001it's six o'clock calling the meeting of the lcs d1 board of trustees to order would you please stand for the pledge of allegiance 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 thank you and chairman vinnie um could not be here tonight she's going to join us by zoom so my name is marguerite herman i'm the vice chair i'll be uh chairing this particular meeting thank you and uh dr crespo are there any adjustments to the agenda madam chair there is one adjustment to the agenda and the superintendent update we are moving uh mr mckinney's update to a future meeting madam chair i move to adopt the agenda with any agenda second all this in favor say aye aye
002aye aye agenda is adopted now we come to recognition of staff and students for outstanding achievements we have a bunch and it's all good news of course so happy to do this so we're going to start out with student of the week and we have three of the four are here tonight we're going to delay one uh for our next meeting but let's speak so we need um principal uh johnson junior high well no actually i think we're going to have someone besides mr cox present this but we need a johnson junior high school central high school um and let's see so south and right and then and then our student from kerry junior high can't be here tonight so we're going to hold on to that all right hello my name is michaela bradshaw
003i'm the assistant principal at johnson and it is my absolute honor to introduce everyone to mr devon hawk there is actually so much i had to prepare for this because teachers and students all around johnson just love how devin bleeds our firebird creed so a little bit about devin he's one of my seventh graders he currently has a 4.0 gpa he's stellar in math and science uh one of his goals is to earn his bachelor's degree in math or science related fields after high school all right in his spare time devon volunteers as a teacher's age with toddlers at church and play soccer both recreationally and competitively um devon would like to thank his family for all their love and support as he goes through his school career teachers what teachers have to say about
004devin just wait it's so awesome devon has the self confidence to flourish in a class that's above his grade level peers so he's actually in a math class that's a great above where he is at currently and is flourishing devin is a leader in the honors math class as well the upper classmates respect him and accept his knowledge of math devin thrives in any situation you put him in he's always willing to go above and beyond for himself and his fellow classmates he pushes himself to exceed excel on any assignment no matter how big or small and he holds himself to the highest standards possible you never have to ask devon twice to do what he's supposed to do he sets the example clearly for his classmates by always showing a positive attitude working hard
005in what he does and cooperating well with classmates and teachers he's a great role model for our school community because he is an exceptional individual not only do his teachers hold him to a higher guard but his peers also constantly express how generous kind and helpful he is towards them he demonstrates a level of empathy and maturity that is beyond most people his age he has a growth mindset and is always willing to work cooperatively and collaboratively with classmates and we cannot express how thankful we are to have mr devon hogg as student of the week for johnson junior high [Applause] um hi my name is devin honk as you know and um i'm seventh grade at johnson junior high school um some of my interests are that i like to do rec soccer with
006the cheyenne soccer league um i like hanging out with my friends and reading relaxing um in my spare time i like to um relax and sleeping is definitely one of my favorite things to do um i really in the future would like to earn a degree in math and science probably something around data analytics possibly and um like to study more into that as i grow older um i really want to thank everyone like my family and teachers and administrators in my life thank you guys so much this would not have been possible without you so thank you [Music] [Applause] did you introduce your parents to us please of course [Music] so this is my mom um sarah my dad adam and my little brother and sister [Applause] don't sit down just yet mr george
007here's uh for dory medina good evening my name is fred george i'm proud to serve as a principal at central high school and with me tonight is jordan medina jordan's a 12th grade student at central high school his parents are in attendance tonight shannon burns and glen burns if you guys want to have a raise your hand or stand up [Applause] and i can't leave out as little brother edward jordan was nominated by the selection committee because of his perseverance his hard work and his determination however what makes jordan most unique some amongst his peers is his optimistic attitude his positive approach with everyone he encounters so i'll turn it over to jordan medina thank you fred george it's an honor not only to be selected for this award but to be amongst all of
008you tonight the things that i like most about my life here in this earth are being with my family being active in my church listening to motivational speakers playing video games and watching tv i feel that what really helps me succeed in school is my dedication to never give up i was born with a visual disappearance impairment when i was just a baby and i've done just fine through dedication and hard work i also feel that i'm a very friendly and a very good person and that's always something that's kept me going i feel that in my home life i try and help my parents as best i can with chores and with anything they need to make sure that they're happy and healthy including my little brother and to be honest i feel like
009none of this would be possible without my mother and my father for being there to help me through thick and thin my nana for being one of the best supporters i've had and not only that but for crystal johnston who is my visual impairment instructor for the visually impaired and for all of you for accepting that for accepting me and i thank you all for your time tonight the third student tonight is diana arenas south high school is mr thompson here who can present that diana i'm phil thompson i'm principal south high school and it is my privilege to recognize diana arenas rocha and she is an outstanding student we pick through the herd values of honorable enthusiastic responsible and determined deanna fits all of these if you ever watch our video announcements you will
010see one of the most positive young ladies you could ever see because she just loves her job okay and does a tremendous job at it and that smile and everything just sells south completely so dionna um i have kind of a massive ego and that's what has gotten me here because from that massive ego i have learned self-love and that has gotten me a lot of my achievements whether it be in confidence or just believing i'm smart it'll get to places just believing it we'll get to places and um that has what has gotten me to the opportunity to create a psa which i'm not done with but i will get it done at some point and it is a sexual harassment psa which over the years if you've ever gone to a public school
011you would realize that that's kind of everywhere and it's very much normalized and so my psa is kind of like hey the normalization of it can lead to more dire consequences so we should like really stop that now in the root of high school middle school so that it doesn't get worse and our society can progress without sexual harassment and i feel that that is very important we have diana's parents did we have the honest parents and brothers step out or step up at least please once again so uh the carrie junior high student was salvador du scotland amezcua and he will be here at our next meeting and uh see do we have a representative for western vista mary cross if you can come up [Music] uh we have i believe we have tanner
012temple um if he can there we go hi tanner i've never met you in person welcome from western vista and after this i will take a photo of everybody well thank you for allowing us to come in and uh what an honor to follow some amazing students so my name is tanner tucker with western guests i handle the indirect lending department and western vista is ecstatic to represent and come and recognize these students on a weekly basis and so in recognition we will give each of these students a 25 gift card so um and we are honored to do that and be part of this community so thank you guys very much if we can have the students and the principals come on up and we'll get a picture of of our students of the
013week that would be great mary our photographer in residence congratulations by the way thank you thank you so much mr thompson if you could stay up here for the the next set of awards we're going to recognize next the south high school fbla state awards so if those students can come up and mr thompson i have a certificate here and uh and then the the coach teaching is here excellent again it's my honor to recognize our fbla team and our advisor who if i'm correct won the advisor of the year for the state of wyoming miss kate teigen thank you it's always an honor to come and be able to recognize the students that achieved so well at our um fbla competitions back in march we attended our first state competition in three years um
014in-person competition in three years so i took 18 students over to army for three days of those 18 students and all their events we had 13 first places two second places six third places in four fourth places so it was a very successful event for us and all 18 of those students will be representing south and laramie county school district one at nationals this summer in chicago so we're all excited to go there and i would like to say we think the school district and the board and our staff and everything for all the support that they've always given us over the years to go to our competitions and help make us successful i will introduce each of these and tell you the events that they want okay um tommy tommy valencia he competed in
015um four events he won first place in business law and in the group um three sunday one first place in website design brian merrell was part of the group that did the website design and then ryan lecher he actually just finished his um year of being a state officer for fbla he's served the last year as a state officer as secretary treasurer he okay i have to look at my list um ryan had a very successful year he placed first in website design also with the threesome he also placed first in implement information management systems and ux design and i guess that was it he also um was chosen as the who's who for students in fbla which is the top fbi student in wyoming for the year rael brewer earned her first place in
016business ethics tristan renick competed in digital video and public service announcement any one in digital video elena arnson competed ian community service project her and her partner dusty lick earned first place in community service project then jayden wrote of he and caleb here were a team that they won first place in introduction to business presentation and in addition to caleb's first place in business presentation he also was first place in intro to fbla i have a couple members who weren't able to make it tonight ali robert placed first place in business communication in social media strategies she's currently on a college visit at vanderbilt and dusty lick placed first place also in marketing she couldn't get off work unfortunately and ray sparta is homesick in bed and he placed first in impromptu speaking can i
017have the parents that are here stand up please all the parents are always so supportive and giving other kids to me lots of hours every week when we're preparing for state um i believe emily has a statement she'd like to make too um on behalf of the chapter i'm sorry um i wanted to thank the students and staff at south for always supporting us and they have really pushed all of us to make it a great year for fbla thank you thank you and so the next four awards are going to be for east high school so mr marriage if you want to come on up and the first group would be the east high school air force junior rotc marksmanship national awards and i don't know if there's an rotc person who's going to
018join in that and i have certificates so let me give you those hello ladies and gentlemen members of the board thank you for having us today my name is lieutenant colonel chris johnson and i'm the commander for the east south junior rotc squad and now this year we had the distinct honor of having a marksmanship team make the national championships for the first time in the 50-year history of our program and then we had sent a couple of individuals in the past but we had never sent an entire team so i'd like to acknowledge these fine young men and tell you what they achieved this year first of all we made the regionals down in arizona and we were able to finish second there out of uh 37 qualifiers to go and then the top
019nine teams down there we finished second for for the air force and then that equated into us actually finishing ninth nationally only the top seven go and we were fortunate uh first time in history two teams had declined an invitation so now we're limping into the national championship limping into the national championship as a seventh seed and i'm so proud of these guys and the fact that uh they went in there as a seventh seed with expectations not being too high and we moved up to fourth place in the united states out of 239 teams that started the season so a good job by all on that and uh so if i can go through here carson shellhouse from east he's a junior so we have him for another year and we have walker wilson
020from south he has the distinction of finishing as a first place individual shooter at the regionals out in chandler arizona cody egbert he's also a junior so we have him for another year cody egbert here from east is a sophomore so we'll have him for two more years and then our own senior on the team here behind me is uh ricky morrow he's a senior and uh he is going out really with uh some big accolades so we thank you all for having us here today and acknowledging their achievement and we're hoping for even better things next year [Applause] as i call the cadet's name if uh if uh we have any parents in the audience if we could have them stand that would be nice so cadet ricky morrow wilson finally i'd like to
021thank the board for your continued support of our marksmanship team and air force junior rotc as a whole thanks so much [Applause] next we have the east high school deca champions and i have quite a happy stack mr mirror oh you're going to get the kids correct okay okay thank you here we are excellent thank you thank you with uh mr flores and jane alley the two well thank you for having us this evening i'm very excited we had a tremendous year this year at deca it was kind of nice to get back on track from such a terrible two years but we had an amazing group of kids a lot of freshmen this year which leads to some great things in the future but outstanding seniors with leadership and so part of our deca
022program is individual role plays where scenarios are given students take tests and then they role play and then they another version of that is a team competition and then ultimately the last facet of our competition is an opportunity to do projects marketing projects entrepreneurship projects uh marketing research and so we have kids that typically do both which is amazing because it's not just you know practicing a role play or taking a test but really wanted to do some research about what's really going on in the business world and in entrepreneurship and even like studying cheyenne in particular state of wyoming like what could we do to improve our community and our business enterprises so um with this big of a group it's really hard to remember every single event that they did but we have
02311 state champions and they're going to come up and introduce themselves and then i will pass out their certificates and they'll just give you a brief um narrative of what they if they get a project so that you have an understanding of where they went with it so this time we'll just have each kid walk up with their group i'm carter hall this is sydney o'brien and then we have another we have another partner hunter anisto and we placed first at state with our sales project uh i also place first in my marketing communications individual series i'm zoe lundin and my partner was jossey davis and we placed in a community awareness project about social media and the negative and positives about it my name is brooklyn terrell and me and my partner josie davis
024placed first in team decision making and sports marketing i'm grace stahl and i got first in a franchise business plan hi my name is felicity branson i placed first in retail merchandising hi i'm ayanna bailey and this is a liliana cruz and we got first an integrated marketing service and i got first in my accessory apparel and accessories marketing happy masters my partner haley reisdorffer and i placed first in our business solutions project my name is madeline ranaletti and this is my partner rayne trammell we have a missing partner named andrew davis and we place first in business research operations and julius morales and we place first in marketing promotional event parents and family members of these students would you please stand to be recognized thank you very much and thank you next group to
025be recognized is east high school for a state girls basketball team state champions so if they could come just and coach eric wesley well thanks for having us uh today um i want to talk a little bit about these young women behind us and and uh before we do that we would just like to thank the district um mr marriage mr slabs and our community really and really all you have to do is go to a rivalry game in town to see the support we have in this community and so uh we feel very fortunate to to have that support in our community uh but i would like to tell you about uh state champion for a girls basketball team um i'm usually big on maybe anecdotal stories or things like that instead the english
026teacher is going to read some stats to you about their amazing season and what they've done [Music] they were 28 no first time two undefeated 4a girls programs being cody the other our opponent i have ever played each other in the state championship first undefeated season since the 1991 central boys did so as well they were first in offense first in shooting second defense um back-to-back state champions three-time regional champions and uh probably before i introduced them just just one of the things that we take a lot of pride at in our program is the young women they become after basketball and who they who they become as young women and uh business leaders or teachers or nurses and uh it was fun when these girls achieved what they did to see the outpouring of
027support from former lady t birds all of which are doing very well and so uh very proud of our program and especially of these young women so i'll have them introduce themselves hi i'm darcy jardine i'm izzy delong i'm taylor cassette i'm emma mothy i'm grayson goff i'm elisiana fonseca i'm kira walsh hello everyone i'm voting lillian uh those that couldn't be with us tonight um we've got a lot of multi-sport athletes that get tied up and things which is always a great thing hayley kaufman gracie oswald maddie kaufman brady schlabs and jordan jones and so again we really appreciate you having a little time for us tonight but thank you parents and family members of these students would you please stand to be recognized okay and then next we have we unbox a wrestling
0284a boys wrestling champion at the 132 pounds liam fox uh first of all i just like to echo what coach wesling said just thank you for for having us and giving us an opportunity to recognize liam um before i talk about liam's season and his accomplishments i just like to recognize and thank his parents for all the work that they put in and anyone that knows liam knows that his parents do a great job he's just kind respectful looks out for his his peers and his teammates um so i just want to thank them for all their support and love that they offer to liam um liam obviously had a great freshman campaign to win a state title it's hard to do at any weight as a freshman but when you get into the 132
029pound weight class 26 anywhere above there you're pretty much running into juniors and seniors every time that you step out there um liam never never let that bother him i love his mindset and his attitude he's not afraid to compete with anyone and i think that's part of the reason he's so successful another thing liam just he loves the sport of wrestling he loves everything about it from the travel and the camaraderie with his teammates um to the competition to the games in the room and he he just i mean he kind of eats breathes and sleeps wrestling 365 days a year um that's uh one other thing just about liam just haven't met a lot of freshmen that are as grateful as he is and just that attitude that he has and he's always
030one of the first individuals any time we eat at a restaurant to say thank you to the coaches um he always tells the bus driver thank you when he gets on and off the bus and just a very polite young man and lives his life right i had a 42 feet sorry 52 and six season record actually broke the school record for most wins in a season i was third at the regional tournament and first at state and then he he took a day off after state and went out to high school nationals in virginia beach a month later and ended up being an all-american there so since i've been coaching about 17 18 years i think he's only the fourth one that we've had from cheyenne so pretty huge accomplishment we could have liam's
031parents stand up please now we have the good the sportsmanship awards from the wyoming high school activities association mr sema is going to come up and ryan mead from east high school luke home from east high school and keegan longbottom from central high school so i guess is uh mr george if you can come up to and be ready to and then can you get your is your student ready to come up and understood the students come on nothing bask in our appreciation you there you go ladies and gentlemen i'm tom simmons i'm the district activities director and i want to tell you how proud i am of not just the three youngsters that are up here right now but for every athletic and activity participant that we've seen tonight that represented lcsd1 you've got
032to be proud because they all made cheyenne look awfully good not just in the sportsmanship but the way they they competed the work they put in and then most of them came up here and gave fantastic speeches so you can tell they're they're outstanding students i want to start tonight with the soccer cheyenne central jv soccer player keegan longbottom and the official when they played the trona county said that uh i'm just going to read it verbatim she had positive interaction with her teammates opponents and officials she played hard but never dirty and uh just congratulations and thank you [Applause] i have another soccer player east boys varsity soccer player also against natrona county and that's luke hohn and same official so uh he recognized literally the same things but he said played very hard
033always exhibited great sportsmanship and continued to have positive interaction with teammates opponents and officials and it goes along with what i was talking about earlier these kids are getting it done on the field athletically but they're also doing it with good sportsmanship and if you watch a lot of television you look at what happened sometimes from peewee leagues to the highest level of sports you don't always see that great sportsmanship but we're seeing it out of these guys [Applause] and the last one i guess just a good night for cheyenne east wrestling um i've got uh brian mead and uh we should have had him on quite a while ago because this is a match from uh i believe january 11th 2022 had him on the agenda but we got crowded and said we'll get
034him next week it didn't happen but uh i'm just going to read directly from what the laramie high school athletic director read i i don't think i could make it any better and he said we have a student with cognitive disabilities that wrestles for our jv wrestling team a student in his weight class from cheyenne east brian mead wrestled nathan during our duel on 111 22. not only did brian agree to wrestle nathan he allowed the match to be competitive go three rounds and even let nathan put him on the ground time after time at no time did brian display anything other than genuinely trying to let nathan gain experience and have fun it was a fantastic match and at the conclusion of the match nathan's smile could not have been larger this is what
035sports is truly about and brian displayed exactly what we all hope our student athletes would do in that situation either on the mat or in life empathy and true compassion for all others is a goal that should be in all athletics and brian and the rest of the cheyenne east team displayed that in the duel obviously those young people are getting quality coaching in wrestling and in life it was so much fun to see and what a great environment for all my genuine thanks to the cheyenne east wrestling program and brian mead for making another young man's evening [Applause] and i know uh mr wagner said uh it was a jv wrestling match and certainly it was but uh this young man took fourth place at state at 145 pounds and uh to go out
036there and let a young man with some disabilities go out and throw him around and have a great time doing it is was just phenomenal so congratulations to all three and to the principals and if parents are here could you please stand up thank you very much i want to repeat that you know these young men and young women are well coached and we're very proud of our coaching staff so thank you to all of you as well thank you thank you [Applause] mr george don't sit down oh you're grabbing yourself perhaps okay more people last stop central high school fbla state leadership channel we can't apply the view here come on in guys well good evening gotta jock you around here get comfortable i i have the honor of representing central high's fbla this
037evening uh lindsay deselms is the sponsor but lindsay is a very active teacher and she's a very active parent and so she's parenting tonight and asked if i serve in a place which i'm honored to do as a result of the 2022 wyoming fbla state leadership conference held march 16th through the 18th central fbla qualified 15 students for the national leadership conference these students have the opportunity to travel to represent central high school in the state of wyoming at the 2022 fbla national leadership conference held july june 28 through july 3rd in chicago of the 15 qualifiers several had first place finishes at state a few of these students had other commitments tonight such as soccer we've heard that reoccurring theme but a few were able to join us so first i would like to
038recognize elise newton and her sister ava is not with us tonight but they won first place for their american enterprise project the event the american enterprise project must promote an awareness of some facet of the american enterprise system within the school or community and be designed for a chapter participation these students conducted a project submitted a written report and presented their project in front of a panel of judges next i would like to recognize alexander miller and daniel margolis and jackson lewis is unable to be with us tonight but they had they were state champions in their public service announcement this year these gentlemen created it and presented a 30-second public service announcement video that helped promote mental health awareness so she concludes it was nice to be back in person for our state leadership
039conference and the students are really looking forward to competing at nationals thank you to our district for their financial support and allowing these students to participate in these activities additionally thank you to centralized parents of these students for supporting the students in their endeavors and at this time i would ask each of these students to introduce their parents elise my name is elise and my dad steve is back there [Applause] my name is daniel my parents are ginny and eric margolis and they couldn't be here tonight hello everyone my name is alexander my parents are eric and ann miller once again thank you to the students the in their schools their their coaches and their advisors all play important part in this so thank you for that okay now we have um items from visitors
040so i have the list of people who registered and i have the um guidelines i'll just go through them really quickly uh for speaking again this is the part of the public comment period addressing um items on the agenda the later um speaking period for which no one has signed up so that's the academic so but for this um i'll just read that guideline real quickly state your person last name keep your comments at two or three minutes keep your comments general in nature not directed at a specific individual or individuals and suitable in language and content for k-12 grade students add additional information or perspective um try not to be redundant to repeat and while the board sincerely values public comment please note that if any time the meeting is willfully disruptive and cannot
041continue in orderly manner um we will uh stop that part of the meeting um if the business of the board has not been completed the meeting will be recessed and reconvened at another location in time and once again uh just the protocol for this if you want to comment call the um superintendent's office it has to be put on the list and um anyway so and if you have any problem with that you can call our superintendent's office or the staff at the district 771-2121 so we'll go ahead and start and let's see we have major general latin thank you good evening my name is michael lutton uh i'm major general in the united states air force good evening and thank you for the opportunity to address the school board today i'm the commander of
04220th air force responsible for defending the united states with combat-ready nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile forces nuclear weapons sustainment forces helicopter forces and on order conducting global strike i have served on active duty for 31 years in defense of the constitution i have served overseas defending my nation and representing the freedoms and liberties of our nation as embodying the constitution i have moved my family 13 times in 27 years in these years of service and experience i simply did not believe i would ever have to stand in front of citizens of the united states of america to endorse an anti-discrimination resolution in support of children any children is the fact that some children military members assigned to effie warren air force base children of members sworn to defend the constitution united states defend the citizens of
043this nation defend the citizens of this state and defend the citizens of this city have been discriminated against in our schools is it also a fact that the civil rights restoration act of 1987 established that all anti-discrimination laws are applicable to an entire organization if any part of that organization receives federal funding it is also a fact that the community of cheyenne and the military have grown up together since 1867 solving challenges together since 1867. in the early days of the fort the fort and cheyenne were home to three storied black regiments the 9th and 10th cavalry and the 24th infantry the famous buffalo soldiers in over 150 years of military community relations we have worked to solve challenges together and build a healthy community developing and caring for our airmen and families is a
044sacred responsibility for any commander it is also the law as established in us code 10 usc with 31 years of service and commanding for a fourth time i remain absolutely humbled by our great airman families and their children this important point to underscore is fact i consider the children of my airmen my children their safety their security their development and their growth is my responsibility strong military community relations are not only critical to our nation's defense but also critical to the growth and development of our families and children thank you my name is colonel kathy barrington and i'm the base commander at few warren air force base i've served our nation for 25 years i've been stationed in cheyenne three different times beginning in 1998. my two children have attended pioneer park mccormick junior high
045and now central high school where one is a junior the other a freshman my command responsibilities extend beyond my own family our base has 4 200 airmen and civilians from all over our country we have our military children face numerous stretch stressors the average military child moves and changes schools six to nine times from kindergarten through 12th grade the stress of moving and transitioning schools is exacerbated when a parent deploys we continue to deploy airmen from our base around the world including combat zones research shows that an encouraging school environment can help military students thrive despite these additional challenges however laramie county school district has a lot of work to do currently this district is rated in the bottom third of all dod schools based on graduation rates support services and civil rights what happens
046to our military children is very important to me and to every leader on our base our airmen who are part of the one percent of this nation who volunteer to serve deserve to live in a community that supports them and their families support means treating people with dignity and respect which is why i am here today when a child is not treated with dignity and respect there should be rules and processes in place that correct the situation and hold offenders accountable for their actions racial slurs hate speech racist jokes and other demeaning degrading behaviors hurt our children and in turn hurt our airmen i've sat with and listened to our parents tell their stories our minority children have endured fights have been called a word we dare not repeat have been told to go back
047to a foreign country even though their entire family was born in the u.s and i've been told your own people want you dead this is an ugliness that is too much to bear and can no longer be tolerated two of our minority families have requested early transfers because of their school experiences their children no longer feel safe in your schools when our children are discriminated against harassed bullied and shamed at school it hurts us all this behavior is unacceptable and i am willing to work with the school board to make the changes that help protect minorities in our schools it is my duty and i will not stop until we have clear solutions in place our children deserve better thank you hello can you hear me yes go ahead hi i'm carla gregorio and i
048just wanted to say um i appreciate the two um military individuals that spoke before me i am in support of any anti-hate resolution that school board the city of cheyenne and warren air force base are doing collaboratively i just wanted to let you know i support that and i think thank everybody in this community that are positive and kind and thank you board members for everything that you do thank you very much uh next is barbara warburton also on zoom i believe hello i'm here can you hear me yes thank you go ahead barbara sorry this is barb warburton and i just wanted to add my voice to those supporting this resolution with the base and the city and the school board and i hope you guys can all work collaboratively to find a good
049solution to what's been going on thank you for your time and thank you for your service thank you very much mayor patrick collins is next chairman members of the school board thank you for the opportunity to speak to you tonight regarding the harassment of children in our schools especially children of military members of color my name is patrick collins and i serve as a global strike civic leader global strike command is made up of the 20th air force and the eighth air force these two organizations represent two-thirds of our nuclear triad the 20th air force is responsible for the ground-based icbm force and the eighth air force comprises the bomber forces the commander of global strikes currently general tony cotton uses civic leaders to help him keep informed on what's happening in the areas his
050bases are located and he uses us to educate civilian communities on the needs of the air force when i first learned that military children of color had been relentlessly bullied by classmates i asked for a meeting with colonel barrington the commander of the 90th missile wing located here at fv warren air force base she educated me on the problems for airmen's families of color have been having in our schools i then asked for a meeting with superintendent crespo the leadership of the base and the families of the children being harassed based on their color during this meeting i heard directly from an airman whose high school age daughter was called the n-word on the first day of school as she got off the bus the harassment was relentless and after three days of school she
051decided to do school in a virtual setting her younger brother is a seventh grader and had a similar experience relentless harassment based on his color this led to fights and suspension i can tell you guys it was so hard to look in the eyes of his father and see his pain as a father of sons i could definitely put myself in his position it was heartbreaking since that time we've had a meeting with the superintendent commander of the base and a couple of school board members some business leaders from our chamber of commerce i'm sad to report that it's gotten so bad that the air force has had to make the hard decision to transfer this family and another out of cheyenne into another air force base what is the global strike civic leaders being
052asked to do to relay the message that racism and harassment are never okay not in our businesses in our community and definitely never in our schools it is all of our responsibilities to speak up and condemn these behaviors and work to protect those being harassed superintendent crespo has been great in understanding and leading but it's also important for the elected leaders of the school district to speak up and publicly lead it could be by supporting its resolution tonight or by some other means but we are looking for you to lead publicly i thank you for all that you do for the community thank you very much thank you thank you hope i pronounced that right sorry good evening where's the transparency that's spoken of at all these meetings this item on the agenda that is
053posted is so extremely vague making it quite difficult to form an argument for or against the last time i spoke to you was on february 7th during that time i told you of an incident that happened in my kids class i was met after the meeting by the assistant superintendent superintendent and say that he will follow up and get back to me in the end it was i who called him and the principal of my school now the assistant prince the assistant superintendent stated that this incident had been resolved and that i should not bring these types of situations before you guys stating that i was coming forward to get a public outcry i was in direct communication with the teacher and the principal of my kids at school before during and after the incident
054and nothing has changed on february 16th seven children in first grade were injured by one student in the library this children this child ran after my son yelling i'm going to kill you my daughter jumped in front of a smaller student to protect her from this student and ended up getting injured the principal called me later that evening after 4 pm to tell me what had taken place by that time other parents had already called me my two kids along with five of their classmates were sent to the nurse for injuries doesn't that seem like something the district should be looking at this agenda item is possibly in regards to the harassment and discrimination which clearly is but the district is okay with outright violence the principal did follow up with my husband and i
055but we're not allowed to know the discipline that took place but i will say this child is back in the classroom with my children you sit here and say you want kids to feel safe well i can tell you of at least seven that don't thank you okay thank you uh next pastor steve and latham okay first i just want to say to our military members in here thank you very much good evening superintendent my name is pastor stephen latham i am the president of the local naacp and president of the wyoming independent independent citizen coalition wic i would like to say that i think the laramie county district number one board of trustees the city of cheyenne and effie warren air force base for collaborating and promoting an anti-hate mandate for cheyenne both of
056the organizations that i chair work to promote inclusion and equity and respect for all we work for to promote a life that is free of discrimination based on hate therefore i would like to say that we support an anti-hate mandate throughout our cheyenne community also i want to add that the president of the united christian ministerial alliance and african-american organization composed of ministers which i'm the vice president of would like to say we also support this mandate thank you for taking the time and bringing this issue to the public and thank you for not being silent on such an important issue thank you thank you very much the next is the catholic i come to you tonight with two concerns first being the issue of transparency we keep hearing this word from you and from
057our audience and from the community members but we keep seeing it as an issue for instance with your agenda tonight you have an item listed as d 3.4 which it seems like a lot of people must have gotten a memo except for parents approval of resolution from board trust board of trustees you ask that when we call to be put on the list to speak that we specify if we are talking on agenda items or non-agenda items but how are we supposed to give public comment to agenda items if we don't if we don't know what they are about second i want to address the resolution you are voting on tonight without others having reached out to you as board members we would not know what this resolution had to do with it sounds to
058me that it has much to do with the same city ordinance against harassment i want to state that i am against any form of bullying and harassment my hopes are that if you have drafted such a policy i would ask why is this needed don't you already have district policies in place will it be vague in manor much like the cities where statements can be taken out of context and used to twist what may or may not have been said will it include hearsay this takes away the ability for disagreement if i say i don't agree that biological boys should be allowed in girls sports am i now being hateful i for one hope this is not something our district is trying to pull together on their own i would hope you would be following
059district state and federal guidelines regarding these issues i am concerned this will further divide our students if you are trying to put an emphasis on only one way of thinking forcing individuals to agree on something that could be seen as a more political stance is dangerous you are trying to create a more kind and generous environment but instead creating an environment where kids will fear having opinions or beliefs based on values and faith please consider either reviewing and redrafting your policy based off of feedback you hear tonight or do not pass this at all thank you thank you and joshua fish good evening uh madam chair board you know be here i i had to have my daughter crying in the garage asking me to read her a book which i won't read her tonight
060i won't see my kids tonight but this is important enough to me that i'll be here you know i sent an email to the city council just because something is an ordinance or a law doesn't mean that it's right there's been many laws and ordinances in this country that have been inappropriate and wrong so the city council made a mistake they made a mistake with their anti-harassment ordinance i read over the language of it i read over it i looked at it and it was inappropriate in many of the things the things that they're against and that anti-harassment ordinance are already spoken to and addressed in the state constitution and when i look at tonight i'm a retired chief master sergeant united states air force when i see the commander of 20th air force here
061in uniform when i see the commander of the 90th missile wing here in uniform when i see the mayor of this city here representing general cotton the commander of global strike command when i see that i know for that they have weeks of preparation in advance to be here i know what their schedules look like i've tried to schedule them myself to see my units in the past when i see that and i see a vague ordinance council voting on a vague ordinance tonight as a parent a council voting on a vague ordinance but i see the commander of 20th air force here in uniform and i know that when i was here not in uniform and did not address myself as a military member it did not address my military service and i was
062not in uniform and yet somehow national garber sent a team to investigate me for speaking when i addressed only things that the cdc had mentioned and the world health organization mentioned in 120 seconds and that team came to investigate me but the commander of 20th air force is here and i know how hard it is to get on the commander of 20th air force's schedule that is inappropriate for this board and that tells me that this board in advance and i don't know which members i'm not going to accuse anyone because i think you have my kids best interest at heart i don't think you're bad people i don't think superintendent crest but i think you're a bad person i don't think any of you are bad people but if the commander of 20th air
063force is here and the mayor is here and the commander of the 90th missile wing is here that is weeks of preparation to get on their schedule and when i see that there's a vague thing saying hey we're going to vote on something tonight but they're here in uniform that's preparation and that's preparation against the parents so i don't get to see my daughters tonight because i'm here it's inappropriate to vote on something like this there are policies that already address this in this district and there are policies that every principal already has to address these things this is wrong what you're voting on tonight good evening my name is susan edgerton from 7 30 this morning when i was getting ready for work and looked at the agenda for tonight and then when i
064peeked at it one more time to print it out at 3 o'clock the agenda had changed and i started looking through it and by golly there's an item that's going to be voted on a d 3.4 i don't know what that is but it's really apparent that people were called and everybody else does except for the parents so i would ask you to please consider talk about it tell us what it is help us to understand as your stakeholders please don't leave us in the dark these are our children and grandchildren that go to these schools please don't vote on this tonight let us know what it is you took four months to go through the copig covid mask mandate how many times did we get up here as parents and plead with you to
065do something and now there's a mystery item and you just want to what sweep it through without anybody knowing what it really is all i'm asking is tell us let us give you one meeting wait for the next meeting tell us what it is let us give you some feedback and then go ahead and vote but please don't leave us in the dark transparency the quality or state of being transparent synonyms clarity or clearness being transparent free from pretense or deceit readily understood easily detected or seen through the synonyms to see through or crystal clear i don't think d 3.4 is do any of you i didn't know about it until 3 p.m today i don't think it is that closes um our comment period at this time that we will um okay the upcoming
066meetings next we'll april 19th to the 28th negotiations various times for units at the transportation building may 2nd 5 pm work session 6 pm regular board meeting here at the boardroom may 4th 6 30 pm parent advisory committee here in the boardroom and then now with to the point of individual board communications and reports and someone have yes put me on couldn't ask me so i will address some of um i was asked to attend a meeting as was uh trustee rennie and uh trustee claussen um here about a week and a half ago um it was with the city the mayor the chamber some business leaders including parents and we had a discussion about some of the things that you heard this evening a little context prior to that we had been dr crespo
067had been meeting with some of those people who had had concerns brought those concerns forward and she had been sharing that information with us and as a board we had been operating under the the same structure that we have where admin has control over those policies and procedures that paid to that but as they told their stories and we've continued to hear additional feedback one of you heard the young lady earlier tonight talk about sexual harassment being pervasive um it became clear that we needed to make each statement as a board we do have policies we do have procedures we do have things and we believe that those need to be encouraged and used appropriately but that we need to make it very clear as a board that we don't tolerate the discrimination the bullying
068the harassment and so the [Music] discussion that we will have tonight really does focus on our statement as a board encouraging that not to happen in our district and to reference back to the policies and procedures that we do have and encouraging the use of those um and at this time that thank you i'm going to have our attorney amy paulie if you could just address the um the subject of resolutions and how the procedures how they're handled in the district and um and in general thank you madam chair um i think it would be helpful to start with what a resolution is not a resolution is not policy a resolution does not have the force and effect of law it does not affect anyone's individual rights it doesn't affect how the district uh staff
069the students work or function um the resolution doesn't direct any action um it is essentially it's a statement of the board's beliefs or feelings or resolution on any given subject you'll see resolutions passed sometimes on recognitions um holidays or staff or students um in this particular resolution it's essentially it's your voice of the board um collectively giving your opinion um and your observations and direction of how you would like to proceed forward again as a board so the idea of a resolution is that it is a board generated document it's not it's not staff that that brings this forward so your other agenda items you're going to see um well in advance um the board resolution it's intended to be a working document for the board it's again it's it's your document your resolution um
070and and your response to events and [Music] your your collective beliefs and uh desires to move forward does that answer your question yes and i and um so just a sort of further clarification that this resolution is in response to urging that we had from various sectors the military the city government and faith communities various other people wanted to know where we stood and as people said tonight we do have policies in place policies procedures administrative regs but they wanted to us to make a statement and so two members of the board drafted a statement and the board will have a chance to take it up discuss it oppose it support it whatever that and then vote on whether to support the statement or not later tonight so it's really it's almost an internal document
071statement and and again once again it's kind of in response to requests we had to say something so we said okay we will say something and uh so there will the thing that is brought forward is is the is a proposed statement that people may pose and we'll hear a discussion later tonight they may oppose it may support it but it does not change anything accurately stated here tonight but but it does stay reassert a belief a stand and um i think and so that's the nature of it and we don't do many of them and so the fact that there's a little bit of confusion about what the effect is now it's handled it's understandable but that was just a review i don't know if that that's consistent with what you understand correct yes
072yes yes uh trust you renee okay and we uh christy rainey has her hand up so i'll go ahead um we want to thank you um thank you madam chair and um thank you miss paulie for your um explanation there but i would ask and and i'd like a little i just would like everyone to consider that um we actually did a call to action letter and reported that out to the board um has it been a month ago i want to say dr creswell i don't have that agenda with me but um the call to action letter i don't remember as a parent um in the last 18 years seeing very many of those where we were actually asking our parents and our students to treat individuals with kindness and respect because of some
073of these types of discrimination and inflammatory um uh speech so i don't it it's i would say that beyond i mean we can talk about the conversation but the conversation's been happening building to building our principal leaders have been trying to address these concerns and behaviors within schools um and this type of harassment and disrespect so i and the call to action was you know i think a very powerful thing and the board supported um that um and i so i don't see this really um as any surprise going forward that we would be able to make the statement as we did in that call for action that we do not tolerate that type of harassment or any other type of harassment and we ask our students and our families to treat each other with
074respect and so i would support the statement from the board um in that regard um thank you thank you um anyone else yes mr bowling i really hate teams to submit this very important topic but it is my opportunity to talk about one of the things that i've done recently last about two weeks ago i attended the national school boards association conference in san diego and this is something that i have been doing ever since i've been on the board except for the two years when it wasn't held and it's it's an opportunity normally for me to spot and see the different programs that are going on that are unique um different from what we do in our district and get some ideas to bring back for our district this year i had one additional
075thing to go there and that was to make sure that the climate with the national school board association is actually changing um as they said it would and i got a chance at each of the general sessions to hear from our executive director who addressed two things basically he addressed first of all that they were going to get back to using their democratic processes of their um using their board to make decisions rather than having the people to top make those decisions and i was very glad to hear that um secondly um they made a promise to make sure that they keep politics out of their um making their decisions so those two things show that they are trying to make some progress in doing some things now as far as the what i saw
076when i was there i just like to bring up a couple of things that i that i visited and the first day i was there i had a chance to go and visit the cajon school district which is one of the poorest school districts in san diego county and i got a chance to see that as we drove to the three elementary schools that we visited that day and they were surrounded by very low income housing uh mostly mobile home parks and i believe that they said this district has like 85 free and reduced price um qualifications there on a normal year although they have the same problem we do of people not registering because of the free lunch that we've been doing the last couple of years um and they actually started a few
077years ago seven years ago because of the district of low scores and low attendance they were i started a program where they were going to engage students all the way from kindergarten it was originally was just a elementary district so we can guard from kindergarten up through sixth grade the students are gonna have a chance to explore careers starting in kindergarten and we got a chance to visit with with school-aged children kindergarten all the way up through six and it was amazing that those students what they knew about careers what they were showing us what they were doing to explore careers they would during that time it's now been expanded up through 10th grade and will eventually have a high school version of it all the way up to 12th grade by the time they're
078done the 12th grade they'll have had chances for 54 different careers and some of those when they get high school level actually include actually going up and being on a job site and actually working internships and so forth so i thought that was a very good program i also um oh and at the end of we got a chance to ask some questions and so we asked them so have your test scores gone up and the answer was we have not seen a significant change in test scores but we haven't seen attendance go way up and that's great because that's going to eventually change what happens there and this one has gone way down so the kids want to be there and they're very engaged and that helped with those two things of attendance and
079this one so that was a really great program to hear about and i know that we're moving that direction our district so um i just want to share that i also went to a couple other um sessions that were about the same type of thing of and one of them had to do with junior high school where the kids were out exploring the other one had to do with high school thing which was important so and the one thing in all three of those programs that was unique was the kids in there looking at these career explorations they were able to figure out what their strengths were and i asked a third grader what they were doing in the unit i remember what the unit was which one they were exploring but um i asked
080her that we were doing the one that was that's why i said what's your what which one are you looking at this is a third grader and she said she wanted to be a computer game player and i said is that even a career and obviously and she was able to convince me that yes she's done her research that actually is a career so and she was able to tell me the three things that made it that her choice appropriate because it was there so i really enjoyed the conference and and i don't know what's going to happen with the future of the after school board association but um i think it was going in a positive direction thank you thank you anyone else um i will add one thing real briefly there was a
081capital art show a couple of like week and a half ago in story gym and to all the art teachers and all the parents and all the students who displayed their artwork it was pretty amazing it was a junior high in high school and um mr holroyd who's now also a fine arts coordinator actually then had all the art displayed and it was all it was 2d 3d it was really pretty nice and he had uh students from um the three high schools playing their instruments and there was a jazz combo of music teachers but then they had students doing various music and it was really just kudos for the district for celebrating the artwork um some was kind of edgy um the kids were exploring a lot of things and media and topics and
082i enjoyed the photography that was uh excellent and so um just want to congratulate uh all the teachers mr holroy for getting it together and um and displaying it and we have a lot of funny talent a lot of great art teachers too a lot of budding talent oh yes exactly um i also wanted to point out most of you probably saw in the media or in the social media that we were also able to attend the opening um a number of us attended the opening of the east high pool which has been in the planning stages for a very long time many of you were ever in the old east high pool sure you know why there is a new east high pool um it was terrifying um but the new one is designed
083to be a district-wide asset that people can use from across the district and allow um 650 people to seat and watch the swim meets which is different than we have in in the other facilities and if you've ever attended a junior high swim meet uh that's it's a really nice thing so um uh if you have not had a chance to check it out i'd encourage you to find a time to hop in the east and see if they'll give you a tour so and just to sort of piggyback briefly that i'll tell you when they did when the board first started looking at the plans with the one of the first question first and last questions was how many seats will it will it have how many parents how many um compete competitors will
084it see that was a real priority because some of those junior high meets were so crowded people probably falling in the pool off the deck so so it will have 650 seats up above and two and there will be um stands uh bleachers for 250 on the deck so it really should be able to accommodate um all the needs of our city and of clubs and regional and perhaps even state tournaments so it's going to be it is going to be a district-wide asset so thanks for management yes trustee okay trustee rennie thank you madam chair um i would also like to report out that we reconvened the coyote ridge committee of parents and students and they agreed that the survey that went out early in march had picked the top choice color for that
085new school of teal black and gray or teal black and white pardon me and the students also in the committee with their parents also uh agreed that that was their first choice so the official color of coyote ridge or coyote ridge wherever you come from and however you would like to say that um i would like to thank the parents and the students that were on that committee um and uh they also helped to participate uh on the naming committee so also dr wiederspahn uh was on that committee and uh lynn's story heiler was on the original naming committee so as well so i'd like to thank everybody for their work on that and um let's see the other trying to think i know there was one more thing um it's kind of been fast
086and furious here i guess that's it for now i cannot think of the other one i need to write them down so thank you very much but i appreciate all the work that we've done and we're excited moving forward with our new five six school in the central triad thank you thank you madam chairman and now uh this is we'll go to reports from superintendent and you i'd like to take a quick moment and just ask miss ashley roth to stand so i'd like to introduce ashley ross she's our nutrition services administrator she's been sitting here patiently um and i just want to take the opportunity to welcome her she's done an incredible job on her launch and we're just incredibly grateful to have her thank you right and with that i would like to
087invite um our cheyenne school foundation's grant program up to share some information about where we are with our incredible partnership with the school foundation just pull it off well good afternoon or good evening um on behalf of the cheyenne school foundation i'd like to invite suzanne scar and tasha burton if they're here um from south high school uh so these um ladies are teachers and librarians at the south high school and uh suzanne and tasha are working together to on a project called literature for life that has been uh funded by the um school foundation and also by the sponsor simpson electric and so um suzanne and tasha you would like to explain a little bit about your project and um i think you do have another colleague here as well okay oh and they
088have a powerpoint hi i'm tasha burton and i teach kids at south high school i try hard to teach them to be critical thinkers and kind and how to get ready for life and i do that through english that's my subject and i'm suzanne stark i'm the librarian at south high i've i've been lucky enough to be at south since the year before we opened the doors there and um so we're just here to talk a little bit about the club that we formed and i think we've been doing that we were trying to figure out how long we've been doing this club but for quite a while and we didn't we did skip two years for um the covet stuff but we're back and so we're gonna just talk a little bit about what
089we've done and what we're doing now so about seven years ago suzanne called me into her office and said hey i want to start a club like i've had before in indiana where i came from and i usually get the upperclassmen and we read a great book and we have a great conversation and i said oh my gosh we need to do this but we need to write a grant and we need those kids to keep their books so we were we've been really lucky to receive the shine schools foundation grant i probably missed a word there for i think six or seven years at least six years that we've received it so the two goals that we try to achieve each year is to to have high quality conversations with our students our upperclassmen
090students about literature and life and then the other goal is to get high quality books into the kids of hands the kids hand so that they can build their own libraries because some kids don't have that luxury so that was our second goal and if it were up to me we would just read lots and lots of jane austen but she's a librarian she said that was a no-go so um i choose titles from an ala publication called outstanding books for the college bound and lifelong learners and um [Music] that's where i get the titles and i try to hit all the categories of of literature and learning so all of those five arts humanities history culture literature and language science and technology and social studies and sometimes those categories probably will include graphic books
091and memoirs so we recruit kids by going to their english classes um i pop in and invite them to the super great club called lit for life and um and this is one of our our students and um she comes but she also comes with her mom and her ninth grade sister which is great we try to usually keep upperclassmen at our club because um we read mature things and we have more mature conversations but our we have two freshmen this year who have done a great job do you want to talk about his family who comes oh sure um this family i don't know if i should use their names but that rebecca schwab teaches at our high school she teaches science and i think she wishes that she would have grown up to
092be a librarian she reads a whole lot but both of her especially her freshmen um reads like she reads all the time and that's why we invited hers because she's a mature reader and her mom said it was okay and then her sister also comes um and she hasn't been she's claimed she hasn't been a reader but i told her you're a reader now i've been reading all school year so we just wanted to show you some of the books that we've read over the years in the different categories um i because i put the powerpoint together i got to pick my favorites and my favorite book that we've read this year together is the fountains of silence it talks about um things that happened in spain that i i had no idea ever happened
093in world history that um are still devastating um these are some of the books that throughout the years we have chosen uh summer novels some are non-fiction uh that fit into our history and culture category um we read two of these books in this lit and language arts category this year we read a heart and a body in the world which is about a young woman who's running across the country to speak she doesn't even know what she's going to do when she gets to bc but when she finally gets there we learned that she's um she survived a pretty tragic gun incident um the poet x is a book that we also really enjoyed this year it's also in spanish and as soon as i saw it was in spanish i have to go
094online and order my own copy because the grant doesn't buy my copy which is fine i'm not complaining um i found that it's also in spanish and we do have one bilingual student who joins us so i ordered the book for her in spanish and i've ordered her another one that she has really appreciated she loves she's she's beautiful in english but she likes she likes the challenge of continuing to read in spanish and i should also mention that some of the books we choose are novels in verse so they're written a novel written in poetry format um my one of my loves of life is science and so we've chosen some pretty tough science reads if you guys are readers and you recognize any of these but we learn so much by reading or
095by challenging ourselves with literature so much we seem to do a lot in the social sciences the book that we're discussing this week and we talk with our kids once a month we have a meeting right after school one day and we have a meeting in the evening the next or mercy bicep and we bring him some snacks but this week we're discussing the line becomes a river and i'm really excited to hear what the kids have to say about that and how it opens their their views and it's a memoir from a border control person francisco i can't see we read both of these books a few years ago but i think what this young person had to say is still relevant so i wanted to share it again um i'm finding that reading
096a graphic book is a really fascinating and fast way to get information i never knew very much about north korea until i read pyongyang it's fascinating and um this year we read a fire story together which gave me a whole new insight and our kids about what happens with nash natural disasters and it's amazing how accessible uh stories and history is through graphic books graphic novels um if you haven't ever picked one up our kids love them and i think that it's a it's just a really good way for kids to learn about things that they would never pick up on their own but when they read through this format they they engage it's more than a comic book um here are some things that this year's students have uh said about it for life
097i'm not going to read them but we can leave them up there for a minute see what changes it might make in their lives but we are so grateful for the grants that we've received and the kids are grateful they love being able to take books home and keep them it's a thrill really are you are you ready for questions oh yeah so oh i'm going to start off with just a question so do you have do all the all the students read the same book and they come back so okay so we read we buy copies um of the kids we know are gonna be able to come to the meeting and these kids some of them are pretty busy some of them this is their what they do um and then we we
098order the books i order the books and then i call them to my office and give each one of them and tell them the tentative dates that we're going to meet and then they have they can schedule their reading time because you know sometimes it's hard to find that for students that are pretty engaged in things um and then yeah they they come we all read it we all read the same book we have three adults and a bunch of kids depending on the month and then we kind of we just it's a book club it's just like what we all do when we if we are involved in book clubs any other questions just one well do you have about the students or in the group choose which book they're going to read um
099no because they would probably all choose the same kind of books because they're in high school and and they're busy and one thing that they'll often say to me is i would never have picked this book up um on my own or i only read books like romantic you know high school books or i only read how to do things how to do something books so i i do a lot of research i try to cover all the genres and all the types of books um i make like spreadsheets and i ponder and ponder and ponder and then i choose and i try to get authors diverse topics and they try to challenge us as readers than the adults um do you ever have any open time when they can talk about books they read
100on their own yeah they do it all the time they'll say oh i'm reading this book um and then they'll exchange notes about the book they're reading and encourage each other to read that happens actually in the library throughout the day and when kids come to visit with their classes too so that happens in my class quarterly but i'm lucky that i teach english so we have a set day when we talk about what we're reading we just discuss because we don't write book reports i tell them when grown-ups read a book we don't write about it unless we're bloggers or we're writing for school grown-ups talk so we talk great sounds like a great program anyone else yes i love this program i love that you're doing it and just encouraging kids to read
101for pleasure um i know my own high schoolers are they're pretty bogged down with what they're reading for class so if they could pick up a book when they're they're pretty busy otherwise and and just delve in because they want to is is awesome and i would imagine the long-term effects for them even with test scores and and their success in the classroom other classrooms besides english um i imagine that you may not see those effects but i imagine that they're they're spilling over so thank you for doing that um i was curious about how many kiddos you have i know you said it varies but on average from month to month how many how many students choose to to do the book the lit for life club we usually have between 20 and 25
102kids sign up and then depending on what's going on that month we have a strong 10 to 15 um between the two two times that we meet and we're we're happy if we get six or seven you know because even though like i had a girl picked up the book today and she said i didn't have time to pick the book up i said well we're meeting on wednesday and thursday and she said that she would try to get through it but even if she didn't if she couldn't come because of her schedule that she i usually invite them to stop by my office whenever they have time and i'll fill them in on what other kids said about the books and then we'll have our little book discussion so it carries over even if
103they aren't able to attend the organized discussion time thank you that's great yes can we we really would like to uh thank again the foundation and simpson electric for helping us be able to fund this uh book club and on behalf of cheyenne school foundation thank you so much for the effort you put in to give go above and beyond for your students and we are thrilled to be able to sponsor projects that are so exemplary as this so thank you and thank you to the board for your support well in just as it's just as a word just an explanation so the shine schools foundation um gets money from uh well we've done fundraisers walk around etc but also donations deductions from our employees many different sources some very generous sponsors microsoft among them
104and then and then teachers they just come up with the most creative ideas k through 12 and um and over the years the foundation has given away i would mention which is like hundreds of thousands of dollars for great ideas and and it's the teachers who will really make this work because they just they dig down deep and think what can my students really use that i can't do in the normal work a day and so it's really a wonderful partnership yeah we just added it up last year in fact um since the inception of the foundation as close as we can track we're at almost a quarter of a million dollars so thanks to the community support and thanks to the teachers who write great grants too thank you so thank you thank you
105very much dr aldridge and the cheyenne schools foundation really appreciate um the opportunity for our staff and ultimately our students so with that i'll move to the strategic plan um if we have any of our strat plan members up here i would love to have you stand and be acknowledged i know that lana's coming up to help me out but i see lindsay suthep back there so and katie oh there we go everybody's standing up so i just want to take a quick moment to say thank you so much to the team to the individuals in the community who spent countless countless hours with us uh during our most recent um during our most recent work session we had the opportunity to share with the board the launch of our strategic plan which is actually
106right up there more to come as we do this presentation um this will be an abridged version of the longer presentation that we did prior uh for those of you that may have questions after this we are working on a voice over video um so that similar to things that we've done in the past when we've done public presentations we also voice over so that you're able to access it later um to get the information or if you're talking to someone and say hey did you hear about you can just send them right to the strategic plan update so i will start and then i will hand it over to lana um there's actually two controls and i just sorry all right so to begin with um many of you have heard by now that
107we are elevating lcs d1 and that our students and their future are our tagline our goal was to be as all-encompassing recognizing that each individual student has their own experience and their own life choice and their own vision about where they want to go and we want to make sure that in collaboration with our community our partners our staff that our students have the opportunity to write their future one of the things that i want to make sure i'm really clear on is that you'll see those icons that are off on the right if you're seated in the audience and every time you see one of these icons they will be directly related to one of these overarching themes which includes student readiness community engagement and healthy environment and i am incredibly excited the communications
108department did a fantastic job putting this together and anytime you see that elevate lcs d1 you can guarantee that it is directly related to our strategic plan so thank you dr crespo and thank you for uh allowing me to speak my name is lana hafner and it was an honor to get to work on our strategic plan a little quick back drop and we've talked about it a little bit at the board meetings and in some workshops prior but the strategic plan was started in 2019 but because of the pandemic things kind of stopped and so in may of the school board contracted with mgt and they began a surveying process of parents faculty staff administration community members and then in july of 2021 dr prescott came on board and began 100 days and began
109some research also sending out surveys questionnaires and asking for thoughts in november 2021 mgt came um back with their findings and dr crespo's 100 days ended prior to that and what we were able to do was take the 100 day opportunities and the information that we learned from that and the information that we got from mgt and their survey process and found that there were many overlapping factors of what the community what our stakeholders what our students what our parents and our teachers felt like were needs in our district so between november and present we have worked on our strat plan development and worked with our staff plan team i know a few people were introduced but there's lots of people in this room that have had a part and participation in it there's a
110few parents that are present who attended our triad meetings have saves we talked to them they were able to give feedback i know many of you i've passed out business cards in these board meetings to encourage you to please join us be part of our strategic plan if you still have those you're still welcome to join us and be part of that we'd love to have your feedback it's an ongoing project as we continue so with that information we took the feedback and actually our team compiled a matrix how do we take thousands of bits of information and compile them together so when we went in november to our triad meetings this was a matrix that we shared and then we posted it on the website it was a voiceover video kind of sharing the
111same information with the qr code to be able to have parents community whoever wanted to watch it give feedback ask for feedback on it and share what they thought of our strategic plan matrix and where we were going there's district-based programming illuminating pathways and climate and culture are what stood out with our themes of student readiness healthy environment and community engagement so with this we came up with 10 outcomes that we see that we will be working on for the next five years under the themes of student readiness community engagement and healthy environment student readiness is our lead focus with four outcomes it's our you know it's students it's our kids it's what we're here to work on our community engagement pieces um to what we heard a lot of is transparency letting our community
112back in our schools letting parents have a voice of what's taking place and then with our healthy environment providing the safe place for our students a place for our staff a way to retain quality staff and then also our facilities and maintaining those and keeping those up to date so those were our areas of focus what you will also notice within this is there are year markers um that go anywhere from one to three two to four sometimes three to five and this is where over time we think that we can get here so we think within one year one to three years it will be able to implement a detailed vision of high quality and engaging instruction and that we'll be able to measure that so not only trying to have it happen but
113to measure are you talking about one to three years of having high quality education excuse me sir this is this just making a presentation [Music] and so i'm happy to clarify what we're saying is that we can measure what we're doing and how we can grow with our high quality education sorry thank you for clarifying thank you as we continue on with our next phase those outcomes are pretty general and pretty broad with what we're saying so this is able one of our meetings we were able to take these high level outcomes with healthy environments duty readiness and community partnership and we were able to focus more specifically in some areas where we heard parents community students and others say this is what matters to us this is what we see kyle it's going to
114restart us so um all right so um and so supporting our staff keeping things going um and where we want to see growth you know with our students um district opportunities and tech ed focus working on our buildings make sure that there's equity and buildings are clean and safe for our students these are some of the strategies and initiatives that come with these large and broad outcomes see if i can keep going here so and this is the transparency of our outcomes how will we know what we're doing so with this strategic plan that we've worked on it's not just a bunch of words but how are we going to measure it what does this mean so if we're saying that we're going to engage and we're going to do something different what's it going
115to look like over time and so that's the transparency of our outcomes um our data analysis has been working on what will that look like how will we get there and how will you the public the board our stakeholders know where we're going with this information that's kind of that next phase with our strategic plan that we find is very important and so with this we have some key indicators that are just a few of them let me see if i can and so with this graduation rate white top ela wytop math fast rich act our cte where are we going how does our program go last month you heard on cte in the presentation with that but how many certificates are students getting what happens post graduation how ready are our students surveys with
116our family members to for community engagement in our healthy environments what do our volunteer hours look like how does that grow where are behavior referrals how is our student attendance so all of these different metrics will help us gauge and grow where we're going and so here is our dashboard that will be up and live beginning tomorrow on our page and we can show a little clip of that but these are actually live trends with icons that represent what we're talking about so when you talk about exploring enrollment trends you can see over the years where it has gone these are the metrics that you will find i will tell you in doing the strategic plan many times you look for other districts and say what have you done what have others have out there
117how can we borrow the knowledge from others and one thing that we found is that we can't find other districts that have live metrics on their page so in inventing this and then doing this process we feel like we're kind of kind of stepping out into something new where we have live data for our stakeholders to be able to see where we're going how we're growing and where this is taking us here is where the launch on our district plan of what it will look like so this is what it will look like tomorrow it will continue evolving so this is a five-year process of growth everything will not be perfect starting tomorrow we're launching today but even in the spot that says next phase what you will see is that presentation that i quickly
118just went through with a few key slides and added to it and voiceover that should show up within the next week so that people can go on that site they can look at it there's a qr code where they can give feedback and they can share they can click here by the numbers to see our interactive dashboard where again they can click look at our numbers see where we're going and see where their transparency is these icons that you will see all over to kind of talk about our themes our three main themes our students our community our healthy environments and that's how we plan to launch our strategic plan so thank you thank you very much i very much appreciate your time um super super excited the strategic plan work all of the people
119in the community um that gave us feedback and really we will continue to follow along we will continue to grow and we will continue to measure our outcomes so thank you very much lana to you and to the rest of the team for being here and um we will move on to our last uh update which is our core reading literacy update uh if we could have katie dykstra i mean i'm sorry mr jackson mr eric jackson has this uh structure of instruction um he's going to come on up and introduce uh katie dykstra for us on a core reading literacy update yeah good evening madam chair members of the board dr crespo um thank you for allowing us to visit with you just for a few moments to give you a brief update on
120some of the work that has been done and will continue to be done in regards to our comprehensive core reading program uh before i introduce mrs dykstol i just want to thank the over 70 parents and staff that worked probably hundreds if not thousands of hours reviewing the cortex and our comprehensive core reading program uh and so without further ado i'm going to go ahead and turn this over to our ela coordinator katie dykes get a restart on her okay thank you madam chair members of the board dr crespo thank you so much for having me here tonight my name is katie dykstol and i am the language arts coordinator in grades k-12 for laramie county school district one we are here today to share with you an update and a celebration of the conclusion
121or nearing our conclusion of our elementary text review process for our comprehensive core reading program to give you a little background on how we arrived here many in the audience are familiar with this process but for those that are not we adopted a comprehensive core reading program in the spring of 2021 for grades k-6 across our district this is the first elementary comprehensive core reading program adoption in the district's history and one of the largest the program is unique in that it's made up of 123 core texts for students to support the ongoing review process of this adopted curriculum plans of the game began for this text review committee in july of 2021 we assembled as a committee in august of last year and continued to today to give you an idea of who makes
122up this committee this is the most exciting part we have a very diverse group of people we have over 60 members that include classroom teachers parents special education staff librarians principals and instructional coaches that are all integral to this process the committee members represent every triad nearly every elementary building site a parent representative at each grade level of review parent representatives at each triad and different backgrounds and experiences that come to each grade level the committee has a very important role in what they do each member is assigned to a grade level of our comprehensive core reading program where they are tasked to review every core text present in their assigned grade level members follow a review cycle of systematically reading their texts filling out a review form which you can see here to the
123left and submitting their formal recommendations all submissions are read individually by myself the ela coordinator and vetted very closely and from there any text that has a single alternative recommendation from a single member is sent to the curriculum committee for further review and recommendation making every voice in this process very important to give you an idea of the statistics of our committee we have 123 core texts as you can see here about 34 texts that have been referred and we have supplementary supplementary material that is continued to be reviewed information and outcomes involving our committee are here on this slide all text review outcomes are publicly available on the district website and are updated continually throughout our process information regarding the committee and its process that we follow is publicly available for any to see
124on the district site and all changes as a result of this process are sent to teachers and families prior to the start of the module in which the texts are delivered all changes as with other district processes are publicly available on the district website and they will be routinely reviewed each year for teachers and families even though we have successfully read 123 core texts and we're reaching our conclusion we will have an ongoing instructional support network for teachers this means information will be sent out yearly reminding them of any given change and resupplying them with materials and communication information for their families for families of students in classes that are affected information will be sent out yearly notifying them of the change to the curriculum and for the public information will be constantly updated on
125the district website to best inform stakeholders today we have three guests with us today if you three could just come up together i just i changed that on you what was important for us today as we reached the conclusion of our process was to give you an idea of the diverse makeup of our membership and to give you an idea of what it looks like to be a member each member brings with them a diverse background and a very very unique skill set to this process we have three folks here with us today shannon brooks who's a teacher in sixth grade at goins elementary ashley tomas who's a parent of a first grader in holly birningham who's the principal at pioneer park they were all members of our committee and they all had very very
126unique and diverse roles with that during our process to start us off i'm going to have shannon brooks start to share her teacher experience with you thank you madam chair members of the board dr presto my name is shannon brooks and i am a sixth grade teacher at goins elementary i've been teaching for 10 years and i'm taught first third and sixth grade i'm excited to have the opportunity to share the experience of the text review process with you from a teacher's perspective so i started on the elementary text review committee i was reviewing sixth grade level books i was both excited and nervous about having a literacy curriculum as it was going to be a huge adjustment to the way i have taught reading and writing for the last nine years my previous teaching
127and literacy has been a great deal of passages and short stories with a focus on standards it was a struggle to plan and complete novel studies in the classroom and focus on specific standards at the same time while my literacy literacy teaching has been strong i always wished i could get my students into novels and build a love of books during my instruction being on the etr committee i began reading some of the books i would be teaching and i analyzed these books in great detail it reminded me of some classes i took in college breaking down a book into the vocabulary includes the rigor of the content language and the message it gives to students i really enjoyed reading books to determine how they could enrich my instruction and if they were appropriate for
128my students then i was asked to join the curriculum committee on this committee i was able to read books from the curriculum across all grade levels as well as study the reviews follow fellow colleagues and parents across the district provided on each text my eyes were opened to the way that this curriculum works and the power behind it the process has helped me understand how topics standards and themes spiral throughout all the grade levels and connect from kindergarten through sixth grade i was in constant awe of the rigor and high expectations that the books and lessons ask of our students at all grade levels knowing that when we set that bar high our students will meet it i studied lessons within the units and experienced how beautifully written they can be the way the texts
129connect can only be described as a teacher's dream some of the texts are heavy and deep but this is when students connect and feel what they are reading in an awe-inspiring way this is when students have rich conversations about real life the challenges humanity faces and how we persevere this is when a book can make a difference in a child's life and create a memory they will hold forever another enormous benefit of being on the curriculum committee no it's not you keep going okay was the trust and value we put into stakeholders in the district i joined a committee full of administrators which wasn't intimidating at all but i knew from the first meeting that my voice and opinion mattered to every person in that group not only did we build a great rapport as
130a committee which helped us hold intense discussions and we made really difficult decisions we were able to listen to voices across the entire district and value what every person on both committees shared there are times in any district that decisions are made and teachers are unsure if their voices are heard and if their thoughts matter but through this process the district has ensured that not only classroom teachers but parents special education teachers librarians instructional coaches and administrators as well as the community were heard so now because of this work that was done over the past school year the district has a comprehensive and in-depth process for text and curriculum review and i'm honored that i was a part of it thank you thank you hello my name is ashley tomas and i am the parent
131of a first grader named nico who attends goings elementary um i've probably always been that parent that asked just a few too many questions um i only have one kiddo so it's crucial to me to be involved informed and included in his education i would also be lying um if i stood up here and told you that i was always a champion for what i assumed was being taught in our district i listened pretty intently to some of the grumblings and had already formed a very uneducated opinion about what was being taught to our children i stand here today to tell you how wrong i was in all of those assumptions the process of the reviewing of the curriculum was surprisingly streamlined and simplistic i'm a state employee so i was expecting a convoluted complicated
132process where my voice probably wasn't heard filed away somewhere and never touched again um i'm shocked again about how incorrect i was i received detailed emails from the get go that laid out all of the instructions participated in many zoom meetings where we were introduced to the process and we always knew what was expected of us we also always had open and direct communication with katie through the entire process um my favorite part was like once a month or every other month um kenny would say hey come pick up your books and i would race down here um i'd go upstairs i'd get up and i would race back down to my car i would open the envelope that she gave me like a little kid on christmas just tearing it open i could not
133wait to see what i would get to review that month um i'd skim the pages in my car check out all the pictures um i would head back to work with the anticipation of reading these first grade books in my lunch hour i was comforted with a book or two you