San Angelo ISD School Board Meeting - September 21, 2020

001if i could i'll go ahead and call our meeting to order i appreciate everyone being here this evening the first item on our agenda is to call our meeting to order and establish a quorum we do have a quorum of our board team we're kind of spread out but all of our board members are here so i appreciate everyone being here our second item is our invocation we're honored this evening to have a long time friend of mine i've known him i think since he was born maybe not quite that long but brian hutchison is the student pastor at paul lamb baptist church so if you'll come forward brian leader center invocation as a student pastor i just wanted to say to all of the board members and to all of those of you that

002are here that i have a small understanding of the complexity that lies before you because i'm trying to make the same decisions on a small scale and i want to take the opportunity before i pray just to say thank you for all that you are doing for our children and students in our community and for the decisions that lie ahead of you i know it's not easy and uh you are appreciated uh by me for what you guys are so i just want to pray uh over you start this meeting god i just want to thank you lord for the opportunity and the privilege that it is to be here tonight with this board and with these families that are represented here in this room and god i want to pray your blessing upon them

003god during these uncertain times and decisions that have to be made that there is no precedent for god i ask that you would give them wisdom and god they would be sensitive to what you're leading on and that god you would show them got all the decisions that have already been made and the ones that are still to come lord that you would lead them and that you would give them like minds in that and that god you would give them the wisdom to make decisions that i pray for all of our schools for the children and the students that are represented for their teachers and their administrators and those that work behind the scenes god would you bless them and would you protect them and god i ask that you would continue to allow

004them this year to meet together to learn and god that this would be a year that many good things would happen in the midst of difficulties so lord i just ask that you would bless them with with protection and god that you would end this virus and that school could continue on lord i pray that you would bless them tonight and lord just leave them and guide them in jesus name thank you brian we appreciate that and appreciate you being here our next item is our pledges we're honored this evening to have a couple of young students from goliad we have eric ramirez who's a first grader and melanie ramirez who's a third grader um and they're also the students of a couple of our employees uh zach's our principal at lakeview and jessica works

005downstairs in our athletic department so if they'll come in and as they get located we'll stand and let them lead us in our pledges of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all honor the texas flag i pledge allegiance to the [Music] texas i always tell the parents they can take pictures but they might not want to picture their children in masks so we'll work through that i do have i'll go ahead and read our script for tonight it says good evening and welcome as president of board of trustees of san angelo independent school district i'd like to welcome all of our guests who are present at tonight's regular board meeting i also welcome those of you who might

006be watching the tape of this meeting on our public access channel channel 4. we appreciate your interest in our students all items that will be discussed at our meeting this evening have been posted as required by state law officers you may be aware our board meets a minimum of two times for months per month and most if not all the items on our agenda this evening have been previously discussed at a pre-agenda board workshop as members of the san angelo independent school district's board of trustees we're here to set goals listen to reports from our superintendent approve budgets contracts and personnel appointments and to make policy for the school district please keep in mind that our meeting is a meeting of the board of trustees held in public and not a meeting of the public

007however with that in mind we have not only on each one of our meeting agendas that allows anyone present wishes to speak to our board team an opportunity to do so i'll make certain that we give everyone an opportunity to speak on any item not listed on our agenda this evening additionally prior to taking any votes i'll ask audience members if they would like to make any comments anyone wishing to make comments on any agenda items should do their best to limit their comments to five five minutes in compliance with texas state law these proceedings are recorded and will become a part of seisd's legal permanent legal record in order that the tape might adequately reflect our proceedings i asked that you please refrain from talking while others might be speaking and also ask as

008i remind my fellow board team members to please turn off or silence your cell phones at this particular time again it's my pleasure to welcome you tonight's meeting and thank you for taking the time to join us this evening we appreciate your interest in the activities of our students and the business of our district and i do have one final reminder that um if it's if it's an item that's not on our agenda this evening and you're here to speak and i'll cover this when we get to a public comment as well the board really can't respond to that because it's not part of our agenda we can thank you for being here and if we have any specific question then we can ask that but we can't have a lengthy discussion about something not

009on our agenda this evening so with that being that's taken care of we'll move forward to our recognitions and i'll turn it over to miss wood a little shorter good evening mr layman and distinguished members of the board tonight we have a very special recognition we are recognizing our desk board desk stands for donate educational supplies for kids and these dedicated individuals you see here tonight and a few that couldn't make it have worked tirelessly to raise funds for our san angelo isd students who are in need of school supplies in 2004 desk founder and board president eric wilson identified an unmet need in our community and set his focus determination and generous spirit on finding a solution that solution was the formation of a board of concerned concho valley community members who set out

010to raise funds for our san angelo isd students in need of school supplies since 2004 desk has raised an astounding seven hundred and eighty thousand five hundred and fifty five dollars and nine cents and brought countless smiles to our students ultimately helping them to succeed in the classroom this year a year with so many unique challenges facing our students and educators desk has generously given our sisd students school supply money in a total amount of sixty thousand twenty three dollars and seventy four cents that's sixty thousand dollars that is allocated and then distributed out to all of our campuses helping individual children have the supplies they need to be confident and to be on a path to succeed each campus in the district receives a percentage of the total amount of money raised based on

011the number of students who receive assistance through our free and reduced meal program this evening we are honored to have these members of the desk board with us dr deathloff at this time would you please come forward and help me to recognize the desk board members who are here this evening and we'll also announce the ones that weren't able to make it excuse me i've got to do my mask we have miss vicki loso [Applause] and if y'all can please remain up here we're going to take a group photo in just a minute so just stay up for just a minute miss diane wilson mr ken grimm [Applause] mr andy meyer [Applause] and then i'd like to announce the ones that weren't able to make it tonight mr eric wilson his wife will accept on

012his behalf and then we have mr david wagner miss cheryl book miss jennifer call miss kathy self miss elizabeth jost and miss jacqueline otoa we thank you so very much and please join me in giving the desk board a very appreciative round of applause on behalf of our board members administration team faculty staff and students of sasd thank y'all so much [Applause] that's amazing how much support they've given the school district through the years and they just keep chugging along helping us out so thank y'all on behalf of all of our students our next item on our agenda is item five um which is the minutes of our previous minute meetings do we have a motion to approve loot for approval second we have a motion for mr adeno in a second for mr gallegos

013to approve the minutes of our august 10th 2020 special financing pre-agenda workshop our august 17 2020 regular board meeting and our august 24 2020 special meeting to adopt our budget do we have any uh questions or corrections to our minutes from any of our board team any public comment if not all in favor of our motion please indicate by saying aye aye any opposing indicate by saying no our motion passes okay now we're up to item i referred to earlier which is public comment for items not on our agenda this evening i think i counted 26 folks that want to speak um there's a couple of things i know and feel free to do so but we have a couple of uh husbands and wives signed up that both want to speak and if you're

014going to say the same thing then i would appreciate it if you would help us to conserve our time as a board this evening but if you want to speak then i'll i won't keep you from doing that um some of y'all been through this multiple occasions but let me remind everybody how we're going to handle public comment you're limited to five minutes we've had a couple of folks that don't have a good appreciation of time in the last couple of months and in lieu of me interrupting someone it would be much better if you would monitor your own time and make sure that if you speak eight minutes and somebody else speaks five then that's not fair to anybody else in the room so let's do our best to limit our time to five

015minutes um if your comments are longer and you know they're going to be longer then please try to edit those before you get up here if i call your name and you haven't edited it then maybe you can do that and we'll come back to you and then certainly you can leave your comments as part of our public record um we had a couple of live forums last week i want to remind everybody that we're the expectation is that we have a very respectful um decorum in this room and so we want we don't have we don't tolerate any foul language or anything like that so please be mindful of that and the final thing as a reminder is that at least on a couple of occasions we've had some folks who might have said

016something bad about one another on social media and they want to continue that discussion um here rather than make a point about the issue at hand so we would prefer for that not to happen as well um i'll ask as far as time concerned i'll ask mrs hopkins who's back over there in the corner to help me monitor time and so she'll politely notify me or raise her hand and then at that point in time i'll do my best to interrupt also politely and ask you to conclude your comments as quickly as possible so is everybody on board with that if that's the case then we'll start and the first person i have is brandon connell canel connell come on forward brandon thank you for being here all right um once again my name is

017brandon connell and uh i'd like to second what mr hutchinson said in appreciation for everything that you guys do i know it's impossible to make everybody happy so what you guys do is nearly impossible so thank you all for everything i was a little bit hesitant to come here and speak tonight mainly because i wondered what could i possibly say that hasn't already been said and then i realized how surprised i am that we're still actually still having this conversation why is this even a point of contention the civil war was one of the darkest times in u.s history we all know how it turned out yet here in the south there was a really interesting phenomenon that happened the powers that be decided to start naming schools and building statues honoring people that lost

018the war okay it probably made sense back then i mean why not cultural sensitivity and equality has never really been one of america's greatest strengths so why why would they take why would they take other people of different races and or cultures feelings into consideration while establishing these honors jim crow was jim crow laws were still in effect um the civil rights act hadn't been created yet so yeah racism was uh still pretty prevalent back in 1949 when lee middle school was named so let's fast forward 71 years to today and this discussion did change the name of the school in my mind it's a no-brainer yet here we are despite what many claim the civil war was kind of about slavery and if anyone in here still disagrees allow me to quote briefly from

019the texas declaration of causes from february 2nd of 1861. essentially they're talking about northern states pushing their agendas and whatnot onto the southern states and basically they're proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men irrespective of race or color a doctrine at war with nature in opposition to the experience of mankind and in violation of the plaintiff's revelations of the divine law they demand the abolition of forgive the term negro slavery throughout the confederacy the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us so long as negro slaves remain in these states granted this is just a mere paragraph out of an entire document of grievances against the federal government however things like the other grievances were things like lack

020of federal protection from banditry from mexico or native attacks so you may think that i just took this little segment out of context however let me remind you that there are 21 mentions of slavery throughout this declaration and many mirror the sentiments of the recited passage with that said there is no reason that we in 2020 knowing all of this should still be okay with honoring a man who fought for the right to own people as property why would we as a community continue to willingly be divisive and continue to argue over this why should we knowingly be hurtful to our kids any of them if you're asking yourself how is this thankful or excuse me how is this hurtful be thankful that you have the luxury of not knowing because not everybody can say

021that so imagine this you're walking into school every day with the visage of a man that fought for the continuation of the enslaving of your ancestors all over the place that's every day for you you have to live with that not everybody has to live with that but there are some recently there was a campaign around town that said san angel love well here's an easy one let's show our future generations that san angelo does love them that we do care about them all of them thank you thank you mr connor we appreciate those comments our next person is mr little kevin little mr little thank you for being here i just want to thank the board for allowing me to speak today i appreciate everything that you all do thank you um my name

022is kevin little i'm a former student of lee junior high i was born and raised here in san angelo texas and i'm a proud citizen of this lovely city the reason why it's important to me to change the name of leed junior high is that i feel that the name robert e lee does not represent the diversity of our amazing community and is not inclusive of all nationalities and cultures here in san angelo our educational institution should not be or should be a welcoming environment that gives their students the skills and confidence to become great leaders in their community whether it be here in san angelo or to be wherever their ambition takes them now when lead junior high was created at the time when the name of the school was chosen the opinions of

023people of color were not taken into account at that time their personal experiences and their sorrow could not be conveyed at the time when choosing a name for the school could be considered they most certainly would not have wanted to bear the name of robert e lee an individual who glorified white supremacy a man who advocated for the enslavement of people of color and one who represented a treasonous government responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of american citizens now to the individuals who say that this is just now a topic of conversation because of our current political climate i would like to state that this was a topic of conversation in my very own history class at lee junior high 25 years ago i distinctly remember my african-american friends and how they conveyed

024to me that the name robert e lee made them feel unappreciated and that their opinions and the experiences of their families were not taken into account when the school's name was chosen now the school name robert e lee along with its mascots and the school colors that were chosen all represent a time of oppression they represent a time when people of color were enslaved they represent a time when women were unable to vote and they represented time when our country was literally torn apart this conversation was had a quarter of a century ago when i was a student there how many times has the same conversation come up before and after those 25 years since i was a student there now i believe the correct route to take would be the direction that our armed

025forces have taken who prohibited the display of the confederate flag which should also mean we we should also remove the names of those individuals that fought under that flag from the places of education as it commemorates the intolerance violence and hatred that the confederacy represents now in lee junior high's mission statement the very first line states that their mission is to honor all of their students i feel that the only way to truly honor all of the students and faculty would be to rename the school to someone or something that would best represent all of our diverse and amazing community of san angelo thank you for your time thank you mr little for those comments our next person signed up is o'neill westbrook thanks for being here mr westbrook thank you let me begin and

026i'll end with a quote it says take with you the satisfaction of duty faithfully performed for many years at lee junior high school in san angelo and i speak from experience i'm a former student i went there i'm a former teacher i'm a former coach and i'm a former assistant principal at lee junior high let me tell you what our creed was always try to teach our students to be the best that they could be that's all not be something that you can't be but do the best at what you were taught and it went from the administration all the way down to the students i did that in the classroom and the teachers that i was with for 15 years did exactly the same thing when i was a student lee junior high was

027not segregated i mean it was not integrated it was segregated i didn't come up with that that wasn't my idea that's just the way it was when i came back to teach we were integrated and i thought it added a great deal to what we were trying to teach our kids which is be the best you can be that's all nothing else gilbert you played against lee junior high school students remember did we teach them to be as good as they could be sure did your teachers teach you to be as good as you could be of course that's what education is about be the best you can be that's all if you if you can't do that then what are we going to school for that's what school is about there was a picture

028in the foyer of lee junior high school when i first went there as a student when i went back as a teacher and a coach and the words that i quoted to you tonight are the words of robert e lee take with you the satisfaction of duty faithfully performed lady and gentlemen i ask you tonight take with you the satisfaction of duty faithfully formed thank you thank you mr westbrook for those comments our next person wishing to speak is michael shane powers thank you for being here mr powers good evening members of the board thank you for having me and let me be able to speak this evening my name is dr michael shane powers i'm an angelo state university assistant professor of u.s history and i've studied the civil war for a decade and

029am currently teaching a course on the u.s civil war and i'm in support of changing the name of robert e lee middle school i'm also a white southerner whose ancestors have fought for the confederacy whose grandparents were sharecroppers and tenant farmers and i support changing the name of robert lee middle school ensuring that public symbols and institutions reflect american values is an important step for any community san angelo residents and the isd need to look no further than our own national past after the declaration of independence americans removed public symbols that no longer match the values of the new nation changing the name of king's college in new york city to columbia university and removing numerous statues to british monarchs doing so did not then and will not now change or erase history we of

030course still study and teach colonial america just like our schools and universities will continue to teach about lee and the civil war names of public institutions is however about honoring and celebrating the legacies of those individuals in regards to robert e lee his primary legacy is as a confederate lee chose to fight for the confederacy plenty of other men whose states embrace secession did not join the confederacy including prominent texans sam houston edmund davis and even minnie a fellow virginian of robert e lee most notably the union admiral david farragut as the texas declaration of secession clearly states the confederacy's primary legacy was to protect and promote slavery as for lee following the emancipation proclamation he refused to exchange african-american union troops who had become prisoners of war arguing that they quote belong to our

031citizens and are not considered subjects of prisoner exchange end quote so it is my hope that a city like san angelo defined by kindness and congeniality will lead the way in showing the better angels of our nature and choose to remove the name robert e lee in favor of a name that fully represents our community's values thank you thank you dr powers we appreciate that our next presenter next person to speak will be miss cross debbie cross thank you for being here miss cross good evening back here again thank you all for have given us the opportunity to do this for those of you who are advocating the name of our school which i are advocating to keep the name of our school which i and generations of san angelos grew up with i would

032like to first clarify what i truly believe in and what i do not i recognize that across our nation there is a vigorous and appropriate dialogue about the monuments and names of organizations that some feel are offensive and even harmful to them there is also a reasonable concern by many that achievement suffering and contributions made by individuals from african-american hispanic and minority communities have not been appropriately recognized in the public realm i understand this my position is the name of our school is also part of our tradition that we grew up with and associate in our dialogue with each other and our memories i honestly know very few people who specifically think of the school as robert e lee but rather as lee there has never been in my mind associations with anger or hatred

033or even the outcome of the civil war it is rather simply the beloved name associated with the heritage of growing up in san angelo our childhood memories and our sense of community it should be noted that when i speak of who i am that over the years through marriage friendship and a lifetime of living and working in our community that is a parent grandparent and a child of a diverse cultural community i am fighting for the heritage of a name that is in its simplest form associated with love family and community our school district is a place of education the name of the school can also present an opportunity for a true dialogue and learning environment around the difficult issues that have have been fought over struggled for and against and could therefore take from

034this name and association an opportunity for a true learning dialogue it should be taught that robert e lee's father henry lighthorse harry lee was a hero in the american revolution and fought to create this nation i strongly advocate for other forms of recognition for many remarkable individuals of amer african-american hispanic asian and other heritages that help build this nation and our community that i do agree have not been appropriately recognized as the district and community continue to grow we should always give first consideration to this kind of recognition as we build new schools and facilities i feel that this can be done without turning our backs on our already established heritage we are not fighting to save a monument of a confederate general sitting on a horse in our public square but a name that

035is associated with love community and family and a lifetime of associations that will carry us throughout and to the end of our lives i strongly urge the school district to take these concerns and considerations and keep the name of our beloved school i recently went to my bookshelf for more information on robert e lee and found an old set of encyclopedias from the 70s i know that dates me but anyway that's what i have back before the controversies it was written in the world book of encyclopedia robert edward lee 1807 to 1870 was a great general who commanded the confederate army in the civil war he was one of the most beloved figures in american history lee's fame rests on his military achievements as confederate commander in the face of overwhelming odds and on his

036outstanding personal character he won the admiration and respect of northerners as well as southerners lee fought for one section of the young nation but the struggle did not make him intolerant he fought not for personal gain but to prove himself worthy of a cause union general ulysses s grant to whom lee was forced to surrender to said there was not a man in the confederacy whose influence on the whole people was as great as his unlike many southerners lee did not believe in slavery and did not favor secession he felt that slavery had an evil effect long before the war he freed the few slaves who he had inherited when he married lee greatly admired george washington and hated the thought of a divided nation on october 12th robert e lee will have been 100

037been gone 150 years he died after a short illness in october 12 of 1870. he is buried in the chapel he built on the campus campus in lexington virginia and we should honor him and he deserves to be honored robert e lee is an american veteran a hero and should not be treated the way he's being treated today he should be honored for his achievements his integrity and his moral character he truly deserves to be honored i want to thank the administration the school board members said staff and all your efforts toward this issue thank you and i also have petition here signed by registered voters in san angelo that i will make a copy and get to becky and get to y'all thank you miss cross thank you appreciate your comments this evening our

038next personal sign up is camille martinez miss martinez all right next would be mr miller larry miller thank you mr miller for being here yeah you're signaling me she's coming up okay let's let we'll get her next go ahead mr miller okay my name is larry miller i'm retired air force also a retired teacher a lot of what i'm going to talk about here really is isn't germane to whether you're going to rename a building or not but what it has to do with some of the underlying issues i think that it's important to talk about last month in the course of their talk a speaker mentioned that robert e lee was responsible for the deaths of mexican and native american people now if i understood the speaker's remarks correctly and i hope that there's

039somebody in here who can correct me on it the person was alluding to lee's service in the mexican and indian wars if this is the case this is without a doubt one of the greatest distortions of historical fact that i have ever heard yes lee fought in the mexican war when he was a captain in the united states army he was instrumental in the united states army's victories at cheryl gordo and chapultepec was wounded in battle and later assigned to various fort uh frontier forts in texas to control the native american population in those areas and protect american settlers now i can readily understand criticisms directed at the united states involvement in the mexican war and the series of indian wars that our country fought however i strongly disagree with that speaker's characterization of soldiers

040like lee who fought for their country by calling them murderers soldiers are not given the luxury of picking and choosing where they fight the government they've sworn to defend decides where they are to go and who their enemy is going to be i honestly thought about saying something that evening but decided that since we're mostly adults in this room we could all interpret these comments and choose to either believe or disbelieve them now fast forward to the last monday preparation meeting you had i think most of us were there another speaker came forward and used nearly the exact almost verbatim comment about lee being responsible for the deaths of mexican and native americans only this time it was really different the speaker was a little girl about 12 or 13 that actually attends lee frankly

041i was shocked when i heard her repeat this fiction i asked myself where could she have learned this fabrication did her social studies in class at lee get so in depth in american history that they would even discuss the wartime conduct of a very junior officer then captain robert e lee during his service in the mexican and indian wars i have a very hard time believing that this was just a coincidence that two different speakers on two separate occasions should both completely distort american historical fact and cast a shadow over robert e lee's honorable service while in the united states army before i say anything else understand that the little girl i'm talking about is not guilty of anything as far as i can see she's a complete innocent and seems to have been duped

042by someone she no doubt trusted my complaint is that someone an adult that should know better seems to have coached her to present this completely fictitious story this is an important and often emotional struggle that we're all going through with this issue but a definite ethical line was seriously crossed here no one not a teacher not a friend no one should ever use a child as just a useful tool or collateral damage or as a means to an end i don't really care to know who the person was and set this little girl up but the damage is done and whoever did this should be terribly ashamed of what they've done to this little girl i'd like to briefly summarize some of the other actions i've seen from the other side that trouble me when

043this first when this debate first surfaced in june that group demanded a name change and threatened you the board of trustees next they presented a bogus petition of some thirteen thousand signatures from all points of the globe that we successfully debunked and shot full of holes next they started hanging unsubstantiated labels on lee as a traitor and a murderer while never presenting a single bit of information to prove their assertion based on fact and emotion he was neither and now finally they manipulated a little girl in an effort to satisfy their agenda all in all this is a truly very sad statement about their tactics and before i leave the podium i'd like you to also consider all of the witnesses that the opposing side had appeared before the microphone based on what i've just

044told you and what you've personally seen should you put any creams at all into any of their statements were they actually intimidatedly were they embarrassed by the name were they really affected by attending a school named after robert e lee or is all of the are all of these stories just further attempts by that side to remove a name they simply don't like ultimately it's for you to decide but personally i think it's all a smoke screen to deceive us all thank you mr miller we skipped miss martinez miss martinez is there you are i know i'm sorry i didn't get worried that you were down there quick enough so um so we have camille martinez thank you for being here thank you mr layman members the board and fellow community members um once again

045thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak um to you today as i'm sure you know by now i'm here to express my continuing thoughts on the renaming of robert e lee middle school as i reflect on the past few months and all of the interactions i've had with my fellow community members about the name change my heart is heavy i try to stay hopeful that as a society we are capable of progression of empathy and of compassion but i'm also fearful although i have had the pleasure of meeting wonderful people on both sides of this discussion and i have had respectful conversations where i thought there would only be disdain um i've also seen a lot of anger and a disturbing lack of empathy i've listened to accusations of my colleagues and i

046belonging to specific political parties or extremist groups of having hidden agendas and seeking only to divide when in fact the opposite is true the idea that one political party is racist and the other is anti-racist is mind-blowing the idea that equality and inclusivity are even seen as political issues and not humanitarian issues is heartbreaking this issue is about ethics not politics social media applications give us opportunities to review memories from past years in the past few months i've also been reminded of the horrific events of 9 11 of hurricane katrina as well as dr martin luther king's speech during the march on washington and the events that followed i've been reminded of all the powerful symbols that are associated with these pivotal turning points in history and the unity that came from them we are

047currently in the middle of another pivotal moment in history although it may seem small this decision will have a significant impact on the future of our community i can only hope that in the end we continue to choose unity over division that when our children look back on these memories they see that we chose to protect each other and that we chose love and understanding over fear and hate our duty as parents as adults as members of this community is to collectively protect and prepare our children for the future it is our responsibility to raise our children to be empathetic compassionate and respectful as a mother it was immediately made clear to me that my job is to raise my children to be better than myself becoming a teacher has only solidified this fact our

048job is to raise these children to think critically to come to their own conclusions and to be better than the generations before them another argument i've heard throughout this process is that we are tempting to erase history and the fact is the idea behind naming structures and institutions after people has always been to hold them in a place of honor it was never intended to teach history when given the opportunity when given both sides of the story and a full picture of what the issue at hand is children will always choose compassion they will always choose inclusivity and equality it isn't until we are tainted by news outlets by social media by this idea that we need to choose a side that we allow these basic morals and ideas to be clouded and hidden if

049we strip this issue down to its core it is simply this symbols do and will always carry power and this particular symbol causes pain to a very specific group of our fellow community members regardless of whether or not you're able to empathize whether or not you're able to understand why the simple fact should be enough to agree that anything that harms one of us harms us all division has no place in our community removing these people from a place of honor especially in an educational setting is the right thing to do thank you thank you we appreciate those comments miss martinez our next speaker is nelda and allen miss and alan thank you for being here thank you for your time this evening i appreciate it my concerns deal with the academics in san angelo

050isd and therefore my comments will be short tonight in the june 15th meeting i went over the grade that lee junior high received from the texas education agency in 2019 that grade was a d at that time i pointed out that only that 62 percent of lee's students couldn't read on grade level and 61 percent of lee students were not on grade level in math these scores can be found on the texas education website in addition i want to point out that the san angelo isd was ranked in the bottom 50 of all texas school districts in 2012. but in 2009 they were ranked in the bottom 25 of all school districts in texas how does that compare well i went to what i expected to be lower scores so i went to brownsville mcallen

051eagle pass and i found out that they ranked in the top 30 and 40 percent of all districts in texas i know that changing the name of lee is very important to some people in our community i however feel that we need to focus on academics and put more money into programs which will improve academic progress for all of our students and therefore tonight i ask you look closely at the programs that are in each of the failing schools we have five f schools in san angelo we have three d schools please look at those and say what can we do as a community to help you improve those grades because that affects the future of all students from san angelo thank you thank you miss now and we appreciate your comments our next person

052is miss heard chelsea heard the parent of a middle school student you might want to move a little closer to the mic yes ma'am or move it down that's perfect so it'll that way we'll get it on our on our telecast thank you in last week's summit meeting the opposition struggled to understand the relevance of equity and equality i would like to share my family's history in hopes of clarification in 1947 my great-great-grandfather challenged his granddaughter school district in the case of delgado vs bastrop isd although she was a native porn texan as were her parents and grandparents she was required to go to a school that was neither equal or equitable because she was brown she was forced to go to a school that did not have the same amenities or resources afforded to

053white children her school had no running water or electricity with one teacher to service all ages this is only two years before robert e lee middle school was opened equality means brown children also have a place to go to school equity means brown children had all the necessary resources to excel academically to the same level as white children the meena ward school district was where the meena ward school was not equippable today as we advocate for the renaming of robert e lee middle school let's remember children are afforded equality but not equity children of all ethnicities are allowed admittance but representation differs robert e lee never posed a threat to white children but robert e lee did pose a threat to black and brown children i would like to reiterate that history is not being

054erased it is being remembered although my great great grandfather is no longer alive his granddaughter is i had the privilege of watching her address the public in 2016 when the texas historical commission placed a historical marker on the site where the meena ward school once stood while the four walls of that substandard building have fallen the lessons learned there are still in the minds of the former students while the building is gone i was still able to learn about its history even in total decay the building has no effect on one's ability to learn and or remember its history we must rename robert e lee middle school i shared last month that i grew up all around the world as the daughter of a soldier my very first friends were both biracial one white and

055korean the other black and lumby a tribe native to what is now north carolina race heritage or culture never defined them as my friends or even as students the three of us participated in the gifted and talented program in elementary the pre-ap program in middle school in the ap program in high school again the color of our skin was never addressed directly or passively by our education system i can only speculate at the difference in education we might have received if we attended a school with a racist symbolism in a district complaint with such it genuinely breaks my heart to know my sixth grader is represented by a school district that has allowed and upheld shameful notions when a person redirects the conversation about the school name to taxes politics or even test scores it

056shows me that they are uncomfortable discussing race diversity and we must accept that the students are not exclusively white or affluent with that understanding we must accept that what is best for one is not equitable for all we must be the adults devoted to equity in order to progress collectively this starts with equitable representation for our children the rebranding of robert e lee middle school is necessary for all children thank you miss hurt for being with us this evening we appreciate your comments our next um person wanting to speak is kaylee cortez miss cortez welcome i talked to her earlier no broken bones she's she's okay just got a bad sprain so thank you for being here miss cortez thank you hello my name is kaylee cortez and i'm a sixth grader at robert e

057lee middle school some adults some adults say they have never heard a student complain about the name i don't think they are being honest and if they're being honest they've never bothered to to diversify their group of friends i'm a student and i'm saying that's wrong i have heard former students as old as my parents say it's wrong i've even heard former students as old as my grandparents say it's wrong so if you've never heard students say it's wrong you're not listening we can't continue to let people and symbols that stand for division in our country represent people like me who want us to to be united schools should be a place where we feel welcomed and confident the name robert e lee middles the name robert e lee rebels only allows some students to

058feel welcomed and confident the people who are the people who are defending the name feel welcomed and confident under confederate representation i do not thank you for your time and consideration thank you we appreciate your comments we appreciate you uh being here this evening um our next speaker is sarah negovitch is that is that correct okay sure eight e on our consent items okay that's perfect eight e and nick is that your same concern okay don't let me forget to call on you when we get to that point um this next one i have no idea who it is um i asked gerard to help me he couldn't read it either so have we tried again we think it's uh let's see it looks like is it renee burlington road yeah come on forward and

059you can tell us your name oh rebel tell us your name all right gerard thought it was rebel but he did now he didn't say it was rebel so come forward come forward you're welcome okay you'll have to remind me um sarah esquiville and justin lujan okay thank you for being here miss esquivel you have to bear with me this is my first time speaking so i'm a little nervous hello and thank you for giving me this time to speak my name is sarah esquivel and i'm a mother of three children i'm also a lee parent let me rephrase that i'm also a very concernedly parent there are many people here who are very intelligent and passionate about their opinions i come to you not as a history scholar nor will i pretend to be

060i come to you as a mother speaking from her heart but nonetheless a mother who knows right from wrong growing up i was always aware of the peculiar and disturbing choice of name for the junior high that my child now attends i always understood the reasoning behind the name and i never agreed with it however growing up in a small west texas town you just learned there are some things you don't question it wasn't until i realized i wasn't the only one who shared the same mentality it turns out there are several people from different walks of life different ethnic backgrounds and different educational backgrounds who also don't agree with the fact our junior high was named after a man who fought in favor of slavery this is a time of change a time of

061waking up and realizing inclusiveness is good for the country and those who have been excluded for so long we have seen this change especially in congress strong intelligent women of color women who fought to get to where they were tooth and nail despite the challenges set before them we're often asked what is changing the name going to accomplish well it's a small baby step in a long journey ahead a journey to right the wrongs of the past and to acknowledge the hurt and pain that this country has caused so many people these kids deserve to go to a school named after something positive something inclusive to represent everyone at the school regardless of color or background i truly believe if we do not change the name of lee junior high we will be sending our

062kids a message that glorifying a man like robert lee is unacceptable is acceptable this should not be considered acceptable at all especially in the year 2020. we have come way too far to take that step backwards i ask you to move forward and embrace positive change these decisions are made at a local level and they will set the tone for how outsiders view our little town of san angelo and they will be part of your legacies not only as board members and pillars of this community but also as mothers and fathers and uncles and cousins our sister towns of midland and appalling have already made the decision to embrace the change and i personally applaud them in their journey to right the wrongs of the past and i hope we can soon say the same

063about this town we all love so much i'm here despite stage fright despite the possibility of public backlash and ridicule i'm here because i want to be able to look my children in the eyes and know that i'm doing my job and teaching them that they have a voice and that voice is powerful also rest assured my son whom is about to speak has a wonderful mind of his own and he knows that his mother has taught him nothing but the pursuit of truth and equality no manipulations nor distortions many of you have attended lee in the past but he is our future his voice deserves to be heard thank you for your time thank you miss escoville you did quite well considering you were afraid so thank you for being with us our next

064speaker is justin lujan thank you mr lujan for being with us my name is justin and i go to leed junior high my mom told me what was going what what was going on and how how there were people in this town who wanted to change the name of my school i didn't really understand at first why why was it so important so after talking talking to her i remembered about a time when i was in first grade and i brought home a project the project was to create a poster board talking about all the reasons why christopher columbus was a hero my my mother took the project and told my teacher she didn't agree with it and asked them to give me another topic after i researched christopher columbus i understood why why she

065did what she did it is up to us to stand up for what is right even when it goes against the crowd even when a lot of people are telling you that you're wrong my school should not be lame named after a confederate general who fought to keep slavery slavery when we have junior highs like glenn who who was named after an astral astro astronaut and lincoln the president who freed the slaves that makes no sense to even to an 11 year old like me i ask you to please think about the message you will be sending to me and my friends if we choose not to change the name of our school one cool option i want to suggest was general grant the person who defeated generally in virginia thank you thank you mr

066luhan we appreciate your comments our next speaker is mr ramon jesse ramone thank you mr ramon for being with us thank you board um so three months ago when i started the petition to reign rename the school i have been to a number of meetings um all that i can think of so i just wanted to once again reiterate our thanks and appreciation for the very meticulous and methodical approach to this very sensitive topic as you can tell there's other public schools and school boards in the spotlight and the news more specifically because they didn't address it i think in the proper way that you were doing and so i'm really grateful the opportunities you've afforded this community and san angelo to participate in this process so what i did three months ago was started

067the sick the petition that's been referenced a couple of times i closed that petition last night that petition is 600 pages long with 13 850 signatures regardless of the people or individuals um you know geographic location that have signed this which has been a point of contention or concern nonetheless 13 000 signatures is quite a lot of individuals across the united states and abroad that have the same concern that i do okay so i didn't want to obviously kill a couple of trees to print that off and provide that to you so that'll be distributed electronically in addition to a mass of uh public comments and statements that have been gathered which i will also be submitting tonight a lot of those petitions and comments that have come you know across you know from us

068have been tried we've tried to been characterized as extremists we have been labeled certain things even in this very room as associations with terroristic organizations like antifa and black lives matter i think even in this room i was also compared to satan but nonetheless we felt the need to disassociate ourselves from those types of characterizations or those associations so recently we have all collectively come together and formed the um san angelo equity alliance and we took great motivation from the engaging equity process that the saisd uh had created so equity for those of you that don't know is the quality of being fair and impartial and i think that name was chosen very appropriately whenever this program was developed and the ability to address this topic so once again tonight instead of hearing me kind

069of reiterate a lot of things that you've heard me say for the past few months i want to share some comments from individuals that were not able to be here in addition to some individuals that are here and present but have a very very real fear of public speaking so this is a comment on behalf of amy who's in the back of the room my name is amy wilkes i'm a former lead student and mother of three two of my three kids attendedly i'm also born and raised in san angelo and a homeowner i can't say anything from a historical perspective that hasn't already been eloquently said by the members of the san angelo equity alliance but i can ask you to look at this issue from a spiritual perspective this is 2020 the year

070of clear vision it is the chance to reflect on old ways and the thought processes of the past and choose to make changes and to make things right i like many were ignorant to the implications behind the meaning of the name of school in fact i honestly did not pay much attention until i started to learn that much of what was taught in our history books is a version that plays down the actual events a version that tries to romanticize true history so now this is the time for closure healing and empathy this kind of history belongs in museums not as a slap in the face and as a reminder of painful past thank you an additional statement i want to read is from an individual who's actually serving our country in the active military

071she could not be here my name is sandy i'm a 33 year old san angelo resident a lakeview high school alumni 2015 standard times 20 under 40 award participant a local homeowner taxpayer registered absentee voter and an active duty member of the armed forces for the past 15 years i love san angelo i love the warmth of the community i love the school employees the local businesses government community leaders and the police department i always thought of san angelo as a sweet and comfortable city to live in service members are often put into uncomfortable places globally like iraq syria afghanistan and off the coast of hostile nations i've been in some uncomfortable places in the middle east places i never want to be want my child to be or be raised in places that are

072corrupt and horribly racist and sexist do i think america is racist no do i think america is the greatest nation in the world absolutely i thank god every day that american children are being educated in safe schools with amazing teachers that represent american values socially though we could all use some growth we can do better in order to have more respectable communities that treat all americans equally quite frankly we are better than our past we fought those wars learned from those lessons lived through and read about civil rights past numerous amendments and evolved into a powerful successful uncensored unmatched free-thinking 50-state nation i'm thinking about how to grow and how to grow in mighty san angelo and be a part of current social changes in the country we can show everyone how much we love

073our citizens if we prove we are willing to embrace diversity and let go of a name that thousands of community members are not comfortable with not because we are trying to erase the past and the story of the civil war but because we need to teach it differently and more accurately i don't want anyone to have a negative impression or feel uncomfortable in this beautiful town i don't want people enrolling their children into a junior high to think san angelo cares more about the confederacy of 1862 honoring a virgin virginian general on the losing side of the war than their own citizens than their own and their own future and their own children the resident of san angelo our residents of san angelo are diverse the military members station a good fellow are diverse asu

074students are diverse rodeo workers oil workers and general visitors are diverse we're simply raising 21st century into the nation divided mr ramon could you wrap up your cup absolutely so let's name the school after we what we are proud of thank you for listening thank you whoever has read my statement i'm sorry i couldn't deliver this in person i'm currently stationed overseas defending the constitution and protecting the american rights to assemble petition and deliver free speeches i'm excited for the progress hopefully we in the on the right side of history thank you thank you for your comments next we have mr heard devin hurd thank you for being here mr hearn thank you for having me good evening my name is devin hurd i'm a father of a robert e lee middle school student i've

075come here to support my wife and daughter daughter when they have been publicly commenting over the past couple months realize my silent support has been a disservice to my family and the children under their current representation i'm not a native of san angelo i'm on active duty status here in san angelo i own a house here and i plan to retire here because i love this city so much my father was a soldier as well we moved all around the country all the schools i attended were named after geographic points and neighborhoods except for one daily elementary it was named after captain james e daley jr a local police officer who died in the line of duty now when i entered high school we as students had an opportunity to vote for the name and

076mascot my school was transitioning from a freshman campus to a four-year high school brandon the school gave me an additional sense of pride my two older siblings attended the building as a freshman their personal history was not a race in transition their athletic records are still recorded and neither simple and is confused about their achievements as ninth graders even though the building is now parker heights high school as an outsider the name of the school sticks out like a sore thumb remember goodfellow air force base angelo state university and other national companies bring their employees and students to the city a public school named after confederate general is a stain on the community glorification of traitor an oppressor is a red flag to anyone who is a true patriot anyone who truly believes in liberty

077and justice for all my daughter started school at austin elementary she asked my wife who stephen f austin was this year as she prepared to go to sixth grade she asked my wife who robert e lee was she then instantly innocently asked why would teachers name a school after someone who would leave their country so he could fight to keep slaves that is wrong if an 11 year old is that disgusted with only the fundamentals knowledge of robert e lee transgressions why aren't we collectively more upset as well educated adults dismantling glorification of traitor to our nation is the most american thing i can do rebuking the representation of children under terrorist name is the most american thing i can do every patriot should be advocating against the idolization of the confederacy we must rename

078and rebrand robert e lee middle school thank you for your time thank you mr hurden thank you for your service our next speaker is missiancy sharon yancy just in case they're downstairs we'll give them a chance to okay thank you thank you miss yancey for being here sorry we made you walk the stairs catch your breath and uh take your time hi i'm sharon yancey thank you for allowing us to speak tonight i am a retired teacher from san angelo and proud of that i was a student at robert e lee middle school then known as robert e lee junior high and my kids were also students there i do not believe that the name of the school should be changed i know that there are schools streets and parks all over our country that

079have been that bear the names of men and women who shaped our nation from the beginning excuse me history has not always shown that mankind is fair or doesn't always do the honorable thing but this is 2020 it's not 100 plus years ago i think that our focus and our funds should be going toward our facilities our teachers and their resources i think that's the way that we protect our future ensure that things are done in the right way thank you thank you so much for those comments we appreciate you being here um okay they're all downstairs well miss i know miss balcom's next and i can see her so then correct okay the next three are miss spears uh mr loose and clint g but before that we'll hear from janice bockham thank you

080miss balcom for being here i just want to take a minute and tell y'all last week i stayed to see the facilities update and to you all for getting central's bathrooms and a concession stand i stayed to purposely see that and thank you for allocating those funds because it's since i was a student there it's needed it but thank you all for doing that it was amazing to see what all that they had done there so we're not doing a history lesson y'all have heard every gamut of everything there is about all of this what i said last week is again to consider with funds allocations over half of our schools are named for someone and there's going to be someone that's going to have a problem with some of those names and it's going

081to be never ending i'm afraid we are very passionate people um you know like mr ramon said about targeting and names and stuff i am in the folks group that is wanting not to change the name and so we have also been targeted and things have been said and we're better than that we should be better than that we should be americans to where we can hear both sides and as i said last week i do not envy you and i wish we could take it off of your hands and put it on the ballot but we can't but i try to be open-minded to the point i visited with about 20 people and the comment was well you can't see the forest for the trees and you know they can't see the trees for

082the forest and it's the same thing going back and forth back and forth and one side is not going to come to the other and the other is not going to come to that side either it's just not going to happen so with that said i know it isn't a possibility that y'all may decide to table your vote and i am here to urge you to not do that because we need to get on we need to move on we need to mend ourselves we need to become the people that we should be becoming and accept whatever decision you make for whichever format and be okay with that and not be controversial continuously and targeting and name-calling and all of that we need to accept your decision as fact move on from there and you

083know if it be that you do change the name then we we have to look at funds allocations but you know it is so important for our facilities to be updated and things of that nature that have just gone awry that we haven't done anything for and i just wish everybody would be more passionate about that than they will about a name because as i was told from a group that i talked to it's really not about the name it is about the academics and what the children are taught and i thought we agree on something because i said that's exactly the way we feel we don't want to change the name we need to be focusing on the academics and their comment was it's not the same thing and i knew right then and

084there it did not matter what i said because we're not going to be on the same page so i appreciate your service i i urge you to make that hard decision and let's move forward and go from here thank you miss balcom for those comments okay i think the next one is miss spears thank you for being here miss spears thank you good evening everybody experience you might move the mic a little bit closer to you or get closer to it so yeah because we're getting that way we'll get it on recording all right i'm shirley spears and i'm here again representing the san angelo naacp through our process when we were asked by a parent of elite student mr jesse ramon to support his petition to change the name of lee's school we took

085a vote which is our constitutional duty in our organization the decision was made that we would support it we did further research and determined that there are a lot of different confederate names on streets in particular the county and other things and the elementary school for john reagan so we have been pushing to support mr ramon's petition while also drawing attention to john reagan elementary as the oldest civil rights organization in the country these are concerns and issues that we have been fighting since 1909 and here in san angelo we have concerns that we've been serving the public for for 75 years it is difficult for a lot of people who have experienced the life here in san angelo as it has been without controversy it is difficult sometimes to see the other side as

086has been mentioned this evening the request to change the name or for the board to consider the name changes has now taken on a whole different approach people are being personally attacked their families are being personally attacked organizations that they're involved with their employment status is being questioned all of these things are being questioned because some people want to change the name and some people don't i want to remind everyone that we're not here to attack anyone personally the board has been elected to make those types of decisions and they have afforded us an opportunity to voice our opinion which they didn't have to do they've done that we have an opportunity to say what we want to say you are going to make the decision and then we will go forward with that decision

087the training and educational aspects of the history of america cannot be told without telling the story of every group that helped to build this country the true story and that is what we have at issue is that the confederacy has been taken to be some wonderful glorious experience for soldiers in a lot of discussions and half truths have been told about what really happened or even why we had a civil war so those of you who cannot understand that we ask that you would at least give some thought to being able to understand why we want the truth history told the true story told so that everyone can be acknowledged so that everyone can have an opportunity to feel that they are at the table and have a voice at the table it is very

088difficult for me to hear that whoever was at the table in when we decided to name the school after robert lee that they were representing the entire community and it is very difficult for me as an african-american woman of my age in particular to hear that whoever was not at the table at 1949 in too bad and i want to encourage all of you not just because of what's going on politically in the country but because the attitudes the perspectives the points of views of people have changed since 1949 and fortunately for me there are more of us at the table with a voice so i hope and i know that you will do the right thing for this community because it is important for us to not be divided and all the attempts that

089have started to divide us personal attacks as i mentioned earlier attacks on people's employers that's just absolutely ridiculous we're talking about change in the name of two schools that doesn't have anything to do with you on a personal basis so again we want you to do the right thing you have been elected to make the hard decisions and we trust that you will do what is best for the community thank you thank you miss spears next we have mr loose john loose thank you for being here oh i didn't never mind i hadn't seen him yet okay so we'll move forward to clint g could you when you get to the mic would you let us know your last name as well thank you thanks for being here as this will be televised i will

090not provide my last name my 11 year old at lee junior high is horrified that she'll be singled out we had to contact the principal over the ridiculousness of the rules that are there which you all set i'm not exactly who sure who or which one of you did but y'all said them she's been singled out now by the coach there i would invite any one of you to central bobcat stadium and run in 108 degree weather with a mask on your face i can do it i'm almost 50 years old she can't doesn't need to you guys sitting those rules are ridiculous how are your rules different than a restaurant any restaurant in town has any of you seen a video of the spray of a cough if this virus is so deadly every

091single one of us would be infected with covet in san angelo texas period but we can sit at a table because it's a necessary business in america it's not grocery store is farming is those kinds of things the other thing is this girl is four foot five and weighs 65 pounds she's tiny she has to carry a 35 pound backpack because you guys will not issue lockers at lee junior high school up and down the stairs eight hours in a day all of you again i'd be happy to meet you there but i can't go into lee junior high school because of covin guys this is ridiculous right now there's a fight going on in austin texas by mayor adler and the ceo of st david's because mayor adler is a democratic mayor and he

092wants everybody to who wants everybody to be on the same sheet i want you to report the same devastation of covid that we're all going to do and i need you to be on the same page that his nathan's david huffstetler you can look it up he said no and published the email instead guys this is not a smart virus it doesn't get to the threshold of henry's diner down here on sherwood way and say hold up boys we can't go in here this is a restaurant not a school the school they have to sit three chairs apart they can't look at each other because it's rude to stare while you're eating if none of you think this is ridiculous then you all don't need to be sitting here in these chairs period now as

093far as anything else goes i want to point out some things to y'all headache fever dry cough chills fatigue shortness of breath sore throat muscle ache loss of taste or smell congestion runny nose nausea diarrhea i don't even know what that is dandruff itches diaper rash poison ivy rash frostbite 10 foot unemployment bankruptcy these are all symptoms of coping three nurses here at shannon hospital tested they sent 10 tests i've known one girl for 44 years i'll be 50 in january if that ages me at all 44 years i've known her from my whole life they sent three tests in for this covid testing they tested them on random things like vaseline uh saline things like that eight of those ten tests came back positive this is happening right here in san angelo your rules

094don't change when the kids leave the school they have them all bunched up outside i know this because i pick her up every single day so the rules apply at lunch but they do not apply when they get out of school the teachers are they're under their watchful eye out there they want to make sure they're not kidnapped for this is ridiculous you guys you guys put yourselves through the same crap that you're putting these kids through i'll meet you at central high school stadium it's right here i'll meet you there on saturday morning whoever show of hands who's ready you you you you let's run with a mask on for a mile and see which one of y'all can make it i can do it back to the people that want to change this

095name of the school you guys are barking up the wrong tree i went to lee hi lee junior high in 1983. mr westbrook was my assistant principal that man back when corporal punishment was a thing it was legal gave me licks i thank you for that sir i probably wouldn't be the man without you to these days that was almost 40 years ago 37 years ago i've got friends that are black good friends one of them is black is night you ask him if he feels oppressed by lee junior high's name his answer is no you know why because he makes 250 000 a year because of his education if you guys want to change history it's ridiculous you're starting in the wrong place you're in san angelo texas we got a population we just

096reached a hundred thousand people about when i was here growing up there was eighty two 000 people we're the biggest town without an interstate you guys want to change some names go back and change the money ben franklin thomas jefferson george washington all slave owners you guys may not know this but the very first slave owner in america was black so you all know that sir we've limited everyone else to five or six minutes sure i'm going to get on this you guys really want to worry about black and brown people being killed start with abortion clinics there's 40 million babies a year that are killed you guys should be focusing on the grades and be ashamed of yourselves you want kids to achieve a's your teachers can't even achieve b's or c's in your

097grades thank you mr servicemen back there because without you and every serviceman on the planet we wouldn't be allowed to have free speech in america you guys get your facts straight also read the bible there's horror stories in there that would blow any rated r movie away on hbo thank you thank you our next speaker is miss collier leah collier so we have leah collier uh amy wilkes maybe and lana primo are all downstairs possibly okay okay so miss collier thank you for being here stuck on my glasses alright thank you once again for your time thanks for letting me speak my name is leah collier and i'm a resident of san angelo i came here 15 years ago with the air force and i liked it so much i stayed i married into a

098family of past and presently students and today i speak on their behalf today i would like to address one of the common arguments i hear against renaming the school i hear that changing the name of a school will somehow erase the history of the person it was named after as a lifelong student of history this idea saddens and frustrates me as i said earlier i'm a transplant i'm here in san angelo by choice i'm originally from akron ohio it's a proud city with a rich history it's a throwback to the days when american manufacturing ruled the world you've probably heard such names as firestone goodyear goodrich uniroyal and general tire many schools in akron used to bear the names of these companies their former ceos and inventors and scientists in the rubber industry for the

099last 15 years however the school system there has undertaken a massive modernization project schools are being torn down consolidated rebuilt or renamed and yet the history of their past namesakes persists goodyear middle school no longer exists it was rebuilt and renamed years ago it's now called east community learning center despite the change you can still go downtown here in san angelo and buy a set of goodyear tires at the goodyear store you'll still see the goodyear blimp hanging over football stadiums on the big game day changing the school's name did not erase charles goodyear's accomplishment why do i bring this up robert e lee is not in any danger of being erased from history if we change the name of the school he was the commander of the entire confederate states army during a war

100that was fought over the worst atrocity in our american story chattel slavery and he was even more famous for ending up on the wrong side there are national parks national historic preserves state parks history centers and museums dedicated to the preservation of civil war history my father is a huge civil war buff our family vacations were spent visiting places like gettysburg national military park where the civil war trust has taken great care to preserve our history these own property eventually became arlington national cemetery the largest civil war museum west of the mississippi is right up the road outside of fort worth i couldn't give you an exact number of books out there specifically about robert e lee but i stopped counting at 200 when i searched for that on goodreads the professionals tasked with preserving

101our history have taken great care to make sure that we never forget who robert e lee was the man who chose to fight for that despicable institution of chattel slavery we can and should choose a name that better suits our way of life here in san angelo a name that doesn't invoke the darkest periods in our history a name that isn't associated with the jim crow era trend of bestowing honors on confederates just to spite a certain segment of the population i stayed in san angelo because this community is full of kind compassionate people with good hearts this is one small gesture we can undertake to show everyone how amazing and full of empathy we truly are and thank you for your time thank you miss collier for your comments um i was told miss

102wilks is not still here so we'll move forward to miss primo thank you miss primo for being here hello and thank you for having us yet again to come talk to you about changing the name of lee again i've been here four times previously to talk to you and i've been to the summit meetings with dr orr you've heard the history you've heard the feelings you've heard the facts i'm not going to reiterate any of that tonight we've heard it all somebody at one of the meetings said there's no right side or wrong side of history and i initially wanted to disagree with that statement because i thought well there's an awful lot of people in this world that have died at the hands of someone that had power and abused it but i talked

103to one of our professors that's been up here and he said well objectively we should look at history we should say this is what happened i feel like what's happening here within san angelo is that we're getting a history that is being cherry picked people are letting themselves gloss over what they want to honor i believe excuse me i believe that it's time that we let this matter rest and vote to remove the name you obviously know how diverse it is how it is not representative of inclusivity of the people in our town the children in our schools and i want you to vote not thinking of being on the right side or wrong side of history necessarily but on a side of humanity that you can feel that you can rest with and after

104hearing from our community members that care about this i don't see how you could vote any other way but to remove the name thank you again for your time i appreciate it thank you ms primo we appreciate your comments uh next up is donald pope so we'll give him some time to get up from downstairs i also have angela haywood and lylan mcclellan thie thief downstairs possibly we'll ask those to come up collectively do thank you mr pope for being here my name is donald pope i kind of got frustrated about some of the stuff i heard tonight but i'm a resident here of sangero the u.s army vet since uh some people hold those in high esteem but this name changed this got to be done it's 20 20 still and that's been brought

105up and while we're still going through this i have no idea i am kind of frustrated i'm upset because people think generally was so great if she was so great for who it wasn't for all and let me give you one little experience about lee junior high when i was going there some of the some of the white kids not all no more than here i could say here thought they wanted to form a a clan bring in the kkk they thought that would be funny oh they didn't happen there was a one or two skirmishes on that and it came to almost a big blows at lunchtime one day and of course i was in the front i wouldn't have it it's like i'm up here right now i'm not happy i'm tired of

106it people got to get over yourselves that's that's history what you've done some money so great like they made it to who one side one nobody like me saying he was so great he didn't do do my people any any favors and brown people any hispanics because if spanx was on outside going to fight cause they was being discriminated against too not all teachers i leave was bad not all people in sanjo are bad but this this got to change just got changed right now and whoever dispersed sincerely you know something like she talking about everybody taking the hoods off everybody didn't work hoods black people in what hoods it was on the clan and who's the member of the clan white people and the reason they came up these names these statues try to

107keep us subservient and intimidated and scared those days are gone those days are gone it ain't never coming back so we need to make these changes do the right thing that's all it is to discuss it really shouldn't be a discussion do the right thing change the name and then then we can move on to other things for the education talk about that and that'll be a good thing to do you go steps the name got to go that's all i got to say right now because i am upset all right thank you mr pope our next speaker is angela haywood ms haywood thank you for being here good evening mr layman and board members i want to thank you for allowing me to speak to you this evening on this particular issue i know

108both sides are very passionate about how they feel about the changing of the name or letting it stay the same however i'm not one of those people i am a native texan i was born and raised here in san angelo and i went to lee junior high as have every family member that preceded me my siblings my nieces and nephews and the treatment that was received from the children some of the parents some of the teachers that were in charge over at lee when i went from what i'm hearing from my nieces and nephews my great nieces and nephews is still the same you would think that general lee is alive and well and is living over at lee junior high now some of you may not believe that but when i went to school

109this is my yearbook when i graduated this is my yearbook i'm pointing it out for you to see that in 1992 93 this is the cover of the yearbook it has the rebel flag on it so now you tell me how can i or my siblings feel very proud or be proud of attending a school that is named after someone who didn't particularly care for people of color who owned them and some people said that the first person to own slaves were black people well you know i beg to differ on that particular issue because i have researched my history my family history and we go all the way back to the trail of tears we can go back even further than that and i have to the buffalo soldiers because my family history is

110ingrained here in the state of texas mexico and florida and other places and those are just the ones that i can name off the top of my head it's not fair that our children have to contend with a school number one that is not academically up to par where it should be with the rest of the country that's number one that's first and foremost but number two they shouldn't have to be ashamed or even scared to go to a school that waves the rebel flag in their face we see it time and time again you ask us to get over slavery and what has happened in the past but how can we when you are when it's constantly in our face every day you look at the street signs you look at buildings you look

111at highways it's all there how can we get over something when you're constantly putting it in our face now i don't profess to be a black lives matter person i don't profess to be antifa or anything else because i'm not for all of that i was raised right here in san angelo we have values just like you do i have worked for the past 25 years working with both sides of the aisle coming to the common ground and the common good for all people and that is what we are asking for the other side and for you the board members to to come to a common ground between both parties and teach the full history and not part of it thank you thank you ms haywood for your comments um we only have three more

112so we're um although we had a couple that we skipped so we'll move back to those miss mcclellan thie uh willie flores and joe hyde are the final three that i have signed up thank you miss steve for being here thank you board for for giving us this opportunity my name is lolly and mcclellan thie i'm a native san angelo and also a former student of robert e lee junior high junior high back then and i won't even do the math to say how long ago that was let me just start off by saying that the san angelo independent school district is funded by taxpayer dollars and regardless of the source of those dollars be it local state or federal it is all taxpayer dollars so it comes out of our pockets and you as

113a school board are charged to be good stewards of that very limited resource and one of the key functions of the board of directors according to the saisd board policy manual under the chapter mandatory powers and duties is to provide oversight regarding student academic achievement and strategic leadership for maximizing student performance now however according to the texas education agency website which is tex txschools.gov and then under the schools tab for the year 2018 2019 school year of our 23 campuses listed on on this site there are 17 elementary school campuses four are graded f two are graded d seven are graded c two are graded b and two are graded a of our three middle schools they have grades of c d and f and lee is represented with that d grade our two high

114schools are both graded b now the freshman campus evidently the former edison junior high is evidently lumped into those grades it's not broken out separately in this list and carver alternative learning center is listed but it's not ranked so for information purposes on this on the website schooldigger.com for the year 2019 saisd was ranked 765th of 971 texas school districts that's just means that saisd was just better than just 21 of the texas districts and this is not a new problem for 2018 saisd was ranked better than just 28 percent of texas school districts in 2017 better than 38 percent so every year we have declined some consistently from 2017. now according to the education code chapter 25 parents have the right to request assignments to or transfers from campuses and also to file objections

115to campus assignments made by the district in other words if you if you are bound to go to a certain school because of where you live and that school is failing or not performing up to the standard that you think it should which is information is public knowledge it's easy to look up you have the right to petition you the school board for a transfer so there's been a lot of talk and and this issue about changing the name of robert e lee came up and the first um this the the reasoning was well you know we're concerned about our children's education and that's admirable as a parent that's one of your your most important responsibilities is the education of your children so i do not understand why there's not more outcry about the academics

116rather than the name of the school as far as the cost of a name change according to a freedom of information request sisd provided an estimate of around thirty thousand dollars just to change the name of robert e lee i actually think that that's low i think that the actual expense will be higher because other school districts that have done something along this that have changed the name of their campus they spend in the hundreds of thousands of dollars so i would expect our figure to come in much higher should this action be taken and another campus reagan has already been mentioned and been targeted for a name change so multiply the figure by at least two and probably more and i want to mention another thing in the the current events that we're facing

117you hopefully you've heard about the reimagine the alamo project that battle going on in san antonio well that also in addition the way that this event has evolved that also has developed into racial overtones so if that battle in san antonio is successful to reimagine the alamo well then isn't it feasible that names associated with texas history will be considered offensive and we have several campuses that would fall into that category too so again we're looking at more expense should this should robert lee be deemed to be changed this is a lot to think about and as a board it is your responsibility it does fall on your shoulders as far as naming of the school board but i would say that our community i mean we have academic challenges here we see that in

118black and white our children do deserve a quality education and that should be the focus of every parent in this district i say that our community can be better served by many and saisd staff resources that we've had to use to hold these meetings in this process our community can be better served by those resources and money being applied toward things to achieve these academic goals in which we're falling short i don't know such as target targeted tutoring you know give these students extra attention that need more help saturday classes can you wrap up your comments please yes sir i say it would be worthwhile as current classroom teachers and retired teachers from their vast knowledge for ideas creative ways to address our academic challenges rather than spending the expense on changing the name of

119robert e lee thank you for your time yes ma'am thank you for your comments um our next speaker is mr flores is mr flores available thank you for being here mr flores hi guys hey i want to thank you for your service i wouldn't want anybody to make this decision it's going to be a tough one but uh that's for the name change i feel both sides of the aisle you know i know he was a bad guy or whatever and sometimes he was a good guy but in my eyes he was just a man that died 150 years ago my kids go to john 8 reagan elementary and they don't go to school there because john a dragon was a slave owner they don't even know who john h reagan is you know and

120they don't care one thing they do they go to school there and if they don't make straight a's they get in trouble that's the bottom line you know that i'd rather this money that's going to be used to change the name if they do decide to change the name bring the school grade up you know put it back into the education of the kids let's uh make the kids smarter let's send these kids to college and all that stuff instead of crying about a name you know and i know i know it probably hurts both sides or whatever but to me this guy died 150 years ago these guys are talking like he's still there behind the principal's principal's desk you know he's not he's dead he's got no control over what happens in the

121future he's been gone but if you keep letting him he's going to be there that hatred in your heart's going to be there you know and that's bad you guys need to love you know not hate this is like y'all are bringing racism back it's it's just uh i can't process it in my head the other day that storm come through you know there's a lot of homeless people under the chadburn street bridge in the rain and stuff nobody helping them why don't we focus on that you know i just can't see it fighting over a name you know and and the guy's dead but the way you guys talk about him he's still right here in this room today you know i'd rather the money be spent on educating my kids our kids you

122know making them smarter instead of putting in their head that there was racism 100 well there was racism 150 years ago and there's still some today because you've got people that are still racist whether it be black white brown you've got them you know and we can't control that what we can control is how we raise our kids and that's the bottom line you know i'd rather spend this money on our kids education and bring it up from a d to an a at least junior high you know not worry about the name on the building because the name on the building doesn't have anything to do with what's in the kid's heart you know so you guys decide whatever and i'll uh i'll put a hundred dollars on bill dindled out run that guy

123with a mask on at the bobcat stadium if he's still out there okay let's go bobcats okay thank you guys thanks willie a little levity never hurt you know so we had one gentleman that was going to speak later rebel is i know i've got joe rebel passed this is okay so the last one i have signed up is joe hyde thanks mr hyde for being here your patience thank you hope this thing's tall enough anyway i rise today in support of maintaining the name robert e lee middle school and i do this after much thought because my actions today will likely cost me both personally and professionally indeed i've already been targeted it is not popular to take a stand for dead confederates in this toxic political political environment i certainly become unemployable and

124i risk my own business interest and revenue for standing up to the tyranny of the mob let me tell you why i feel compelled to fall on the sword i believe this movement to change the name of robert e lee middle school isn't really about dead confederates it's instead about subjugating an entire class of people if you will to the whims of a radical progressive ideology and agenda a divisive and hateful one and i choose my words very carefully here an agenda to tell half or more of this community that people like me are dirty unclean and nasty for if you support tradition or confederate school names certainly you're a racist i don't under i didn't understand this ideology of what is happening in our country until this summer i stood guard in front of

125the statue of another former confederate general his name was lawrence sullivan ross and the academic square at texas a m university and college station while there the court current quarterback of the aggie football team kellam monde declared to me that if i am colorblind if i don't see mr mon's blackness i am a racist so much for everything my generation learned about getting along and worked together as american regardless of skin color or class and kelanman went on he said that to become because i am white i am the recipient of some sort of white privilege and the only way for me to atone for my sin of being born white was to agree completely with this political points of view and subjugate myself to his ideology of anti-racism and even should i decide to

126subjugate myself to his own ideology i will remain a racist anyway but at least i am working on not being a racist this toxic ideology comes from a collection of recent books brought forth by our universities that allege right fragility and white privilege or basically they call me a racist based on a moving scale of what is and is not racist i think it's a quack ideology where adherents defined and redefined what hate is and what racism is to brand with scarlet letters those who disagree with their political point of view so that those that don't disagree with me don't have to debate their crazy ideas with me in the public square in short this ideology is a stepping stone in our country to to talk to the totalitarianism i believe the ideology of this

127white fragility anti-racism i believe also is anti-christian anti-god and doesn't really know jesus first the ideology assumes there is a collective guilt it maintains i am guilty for actions taken by my ancestors 160 years ago i am guilty for the actions anyone with my same skin color has committed since and i am guilty of the sins of all white people in my community today to include those who don't want to rename schools jesus didn't teach collective guilt when i die and stand before the pearly gates of heaven trying to gain admission i'm not going to have to account for the sins of you or anyone else or anyone else's sins in generations past i and i alone are responsible for my own sins not yours not not anyone else's and certainly not some confederate general

128who's dead second the ideology of anti-racism and white fragility offers no avenue for repentance or forgiveness it is a continuing process the ideologues say it's kind of sort of like what marxism is you can never be perfect enough to not be a racist apologies don't matter you're scum forever subjugated to the whims of the leaders of the anti-racism ideology who aren't white it matters not only because to them i'm still this dirty nasty white guy and i'm middle-aged to boot they probably hope people like me die soon enough so they can carry on their agenda with without my interference third because there is no repentance or forgiveness there will never be any kind of redemption and with no redemption there is absolutely no incentive for me to do a darn thing to placate any of

129them except of course like chamberlain did for hitler perhaps i can appease them by renaming my middle school and maybe they won't burn down my city or assault me or destroy my country everybody as chamberlain soon learned there's no appeasing them and this anti-racism ideology certainly is remains to me anti-christian because it re refuses to take into the concept redemption i'm a third generation combat veteran from a long line of southern georgian men who have defended this country throughout the ages my father and my great great grandfather both gave their lives for their country i was lucky enough to have escaped that fate let me tell you about my great great grandfather henry hyde from noon and georgia henry had nine children all but one were boys he was a hard scrabble man who managed

130to save up enough money to purchase just 200 acres on the western georgia frontier in 1847. he and his family farmed the land they didn't have enough money or land assets to own slaves his boys provided the labor by the time the civil war came along all but one of the boys the youngest who was nine years old at the time were either conscripted or they volunteered to join the confederate states army they weren't fighting for slavery they didn't have any benefit for that and to quote mississippi delta historian shelby foote who looked into the motivations of young men who joined the confederate states army perhaps they were fighting the yankees because y'all are down here or maybe like was exposed in the movie starring nicole kidman cold mountain young men were conscripted or faced

131a lynch mob if they didn't join the csa i don't know but by 1864 the confederate states army was desperate for men that came to henry and they said we're going to have to conscript your 12 year old boy and he said you can't take my young son i'll go in his place and what happened after that was uh henry was captured in decatur alabama during a battle trying to stop william tecumseh sherman from reaching atlanta he was transported as a pow up to duck camp douglas in chicago where he stood out in the cold and was hosed down and eventually he died of pneumonia he's buried in a mass grave up there a lot of us share this this had this shared history of what happened during the confederate or during the civil war

132because the civil war impacted everyone that lived here everyone that lived here joe could you wrap up your comments please anyway i feel like this renaming of schools is to shame us for our history and i don't want that to happen i also believe that robert e lee has historical ties to this area for example he was the commander i believe the 10th calvary for the u.s army he protected this frontier and he allowed settlements like schulenburg and halitsville and new brunsville's places like that where the german robber barons were selling land to the german immigrants he allowed them to settle texas he has a historical ties to this area he camped up there by uh by water valley at camp they call it camp concho or camp johnson he rode out of fort chadburn

133anyway i wanted to just let you know i don't want to give an inch and this is why thank you thank you mr hyde for your comments um i think that covers items not on our agenda what i'm going to do um in light of a couple of people been waiting an extended period of time to speak i'm going to move to i'm going to skip reports and move immediately to consent items a through f do we have a motion to approve items a through f move to approve consent items a through l yeah well i'm going to let them speak as part of the agenda item just like we normally would second so we have a motion from mr parker in a second from dr kingman our consent items are considered donations our donations

134are listed up there we had a pretty significant donation from um the krauts family we appreciate them um our item b is uh consider approval the quarterly investment report item seized to consider superintendent's recommendations for personnel dr gomez provided that for us at our pre-agenda meeting item these to consider extracurricular status for 4-h organizations and agent faculty agreement of texas a m agrilife extension service for time green county item is to consider approval of tea asynchronous that's easy for me to say instructional plan and item asks consider tasby board policy update 115 does anybody need to remove any of these items as a board member if not we do have someone signed up for public comment on and which item would that be on of those that list ma'am me so would you please come

135forward again thank you for your patience and be sure and let everybody know your name when you get to the microphone thank you sorry i'm real sure hello my name is sarah negovetic i have two children in the saisd schools like many parents i enrolled my children in the virtual academy to start the school year i felt comfortable doing so because the district assured us that students in the virtual academy would receive the same quality education as those students opting for in-person instruction claiming that edgenuity was a research-based platform aligned to state standards unfortunately we found the exact opposite the research referenced on the sasd website and provided by edge annuity amounts to little more than marketing material highlighting selective results that only give part of the story further though they claimed to be teeks

136aligned we found that was only the case for courses taught in 6th grade and above the curriculum and instruction team denied that the curriculum wasn't aligned and only grudgingly admitted the truth when we put the physical proof in front of them this does not instill very much faith in the information coming from our administration when it comes to in-person instruction teachers face another set of problems with almost no training prior to starting the school year our teachers had to figure out how to transfer their coursework to the schoology pro platform as a substitute teacher i've seen the issues that teachers face in loading their material and getting it to work properly i've also heard from teachers especially at the elementary level that they don't have enough time each day to teach their classes and load

137everything to schoology instead teachers must do this during the evening and weekends when they should be relaxing and spending time with their families we've brought these concerns and many others to the attention of this board and the curriculum and instruction team on numerous occasions and have been left with less than satisfactory responses unfortunately it's way too late to scrap what we have and start over our only option is to identify these problem areas and create a plan to fix them sadly i've yet to see any proof of this happening our administration is still communicating with parents as if this school year is business as usual in fact in contrast to letting parents know that there are some problems the communication is focused entirely on ensuring students are logging in daily and spending enough time in

138front of their computer when we asked the cni team what the plan was to fix all these issues we were met with a half-baked plan and i used the word plan generously overworked virtual academy teachers will be forced to supplement the material where needed and remove modules from ingenuity that don't align with state standards all while monitoring way too many students across multiple grades and subjects in the meantime the cni team advised us they are trying to get ahead so they can start reviewing material for the next nine weeks given the amount of work assigned to teachers and the fact that many of them are already sacrificing their free time just to keep up i fail to see how the district expects anyone to get ahead this is not a plan it's a hope and

139a prayer and our teachers and our students deserve better tonight the administration is asking the board for approval of its virtual academy plan to be submitted to the state for official approval i'm asking the board to not rubber stamp this plan but to ask real questions that hold administration accountable for how it's going to fix these ongoing issues i'm also asking the board adjust the academic calendar the board has the power to delay the start of the second quarter instead of hoping to have time to ensure our students are receiving an appropriate education let's guarantee the time to make sure this is happening additionally this break will give our teachers a chance to master the schoology platform and create a system that allows them to update their classes and maintain some work-life balance i recognize

140that changes of this nature can be disruptive to our school community and the city however the alternative is to press forward without a game plan and leave the education and success of our students up to chance that is not a viable option i acknowledge that this school year is one that none of us have seen before and i hope we never see it again our schools and administration were forced to come up with solutions to situations we never dreamed of and did so on a very tight time frame i understand that a perfect solution to educating students at home and in person doesn't exist they're going to be problems no matter what platform or program the administration decided to use however we cannot simply sit back and say well we tried when our students fail

141in the classroom we don't simply shrug our shoulders and move on we go back look at the problem from another angle and ask them to try again and this is what i ask of our administration you didn't get it right the first time and that's okay no one expected perfection but you don't get to shrug and move on you must go back look at the problem and try again because our students are counting on you thank you thank you for your comments sir would you like to speak as well thank you for your for being here and for your comments good evening my name is nick negovic as a follow-up to my wife's comments i'd like to read you a message sent to us by san angelo isd teacher with over a decade of teaching

142experience their comments are in regarding to the virtual learning academy i quote instead of providing a rich educational environment with interaction from staff members for kids learning at home in a virtual environment we are letting a subscription service babysit them so we don't have to put mental energy or actual money into educating them they've said for years that relationships are the most important part of education edgenuity does nothing to promote this relationship watching the same video over and over again does not help someone learn something if they don't understand it if they don't understand it the first or second time they surely aren't going to understand it when they watch the same video a third time the most important thing in education is the rapport between the student and the teacher you cannot have rapport

143with an ingenuity video when we used edge annuity in an intervention setting i had 25 kids who were supposed to log on and do roughly 40 minutes of math content a day i was supposed to walk around monitor that they were on the right site and answer any questions i had a decent group of average kids the content was so completely boring though that even kids who were completely fine and engaged in my regular class tuned out i had discipline issues from kids i've never had discipline issues with before and i don't know that i could say that anybody actually learned anything i know a bunch of kids are coming back at the nine weeks not because their families truly feel safe but because they feel like the current approach is against the well-being of

144their children which is why when my friends asked about it ahead of time i recommended that they withdraw their student from public school in saisd to do an online home school like connections or k-12 which is intentionally designed to be an online public school and not just classes that are farmed out so that most of our staff members can worry about the kids who are in person and i believe in it public schools my children are in public schools i have taught only in public schools and i have been doing this for more than a decade the divide between the haves and the have-nots has only grown broader during this pandemic for example edgenuity does not meet the needs of differentiated instruction for special needs students because it cannot it's just garbage i don't think

145most of our school board realizes this everyone here has had some job that they've had to do a training video day right and you sit down and you try to watch it you try to skip through it and you try to at least halfway pay attention to it and then when you get to the test at the end you realize you didn't pay close enough attention to something and so you have to go back to that video and look for just the portion and etc can you imagine doing that for seven hours a day this is what we're asking of our students virtual curriculum needs to be taught by real life teachers in our district and it could be taught with minimal effort heck they've already having to put stuff online and if that means

146i teach my morning classes in person and my afternoon classes online or some of us teach three days a week in person and two days a week online or whatever that's the ethical thing to do for all of our students not just the ones whose parents are sending them in person public education is our best chance at having a functional and educated democracy we cannot do public education badly on purpose simply because it is the easiest thing to do and we've got to try to integrate these kids who have been at home on ingenuity they are in no way going to be prepared to enter mid-semester or mid-year into a classroom that has been engaging and educating appropriately as triggered as i am by the phrase no child left behind guess what we're doing as

147amazingly well as we did this spring we reinvented public education in a week essentially we are failing our virtual learners this fall it feels like we spent all summer pretending like something was going to be fine were shocked when it wasn't and then slapped something together a lot of our kids whose families made the decision to learn virtually are either themselves medically fragile or have a family member whose health puts them in a high risk category if the child brings this novel virus home it's a disgrace to make the safe choice for these families a penalty by providing them with a subpar education school board this is one of your teachers one who's had experience with this online platform you should really listen to them thank you thank you sir for your comments any comments

148from our board team concerning the items a through f not all in favor of our emotion please indicate by saying aye aye any opposing indicate by saying no our motion passes um item nine excuse me item seven is reports from student enrollment on the 10th day of school we've been provided that information previously into friday facts i think that indicates it we have a number of students that we're still looking for hoping that they will return to our district um not as many as many districts our size um we also have an update on academic let's stop can we stop and take a break i would love to do that so let's do that and then we'll move forward i had someone indicate that they that's in the public that wanted to speak that didn't

149get their opportunity to do so so i'm going to allow that to take board president privilege and allow them to do that so if they would come forward at this time and please limit your comments to five minutes thank you and introduce yourself i'm susie smith and um i am still concerned about the same three issues that i was concerned about when all of this started with the petition and that is the timing of this petition and the outside influence of the petition and um that this would be the only the first domino to fall and it has been acknowledged that the same issue is taking place in other locations the very same issue which is very interesting to me if this is a local issue the timing of it and with it happening in

150so many other places as a thinking person i reason that that is because of outside influences and that if we give in to this change it will only be the first domino to fall which i mentioned at the first meeting and now several weeks later we are already hearing of a second school that's targeted and because of the reasoning behind the desire for the name change it won't be the last and others have stated that and so again i just reiterate it that was my feeling from the very beginning and i feel like it's been validated as far as the comments tonight and other times about discrimination and white privilege and especially the last board meeting as an older person i felt like that you know they were ready for me to be put on

151the ash heap because i was an old white person and so i found that offensive but you know i'm not going to beat anybody up about it and i'm not going to start a petition as far as the discrimination uh three of my 10 grandchildren only three of my 10 grandchildren have attended school here in san angelos and one of the three attended lee and he was bullied he's caucasian he was and he had to go to he tried two different schools here in san angelo and was bullied in both of them i didn't get details on it because we didn't make a big deal about it other than the fact that his parents and his mother is a teacher and his parents you know concerned about their child wanted to find a place where

152he could go to school in peace and so he is no longer going in the san angelo school history as far as the other two granddaughters they attended lincoln and i found out that they were bullied and and it was racial uh discrimination in reverse of um you know white privilege and so um it's not just the colored the children of color as it's referred to nowadays that are discriminated against and bullied and um what my granddaughters did was they focused on their academics and the one that just graduated was sixth in her class so um just you know some personal situations there as far as the exclusivity and the inclusiveness you know hear about the inclusiveness but what i find is interesting is that we're talking about being inclusive by excluding and that seems

153to be completely ignored so um and as far as the you know discussion tonight about the community and the division in the community and i think i had mentioned last time that i had it on pretty good resource that an individual who went and asked in the office there at robert e lee if there had been any racial issues going through the school that had caused problems so if these people had difficulties you know surely it would go through the office and and this individual was told no they didn't have any record of any racial dissension or problems and so you know i don't know i just could wrap up your comments very credible person and that was the information he was given and so about the divisiveness the petition that was started to change

154the name is what has divided this community thank you thank you for your comments for your patience okay we will move um back to the item seven on our agenda which is student enrollment report i discussed that right as we were taking our break we get that on a weekly basis we discussed at our pre-agenda meeting as well so we're currently serving about 14 000 students which is a little bit about 400 students less than what we had at this same time last year our next item is item b which is an update on academic progress and dr ritter's going to help us with that thank you dr ritter thank you dr deloff mr layman and members of the board and so um just a little bit of clarification i wanted the board to understand

155as well that with the approval of the asynchronous virtual plan is the template the plan that was just approved tonight we continue to make revisions and improvements to that as a fluid plan that we present to tea and they approve that we are going asynchronous that simply is what the plan is is that we are not doing a synchronous plan we are going asynchronous which means that our students are engaging in virtual learning that can be recorded in advance that can be sessions they can access at a different time and it's not exactly the same time as the exact classes that they would be participating in as their in-person peers so if that helps you also just to understand that we continue to revise it we continue to improve it as we go with feedback

156that we receive daily so so we're continuing to work on that so um and this was actually uh the topic of the academic progress rep progress for the evening to just give you an update on our virtual learning that we are successfully moving forward with both of our instructional platforms the in person and our virtual academy we announced last week our plans for families to have the opportunity to switch platforms during a window that ends this friday september 25th the new nine weeks begins october 19th and so this time in between we'll be using to adjust student and teacher schedules to make improvements to the platform to prepare for student needs in the selected platform we've already had many families indicate their intent to change to one or the other platform through the intent form

157provided and we have requests for both in-person and virtual so we're happy to continue to provide our families with options and support to participate in the learning modality that best fits their student needs we've received helpful feedback from our virtual families in the use of edgenuity which is the platform we are using for the virtual academy instruction our district level cni staff is continuing to provide specific support and clarification in the use of the platform there are helpful diagnostic tools that are embedded in the platform that our teachers are learning to use and our parents are learning to use such as the activity log which shows specifics regarding student activity this provides parents and district staff with details about a student's level of activity and how active they've been through a lesson and this helps

158us to know how best to support a student who may be struggling and how to help it helps us also provide parents who are serving as the instructional coaches through this process feedback in supporting their child we continue to learn more and improve our virtual platform with this information as we know that this is a very different experience for our families from their experience with digital learning last spring and we appreciate our families and their hard work and partnering in the instructional process so tonight we have a short five minute video of the day in the life of a virtual academy digital support teacher we hope that you will enjoy seeing how these teachers are creating engaging learning experiences with their students and providing positive feedback and communication for our virtual families so we'll show

159that video now hello my name is cindy grimes i'm the digital support teacher at lincoln middle school i'm josh packard i'm the digital support teacher here at mcgill elementary hi my name is laura nessler i am the digital support teacher for holloman elementary [Music] [Applause] so i start off in the morning i check my attendance for the previous day and make any corrections that the student got on at night and then i start clearing my dashboard my dashboard says all the alerts with students that may need help or intervention or maybe a test unlocked once i get that cleared i start with emailing students seeing if they need to zoom with me or meet with me to for tutorials and then i also call parents and just reach out to see if there's anything that

160anyone needs so what i really like about the program is that it provides a rigorous curriculum for our students it's very regimented and very set up it's very it has a great routine and structure set up with it that makes it very consistent for our students my day usually starts with checking dojo messages getting back to any parents that have messaged me asking questions about attendance assignments or just needing help either figuring out how to submit something or where a file may be and then from there i'll go into doing my attendance where i'll go into the virtual learn academy buzz page and i look to see who's logged in uh who's turning in work who's just going over the assignments and grading giving them some feedback feedback is just an opportunity for me to

161let them know that either they're doing a great job so is that positive reinforcement or is hey you need to add a little bit more detail and let's go back and look at it again this particular student has added excellent details so i'm going to let her know that she has some excellent detail in her responses [Music] [Applause] go find something that rhymes with bag [Music] cooper that's funny i basically start off when i hit the door in the morning my conference is from 7 45 to 8 30 and i grade that whole time i answer dojos and we actually do that throughout the day but starting about 8 30 we have scheduled zooms with our kids and during that time we use that time as like really structured instruction or if the whole glass

162didn't do well on assignment we'll go back and kind of do a little re-teach and it's just educational time like that and then lots of calling periods lots of just hey how's susie doing today it's just it's constant back and forth making sure everybody's got what they need basically this is my prime number what is it how many guys am i holding up two right okay i'm really enjoying this year i'm thinking that it helps me grow as a teacher because i'm getting to learn different content areas that i haven't been able to teach before my favorite part would be the fact that it's allowed me to interact and meet families that i normally wouldn't have previously i've been i've taught fifth grade science so i knew all the fifth graders and i knew some

163of the upcoming fourth graders but this has allowed me to meet families in kindergarten first grade second grade third grade one that i normally wouldn't get to interact with i've gotten to know their kids and the parents grandparents so that's been a pretty neat opportunity just getting to build more of that relationship with the kids because for us that's what it's really about i think all teachers feel that way old companies we we love our kids all of us do at every school here in san angelo i know that we talked in deep with the captured kids hearts and for me it's just made a huge difference in how our campus operates and so for those kids to have to be at home and not to get to be a part of that it really

164it worried me that they weren't going to get the things that they needed from us in an emotional way and this is a challenging time for them because you know a lot of their friends are back at school and they're sick at home and so you gotta you gotta bring school to them somehow and i feel like we're i feel like we're doing a good job with guys oh what's his name [Music] what's her name i love it minnie that's adorable so i have students who like to show their video and like to say hi or just visit with me but then there's some who are still a little shy and don't want to turn on their screen but they'll chat with me and they'll talk with me and just there's a social component as

165well as the i need help component you know because we all need that to be able to just talk for some with somebody else for a little bit in saisd our people our people our people make the difference make the difference make the difference oh thank you and it's um it's good to share that information um you know it's it's not without struggle and we know that but i think that these are just some examples of of the great things that are going on with the virtual academy and you know we would love to have all of our kids back in school because we know that that is that is absolutely the best way for them to learn and build relationships but for students who opt to be at home and learning virtually and for

166families who determine that that's the best thing for their family we do feel that we're providing the best opportunity possible for them to do that with lots of support from our teachers on our campuses so um we have and this was brandon lagon who is our digital innovation facilitator one of our two and his child is doing the virtual academy as well and he wanted me to let you know that his child's doing really well and loves it you know i think it's just every child it's a little bit different and so we just have to find those struggles and help work through it and customize and that's what those teachers are doing and the administrators and also our district level staff to help with that as well so thank you any questions questions just

167go ahead jordan just to ask again you said that what they sing asynchronous asynchronous um the tea thing so we're submitting this so we we can change it as we go like if we need to improve this or improve this tea won't come back and say well you can't do that you've already submitted it like this so you can't do it that way tea wants us to submit what we're doing so that they can continue to provide funding is actually the purpose of that so that they can guarantee that we will continue to have funding beyond our grace period for ada so for them to be able to grant us funding for our virtual students the way that we are going to be getting funding for ada for those students they just have to have

168a plan on file that they approve but you can continue to make improvements to your plan as you go okay thank you absolutely can i have a question also yes um just for the sake of people who have been watching and maybe don't know everything about ingenuity that we do can you talk a little bit about why ingenuity was chosen and maybe how many districts across the state are using it yes certainly we have a history of that genuity for four and a half years and several of us also had a history with it previously in other districts and there are many districts as a matter of fact last week i was just on a texas public accountability consortium um with there were 95 people there and about 60 districts represented and many i don't

169know an exact number many of those districts were also utilizing a genuity platform and had done similar research and had experiences with them in looking at other platforms that were available ingenuity by far exceeded what others would offer with all of the tools and diagnostics that they provide and the support that they provide to the districts support through training professional learning for our teachers and just by the minute literally around the clock we can get support from them and we have them on our cell phones and they're responsive they call us back they go in they work with anything that comes up and they are constantly trying to improve that platform as well and so when we raise issues we know that they are going to be responsive and they have addressed every single thing

170that we have brought forward to them um and you know we take they want they want feedback they want the parent feedback they want the student feedback they want our teachers feedback and our administrators feedback as well so we provide that often but we did extensive research through this um and you know it's a national platform and their elementary platform is it's new this year but they wanted to try to provide something in texas all across the nation actually with an elementary platform that would provide us what what we needed and i will say the digital support teachers that you saw the two that were holloman and miguel who are digital support teachers for two of our elementary schools they're really helping to lead that and we're holding plcs our professional learning community weekly meetings

171every other one our team goes in person and helps and sits there with them and works through issues that they have plus we have plc's every every week with all of those teachers for the level to help work through issues that they've that they bring forward and then that we go take to ingenuity and ask for their partnership and helping to to address so we we feel very confident that this is it's been a good thing for our student we have a lot of really good comments as well about the platform certainly thanks for your question maybe anything else mr dindle no okay anybody so what else do we need to do to further engage our parents to make sure that [Music] they recognize the amount of research that we've done why this program was

172chosen over others you know that type of thing i think you know we need to tell our story and make sure that they know that it's it wasn't a haphazard decision it was something that we considered over the summer and that we are working to improve that how do we engage those parents and students and then the second part of that question is we know that elementary students are in my opinion they're desperate for um to have contact with a particular person and they get enough virtual with every other toy that they might have our device so how do we um are our are the people that are doing instruction for them um successful or are is one of their strengths um making sure that they communicate in an outstanding manner with their students so

173yes i mean i i think that's something that they're working on constantly um brandon lagann is serving as our district administrator over our virtual academy along with candy collis and ricky black and our whole cni team the facilitators going and helping teachers to share ideas and and learn ways much like what you saw in the video where they're trying to engage their students it's of course it's all virtual but they're doing additional zooms with them they're doing having additional opportunities for them to do engaging lessons and we have families submitting things just on their own about you know oh we went to the texas state aquarium and corpus christi and we took our lesson and we did our lesson there and sharing some different ideas and there are also you know even with fine arts

174and those are some other things that i can that i can feature like we have great success with with music that is not through edge annuity that is the district developed we also have district developed courses as well and and that's been extremely successful for those elementary students but just trying to increase the engagement trying to increase the opportunities for for feedback and for interaction and anytime there is a concern anytime there is a concern we directly connect generally there are issues that we can tell through the diagnostic tools looking through and help and help the parents understand what they can do to help their child many times it's because a child maybe has gotten behind in the program and tea does require us to say in our asynchronous plan that we have to say

175that it is the same number of instructional minutes that are in person school would provide them so in doing so again it's very different from what virtual learning was like last spring and you know in the first two weeks of school this year at central high school and at lakeview high school that was done through schoology through our learning management system every teacher started for two weeks with uploading their own through schoology while the students who were in the actual virtual academy did work in a genuity so we had both of those things going and now that we have in person all of the students are operating you know if they're in person at the high school they're doing that with the school of g learning management system support which is really intended for students

176to be able to stay caught up with assignments if they're absent that the teachers have loaded in absent work or assignments so that's the learning management system with the schoology so trying to just get all of these platforms going and and operating in a way that is operational and successful uh it's been it's been a lot but it's we really think that we're now we're seeing a lot of the benefit for it it's taken some taking some weeks because you couldn't turn it on early you had to start on the first day of school when your platforms could be active for them to work with your with your with your students when they were actually engaged in learning so continuing to improve that and um i don't know if i let me know if i

177didn't answer both of yours about the engagement or communication yeah i think the communication is something that you know we just got to get better at make sure that um those that aren't complaining i think we're hearing you're dealing with those that uh have concerns or complaints yes i think i feel comfortable with us doing that but i'm not sure that those that aren't bold enough to contact a board member or contact one of y'all um i we just need to make sure that we're doing everything we can to to answer their questions before they're asked or to let those people know that hey this is some common ask questions and this is what this is the resolution to to your problem i think that's something we really need to work on yes if we're

178not doing that yeah and um also equipping our virtual teachers and our campus administrators they are their students so we have told our families you know if you have questions please talk to your virtual teacher to your digital support teacher generally that right there is where things get ironed out if there needs to be additional or if we're looking at reports and we see that a student isn't successful then those teachers are reaching out the principals are reaching out and our district people who are working with it as well are also reaching out but nine times out of ten things are being resolved at the campus level because it's generally in in the beginning some of them the students might have been like in middle school or high school they might have been somehow enrolled

179in the in the wrong class or their schedule wasn't accurate or somehow their schedule that they were placed in had needed to be altered so those things were taken care of and then once they started going they were experiencing success but if they haven't and they con contacted the campus and and then worked through the issues there they have found the ones who have called and we've said you know we pull the campus in they resolve the issues and work through them okay thank you for your report please keep us updated on that absolutely thank you i may not be the only one that's receiving calls about that so um i guess item nine we covered item eight item nines consider bill's accounts and financial statements for august of 2020. do we have a motion

180to approve that luke for approval second so we have a motion from mr den on a second from um dr kingman uh do we have any questions or comments from our board team i would remind those that might still be watching our our live feed on our feed on channel 4 that we review all this in our pre-agenda board workshop any public comment concerning our bills accounts and financial statements seeing none we'll uh i'll call for the motion all in favor please indicate by saying aye aye any opposed indicate by saying no our motion passes our next item is our announcements um we are having a task at asby annual convention that's virtual um on september 30th through october 2nd we as a board team will do try to do that here um and on

181the first and second i believe of october from 12 to 2 each day so if you're able to get on either of those that'd be great mr hernandez yeah i'm going to be gone on the first and the second okay yeah uh being dallas adrian's getting his arm operated oh that's okay well you need to be there so adrian's his son for those of you who don't know so um yeah we'll um if we can meet that would be good and if not it gives us an opportunity to train if we're if we're able to be there so um so that's our finance and bridge in the board workshop is on the 13th and our regular board meeting which is the 13th is a reminder is as it says in our agendas on a tuesday

182uh monday is a school holiday and then october 19th is a monday and that'll be our regular board meeting we're going to go into closed session and we're going to be able to do that this evening under um thank you 551072 which is um a discussion of real property so we'll move forward and do that okay after some delay i'll call our meeting back to order we took no official board action in closed session and certainly part of that would be that would mean that we didn't take any votes and hearing no objection will stand adjourned