001all right we're going to call to order the board of education organizational workshop meeting for january 17th if you can all rise for the states of pledge and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice thank you could we please have a roll call ask for here clement here barbara garcia here esich morris cedu here white here i want to welcome all of you first of all to coming i know please be careful out there roads are certainly slick in spots if anybody is here to speak for public comment we do have the cards back at the table if you fill those out and turn those in we do need those turned in prior to the start of public comment and we will call accordingly from there
002you do have three minutes to speak all comments should be directed to the board as a whole and no personnel issues are to be addressed at this time all right we are going to move to number four which is school board recognition yes to the board of education on behalf of the central office and district administrative team we wanted to take an opportunity to recognize our board members for their hard work and dedication and countless hours of reading to responding to emails looking at information getting prepared for our board of education meetings so this is a board of education recognition month and so at your table each of you should have a certificate of appreciation as well as just a little thank you from myself and from the central office and building level and district
003level leadership administration team so thank you for your dedication and your service to our community thank you uh number five we have election of officers we have um all four offices all four officer positions listed i need a nomination for president i nominate marcy white as president i am willing to accept that nomination we need roll call on that please ask for yes clement yes barbara garcia yes esich morris yes say you do yes you vote for yourself yes okay thank you thank you tim for the nomination and i look forward to continuing to work with all of you and to vice president i would like to nominate jason sedu for vice president i'm willing to accept yes ma'am are there any other nominations anybody else can i roll call please asper yes clement yes
004barbara garcia yes morris do yes white yes motion carries on vice president congratulations and thank you thank you on 25c which is secretary it is my honor to nominate julie asper to continue in her role as board of education secretary are you willing i will accept thank you all right can we have a roll call on that please ask for yes clement yes barbara garcia yes esich yes morris yes cedu yes white yes motion carries thank you julie and congratulations onto 5d which is treasure and i would like to nominate tim morris thank you it'd be an honor to serve thank you could we have roll call on that as well asper yes clement yes barbara garcia yes esich yes morris yes cedu yes white yes motion carries thank you tim we appreciate your dedication
005to that at this time we will continue on with the meeting on six our consent agenda we have the december 13 2021 minutes december 13 2021 closed meeting we have december 2021 payables january 2022 personnel report anticipated overnight trips for 2022 depository funds with huntington bank fifth third bank michigan liquid asset fund plus we have payne agent banks with superintendent signature for huntington bank the third bank we have our list of legal firms that may be retained as needed rhodes mckee boyer goodrich and tita miller johnson snell and kaminsky trune law firm clark hill and dickinson wright i move that the board approved the consent agenda as presented and i have a second second written by brittany are there any questions on any of those could i have roll call please asper yes clement yes
006barbara garcia yes esich yes morris yes cedu yes white yes motion carries on to seven which is reports and information we will have board committee and legislative assignments i will work on those over the next week and get with everybody to make sure that those fit into everybody's schedule whichever committee you end up on you'll be contacted by administrative team to try to coordinate a day that will work for everybody to continue with that monthly all right thank you i'll be in contact with each one of you eight our discussion items eight a will be budget amendments with mr breese [Music] um are with aligning our staff costing when the board adopted the budget to start the year that was back in june so the changes that have happened between june and now we're aligning
007to fix the budget up in those areas there are some things i wanted to highlight for you for this fiscal year similar to last fiscal year where we were receiving some cares pandemic funding this year we're also receiving some pandemic funding with sr2 and with sr2 we're expected to receive 2.2 million these funds are going to be allocated in the following areas summer school that we completed this past summer in 2021 technology and accessibility mental health supports healthcare staff with our nurses and our building health paras professional development we're looking to do capturing kids hearts which is going to be district-wide as part of our strategic plan our hvac upgrades improving our air quality systems added and upgraded cameras to our bus fleet as well as added gps for our bus fleet and all of
008those total 2 million 260 000 in expenses so in our budget amendments this amount is reflected both on the revenue side and then these areas on the expense side other key revenue swings i wanted to touch on is realizing 1.4 million in decline because of our student enrollment so that is realized on the revenue side another area i wanted to highlight on the revenue side what happened in several years ago in retirement reform it was decided that the state was carrying this unfunded liability piece on the state's books and they had said no that really is district responsibility and that we needed to take ownership of that unfunded liability and so the district has to carry that cost and to do that the state invoices us every month and then they also reimburse us in
009revenue so it's an in and out on our books but we do have to reflect that in our budgets so for 2122 the amount of that accrued unfunded liability expense is 4.7 million and the accrued unfunded liability offset in revenue is also 4.7 million so those numbers are reflected and what happens in june when we adopted the budget to start this fiscal year we were using the amount that we knew at the time which was from 2021 and to align that to our new amount for this fiscal year we had to increase that by 817 000 so that 817 000 is showing as an increase on the revenue side but also on the expense side other areas of increase on the revenue side were in property taxes the s for funding that we're looking to
010get as well as other various grants and athletic revenue and if you remember last year because of covid we were not collecting any fees and gate fees for events and this year we are returning and able to collect those fees again so this slide just gives a big picture overview the first column is our 2021 actual numbers that came in after our audit the second column is our adopted budget that we're currently working under that was adopted in june and then the third column is the budget amendment you're looking to vote on tonight and then the far right is the change from our adopted budget from june into the budget that we're looking to adopt tonight so i've highlighted that 59.7 million on the revenues just to let you know and there's notes below that
011that does include the 1.4 million in reduction for the enrollment decline and on the far right that positive 1 million change in revenue that's the net difference in the changes in that retirement piece i talked about the esser grants that we're receiving property taxes and the athletic revenue so in the end that third column you'll see that we're looking to pull 1 million from fund balance that would put us at 9.2 million or 15 percent of expenditures and this will be put on our website and in your packet where all the board reports documents this was reviewed with finance committee this past week as well as briefly highlighted at our curriculum committee i don't know if there are any questions questions sarah could you when we look at the fund balance percentage of expenses give
012a rough idea on the average in the in kent county what the percentage fund balance that districts are holding it is getting to be higher so i don't want to quote i'm not sure exactly what that average is but i can get back to you and let everyone know what the average is that amount is increasing so for a while those fund balances were getting pretty pretty low those fund balance averages are building back up i can say that the michigan school business officials are recommending about an 18 to 20 percent fund balance that amount to have on hand districts are gradually increasing fund balances so that is getting better because there was a while when many fund balances were getting pretty low okay but i can put that in a board report and let
013you know kind of what the county average is any additional questions for mr reese no no thank you thank you very much on to 8b which is school of choice resolution dr martin thank you president white we are entering that time of year where we prepare for our annual schools of choice resolution each year kent county districts pass a resolution to opt in and out of various state and local non-resident programs what we're proposing in step with the last several years is to opt out of section 105 and 105 c which are state controlled and state level programs for schools of choice and opt into the kent isd collaborative schools of choice program which allows to maintain a degree of local control over our schools of choice program as compared to the state so this
014while this is not an action item tonight i wanted to bring it up as we always do this time of year as a discussion item for future action ccs administration is recommending that the board approve the resolution to opt out of section 105 and 105c and participate in the kent county collaborative schools of choice program for 2223 are there any questions okay all right thank you unto nine boredom superintendent reports we have a curriculum and learning committee thank you curriculum and learning committee met on january 13th at 7 30 a.m there was no public comment mrs burkowski shared the date changes to the reproductive health public meetings due to the snow days the first week of january the new dates are january 24th at 6 00 p.m right here at dunkin lake pac and february
01510th at 4 pm again here at duncan lake pac bill martin a caledonia high school principal shared information regarding a recommended change to the vaping consequences to be more aligned with other area schools this will be a change in the high school handbook and will be communicated to parent students and staff before implementing as part of the requirement to spend sr-3 federal funds public meetings seeking feedback are required the following meetings will be had to share initial thinking on the funds and seek feedback from staff students and community the staff meeting will be on january 18th at 4 15 pm at the kent intermediate school cafeteria community meeting will be january 26th at 6 pm via zoom and the student meeting will be at the january 27th at 11 a.m ms pakowski also shared that
016on january 7th the secondary administrators 7th through 12th grades and the curriculum department met to vision and plan while there are many initiatives in progress to be implemented over the next three to five years the following decisions were made beginning with the 2022-23 school year for testing out a date will be added for testing out of courses in november of each year before the second semester which will be the week of november 14th to the 18th this will assist students in wanting to earn credits earlier with the goal of early graduation each department will keep test out to one cumulative test a written test a project or paper prep materials will be provided four to six weeks in advance second that we talked about was accelerated course options additional course offerings will be expanded for
017high school credit at duncan lake middle school beginning in the fall of 2022 to include an optional high school health in eighth grade world language expansion beyond spanish one and expanded high school english and math courses course criteria to request high school level courses in middle school is being developed in coordination with the high school staff there were no updates from dr martens for the from from dr martin for this month's meeting mr reese and darrell kingsbury provided updates from the finance and operations committee meeting that was held on january 12 2022 the meeting adjourned at 8 46 a.m the next curriculum and learning committee meeting will be held february 17th at 7 30 a.m are there any questions for that committee no all right thank you for all of you and then on to
018finance and operations committee tim thank you everyone hear me okay the finance and operations committee convened wednesday january 12 at 7 30 a.m with all three board members present committee opened with public comment when he heard comments from a district parent regarding student safety at a school bus stop the parent and administrators shared their positions with the committee members mr hess shared contract information regarding renewing a lawn care contract with a community vendor ms perkowski provided an overview of the agenda topics for the curriculum committee also held that week mr very shared the january budget amendment information which is to be an action item at the january board meeting mr freeze also shared the district's budget to actual and investment report for quarter two mr kingsbury provided an update to the set sag family health
019care center benefit which the district is considering for those employees that currently are not eligible for district covered insurance we are excited to offer this valuable health plan to select staff members and we'll continue to the progress to inform them of these valued inform these valued employees about the program's unique benefits designed to support them and their families mr kingsbury also shared the continued difficulty in finding staff and unfortunately the need to cancel bus routes has been unavoidable dr martin concluded with no additional updates that hadn't been discussed already the meeting adjourned at 10 09 a.m the next finance and operations committee is scheduled for wednesday february 9 at 7 30 a.m any questions for that committee all right thank you very much 9c is board trustee reports are there any additional reports by board
020members i would only add that i am going to follow up this week i do believe that our adopter road ends this year or you know the segment of time that we're signed up for so i will look to renew that and follow up with everybody as far as that getting confirmed 90 superintendent report yes so i apologize but a lot to report this time interestingly enough the consensus revenue estimating conference is predicting or coming up that statewide it is estimated that the state has lost about 44 000 students from public schools to either home school or private schools since the pandemic began which is a pretty alarming number according to county-wide data all schools districts except one saw some changes in their enrollment based on this and so as we move forward we'll all
021be looking to get out of the pandemic and start to see the enrollments go back to where they were from the curriculum department the department and the administrators are looking at various options for students beginning in middle school as well as high school so some of the things they're looking out is adding an additional testing out date for some of the high school students who are wanting to earn credits earlier with the goal of an early graduation or to make room for other electives in their high school schedule before now they only had one opportunity in the summer to test out of a course if they were academically able to do so and sometimes what that created is missed opportunities for kids if they were on a trip with their family so we have created
022another opportunity moving forward that will generally happen sometime in november to give those students additional opportunities to test out at the high school level also accelerated course options additional course options will be expanded for high school credit at dunkin lake middle school beginning in the fall of 2022 this is kind of in line with a lot of things that we've been trying to do as it pertained to creating more options after we went through our transition from k four five six seven eight and then into high school so that we could have a little bit better alignment some of the additional opportunities will be optional health class at eighth grade world languages expansion beyond spanish one extending high school english math course opportunities for those kids who are able to do that in course criteria
023to request high school level courses in middle school is being developed in coordination with high school staff also our the the curriculum department will be working with staff community and students to look at getting some feedback that is part of the process from the state on what to do with the sr3 federal funding so look forward to some dates being communicated specifically for staff specifically for community and then engaging high school students to look at how best to utilize these one-time funds that were created during the pandemic unfortunately due to some of the challenges with covet we're seeing a number of operational challenges we have a few [Music] another bus route that was mentioned today that unfortunately won't be running tomorrow we have the ymca has reported some challenges with staffing shortages that will be
024impacting their program at kettle lake for before and after school child care program and i'll speak in a little bit about some of the challenges that we're seeing so right now we're seeing an incredible surge go through our community that's kind of wrecking havoc with some of our general operations um we are happy to report that our district will receive about 55 000 in additional grant funds so as sarah was doing her report tonight this is another one of those grant opportunities these funds were really set out to allow districts to deal with some of the school health services and additional support needs that students are seeing as it relates to the pandemic and other concerns so we're happy to put that in use the challenges it has to be used by the course of
025this year but we'll be able to meet that challenge we'd also like to congratulate one of our teachers ms tammy rowley she is a teacher at kettle lake who was honored with the excellence in education award from michigan lottery she generously shared some of her awards with the staff by hosting a luncheon from tapinos and she humbly said that she does this work for the the work that she does for her kids is is representative of the work that all of our teachers are doing so congratulations again to miss rowley great job as we are heading into the second semester and spring i just want to remind parents in the general community pre-k enrollment has begun people should have already started receiving postcards in their mailbox and other information going out about preschool enrollment as
026well as the upcoming enrollment opportunities for students in any grade level also we receive communication first let me let me speak to some of the challenges that we've been having with our operation last week monday looking at our attendance we had about 193 kids out and 126 of them were covet related the very next day that number went up to 198 but 143 were covet related absences at the high school only these numbers and then late tuesday heading into wednesday we were already notified of possibly 40 more students being identified as covet positive at that point we were looking at over 20 classrooms that had been identified with multiple kids impacted with covet monday and tuesday were really kind of the exam prep days for students and what we were facing or what we would
027be facing is that the if if those numbers were to hold up with over 20 classes with multiple kids identified as covet positive our teachers would have been faced with an insurmountable task of trying to provide another testing opportunity for anywhere between 140 to 180 students who were not able to be at school at no fault of their own due to covet and when you look at even a low end of 140 students at six different exams and all the exams have to be in by wednesday and we have no school on monday it was just an untenable situation to put students in that in that predicament nor would it have been realistic to expect teachers to be able to make all those accommodations so last year if people recall the kent county health department
028had guidance and the state had guidance that once the covet infection rate was beyond a spread rate of 10 percent schools were actually shut down for a period of time as of today the or the last seven day the average has been around 37 percent in the kent county area and we're starting to see that impact in our students so what the high school principal and high school administration decided to do was to [Music] allow any kid who was able to be at school and take the test they were expected to take the test and their grades would not be negatively impacted because some of those kids had missed a considerable number of days prior to due to covet for those students who were unable to make it or without didn't have the ability to
029take the exam or missed a few days prior to that was crucial those students the exams would not be held against them so any student who wanted to seek the opportunity to increase their grade they had that opportunity but we didn't feel that it would be appropriate to penalize those kids considering all the things that will be on the district control or the high school control and it was a decision that i wholeheartedly supported with that we are also in a situation where just as an fyi based on information that has been coming in today we are really teetering particularly at the high school level in terms of our staffing and being able to have enough staff to have the building functioning so we will be monitoring this on a day-to-day basis but we have
030approximately 15 percent of our staff who are not able to be there due to covert related issues if that increases or continue we may have no choice but to look at a possible closure for a period of time just as we're unable to operate we've been seeing this work havoc with our transportation as well as our maintenance and our custodial staffing as well so and even central office we have a number of staff members who are unable to be here tonight as this kind of works through our community so with all that being said next was information that came out from the supreme court decision as and then that was quickly followed up from the michigan health department and then the kent county health department the ets requirement which would have required testing for any
031unvaccinated staff member as well as mandatory masking has been struck down by the supreme court so that has taken a huge potential burden off the [Music] off the district in in terms of how to operationalize these requirements but we have been left in limbo for several weeks so that decision finally came out last week the kent county health department then updated their new health order and so i put out a communication to all of our parents essentially part of that new health order is masking and contact tracing is no longer required is in addition to some of the other changes so it was quite a lengthy [Music] health order and a lot of things to consider so we tried to put some information to our parents into our community so that they could understand under
032which scenarios should they self-quarantine or self-isolate if they are unable to come to school due to close contact or due to coving the other the last thing that i have is january 31st is the date that we are tentatively targeting for a board retreat this is something that we do annually it's kind of a time for us to look at some of our board norms and how we can operate most effectively as a administration and board team so um i believe we have that date uh confirmed and mr will be sharing that information out with the board of education in the upcoming memo memo so please plan on january 31st for a board retreat and that is all i have were there any questions for dr martin right dr martin if we do let's hope
033we don't need to but if something does happen with high school is there built-in days are we going to have to just add them at the end or so we all have six days which is actually in the statute known as act of god days we lovingly call them snow days so we have used two we can use four more than one goes beyond that the state superintendent has the ability in a unique situation to grant three additional days or the governor a couple years ago when we had a massive storm that went through the kent county area the governor identified two or three days as emergency weather days and so those days were not held against school districts and many school districts and i think we were one of them had gone over our
034six days in a few situations it was probably about eight nine years ago the state superintendent did do a broad waiver of three additional days for a lot of school districts that were hit with some heavy ice storms throughout michigan so right now we have four days to use because of the changes that i talked about at the start of the year we don't have the same flexibility to jump online the way we did in the past and if our staffing numbers if we have that many staff members who are ill it would probably be a very horrible experience to try to get that many subs and have subs teaching our kids in an online environment with all the changes and trying to not only be a sub but trying to learn a new system
035so we can take time off if we need to but we only have four days left at this point but um if you know we're we're hearing that we're nearing the peak and so i hope that is the case and we start to see things level off but if we don't i'm afraid i'm going to have to probably shut down a building or some buildings and corresponding activities to go along with that so that we can give our staff and our students a chance to get healthy and get back sorry for the long answer thanks tim dr martin a question about staff that are taking time off for the covet issue is that something that is coming out of their accumulated sick days or is there provisions from the state in any way so there
036is no requirement previously there was provisions where it did not count against them at all if it is a coveted sick day i.e if it has been identified by a medical physician kent county health department then we try to work with them and not hold that against them in some cases they are able to return quickly in some cases it extends so there is no hard fast rule if we can definitely identify that they're either close contact and probably probable or likely we work with them and try not to penalize them if it is beyond that then you know i i can't really prove it but i think i was close contact then no they have to use their personal days thank you jason sorry another actually almost a comment but i'll let you answer
037we talked briefly about the exam day or the exams in the curriculum committee um because one of the things that i heard is that there are other districts that had exams that went on as normal and i know we talked about it was the difference in some of the timings i didn't know if you wanted to elaborate on that for the rest of the board yeah so there were some districts particularly in ottawa county that did a similar thing to what we did we did this uh last year and i think last year it was just almost kind of universally accepted because schools were closed down for a number of days and some kids just struggled in online environment when you look at this year and you look at the number of kids who have
038been in and out it is very reminiscent if not more so than last year if we last year we had to shut down schools based on the infection rate or the number of kids if we had that same standard that was required by kent county health department we would have been shut down probably two to three times at the high school alone by now and we certainly wouldn't be in school now but when you look at the impact of kids constantly in and out and in and out and even moving into the exam schedule it was just really not a fair thing to do to a lot of her kids because some kids some kids honestly they thrived in online environment they didn't miss a beat some kids because they had to be out because
039of quarantine rules but they were healthy some kids were not feeling up to it what wasn't healthy and they would miss 10 plus days and that was going on straight into the exam uh christmas holiday break was kind of a godsend for us because we were kind of holding on for dear life heading into the break and coming out of the break we're also holding on to their life so the exams every district has been different there has been some districts in our county who have closed um a building or a couple buildings and have gone completely online and made modifications so depending on when this goes through your school community has a lot of impact on what adjustment schools may have made and if i understand some districts actually do the exams before christmas
040some just after some do exams before christmas and so that generally has to do with the view of semesters so some some districts feel this way that in general it's not always a given but in general we see more inclement weather days in january and february and so when you look at the majority of your six snow days a lot of times that happen in the second semester and when you look at the midway point in the school year that doesn't happen until mid-january so some districts feel that it is okay to have a shorter first semester because if you're going to burn snow days you're probably going to burn it january february and maybe a little bit into march more so than november december we are a district where our teachers sought more of
041the balance of trying to have 90 days on the front end and 90 days on the back end so with that that the way we deal with it is different than other districts thank you tim just a follow-up to jason's question the the student numbers that we were given at the high school word in the 120 130 maybe 150 range was the exam grace given to all students or just these students that were any student who was at school was expected expected to take the exam unless i don't think we have too many teachers that do it here i know in some districts some teachers will have something that if you are already earning a you have great attendance they'll let you exempt out of exam or different things like that but the expectation that
042was put out with the high school is that kids were expected to take the exam and you know knowing that that our kids who are looking at trying to get into college we understand that most colleges and universities have been a little bit fluid given the covet situation as unequal across the country with how they look at all of that information but we didn't want to put ourselves in a situation where a kid through no fault of their own was legitimately sick or missed considerable amount of time did not do well in an online environment and took the exam that would be detrimental to them nor did we feel that it was even realistic to expect our teachers to be able to accommodate that number of kids considering covet it's different if and they just
043missed the day or they took a vacation but this is just a different environment yeah i understand that where where the grace is necessary it's probably a good idea i just in looking at the letter it doesn't really say that it's a group of students and and maybe that wasn't the intent but i appreciate you clarifying that for all of us absolutely thank you any additional questions no all right at this time we're going to move into public comment all cards need to be turned in please we also probably could have given a shout out to our our operations department because i'm sure some of you are sitting out there shivering so it is quite chilly in here you can tell it's after a weekend and we had the day off so i apologize for
044all of that i will read three names in a row just so that we can be ready to go you do have your three minutes first we have melissa van gessel for our cea update then duane followed by john good evening i'm here for your monthly cea board report our semester came to an end last friday as a lot of you have discussed already our high school teachers were faced with a last minute change to the exam schedule so they're now working to calculate exams in unit assessments and commute compute those final grades elementary teachers were presented with a new report card in early december and are working on navigating this new document and assessment schedule to get those report cards out to families the end of january teachers at craft meadows as you've mentioned
045continue to use up their contractual planning time to help cover classes due to no substitutes craft teachers are also working hard to update google classrooms assignments prepare materials and assist students who are in quarantine ms lake teachers are doing school families we've divided our kindergarten through fourth grade students into families they then have one teacher that they all go to once a month and you stay in that school family the whole time you're at emin so for an example i have students kindergarten through fourth grade 20 of them come to me we kind of build a school family community and they'll stay in that family the duration of evans lake we've been doing some outreach projects and some based on trauma really building some community outside of the four walls and their class students and
046kettle 8 classrooms are decorating brown paper bags with pictures and words of encouragement that are going to blodget the covet ward these bags are then used to hold masks that staff use when they work with each individual patient thank you thank you next is dwayne then john followed by betsy yeah dwayne american citizen um i got some issues speak to the board earlier i think i heard you talk about some serious issues sir i'm speaking to you as well speaking to the superintendent as well he doesn't seem to be paying attention is he paying attention gotcha thank you sir can you look at the audience or not apparently he doesn't care please continue so you mentioned there were some serious issues in this community and you know huge surges and so on and so forth
047i don't necessarily see that uh resemblance in the audience people don't seem to be too scared too worried about coming out and uh addressing the board with their concerns so i think you got that one backwards the things that i think are serious here are the way you're treating the kids with their grades obviously they can come into classes get less than a passing grade and yet we won't hold that against them is that what you said that's what i heard you say you even wrote it out in a documentary i saw it i read it if they did took a test and they got failing grades it wasn't going to count against their final that's the way i read it sir was there something different you can explain it to me you've got the
048opportunity now to explain that that's the way i read it i would like to think most of people here read that as well you just said it yourself those who get less than failing grades won't be held against him for one reason or another mediocrity is that what we want here at your school that's what i'm seeing the third issue it was going on for a few months here folks there's been more than one gun issue at this school more than one and i've written to this board i spoke to people on this board including you ma'am and your answer to me was it wasn't serious because the gun was a pellet gun that gun made it into this school into your school into someone's locker that could very easily have been a rifle with
049a hundred rounds for all we know i asked you if you thought it was serious you told me no it was not serious because the sheriff told you it wasn't serious those were your words to me it wasn't a serious condition no one was in any danger that's only after the fact what have you done since then to prohibit that from happening in these schools that's what i want to know and i think the parents need to know that as well yeah this is an issue that was coming up a few months ago but it hasn't gone away in my mind this has been happening all around the country and you guys are allowing that to happen and keeping it quiet you're calling closed door meetings to discuss these you're not discussing with the parents
050what are being discussed behind the doors they need to know how you're going to secure these buildings what you think is serious exactly opposite from what the community thinks is serious thank you next we have john followed by betsy and then cody please my name is john rosham from hastings and for over a year now we've had parents community and students at large come here before the board to express their concerns their complaints with the way the board the school system has gone forward with not just covid but their curriculum crt and many other things and for over a year it's gone on deaf ears i'd like to try and express in as few words as i can what that means to the rest of the community do mm-hmm oh what i want you guys
051to feel and understand is that i've wasted your time like you've wasted every single person in this community's time for the last year have a good night thank you next we have it oh yeah sorry the kid card got pulled over yes you and then cody and then angela thanks betsy we must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools darkness cannot drive out darkness only light can do that hate cannot drive out or hate only love can do that people fail to get along because they fear each other they fear each other because they don't know each other they don't know each other because they are not they have not communicated with each other dr martin luther king jr today i personally feel like we missed an amazing opportunity
052to have our kids in school we didn't have the opportunity to learn about man who fought for equality he fought and died for equality just think what a difference this world would be if we actually learned to live the live the life he dreamed of equality is an important word that seems to have lost its meaning it's now replaced with equity equality hard work integrity has been replaced with equity inclusion social justice and safe spaces so i hate talking in front of all you guys i shake i get nervous i always write a speech i'll tell you what we we pretend that dr martin luther king matters and i'm shaking so i apologize but does he do we really care is equality really what we're going for when when our newsletters say equity that's not
053equality when our standards are being lowered no matter what anybody says we aren't doing valedictorian in our school we don't do exams there's hardly any homework there's no testing what are we having our children set up for it's failure our country was built on hard work people like martin luther king worked his book off in this country to achieve something not to not do homework because hey it sucks they had a hard day they had a cold they fought our founding fathers fought for this country we don't have that integrity anymore it's not being taught in our schools and it's really really shameful i'm embarrassed when the kid goes to caledonia i had so many people email me from outside of the school district or send me screenshots that our kids weren't taking exams for
054no matter what reason other schools have that problem and they're still taking exams they still do tests they still do homework our school doesn't that's a huge problem and i'm not ashamed to say i am so happy my four-year-old will never go to caledonia and my son will never go here after this year that should make everybody worried that you lost 1.4 million dollars because people left the school district there is a reason why open your eyes and figure out why us parents are so pissed off because you're not giving the kids what they need it's not about us it's about them it's about their future thank you next we have cody followed by angela and then jessica good evening my name is cody my question is to the board specifically individually i would like
055a response on your beliefs and where you stand in regards to the changes to the testing and grading for the final exams and i give you my email address on the card so i look forward to response thank you angela and jessica followed by john hi good evening my name is angela regas and i'm here on behalf of my two my two sons and the rest of the students in this community who have had to attend your school i have the last paragraph from the letter that you sent out to parents and students our goal is to create an equitable opportunity for all students and to encourage students to study and prepare for their finals but it doesn't really matter does it because the grades don't count but to avoid having an exam become a
056punitive measure for their learning which that's what exams are for therefore your your student to to want to achieve greatness to get good grades that's why they're in school to learn but now they can spend the entire semester doing whatever they wish and at the time of the exam i don't know like my son's students or my son's teacher said you just put your name on it you don't need to do the exam really that's where we've come good job good job you guys so glad we elected you as our leadership for our school it's quite embarrassing actually so and i'm kind of shaken because i'm kind of upset and i wouldn't blame the reduction in enrollment on covet you can blame yourselves you have been elected by the community to lead effective leaders encourage
057others to raise up to meet their goals and achieve success your ineffectiveness and effectiveness as an abort has led to failed policies being adopted such as not scoring tests students in your high school are now being told to simply put their name on the exams they don't need to complete the test dei sel and crt are just now more examples of failures in this district which you claim that are those things are not here in the school district but they are just like you claim that people don't dress up as dogs and and cats but they do we know they do so you claim are preparing our students first to succeed but that is simply not the case you need to do better you need to absolutely do better i mean you're now getting hit
058financially when are you going to wake up thank you jessica and john and bob thank you board for listening i really appreciate it um i do want to start off that i am thankful that there's an options for mask nrk through you know k through six now you guys heard me talk a couple times on how i i strive for a you know option not all medical fits one um some kids you know feel i know when parents feel it's okay to wear you know that they need to wear a mask for protection that's okay some do not and that's okay so i thank you for giving us the option for masks as everybody has stated for the exams thank you for explaining why you guys did what you did however those kids that were
059there everyone should be graded appropriately whether they fail pass same as we do with work if we fail something we get talked to about or we lose our jobs these seniors have to get ready for real life in college i worked full time and went to college full time full-time i i you know that we have to as betsy said we have to strive for excellence you know and my my son's only in third grade but i'm listening to kind of what's happening in the high school and i'm hoping after the pandemics done that this won't be in that this won't be a case anymore that kit you know that everybody will be graded appropriately um and i did write things on the card i want to hear from everybody about the exam um and
060also in some of our groups and how there can be more diverse groups as well so thank you for your time thank you next day of john then bob followed by bill good evening uh my question stems from the last dialogue with doc and the deputy which was a interesting night and i appreciate the time for that um we talked about maybe adding a resource officer another school resource officer i guess my question to the board is is what uh where are we at with that if we you know i'm just curious in each one of you guys if you're you're forward or against it and where we're at and that progress of trying to get that goal met thank you bob and bill followed by rachel good evening on this martin luther king jr
061day hopefully we can all agree that racism is unacceptable regardless of its intent or form and that all students deserve the opportunity to be judged by the content of their individual character i'd hope you'd also agree that as school board members you have the responsibility to ensure this at california schools so last july and again in october i request requested the school board provide evidence of tangible policies that prevent our students from being taught that they are racist by virtue of the color of their skin as was done to my son and his classmates at duncan lake middle school i've still not received any uh clear evidence there's any policies in place to address this so i'll try to be a little bit more clear this time there's a few specific asks are there any
062school-wide policies that clearly define this form of racist pedagogy as unacceptable if not why do new higher orientations make it clear that this form of racist ideology taught to them at universities pretty widely i might add is unacceptable and will not be tolerated at our k-12 school system are there teacher training materials and curriculums vetted to emit any materials that assume any form of discrimination based on a student's personal characteristics such as skin color sex religion or sex including heterosexuals so after six months i'm still waiting for some tangible documentation that says that this policy is in place and is being followed and the future students won't be subjected to this type of pedagogy thank you thank you next we have bill followed by rachel and ian good evening my name is bill daniel been
063a member of the district since 96 i've had three children who have graduated from the high school i've always been happy with the school district i currently have four grandchildren living in the district two currently enrolled one will be joining the school district next year here to talk about the high school exam i understand the difficulty that it has presented to you but i am disappointed that there wasn't more contingency planning put into place ahead of this with the thought that this could come to a head i'm curious if the school board had any discussion about this before the letter came out also i'm curious your fourth to last sentence in the paragraph says we appreciate your partnership to me partnership means that there's a two-way discussion and any sort of a good partnership is
064discussion back and forth i don't know if any discussion took place with parents or if this was just made without any discussion but i'd be curious to know what took place along that line also i'd like to know if there's going to be any sort of contingency planning if this were to take place in the spring or next year and i thank you for your time thank you next is rachel then ian followed by stacy hey guys i was uh i'm just here listening um and i noticed that you guys want to opt out of the school of choice resolution why would that be because you guys have been losing enrollment i feel that this would help you guys and for people to have kids that don't want to go to caledonia anymore they this
065would give them recent freedom to go anywhere they want really um and the 55 000 for grants um for health care here within the school um who's paying for that who is providing that grant is it hhs i think that's a valid question that needs to be answered thank you next we have ian followed by stacy and then eric good evening so i'm here about the the exams for the high school and just i guess the education overall i'd like to know from the board members individually like a response from the board members individually which one of you guys actually voted to have the exams marked as a pass fail which one of you guys actually endorses that as acceptable for our children i've heard a superintendent say that they're preparing our kids for the
066future preparing our kids for the hardships they're about to face when they leave high school when they go into college i just heard you say that most colleges now are having some leeway because of coba and so forth and so on leeway doesn't mean they're discharging completely the gpa system or their education here in high school so what happens when the child decides that they're not going to study for any class because it'll be unilaterally decided that they're not going to get graded on any exams and has decided the day of the exam not a week before not a month before there was no discussion with the teachers the discussion with the parents and hearing from the questions from some of the board members themselves it doesn't sound like you guys are involved with it
067either it sounds like it came from one individual not sure who that individual was or is but it doesn't sound like the board themselves took part in that discussion if that's the case then it's pretty disgraceful in itself so what happens when the child leaves the high school and they go into college and they can't participate or keep up with those kids who have been given grades for exams or are being held accountable for learning the subject matter they're supposed to be taking so when that child decides to fall out or fail are you then going to pick up the pieces and come and rescue that child or are you simply going to wipe your hands clean of them are we really preparing our children for the hardships in the future the answer is no
068i've heard teachers are upset as well because you've now taken their control and power away from them so why do they go to the school to get their master's degrees get certificates why are they spending the hours on hours and months and months putting putting together lesson plans when you're simply going to say don't worry about that just pass or fail what are they teaching the kids why would they teach the kids then we have some of the best teachers out there in caledonia they're phenomenal teachers and they have passion for our children but when you take their power out from underneath them what then becomes of the school itself what becomes of the children when the children see that their teachers aren't respected what makes you think that they themselves will believe that they're
069being respected which one of you guys are prepared to stand up and say enough's enough which one of you guys would have the courage to say this isn't right why are we doing this that doesn't make sense why are we on one of the only school districts to not grade our kids on exams so if a child has a chicken pox for example forget covet for example let's just put that aside a child has chickenpox for a week does that child then get exempt from every grade that they're supposed to to go through and every exam is supposed to take because they got sick for the week or do you hold that child accountable to say well you know i'm sorry you were out but you have to make up the work now you have
070to go back and get the job done did either one of you guys go through your academic careers with a pass fail if you're on the exam table or if you're on the operating table and a doctor comes to you and says hey i got you today but i only only passed that one course i didn't get the grade but i passed it are you then comfortable with your loved one on the operating table because that's what you're doing to our children you're not preparing them for the rigors of of the future at some point you have to stand up and be leaders the community elected you guys as leadership to follow the will of the community i don't think the community wanted you to just pass fail our kids so at what point did
071you ask any of us hey we have this proposal out here what do you think you're good about asking us about where you want to spend some dollars but when it comes to educating our children where's that question to the administrators and teachers out there are you asking them if it's a good idea if they said yes i'm shocked because then again why are they teaching our kids they have passion for our children do you at some point you have to be a leader and at some point you have to make tough decisions and do the right thing not the easy thing thanks thank you stacy and then eric i'm hoping that i get a response from all of you board members i put my information on my card but i have a question uh
072one is reiterating what ian said about why were the exams canceled and at the last minute my daughter has probably less than half of her exams have counted in her high school career how it does that prepare her for college i would like to know that how has caledonia community schools prepared my kid for college who is going to college i don't get it i also don't get your lack of respect of your teachers at the last minute to cancel after they spent all kinds of time preparing for their in coming up with the exams and the questions and all of the preparation that they had to put into making these exams for these kids and then now they don't count it's a freaking slap in the face thank you eric hi i have some
073comments i want to share about the exams but first i want to touch on a different topic people come up here and been very clear what the expectations they have for you guys i wanted to tell you one expectation i have and that is if somebody is coming up here and talking and they're not identifying themselves as part of this district i hope you're ignoring them i mean i really do if they're not able to vote for you guys it's kind of offensive to listen to them tell me what i should be focusing on for my my child so i that's my expectation for you guys as it relates to the exam announcement i think there's a couple lessons to to learn from that one is any communication that goes out to parents i think
074ought to be clear and express the whys and the rationale and so on and so forth that's i think that's basic a basic uh courtesy secondarily it ought to do everything it can to minimize surprises in the communication that came out i think what i'm hearing both in this meeting and some of the dialogue that came out after that initial exam communication was it's really because there's been a spike in cove numbers and that's not clear in in any of the information until we just heard it now and i think an announcement that came out like 24 hours after the initial exam announcement and i think it did i think it hurt you guys a little bit i think it hurt the public's perception i think this was more caused by the spike in the
075cove numbers and the inability to to reschedule exams all those sound understandable but you have to you have to understand we only can respond to what we have access to information to in terms of responding so we don't know the code numbers but they're high so that would help if we could know them okay so my my recommendation is we start creating a dashboard just like other districts do just share the information just throw it out there and we'll see the spikes and by sharing that information it'll minimize surprises and i think that's everybody's goal we're irrespective of where you stand on this side of the topic sharing factual data just can't hurt it helps the parents out and i think that's that's what was missing here was the rationale was understandable but we heard
076it in hindsight so we just need to hear we just need to have access to that information up front and then lastly uh i would encourage that we prepare for this covert thing to be ongoing i don't think it's going away anytime soon i think we ought to look at next december and say you know what we should have exams next december not january because when you hit the holiday season that's when people are exposing themselves to highly infectious interactions and so on and so forth i don't think we want to put another exam cycle at risk so i would suggest that we consider a december exam cycle for next year now that's it thank you at this time we'll move on to 11 our action items we have budget amendments move that the board
077approves the 2021-22 budget amendment resolution all second second thank you are there any further questions on that can we have roll call please asper yes clement yes barbara garcia yes yes morris yes cedu yes white yes motion carries all right at this point in time i just need a motion to adjourn motion by kyle second oh second second by jason all in favor say aye any opposed thank you everyone please be safe