LCSD1 School Board of Trustees Work Session & Meeting - September 20, 2021

001button here we go welcome everyone um i'd like to call this order this meeting to order on september 20th 2021 5 o'clock of the laramie county school district number one board of trustees work session at this time i'd like to turn the meeting over to dr crespo and have her introduce her staff good evening trustees so excited to share this information with you tonight um really want to just huge shout out to um katie and jim and eric for working so hard over the last couple of weeks i see that um dr newton's on as well uh related to our work moving forward so with that i'm not going to hold anybody up and we've got dr rabine on there as well let's take it away great i'll kick things off and uh madam chair

002board of trustees dr cressboard thank you uh for that introduction um so i'd like to share and some exciting updates uh mr brandon yes hey i'm sorry this is eric um hey kyle it's not it's not letting me share the screen okay one sec okay should be able to now eric's yep it's there you guys see it yep thanks kyle so like i was saying uh just very excited to share this update uh of our new k-6 ela program win wisdom um i believe when you uh have gone through this uh quick process it's about 20 minute process 25 minute a quick presentation that you'll notice the amazing work done by um like dr crespo said eric uh and katie and tiffany um it's just it's it's really exciting to see it as as you

003walk through classrooms as well uh as i have and i know our staff has to see this being implemented so before i get into this i want to let you know that we have um have put this together um uh tonight on the great work from eric and tiffany and katie and continue to do so to implement this in a top-notch way um and i'd like to first share the perspective of instruction and the demand to bring about this change number one uh our students reading achievement um and this next slide this next slide shows that over the last oh good eight to ten years you can see that our students reading achievement has hovered around the high 40s to mid 50s and most recently with our y top scorers ride smackdown and that average

004of 50 and i know i'm not happy about that i'm not satisfied with that and i know you aren't either our third graders uh one in every two students can't read on grade level and that just doesn't stop with third graders if we were to show you uh k6 k12 we we had a problem we have a problem and in order to tackle that problem uh we've put quite a change out in front of you um it's not good enough we wanted to to improve matters and so that's one of the areas of demand that uh caused us to rethink what we were doing in ela another one was access to high quality ela materials current relevant appropriate and common across the district so this is the first time we've been able to do that

005across the district a systemic improvement effort with materials with instruction with assessment so this is very exciting our students when they bounce school to school each year we we knew we had some gaps to fill and so when we have those students going from school to school or coming in from other another district in wyoming or another state to to cheyenne we had such a variety of instruction and materials and assessment that we were using with them that we were actually seeing more gaps that were creating and so finally some alignment so thank you for that for allowing us to share this great news but for allowing us to finally get a core comprehensive language arts program for teachers to start using and collaborating together uh the next page i wanted to go through briefly

006kind of a historic or evolving process of literacy instruction in our district i've been i was a teacher in the 90s and when i taught third grade and sixth grade used those basils uh when and the supplementary workbooks uh there was little preparation um for lesson planning there was little collaboration in our classrooms we just basically uh turned those pages and read short anecdotes from classic uh and timeless types of literature those got into a little more relevancy with our novel studies that continued in the mid 90s to 2000s what we did was we focused on using authentic text with students across our k-6 district and but still using more of a basal approach to that worksheets and broaden some instructional strategies which brought about some change with guided reading and trying to reach the

007levels of where students abilities were so you may have heard of guided reading came into our our vernacular in our teaching classrooms the implementation of differentiated instruction through leveled materials you may have heard of terms when they call their students the bluebird group or the uh you know the meadowlarks or the robins we tried to differentiate with that but it's still pretty novel um in our approach and so uh learning from those [Music] you know instructional strategies we went to a balanced literacy approach the approach with a workshop model of instruction where we introduced thinking strategies this was kind of a big push around our nation too in trying to meet the standards in reading and writing and so what we did was we in the mid 2000s we we took a look at a

008bounce literacy approach that brought in materials in the classrooms and instructional coaches as well and so in the mid 2000s uh 2010 you saw a lot of instructional coaches coming into the classrooms to try to help teachers um in that workshop model of instruction through balanced literacy and we used pebc from denver it was basically the origin of uh ellen keane and zimmerman's work around comprehension strategies and thinking strategies and schema building things like that using their background knowledge to try to bring about a change in and raising student achievement there you saw two accountability measures in the late uh 90s to early 2000s no child left behind and the accountability and assessment coming such of becoming such a big concern and so all of that kind of brought us to um to how do

009we integrate writing you know in the basal and novel and guided reading era we used a separate entity to try to re to to try to teach writing through language and grammar text and then we got into some of the lucy calkins programming and the work from nancy outwell with sixth trait writing um and what it did when we brought in balanced literacy it really took a robust professional development approach to it with pevc and the instructional coaches to try to integrate balanced literacy and some of the word work and vocabulary and writing across the content or writing across the curriculum what it really demanded is that experienced teacher to um to try to reach in their tool bag of sorts and to try to get those levels a little higher uh in reading achievement

010and writing achievements so it really took a lot of work and a lot of pd for those newer teachers and some newer teachers really didn't ever get that experience or to that level and so we knew we needed a change and so that's in our current reality our comprehensive core reading program uh that was uh brought about that tiffany will get into shortly was based on research-based pedagogy instruction in the classroom that sound that we know works high interest texts including writing and listening and speaking across the curriculum in the la and it also key into this is that it increased the integrated our phonics and phonemic awareness strategies that began three to four years ago with fundations integrity and the order of geodes in our our k-12 in our excuse me our k-3 early

011literacy program that we had targeted with those students with our state department so we're really excited to kick it off this year we have writing finally fully integrated into our reading uh into those standards all of our teachers are using this across k-6 curriculum um including word work and vocabulary and more time and text for our kids it's just really neat to see our kids are are loving it i know our our teachers although it's quite a demand of rigor in the classroom and accountability that they haven't had in this district before um we understand those are merely speed bumps in this learning and in implementing uh this process so we're excited and i'll let um tiffany and katie and eric take it away from here all right thank you mr fraley madam chair members

012of the board dr crespo um tonight uh the following slides and we have about 15 slides here it shouldn't take us too long uh relic is about the adoption process in laramie county school district one we're going to talk about the adoption process but we're going to use our most current adoption which is whitt and wisdom as are examples of what we've done throughout the process and we've break breaking it into or broken it into three parts the adoption process which is all of those things that happened uh prior to the formal adoption the post-adoption process which are those major components that happen immediately after the adoption and up to the beginning of the year and then of course the ongoing process which we will follow and use as long as we have this program

013in our district i'm going to ask dr rabine to talk to you just a little bit about the process and again that's the all those things we did up to february first when the board adopted wit wisdom so dr rabon good evening thank you madam chair distinguished board members dr crespo as mr jackson jackson shared this slide shows the process for the witten wisdom adoption during the pre-adoption phase we gathered information from nearly 30 vendors that were reduced to 11 that ended with four those four showed alignment of both district and ela needs at the time these were also green lighted by ed reports what works clearinghouse and a hanover report this led to the committee review and the first steps to include staff parents and the public in addition to the committee representation shown

014here there were individuals from all triads and all groups of staff in the schools winton wisdom was a unanimous choice by the committee as it was the only program that matched all ela and district goals one of the other programs was based on balanced literacy which mr fraley has already talked about one program relied on guided reading and one program included no text at all and used a foundational skills program that ran contrary to our programs of foundation's integrity in addition witn wisdom was the only program that approached the science of reading using the four-part processing system and presented strategies to support all students in their reading as you know only 50 percent of our students are proficient in reading win wisdom was the only program that included a rich volume of text to support

015student achievement including the integration of writing speaking and listening and those foundational skills as you can see on the next slide we welcome stakeholder input during the 45 day review there were a wide variety of communication opportunities that included staff parents and community outreach i'll point to some in particular two face-to-face town hall opportunities they were on zoom the parent advisory committee meeting and four board presentations with open comment periods internally the weekly communication and input requests of staff all of which culminated with the board adoption on fed on february 1st thank you dr rabine i'm going to just take a few minutes and talk about the post-adoption process those things that happened naturally right after the board approved wisdom in the example with wit wisdom obviously right when we adopted the program we went

016through the material purchase and distribution process we additionally we had volunteer pilot groups throughout the spring who taught with wisdom the purpose of that was for them to get a familiarity with it but also to give us feedback on their opinion of the program right after the adoption we worked on a district pacing guide based on our district calendar we did gradebook analysis and made adjustments we developed a comprehensive communication plan we worked with hanover research to develop a program evaluation plan and finally we made curriculum adjustments also with the post-adoption process uh we we continue to ask for stakehold input from stakeholders um included in the post-adoption process in the program review we are in the process of collecting information instructional delivery effectiveness data we're collecting feedback from principals and staff we have surveys

017that go out three times a year to staff parents and our students we'll be collecting academic data not just at the end of the year but throughout the year to determine effectiveness and fun and we have a comprehensive professional development plan that not only addresses the needs of our teachers but of all staff so that they have an understanding of the program and best practices to implement the program we also have what's called a text and material review this is a process where we put a committee together and this is something that's been in the done in the district for years at the secondary level we haven't done it at the elementary level because we've never had an adoption in ela like this before but the texan material review committees include teachers they include parents

018with students who are currently enrolled in laramie county school district one and it includes feedback from stakeholders outside of the district i want to just take a moment and show you a graphic of the process which might make it just a little bit easier to understand and can you see that okay so if you start at the top in the orange box you see that we have the text review committee is formed including parents and educators the committee then reviews the text and materials of our adopted program the text and review committee then submits recommendations to the next level which is called the curriculum committee the curriculum committee then reviews the recommendations from the text review committee they also take a look at additional information as needed such as statute and policy research data and

019community input the next phase of it is the curriculum committee then submits recommendations to central administration if there are any recommendations for changes or modifications or clarification and finally central m central administration excuse me makes a final determination and then the cycle begins again some examples of input that we've received in just the first four weeks of instruction um include the current parent and staff survey that is now open um the purpose of that survey is to gather feedback from staff and parents we really want to know how the implementation is going we want to know how is happening between school and home and we want to know the overall effectiveness these surveys as i said before will be sent out three times per year in september january and may they are used for short-term

020and long-term program monitoring and review so we'll take the feedback we get and we'll um analyze that and we will make adjustments as we go the window of course as i said before is open from september 13th which was last monday and it'll be open until september 24th which is this friday we also put out a teacher pacing survey as i said before our pacing and the time that it takes to learn a new program can be a concern so every single month we're asking feedback from teachers to let us know how that's going and it includes several questions before i go to those questions i just want to say that it's given every single month once we take get that information we send it to the principals the principals review it and bring it

021to our monthly principal meeting and at that point we have a conversation as an administrative group on the feedback teachers are giving and how they're feeling and how the pacing is actually going and if we need to we'll make adjustments it also provides feedback on current successes and struggles we do ask two questions of our teachers that i'll go over after this first i want to show you the graph of the survey we had lots of respondents in the first survey well over 200 and then we asked about the main components of wisdom and this question says at this time how comfortable are you with each of the following main components of wisdom and so there's there's five main components the launch the learn the land and then volume of reading and deep dive and

022you can see from the bar graph over here actually we were pleasantly surprised we figured that there would be a lot of folks saying they're very uncomfortable or somewhat uncomfortable after just four weeks but the great news was is most people said that they were neither comfortable or uncomfortable or they were somewhat comfortable or very comfortable uh well over 50 percent of the teachers responding um and that's that's pretty exciting after four weeks and i think it's a a great celebration for the planning and preparation and the professional development that was offered to those teachers prior to the first day of school i also want to say that we take a look at this chart to try to determine where we need to support our teachers more so you can see in the learn there's

023a few more of the oranges and so we will make sure that our instructional coaches in our support program uh will will give them more practice with that or more resources for that the two questions i was talking about the first one is what successes have you already observed we kind of just want to hear uh how that's going and out of the 200 and i think it was 212 respondents that we we received really there was very common themes throughout a lot of the comments um and you can see the successes really revolve around the rigor the students being connected and engaged with discussions uh the lessons are well thought out um and you know most of the comments came around that the kids really were enjoying the rigor of the text and and

024the text themselves the biggest struggle of course the pacing and the planning time that it takes uh when you're learning something new that's not easy and uh so uh we anticipated this um it's not a surprise and we continue to support them with this but i will also say that it reminds me a whole lot of when we implemented foundations four years ago those first three to six months we had a lot of folks who who certainly were concerned about the pacing and how to implement it but certainly if you ask teachers now they love it and can't imagine teaching reading without it with that i'm going to ask mrs dykstol who is our current ela coordinator to talk a little bit about this text review committee that that is taking a look at our

025program so katie madam chair members of the board dr crespo i'd like to dive a little deeper into our text review committee and their in-depth process that they've engaged in our committee will be reviewing every core text in the whitten wisdom curriculum in grades k through 6 throughout this school year the committee consists of nearly 50 members comprised of teachers and parents currently in the district to give you a little idea of the makeup of this committee representation on the committee is very robust and it consists of central east and south triad represented at each grade level every elementary school represented in the committee educators from every grade level a parent representative from every triad central east and south parent representation at every grade level special education representation and librarian representation our committee process has

026been well underway since august round one of text review is complete and to date 24 core texts from the curriculum have been reviewed in grades k through 6. the committee reviewed content reading level vocabulary and instruction all as part of their overall reviews and recommendations texts were prioritized for review based on feedback from the public parents and teachers books that stakeholders expressed concern about were all were and will continue to be prioritized recommendations from round one of review from the elementary text review committee have already been submitted to the curriculum committee which is the second layer of our process it is important to note that even if even one committee member flagged a text as being problematic for any reason or had any alternative action recommended the text and reviews were sent to the curriculum

027committee this is important to understand that every member's recommendation and contributes to the overall process these round one recommendations are now in the hands of the curriculum committee and are currently being reviewed where they will be reviewing all recommendations and texts for further recommendation round two of text reviews started last week with another 26 texts being reviewed review committee members have received their new text assignments and are beginning their work as we speak throughout this process it's very important to note that stakeholder input is continually collected and used to guide the decision making process throughout our cycle we will continue to adapt this process based on the needs of our school and greater community and make adjustments as we see fit thank you mrs dykstol the last part that we're going to go through is

028kind of the ongoing process for text review those things that will happen from now until as long as we keep the program in our district an example with wisdom in regards to the staff our staff at every grade level are receiving monthly instructional support through what we call a grade level plc meeting where they can all come together via zoom and they can give input and feedback and ask questions we also will continue specialized training throughout the year teaching and learning site is up and running for the teachers it's been there for well over a year and it's a place where teachers can go and access additional resources and materials instructional support the teachers also have what's called the teams collaborative space where they can get online and they can ask each other questions or

029give you each other feedback or ideas of what to do in the classroom and then of course we'll continue formal coaching to improve instruction for our community communication is key our community and our parents will continue to receive letters from both the school level and the district level regarding wisdom uh parents will receive tip sheets prior to the beginning of each module so they understand what's coming up and what their kids are going to be uh reading and learning and how they can support them at home we have a laramie county school district one webpage that has a direct link to the wisdom we'll continue the surveys as mentioned before uh and i do want to mention that that's not just for this year we plan on doing those surveys uh for the next few

030years and our hopes is we expect the first survey for many folks maybe to say i'm not sure what that is but we're hoping as communication continues that our community and our staff will see growth over time with their understanding of what whitman wisdom is and how to support their kids and of course we'll continue to do presentations both with the board parent advisory committee and others we've had the question about from both staff and parents about how to give feedback in laramie county school district one we know we have a lot of folks with questions and comments or feedback that they want to give and so as far as the staff goes at the top you're going to see the in parentheses here it says communication is in person or via email phone or

031virtually and we encourage folks to reach out to us in any one of those ways for staff they would communicate any questions or thoughts or comments or positives with their principal they can also communicate with the instructional coaches the ela coordinator the director and assistant director of instruction or the assistant superintendent of instruction and then there's other ways that we'll continue to encourage feedback from our staff and that's sort of the monthly pacing survey district grade level plc tri-annual staff and parent surveys the district grade level plc meetings and of course the ela coordinator weekly updates for our parents and community communication is is essentially the same you know we love to talk to folks in person or via email phone or virtually the process really for them is is if they have a thought

032or a concern or a question that they communicate that with the teacher oftentimes many of the questions can be resolved just by visiting with that professional educator they of course can then go talk to their principal they can communicate with the ela coordinator i know our ela coordinators receive lots of feedback from the community and parents they certainly can communicate with the director assistant director of instruction the superintendent of assistant superintendent of instruction excuse me and of course with our superintendent and then there's obviously some additional methods of communication of which include the triannual parent survey that i've talked about uh the school pto or the parent advisory representative you know it's it's been uh an interesting few months we've received a lot of feedback um on wisdom whether it's the texts or what their

033kids are coming home and talking about um some really really great stories have come in uh but we've also had some uh some questions that has caused the district to really think and as katie alluded to the text review committee and the curriculum review committee uh really take that input serious whether it's from parents or or community members or staff and even from students and one of those questions has been around critical race theory it's important to note that in laramie county school district one we do not teach critical race theory this was addressed um and a lot of the questions that folks have had uh was addressed through the laramie county school district one board meeting faq which is found on the main website i encourage folks to go there and read through that

034because it does answer a lot of questions about critical race theory and win wisdom so what do we do we teach our kids with this program to read using research-based best practices we provide explicit and systematic instruction this program teaches reading writing speaking listening grammar and spelling all in hopes to develop our our students complex reasoning communication and collaboration skills in preparation for the world that they'll be living in when they graduate how do we do that well as a district that serves all students 14 000 plus students from all varieties of backgrounds and walks of life we seek materials that are a balanced presentation of varied ideas and beliefs and that's part of the quote that comes directly out of board policy chapter 7 section 5. i'd encourage you to read it it does

035talk about the adoption process and things we need to consider this program uses a variety of literature across multiple genres to engage all students in reading students and teachers have access to these materials across our district no matter the size of the school or classroom using literary text visual art and informational text and as mr fraley said at the beginning we have a trend transiency rate in this district that's fairly high last year alone we had about two thousand of our students move from one school to another just internally within our district that creates a significant challenge for students we know that that has an impact on their learning and having a common curriculum having common instructional strategies really helps those students our teachers now use explicit and systematic instructional strategies that promotes high level

036of engagement of best practices and finally our teachers are professional educators who use their knowledge of students curriculum standards and assessments to deliver the instruction in a safe and neutral way the next slide just uh shows you just a quick timeline of some of the things that have happened as we have talked about and we've thought about and we've addressed critical race theory in wood and wisdom in june dr brown sent a memo to the community which affirmed that we don't teach critical race theory in laramie county school district one and wisdom certainly doesn't support that in july several things happened there was the whitten wisdom web page update the board faq was published on the website um also in late july the department of instruction reviewed the mods for liberty concerns um we've we've

037addressed those concerns i think this presentation probably has helped with that through our text review process our curriculum review process um really our our um in very intense um focus on trying to make sure that we're putting literature in our kids hands to support reading learning to read and write and and the grammar and spelling skills that we've talked about in this presentation and then of course all through august and september and this will be ongoing quite frankly uh we've we've really reviewed the public input and the information that they've given us the questions they've asked us um as we continue to make decisions based on what's best for our kids and with that um i am going to conclude our conversation and open it up for questions or comments from the board madam chair

038yes um i think it's going to be easier dr crespo are you all right for looking for hands i have some questions i would also if i could just tag on to mr jackson really quickly just for a clarification mr jackson where we talked a lot about our curriculum this curriculum ties directly to and what is our role in responsibility as a board and as a as a district to align that curriculum with what and who sets those standards just for individuals as we use this as a reference for public education and then obviously individuals that you know are watching us currently now i think this is going to be really helpful to answer some some concerns and questions in the district and a lot of people don't know how that how that works so

039if you could um tell me how that how that works and share that with us that would be great and then i'll let dr chris will call hands yeah i'll do my shot thank you uh madam chair um so we obviously are obligated to follow state statute to deliver the basket of goods to our students and within the wyoming department of education policy it directs us to have a systematic and explicit program of instruction to teach children how to learn to read and that includes foundational skills as well as comprehension fluency vocabulary um and so when we when we consider a program we first have to consider making sure that it aligns with our state standards um and then that it meets their guidelines for what best practice is and and certainly a comprehensive core

040reading program addresses that all right before i hand it off i just want to just take a second and say how absolutely incredibly proud i am of this team i've been um in a variety of administrative roles for a very long time 30 years in education and just incredibly impressed with the level of detail and the work that's been done to engage as many stakeholders as possible to get this review to the extent that i was sharing this with one of my colleagues who said would you mind sharing the process because i think it really speaks to what we should be doing with our stakeholders in our community when we are see i do talk great about you all um when we think about what we're doing internally with our work so with that i'll

041just uh trust you weederspine uh thank you dr crespo and i i would have to reiterate that i'm very impressed with the presentation i think it was very well thought out i think our community would be really proud of the process that's been gone through and and hopefully the outcomes with regard to literacy in our classrooms are going to be evident in a few years i guess my my question is you presented a variety of support systems for teachers i i think those are great and i you know i think the monthly instructional support sounds good the specialized training formal coaching i guess one of the questions i have really centers around instructional coaches i guess i'm really not clear on how that process works i think i think we all would probably admit that

042some teachers are better at teaching reading than others newer teachers may be less willing to ask for help and having said that i know that the building principle is in fact the instructional leader in the building so i think with in conjunction with the instructional coaches and the building principles how can we assure those teachers who may be less comfortable with the new adoption and really feel like they're kind of struggling and may not be so willing to admit that they're struggling is there any way that we can just reassure them that they're really taking no risk by asking for help that we welcome their requests for help and hopefully the instructional coaches i don't know if they if they seek these teachers out if they wait for teachers to ask for help or if

043they get the the request from the building principal can you help me understand that a little bit so i'd ask uh miss dykstoll if you could just answer and then we'll kick it through the rest of the team that would be great absolutely thank you trustee reader spawn for that question i think that at the heart of this effort um is our teachers they're the ones that have booths on the ground as a former primary teacher myself i can speak to what an incredible list this is this early in the year in the middle of a pandemic doing something that we've never as a district done before so i want to reiterate from my department um that you know we are behind teachers 100 with their ability to gracefully learn this process we're doing everything

044we can to message that out to them this is a time for learning we want a culture of literacy to grow within our district and have that culture of literacy focused within this curriculum by no means is it going to benefit students if teachers feel that something is being forced on them in a way that's um overbearing too fast or unsupported so i'm doing my best in my department to make sure they know that our supports right now involve us supporting their ability to believe in this effort to believe in this work and what that looks like is it looks like lots of professional development it looks like weekly sometimes daily communication from my department i think sometimes i beg people to not ignore my emails because they get so many of them i think

045it looks like a streamlined line of communication between myself the department of instruction principals and staff not just classroom teachers but staff throughout the entire building one of the things that we're finding quickly with a curriculum initiative of this size is that the scope in which this touches a building is something that we've never really seen before it's really bringing staff together in a way that's very very unique everybody from an esl teacher who's working during tier one instruction time with a student to a special education teacher trying to figure out how to support a tier two or a tier three intervention with their students all the way to paras and specialists who are now trying to adopt again this culture so um again it looks like professional development it looks like communication and one

046of the goals of the ela department is to really pay attention um to the line that we can draw between the work we are doing and what's happening in the classroom and so that line needs to get shorter and shorter every day making sure the decisions that we're making we can tie directly to the needs of teachers and students so that's a very long-winded way to say we are we are implementing systematic professional development monthly teacher support weekly and sometimes daily um communication with teachers and principals and then we are using that um ongoing cycle of feedback from these surveys to guide our decision making every step of the way i will tell you right now my my email is overwhelming from the amount of teachers seeking help giving feedback giving ideas and those voices

047are a very very valued part of that process and so most definitely as we move forward we don't want to just implement the curriculum with fidelity we want to develop a culture around the work we're doing and people need to understand and i hope that they are and my goal is their understanding that our work is about teaching kids how to read and the the better we can support teachers in that belief the more successful this program is going to be thank you thank you so much and i'll all yield the rest of my time i know other people would like to ask questions too thank you and uh if you could drop your hands that would be great and then trustee herman thank you um and i appreciate that question and the answer that

048led me i'm more questions turning up but i'll just stick with my original one which is that um i deeply appreciate um and admire like dr preschool said the whole process leading up to selection and then continuing work on it with with that with teachers and parents i think what i have heard most of the misgivings do not have to do with the pedagogy frankly the um it's with um the materials as we all know so i guess the question is to miss ms dykstall um in the review of the texts how much what do the reviewers bring to it and what criteria are you bringing to the task and is it you know does it include includes technical um and scientific but also personal instinct maybe about what's appropriate i mean how are you

049making those decisions thank you thank you very much um trustee that is a fantastic question and um the the criteria that they that they use to guide their work um looks like a review form that they all fill out the same form in the form ask some open-ended questions um regarding vocabulary text complexity content which is obviously the the biggest public concern right now um appropriateness for the grade level and then overall personal feelings about it i think we've recognized that the backgrounds that each committee member bring are a very important voice to this one of the interesting things that's come about is trying to guide these questions to fit the perspective of both our parent committee members and our teacher committee members so we've changed and revised our form and our process a number

050of times to meet the needs of parents to make sure that when we're seeking feedback from a parent we're not being so technical and so teachery that it's not relevant to them so they're using that form in a common way with their own personal insights and their own personal professional backgrounds and i will i will tell you um these reviews that are coming back they're really phenomenal it's it's amazing whether whether the review falls on one side of the fence or the other with the text it's a pretty powerful process to compile the professional and personal opinions of these texts from from a varying walks of life varying stakeholder groups so they're using that common form to guide their recommendations looking at a number of different technical and personal um factors from the text all

051right uh trustee classic yes thank you um everyone for the presentation tonight as well um i really appreciate all the work that was put into it and and trying to address all the issues that have come up over the past few months especially i think is very important the process that in which you're looking at reviewing the texts and i really appreciated and learned tonight that if one member of the text review were to say hey i have some concerns with one of the books that it is automatically sent to your curriculum review and i think that's really great i think what you've shown tonight to our public members watching is that we have quite an in-depth process in place and like you just said miss dextel you we're hearing a lot about appropriateness and

052concerns with certain content i know that as a parent myself i've had one experience where a book that's being read in my student's classroom deals with a character contemplating murdering someone and it it was it was surprising to both my student and myself and that would be something in my value set that i would be like a little concerned about so i appreciate that while we're dealing with new texts that we um have this review process and that anyone can during the process who's serving on these text review committees flags something and say hey i'm not sure this is appropriate for the age group so that's very good and i was going to ask um and this is just a question i meant to ask you sooner but it occurred to me if you do

053have a text where it's decided hey this is inappropriate for third grade or isn't appropriate for whatever grade it is and we'd like to use something else how how do we as a district how does could you explain for us a little bit that process do we have to buy new books or what are we able to say hey the book we tried out this fall we don't really want to read again next fall so can we exchange it for a different book what what are we looking at as far as the district when we do have books texts and materials that we want to change um thank you for that question and mr jackson i'll take a stab at it and if i miss anything please please interject um it would be a it

054would be a pretty significant um shift for us i think um if we did find that a book was um going to be truly replaced i think where our curriculum committee is first going to look at the alternative text elections that are already present within witton wisdom they've selected these core texts to be used in tier one instruction however every grade level also has supplementary text that align with the goals of each module so we already have text that are not necessarily already purchased that are already present within that curriculum to i think first look at um so we have a number of different steps we could take um number one the committee may find that there is a alternative text a replacement text or perhaps um an alternative recommendation for teacher instruction so it

055might not necessarily be that a recommendation comes through as the text is replaced it might be a recommendation for how best to approach something in the book from an instructional perspective mr jackson you might have some logistics to add to that no i think you answered very well um uh trustee claussen i think the only uh part of that that um maybe wasn't answered was uh would that potentially cause us to purchase more text and the answer to that is yes it might it depends on on what that alternative text is if it already exists in our libraries or not and so we just have to go through that process all right uh mr bo trustee bolin yeah this is just a follow-up to uh to touristy classes question um have we found any materials

056that have had to have the approach adjusted or ones that we needed to change access to so far in our review process so i'll take a first shot at that um trustee volun thank you for the question um so as you saw in the graphic it goes from the text review committee it's advisory they advise the curriculum committee the curriculum committee then takes all the input if there's any concerns and we review that the curriculum committee met for the first time a few days ago we all have in our hands the documents from the text review committee on any kind of concerns they have and so at this time i i can't speculate i've i've read them but um when we come back together as a committee we'll have a conversation about uh you know

057does it do they still align to the standards do we need to make an adjustment or not so at this time there have some been some books that have been identified as potentially problematic uh but what's going to occur with that or happen to that we don't know yet so it's a little too early to answer my question thank you all right any other oh trusty smith this is all like an auction sorry i just put my hand up and i apologize if i am asking a question that was maybe answered when uh trustee wiederspon's question was answered i my internet um went out and i i got bumped off for a few minutes so um i do apologize but thank you to all of you for your work on well just the curriculum implementation

058and all you're doing um and all of the folks out in the district that are helping with this i i can't even imagine what a monumental task this is and uh we do appreciate that and i'm grateful for the information tonight my question i guess if if a parent is not part of the the text review committee but really has an issue with the text that their child is reading or is going to be reading is there a process that they can um i mean what are what are their options can they can they have their child sit out a book or do something different during that time without falling too far behind thank you trustee smith um yeah there is a process so if a parent has a concern about a text we do

059have a very formal process in place the first step is for that parent to communicate with the teacher and have a conversation oftentimes folks hear about a piece of material or text that they're concerned about and then when they visit with the teacher simple modifications or adjustments can be made for instance if it's if it's just a picture or a page in the book uh certainly they can skip that with that child um but if it's a bigger issue like they have a concern about the whole text we often we encourage parents one to read it then two identify specifically what the concerns are and then they can work with both the teacher and the building principle to see if there's an alternative text that would be appropriate right now because we haven't the curriculum

060committee hasn't recommended an alternative text we're allowing teachers to work directly with parents to see if there's something they can do to work through that very soon we will we'll know if if there are any texts that we want to offer alternative texts and we'll align the instructional component of that with the alternative text that's recommended by the district and so you know within a few weeks to you know through well just throughout the year we'll see how many of those that we might run across if we have a book that the curriculum committee and the whole review process is not determined needs a district recommended alternate text the parent can still communicate with the teacher and principal on on how to address the standards and the teaching that's going on uh in unique ways

061it's something that we've done for years and years and years uh so nothing new and they're very versed at that and so typically that hasn't been a large concern every once in a while then it could elevate to the ela coordinator which would be the next step and then from there to the department of instruction which would include the director assistant director and possibly the assistant superintendent of instruction okay can i add one more comment it's actually just a comment and not even a question but um you know we're hearing a lot about how this curriculum is critical race theory and it's bad and it all needs to be thrown out but my third grader brought home a book the other day and we had to read it by the next day and send it

062back and then he um had i think a quiz on it or you know classroom discussion he actually received some grades on you know as a follow-up that next day for his work um but it was it was a book that dealt with the oceans and it was fascinating and i i think maybe i enjoyed it as much or even more than he did but it really it was it was pretty intense um you know some big words and some big concepts and things that for a young third grader or um you know maybe maybe they just stretched him but we really had some awesome conversations and even opportunities for learning as we went through that book just he and i sitting on our couch and i was really grateful for that and um such

063a it was just such an awesome book so that was my first personal glimpse at home into what that curriculum might look like and it was really awesome so thank you thank you trustee smith all right madam chair thank you sorry um alicia was that one about octopus and exploring the ocean in that third grade unit i'm just curious because that was it was i was i was trying to remember the name it was not about octopus it was about um gosh i i i'm not very disappointed anyway i'll tell you what it is later it was not about an octopus so okay well that was a great one too so i'm glad that you had an opportunity to look at it um one of the things that i wanted someone to uh talk about

064a little bit is it's so important that our our teachers are are working through any of their concerns um and and or and whether it's it doesn't have to be a concern about the content or the the text or whatever but just any of their um uh apprehension for whether it's you know the timing whether it's so pacing whether it's um involves any of these things that we've discussed um their my understanding is that they are supposed to um have that ability to work it out with their fellow teachers in a plc and so we use a lot of acronyms in education and uh for um earlier i think mr fraley called pd and i'm like okay that's professional development um so but i when i was working with the department of education and dr

065saxey i remember him um you know uh making a comment and i said you know for a lot of individuals we in education you all talk in acronyms so um if we could look at what a plc so a professional learning community looks like for a teacher and how they're used in the district and if they're not being used the way that they should be used then that again is something that we need to fix and we need to address as teachers and administrators working through this process so who wants to take that one so i will start with that one just on the broad sense of professional learning communities they certainly have been around for a very long time the system provides uh both for students and staff if done at the deepest level

066an opportunity to look at information and data and learning and really dig very deeply uh some some some groups use protocols so that it's very structured and systemic other groups have developed such comfort with having that exchange of back and forth that they're able to um just share information and data so they can learn together so as an example if a teacher were to say i'm not very comfortable using this certainly we want them to be comfortable to advocate for themselves and for their students that's part of their professional responsibility we also want them to engage with their colleagues to say i'm not comfortable with this because my students may not get it or i'm not i'm not used to teaching it this way and that's the beauty of a plc is that part of

067that process is that another teacher may say you know i had a hard time with that and this is what i did or i found it really easy and here's a strategy that worked for me um always looking for that opportunity to engage and one of the benefits is that it is peer-based so there isn't the threat or the concern that may come up around talking to a supervisor or being reflected negatively it really gives that open space of dialogue and communication and as with anything things are really new and the benefit of having this content this core reading program across the entire system is that it allows for that common vocabulary it allows for everyone to have a level playing field to know even if i'm a master teacher who's been doing this for

068a very long time then certainly i recognize these strategies that i'm seeing in instruction around launch and land these are these are just different words for instructional components that we've done forever that's how i learned even a long long time ago as a teacher um and and changing that vocabulary so that everyone when we think about that transience in the district and we think about kids showing up every day they're hearing that same vocabulary as well and it builds that learning capacity over time i don't know if somebody else wants to take a jump at that but um i think that's kind of where i am doctor i might add if you don't mind um one of the benefits i think of moving into a program such as this is that never before have we

069had the ability district-wide to be able to engage in plc conversations across the district um even within a plc the way that i'm approaching tier one instruction might be entirely different than the way my partner teacher next door is so not only have we have we struggled to compare data and be able to make action plans around that data because we're not using the same instructional techniques and the same materials but i most certainly could not have spoken about that to a fellow second grade teacher across town at saddle ridge going even beyond that that's going to translate to conversations amongst our parents and community members as well because if my daughter is in second grade at jessup she's going to be having a very similar experience to a second grader across town at bildine

070and so the plc conversations are going to become more actionable because of this common approach and i think conversations amongst stakeholders and so with that being said i think it's going to really um it's going to really transition on some of our plc goals some of our plc conversations and allow teachers to have more commonality in how we approach instruction and how we look at student data and progress all right uh madam chair i just want to let you know that we are at 6 00 p.m and i think we've had a full work session i appreciate that so at this time we will adjourn our work session and move into our regular board meeting i'll give everybody a minute here i got piles of papers around so um is there anything else kyle that

071we need to do to allow anyone else in you know do we all have all of our participants are we ready to go madam chair we are ready to go very good thank you very much at this time i'd like to call the order um the business meeting of laramie county school district number one board of trustees on september 20th uh 2021 at uh pm um i'd like if it's all right with everyone if you'll keep your uh your uh mics muted we'll go ahead and have the pledge of allegiance eric or um kyle do you have the flag you could display that i'm sure you should be seeing it there you go we do thank you so much i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic

072for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you welcome everyone um i sincerely appreciate everyone being here um is mr evans on with us yes he is very good all right um i would just like to say um we are virtual today um i'm going to have mr evans uh address the legality of being virtual at our previous in-person lcsd board meetings some members of the public were disruptive to the board's ability to conduct necessary district business while other attendees were intimidated by harassment um verbal harassment when they tried to address the board the board must conduct its business and listen to the public comment in an environment environment that is safe civil and free of intimidation and disruption for the sake of all present so i

073would just ask for everyone's grace and understanding we are going to work through this and do our very best to take public comment and in a civil discourse is fine that's part of our our democracy but keeping it civil so that we can all have a clear understanding of where everyone's perspective is would really be helpful to everyone our community our board so i appreciate i appreciate that so mr evans if you could speak to the legality of us meeting and meeting the public meetings act uh yes madam chair our firm has advised the board that conducting this meeting electronically by telephone zoom and youtube allowing the public to hear read and participate in the meeting live is allowed by statute and serves various purposes in so doing including allowing the board to conduct the

074business of the district efficiently and transparently thank you mr evans all right at this time um are there any superintendent um crespo are there any adjustments to the agenda no madam chair there are no adjustments to the agenda trustee weiderspahn and i'm sure i move to adopt the agenda second all in favor say aye opposed no the agenda is adopted our next item on our list is item b the recognition of student and staff for outstanding achievements we have two students um at this time and i believe that they're on zoom with us i'd first like to call our south heist school senior so we should be recognized with principal phil thompson and it is uh rael or ellie brewer hi madam chair it's actually me kristen siegel hi um i would just like to

075recognize rayleigh ellie brewer she's an active member of our community at south as well as in the community as a whole um she was a robotics winner on the first dean's list for state robotics competition she's a member of the swim team the orchestra the fbla she takes avid and it and challenges herself with ap courses as well as concurrent enrollment um she does all of these activities while meeting a weighted gpa of a of 4.1 and she hopes to study marine biology someday in college and swim in college that's all i have congratulations ellie congratulations so is elian with us would you like to say a few words i am very good welcome thank you um thank you for this nomination and being student of the week it is a huge honor um and

076i would just like to thank my school for always supporting me well congratulations on behalf of the board we would all like to congratulate you could we all give her a quick round of applause please thank you and your cameras out there well done all right um pardon our next student and we're going to call both of them up and then i'll have mary quas introduce her special guest from western vista so our second student of the week is from kerry junior high and that's joseph lucero so do i have i would bet i have mr nissan on the on the line here yes ma'am yes madam chair this is eric nissin madam chair members of the board um it is my pleasure to introduce joseph lucero as cary's student of the week he is

077a strong academic student and with straight a's he is in cary basketball and boy scouts he's an avid hunter fisher and likes camping and when he's not doing all that he's volunteering at his church and for local groups around cheyenne beyond that uh what i always like are the the descriptors that the nominations we get from the teachers share and that is he's an exemplary student a great example to peers works extremely hard a true leader participates in many things is has high character loves to help others has a positive attitude um he is what represents all of carrie junior high so it is my pleasure to present to you joseph lucero very good joseph are you on the line with us you raise your hand um and unmute one there you sign on there

078okay there we go okay sarah lucero has her hand raised very good go ahead um joseph if you'd like to speak say a few words congratulations we'd like to hear from you um thank you i just want to thank all my teachers who recognize me for this award i just want to thank like my peers for helping me become like who i am my parents who helped me become who i am and how i am raised um all my family who just helped me grow up throughout my life um just thank you to them very good well congratulations the district are proud of both of our student of the week and if everybody can give joseph a round of applause too well done all right at this time mary do you have a special guest

079from western vista um yes i sure do um so it's my pleasure to be able to introduce tonight amber still and she is our representative from western vista credit union and they are our student of the week sponsor hopefully she's out there you see her kyle damn chair i'm looking i don't let's see here under a different name if our western vista representative is with us today if you'll raise your hand um uh kyle will meet you if not mary um could you talk to us a little bit about western vista and what kids receive and and how grateful we are for them absolutely well um for for a number of years um since we started um the student of the week program western vista has been a generous sponsor and um on a weekly

080basis uh they provide our students with a 25 gift card and a beautiful certificate and just that additional recognition that's so important and and we just we're grateful for their support and i know that the students also appreciate everything that they do very good thank you so much and let's go ahead and give western vista a big thank you and a round of applause thank you good job i wish i had confetti we could throw on the screen or do something fun like that because i'm super proud of these kids and very grateful for the the work that uh western vista and mr bolin was a part of bringing western vista into our uh into this program and so i thank mr bolin for that and and his service as well so thank you again

081and and we will go on to the next item on the agenda at this time um we have um items from visitors so these are uh this is a opportunity for public comment um concerning the agenda topics so i'm just gonna read the the reminder that we start every public comment section with and that's the purpose of the board meeting is to conduct the business of the school district in public it is not a public meeting the board recognized the value of public comment on issues related to the operations of schools to ensure our meeting is conducted in an orderly manner we ask that you address the board directly you state your first and last name please keep your comments two to three minutes so others have time to voice their comments keep your comments

082general in nature not directed at specific individuals or individuals and suitable to in pardon me and suitable in language and content for k-12 grade students add additional information or perspective and try not to be redundant so while it is the board sincerely appreciates and values public comment please note that if any time the meeting is willfully disrupted and cannot continue in an orderly manner and if the business of the board has not been completed the meeting will be recessed and can reconvened in another location at a time this is the same thing that we read at all of our meetings and it's critically important um that that we're able to do this because we do want to hear everyone and and we do value your input so um we're going to work through this really

083tough time and and i just appreciate every appreciate everyone's patience and uh and grace and we'll get through this together so at that time i wanted to make sure darlene i have the list that was sent to me for individuals concerning the agenda topic so again the first public comment is on agenda topics only there will be an opportunity later in our meeting for the second round of public comment which you can address non-agenda items so i have five individuals is that still correct darlene or kyle i think you have the list too yes madam chair that is the updated list all right very good all right at this time ben julia espinoza if you could raise your hand kyle will um thank you darlene kyle will go ahead and and admit you julia espinoza

084oh thank you this is julia espinoza can you hear me yes ma'am thank you so much i appreciate state senators driscoll and doc statter for introducing legislation to combat crt in the work room classroom in wyoming classrooms parents of lcsd1 students need someone to have their back because the board and superintendent simply do not care margaret crespo in her dissertation defines caring as quote to feel interest or concern unquote according to margaret's definition jillian balo showed care when she was quoted in the newspaper regarding apparent crt worries quote a parent expressed concern and it became my concern end quote margaret where is your interest or concern of prt in our schools it's nowhere to be found that's not caring so how did woke race-hating crt ideologies infiltrate lcs d1 schools it started with the actions

085of tiffany rabine the truth um i'm going to need to mute you if we can if you'd like to call it administration that would be fine um i understand your frustration but if we could we just bring you back into the the guidelines here please i do want to hear what you have to say just refer to that as ministration please and if you'd like to send an email i would appreciate that kyle do i have to still have miss espinoza madam chair she's currently muted um very good yes miss espinoza i would like my two minutes back please please keep it i'm in referring to administration i understand your frustration please now it's still clicking i need right we'll take care of it thank you we'll take care of it do i start again

086um i think you can pick up with our ela coordinator at the time um so if you'd just like to say administration and pick up where you left off i can make an adjustment for this administration put push for written wisdom which does not include a phonics component by the way and the ineff board cook bought it hook line and sinker for three million dollars administration's choice of winning wisdom is not a surprise administration wanted to voice her beliefs and attitudes onto lcs d1 and win wisdom aligned perfectly administration i'm sorry it's tiffany is the head of wyoming chapter of the national council of teachers of english ncte an administration she has sat as secondary section committee chair for ncte an administration tiffany regularly retweets ncte please if we can just stay within the guidelines

087i really would like you to be able to finish please ncte's annual 2021 convention in november is titled equality justice and anti-racist teaching the theme was based on the following the capacity and ability to read write think and speak in ways to understand power and equity in order to understand and promote anti-oppression keynote speakers at this year's convention include michelle obama along with three contributors to the 1619 project here is a session from last year's ncte convention that administration supports the session is titled race whiteness and the preparation of english teachers three presentations aimed at preparing english teacher candidates the majority of whom are white with racial identities and racial literacies for culturally sustaining pedagogy and anti-racist pedagogy if that's not crt i don't know what is i think the proposed legislation needs to go

088further and start vetting the bettors by monitoring educators social media accounts and here's another quote from the superintendent's dissertation developing caring skills in children of all ages is a concern to social researchers and educators well in administration you can't develop caring skills in children of all ages when you're developing woke race-hating skills in k-6 students with wit and wisdom if the board i'm not done julia julia um thank you um i think kyle um if if you've got like a sentence or two to finish that up um that would be great i understand and if you would like to email the content of your of your comments as well um to the board that that would be fine thank you can you summarize it in a minute or so i can summarize it in about

08930 seconds if the board and the superintendent want to do the right thing they will scrap wit and wisdom and they will turn over every rock to find five hundred thousand dollars that the k through six students deserve for their athletic program that they were cheated out of for whit and wisdom and if they choose not to do the right thing then in essence they are telling the parents and students they do not care thank you mrs espinoza the second individual that we have on our list is cody saint claire raise your hand sorry ma'am sure i uh accidentally lowered his hand if he could raise his hand that's all right thank you kyle thank you so much for assisting with with this absolutely mr saint claire if you would raise your hand again do

090you have me there yes sir i believe so okay my name is cody sinclair and due to the nature of time limits i will be re moving quickly to express my concerns my first concern is the continued use of mass and more specifically are children being required to wear masks i am giving you all the benefit of the doubt i'm going to assume that we all want to protect the health of the children in laramie county school district number one if we have the health of our children in mind yes oh i'm sorry cody this was the the agenda items and um just i don't know if you have this would normally fall into the second part of an or non-agenda because we don't have mass on the agenda so if we go by robert's

091rule of order this is kind of where i'm this is where the guidelines are so um are you available for that second um set of uh to stay within robert's rule of order and the and the guidance um for for mass would go to the non-agenda items so would you be able to speak at that time i will put you first on the list i i will be able to speak at that time and i would also ask that in the future we consider to revisit this issue issue every two weeks and that it would be on the agenda i appreciate that comment thank you so much and i appreciate you being able to move and and stay within those guidelines so thank you very much and i will put you first on that list

092in the second public comment so um my next individual is aaron um was uh what oh i'm terrible i keep practicing it aaron i'm so sorry i should be able to say this if you'll raise your hand and again we're talking about agenda items so if you would like to address agenda an agenda item and if not that's fine it would just mean that we would move you to the to the second part of public comment would you like to raise your hand um so i originally asked to speak at the non-agenda items but i do believe that this hold on please i do believe this pertains to you did mention um that the meetings are on zoom right now and that is directly what it is in uh related to um i did mention

093that it's not an agenda item but i did read that at the beginning of our meeting so i would have to ask a ruling for um from our legal counsel i'm happy to hear your comments it's just figuring out which section this goes into and i think i would be concerned that if you're moving people to the end are you going to cut people off because my understanding is that you are only allowing 20 people at the end of the meeting um i think we'll be able to accommodate everyone and still be within our guidelines we take an hour of public comment before the meeting and we take an hour or at the beginning of the meeting and then we take an hour at the at the end of the meeting and so three minutes

094a piece is roughly 20 minutes per um comment section so there will be enough time for you to speak um mr evans because i mentioned the public virtual meeting does that make that part of the agenda so that this could be discussed at this point or not uh madam chair you have discussed the procedure of the meeting um and so i think it is all right for a discussion about the propriety of that which i comment on commented on as well okay very good so aaron the ruling is yes please go ahead my name is aaron waskowitz while i was going to speak about government overreach and the importance of freedom i feel it's important for me to address the conduct of both the board and the attendees of in-person meetings i was recently told

095that future meetings will be held virtually because board members don't feel safe i thought about the cowboy code of fx and i think it's pertinent to both the school board and the parents to mention a few tonight one live each day with courage for every person attending these meetings board members and parents it takes courage two take pride in your work board you worked to be elected to this position please don't hide behind a computer please do do the job you promised you would do parents while you're fighting for your children don't forget to take pride in your actions this is our work right now three always finish what you start for everyone listening we must keep moving forward with what we we believe in four do what has to be done bored it is

096up to you to conduct business and uphold standards even when things get uncomfortable according to page 9 of the guide to public accountability for school board members and superintendents which is provided by the wyoming school board association you and i quote may order the removal of a person or group from the meeting room and continue in session end quote please do not punish the rest of us and go against the wyoming open meeting laws because this is uncomfortable right now five be tough but fair bored go ahead and do the tough things like remove an unruly person so the rest of us can attend parents speak your mind but be respectful six when you make a promise keep it to the board you made a promise to represent the district and its residents don't fall

097short of that it's your duty to listen to the people who voted for you i was told that there was chairs pulled out from under people and people spitting on other people at the september 16th meeting i've been at the last six meetings and i've yet to see any such behavior there were many good people in that room surely someone would have stopped that kind of behavior if it took place plus there were two police officers there just like there is a 99 chance of surviving covid 99 of parents who attend meetings behave respectfully as a community we cannot continue to put feelings above facts the majority of the people should not be punished because of the actions of one or two as parents fight for something that you as a board don't want it

098seems that you are in inflating facts as a way to filter our voices and diminish our presence please make all board meetings in person virtual meetings only lessen the trust that we have in you thank you erin our next individual on the list is katie collard and katie just again to address if your comments are addressing an agenda item we will have time at the next public comment to address non-agenda items so do you have something to address that is concerning an agenda related to an agenda item raise your hand katie collard are you there do you see her kyle adam chair i do not see a hand raised um if there is looks like at least one person on the phone star nine i believe it's how to raise your hand on the phone

099you are katie collard oh there we go okay and if you are are you speaking to agenda items or um do you need to be moved to the non-agenda item i'm sorry man i'm sure i'm still not seeing that name okay all right i'm sorry i misunderstood that kyle thank you then we will go on to um susan graham and susan um again to reiterate and be redundant i apologize but are you speaking to an agenda item raise your hand and that's star 9 if you're on the phone susan graham man i'm sure okay all right um susan graham one more time all right at this time um man i'm sure just just uh just in case i'm wrong uh could we try if it's a dial in uh person i it's either star six

100or star nine and i'm curious okay that's all right if you're if susan if you're on the phone try um a star six if it's not a star nine to raise your hand and mr mckinney will be able to to it um bring you in to comment oh okay i got my answer it was far nine uh madam chair so okay very good no hands raised no no star six all right all right we know for sure now so thank you very much i appreciate that um we will be uh closing uh this public comment please no and mr sinclair thank you so much for making that adjustment in your schedule and you will be the first uh to start public comment um in that second section so again thank you um and i appreciate

101everyone that that calls in to uh to get um on the public comment list again they just have to call the administration office and speak to darlene davis and she will put you on the list for either speaking to the agenda items or speaking to non-agenda items so moving on we have from information and reports on c we have upcoming meetings september 21st 2021 5 pm so tomorrow night wsba fall roundup meeting in albany county school district 1 on october 4th 2021 at 5 pm a work session and 6 pm board meeting at this time um we will go to number three which is individual board communications and reports um we have a uh a uh dec i will be reading uh the 2021 daughters of american revolution constitution week proclamation school proclamation constitution week

102from laramie county school district number one 2021 whereas september 17 2021 marks the 234th anniversary of drafting the constitution of the united states of america by the constitutional convention and whereas it is fitting and proper to officially recognize this magnificent document and the anniversary of its creation and whereas it is fitting and proper to officially recognize the patriotic celebrations which will commemorate this occasion whereas public law 915 guarantees the issuing of a proclamation each year by the president of the united states of america designating september 17th through the 23rd as constitution week whereas the constitution is a historic achievement of our founding fathers and the oldest written national constitution it is a strong foundation for our republic in the 21st century as it was in the 18th century and whereas we celebrate this document profound

103impact on our everyday lives may all americans strive to uphold its vision of freedom and justice for all now therefore i roseanne million rinny chair of the board of trustees laramie county school district number one do hereby proclaim september 17th through the 23rd 2021 to be constitution week at all schools in laramie county school district number one and ask our students to reaffirm the ideals the framers of the constitution had in 1787 in witness whereup i have here unto set my hand and cause to affix the great seal of laramie county school district number one on this 17th day of september in the year of our lord 2021. thank you so much that's quite an honor and i sincerely sincerely appreciate that honor to read that at this time i would open up the comments

104from items from our school board members individual reports miscellane individual board communications if you'd like to raise your hand i have christy claussen christy would you like to make a statement yes thank you madam chair for acknowledging my hand um i just um i was reminded this last week i uh we all as a board got an email from the wyoming school boards association and every year they invite school board members or school boards to take up resolutions um and to vote on them and submit them to the wsba and then they have a process in which they consider them and vote on them internally themselves i know madam chair sits on that that board um as a representative of lcsd1 and we'll vote on the resolutions that they get from the various school districts

105around the state and i just wanted to note um publicly that i drafted a resolution and and madame chair what you just read reminded me of it because it reinforces our commitment as a district to the ideals that are outlined in the constitution and in particularly around the area of how we teach our history and how we teach just in general with respect to those ideals and to our efforts to teach fair and accurate history of race relations as well and also the significant progress that we've made as a country toward um trying to pursue those ideals in an effort to eradicate racism in our country i've drafted this resolution in part because i was thinking about the importance of stating our commitment to the ideals that are in our constitution and quite frankly our

106constitution of our state the great state of wyoming and also to address some of the concerns that we as a board have heard and that lots of school boards around the country are hearing about the issues of critical race theory and some of the challenges um in the in the theory and in those concepts some of those challenges toward how we think about our constitution so i will be publicly presenting that resolution um at the next board meeting i and i would welcome um my fellow trustees comments on how to improve um upon that but if hopefully we can i'd like to ask madam chair for us to take it up as a a resolution be voted on at the next meeting thank you very much thank you um i think uh we will um

107we will look at the the i think that the board is willing to uh to uh they've been looking at resolution and and i think they're they're ready to have some conversation about that so we will be working together through that trusty clawson thank you um brittany ashby uh trusty ashby you have your hand raised yeah i just wanted to um like you know a as as i think we've had seen in the papers and and across the state and across the nation there appears to be um a disconnect between workers and people hiring and i know that's true here in the district as well one of the areas i know we have is with the with the buses and i just wanted to um say thank you to dr crespo and dave um on

108all the work that they are doing on that i have um my daughter plays volleyball and some of the junior high volleyball teams have had adventures in busing um but they have worked very hard to make sure that they continue to get their education as well as get to the volleyball games and take a take you know play in those games and so i very much appreciate the work that they're doing um i know that we all are living in very interesting times right now and so i appreciate the work you're doing for for that very good thank you brittany um do i have any other comments that would be like anyone would like to share um i recently attended the western region school boards association which is part of the national school boards association

109the wyoming school boards association this year uh hosted that meeting so it was very interesting to hear the perspectives from our partners in our western region from the national school boards association so that is north dakota south dakota nebraska oklahoma montana of course wyoming colorado new mexico um and i don't think i'm forgetting anything i think i got seven in there anyway it was a great conference um great time for a bill for educators to come together and school board members and many of them had been on their school board for 20 or 30 years and just to discuss everything from the national conversations to obviously mitigating covid19 and keeping schools open and so it was uh i really appreciate that opportunity and i appreciate our wyoming school boards association's active very active involvement in

110the national school boards association and through their affiliation with the wyoming school boards association there's a lot of great work being done there so i wanted to make sure that shout out was was out there as well and it was a privilege to to attend those conferences so thank you is there anything else anyone else with an update to the board um if you did not get a chance for the individuals out there at our board meeting did not get a chance to watch the literacy presentation from our administration during the workshop that happened the work session that happened before this meeting please go back and circle around to to go watch that because it was uh it was very informative and there's a lot of effort to to work through these conversations and um

111and really get to know what a core reading program means and and why that's important to literacy in our district um and uh and i would just say that that i really believe when our community works together we can we can make a make it better make it all better um in our and what we're doing in literacy and what we're doing supporting our students and and our administration so i know they're all dedicated and and uh i just i want to thank i want to thank everyone's participation for that so dr prescott thank you very much and um her team of individuals that that put that literacy um workshop together so again they will answer the questions of the district and and we will work through this so thank you very much our teachers

112out there are working really hard so at that being said if no one else has any further things to add i would have reports from our superintendent and staff dr crespo i'll turn it over to you thank you madam chair i would like to just quickly address i know that there were some questions i wanted to just launch our lcsd.org website thank our communications department our information on coronavirus updates is there under our resources page and it gets updated on a regular basis i wanted to share just some high level information right now currently one positive case with quarantined staff we've had 249 quarantine students based on contact we've isolated and confirmed 12 staff and we've isolated and confirmed 95 students the mask exemption that went in on 9 20 we have approved seven uh

113that were provided by their medical provider uh we have one that was um approved for other medical reasons and then four that have currently been denied that is the total number of mass exemptions that we have had at this point to date um 12. so uh certainly working through them as quickly as we can and looking into uh that information as we go forward with that i would um ask if kyle could pull up my 100 day update that would be amazing thank you very much kyle i appreciate that so super super excited to share when i started we started on this 100 day journey together we wanted to learn and listen and build so that we could work towards our future strategic plan work so during the last a 30-day update i was able

114to provide that online our meeting um our public meeting i did a quick update but this one will be a little bit deeper kyle next do you um thank you uh so we it's a hundred days we're listening learning building and planning together the purpose or the overview as you remember was to build relationships connect with school students staff parents and community develop connections and align focus by asking questions our questions were really very easy we wanted to hear what were the points of pride in lcs d1 what were our areas of opportunity for the future and where do you want to see lcsd one in five years together i shared with the board and the community that's certainly coming in i could not define what was important and where we were going i knew

115the board's focus as when i was hired around those areas of literacy and instruction and making sure that our students had many post-workforce readiness opportunities and access but those really had to be vetted by our community input as we're moving through our strategic plan next one kyle we then um focused on our purpose so we really want to create internal and external awareness about who we are and what we're doing and then the 100-day plan and then we wanted to encourage stakeholders to engage with departments school and community and we provided um we promised that we would provide 30 60 and 90 day updates as i mentioned this is our 60-day update and that we wanted to create lasting partnerships with staff students parents and the community as well so moving forward um we have

116next one kyle we have um a 60-day update for you so i just want to thank those of those individuals who wanted to take a picture with me at the um cheyenne foundation school uh 5k run it was really incredible and what a great experience to announce that it was i've done 36 meetings of listening in the community we've done eight specific communities and community meetings and 18 school meetings we've talked to parents staff and students and i will share it has been amazing so lots of attendance lots of feedback of course my favorite ones always the student meetings the students shared such incredible incredible insight and information around the district and what they're interested in their journey as well as our parent groups i will share that i will be rescheduling my east community

117meeting um we i was out i was um quarantine isolated for covid my family and i were sick many of you know this so we will be rescheduling that one that's the last community meeting uh that we will have i've visited departments i have visited um warehouse and transportation as well as our departments internally here at the at the admin building and just incredible incredible people so really very grateful to hear the feedback there are different ways to provide feedback of those three questions we had a qr code available we have an update on the website so that if you're interested in seeing the schools that i've visited or places that i've been or feedback or people in the community that i've met there is a website that has the 100-day plan and it shows

118a map of all of the locations where i've been um and pictures to prove it and had lots of people willing to share pictures with me so that's been really helpful um kyle next one so here's what we're hearing right points of pride i want to thank to our trevor swarm he's our data person in the district data analyst he takes all of the information that's coming in from our surveys and our community feedback and our discussions and he at this point has done an incredible job of throwing it into a wordle so that it makes sense right now for the themes that we're trying to emerge as we get to the 100-day plan this will all be synthesized into deeper very specific data and information um providing our our next moves for our strategic

119plan so you can see our points of pride huge celebration our students our teachers and our staff incredible it is it's incre and you'll start to see a theme emerge about our people um we have a community seems to rise there's a great school great word there school kids we know that we've got a lot of points of pride in our community and super excited to share those next one kyle our next one is related to our opportunities here we are at a community meeting i um that gentleman was incredibly incredibly insightful uh so i just want to shout out if he's watching again we see that our opportunities are specifically related to our students our teachers our staff and our school community that's really incredible to have that theme throughout we recognize that what

120we do really well also continuously has opportunity for growth and achievement and advancement so i just want to thank the community members who have come out at these meetings to just share this information it's been really incredibly helpful next slide kyle and then where do we want to see the district in five years same thing we want to be focused on the students the teachers and the staff we want to make sure and you start to see some other words emerge when we look at programming making sure we have opportunities making sure that that community piece is there that consistency is helpful when moving forward towards a strategic plan our goal would be that as we start to get synthesize all of this into very specific data we will start to emerge into a future

121strategic plan i'll share that one of the pieces that we promised was that we would walk alongside our mgt strategic plan group they have been they have started by sending survey to internal staff uh they are they'll be sending it to parents this week or last week as well very um in-depth look at what families want for their students and then those same survey questions will be sent to our students in high school we've notified parents that it's coming if they're if they um they're the exact same questions for the all the groups and um if they're not interested in their child responding they simply just ignore the email it's basically a personal opt-out we're just hoping hoping for lots of feedback i can tell you that the kids when i've asked them those three

122questions have really shared with me as a matter of fact um over time i've spent i've planned an hour or 45 minutes and have actually spent almost an hour and a half because they have so much to share about their experience and just what they love and what opportunities they want moving forward for the future kyle one more for me as we think about this hundred day top plan timeline as promised we will have another update on october 12th this presentation that i've shared tonight will go public so that families are aware of the information that we've provided and what those themes are that are emerging and we will continue to um provide those updates in a variety of media outlets we try to make sure that families are aware of what we're doing i

123try to do a weekly update on things that are happening in the district and those get posted and that will continue as well because we want to make sure that we're communicating i have i have some of the members of the team that are working on little video clips so that we can do some informing um to enhance those communication opportunities for our families and for our community kyle one more for me i think one of the most incredible things that has emerged is the level of communication um you know going out to buildings meeting with people who are just full of information they want to share they're so grateful for the personal visits of visiting all of the departments i will share without saying what departments um i've had some people share like hey

124i've been here for a really long time and never have had the opportunity to like meet the superintendent and shake hands and and really have an incredible opportunity to share and i think that's something that we look forward to that feedback loop is going to be incredible for us moving forward we want our staff to feel welcome and valued and want to be part of our system the same thing with our parents and our kids we want to make sure that we are that point of pride moving forward then i think i have one last slide up there oh i don't what i wanted to share was um one of the key components of this process and one of the things that's emerged that i want to make sure everybody in our community is really

125keenly aware of is um one of the most proud moments i had was when we put the data together and trevor shared with me um you know what is our point of pride right now if you had to like pull it together um the statement is cheyenne is proud of our staff past achievements and persevering students and one of the things that really struck me was that it was really community-wide it wasn't lcsd1 it was cheyenne it was really understanding that it's all of us together committed all of our towns all of our rural areas really coming together for those traditions and that legacy and what an incredible opportunity to encap encapsulate that and really move us forward as a system so with that i will ask the board if you have any questions please

126feel free um otherwise madam chair my update is over sorry my clicker is a little rusty here um so is there it looks like christy has a question if any other board members would like to raise their hand um so let's start with christy and then i see alicia so um christy do you still have a question i do madam chair i just put my hand down oh that's good because you pull on me thank you um dr crespo i just want to congratulate you and thank you for being committed to going out and talking to our our various um staff members in all of our buildings and in and uh just i'm hearing the same thing you just recorded i'm hearing that people are excited that they got to meet you i'm hearing that

127they're excited that they got to talk to you about these questions you're asking them and and that they haven't had always had that experience across the board and so i just think it's great um keep up the good work thank you for that i know it's very labor intensive um but i really appreciate that and it's also what we asked you to do in a way we asked you to create a better system for communicating with our whole district and our public and you you're doing that and you're building that and i just want to commend you for that um having said that i have a question about your first comment on kovid and on doctor's dr wavers an issue came up this morning where a parent asked about a doctor waiver and i was

128wondering if you could share with the board and the public who are listening tonight if there is a process in place that we are following as a district to determine um if we are going to accept the waivers that we get absolutely and i'll kick it i'll start off and then i think that mr fraley who i have to say has been incredible um through this process because he's been working really closely with principals can kind of share some perspective as well so as i mentioned we've had very few waiver uh requests we um we've addressed each one of those and went through a process where we included making sure that um the the individuals are certified that they are medical professionals that are able to see the students that we're talking about um we

129want to make sure that uh you know sadly um there aren't always cases where people are we've things like um urgent care things like that certainly if a medical professional provides that information we do want to make sure though because there is a certain level of concern if we um take information related to somebody who has never seen that medical professional who that medical professional is not certified in wyoming if there's a situation of a um somebody who's uh we we can't get in touch with so if a medical professional that um the document was signed but we can't find that individual anywhere because we want to make sure that we're doing our due diligence when we're accepting waivers so there is a process that goes through principals are aware of what that system looks

130like in terms of getting the waiver they provide it to the parents the parents submit it it goes through our nurses office if there's concerns or questions with their calling they're they are checking up um to see who the professional is is it feasible that that medical professional would be able to see that child are they located in the country or in the state things like that are questions that we've asked and then we notify the school um through the process of the nurse and the principal like if there's an appeal or something like that were to happen mr fraley are you on i think you are so if you would jump on there for me and close that loop yeah i wouldn't add too much more you're very thorough dr crespo in that explanation

131i would just add that we do have concern from some parents out there with mental health issues for students and so we have we have approved those in the past and some of those have gone through the iep or special ed process and the others we would use a psychiatrist say in our community for feedback if they were seeing that child so that would be the only thing i would add thank you um next we have alicia smith trustee smith thank you for sharing dr crespo um i just had a have a short list of questions for you um regarding the first part of your presentation um with the covet updates and where we are moving forward with that since our my questions mainly are um in relation to changes that we've seen since our

132special meeting when we um voted to follow the the county health and and um require masking for our students when we're at those higher two levels of community transmission uh my first question for you is if you have the data what is the is there a change in cases and quarantines since that special meeting i mean have you have we my hope is that um in that vote that we took i mean my my rationale for my vote really was to minimize the number of quarantines because it was it was frightening to see so many um healthy kids at home though how it are we seeing that that's effective are our numbers going down in terms of active cases and quarantined kids that's a great question and actually trustee smith i do off the website

133have that information for you so we um hold on one second so i can just transfer it over we have um okay so on from 9 6 to 9 12 we had 77 students that were coveted positive and 19 staff that was the last you know the week of last week um and then 9 13 through 919 we saw that number go to 65 students and seven staff positive in terms of quarantine which is the question you you asked specifically do uh so 9 6 through 9 12 we had 452 9 13 through 9 19 we're at 158 okay and the question specifically around 9 8 which was the meeting date where we um since then we have a total of 313 students quarantined and we have no i'm sorry prior to that date i

134apologize prior to that date we had 313 students quarantined zero staff and positive covid we had 100 students and 14 staff so we would anticipate seeing the quarantine numbers continuing to go down we do know it takes a little bit of time because we want we don't want to overstate the positive cases say that it's all going to go down that takes some time for the um positivity of implementing that that um mask protocol okay thank you thank you my other questions um just revolved around maybe some changes that we have possibly seen in student enrollment um specifically have we had kids since that special meeting moved to our virtual school as a result of that decision and um i guess even more interesting to me have we had children who have been pulled from

135the district and gone to home school as far as you know and what are those hang on one second and i i'll pull that um that list up because certainly as we're going through this we're also keeping um really close track so uh on 9 8 21 our lcs d1 enrollment was 14 110. on 9 20 our enrollment in lcs d1 was 14 096 that is a change of minus 14. uh however our cvs enrollment 98 to 9821 was at 211 on 9 20 21 it was two it is 240 which is a plus 29. our element and those students are respected respect respectively 18 at junior high i mean at elementary i apologize and 11 at junior high and we have eight students who returned to brick and mortar after 9 8 21 and

136we have five students that transferred to an alternative virtual learning environment that was not cvs or did home school okay thank you very much you're very welcome i think i need to replace my mouse it doesn't want to click on it first click so thank you very much um alicia um your uh is that all the questions that you had yes so marguerite um your hand is raised please go ahead trust me chairman i um actually everyone was asking sort of the questions i was curious about including the cvs enrollment and and how that was going um and and and also glad to see the drop in the um the need for quarantining when both parties are in masks um then the need to work quarantine goes down so i i had hoped and i'm

137glad to hear that uh that that is in fact starting the trend we'll see i guess if that continues and but uh thirdly i just i wanted to con compliment you and your staff for working so hard and as chairman rene said when people want to know about our literacy program the numbers the rationale why we took on what we're doing and how it's going and the teachers and everything we've you know we hear constantly the focus on on the the contents or the text which is important but um i think people um should learn about um the rationale and the pedagogy of it so please i encourage people to go back and listen to the first the first hour tonight five to six p.m it's um really informative and especially for the parents they'll

138understand what their what their children and their teachers are doing um so i appreciate you and your instructional uh department work on that and then in general your leadership um getting us through this busing uh bus driver shortage and various other things and you're going around the district so um appreciate that i think what you're learning will help inform everything we do every day so thank you very much very good do i have any other trustee that would like to add anything no all right that concludes our individual uh board communications um and uh our reports from superintendent and staff do we have any additional miscellaneous information dr crespo no madam chair we are through all right very good moving on to the consent agenda all agenda items listed with the designation of ca are

139considered to be routine items by the governing body and will be enacted in one motion there will be no separate discussion on these items and any item removed from the consent agenda will be considered in its normal sequence on the agenda does any board member request to remove a motion from the consent agenda sing none listed as consent agenda second all in favor say aye aye opposed no motion passes that moves us down to uh future business or um new business thank you d point one trustee weiner spawn adam chair i move to approve the 2021-2022 memorandum of understanding between lccc and laramie county school district number one for the concurrent and dual enrollment program and the amount not to exceed 650 thousand dollars second any discussion i don't see any hands i don't hear

140anyone so all in oh hand yes and i'm chairman i i when i i read this um i i read it every year and it always i'm impressed with um the cooperation between laramie one and lccc and providing our students before they graduate such an opportunity to get college credits whether it goes toward agreed a degree or a certificate program or whatever after graduation what an opportunity it is for our students and so i congratulate the people who drew up the uh the mou but also all the teachers who get the extra certification to make it work so um congrat congratulations to all i'll just throw that in there it's not really question or comment but just another congratulations thank you madam chairman thank you trustee herman so at this time um if there's no

141further discussion all in favor say aye aye opposed no motion passes moving on to uh item e future business the next regular board meeting will be held on monday october 4th at 6 00 pm a work session will begin at 5 pm the business of the district is done that opens up our second public comment period again i will go over the purpose of the board meeting as we discussed is to conduct the business of the school board the business of the school district in public the board recognizes the value of public comment on issues related to the operations of schools to ensure that our meeting is conducted in an orderly manner we ask that you address the board directly please state your first and last name please keep your comments two to three minutes

142so others have time to voice their comments keep your comments general in nature please not directed at a specific individual or individuals and suitable in language and content for k through 12th grade students an additional information or perspective try to add that and try not to be redundant i at this time would like to um ask um mr sinclair uh cody saint claire thank you sorry about that i have a friend that is a sinclair but mr uh cody's saint claire thank you for respecting those rules and and agreeing to uh come in and address on a non-agenda item cody could you raise your hand and we'll admit you you have me thank you yes thank you okay thank you my name is cody sinclair i'm concerned with the continued use of masks and more

143specifically our children being required to wear mass i'm giving you all the benefit of the doubt i'm going to assume that we all want to protect the health of the children in laramie county school district number one if we have the health of the children in mind let's talk about facts let's talk about mask facts i want to see the numbers that say this is what mass have done for our children i want to see how many lives we've actually saved because i can't find that anywhere i find so-called studies that say new information is showing that mass are effective but i don't see any numbers there are no clinical studies i will tell you what i find more of i find actual studies with numbers by licensed medical professionals i have found that there

144are some major concerns with mask wearing and why don't we start with the occupational safety and health administration they have created an industry standard in which grown adults are required to abide by fully developed adults we're talking about kids now let me read to you something directly off the osha website the respiratory protection standard considers any atmosphere with an oxygen level below 19.5 percent to be oxygen deficient and immediately dangerous to life or health at concentrations of 16 to 19.5 percent workers engaged in any form of exertion can rapidly become symptomatic as their tissues fail to obtain the oxygen necessary to function properly now i've seen set multiple demonstrations showing that within three to five seconds of putting on a mask you are now in an oxygen deficient environment next let's talk about the psychological

145effects i suggest you all look into dr paul ekman's studies as he has dedicated his life's work to studying non-verbal emotional expression dr kathleen m pike says with physical distancing increased anxiety and disrupted routines due to covet 19 we are primed to seek emotional connection by simply seeing each other's facial expressions you are all taking that choice from our kids dr borman kitchell says extended mask wearing has shown detrimental psychological harms tied to the lack of facial and emotional signaling according to a 1986 study on face recognition in children think about that 1986 this has been studied for years covet 19 has been around for how long and how many unknowns are there still you all need to reconsider giving back choice to families we also need to have true open meetings stop hiding and

146give us what we deserve as parents the actions of a few should not affect the majority of people there needs to be accountability and let me leave you with this the easiest lie to believe is one that you want to thank you cody um and again thank you for working uh through the rules i appreciate that so now we will um i would call on kathy sigliano you are next on the list kathy if you could raise your hand please kyle will admit you hi can you hear me yes ma'am please go ahead hi thank you um for letting me speak i just wanted to bring to the board's attention and to the public's attention 20 violations from teachers and admins against kids freedoms liberties along with bullying and intimidation tactics regarding masks sunrise elementary

147third grade class kids are being told that they have to keep their masks at school the entire week which then makes them bring home a dirty mask on fridays first grade won't allow mass breaks says that there are too many kids in class and she is unable to social distance cole elementary sixth grade class won't allow for mass breaks says too many kids in class bags elementary second grade no mass breaks while inside only outside bain elementary several teachers say no mass breaks unless outside at lunch kids are told to take a bite then immediately put their masks back on while chewing kindergarten teacher gave a cloth mask to a child told him to keep it at school the entire week until friday when he brought it home the mom said that it was filthy

148dirty and she was disgusted davis elementary very disturbing incident where a child was manipulated into being told she was being rewarded with a pencil when she came down to the office when instead she was brought down to the office to have the nurse inspect her mask was told to remove the mask so that the nurse can inspect it and was told that it was not good enough and to be given a different one since when are staff and teachers allowed to touch or inspect masks fifth grade at pioneer park masks makes kids wear masks all day and outside prairie wind no mask breaks as a matter of fact i'm told that very few teachers allow them with kids with exemptions they are being forced to be segregated from the rest of the class and anywhere

149that they go applebach few teachers doing breaks in class saddle ridge school nurse said that a child needed to be quarantined due to a at-home test not being sufficient enough east high zoology class was extremely hot kids had their masks below their nose one child said that it was so hot she couldn't breathe the teacher told her that she was going to be threatened to call the admin as you can tell there are several incidences i'm not going to be able to finish my entire list because of the time but there are several incidences where your your teachers and staff are not allowing for mass breaks they're not giving any time or any room in the classrooms in order to have the mass breaks the superintendent insured us as parents that this was not going

150to happen that kids were going to be allowed breaks that they were going to be given specific areas in classrooms in order to be able to take those breaks junior high and high school level kids are being told to go stand in the hallway which then is taking away from class time i was also told that at sunrise elementary a couple kids were told that they were not going to be given any more masks as of today and if they wanted to have one they had to bring their own if you as a district are going to prov are going to make us wear masks and make our kids wear masks you should be providing them we need to know what you're going to do about this and about the teachers and staff thank you

151very much kathy our next individual community member to speak is brooke bulgrin howard rick if you could raise your hand do you see her kyle madam chair i do not um oh there we go okay very good rick are you with us can you hear me yes ma'am please go ahead all right my name is brooke bulgrin i'd just like to point out some interesting facts about our district regarding active student cases this data is taken directly from the lccsd1 website as they report current active student cases in quarantines every day beginning on september 9th first day of masking the number of active student cases in the school district was 67. since then we see the following numbers reported as active cases each day 9 10 80 9 13 67 9 14 76 9 15

15286 9 16 88 9 17 72 and 9 20 which is today 109 active cases that's an increase of 42 active cases in students as on that per day basis in just 11 days of masking so are the masks really effective a few points i'd like to make in regards to incentivizing the teachers and staff of lcsd1 to receive the covet vaccine as a district you yourselves would not buy into a new curriculum without firsting data backing the effectiveness of said curriculum yet you are ready and you are going to pay your staff to get this new vaccine without historical data to back up lasting effectiveness and without knowing the long-term effects of it isn't it really an incentive besides money for the lcs d1 staff to even get the vaccine now since everyone is

153required to mask up did the school district not have any other options for spending the arp and s or funds they received why don't we incentivize teachers and staff for having a healthy bmi or for not smoking or for little to no absences from school or incentivize those who have avoided covid without the vaccine from the start or those who have even survived it not only are you incentivizing them to take a new vaccine but you're also going to tax them on their incentive i don't know a whole lot about tax law and the rules associated with taxes but from the naked eye it appears to be a form of money laundering by taxing teachers who are taxpayers on the taxes they pay to the government that the government is now distributing back to the

154taxpayer but also taxing them on it again to receive the incentive this is very similar to how the district paid the public health over 82 000 to administer the vaccine this spring would anyone or when everyone could just go to public health and receive the vaccine for free of charge with or without insurance one government entity is paying another government entity with taxpayer money something just seems a little fishy about it i ask that you reconsider your incentive structure in regards to the covid19 vaccine for staff and for teachers and staff thank you i apologize very much um our next uh next individual uh community member to speak is christy van kirk christie if you can raise your you would raise your hand kyle will admit you christy van kirk can you hear me yes

155good evening and thank you for this opportunity to share my name is christy van kirk and i'm an md physician in private practice at healthy lifestyle medicine which i opened in january 2019 after six years of practicing obstetrics and gynecology in cheyenne i have a 17 year old senior whom i would really like to experience his senior year in person my entire family is grateful to have received the covered vaccine i shared tonight with humility and a very real understanding understanding that studies data protocols change with the emergence of new evidence i invite us all to be open to listening and discussion from a place of compassion instead of role modeling anger self-centeredness and threat to our children i transitioned into integrative medicine because my passion is focusing on the foundations of health and wellness

156and prevention of chronic medical disease my patients know i take as natural of an approach as possible with personal accountability as key and though i very much believe in the innate natural healing ability of the human body i also very much believe in and respect modern medicine and science i realize there may be no perfect solution and masks are not perfect i do support masks at school indoors when covet case numbers are at dangerous highs in our community we have already seen the massive number of students missing school because of quarantine during the start of this school year surpassing last year's numbers when masks were worn i believe in the science supporting safety and efficacy of masks and vaccines i believe in the importance of covet prevention because i worry more about the long-term effects

157of covid and unnecessary loss of life personal rights come with personal accountability responsibilities this is a critical time for our community to be open to the possibility of doing our part whether it's wearing a mask indoors when asked to improving our own health with better nutrition exercise and less time on social media the sooner we take personal accountability and put the good of others first the sooner the time will come to be without masks the sooner our hospital can survive and move on from the heavy weight they currently carry a crisis volume of critically sick coveted patients with shortages and supplies and workers my heart goes out to my healthcare colleagues who are exhausted and trying to avoid burnout and empathy fatigue treating many patients who are not willing to do their part but but

158feel entitled to be served once covet has caught up with them thank you all for your time let's open our hearts and take care of each other so that we can keep our schools and community open thank you thank you um mrs van kirk um dr van kirk thank you next individual to speak please is jim barr mr barr if you could raise your hand um kyle will admit you to the room do you find him kyle if not star nine if you're on a phone and i'm sure i do not see him and yes star nine if you are on a phone to unmute or to uh raise your hand sorry mr barr i'm sure i do not get angry all right we'll circle back around to that name then um we have next

159we have michelle hayes michelle if you would um raise your hand kyle will find you can you hear me yes ma'am please go ahead hi my name is michelle hayes i have two daughters in lcsd1 lily who's the 10th grader at central and stacey is a fifth grader at prairie wind i've been fighting for the parents to have the right to make these decisions since day one i've tried various different tactics and unfortunately nothing seems to work the board continues to follow their own agenda regardless of the fact that they were elected by the majority the majority has spoken the majority continues to fight for parents to have the right to decide on masks if the majority was in favor of masks to be worn they would not be mandated because everyone would have already

160had them on when you go out and about in cheyenne the majority does not wear masks there's not a state mandate there's not a county mandate over and over we hear masks work they don't stop the virus they help stop the droplets you know the big droplets not the little droplets you know what else stops big droplets covering your mouth correctly when you cough or sneeze we now have people in masks walking around coughing and sneezing without covering their mouth remember the masks don't stop the virus they only stop the big droplets we need to stop being so disgusting and cover our mouths when we cough and sneeze i don't know about you but i don't spend a lot of time touching my elbow so if i cough or sneeze into it i'm not going

161to be messing with that area the majority of us change our under wear every day most people are not getting a new mask every day the majority of us take a shower or a bath every day that's more frequent than people are changing their masks if you sneeze directly into your hands what is the first thing you do you wash your hands if you are not you better start now and that's disgusting last year my girls went to school with nine or more masks every day and a clean bag and a dirty bag they were instructed to change their masks constantly they got wet if they were dropped on the floor if they were visibly dirty or if they just wanted to the masks that you're forcing our children to wear are absolutely disgusting somebody

162could write a story about the places a mask has been i've watched every one of you touch your mask you're only supposed to touch the ear pieces you're supposed to watch your hands before you grab your mask and after you put it on same when you remove it when you take your mask off it doesn't go around your wrist or below your chin it doesn't go on your desk or on a lanyard around your neck it must go in a paper bag the trash or a washing machine everything that your mask touches is contaminated with the particles that you are claiming you are stopping with the mask you can wash your hands multiple times a day and clean off all those particles you are trying to stop most people don't change their masks multiple times

163a day most of the time they don't even change them once a week every time you touch your mask you're spreading what you are trying to stop do you actually think that kids are wearing masks correctly when the adults around them aren't even doing it right where are the science teachers let's pull out the petri dishes and see what's on these masks the same experiments that people like to use to show how dirty your hands are we need to get back to the basics that we teach in kindergarten cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze wash your hands wash your hands and wash your hands thank you very much um our next individual to speak on the list is ashley jenkins and if jim barr is out there you would i would be calling

164on you next so um but right now ashley jenkins ashley if you're there if you'll raise your hand can you hear me yes ma'am please go ahead okay good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board my name is ashley jenkinson and i appreciate the opportunity to speak this evening my education is in public health and biology i would like to discuss the board's policy pertaining to the bi-weekly re-evaluation of covin-related protocols namely masks it has been made clear that if laramie county is listed in a red or orange zone according to the cdc guidelines for community transmission levels lcsd1 will be forcing students in mass i ask you have any of you viewed the map of the u.s on the cdc's color-coded community transmission levels if so did any of you notice nearly every county

165and the entire country is colored red states like new york washington oregon illinois massachusetts all of which have mass mandates for schools show every single county in the red perhaps the cdc guidelines of 100 or more cases per 100 000 people equating to the red zone is making things unnecessarily difficult for health departments and school boards to go forward with educated decision making considering that neither the health department nor the cdc are regulatory agencies perhaps lcsd1 should follow guidelines better suited to their population it has become general knowledge at this stage in the pandemic that pcr tests are neither accurate nor reliable for the diagnosis of sars cov2 on the physical test is written the following this assay sars kobe 2 is performed under an eoa from the fda and has not been cleared or

166approved the intended use of this test is for public health surveillance and response only diagnosis treatment or assessment assessment of patient health should not be used solely on the findings from this test did you hear that diagnosis treatment or assessment of patient health should not be used solely on the findings we also know that antibody tests are unreliable based on the timing of the infection i am willing to bet that if lcs d1 used funding to provide t lymphocyte tests for students and faculty long-term robust immunity would be found in nearly everyone covet has been here for two years it's not going anywhere and if these protocols work this virus would be a non-issue by now now let's discuss how there are school districts throughout the entire nation that have experienced copenhagen outbreaks despite forcing

167their students to wear schools all day every day since the first day of school san diego 81 schools in illinois 18 schools in michigan all with outbreaks all are messed and happened since the beginning board members the numbers don't lie and there are 97 121 people residing in laramie county as of today the cdc has listed 288 cases in laramie county that is 0.29 percent you are actively putting students parents and faculty against each other for 0.29 active cases of the population of the county this is insane i fully understand that covet is real it is a risk and can be fatal yet to make educated public health decisions we must consider these numbers leave medical decisions up to parents mass our medical decisions it has been directly demonstrated to you that mass effect respiration

168hypoxia hypercapnia anxiety etc this form of ppe comes with risks do you realize that you have students with lifelong breathing issues being forced into mass while participating in pe classes are you ready for the lawsuits that will hit you for making these decisions we know that this pandemic has affected us all very profoundly in different ways and this is why medical decisions need to be up to us i will leave you with this visor came out today stating that they have somehow decided that their injection is safe and effective for children aged 5 to 11. if the mass requirement for school admission turns into an injection requirement in lcsd1 hell has no fury like those that will stop at nothing to prevent that members of the board you can stop all of this right now

169leave the choice up to parents thank you thank you very much um our last individual to speak is mr jim barr jim are you on with us kyle do you see him okay then do you see him i'm sorry yes this is jim bark and you're here jim yes i'm sorry mr barr i wasn't sure if we had you or not so yes mr barr i can i can hear you now please go ahead good evening my name is jim barr thank you for this opportunity to provide input i'm retired military with nine years active duty service and 20 years in the wyoming army national guard i am also a retired educator my military background emphasizes protection of our nation's national security service before self and a fair balance between individual rights and the greater

170good i realize you are not a military organization but request your patience as i develop my logic and points if a military commander had intelligence indicating his enemy might use a biological weapon the commander would counter that threat if a vaccination would protect his soldiers it would be required that is currently happening in our all-voluntary military today if a soldier could not or would not be vaccinated secondary protective measures such as protective suits including masks would be used to protect the soldier equally important the ability of the unit to achieve its mission would be protected soldiers who were sickened would be isolated so others stay healthy performing their mission protecting the national security interests of our country my point is that the organization responsible for protecting our constitution our freedoms our national security must balance

171individual rights with the greater good must ask for service before self individuals with an extreme view of their individual rights are not required to serve in the military we give up their potential contributions in order to respect their values while still allowing the military to function effectively and protect our democracy true you are not the military but our public education system is equally important absolutely vital to providing unlimited opportunity to our youth maintaining our economy and protecting our way of life you the board of trustees are the decision makers the administrative commanders of that vitally important educational system like the military yours is also a voluntary system which of course does limit individual rights to ensure that thousands of students are able to safely and effectively remain in school parents who disagree with the science

172and the statistics who minimize the health of others they have choices video classes online schools private schools home schools lcsd number two which does not even consult the city county health department trying experimental rules to allow more free choice parents get to decide if there's where their students go but your decision is about the greater good of all the students enrolled in lcsd number one last year's covered mitigation was a proven success when you change that system the negative consequences were immediate and serious i applaud your quick reaction to the undesired covid trends returning to more successful policies thank you thank you i hate to cut you off mr barbat thank you very much we've expelled the three minutes so thank you um it looks like uh we do have there was a name that

173was not on my list and um so i didn't have the last updated list it looks like we have one individual amy harmon amy if you could raise your hand kyle do you see her i do not madam chair oh there we go okay miss harmon amy harmon if you'd like to speak okay thank you my name is amy harman and i am grateful to be able to address the board tonight although i do wish we were meeting in person like many i recently reflected upon the tragedies of the september of september 11th i also spent some time thinking about the days following the the attack i saw people continuing to risk their own lives to help rescue others our nation came together and there was a feeling of camaraderie as people from all walks

174of life and yes people from all races lifted and comforted each other to me that is the american spirit i don't know how long that feeling of caring and concern lasted in other parts of the country but i know it is still alive and well in wyoming and i sure hope it is alive and well in cheyenne i have a question where did you all learn how to read if we had time i imagine the most common response would be at school well we want our children in the district to be able to say the same thing written wisdom has no phonics program where it has been used in other places it is not producing readers why is precious learning time being spent on topics with the following reoccurring themes cannibalism suicide loathing of america

175distrust of one's family marxist philosophies of oppressed and oppressors grouping people into categories according to their skin color um what what has happened to parents rights rights to teach their own children their own values and their own morals i agree with the quote you cannot fight racism with more racism in 1963 martin luther king said i have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character look at how far we have come as a country i would just ask are you as a board are you trying to move the children in this district and the members of this community forward or are you trying to take us all backwards how many

176people how many children are going to need to be withdrawn from the district before you listen to concerned parents thank you for your time thank you mrs harman all right i'm going to check in with kyle kyle and um uh dr crespo that concludes our public comment list yes madam chair that concludes our public health thank you very much um at this time then we are um i need a um that will land our public comment and i would like uh trustee wiederspaund to make the motion we to go into executive session adam chair i moved to go into executive session at this time prior to adjournment for the purpose of possible student long term suspense suspension expulsions in personnel second all in favor say aye aye opposed no motion passes we are now an

177executive mission trustees there's a separate link that you were sent