books that a parent can challenge as or not challenge I'm using my I've messed up I seek to identify so a parent can nominate um or parents can nominate several books um as we've seen in other kind or other districts throughout the country um once these policies go into place um there's you know 70 books that parents believe are sexually explicit that they bring forward and we will keep a list of all of the books that have been identified by parents and that's one of those options so you can opt your child out of the list of books that someone has identified as potentially being sexually explicit um and that you know list will grow as time moves on um you know so it could that list I don't know how many books will

137be will be um identified through that process um but I would you know the ones that we've we say yes this meets the definition that you know will start at zero and and will grow with time um The Challenge or the identified books or the list of books in that queue I think will grow for a time before I would anticipate that we've identified um all that could potentially be identified apart from new books that might be coming into the system and then that the clean reads and working with your librarian I think is is something that can it will be ongoing an ongoing process of our for our Librarians as they're going through books as they're going through the weeding process that they go through um as they're working with students and families to

138identify books and authors and and different things that that might fall under that list terrible um there are other reasons that parents can choose to opt out of books as well not just because they're sexually explicit or they believe they're sexually explicit you know there are some religious views there are some political views that uh parents have they don't want to have their kids read anything about gay people or anything like that so it's not just about the sexual explicit list when they make those opt-out choices because um Mr chair absolutely uh trustee Hinkle a parent has you know again this is is really trying to recognize every parent's rights and for whatever whatever book that if there's a list of books that you don't feel comfortable having your child have access to um you

139know for whatever reason that's that's no one's business um that you have the absolute ability to opt your child out of those books or to create your own list of books that you feel comfortable after you've done um research and looked into things and or gotten a list from from somewhere you know besides a librarian we can work with you the Librarians um are more than happy to work with parents to try to really tailor those lists to um specific families and and students yes I do I just have one more follow-up question um my understanding of this part of the agenda is that we were going to be reacting to the definitions that you've been working very hard on that's all you're actually seeking our input for on tonight is the definitions correct and

140not this process that we've been presented as well um Mr chair uh trustee Smith yeah so the the um definitions I think inform our work moving forward on what does this process look like so we can get a better handle on um what what the next steps are if the the board chooses to um adopt this into policy so yeah so at this point we'd ask that you weigh in on the options um though we always value your feedback again it would um you know we don't we don't want to go a direction that this board doesn't isn't looking to go so if there's something throughout the presentation that that either Mr Evans or I have said um you know we we would welcome your feedback on that as well but really we are we

141are looking at the definition so that we can move forward um with purpose policy changes thank you Miss Paulie um I asked this question when we met this last week but we were hoping as a as a board to be able to have this definition um worked through and and then send it to policy Committee in a in a different time frame than um what it is now so would you like to inform our community of what you see is maybe the potential time frame for all of this unfolding um sure Mr chair uh trustee Clawson you know we did take a deliberate step and tried to to slow um we wanted a an informed policy um that that takes into account the lessons that we're learning um through you know as Joe said there

142have been a lot of districts throughout the country that are going down these paths and we've been able to make some great connections and and learn from from their um missteps from their successes so that we can incorporate those into our own policy at this point we would take the definition um you know I think it's really important to at this point add some language clarifying the important role that a parent plays and the the role that they have in making the ultimate choice for their child um when it comes to access to the library we would include the definition of sexually explicit um and direct through administrative regulation that that process um be fleshed out we can have that that policy draft and relatively quickly um we do um per your policy need to

143then go take that and get feedback from certain stakeholder groups within the district and the parent the policy advisory committee um District leadership you know um Librarians are very affected by this this proposed policy and so that we've been working with them but we would want them to to also have input again before we bring this back to you um for a final policy before you put that out for 45j um unfortunately we all know that tomorrow's the last day of school um which is a great time for a lot of people um and it does mean that a lot of our staff and a lot of the work that we would get done over the summer might not get done as quickly what I would anticipate though is that we can still put that

144out to the policy advisory committee to our staff and ask for their feedback um over an extended period of time um I had originally thought that there was a meeting in early August but there I have been corrected there is not one uh scheduled until the 17th of August um so it'll be right before the first day of schools that might not be the right um so we can I I would anticipate that we would have um that policy ready for you um I'm gonna go ahead and pull up 21st 21st thank you uh so on the 21st so it's like it's two days before school starts would be um what that would look like we would um you know we could either do it then or that first meeting in September to give staff

145a little bit of time again to to come back in and before we put that up for 45 days and that 45 day would run you to about I mean if we looked also on September is Labor day so I mean we can have it for you mid fall um what we've talked about um and discussed is for the in that initial implementation it's going to look a little bit different until we get to the online registration because while we would ask parents to make those choices there's not a really good um method for doing that absence um you know sending out remind messages sending emails um asking parents to do it when you have it through online registration you have to click a button before you you can get through the whole process and

146so we've got a somewhat captive audience and so we can we can have the parents we can ensure that parents are making that decision that initial um you know through when do we do online registration of that beginning in like February at march-ish time frame that will probably band-aid and and try to encourage people to use that um as as Mr Evans has said the the opt outs that are in place currently um and any new opt-outs that that would come in we would of course honor if you want to work with your your librarian ahead of time the you know the that doesn't require any type of policy change if you want these clean uh you know clean reads um working with your librarian those are things that we could work with in anticipation

147um so full implementation even with adoption of the policy and either at either your August or September meeting um full implementation would still be around that February March time frame where we're we're actually having parents who are going to enroll their children in this District make that choice where we have that that kind of um direct um access to parents and families to to have them affirmatively make that choice okay questions thank you Miss quality for laying that out I think what the public should know though is and I think you just you said it but just to bottom line it is that well we will have this for every parent to choose during registration we don't have to wait until next year's registration we'll have something in place at least a list based on

148on what you what we Define and vote on that um folks can't and and I I've asked the superintendent who has graciously agreed to make sure that we reach out to every single parent at the beginning of the school year in that time frame to give them this choice to opt-in or opt out of these books so I appreciate that thank you chairman Dolan Mr Evans how soon can parents or stakeholders start sending in book titles and how will that look will there be a link on the main page on our page sure um chairman and trustee uh that's uh something that we we would like to have done as soon as possible so the parents have choice and parents can go ahead and move forward with that um I think that like I said

149the website is is uh near completion it needs a stamp of approval um the uh um what this form looks like right we had to form in in online registration last this last year that's going to need to be restructured um and um uh and then Department of trans department of technology has to has to make make sure that each one of those uh every time a parent clicks on that it gets to my office right um so that we can fulfill that and that takes a little time um so I I don't I won't speak for for that department um but I know that right up until the end of the school year they've had some other big projects that are um that are absolutely necessary to be done by the end of the

150school year after that they've said that they can work on this so I would hope if I had to put a number on it I would hope that um that would be available in a matter of weeks not months um of course I go off contract on Wednesday um so uh we're gonna have to hustle um but I do think that we can I can have a draft to them um this week before I I'm off contract and then then they can work towards that as well and I'll be in contact with them so thank you for that answer Mr chair trustee Edgerton I um I think for us the window of women experience preserver uh the window of time will be dependent on a lot all of our staff except for just a few

151of us are um done as of tomorrow we know that a plug very quickly for the Department of Technology they are hosting a huge huge event um this the end of this week so once we get past that we'll be able to sit down there's a huge plug for that event by the way it's going to be like amazing uh two days of innovation conference second time in a row we're doing it and I think at that point they'll be able to make a better decision around timelines and we'll just continue to update you about what that looks like thank you um I'll probably get Jared by having the room for saying this um but I just keeps coming to me and I'm going to throw it out um I believe when we first started

152talking about this and decided that we had at least a majority of the board that wanted to look into this and come up with a definition for a sexually explicit um that at that time we expressed we were interested in um more of an opt out procedure up I'm sorry opt in procedure um to take that onus off of parents to to take these steps to protect their children when we should be probably protecting their children while they're in our buildings anyway um the the the way that we implement this is very well thought out and I like some of the parent choices but um we are approaching this still as an opt-out procedure and I believe that as a board that the majority of us were really hoping that we would be able to

153look at some options that were more of an opt-in um and I I just don't see that in what we're talking about tonight thank you Mr chair trustee Smith I think what we're hoping through this process as we move forward is that it will meet the needs of all interested parents if you are a parent who um wants to opt your child to read whatever they want you have to explicitly push the button to be involved and say this is what I want for my own child if you're a parent who wants to limit that access or only have their child to do breathe clean they'll have a limit Choice which is clean reads if you want to limit that more then you act limit that access and then obviously you can limit the entire

154Media Center our goal is to meet the needs of all of our students in the community and all of the families in the community parents so that they have the opportunity to make the decision for what fits their family and what their needs are right since anybody else all right since our main purpose here was to look at the two definitions do you think you've got enough information from what you've heard from us to go forward with what you mean um yes thank you Mr chair and members of the board I appreciate your input okay so I think we're going to close this station right now and I did promise the board or a couple of the board that we would take a break at 7 30 if they needed it so I'm going to

155check with the board and you know we've got to be here probably until at least 10 o'clock tonight so does anybody need to take a break so we're going to take probably a 10 minute break right now and we'll come back and do the public input right after that I promise foreign hear from this is the public okay so when I saw earlier last week late last week that the list had uh filled up very quickly I wanted to make sure that we had a balanced approach on both sides so I immediately added a wait list we will use the waitlist if it looks like in the first 10 it's it's one mom said one way or the other then I'll go through enough of the waitlist to make sure that we have a balanced

156um hearing from both sides here so I'm going to keep track of a little scorecard up here to keep track of things and uh we'll start off first of all the rules make sure you state your personal last name the only exception that is if you're a student and under 18 years of age please don't do that um keep your comments less than three minutes whether you have time to voice their comments keep your comments General in nature not directly specific individual individuals and simple language and content for K-12 great students and make sure you're adding additional information and not just repeating what's been said already so our first person on the list is Maureen Wilcox thank you hey my name is Lorraine Wilcox I would like to first stop thank you for your everybody's

157hard work regarding this situation however I do feel as a parent myself who has been involved in this uh for many months now and seeing much hypocrisy through the system that it leaves more confusion I still feel that we are still continuing with the same opt out procedure with what we need is opt-in um I do have a a couple of concerns as a parent I would be concerned with some of this reading material and one of those concerns would be how can we promote young men within these books to take it like a man yet dress code young girls for wearing their shirts too short how can we stand up here and say that children have choices too when they still need to ask their teachers permission to leave the classroom to use the

158restroom you cannot serve our country until you are the age of 18 you cannot drink alcohol until you are the age of 21. I would like to remind everybody on the board that these are not your children this is not your decision to decide what our children are exposed to we are the ones that support them on a daily basis have cherished them and taken care of them nobody in this room nor on this board can tell me when my child took her first step why because I'm her mother my beliefs do not have to align with everybody else in the room they have to align with my home I ask you again to lead the choice with the parents and out of the school board's hands all right we have a Kathy skigliano hello

159my name is Kathy sigliano first I would like to thank the board and others for the work that they have done on the new policy that is being presented in regards to the book policy second I think that this district is trying to scare parents into not challenging a book or nominating a book by what we've been presented with tonight by showing these costs I am not scared and I hope the people in this room that are disgusted by the explicit content our district provides for our children won't be either I will repeat what the trustee said earlier explicit content is different to everyone in this room so for her to say we don't have them is actually just her opinion start nominating and challenging books people thank you thank you Patricia McCoy thank you

160everyone for allowing me to speak tonight my name is Patricia McCoy I've been a mother of four children in this District since 2007. this is my daughter and she's here to help me tonight because I do have a medical condition so please bear with me while I read through this I am here tonight to speak on behalf of myself and many other parents who not only disagree with our current opt-out policy but are extremely upset that our children are not being protected and instead are being centralized and indoctrinated let me be clear I am not a national group I am not from out of state to speak here I live here in this community I have raised my children here and bragged about how wonderful our state and our school district is to be met

161with this it's disgusting to stand here and have to even speak on this tonight yes let me remind you the Department of Justice States obscenity is not protected under First Amendment rights to free speech it strictly prohibits the distribution of obscene matter to minors and it is illegal to transfer it to any minor under the age of 16. we've recently heard from retired South High librarian at the local town hall on Tuesday by the families for Freedom which is their light and I am fine for them to have it I enjoyed watching your statements I did really because to hear her say the books we collect are not porn and don't have gratuitous sexual content books that address tough topics can be written in age-appropriate ways to answer teens questions let's look at some of

162those shall we can I be allowed to read these in front of you because on page on page 59 to 61 is a conversation from the main character of this book to his friend Earl and guess what his friend Earl asked asks him when he says he can't watch the show with his friend tonight are you gonna eat her ma'am oh is that not appropriate folks in the room correct these books were recommended to my daughter at 14 years of age at that school so do not tell me that it's appropriate to be in the school and in her hands when she was 14 the age that my youngest son is as a freshman there this year yes I fill out your opt-out forms every single year and it's a joke they don't get followed

163they don't get they don't get followed at all people are talking to my children when it specifically says not to you don't want us to stand here and read this to you because it's going to make you uncomfortable to hear it but our kids have access to it every time they walk in the library it's disgusting it's disrespectful and I hope hope that you are going to protect our children I'm going to leave you with this Matthew 18 6 but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin it would be better for him to have a great millstone around his neck and be drowned in the depth of the sea don't fail our children I've had three graduates thank you Darren Smith foreign Mr chairman he is online okay can

164you hear me hello can you guys hear me can you hear me hello okay well uh tell me when I can go so I don't lose any of my minutes start by telling us what your name is and we'll get the clock started okay howdy everybody my name is Darren Smith and my wife and I have five kids in the district or excuse me we've uh we've had five kids under 21 and uh all have been enrolled in the district and right now we have two uh still in the school and in the school system so you could say that we're stakeholders I'd like to give a quick shout out to Kathy and Aaron and the moms for Liberty ladies for Having the courage to take a stand and the lady who just spoke for

165our kids um in our community at the expense of being defamed by the crazies and the fundamentalists changing we want to change our city our state and our nation into something we don't recognize in the early 2000s this District was arguably the most con coveted District to work for in the entire Rocky Mountain region there were dozens of applications for every job opening test scores were high and the district was strong in the last 10 years this district has gone awry because everything lives and dies on leadership now people who advocate for parental rights are called extremists but let me uh let me tell you what regular people think is Extreme we think it is Extreme that this District can give x-rated material to our kids without parental consent and yet every bookstore in and

1667-Eleven in America follows the law and requires a person to be 18 years old to buy the same pornographic material we think it's extreme that it's been over a year and a half since a mom stood up and exposed the school district by reading up same pornographic material that's still available in our schools uh about two boys performing fellatio on one another we think it's extreme that's the superintendent profusely apologized for a parent who read porn straight from the school library at a school board meeting and even put out an apology on YouTube but didn't apologize for the material being used being available in the library the superintendent deleted that parent afterwards from the video from the district website but didn't remove the material we think it's extreme that if you were to add pictures

167to the content the material of the that the mother read November 20 2021 uh for somebody would probably go to jail for trafficking porn we think it's extreme but the left is a about it says this is about Freedom the Constitution and stopping censorship and yet they are not complaining about the Christian books that are clearly banned from the district there are millions of Christian books based on education that christian-based education books christian-based novels and none are available in in our libraries by the way I know that you can get the Bible because of his historical value uh the district doesn't need more money or staff to block them no extra non-hours or extra extra man hours and resources no they don't need that and that includes uh we're talking uh books that are more

168way more widespread than the books we're talking about here Max Lucado James Dobson they're they're super mainstream they're not in our they're not in our in our system but yet these these these books these other books are and uh and and kids that shouldn't be have access to them or we shouldn't be feeding those to our kids um it's ridiculous for anyone who's just wants to look at this intellectually honest to think that uh that it would cost 100 dollars to vet 10 books I mean come on we could we could hire an attorney and pay them 500 years sure I sure can thank you so just in closing this board has to do better this board can do better and it has to and and we've been hearing a lot of talk and it's

169time to do something thank you thank you and Carla Gregorio is online raise your hand if you're there we go okay this is Carla Gregorio I'm a stakeholder and um an elementary principal retired uh just a couple of points uh Librarians have been doing a good job of screening materials in the past 41 parents did the new form on the opt-out and there's approximately 2 800 moms and dads in the district and so that's a small percentage of people that are using this leave the opt out it's always been a good policy why mess with it parents and guardians of a few should not have been allowed to cost the district time and money on this issue I support keeping the opt out policy only all of this other money costing that was listed in

170the presentation is ridiculous just the opt out would work without having all these additional money problems as parents you always are invested in the interest of your kids I don't think a small group of parents need to waste money that should go to schools and kids money needs to be wasted on adult relationships not on spending time on nomination and all the steps that were mentioned tonight I'm against the ptosis salary for doing this I mean again it should be with language arts and math not on doing looking at books taking the time the research it's just not physically responsible and I challenge the board to be fiscally responsible the challenging options still have difficult meetings different meanings to different people so you're going to get the debate so I really worry about that part

171of the presentation and if you've got a sexually expressive option one and two it was mentioned that you could opt out for religious reasons Philosophy for politics so are we going to come up with option one and two for religious reasons politics I mean when does it stop we've always done good with the opt-out I'm not sure why parents think that they can enforce their will on other parents if you don't want your kid to read something opt out so are you in favor of the off doubt policy it's worked in the past and boy have we spent a lot of wasted money thank you Joshua Finch good evening Mr chair trustee superintendent thank you I want to speak in favor of Library policies being considered to set a standard for the definition of explicit

172sexual contacts in our school district as well as opt-in policies to create that content I've added to my list while listening as a parent for who the filters didn't work on the iPad and whose seven-year-old daughter was exposed to a sexually explicit content on an iPad in her math class I disagree that we should just trust the filters yeah to begin with we're talking about curating not Banning Banning is a term that brings up an emotional response of many Americans have brown shirted thugs burning books in a Public Square I think those using this firmware in many cases not malicious but rather have been misinformed by the talking points of a minority however in regards to minors we limit things all day their online consumption their food for sure their sugar in regards to libraries

173there's a finite amount of space in our libraries and so librarians make decisions daily about what books make the cut would we say our Librarians are Banning books they decide not to include it on the shelves this year we shouldn't as they're available right now in the marketplace and easily accessible for public consumption therefore not banned so if a librarian chooses for the available space and budget to include two treaties of government by John Locke or Homer's Odyssey over a book teaching minors on how to use online sex apps I would support that curation choice and say they are not Banning it's partly a quote from Christopher rufo to give him credit we limit our R-rated speech to classrooms by students and teachers and that's appropriate and legal and not Banning or a free speech

174infringement we limit R-rated movies and classrooms and that's appropriate and not Banning it is not suddenly inappropriate to limit sexually explicit or obscene content sense of minors in our school books and is mandated by federal law with this I'd like to reiterate the discussion on this policy has nothing to do with Banning but rather protecting children by creating age-appropriate content I've spent some time on that because right now as recently as June 1st PolitiFact and the American Library Association have issued an opinion of the definition of a ban as a removal of a book based on a person or group's objection they've attempted to change the definition of the word because they want it to fit a narrative the question is to ask why are we so desperately trying to provide sexual content to minors

175when we should be protecting them instead we should provide content that advances academic performance my narrative is protecting my five daughters I remember when I was first exposed to pornography at the age of seven in school just like my daughter a friend of mine's dad had it and my friend had stolen it from his truck and brought it in in many cases it wasn't pictures but sexual stories I struggled for years to deal with the wound that made in my life I've gotten past it but it hurt me my daughters deserve a daddy that has a healthy view of sexual intimacy that wasn't warped at an inappropriate age that is willing to fight and sacrifice for them with that an opt-in Library policy for sexually explicit content that's clearly defined would allow those parents that

176want to expose their children to that content to choose to do so and those parents who want to protect their children from it to not have to think that in the review of thousands of books that they missed one that had nine different sexually explicit scenes that they now have to be exposed that their kids were exposed to with no adult to help guide them through it I would add that in my conversations with teachers Librarians members of the lgbtq plus Community Democrats Republicans Christians Muslims Jews Norsemen and atheists I have not found any that thought aggressively providing sexually explicit content to minors was a good thing it should not be a divisive issue I think we can unify and protecting and preparing our children for this world thank you the next person is a

177minor so I'm just going to go by initials J B foreign ER so [Laughter] you look like a little past that classification and I'm not going to ask you to do your name so let's start um I'm going into my junior year this upcoming school year um and I'm here to support the opt out policy thought policy gives parents the ability to control what their kids read without infringing on the rights of other parents reading is not harmful I've been an Avid Reader my whole life and I I've read a lot of the books under scrutiny right now I'm nothing if not a better person for it um have you ever heard of the Supreme Court case uh Island Trees Union Free School District number 26 versus Pico uh in 1982. a lot was decided

178in that case but what I want to highlight was the Court's decisions that schools could not restrict access to a book based on individual passages pulled from that book you cannot say take a picture of page 26 and use that as a basis to remove that book from the schools yes you must look at a book as a whole in order to remove it no one no one asked what a lawsuit will cost for your triple My First Amendment rights wouldn't that be better wouldn't that money be better spent in proving literacy rates censorship is not the answer parents already have the power to dictate what their kids can get from their school library without taking the right to read freely from me or my family or any other families in the district thank you

179well it would be great if everybody would respect the person that's speaking and not try to make noises while they're speaking um Haley Rob ES thank you for the apology um she pretty much said everything that needs to be said including a court case um I just think everybody deserves to read freely it is the student's First Amendment right to choose within their parents permission which the opt-out form does allow there are plenty of lists online that you can find you can talk to your pastor you can talk to your family you can talk to other people that you know are Avid readers and ask them if it could be appropriate for their child because they know you specifically so I think there's already so many options out there that we don't need an opt-in

180I mean all it does is exclude multiple people um and like you're saying um there are so many different definitions of sexually explicit that you could include me holding my girlfriend's hand you could say that that's an appropriate your grooming children I've been called a groomer just for wearing rainbows I'm not sexually explicit for existing and I should be able to be represented in books gay children should be able to see themselves in books written about them for them without being questioned by every other adult in the district wondering are your parents grooming you is there something wrong with your family like they they deserve to read about themselves and that includes people of color the whole lgbtq Community including I just met somebody who's pretty awesome who's also in lgbtq community that supports books

181for everybody including their letter in our that people call us the alphabet Mafia but so I just think I don't know I'm just I'm flustered because it's so frustrating to still be having this fight in 2023 so um yeah we all deserve to be represented in books so thank you thank you Jordan Evans foreign hello my name is Jordan Evans and I would like to clarify I have no relation to Joe Evans who seems like a dedicated public servant I have never met him until prior to tonight so uh I attended Miami County School District number one kindergarten through my senior year my daughter's current student at Hobbs Elementary and I'm also the current chair of the Laramie County Democratic Party as an elected body this board is tasked with enacting policies that strive to

182treat every member of the district fairly for this to be possible any policy should be written in a way that places the board in an objective position it is impossible for any governing body to represent all of the subjective and competing ideals of every single stakeholder because of that fact maintaining the objectivity of that governing body is so important changing the definition of sexually explicit to identify a list of objectional material requires subjective determinations defining sexually explicit does not make weighing what does and doesn't meet that definition any less of a subjective exercise I would imagine many of these folks have a very different idea of what meets this proposed definition than I do and that's why it should be up to the parents to make those determinations implementing that portion of this plan is

183speaking with the voice of an elected body the voice of the people and saying some books are normal and some books are a separate class this subjective style of governance is not only disenfranchising it is wholly unnecessary I don't think it's controversial at all to acknowledge that school libraries require careful scrutiny and curation of the books they provide the precisely why the district has already hired highly qualified and competent professionals who are trained and empowered to evaluate every text going into the collection we do not need to add a huge workload to these folks when the way that they've already been executing their duties with the utmost care I believe the existing Library policy is a good one it empowers the professionals you've already hired it empowers parents with a say in what their own

184child can and cannot access and if the improvements I've seen here make that easier more power to it most importantly allows you as a board to remain objective while representing a broad group of stakeholders you might ask isn't it the role of the board to provide oversight of course it is oversight and scrutiny of the district is an admirable and vital goal but oversight is best done on a case-by-case basis not as a matter of policy when what you decide to codify becomes increasingly specific and subjective you aren't providing meaningful oversight instead you're micromanaging through policy this disenfranchises those you represent and undermines the work of the professionals that you fought so hard to hire and retain I commend you for keeping an opt-out stance I would urge you to keep this board in an

185objective position and not try to take on the burden of defining sexually explicit material away from Individual parents I support you in making those efforts easier to curate and communicate staff what I as a parent would like to restrict um but I don't think you need to take on the burden of that definition yourselves thank you for your time and for your consideration season scarf hi I'm Suzanne Scar and thank you um Dr Crespo trustee Berlin and other trustees um so I've been hearing a lot about how hard it is to create young adult reading lists that have no sex in them so I'm taking this a little different direction in about five minutes and using basic Google search skills I came up with unlimited lists most with summaries I searched young adult reading lists

186no sex oh my God I found lists on Amazon Goodreads Reddit book series Recaps delicious reads epic reads Shepherd publishing you get the gist the list went on and on and on and I was so pleased that when I clicked into individual lists I quickly recognized titles being part of lcsd1 Library Collections and they were lists for tween readers too this got me thinking how parents could use these lists for the current policy they could go to the destiny Library catalog on any District school page or the District page and it sounds like a New Media Center page is being created created and search titles from their Google list and create a reading list for their student or email or call a district librarian and ask her to help you create a reading list of

187books you approve of or give the Google list to your student to check Destiny because I know that all secondary students have been taught to use Destiny by their librarians so many Simple Solutions take a look for yourselves and ask your Librarians to help they're capable and helpful and they and they will even consider purchasing books for their collections requested by their students as long as the request adhere to District policy because that's what they do please board members don't change our library policies thank you um it's interesting on the first 10 we've added almost exactly equal representation of both sides but since we haven't taken a full half hour yet I'll take a couple more so we'll take first person on the waitlist which is Brooke Baldwin and thank you for not repeating everybody

188making it something new each time good evening my name is Brooke bolgrin I'm here to be extreme extremely blunt and extremely honest with you this is extremely ironic but the district already defines inappropriate material like trustee Humphrey was talking about earlier they would Define it for students and no one seems to have an issue with that look no further than the district's internet content filtering list I have a copy right here which prohibits students and employees from internet searching terms such as anal sex dildo erotica fisting 69 orgasm and these are all items and themes currently found throughout some books in our libraries can somebody please tell me what the difference is here I am extremely confused in fact the district makes parents and Guardians acknowledge and agree to or essentially opt in to the

189lcsd1 network and internet access agreement during registration which states the network in the district's internet connection may not be used to access download store and or distribute any material which is text graphic photo or audio which is defamatory abusive profane threatening or sexually explicit to the average person so in fact the district already has developed this content filtering list that it of things that are considered obscene profane and sexually explicit to the average person the term average person falls in line with the legal definition of obscene which uses the term Community standard to Define obscene material so the district already has their finger on the pulse of our community and has defined what is considered obscene to our community in terms of developing the content filtering list it's extremely unfortunate that this is such a

190contentious issue because providing parents with more options and protecting the innocence of children is not extreme It's Perfectly Normal since it seems to be taken a while to develop the proposed policy and definition I thought I would offer some advice for a quick and easy policy recommendation there should be zero sentences Pages or paragraphs available in public school libraries referencing sucking dick eating teen boys jacking off into Mountain Dew bottles drinking their watching dad's porno videos dry humping repeatedly using the f word referencing team boys penises as lunch speaking speaking of rape as a potential and casual and images of naked women with their legs spread open fingering themselves while saying I want to Honeymoon myself without parents first having to opt their children into that type of material this is not removing books it's

191making parents aware and making parents consent to providing their children with these materials this may seem extreme but the lcsd1 policy already States in chapter 9 Section 8 that the Board of Trustees assumes final responsibility for all books and instructional materials including library books and media materials made available to students so I thank you for taking the task for taking on the task of providing more information and more choices for parents in regards to library books this is not extreme this is common sense okay we'll take a couple more um please refrain from that um that kind of talk because we brought the essays on YouTube as a public service and YouTube has rules like do you like them rules or not we have to abide by those rules so if you want to continue

192to have YouTube again save your comments please I'm going to try to bring up a couple more people if we have time I just want to let you know why we have to limit that because we like to provide a public service on YouTube it's a great venue for people to watch who can't make it here parents who are at home with their little kids and so forth we'd like to be able to continue that so please all right next question is Lindsay Hamlin good evening my name is Lindsey Hanlon I attended School here in Cheyenne K-12 uh proud East High School graduate and I do understand all of the parents and board members who push to change the district's book policy they want to protect children which is the most natural urge in the

193world if I was hiking with my nieces my nephew I would throw myself in front of a bear for them which is not fun but I would do it because that is how much I care about the children in my life but the problem is that the opt-in lcsd policy change proposed by some parents and board members doesn't protect children and in fact it often does the opposite I spent two years as a prevention specialist that means that my main job was to protect children and to protect young adults from sexual violence and abusive relationships and the strongest tool that I had available to me was the very thing that these vocal parents wanted to deny to Children which is books books on how to say no to coercion books that identify body parts so

194that children have the necessary language to tell someone if something happens to them books that modeled good relationships and books that modeled bad relationships that I could use as entry points in discussion with teenagers books that let children see their own experiences reflected however horrible they might have been so that they knew that they were not alone the basic facts are these interest in romantic and or sexual relationships usually starts around 11 to 14. about one-third of 13 year olds in the US has had a romantic relationship the average age for first sexual experience is roughly 16 years old for both males and females over half of teens in the US have had sex by the time they're 18. and that isn't even getting to the one in nine girls and one in 53 boys

195under 18 who have experienced sexual abuse or assault making it more difficult for schools to acquire books and for students to access books does the opposite of protecting children to use the bear example it's the equivalent of telling some children that bears don't exist making other parents sign permission slips to allow their children to learn about bears ignoring all the advice of Park Rangers and then letting children loose in the woods ignorance is never the safer option thank you Todd Reynolds is he online I think Todd if you're online please raise your hand Mr chairman I do not see any hands raised okay we'll go to Mike stuckner Mike stuckner if you're online please raise your hand Mr chairman I see no hands raised okay Aaron waskowitz foreign first um I want to remind the

196board that you originally like Alicia said you originally asked for an opt-in you need to stick to that um some of what I was going to say has been said already I was encouraged to read sexually explicit experts excerpts tonight but honestly I really don't think we need it and clearly we've already experienced it tonight sadly I think this has just become a your side versus my side argument and we frankly lost sight of the actual issue children should never be exposed to sexual or violent content whether it's movies video games or Internet or books the other reason I'm not going to read an excerpt from one of the many age and appropriate books in our district is because contrary to popular belief obscenity is not protected under the first amendment obscenity is not protected

197speech this is not my opinion or my belief it's fact and it's stated so on the justice.gov website that's the United States Department of Justice so let's just put that argument to rest as a society we've been defining obscenity for a very long time this is not a New Concept yet here we are bringing politics into a very simple subject in complicating it you know who loses when adults argue it's the children another popular argument is that we need to trust professionals nowhere in society should we blindly trust any professional if I go to the doctor and they prescribe me a medicine I should should I not ask about the side effects will the doctor get offended if I ask how it could negatively affect me we are the ultimate authority over ourselves and our

198children not doctors not government schools sadly I'd like to stress um sadly or lastly I'd like to stress that I don't think Librarians and teachers are to blame for this book situation as a whole our society has mostly become lazy here we are with an internet in our back pocket all the information in the world and yet we are being told to trust the professionals and experts even the professionals and experts have to lean on other professionals and experts for their information so what if the expert above the expert is wrong I bet the Professionals in our district get their information from somewhere we need to back we need to get back to thinking for ourselves and using our own reasoning having said that the longer it takes to Define and categorize books for an

199opt-in policy there's absolutely will be someone to blame the problem is clear the solution is clear this is not about one group or another this is about facts first we always we have always protected our children from many things throughout history and second obscenities not protected speech these are facts not feelings now now is the time to stop dragging your feet and as a side note I don't have kids in the district right now I pulled them out in 2020 but one of the reasons I keep them from the district is because of this because I can only protect my kids at home I can't trust this District thank you okay Donald Creer I hope I pronounced your name correctly a ball of change all righty so I I had a speech and thank you

200guys for listening but I think we like she said and some other people we've already done the whole me versus you thing but I do want to point out something that somebody else mentioned earlier we have a group in here that claims to Champion the so-called freedom of speech First Amendment but less than or a week or so ago they had no problems barring me for my first amendment or a community meeting they have no problems with doxxing harassing or causing problems now I know I've had my problems with some of the school board members here I'm glad that I'm still here to actually talk to all of you it does get old on both sides I'm here to encourage the board no matter what happens somebody else just said it too it is about

201the kids I personally think that it's it just blows my mind that we cannot see that the descriptive words that are being used is even Up For Debate I guess you're telling on yourself if you do think it is okay because we've already had instances where people have stood up here and said these things are like if you were a kid you can't go and get a Playboy okay but uh family the Wyoming families for Freedom they want to Champion the fact that well we're here for your first amendment rights and we'll fight for you but it's only if it's on their terms and they're the same ones that want to pull people aside to throw up their past and use it against them to dogs to harass to bully and we're gonna trust these

202people to say that they want to make good decisions for kids I don't think so I trust the board I but I just it is baffling to me it number one we need to stop hating everybody I know personally I get attacked if some of it I bring upon myself and I which we all need to do say some personal being responsibility for my actions we don't get to know each other we blast each other we automatically fit in our titles we go underneath this and that it's white versus blackmail versus female Republican versus Democrat and I get it sometimes you're gonna have that but we've stolen and we've robbed all of each other from sitting down across the damn table to get to know each other as humans we all have feelings we all

203have things that we're passionate about we all have hurts I don't know what Dr Crespo goes through how would I be as a person if I'm over here saying I care the festival's feelings are invalid but I think that it's clear when it comes to kids hands off this crap is obscene it is nonsense there is no way that anybody can think that this is okay I vote to opt in and option number one thank you okay we'll take a couple more Mark Moody foreign good evening Mr chairman members of the committee uh Mark Moody just a regular citizen uh back in March congresswoman Hageman asked the lobbyist do you believe in censorship that prohibits teaching um from exposing uh first graders to the to Penthouse Magazine so she said should it should it be

204would it be bad to have a policy with that the lobbyists hesitate hesitate hesitates and we're the group that uh the last speaker spoke about and finally said yes it's bad so again just common sense this is not good for our children's um I would also say to that Congressman Hageman she actually says that you know look opt-in policy would be better okay she pretty much was saying that through the words there when she was given her testimony there uh well asked him the questions there in the Judiciary Committee and I was saying with this especially explicit materials common sense if a quacks like Duck acts like a duck it's a duck I think we all know sexually supposed to material is if Congressman Hagman Ken who's one of the most powerful congresswoman in the

205country and so can we thank you foreign please raise your hand Mr chairman I do not see that name or a hand raised yeah let me go back to a couple of things we had earlier and see if uh Todd Reynolds is he available at this point if you're online please raise your hands Mr chairman I do not see that name what about Mike Stockman what was it again Mike stogner no hand raise no name okay next name I have is Matt Freeman chairman Bolin Board of Trustees Matt Freeman I have grandchildren in the district and um I guess I just want to start by saying that I appreciate the the hard nature of this topic this is a hard topic that we are as a community going to have to deal with one way

206or another and I've been contemplating some of the different things I'd like to say and uh a few of the things I'd like to say is um that we we absolutely need to preserve the innocence of children that is a fundamental thing that as a society if we turn our backs on this we're going to lose everything we've ever accomplished not only as a community a state but as a nation and from a personal point of view um I was exposed to things uh between the ages of 8 and 14 that affected me for 25 years um I struggled with alcohol dependency drug abuse it things and there were sexual things as a child growing up that my parents should have protected me from but they didn't and it took 25 years and by the

207grace of God um I finally realized that I I had to stop the madness and deal with the abuse that had occurred to me as a child um there are books that uh that get into this and teach but typically it's not children doing that it's it's adults once they've been ruined have to read books and figure that out um I'm certainly not opposed to Banning books but the appropriateness of books is absolutely necessary um children do not need to be exposed to certain things we all intuitively know this and and that's kind of the underlying theme of this entire discussion um as a greater Community we have some particular challenges and we're going to have to face these and it's what direction do we ultimately want to go and where do we want to

208end up um I personally want to try to take back to some fundamental traditions and moralities and integrities that that we've had for hundreds of years and those started being eroded at the turn of the century after the Industrial Revolution this wasn't a new thing a lot of people try to blame it on the 60s but a lot of these things were already being put into our our culture prior to that and these are the things we have to be cautious of it and start to actually enunciate the items that we're talking about morality is important Integrity is important and we need to stand on those things and that's opt-in is is what I would also suggest so thank you all thank you George powers good evening members of the board and Dr Pressman um

209this weekend I wrote all of you and shared with you an email in which I expressed my thoughts which are basically this um the opt-in policy is a policy that recognizes the freedom of each individual parent to exercise control over what their child is exposed to it works apparently some 40 parents in the last year have exercised their right to opt out for their child but hundreds thousands of parents have not done so presumably because they are satisfied with what your school and what your school librarians are doing two parents asked to remove books only two and yet we're spending all of this time and all of this effort and you're spending all of these resources chasing down a new policy when frankly your old policy is working just fine now I will support the

210right of every individual parent to make decisions for their individual child but no individual parent has the right to make decisions for other people's children and this school board doesn't need to lend its support to those who would remove that freedom from parents who choose to allow their children to grow by reading please stay with your original policy the opt out policy is a working policy you don't need to spend all of this time you don't need to spend all of the staff's time but it's going to be needed to try to work up this new policy which may be ready sometime in the nearest in the near school year um no put your staff to work making things better for kids today put your staff to work working on reading working on skills preparing

211children for the future that they're going to have to leave when they leave the school district and go out into the world that's what I would ask you to do stay with the addition this policy because it works thank you thank you Arnold Strayer Arnold Strayer I don't know if you're online please raise your hand chairman there are no hands raised in that name okay the last one on the list is Robin Goodspeed my name is Robin Goodspeed and uh I am here because I am a Christian ex-queer and uh I spent 30 years in the queer world and I'm here today because I was recruited into the queer World in an atheist Public School very similar to this one in the 1960s and I was recruited without benefit of pornography queer pornography but I

212spent 30 years dealing with the evil of the queer world and everything that goes with it and what goes with it is addiction depression suicide disease violence shame guilt a lot of really really bad stuff but the other thing I'd like to say is I am one of thousands and thousands and thousands of EX queers ex lesbians ex-homosexuals ex-transgenders who have left those chosen lives those lives that we chose through the grace of God and the power of Jesus Christ and I am here today to encourage this board to protect the innocence of children do not subject them to this queer pornography it is absolutely evil and it will affect them as you've heard many people say it will affect them and there are a lot of people who they may it's easy to get

213into the queer world it's not so easy to get out and they're an awful lot of really bad things that happen in that world and all these young people here who are very young don't have the benefit of 30 years of what will happen to them if they continue on this prodigal path so I am here to encourage this board to do the opt-in policy not what you've been currently doing the opt out and option one please protect our children do not let them be recruited into sexualized and recruited into not just the queer world of course but into being sexual I'm just going to use the word slaves sexual slaves that's what I was I was recruited and Cheyenne does not need that for their children thank you very much thank you that's gonna

214that's gonna end this portion of our public input we will have another part um towards the end of the meeting uh next we're going to move on to board Communications and reports our last day of school I'm sure I'll maybe not parents but all the kids are happy we'll be on June 6th which is tomorrow June 19th there'll be no board meeting um that's going to be a Federal holiday July 17th as our next meeting on 5 p.m we'll have the Shang community recreation district meeting where they look at their upcoming budget for the coming year and July 17th 6 p.m is regular board to me and a budget hearing so we hope to see all of you at some of those meetings now we have individual board Communications and reports anybody still awake enough

215to your report here start with trustee Smith she's ready thank you chairman Bolin as yeah since been an exciting last month for our district um I I think that I would speak for all of us although they might want to share their own thoughts on it too but um you know we get invited to participate in and be a part of things some really exciting things celebrating achievements at the end of the school year so um we're just grateful to the schools the administrators the teachers program directors folks who asked us to come out and celebrate the kids in our District's achievements at the end of the year um I guess the biggest culminating event was the four graduation ceremonies from the high schools that we were privileged to be a part of and help

216hand out diplomas and um I think that being a board member is not always a lot of fun um but graduation is such an incredible time to celebrate so um I'm just felt very honored to be a part of that and um enjoyed that but the other thing I have to report on that is exciting but not nearly as exciting as into the Year celebrations um several of us sit on the Cheyenne community recreation District board and we had a meeting on Wednesday May 19th was not a I mean our agenda was fairly short and our meeting was fairly short but we did during that time approve paying invoices for various projects that the recreation District board had previously approved those invoices that we paid out told about 169 thousand dollars I don't have the

217specifics for what those were but all of those are projects that are Recreation related projects that benefit our our school and our community and things that are available for say for the most part for public use during that meeting we had an interesting um discussion about possible future plans for construction of three girls or three girls softball fields for use by softball teams in the district we're currently under contract with the city of Cheyenne to use the Shan Junior League baseball complex and that contract expires in September of 2026. so during our meeting we did approve the use of 1.5 million in allocated available funds that the retinal board has access to so we approved the use of that and then we approved the reallocation of some funds that had previously been allocated for other

218projects But ultimately were unexpended so we approved the use of that money to start exploring what the possibility of those softball fields would look like and and during that project but potentially on land that the district already owns so it would be a very exciting thing I think for our district down the road but some work to do and some exploration to do but that was I think the highlight of that meeting thank you and I know it is a little bit inconvenient for our softball players and coaches that travel all the way over there from their schools to where the current place is but it's also a great partnership with the city and I did notice over the last couple of weeks they're putting lights up in that facility so that'll actually make that

219a little bit more accessible for our game since they were after school so and don't have as much daylight that time of year trustee Classen do you have anything no Mr Steveston I would just say as my first Thursday and Friday graduations it was amazing to see all of those students with their smiling faces and their their fan base cheering them on it was just a really great experience one that I want to forget I guess I'll take you back just kind of surreal to get the handout diplomas when 10 years ago I was receiving mine from this District so it was really sweet to get to be a part of that for our students um and the I'm really so I'm a huge fan of um all things Recreation and so being on that

220board I'm really excited to see what the possibilities are for the district the next four years that I'm that I'm up here so just excited okay I've got a few things to report on I'm on the board representative on the transportation committee and it's our responsibility there to go through and and look at all the requests from HOAs which is homeowners associations that request bus stops within there we have one new one this year um which is on Yellowstone Road North of Highway 85. and there's really good road conditions in there they've done a good job putting those in there and they um they requesting three stops so we're recommending bringing that one on um as we have a little update on the art bus situation as we move the ARP students over to the

221East Ridge facility there'll be three existing art routes will run regular route so they'll just pick up like they would normally would except instead of taking them dark they'll take them directly to Eastridge um they're going to do four additional shuttle buses with one bus at the school at all times so as the kids walk to school or parents drop them off and I got a chance thing the other day I got a chance to see how long that line is when they try to get out of there if they drop them off and picked them up that's hopefully something we can fix when we do the new ARP um so those kids will go in there they'll be a bus waiting for them they'll be taken right over there when the new bus arrives

222so they'll never be left there without a bus so they can always get on the bus um it would also be a staff member with them there both before and after school to make sure that they'll get back and um one of the things the policies we have with our district is drivers will always pick up a student that's at a bus stop in the morning they won't always necessarily bring them home because once they drop them off to school the school will then check into why they were there and not hadn't been on an improved list and hopefully make the accommodation for him to get be able to get to go home because of course we have a system that um a lots of buses based on how many kids are supposed to be

223riding them and we can't overcrow those buses so we don't want to leave anybody at a bus stop but we want to always make sure that we have room for everybody that needs to ride the bus so um and it probably doesn't like anybody in here but um make sure if you want your child to ride the bus that you actually um check with the bus garage and get them a schedule to get on there um I was got TSC the AG farm and I was at the Egg Farm back when it was new probably in the in the 80s um there used to be a Trader out there that one of our staff members would live in and what the staffers and they have done you want our McCormick staff and so we have

224a little party out there at one point and but then over the years it kind of got a little bit shabby looking so in the last year our staff has been working diligently to refurbish that and it looks absolutely fabulous now and a couple of us board members we're out there to actually see that it looks like and it's going to be a great place now for our eggs as we move back down into the junior high schools and we'll have a great new facility and I think there's still some more work to be done out there and a lot of the work is actually being done by the students themselves which is great they can learn some skills that they'll probably need on a ranch or something in the future um I was invited

225to the central ROTC fallen soldier Memorial dedication and for those of you've been in Central High School if you go in the front doors not going to go in the front doors and go immediately to the right there which you can't do in schools that you know anybody you'd have to go to the office to get there but right there they've dedicated a wall there and they have all the information for any fallen soldier that has attended either Cheyenne high school or Central High School and died in war and so it's a great Memorial we actually had four families though represented there from some of the more recent ones and one of the interesting side note is I was walking around the building with one of those families afterwards because they had actually their daughter

226at attended Central and before it was remodeled so they wanted to see what it looked like we went down to we were walking through the um the gym area and we were looking at the records up there because they said you've been arrested and we noticed that uh the only two years that Central One a wrestling statement since you have a gym where the two years that this young man who passed away uh serving our country was on that team so then we went to look for the trophies and we found two the two trophies his name was not one of them because he was a state champion that year but he had participated in both those teams and so later on at a an event later on that day which was the IB graduation

227which is always a wonderful event for board members to go to I was talking to Sam marriage and he was telling me that those two trophies had actually disappeared Somewhere over the years they're having a celebration a few years ago and they needed to see the trophies the East High School staff made duplicates of those trophies they had pictures they made duplicates though so we now have those trophies back and reproduced so they came for that celebration I thought that was a great relationship between two what used to be really Bridal schools come together for a very good purpose um the East High School IB graduation just said is a great event um I already talked about the training thing we went through this week and um on Friday we had a dedication is I'm

228sure all of you were aware our high school is going to be emptied students won't be going there anymore they'll be over East Ridge and so they had kind of going away party and they were I think everybody was overwhelmed with a number of people with their former staff former principals um we're coming through their former students and on the Columbus family um gave this little description of how the name got on there it says art is named after who owned land on the south side of Cheyenne Duncan came to the U.S from Germany was on route to the West Coast on train in 1868 or 1869 when the train got stuck in snow between China can you imagine that Jacob and the other Hound men on the train dug it out the train was

229backed into Cheyenne and jokum never laughed he had a hardware store which I'm sure if you've been enjoying very long our partner which was kind of down on the west side of Cheyenne um arpan Hammond hardware company and purchase land which is part of the family ranch and we'll end up on which our school was built drunken and Anna ARP had five children including Anna Christine R blemis drunken and Anna ARP are the great grandparents of Christine lemus Senator Cynthia lemus and Doran and Eric Thomas it also goes on to say at the bottom here that works from arp elementary school will be available on a first come first first papers first come first serve basis when the new building opens so I thought that was interesting anything else anybody has yes all right so

230we will go on to reports from superintendent staff which already have one so Mr chairman uh trustees a few uh highlights so one just what an amazing graduation we had this year a really incredible um grateful for everyone's attendance the students certainly worked really hard over the last four years to make sure that they were able to graduate we have uh we're very excited to announce that our PK program was incredibly successful we only had four students out of 149 who did not meet PK success status and we are wait listed for next year already and we're trying to build some capacity so that we can provide that um that opportunity for our kids in our community we also um have been working hard as you know to recruit and retain uh many of our

231staff in the area of special education there are not there's not a pipeline that exists uh Statewide as a matter of fact I was at the joy education committee a few weeks back testifying uh regarding our teaching status pipeline issue we do not have enough teachers Statewide so it's certainly not just a lcsd one again the ARP celebration was incredible um it was really nice to see all of those families come and staff from many years ago and introduce themselves uh we um want to reiterate again that we're continuing to work uh on expanding and um realigning the elementary Athletics program our student our staff have been working really hard with our Community Partners to make sure that our students are able to have Elementary programming again in the future as I mentioned I had

232the opportunity to testify at jec and um that was a really incredible opportunity there were a number of superintendents there I think many people were um were just shocked at the number of staff that we have compared to other districts across the state um and uh that for us to fill positions typically we have 429 positions open a year and that probably could fill the entire State and I don't know that people really know that so that was incredibly helpful and listening to my colleagues across the state as well again I shared we have an innovation program that starts tomorrow Thursday it'll be Thursday and Friday it's the second year for this professional development opportunity it certainly has been noticed across the state and the region for just really bringing some incredible professional learning to

233our staff and to our community we anticipate having almost 13 sessions each time there's a session change it really takes a lot of work from our instructional department and um explicitly our department of uh of technology and I just want to say a huge shout out to them uh I also want to share that part of our work on communication um I want to have a huge shout out to our Communications Department just incredible incredible work if you remember we for a long time had a newspaper option which was really wonderful and hard working but we have moved to a full color process our team has done an incredible job of um having supporters help us pay for this so that our entire Community can see exactly all of the amazing things that we're doing

234and then finally I would just like to shout out to all of our schools that have been working really hard to bring Unified sports it was an incredible opportunity to see our students be celebrated in their unified programming and that will continue to grow that's all I have chair and that new magazine will be in all the local newspaper and then I assume if you want to request a copy you can request a copy yep it'll be mailed out on Friday oh it's mail.com to our postal customer okay and if you want a copy we certainly will be providing them to anyone who's interested and I forgot to mention one thing we're on Wednesday of this week it's the uh what's the name of the group that exploring learning oh yep it's our final do

235you want to do it right it's our final session of navigating Laramie one so many of you uh may be familiar with our second year program navigating Laramie one where a community has the opportunity to come in and learn about the districts and the specific departments in each area the culminating event is for our trustees Mr chairman Bowen will be providing a q a and um some information for those individuals who have spent about six months with us um once a month on Thursdays learning about the district in addition I'll do a plug for discovering Laramie one which is the community tours that Cher is talking about around the AG Farm um was one of them and then going to the media center at East High School and those will continue through next year as

236well and the rest of the board is invited to that thing that's noon on Wednesday so any of you want it because you may want to answer some questions at that time also exclusively my thing okay we're now going to move on to the consented good America right oh okay does any board member wish to remove a motion um remove a motion from the consent agenda okay now Mr chairman I move to approve all motions listed as consent agenda second okay it's been motion second to approval um except gen items any further discussions all those papers say aye aye Adam passes we're going to go down to new business Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission to purchase Eureka squared pilot curriculum and manipulative materials teacher resources and online access from great minds publishing for

237k through eight math courses for a price not to exceed one hundred ten thousand dollars second hey we have a motion in a second to approve the purchases of math materials other questions I do have some questions we'll see if we can find somebody to answer okay so my favorite question is why are we not continuing with GO Math chair and bull and I would ask um Amy Hassell and Val care Schneider to come up and share their responses he waited so long now to get a chance to speak so I want to share they've done a really incredible job of um bringing this to the table so thank you very much for your time and for waiting um and I look forward to what you're going to say um Mr chairman um trust me

238Edgerton so um the question is what are our reasons for looking at new Mac materials um in the next school year will be our seventh year of GO Math that is our last contract here with that company in fact they are no longer producing and Publishing go math and so we are looking at um adopting new curriculum resources we also had an audit done a math product done in the fall or spring of 2022 and that diagnostic that list is performed by this company observed over 90 classrooms they gathered qualitative and quantitative data from teachers from students they looked at our instruction and they looked at our curriculum materials and from that audit they came away with a few recommendations one of those was that our curriculum resources we are currently using are not rigorous

239enough to meet the Wyoming state standards and so with those two pieces in mind we began researching and looking at Mima curriculum thank you I just have a couple more questions can you tell me when was this put out for 45 day review so that was on this has been a very um comprehensive process um the adoption process for this um in the 45-day review was September 1st 2022 uh 22 through October 15th of 2022 so the 45 days took place earlier in the fall okay thank you for that and then on that how many people actually left a comment so we had uh 14 responses on our um for our QR code um and then we had one in um at the library in person right out the response and give us some feedback

240and then we also hosted two open houses in the fall where we had over 35 teachers and administrators stopped by um and give us feedback on those programs as well thank you for that I just have a couple more questions thank you so the math curriculum because I've looked at the workbooks and then the teachers books that go with them how is this transferable to the iPad is it compatible and if so for all grades for some grades I'm going to let Ms Casa speak to that just because junior high is currently using the older edition of Eureka it's okay very familiar with how Eureka is so trustee Bowen and and sorry chairman Bolin and trustee Edgerton um our Eureka squared math is fully compatible with our iPads the digital slides provided for the lessons

241are downloadable as well as every lesson worksheet in the student workbook all of the exit tickets which means our students have our teachers have two choices they can't either assign them through the great minds platform or they can download them and put them for example in a OneNote notebook if they choose to use their iPads that way thank you okay and then you said that this was a pilot program is that correct and which schools are participating in that pilot program we have a list for you so they can Alta Vista Fairview love heart bags affler Bob Meadowlark Owens Sunrise Carrie Prairie Wind pops Rossman Henderson Pioneer Park Deming Jessup settle Ridge dildine Cole McCormick Buffalo Ridge and Hebert and I would just note that if the school's participating it doesn't necessarily mean every single

242teacher is participating we really just wanted a nice representation across the district with different groups of kids and teachers we do have a couple schools that we're full on and they really want to implement it across the board but most of our schools its pockets of either grade levels or just pockets of teachers it just kind of depends on the school thank you for that answer great any other questions or comments I had all those in favor say aye aye aye those opposed no Ocean Texas Mr chairman I moved to approve the denial of the governmental plane filed by Amber Henderson and the amount of 3578.60 second you have motion and a second to deny a governmental claim I'll introduce session yes I was just um hoping probably less for the purposes of the sport

243but because it seems a little cruel to just deny claims but I know there's a reason behind it um Miss Polly would you explain that for us um yes Mr chair uh trustee Smith that's a good question um it's a routine matter for the board to deny the claim um it's it's part of the process once we do you as the board denied the claim then the insurance company will start working to determine whether or not that's a claim that they will pay thank you any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye those opposed no motion passes Mr chairman I moved to approve a contract with Simpson electric company or or Corporation for interior lighting Replacements at the transportation complex for a project total not to exceed three hundred seventy thousand dollars plus

244a ten percent contingency second okay motion a second to approve a contact with Sims electric for lighting up the transportation complex any further discussion or questions almost in favor say aye aye aye those opposed Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission to purchase imagine learning for all secondary schools at a price not to exceed 175 thousand dollars second yeah we have a motion and second to improve purchasing imagine learning for all or secondary schools and I believe this is to do credit recovery for the most part right something I helped with for about 10 years so kind of close to my heart all those any further attention all those in favor say yes all right those opposed no motion passes Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission to contract for staff development services with the

245University of Wyoming for an amount not to exceed 77 000 second motion a second to approve contract University for doing staff development services any questions or comments those opposed no question passes Mr chairman I moved to ratify the negotiated agreement for the 2023-2024 contract year for the school administrators coordinators program administrators supervisors and kitchen managers and school psychologist units second hey we have a motion a second to approve the um negotiated agreements for that list of people any questions or yes I have a question so when I was looking through the contracts I didn't see anything that pertained to Virtual days and so could could you tell me when we have a virtual day who gets paid and who doesn't get paid or who has to show up for work or who doesn't I looked

246in our policy also on Virtual days and I didn't see anything there and I'm just a little fuzzy thank you Mr chair um trustee Edgerton uh there are a variety of employees in the district so we can provide I mean with 2400 employees we certainly can provide that information to you um most of it is related to essential um people that uh have access to Virtual if they're helping students and then what does that look like to keep our buildings going HR can provide um what that looks like in terms of the notifications we've sent out internally um for support around employees that come in for virtual and those that don't clear and walkways things like that right some of the negotiated agreements actually have some wording in there about who has to apply who

247doesn't and how they get paid and so forth so that's more on the hourly important thing with the hourly everybody on this list would be um I'm non-hour they're just salaried employees so I'm sure the language is probably not as important there thank you any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye those opposed no questions Mr chairman I moved to ratify the negotiated agreement for the 2023-2024 contract year for the technical and support services para Educators custodial Services transportation services and nutrition services units second okay we have motion second to improve that list of negotiating agreements go ahead thank you chairman I just have that same question with the hourly because it's just not listed on I certainly can have HR reach out to you trustee you're Edgerton to provide all that

248information so that you can see it okay right any other questions or comments all those in favor say aye aye those of us know question tests Mr chairman I move to ratify the negotiated agreement for the 2023-2024 contract year for the Cheyenne teachers Education Association unit second oh you have lotion second to approve the there's the CTA unit any comments or questions there all right all those in favor stay out all right let's suppose no motion yes Mr chairman I move to approve the appointment of Megan Seeley Merritts is that today okay in the position of assistant school principal at Meadowlark Elementary and to place her in the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2023-2024 school year second okay we have motion to approve Megan CD Ritz from the first in

249the position of his principal at Meadowlark Elementary any comments or questions all those in favor say aye aye I suppose no motion passes this person here they'll stand up what are we doing on eating principles here do we have them all then um right now as of today okay never know nope you never know Mr chairman I moved to approve the appointment of Valerie kirschner in the position of school principal at Saddle Ridge Elementary School and to place her on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2023-2024 school year my second yeah we're in motion secondary Valerie Kershner position of school principals having Elementary School any questions or comments and all those in favor say aye aye I suppose no Excellency and it is it's here she is and our future

250meeting dates are Monday July 17 2023 at 6 pm and the business district is now done we will not have our second one for Mr chair um I would just like to take a moment if I may to say thank you very much to all the staff tomorrow is the last day I know that many of you are here and it's tiring and exhausting and I just appreciate all your commitment this year and I'm and the board does as well for your amazing work um and I hope that those of you that get to enjoy summer do so um and just thank you for your commitment thank you sir well it's always interesting when I hear somebody saying the school's out that means you don't have any board meetings in some rightness like oh no

251no the board business continues going on during your circle yeah all right so now we're into our second time for unopened visitors so our first person on the list is Ann Lucas is she all right no no I don't think so Tamara Trujillo she is fitting and fitting in everybody um thank you for this opportunity to speak to you guys today I was going to come up and speak as a mother and a grandmother of little girls in the school system and the importance of protecting their space you know a safe space and an athletic Lane for biological females however I feel I must speak as a representative an elected person for house district 44. you see many of us who are here today were elected in November we ran and won on the topics

252some and some of those topics sorry my eyes I got to take these up some of those topics were protecting the education of our children with complete 100 transparency to get our children new schools to improve their learning environment to help our teachers teach and support teachers at all levels seems we're slacking in that a little bit as our reports and test scores are telling us so I want to express to the trustees tonight that even though you don't always see and hear many voices at these meetings in support of your efforts to create transparent and safe environments for all students you have it you have the support you are wholeheartedly supported to make the change in the learning environment of our children local control put you here and to ensure that all children are

253protected from outside agendas local control also put me here today to support you so please protect our children protect their childhood and don't let outside influences outside agendas take control of what we need to do for our children We the People the voters the community want Improvement change but most of all transparency in all aspects of Public public education everyone who pays taxes is a stakeholder they want their tax money spent on teaching and not indoctrination thank you thank you representative Trio um Haley Korean hope I pronounced your name right a lot of practice on that hello my name is Kaylee ream I have one child that will be entering kindergarten in the fall I wanted to discuss my concerns on the current opt-out book policy I know we were told earlier today that we

254don't need to be concerned about what our elementary students are reading but that's just not true so I have been very lucky this year and have had great teachers that have not pushed any unwanted ideas onto my child but I may not always be so lucky and that's why I think we need to ensure we have appropriate policy to ensure materials in libraries and in classrooms is appropriate while many here are concerned about about the very sexually explicit material I wanted to speak on books that are likely to be used in classrooms and in libraries of our younger children I recently saw a picture of a kindergarten classroom with a book display that included the night before Pride I would not want a teacher to explain to my innocent-minded child what Pride means in today's

255world this is my job and it should be done when I deem appropriate I have also seen books of a similar nature available in my child's library and for purchase at the book fair my children are too young to understand mature Concepts like that and it is confusing to them because it differs from what they learn at home there needs to be policy on books that contain information to normalize controversial topics should be taught outside of school as it does not help the academic performance of my child I make sure my children are taught what I think is appropriate but it is done outside of school and I would urge all parents to do the same schools should not be teaching either side many here are arguing for an opt-in policy and I would agree

256that is better than what we have now but it still does not cut it as Educators parents and adults it's really Our obligation to Shield children from explicit material found in many of the books today I would argue that an opt-in policy is really not good enough because explicit material should not be available to children at all especially through the district there needs to be a policy about what is allowed on tablets and in the classroom as well as our libraries including Book Fairs I should not have to opt out of materials inappropriate for school when they should not be available to any child the please do not confuse book Banning with preventing children from accessing explicit material thank you okay thank you I think there was another gentleman who want to speak who asked

257me earlier anybody else who wants to speak yes thank you all chairman bowling Board of Trustees Matt Freeman um different topic and this is just something that occurred uh and it seems to be related to middle school so um that seventh and eighth grade period And I know um that period for me was a struggle I um certainly was uh stretching to see how much I could get away with and whatnot and so I I realized that it's probably just isolated there but the topic is bullying and so um my youngest grandchild started this school year at Kerry he did not finish the school year at Kerry he was pulled out he's doing online curriculum because of bullying and um granted I will freely admit that in some cases he probably brought some of it

258on himself but it was of some concerning degrees I mean on a regular basis he was being being smacked around and singled out in the hallways and whatnot and it just became too much for his mother and us his grandparents to tolerate and so we made changes um it was addressed through the school um I did confirm with my granddaughter as well she's now in high school but she went to Kerry and she said yes it was very common she navigated her way through it she's uh she's pretty smart as the case may be so she figured out how to not get involved in it but she said that no it certainly was occurring and so just wanted to bring it to your guys attention um I realized that uh bullying there's policies on it

259but from a parent's point of view I didn't see in Middle School those policies being followed through by the teachers and the administrators at the middle school so that's all just wanted to give you guys some information thank you everybody else anybody online Mr chairman there is a hand raised okay please give us your first and last name mayor NAB I'm out here in a pasture out in the middle of Nebraska right now um just because the timing but anyways um I am just listening through all the testimonies over tonight has got me thinking about with what I've been writing in my autobiography and looking at my past um the what is in those books kids do not need to be subject they do not need to be reading that I had a friend in

260sixth grade who was a bad influence on me and introduced me to pornography and I have and I can see how that has Made issues in my life since then and it was had nothing to do with my parents that my parents did an amazing job of raising me this was I did it on myself but it has affected me negatively throughout my life and I am all shut off from that now but it's still made bad situations in my past and here recently with myself having a decent sized large platform on social media I've had issues with my girlfriend who you know we only came together because of God um having issues with people that follow me and it's just you know things coming back from my past affecting that and also want to

261mention somebody had brought up with having issues with finding teachers for the district my girlfriend she was very qualified candidate for a position for a certain subject just because her um piece of her diploma says something else on it she did not get the job but that was something that she was very passionate about and very does very well with but because of the narrow-mindedness of the new principle at South High that caused the reason I started not hiring a teacher so there's a lot more reasons as to why there's the district is having problems finding people for teachers thank you thank you anybody else I'll make this really quick Susan Graham um in looking through the different policies that are being suggested for overcoming obstacles with books and libraries I was a person who

262didn't eat lunch I went to the library and read books and I never checked out so I would if my parents had opted out I would have gotten by so the opt in absolutely but even more profoundly why are taxpayers dollars being used to buy books so objectionable thank you for all of your time anybody else we don't normally answer people in the comments but I do want to make comment that we are looking into the procurement process and making sure that the um whatever we come up with or a definition if we come with the definition for sexually explicit that that will be used in our procurement process as well then we also will have a list of any new books that are purchased by the district that'll be on the website so that

263you can search it so hopefully fabulous all right not hearing anything else we'll um I'll take a motion all right 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 by second okay motion a second any discussion all those neighbors AI let's suppose no motion passing we'll be in recess and we'll come