001the statements being made tonight we the board or administrative team members may follow up with the speakers after the meeting thank you to all of you who signed up to share your comments with us and while we're expressing gratitude uh we will thank you in advance for understanding the comments will will be delivered in accordance with board policy 216 and guideline to 16.1 in brief i will highlight some of the some of the following from those documents time allotted is three minutes per speaker six if translation is needed our interpretation is needed miss quan will monitor the time i'm a squam we'll give a 30 second warning when 30 seconds remains and we'll say time's up when the speaker's time has expired when the speaker's time has expired i will ask the speaker to complete
002their thoughts and move on we have several speakers and we want to give them all the fair time um that they've signed up for if the comments are not concluded at some point i may have to gather you down and ask that we keep moving on for the rest of the meeting and the other speakers we will recognize one speaker at a time and ask that those those present allow that person to present without interruption if there are issues related to male performance of a specific school district employee you should not use that employee's name but instead you should you should submit in writing to the human resources department complaints about that individual and with that we'll move to this first speaker our order for speakers is speakers students first then other community members in
003order of their signing up and our first student speaker is grace johnson hello first thing i want to start with is did you guys do your research about the broken freezer oh these are not my what okay did you guys do your research about the brooklyn free school some of you guys okay i actually wrote something down this time you guys the school board say it's your part-time job but act like it you guys should act like it's your full-time job it involves students it involves kids it involves many students future um you guys once again failed us you guys filled us last year with the school lunches taking students lunches away you guys failed us this year by multiple reasons first you guys failed us especially the principal failed us by not listening to
004us and we had to bring in a higher up to get him even out of the school and you guys should know who i'm talking about you guys let a racist teacher retire i'll say it again you guys let a racist teacher retire the fact that we all have to show up here today to fight for a teacher that doesn't give us anything but hope in our future the only teacher that gives us reason to come to school because you guys are supposed to make us feel safe at school when we have to go to an actual teacher's room to feel safe when we come here because we don't feel safe because you guys let racist teachers work here you guys let this guy this stuff pass by and you guys just ignore it when
005we when us the students that have to come here five days a week more than half the day you guys aren't in this school you guys don't have to tolerate it you guys don't have you guys don't have to go to a different teacher's room because you guys don't feel unsafe in a different classroom you guys don't experience that but us students do because we're in that school all the time we're in the school nine months a a year nine months and you guys decided to let a teacher retire that room that didn't let students fulfill their fuller potential when that's what you guys want every student to receive and you guys failed us you guys keep failing us and you guys need to open your eyes and see that because you guys are failing
006us every day at this point you guys don't see that when we heard when we looked at the school burn notes and it says something re-read something that you guys aren't allowing renewing his contract it broke us it broke the students that stuck up for him the students that actually felt safe when that teacher walked out with us that day he made us feel safe he brought us food he brought us water he made sure that we were safe just because you guys went out and tried to get darby or somebody to do that how do you know if that was what the students wanted because school is about what the students want now what the teachers deserve or what the teachers think that are right not what the principal thinks that is right but
007what the students want and the students see and the students that live in the school 24 7. look at that [Applause] the next our next speaker is speaker chris nyakundi [Music] where do i start um first i'll start off by saying who failed us you sitting up there under that clock and the one next to him the supposed head chair the head leaders tim and steve i'm not gonna say mister because you lost my respect you lost the respect of every student in this school the fact that us as students have to come down here and do your job what you're expected to do the fact that we have to go out to other schools and ask for support because your students are too scared to say something because they're scared they're going to get
008in trouble the fact that you think that this is a safe space but you're uns you're upsetting the balance getting rid of joe walker he's the only thing that's keeping his school safe and when he leaves i'm leaving the students are leaving because there ain't no school without students at best believe if we don't get justice y'all ain't getting no damn peace next year i can guarantee it i'll be out there every day every day at your house his house wait until we get justice and guess what the fact that all this is going on while you're while you're at chair while you're the head leader it's sad you need to be replaced you need to go because too much is going on too much damage too much trauma has gone on while you're sitting
009here and what do you have to say for yourself you did a week equity plan how long have you been the leader of this school you just implemented it last year that's sad it said the fact that you're getting rid of the only student the only teacher that students feel safe of color that students of color feel safe with it's sad the fact that john trender got to retire and bang your gamble do it do it oh wait that's crazy it's crazy it's also crazy the fact that you think that the original walkout that we planned wasn't organized enough and that teachers couldn't go because you felt that you didn't put your hand in it that's crazy but the fact is on the the last day of school the walkout we did there we did
010it in a shorter amount of time and you approved it and it's crazy the fact that only 12 people came to that and it wasn't even organized at all but how is that organized how is that organized mr yanowski talk about it i have nothing else to say to you [Applause] our next speaker is joe walker [Applause] [Music] good evening my name is joe walker i'm a social studies teacher and assistant football coach here at richfield high school on the agenda for the meeting tonight is the decision regarding the non-renewal of my probationary teaching contract as i understand it this decision stems from my participation in the student-led walk-out and protest for racial justice on april 19 2021. to begin i want to make one thing abundantly clear i am not here to save my
011job this is not about me never was about me and never will be about me this is about richfield high school students deciding to stand up and be a part of the movement for racial justice furthermore this is about richfield students making their voices heard and advocating for their right to a safe and supportive learning environment within which they can learn and grow as students and as people in this instance our students specifically are black indigenous and students of color expressed a clear need for support and solidarity from staff and indicated that staff participation alongside them in the walk out and protest would provide them with this in that moment although i've only been a part of the richfield community and richfield public schools for two years i have listened carefully and learned much from
012students families staff and community members about how the district addresses the issues of racial injustice and racial inequity from what i have gathered the district has demonstrated an established pattern of failing to adequately reckon with the issue of race in the opinion of many rps students past and present as well as other richfield residents since my arrival at richfield students have made clear to me and other staff members their feelings of an absence of support and understanding between students and staff as well as their frustration about student voices not being hurt they have been clear about the lack of safe supportive spaces and scarcity of staff they can trust to listen to them when they express these feelings as the students know well truly progressive change requires truly progressive action in this spirit numerous students
013requested that i participate in the walkout and protest in solidarity with them they made it clear that my participation would represent a tangible and important demonstration of staff support for students actions and responsiveness to students needs upon being invited in by students i agreed to join them statements published by school and district administrators in the days leading up to the walkout in protest implied that they would be supportive of staff participation i quote a message from rps leadership on april 16 2021 throughout history there have been times of increased struggle and heartache in the fight for social justice the civil rights movement is not a chapter in history class it is here and now i quote again as educators it is our job to support and empower our students through these challenging times to uplift
014them to believe in them and to give them the tools they need to face the world as it is and to join us in the fight to make it a better place as a district we will stand with our students and staff as they work for change message from rps leadership i'd like to end by saying that um i'm certain that i have made many mistakes along the way in this situation particularly as a white man and for that i sincerely apologize however my intentions and everything that i have done has been to demonstrate support for our students especially our black indigenous and students of color this has been and always will be my top priority as an educator i'm saddened at the prospect of not being able to return to richfield next year i
015thoroughly enjoy working at richfield and above all else i love working with the students of richfield and they are the leaders of the movement for change i want to encourage them to keep leading and to keep working for the change they are seeking people will follow in support and solidarity and no matter what happens i want them to know that i will always be one of those people all power to the people always and all power to the students thank you [Applause] thank you our next speaker [Applause] our next speaker is zach olsen zach olsen all right our next speaker is candace johnson good evening it's hard to follow a speech like that i can't believe you guys are considering letting an asset like that walk out this door i graduated from mitchfield high school
01627 years ago this year and i'm here tonight in support of these students and mr walker there's really not a lot else to say after mr walker's speech i mean he wrapped it up but i'll tell you what he nailed it you guys are upholding a long legacy of systemic racism in richfield public schools i experienced it and it breaks my heart to sit here 27 years later after being told not to bother with college applications after teachers telling me after i request you know to join academic clubs giving me the minnesota nice responses but you're so good at basketball you'd be so wouldn't you just be happier focusing on that i had the grades i had the ambition and the drive what i didn't have was the opportunity to succeed because there weren't teachers
017here like mr walker willing to give me the chance [Music] and here we are 27 years later [Music] 27 years later listening to young kids talk about kids of color talking about they don't feel safe in the school same school that i got called a in same school where i was sexually harassed racially harassed in front of teachers like miss teresa rosen who would say things to me like if it bothered me so much that i should just remove myself from the situation rather than dealing with and disciplining these students well we have an athletic department that condones students waving the confederate flag around at hockey games i mean this is this is richfield's history so it's not shocking to me that we have a student body i mean uh excuse me a school board
018all white white presenting for the second time now in four years when a issue regarding black lives matter and students of color speaking up and advocating for themselves you decide to get rid of the teacher that supports those students [Music] it doesn't look good it's not a coincidence when you have you know there's i don't care if my time is up allegra you ran on a social justice platform publicly you used richfield social justice community to talk about how you were committed to ending systemic racism [Music] i watched you talk for [Music] several minutes answer several questions at the school board debate people asked you point blank why we should vote for you all of your answers were social justice uh minded and you know that i want you to think about that while you
019decide what's going to happen maybe you guys have already decided i don't know i'm kind of late to the party but it seems like the decision has already been made and the fact that not one of you has been publicly supportive of this teacher and the fact that he should stay you all sit up here silently you never engage with the students at these meetings you don't engage with the public at these meetings and you just you write your notes and call it at a let the community read it the fact of the matter is is that not one of you up here identifies with any of these black men [Music] at this table you don't identify with their experiences their lives you sit up here and write your policies and go home to your
020white families at the end of the day they are out of sight and out of mind until they decide to stand up for themselves and get in your faces and make some noise about their rights to be treated fairly and then when you're not in the school you don't have to think about them again that's right you just stay silent so you know like i said i just want to publicly acknowledge that again the emphasis is two times now in four years that you are letting a teacher go who is openly supportive of the black lives matter movement while you said nothing to condemn the white teacher who is making racist statements to black and brown students in school so you've sent the message that you're all okay with that and you you know you're
021gonna run on your social justice platforms to get your little votes you know that's what it is you say what you need to say because it's popular because that's what's going to get people's attention and then you go on and do what you're going to do crystal that goes for you too i know you're at home watching you've been at many richfield social justice meetings back in the day can i please ask you to wrap up soon i'll wrap up when i'm ready to wrap up tim palace [Music] i don't have that much more to say but again i just enjoy sitting here looking at you look me in the eyes with your smug faces especially crystal and allegra after all the social justice talk mr yunowski and for the record mr yanowski i'm not
022here on behalf of richfield social justice community i'm here as candace johnson graduate of richfield high school tax paying member of this community who lives right down the street you like to shut everything down if you think it's social justice related talk about how supportive you are black and brown communities you know your kids go to southwest if they came home to you and told you that teachers were telling them that they weren't going to amount to anything would you stand for that definitely not it's your kid we gotta respond to them cause they're just gonna shut up exactly answer the questions i know i'm gonna tell you for three minutes only anyway ain't nobody get anything out there i'll sit up here as long as i want i got shuffled through the school system
023ignored you're gonna do the same thing to these kids you think that they're up here you think this is a joke dennis i appreciate the comments i really i don't think you do appreciate the comments because again this is a pattern that you guys are establishing and i will i will wrap it up because i realize you have to get onto other things and there are other people here that probably want to speak about this as well but just know that it's not over you're not going to brush this aside you're not going to keep treating black and brown students like they don't matter you know and maybe you will if you want to be a hypocrite in that regard then i just all i ask is just don't talk about social justice issues don't
024sit up there and say that you are for these things when you are continuously demonstrating that you're not this in this case to me is a clear sign of retaliation firing a teacher or not renewing his contract you know do you think it's a wash because this other guy retired so they're both gone so it's all good is that what you think it kind of seems like that's what you guys you know think so i just again if this is what you guys are going to be in the practice of doing then you don't need to be talking about you know your social justice initiatives you don't need to talk about how important it is for you to make sure that this is an equitable environment for all students you don't need to say that
025you hear us the standard response that you see us and i i see you when i hear you it's time to do more than that you guys and you know that thank you our next speaker [Applause] our next speaker is chara blanche [Applause] our next speaker is chara blanche ciao [Music] my name is shara blanche similar to candace i am alumna of richfield high school i graduated from here 24 years ago and i have a son who is entering his sophomore year here when i told my son that you guys were going to fire joe walker that it was on the agenda he was sad he's not able to be here tonight to speak for himself but he was sad similar to how these students are jill walker is a social studies teacher what better
026way to teach anything than to live it our state has experienced one of the most high profile police murders in our country's history it happened less than five miles from here and our students have very few teachers who support them my son's first bad experience with a teacher in richfield high school or richfield schools was when he was in fourth grade by the end of that school year he said mom she's racist fourth grade one of those teachers who was probably around when candace and i were around but fourth grade he experienced it again last year not last year the year before last at richfield middle school thankfully that teacher is no longer here there aren't many teachers like mr walker in the richfield school system though there are a few who are afraid to
027stand with mr walker because of the history and the policies and actions of this district i have had teachers personally come to me and say how can i support mr walker and i tell them you can support him by joining him but they're afraid that they're going to be next on the chopping block had they done that mr walker wouldn't be the scapegoat that he is today other staff would have been with him i really don't care about anything else that may or may not have happened with mr walker as a former hr professional i know how that goes you find reasons it's something i experienced personally so i know exactly how it goes i know how that gas lighting feels to be doing an excellent job you get great feedback on everything that you're
028doing in the classroom in this case or in the technical aspects of your job but then something happens and of course with every job there are things that don't fit in a job description i get that anything that may or may not have happened is something that can be worked through there's coaching you have another year before mr walker's probationary period is up another full year to develop him for him to learn for him to potentially not be in this situation in another year and for the students to have someone in this building who they know they can go to who is safe for them that includes the students sitting in this room absolutely includes my son and includes a number of other students you did this four years ago you're doing it again and
029i really hope that you you guys do the right thing tonight you choose to keep mr walker here give him another year you have another year we could be back here in a year we could be back here in six months if mr walker doesn't do exactly what you want him to do which by the way he's not going to i'm not making that promise he's going to challenge you and he should challenge you this is a racist system all systems are the school system the criminal justice system they are all racist systems do the right thing keep mr walker here [Applause] our next speaker is our next speaker is latifah moss hi i'll just start off by saying i really do want to acknowledge the students and the faculty that are here and wanting
030to stand up for themselves and the alum that are also here speaking out for themselves i do want to say that it seems for the last at least what 27 years if not more that ridgefield has been failing their students i graduated high school almost 10 years ago and i can tell you that in that time i wish i would have had a teacher like mr walker unfortunately things like this we could have prevented long before this teachers should have been standing with their students of color before this year before i graduated before shara performance johnson this all could have been prevented and it's really unfortunate to see that you all hold the power to change and to break this cycle with these students by not doing so you're not only repressing and oppressing the
031teachers that do want to stand for him but also these students these students are going to they're going to kind of they're it's just frustrating to see what's going to happen with these students they're not being uplifted the way that they should this is our future we don't know where these kids are gonna end up in the next five to ten years we don't know if they're gonna be teaching your kids we don't know if they're teaching our kids for a long time up my partner and i had to consider moving to richfield eventually starting a family wanting to raise because we do enjoy this city but with a public school system set up the way that it is there's no reason to do that here richard has the potential to grow you really do
032and they're not doing it no i don't think that you are um social studies is my favorite subject throughout school one it's not really a requirement all four years and i think that's kind of ironic considering history repeats itself over and over again you have a teacher like mr walker who's not only wants to teach history but create history with his students i'll end on this i do think that maybe in 20 30 years hopefully mr walker's still teaching and is able to do so wherever he so pleases probably in better cities in richfield at this point truthfully and i hope that not only do they read his name in those textbooks and what he did to stand up for his students but they also read your names and how you continued to fail these
033students and that you did nothing for them at the end of the day so just know that you have the potential to be on the wrong side of history for this it's not fair to the students it's not fair to you my dad taught me growing up i grew up in the south suburbs myself the truth will always set you free you made a very quick decision to to end mr walker's employment here but dragged your feet on another employee for the amount of time that it's taken for myself to talk for miss johnson for shara all these people his job was probably decided in much shorter time than that without a thought and for what to upset students to upset community members they're not going to have your back much longer after this so
034just know i understand that time is of the essence but these kids don't really have a lot of time left you only have four years in high school you're molding them the way that you want to and that's fine really if that's really what you want to choose but just know that you could have the potential to do a lot better [Applause] our next speaker our next speaker is don williams [Applause] i was here five or six weeks ago i think and when the students were given an opportunity to speak i listened to them speak and i watched you turn your heads roll your eyes and try to move on to something else there were people in the room that didn't allow you to do that and you sat here for two hours roughly trying
035to figure something out with these kids and now i'm sitting here and i heard it took a while for the teacher that was in question that night to resign so you didn't fire him didn't think it was worth removing him um and now you're going to get rid of this young man it sounds like who from what i've heard spoken is truly looked up to by these students i understand that you have policies and you have things that you need to do or that you need to fall back on to do what you need to do but i'm here to tell you it sounds to me like you have a young man in here that your kids look up to and has your kids best interests at heart so because he's probationary and it's easier
036to get rid of a probationary teacher than it is to maybe sit down and mentor him and move him on i don't know what your mentoring program is um sounds to me like that's an easy way out for you guys my question is this where does he go this goes on his record is he hireable again you're not going to spend time to mentor a young man who cares about your student body you're just going to move them out it doesn't make sense to me education needs people like joe walker who may make mistakes that you don't like but who has the ears of his students and has the respect of students again i can't speak for every student that goes to ridgefield high school i can speak for the ones that i hear constantly
037talk about joe walker i don't want you to make a mistake i wish teachers cared about me and what i said when i was going through the system and i was being educated and i'm an educator now and i try to do the same thing with my students they have a voice they have opinions they have a right to be heard they have a right to be shared and if they walk out and protest for something guess what probably going to support them matter of fact joe i can tell you right now i'd walk out with them because i do because life brings things to these kids that you can't life brings experiences to these kids that you can't but you can't hold them accountable for bad choices when they're learning and they're making choices
038just like they go to joe walker because it's guidance what kind of guidance do you give them i have a great grandson who's going to be a student here one day i said this the last time i was here if this is what he has to go through in school through staff i will strongly encourage his mother to take him elsewhere because i want him to learn life experiences and not be held down by board decisions good luck to you mr walker [Applause] thank you is zach olsen present zach is not present all right thank you to the to all the speakers on the next opportunity for public comment is monday july 12th we we anticipate that that meeting will be conducted under our pre-covered rules for appearances however anyone who wishes to give comment
039at that can certainly reach out to us via email with a prepared statement a recorded statement and we'll find a way to enter it into the record and with that i think that we move now on to the superintendent update superintendent younowski yes i'd like to welcome to the microphone jonathan heyer and emily burt um and nancy nancy satchel are you presenting also all right so our q comp team um is presenting this year's q comp annual report um so with that i'll turn it over to emily and jonathan hi everyone is this working yeah yes um it's nice to be here we were not here last year due to covid so the annual report was cancelled for nde so we're excited to be able to share with you tonight some of the program changes
040that took effect this year and some new learning we've gained from feedback from our staff so the purpose so our agenda for tonight is really to talk speak clearly about the purpose of qcomp and why richfield is a member think about our different program components that we offer under that qcomp umbrella and a look at our survey from 2021 in the spring and what learning we have gleaned from the data we've collected from staff members anything else great so mde really talks about the purpose of qcomp alternative teacher professional pay systems as a a possibility or an avenue to improve student learning we really want to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers we encourage highly qualified teachers to undertake challenging assignments and support teachers roles in improving students educational achievement we it also exists to
041provide incentives to encourage teachers to improve their own knowledge and their instructional skills so although that purpose statement comes from mde we also truly firmly believe those things here in rps one of our goals this year is to infuse every piece of our program with equity aligned with the district plan and the equity belief statement so what that often can look like is really seventh generation thinking so we want a program for not just what will take will affect folks this year but far into the future and with that in mind we we believe that the decisions we make today should benefit and sustain generations to come and as our strategic plans indicate our plans for growth and empowerment will impact staff and students and we know that qcomp really exists to support teacher groups
042and students student groups different pieces of qcomp include learning academy teacher evaluation and observation professional learning communities better known as plc's mentor program and student achievement and goal setting at both the district and the building level also each at the individual electric level for each member of our teaching staff um so we want to highlight a few things that have changed over the past year we may not get to every piece of our program but we'd like to share with you some of the big pieces that we think are truly truly impactful for now and for the future so our team has been engaged the peer review team and the steering committee have been engaged in really reimagining qcomp as we have reimagined richfield for our strategic plan and of course we welcome questions and
043feedback from the board at any time and have reserve time at the end for that as well you can stop me whenever you want you're doing great i couldn't do it without you i really want to talk about learning academy specifically is that is a program that is unique to richfield and as folks know learning academy is a teacher-driven program that falls under the lens of qcomp in which staff members create and deliver professional development outside of the school day and teachers can choose courses that they have a high level of interest in and also be compensated for their time outside of the regular contract hours we did not offer summer courses in 2020 of course due to covid and all courses for 2021 were actually offered online and in either synchronous or asynchronous format
044so in the past we had started to offer courses online and blended but due to covid all courses were online some themes that really emerged this year as being popular and important for staff were technology equity and also self-care for staff as they navigated some some really significant challenges of online and hybrid teaching so we offered things that beyond that as well but those were some themes that really emerged as being important to folks and we really believe that this unique program to richfield increases staff engagement on a level where they have choice on what pd they're offered and i do courses that were focused on educational equity were really really well attended in 2021 they were delivered by both staff of color and staff who identify or present as white and we believe that
045they did help staff address the debt that is owed to marginalized communities data for this particular so we have we typically present data from several years in a row um to highlight to the board what offerings have been successful or what growth we can make based on data so it's interesting to note that during the 2019-20 school year which moved to online in around march 16th had about 95 participants or seats filled so that means 95 it doesn't necessarily mean 95 different people because some folks did sign up for more than one course but overall we filled 95 seats and we have more than doubled that in 2021 so that what that showed us is that although teachers were experiencing workloads and stress that there was a really big appetite for new learning um and
046that was that was a real positive we are offering courses again this summer we're offering a self-care course and we are also offering some coursework on early learning which has been an area that the early learning staff has highlighted an interest in and need for we know we will still have need for tech instruction and continuing equity work it's possible that online formats may have increased participation in in addition to the pandemic and our future includes plans for affinity groups for teachers of color that will be led by staff of color and in the future ally groups for white folks who wish to support those that are in the affinity group yeah we continue to try to grow the learning academy courses and offerings um each year we've as you can see we've grown the
047seats that have been filled and it's again unique to richfield and something that we feel is a real strength of our q comp program being that it's led by teachers for teachers so that they can learn from each other as well one additional idea we've had is certain staff have expressed a certain amount of anxiety around facilitating or leading a course for the first time and our team is going to offer specific coaching on that in the future so that folks who may have really really great ideas to share with others can be supported on the facilitation end and move forward in that way one more thing i would say about it is that we've tried to create more opportunities by making classes of different lengths so classes used to have to be eight hours
048and now we've um have that as low as is it two emily two hours for a course up to 12 hours and so we've made that distinction and also having the online component makes it more accessible to teachers as well a big part of comp includes teacher observation or evaluation mde did offer lots of guidance around that for the 20 19 20 school year and also for this past year so some of the temporary changes that we implemented last fall that took place during this past school year where um also have had the same peer coach for each observation the reason behind that being that people often tend to feel comfortable with someone they know they may be more likely to take professional risks and be vulnerable try new strategies and receptive to feedback with
049someone who who they're familiar with who knows their instruction who knows their classroom and has kind of been with them on that journey we also provided evaluative scores only on domain one in danielson which is the planning and preparation domain and what we knew going into covid was that there was going to be a lot of unexpected uh things ahead of us instructionally we might be changing formats as far as blended hybrid or hybrid or online or face-to-face teaching and so we wanted to offer eval on the piece that we knew teachers could control and excel at in the planning and preparation preparation phase we did then offer feedback on pieces around classroom management and instruction we did not offer evaluative scores in those areas another change was that nearly all pre and post observation
050meetings between the observer and the staff member were held via google meet many people did indicate that they appreciated that um and it cuts down on the cast mileage for the peer review team to be driving driving across such a little district as richfield and we did hold observations in whichever format that the teacher was currently teaching in so if the teacher was face to face the observation was in person if the teacher was teaching online we we did observations via google meet and i would just add that the feedback given on domains two and three was a coaching style based on what the teacher maybe wanted to work on or needed to communicate with us about we were able to coach them around those ideas and again less evaluation more coaching on those domains
051two and three and we do have some survey data it is important to note that there were 109 respondents and i believe certified staff numbers are probably 350 give or take um [Music] it is possible there was some survey fatigue this year i know we did a lot of surveying because we we truly did want to hear from people and what their opinions were so we had a little bit over 60 percent of respondents indicating that they agreed or strongly agreed that the inner the peer review or observation process really impacted their development as a teacher that's certainly an area that we would like to grow further a lot of the qualitative feedback from staff came back in that they loved the coaching and not the evaluation so our hope for the future is to
052leverage that piece and provide really high quality coaching in order to help people move instruction forward of course plcs were held via google meet due to kovac 19. um all certified staff wrote work towards and reflected on two plc goals and we normally just do one so we had one per semester the reasoning behind that is that we wanted people to engage formally more often with their own student data and we do know that plcs do that work continually but sometimes when you formally assess your own data on a more frequent basis um you know you may become more engaged people some feedback indicated that teachers enjoyed that process and some indicated that it was a lot of work and a challenging time to go through some of the plc pieces that is something that
053steering is still going to work on with the oversight committee and other district leadership to determine what our program will look like in the coming year data had shown from the 109 responses that we got that nearly 80 percent did agree that the plc process positively did impact student achievement um and so we're always working on making those numbers um better but we feel pleased about the 80 percent and i think just would say that the plc meetings are something that happened on a regular basis they're a part of the program that teachers participate may be the most in and so it's a place where we can continue to find ways to improve that process and continue to work towards making those meetings more meaningful for teachers and the goals that they create and the
054way that they achieve those goals we also ask questions regarding just overall satisfaction with the q comp program all the different pieces and overall satisfaction was down about five percent from the 2019 year we do not have data from the end of 2020 so our team has collaborated and thought about what areas of growth we need to work on in order to increase staff engagement and satisfaction and we do know that the plc process is an area that we can improve we think communication in general and adding clarity to our process is something we are planning on for the 122 school year we want a really we want to better participate experience um with the online forms that folks need to fill out for pre-post observation and then also for plc pgp work um that
055process was clunky this year and we worked with our vendor um and it didn't it didn't improve enough in time for teachers to have a better experience but we know that this year we have those plans in place we definitely want more engagement with our process and one of our plans for that is i'd like to collaborate with the director of marketing make sure that the information about qcomp is available in multiple different formats so portal website email various types of communication so that people have clarity around what the program is and isn't we also are working on infusing the equity piece we will use the work of elena aguilar who has written several books on coaching most currently the coaching for equity which includes a classroom equity audit that we have piloted with a
056few teachers so far including in the observation process and asking them which pieces of that equity audit they most wanted to work on um we also want to align our cucomp work with our literacy grant that is i think headed up by rachel jenn so i'm not sure is here tonight but we'd like things to be aligned to all areas including the instructional plan so that qcomp is not a silo or something that exists separately but is um you know present in in all the different programs that richfield offers and we would love to hear any questions at this time thank you i'll look around the table first and see if miss cole questions thank you um i have a question about you said that teachers appreciate the coaching but not the evaluation but to
057do the coaching you have to observe could you say that last part again when you're to coach you have to observe the teacher and ask so what is it about the evaluation that they didn't like you said the pre or post forms the meetings uh can you help me understand because i don't know how you do one without especially since they were not scored like if they were scored then i would say well there's obviously a you know stress factor in in being observed and then scored by it but you said you're only scoring the basically the lesson plan uh so i'm curious to understand a little bit about that thank you for that question i wasn't an soi observer so i gave it into no that's a wonderful question and that helps me and
058jonathan bring more clarity to our presentation so i appreciate that um so what we had found from feedback and this is not just this year but prior years is that when people received evaluative scores on all components of their teaching they very often can emotionally shut down and experience that stress that you had referred to and it is really really hard to hear about what growth needs to happen in yourself professionally if you are in that emotional state um and so it wasn't leading to the the changes that we desired so our plan is to still observe um and coach but we are going to encourage teachers to self evaluate based on the danielsen framework for teaching and we have been thinking about that because it will increase engagement with the rubric we are using
059the danielsen framework teaching as a way to define what we call good instruction here in richfield and you know across the state and country many schools are doing the same and if we get teachers more involved in a self-evaluation about where they think they are in their practice at you know at the given moment of the observation um we can also have more coaching conversations with them about how they might like to improve and what action steps they need to take so instead of handing folks a piece of paper with some scores we want to encourage engagement and teacher choice in the process in order to to really see the improvement in practice that qcomp the purpose of qcomp is is that was that helpful yeah very helpful thank you thank you um thanks i
060just had one question um as far as the learning academies you talked about how teachers preferred the online process and obviously it's more accessible and you had a much larger teacher turn out do you plan to continue that than going next year i didn't catch it in here if you said it but is that something that you're thinking of keeping on in the learning academies to expand on that absolutely flexibility um it we would i think we can offer choice depending on what covid protocols you know bring for the the 2121 school year a lot of facilitators fund success in doing sessions that we're all online partly synchronous but then also partly asynchronous so giving folks credit and time to do work like um you know a textbook you know reading a text as far
061and then joining a synchronous group discussion um and so we did things in kind of a blended way jonathan and i did a course that way um and so giving people you know a few set times that are going to be synchronous but also some freedom for really what works for their life and we know that we have folks in our district that are at all phases in life and some people have got young kids or you know other responsibilities outside of that school day but sometimes make it difficult to attend and that allowed them some freedom um to do it at their own pace and what worked best for them did that answer what you're asking yep thank you miss misha i really like the format of the learning uh academy i think it's
062um often true that the expertise that we need is within our own community and one thing i would suggest for future years that i found to be really powerful is to encourage student-led or student co-facilitated pd or also reaching out to community members who might have a lot of to offer in terms of partnering and teaching our teachers thank you for that thank you for that suggestion thank you for your work in the presentation mr chancey any questions or comments i do not have additional questions or comments thank you miss brocky questions or comments yeah allegra actually just touched on what i was going to share which was just a curiosity because you mentioned that this is teacher and staff driven whether there is a way to bring in uh i think other perspectives on
063urgent areas of need whether it's things that you know we hear in board meetings whether it's things that we see in surveys and that we hear at schools and in classrooms and then also what she shared about just having additional perspectives be part of the trainings themselves so i would just echo that thanks thank you thank you all right thanks crystal i don't have any questions or comments some of them thank you i really appreciated the detail thank you thank you both we appreciate the work of teacher supporting teachers so keep up the great work thank you very much it's been a pleasure um with that we are under presentation number two our annual health and safety report and so i'm going to welcome dan holcomb and dan kretzinger up to the microphone um to
064talk about the work that we do um in physical plant uh health and safety so we will turn things over to dan and dan [Music] thank you for allowing us to present today my name is daniel holcomb with ia i've been assisting ritual public schools for the last three and a half years with health and safety i'm dan kretzinger facilities director transportation with richfield schools and i'll be here as well to to answer any questions or comments after so we'll be going over the health and safety tasks that were accomplished this past year uh go over the projects on the larger projects that health and safety covers as well mock ocean inspection that occurs annually we did have a fire marshal inspection that that does occur every three years that occurred this past year and
065we are going to discuss the health and safety projects that are going to be due next year so this past year we did a machine guarding assessment for for machines such as drill presses saws bench grinders and stuff like that at all the buildings we didn't get into a few classrooms at the middle school in high school based on construction but we will be coming back to those this upcoming year we did forklift training uh bobcat training uh powered pallet jack training with dan staff that occurs every three years and we did accomplish that this past year we removed three underground storage storage tanks that did have fuel oil in them from sheridan centennial and central so those are out and taken care of we did create a file sharing system with dan's staff to
066help communicate with the various worksheets as well as you know inspection documents so we don't have to have those hard copies in all the buildings and maintain those it's a lot easier now it nowadays to communicate that way we did update the exterior door numbers um to also assist with you know first responders that they come on site it's a lot easier to have a door number for every exterior door now so it's easier to communicate that way fire extinguisher location maps we did have an issue with trying to find all the fire extinguishers throughout all the buildings so we did locate those now on maps to help with dan staff with their monthly inspections as well as contractors for their annual inspections dan and the rest of the colvid team did come up with
067a proper disinfecting for for kovid cleanup as well as ppe availability for all for all staff so dan and them did a great job on that and we do have our annual trainings now through safe schools and those were completed as well so for our larger projects uh radon will be completed in 2024 2025 that's every five years lead and water is 20 23 2024 again every five years and bleacher inspections will be due up in 2022 uh again every five years as well uh turf field testing uh we do that every two years just to make sure that the gmax is in is in an okay shape for the students and staff uh we did have ia did did a gmax test in may and we had turfx do some maintenance and they also
068did their own gmax test in october and we'll go over those results in a different slide and then indoor air quality testing we do this annually we do this in every classroom office common area and we did 435 rooms offices in air in other areas as well as 11 buildings and we are testing for for carbon dioxide humidity temperature carbon monoxide as well as looking for any sort of fungal growth or any sort of moisture issues and the results came that it was a lot lower carbon dioxide this year as in past years which is good because dan has had his staff uh bringing a lot more air flow from the outside so there's not that uh recirculating air um in the classroom so that's that's that was really good to see there so for
069the turf field uh dan's uh grounds apartment um does maintenance annually sweeping and grooming uh he did have turfs come out to do kind of a bigger cleanup which is increasing the infill power brush and vacuum grooming and then also magnetic sweeping to make sure that everything's out of the out of the turf and we did we did gmax testing in may ia did their testing it was between 80 and a great level to shoot for is under 150 and the astm the american standards of testing materials sets their kind of limit at 200 anything above 200 should have action done to it to prevent it from getting worse it's not a regulatory standard but that's kind of just their best practice and then turf fix came out in october did their maintenance and uh
070their gmax range was 125 to 146 after that after that maintenance conducted we did our annual mock ocean inspection as well uh middle school stem and rdls this was done at one that we saw was the garbage disposal guards were missing these were corrected in 2018 as well but this i'm guessing was due to construction it was a new new sink and it wasn't on there so we did have this corrected by by dan's maintenance staff we did have bulbs that were not stored correctly we needed to have a proper storage container with a closed top we did get close top containers for all buildings now the new eye wash station that was installed didn't have signage the drain was blocked so we had this cleared and checked out and it's been corrected the bench
071grinder clearances um were not uh proper osha um clearance so you wanna have those close to the tongue guard and the and the tool rest prevent any fingers from getting in there and getting pulled in blocked electrical panels this was commonly seen throughout because of limited space due to construction a lot harder to find areas to put stuff and then also we found a kitchen fan that had a missing ground prong and the other prongs were damaged so we had that replaced as well every three years we have a farm marshal inspection john swanson came out to all district buildings he requested some inspection documents from dan for sprinkler systems alarm systems fire extinguishers emergency lighting dan and myself are looking into qr codes for for the fire extinguishers and the emergency light to help
072with identification of all of them throughout the throughout the school as well as the make it easier for his staff to be inspecting them by just scanning the code and maintaining the documentation that way they did have some construction related issues with the fire marshal inspection such as missing stairways missing stairway handrails wrong direction exit signs repairing broken exit signs covering exit signs that are leading to a construction area we didn't have enough exit egress outside the exit areas as well as missing approved panic door hardware so these were getting completed through the construction and then projects to look forward to this upcoming year cpr class for the transportation staff this occurs every two years we'll be doing rooftop fall protection and ladder inspections once all the buildings are completed with construction to ensure there's
073no issues for that lockout tag on confined space inspections and program updates with all the new hvac equipment boilers and stuff like that we have to address any new changes we need to make district-wide noise sampling we want to make sure that all the all the district staff are not being exposed to a high level of noise and it's been probably about eight years since we've done our last noise sampling so it's going to be due up with all the construction that's to be completed and then any other activities related to any referendums work that's going to be completed we'll take care of that on the on the go anything else dan you covered it all right any questions all right well thank you for that um i'll start if it's okay with you crystal
074are you ready to jump right in yes um i have no specific questions just appreciate the uh attention to detail and updates on this every year it's really important all right thank you mr tensing do you have questions or comments just again i want to reiterate the appreciation it's it's clear that the uh you know one of the pieces that we're needing to stay vigilant on has to do with you know kind of following backing behind that construction as that construction information occurs so that we get that second set of eyes on you know all these spaces that we're renovating and making sure that it's up to par so i do appreciate that and with the with the fuel oil storage tank removal was is that now comprehensive across the district because of course those
075are the three elementary buildings is is that just simply reflecting something about the age of those buildings or is there other sites that we may be yeah that's a great question um so with the larger buildings we decided to keep our fuel oil holding tanks and our new boiler systems are capable of running both fuel oil and natural gas part of our our opportunities with center point energy is we can save um energy gain money with the ability to switch back and forth between fuel oil and natural gas as as that's required by center point energy they were considered a high demand facility with the size of our three largest buildings and so that um we're able to uh curtail if we need to to allow um other smaller users to be able to receive
076um the natural gas that they need to heat their homes in the winter time so okay thanks miss misha um you mentioned that the cpr class for transportation staff is held by annually and i'm just wondering if a staff member is hired in an off year is there any cpr requirement or training as part of their onboarding so it is offered to the bus drivers it's not required they're offered to get it because they could be potentially in that situation it's also offered every year to the health office we kind of um you kind of bundle up with them as well i've been working with phoebe anderson in the past years for that and then it it's it's been rarely um taken up by the staff we do offer i think the last we had
077about 10 people that that took it or two years ago um but if anyone does voice their you know their their opinion on wanting to get it in an off year we'll definitely take that in consideration it's it's not too pricey if you want to get to get the trainer in for a day session thank you miss malek uh no questions but thank you for the presentation and the excellent detail let's go thank you looks like you're osha mark osha eval came out really well this year and i'm very grateful for that because those are very scary things when they go wrong and i know there's hundreds of things that you check so having only those eight is amazing thank you i i have a similar comment on the on the mac osha when we
078when we do it we i assume we do alternate which three buildings in grouping of three do the things that come up get checked at other buildings for example the light bulb storage the you know does it give us ideas to ensure that hey these things got flagged in these three buildings let's make sure they're not present in the others we do share with all the leads on dan's staff we should do a better job of following up in the in the fall time or later on the summers to make sure that those have been taken care of after all their summer cleaning and all that but definitely thank you no more questions or comments all right well thank you very much i appreciate it thank you all right that is the end of the
079superintendent update correct yes all right the next item for approval is the consent agenda which contains a collection of items the consent agenda does um i'll pause and see if someone would like to move things from it otherwise we will entertain a motion and move approval of the consent agenda as presented a second motion by miss malik in a second by miss meshech all in favor please say aye aye jose nay chair votes eye and the consent agenda is passed yeah thank just you you know you