001good evening everybody this is Monday February 24th uh beginning at 5:00 p.m. this is a special meeting of the Gren Board of Education policy committee um which I would like to call to order I'm going to we are waiting for our third member to arrive before we get into the substantive business but I think we can review the minutes to to start that now so if uh we do have a quorum Andrea aan and myself and we're waiting for me and Thomas so we can have a full committee uh would you have you had a chance to look over the minutes of February 6 I would you like to make a motion to adopt them and I will second that motion is there any discussion on adoption of the minutes of February 6 hearing no
002discussion I'll ask for all those in favor of adopting the minutes uh February 6th without amendments say I no I have to move I I okay we have two in favor none opposed none abstained the minutes are adopted the new business is going to be discussion of the current policy 4118 point11 two and 51 45.5 the prohibition of sex discrimination as revised in January of this year and um and I would like to uh not necessarily um stop the meeting but I'd like to stop the conversation and just wait patiently to give our third member a chance to join us we'll give him another five or six minutes and if he's not here then we'll just move ahead would it be helpful if Denise talked about virin and roses and the recommendation no I I
003want Ian involv in the entire entire just as a this is a um okay so we're we're not in adjournment oh Ian is on uh I see Ian is on has he been promoted yet to be a panel it's he's joining right now okay Ian good evening yes I'm here hello I'm just in transit so I understood we engage the best I can I understand we waited for you we didn't what we did was we adopted the minutes we didn't think that would be controversial so we've adopted thank you and we're now at the new business which is a discussion of two policies and the the first one is number 41811 two and there's a reference to the same thing in 51 45.5 it is a Prohibition on sex discrimination um a did a little
004bit of background um there had been a ruling under the prior Federal Administration extending the coverage of uh protected classes correct me if I've got this wrong okay Denise I think you're on the right protected classes which we uh in accordance with law reviewed and adopted to be in Conformity with the law we have a new federal Administration and they have issued uh I would I don't know what the legal word is it's stronger than guidance uh maybe it's a mandate I'm not quite sure the correct word for us to uh remove those classes they viewed that it was unconstitutional that the the PRI that the prior administration's uh determination was unconstitutional and they want that removed so we are here tonight to discuss uh what we're going to do um and I would like
005to uh the only thing I would like to make reference to before we start the discussion is there are a couple of the documents that were in the packet and the first was a letter from lur and Moses dated January 9th 2025 and that in my opinion though I would really like to hear from Denise and anybody else is no longer uh a valid comment because the the advice was given prior to the new administration's ruling or advice so the advice may be valid but it was valid under the old situation so I don't think that document is relevant the second document I'm referring to uh is the letter from Carolyn Dugas dated February 18th also prior to the government's uh ruling the new ruling so I'll defer to Denise on you know what we
006need to do with with that information so I guess for the purposes of discussion I think I'd like uh I'd like the opinion of of my colleagues Ian and Andrea I would like to turn this over to Denise for a couple of minutes to give us as sync as possible in discussion so that any public that's listening in or chooses to listen to this later knows what we're doing or what we're considering doing and why we're considering doing it Andrea are you comfortable with that absolutely Ian are you comfortable with that oh yeah I'm I'm good with that I would just ask that it' be framed in sort of like a chronological sequence so we get a sense of the timeline of events sure yep we can do that Ian okay thank you Denise the
007floor is yours all right so on August 1st of 2024 uh the Biden Administration in Ed new guidelines for sexual harassment and they included in the definition of sexual harassment um that sexual harassment could now be um considered uh for folks um based on their gender identity and subsequent to that um we went through the process here in the Granton public schools of adopting the new by new I mean the August 1st 2024 guidelines well fast forward to January 9th uh where we were provided with uh an advisory from burum and Moses that a federal judge has actually struck down the 2024 uh final rule in terms of the definition of sexual harassment and D deemed that the new guidelines were considered um uh arbitrary and capricious um and said that they um they should
008be reversed there was an injunction that many states had already applied to the implementation of the August 1 guidelines Connecticut was not one of them uh but lo and behold on January 9th a federal judge declared the new guidelines UNC institutional and struck them down throughout the country uh after that we received on January 31st we received documentation from the US Department of Education Office for civil rights um they're famous for issuing what they call dear colleague letters um and they're really letters of guidance to school districts and in the January 31st 2025 dear colleague letter again they referenced um the fact that the August 2024 guidelines have been um have been deemed uh to be a Prohibition and that um they were recommending that effective immediately um OCR office of civil rights will enforce
009Title 9 under the provisions of the 20120 title 9 rule because the 2024 rule has been invalid validated so they were recommending that districts adopt reopt I should say the 2020 uh guidelines um and then we did reach out to Floyd Dugas attorney Dugas in terms of some recommendations because I know that this did come up um in order to resend the 2024 regulations and reopt the 2020 regulations came up at a board meeting on January 27th and the board decided to hold off without um guidance from our attorney in terms of how this could be done at a board meeting um so attorney Dugas did send us on January 31st uh guidance in terms of the procedure for adoption and or amendment of Board of Education policies um so he has four steps that
010we would take for adopting a new policy or amending existing policy um and and that takes us to today and I do just want to very quickly add the new guidelines had one policy for students and staff but because those guidelines have been struck down we're now back to two policies so you'll see that uh the policy for sexual harassment uh on students is policy 51455 whereas thec policy that prohibits sexual harassment among staff is policy one2 so we now are back to our two policies rather than one one clarification this at this point we're on the 2025 at this moment we are operating under the 2025 policy and the discussion this night tonight is whether we want to resend the 2025 policy and go back to the 2021 policy am I understanding that correctly
011yes and we have sent the previous policy out to all of the schools based on the advisement from OCR uh we've actually been following the previous policies because the new policies have been deemed to be unconstitutional uh Andrea and Ian does either of you have any questions for Denise and Susan based on what we just heard uh I do yes please go ahead Ian um signal is decision court judge regarding this I'm sorry Ian your signal is breaking up sorry can you hear me better now yes yes thank you all do you have me now yes okay uh yeah there any appeals underway with this uh R uh I'm you're breaking up again did you say that you understood that there has been an appeal uh no I'm asking if we're aware if there is
012an appeal to that decision by the federal court judge I looked this morning at about 700 a.m. because the New York Times is tracking of various uh rulings from the administration and a variety of topics and agencies and as of this morning these rulings had not been reported as having been appealed by appeal that means somebody's filed a suit to block their implementation so as of this morning to the best of my knowledge these have not been are not being litigated okay thank you would the pulling policy however though protect kids no matter what theyi at yes it would and I do feel confident that we have a really strong bullying policy and any child can or student can come and make us aware their parent can make us aware if there's any kind of
013harassment targeted bullying any any call on any child or student and how they present that's correct um I I do feel like kids can be still protected you just won't be using the same labels for their protection well they yeah we if no matter what they've been named called let's say um you know name calling and and harassment and bullying has happened generation to generation so we we really don't tolerate it and we investigate it and we do due diligence and we try to do restorative practice and make sure that kids understand the severity right of this kind of behavior I agree I think what Matthew was referring to is it would be investigated under the bullying policy not the sexual harassment policy yes and I I believe it would yeah as long as we
014can make that distinction yes sorry um can I jump in yeah I just wanted to say uh to the superintendent I appreciate that interpretation and and now sort of my read on the situation as well is that you know while they may be some contention over a certain class or a certain uh phrasing of that class in that sexual harassment policy um that's the subject of that Federal Court decision overall like the the the point of what we're trying to do to protect children and staff and create a like a like a healthy um environment um a number of policies right a number of policies addressed that from a different angles exactly ex you're right on so y um yeah so so I think I think we're we're safe to proceed um to do what
015we have to do stay in compliance with the federal law yeah I agree Andrea any comments okay so uh at this moment we have no motion on the floor would uh either of you like to make a motion to uh resend the 2025 policy and restore the operationality of the 2021 policy so I have a mo motion by Andrea to resend the 2025 policy and restore the operationality of the 2021 policy is there a second second Thomas that the motion has been moved and seconded is there a discussion I feel any any point I was going to bring forward has already been covered in our previous discussion okay I'll ask a second and a third time to be sure everybody gets a chance is there any more discussion this is insane other than that no
016duly noted is there any more discussion all right hearing no further discussion I'll ask for vote all those in favor of resending policies 411 18112 and policy 514.5 of their version as of January 7th 2025 and restoring the operationality of policy 4118 .12 and policy 514.5 sexual harassment according to their uh previous revision of January 25th 2021 please signify by saying I I I I so we have three in favor none opposed no extensions okay so I guess uh the only other piece that seems to me to be related to this topic are the regulations but I would say uh and I I'll ask my colleagues if they concur with my assessment that regulations lie within the purview of the administration and the Administration has always come to this committee with their recommendations or their
017intentions to give us a chance to weigh in and so I would say we don't need to deal with the regulations do you guys concur or do you want to discuss that I didn't even find a comma didn't find a comma didn't find a comma and I have to tell you that just Ian uh are you comfortable with that uh yeah I'll just say that to my understanding that there were regulations already created to match the 2021 drafts or Renditions can I comment on that okay so is that true maybe Denise can comment upon that yeah yes thank you Ian you're correct uh there were regulations the difference is is that we've been working closely with our attorneys um to be sure that you know obviously we're implementing the correct uh procedures and our attorney
018has noticed that the 2021 policy and regs that we had were from cab and although they've served us very well uh she did do a review of them and wanted to make sure that they were in line with our Law Firm terms recommendations there have been a few forms that we have not had so for example at the end of an investigation um either Susan or Ann Marie serve as What's called the decision maker so I bring my findings in a report to the decision maker and then the decision maker issues the final decision and we didn't have for example a template to issue those findings on so that's just one example um of something that we did not have um so we wanted to be sure that we were using the forms that comply
019with the law so Carolyn did a attorney Dugas did a nice review for us of our 2021 policy and all of the forms associated with it and she made a few recommendations on the February 18th email um again she did recommend that we revise the regulation um she does find our regs are deficient um um she says that um our regs need to correctly outline the grievance procedure and include details for carrying out responsibilities in all areas um so she has a model regulation from The Firm she also recommended that we um that there's missing language in our notice so the notice is a really important document when we are undertaking an investigation into a complaint we notice each party the respondent and the complaintant and it's very important that you they receive that response
020or that that notice in writing and attorney Dugas noted that there is uh we have um some language missing which uh relates to retaliation and how the retaliation is prohibited so she's recommending that um we use the notices from The Firm and they're all in our packet okay sounds good and then yep and then she's the forms am I correct that we'll that once you finish your revision of the rigs you'll give us the chance to give you any feedback that you can then choose to act upon or not they're in here right they're in here y so you can read them and review them and if there's any time you want to discuss them at another policy meeting we can yeah we'd like to adopt them um if I could just finish up there
021was um that's okay number seven um there is a non-disclosure agreement that we recommend parties sign but it's not required um so she did want uh she felt that our non-disclosure agreement was lacking um in terms of the advisor so when students are going through this process they have a right to bring an advisor of their choosing with them and we did not have a non-disclosure agreement for the adviser so we'd like to adopt that um and then um again she would like us to use their non-disclosure agreement for um students and employees there's a new notice of dismissal which in the past when I've dismissed a complaint that would be in the case where the complaint doesn't meet the definition of sexual harassment um I've generally just notified the parties in writing but they
022have a specific form to use so we thought that would be very helpful and then lastly there's a notice about right to appeal we've generally just shared this information in terms of the the the 10day period that that families have to appeal we've simply shared that in an email with the parties but they have a a form so a lot of their forms just formalize the the communication and it's it's nice to have because when you have a form it kind of triggers you oh you know we have to complete this and send this out rather than just doing an email so it's actually helpful to have the forms um and that's why we wanted to forward that to the committee and say we'd like to adopt these forms because it does help us be
023a little bit more efficient and um official in the in the process so perhaps you can help me understand from here we have voted have we voted on resending yet okay we've we we've resented the policy uh I've seen the paper from attorney Dugas so am I to understand that all of these new regulations in that came in the packet incorporate all of the changes that have yes so what's in green so the green is new so the regulation is new and then the forms attached are new okay so you can see the green where she okay um this is the and the non-disclosure for the adviser for example so all the forms are attached okay this is not green because we're going to continue um if the board votes tonight there there are no
024changes to the policy so um before I put in anything else are there any other questions from the committee members um I'm sorry due to my my state of Transit I don't have the packages right in front of me the regul by doing our action do we automatically install the regulations as amended by the attorney and our staff uh I don't we I can put out the regulations at any time so if you need more time to it over fine you know they are you know the oh no no I meant just like you know do we have to do a vote tonight I did look over them we don't we don't we don't vote on regulations there that's outside of our purview the but by by by installing the policy then that just opens
025the door for the admin to do what they have to do that's right so okay I I add that uh I did not look at the regulations from the point of view of reviewing them for any potential comments I just presume that that was your your Authority and the way I read it they were just proposals so I would like a little more time and on the rigs and we're going to meet again uh I just don't know that I can meet twice in two weeks there was one one of the things that guess the new I don't know if it was the new meeting or the old meeting there was a conflict but I'll have the AR well Erica told me about that today and I would really like you to be here this
026week uh I'll let Ian speak for himself but these Financial things have dragged on for I mean they just dragged on for months and we really want to get this stuff locked up um so if there's any way you can make this meeting this Thursday I really don't want to put this off for another 10 next month we should have Ray also I think R's welcome to come Matthew I'm sorry what's the meeting on Thursday is it for sexual harassment no no no it's it's oh additional policies okay where did we leave the sexual harassment regulations can we just go back to that for a minute well if more if you have to go ahead and put them out because if the policy gets so would you be comfortable and that the U is to
027Administration and to my colleagues would we each respectively be comfortable was saying to the administration go ahead and put out whatever you have now but we would like another week or two to look at this and then come back and discuss it with you again so you have the benefit of our input and if you need to I'm in a meeting I'll call you back uh my daughter oh she gets she gets special treatment um so and if we come back to you saying that we have some concerns about XYZ we can discuss it and you'd be open to tweaking your your uh or just if you have questions about it yeah absolutely but are you comfortable with that Ian yeah yes yeah I'm I'm fine yeah publish them as as the admin have updated
028them according to the attorney's advice and uh and we can review and recall as needed I feel if we need to but yeah in this case I think it's been based on your description of and my understanding of it I think we're covered I think we're in good shape thank you okay great thank you yeah and Andrea couldn't even find a comma to fix I know that is amazing so so I guess this completes the business of tonight uh but I would like to Circle back Referral List I I want I want to Circle back to um the Thursday night agenda for the financial the last is I believe it's four policies I think we have four on Thursday's agenda uh well whether it's three or four whatever we have it's really my hope that
029we can get this done so we can go back to the regular business of the policy committee which is to advance educational issues and not have to deal with the budget is there any way you can because I did ask you if you could do it and we warned it we announced it on that basis Susan I'm sorry I did ask you if you could make Thursday meeting you said to go ahead and we announced it and so we have it posted is there any way you can manage posted as far as I know I had asked Erica she said on Friday she'd posted okay all right I have not checked just hasn't made it to my calendar you're saying Thursday February 27 to the best of my knowledge Ian am I mistaken on that
030date uh honestly I I've been swamped with some other items so I I have not checked in on that recently but um I believe that was what we were discussing and when was the next meeting coming up was it the following week the 11th was March 11 11 of March and I would hope in the March 11th meeting that you would say we got that behind us and give us the next bunch of stuff you want us to look at okay saying it's Thursday yes otherwise we have to refer all of this to finance and Facilities is there anything on this policy that has to be done this this is that's a I'm deferring to Ian I I I know I'm I know I have discerned correctly or incorrectly that Ian wants to move and
031thinks we we've doled enough uh maybe that's the wrong word I take back the word Dole I take back the word Dole that was a bad word that was not okay hit me again with Your Best Shot okay shot that we yeah I just I feel the policies are important and timely because they have to do with the um management of the budget and oversight uh that we're charged to do as a board um so like even though we're going through the uh budget instruction process now these policies have to do with like ongoing management of it so and oversight so I think it's important to get done and clear by the time we get to March is there anything that just can't wait to more these you know can you hear can you hear
032Andrea Ian yeah I mean if the question is to a to to just move it all stack it all on to March 11th I'm not NE necessarily opposed to that because you know at this point the next regular meeting where we can inate anything or do a second read or first read or wherever we are with whichever policy um that's not going to happen till like the regular meeting in March anyhow so I have policy on my calendar for the 11th and it's going to be really a tight squeeze to get the other one done yeah like I yeah like us stent at Thursday vers the 11th it doesn't much matter because the next time there's an action opportunity is going to be the end of March so why don't we ask Erica to check
033if she has posted it to cancel it if she has posted it to cancel it is that our consensus yes yes you okay with that Ian uh yes okay so we are going to cancel or not post whichever comes first any meeting for the for Thursday okay March 11th the Tuesday is that correct March 11th is even more complicated it's posted as Wednesday so yeah we want to unpost it unposted is Wednesday okay okay well glad someone's paying attention if it wasn't me thank you Mark problem okay um on the 11 I don't even remember for 5:00 and I'm assuming just says next meeting yeah five o' are we going to be doing five o'clock on the 11th Ian uh I'd really rather not as case in point um up until about 6 I really
034am kind of pressed for time and split in like three different directions like six o' is the most comfortable time that work fine because we do it remote and I can be home okay so we'll make it 6 pm on the 11th great thank you I'm emailing um Erica right now and I'm telling her to do that for us and we'll post on the 11th at six okay so we're now on the referral list and the only things we have on the referral list at this point is a review of homeschooling which you know I want to leave on but I don't think we're ready for that appropriate use of of generative AI um Bev wants the Clint to do his first presentation at a cow so that probably won't be on the 11th and
035the only other thing I have is a proposal from Ian to discuss policies 13 12 and 13124 on Anonymous complaints are you ready to do that on the 11th Ian we want to do the budget ones first oh yeah no there's absolutely no priority attached to the 1312 and okay the two those two identified ones no that that's like further on down the road that's more General philosophical the budget ones the financial ones my preference would be that you do the the four budget items Susan and if you think that there's something else pressing from an Administration point of view uh have Eric to give me a call I shall be amenable to it thank you guys uh Ian shall we let Andrea make her famous motion by all means please do motion to a
036jour thank you do I have a second uh second Thomas um this is not a discussable motion all those in favor say I I I all those all those opposed it's three to zero to zero we are adjourning the special policy committee meeting of Monday February 27th at 5:42 p.m. for