001to all right let's go ahead and recall to order of a regular meeting roll call jeremy olsen here valerie penny hernandez david seymour president jeff hallgren here samantha mcdavid president sarah moses here victoria newport here okay we have the pledge of allegiance jeff i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you you're welcome next is a public participation and recognition any public comment there is no public comment okay thank you next is board correspondence and i would just like to read a letter to the members of the community from the board like all of you we were horrified and saddened by the recent violence in atlanta which took the lives of
002eight people including six women of asian descent these incidents come in the context of a broader deeply disturbing trend of racism and violence that we've seen around the country the scourge of anti-asian racism is not new there has been an alarming increase in violent and xenophobic acts since the pandemic began to our asian and asian american and pacific islanders students and staff we want to reaffirm our unwavering support you are an essential part of our family in dekalb and we want to stand we stand with you in your grief and alarm over the recent attacks and against the racist acts that are on the rise racism and hatred have no place in dekalb these tragic events reinforce the urgency of actions we are taking across the board to advance diversity equity and inclusion our strength
003comes from embracing our diversity and all that our varied perspective and backgrounds bring to our community in light of recent events we call on each of us to re-educate ourselves to these ideals and support our asian asian american and pacific islander community members thank you is there any other board correspondence sure um i had the opportunity to attend a social justice committee and it was the first time i've been but it was super exciting the work that they're doing to really revise and make the diversity plan a little more digestible and really include everything that we really need and it sounds like it's going to be really awesome so i'm excited to be a part of that i had the opportunity to be a part of that thank you sam anybody else okay we're going
004to go ahead and move forward to the consent agenda and the recommended action is that the board of education approved the consent agenda items a through f board meeting minutes personal action items purchase order requisitions ghs guidance counselor allocation increased request resolution property tax appeals and utilities rfp and auction parameters is there a motion show move hernandez yes david seymour yes jeff hallgren yes samantha mcdavid yes sarah moses yes victoria newport yes jeremy wilson yes okay next up is our superintendent's report yes just a brief update about our in-person learning update last tuesday march 30th we welcome students back to in-person learning this next step that we've taken offers a morning program five days a week surveys before break suggested that fully sixty percent of students were expected to participate in the five-day program the
005in-person participation rate for today included 3246 students which is about 51 percent of students who are at school so we're projecting sixty percent we had fifty one percent in school uh participating in in person and as we returned to school unfortunately we've had several uh student sports side teams that we needed to be quarantined and that includes their siblings and other grade levels to be quarantined as well so this has contributed into in the drop in terms of the in-person participation but overall the theme across the district this week is that it's awesome to have students back in school staff are commenting that they love having per they love being back to in person and interaction with students and they're feeling that the in-person instruction is going well at the same time i did ask
006administrators for some hiccups in our transition to five days a week and some of the teachers are finding parallel teaching is more difficult to staff now because they got more students present in the in-person model another concern is that we're no longer offering a hybrid option but some parents are creating their own hybrid lot option by logging in from home on days in which they had already committed to in-person learning addition additionally there's been an increase in car ridership to school which has required some adjustment to our drop-off and pickup schedules so all of these are manageable issues and they're being resolved as we speak but it was just an update for the board we'll have more information at our next board meeting after we've had some time to actually have kids here more than
007just a few days that's all thank you ray does anyone have questions um i um i just wanted to ask you said uh that was across the board 51 the entire district correct correct that's again that are in person right was there a particular um difference between elementary middle school or high school i was just curious yeah it looks like the elementary and middle school are higher than uh the high school it's the uh the high school is like around 40 no 42 so they're the lowest in terms of the students that are uh choosing to participate in school in person which that kind of makes sense because they're more likely to be able to be comfortable with remote learning versus elementary kids they need much more in person for sure sure yeah not surprising
008i have a question if i may sarah please sir jeff go ahead uh so ray uh uh in regard to uh this is just logistical issues um in rega you were you're talking about ridership um i'm uh or i'm not sure i understood exactly what you meant by that what the what what was that yeah there you go thank you uh that's more parents are choosing to drive their kids to school than take the bus so therefore there's more congestion at the schools it's you know it's uh it's somewhat of a phenomena but it's expected if you think about it because it's near the end of the school year uh parents are choosing that it's safer to drive than it is to have kids on a bus so that's that's their choice so more are
009choosing to ride cars which increases congestion and the principals are working on that i saw that lined up them lined up at malta uh or a great many of them lined up which uh the question that i have for that is if that's the case now at 42 or 53 or whatever it is that's going to have to that's going to get a little bit more profound if it raises up i mean the percentage raises up um one further question however is um in in regard to our uh uh students that have special needs our our students that we've been working really hard to get a higher percentage of them back into school um are these numbers independent i mean in other words are our special needs students sorry to say sorry to put it
010in that particular way but our our special needs students are they a higher percentage than the uh the numbers that we're looking at here yes that is correct and they also have longer school days too they're they're uh so the answer is the at-risk kids who are special needs are definitely more in person and i can get you exact numbers by the next board meeting well i was curious and it's it's a huge thing for me as far as getting people back in and and especially those people that are at risk so i'd be real interested in those numbers as well if i could please thank you so much and thank you sarah anyone else have questions i do i have three questions actually um first is there a sense of students that are not
011coming back in person is there a sense whether that is more so due to still feeling unsafe or is it because of the reduced hours that children are there it's just it's more inconvenient for parents that have already set up child care outside of school i believe it's mostly the third item there's always going to be some people who are concerned about safety that's absolutely true but they've gotten into a routine all the way through april you know the last two months of school you might as well continue so we're anticipating at most 60 will be coming back um second question how about how many if you know off the top of your head staff do we still have that are remote actually that's pretty much down to zero almost isn't it it's pretty we're
012just a handful very like it's a very few number of people and it's based on based on severe medical conditions great i'm glad we're able to accommodate them um my last question is and i don't know if you can answer this because there's so many variables but looking towards the fall what are we looking at are we still looking at reduced school hours are we able to troubleshoot potentially if we're still in the same kind of environment wearing masks what we're doing about lunches yeah so i'm the eternal optimist and i think we're going to be full on in the fall hopefully fingers crossed any other questions okay thank you very much ray all right thank you ray okay next is new business administration and this is the differential committee meeting minutes fte increase request
013ms dietrich good evening everyone so the differential committee met we did requests from all buildings and departments any differentials that they would like to add for the upcoming school year those were vetted by the committee samantha's part of that committee so she was there and was part of the very healthy discussion that we had and we have brought forward through those committee minutes the uh the differential positions that we would like to increase for the fy 22 school year so other questions okay it is recommended that the board of education sorry so it is recommended for the board of education approved the minutes from the differential committee meetings held on february 10 2020 and february 24 2020 including the committee's recommendation for the differential request holding six additional differentials estimated at 24 37 125.37 is
014there a motion so moved second local david seymour jeff hallgren yes samantha mcdavid yes sarah moses yes victoria newport yes jeremy olsen yes valerie pena hernandez yes okay the motion carries next is the bilingual staff recruitment with green heart teach usa program and sprint cultural exchange program ms ditra solis good evening again um so yes we have two partnership programs that we're bringing forward to help us with recruiting for our bilingual positions one of the organizations is greenheart teach usa and the other is spirit cultural exchange we do have at least another that we will be will be bringing forward but isb does not yet have that official agreement um constructed so we were able to bring that this evening each of these programs are of no cost to the district and they provide candidates
015to us that have been fully vetted by the organization to ensure that they are fully bilingual that they are qualified to teach in the positions for which they are applying for in the us and that they have skills and experience and licensure in their home country to teach in those same areas i have personally participated in one and two different programs in recruiting people from puerto rico and spain and this is a true cultural exchange opportunity the teachers that come to us are bringing their cultural experiences and sharing with the students and our students in turn provide that cultural experience to them and they really get a very robu robust and strong experience to actually make them stronger teachers but also exposing our students to families at the same time with that spanish-speaking culture right
016now that's our need is spanish speaking but i'm sure down the road that may change so we brought forward two programs for you for consideration and hopefully approval so that we can move forward in filling our bilingual positions up there sorry um so anyway um it sounds like then these programs are ones that you have personally worked with in the past which was actually my question that you already answered thank you um and thank you for bringing this to us and and what a what an awesome opportunity here i'm pretty excited to see how this goes so thank you and i do want to add that i spoke with minerva on yesterday and shares all of this with her she did mention some other programs so as we start increasing um our partnership i may
017be bringing others forward as well excellent wonderful does anyone have questions this is an action item just a comment i i applaud that uh uh dietrich thank you very much for making this happen it sounds to me like a wonderful opportunity for us thank you okay so it is recommended that the board of education approved the partnership with the bilingual recruitment programs green heart teach usa program and spirit cultural exchange program for the 2021-2022 school year to fill hard to fill bilingual certified positions is there a motion some moved second welcome jeff halgren uh yes enthusiastic samantha mcdavid yes sarah moses yes victoria newport yes jeremy olson yes valerie pena hernandez yes okay and with that it is recommended that we adjourn the meeting sir roll call do you need a motion second roll thank
018you samantha yes sarah moses yes victoria newport yes jeremy olson yes valerie pena hernandez yes jeff hallgren goodnight everyone thank you so much appreciate it stamp thank you very much all the time you