001okay we're going to start this uh work session of Laramie County schools number one Board of Trustees and unfortunately for those who are in the back of the room we're going to go to an executive session for some legal advice first so we're going to stop this temporarily and then we'll come back shortly and you can come back in for the rest of it and we're going to go till 6 30 today so still have plenty of discussion okay we're starting the work session now the Public Works session now thank you uh good evening um Mr Sheridan and trustees we are here this evening to continue to work session Congress and event um we were we were asked to share just a little bit of updated information and I have uh Joe Evans and Katie
002Geisler both here to uh just go over some high level you can open up some high level um and I'll get up so you can go to the school information that we were um ask about so with that I'll click it's okay thank you oh and thank you for the opportunity speaker today uh my name is Kate dykstel and I am the um Elementary language arts coordinator here with my Joe Evans um the secondary Ela coordinator um I'd like to just share with you some ongoing projects that we have right now um at both the elementary and secondary level that I think are pertinent to the conversation and are helpful for you um and these are special projects to note um separate from regular General operations things that are um very specific initiatives that we've
003engaged in the first is an elementary Reading project some of you are familiar with this we started this project last spring to do some very specific weeding around books that are that are perhaps old and need to be out of circulation books that have um the need to be re-upped or renewed and so we have successfully we did hundreds of books um for reasons ranging from age of the book condition of the book um trying to re-up and bring some better balance to the collections in elementary buildings and so we've been really proud of the work we've done there um huge shout out to our elementary library toast and Michelle autos for helping with that we have also begun an elementary library media tosa position creation last spring we were successfully able to add this
004position in a full-time capacity to our staff to specifically address our needs at the elementary level so she is fabulous and amazing a certified librarian who helps us train our Paras train our principals she helps them do some of these large-scale initiatives and really having a more comprehensive approach to Elementary library support knowing that those repairs in those buildings there's really some exciting things that her and I are doing with that position um really really appreciative of the work that she's doing additionally Joe and I have been working on the library media website and we're hoping to launch that soon really making a website that is a jumping off point that is connected with our language arts website that makes our resources more readily available for parents everything from policy and information to easy access
005to the collection tips and tricks for parents really making a parent friendly portal that's a lot easier to access so when we send somebody to our website it's actually resources that they can use and access easily and Joe has a little bit more to share as well right so one of the other big projects that we've been working on just these last few weeks is the online registration platform and acknowledgment so um this really kind of fits in with our continued efforts at transparency and making um making it easier for our parents to make choices for their kids and so what this means is that anytime a parent registers they have a message that that informs them about their their choices regarding regarding library books and their options and what they can do and what
006they can do is click on a form and it immediately takes them to an opt-out form that they can fill out that's um it gives them the same options they have with the paper opt-out form um and so this Museum so far I think as of today we've had 5958 registered online um that represents the number of students I believe and we've only had 18 opt-out forms and that's given us the opportunity to work with those families and help make their wishes um just make sure we can follow through with what they want for their children at their school and uh I think we'll go on the next slide okay thank you it's like magic isn't it really is um so uh another thing that we were asked about uh from uh chairman was some
007uh some usage data for our secondary libraries and so we've kind of put together a bunch of numbers here um to try to give a picture of what what our libraries look like here um so as far as classes so this is when the whole class comes to visit the library as part of what they're doing that day and instruction uh and as far as first semester all these numbers are for first semester so August to um mid-January we had 880 class visits that that counts all seven of our secondary schools um so about 125 per um if you average to that um 290 of those were for research so that gives you an idea of how much uh and that's usually when a librarian is teaching research to the students and that they're engaging
008in that element um of their capacities another 484 um word for book checkouts when the whole class comes to check out a book okay uh now another thing that our libraries are doing all the time um is is tech support and iPad support they truly are the building specialist when it comes to iPads they're doing support distribution troubleshooting Logistics handing out laptops when someone forgets their iPad lots of things like that um just to give you an idea of what circulation looks like because I know that's kind of this nebulous thing we're not really sure about we just took a snapshot from today to give you an idea of what this what this looks like I just did the high schools but um you know I we can look up Junior highs if you'd like
009that information later um Central you guys can see the numbers there 65 East 44 South 51 trying four just because they're a smaller population of course uh that just gives you an idea of what circulation looks like um and that counts that's the number of checkouts that's the number of materials going out um with the student yeah I mean that's something we're kicked out today or does that means that somebody are actually checked out right now that's how many were checked out today that was the activity for just today for today and finally I just wanted to kind of inform you of some of the other activities that our Librarians are doing to just try to help engage our students in Reading um and get them to read more uh they do all sorts of
010things like kind of maker spaces um homework and help with tutoring a lot of our after school um like extended day programs happen in the library um doing research podcasting there's lots of that kind of equipment after after school clubs and reading groups Printing and copying um lots of other kind of fun activities like scavenger hunts and trivia and kind of those guessing you know as you see um lots of group workspace information literacy instruction lots of other activities that they're trying to bring to their school to be to find innovative ways to help our students read and do more reading okay so um Dr Crest was there anything you would like to add to that again so that information was based on the request and at this point um I wanted to make sure
011you had that information and wanted to make sure we were leaving unless you have questions plenty of time for questions and conversations I just had one um for the I appreciate regularly circulation members thank you do you know how many students that is per school because I'm guessing some are checking out more than one I I assume that as well I don't have numbers I could probably find that if you wanted okay one other question earlier that was for the these guys do you remember what it was um well we were advised in executive special um it's fine we'll get back to you okay thank you thank you thank you can you show me what that online form looks like in the registration please if it says I see you if it's something totally different
012what does that look like a junior high or high schooler what would that look like outside hold that yeah okay okay perhaps you may have to do it right because I could certainly um always show you you could always send you the link for that um and is it a new form or is it the same form that's been used in the same form just new digital format yes yep and it requires every um parent who registers to acknowledge um so whether they fill that out to actually submit that form or acknowledge that they've received that information they want to continue with that process um it's available for every parent with college so um he got it yeah he's in a senate team oh great so he's gonna so um just for the people at
013home we're gonna get an emailed so that um if we can pull pull it up here on the current user so that you're not signing into your own assistant right now turkey when you've got the video going at the same time so so what we can apparently we've got it already I was gonna like service or something a little halftime show right I've seen your dancing I haven't heard you're singing so that is good what this will do is when this is filled out from a parent um if they do if they do fill this out completely this automatically is generated to um the building that it's that it's designated to be at and then we have a process to ensure that those requests are received appropriately and then we're able to support the building
014and handling those requests um so down here at the bottom if someone chooses all Library materials um that's the end of the form because they're just they're opting out of the entire Library if they choose the specific Library material item it pops up these this um this question here um to fill out what they would like to opt out of which specific items um when I learned about this because you know the opt out has been a great resource for parents this first came up a couple of years ago and um we wanted to do or I wanted to do this as a result of some parents who wanted to opt out of certain books for their Elementary students and we didn't have this in place at the time foreign I didn't realize that we
015had the level of sexually explicit for instance in our books that we have since realized um and been made aware of and so my first reaction was how do we use the opt-out form for that um but the problem that I've discovered in this process is that we currently don't identify the material that has sexually explicit content so I was registering my kids and I appreciated having a question do you want to opt out of anything but I think the only thing I might pick would be sexually explicit content and that I knew there was no way for me to fill out that form and be able to identify all people set up because we we don't even have a definition at this point but we would need to do that if we pursue this
016kind of policy um so I didn't click on that because at this point there's nothing I could not be out of that falls into that category um and that therein lies the problem with the opt-out policy and I would propose that we need the account policy but I would love to see us also provide that service to our parents to have an option for us as a district defining what what crosses over the lines you really Graphics sexually explicit content so that parents could opt out of that as well and um I would even argue based on the conversation that I had with people that you know everywhere I went when I was running for the board asked me this very question and they wanted the books removed um last time we met I proposed
017a compromise where we identified the books and eat them because they're in our district we've heard from community members do want their children to have access but I do agree that it should be a parental choice because these are minors and so that's why I opposed a hybrid where we have the opt-out policy in place if you know the title of the author but then we also do the work the heavy lifting of identifying a definition for essentially explicit books we then identify the books that would fall within that definition and then we provide an opt-in policy to those books where a parent can access those and maybe at the registration just click and say yep I'm okay with them reading anything or no I would opt out my kids something to that event so
018that's what I was proposing in what I passed out last time I hope you all had a chance to kind of look at what I proposed but that I just thought I'd start the conversation by putting that on those any other questions for my grant how you can go back thank you for coming up and we'd like to continue the rest of the meeting is to get each person a chance to speak on what their thoughts are you kind of started the process there I'm going to read something from Brittany that she gave me she's not here today and then we'll just kind of go around the table and let everybody else kind of get their opinions on where you're at this point so this comes from Brittany and uh it's kind of a small
019type here so I hope I can get it all correctly ago it seems to me that we are at a point that we need to decide if we want to make a change to policy the issue I believe is that the books that people have challenged and the books that people have expressed concern with that within the current policy last year moving them without changing policy could be seen as arbitrary and thus cause us potential lawsuit issue if majority of the board believes the books need to be removed then we need to change the policy and follow our newly approved policy for doing so the next step would be for a suggest policy to be brought forward and then for it to go through the process I do not agree that the policy needs to
020be changed the books in question have been reviewed by experts in the field and passed the Miller test representative you already take them out there would have to be criteria that changes that test and is different than what the experts have aside and I have a very hard time believing we will be able to come up with that criteria in a way that is not discriminatory if we can figure out a way to help provide more information to parents about everything that is in books or about things that are in books that they might either want or object to without discriminating but I am open to that conversation however the time and resource that it would take to label all possible issues in each book is a higher cost than benefits in my opinion also
021I don't think the argument that people don't know what book stopped at a really holds water as it took me less than five minutes of Googling to find various lists of books that parents could verify quickly used to opt their children out of based on any number of criteria sex violence religion Etc we believe there is much concern why haven't people been pulling these this again less than five minutes and turning those in then they're choosing the Criterion that they have problems with an argument is that there are other books that are just as good and thus we don't need these books yes there are the books that many of these books that people have concerns about are very high quality literary books that help build understanding culture of experience and of consequence in ways
022that only story can do with object experience in many of those cases I hope my kids know that experience those things in order to learn them but I do very much want them to be able to understand other people's experiences cultures and consequences in my opinion maybe these are the some of the most educational books you have in the library I'll be very frustrated if my children to not have access to them there's reason that many of these books have won many National Youth Awards and our seniors crucial readings I mean I know that from Roi which is return on investment and make sure that that's what she intended perspective it may actually be more effective to take a look at take all the books out of the library rather than find a process that
023no one can agree on and waste thousands of hours or have a trained staff time do you understand the cost benefit of that however that course of action also makes me very nervous I do not believe that libraries all right I also believe that our libraries are probably our civil society they're one of the few places that truly provides free resources access to information options for learning that are not dictated they're an equalizer and Insider schools they are more accessible than almost any other place I realize they have very few kids checking out materials what it means to me is we should be finding ways to encourage more reading more access rather than putting up more various access and reading whether through removing some or almost um okay thank you um I agree with everything
024that uh Brittany wrote um I appreciate that you are saying we don't want to completely change the policy um at this point because I I agree with all the things that have been satisfied in that the opt-out policy is the best policy for the district I think there are things we can do that may help with your problems with some of these books um or some of the rest of the districts you know parents problems with the books we could make that form the online form we could maybe have some prompts for them to say you know okay I want to express lectures closer I want to get rid of violence or I want to so I think there are ways that we can make the process better um my understanding from talking um with
025uh Mr Evans and Aesthetics was that um the library and they're more than happy to go through and they can find you a list of secretary schools I mean we've been told that several times that you sit down with your librarian and they can pull up one of these Google lists and and so you have to you know make the time to sit down with a librarian but to say oh I don't know what to say so I'm not going to do it I mean that then puts that burden on every other parent than to um you know have to go through groups so that their kids can read that so I don't think that's fair um and you know my point at the last meeting was that when I asked if if several people
026had read any of these books that they were talking about or concerned about and the answer was no I think if you read the book in entirety that you know as I quoted the Monday's not coming there are maybe two pages that are essentially explicit now there are some curse words in it because they're talking about being members but um if you look at the book as a whole that book has value it has Merit it teaches less it's it's a great book and so if you asked if you just look at the actual acts that they describe on one page in this 300 Page book yeah you might go okay well that's not really appropriate but if you look at it as a whole it does have a merit and that's what our Librarians
027do that's what these nationally published reviews do our Librarians are trained to choose books that are appropriate for the age group our kids are thinking about sex they're having sex they are reading about sex or looking at sex online they're seeing it on their phone it's not like these kids have not been exposed to this at some point they're almost all all have and if you don't want your child doing it to do that in a book great then you can choose to do that but but to say that these are not appropriate for these kids I don't usually Thrive and so we need to make sure that every parent is able to have their kids read what they want several other books that are on the list that was obtained by looking at moms
028of Liberty social media my kids were out in high school and I had no problem with my kids reading high school and I've read them as well um and so most of the comments that I've gotten on the email have been to keep the opt out policy in place but I think if we want to go down a road where we try and make it easier for parents who want to opt out I think that's fine and there are ways I think that we can do that and make it a little bit more simple um but the Librarians that we heard about on the emails have said that that they don't have the people asking for a job and if you look greater than 5 000 registered somebody had 18 people who want to opt
029out of something I think the the policy to change the the impetus to change it would not be there yeah do you have any more dad from what you said because you didn't realize you were doing that at the time so take that yeah you go ahead and okay okay um anyway I said before um I want to see us move to an opt-in for books that are sexually explicit um I don't think it's our business as the district to be providing um adult content to minors um if this child my oldest son is 19 in his senior year then then maybe that's that's a different story but these are minors um in the in their worlds um their parents have always had their responsibilities and should have the responsibility for overseeing whether kids are
030exposed to um lyrics and movies with some video games their activities their social life and even on every I think parents have that right and we should continue to give them that right um schools have permission parents and permission slips to go on field trips we have I think I don't know my son's of course so maybe I'll see it next year but I believe we are going to have required permission for children um they're they're assignment of times through child's educational experience in K-12 that we are requiring ground consent um so then to take the leave and say well this because it's in the book and it's been carefully vetted and you know it's on the shelves of our library we have no right to um you know as parents for consent I think
031is either I'm just not there um I don't know that just made sense but we we have District policies for what they can access on their devices um I don't I don't know why it would be um I just I have no problem at all but thinking that we moved to an opt-in for certain types of content content being in this case um sexually explicit um and I think we as as some of the trustee question have said that we can meet with us on the shelves we can still do an opt out but I do think for certain types of material that are um adult content and maybe not age appropriate for the minors who are in our district and in our parents until 3 30 or so every day um for those books
032um at the same time when we if we move to something like that I would also like to take a look to support at our acquisition policies um because we we have books already on the shelves and you know maybe they stay when we just changed how kids or if they can't access them you know leave that up to the parents but I do think that um we would be foolish to move to something like that without also looking at policies for future procurement and and what we're doing on the books we're acquiring so we're not putting new books on the shelves maybe when we said that and we may be in a case where we're acquiring books and putting them on and perhaps they should also involve and are not done um so I
033think we should also look our acquisition policies and procedures if we were to change anything about our entire book instance so excuse me man this was my least favorite topic it's like are there a million other things to talk about um so I often opt out aside I believe the our district needs to have a standard and the standard needs to be clear and it needs to be consistent and so what's confusing for me is I mean let's just take the movie apart as an example we're talking about books being good as a whole they might have a part that's inappropriate as a whole it's a really good book and that's most likely true I'm not saying it's not but the same goes for movies they're really good movies they are the ending winning award-winning
034movies that are really good movies that have a tiny little inappropriate scene but that whole movie is still rated R in order to access that movie under 17 you have to have a panic incentives and so that I and I'm not like ugh I mean like thoughts are so jumbled because this is so frustrating that it's so difficult I think for me um so I think we as a I'm open to I do not want to get rid of our opt-out policy altogether I think that would be creating a world of that's just I just told me that that's necessary to do it across the board um I think going the route of identifying what's sexually explicit if we choose to not go with an opt-in policy at all and just keep that down and
035make it more user-friendly I think that we need to do the work to exp like show hey these are the books that are sexually explicit you can choose to opt out of this genre wherever it may be um or if we go the route of an opt-in just having the sexually explicit books be up in the job of the district is to educate our kids and as a parent I would want my kids in public school so that they can be yes exposed to things in my home so that those conversations can happen in the home but I don't believe that that's the job of the school district to be exposing our kids to certain things I mean that's going to happen through word of mouth is that our kids are having sex or talking
036about sex but I don't believe that that's the the role of the school district to provide that um so I'm not suggesting we get rid of any books I don't want to see a renewable I don't want to ban or censor or anything but I want to put our kids education first and foremost and also I mean our parents and if we make it as simple as defining what sexually explicit and putting those books in often or having the opt-out process being more user friendly so parents aren't having to I mean yeah it may take five minutes to some people or whatever but I think that there's a way that we can make it more user-friendly and just I mean protecting our kids from and because I mean there's argue of okay yeah on devices
037they can access foreign sites well erotica is also a thing so who's to say that a sex scene in a book isn't isn't porn but then I mean an argument was to say so I could go around and around and around because my mind is just so confused but I think point blank is that as a district we have standards and I want to make sure that we don't have double standards um so that's just gonna thank you you haven't had a voice on this yet I appreciate you yeah wasting that so yeah last week I want to go around is because I want to make sure Mr Edgerton thank you so I would like to start out with the form 85c but I help two parents in August fill out and turn in with
038lots of back and forth and I don't know what do I put on there do I just put sexually explicit how do I fill this out I don't know I we we did the best that we could then we got emails saying everything's fine I'll leave it alone use the 85c I couldn't find the 85c I didn't know where it had gone and then the last board meeting I was told well now they're just using the form of 85 which I couldn't figure out on the form 85. how to fill it out so that it pertained to auditing out so we think that whatever we do we need to put it in policy so that in August I have the form or the verbiage or whatever we decide to do and then in January I
039go to look for this and it's gone or it's changed because that is our job as board members is to create policy right Okay so in in doing research some of the things that I found out that you couldn't do until you're 18 other than vote other than to go off to war I didn't know you couldn't buy a can of spray paint I didn't know that you couldn't buy cold meds but over the counter I didn't know those things I mean there's a whole list of things that you can't do until you're 18. so why not put some verbage into policy as to what we deem as sexually explicit materials and then put it on the registration form and let the parents decide yes I'm fine with that they long no I'm not but
040whatever we do I really think it means to be policy so that things don't just get shuffled around and changed after we've talked about it and I think that what Christie Claus said presented at our last board meeting I think that that would be a great place to start to put it on an agenda item to get the ball rolling and then we can just go from there and see how many of us actually want to move forward and in which direction thank you um I think my goal in all of this is to just make sure that uh every parent is comfortable with the selection of books that their child has access to in a school so how we achieve that I'm open to you but what I'm hearing from everybody here is I
041think we're all in agreement that we need to get a definition of explicit materials to start with before we do anything would that be a good assumption yes so I would guess that would be maybe a directive at this point to um have you look at coming up with some definitions I guess it's both of you that will be working on that put together somehow and um is there anything else that we kind of I don't think we're in agreement yet on what to do with it once we get the definition but I think there's a couple of options one of them is to look at a list of books that once we get that would meet that that we could have them opt out of and like in this option here or um as
042one of the things they could click on or we could have it when we when they click they could opt into it which would just be as easy for a parent took into opportunity for those things as would be for the opt out so I think you could do an opt-in very easily on the registration that way everybody has to choose that at the time and so it could be doing either way so I mean that's a discussion for another time but I think the first step Maybe is to get the definition everybody do you agree with that yeah I agree with the definition but I think we could we could ask for whoever's working on this to propose how we do enough and once we have a definition okay it just says the way
043you just described so if we are looking at change in policy we have a protocol around policy adjustment which is separate than just ending up with a definition of explicit right so um if the direction is for the for the district to pursue changing the policy we will all we can start that process and we would go through the policy advisory as well as you you all voted on a month ago so I think that's what all of us intended but yeah we didn't want to I just don't want to read it yeah exactly but it's a good idea to clarify it so yeah but I I would just say that the resolution you had I don't know if it's bad but it doesn't follow that policy standard so to just or to do that
044resolution and just have the administration kind of do all that we actually would have to go through the policy advisory committee in order for it to be changed and not just to go through absolutely I think that my proposal was um in my what I passed out last week was that we asked the way we change the policy month or six weeks ago was to have our staff start with a proposed change and then it goes to all secrets and out for review and things like that in the border that we both wanted so my proposal um was meant to have the ball started you know just to use the policy process we have and have them start with a proposal and then it go through the process and I would be in favor of
045happy and the staff start with a proposal for an opt-in so here's my first my issue with going to put something in writing because there are parents in Dearborn Michigan that are suing their school district I sent that to you and the superintendent question because there are books in there and they're not wanting to do anything about it and because we have parents on both ends I want to make sure that everybody knows so that we're transparent as to what's in our library and then if they have to say yep I'm aware then that takes care of all that and then we're not left in a situation like that okay okay but I think we were told that about policy takes care of that I mean that's why that works but it could be a
046little more user friendly yes absolutely again so are we clear at what we're looking at for okay uh we have 19 more minutes so anything else you want to discuss on um library books I just proposed that we've just got to do two things but that was just what are we doing what are we declare on right now because I'm not clear the definition uh sexually explicitorial and then um look at the possibility for adoption option and possibility for making the opt out option more user friendly so that's three things right and more user friendly okay that means having Bliss come you know I have a have a sexy specialist maybe you have a violence list and have a you know just a click on those to be able to opt out of those during
047the registration process or anytime thank you for based on definitions that we come up with exactly yes so I would be remiss if I didn't tell you that you want to we all we hear what your action steps are we'll do that you certainly don't want to circumventory policy advisory process by dictating what your expectations are in your policy because that would be circumventing the policy advisory and the work that they're required to do so we definitely hear what you're saying but you're getting very detailed and I would tell you that that is then against your policy you remember you have to go through experts you have to ask those that are impacted you have to go through the policy advisory you have to bring it back to the board you have to do a
04845-day review if there's substantive changes that has to go back to all of those groups so I'm not like we love what you're saying but I just want to be clear that that's why you have this policy Advisory Group and all of their feedback has to be balanced um as they write this process so getting into that level of detail I I caution you and and we know what we need to do and we'll come back and then we'll start our policy advisory process and I was about intended to do these I had examples I I tried to lead the three things very general I don't I don't want to get real specific so those are the three General things we want you to do so we don't want to lead you in England although
049we are leaving a little bit thank you all right so again yes go ahead thank you I really think that as part of this we should consider or another our staff to also consider the procurement side of it based on a definition so that we are consistent first both issues so the procurement process using the once you get the definition make sure that it's used in the procuring process I think that work should be done at the same time the policy would drive the action anyway so okay thank you yeah of course it's 6 13 so we have 17 more minutes anybody else have anything to do with library books I guess we'll have a little bit of time in between now and starting our meeting at 6 30. so thank you for everyone for
050coming and we will end this part of our meeting and let's start at 6 30. you have a better place foreign okay it's 6 30 we're going to call this meeting of the Laramie County Schools one Board of Trustees to border and we will have um the first grade class from Jessup Elementary whose teachers Heather Morrison doing the pledge of allegiance for us thanks Dan um foreign thank you for those wonderful young people doing that for us um in September is there any adjustments together Mr chairman there are no adjustments to the agenda this evening I moved to adopt the agenda with I moved to a job my second okay we have a motion second to adopt the agenda so those in favor say aye aye those opposed no agenda has been adopted okay so
051we're now going to be doing the recreation of staff and students for outstanding achievements and the first group we have is from ARP Elementary chairman bowling and trustees uh superintendent Crespo thanks for having us here tonight I just want to introduce a couple teachers and then I'll let them kind of talk to you about what's going on and what they did here um and it's pretty awesome I'm so proud of our students our staff and really our whole art community we rock we're awesome yay so here we go so uh we have this kind of Tobias and Miss uh Nicole Hayes here our teachers are going to come up and talk about what we did and how we raise this money and how these kids are awesome our ambassadors did and go from there so
052thank you so I'm Kendall Tobias I've been doing the ARP ambassadors for several years now and Nicole Hayes came to me this year with the great idea of doing a penny wars project and we voted and decided that would be our big fundraiser this year and I'm gonna introduce these guys and then have a student tell you about the whole thing this is Angelina Meza Jonah manir Taylor navares Olivia L Sasser Keeley Roman you really feel like Zubia and Luisa Gracia and Luisa is going to give you guys the spiel foreign I'm a sixth grader at ARP Elementary and I'm going to tell you guys a little bit about the penny wars so the penny Awards was a fundraiser that we did to kind of help the school and help the peeps Community we raised
0533407 in all right thank you um I'm sorry I'm sorry um I think it was a really good idea because we raised a lot of money and we could help the peeps Community we gave them 1 704 for their um their fundraising thing sorry it is okay um but they help families that are in need and we gave them a little bit so well we gave them a lot actually because well because we wanted to help them so we did that so that's the pennies worse do we have any parents of These Fine Young People in the audience please stand up and thank you you're very brave to talk in front of this group foreign thank you it was great to see our kids can get an involved in the community and peeps is actually
054a great program we have in our district um our next thing is going to be the student of the week we have three of those we're going to start with East High School Mr marriage and if you stay up here everyone until we get done some picture and give you your second part of your work Matic is a senior at East High School and before I say a few things about Matic I want to thank his mom for being here this evening Carmen she's in the back thank you Carmen Matic was chosen by the committee uh for his ability to be a quiet leader in our building he leads by example um also in the classroom teachers would tell you that he was successful because he paid attention to the little details and was always
055always very conscientious and lastly in the classroom setting he was very much an active participant in everything in his classes in matter of fact and talking to teachers many much of the time he's a leader in leading discussions and activities right um thank you uh I'm very honored to be um here tonight um a little bit about myself um in or at East I I'm in the Band um I'm a trumpet I'm actually the head trumpet section leader um I participate in concert marching and Jazz Band um and I'm also in a outside um brass quintet um which can is composed of other uh East High band members um After High School I'm planning to go to college for civil engineering um uh and I'm wondering do l-trip and then UW for that um and
056my favorite teachers through the years of high school which I've had her for three years is Miss Terrell um and I I absolutely love her style of teaching um just her patients in the classroom and just the way that she teaches makes even the hardest Concepts um understandable and I feel like she puts every bit of her heart into trying to make everyone in the class successful thank you um congratulations Matic I am very honored to be able to sit here and brag on him for a little bit more I'm Heather Terrell and I'm a math teacher at East High School Matic has challenged himself in his entire secondary career by taking the honors classes the AP classes he will graduate with 17 college credits just in math and I know that he has more
057out there because I know that he's challenging himself and more than just math he's participated in the state math contest and has placed he has earned a math letter he's taken the math oath you should ask him about it if you get a chance he's lettering in academics and band um but just really his character I think is the thing that shines the most about him he is always the kid who's willing to help those around him he is always willing to jump in that kid across the classroom that he may not know so well if he sees him struggling he's going to go over and he's going to do what he can medic oftentimes would be um the student leading my by Waiting by my tour at seven o'clock he read something cool online
058he found a function can we do some calculus on it um so I'm excited to see what is in store hermetic I can only imagine that he's going to keep doing great things so congratulations mattic you should be really proud as a former math teacher it's always great to see a math teacher chosen as the favorite teacher probably doesn't happen very often all right our next one is going to be Johnson Junior High School Mr chairman colleagues of the board Dr Crespo it is my absolute pleasure to introduce to you Gracie Grisham I had to write all this down because this is how awesome this girl is so um Gracie has been such a standout unique and just a wonderful heart of a human to have at Johnson the last year and a half she
059has been involved not only in volleyball she does so many things inside and outside of school the best which is selfishly my favorite is we just got back from a trip from Washington DC as she was selected as an njhs officer at the beginning of this year and she represented not only our school but our district as she networked with kids around not only the country but Mexico I'm trying to remember now Guam Puerto Rico Costa Rica and she got numbers from all of these people and they're ready to change the world literally so pretty awesome not only does Gracie do great outside of school inside of school she again is just that stand-up honorable person her and her njhs officers noticed that we were lacking staff in our custodial department so what did they
060do they created a sign up to be able to help them after school after hours pretty awesome so with that being said I wanted to make sure I get everything here she's great academically she's earning a 3.8 GPA um and she has a little special place in my heart because she also takes dance at Act 2 Studios of which is my home place before I became an educator in this District so she's all over she's got it all she's spreading her sphere of influence in so many places so let's give it up for Miss Gracie hi hi I'm Gracie Grisham um I really like attending Johnson Junior High because the teachers strive for the students the teachers just want to see the best in their students they want them to strive for the goals they
061want them they want to see them succeed to have success in their life so that the students can be the best versions of themselves possible to be responsible adults and respect others every day and um finally the perfect example of one of those spectacular teachers would be Mr Johnson um the teacher that sparked me to be a leader that sparked me to be a better person was Mr Johnson he helped me through thick and thin and when I fall behind in class or I'm just having a bad day he's a teacher to make my day better and less stressful I just wanted to say thank you Mr Johnson for being the supportive teacher I needed and to give me that final push I needed to be here where I am today speaking of thank yous
062I just wanted to say thank you to my mom she's really my biggest supporter even if I can't be a man even if I can be a menace sometimes she's there for me this year has probably been the hardest year of my life but my mom has been by my side the whole time so thank you Mama I love you foreign thank you Graham for everything you've done for me you're one of amazing beautiful human and finally I want to say thank you from Miss Bradshaw and Mr Cox hi everyone my name is Ken Johnson I'm a U.S history teacher at Johnson Junior High I apologize if I get a little emotional up here I'm going to blame it on a medical procedure I had earlier today not my students um I'd like to thank
063everybody for selecting Gracie for this uh recognition she is one of the hardest working students that I have ever had the privilege of working with um she's an excellent student she's one of my ngh office officers she's involved in sports and all this time she's holding down a a job she's one of the most motivated uh hard-working people that I have ever met she puts a lot of adults like myself to shame and so I'm not surprised to see her recognized in this way um she exemplifies the character that we want to see in our students she's really been a spectacular leader seeing her again at this njhs trip to Washington DC really embrace it she was very moved by one of the presenters she engaged with it terrifically she sets an example for other
064students around her and that's not something I can I can always say she's the type of young leader that we need more of her positivity her Relentless work ethic set her apart from the crowd and I've been very lucky to work with her this year and even a little bit last year in another role um as a teacher I've worked with so many really phenomenal young people um it'd be hard for me to find anyone more deserving of this recognition so thanks to you all for recognizing Gracie thanks to the board Margaret or Dr Crespo and everyone else and uh Gracie thank you you're the best and thank you for allowing me to be your teacher this year yeah if you want to stand up Mr Gracie's mom my prep interviews that's the assistant principal
065Michaela Bradshaw that was up there given the award and uh sorry I would like to introduce Laurel Walter she is our representative from first uh from Western Vista Federal Credit Union and they are our sponsors of student of the week foreign it's a great honor for Western Vista to sponsor this program we've been at it for I think this is now our third year and our team takes turns coming uh to present these Awards I was supposed to be here last week when we got the ketchup from the break but then I had a mom obligation so I made the Swap and I'm actually so glad that I ended up with this week because I have some personal things up here um which is always more fun when it's a little more personal to you
066so my daughter is a sophomore at East and she is one of Miss Terrell's students I don't think she's correlated that yet um but Matic we'll be giving you a phone call because Mariana needs some tutoring um truly um you know math doesn't come easy to everybody and that's amazing that you're a great math student but what I really loved hearing is that you're a quiet leader I'm a loud mouth and I'm proud of being that but something that I've noticed in my years is that it's the quiet leaders in a setting with when they speak people stop and listen because they don't always speak and maybe they use their words a little more wisely than I do so um that is a really really great skill to have especially at such a young age
067and that is going to take you very far um Gracie um you sound like a wonderful human being I will tell you that I'm a dance Mama as well and Miss Michaela as we call her um was one of my daughter's cheerleading teachers so um I knew where she was going when she said she you were a girl after her own heart but um it sounds like you are a tremendously good human and I think everybody here would agree that good humans are sometimes hard to find so keep it up even when it's hard because being a young person it's not always easy to be a good human but that sounds like you're doing an amazing job and we appreciate both of you for what you do in your respective schools and we look forward
068to seeing what you do in your future I should probably talk about what I have here um each of the the students will receive a certificate and a 25 Visa gift card from Western Vista Credit Union and then our chosen teachers will be getting a 20 disease coffee card um in honor of the new partnership between Ziggy's and Western Vista my Shameless plug that's happening downtown here in just a couple of weeks foreign we're also going to be giving out the um award for the Pledge of Allegiance principal so if we could have uh Heather Morrison and Barbara license come on up please again I appreciate all the effort it takes I'm sure it's not one take to get that Pledge of Allegiance so well done oh great I guess they practicing every day right
069so they should be good at breakfast graders in just a picture of we need to go to bed before the day so um I have Heather Morrison with me my name is Barbara likes up I'm the principal at Jessup Elementary this is my 10th year there and Heather Morrison has been there much longer than I have and this woman is amazing not only does she work at death of Elementary but she does a lot of things there besides first grade she's in second grade she's done multiple grade classrooms she's been extended day before school and after school she's coached she's advised and she teaches teachers throughout the district too so I present you Heather Morrison foreign to use for some supplies that are always needed in the Elementary classroom so all right next we have
070the Laramie County science fair best of show that's our science coordinators coming good evening Dr Crespo chairman Bolin Board of Trustees thank you for having us here this evening so that we can honor our top winner at our uh 49th Laramie County science fair I'd like to present Ada Cox for her project short-term memory accuracy is not affected by ambient noise which competed against over 20 other projects that earned first place to be our best of show at our science fair today let's give her a round of applause before I hand the mic over to Ada Ada is a seventh grade student and Mr sewell's introduction to life science class at McCormick Junior High and I figured you'd probably want to hear about ambient noise does not or let's see what is it short-term memory
071is not affected by ambient noise so here's Aiden It's oddly enough this is actually more nerve-wracking to me than presenting in front of judges literally braiding you so that's interesting anyway I had my fellow peers and I tested them with playing cards I would show them the cards and then they would have to tell me what they had just seen so I look measure I did the I tested them in three different locations and then I would measure the ambient noise while I did that and I found it in the end that short-term memory accuracy was not affected by ambient noise so I would like to thank Mr Sewell for helping for giving my experimental for helping me with my experimental design I would also like to thank all my teachers Mr Ford Mrs mazzoni
072Mr Vapors and Mr Sewell for letting me go into their advisement which is very similar to study hall and let me test their kids and I'd also like to thank my principals for giving me permission to use my phone during school hours to be able to measure the ambient noise level so this has been so much fun so thank you very much for Innovative family here they're here today be recognized Mr Sewell here too Mr Sewell and Mr Silver Monday so we could have a picture with you please and then is Miss trout here oh thank you I'm I'm on the schedule to present Regional science fair but that went a little long today so we didn't get the results in time to invite parents and students appropriately so if you'll indulge me at another
073time we'll present them as well thank you great to see the science projects all right now we have a resolution whereas the safety and well-being of children is a top priority at Laramie County school district one and whereas school bus drivers are interested with the safety of our students as they travel and whereas school bus drivers are often the first and last representatives of our district to interact with many of our students each day now therefore be it resolved that the Laramie County School District One Board of Trustees recognizes school bus drivers for their hard work and dedication to provide a safe ride to and from school for students in our school district and be it further resolved that the Laramie County School District One Board of Trustees adopts February 22nd 2023 is national school
074bus driver Appreciation Day adopted in Cheyenne Wyoming the sixth day of February 2023. second okay we have a motion a second for the resolution for bus drivers recognizing them any discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed no questions all right we have another one whereas Agricultural Science and Technology is a Cornerstone of the American way of life and of the Wyoming economy and whereas FFA and agricultural education ensure that the growing future of Agriculture agricultural needs will have practice and accomplished young individuals trying to meet those needs and whereas the participation in real world career readying activities is an important part of the education we intend to impart on our students so that they are ready to succeed in the world an FFA is an outstanding example of such activities now therefore be
075it resolved that the Laramie County School District One Board of Trustees recognizes the week of February 18th through 25th 2023 as National FFA week adopted in Cheyenne Wyoming the sixth day of February 2023. second all right you have a motion a second for the resolution on FFA any further discussion all those in favor say aye those opposed no all right resolutions adopted and we have one whereas the month of February is recognized throughout the nation as a time to celebrate the achievements made by African Americans and to acknowledge their role in The History of the United States and whereas the tradition of Black History Month was established in 1926 to counter biased or inadequate depictions of African-American communities and black history and to uplift the people of these communities by increasing awareness of their successes
076and whereas our district continues to provide a high quality accurate and fulfilling education to all students in Black History Month provides a framework on which to build relevant instructional activities now therefore be it resolve that the Laramie County School District 1 Board of Trustees hereby adopt this resolution to honor the month of February 2023 as Black History Month adopted in Cheyenne Wyoming the sixth day of February 2023. second yeah we have a motion a second to add your resolution on black history recognizing Black History Month all those in favor say aye aye those opposed no motion as we can do that and you probably noticed we did have one trustee who's not here to me um I trustee Ashby is in Casper and is involved with some activities with her job but she will be
077joining us shortly here I think about 7 30 so um all right now we're going to the next part which is item for visitors and we don't have very many people in this sector so um Kathy's online Mr chairman yes oh no that is not Mr chairman I do not see her online okay well she was the only one signed up because we had two others signed up but they had told us that they were dropping off the list so we will have another option or time to do this at the end we have a full list at that time so right so we're going to go into board Communications and reports and upcoming meetings so our next meeting will be February we do not have a meeting on February 20th that's being canceled because
078of the president's holiday our next meeting will be March 6 5 PM work session 6 p.m regular board meeting in the boardroom okay now individual word Communications and reports anybody have any hey trustee Humphrey and it's another job you got to figure out how to turn the microphone on yeah another important job um I think this is when I would talk about something that I participated okay great so this last week I had the privilege of attending the Air Force base with Sunrise Elementary for the CTE program and I am just thoroughly impressed with all that the CT CTE department is doing in the district and how it's equipping kids to make a decision for their future that may not be college but could be and so the fact that they're already showing um a
079way to do as a military at first grade level was impressive and the way that the teachers I know is Mrs Hall and I forget the second first grade teacher's name but the way that they had their respect of their students was just beyond me so I was very impressed and very privileged to get to attend that on Thursday so that's all thank you anybody else um I did receive a card today when I got here from The Element Church it's addressed all of us so I'll pass the term nice words people are praying voice I'll pass that one so you can look at it um also I wanted to let everybody know that uh um I was invited by Dr Crespo to um excuse me attend the chamber luncheon this last Friday and Dr
080Schaefer was speaking there and he was talking mostly about Workforce Development and the pathways program that they have out there it was very nice of him at least two or three times during the presentation to acknowledge the partnership with our school district in making sure our kids are ready to join those programs and actually participate in some of them as they're in high school and join those programs when they get done so that was a very good presentation I think our our communities we've been very good at moving forward and getting our kids ready to take on some jobs um and tomorrow morning it'll be an early day for me because I'm going to go to the Community Partners breakfast where we're hoping to establish some new connections with some partners that we haven't been
081working with so far so that should be a an interesting opportunity in tomorrow morning and that's all that I have anybody else okay I'm talking about having this on a computer instead of on paper okay now we have reports from superintendent staff thank you chairman bowling uh trustees so first I'll start with a little bit of information regained regarding the legislative update just want to thank those trustees that were able to make it yesterday um to the session I um there were a number of um bills that were highlighted through that process there was a huge shout out to wsba they did a really incredible job and partnership with Wasa they have now a QR code that you can follow they processed all of the steps of the way to follow bills and what's we're
082at the halfway point right now so monitoring um closely what that looks like I thought it was a really engaging opportunity and just allowed for after the session for all of us to meet those individuals members and um and government officials elected officials that were thereafter for a session I think there are a number of um of bills that we're kind of monitoring and will continue to update uh we definitely would recommend that our community check out the legislative the legislative website um those meetings are zoomed on a regular basis all of the Committees that are meeting and there are a number of ways to get updated on that uh we felt like it was a really good opportunity for community and families to know what's happening and just get an update uh publicly through
083the board meeting those participants at home as well so with that please keep an eye out and more to come on what's Happening um at the Capitol a few other things uh that I just want to make sure we're addressing so one I just want to say thank you to all of our community who helped us uh over the last couple of days as there was snow we had a number of occasions where our community stepped up and helped us dig out occasionally um when we had some uh roads that had not been plowed I think it's important you know all of our staff across the district are kind of whenever there's snow or whenever there's weather we're always in conversation a huge shout out to the transportation department they actually follow our buses when
084we have those snow routes to make sure that kids are not kind of left when they come off the bus that that's really hard work while they're still trying to navigate the whole department and I don't know that people understand that because there's we are so committed to getting our kids home so huge shout out to transportation and the teams for doing that um and certainly for our facilities and operations because many of you may or may not know that some of our city plows have been down and our um our our District's people have been out helping and supporting through our properties and things like that and that's something that I don't know that our community knows that well as well that we're really trying to always partner the other thing is um thank
085you very much chairman Bolin for our community breakfast huge huge shout out to um to our team Tommy gerharter and Adam Kaiser as well as all of the people that are participating and facilitating tomorrow we are having our first uh Civic Community minded breakfast we're bringing our Civic leaders from clubs and organizations if you have not been invited we apologize we have 60 people coming we've sent out well over 100 invites um we'll have others it's really just our first launch we'll be having a facilitated conversation on ways that we can connect as a community to our students we recognize that as uh Civic organizations are finding themselves trying to connect with youth we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to have those discussions and dialogues I want to thank everyone who's
086participating because that's certainly something more in addition to the work that we do every day I do want to say shout out again to technology department of technology and instruction bringing together again The Innovation Summit on June 8th and 9th this year we did our first annual last year with such a huge success um that we're signed up to do it again we host that in our district and really excited to have our teachers and staff engage in that um it really we were able to get a lot of really incredible feedback again I also want to shout out to L Triple C Dr Schaefer um did in fact call out a number of times and gave us a ton of um kudos for the work that we're doing in Partnership and how we've aligned
087our Pathways to make sure that our students have the best access possible for whatever um whatever career path whatever College path whatever anything that they want to do in their life and certainly will continue to work that um over the coming months really high level we um if you remember we had talked a little bit about um bringing a committee I'm sorry I'm Lefty so I'm like over here perhaps I should move this um so doing a reading update around uh we bringing families together um to talk about struggling readers and and support systems for parents and Guardians so we've been working on that group and we will be providing an opportunity um with our Community Partners for support information resources um just an opportunity for people to get together and talk about what they're
088working on um especially parents and experts in the field will be focused on areas like difficulties in reading the science of reading and then the rollout will be happening in the next few weeks as we're coordinating a lot of schedules and we want to make sure that the board is up to date and that more to come on that that's a very exciting opportunity for us and something that Katie and her team have been working on for quite a while so shout out to you and with that I am done with the updates and just one more thing as far as we're working myself um when we we have a meeting usually it's the Wednesday following each board meeting um for the superintendent myself to go over the agenda for the next board meeting um
089that's not going to quite work this month since we're canceling the next board meeting so it will be a little bit closer to win the next board meeting actually it's probably the week before that but um on that weekend I meet with her from 1 30 to 2 and then there'll be an opportunity for two of the board members other board members to meet from 2 to 2 30 and you'll be given the invitation for those and whoever the first two are that signed up for those income and join us for the second part of that meeting um the first time we did that we did it with the executive board but this time we'll give everyone a chance to sign up if they want to when the invitation comes out a little clarification on
090that yes um are we allowed to ask some questions as a result of the update trip okay I was just curious um thank you Dr Crespo for your update I I was curious about the reading and the community aspect I think that's really exciting and I look forward to hearing about it um it prompted me though to remember that we were waiting on some rules out of Wyoming Department of Education on the law that was passed I think it was last legislative session have those come through and will we hear about that as well so we certainly will have an update as we're navigating the promulgated rules um and as they come to fruition our goal certainly is to engage our parents in community in that process which is the expectation this is just the
091first step and actually we've been working on it long before the legislative cycle decided that was something we should focus on because it actually is just really good practice across the country so we're excited that we're able to get it with some of our partners more to come on that we're just trying to get launched thank you thank you thank you remind me anybody else have any questions for Dr grasswell usually it's it's a staff member so we I remember the questions okay hold on to the next part the new business and I guess we're going to the consent agenda first so Paul items listed with the designation of CA are considered to be routine items by the governing board body will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion on these
092items Indiana removed from the consent agenda will be considered in this normal sequence on the agendas any board member request to remove a motion from the consent agenda not seeing anybody Mr chairman I move to approve all motions listed as consent agenda second okay it's moving secondly to approve the consent agenda all those in favor say aye those opposed same Center don't close email all right okay now we're moving into new business Mr chairman I move to contract with Monument Builders Incorporated in an amount not to exceed 599 630 for the frontier Learning Center demolition plus a 10 contingency for the project a second either most second any further discussion on this for those of you not aware what the frontier Learning Center is it used to be known as the neighborhood facility it's kind
093of next to Coal Elementary on the south side and we did a swap with the city to get that a few years ago and thought we'd use it turns out it was in very much more poor shape than we realized when we got it so we're turning it down now and it will actually eventually be the land that's used for a new Call of entering whenever we get to get a chance to build that so but we need to get rid of it right now because it's kind of dangerous all right devotion a second how those in favor of rubbing the contract to tear down the monument the frontier Learning Center say hi those opposed no all right ambassadors Mr chairman I moved to approve a contract with the palace Construction Incorporated for tennis courts
094resurfacing at East High School and the amount of 58 335 in South High School in the amount of fifty eight thousand three hundred thirty five dollars for a total amount not to exceed 116 670 plus a ten percent contingency a second okay any further discussion I just have one question I see the the center the East Court when I walk by there and it's in pretty bad shape why are we not doing the Central Court it would be my question I think those are all built about the same time Mr chairman uh the central courts are not native at this time this is resurfacing of south and east right now so the Central's still in good enough shape okay thank you okay go ahead yeah don't get too far away um I was just curious
095on the timing of that resurfacing and when that would be um Chelsea Smith that'll be a summer project this summer summer probably starting um in June I would imagine I don't know I don't have an exact start date but it is scheduled for summer and when when that happens how long does the process take so just a few days a week or no they'll be in there um probably 30 days I was just curious this tennis teams practice during the summer months as well so yeah and and we'll work around that um I haven't spoken with the 80s on that at all I'm assuming Jeff Doherty has um and we'll work around that with them more or if we have to get them at use some of the other Courts at the other places we'll
096do that as well thank you any other comments are all in favor of approving the um contract with hills construction it's the AI aye those opposed no all right motion passes a move to approve a contract with Superior Roofing Incorporated for bid packages one two and three for roof repairs at Johnson Junior High School and the amount of 349 altavista's Elementary School in the amount of 298 104 and East high schooling the amount of 338 171 for a total amount not to exceed nine hundred eighty six thousand two hundred seven dollars plus a ten percent project contingency my second any discussion on this one I want things for the new board members I might point out is the all these projects have a 10 consistency used to be that every time you had a cost
097overrun they would come back to the board and ask for it um an overage and we'd have to approve that this just saves an awful lot of time in that process so the contrast can get going on that and the construction department is the one that approves those overages at this point right okay so and they can do that up to the 10 without having to come back to the board for further money so that's just kind of a Time Saver there because the Project's done more quickly I do have one other question about this one we have two different Roofing projects two different motions for motion projects why are those separated uh Mr chairman so the roofing projects when we bid those out um we had those in in four bid packages and part
098of it was um one of our bidders couldn't uh bond for the full amount bid the entire amount out so when we uh bid that out we ended up awarding to two separate bidders so we have one bidder that's doing Clawson and Fairview and then the other one is I was doing the three jobs you just mentioned okay thank you any other questions okay all those in favor approving the contract with Superior Roofing say aye all right I suppose no passes right we have another one about everything I moved to approve a contract with Inman Roofing Incorporated for bid package four at Clawson Elementary School and Fairview Elementary School and the amount of 329 199 plus a 10 project contingency second any discussion on this one any questions all right all in favor of approving
099the contract of human Roofing say aye aye those opposed no all right motion passes I moved to approve a contract with pole Mountain Electric Incorporated for interior lighting Replacements at Deming Elementary School in the amount of 169 997 hubs Elementary School and the amount of 339 391 and Miller Elementary School in an amount of 139 751 plus alternate one for Hobbs Elementary School only in the amount of Sixteen thousand three hundred fifty six dollars for a project total not to exceed 665 495 dollars plus a ten percent contingency my second any questions or discussion on this one you know they were moving the lighting contract home on electric say aye nice those opposed no all right Russian lessons all right future meeting dates are Monday March 6th 2023 at 6 PM work session will begin
100at 5 PM the business of the district is done and we now have our time toward the second visitors and just kind of remember the rules make sure you state your first and last name keep your comments to two to three minutes and we have a timer for three minutes so that'll be your hard limit so others have time to waste their comments keep your comments General in nature not directly to that specific individual individuals and suitable in language and content for K-12 paid students in additional information perspective try not to do with that one so don't say things people have already said yeah all right so our first person coming up is uh John Allison good evening Mr chairman trustees and Dr Crespo I am John Allison a 31 year old veteran a 31-year
101veteran of Laramie County School District number one I wish I was still 31. um I am proud to have been a social studies teacher for 29 years and now our behavior intervention specialist for the past two all at the junior high level throughout my 31 years in the district I have been a part of an amazing community and have had the opportunity to impact thousands of students I turned in my retirement papers in January however I was surprised to learn that I do not meet the eligibility requirements for the health insurance option for retirees the recent change in this health insurance policy requires retires to meet the Wyoming retirement Rule of 85 and be 55 years old by September 1st 2023 in order to receive the health insurance benefit I understand that the Board of
102Trustees approve this policy change October 2022 which I am appreciative of but I don't believe that they were aware of the impact it would have on some employees like myself and my husband I have 31 years of continued service all with the Laramie County School District number one and I've met the rule of 85. in the past health insurance eligibility was based on meeting the rule of 85 or having 20 years of service with Laramie County School District number one I would like to request special consideration for my case and my husband's when it comes to the health insurance option why has this new part been added to the policy where employees need to be 55 years old the school district pays for the health insurance for 10 years so why does it matter the
103age of a person when they retire teachers don't go into this profession for the pay your bonuses but this benefit of providing health care for its retirees has been so important for many of us here when I ask human resources about maybe retiring at semester of 2024 when I turn 55 and meet these new requirements I was reformed I'd be denied this benefit if I leave in the middle of the school year and could possibly lose my retention pay for 20 plus years Laramie school district has offered is employees great benefits including this health insurance retirees for the past 31 years I've committed to being the best teacher this coach mentor and role model to the kids of our community so in conclusion I ask you chairman and trustees how will the school district support
104dedicated employees like me without this health insurance it will be a struggle for retirees so I'm asking you please take the special circumstance into consideration thank you for your time all right thank you Adam Leopold uh Mr chairman I don't see that name online let me have a few hands up let me lower them and then we'll ask uh what was the name again Autumn Leopold Autumn if you are online please raise your hand is your chairman there are no hands raised okay we'll come back here at the end I'm Casey Neff hi I'm Casey Neff I just wanted to come and say that I am here to support our teachers and librarians thank you shall we got him hi my name is Shelly Downham I'm here again in front of you at the board
105um because I am frustrated that as a board you have once again taken the focus off the kids by directing the focus to the opt-in library policy when the opt-out has already been shown to be sound this last fall trustees were have been rigorously trained in the operation of current opt-out policy and the destiny program having gained understanding of the policy and knowing that it offers both opt-in and opt-out options they should they these trustees should be assigning examples to the new elected Trustees of how it can and does work currently the opt-out information has been added to the online registration process which I'm grateful for and I did register my son today using and did opt uh our not have to opt out but I was appreciative of that and the board should see
106how that works before taking any further action if few parents exercise that option perhaps the community is letting them know that they are fine with the current policy and procedures in place for library books there are a lot more pressing issues that need attention from our local school board library books are not one of them as parents already have the option to monitor their children's checkouts and I was there at the session earlier and I do just still want to say that it's important that parents have the ability to opt out I am one of those parents that would like the option to opt out of books as well and in the 20 years that I have been a member or my kids have been in the lcsd1 I have not had one in instance
107where I've come into contact with any book that was questionable that my children read or brought home I do have a good relationship with all the Librarians and the teachers and I feel that I just want to let them know that we support them that there's a group group that out here that does support Librarians and teachers we know that they're doing their job and we want you to understand that as well so I just wanted to say that tonight and I will continue to lobby for the opt-out program and to leave the policy as is as a good sound policy thank you thank you um Richard Johnson Richard if you are online please raise your hand Mr chairman I do not see that name you're able to Circle back on that one at the
108end um Nate green and I know he's here trustees Dr Crespo good evening I've come here to speak in terms of as you make policy a couple things to keep in mind two things that that come to me as these debates have been going on is I keep hearing the issue with parental rights and I also hear the issue of what our school board obligations first in addressing parental rights I taught in this District in five different decades and I have to say parents have always had the right to control anything around what their child was learning or doing in public school so long as it was in general alignment with the school's Mission and did not impact the education of other students but what we're seeing currently I say it's nominally parent rights because
109in fact it's not about expressing beliefs about serious education or policy or personal issues involving a child no instead we are seeing and hearing political politicized grievances often based upon rumor and personal interests or issues with the school by groups quietly funded from the outside and are only interested in damaging Public Schools but the big interest here is with you folks and that's the board we go back to our founding documents from the very beginning whether it's the writings of Thomas Jefferson Noah Webster or even uh Horace Mann we see that public education was established in this country to nurture grow and sustain democracy in this country we should be educating to democracy you as trustees are obliged to oversee and guarantee this mission the debates and efforts to control or even eliminate curriculum and
110or books runs counter to the Fidelity of your Oaths of office Justice Robert Jackson 1943 West Virginia State Board of Education versus Barnett it's a flax looting case wrote if there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation it is that no office higher betting can prescribe what shall be Orthodox in politics nationalism religion or other matters close quote Jackson goes on to write schools are for educating the young for citizenship that is the reason for scrupulous protection of constitutional freedoms of the individual if we are not to strangle the free mind at its source and teach youth to Discount principles as government as mere platitudes in 1969 Justice a Fortis and tinkerby Des Moines that's the armband case wrote if discomfort became the standard for constitutional protection there would be no room or speech
111that challenged convention Fortis ended it with students are persons too I beg you as you move towards policy to keep in mind you are here as Educators for democracy thank you thank you um Angela Sylvester um hi Warren um um chairman uh my name is Angela Sylvester I'm a parent here in lcsc1 um uh first I just want to say thank you for serving our community um I trust and respect our Librarians and teachers as professionals um I support the current opt-out system um I believe that my kids are human beings and deserve their privacy from me and from you um they deserve access to books and whatever other materials that are deemed age-appropriate by these professions um they shouldn't have to ask for specific access to these books um it seems like an invasion
112of their privacy um I believe that these values align with sending my kids to public school I also believe that the current opt-out system lets other parents also make different decisions than mine please keep the policy the way that it is thank you okay thank you solderberg I hope I got your name right thank you Mr chairman my name is conrado Saldivar I'm coming to you here today as a community member I attended a workshop event two weeks ago put together by braver angels and other community groups and one of the topics at my table was about storytelling to build better communities that's why I'm here stories through books and that means students need to have access to live experiences without critique yet some stories are being targeted as inappropriate when the relevancy to those
113around them stays the same the freedom writer's diary by Aaron girl beloved by Tony Morrison and The Color Purple by Alice Walker are just a few titles that have been floated by others as being inappropriate for this District I'll provide impactful stories to better understand each other from the public comments at meetings I've attended and watched online it appears like the help that policy Works parents are able to direct the reading of their children without violating the rights of other parents the proper way to handle this is to encourage parents to have discussions with their children about what library books they can read and if needed have their discussions with Librarians about those parent-child decisions let's continue sharing stories let's continue building our community thank you for your time thank you next is Jaden Holman
114hi uh hi my name is Jayden Tillman I'm a former South student from last year and I'm here um to go with the opt out and have it stay the same way um niskar librarian at cell asked me to come here and represent that um just a few things I'd like to say is that as somebody who is recent from South schools and other schools in the district because I also used to go to East for a bit um and being in that environment and seeing everything I know that the issues are not books a lot of the other issues in schools real issues need to be solved before we can think about books because honestly like trying to take the rights away from students to choose what they want to read it really when
115you try to control people that's when they become uncontrollable and that's it okay thank you you're a brave come up all right last on the list is Megan Hesser my name is Megan Hesser chairman Bolin trustees Jennifer Crespo I hope you brought your homework I sent you all a simple story today and I would love to see a show of hands of who would like to read it out loud I'll have to dot class participation points for those of you who couldn't and can anyone tell me a key id idea from the story so for those of you who did poorly today you'll have to stay in a little bit of recess time so that you can practice and work on reading your story how'd that feel did you know that roughly 3 000 students
116in this District feel that way every day in the classroom and in light of a recent avoidable tragedy in a nearby District I'd encourage you to consider if a dyslexia simulation might help get teachers and administrators ready to buy in to fix our literacy crisis my new business as your literacy partners and the international dyslexia Association the Rocky Mountain Branch both offer these resources and other trainings so until you can get at least 80 percent of our students reading at grade level or above it will continue to be a crisis because these are children's lives that are literally hanging in the balance the way they feel every day at school leads to anxiety depression suicide dropouts drug abuse prison is that what you want for our students I've spoken before that state statute puts the
117burden of reading screening and intervention on your shoulders this board has made the statement that K3 literacy is a top priority it's time to share the implementation plan or an update on reading screening and interventions your failing students by allowing the system to maintain a status quo the work you've done has not been enough I'm still hearing from parents around the district that it's not well I hope this board can set aside the old adage of it's always been done this way and actually come up with some solutions to help these students and for the parents who are here that are concerned about opt-in or opt out please realize that 50 of our students aren't reading on grade level as it stands they cannot access the text that you're concerned about if we don't fix
118K3 literacy and the kids who've been left behind already and for your curious those if you're curious what the story said uh it read a friend of mine has a cat and a dog one day the cat got mad at the dog and scratched him with her nails the dog got angry and bit the cat the cat fought back but ended up hiding under a table pretty simple story wasn't it all right thank you we'll go back to Autumn Leopold Mr chairman there is a hand raised I'll let him speak here hello hi yeah your chat is disabled so I can't respond to the moderator I'm sorry about that you can hear us though right yes okay my name is Marie H I signed up with Darlene but apparently not because I'm not on your
119list I've emailed you board and Dr Crest Pool and I wanted to speak to you because we have a problem with special needs education in the district or you can come up for just a minute sure we have 10 people on the list and if if the other two don't show up they did weren't here earlier we'll give you a chance to speak but right now we're going to check and see whether Autumn or Richard are available and if they're if either one of those is not available I'll give you a chance to speak so hold on for just a minute so do we see autumn there Mr chairman I do not see that name Autumn if you're online can you raise your hand Mr chairman there are no other teams raised or Richard Johnson
120Mr chairman there are no other hands raised okay go ahead hurry can you hear me now okay as I was stating before the district is very poorly performing when it comes to special needs education recently I discovered that the bull the schools do not send proper prior written notice out when there's a change in education status for students on special on IEPs or 504s we'll recently learn and I know I'm not supposed to go into specifics but because we've gone round and round an email because Dr Crespo refuses to respond to my email I wanted the board in its entirety to know that parents at a specific School recently found out that we've been without a special needs educator since October and we had no prior written notice letting us know that this there was
121a change many of us recently found out there was a change when we got Quarter Two grades um so I wanted to make the board aware and members of the public aware that this is an ongoing issue this is a concern this is a legal concern that you the Board needs to look at policies and procedures because the school district as a whole has now failed us and not just one student and one family but every single student at this particular School what's more concerning is in my own research and talking to other special needs families is that this is an ongoing issue it continues to happen in other schools in the district it's still happening in other schools in the district and during transition from elementary to middle middle to high so I'm asking
122informally asking the board to review its special needs education policies to make sure that they are aligned with idea laws and to explain to us parents who are in this current situation how you are going to rectify it and help bring our kids back up to where they were thank you for your time thank you Marie we have one more slot left is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak can you be online who would like to speak raise your hand Mr chairman we had a hand raised okay go ahead and start by giving us your name good evening Mr chairman this is Wendy Volk I'm a parent in the school district and also a graduate of East High School class of 1983 an awesome class mind you but I just wanted
123to tell you real quick as a parent how impressed I am with our librarian at Central High School where our daughters have attended and one is attending and just really pleased that I can ask a lot of good questions about books book recommendations I like the options that are available when I was at East High School and our librarian I thought did a marvelous job but there were so many subject matters if you asked about it at that time there was no sex education at the school district that really would delve into a lot of subjects if you wanted to know more the public school nurse could only handle so many questions so I just I really applaud what we have available for our higher education available for students and parents as resources in our
124public library in our schools I think it's appropriate um I like the opt out option I also want to say thank you for for the funding that was approved tonight for the tennis courts kudos to you guys thank you to Dr Crespo I think she and her team are doing a marvelous job and again I just when I look at other parts of our country and other parts of our region we are really very thankful and I think we are blessed to have the quality of Educators quality of school administration quality Librarians coaches everything and so just want to say a huge shout out to thank you guys for what you're doing is the more I spend time in other parts of the country it makes me that much more appreciative for Larimer County School
125District number one so thank you Mr chairman and members of the board okay thank you Wendy all right so that will end our item for visitors and we'll go into executive session 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 legal matters and litigation a second yeah all in favor of winning executions yeah