LCSD1 School Board of Trustees Meeting - January 23, 2022

001for um my uh our original plan was to go over uh with some of your convenience about it so go over with new trustees the process of how um a family or a student can take out a book in the district and how we go through Destiny and what that looks like as well as the professional review Systems that we use for the acquisition of Library texts um I do want to make sure that we're honoring time and I know that there was a an email sent this morning from trustee Claussen around wanting to have a conversation and nope and um so I want to make sure that we're honoring that and there also was a forward uh later on this afternoon from uh trustee s which I think you all received um with some

002other conversation as well so I want to make sure we have enough topics for that so actually I have um Joe Evans is here and he'll uh we'll do a high level overview um I'll click for you and then we'll um we'll see if uh interesting Clawson comes in so we can address that and then just a couple of fyis we are streaming and we are recording um the work session in this space and then we have um overflow in the room next door so the individuals that are in the room next door are able to hear us and the conversation um and again as a reminder recording and um and zoom and we do have some participants on there as you know we don't have public comment during the work session um and we'll

003move to uh we have a couple of comments later on in the typical work session so with that I will make this a little smaller and hand it over to Joe and he and I will tag team um kind of where we are in terms of our process I'll start with like I said many of you saw this um just yeah I don't know why it's does it need to start the weather and yeah thank you very much so this high level overview I'll hand it over to Joe this is an example of the same presentation that we did a few months back we want to make sure that all the trustees have uh the information that they need around the process that we use and with that I'll hand it over to Joe do

004you want like five minutes uh yeah probably because I we're literally just waiting for the um right so uh Destiny is an important um program for people to understand because it's um uh so what it is it's the software that we use in the district that kind of represents what our libraries hold okay and it's an important product for uh people to know how to use because that's how you can find out what's in our library that's how you can kind of join your student on their kind of literary Journey okay um so just to give you an idea of what this program does for us we have 350 000 titles that this thing controls keeps records on um and all of those things right so um how apparent or or Community member would access

005this is through their their students class link so I'm sure you guys have seen class links I'll kind of Breeze through that but when you're on a your students classlink um they they all have I think it's kind of hidden under this they all have Library resources this is something that's loaded into every student account and once you click on that that takes you to Library resources and Fallout Destiny is where you would access Destiny to find them kind of what books are in the in their shenanigan head along and um how to use this as a tool for your um for your for your student okay so this is what it looks like um once you move through here you can click on catalog this has all sorts of resources that are also provided

006for students research and that sort of thing once you're here this is really pretty intuitive students can and parents can just kind of Click through here this is not hard it's pretty intuitive just to search for you know if you wanted to search for Harry Potter you got it right there you just flip it in and move your way through that um now one way that parents can use this is um to kind of like I said join their student on their Journey right it's all of our students the parents know them best right and so if your student was reading you know a wrinkle in time and they wanted to know more about that they wanted to find another book like that you could type in the author and whoops um understand and you

007can find more books by them if you buy Madeline or if you search that right um now another uh powerful tool that we also have there is a destiny discover that's this one in blue um what this one does is this provides kind of a different interface for parents and students to follow um now the biggest thing with Destiny discover is that this provides a checkout history for your student so uh any parent can know exactly what their student is checking out in the library whether the book comes home or not uh and what they would do is that up here at the top it just says my stuff so you were just follow your students login right in class like my stuff and then you go into history and immediately you have every book

008that your child has checked out in our library system for as long as they've been here um so a student can a parent can scroll through that and know exactly what their parents what their student is checked out while they're at school whether it comes home or not they've always got access is it most recent most recent first yeah exactly so we'll pause right there I just saw trustee Claus and come in and I think um so thank you very much because I know you put a whole presentation together but I want to make sure that we're aligned to time I part of our process and the policy is to make sure that families have 100 um oversight over what they're doing with their students right they can access the library list they can build

009a list together they can opt their students out of a variety of things title author if there's um a personalized list that they want so what we try to do is give a lot of access for families to work together uh to make that decision um on their own and then I'll add you can click through the to the um a little more these are many of you have heard the reviews that we use a lot the last trustee um working the working session the work session we provided that list with all of the information which is actually on the website so if um Community member family trustees want to know how that process works and who are the organizations that we've used these are some examples of the one that we do the ones

010that we use and some that are available we also have added Common Sense Media as one of those because it is a little bit more current to the level of film and things like that that parents use we actually use it often when we're sending messages home around concerns with students and things like that how do you talk to your student if there's a student deaf so it is a um it's a really uh significant kind of website access the only other thing that I think is pertinent through this conversation is um through the opt-in opt out categorical list that we want to make sure the last work session we had provided information about online registration this year so our process is that the trustees had asked us to put onto the olr website which

011is the online registration website indication about mature content that is on there and families are checking that they've read that that we have mature content throughout the district you know K-12 and that students at the appropriate age level have the um have the access and that language sounds for those of you who have not done your students olr yet um it's sounds like this lcsd1 is committed to engaging our parent community and developing a collaborative relationship to make the decision about whether their children may access books in their school library our current board policy has an opt-out portion this was added to the registration process and provides parents and Guardians a convenient way to make choices for their child and then the parent would check the box I understand that my child will be allowed

012to access all library and media material at their school if I do not complete the opt-out process and then it breaks down all of the steps to do that if the parent is interested in following that up so then somebody from the library the school the district can reach out to them so um and that was based on the last work session the feedback that was given there so with that I'll stop talking what are we at 10 minutes so um I know that there's some other topics and I want to make sure that we have the board give the board an opportunity to have those conversations um when you first brought that up when you clicked on the link for going to the library thing it had Wild on there didn't it do the

013kids have access to well so let's talk I'll talk a little bit about that and I think Kyle is next door if you can hear me Kyle um so this last weekend we received an email on Saturday from a diligent principal who shared that there was a parent who had using her child's iPad had gotten into the State library system so that's an access point look at me like that was magical try that again just showed up so that the student had access on the iPad so the State library system and in doing so did a search and the um review of what that text was um in this example apparently it was 50 Shades of Gray because it is the State Library System um the review the summary of that text came up I

014read what was there a D.O.T read what was there although not concerning an issue in that example because it's the whole state we wanted to make sure that we were figuring out what the loophole was and where that access was coming from which is why that reminds message went home we've had that access for 25 years it's part of the State library system so um I'll hand it over to Kyle who's actually at Mr McKinney's had some conversations um as to why we sent that message out so um so yeah we after reviewing the content on there we went ahead and we blocked the site through all the student iPads so we can work with the state and they're working on potentially removing the preview text feature that's in overdrive they may not have control

015to do that so uh we'll have to wait and see what happens but for now we went ahead out of a subcaution and blocked the overdrive.com so will that not be there then well go wild still works and all the resources on there it was just the preview feature it was a couple links into here and then you could pull up a book and then review the preview of the text so that'll still work go wild still works the features the search available text and all that stuff but not the text itself so what does that give our students go well is part of the Wyoming State Library offerings right um and what what they're talking about overdrive and Libby that's only one link within wild uh most of what the links are in while

016our research documents um so it's ways that our students mostly our high schoolers are accessing um like at peer-reviewed journals um that sort of thing so they can do high-level research and the reason for the for the removal was because we wanted to make sure that um that access point for the summaries wasn't that we were making sure we were clear on that end so that there wasn't access to something that we wouldn't put into our own system we we want to make sure that the research is still available there we are working with the State Library um because we don't want to eliminate that resource lots of our students use that resource on a regular basis and if a student were to try to take the text out like check the book out they

017still need a library card and all of the components that you would need so it's not that they have access to the text it's just that we want to make sure that if those reviews are um for adults that were making sure that that's appropriate for the students reading it so again checkbooks out through that then yes I have a quick question so this weekend because we've gotten several emails in regard to the opt-out form I went to click on that receive just refresh myself I'm embarrassed I can't find it can you I even went into the parents doing handheld clicked on the link watched the video I could not find the opt out form can you help me with that so so I always access it through board docs and within board docs it's

018chapter seven um uh section 21. let's try that and I could see the challenge form but not uh so so the the exhibit 85 is what they will use that's a that's a So So currently that's being used for both because there's a check box there that says do not lend us quick material to my child okay and then those other options below that would be the challenge withdraw this this book from the material from the library itself okay so now it's just an 85 not an 85c okay thank you okay correct clarification question on Destiny you can search by title and search by author can I search by subject yes okay all right thank you thank you has it changed from when we were brief this lasts well we did a learning session in

019September and then we did the board meeting in October so my understanding was um and this is where you know my interest has been is the the level of graphic content so my understanding was you can search by subject like baseball and products but you can't necessarily search if there is a five-page you know very explicit graphic details is those subjects are based on Library of Congress which has hundreds of thousands of subject titles um and so um because they drilled out that level right and so that's what those are based on so instead of searching for something like that would be not real estate and I think you I think you would ask that question as well during both the learning session and the last work session and if I remember it was Sarah

020may have responded that that's or Katie that that's actually a really great opportunity if you're not really sure where you might find that text and that author or that language was to connect with your school librarian because they do know the texts and have a deep understanding of kind of what that would look like who the authors are things like that if you just weren't sure and they would help you curate a list that that wouldn't have um areas that you're not comfortable discussing so and I think that may have been part of our conversation so I have to go back and look because I also think it came up in the regular meeting and there may be a section where that was recorded so that we can use that so when we're using um

021our training sessions we're making sure that we're using the same language so that it's clear my understanding was that there may be books that our Librarians haven't yet identified sections like that so they might not know all of the books that would have but that work still hasn't been completed maybe it has since then but my understanding at the time when you're what you're referencing is that they hadn't they hadn't a comprehensive list if a parent went in and said I just want to avoid you know graphic depictions of sex acts that they didn't that our Librarians didn't have that they could say okay is that correct so we do a typical weeding through the board policy right now on a regular basis that would remove taxes um as we were finding them in some

022cases as you may remember that we had talked about some of our elementary schools have books that are from the 80s um because there was a time where we that level of weeding may not have been happening because we didn't have um our Librarians at the elementary schools were at Paris who were not that wasn't their scientific information so we've done a ton of that I would have to um I think Katie may be on there or Joe may have the answer um we've done a fair amount of that reading and haven't found that that to happen um so I I don't I'm not exactly sure what you're specifically talking about because we've done that weeding process as we promised um and continue to do that as we purchase texts so that is a typical

023cycle that happens every summer throughout the year books that don't get taken out um books where there's no interest things like that um and that's how that shows up as well what I'm asking is do you then have a list for parents that say these are these are books that I'll have this level of sexual functions so I think the question would be more about what is it that you want your child to read um versus what are the books that we wouldn't want your child to read we would want to sit down with families and say what is it that you want for your children not this is what you shouldn't read that's what I was going to say too is our parents or our Librarians are um I'm more than happy to join

024in that Journey with uh with parents um to to find out exactly what that parent wants because each parent wants something different for their children right and uh and they want to customize and tailor that to that chat room can we ask okay I have several actually going back to the Forum the 85 form that you're telling me is an opt-out form and a challenge form we had a book that was challenged and there is a there is reference to the website grinder based on our Pac meeting would that not be a safety concern that were that we have books in our library that are promoting sites like that that might be dangerous so I think that so first what I would say is um the the purchase of that text was through the process

025the reference to the to the website or to any website at that point is really about what's out there and what's the reality similar to when we had the FBI here to do that pack presentation there we certainly shared what's out there what are things to look for what's a concern um and that would be the contacts that we're talking about we want to make sure um when Tasha was here talking about here are the websites that you're having those conversations with your students that our goal is to make sure that you're talking as a parent to your children about all the things that are out there and if the if the student has questions we want them to have that opportunity to ask those questions have you read the book I've not read the

026book okay I read the book and there he says five times in that chapter grinder is not allowed for anyone under 18. five times so he explains what Granger is and his actual language in there states that you know he's not recommending it and he thinks it's not a good source for people to find a relationship or find anything like that and it says five different times that it's not allowed for anyone under so if we have a book that says that that it's not allowed that he doesn't recommend it for a child for someone under 18 then why is it in our district because homosexuality is out in the world and people have a right to understand uh you know the ins and outs research whatever they want to call it but you know

027people have a right to learn about the things that are out there in the world and to use their own reason to uh to know whether or not that's something that is interesting to them or maybe they have a friend who's come out as homosexual and they're just learning about it I mean there are reasons it's a it's a non-fiction book it's not it's not as Alicia's book about homosexuality I think it would be fine if it didn't have references to things like that if it is a book about where the main characters that's fine it's the it's the sexualization this is not sexualization this is teaching people who have questions have questions about their sexuality it's a non-fiction book that gives reference and teaches different things about about homosexuality um you know some some

028kids need that they don't aren't able to talk to their parents they're not able to talk to another adult and they feel much more comfortable sitting and reading something in a book okay more questions I do I'm curious about the Ala and their classification of young adults starting at age 12. I looked into that and we actually we had an email from a parent talking about that and basically that parent said that when you get a classification it's generally on every other website it's 18 to 35 or 18 to 39 when I did a Wikipedia search it was it had said 18 to 24 or 18 to 30. and so I'm wondering what their premise is as far as starting so young I wouldn't able I wouldn't be able to speak to what ala does

029okay so I know that the the guidance that we use or the professional journals that have been around since almost the 1800s late 1800s early 1900s they Continue to update we use a variety of professional journals to make those decisions our experts in our buildings use those resources as well also keep an eye on what's coming we've added extra um indicators to make sure that we're meeting um leading what we would like for our community and what that looks like and and it's not our only Outlet we use a variety of systems um so I wouldn't be able to speak to different organization it's one of the many that we use what are their systems that you are aware of use that yeah use the 12 to 18 category that was the only one that

030that I could find that's not an area of expertise of mine okay I'm just wondering if there's anyone that knows that as to why I can speak to what our how our Librarians use our professional Professional Resources um so so like a good example of this is what Dr kresco was saying about um our Librarians using multiple resources so I just go up in the boxer Librarians kind of going through what's what's the part for you and many of them will start with something like the um School library Journal um right which has been publishing for 60 years the rest of these were almost 100 plus years um they'll start there and kind of go through the list of new books there um and knowing what their collection has what holes their collection might have

031um they'll kind of build a list right and then from that list they go to fallette which is the the resource that we use and take that list with um Miss Wilson Paulette because we'll call that then all of a sudden they don't have just the review from school library Journal they have the review from kirkus and from book list and from the horn book and so now they're looking at four or five different um different reviews right for the same book and a lot of the Librarians will filter this from the beginning with whenever they start looking at books they'll filter out anything that has less than two positive reviews it just has one positive review that's not enough for our libraries and it gets dismissed out of hand and then what a lot

032of our Librarians will do especially our newer Librarians they'll take that list they'll build it and see this is what I think I'm going to buy this year and then they'll send that to the another librarian across the district and say hey how's this look are you putting these things in your library if not why and uh and so they can have that discussion about what they what we really think is appropriate for our community and for our libraries based on what we see from multiple sources um Common Sense Media is up here because sometimes we find that um because these are the rest of these are all professional reviews that have been doing this for 100 years Common Sense Media is attribute a game since 2003 to try to offer families a lot more

033information movies like Dr Christopher was saying and things like that and sometimes our Librarians if they're not still not sure about something they'll drill into something like that because it has parent reviews kid reviews um and just a very different perspective and so then that gives them just more information where they can try to make that decision um not just with the professional reviews and not just for them in the library but now with reviews from a more consumer perspective does that make some sense consumer perspective okay yeah because that's mostly who's doing well common sense that there they do reviews um they have like their professionals that do reviews but they always have like um their their perspective on what it is and what they what age group they think it is but then

034there's also the parent reviews and they and they have an age range they think it is and what and what kids are saying about it so that's what I mean by consumer reviews is because they're they're putting in their perspectives as well thank you can you talk about positive reviews there had to be at least more than one what about negative reviews so negative reviews so um think books that usually that have negatives they don't make it into these journals at all and so so that's a non-starter um for our we just we don't see those books um but sometimes our parents our Librarians will find negative reviews on things like on things like Common Sense Media and that sort of thing so they could they wouldn't necessarily be in those but there could be

035a negative view on something that we'd already selected on there go ahead I was just going to say that by the time it goes through the whole process they're checking out more um kid reviewed or teacher reviewed after all of the professional piece so they're already coming in like I don't know if I want to purchase this so that Common Sense piece just lets you know how kids are the kids and adults are kind of receiving what that text might be so by that time we have there haven't been any negative reviews until it gets there and typically they already have that perspective that's why they're looking for the answer only exactly where this being was either we use these but are there any others out there that we could be used so um so

036these are these are by and large the accepted um reviews that people have been using for like I said um the hornbook um Publishers Weekly some of these have been doing it since the late 1800s um and so these are what are widely accepted we use these mostly there aren't like I said once if there's a question um and they're still not sure whether they should do that they'll look at Common Sense Media some of them have talked about um just briefly looking not not as a decision maker but just as more information at things like Goodreads um and um I thought there was another one sometimes they'll even just look at Amazon reviews not as a way to make a decision but just to see just to get as much information about it because

037we can about people reading it yeah are people buying this book um because we want books that um yeah High interest right right so you're saying they're maybe aren't any others that are widely used then is that to our knowledge these are the these are the strongest and the best of best read that we can find if you didn't ask for ways which organizations are these affiliated with can you go through there and you can see on some of them but great question and if you don't have it you can do that to me I would have to get back to you online okay okay I'll write that down if you can show that what's in care board I'd appreciate it sure sure Mr chair yes I think are you done Susan I just had

038one more and so are these are the sources that we would use to determine the age appropriateness uh it is mostly this is the these are the sources that we use um and again the nice thing with this is that um in Fallout we can look at it lines out this is what kirkus says is the age group this is what um what school library Journal says and each of them give their own their own independent rating of what they think it is um so yes okay I guess I'm just trying to wrap my head to try to figure out what's our Line in the Sand as far as this is to this is too this is going too far this is two mature to be in our schools what would that what would that

039look like not just based on what the parent thinks but as a school district what would that look like or what does that look like now so I think that's an interesting I'm just I'm just trying to wrap my head around where I mean how is it anything goes I would certainly hope not so I think there's a we have a clear um you know we have looked for books that are Elementary appropriate and then we look for secondary appropriate certainly we have some parents that have no concern about what their child reads and would actually prefer them to read whatever text they want so we have to provide that level of access we're very tight on how that system works so if a student were let's say a fourth grader wanted to read a

040book that was a high school level we don't allow that um what we do is contact the parent and say we want to let you know that we don't allow this and then the parent has the right to say yes you do I want my child to read it um if if the if the student hasn't you know doesn't have access then the student doesn't have access to a higher level that's very a very tight process that we have um and we explain that through the last work session um and that at that time we didn't have anybody who had asked differently we had asked we had Parents that had asked above right my kid reads at a high school level I want access to the text so I the issue for us is um

041the tightness of our process doesn't allow students to access outside of their grade level appropriateness in terms of like where they're where their um k6 or secondary the question that you're asking specifically this the school is very clear on the need to be um open to what parents want for their kids it is not our job to overreach into families and their homes around what students have access to um that's up to the parent so what we try to do is put all of the safeguards and access points in place so that parents can make that decision about their own child's learning okay but as they're going through these these pieces I'm just clarifying this um these pieces if something is rated above it's an adult book and it's not on the AP list or

042it doesn't meet one of the pieces of the learning direct learning or objective criteria it's likely not to end up in the library that's that's the breakout point is if an adult read a book that doesn't have some kind of okay Scholastic reason for being there and the same is true if you're looking at a middle school library and if it's rated as 10th grade to 12th grade we're not going to put it in a middle school library because that's not the not the opportunity there is a true policy for procurements correct their specific and you say you have to they're not just going out to the public library anything other than interviewing but let's go get it no there are specific procurement policies that they're having and to the extent of the weeding as

043well so let's say a book shows up in a library right like this is a great book I'm going to send it to my kids school we have a process for weeding so that we're constantly checking the titles that are in there and we're every on the regular like nurse uh nurses Librarians are always and pairs in the buildings are always looking through what's in the collection to make sure that it's relevant that it's up to date is it what is it talking about so that we want kids to read um so we want to make sure that it's of Interest right so that's part of the conversation as well but it's definitely based on the grade level dance I have a question about these two I was wondering if um you had said there

044has to be two positive reviews from these sources um and that you've recently added Common Sense video which I think is a great resource so for parents I use it as a parent um but I'm wondering about denying about you know denying procurement of a book how many negatives guess for news do you have anything in place that would say after two negative reviews we don't buy it like you didn't trusted it reviews so I think Joe mentions that part of the process that we use is that there aren't if the book has a negative review in any of these it's not on the list so we wouldn't even get to that point it just doesn't show up it doesn't show up there yeah it just doesn't show yeah but that's not true for common

045sense right for the common sense is is uh if you think of it like filters it's a it's a lower filter down here we start with the professional reviews and then if we have questions further after that so it sets a lower bar than what we currently use in the system their reviews are based on popularity of everything that's popular across the board Mr chair thank you I might be getting confused with another resource but I thought they also kind of had and I thought you mentioned this earlier superintendent Crespo that they gave some um reviews of like family values if this is going to be have adult content and that kind of thing um so are you saying I'm going back to my question just a minute ago if there's a negative review by

046common sense because that way equally to the negative review by some of the others that are listed here so the concern that we would have is the common sense is not a professional guide It's somebody's opinion um further along with that Common Sense doesn't exactly have what you would call a negative review what they're trying to do is trying to give parents as much information as they can make decisions and they'll say um you know they break it down into profanity and they'll say you know these words were used as many times foreign yes thank you Mr chair so any book we look to procure we check all of these sources to see that's written in our board policy every that we we're looking at all so any Library resource every Library resource that we

047purchase goes through this process okay and and can you remind me I'm sorry um when you would look then at the Common Sense Media or you're always we're always checking that as so we're not always checking that's uh that's a new resource partly I think we're we're a community that values Traditions the values um the values like a longevity of what people are thinking right and uh and most of these have been around like you said for 100 plus years Common Sense has been around for 20. um and so I think we want to take that with um with where they stand um as I've looked at Common Sense Media they have they have professionals they have um but um but there's a lot we don't know about common sense um right and so we're

048so we keep that as a lower bar okay so um so we checked is that answer your question yes um so with common sense if we're just checking it it sounds like we maybe take it a bit with a grain of salt because it's just parent and student input about what they've read in the book um if if a parent were to say this book has five pages of sexually explicit texts I mean it you really would have to you have to dig down in that too and find out probably right or I mean is that a does that right raise a red flag um trustee Edgewood Senate you know mentioned a Line in the Sand I mean is that if if we were to you know through looking at all of these if we

049were to see that with Common Sense Media because it doesn't sound like the others would actually say that um does that does that raise a flag does that make us take a pause and and rethink a book or what does that do could we if we notice that happen to notice that in common sense media so I think part of the conversation for us is um if a parent were to notice that in a text that that would be their guiding resource for why they would or wouldn't let their child read that text the minute that we say like that's not okay we are limiting somebody else's access to that text that isn't to say and I'll use those examples like lots of Shakespeare wouldn't be included um lots of the classics wouldn't be included

050the Bible so when we think about when we think about making sure that we're providing that level of access we're very aware that's why we use documents and professional resources that are 100 years old because that gives you an expansive amount of time this this is how it's been recommended this is what this looks like over time as a parent I would use common sense media for sure because it's going to align to what I am looking for for my child based on what I'm reading but as a school district our threshold is to make sure that it's Meeting those professional alignments and as Joe said when we get to Common Sense Media it's really just to get a feel for what the community kind of larger Universal Community all over the Internet how many

051kids are are adults or whatever are liking that so it it doesn't rise to the level of the professional experience and I would caution because that's my job is um you know being stuck in in this social media experience where what we're counting is how many likes are in a system becomes concerning that's why we refer always back to our professional expertise and experience when we make decisions as as a school district our job is to represent the whole opportunity for parents to make the decision for their kids yes ma'am yeah thank you I agree that we I I would not like to see our description into what people should or shouldn't be reading topics they should or shouldn't be reading but I'd like to and and I sent out for transparency and everyone get

052a chance to look at a proposal for what I'd like to see I just moved to in policy and that is to take up the issue of not whether you can read the Bible or Shakespeare because those don't those don't have anything to do with the issue that I I'm trying to raise I'm trying to raise um and this is what I heard every time I was interviewed during the campaign I was asked about this question every time I went out and you know spoke to a group of people they cared about this question and the question is how topics are described in detail of sex acts it doesn't matter who's having sex and with whom they're having sex it's the details and the long descriptions of those acts and I'd like for our board

053to consider the age-appropriateness of that in our books and curriculum but this is a this is a library book issue so we'll just stick to that but I'd like for us to consider that as a legitimate issue not related to what you want to read about or who you want to read but if if a reading source has descriptions of sex acts and great depth and detail that a lot of folks would consider not for minors and we are a K-12 system and I think it's under 18 are generally considered by the law as minors and I think that's the question um do you know books that have five page descriptions of the sex act in our lives I actually do okay what I have a list okay does one page descriptions it let's go

054down to one page let's go down let's go down to it doesn't matter the pages it's the topic that I want to have the discussion about do we as a group think that we should have policy that allows for descriptions of people getting it on in our books that are accessible without parental consent that's the issue I think you said earlier that you wanted us to have parents engaged and parents deciding and they can decide that outside of our system but when most parents send their kids to school and in fact I have an objection to the language to of the registration unless we're being specific and saying do you want your kid to have access to sexually explicit language it's misleading and I'd like for estimates that are changing their own registration I appreciate

055that work I appreciate that you listen to our concerns about notifying parents but the issue is about access to explicit sexual content from a school district that has we could look at other school districts because of the other states I don't want to decide but I think it's a topic we should discuss before a preventative parent should decide shouldn't it policy so if a parent let me see if you as a parent let me explain policy doesn't work if they are Librarians and the school district doesn't have a list of what what books I'd have to go in and spend hours saying I want to I want to avoid this and that and basically what I'd be trying to get at from my perspective is anything that describes sex acts in great detail explicit content

056in that time except that now you're wanting the vast majority of parents to have to do exactly that to decide what they can opt into and that's not appropriate either now if you have to opt in to every book They're going to read you're going to have to make that much right now if you want to avoid this you have to go through the what 250 000 plus books you don't have well let me clarify you don't have to go through 375 000 texts which is what we have there are ways to break down the genres a little bit so that when you're making decisions around what you want your child to read or not read it it's not every title in the entire collection I'll give an example just from the last um work

057session my family we read to Kill Mockingbird and it has a sub theme of writing now if I were to go in and say I want to avoid yes rape and incest you know and act and things like that they could pull these books but to Kill Mockingbird would be old in that grouping and I wouldn't want them to miss out on reading that book because it's a wonderful book in my opinion that's others but I love that um because we don't have a mechanism in place and I think that people should be and this is the discussion I was hoping to is that the owner should be and that we offer it that we also identify the books so the parents can accurately out so basically we put these books in on an identifiable

058list and say I think my 14 year old's too young to read about um anything that goes into great depth and detail about um pedophilia you know a man with a child um any Scripture if a parent has that interest it would take them hours to do that with the librarian and we don't necessarily have a list because we haven't done the work to at least to my knowledge give me if we have I don't want to speak but my understanding is it's not how our system permanently works so so you're asking for a project that's that somebody reads through all 350 000 and does districters on all of them no no that's right um I think and I don't know but I think there's resources out there that have identified books that are in

059most libraries now School libraries or maybe in some I don't even know but I know I've heard of about 50 that people think are in our district and I provide that list I think I have in the past um but you know our Librarians would have to do the verifying of these things but I think it's a it's a direction of policy that we should be considering so that we can give parents that tool to say I want to opt out of explicit sexual content and yet not not miss out on books like to Kill a Mockingbird that have rape in them but don't go into great detail or if you want to read the Bible sure there's plenty you know sex in the Bible but there's no descriptions like we're seeing in these books

060that parents are very concerned about does that make sense let me ask a clarifying question so are you proposing the current opt-out policy to be completely switched to an opt-in or the specific list that you're talking about those books being adopted and then leaving our podcast as well I I propose the option policy so I think it's fine if you know the title or a kind of the genre or if you know the book the author I think that works great but a lot of parents aren't aware that these other books that I'm talking about in the graphic sexual content are out there and then when they find out they don't know that the list of books to avoid and talk about it and so I think there's some work to be done I sent

061out a draft proposal that I hoped everyone would have a chance to read copies too um if you wouldn't mind passing these around but it proposes that really um directs The Districts to consider and for us to consider a policy change that we can decide to vote on members think about it but it composes that we would change our policy on how we put for books so that we would consider these graphic explicit sexual passages and then also it proposes a change to our policy to identify the books that do have the descriptions that are graphic and and I don't know where that line is but you have to figure that out and have our staff maybe work on how they would you know figure that out and then have a list so that we

062could put those to answer your question we could use our same system put them on and opt in if they're all I know let's say there's 50. they're all in everyone's profile and your parent has to say you know maybe a registration yep or can read those books I don't like I I accept and so the that list would be the only I guess books that would be in the off in policy that I've heard of that policy would still be in place yeah it's a hybrid I think it's the best way forward because you know I understand people want to read these things and I'm not trying to limit their access well without parental consent is what I was going to say is that I think that we should be engaging parents and saying

063and I've talked to lots of parents and they're like you know I want to know my kid is reading um something so I can have a dialogue I might be okay with it but I want to have that to be able to have that conversation to say no about that scene in that book and I can't blame them so sure so trustee Clausen you shared that you have the list that I don't remember receiving but the list that you have where does that list come from I was sent that list so I don't know is it a Professional Organization or I don't know but I'd be happy to give it to you yeah that would be super helpful but I think our Board needs to think about this issue and I'm sorry I probably talked

064for too long here but um she also have any other comments or questions I do so I had gone in search this weekend of an opt-in policy to just see what that would look like because I know that they've done something up in in Toronto County I I don't I don't like those being honest and so I thought that is there such a thing as something that's that's clear that's concise that maybe we could take more policy advisement committee and have them sit down and look at and work through and so I found one I printed it out and here it is it's just something to think about just I just wanted to get the conversation started so um Mr chair I I appreciate the work I've done I know we're very short on time

065of the night and then our regular meeting should start in about 10 minutes but I would be supportive of looking at um at language or at the resolution in a future work session or it's more appropriate as an agenda item during a meeting I I think this discussion should not end right now there are students who have right for this meeting I think it's as complex obviously there's a lot to navigate it if we move to something like this um my personal thought is that if it would be a rated R movie or we can't read it out loud in a classroom or in a board room it probably should not be openly accessible in our libraries so I like the idea that a parent would have the option to say you know what yeah

066I'm fine with my kids reading those titles and how about it um but for me perhaps if I wouldn't want my my freshman daughter to read those books that I could just say not okay if they're checking or not um and then it's you know and then that's it um I I know with kicked on the number 350 000 you said 375 000 but you can break that down by genres so um you also said earlier our Librarians are pretty they're pretty intimately aware of what what the books are in their libraries and the content of those um so maybe the the project in identifying some of those books or even looking objectively at the list that trustee claussian has been given um maybe that's not such an enormous undertaking if if you're already here

067we're pretty aware of for the votes in our collection and they're looking more just super genres and the secondary libraries I would hope that those type of things are not real in the very libraries I don't know but um yeah I think this provides great feedback for where the board would like to go but I would Mr chair I'd be in support of furthering this discussion um I was kind of thinking that we were not going to get done with this in our hour we had today so I think you are going to have to do it in a future session um go ahead Brittany I was just going to say I mean if you're if the interest is in changing the policy we just passed a policy process and so you know if there's

068interest from this group you know submitting something that you want to see reviewed goes through the process and so I don't know that it should we should spend a ton of time until it has gone through that process to discuss I believe that trustee Clawson has a resolution but the resolution doesn't go through the process I think that it's a resolution with derive the staff because you come up with the process um I don't think you have to do a resolution to direct staff what you're interested in exploring okay now this is yeah you could have called me no problem I would have walked you through it we talked on Wednesday I think we're playing yesterday we just I sent it to you as an employee who's this morning no doubt I just I want

069you to know you can always call like it's not a problem we chatted on Wednesday you can let me know that you're headed in a resolution direction we're more than happy to meet the will of the board okay thank you uh just to address a couple of things number one when we're talking about leading something allowed in the board that's paid in 12. um that's a lot different than adult content that's 10 plus or um you know AP accrued adult and so there are books that our kids are reading in high school that aren't appropriate to be read in a kindergarten level and I hope that that level increases over time so I think that argument doesn't work when we're talking about books that are only in the essay level if you look at um

070you know we received many many letters in support of continuing our current policy we received some and support of changing it but we received many and one of them was from a librarian at the high school level and there are 13 books from the moms of Liberty proposed banned books that are in that Library that's not very many you know and this is a large amount of discussion and time and effort for bits and books in a high school that this librarian thinks probably is about this animal for each of the high schools and if you look at some of the books that are on the list I mean one of them was was one of the ones that was brought up in the board meeting desk fall and it's Monday's not coming and that's

071one of the ones that I think that you're talking about that has some explicit detail about a sex act but just like with Phil Mockingbird that book in general overall is a fabulous book and I would hope all of us read it because it talks about some incredible issues that are going on in our country at the moment um and so there are you know you have to look at the entire book and so if you are trying to limit a book based on somebody's thought that this is an intensive thing you know somebody has to actually read the book and go through it and see whether or not it these are fabulous dish anyway it was like a Mockingbird it's a fabulous but anyway even though it has that anyway this book is not

072gay is a good book I read it I think we should ask when somebody comes and asks us a question about a broker as a comment about it workers you know saying we need to get rid of this book we need to ask you too much have you read it and put it all together is interesting we're going to stop there it sounds like we're still having discussions so I think we've made tea to pursue this a little bit more at some point I don't know if we want to have another special session to talk about another work session or whether we want to try to do it during a board session so that we can actually maybe I do believe that rather than just going to you one of us going to you it's

073better for us to have it in writing what we want you to do so I think our resolution is probably the better way to go so I think we need to have a session at least sometime to look at what we could do in there um I don't really want to get rid of books but I also don't want every book available to every child if their parents don't want them to have it so I think there has to be a happy medium someplace in there where we can have the books appropriate for the for the parents who want them to have those books that makes it easier because right now it's been pretty difficult for most of our parents to get through and get the limiting of the books that they wanted to maybe

074promote so if we can start with a list I think it makes it a finite project to work on so I think we need to continue this at some point so um with we've since been to just add that as an agenda I wanted a picture meeting to go through that resolution and click it and then just vote the air now it's answered so I guess if we have room on our next one sure okay so in in honor honor rebellious training to work together gluten-free we all want to work together as one team enjoy the Oreos differences and we'll continue that discussion at a future time foreign conference last fall I'll go Triple C and what they started with instead of them having the audience do the Pledge of Allegiance these people over there

075was to have a group of young people doing it so we're now going to start a new tradition at least for the time that I'm on the board uh we're going to tape a cloud one of our classes in our district um to or say the pledge allegiance and we're going to play that here for you so you can feel free to join kind of quietly in with them as they say the Pledge we mainly want to hear them saying the blip so that'll be one of the changes we'll have here at the beginning all right so I've got everybody here so it's 604 I call this being to order everyone please stand for the pledge which will be from a group from bags Elementary and this is Rick Cheney's class [Music] okay to the

076flag of the United States aircraft and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all right thank you and we will have a little presentation for them a little bit later so Madam chair yeah I mean adjustments to the agenda chairman we do not have any adjustments to tonight's agenda that we adopt the agenda there's a second to adopt agenda any further discussion all those in favor say aye aye those opposed note motion pests all right um we're now going to be doing a recognition of staff and students for our spending achievements we have a lot of those nights it's emphasized by the full wardrobe here so we'll start off with student of the week and our first student of the week since we have been

077haven't had a meeting for six weeks we have a lot of these we have one two three four five six seven of these we'll start with Johnson Junior High School it's coming up and one of the nice features if you haven't been here this year is we not only have a student of the week but he gets to pick his favorite teacher and we'll have each of them explain why they have that so Mr Cox all right folks well thank you for coming in tonight um I get to introduce uh miss Shelby Brown um one of our Math teachers at Johnson Junior High School and she was selected by Finnegan Fournier and he has selected specifically uh by our staff at Johnson Junior High School vegan not only has like a 4.0 GPA he has

078perfect attendance and I don't know about anybody else in the room but when I was Finnegan's age I spent a little bit of time outside my own office because I maybe made some bad choices you know not full disclosure but a little bit Finnegan's never even been tardy right he sets his his sides on where he wants to be um and where he wants to go and I don't want to steal all of his Thunder but man this is the most dedicated hard-working kid um that I've had the experience over 14 years as a principal working with and um let me tell you Finn um I hope I hope you're around to be a you know a model for my own kids because your impact on our school and those around you is very profound

079and so I'm gonna turn it over uh to Finn here so he can kind of share with you a little bit about and aspirations and then we'll go from there okay thank you so can I get a so when I get out of high school I do want to go to um I've got a list of colleges um the Naval Academy is on there but I want to be a robotics engineer um specifically either for NASA would be cool or medical robotics would be that's interesting um but the naval like I said the Naval Academy because it is one of the best schools for robotics engineering and that's really it yep I just want to give um if I can real quick just Ms Brown a moment to brag on him as well we had

080to do a rock paper scissor for who's going to get a brag on you and technically she won so it's going to give her a little bit of Lifetime I'm Shelby Brown I teach 8th grade math and Finnegan is one of my seventh grade honors students in my 8th grade math class and I could brag on Finn all day long he is a student that not only shows up ready to learn but he is excited to learn and it is inspiring as a teacher he can take anything we say in the classroom and I see the light bulbs spark every day whether we're talking about why the number 73 is the best number or the Fibonacci sequence or we're playing tracksophone for fun and he wants to print the music so he can learn it

081everything we do is just awesome to watch then be so committed and inspired to learn and it's really awesome having him in the classroom so congratulations and uh Cody Rebecca if I can embarrass you guys Cody and Rebecca if you can stand please yeah this is where we get to embarrass you thank you guys for being amazing hey if you guys will just stay up here we're gonna get a picture eventually and also you have some other things for you all right next one is uh from Central High School so again Mrs delbridge come on up Dr Delbert thank you foreign good evening so this is Andrea Edwards and her favorite teacher Miss Paul who teaches English so Andrea she has really um just blossomed at Central and I'm so proud of her so she

082came to us from her sophomore year from Arizona and so she is in charge of a couple of our teams one of those is academic challenge team and then also a club which is our International club and so on her off hour she has searched out for internships at the Wyoming archives due to her love of History I love that you do that the Wyoming archives is such a gem here in Cheyenne um Andrea does all this while taking AP and upper level courses she has a perfect GPA and she's absolutely a true role model for students and is respected by all of us at Central and those that know her so thank you so much where are Andrea's parents her parents are Eric and Katie Edwards do they come up here so I'm gonna

083let Miss Paul just speak a couple of words and then Andrew I'll let you speak just a couple of words not long yeah I don't think Andrea knew she was gonna have to speak because um she's keeps you herself which is something I love about her I had the honor of teaching Andrea in honors 10 and she came in intimidating and my first year to teaching I wrote it in her mini college application letters um once I wrote that Sean was able to have amazing conversations about literature with her I just loved Andrea and we just I don't know quit and so after her 10th grade year she asked if I would be their academic challenge sponsor which hello that's intimidating within itself first question for a teacher and so I have been so blessed

084and excited to be her teacher be her you know she's my ta this year and have her 10th 11th and 12th grade year and asked to write so many letters for her and which I do so easily as she calls herself the 83 year old in a teenage body she truly is an old soul but one little brag on Andrea and an academic Challenge tournament at this past weekend and we were up against their team was up against the reigning Champs um level and she shut down their team and they all just watched her I think Holden Caulfield was all they said and the rest of the team was like she answered it in two words and she shut down that team so fast and I was so proud of her [Applause] thank you okay

085next up we have uh South High School and Mr Thompson Mr Thompson right here friend look at me over here there she is I know I'm way over here the other but I know since we've rearranged things up here I just thought it'd be better for us to be closer over here with the attorney and our executive assistant so I'm Phil Thompson I'm principal at South High School and it is my pleasure to offer this certificate to Savannah judkin she has a 4.321 GPA she has never received anything below an a she is now standing very quiet young lady okay we might get two words out of her also but she is what south is all about I can't even list the AP classes uh the concurrent enrollment classes and Bannon Orchestra are two things

086uh if her parents are here we'll have you stand right at the end well stand now for teachers Miss World height and I'm going to let her expand on the information I've already given you well I'm Savannah's Orchestra teacher and I've had her for six years so I know Savannah pretty well and sometimes she's not so quiet but um she is a gem she works really hard and she plays the violin very well she was honored last week at Allstate Music Conference of having achieved being selected for the Allstate Orchestra four times all through high school and that's a really hard thing to achieve especially when you play the violin because there's a whole lot of violin students that that do that so um that was quite an honor for her she was also selected

087in 21 to be part of the all Northwest Orchestra and I got to know her even better when she was in my Youth Orchestra Youth Orchestra here in Cheyenne and she played in the Youth Orchestra so she's been a very dedicated music student and I noticed it with her academics she's very dedicated to that also always wants to do her best but she's a real asset to the orchestra in the band and I really appreciate her foreign [Music] that nominated me for this award but especially thank you to miss Wilhite for being such a great teacher and a mentor [Music] yeah no I say Savannah I was in a basketball game this last uh Friday and listened to your band all night long that's absolutely fabulous all right next we have um Kerry Junior High

088School Mr Nissim thank you Mr I'm Mr Anderson the principal at Kerry and I'm excited to introduce Logan and the first thing I'm going to do is tell the first time I met Logan you know it's first second day of school uh and the student comes up to me hi Mr Nissen how are you Hi how are you at this point at the junior high you're thinking all right he's either setting me up or something down the road or this kid is a genuine thing and what was exciting was afterwards uh Logan not only did that to me he met other students he met other people he uh then as you watched him through the hallways he was uh being courteous to other students and he's just an all-around genuine fabulous young man and so

089I am thrilled to have Logan golf with me up here and his teacher made me Lanier so uh Miss Lanier you up for saying a few things absolutely all right thank you let me adjust this slightly though good evening I have the great honor of being one of being one of favorite teachers um one thing that stands out to me about Logan um pretty much everyone in here has probably flown at some point and they always tell you make sure you adjust your mask before you adjust someone else's and I don't see that Logan ever he is always willing to help other people he's been a natural leader like Mr Nissen said and a positive asset in our classes in our buildings um yeah pretty much from day one I actually met him before school

090started he came in at a tour of the building and yeah he's he's been a truly Perry junior high and we are so proud of him foreign [Music] okay next we have Triumph High School you're right I got a chance to be out of Triumph high school earlier today to see their platform graduation which is always great they had five students believing that which I'm sure they're always sad to see with me but it's great for them to go on it's good to see them go but it's always the hardest part so good evening uh thank you I'm just going to introduce Arlo Siler uh she came to us just this year but in that short amount of time she has shown amazing skills and uh what I like mostly every morning she comes in

091she's hot she says Hi and then she she takes care of her peers and and that's the the number one thing she just really is caring about all the other people are after I rarely get asked how are you doing I mean he's like that's pretty rare I go ahead and she says how are you doing this morning so Arlo would you like to go speak for a second sure so first okay so first I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here um I'm really honored to be here I have to share a few things so it might take a minute um first I wanted to say why I chose to go to Triumph I really like the small amount of kids that are there and it helps us

092like get more help when we need it and it's a lot easier to get help and like move around and stuff um when I grow up I want my future goal to be to go to college and then I want to be a forensic scientist and a photographer and I chose Doug as my favorite teacher because he's very charismatic and he's always nice and he like just brings a good start to your day he's always super energetic and like he just uh he's just really nice and just a good teacher to have and that's it do you want to stand up [Music] um I've been a Triumph for five years maybe six I can't remember um Arlo by Far and Away the smartest kid I've ever had in class there was days I was studying

093the night before just so I could answer some of her questions um I never told her that though but so she always thought I was smart but I really am aren't but she was a smart one she kept me on my toes and it's it's kids like this that keep me teaching this is my 39th year of teaching um and students like Arnold that keep me going I could retire but I like teaching too much so I'm here because of students like Arlo and last but not least we have McCormick Junior High School and this is Trump so as Mrs trout is coming up um please make sure you just stand here so that we can get a big picture and um we have uh um Western Vista is here to honor all of you

094so just hang tight look at that perfect time all right so I am tutra I'm the principal at McCormick and our student of the week is Caitlin Myrick uh as I just told her she's so quiet she was in this room the whole time I was back there freaking out she hadn't been here this is Caitlyn she's one of those just quiet non-assuming student leaders that we appreciate so much at McCormick um I love to watch her in the cafeteria because she has this Gathering of people that just can trust that she is kind thoughtful and she looks out for them as well as for herself which sounds really self-serving but that's not how I meant it so um Caitlin I'll have you speak for a little bit and then her favorite teacher is Miss

095Fox and our Liz and Tim hi Rick in the room you're just as quiet as she is I missed you there you are foreign teacher because no matter what kind of day you're having she always finds a way to make even just a little bit better and she's always very supportive and very inspirational to everybody okay now it's my turn to figure out how to use the microphone my name is Miss Fox and I am the orchestra director for McCormick Junior High School and for Central High School I am delighted to be here with Caitlin this evening honoring her as student of the week a well-deserved honor Caitlyn is a violinist in the 8th grade chamber orchestra at McCormick and in the two years that I have been teaching her she has greatly impressed me

096with her unbelievable work ethic her kindness and her patience with everybody she means her calm demeanor and her quick wit and intelligence no matter what Caitlyn is doing she gives it a hundred percent of her Focus attention and effort besides being a dedicated musician Caitlyn is also a talented athlete and she plays both volleyball and soccer I am proud to see her Excel both on the field on the concert stage and in the classroom I am lucky to have been Caitlin's Orchestra teacher for two years now and I can't wait to have her for the next four years and see where her life will take her I know we will see Caitlyn do some very exciting things and her future is very bright foreign so if you all would just line up right here so

097that because there are a lot of us tonight so that Mary can take a picture and she'll introduce Western Vista okay so it's it's my pleasure to introduce Michelle Blatt and she is our representative from Western Vista and Western Vista is the sponsor of student of the week so and I can assist you in getting the certificate so Western Vista would like to congratulate each and every one of the students on their accomplishments and we are providing them with a Visa gift card as well as a little certificate and encouraging them for a financial future that's right and again [Music] teachers right here and then for each teacher we also have a Ziggy's coffee gift card for them so many foreign [Music] generation so much okay next up is going to be Western Vista stay

098up here because there is something brand new they're helping participate in the Pledge of Allegiance by giving an award to the classroom teacher and I think we have the teacher and the principal here and I was wrong earlier the teacher is a Chasey lamb and the principal is broccini so I'm sorry apologize for getting that wrong lately so figure out those two come up please and you are inaugural people to do this and that was great for you to volunteer thank you [Laughter] okay next up we're going to do the Central High School grammar Awards so from the Play Store this is a large group good evening I'd like to introduce our two theater coaches we have Jeremiah Copeland and also Andrea Mayfield Audrey I knew Audrey Audrey I've known you for years uh good

099evening everyone my name is Gerald Michael I'm a theater coach at Central High I'm this is Roger Mayfield she's the assistant coach at Central hyper theater program um just to give you guys a brief rundown about what Wyoming state thespian Festival actually is is previously called State drama it's where all the high schools in the state get together and they compete with everything that's a theatrical in this case here they've changed the name of it because they want to align with more of an international standard but it's virtually the same thing the uh The Entity allows students to compete in 17 different kinds of events which can include anything from uh singing to design to construction of costumes basically you name them theater um adjudicators from around the region in the state adjudicate these kids

100on a professional level to give them some scoring which may or may not include their qualification to the international level um and so um since covet this event hasn't been live in its full potential for a few years um and so since it was able to go live more than 600 kids participate in this event in Gillette Wyoming and over 28 schools Fortune of those which were the 4A school and I'm just proud to tell you guys that uh Central High we have almost half of our showing we have a much larger team than this but you know the weather being it is and everything like that uh they not only won the 4A sweep category but they also won for the entire state of Wyoming so thank you while we're doing that are there

101any parents of these uh students that would like to be recognized stand up please [Music] okay all right thank you guys hey Mr stay up and now we're going to have the Central High School 4A State girls swimming and Diving champions all right coach bot I'd like to introduce coach Bott our swim coach we also have our diving coach Taylor here because she has a state champion that she wants to come on up I know she loves the spotlight [Music] so we have five individual state champions this year on this group of girls along with several others were able to get a second place finish at the state meet if you don't know much about swimming I thought I'd give you a little background on a a day in the life of a swimmer um

102it's it's pretty hectic they get up somewhere between 4 30 and 5 o'clock in the morning come into the pool and have a practice around 5 30 for about an hour try to get a little food in them go to go to school do the best they can on limited sleep um come back to the pool for another hour and a half to two hours for a practice until about five o'clock at night and then they get home and cram as many calories into their faces as they can and then try to do a little homework before they get into bed and do the same thing the next day so these girls really are a tribute to student athletes their their credit to the central tribe that they represent they do a lot of great

103things not just in the pool but within their school and throughout the community and our four swimmers are pretty much year-round swimmers they're not done at the end of the season a few of them you might be able to tell got out of the club practice and came right here their hair might tell that story and our diver up here is also a multi-sport athlete she does indoor track outdoor track she's a pretty good pole vaulter so I thought I'd let each of them kind of introduce themselves and tell you their event that they were state champions in and tell you how great they are why don't you guys come up here and tell us one at a time so I'm Emily Mears and I'm a state champion the hundred fly and the two medley

104relay delay and I won the 100 breasts in the medley relay foreign in the two medley relay I'm Brinkley Lewis and I'm state champion diving and we have parents of these young days here with us tonight please stand foreign student Senate Awards experience so if Miss Black and Reuben could join me up front so I'm gonna first uh speak a little bit about Miss Black and then I'm gonna let her speak about Reuben which I think is amazing too but I'm gonna let her have the spotlight with that so miss black I have known her for a lot of years known her back when I was the language arts coordinator and she has taken a lot of time to really work with our student Senate and if you don't know a lot about students in

105it it really um requires a lot of time because it governs our student body it talks a lot about focusing on academics extracurricular activities and Miss Black works a lot of hours around dance prom putting on a lot of events that are really beneficial for our students and so miss black has been awarded the Wyoming student Senate advisor of the year and so miss black on behalf of Central and our district we are so proud that you're able to represent us in that way and to really help us at Central so thank you so much okay wask otherwise known as the Wyoming Association of student councils takes place um every November and this last November we had our largest one ever there were 56 high schools from around Wyoming and over 800 kids in attended

106so it was quite large um and I have this whole thing written out I'm terrible at public speaking but as a high school student um you have so many opportunities to be recognized I mean both good and bad but seldom to people recognize kids for who they are to other people um and that is what makes Reuben McGuire the perfect um Central High School hidden hero um for the year 2022 2023. um I nominated Reuben because of all he is to students in it he's steady sturdy and a constant to the student body as a whole not just students in it officially he's our student Senate secretary keeping us all in order and on track but he is so much more I've seen proven at most functions very early helping to set up an activity

107and hours and hours later he has wrangled a few friends and he helps us dismantle the events he's our quiet force and our constant support he handles all situations with Grace fortitude wit patience efficience and humility basically the optimal hidden hero only to us the sponsors and members of student Senate there's nothing hidden about Reuben it's all crystal clear congratulations Reuben McGuire the recipient of the 2022-2023 Hidden hero award I would also like to recognize Mr and Mrs McGuire and I don't know your brother's name and Henry would you please stop please step forward [Applause] still here um hello well I would like to thank Mrs black for nominating me and um the organizers of the Wyoming Association of student councils for deciding that I was adequate so this is okay next up we're going

108to go to South High School so Mr Thompson Wisconsin foreign again it's my pleasure to recognize some South High students and the teacher Miss Lisa hushbeck and the high school team in the first place Video Awards and I'm going to let them describe exactly what they did and how they did it so I'm Dan Benford with the associated general contractors of Wyoming we're a Contracting Association represents 75 different contractors in the state I'm not sure if you're aware but construction might have a bit of an image problem for young kids but we desperately need workers so we reached out to high school students in the state and asked them to make our advertisements we gave them about 17 gigabytes worth of video and photos and had them cut them up organize them however they want

109make a tick tock um and as we got our our videos back in South High was the clear winner and so this group is going to take a share of three thousand dollars each not each sorry I didn't have that much money they're going to share three thousand dollars so each will be getting a check for 600 um and I'm joined with our associate board of directors president this year mark Matson and just say thank you for what they did and I've had these checks for like three weeks I don't know how they've waited for them Robert yeah I forgot there we go the video by Madison ultimately Rose to the very top and will be now featured for a month on all of our social media networks as an advertisement trying to get more

110kids into the construction industry we pay well [Applause] and we have parents of these um very talented people here with us today please stand up uh real quick I'm your teacher Mrs hushbeck and um these students represent my Advanced TV Productions class so some of them I've had the joy of being with since they were freshmen and now some of them are graduating sadly um but if I can introduce them real quick I have Robert vote here um time Fitzsimmons David Darlene Maddie Gray and then Angel arenas [Applause] and also from the contract Association would you mind sharing that video with the board you can send it to the district and they can share with us we'd like to see it thank you as soon as I figure out okay anymore okay next we have

111some good sportsmanship Awards we have two from Central High School so we'll do those first and I believe we're going to have Chad Wentworth and the these basketball the basketball coach tomorrow so this is coach shaper so coach shaper is going to talk about our two young men who received this award okay let's go well as we all know extracurricular Sports and activities are about a lot more than winning and losing they have a great educational value and they promote and keep strong character traits that will help lead to success in later life one of these traits of sportsmanship the ability to work with and get along with others it's my privilege to present will little and Blake Cox with these awards for their positive displays of sportsmanship as members of the Central High School

112boys basketball team thank you the sportsmanship awards are there's those are nominations directly from the officials of the games so it's stuff they did actually during the game to display great sportsmanship so great job Phyllis this team also doesn't give up I was out there watching your game against gospel a couple weeks ago and pulled out a miracle victory at the end congratulations on that and parents of these young men please stand and next we have East High School foreign coach Kirk Nelson who's going to introduce our two student athletes who are receiving sportsmanship awards from the Wyoming High School Activities Association as well and before we get started I'd like to first introduce to our family both their families that are here tonight parents would you please stand up Haley and Taylor parents thank

113you it's pretty cool at the end of the game when an official comes up to you and compliments your team on their sportsmanship it's really not a neat thing as a coach um Haley Pearson and Taylor cassett I've been playing in our program for a long time they're they're awesome to coach they're even better in the classroom and Walking The Halls of our school just really really great kids so congratulations ladies it's awesome suggestions next we have recognition of one of our staff members and so if I can have Mr Knapp come up here we need to get the microphone so I just wanted to uh talk tonight just a little bit about uh Adam Greenwood I came here a couple years ago from Albuquerque New Mexico and he's runs our transportation department out there

114so Adam has done a fantastic job since coming here um and he was recently appointed to the Wyoming people Transportation Association Board of Directors for Wyoming uh his experience is going to help us a lot in there this is one of the Departments that the state actually takes a lot of advice from and takes into consideration what they have to say so Adam's experience will be invaluable to us and I just wanted to recognize him for this selection I have Senator Adams leadership there we've gotten it up to where we actually have substitute drivers now so we've got a number of them so congratulations that means you don't have to drive as much right although I'm sure you missed speaking of those kids once in a while all right so that's the end of those

115we are going to have a resolution lcsd1 Board of Trustees resolution of recognition for Career and Technical Education Month February 2023 whereas the month of February is officially recognized as National Career and Technical Education Month with the goal of creating public awareness of the value of CTE classes and programs and whereas lcsd1 students have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of CTE classes to prepare them for fulfilling high demand and high age careers in many fields and whereas the Strategic plan outlines student Readiness as one of its three foremost priorities in CTE classes are a primary example of student Readiness for the future now therefore be it resolved that the Laramie County School District 1 Board of Trustees declares February 2023 as Career and Technical Education Month and encourages a celebration and recognition

116of these programs in our district seconds okay we've got a motion a second for a resolution all those in favor say aye aye so suppose no all right next up is our added from visitors and for public comment see when you come up you have to make sure you give us your first and last name uh keep your comments two to three minutes in late so others have time to voice their comments keep your comments General in nature not direct to specific individual or individuals and suitable in language and content for K-12 grade students and any additional information or try to add additional information try not to be repetitive and this is a public media board and we value your input so unfortunately today we we only had one person who had signed up ahead

117of time and and not here today and before we actually start this part I did want to check with the board and in the past we've had the last couple years since covid we had just the sign up for you in order to be able to speak at the meeting last time I added letting people come up at the time so I just wanted to get to the feeling of the board and how you feel about letting people come up and fill in the positions that we're not already filled in by calling is there anybody who objects to doing that okay so from now on we'll still have the sign up process and again signing up for the first one is for items that are on the agenda and we'll continue that process even when

118people come up and the second one of course you can sign up for is anything that you want to talk to us about and um we'll again we'll do the side up and if there's any spots we'll take 10 three minutes for each one so we have a Full Slate of 10 tonight so if there's anybody who wants to go up and talk to us about an agenda item one minute anybody online Mr chairman yes we do have a hand raised okay allow them can you hear me yes perfect um my name is Abby kircher um hold on your timer just took out my notes uh my name is Abby kircher I'm here to talk about how I as a teacher feel about the restricting books and our facts due to limiting restrictions of what

119facts can be taught and not taught I feel like we are dumbing down education on behalf of the beliefs of a singularity um that's on the agenda for tonight so you can come and talk in the second part if you'd like okay when is the second part well we never know for sure it's one of our businesses over so Mr chair um Abby the you were signed up actually for the second portion um okay at the ends of we as soon as we're done with the business of the district then we'll come back to that list and you are right number seven on that list ma'am perfect thank you anybody else want to talk to us anything on the agenda and the reason we divide it up like this is obviously when people have a

120chance to talk before we make our vote on agenda items so going once going twice okay we'll close this portion and from now on again you can either sign up and that guarantees you a spot or you can wait and see take your chances if there's any spots left over okay next is uh board Communications and reports and our next meeting will be February 1st 2023. um that's our sixth that's our parent advisory committee in the boardroom the upcoming meetings right and our next meeting would be um the legislative Forum or for the board which is on February 5th and 6th at Little America that's where we get a chance to learn from Wyoming School Board Association what's happening in the legislature then also have a informal time afterwards to meet with our legislators then

121on February 6 will be our next board meeting we'll have a 5 PM work session followed by 6 PM regular award meeting in the boardroom and next we have individual board Communications reports does anybody have anything to report remaining let me turn this on the Centerton thank you chairman Roland Saturday I had the privilege of going to story gym to a science fair and I will tell you just how much fun it was to interact with the children there children from Jessa and Pioneer Park and even a couple of them from St Mary's things like what brand of toothpaste whitens your teeth best toothpaste things like uh don't put your popcorn in the freezer if you want all of the kernels to pop best or things like what what gets stains out of your clothing

122best it was just neat to go up and introduce myself and then let them have the time to explain their their project and I don't know who their teachers were but I am telling you these children were so professional in the way that they explained their projects it was it was wonderful thank you anybody else thank you chairman sorry I would like to report on the most recent meeting of the Cheyenne community recreation District um we met on Wednesday January 11th and um approved some expenditures and just actually it's really exciting to be to be a part of that so just just to give you a recap of that um and because it was the first meeting of the new board with different trustee appointing we elected offers officers I was elected as the chairman

123thank you uh trustee Humphrey was elected as our vice chairman trustee Edgerton was elected as our secretary and Jeff Doherty from the district was elected as a treasurer um during that meeting we approved invoices 317.46 for um actually all of that was for playground improvements at Four elementary schools in town and those schools are Bane Goins Hebert and Miller we also approved a reimbursement to the city of Cheyenne for the Shan uh Junior League complex audio system in the amount of seven thousand five hundred eighty dollars and 36 Cents um Mr sicarelli from the district was was kind enough to explain to us some about the the board and the funds that we have to spend because it's a little different uh than some of the other money that is as the Board of Trustees

124that we're voting on for expenditures um the funding for the retinal board and the projects that we're approving comes from the mill Recreation Levy it's one one mill um and that money is designated to be used for recreation programs in our school district Community up to 15 of it can be allowed per year on non-district projects but really all of those projects and the things we're considering benefit this community whether it's on school grounds or not um because there was um more money we actually were able to consider a second round of projects um that it's been submitted um The District staff had taken a look at those project applications and given them all a ranking of one two um ten and as a committee or as a as a board we opted to approve

125projects that had rankings one through four one being the highest need and the highest benefit to to our students in our community the projects that we approved with the second round of submissions were for um additional just improvements to playground fall surfaces in The District in windscreens at different playgrounds new soccer goals at Gilchrist Elementary School an improved audio system for the performance hall at East High School um sorry I'm trying to read my writing practice wrestling mats for South High School a disc golf course that will be I think just located well it's at South High School um Mr Knapp is just um just south of South High School is that correct awesome thank you um and then we we had some discussion um but It ultimately approved um funding for us for a

126project with the city um and that is for um the Cheyenne Junior League complex for storage facility there our softball teams our women's softball teams play there and storage has really been a problem for their equipment so we opted to to fund um 121 470 to the city to help pay for those storage facilities that's not actually the entire cost that we did approve that um with the contingency that those funds will actually sunset on March 31st of 2024 and that the district um will be provided within those storage facilities no less than 250 square feet the city will also use the storage facilities but we wanted to ensure that there was enough space there for a girls softball teams to store their equipment and have a safe place for those things through the year

127um in total we approved new projects um that ranked one through four in the amount of 323 812.69 anyway it was a great meeting super exciting to be a part of um considering some of these projects and bringing them to our community into our district so thank you anybody else go ahead um I just I'm on the teacher of the year committee and somebody is on the support person of the year committee um just wanted to remind everyone that that is open currently and so if you have a teacher or a sport person in the district that is um that you want to honor um please consider they're on I believe they're on the website oh I should have looked before I am just a reminder that those are open for nominations and I'm the

128sport person of the year if they get enough nominations they're planning on having to this student contact person and a non-student contact person so like to see lots of nominations there anybody else um I have a couple of things first of all I'd like to uh almost seems like Christmas was forever ago but I did attend eight of the holiday concerts that around and I always picked certain ones around the district get a field that's going on there a lot of very talented staff that gets those kids ready parents who put up with some of that at home I'm sure as they're getting ready to perform and uh it's just delightful to see them performing the music so I always um and I'm glad we're doing that again we had a couple of years there

129where we didn't really have any performances so it's nice to have them back and one of the performances will sell out of the new um Performance Hall out of Bill Triple C and that is a fabulous place that is now an asset here in Cheyenne that our schools can use and they do have to pay to use it but it's actually less than what it costs at the Civic Center and for our schools on the south Triad and someone on the East it's a very nice central location we have a lot of our parents that were able to make it there for that um I was also able to um the invitation of Dr Crespo attend the Chamber of Commerce the last meeting and the good thing about that meeting was it was the key

130speaker was Megan degenfelder who's our new state superintendent of Public Instruction she kind of gave a vision for what she has for what she wants to do if she states in Virginia one of her goals is kind of what we talked about earlier today with our resolution that is the uh Career Technical ad stuff and she wants to help Foster Partnerships between districts and um businesses in getting things off the ground making sure that we can we can provide programs to get their our students ready to be their workers and do some joint efforts in getting that done and one that I think about being at the chamber is all those businesses are there so not only were Dr kresel myself there but there was most staff members there all working with relationships with those

131businesses to make sure that we can get some of those things done for our students um and as I mentioned earlier I was at the platform graduation uh for Triumph earlier today so I already mentioned that anybody else have anything to you yes okay next is reports from superintendent staff good evening chairman Bolin and trustees super excited to share a few things um we will be spending a few minutes just quickly on the Strategic plan so as Tanya comes up here I just want to share my incredible gratitude uh you'll see there's Oreo cookies up there we had a really incredible work session with our trustees um we had a um a presenter from wsba that worked on teamwork and high performing teams and learning to build trust with each other and I just wanted

132to say thank you so much um for contributing that time because I know you're all really busy this is a voluntary position um and your time and effort is really appreciated for us as the team and for myself as the superintendent so that we can continue to work on the things that you have focused on over the last year um and one of those being the Strategic plan as you know we do a quarterly update um and I also update those on the weekly sessions that I send to each of you around the great work that we're doing in our district I do want to take just a quick moment and say um Tanya's going to do an incredible presentation here but I I think it's really important to share the amount of work that's

133happening behind the scenes with all of our constituents and we have teachers and committee members and people from the community that keep showing up which is amazing to help us drive the Strategic plan forward as you know we have a public-facing dashboard we do updates on a regular basis Tanya is always recruiting I was someplace the other day where somebody said oh and I really would love to I'm like here you go here's a card call so that we can get everybody involved in the community because really it is the district's strategic plan um and the community has come together to do an incredible job and Tanya I just want to say publicly thank you so much to you and the people that are working with you to get this launched so with that I'll

134hand it over to her much thank you well it's my honor to have been involved in facilitating this work so far and it's a privilege to give you an update today so um it's a quick update short kind of technical just about the process of the strategic planning this year so I'll give a little bit of background um and then just dive into what we're doing this year um first hopefully this plays okay our awesome community relations team put together um just a quick video with some perspectives from members of the strategic planning committee so I'll play that first for you I have been lucky enough to be a part of some of the strategic planning committee um that being said what that means to me is not only engaging just our intimate staff and

135students but bridging out into the community to create a better environment for our students families and communities collectively that just really makes a a fantastic future for our students foreign students have more opportunities to be a contributing person in the community I have seen excitement I've seen community members really I guess engaged in wanting to know what we're doing wanting to know information about our students and how things are evolving and I think that that is a ripple effect that has began with a strategic plan foreign a direction to move forward and the community a way to judge the school district and how they're progressing with their plan I think it's brought the community and the employees from the district together as well working on some of the Committees there's a lot of people from

136both the district and the community working on it I think it's brought them together more and people are focused on the same thing now it takes everyone to work together in order to reach those goals what I'd like to see is just the the positive I guess um end marks of a community that's directly engaged with our school district with our students and um wanting to see them succeed not just in education but in life as you can see so many people are just pouring their hearts into this work there's so much pride associated with it a lot of positive momentum and we're just really excited about it so thank you for bearing with me on that and if I can just get out of here get back to my PowerPoint there we go so

137just a little background on what happened last year um for those of you who who may not have been part of the process before we dive into the work that we're doing this year so last year um was really focused on stakeholder engagement so getting feedback from stakeholders in the community and in schools different students from parents um so we there were thousands of pieces of feedback that were gathered through various means surveys and focus groups and meetings and all kinds of things and all of that was compiled um into uh and then analyzed and and that's how we got to kind of where we are with our three themes and our outcomes the strategic planning committee was also formed last year which as Margaret mentioned earlier did consists of representatives from all over our

138community our school district and we really tried to be intentional on having representation from everyone from as many and as many units and sectors of the community as we possibly could so that's been great to see that involvement so from that feedback three themes Three core themes were identified and you'll see these posters around I'll Show a slide on it too they're all over the district as a reminder of what those themes are so student Readiness Community engagement and healthy environment so those themes are kind of the foundation framework for the Strategic plan and then 10 outcomes were also articulated last year and those outcomes are the bullet points on these these posters and I'll give an example of one um here in another couple of slides so the the outcomes really are the changes

139that will occur as the result of our actions so they're the anchor of the plan um and then work began right away so we'll we'll talk about that a little bit here as well so then jumping into this year we took the foundation that was laid last year and we identified and articulated initiatives which were approved and finalized in November um I have 22 so I guess that's last year now but this school year and we also formed 10 smaller strategic teams around each outcome so there's a team associated with each outcome that's really focused on um working on the strategies and action steps that are going to move this work forward and move the needle toward achieving those outcomes that we set for ourselves so um those teams also consist of representatives from the

140districts the community and fam and our families of our students so um those strategies and action steps are currently being worked on we're wrapping up that work now and hope to have um those approved and ready to move forward by Next by the end of next month in February so we're also this year focused on refining the metrics associated with the work and I'll get into that a little bit here as well and then obviously documenting and celebrating the work that's already begun so um this just kind of show is an overview because we talk a lot about initiatives and strategies and themes and what are they and it's a little bit technical so I just wanted to provide this sort of framework for how we are going about um the planning process so there's

141the themes which are very broad the outcomes which anchor the work the initiatives which are a little bit more specific and have been defined um and then the strategies which um Define the work and action steps which organize the execution of the work so they um the action steps and strategies will be ongoing they'll be evolving over time so those will change as we move forward and things are accomplished new strategies will be developed so we'll continue to see work around those again this is just a reminder of the poster that we'll see the public facing information we also have information on our website um it I also on our website now are the initiatives which are a little bit more specific so if you wanted to take a look at those you can see

142those now published on our website on the Strategic plan page so just a little bit more information about the Strategic initiatives um they support the outcomes and anchor the work like I mentioned before they are on the web page um an example to share with you is we have one one theme is student Readiness an outcome associated with that theme is Implement a detailed vision of high quality and engaging instruction and an initiative that supports that outcome is to purposely integrate technology to support instructional practices so you can see how it gets a little bit more specific as we go down so then supporting that Initiative for any for technology integration um we are currently developing strategies and articulating current strategies that are supporting that work and we have some great examples of that which

143I'll mention later too the strategies and action steps associated with the work that we're doing is what we're currently working on now like I said so we should have those ready for presentation to senior leadership um actually by next Thursday um they'll have a couple weeks to review those and then we'll present to our larger strategic planning committee which um meets on February 23rd so I think all of you have been invited to that meeting and we'll go over those then the strategies Define the work um we'll also have some action steps associated with the strategies which just organize the execution of the work so it's really intentional um it's really focused um and and helps us articulate the work that's happening so our guiding principles for developing these strategies and action steps are just

144to make sure everything is student centered make sure it's Innovative or elevating the current work and making sure that it's aligned to the outcomes and initiatives so in these um small committees we're just kind of using this Gap analysis type format to really go about developing these strategies so really that's just identifying the gaps um where do we need to focus our efforts to make sure that the work is being done that he really impacts Student Success so um also just in terms of metrics when we look at where we are now um we're looking at Baseline metrics so what's the Baseline data that we have now that's going to show us where we are um and then where we want to be what's our Target metric and then how are we going to get

145there so that's really the focus of the meetings so refining the metrics um really we just want to make sure that we're we're focused on Fidelity of implementation making sure that it's that whatever work we're doing is being implemented fairly across schools um that we're measuring impact on Student Success and that we're measuring Effectiveness um so again establishing that metric Baseline and monitoring progress so celebrating progress this is the fun part um this is just a list of things that are already happening in our district Regard in each of the theme areas so Margaret I didn't know if you want me just to go over and keep going okay you got it I'll jump in if I need something sure so um under student Readiness Ela standards alignment is is well underway um leveraging teacher

146leaders and teacher Boys in that process can I just shout out to the teachers that have been involved in that with Katie dykstel just incredible work we've had a couple of meetings here in the boardroom and just when you know we think about students with their like tushes up in the air engaged in the work and like working together and that's really exactly what you see when the teachers are engaged in the standards work having really deep collaborative conversations and that's a huge shout out to Katie and the team of teachers that are doing this work so I just want to say thank you to them that's probably what I'll do about you yeah it is amazing work there's also been a lot of work done in secondary math um they've developed a vision which

147was approved in the fall and they've re-prioritized their standards so that work is continuing as well and we'll continue to have updates with what's going on there and the same there incredible work that's happening just deep level of math discussion um so that we know how we're addressing our students and what their needs are and now I'll stop talking sorry um they have also in the math um math Arena implemented the K5 math Bridges intervention we have a an e-l-l-e-l-a collaboration pilot at South High School and I've heard that that pilot has been very successful and a very exciting work going on there um there's a new professional development framework our professional development coordinator Teresa has done a lot of work to put together a really intentional framework for professional development to start tracking feedback

148making sure all of our professional development is needs driven that we're offering things that are going to be impactful and that are going to be useful for teachers and she's also developed a new interest Internet site which is a treasure of resources for people all around professional development has a calendar on there for professional development opportunities coming up so if you haven't had a chance to check that out definitely check that out as well we also have there's been a huge amount of work that has gone into the new course registration book and so that's been done and is out now um and that was a very heavy lift and a lot of thought went into that so that's that's a win as well and then um in the CTE World there are junior high

149Ag and Health Sciences electives that are being added so that students can really get a feel for those those Pathways as well a little bit earlier and that that's a shout out to our um our teachers in our AG program they really have developed the process and program of where they're headed and what they want to do and bringing that down to the junior high is so important so the students have those connections to those Career Tech Ed components early on as they're already thinking like I may not really like this but I I love being outside or I love interacting with animals and as we all know agriculture is one in four jobs in the country so we want to make sure that our kids have that access point early on so if it's

150an area of interest for them and then it just shoots out to multiple stem programming and other opportunities of learning for them so huge shout out they took that and ran with it and we've been able to come back and really very honestly if I don't specifically um it's because we'd be here online the amount of work that is done in in this District on our teams around every Opera opportunity for our students to experience something different exciting engaging and new across the system is unbelievable there's never a time that I go out somewhere and somebody's not saying hey I heard about this great thing that you're doing or your teacher did this wonderful whatever and and really we can't do it without all of them um and I I just huge shout out so

151I'll try to stop chatting it up English language arts and ell is um English for ESL which is English second language in other places is called clde you might hear it that way and I apologize for not putting it up there I have one little question for you it says new course registration book people see book they think of something that's paper that's not necessarily the case anymore right yeah I can't speak on it but but um no as far as I understand that's not necessarily the case anymore it's digital is there anyone here who wants to speak on that yeah that's correct perfect thanks Steve all right under Community engagement um we're kicking off the second year cohort of navigating Laramie one so that's that's going I think it's a cohort Mary of ten

152is that right folks who are involved in that this year um the Health Works partnership for the school-based mobile health clinics is kicking off this year as well with a pilot project at the junior high schools um our peeps department and in rural Wyoming have a really good partnership um for getting families enrolled um for health insurance there is a there have are um several Community engagement Roundtable meetings scheduled the first one on February 7th so it's coming right up um and so thank you trustee Bowen too for just a shout out for for participating in that as well I'm sure I've gotten myself into but I'll be back um we have an updated District communication framework um that Mary and her team have been working very hard to implement the sources of strength training

153um delivered to community members has been a great partnership with many different entities within our community and then our superintendent has re-engaged with multiple Community Partners in various capacities so that's been great as well and there's a lot more going on in this area as well I don't know if I missed anything are we starting our new navigating let me Laramie one is starting yep real soon Yep this week actually so if you're interested well we're kind of full right now but if you're interested the next cohort um it's really pretty exciting to have our community interested and engaging in what we're learning about in the district and all of our departments and how they can be involved as community members little plug there for next year so thanks Mr Bowen and a couple of

154people that I've heard through the first one last year really thought it was valuable so and in fact they talked a couple other people into doing it so part of the reason we're so full I'm sure in the healthy environment area um the sources of strength again the rollout and implementation of that is happening at the elementary school level now um and then peer leaders are being trained at our secondary schools there so there's a lot of progress there are a lot of excitement in the schools around that um and a lot of momentum there in that program we have started to get some Regional and national attention around the fact that we started as a community program so that we were engaging Our Community Partners first and then engaging our students and staff so

155that's been really interesting a lot of communities are interested in how we did that and what and how we engage them so um we're excited to have our community involved in this process for our kids there is a national model of professional practice for school counselors that we are providing training on for all of our school counselors It's a two-year process um to get the counselors trained and then to implement the model of professional practice and so that is underway um the multi-tiered system of support implementation is underway that committee and Matt and his team have been working really hard on that we have a new teacher apprenticeship program that is rolling out now as well to train internal staff on um and and get them the training and support they need to um to

156move up in the organization become a teacher become certified and teach if that's something that they wish to do and then we have more emphasis on staff recognitions and awards now and that's that's just a few there's a lot more in that one of my jobs is to put is to really start to track a lot of the work that's happening in each of these areas for the lines of the Strategic plan so I have I have been tracking that this is just kind of a highlight of some things that are going on how many people do we have in the teacher apprenticeship program at this point no one yet we heard we're having our first meeting on Wednesday night s locations coming applications coming in but there's yeah but there's not the the selection

157process hasn't started yet and we have an informational meeting on Wednesday night and this is part of the state pilot that you heard about early on with some other districts coming together to have conversations about how to engage with we obviously have a shortage and we want to make sure that our internal Staff feel that they have those opportunities as well so we'll partner with them and other agencies uh the wyom the University of Wyoming the wde there are a lot of acronyms in there so all of those groups and um and then we'll start that process and continue to update you really the goal is for those individuals who perhaps haven't had any higher ed experience um have one one model those individuals who have had some but need a little bit more or

158need the experience with teaching they have a system um and then the final one of those individuals who perhaps have finished what they need to but need the hours in order to get in there and and be teaching full-time and our goal is to really start that process so that we can mitigate some of the shortages we know we have across the area um in in teachers obviously nationally but just for us and you mentioned positive there I just want to mention that we have kind of postponed the um or not the we postponed the input for the materials for math adoption that we did out for 45 day review and the reason for that is they're going to put some of those out for a pilot and I think that's part of probably that

159math initiative that you were talking about earlier and having been a math teacher for a long time I did a lot of Pilots it's the best way to know how well a program works so I'm glad to see we're going that route because I think we'll get better better results from picking our materials when we do that so absolutely so just to kind of draw a line between the example I provided earlier and some of the work that's already happening um I had talked about an initiative about integrating technology in the classroom um and so um some of the work that's happening is is we're providing training for teachers um every year annually on technology integration and so um so that's so really again just an example of the work that we're doing now is

160really identifying what is the Baseline metric for that so how many teachers have already been trained looking at the quality of training and then looking at the Fidelity of implementation so once somebody is trained um are they taking that information back and how is it being implemented in their workspace or in their their learning environment so um so those are things that we're really looking at and that's kind of an example of what's going on um so it's exciting the next steps are to present those strategies and action sets that have been developed by the the smaller committees to the um two cabinet and Senior leadership here in the district in February for review we'll get their feedback and then we'll come back to the larger strategic planning committee like I mentioned in February so

161we'll have more information to share with you then um and then the work will really begin in those Gap areas that we've maybe identified as areas that need more work and we'll start to move that work forward so that'll be exciting so those are kind of the next steps to look forward to I think that's all I have unless there's other questions or anybody have a question a huge shout out to Tanya again thank you so much to you and the people that are working with you I know you don't really have a team but you recruit well thank you and with that uh chairman Bolin we are on to the next um before we go on I did want to since we're going to be these next two items are part of the consent

162agenda I didn't want somebody to talk about uh D 2.2 which is the renewable Erp software first Here Comes Mr sicarelli who I as he's walking up here huge shout out to he and his team I say this every time we meet this Erp process has been um very intensive as an example our teams have been working literally every weekend every day until 10 11 o'clock at night to make sure that this is getting launched um in the best possible way and it's unsung heroes people don't realize the amount of work that it takes to get get this launched and I want to say publicly to you thank you and to your teams HR teams they're really this load is incredible thousands and thousands of hours and there are only so many thank you cards

163that I can send and so much coffee I can bring um and I just want to publicly say thank you because it's impossible without all of you and from everyone's audience Erp stands for Enterprise resource planning can I ask a process question sure um are you put it off Ender I just need to have some additional information so this is still under the um reports from superintendent staff oh thank you Mr chairman and Dr Crystal for those kind words um so Mr chairman you'll recall uh nearly two and a half years ago when we started evaluating more viable options for our Erp system uh we knew at that time due to the the scope and size of the project that we would have to implement through phases um essentially what that means is as we

164kind of rolled out different Erp subsystems uh with likeness in in the way those processes function uh we knew that it was going to be a multi-year process in particular this last July we implemented our first phase which was our finance and core purchasing and other Finance areas and then we are now in the process of moving into our payroll processes and our HR side um as we transition we're effectively running two Erp systems at the same time um and that's kind of uh the the essence of the motion that you see for you on the agenda tonight is to allow us to not only navigate this process from the old system to the new system but allow us to ensure that we have the technical support we need to maintain the system until public

165for the old Legacy system if you will until it's fully implemented um that technical support has allowed us to do our tax reporting for the end of the year um it's also going to function to allow us to do our state reporting that is really going to live in the system of record which is the Legacy system uh until we finish this upcoming year um as Dr Crespo just mentioned just this month we we launched our first payroll on the new system which was a huge step in the the HR and payroll side and we use the old system as a verification so we had those two systems running side by side we had the opportunity to run payroll on our old system and that was a huge check and balance to make sure that

166the new system was was functioning properly so this again allows us to continue with that process in the near term we will eventually end support for our Legacy system but this will ensure that we have the necessary technical support as we transition fully to the new Erp system and Mr chairman I'm happy to address any further questions as well good Mr chairman um how long do you think that process will take Mr chairman trustee Hinkle um we are uh a little over uh nine months into the full implementation we expect that uh we will have the remaining components um implemented by the end of this school year uh but we do have kind of look back we'll still be accessing the existing system for a while um until we are fully um operationalized on that

167new side okay thank you any other questions thank you Mr secretly because I just wanted the public to know why we were spending money on a system that we're supposedly replacing so thank you for your explanation and I also had a question on the staff development which just kind of said staff development so we can talk a little bit about what that staff development is Mr Lloyd come on out Mr White is our principal at ARP Elementary and they along with all of our other principals really have been doing an incredible job of building capacity around their plans of improvement and strategies using um federal dollars to provide opportunities for a professional learning for staff as well as their learning for students look at that perfect timing thank you very much Mr Lloyd thank you

168for that for me anything to say but when I just uh I'll answer can I have a question you have regarding that just going to give you an overview where we're at we are looking to uh our second year implementation with the PLC RTI process and we see that as a big indication where we're going with our school moving forward with students really concentrating on those interventions for students tier one through tier three tier two and tier three is our big pieces that the interventions and so we're looking to bring in uh professional development from solution tree to help us support that work that we're doing in our school so it'd be a coaching throughout the beginning of the summer with two days of training for all staff and then we'd coach throughout the school

169year for that you had a great explanation in what we see as a board I thought the public should know what we're spending money for absolutely thank you thank you any other questions okay now we're ready to go on oh thank you um Sharon Bolin if I could just acknowledge the fact that we have some ARP crew back there raise your hand what a committed team thank you so much for being here at 7 30 on a Monday night staff you have the privilege of working all those trailers out there which hopefully we can get rid of sometime in the future I'm sorry modular it's not true that's correct terminology okay now we're ready to move into um the consent agenda and I guess I think okay all it was listed with this nation of

170CA are considered to be routine items by the government body and will be enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion on these items you have them removed from the consent agenda will be considered as normal sequence on the agenda does any board member request to remove a motion from the consent agenda okay I moved to approve all motions listed as consent agenda second okay we have a motion to approve all the consent agenda any further discussion almost oh yes go ahead the wireless Broadband into all the buses and then now we're paying for them and can someone just for the audience to say just explain how we're paying for it this year before we vote so that it doesn't look like we're just spending 71 000. they're debating who's going to come

171up and answer Mr McKinney Mr chairman trustee Anderson um the initial round was paid for with uh funds from the federal government under their emergency connectivity fund um that pays for um it was pretty restricted funding actually I could have gone to devices however we already had student devices so when we were able to utilize that was um was school bus Wireless so uh that was for last year this year we're just renewing the service which will be either the same funds or potentially augmented with test results which are federal funds as well thank you so in essence it's not coming out of distant follows it's coming from grams Mr chairman trustee Edgerton no general fund dollars and also this is a lower amount this year than we spent last year to get it all

172set up is that correct yes Mr chairman this is just for the service for the upcoming and that's something we'll have to find in the future we'll figure out a way to do that eventually right yeah Mr chairman uh we'll look at uh our plan is to look at the utilization um you know which buses it's being used on more which types of activities or routes um and then that that cost will almost certainly come down if we move it to the general fund because you certainly have some students that spend an awful lot of time on their best the ones that live way out in the rural areas so appreciate having that option so they can actually get work done rather than sleeping or housing problems okay so any other discussion all those in

173favor proving the consent again to say hi hi those opposed nope okay we're going to move on to new business foreign Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission to contract for general contractor services with Reco DDA 5r construction and SNS Builders LLC for an amount not to exceed two million dollars second okay we have a motion a second to approve a general contractor this is a this is a contract that allows us if we have something we need to have done in the building and we don't need the staff to do it allows us to hire somebody to do that and this just tells us how much it'll cost I think we still get estimates when that happens but this allows us to contract so we know the parameters are worth thinking all right any

174further discussion all in favor say aye aye aye as opposed no all right motion passes all right Mr chairman I move to approve the amendment of board policies chapter six Personnel section 31 lcsd1 epinephrine Auto injectors non-patient specific prescriptions and Physicians standing orders as reflected in the attached proposed amendment here too and made a part hereof by this reference second okay we have a motion a second to approve the changes to board policy and if I recall this is to put the add the epinephrine Auto injectors in buildings so that nurses are able to give it actually vast so it's not just epinephrine or narc um is what's new right okay the narcad and I understand the Narcan are going to be put with the defibrillators in each building so the public has access to

175them in our buildings it's unfortunately we got to a point where we have to do that but if we can save lives it's definitely worth the structure any further discussion um did we get any public comment on that uh Mr chair trustee Ashby no there were no public comments received on these proposed changes I just I had a a question um I'm familiar with epipens and I know we've had um we've learned a little bit about the um was it Narcan Narcan are there any risks to administering the Narcan I mean if it's administered and it's not actually needed or is there is there a possibility that we're going to provide this to a student or to someone in a building and it would cause unintended consequences so we've asked um Janet farmer who is

176our nursing Services director to come up and just share um if you were just as a reminder I don't know who was here there were we did a presentation that is available if you have questions but um Janet is certainly here to respond um Board of Trustees the question is if there's any unintended consequences with administering Narcan the research shows no the reason that Narcan works so well with opioid specific um overdose is because it blocks it doesn't allow the opioid to bind to those very specific receptors in the brain so Narcan is the commercial name naloxone is the generic name if it's administered it only affects opioid overdoses so if there's no opioid in the system it has no effect any further questions okay all those in favor of approving the board policy changes

177as described there um say hi hi those opposed no what's your besties through one of our least discussed board policy changes all right let's continue Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission to contract for staff development services with solution tree for an amount not to exceed fifty two thousand dollars second any questions discussion hearing that all those in favor say aye aye those opposed no Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission for approximately 15 students from South High School to attend the National High School cheerleading competition in Orlando Florida on February 10th through 12 2023. second okay it's moving center is there any discussion on this item we have one inquiry about whether we've gotten this approved yet and of course obviously we had six weeks in between our board meeting so it took a

178while for it let's get on there and the um they're going to do some fundraising each student is pretty much responsible for their own fundraising protocol and but they have been doing the procession stands at South and so that's one of the ways that they can do it to earn money if they can't do it all to themselves so I always look at that to make sure that we're not violating our board policy or federal guidelines and how we're doing some of those fundations it sounds like they've got the cement control so all those in favor say aye all right those opposed no motion passes and good luck with that trip Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission for approximately 10 students from East High School to attend close-up in Washington DC April 23rd through

17929th 2023. second question again same thing before they've got good fundraisers that they're produced hopefully responsible at their own cost all right all those in favor say aye aye those opposed no good luck with the trip Mr chairman I moved to approve a contract with just bu Incorporated in businesses star playgrounds for outdoor recreation equipment and an amount not to exceed 382 279 dollars for Coyote Ridge Elementary School second kids further discussion Mr chairman is that coyote or coyote clarification your choice I don't think we ever have official maybe we'll have to vote the kids when we get the school open to see which one they want to go by because I'm true I don't think we picked a mascot in those things yet so um it's something they can vote on I think I

180prefer coyote But whichever would you like me to reread it a perfect coyotes we're good I don't think it'll work and this money is coming it's nice to forget the point where we can talk about um playground equipment if you haven't been out by there it's at the intersection of it's awesome Carlson and Potter house right and it's really coming up by the ground quite well I'm getting I think it's pretty much all finished on the outside we're just working on the inside now and it won't be open as we had originally anticipated the game the school year a little bit opening um for second semester so and again this money's coming from the school facility Mr chair yes it will open the following the August not you had it backwards you you said it

181right but the wrong season oh it's not gonna open in January no we're going to open in August oh that's even further back than I thought okay so not August and this year but August of 2024. so it's got moved back even further than I thought okay thank you you're welcome verifying that okay all those in favor say aye aye aye as opposed yeah Mr chairman I moved to approve a contract with Monument Builders Incorporated for the base bid amount of 926 600 plus alternate 1B in the amount of 73 600 plus alternate three in the amount of twenty one thousand six hundred dollars plus alternate four in the amount of ten thousand nine hundred sixty dollars for a total not to exceed the amount of one million thirty two thousand seven hundred sixty dollars

182plus a ten percent contingency for the Central High School boys locker room renovation second okay it's been any further discussion yeah I have a question and uh um you know Centralia was was completely remodeled about 10 to 12 years ago can we have somebody explain why we're meeting here Mr Knapp is on his way he knows it is just the boys that'll be part of his exploration I'm sure uh Mr chairman that was uh your question was why are we remodeling those lockers again currently so some of those were replaced uh with the central remodel 12 years ago um however part of the the locker room and restroom renovation is because it's not ADA Compliant so we're changing some of the Ada issues and those those Lockers in particularly in particularly are just wore out

183um they need to be replaced uh that alternate you looked at one of them was to consider phenolic lockers which are composite Locker rather than the metal ones however to get solid solid welded metal lockers was about the Delta was about 40 000 less so we went with that on that alternate and I think on our conversation you said that they've been much more aware in especially in the visitors locker room visitor boys and that we were going to try to work with the other schools to make sure they're a little nicer to our facilities yeah yeah we've had the conversation so um what exactly caused the wear and tear on them but uh hopefully we can get a little more use out of this next set one thing I noticed is the girls when

184after they played they generally shower so they just they don't use it quite as much as the others so right so they last a long time then I remember at one point we used the locker room at Johnson High School to store our math books when we had those little pamphlet MacBooks which was interesting the two night kids none of them used soccer but now what we're voting on is to approve the construction with Monument builders for the locker rooms and Central High School all those in favor say hi hi those opposed no all right motion tests thank you Mr Knapp Mr chairman I moved to approve a contract with mechanical systems incorporated for boiler Replacements at Deming Elementary School and Bain Elementary School and an amount not to exceed 734 849 plus a 10

185contingency second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye aye those opposed no when I moved to Grant permission to contract for an electrical contractor with Simpson electric and w.g Dale electric for an amount not to exceed five hundred thousand dollars okay any discussion yeah this is just like the one with the contractors earlier um this is just for projects that are electricians that are on staff and people have any at this point I'm not sure that's been a position that's been hard to hire um can't can't handle and we need to have some electrical work done which I'm sure happens quite often during this course so all those in favor say aye aye those opposed no so Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission to contract for custodial supplies from Cowboys supply house

186Global equipment company HD Supply facilities maintenance ODP Business Solutions quill LLC waxy Sanitary Supply Western paper and unipac for an amount not to exceed four hundred thousand dollars second any discussion all those neighbors say aye aye those opposed no thanks Mr chairman I moved to approve the appointment of Corey wheeler in the position of interactive Communications supervisor and to place them on the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective for the 2022-2023 school year second any discussions I just was wondering what that position what is interactive Communications Mr McKinney I it's I'm laughing because you can't see them but the minute that it comes up they're like standing up already I'm like so thank you sir Mr chairman trustee Smith this position is our um they oversee our multimedia team it's been in the

187district in one shape or form for at least the past 20 years um however it's evolved quite a bit it used to a team used to manage repairing TVs and projectors and tape recorders now they manage all these systems we have on our walls around the district so thank you and that answered the question I had for you earlier which was was that a new position so um thank you any presentation all those in favor say aye aye those opposed no motion passes so is this person here uh no he was here earlier he was right here on the job earlier okay Mr chairman I moved to approve the appointment of Bruce Brown in the position of assistant supervisor of custodial services and to place among the appropriate step of the administrative salary schedule effective

188for the 2022-2023 school year second any discussion I know this is a position that was hard to fill but we found somebody to step up to that and all those in favor say aye aye those opposed no [Music] Mr chairman I moved to Grant permission for approximately 36 students from South High School to attend the we the people in Washington DC in April 21 or 21st through 26 2023 second all right any questions on this one now these are a team that actually won a competition so they will be getting some money from the Department of Instruction is that correct history to help with there and then they'll have to fundraise the rest of money and they have some good plans already to do that so right and congratulations to South for qualifying for that

189that's great I think the first time that we've been able to do that so give our kudos to your team over there that's doing that so right all those in favor say aye aye and those opposed no motion passes okay our future business and meeting dates are our next meeting will be next week um February 6 2023 at 6 PM our session will begin at 5 p.m but this of the district is done okay now comes our second items from visitors okay in same rules as before um State your first and last name keep your comments two three minutes whether it's have time to voice their comments keep comments General nature not direct with us like individual individuals suitable language for in content for K-12 grade students any additional try to add additional information we

190have to try not to be redundant all right and our first person is Marcy Kindred do you see that person is that person here here come on down up yep you can just turn it around thank you hey good evening I'm Marcie Kindred she her the mother of three next year four children in the Laramie County School District number one the central Triad and tonight I'm here for the books for the queer kids the Educators and the Librarians and those who love them from the sounds of the work session minds are made up resolutions have been written it's all but a done deal if it wasn't obvious I'm strongly against the proposed resolution and changing the current policy that is already in place the current policy that supports a parent's right to opt out of

191books they don't want their children to have access to without infringing on my children's ability to have access I'm not mad tonight I'm just really sad and tired um I think decisions are being made out of fear and not based on facts I know that those making decisions and the supporters pushing for these restrictions feel like they're doing something to protect children and that always feels like such a noble cause so tonight I won't fault you for that tonight I'm just really sad that we all just tack past each other and we couldn't make you see what you're missing out on so with the rest of my time I just want to tell the queer kids that I'm sorry I just want to tell our bipoc youth our gay boys and the lesbians the asexuals

192the trans and gender non-conforming teens that your stories are not taboo they don't belong in a separate self and you're Perfect Just the Way You Are Librarians there are many of us here tonight that know that you are qualified that you take so much care in making sure appropriate books are available at appropriate grade levels you are good at your jobs and we are grateful for your efforts and will keep supporting you how we can Educators we know you just want to do the thing you went to school to do there are many of us here that know you don't have an agenda other to inspire the Next Generation and teach our children how to think for themselves I know many of you question how much longer you can stay in your positions there's no

193shame in that at this point just know that there are many of us who are grateful for every day that you decide to stay I just think we're too late for this one but we're not going anywhere we'll be back we're here we're here for the teachers we're here for the kids we're here for the educators thank you for your time and your efforts thank you um Susan scarf I'm Suzanne Scar and I want to thank chair Bullen board members and superintendent Crespo for allowing me to speak my point of view I'm a recently retired Librarian from lcsd1 and believe there is currently a political issue sucking up time Across the Nation and in our own School District I feel I can speak about the issue of censorship in our school libraries because of my

19440ish years as a librarian but recently for this District in the secondary libraries there are appropriate books that address sex lgbtq topics racism and other controversial subjects because these are issues that are currently relevant books provide readers with an opportunity to process and learn about the consequences of decisions these books offer an opportunity for students to be prepared to make good Positive Choices for themselves reading appropriate age grade level books about difficult issues help students to build empathy for those who face difficult certain circumstances in their lives we all want to live in a more empathetic world lcsd1 has wonderful school librarians who are so professional and who all have a teaching degree and a master's degree in library science or equivalent it takes days to build book orders and Librarians use the best practice

195these Librarians are the most qualified to order books for school libraries and students they know the topics interests and demographics of their students the current Library policy is sound and should not be changed because of the minority who make the most noise and if parents would rather not have their children exposed to topics and titles the current policy allows for families to use the destiny catalog to build their own limited reading list for their own children to read without infringing on the rights of other parents and students no student is required to read a specific library book students get to choose please do not change the current policy to limit access to ideas that only a few parents do not approve of I retired last June but in the 15 years I was a district

196librarian I am not aware that even one reading list was created by a parent for their child that tells me that most families were fine with the books their students were reading from the school library District Light District policy allows for formal challenges to be made against specific titles in my 15 years only two official book challenges were made by parents using District policy that makes me think that our current policy supports our community I wonder how much oxygen this issue is taking away from critical issues that really matter to the success of our students thank you thank you Kendall ceballos yes hi my name is Kendall sabayas and I'm a current teacher within our school district I am here to address two things after attending recent board meetings first it seems the message is

197that the teaching Community is not responsive to parents who object to certain materials and second the current District process for objectional material is not being followed starting with the first concern in my school we strive to have open communication with parents I just recently went through a meeting with a parent who had concerns about their child's curriculum after sitting down and discussing the material it was informative and beneficial for both of us by having the open communication we left the meeting with a mutual understanding of future learning that will happen in the classroom this was a win for the student as a teacher I always encourage parents to come to me with any concerns they have to address the second concern our district already has a formal mechanism in place for parents to influence curriculum

198and supplementary material our entire Community has the opportunity to have input on curriculum including parents teachers principals Administration superintendents and the school board I understand that occasionally a parent will run across the material they find objectionable as a teacher this is exactly what happened to me if a parent or student finds themselves wanting to opt out of any reading or supplementary material they have that option they will first fill out a formal written document start stating their concerns and Rec and the questionable areas then a panel of professionals will evaluate their questionable material and through this process we'll have a formal meeting to record the resolution decided among the reconsideration committee I have also found the majority of the questionable material that has been brought to the board's attention is part of the literature Circle

199category for secondary students the lcsd1 website states that the literature circles are an educational practice that affords more choice for the students usually a teacher will provide a very structured way for students to operate in groups kind of like book clubs to meet the standards and complete the coursework within the structure students always have choices in their books it's usually best practice to communicate with parents regarding the choices their students have during these units because they understand that every book is a good fit for every student this means that lcsd1 is already providing opportunity for parents and students to have a say in what they are learning and reading I wish it is parents became concerned they went straight to the source starting with the teacher to have a discussion about what's happening in the

200classrooms with this I am sharing with the concerns I'm sharing I want to make it clear that I'm in favor of the current opt-out policy and last as a side note I would like to say that I appreciate the current leadership within lcsd1 starting with Dr Crespo I think she's been a breath of fresh air for a district she supports the students and staff thank you Haley Rob hi my name is Haley Robb I just wanted to start out with a quote from Penn today it says those who are Banning or limiting access to books often try to ensure that people don't think in certain ways that they don't speak in certain ways um and that they don't talk about certain topics Banning books is an effort to make sure that difficult topics don't come

201up especially in schools this is an aspect of a broader political cultural struggle over who belongs when you Banner limit access to certain books you are telling people represented in those books that they do not belong you're telling them to get back into the closet don't speak about injustices you face don't express yourself and don't let anybody see you being different fit in or else our kids deserve to go to school in an environment where they feel safe to be themselves safe to learn about their society safe to learn about history and safe to read books where they feel seen represented and understood if any parent in the school district does not agree with certain topics they are already allowed to make that choice for their kids they can use the opt-out form for their

202own students without trampling on the First Amendment rights of every other student in the district I asked the school board and parents at lcsd1 to let the Professionals in our libraries do their jobs keep the current policies in place and keep the opt-out form available to parents who want to keep their children away from certain books thank you thank you Megan Barr my name is Megan Barr and my pronouns are she her I'm a mother of three children in the district the attack on our Librarians has got to stop they are well-educated professionals who work hard to make sure our libraries are safe and inclusive for all of our children we should be thanking them and praising their hard work instead they are villainized and used as a political punching bag by those who want

203to push a discriminatory agenda lcsd1 has an extremely accommodating opt-out system no child is forced to read a single book that their parents do not approve of ever yet here we are beating the same dead horse because it's not really about keeping Kids Safe no amount of accommodation is ever going to make some people happy trying to accommodate every group will just Whittle away at students First Amendment rights and that really is the point I suggest we abandon this circus and stop trying to get through to people who will not stop until they are allowed to control the thoughts and ideas of everyone around them our district has actual problems to solve and here are a few of them cuts to extracurricular activities that means groups have to fundraise to attend National events does this

204leave some students out are there kids going hungry since there aren't Universal lunches anymore how many have passed do lunch accounts Heating and Cooling not working properly in the buildings no late bus at the secondary level which means kids without rides can't participate in activities and clubs there are many more but if you do run out of actual problems to solve you can ask a librarian they are at the heart of every school and have real insight thank you um Jocelyn Barr foreign my name is Jocelyn Barr she her I'm a 10th grader in the district I'd say I read more books than the average high school in my freshman freshman year I read 200 books and I've read a lot of books under attack right now in fact these books have become my to

205read list my point is that reading these books have not made me a worse person they haven't affected my mental health and they really haven't negatively affected me at all oh GPA what these books have done is make me more empathetic Kinder and better person books that books let people my age see things from the perspective of people like and like unlike us we can see perspectives and experiences we would never be able to see making us more empathetic we can see the real world before we have to face it in the 1930s there was another group that liked to ban books books are a tool to use and explore the world knowing about the world is a right one deserves knowing about it everyone deserves knowing about it and it does not hurt anyone

206and if that's not what you want for your kid you have all the power to limit their reading just don't live limit mine thank you thanks for being brave enough to come and talk in the group of adults in here and uh congratulations on your number of books that you read that's amazing all right Abby kircher and you're online can you hear me sure can go ahead cry number two sorry about that delay you're fine um Abby kircher she her parent of the district and a teacher but I'm here to talk about how as a teacher I feel about restricting books and our facts due to limiting restrictions of what facts can be taught and not taught I feel like we're dumbing down education on behalf of the beliefs of a singular group we have

207all seen the stories on social media that state something like I was today years old when I learned that this little pig didn't go to the market to go shopping and in the comments there's always some reply asking where did you go to school the answer is going to be Laramie County School District One on some of these in the future the post will read something about I was today years old when I learned that the male seahorse carries the eggs hashtag mind blown or something clever like that all because we skipped the page in the seahorse book after a group thought it was promoting lgbtqia idd ideology honestly does everyone not know that the clownfish which is genders back and forth is needed talk about mind blown or hashtag facts the truth is that

208we do not and cannot teach in a one-size-fits-all approach because the reality is in each and every classroom in this District we have multiple beliefs cultures religions and unique backgrounds and prioritizing one belief or culture over another we are sending the message to all of our other students who are different that we are okay with decreased self-esteem increased substance abuse homelessness even suicidal behavior and I for one am not okay with that and I'm not alone all of our students deserve the right to all facts and knowledge all of our students deserve the right to see themselves represented in the world and all of our students Reserve respect no matter their culture beliefs religion or background everyone keeps talking about our agenda and I'm here to tell everyone that teachers don't have a secret agenda

209the only agenda that we may have is to uplift Inspire and teach your children and all the other students in our classrooms I feel like the more we restrict facts that cannot be taught we're taken away from our students in closing there's a new podcast that was done by a former teacher and his wife who both taught at Laramie County school district one they have both left the profession I think it's nicely done and reflects their frustrations and teachers and why we're losing good Educators I would recommend teachers parents the board take time to listen to it the podcast is called those who can't teach anymore it's new it's still rolling out episodes but it speaks to how we feel it's harder and harder to stay in education and to say I haven't thought of

210a career change would not be truthful I love my job I'm good at my job but it's getting harder to stay the only thing that keep me in my positions are my students the amazing staff I work with and Dr Crespo and her role as superintendent that give me a little hope thank you for your time thank you now we have the other Megan Mig uel [Laughter] sorry that didn't do a good job with you last name okay if everybody panics at the V my name is Meg varghomey and I'm a parent and yeah I'm a parent and I'm here to support the opt-out policy why because it protects parental rights everyone screams about parental rights well here's an opportunity to let us have them it protects the students First Amendment rights they have the

211First Amendment to say what they want without governmental interference right that's the whole First Amendment so let them have that opportunity um it puts the responsibility this opt-out program puts the responsibility in the hands of those responsible that would be the parents the jaw is not the job of the school board to police what we read it really isn't it's your job to provide access to Great education it's your job to let us be able to go to the library and check out anything we want I trust Librarians they are professionals and they know what they're doing and they know age appropriate books for those kids that are there um but if they miss something the opt-out policy is there for me to make changes without infringing the rights of other parents I can say

212oh yeah that's not going to be good and that way it doesn't harm anybody else but it makes for my kids are protected libraries are for all of us and for reading it gives us a safe place to learn things we didn't know a safe place to take in new knowledge and maybe develop a little empathy about people we don't necessarily understand please please please do not change this policy it's really important for all of us it protects everyone and it helps our communities thank you thank you um Joshua Fitch good evening Mr chairman thank you for taking the time to listen to me tonight I wanted to give my opinion on the current Library policies I'm a father of five first however I want to speak to a few items I've heard in favor

213of keeping the status quo of those I'm talking about the idea that we were taking away parental rights or Banning books many members of my family have served in the military and I spent 22 years through multiple combat tours honoring my oath to support defend the Constitution from all enemies my friends and family have died for this my opinion on speech matches the US Constitution it should be free period my wife and I joke about how books are my kryptonite I love how the pages smell how fountain pens sound scratching across parchment books and thoughts should not be banned so let's put some rest the complaint that we were talking about banning books that is just political Weaponry a scare tactic adults should be able to read and say and do what they want until

214it deprives me of my life in Liberty even if I have deep firmly held beliefs against what they're saying doing reading I'll protect their rights to say those things however we're not talking about consenting adults we're talking about some of the most vulnerable Community as a parent I have a duty to protect my children in this day and age this becomes harder and harder as we are connected and pulled in every direction when I was a child my dad had a computer that had 612 bytes not kilobytes of onboard information now we do business in terabytes or petabytes of daily information very inundated with lifetimes of information today for parents a 2018 study found working mom's clock on average of 98 hours per week that's about the same as working 2.5 full-time jobs study of

2152 000 American Mothers would give between 5 and 12 years old found the average mother clocks in about 6 23 am and clocks out at 8 31 PM later for a school board member I think for an average workday of 14 hours a study in 2016 found that a stay-at-home mom would make 143 000 a year not invested for inflation it's compensated for all the roles they fulfill comes to be a teacher Chef event planner housekeeper accountant chauffeur Playmate laundry attendant babysitter a meal plan or wedding planner now in 2023 we got a list system that we have to add to this list system admin cyber security Specialists and information security analyst amongst many others the Advent of covet the use of remote learning in children utilizing devices for education has surge families are expected

216to help troubleshoot their children's issue devices and connect over VPN or open networks it's not humanly possible to be an expert in all of these environments we are expected to operate in we talk about being safe but one consequence of remote learning was millions of children simple and products the ACT information being compromised by schools utilizing third party and unsecure methods of data while calling it safe there are many other examples we don't have the time as parents to review hundreds of thousands of books but I can't just trust my line of work zero trust architecture is the standard so no I can't just trust the Ala standard long operation doesn't guarantee credibility you know sikas is an organization that conducts national sex education standards that many schools utilize as a standard and they believe

217sexuality begins at Birth I disagree they openly support research garnered from and conducted by imprisoned pedophiles but they produce trusted standards this and many other reasons are why I support Library policies that are opt-in as compared to opt out as well as District standards like on graphic sexual content on books as they already have in movies and speech the Department of Justice policy is designed to protect the Innocence better to have someone guilty Go free than an innocent be jailed I support policies that protect students sexuality or their physical and psychological Health rather than policies that allow ease of access thank you so much thank you all right we have one more slot open is there anybody who is here did not sign up who would like to come up and speak um he had

218his hand up first so I'll go with him but since you put Jan up almost same time I'll let you speak it my name's Doug reading I'm a parent of two children here at bags Elementary Maverick and Bridget Freddy I'm actually here to complain about the snow day last week which was very very dangerous I have to take a wife to work from Kimberly Park all the way out here too Yellowstone Arby's on Yellowstone and when I get back and it takes me a half hour to go that far and back I've already wasted an hour why do you guys have buses out that are going so slow women are scared of that snow and ice everybody should have been home and the following day if you're going to be sending home my pets let

219the kids work from home on iPads don't be making their parents or buses go out and that's now and when you send home iPads make sure they have all the equipment I have to go out and buy charging cords for your equipment for my kids to work on thank you hi my name is Julie Brown I was here last time I'm a mother of seven I have six in the public school system one in college um and yeah I just wanted to support the um opt-in policy that it just makes more sense to me that we protect all of our children from sexually explicit content and if I as a parent want my child to be exposed to sexual content then I can come in and fill out a form that says it's okay for

220my child to read these um I don't have a PhD I'm not I do have a bachelor's degree but um I do feel that I'm an expert with children because of my own also um being a survivor of sexual abuse as a child I've spent thousands of hours with therapists with counselors with sex Educators um I I also uh in writing my speech last week consulted with Dr gendotti Who's a um associate professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oregon and went over uh journals that actually the science does say that children who are exposed to sexual sexually explicit content um are more likely to engage in Risky sexual behavior so there is science and facts that say children do not need to be exposed to sexually explicit material um so I would just

221encourage the board to find those lines um another problem that I encountered on my child was um just given a book that had sexually explicit content very controversial issues it wasn't a choice it was the class assigned book it wasn't until she read it and said this isn't okay and came to me and I read it that we went to the teacher and said this book is not okay um so she wasn't given a choice and if she hadn't come to me I'd had no idea that my child was being exposed to this type of content so there needs to be policies that add some more transparency maybe a note going home saying this book has sexual content you may or may not opt out here's a few other options um and again it just

222makes more sense if a parent wants their child to be exposed to sexually explicit material that they go into the library and fill out a form that says yes I want my kids to read about sex acts in their literature thank you all the other people that gave comments today all right thank you very much oh by the way I would not point out since most of the comments have to do with books um we did record our board discussion earlier on their work session and I believe you can see that someplace it's out there in cyberspace someplace so if you missed that and want to hear the board discussion about it please that Mr chairman I moved to go into executive session at this time prior to adjournment for the purpose of possible student

223long-term suspensions and expulsions Personnel legal matters and potential litigation and litigation second all those in favor say hi all right those opposed no