SCPS School Board Work Session Meeting 09/27/2023

001okay uh good evening I'd like to call the shener County Schoolboard work session for Wednesday September 27th 2023 at 6:00 a.m. in the county uh boardroom to order uh do I I have a motion to approve the agenda I move to approve the agenda at 6 p.m. okay thank you Mr Guta do hear a second second second of Mr Keller discussion all those in favor say I I want to discuss oh who's that I want to discuss okay I just I'm sorry I heard discuss well I appreciate you guys moving the work session to tonight okay from from yesterday that was extremely kind and uh yeah so thank you for doing that anything for you Mr Kell I understand what's happening tomorrow that so and that's very important to you anyway all right we have

002a motion right I I thought you were seconded do I hear a second now I did second oh you did second but you had discussion yeah okay all those in favor say I I all those opposed motion carried by a second zero vote first on our agenda is Miss lton about student support specialist Miss Lon thank you chairman hle members of the board Dr Shephard another school board members School Board office members okay can everyone hear me all right there we go um thank you for this opportunity to bring you a review of our student support specialist program want to share some information with you and some stories with you and give you a a knowledge base of how important these positions are to um our schools and to our school division in 20 000

0032021 we're in the middle of Co try to erase those years from my memory but they come keep coming back and what an impact they have made on our children and our students and our teachers and our staff and at that time we were thinking as students were starting to come back into online learning and we were seeing huge gaps we were seeing in attention we were seeing students not attending we knew we had to do something different so for the 2122 school year we use car's funding to hire nine student support Specialists and these are our student support specialists in front of you one at each school we started the program we really didn't know what it was going to look like because it has to grow with your school division on in the

004needs of your of your school and your staff and your students and so we built the program from the ground up and we've been changing and tweaking as we go because needs continuously change but we knew that we had some basis to go with first of all we wanted to look at the the shandel County Public School belief statement because we wanted to Center all of our work around that what do we believe in our school division we believe that all decisions are based on the best interest of our students and every day our student support Specialists work individually with students and their families we want to have meaningful learning to occur only in the presence of meaningful relationships but we wanted to take that as step further not only are we making meaningful relationships

005with our students we're doing it with their parents and their families and their siblings we want to measure success the measures of success are unique and individualized for each learner you're going to hear that a lot it's individualized services that we are providing we want continuous growth and Improvement that is expected for everyone we want to problem solve as an essential skill and the student sport Specialists are problem solving continuously uh throughout the day as they come across many crisis little crisis trying to help the students and families we want to have an atmosphere of respect um must exist and one of our mantras for our student support Specialists and I say it over and over we meet them where they are you have to meet families where they are and then build up from

006that and the bottom I think is is crucial the education of our children is an investment of time labor and resources uh in our future we provide resources to help our children be successful So based on the chandel County Public School beliefs we said okay we're going to write our mission what is it that we want to accomplish well through a culture of care and respect the student support specialist will connect students and their families with services and resources that are address or minimize personal challenges outside of the classroom these are things that are happening to them outside of school that is a barrier to their success and that could impede academic progress in achievement of educational goals and we use this little triangle to kind of visualize if you will what happens every day

007in school we have to make a connection with people in order for people to achieve and that's teachers and students and staff and we know that teachers school counselors building administrators they all work very hard to meet the needs of the students all students in the building all the students the student support specialist and you can see lots of little arrows coming and going from the student sport specialist section because they work very closely with the building administrators but also with the court and Community liaison as people are going to court and they also work with um the Community Services Board through the fat process which we'll talk a little bit more about it in just a little bit but they are connecting lots of people pieces of the puzzle in order to understand where

008these students are coming from and what their needs are and so I want to share with you hopefully you've some of you may have seen this before this is maso's hierarchy of needs and we all know that the bottom level of this need is a physiological need I have to know that I have food and water in um a house some place someplace to rest and warmth for example right now if you didn't have your stomach is growling and you probably don't really care what I'm saying right now because your stomach is taking over so you have to meet the basic needs first before we can ever get to the achievement the second level is safety is is a student feel safe at home does the student student feel safe um in school and then

009once they meet those needs then it goes up then you can build some positive relationships because you don't have to think about you know where your food and water is coming from and then self-esteem comes in and then self-actualization and that means that student when that student gets to that level they know that they can succeed they know they can do the work they know they can be successful but if the other things aren't there it's a less chance they're going to be successful m l yes going back uh that first about the warmth and whatever how many our students are homeless approximately right now we have because I'm also the homeless liaison for the School Division and so right now we have 34 students who are classified as homeless there may be more because

010you have to agree to be classified that but right now we have 34 so the last time I asked that question it was what 19 last year that the beginning we we average around 70 students who declare themselves homeless every year for whatever situation be it um you know their kicked the they're kicked out of the housing um because they can't pay maybe the house burdens down so so they go to agencies in the county that provide housing that's correct thank you and we we um refer those out and a lot of and the majority of um our homeless population is living with a family member or friend I mean they're in a home it's not like they're living in their car living in a cboard box uh like we visualize when we think of

011homeless but uh they're living a sailing member okay thank you mm um one of the things we wanted to make sure when we uh grew the program was that they wanted everyone to understand they're not counselors not they're not trained as school counselors they don't do the same kinds of work as a as school counselor so I just want to give you a quick preview over the difference there um a school counselor is a certified licensed educator so they're education-based they work with all the students in the school um they do academic and career plan planning at the elementary level they'll go in and do lessons on friendship and how to be a good friend and those kinds of things they do provide some short-term counseling for students but if it's uh an intense um

012situation they're going to refer that out for a longterm counseling they collaborate with families teachers administrators in the community they participate in all the school-based student support meetings regarding attendance and discipline and academic success they attend IEP and 504 meetings when when asked to they do conduct some student needs assessments but they're really focusing on graduation plans and scheduling the classes to make sure students have the correct classes and all the correct accreditations so and they also conduct targeted group sessions for example if they have a lot of students who are having difficulty making friends they may have a lunch Bunch group that comes together and they're going to talk about how to be how to make friends and how to do relationships a little bit better and get along with their PE years on

013the opposite side of that is the student support specialist and they have a bachelor's degree in human services or education so some of them don't come from an education background but they work with targeted students and in those meetings that I was talking to you about earlier they will refer out so student support Specialists work with students who are referred by the school administrator and so everybody knows that this is an atrisk student and we all need to get on board in order to make sure that this student is successful um our main construct is what we call Family Partnership meeting and that is simply a meeting with everybody who's involved with this child um when we get a case that we spurred and then we'll sit down with the student the parent if there's

014any services in the home those Community agencies are there at the table and we talk about the strengths and needs of the family and then we create a plan of action and we continue to review that plan until everyone is satisfied that they're making progress they can connect students and families to needed Services they act as a resource to students during the day so and we'll talk a little bit about what their day looks like and a little bit they conduct home visits and we know that this is crucial to get into the home and see number one the living conditions what are the obvious needs that we have are we talking bottom basic needs here or are we talking disservices they conduct the student and family assessments they present the cases to Fat this

015is the funding source because Services come with a price they work directly with those Community agencies attend the IEP meetings and attend the school-based uh student support meetings as well so there's always input there they're an extra resource in the school notice school counselors student centered student sports specialist family centered I'm not only working with a student I'm working with the family and thus their siblings I'm trying to get all of them in a in a good place so we wanted to take a look at the what kind of impact the student sports specialist has had on students and we can see here these is this is some data points that we keep every year the number of home visits the number of Family Partnership meetings but I want to talk specifically about the cases

016that they have they are like a social worker where they will have up to 20 intensive cases lots of services going on in the home constant monitoring but they also during the day have these little miscellaneous cases and when I say little I'm I'm beling it because I I have student support Specialists who see up to 50 kids other students that they're pulling in doing a checkin checkout monitoring their grades monitoring their attendance touch and base with them if things aren't going well giving them the extra support they need so that they can be academically successful and so you can see in the past two years 522 students 497 last year that's down from the previous be sure cuz we already had established cases the first year we didn't have established cases we were just

017starting so the second year it's down a little bit because we have established uh cases so you know think about that 8.4% of our 5800 students touching a lot of kids also want to put a little note here that we started um outside agencies to come in and conduct uh counseling services during the school day because they couldn't meet or wouldn't meet their appointments after after school hours and we had 161 students who received that service so between the student support Specialists and the counseling services that are going on 11% of the student body receive some kind of additional Services beyond what we can have in the school the need is intense so you've heard me talk about Services Services what what what does that mean what kind of services are they getting please note

018that these Services is is all about prevention if we can do some small services at the beginning we can prevent this student from having to be outplaced or day placement which takes them out of the community takes them out of the school at a very Hefty price so what kind of things do they do well doctor's appointments intensive home therapy medication management I'm just saying a few you can you can read the screen but I do want to go back to maslo how many of those are basic needs food housing Dr Dent appointments basic name before we can even get to self-actualization so I do a survey every year to get the input from the school administrators how's it going how how is the school the student specialist working for you and you can see

019these are the questions that I asked and uh just want to point this one out especially how has the student support specialist reduced uced your workload and you can see the big jump from the first year to last year which is our second year we haven't done our data points for this year year that comes in October but they also work effectively with the school counselor and these the student sport Specialists are members of The Faculty they are part of the school Community U just like any teacher or staff member and so I wanted to give you some information or some quotes from school administrators because in this last year's survey in addition to those questions I also said if the student support specialist was not funded and that position went away what impact would

020that have on your school and so I want to share with you nine comments from the nine schools so you can see how important they are to the running of the school this one here says there's no way that we would be able to serve the kids in the way we are right now without this position as an administrator I do not have the ability to take on all these tasks and we do not have the Personnel to even spread these tasks out to be able to complete them in an appropriate manner the student sport specialist has been instrumental in connecting families to Services assisting with chronically absent students collaborating on home visits and providing an additional school resource for parents and students on the campus the work of the student sport specialist provides a

021tremendous line of support for school administrators and counselors if the student support specialist wasn't doing this work who would be doing it it has to fall back on someone or it doesn't happen without the supports and services of student sport specialist a growing number of students who require this level of mental health service will continue to struggle to achieve their academic potential and experience emotional difficulties that could affect their well-being and success in school if we're not ready to attend school in attend class that that will show if she was not here it would greatly impact the running of the school it would be a detriment to the school our excuse me our student sports specialist has been vital in helping bridge the gap between families and much needed services I don't feel our counseling

022staff would be able to absorb the added responsibility she's worked hard to build positive relationships with them them being families so they seek her guidance and assistance we do not have Personnel to do what she has done the families would not be receiving the support they do without this help this then leads to students being more successful in school because they have the supports needed to function in the school environment we have found that when a student support specialist goes out to the family and does a home visit it's a little less stressful than a schooled administrator going out or the treny officer going out they see them as an additional support they trust them and then they are able to open up more to them so that we can identify the services that they

023need another says that this would be a tremendous loss to our students and Community she works around the clock to connect families with community services and provide much needed support to help our students as be safe healthy and successful we hope through their work that we have more students being the more parents being engaged and students being engaged with u with the school it will add to the work of the administration and counselors if they were gone the SSS is vital for finding resources for students and families we do not have Personnel who could do this for our students so I think you can see from all the comments the administrators appreciate this position and found it a vital part of their school community and then lastly I want to talk about the impact on

024student in school Success and we look at these factors when we look at those success rates what is the attendance what's academic achievement student discipline and graduation rates we take a look at that data every year how does the um student sports specialist add to those well for attendance there's a lot of home visits if the kids's not here one or two days we're giving them a call and we're rolling out to the house going where's the student and how come he's not here because everybody has to be in school and they do phone calls and check-ins and checkouts um the schools create all kinds of attendance plans and they're part of those attendance plans for academic achievement they're monitoring grades they're communicating with teachers and parents touching base with the student saying hey you

025need to get this going you need to get this completed for discipline they're on the student support team so they talk about the at risis students they do a lot of deescalation during the school day you have a kid who's just angry about it all and so the counselor might be busy the school administrator might be busy and now they're going to go pick them up and we're going to deescalate and we're going to get you back to class we're not going home going to get you back to class that's our purpose doing all of behavior plans and finally they assist students uh in completing graduation requirements and last year our graduation rate was 97.7% and I think their work has had a big impact on that number so that's our program and we like

026I said we tweak it every day because we base it on individual needs so I wanted to share some stories with you but I thought you got targeted listening to me at this point so I wanted to bring up some student support Specialists we have Dorothy Herman uh with us and lindsy Ma and they're going to come forward and share some success stories I'm going to share four stories with you good evening members of the school board I'm Lindsay ma um I'm the student sport specialist at Peter mberg Middle School um today we have several opportunities of collaboration and joining with parents in the community that we would like to share um so the first success story that I want to to highlight is actually one of my cases um I began working with this

027student shortly after a close friend of his died under um tragic circumstances his well-being greatly declined due to this tragedy which also started to affect his schooling grades and attendance at the time I was able to connect the student to group and individual counseling however more intensive Services were ultimately needed every morning was a challenge for his parents to get him to school refusals which resulted in him staying home due to the parents working full-time job jobs he has two younger brothers who started to mirror his behaviors at home and in the school all three children were becoming physically aggressive towards each other at home which was more than than typical sibling banter um he's a very capable student he was failing almost all of his classes due to his attendance he also started to

028self harm due to being a unable to appropriately utilize his coping strategies due to the attendance concerns the student completed diversion with the court Service Unit but we were able to prevent the student going to court before the judge with the Community Based Services that were put in place I was able to put mentoring equin therapy and medication Management in place for the student although a slow start the student connected with the mentor and equin specialist and checked in with myself excuse me myself regularly at school he started to improve his attendance which therefore caused his grades to improve as well this school year his attendance has drastically improved and his grades reflect his capabilities he's able to advocate for himself in class and in meetings compared to before when he barely spoke he has

029stepped out of his comfort zone and has found an interest in Performing Arts where he will be applying his Newfound confidence his younger brothers have perfect attendance this school year and the parents report their behaviors in the home improving as well at the last Family Partnership meeting um the family vocalized not knowing where they they would be today had they not had access to the student support specialist for help and support I don't know if you want to give me a mic but okay hi I'm Dorothy Harman I am the student support specialist at Sandy Hook Elementary School uh which is at the northern campus um and I appreciate you all letting us come and talk about our jobs because we really do enjoy what we do um and we do like meeting our families

030where they're at that's really what matters but we were asked to give some stories so I wrote mine down because I sometimes can Babble so um first began working with a single parent of two children uh her kids were in first grade and second grade um and that was in August of 2022 uh one child was special education the other child was developing some behaviors in the school that weren't really healthy um there were concerns from staff um their peers uh and the school bus about odors of smoke and urine in their clothing and all their articles that they were bringing on the bus um they weren't coming to school in time they weren't able to focus in the classroom they were very disruptive the eldest one was also had a few ISS and OSS

031out of school subventions I think he had two and um he was an ALC a lot he was a frequent flyer um my first introduction with to them was to go to see why aren't they at home me why aren't they at school why are they at home so when I went to meet the mom I found out a lot of things um she had a family history of domestic violence um she and both the biological father had special education needs as when they were younger um and then also she was fearful of removal by DSS because they had been to her home because of the appearance and some outside reports um and she didn't feel like she could talk to the teachers her actual words to me was and I wrote this down because

032I forget things all the time um they know more than me and um I don't want to ask them for help so I were working with parents who sometimes are fearful of the school so I felt really good that I was able to get out into the home and talk to them so I you know linked her conversation and promoted her you know you have prental rights you need to be involved in your your kids education you need to be involved in this so um that took about two months of a couple home visits and her coming to visit me and so I'm just going to click forward to today so right now a year later both kids are now in getting special education services CU both children had diagnosis that validated additional accommod ations

033social services are not involved they have closed their case over a year ago um mother has moved to a newer and cleaner home and she lives by herself with her two kids so she doesn't have other family members around um she actually has a new job yes and the job allows her to have her schedule revolve around the children's school schedule because a lot of problems with our working parents is child care so she was able to acquire some new employment um she's receptive to teachers input she's even volunteered in the classroom this year she's going on some field trips we only had one um and I'm currently teaching a love and logic parenting class at Sano Elementary and she is participating in that um and both kids come to school they're clean they don't

034smell like smoke they don't smell like urine we had to get rid of a few cats sorry about that for animal lovers but we had to get rid of a few but they all found good homes um the behaviors in the school I'm not going to say they're gone but they're manageable the teachers are able to keep them in the classroom they're able to redirect them they have tools um mom is also helping at our giving day which we're having next Saturday you're welcome to come always always advertise too uh for um families in Sandy Hook and Sandy Hook signal knob and strawsburg high school um I just wanted to show an example of once giving parents some tools and some basic help and believe Bel and show that they have value um she was

035able to get back on her feet and actually excel in less than a year so she said she'd be here tonight but tonight is also our parent um what is it called parent night parent night um so she's there it's dead tonight so next our next story is from one of our fellow student Sports Specialists um at Mountain View High School so a student was actively suicidal she was referred to one of our students specialist the student had experienced tremendous trauma and refused to plan for her future because she felt she wouldn't be around to see it this student support specialist referred her to the local hospital for an evaluation and recommendations to assure her safety some of the behaviors that were seen in the school included the student being unable to focus in class

036not making friends and she could not relate to her family due to the trauma the student support specialist referred her to trauma focus in ecoin therapy and medication management the student support specialist met with this student weekly to assure her safety and well-being contact with parents was ongoing to assure continuity of care as a success the student is now a graduating Junior she has started her own small business and is planning for her young adult life these Services implemented by the student support specialist prevented young suicide um so this is a different family this is actually um two it took two student support Specialists to work with this family because four children were split between two schools on the noron campus but I'm going to share her and my story um so this is how

037I met this gentleman a single parent uh four new four children newly widowed unemployed financially unstable and having children who were reacting and acting out grief is when I first met him engaging and addressing the basic needs of this family was B was was priority we addressed food clothing housing income and safety and also had established a working relationship with his parent um he was receptive yet guarded because DSS keeps coming up but DSS was involved in this case um and there were fears that his four children would be removed um as as his wife had passed um it prevented him from reaching out he never shared anything with the school we didn't know what was going on so when they sent me out this is what we found uh I became involved with the

038children when they were reacting with behaviors in school and the home that were not manageable in the school the elders were often SE seen in ISS and OSS engaging with myself and the other SSS student sport specialist Mr X was able to open up and see that the school and Community was there to help him not judge him um Services of counseling mentoring Family Partnership meetings evaluations for the all the children grief support completing applications for social security benefits survivor benefits routine calls and visited has promoted a really positive working relationship with Mr X in the schools he is now attending his IEP and 504 meetings for two of his four children he attends parent teacher conferences he makes appointments for the children's doctor's appointments they hadn't been to the dentist since their mom had

039passed so we got that done this summer he actually enrolled the children in sports so now the kids have another natural so social support um in in uh Sports he obtained his driver's license and began to see the value of his involvement in the children's activities to dat all four children are still enrolled in school they attend regularly we have had no discipline issues this year so far fingers crossed right um his kids are bright they really appear happier um they talk about their Futures it was always about the past when we first talked about them now they're talking about what they want to do and that's where we wanted to go with them um Mr X is a parent whose children would have potentially possibly been removed separated or continued to experience more losses

040had they not been successful without the investment and willingness of you guys to allow us to serve them thank you thank you Dorth and Lindsay some great success there and that's just the tip of the iceberg we got tons of stories we can share with you making a big difference when at a time one family at a time but we know as we talked about these Services somebody has to pay for them that's that's a brutal fact we got we got to pay for it so who pays for it well if the parents have private insurance that gets buillt um we try to get uh parents that get Medicaid if they're eligible so that will help in our community services board through the fat um committee um does budgets and U identifies the funding source

041for us um we always want to I go back to prevention because we want to put little pieces of the puzzle out there with the family to prevent them from being taken by taking away by DSS or even worse if they're in a day placement or residential placement that will take the student out of the home could possibly take them out of the community and may even take them out of the state so we want to try to keep families together and putting in some some Prevention Services first we also know that if we refer out to our community agencies it's a 3-month wait time before they'll be seen well things are still going to happen in three months so if we can get these little prevention things happening while we're waiting then maybe we

042can uh not have to stay so long in the other pieces because all of that comes at a heavy price I'm just going to give you and these are true facts here true numbers um we have a student who's in a residential stay and it's costing us $74,000 for 3 months for him to be there whereas I could do do 3 months of mentoring service for 1300 and how much more can I do and how many more services can I provide if I took away that took that 74,000 and put it in prevention so someone has to pay but I think it's worth the money in the in the impact that it has on the student in the school in the community so again I want you to see the faces that are doing the

043work um they're touching lives one one kid at a time and making a difference so that students will stay in school come to school do their work be academically successful and eventually walk across the stage and get the diploma because that's what we're all about questions comments and question for Miss Linton please yeah how many um students from 2021 and 22 did you serve that carried over to this year I mean is there at some point a cut off where you say hey things are great and we're going to step out of here and we're going to let you try it on your own well it it varies because as students get better and they are using the services that they have and the families are improving and the students plans are being uh met

044then we'll bring in someone else so it's very fluid um student Sports Specialists have a maximum of 20 of the direct intensive cases that we told you about they can only have 20 of those but then the miscellaneous cases that we talked about depends on what the school needs I have some who have 25 I have some who have 50 now are we offering parenting courses things we're not at this time um Dorothy as she mentioned is doing the love and logic which is a great curriculum for parents and I highly encourage any parent to go through that but we haven't reached that part of it yet it's a good question thank you yes so um how um much stitching together do you do with DSS uh it would seem that there's a lot of

045congruity here and I could without wanting to see the outlier here um could could see a lot of these tasks being done there right ra rather than here well you have to know the criteria for DSS is abuse so that a lot of our work isn't abuse it's just that they don't have their basic needs met or they don't have the the skills that they need so it may start out as a DSS case but then they'll drop the case because it's beyond their criteria and but we'll continue working with the family and the student because they still need those Services they still need some mentoring or whatever in order for them to reach their goals so do thing just to add to is that sometimes with DSS when they close the case they know

046that there's services that might still need to be hell but they may not have Staffing or they may not have the um the resources to make those keep those cases because they don't like she says need the criteria so very often DSS may call us and say I know you're there at the school could you keep an eye on Johnny and reach out to Mom if there's anything else let us know kind of thing but once there is an investigation of abuse or neglect there's a disposition and then they typically close the case that's remarkable that I'm thinking how we can do better handoff there and it turns out that they're handing off back to back to us and probably greater numbers which is kind of scary although I mean very busy I'll tell you

047that yeah but um I mean what you guys do is incredible uh and it's it's it's so important um as you pointed out those those are not only is a great success story individually but uh that soothes the water for everybody else too cor keep keeping all those things down but it's just uh it's it's too bad I mean bureaucratically it's really hard to get a handle on this because it doesn't really fit the criteria of Education uh and yet and yet what you're doing is allowing more education to occur not only kind of indirectly with the the kids you're working with but indirectly with the other kids in the school who aren't um impacted that's correct by by this so so it's a it's a real kind of Phil opical dilemma it is it

048is it but the work is important and you know every child needs to be successful and that's what we're here to try to do do you have any cases that you've had to have law enforcement involved and we've pulled them in threat assessments the threat assessment threat assessments if we have students that maybe have are have said things that they're hurt themselves or somebody else we will come in and they help with that we also I mean I don't know about everybody but I know several of us have gone to the hospital with our parents sitting waiting to see why their child gets evaluated whe they're going to be wanting to residential or going to The Innovation hospitalization so I think you know I I heard what you said about the education component I think

049education also we're educating the parents that they have the ability to be involved with the schools too and I think some of our parents of lower economic social economic sometimes want the schools to take care oh I think never thought i' had to this they want the schools to take care of things um but really we really want the parents to be involved we want the parents to take the lead with their children's education too stand on this side well thank you all we appreciate your time thank you Miss Lon thank you for all you guys do and Lindsay now I'll remember who you are every time I see you I say I know you from somewhere now I know who you are and what you do so thank you thank you okay proceeding uh

05022 on our agenda draft the proposed Library material selection policy Dr H Gardner yes um as you can see on the agenda those policies from the last port meeting you requested to be at this work session so they're there for your all's discussion haven't had any changes um if so if we're Dennis I assume that we're not going to be engaged in debate tonight although we can't have discussion um I'm concerned that on the 12th of October we not wind up at 10:00 or 10:30 taking this on and then going to the the we small hours because it'll be a spirited uh debate so I'm not sure whether we should um get some of this done now or not but I do uh believe that what we one thing we should do tonight is take

051a look at any um perceived changes in this going into going into the um into the uh action uh agenda for next month and so um on that basis um I'd like to make a couple of suggested changes in the U the selection policy which uh which the policy committee has put forward um so I guess there's no way to is there any way to put these up Dave or we just uh no yes yes sir we okay for do you want me to make some can't put it up where it is we can all look on our own computers and I printed it out or we can just search this go to board docs on Google minut I I can send PD you should be able to click on on your computers if you

052have a computer to bring it up I thought he could pull it up from back there I'll tell you what what while you're doing that are there there are two probably two areas that I specifically want to point out so while they're while they're getting that technically loaded up let me talk about one that isn't um in uh but uh there have been um comments made that this policy if it's going to be uh effective should have timelines in them in it uh my feeling is that um a policy like this this the timelines and the phasing of it should be left to superintendent to the senior staff and to the school system itself in other words um when time for buys for the books come Librarians know what what time frame that is the

053school calendar what other things are happening in the school so forth so rather than include what would be artificially from our point of view a timeline um I'm I'm of the opinion that we not that we don't need to insert a timeline that um this is something that if it's passed that superintendent and the staff could work out uh that's what I think is an operational issue rather than a policy issue so now that wasn't my I've received that sest suggestion from several people and I'm I'm saying my reaction would be not to include that in the policy that we consider um so that's that's one thing um the um and I'll mention the second one before it comes up as well on the there is a um there was a section on weedi uh

054the periodic removal of Library materials uh for various reasons and there's only I I think in the um in The Proposal two fairly short paragraphs about this it's not um it's not very uh comprehensive but it wasn't meant to be it was meant to be I won't say a placeholder but kind of just a basic concept of what what weeding is so that um it would provide the operational um uh excuse me policy guidelines for how operationally weeding would be done um I think it's okay as a kind of an over overview of what weeding is even though it doesn't mention necessarily how things will be done I think once again that could be done operationally uh within the uh within the U the staff and and the staff of the Librarians so uh unless

055so if anybody wanted to take that out uh I would be amenable to that or if you think it's a good placeholder for at least putting weeding in there as a concept and leaving it there uh for guidance um I'm agnostic on that um so um I see Dave has already got the the uh the the paragraphs up for weeding so uh again we don't have to consider this tonight but I'm just saying uh if if if those on the school board want to consider what we do with uh uh with the weeding thing whether it stays there as kind of a general overview a policy overview or whether it goes away until or unless we do something more specific uh it just becomes um something that the um that operationally The Librarians and uh

056and the central staff would uh would work out under the under the the general rubric of this policy the one thing I would um I would like to change or U and since I help craft a lot of this um had to do with um uh the professional review tools um it's been pointed out to me I I don't know Dave if we can can we get that that that up there it's on it's on the um second page yeah there we go so it uh there there have been comments made that I have to agree with that uh the middle two sentences in there are pretty uh subjective Concepts that really don't don't add anything there and or argumentative uh so um I'm sure there'll be some here will be happy to know that

057I wouldn't mind striking the second and the third uh sentences under professional review tools it still would say um there are many review journals and web-based evaluation tools available to help in assessing books and materials but then it would skip down to the final um sentence that should be said that would say care should be utilized in selecting these reviews and recommendations and due diligence should be taken to develop and utilize a balanced and varied grouping of such resources so um so taking out the the middle two sentences takes out some of that subjectivity which uh is what I aimed to do when I did my last edit of this so those are the only three things um procedurally or or format wise that I would uh recommend and so U um I'm not asking

058you to change that it would probably be something we'd have to do by an amendment I'm guessing at the at the uh at the October 12th meeting I'm I'm not sure um but those three uh inputs came to me and and uh that's I just want to know what uh uh what I thought is uh one of the editors of of this uh this proposal so I'll just leave it leave it there comments so uh one final thing Mr chair um so I do hope that um when we um when we have this so if we're not going to be debating this tonight and I'm Not For a Moment suggestion we should um I I hope that we can have a a schedule that allows us to go give it its due attention uh and

059uh because it could be a long evening I think we are going to talk about it more tonight um okay I think Andrew had some ideas I have some ideas um I'm of I'm still of the opinion that that this policy as is is not not needed because we have a robust challenge policy now um I worry that if you have a challenge to books that we don't even have yet it doesn't give people the opportunity to review the books unless they purchase them themselves um the other sticking point you know if we do decide that we have to have a policy if if that's what everybody wants my second issue is with the the um the politically appointed committee I don't I don't agree with a board uh board appointed committee for review would

060your suggestion be of superintendent appointed committee again I don't think I need this policy we need this policy but if if we have to have a policy we have to have a committee I think it should be more of a um parent committee appointed by the schools um you know if it's a review of an elementary book then a parent from each of the elementary schools and a librarian and a principal's design something like that um so that it's so that it's true stakeholders parents involved in making the decision but again so you're considering each school have their own committee that looks at the purchases beforehand no no not each School each level so if there's uh a challenge to an elementary level book then it's a parent from each of the three elementary schools

061The Librarian from the school where it was challenged and somebody appointed by the principal right but we already have a challenge policy exactly but this is a policy prior to purchase right so it's something completely different right and so just a few points um I did some research this week um looking at um the term young adult um there are places such as um MIT um Psychology today um go there some other ones that right now escaped me but I have a list that pushed the term young adults 18 to 28 the American Library Association puts it at 12 to 18 so so that's one key of how we look at things I mean if you think that some of you here feel that a 12-year-old is able to make adult decisions be a be

062you know uh subjected to adult material okay um I asked for um a PO um well actually I was approached at the last school board meeting um I had highlighted Red Hood and I had a uh almost Moon and um almost moon when I was on vacation I couldn't find it on the list so I emailed the sheeper and I said will you please add this to the sexually explicit list she come back she said sure it'll take a couple days I got back off a vacation and one of my uh fan club members on my school board page um indicated to me that they could not find the books so said there's only one there so I emailed Miss sheeper and I got an email back um that I requested a copy of because

063the books had been removed and it from the librarian standpoint it read good afternoon when redhood by Alana Arnold becomes a conversation tonight on the school at the meeting please know I referred to Common Sense Media when reviewing my collection because it was given an overall rating of 15 plus I kept it on the library shelves and I emailed uh Tim Taylor to add it to this actually explicit contact books um on the web page since reading book looks um reviews posted on Mrs Ritz's Schoolboard page I weeded almost Moon by Alice SE bold from our collection this fiction book was published 16 years ago and it was in our collection before I became the librarian it was just brought to my attention and I was unaware it was a controversial book I cannot find

064any challenges to this title the entire Games of Throne Series has been pulled from the shelves this was a popular adult crossover series a few years ago but because the books haven't been officially challenged I don't know if they should be weeded or added to the sexually explicit list honestly I don't know what I'm supposed to do on this Ritz post the specific titles should I weed the books from the collection immediately should I put them on the shelf or wait for an official challenge should they remain on the shelves to be added to the sexually explicit list I want to be the best librarian for our school but I don't know what steps to take any guidance you can provide would be greatly appreciated so I asked again for um I forget which one

065it was the other day um and I got a list of Po that had a bunch of books on it um that showed up today for Red Hood and almost Moon and it came from a writer Guild that we collect books from or we subscribe to books we get a package of books the um the PO was just um you know young adult this or what crossover that um and we get these and I'm assuming I have I need to follow up that if there's something in there we don't like we send back but here again somebody else is picking our choices so when you look at um the book look or the um the site that was quoted originally I mean 15 plus were some of these books that once looked at said let's

066not so what's interesting to me is is that we can take we can order books from associations and we can that and lobbying groups and things of that nature um we can go to someplace online and take considerations for whether it's appropriate whether it's not appropriate yet we are for whatever reason just downright against having parents in this community who we serve their kids go you know what let's look at these books prior to purchase and if it's something that you know as we're helping to go through it because obviously everything that's in the library isn't known some of it's been there for a while some of it's popular if you hadn't followed the the the big thing um Senator John Kennedy out of Louisiana R gender queer and um aart from um um not

067all boys are blue I mean this has gone to National levels here where we're having conversations with Le with with legislators and the American Library Association has given several Awards to the book gender queer however the author come out last week and said it's not appropriate for kids so we have the Sarah Moss books which by the way are still listed at 15 plus on some sites now we the we had a librarian sit here and say hey they were re rated at 20 you know at adult we've got the Game of Thrones we've removed all those didn't know that her words didn't know that they were that bad we've got other ones that you know the Moon book as well as red as as um red whatever Red Hood didn't know it was didn't

068know it was like that I don't know what to do I have not ever asked anything to be removed they have been removed not a word said about being removed you didn't get an email I didn't get an email so what it looks like is when I hear a hear someone who works for us goes well you know we've been accused of manipulation I go well wait a minute here then I get accused of fabrication so the thing is is it seems like there is some struggle on what needs to be done what in my view is for the last year and a half I've been hearing hey we're professionals we have a master's degree plus 30 hours of of Education to to make these choices yet when I bring them to uh you know

069to light we remove them why if you're making choices for what goes into our libraries you should be able to defend those choices you should be able to say well this has this kind of value this this is why we what we talked about with a with a policy about um challenging it so we're ordering from somebody that's just sending us a bunch like Bark Box and and Stitch fix and all these other things and we're going yeah this is great we're letting somebody else pick our stuff so I don't see that there that this is policy isn't needed um we're spending taxpayer funded parents should have be able to look at that I mean when we did our POS last last month at the beginning of the month there was a $6,000 purchase for

070for books y six grand in one shot y the PO I got today was for four grand adds up it's the beginning of the year um yeah so all of the books that you've mentioned were already on our shelves so having an ordering policy doesn't address those books um so but the challenge policy does and we have the challenge policy in place I also think I think Andrew said this at a previous meeting I think that principles and Librarians are especially sensitive to what may be in our libraries now that maybe they weren't aware of before but now because of all the conversations for months and months they they're are going to be super cautious so and I have never never said that parents do not have a role in this parents absolutely do and

071if we decide we need to have a committee an ordering committee it needs to be mostly made up of parents and not random community members that's that's my point parents need to have a say in it I'm not opposed to parents having a say in that um stakeholders we have at this board you know struggled with what that what that definition is everybody play pays taxes parents we have grandparents raising kids they count as parents um you know um there was a majority of folks that spoke at our board meeting that didn't have kids didn't weren't parents and everything else and we've taken all their considerations in so you know if you are you know I'm not against having parents um on the on on the committee um but and you're correct I'm sure that

072we've got a bunch of librarians and I will say this not all Librarians agree that we shouldn't have a policy so we should be very careful of that that there are some that are okay with the policy um the word common decency came into play so we have to watch carefully lumping everybody together um even with the loud of folks um but I'm not against that but there is there this is one spot that there's there's no oversight there's no they can order what they want they can get what they want and I hope that they are looking forward to what they have and yes again what's in our libraries should be listed on as sexually explicit if something isn't we need to add it there's 102 right now um but there's a lot of

073spots to get reviews and things of that nature um it's a big task to look at $6,000 worth of books and go okay I think most of these are okay is there anything that I cuz the American Library Association pretty much thinks anything goes and that's what we take into consideration a whole lot of times that's you know the other places I've given them booklets thator which is a bunch of of parents it's not affiliated with any any lobbying group they're not you know raising money for anything other than they they took this this task up two years ago started a group where they're reading in entirety of books and giving them a rating showing where this is and where that's at it's not affiliated with Mom's for liberty no it's not no that's surprising

074no no it's interesting that moms of Liberty keep coming up you know it's listed by the you uh Southern Poverty Law Group who targets anybody that that doesn't agree with them um you know we got black lives matter burning black businesses in downtown um Minneapolis and they're not on the list so uh but these are moms who have pushed this up but no book looks is not affiliated with anybody good job I wouldn't necessarily say it's a bad site if it was I mean the American Library Association is you're run by an open Marxist that doesn't seem to bother anybody so um when I hear moms of Liberty or whatever you know I just kind of r that that kind of rhetoric just rolls right out of my head that's invalid so um you know

075if if you don't want the policy then vote against it well I think I but but I am I am interested in a compromise because if if the school system wants a policy if the majority of the board wants a policy then can we get a better policy can we come up with something that is a compromise this this is a very long document again I I think the first two and a half pages are not policy um it starts about on the third page but honestly I would like to see I would like to see something more in line with the suggestions that the Librarians made um the books they want to order monthly uh put up for parent review uh can be challenged and if they're challenged then they go through the challenge

076process much more simple than this respectfully Dennis Okay so we've opened up the debate and I'm going to pass around a sheet of paper that captured some of the ideas I tried to get this afternoon so we're in that mode I'll be very crisp going through this I'll pass those down to superintendent assistant superintendent please there's two there and there's some misspellings and some format problems here but yeah okay so I've heard quite a bit said the last couple of meetings about uh about how insufficient in policy and so forth so uh what I want to do is have my chance talk about what this policy is all about and I'll try to be succinct and CPS so so uh bear with me f first of all there many people said there there is a

077adequate policy there is no policy there's no policy um the um 2bd uh School librar says that books materials sufficient to meet research inquiry and reading requirements of the instructional program and general student interest therefore my number one uh policy merely requ requires that materials are sufficient to meet meet general student interest if you think that's a sufficient policy I disagree we need we need more more more than that in this day and age we don't even have an idea of how to how to identify what general student interest is uh I know one thing it's not it's not everything that everybody in that school wants no matter who that student is saying I'm interested in aerodynamics I'm interested in pornography I'm interested in whatever you know it is not our job in the public

078sector in the public school system to be providing every desire everybody wants every book it's ludicrous and and if we say that we're that we're Banning books to keep people from doing it if you let somebody get away with that I mean that's either propaganda or stupidity um so we have to determine uh what determines the general interests of the students what are its boundaries and criteria that's what policy is all about number two Library science does not provide a definitive body of knowledge for selection oversight they can call it Library science back in the day day when I was getting my degree it was social science it's not social sciences anymore it's social studies okay the library selection is not a science it's based on a bunch of appreciations it's inter disciplinary it's valuable

079it's really good that it balances a lot of things against each other but it ain't science and it requires interdisciplinary studies and dealing with classification with data use here's one we have our libraries are deficient in folks preserving knowledge we don't have much in our libraries in the way of classic books in terms of books that are scientific in orientation yet what we tend to do is we tend to go for what's popular and what's what's what's trending okay that is not raising expectations that's lowering expectations I mean uh one of our members talked about the fact that kidss like to read this stuff so it'll get them to read yeah you know what if we have to rely on pran interests to get kids to read They're not we're not reaching for the Stars

080reaching into the gutter is that is that really what we want to do to get kids to read our Librarians number three require oversight and they deserve it they deserve clear policy guidelines I wrote and followed policy most of my military life I was glad I had clear policy because it told me what what my boundaries were and what I could do I didn't take it at all as somebody trying to tell me how to suck eggs number four the parents are as as involved stakeholders deserve a voice in developing the library policy they're not an absolute they don't have an absolute right but they do have a critical role and I'm fine with making it parents or surrogate parents that's fine have to be careful with this a little bit and maybe it's Nuance

081because just because somebody has a senior this year you know it doesn't need mean that they're the only one that that that can do this but I'm certainly um I'm certainly fine with those with with with parents being part of this group I do not think that it should come from the schools once again we double back and we give the school the authority and we're taking the authority away from the parents what better way for those parents to be chosen than from the elected officials who the public elects is what we call democracy I'm worried that if we deny our parents that right uh that they may decide that if we can't keep decent books in a library or we can't keep garbage out then maybe this isn't the school system for them I've

082heard SE several people say you know people are going to leave if we get tough with the Librarians by by creating a policy I think we're in much greater danger of losing parents if we say we're not too concerned about the stuff until it gets in there and then it gets challenged and suszie Q finds it it's kind of runchy we want to get rid of it we can get rid of it then that's not very efficient it's not very it's not a very good way in doing business um I said number five the school system does not have the obligation to select books to meet every taste every interest the the words selection does not imply Banning but a necessary winnowing of an infinite number of books using a clear and cogent selection process

083that's all this policy aims at the school system stands as a governmental arm which transmit cultural norms to its students and future citizens School libraries for that fact and the fact that they deal with minor children needs to be attentive to holding to more stringent standards the fact is this when you send your kid to a school into that Library the kid in that Library the parent assumes that what they find there is going to be wholesome because the school condones it the schools selected it and if that's not the case then a parent may just decide you know what if if if they don't really care that much about it I guess I guess we need to go elsewhere for Education none of us in this room want to see that happen the the

084last bullet there is that the books in the library can carry The Unofficial imprimer the school system so if that book is still there it says something about who we are you may not like that but that's the case seven the re review sources I I I think bry's on to something here that uh the the resources themselves are are subjective they're often political uh and uh we need to do something about about it we we can say that we'll rely on these but they're just not reliable uh and um especially with the email you got back today from from Jessica which is a really interesting concept but I've heard it before I guess it never really registered with me we allow our Librarians to buy books and slugs and they don't even know what

085it is so that so the junior Guild writes back and says here's your 200 books and here's another 50 these are the ones that are selling these are the ones the kids like and we take them in and we put them in the library so it didn't even get on anybody's list they just got funneled in to us and we're doing a little happy dance because of extra books at no cost but they haven't been selected by anybody and suddenly I think that's part of the reason why we can't um uh what's the word inventory because we don't necessarily know what we're going to get much less uh you know what we're going to do with it if we don't know what to do with it um the current weeding and selection criteria as I've

086been reading the last couple of months is um inconsistent and arbitrary and so how to get rid of these books seems to be kind of up the subc of ideas of the individual Librarians uh number nine uh yeah we were told that that Librarians were kind of um all in in all in together on this um I don't know if you've ever certained that but that's an old British concept two of a trade never agree um because um I've heard feedback from several Librarians indicating that there is not unanimity on this issue and look we're putting them in a tough position like take taking sides here um but but the point is some of those guys are concerned about the decency issue too transparency are we really really afraid to let parents in a group

087see the books that are being ordered and have some sort of say into whether they think they're they're appropriate they don't have veto power they're not making up the list list in this proposal the people who make up the list are the Librarians they make up the list but the re but the re reaction to it and ability to take some off or add some to it comes as part of this group which again has two more filtration systems after that our current system as I've seen it ignores a key concept of Library science which is to preserve knowledge the first school that we visited in our tour I asked where the classic books are they said they're in the back room the classic books you want to get Moby Dick hey I want mie

088dick sorry that's a classic book that's in the back room I mean where where we come from guys I mean uh we need some some of the classic books and some of the stuff and we need Librarians to encourage people to read those Classics I mean haven't you ever I mean you know when you read about Ivan ho and and and you read some of the stuff about history and science and nature and you know get the kids going on that stuff instead of The Angst you know that that we kind of want to beat them over the head with every day no wonder they're they're U wound up in themselves we we don't give them any higher uh things to to uh to Aspire to or to find out about the current system uh

089tends to inconsistency i' on in the tour I no lots of different kind of shelving strategies and and different concentrations of books so U I don't know whether that's good or bad but um but but no two libraries are the same so they reflect personalities of the folks there I guess that's okay too as long as there there should be some sort of overarching policy that that that drives that and not just the uh you know the proclivities of the individual of librarian we do number 13 we talk about raising the expectations of our kids how do we do that by having Gothic novels you know um little glorified comic books which which which which is what make up of a lot of what they read um now a lot of what makes up our

090libraries I know it's part of the popular culture but shouldn't we be a little bit better and bigger than that than to just chase after what Tik Tok says or what uh Netflix says somebody said in our meeting I think we need to respond to the concerns of our stakeholders and the public this is a national issue uh I don't know how many of you watched but last week there were some pretty powerful moments when the senate had had hearings on this and it wasn't just the president of the Ala but it was the legal councel who said no they don't want to talk about promiscuity they don't talk about pornography they want to they want those terms kind of filtered through the words of inclusiveness and and and equity and inclusion because because they

091think that's the way to sell this stuff and I I think that's a that that's a pretty a pretty terrible tactic for them to kind of horn um shoehorn their their views into um into our our schools um I think our stakeholders are concerned about the national as well as the local declining morals and decency in books and media and if we if we say the parents don't deserve uh a bite at the Apple uh we have we have sent the wrong message that's it Andrew you got uh well yeah I told I told you that First of the Year Dennis and I worked together and came up with a u a a policy to challenge books that we um that we passed I think February May March and so I kind of continued that

092with with this Dennis can you keep passing on please oh I'm sorry I didn't have um it somewhat dovetails into that uh I'm not going to read the whole thing to you uh it outlines purpose and the guidance for selection of Library materials which I think is very similar similar uh to the to the policy dentist was was uh talking about the difference would be in uh number three the selection and acquisition process um in and in this the uh the Librarians the elementary Librarians would would meet collectively the middle school and the the second the high school as well and they would come up with a list of proposed books and um they would uh that they agree on uh given the criteria that is spelled out previously and uh they would they would

093uh take a look at this and create a final draft that they would present to the superintendent and to this board and then the final draft list would be posted on division website um how many days I don't know uh you know preferably for 30 if that could be done and during this time any stakeholder any parent uh could challenge a book that's on that uh that list um similar in similar ways that they would challenge a book uh in the library currently so um yeah you can take a look at that um you know I'm I I don't want to compete with with bry's uh policy uh I I offer this as a as a compromise I am not nearly as passionate about the the issue as you guys are um but same token

094I do think that it is uh it's important that uh our libraries are are are appropriate for our kids so um I like this the problem is that when we post something and say it's open to stakeholders nobody really gets the impetus to go in and look at a thousand titles and how to find them and how to read them and how to review them and everybody just sees it as I mean if if I read you right this is just open to stakeholders to do uh everybody's going to say well I got Kanas tonight I got the I mean nobody's going to get into it uh and if we don't have a committee that's dedicated to this so that they kind of meet they know where the review um organizations are they know how

095to kind of find the titles that are suspect this year or others are raising Flags about so so you have a little bit more um juice in this because actually because it's a group like any other group you know that that has commonalities and and and division of labor and stuff like that so that they can get to it if we just say there's there they're all of them if there's anything that bothers you let us know it's it's it's almost worthless because because most of these titles are not going to be you know the names of x-rated movies you know they're going to be pretty pretty subtle things that are coming along so then then then if I'm interpreting that right the the job of the nine members of this committee is to read

096and evaluate every book that we purchased no I think it's to look that over and decide how they're going to chunk it out and and well other the nine then but but it would be to go to review services and to see reviews and so forth so the take it upon themselves that's a that's a Monumental T it is and and and and and I I think the greatest challenge here will be defined six and that includes three people in the senior staff as well who actually um are going to be able to um come up come up with a way to make that work I agree that that that would be a difficult task and as I said and I at at the last meeting part of my concern would be that if you

097take volunteers then you're going to have two people that are going to be interested in that and that it would be ones that don't want to get rid of anything and those that want to get rid of everything um it's difficult for me to Envision complete subjectivity with that well and I don't think we're going to get complete subjectivity but I think with The Librarians developing the initial list I'm going to go back to one of Cindy's points from earlier if there's the knowledge that this group exists maybe they won't be as free wheeling I don't mean our Librarians but Librarians in general about just putting anything in there or putting in books that we didn't even order that we don't know what's there so it's going to create an expectation among the Librarians that

098this stuff is going to have to pass mustard so I think the the greater scrutiny will probably be done early on and just like with a review policy we'll probably wind up with less challenges in the long run because the fact that each uh uh stakeholder you know whether it's the senior staff whether it's the parents whether it's the Schoolboard at the end whether it's a superintendent the principles along the way each one uh sees this thing as as it's marching on down the parade and has a chance to make input and that's when somebody could say hey did you hear about that title that does this or or and somebody says yeah but there's a reason for that and I think we should stand our ground and and so it just it invites a

099kind of dialogue but I think I I think the process itself will um Tamp down U the kind of I won't say extremism but the kind of uh right subjectivity that that you know another concern of mine would be and this this this is somewhere on the peripheral I don't know if it's real or if it's just based on my experience that that I I'm concerned about this and that would be um I guess I guess that would be the Optics of in in by that it goes back to what you said I mean I agree that everybody nobody is beyond uh being evaluated and uh being held to task for what they do uh but I'm concerned about the Optics of creating uh these committees in in the message that sends not just to

100Librarians but to all our teachers and and whether that's real or not um how that's going to be interpreted uh you know and I would say that the Optics of isolating the parents out and then taking it back to a principal to select somebody uh is is going to be even worse because because the teachers The Librarians understand their part of a system in which there's oversight of everybody but when we go to the we go to the citizens who are paying for this and we go to the parents who have kids here the optic is saying you're not important in this or you're just not you know I mean we we had somebody in here talk about you know John and Judy's whatever you know kind of putting down these people like they don't

101have a right to be doing this I think the Optics of that are much worse one way to look at the other thing that that concerns me about the committee as written in the policy is putting it on the senior staff having three senior staff members I think I think they have a ton on their plates already and I worry that um I worry how they're going how they're going to do this in a way that is um I don't know how to say it if they if they make a decision uh with the majority they vote with the majority on something that the board then decides they're going to pull you know how does that reflect on them with the board I just I don't think that they need that task well take a

102look at what's happened with the uh with the review policy Chad organized group they got together in a matter of weeks they they went through it and they made a decision and that's the only book that's been challenged ever since so um I think I I think our our teachers as well as our Central staff actually um I won't say they like to be called on to do this kind of thing but I think it builds an amount of um of professional um activity in which they actually have input that actually forces them to meet with parents and this kind of thing happens and uh being able to task organize something like that is I I I can't imagine about time that um Hadad put into it but but it worked uh and uh you

103and if that's where we are that it takes just three members I don't think I think it's pretty extreme to think that if it finally gets to the Schoolboard the Schoolboard pulls it we're going to go back and say oh look what he did he made a mistake you know when uh when an Umpire blows a call at first and then video over overturns it nobody the next day says umpire so and so made a mistake it was just like oh we caught this good uh nobody goes back and starts pointing fingers I'm not saying that it would be considered a mistake but if they have the belief system that a book should stay or go but the board disagrees with them I don't want the board to look badly on them I think that's

104pretty far down to weeds and unlikely to happen Okay I just I don't I don't think Schoolboard office employees should be on the committee if we do a challenge technically that process is going to come into play or could come into play anyway I mean somebody could challenge it all the way to the school board um and all those folks that said no we should keep it could be negated right here it's the same thing I'm sorry let me go ahead Brandy I'm sorry did um I just want to say that I app appreciate that we've been talking about this for so long and and the work session right before we vote we decide to come up with something else you appreciate that sure um I do um you know I I Andrew respectfully what

105this banks on is exactly no one looking at it that's what it banks on parents not being involved parents going well you know until somebody comes home with drag Wings hips go swish swish swish in their in their 5-year-old's book bag um and all hell breaks loose and then we deal with that social media outrage and stuff and just so you know that parent she pulled her kids she's homeschooling that was enough drag queen hips go swish swish swish was enough for her to pull it pull them out so you know I'm sorry I do uh Andrew came up with this concept quite a bit ago and this was something that and I mean I disagree with the point but but but he was trying to come in with something that would that that would

106create the the the fill fill the Gap I understand and I don't think it works and he understands that I but but but I but I think it was it was certainly an honest and a a straightforward attempt to try to to try to round the South my apologies my apologies my problem is is that we've been discussing this we've been talking about this and line in line out for months and and we continue to and I would say that we probably should until we get it right now we can vote on it okay and whether it passes or not I don't know uh but the reality of it is is that I don't know that if we vote on it today that it's going to impact what we do right now okay now that

107is presented as a compromise that is presented as hey this is a is probably a little bit less than that uh again you know I'm not passionate about it and and and here's the thing and you guys know this this is the elephant in the room I'm not going to be here Marty's not going to be here Cindy's not going to be here okay I do okay so we I'm I'm putting that out there if you guys like it then that's fine if you don't that's okay too I don't know that I'm ready to go all in on on the other I don't know if I'm there yet I see some parts of it but I you know I'm not sure about all of them all right so I think that that that bottom line

108is that that we need to we need to make sure that our librar is appropriate uh we need to do it in a way that's respectful to our kids our parents and our teachers okay and so that that would be the criteria that I would hope that we would follow and if we're if we're having this conversation I don't know that we all feel that we're there yet okay and uh uh again you know we have 2 three months left on the board uh I want to be able to help out with this but if my suggestions aren't you know what you guys want to uh look at that's fine Andrew my apologies no I don't I didn't mean did that that sound like I'm not I'm not upset no here's here's my here's my

109angst with with it's not the policy it's the fact that we had this the last Poli time we tried to raate it took us 8 months eight months and for many of that we met and sat here did nothing there was I let's have input let's have this let's have that and at the last minute Andrew comes in and saves the day with a policy and then we co and it takes another two months whatever I I apologize if this seems like a i looking at this not so much as well you know it's a it's timing for me it's timing that this is presented let's wait on this again okay I'm okay to kick this down the road if if we can't come together and come up with something because what you're saying now

110is that this is a compromise we can look at it and if we don't agree with it then we're going to have to merge something and work on it yet again or you're saying this is either or and we're not you know we're not going to be here to you know we'll just vote it down you all can wait till January and put in what you want uh you know that's that's something else as well so I just want to know where we're at if you if if you're okay with this then that gives us two weeks to look at it and say okay well but then this has to go back up on the thing and we have to have the whole process start over where the public has to look at it cuz

111you know that's where we were at last time this is a this didn't go up so you you know we can't vote on it in October because it's not posted for anybody to view it so we're we're kicking the can down the road we could we could we could amend it but I mean but interest little to this idea before I told him doesn't work for me so I I already know you know how I feel about that particular point to me that's the Lynch pin the Lynch pin of this is telling the parents we want to hear what you have to say that's the Lynch pin for me and if we say check out the list of 2,000 books that we got posted that's not the answer that's that's Barlo so that's just the

112way I feel um I did want to respond um I don't think I answered uh your question Cindy but um when we do these policy things and we we run them through I I go to both the superintendent and the assistant superintendent and I ask and this is part of my Pentagon training is this a policy that you could Implement with your your staff I do not say you agree with or disagree with it but is this something that you can accomplish with your staff and I have not put anything in front of you as the board that that the U superintendent hasn't said it's something that we could do so I just want you to know it it's um that was my Concept in Pentagon whenever I went down range and talked to the

113operators I wanted to make sure they could do it if if it became policy and I that's I I feel that's that's a good thing for for us to do as well so um so if if there's ever uh anything in the in the staff feels that it's a showstopper or a problem for them uh I I am very very uh happy to to receive that Fe feedback and I think the superintendent knowes that so anyway Cal you any comments we haven't heard from you to see even yeah I've been a little quiet you all have done a lot of the talking but um I'm still kind of where I was previously I think that we need a policy I'd rather get out in front of the issue instead of waiting for it to become

114an issue um the speed you know we've made a lot of tough decisions over the last two years as a board and you look back on them um but the one thing I think we've really struggled at is the efficiency and this is another example um it's frustrating the speed of some of these things now I get it takes lot of discussion and um public input but you know now for this to be getting down towards the end of the year again and we're it's like Congress it's snail speed um definitely frustrating but yeah I'm in support of a policy to get out in front of the issues while still respecting the Librarians yeah and I think when you talk about speed we could do it with speed but I don't know that that equates

115to efficiency um I'm be honest with you I mean three of you guys were elected in part because you wanted to make sure that parents had an adequate voice in education fair enough sure okay y that issue was not even on my mind when I ran for school board in 2019 it wasn't I mean I don't think it was on anybody's mind so I completely understand and I get the need to include parents in all the processes okay I don't know in in in my career I don't I've never thought that parents weren't I guess is what I where I'm going and there seems to be this narrative now that they're not uh again I think it's more National than it is so well I think it's National as well as local but I just

116want you to understand that well I think that's a really good point but then you ask why is every Everybody engaged now it's not because they said oh yeah we just like yunan and we're going to do what he says it's that these things are happening I mean the things that bry's been reading to us and the things that Senator Kennedy's been bringing up and Senator Lee and and what the again the Marxist leader of the Ala who has $24 million to distribute this stuff it's having its impact and there are people around the country saying gee it shouldn't be and then if it gets to you know eighth grade girl you know parents seeing what she's what she comes home with or some guy with some of the pictures we've seen in here we're

117saying they're saying we never had to worry about this CU it never happened and now it's happening to us and so I I think it's not just the fact that it's the political idea dojour it's the idea that it's actually on us I mean it's having an impact in our schools it's having an impact on our parents I mean the parents of our kids who've decided to homeschool or take their kids to private school it's having an impact on our SK school system and it's not just because again because it was political it's it's because this stuff is really happening Mr chairman to address something that Mr Barlo just said and I I'm not I'm not doing this to start an argument but several of the things that Brandy read at our meeting meetings are

118not in our libraries they're around the country the senator do Senator I'm sorry I'm interrupting you go ahead I'm sorry breathless was not in our libraries Court of Miss and fury was not in our libraries gender queer was not in our libraries you know those photographs that were sent around by email they're not in our libraries so yes some of it's happening and you know she mentioned uh Game of Thrones and something else yes but so if we are going to we need to be believed when we say these things so um what we need to be careful of what we say is in our system because some of these things are not so you will agree that these books have had their impact throughout the country and the state of Virginia not these books

119yes well I don't know about those books but like um spot had like about a 100 books that were considered to be pretty offensive and and and they're out there and they've happened around the country so don't we want to keep them from from from now I think some of these probably were here and now we don't know where they went it it looks like it's I don't think we have a good policy for I'm not saying I'm not talking about which one would be happy to pull 102 of those explicit materials and start reading we can have reading hour or reading 10 minutes every time we come into this room I don't think we wait wait a minute here now yeah we do because see here's the thing gender queer I have the PO

120for it it was in our libraries it didn't get on our shelves because they realized what it was do you know that I caught that book with a librarian no I didn't it was before I went came into office I emailed Mrs Shepard I can give you the they pulled it when before it had hit the books because Miss because Miss Gibson hadn't looked at it it had just come in but it was showing in our inventory it's how I found it C of and fury in the in the Moss books were in our possession I have that inventory as well I also just read to you and emailed where everything that else that I have read has been pulled from the Shelf without notice because they they're afraid of you they should be afraid

121of me they are they're afraid of being run off they're not about being run off Cindy we need to have some decency when it comes to this what's amazing to me is I just read to you an email that says I don't know what to do they're sexually explicit now they've been rated you know what you pulled them I didn't tell you to pull them you have told me a time and time again that parents are are unqualified never said parents that's a lie that's a never said parents however never there has been folks in this room use that term because they don't have master's degrees they don't do this they don't do that we've we've ushered we have uttered those words again and again the fact that you want to say these things aren't

122in the and and L you know doubt to my credibility I take offense to I do that's that's fine strongly okay I'm not going to apologize for saying that the things that you read and presented as being in our libraries are not in our librar you can say they're no longer in our libraries not in our librar no longer in our libraries and I have no problems doing the research and continuing to read them none that's fine with me you want to spend your time doing that that's certainly can okay and then you can say well they were here I don't know what happened to them and then I can ask for a PO on them but to insinuate that they weren't here and to call me out like that I don't appreciate I'm sorry

123I'm not sorry that I called you out I'm sorry that you're upset that I called you out Cindy you know here's the thing you have uttered things in this in this room that have been completely untrue before and that's fine I almost have gotten to the point that I expected anymore when you get to a point that you don't get exactly what you want however I was slightly offended because we've been talking about this this could have slid into anybody's inbox in the last two months and said hey we'd like to bring this to the table and and actually come up with something else can we discuss this can we do this can we do that I mean we didn't have a have a work session last month okay I am going to to read

124this and consider it this doesn't I'll be honest with you I'm kind of like Dennis why would I post them all on the on the website and hope that somebody looks over them and then put them through I mean we what we could do is if you if you don't want to put it on the front end then we'll create a p you know a bunch of folks that they'll just start reviewing it and we'll go through the process of challenging all of them there's 102 of them then you're then you will have that I do not want that and I think that if any librarian comes to me and says I've got this this background in this you should be able to tell me exactly why you feel that it's okay to be on

125the Shelf you should defend your choice here and when you come to me and you and get an email that says I didn't know it was here I didn't know it was that bad I didn't know whatever okay I don't think that's a good look Librarians either okay I I will say at the last meeting I was I was ready to go through Dennis's policy line by line and I said that that night but nobody else wanted to do it well no wait a minute that that is ridiculous I we've had this on the table for six months I've been asking for line in line out go you can look at any one of the meetings of last 3 months I've been asking for line in line out and what you said was there so

126many things I don't know where to start it's 80 things quote from Mrs W and here's yeah well where's the line in line out that you you've been promising for six months not one word from you because because it became too much of an issue for me oh it's too hard I worked on it for eight months and didn't get a word from you you know what I got here's what I got one person speak why should we care about what some 75-year-old guy in new mark Market thanks what I got I was trying to say a non-parent and I used a bad example and I apologize for you didn't use a bad example you used me no I didn't I was actually thinking of a different guy and I'll give you his name after

127that lie would make Clinton blush I will give you his name after the meeting in private who I was thinking of okay um uh the uh Andrews uh uh document will be posted online tomorrow no there's no point in it excuse me there's no point in it oh you okay you do not want to be considered okay so we got the policy uh that the policy committee has before us and we will vote on it in October it's on the action item and I have I have a question though for for Miss shephard I I I appreciate the asked if if we have this policy can you implement it did you ask what kind of policy the superintendent would like to see no no no and I'll tell you it's not it's not our job

128to put that burden on her she runs the operation it is not fair for this organization to come and say what kind of policy should we make that you'd like to see I think it's fair to say if this is a policy could have be carried out and there's a big distinction there okay and else I do have a mechanical question I hope it's a mechanical question so um so Dave if um if I wanted to take out those two lines that I talked about uh could we um make a decision to uh do that now so that it would um be cleaner when we present it or do we have a problem with that not being enough time and so be cleaner if we did a um an amendment at the evening of the

129board meeting I think it's still a draft I mean you can change the draft up until you've said it in front of all of us um so does anybody have any objection I mean the only thing I would do at this point is request that you take out those middle two lines from that one I think that's quick and easy and unless somebody specifically requests that either a timeline be put in or the weeding be taken out we'll leave that alone and if we do have to deal with that we'll deal with that in terms of amendments is it okay any other discussion on 22 we're going to 23 accreditation of 2324 by Mr hensle and Miss Proctor do you want to wait for Kyle or do we want to go go got it okay

130so we're going to talk about about our accreditation and where we're at uh so we're going to talk about our accreditation status we're going to talk about uh where the vdoe has us and we're going to do um an overview of all of our performance all right so keep in mind the results from this year are taken from last school year the Year of 2122 and the year of 1819 and then we also this clicker doesn't like me there we go we also um will use growth assessments as part of our accreditation for grades 3 through eight keep in mind that means High School doesn't have any growth indicators counted into their scores all right so we get levels levels one two and three green yellow and red and we're going to go over what

131each one of those means so level one green means that performance meets or exceeds the state standard by using the best of the current accumulative three threee rate or the current year rate is in the level two range and performance demonstrated adequate improvement from the previous year so basically there's a reduction in the failure rate um would get us from a yellow to a green um and then for the action that's needed for a level one school or for level one performance uh they just have to do the regular school Improvement plan that we do uh every year and just update that level two this is near the standard or we're improving this performance meets a specific range using the best of the current or cumulative threeyear rate or the current year rate is in

132level three range and performance demonstrates adequate improvement from the previous year so that would be again that reduction and failure rate um and so again for this plan you just have to revise your multi-year plan your school Improvement plan um and continue to work on getting those indicators to the green and then level three which is below the standards the this is where performance meets a specific range using the best of the current or cumulative three-year rate or performance has stayed at a level two or level three rating through four consecutive years and in this situation schools uh would have to do an academic review conducted by the Virginia Department of Education so we're going to start with Elementary uh so we have honey run Sandy Hook and Robinson in that order uh the last

133column in each one of those boxes is this past year's rate uh scores and so you can see we're in the green uh in almost all of those areas uh with the exception of chronic absenteeism we're in the yellow across all three schools at the elementary level for chronic absenteeism uh we also had a decline in our scores and at Robinson and Virginia studies and um so that also is in the yellow um um we also continue to struggle in the area of students with disabilities in that subcategory in Reading in all three schools and then uh math at honeyrun and at ww Robinson so I'm going to do the middle school and high school if you look at the at the middle schools here uh for the 2223 we had several schools that met

134it in English and math uh we have one school that did not meet obviously uh Peter milenberg you'll see later because there are two areas in which they are falling short in English and science uh that they'll be accredited we're anticipating they will remain in accreditation because these are preliminary numbers uh accredited with one basically so and you'll see the same thing as what Jennifer was talking about uh students with disabilities tends to be an area of focus that we need to work on um but we do notice that when we are struggling in the overall category most of our subgroup is struggling which means it is a core academic issue that we've been working on and I'll be able to show you that in a little bit in the slide here a little bit

135later where we make some gains in core and then we kind of settle and don't move and it we have to identify again and move at high school you can see as far as English and math uh we're doing a little bit better than the middle schools uh the one thing that I didn't see on the last slide should have is that some of those colors aren't and the numbers aren't totally yellow and the green is not like a really bright green and that's because they met that r10 or that or met it by the average to meet to be stay at that level one status so at our both our middle school and high school we recognize that we need to do work in history and science and we started that this past summer

136we started meeting with our science and history teachers um and working on creating common curriculum common materials that the teachers can use the other thing that you'll notice is that the chronic absenteeism U that is something that has called us and we're anticipating strawsburg to be accredited U with warning because of with conditions I'm sorry with conditions because of chronic absenteeism uh the College and Career Civic readiness you'll notice that that is coming into play this year where it wasn't counting against us before this year it's actually in play and you can see that Mountain View is good right now um strawsburg High School is nearing it you have to have an 85 and Central is at 78 in order to reach that um you have to have student body that either take AP doing

137roll courses that they're meeting that their CT finisher with a credential um or they work-based learning experiences are completed um or a service learning experience is completed one thing that has CAU us is that the state made a little change last year during the year that has to be within that year so we're adjusting to that change of the state so let's look at all the pass rate of all the students um reading math science history I know it's kind of a busy graph starting on the Le hand side you'll notice in 2020 uh to 21 we made a gain uh um so did the state in blue but from 21 to 22 we remained stagnant as did the state so we didn't lose ground but we didn't gain ground so we're not we're obviously

138not happy with those results we want to get better every time math is the next in at 2021 you can see that we made a huge jump in math and met equal with the state and then uh this past year we actually went 1 percentage point point above the state so we continue to climb and I have some uh numbers at the end that's pretty interesting with our gains science you can see that was low in 2021 it's it's going up but it's not anywhere near where we need to be and we know that and that's something that we're currently working on um at the middle school we are actively working in groups but we're also coming together now once a month and providing teachers a PD opportunity to work once a month also on

139their curriculum and their assessments so history we've remained stagnant across the board um just as the state has so it's about going in and seeing where are we not performing and where do we need to make sure that we make changes in our curriculum to move forward writing at the eth grade um has not been really good and that's obvious in our numbers uh but you can see that from 2122 we did make a good jump uh no where near where we wanted to go but we improved more uh than what the state did the state actually declined during that time while we gained so let's think about the so test overall so when you think about Shandon County this is back to 2015 last year we were really excited because our rank in 132

140divisions we were 85th this year we're 74th that that's a huge win for us and if you can see that this uh ranking uh in 2023 it's been about 10 years that we've been at close to this level so we have been making ground we're steadily improving we know that some of our growth is not as fast as what we want and that's why we're focusing on specific areas uh specific content so if you look at all the content this is a lot of numbers but I wanted want you to be able to see from 2011 to 2023 where where we rank in those 132 divisions across Reading Writing history Math and Science on the far right hand side it's in green for 2023 what's in green is where we improved over our previous year

141if it's white we stay the same if it's red we decreased whether one one um position or multiple as you can see history is an area that we need to focus on because we did decrease uh we know the science is an area too because we're ranking a little bit higher but it's a positive that we are constantly moving in the right direction and that that's a can we contribute that to our teachers the hard work that they put in every day our teachers work really hard oh and another thing I want to say with this so um what's interesting about this that you don't see and I was looking at the numbers um looking up our division we were top 10% rank change in the state so the rank change that we made in

142our state we are in the top 10 divisions that did that that made the the best change we were the top our division was the top 18% in school Improvement in the state so our Improvement was in the top 18% uh our algebra achievement was in the top top 6% of the state and then our sixth grade um which is improved in math was in the top 20th per. so base algebra and six group grade since 2011 that's the best that we've been so we're making strides in the in the right area as we move forward and I think sometimes that gets lost in the data when we look when we look at the colors and the numbers that we don't really see the growth that's really happening because our teachers are doing great jobs

143moving kids where they need to go so what does this mean for us uh so as you can see all of our schools are going to be accredited um Peter milenberg and strawsburg high school is going to be accredited with conditions so our schools will be accredited we have two schools and strawsburg high school is The Chronic absenteeism is what theirs in and Peter milenberg is focus on reading the the English and the sence questions I know there's a lot of numbers colors it's and history is a part uh the sols those scores um they are a part of the accreditation process not for the state not for the state but we still measure it still measure because it's important that our students do well in so I guess my question is is um what

144is it that has caused us to be there in history is it a lack of and and where do how do we improve it I mean is it a lack of going well I can teach what I want because it's not a part of the accreditation process is it you know um not teaching to to the state standard is it our curriculum what what is it that we need to look at to improve It's a combination of a lot of things um a combination of everything that you kind of said right there um but the big thing on making the growth is really and what we've really focused on is really looking at the curriculum what the state expects us to teach and what they're assessing and what the students have to do with that

145material and making sure that our curriculum our materials are aligned and we're asking the students to do those things at the same rigor that the States asking us to do it so that's where we're working on teachers that um like for example we had a teacher that had around an 85% pass rate in history we've captured all of her curriculum in this work into folders that every teacher now has access to that in our division so we're capturing things that we know that work work really well and we're also right now in the process as we move forwards for the next 5 months we're going to be looking at common assessments so that we have common assessments that teachers are giving so that we can if we make a change then we look for an

146impact of that change but if everybody's doing something different and we make a change we're not really sure what what works so commonality of things helps in that process um are we at any point when looking when we review teachers uh performances and things of that nature what they're past you especially our our history um are we having those conversations at the at at you know at any point to say you know your pass rate on your SOS have been trending here what can we do to help to get you to hear or you know having those active conversations I mean there's there's no improvement I mean especially BR Street you seem to be moving the the needle every place else yeah so um yes answer is yes the principles do that um at the

147school level uh we talk about in our meeting that we met as a group we spoke about that but U we're part of CIP which is a Consortium that gives us a lot of great data that that we had on that but it breaks it down for teacher for us too so the principles can actually see by teacher how how each teacher is performing within the so test but also when we do the CIP benchmarks after the quarter they take a benchmark or Midway through the term at high school they take it we can see how each teacher performed so that we can go back and then have discussions directly and see why didn't you do as well maybe as someone else and it's not necessarily A punitive thing is that sometimes we figure out

148in another class something different that we're doing curriculum that can be added into everywhere else so we did some work this summer too where we brought our history and our size teachers in to you know to look at their because there may just be one history teacher at a middle school that teaches sixth grade history so brought them in so they can collaborate right and one of our big initiatives there is that especially at the middle school she mentioned is that because you have one teacher that's why we're doing uh half day PD day that we're getting a sub for them so that they can get together and be able to talk about their curriculum what's working what's not working and also be able to work on assessments also and have discussion where they may

149not have that peer within their building I was you know you have students that have anxiety about taking tests the SOS are a huge huge thing but when you can see that across the board it's history is you're thinking is every student having anxiety about the history test you know what what works and what and what doesn't yeah usually when you see within the subgroups also along with the main score it's it's a core issue it's what we put in front of our children and how we adapt that to our students it's each class very good nice job thank you so we're still um teaching fifth grade is still shanida County history um the state has changed the uh the progression progression but we we've stuck with uh continuing our fifth grade chida County history

150and we're going to do it as long as we can we think it's important is fourth grade generally Virginia history Virginia Yes Virginia studies so in that that curriculum we are you're familiar with it because you help work um that is all together now and we're working on putting it together more professionally and actually putting it in to a book for each of our fifth grade history teachers too CH have one question uh at Northport the e8th graders are there now correct yes okay uh when if students they they are offered Algebra 1 do they offered in North Fork or do they go over to Mountain View to take the class well it it depends if we have enough and we have someone can teach it at the school we'll do it there if not

151they will go to the high school which right now they go to the high school so that would alleviate uh the gentleman that spoke about the high numbers in in math he's teaching with almost 2720 Mr Woods was it so he's he's not teaching algebra no so that those algebra students that are taking it this semester would go to Mountain View yes well maybe some of those this is just my thoughts maybe some of those could qualify in it to reduce his lines if they're marginal would be successful in algebra one so we have a new um tool it's called Vios that is predictive that will allow that will give us the um the understanding of whether a student is capable of passing number one so we um Chad and Jennifer just were just trained

152on it a couple of weeks ago so we'll be able to use it in future years I mean that I I I have an eighth grader who was on the bubble and is struggling in algebra this year so I'm just about the numbers he was concerned about yeah I mean it's almost 27 across the board three classes no it's true it's true um anyway I just idea with the right teacher you know he can teach them anything okay any other more questions for Miss Proctor or Mr Hensley okay going on to two4 the cares fund Miss proor you're up again I haven't had to talk to you all this much so we just wanted to give you an update of where we're at in our car's funding this is the last year of our car's

153funding um and so we just wanted to give you an update of where we're at so cares one that's the amount that we had um all of those funds have been spent cares two there's the amount we had um we've spent all of those funds cares three um we got 8.1 million um we've only have 2.8 left to ENC um encumber but all of those funds are allocated and earmarked for things for projects um actually a lot of salaries which we'll talk about in a future slide and then HVAC we got um about 1.1 and we have about 74700 but that also is earmarked for J uh projects it's already actually um they're all en all of those funds are encumbered we just haven't sought reimbursement on them yet because the projects either haven't finished

154or we're still working on the salaries uh so just to give you some highlights um and you have this that you can go back to it it'll be in your board docs but we just wanted to give you some highlights of some of the things that we used uh some of the money the funds how we purchased things with those funds so so you could go back and look at those things um so you can see lots of PPE meetings for special Edge students um that first summer that we shut down because we were going virtual and so IEPs had to be changed so we spent money on that um programs to assist with the virtual world touchless number pads um sanitation supplies Chromebooks for students Chromebook repairs webcams uh cameras for virtual competitions and

155laptops for teachers uh you'll note that all of those funds mostly were used for uh material types of things not really put into any salaries or anything like that um that was the very beginning and we did not know how long we were going to be in this conundrum of coid and cares so then cares 2 came along and that was when we introduced the nine student support Specialists that you heard about this evening uh we changed our nurse coordinator from part-time to full-time we moved a fine arts teacher from part-time to full time we had three pair of professionals at the elementary level we used a large sum of money to revamp our summer school um and to offer also incentives for our summer school teachers at that point uh because teachers were feeling

156really burned out and we wanted to incentivize folks to help us out in the summer um we also used it for fuel uh so that summer was also the first summer that we went to door-to-door pickup for summer school we used to have um like group stops and so we moved that to incentivize kids to come to summer school as well um we used a large part of our money for programs such as brain prop and Camy and different things that would help teachers um with students and Community hotspots and internet for families and of course PPE and disinfectant um and then in cares 3 all of those positions that we funded in cares 2 carried over into cares 3 and then these are some of the other projects that we funded in cares 3

157um you'll notice lots of HVAC projects there uh we purchased nine buses and then also help support the uh Outdoor Learning space that got happened at Mountain View High School that got opened up this year and if you haven't had an opportunity to see it you should really check it out um it's a great opportunity for our special needs kids at Mountain View and actually the kids from Honey Run also walk over and I believe maybe even North Fork as well they walk over and use that um space as as well so ribbon cutting on that is November the 1st: and M High School um and then HVAC these are also the projects that are currently uh being worked on or have already been completed but again lots of projects that had we not had

158these cares funds I'm not sure how we would have gotten some of these done um so we've been able to make a lot of great strides in some of our hvfac issues in the division but seems like we still turn around and have others so um so that was our HVAC and that's it do you have any questions questions spending that kind of money would go so quickly I'm sorry what I said did you think spending that kind of money would go so quickly um no but I'm glad that it did it's a lot of paperwork yeah any other questions uh if not uh jining the meeting at 19 much plus or minus