September 14, 2021 Newberg School Board Meeting

001okay if we have we are recording we are live streaming if we have all members of the board here you can get started check I think we have everyone are we missing anyone I think we're good Jen okay I think you can go ahead sorry about that no thank you very much for all your work there I'll call the meeting in order and uh we'll do our flag salute with Rebecca I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thanks Rebecca uh just going to review the agenda right now for everybody um we will move into public comments right after I'm done then it will be board comments superintendent comments tonight c s agenda our reports and presentations Nikki fer will

002be doing a monthly financial report and then she'll be doing an update on staff vaccination mandates uh after that be new business uh we have a cell tower Lisa amendment that Nikki Fowler will explain to us we'll take a quick break if we need to and after that we will have oh uh Derek Brown will also be a student investment account the Saia annual report and then we will go into policies for ensuring safe environments to learn policy first read and then we'll have future agenda items and hopefully we're done uh maybe somewhere around 9:15 9:30 tonight so uh there you go um direct chair Brown yes may I ask a point of information regarding one of the agenda items sure I was wondering if you could explain your um what what your um uh

003requirements or or how you determine the the public um comments tonight because of of board policy bdh says that the board will shall determine um the procedures to determine who's going to be speaking and I just wondered um why the board wasn't included in any of those decisions well as board chair I took the 17 people that called in we have to stay on our time frames when we get to the 28th we're going to discuss like a lot of other school boards possibly moving the the public comments to later we always te seem to run into time frame issues um but uh yeah I looked at the the people calling in I had a couple of you guys ask me to uh look at people coming in uh for some new faces that that

004call into the board so we do have some new faces um I do have some very sad news though um just found out before the executive session that our number three speaker Dennis Jagger he passed away yesterday and so on behalf of the the board and the school district um I know we all like to give our condolences and prayers to the Jagger family and uh have not ever met uh you know Dennis before so again just thinking of their family and um yeah just a a sad day for them so uh I think you'll find a pretty good balance of speakers tonight Rebecca and uh Jen if you're ready we'll go ahead and get started I am ready um first up I'm going to be inviting Jim talt d in your revised form that

005you had um community members fill out is there an area where they identify how they're related to The District um yeah they did and they also put down what they uh what they want to speak about so trying to get that bounce like we have somebody talk about budget tonight and we have quite a few people on the flags we have a couple people on vaccine so could you ask people to just since since we haven't seen those those forms or anything could you ask people to just identify that be awesome thank you uh if Jen before you go if people calling in tonight we appreciate you calling in to the board and uh you know just identify yourself and let us know uh you know your relationship to the district and also keeping everything

006uh very civil uh we have a three minute time frame tonight because we're in a normal board meeting and uh so uh there's a timer on there uh so I think it'll be pretty easy for you to stay under three minutes and again no personal attacks on any of the board members is appreciated uh make your comments to the board so here we go Jen all right I think we're gonna get our timer shared up on the screen here if you just want we'll go ahead and press the play and your time will start U Mr T [Music] not do you see or hear me um I hear you um our timer is not working yet I don't think one moment all right there you go Mr toll now I don't see any video do

007you see me no we don't see your video but you can go ahead with your statement okay I will my name is Jim TL I'm a Newberg resident and uh I have some now adult grandchildren that went through uh School here in Newberg several weeks ago I wrote the board to suggest that uh resolution 2020-4 should be Rewritten and improved and I have since had a change of heart and I now feel that resolution should be stricken or rescinded or whatever is the appropriate term because I don't think it's relevant to Newberg the opening paragraph of the resolution names George Floyd biona Taylor Armand aubery as reasons that Newberg should reform our education system but Floyd and Taylor died in large Eastern cities the that Minneapolis Metro region where Floyd died has a population of

0083 million people and was murdered in Georgia and if you've ever been to Georgia and I like Georgia but if you've been there you know that it is like being in a different country compared to Oregon our town of Newberg has nothing in common with those areas and we do not have their problems so this resolution to me is not relevant to our Berg and is not needed and I completely reject the claim pared by a few with no evidence that there is quote deep racism in Newberg additionally our resolution and the resolutions of igard Lake aego McMinville and even as distant as Traverse Michigan are largely exact copies word for word of each other and this tells me that they are a collaboration of social political agendas by persons and organizations outside of our

009school district I must say that I resent this National social political agenda that has been injected into our town by the prior board and by outside activists and that it has taken away energy and focus from educating our children so I believe that resolution 2020-4 should be just put in a round file and I see I have 44 more seconds so I will say that I do very much like the proposed I think gbg policy and I also like out like that it you guys struck out the anonymous clause which I think was was uh U member pius's suggestion and I completely agreed with that and actually Brian Shannon I was surprised at how long I took you to come around to that but anyway that's my two cents and I appreciate you guys listening

010to me I only wish that you could have gotten the video working anyway thank you very much thanks Jim I'm promoting Irene Dunlap to the panel and on standby is Ty Moore I'm sorry I missed the name did you say can you say the speaker again iene DL okay that's me Schoolboard members and chair my name is Irene Dunlop I am the parent of two Newberg School District students I'm very concerned about the impact the recent Decisions by the board will have on the district's budget long-term Financial Health and ability to educate our students now and into the future the board was well aware when it passed two motions against the advice of District Insurance approved lawyers that it was placing the school district in legal Jeopardy and had previously received notice of intent to

011Sue from both the Nea and the ACLU further on August 24th 2001 Dr morac warned the board that disregarding the advice of the approved lawyers puts the district at risk of losing its Insurance the actions of members who voted for the directive now represented by the policy ensuring safe learning environments and also voted to leave a mandate making masks optional on the books against the governor's directive are placing the district at grave fiduciary risk already a donor withdrew a promised $100,000 per year multi-year donation after the board passed the initial directive to Dr Morlock to remove black lives matter pride and political symbols it has been stated that these actions were taken to get politics out of schools but you knly stirred up a political fur currently you are ignoring sound legal advice and The

012Voice voices of multitudes of students parents and educational professionals no teacher conservative or liberal will want to work in a district in great financial Peril we have yet to lose our superintendent but the recent board decisions are putting that relationship at risk a student int superintendent search and the possibility of having to buy out the contract of a superior administrator who has worked to bring fiscal stability to our district and recruit and retain quality teachers and staff would likely cost upwards of a half million dollar I respectfully ask you to listen to and act on the advice of the pace approved lawyers I would also like to shed light on the dysfunction of tonight's public comment selection I have a friend sitting here with me who is a district employee she signed up weeks ago

013to give public comment at this meeting then re reigned up when everyone was told to do so and asked to say what side they hold on the issue she was not selected she has also written multiple emails and received no replies it appears you're intentionally silencing the bulk of dissenting voices in fact I received a letter assuming I was a conservative voice inviting me to speak it arrived with the link to sign up I was chosen she was silenced also a catalyst Latina GSA student who applied to be a student board rep never even received acknowledgement of her application let alone an interview I'm pulling up Ty more and on standby is Brandon Casey Dave can I ask for a cck point of clarification did you reach out to people soliciting board comments for tonight

014no and I'm just telling you that what was just said is uh I got an email from a couple of you guys saying you know have some people call in that haven't spoken before so that's what I did um the person that uh I think she's referring to has been has spoke several times at meetings and we had 12 which takes us to 36 almost probably 40 minutes in the transition so um no it's it were I don't know what she got in the mail or whatever but uh so you didn't reach out to people you're looking at what a list here let's let's list these people out I think you're G to probably like what you hear so it's it's not about liking or not I'm just I'm just asking a quick question if

015you actually reached out to people to solicit board comment tonight let finish up I think you'll be okay so you're not going to answer the question I told you no let's finish up thank you public comment time not your comment time not my comment time let's finish up I believe you're ready if you want to turn on your microphone and we can get you going all right can you hear me yes great all right I'm TI hard Mo Newberg resident and parent racism and discrimination have no place in our community and it certainly has no place in our schools yet as I and many others have shared in past meetings with the board not only does racism and discrimination have a place in this community it has a stronghold on this community that many don't

016want to see go as the racist and discriminatory proposed ban on black lives matter and pride symbols in schools continues to monopolize much of the boards and the community's time our students and families are suffering they feel unsafe and harm is being done to them every day that this board and this community sits by and allows racism and fear to influence what we know is right that every student deserves access to an education free of discrimination and harassment yesterday I along with many others in the community became aware that a Newberg High School student or students took part in a mock slave trade via Snapchat the fact that a student in our community felt comfortable enough to take part in such a disgusting behavior is a clear illustration of the racism and discrimination that plagues

017this community it shows each of us how much work we need to do to make our community and schools welcoming to all people that is the work that is before this board making our schools better not just academically but socially and emotionally as well the four members of the board who have decided to attack symbols of acceptance and love and turn them into symbols of hate have seemingly done so simply because these symbols do not favor the white majority and that is incredibly harmful to our students and families of color the harm to our black students is real their pain is real and their fear is real now is the time for all of Newberg to stand up and reject racism and white supremacy as a community we still have a lot of work to

018do when it comes to acceptance and inclusion but in this moment we have an opportunity to do better to be better and to stand up for all students I urge you to put your own biases aside and to act in the best interest of Newber students I ask you to protect them whether you believe they deserve your protection or not thank you thanks Ty appreciate that promoting Brandon Casey to the panel okay I I don't know if I'm one here not we can see you and um you have three minutes we can start okay I appreciate it um my name is Brandon Casey I've got two um daughters that go to school here and and a family that's gone to school here for a long time um boy I had a couple of things I

019want to talk about but gez uh you know after I heard that I think maybe I want to hit on that a little bit um you know I I I'm I am getting a little tired of of hearing uh people tell me that a BLM sign is a s a symbol of love um it's certainly not a symbol of love to those of us that have members of our family that are in law enforcement because that group that's a symbol of love has called for the murder of police officers they have said said that white people are genetic defects so I'm a little unclear on how that's a symbol of love and I'm also unclear as to how that helps anybody feel safe in a classroom you know um we all teach our children that

020that that skin color doesn't matter and that everybody's you know everybody's made by God we love everybody we treat everybody the same that's what we all teach our kids this idea that there's some systemic level of racism because a a somebody in you know a kid makes a really poor decision and a bad decision and that that needs to be addressed if that's what happened that doesn't mean that the town is some horrible systemically racist thing and everybody that keeps making this claim never ever gives any evidence of it never it's just it's just all hyperbole you know and it just it really gets frustrating because you know we just want our kids to go to school be taught to read write do arithmetic and come home and you know and you know and and

021everything seems to be the opposite of that you know our kids are masked up breathing in their own you know carbon dioxide we got now we got mandates for teachers to get a medication stabed in their arm whether they wanted or not whether they need it or not whether they choose it or not you know and I just I don't see how any of this helps the school or helps the community I first of all I applaud the four members who took a stand and and said enough because we've had enough and I'm glad that they said they've had enough and I applaud them I think that the majority of this community applauds them you know we need people like that somebody needs to take and draw a line in the stand and say we've

022had enough we want our kids every kid to come to school get educated and go home I don't know who these people are that don't have access to education I I've asked that question I've never been able to find out who as far as I know every child has access to education which they should so you know it just seems like one side of this wants to use you know violence hateful rhetoric and and all of these things to shut out the other side and and I and I think you know that that's really despicable and I like I said before I applaud the four members who have stood up for try to do the right thing and I think that's what needs to continue and I first of all I think the first thing

023this board should do is is find a new superintendent I don't think he Advocates the views of this community one iota and I think he's gone against the board when the board pass sorry chot moving a little slowly um sorry I didn't call out who's on standby I'm looking for Ross Davis one moment please Ross can you hear us yes sorry about that I had to unmute myself can you hear me now yes okay uh Mr chairman directors thank you for taking my comment tonight um I'll keep it short I know we're running a little bit behind um being a Schoolboard member I know is a really difficult job but I do want to say a couple things uh the vast majority of people who fill your positions uh they're not professional Educators and many

024have little or no understanding of research-based practices this is part of the reason for a close working relationship between a board and a superintendent our super attenda is a highly effective educator well-versed in research-based practices one of the expectations for our board is that you both solicit and seriously consider the advice of our superintendent on educational matters in my opinion you have failed in this charge we also provide our board with a code of ethics and a Cadre of policies to guide your actions and prevent our children's education becoming a political football to be punted back and forth as new members Come Aboard some of you have repeatedly violated essential tenants of this code including acting in traditionally partisan manners in a nonpartisan position including hiring a partisan lawyer not on the approved list that

025you yourselves created and visiting a highly partisan talk show where the citizens of this community who have voiced their disapproval of your actions were referred to as a mob one of your policy specifically details how to handle public complaints imagine that when that process is followed if it's followed it provides opportunities to find real solutions that minimize the impact to the larger community and gives the chance for each party to better understand the perspective of the other your actions with the BLM and pride flag bands they have robbed our citizens of those opportunities in instead you see the result anger Division I could go on but I only have three minutes so I'll sum up how horrific this new board is I'll finish with saying that I for one have lost any hope that you

026will see the error of your ways a rational person would recognize the danger in bringing National politics to our local community a rational person would recognize the harm that culture wars bring with division and policies that inevitably further harm already marginalized communities a rational person would recognize that squandering our tax dollars on hiring illegal lawyers and defending unethical and unconstitutional policies in court is not in the best interest of our children and a rational person would realize when it's time to stem the bleeding they have inflicted upon uh our community so this is in my opinion your last chance to prove your rationality I ask that you resign resign your positions immediately tonight and let someone else who's actually interested in helping our students get the best education they can receive step up okay I

027apologize next up would be Robert zy I am looking at two names seems to be signed up twice so I'll see if I can get him on here one moment Mr upy can you see or hear us or do you have a video on I need to go to the other one okay I think I have Mr seie coming up Mr sey can you hear us oh I'm sorry okay can you hear me now yes okay are we ready yep Robert suffy I'm a district resident I will start by reading some policies that some members have chosen not to follow policy B DD H includes quote all board me meetings with the exception of executive sessions shall be open to the public end quote the August 24th meeting prior to the executive session violated this

028and also likely violated public meeting laws why did a majority of the board decide to do this bdh also includes quote questions asked by the public when possible shall be answered immediately by the chair or referred to staff members for a reply end quote please note that when possible has no qualifications clear clearly this policy is not being followed the board and superintendent working agreement includes quote the board chair will respond to any communication to the whole board within 36 to 72 hours or delegate to another board member end quote and also set some standards for such communication why is the chair not following this policy on August 24th the chair terminated public testimony after less than a third of those who signed up were heard where is the Authority for this there is a

029policy that allows this when speakers will be presenting the same view on an issue but clearly that can't be known if the chair hasn't heard or read their testimony I received a canned response in an email that included quote Community feedback is very important to our dis decisionmaking process end quote if this were true board members wouldn't vote on matters without hearing everyone who was approved to speak wouldn't vote without reading all written testimony wouldn't hold a meeting without the legally required notice and wouldn't hold a meeting such as the last one where public input wasn't even allowed could the board just be honest about this and quck making the false claim about our feedback being important to them I want to remind you that you are role models for students you are showing them

030that once one gets in charge they no longer have to follow their own policies no longer have to follow the law that governs their actions and no longer have to tell the truth about what is important to them and their role is that really what you want to teach the students I would have hoped not but the actions of sub members speak loudly otherwise lastly I'd like to comment on item 9A it's difficult to know if some of my issues with the policy relate only to how poorly it is written or if the extreme requirements are actually intended does the board acknowledge that virtually any topic fits the definition you've created of controversial what topic wouldn't have students on more than one side lastly this proposed policy includes a statement that it quote does not

031apply to Communications during exploration of approved curriculum end quote I suggest just the board considered just how this is a pretty Universal exception all an employee needs to do is to justify that the communication is an exploration of approved curriculum and as such is excluded from the entire policy nothing restricts the exploration to staying within what has been approved why establish a policy with a loophole as big as this lastly I would also note that the words black lives and matter are likely all in approved curricula thank you chair Brown we're having some technical difficulties so bear with us while we try to um remedy [Music] those chair Ron I'm gonna I'm gonna recommend we just take a about a f minute break or so um we're going to check in on what's happening out

032um on the two computers that are running the zoom session I don't want folks to to run away uh as another interest in the meeting but I think uh we'll go out and check in and and maybe back in five check back in perfect I got 7:41 so 7:46 yeah that sounds good thanks for is it going well H is it going well for okay chair Brown we are still um working with um our board secretaries computer hardware we've got tech tech support here working on that but I think we're going to be okay moving ahead um with being able place the next person in uh to public comment so I think we should go ahead and continue and then if we need to to do another break or fix something else we will let

033you know so Jen's ready to um yeah we're actually gonna um she's working on that along with tech support so she'll be doing double duty while she gets herself up and running again and I'm we're having a hard time finding our next attend uh our next uh speaker so we're going to move on to Robin Wheatley I'm going to promote her Robin can you hear us I can hear you yeah hey okay are you ready to go yes okay great I'll start the timer okay hi my name is Robin Wheatley um I'm a longtime Newberg resident um with two kids at uh Newberg schools I wanted to talk tonight about the vaccine mandate um affecting Newberg School staff um Newberg school district has a vaccine mandate that staff must comply with or lose their job

034this is very sad and should not be happening in our community or country the vaccine status of an individual is private and should not prevent them from employment how many staff members will lose their jobs for not getting an experimental vaccine in the Newberg School District here is a letter written by a teacher in the Newberg School District who is facing job loss I have been an educator for many years years and serve this community with love and loyalty I teach because I have a passion for my subjects and I'm excited to share my knowledge with the students of this District I teach because I get to build relationships with students and their families and because this is my community I teach to help build a strong future for those students who are in my

035classroom and in this District I teach and I am good at my job students come back to see me sometimes when they are out of high school years after I've had them in class just to visit students share their lives with me on Facebook and I often see them when I'm around town they visit because I made a positive impact in their lives they visit because they remember that in the classroom I was their biggest fan and Advocate they visit because they know that I care about them even when they're no longer my student mandating a vaccine that will cause me to lose my job if I don't comply is not right having or not not having a shot does not make me a good or bad teacher it does not mean that I have

036suddenly stopped knowing my subject or can't make relationships with kids to strengthen their skills destroying a career and taking away a livelihood is not right understanding that I have religious beliefs that are deep-seated and strong is Right understanding that the way that I teach doesn't change whether I have a shot or not is Right understanding that I don't want anything to change or have special treatment is right being kind and respectful you know what we teach kids to be should apply to this mandate when someone has an exemption respect it and be kind to that person as a school board you can take a stand you can choose to respect your teachers and their beliefs or you can demolish their careers and dreams please stand up and protect us work with us to keep our

037jobs our community will be stronger for it thank you thanks Robin okay I'm going to move uh Andy byley next to be our speaker Andy can you hear us I can can you hear me yes are you ready perfect yes I am okay great go ahead uh good evening chair Brown and directors thank thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening uh because transparency is important I will preface my comments tonight by sharing that while I serve as an employee of the Oregon Department of Education my remarks are my own as a concerned Community member and more importantly a father of two children enrolled in Newberg Public Schools I'm a resident of South Newberg and have lived in this community for over 16 years I'm also a former teacher from the Newberg School District

038I'm speaking tonight about the recent board policy that bans political symbols I first want to publicly acknowledge each student each human in this community who has felt the burden of the events of this board over the past few months there are many many people in this community who see you who love you for who you are not despite it and who proudly welcome the chance to live in community with you I offer these words as a challenge to you directors that I might not be the only one to say them tonight tonight second I'd like to remind the board of another policy BBA which states quote the board is responsible for providing adequate and direct means for keeping informed about the needs and wishes of the public I'm curious how the board has kept informed

039about these needs and wishes particularly of our students the role of this board is to provide governance to the school district and the role of the schools in this district is to provide students with a world-class education this District serves students so I have to ask where have the voices of Newberg students been in the drafting of this policy what evidence do we have that their voices the voices of those Those whom you are charged to serve have been centered in this work other than a few Brave students who have made public comments what evidence can you provide that you've asked for and listen to students in the drafting of this policy yesterday I joined many many others in our community who listen to several honest vulnerable passionate and courageous students from our lgbtq plus

040Community share how being truly seen and welcomed into Newberg schools has made them feel how supported and seen they felt from teachers and staff where has the student voice been in the actions of this board absent this evidence I'm left to assume that this policy is driven by personal political agendas if your interest is not serving students I think you need to carefully consider the words of a previous Community member tonight who asked you to step down finally the very related topic of democracy a democratic process resulted in each of your elections to this board democracy demands of each public servant sincere engagement and dialogue done in a transparent way each of you has been elected to an apolitical role yet the vast majority of the the work of this board has been political I

041implore you to set politics aside and serve the students of this district and Center them in the work that you do thank you thanks Andy all right poor chair yeah one second I believe Michael gun has been promoted for Mr gun can you hear us Mr gun are you able to hear us hope you're muted can you hear me okay we can hear you now go ahead okay when you're ready I'm sorry I didn't pop up on there I don't know what the problem is okay you can hear me right yes yes we can hear you okay my name is Michael gun I'm a resident of Dundee I've been a lifelong resident of Newberg dunde area I want to address the attorney the attorney issue as far as who's representing the school board to start

042out with I was an attorney for 25 years in Newberg I represented a lot of organizations Etc I don't know who the school board I know the school board retained a person named Tyler Smith and Associates for a second opinion on the uh the Banning on the flags Etc banners other than the uh state of Oregon and the US flag I don't know who the school board's attorney was before that uh it's important to note who actually the attorney represents the attorney for the school district represents the School District board is a governing body the attorney does not represent the superintendent or anything like that so I would I would ask you who was the attorney that represented the board prior to Mr Smith there's nothing wrong with getting a second opinion that happens all

043the time with attorneys I would also say that and this is not being disingenuous or defamatory towards Mr Morlock I know that based upon prior communication with Mr Morlock and Mr logden the uh langon the principal at Dundee they are certainly not in favor of banning the black lives matter and the Gay Pride Flags those are clearly political in nature they have no business in the school district but what I would say is is that the school the school board as a whole should designate one person from the school board to contact whoever the representative of the school district is and that person is the contact with the attorney not the not the superintendent because in my opinion based on communication with Mr Morlock and what I've seen from his comments with the school board

044he is not in favor of any Banning of this gay pride Flags banners Etc or the black Liv flag better Etc and I would think that the school board should be a little concerned about that now I want to address the issue on the vaccine mandates I'm certainly not going to give you a legal opinion because I'm I haven't practiced law for 14 years but Biden has no Authority from a federal standpoint to mandate any kind of mandates at a state or local level whether Kate Brown has the authority through OSHA is a certainly a legal question I personally am not in favor of these vaccine mandates at all I think you've got a serious problem if you try to mandate these vaccines for all the employees most of these employees are unions they have

045certain contractual rights with them I think you would run into problems on that the third thing I want to address is what Mr Casey addressed I don't know he was like five speakers before this let's cut to the chase black lives matter is a political movement period so are the Gay Pride they have no business in the school district the school district is supposed to be apolitical period And if you if you don't ban those the school board is complicit in being political those things need to be banned thanks Michael I believe next up we have Stacy got all right can you hear me now yes we can hear you Stacy you can start when you're ready um dear Schoolboard members my name is Stacy got I'm a Newberg parent and I'm also speaking here

046today on behalf of myself Michelle McWilliams Leanne Reese and Katherine Dudley we are all School psychologists for the Newberg School District we are glad to see that people are talking about students mental health more than ever before because mental health issues are so close to our hearts and profession we are dismayed by the direction the school board has recently taken as school psychologists we have a moral and ethical responsibility to engage in social justice and take anti-racism action this position and language are endorsed by the National Association for school psychologists statistics show that our lgbtq students are at a much higher risk for mental health problems including self harm and suicide we know about the ne negative outcomes for racism for both physical and mental health for black indigenous and people of color we often

047use words like marginalized to describe these groups what this truly means is that these students wake up every day knowing they are at higher risk for being bullied ridiculed harassed or even killed because of their skin color or sexual orientation or identity for too many it is their lived reality one of the biggest risk factors for major mental health problems is not having a person's students feel they can turn to signage helps create emotional safety for our students it helps them know that here in this place this person acknowledges you and is here to protect all students our students deserve to feel psychologically safe in their environment for those that want schools to focus purely on academics know that feeling safe is AE requisite to learning these notices are visual aids to show support for

048students not to make a political statement a rainbow doesn't tell anybody how to vote it's a rainbow in our view saying that black lives matter speaks to a universal truth that is not universally acknowledged the anti-racism resolution our board adopted as a step in the right direction however we need your support to continue the work that is just getting started so that this resolution is not merely words on paper you have all been sent position statements by the National Association of school psychologists on these issues and we hope you read them with a serious intent and with an open heart and open mind we also encourage each of you to talk to students affected by these policies listen to lgbtq and bipo students and staff in our community listen to their voices and lived experiences

049thank you for your time thanks Stacy shair Brown that is the end of our public comments for tonight okay I thought we had one more there but we don't huh we were uh we were not able to find her she listed a phone number and it's not listed on our attendees list got it so we're finished then yes okay thank you for everybody that called in tonight and and sharing your uh your thoughts and your concerns we appreciate it as a board and uh that's the end of our public comment time so uh we'll move now into uh the board and superintendent comments we'll start with board comments Brandy I'm gonna pick you first tonight great thank you uh yeah thank you to everybody who is uh taking the time to watch our meeting and

050also who um took the time to make comments tonight it's greatly appreciated um a lot has happened here in the last few weeks in our district and most notably of course is the start of school and it has been a week of joy and celebration and excitement uh when I was dropping off my own children I watched principles who were welcoming students into buildings custodians who were holding doors open and teachers with huge Smiles on their faces as they greeted every single student students parents and staff they all excited and life is feeling just a tiny bit more normal we see school buses on the roads kids with backpacks are walking to school and the exhausting excitement at the end of a long week of school and activities feels normal as the first few days

051unfolded the fear of disruptions was replaced by a strong sense of community respect and understanding this is Newberg thank you to everyone who worked tirelessly for the last 18 months to make the first day of School happen in-person learning represents our community's efforts to support what we know is best for our children we've learned that in-person learning is the best way to connect and educate most students as a community we owe it to our children to continue to take safety precautions to protect them and their Educators if we want to keep our school building safe and open we must stay vigilant and actively take precautions to protect everyone let this be a shining example of what a community can achieve when we work together for the good of students this is Newberg I would also

052like to thank our Newberg business Community for the beautiful and supportive signs in front of our school buildings and also our faith community for their appreciation and support of our Educators I'm reminded of the support our staff and students have in the generous donations which are in the consent agenda tonight our community leaders are coming together to support our schools fantastic staff students and programs this is Newberg I also learned of the abhorent racist actions by a student in our district this is only one incident that I learned of this last week there were others a homophobic slur set in passing controversial and distracting clothing meant to enrage and intimidate rainbows ripped off lockers and students self-identifying as Confederates this too is Newberg as a community we cannot turn our backs on the uncomfortable and

053ugly reality that racism and homophobia are alive and well I fear that the recent actions of some members of this board are encouraging those who are ill informed and hope to harm others as Leaders our words and actions matter and as of now these actions are giving the green light to people to openly and proudly display their hate that is not Newberg we have an opportunity to demonstrate communities resolve against this hateful chaos that has been thrust into our lives we've been given a chance to channel these feelings of anger and despair into a deeper understanding of all people's dignity and to come closer together as a community let us use these challenging times to show the world Who We Are Who Newberg is let us all rise together Resolute in our love for each

054other and for our town this is Newberg thanks Brandy uh Brian I've got you next and after that'll be an I don't have any comments this evening okay thank you VZ you're up thank you um thank you to everybody that spoke tonight uh I really appreciate hearing public comment uh while email can get overwhelming with the amount of emails we have been receiving I appreciate them because I'm hearing concerns I'm hearing voices um voices that need to be elevated um yesterday I was able to attend an event safely masked and everything uh where I got to hear students and that to me is the most important they said they told us what they wanted us to hear and that is keep showing up keep elevating our voice and that is my commitment to the students

055there's obviously no trust among us as a board but the students trust us and I'm going to continue being as faithful to them as I can by continuing to show up that is my duty to continue to elevate these voices to not stand for hate and as someone who has been silenced in this board Mee in these board meetings I'm not going to let that happen to the students I'm here to be that voice keep sending me things you want shared screenshots I'm going to speak up for you thanks NZ uh Renee and then Rebecca after that hi I just want to thank everybody too for calling in and taking that time and for all the emails that people are sending in um and I know that this is a challenging time and um there's

056a and I agree with a lot of the people of how why these again why these flags need to be removed and because it is so divisive and it it it's obious viously clear how um it is affecting our community and our schools and our students on both areas so um and I been really enjoyed what uh corresponding with Community uh members and writing emails back and forth and um I'm very thankful for all that and so um keep them coming and we want to hear from from everyone thanks thanks Renee uh Rebecca okay it's been great to be able to go for walks around the schools and hear the school buses and hear the children in the playgrounds playing outside I had the opportunity to go to the inservice day for the first for

057the staff on August 31st and it was great to hear Dr morlocks inspiring words and to attend a um seminar they had 72 classes for the staff members both Elementary and high school done by our District staff and um it was a great collaborative I went to a session on um how how to help um bipac and lgd lgbtq plus students in my classroom and it was very informative and I just thank all the staff that that took the time to to have thoughtful um seminars and and classes that were very important to the staff and um I also want to thank the the people who write in I do have a few points to mention um several people wrote in asking us to consider um being on a panel to DET to help determine

058um medical and religious exemptions for teachers and that really isn't the the job of the school board our job is to um make policy hire and supervise the superintendent and and adopt a budget it's not to get into the operation or the human relationship of the the human um the HR department of the school board just just as an educational matter and also um we've had some emails that I just wanted to refer the people to the um policy JF H KL and it's the AR that describes what to do when you have a complaint and that the first matter of the complaint is to go to the teacher or the counselor or the assistant principal Direct directly and try to work it out between the two of you and come to agreement and if

059you don't can't do that within five days to then turn to the the the principal of the school and if you can't do that with that come to agreement within 10 days then you go to the superintendent but um just so so um we understand the policies the the complaint Poli policy is there to help you solve something at the lowest denom lowest place and also I I appreciate getting all the emails what I would appreciate um I you know my name you know my address my phone number um I would appreciate knowing who you are are you a a teacher of the district are you a staff member are you a a uh parent of of students in the district are you a grandparent or are you someone out of the district it makes

060a difference to me how when I read this who these people who who you are so that I I can can understand where you're coming from so I would appreciate letters with that information just contact letting us know a little bit who you are not just how hi this is John that that that doesn't give me much contents to work with so I'd appreciate that um little bit of uh common courtesy to let us know who you are we're interested in who you are and your voice and want to hear from you so thank you very much and Dave it's good to know you're feeling better thanks forca I appreciate that very much oh I also have one thing I I understand I left out a phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance it was no

061ill will I apologize for that I get um sometimes um I I forget things so I'm sorry Rebecca you don't apologize you have been awesome on the Pledge of Allegiance for a long time so you're much appreciated thank you uh Trevor you're next yeah I I don't have a whole lot to to say tonight I I would just say that uh you know I think everyone's trying to do um that the best that they can and I'm hopeful I I Echo some of my fellow directors um comments that um you know the the the amount the degree that the community's engaged on this um I know that this this is kind of a a divisive time and I'm hopeful that we'll get past this and can work on you know a lot more things but

062I would encourage people you know once we get past this that um you know to stay engaged no matter what the issue is and uh you know we we like it I I know myself I've met with parents I've met with teachers um I've met with students um from both sides um of the aisle on on these issues and um you know if if you're respectful if you want to have um you know a civil conversation and talk about ideas and beliefs and stuff I you know as I have time uh um you know I'm I'm willing to do that um but I'm not working full-time and and reading the hundreds of emails like uh andz alluded to earlier so um please stay engaged um let's think outside the box on on these issues and

063how we're going to address them as we lower the water level um you know we're uncovering some big rocks and and they are concerning mental health and and belonging and um and stuff like that so you know we talk about what we want what we don't want but let's start you know as you you know send in emails and start talking about um the issues that we're facing and facing our schools you know start coming up with uh with different solutions and ideas that that's going to help us move forward not just with this issue but you know the others that's it thank you thanks Trevor um guess I'm up here um I thought about what I want to say tonight and um this would be to the community all the people have written in

064we've had lots lots and lots and lots and uh you can tell tonight in our public comments that we had uh you know the whole range of emotions calling in on different subjects I would just like to say even though this school board is struggling to see I to ey and the school board is uh frustrated with each other uh there's one thing I do know um I do know that this current School Board all seven of us care deeply about students we may do it in our own way and we may not agree on on how to get there but I can tell you after working in the schools for 20 years and coaching forever here in this town that these seven six people and myself care deeply about the students staff members every

065member of this board believes all students matter we are they are very important a difference of opinion here and how things happen does not change how we all feel towards our student staff and parents we do disagree and we do vote how we feel is best to proceed and we don't always agree and it's not always pretty but we still care about every student like this board and how we vote reflects the many different opinions and concerns with you and the entire Community this is a hard one let's listen and understand more we must stop the hate and harsh language and the attacks every person of this board has been attacked on jobs loss of jobs loss of income from not students but adults out in our community if we're really going to talk about

066healing we're going to talk about every person then we need to stop the hate all the hate every bit of the hate there are are many paths for all of us for some of us it's one way for others it's another good luck to you and your chosen path I would say uh you know for each Community member and board meeting uh there are many students who fall on both sides of the current political issues for every student who doesn't feel safe in one way there's another student doesn't feel safe in another way and I know for myself I'm concerned about every student always have been and uh how we get there is different uh you as a community when you call into US call in with uh not just your opinion but maybe some

067some actual answers uh so that's my my comments tonight I appreciate everybody on this board I know it's a tough time I appreciate you and I I do know the that all seven of us deeply care about kids and so uh if we don't go anywhere else tonight with our our thoughts as we move away from each other and our frustrations I appreciate that about each and every one of you so thanks for caring about about our students so um I'm GNA stop there one quick announcement Joe and then you're up uh September 22nd I should have done this at the end of the public comments uh we did this once before but we've had such an onslaught of uh people wanting to call in we haven't had very many school board meeting so it's

068not like we're trying to not get everybody in we will have a 7 to9 Zoom meeting so call in 24 hours in advance on September 22nd it will be a special meeting for public comments two minutes so we can get as many people in as possible um we just haven't had time to get this this in yet um so this will be a night for you to call in have two minutes again we'd like everybody to be civil uh but but come with your concerns uh there will be no regular uh we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance with Rebecca and then we're going to go right into it and so we're hoping we can uh get as many people in as possible at night if you do the math that's a two hours we should

069be able to with the transition you can tell it's not not as easy on Zoom but we should be able to get into that you know 50 range of people calling in and so it'll be a great night for uh a lot of people who have been frustrated uh to not talk um to us to talk that night so that'll be the 22nd 7 to9 make sure you call in by 7 on Monday the 21st Joe you're up there before we move I have a quick comment on that 22nd um in the future if possible I would like to be uh notified or if we could get a poll of when a date Works um given that I do have a full-time job aside of this um sometimes scheduling can be hard so it would

070be appreciated if in the future we can all weigh in on what day we choose yeah and there I'm sorry about that we did it in the agenda meeting with uh Dr Morlock and and Brian and I we just really wanted to get one in in September so I apologize for the the tough thing on the schedule um I think it's something that uh you know we wouldn't throw this in there if we didn't know that we really needed to do it so again apologize for the you know the schedule for you and everybody else um I'm hoping we can get at least 50 people calling that night and that'll help us to to start getting people uh heard out there so yeah I want to get people heard too so thanks SZ I appreciate

071your comment though next time we will definitely get some more advanced notice on it so Dr Joe are you ready I am I was just letting that conversation finish all right uh thank you I'll make this fairly quick I know we're trying to move along but I do have have a few thank yous and some other things I wanted to discuss so uh first a huge shout out to each and every employee of the district um your efforts have not gone unnoticed uh we are entering the third year of a global pandemic affected school year um I know I I talked to somebody just yesterday and they said boy it feels like it's already may feel like I've been going so long and it's been less than a week because we're a little bit out

072of shape uh of doing teaching in the way we have done it for years and so people are getting back into shape I know that um we are still scrambling to get some things done but it's an almost normal launch of the 2122 school year so I did want to acknowledge all the hard work of every single employee every person here is just doing an amazing job trying to get this get this bird off the ground and and do it safely for all of our students um our professional development week I was glad that you mentioned that Rebecca earlier 72 sessions we had dozens of things um in uh you know math and reading strategies we had all of our teachers on special assignment who do some training doing those we had other uh teachers

073uh doing presentations and so it was really was quite a day uh they got to U listen to me Yap at them for about 20 minutes and then they could Escape that and go uh to multiple sessions and so it was a a nice way for our uh staff to get started um also I'd like to acknowledge uh pollinate flowers for delivering bouquet to every school I think they were donated by a group called Newberg allies uh they went to every uh school office they just started to show up I didn't know they were coming and so they were beautiful so I did want to acknowledge that uh one of our local businesses brightening uh the beginning of our school year so thank you to them uh also thank you to everybody for your patience

074as we get going we know we've had some Transportation things that are still working out um you know lots of things happening I think you've probably seen in the news that U there is a driver shortage we're doing pretty well but we've had a few uh things go a little Haywire so we're taking care of those as well as possible we'll continue to update you uh as we know more and uh each day gets a little bit better as we get adjusted to a new schedule so uh any of those concerns of course you can always contact UM your school and we'll take care of uh you know trying to do what we can do for that um we uh the first few days gone relatively well we've had a few Co related issues that

075some of you have been contacted by um I have been to every school uh The Masks uh don't appear to be an issue the staff and students are all happy to be back in person um lots of exhaustion as I said before as we get back into the Rhythm we're all doing this you know getting ourselves up getting kids either on the bus or delivered to school then get our ourselves to work so there's quite a bit of happening just getting back into that Rhythm um we are still Staffing some positions uh we are not immune to the um Staffing challenges although I think we've had a little bit better luck uh than some organizations um for those of you 14 and 15 year olds it looks like we have a few places in town

076that are hiring at fast food for $15 an hour which seems like a pot of gold from when I was uh about that age trying to score a job with the local grocery store bag and groceries so uh anyway still um finishing up some of those uh our bond projects also are going very well we're still in the design and what they call Value engineering so value engineering is you know Finding ways to make sure that what we design uh fits within the budget that we have determined uh based upon our bond management team so we've been working on all those before we get to uh a space where we'll have our design documents um we have hired as some of you most of you may know we hired both Pence construction and scansa construction

077they are our cmgc partners um they've already gotten started since uh the vote that we had at the board meeting the last meeting that we had a vote they've already been underway and working with our uh consultants and with our Architects and with our construction management firm so they jumped right in um and it's been great to work with those two very professional organizations very happy to to have them on and then finally I do want to acknowledge uh this uh terrible student incident which has been widely broadcast uh via media the um slave trade chat transcript that will that included uh one or more students uh at new Brook High School I do want to remind you all that student safety is our number one priority uh principal Aran did put out a message

078today uh to families we are taking it seriously uh there is a detailed process for investigation and discipline and that is being followed uh I think the the thing that's maybe most frustrating for people is that we're not going to inform the public including the board of what would be the final decision of the discipline of that student that is private information U for that student you would only learn about it at the board level if it were come to an appeal if they were going to appeal our decision at the school level but I do want people to know that we are investigating uh we are will go through a disciplinary process if that's necessary but we won't announce what that is and I know that that sometimes is frustrating because people want to

079have all the information um but we are working on that actively um it is a terrible thing it did start out in Michigan as most of you uh may know uh and has found its way here somehow so we are working on that we are taking it seriously um and we will uh continue the investigation and deal with discipline as necessary and that's what I have for you thanks Joe um you're welcome also uh that was a really good meeting earlier uh about the dunde project that was that was really well done that uh we'll move move into the agenda I'm gonna go ahead and read that um this one's pretty exciting this is kind of fun we can have some fun for a change uh Brandy commented on this earlier and uh she's definitely

080right I saw this and I was like wow um you know we we a has approved the minutes from the executive session on August 10th that's part of this B is donations um we've always been blessed in Newberg with ADC and and and then I'm not sure when it came along as the Austin Family Foundation but they have been an amazing supporters of Newberg and general uh but for sure the school district and so um I think all of us need to to kind of hold on to your chair here I I know you've read your board packet but this is amazing the Austin Family Foundation donated $50,000 to the wellness center at Newberg High School $50,000 the Austin Family Foundation also donated $50,000 for Hands-On CTE learning support at Newberg High School these are

081huge donations the third one Austin Family Foundation donated $100,000 to CTE Fridays at Catalyst High School Tim Graham you got to be excited that's such an amazing gift from uh the Austin Family Foundation I think if any of us have time please write a note or a a thank you uh to the Austin Family Foundation uh and how much we appreciate them and and they've given much uh more throughout even just this year so thank you so much to to them uh the Loy uh mesh Memorial reading fund uh $1,000 donation to to dundy Elementary uh Reed that's awesome for you guys out there that's great uh we just appreciate the generosity in in this in the school district um this number c is personal recommendations accept licens probationary contracts um I had 19 that

082I could identify three to Newberg High School five to Edwards two to CV two to Mountain View two to Joan Austin one to Crater and two to Yan young so lots of uh new people there um accepting licensed temporary contracts um uh Dave Sanders is back at Mountain or or at uh CV good job Dave uh accept licensed temporary contracts accept license resignations always want to read these These are people have invested in our school district uh Veronica buros teacher Mountain View Middle School Monica or Mona Cahill teacher at Edwards elementary school and Matthew vanderwell teacher at Mel Rush Elementary School uh good luck in your next venture thank you very much number D is a surplus designation policy dn- AR States property that is no longer needed within the district shall be listed and

083declared Surplus by the board uh the following items are designated as Surplus and will be listed for sale or disposal uh this happens to be two Nobles Concord carpet machines that no longer work for disposal uh working in the district as long as I did I can tell you we run stuff into the ground we don't throw it away unless it's it's done so um it's that's how it's it works so is there a uh motion to uh for the Cent agenda I'll move that the Newberg School District Board of Directors approve the consent agenda as presented I second thank you very much uh I'll do a vote all those in favor say raise your hand say I hi pass 70 thank you very much you guys um again thanks to the Austin Family Foundation

084that's amazing um so with that said we'll move on into reports and presentations Nikki Fowler has a busy night and her first one is monthly financial report thank you Nikki okay I'll start with um I think Jen sent out an updated August um report to you I found a a formula error in it so I want to focus on that one that's the corrected page um as you can tell by looking at these there hasn't been a lot going on yet in the month of July and August that we're reporting on because we haven't had a full payroll um in the system yet so there is not much spending to talk about here yet um but what I would want to highlight is the difference in the ssf between um what was budgeted at the

08530, 900,000 um and our current estimate is about at 20 9 500,000 so we have a significant change in that um just based on the updates and based on the ADM and everything so we'll be watching that closely um as we move forward through the year and get our first uh collection to OD at the 1 of October um with where we're standing now with very little in the system our ending fund balance looks like 10.6 million um but there is not um you know we have our our payroll encumbered things like that but everyday expenses aren't in there so there's a lot of spending to be had with that balance um hold on just SEC okay just had to get rid of some back background noise um were there any questions on these numbers

086that I presented here the financial statements N I had a quick question it's um something I noticed and then it kind of Lent into more questions so um on the general fund expenditures for August um which is page I think 14 in our packet um line under total instruction oh well it's the second part down line 2210 um improve instructional I think Services maybe um we are you know negative 86% over spent in that is that correct and if it is what did why and and what did we do with that money well right now it looks like um in there we have uh some salaries encumbered um but we'll have to go back into that I don't know specifically just from looking at that number who the bodies are um but a lot of

087the charge in those areas um end up moving towards grants and get expended out against grants and things like that as we move through the year um so I can look up those details and email them to you for specifics yeah thank you sorry for not getting that to you ahead of time yeah yeah no problem no problem anything else on those um on the also on the page with the other fund you'll start to see and this is where it has the federal grants the debt services and capital projects you'll start to notice more and more spending in the capital project funds as we move forward through the bond process um and so right now we've got um looks like we are projected through the end of the year like 5.3 million but we're

088just starting to school you there's plenty of other things that are coming in with our building throughout this year so you'll see that number grow significantly as we move through um the planning everything with that brick and Cornerstone and now Pence I'm in skank so um that's about all I really there isn't too much in it right now like I said before do you they have any questions more questions on those ones do we have a sense of our enrollment numbers yet um we haven't had we've we have a kind of count right now um we're only in the second week it appears we're down a little bit um but we need to wait a little bit longer to see where those numbers end up down a little over our estimate or down a little

089bit over the previous year um down a down a little bit from the estimate that I used for budgeting okay thank you yeah yep hey Nikki when do you think we'll have a a better feel for that um well the first official say ADM collection that goes to OD is due October 1st um we do watch those numbers all throughout the first you know several weeks of school um to see where movement is see if how many kids um see how many more records requests that we received lots of those things come in delayed our student isn't there but we don't know if they've actually moved or if they're just you know if they're ill or something else else is going on so it usually takes the first several weeks before feeling pretty confident about

090our numbers so um I would say probably numbers next week or the week after we'll we'll feel a little bit better about um the accuracy of them you know as we start the movement as we see all the movement come through so all right thanks Nikki everybody good on that one sounds like it thank you very much Nikki let you don't get a break because now you have to go into staff vaccination mandates okay well I will see if I can pull up that presentation here and get it going on just a second unless Joe did you want to run that one again do you have it up or do you want me to bring it up I don't have it up yet but I can certainly do so if you need me to well

091I have it I can hold on just second second for have you got it Nikki we see you up on the screen I'm sorry about that I pulled a you pulled a Joe I know you were gonna say I I was going to but I stopped Fair no no no fair go ahead I'll mute myself again okay so I'll go through this um presentation uh I'm going to go over the black and white the basics of it and I also have Lisa freely here from wamity SD who's our um attorney that we work with through them uh to help support or help answer any questions uh um that might come up [Music] so um a few of the things I'll be reviewing is the Mandate background some definitions um the district process that we're using

092at this point how we're stepping through things um explain a little bit about the two exceptions medical exception and the religious exception um and then a little time for some questions so so for background information um all this information could be found under the Oar 333 d019 d103 so you can go directly there to find the details um within that they Define a few things for us um these few things here I think are a little more important than what you're looking for but they have other um definitions there as well that might be helpful um so a fully vaccinated person means having received both do does of a two do covid vaccine or one dose of a single dose vaccine and at least 14 days have passed since the individual's final dose of That

093vaccine so when we're talking about the deadline being fully vaccinated this is what we're looking for um a medical exception means that an individual has a physical or mental impairment that prevents the in individual from receiving a covid-19 vaccination a religious exception means that an individual has a sincerely held religious belief that prevents the individual from receiving a vaccination so these are just some of the basic definitions within that o um also in the O it talks about um the bottom line so after October 18th teachers School staff and volunteers may not teach work learn study assist observe or volunteer out of school unless they are fully vaccinated or have provided documentation of a medical or religious exception goes on to say a school may not employ contract with or accept the volunteer services of

094teachers School staff or volunteers who are teaching working learning studying assisting observing or volunteering at a school unless the teachers or School staff are fully vaccinated against covid-19 or have a documented medical or religious exception so these are straight out of the o um and what the the intent is of that so as far as our process at Newberg um we started out with sending out a basic survey to all employees um we needed to learn where everybody was and where they stood in order to be able to move forward in the process so we we asked who had been back vaccinated who intended to be vaccinated if they had not been already um who plan to submit a request for an exception and those who plan to refuse the vaccine and will not request

095an exception um those who have been vaccinated are required to submit proof of vaccination as outlined in the Oar and we're collecting that we're collecting pictures we're taking copies and keeping hard copies of all of that um because that is required to have on file for the next two years at this point um those who indicate that they intend to get vaccinated um will'll share the dates and types of vaccinations so we can determine if they're in compliance as as of October 18th at this time an employee would need to receive the Johnson and Johnson vaccine to be compliant um by the 18th so it makes a difference which vaccine they get so now if they go and get a Mna they would not be fully vaccinated by that deadline and we'd be looking at

096a gap in time past that before they could come to back to the building um this is just a snippet out of uh theou with our classified Union um we worked with them to try to clearly outline the expectations um that come from the O um and it went to their group to their members and this mou was passed so what we did here is we put out various timeline or deadlines so by September 13th by yesterday we needed a lot of information um so employees were supposed to respond to that survey um and let us know if they were going for if they were going to request an exception which exception um and then also um proof of vaccination um honor before October 14th so it just really clearly outlines those dates because as

097we move forward to the 18th we have a lot of steps in HR that we have to perform so we need that information ahead of time um so this was just straight out of their agreement where is it not going now a second there it goes okay so um District HR staff will begin for for those employees who have requested and exception regardless of whether it's a medical or religious exception that triggers an interactive process which means we have an individual conversation with each one of those employees um invite them in the office and go over the information um um for either exception so we're going to have a very very black and white questionnaire basic questions gathering information um so this process will utilize a committee comprised of H our staff and directors um

098and that's because it is you know it's a it's a heavy lift so there's quite a few people involved so we're kind of splitting that up a little bit the district will work individually with employees to ensure that all individual situations are evaluated and resolved in the best interest of student staff and the indivi individual as is um in compliance with the Oar um let's see this process is important because an accommodation is not limited to what may be requested Ed by the employee we'll talk about um accommodations that the employee might might like um an additional information may be determined may be needed to determine if an accommodation is an undue hardship for the employer or if the employeer would pose a direct threat in the workplace even after other safety measures have been

099implemented so so we'll have that conversation with each employee and gather the information um um here is a basic is is the definition straight out of the O is what a medical exception is and what needs to be provided to to have that considered um I won't read this word for word for you but um specifically request um certifying uh having a doctor medical provider that's a specialist in their appropriate area certifying the individual has a physical or mental impairment and this would be the same process we would use um in determining you know ADA compliance um or FMLA we would require this kind of information the religious exception this is the exact language it comes out of the Oar as well um so it allows the employer to ask a few more questions um

100about the exception request just to gather more information um both of the exceptions um have to be submitted on the OA form they made up the documentation that everybody uses so it's real consistent anywhere you go it's going to be the same form same questions asked um whether you're asking for the religious exception here or any other school district um so that's our basic process at this point are there any questions Nikki how many staff are at this point just roughly are you talking about that uh would be going for exceptions or not taking the exceptions um approximately around 50 and we still have a handful of folks that did not respond at all to the survey so let's say 30 of those religious and 20 or medical how do you if somebody I mean

101there's not much you can do to question somebody's Faith so if they are granted the religious exception then what would be the next move um in both cases whether it's the medical or the religious exception we would go through um as part of the interview and interactive process with them we're going to ask a lot of questions about their workday um and their interaction their contact with students their social distancing all of those sorts of things and so we would in our committee consider um whether any of the accommodations that we request whether that and ultimately will keep students and staff safe um and then upon that decision then we would let them know because they they can have a qualifying exception but the next step is is if we have enough if the accommodations

102in turn will keep them safe and students safe so we can say their exception but that does not necessarily mean that we can keep them safe in the building or keep the students safe in the building so those are two different questions um and we'll decide that as we gain all the information so at this point I wouldn't have a I wouldn't want to guess how that looks um because we need to ask everybody how their day goes how you know how they work with students how the interaction is all day long in order to make that determination so if you're talking about somebody how their day goes I mean all of our teachers and Ed assistants are around kids um so I mean they can't stand 20 feet away with a wall between them

103um other school districts have gone to n95 mask with a weekly testing for people who uh get the exceptions is that something that we would consider um that could be one of the considerations um then uh kn95 mask with the face shield we could consider we could consider have a plexiglass around their desk so so they can if a student comes to the desk there's an extra barrier um one of the other concerns that have been brought up in in our various trainings I mean we there's been many many things that we have attended as an HR Group um so just you know eating in the staff room because everybody has their masc on one of the accommodations may be that you need to eat in a different space because that's the most risky space

104because the um because Co is Airborne that's the biggest way to transmit so we would have there's various accommodations that we could um request of an employee in order to accommodate them coming into the building but then those would have to be followed to a te um because if they're not following them then they're putting staff and students at risk um and so we need to be very clear about that so we're we're letting five th000 kids or 4600 kids come to school wearing a dollar2 mask for the most part from Fred Meyer and they're not vaccinated and yet we could have H staff who who do not take the vaccine could have an n95 mask Which is far more efficient and do weekly testing and then we don't have to fire anybody I mean

105I just don't even see why option do that I mean I could see right now where we're at with the with the stuff I just went through this I've just had it for almost a month so I I get this the seriousness of it but if we're really saying that we want to uh be a healthy school district we've got a I mean but they can wear an n95 mask and get weekly tested so we know that they don't have covid and they can be doing their job until this whole thing gets you know through whether it's a week or six months um I just don't want to see us uh not do what other districts are doing they're doing everything they can to keep their employees I I don't want us to to just

106kind of go down the middle of the road what we're doing on this mandate and lose I've talked to teachers 10 15 20 25 year veterans in our school district who really don't want to lose their job and it's it's it's really important uh that we do everything we can if we just make an accommodation there's not very many things you can do in our district where you're not around other people um I get the lunchroom scenario um when people take off their masks the teachers you know little things like that make total sense till we can work through this thing but um I know other districts have gone to the n95 and the the weekly testing and uh I just think that's a really good option the weekly testing piece um we we have

107into that the one that is being offered for for free so the districts could actually manage it um you are not getting results for a week and a half so it's an at home test you'd have to rely on people to take them themselves pay the postage get it in the mail get it out in order to get a result a week and a half later so it doesn't seem like an effective way to monitor Because by the time you get the result that any employee whether it's a teacher or classified any staff and would have been with students for another full week um so I don't unless we're paying a lot of money for a company to come in and do um inde you know tests you can have results in 15 minutes um

108that is not a real realistic way to stay on top of it um but certainly the mask and the Plexi and different things like that that can be but again I mean we need to go through and um you know go through the process that's what the inter interactive process is that's why we're required to do it is to gather all the data specifics about each employee um and their work with students so I I my last thing is I would just think any teacher that's 25 years in who has has devoted all that time to us would would jump through an extra hoop to get tested I know when I got tested I had my results within 48 hours and that was at to Providence new Newberg hospital so I think we can figure

109that that piece out and I think these these staff members would understand how serious it is they get these results even if they had to even pay for it themselves it's better than loosen their job uh in the Newberg School District so I hope we we really look at that piece um very strongly when we're making these exceptions and Nikki I've got a quick question regarding our unions and I want to say thank you to both unions first of all for um their work with the district on this and and I see that we have a classified Union mou um is there not a teachers union mou and if not can you talk a little bit about what that process was like um the teachers one is in process right now it just has not

110been completed we meet again on Thursday um we had worked with them um on uh you know different Theus around the mask and everything and Co but not around the vaccine piece because that wasn't quite in place at the time we put everything else in place so now we're discussing the vaccination piece specifically so I'm hoping we're we get pretty far with it on Thursday um and that's that's just where we are with that one we're a little bit um a little bit slower on that one than we were with the classified that we had part of it in place already so thank you Nikki uh can you speak to how requests for religious exemptions will be educated um in the the same way we have Basics just like the medical one we invite people

111in um we will ask we can ask specific questions uh about that and ask them to provide um how information as to how the religious exemption relates to vaccin specific specifically um and that is U eligible underneath the the law to do that um so it isn't necessarily um it takes more information than just checking the box and saying I'm requesting a religious exception the way it's written there's a little more information that we can require sure and who will be judging those requests and on what basis will they be judged those requests will come in with for our like we spoke about before the interactive process and so we have a committee so HR staff and directors um will be doing the interview so it's not just a one-on-one thing um and then we'll

112go over the information that we received and we'll make that decision and what are the standards that a religious exemption would need to meet to be under that process that you've laid out to qualify MH the standard is well as we talked about in the O when you look at that it talks about um being able to tie um the religious exception to the vaccine piece and so some of them specifically will talk about for an example some of them might specifically talk about not wanting to use um anything that's fetal related or anything like that and so you're talking about a specific vaccine um because Johnson and Johnson would be the vaccine that would fall underneath that whereas the other ones may not because they don't use that um so that's how we would

113kind of go through and look at the details of each one um so but I guess you still haven't told me what they would have to demonstrate in their request for religious um exception what they the standard that they would need to rise and that's in that seems incredibly subjetive I'm just curious how you are going to judge somebody's religious belief in a way that is constitutionally valid well when you look at the the language in the O the snippet I showed a few slides back it talks about a sincerely held belief um and so it is I do agree it is subjective and so that's why this point in time we are just we are looking and we'll have to go through the process of interviewing those employees um and just learning from them

114and is there an appeal process yes so the appeals process would be to that superintendent so yeah if they if somebody wanted to appeal the um decision of the committee then they would appeal to the superintendent is there additional are there any additional appeal levels above the superintendent in this case um I think eventually it could go to the board yes Joe can you confirm that yeah any administrative decision that comes as superintendent for a decision can eventually be appealed to the board so if if they don't like the decision of a committee is the same thing in a in a um in a complaint process so if it comes through that um they would go through the committee would come through if they want to appeal that appeal to me eventually they would appeal

115to the court and would they be terminated prior to that appeals process being fully run through they be terminated no so while they're still appealing they would not be they would not have their employment terminated is that correct they would not be terminated that's correct because the exception the exception was about that right so it's um they may be on leave they may on something else or they may be um uh following along with the protocols and put in place but that's they would have that be terminated before they would meet with the board now they would not be terminated and then come to the board to appeal the termination they would come to the board to appeal the decision of the exception and you mentioned they'd be placed on leave would that be paid

116leave like what would the details of that be uh most likely be unpaid leave but I think that we'd actually be able to get through that how long could the appeals process take it doesn't have to take that long wow we've got them in Nick you remind me how many you've got scheduled right now well as far as the exception piece how many right so we've got about we've got about 50 of those under schedule for this week about 50 yeah well over the next couple weeks right so we've got them all scheduled now so we can get through this process so if we were need needed to go to an appeal of some kind if the exceptions were denied that would give them enough time to do all those and still meet the October

11718 deadline that's why we're doing all of these exceptions now hey Nikki I think Ty Smith Tyler did you have a question I had saw your hand up thank you if you want to have some suggestion point of point of order I he's not a a director he's not allowed to to speak in the meeting is he I didn't know he was gonna be in this meeting I believe a board the board uh a board member could ask our board attorney for his opinion on something right but how did didn't even know he be here yes and and and where where how did he know to be here I called him I wanted him here at a time when we have something like this that's super important we're talking about firing okay okay when are

118you going to start including the rest of the board members on this decision he is our board attorney he's going to be but he's only communicating with you and heally no I just asked him to be here because of this kind of stuff right here so we can get are you paying him Dave are you paying him personally or is this costing taxpayers money I think you heard that a couple weeks ago works for the new Brook School District informed as Bo attorney and now you're making the taxpayers pay for it just so everybody's clear on that and you're the only person that we know of who's communicating with him I didn't communicate except just be at the meeting and you're rude to our board attorney right now but I'm I'm sure he's not here

119for free I'm sure he's charging us for his time we've hired a board attorney and yes we pay for attorneys just like any client would and the board chair requested he'd be here I don't see what the problem is the problem is that the rest of the board was not notified and I can't see that he is on was on the meeting and that to H to have him be able to speak during the meeting without uh awareness of of this situation is is not building good teamwork or consideration for the fact that Rebecca cannot see what was that I said or consideration for the fact that you cannot see so you wouldn't have known that he was on here you just said you didn't know ANZ I mean it's the same thing we have

120a board attorney why Would we not want him at a meeting like this when we're talking about the future employment of our employees in the school district that's what I'm most concerned about well it's a very good concern it would have been very nice to you email us to let us know what you have done you are he also illegally retained in violation of public meeting law so it's very much questionable if he actually represents the board at all he's certainly doesn't represent me I've never met with him I've never spoken with him and I have no idea what his views on anything are quite honestly because I've been completely shut out of the process as has director pyros and director Pena and Tyler speak I would like to say one thing and that is

121at the last meeting when we hired him Brandy you said that you were going to to reach out to him I because he's illegally retained I'm not going to touch that with a 10- foot PLL because I'm not going to be person responsible for any of his legal fees he wasn't illegally retained we retained him with a valid vote of the board we're allowed to violation of public meeting law and you exactly why you did it because you knew that it would be outrageous and in illegal action and you did it anyway no I hired him because I wanted to have legal advice because we were discussing legal issues any reasonable person would hire an attorney when they're dealing with legal issues which is why we had ilal advice at that meeting Brian and you

122knew it can we move on yeah can Tyler speak now no I do not feel that Tyler should speak and why is that because because we were not notified ahead of time of his presence and his reasons for being here if Dave had notified fight us ahead of time we could have either said yes or at least been aware of the situation but this but this lack of communication between the the board chair and the mo rest of the board members were you aware he was coming I believe that Joe was aware that he was going to be there and so did um so you knew Renee so you knew he was going to be here because you said Joe knew yeah Joe and Jennifer knew and did you know Renee yes well I assumed

123he would be because he should be at all of our meetings and I asked Joe if he could be at all of our meetings because he's our lawyer and he's GNA be do you want La talking about legal things we should have somebody so it clears up all the stuff so we can have it all out and open if this this is legal or not but Mr do you practice legal educational law what what what is even your your area of expertise in law well I I can start giving some advice and doing that if you want me to because no I don't want you to give you advice UC law do you practice educational law I I practice civil rights love which is what this is so if you want advice about vaccines and

124school boards that's what I do we can't hear you Brandy I know I'm just shaking my head because it's not what you do you do not you're not an attorney who practices civil law representing school districts or teachers unions so I have no idea why you're here other than to cause the exact kind of chaos that is happening right now I'm sorry are you suggest he's not legally a lawyer in the state of I'm sure he's an attorney of some sort but he's certainly not a specialist in this area I didn't know that you were qualified to judge the credentials of attorneys I also didn't know that you were Brian and he he's not an educational lawyer so we're back to the the starting point here where um we have an attorney that would be

125at board meetings and it's with all the legal things that we're dealing with and this isn't Flags right now we're talking about let's get back to what we're talking about right now we're talking about our employees in the school district regardless of our differences we need to know every option available to retain our employees in the school district if possible with the Mandate that's been thrown down and this is something that attorney Tyler Smith can do and I would like everybody to just be a whole lot more respectful of somebody who's coming into our meeting and trying to help us sh Brown I wish you would be more respectful of letting the rest of the board know your plans that's that is what I'm upset about is that we are not included in your decisions

126we we are not notified about this I did not realize you assumed or or that Renee assumed that Tyler was going to be here at every meeting because that's going to be insure that's going to be adding $300 an hour that tonight's going to be how how long of meeting when we have a meeting of this magnitude though he won't be at every meeting like he won't be at the executive or the the work session next two weeks uh won't be at the the public comment meeting but when we're in a meeting like this we absolutely need legal advice right now while we're sitting there talking to Dr Joe and Nikki Fowler we why don't you you use the pace Pace lawyers his professional advice on this so we can help our employees and I

127will promise you tomorrow morning whatever I'm thinking for one day or the next week Rebecca I agree I'll send out emails to you guys all the time so you know what's going on of a month with with Co and I apologize for not communicating better so I don't want to leave you in the dark on that but I do want to besides us seven I really want to look at uh how we're looking down the road I know our District's in a in a tough spot with the Mandate from the governor and and there's districts all around the state doing different things and if there's anything we can do to help our employees regardless of how we all feel about each other I'm all for that right now and this is legal and I think

128tonight Dr Joe and Nikki Fowler need to hear and Derek Brown whoever is going to be on that committee uh this is good information for them so we make the right decision we're coming up on this thing uh in just over 30 days where again we have people have been in this district for a long time who don't want to lose their jobs they want to find out everything they can and if if Tyler Smith can help us do that let's let him help us do that and I will communicate with you he will not be at the 22nd meeting or the 28th meeting uh but I would tell you right now um uh depending on what issues we're dealing with in October I'm not sure the date yet of that meeting uh but if

129we're dealing with big issues like this which I assume we would be uh we'll be coming up on the the time frame that he would be at that that meeting so there you go for our next uh three times we get together uh I'll just verbally say that but I'll send that to you in an email also question where's our Pace attorney what's that where's our Pace attorney tonight actually we have Lisa fry from wesd who is one of our attorneys we work with quite a bit so she is actually uh here with us to answer any other questions you may have perfect thank you Dr Mor I have a question for Nikki yes just to clarify Nikki you did say that this mandate has to be followed by all districts correct it's not just

130something that is imposed on us right it's a state it's an OHA mandate um so all districts um all districts have to deal with it you know districts are doing different things and different levels um and they're all working through at the same time even as we're working through it we're working we're reaching out to our peers at other districts and being sure that we're um looking at it the same way and you making sure that we're following the rules um and like I said before listening to presentations from several attorneys you know hungerford's put one on um Lisa did all the specialst that specialized in schools and how to implement in schools um so yeah so it's extion forms are also the same for every District the exception forms yep they were put out

131by OHA and those are the ones that we have to use thank you just wanted to clarify that uhuh so with that said um to Smith you said you were gonna make a comment like 10 minutes sure chair Brown thank you very much and I didn't mean to interrupt the meeting but I did want to um point out a few things to um Mrs fer and superintendent Morlock as they develop the policies on these to be aware of um I understand M fer you said you got some advice from attorneys from um the Education Service District um but what I haven't heard yet I want to just make sure because no one consulted with me on the development of any of these policies but that you are following and you're aware that the uh equal

132employment opportunity commission has issued guidances on both um vaccine mandates and title 7 and how you have to take um accommodations for medical exemptions and religious accommodations under federal law all the school districts right now and most of the presentations by the Oregan Department of Education seem to be only talking about Oregon Health authorities administrative Rule and I want to protect the school here and so I wanted to make sure that you guys are aware the federal law applies here too because the school District employees more than 15 individuals so title 7even of the Civil Rights Act 42 USC 2000 EJ also applies here and there's been guidance given by the equal employment opportunity commission that should also be consider the reason I mentioned that is that has a different standard the Equal Employment uh

133opportunity commission does not allow you to have uh require for instance a priest or a pastor signature or a doctor um verification on certain types of exemption forms the OHA form requires that so you you might want to think about if somebody didn't have on a religious exemption a signature or an authentication from a priest or a pastor whether that whether a denial based on something like that would also pass Federal mustard and so there's more to think about if you if the estd people are are your resource on this make make sure that your process complies both with the state administrative rule process and federal law that's the point I wanted to make sure that you guys are aware of youa is this something that is also being discussed among your other colleagues um

134yes uh most of the attorneys that practice in the area of school education law and employment and labor law law I've met a couple of times um over the last couple weeks and we've tried to coordinate um most of our advice um as we're going through it and we have clearly communicated and I think I even not talked with Nikki specifically about it which is there is absolutely no requirement um that there be a letter or a signature or any kind of a notary um from so clearly in Oregon's guidance is very similar to the ones coming out of the federal government so we have copies of those we've distributed them we've actually given them some other resources besides just even those from some other states they're doing some pretty good communication on how to

135apply those exceptions so everyone seems to be from the I I represent 14 school districts in the in the Maran pul and yam County area and the folks that I work that I've talked to represent um Central Oregon and then there's some that do some Statewide practice um we all are pretty much saying the kind of the same thing and at least the districts that are here in this Tri County region um that I'm aware of we're all kind of moving in the same direction looking at all very similar accommodations um trying to implement similar kinds of safety patterns um depending on who the student is being serve thank you and chair Brown that was just that it sounds like Mr F already got the advice that um the signature requirements from a third party

136may not fly under federal law it's still yet to be determined but if that's being given to you then I think you just want to make that make sure you're taking all of that into consideration because the OA form does have that on there and make it look like it's required yeah that's not how we The Forum so in fact some people have turned in so late letter from their pastor and we're getting a personal statement from them it has to be on the form not just a or email from P so Nikki on on these boards that you do the interviews on how are you taking this subjectivity out and um are there people on the board let's just use Christianity as an example if they're applying for a religious exemption uh I guess

137how are you squaring that with um you know what they're saying what they're tying the um exemption to with with Biblical um you know excerpts or or um words are are you going to have somebody there that's a pastor or anything like that or how are you going to take the the subjectivity out of it no we wouldn't we wouldn't um you know we wouldn't require a statement from a pastor we won't have a pastor there it'll be a discussion with the employee and the employee would provide what they're talking about so they would just provide their Source their evidence of that so if they're saying you know using your example if it's Christianity they can bring forward whatever excerpt that they want to to just kind of um show how it's tied um and

138that's all is it's a pretty simple process um we don't we're not asking for in Bas you know life history we're not asking for um you know documentation from church or anybody else this is a very it's an interactive process with the employee um and kind of a one-on-one conversation so so Nikki if they're if they're granted the the medical or the religious exception that's the first part second part is is going to be uh the tougher part about how we fit them into the workplace correct correct so that that's this huh what's that I said that that would be the second piece of it so yeah we go through the process with the exception inter the interactive process talking to everybody about their exception request and we put out there that we're hoping to

139have all those um answers out by the 28th um but that depends if we can get all these interviews done by then but that's the goal date um is to let people know whether the exceptions has been granted at that point um and with that decision then that's when we would outline the accommodations required to meet the safety needs of staff and students so so could they receive a medical or a religious exception and then still be terminated because you don't find accommodations for them to work in our schools um in theory if they're in a position that we cannot ensure the safety of students um that could be a direction that could be a possibility or unpaid leave for a period of time um to help accommodate maybe a future vaccine or help accommodate

140you know um just them an employee wanting to think about it longer um but yeah I mean that's the the the O very clearly states that we cannot employ people that are not vaccinated unless they meet one of those laws um unless they meet one of those exceptions and also we can accommodate it in a safe way um so that's all we're that's all this process is trying to determine um is that employees who are in the district um who are not vaccinated um can be in the buildings and still keep everybody safe um we realize that the students most students in our buildings are not able to get vaccinated yet that's why we need the adults as much as possible to be there um to help protect them and the vaccination is no guarantee

141to to not catch it or to transmit it and that's that's science that's been documented so it really sounds like we're going to maybe strongly consider medical or religious exceptions but we're going to find that we can't put them in the building anyway I mean we've said this about five times in the last 20 minutes that there's no options to put them in the in the building almost zero um even though other districts you know I think we really need to look hard at you know if they have the n95 mask you know and and they're still tested then we're eliminating getting rid of a lot of people here and probably avoiding a lot of lawsuits they're going to the Boomerang back on everybody on this thing and I um I you know I I

142believe there are ways to have people in the building and safe using the accommodations um with that being said people need to follow the accommodations to a tea in order for that to be in order for that to work um and so that's the other piece of it is the is the followup and everything and that um as we go through the exception process if we're able you know able to have people back in the building that are not vaccinated that they are following those protocols because that that's the bottom line that's what the whole that's what it's out there for um is to make it as safe as possible for students and staff and so that's the goal of this process um it isn't intended to get people out of the building to find

143a way to terminate them or anything like that it's to follow the law as it is the O as it is um do what we're required to do um in the schools because that that is what's imposed on us right now um Nikki I appreciate that I'm not you know I know this is a tough conversation and I'm not I know you got a tough one here and I'm not trying to I'll just I'll just finish with this I just think that if if there's any way possible that we can follow another school district who's keeping our employees employed um in any way shape or form if that means testing if that means have them stand on their head and get testing I don't want us to lose employees in this school district uh when

144they have got their exception and they have a valid reason for not taking the vaccine and that we're not punishing them for making that choice and uh you know I get it I'm not antia I'm not provax I'm just sitting back saying you know this is a uh this is a pretty big overreach on the government's part here it's it's going to we'll see where it goes the next you know we've got two attorneys here I think are going to be very busy in this whole whole process but you know please I'm just I'm just asking almost begging for our employees I don't even care if they've called in and don't like me on the school board I don't want them to lose their job I want them to to know that Newberg school district

145is going to do everything they can everything they can to keep them employed uh in this school because we're talking about their paychecks we've already got a board member it's lost job this is devastating to a family and I've talked to many staff members who are they're on the verge of a nervous breakdown thinking they're going to lose their job yeah we don't want to we don't want to see um Employees leaving either I mean we're we're trying to um strike that balance of what we need to do to be accountable follow the O put things into place where everybody is is safe and taken care of um so that's that's you know that's where are I I don't we don't want employees to fear this we're going to go through the process and um

146you know do the best thing for employees and staff and students I just want to thank you Nikki and the HR department knowing how busy you are at the beginning of the school year getting Insurance set up for everyone and getting everyone in in payroll and all that on top of what you have to do with this vaccination exemptions I I just want to acknowledge all the hard work you're going to be you have done and will be doing and I know you don't want to lose any employees because you have to fill that spot that we need we need these employees very much and we need them to do the right thing and get the right paperwork for you right no thank you we do have a very I am fortunate in my position

147that I have a very very good team and they're all hands on deck right now working through this um and it's not not something that I'm doing alone at all roping Derek in roping Karen in so we we've got a lot of help with this process so hey Nikki I just got uh two more questions on this subject what what is the criteria that you're using to determine um what the accommodations will be um the accommodations actually we have been collecting ideas um in general from uh you know the different webinars we've been at what other districts are doing um and just just collecting as much as we can so then as we look at each employee and what their day looks like we can look at the list and say okay this would help

148in protecting them in this instance or that instance so really will depend how their what their actual Duties are throughout the day but it's a kind of it's an all-inclusive list so we have some options that will meet um employees individually so it wasn't the OHA did not provide a list or you know we don't have any generic list that was given to us that says these are the things that you can or will do yeah they gave some examples I believe I think that that's where the n95 thing came from right right that's yeah that's yeah that's a basic one that kind of that's been out for a period of time that or double masking or a mask in a shield or you know variations of any sort of um face mask or Shield

149yeah and then um to to date I know that uh you know the same teachers were all were all masked up in schools along with the the children and staff has there been a case within the Newberg School District that um that a teacher or staff member or a student has spread Co that could be tracked within the school as opposed to outside um as far as our district I'm not aware of our district or um yeah I wouldn't I am not aware of anything going on in our school that that's happened yet it has happened in other districts I believe that we've read in the newspaper but not here yet okay thank you okay uh we're just a little ways behind schedule here so any more questions for Nikki Nikki thank you very much

150I know it's a tough one uh appreciate you being uh standing there and answering All Those Questions being on the hot seat so but you don't get any breaks because we're moving on to new business here and we're going to have to hear your cell tower lease Amendment agreement here well this one should at least be short and sweet for you um we already have this cell tower lease in place all this amendment will do is to exp extend the life of it by five years um and they do this periodically because they want to be able to keep selling the tower to other companies um and if it gets close to the end of the lease they fear that we're going to take the cell tower away or they won't have access to it

151so this is just an extension of the um the years on it by another additional five years got it I think it's pretty straightforward has anybody got any questions for Nikki on this no I'd like to make a motion there we go waiting for that one Newberg School District Board of Directors approved the amendment to the Newberg High option and sight leas agreement with SBA 2012 TC assets LLC to extend lease term I second thanks you guys raise your hand if you agree with that uh lease agreement it looks like we are 70 on that vote so thank you very much bored on that one Nikki gosh I think you're off the the uh hot seat here so you haven't had okay I can go with that yeah I know thanks Nikki very much uh

152um we don't have a lot of time left and so I'm going to move right through to C uh we have Derek Brown up on the student investment account Sia Derek are you ready yes I am thanks chair Brown let me share my screen real quick here go can everybody see that yes okay okay thanks very much for the time tonight I'm Derrick Brown I'm the assistant superintendent for Newberg School District um tonight I'm providing you with our uh 2020 21 annual report for the student investment account this is a required report uh for the grant so uh we do this uh with we'll be doing this with you every year that we have these um resources avail ailable to us um and hopefully uh it won't take a whole lot of time for me

153to go through I know you've uh got a lot of material in front of you tonight so just a couple of reminders for folks um we have organized our student investment account plan into three primary areas mental and Behavioral Health supports and safety academic instruction intervention and additional or other classroom supports uh and those things are all aligned uh very well with the um the Ed purposes of these dollars from the state there are three primary outcomes that are associated with the expenditures uh one being increasing support for students mental health and Behavioral Health needs increasing student growth and achievement in core content areas and increasing graduation rates just as a reminder uh for last year um this is what uh our plan looked like we hired the following staff uh we were allotted about

154$1.2 million um we believe moving forward we already know for this year and next year that we've had an increase in our allocation um and you as a board approved uh that plan uh in a recent meeting so uh for last year though uh we had this amount of of dollars and we did these things we hired four FTE of therapists through a partnership with Lutheran Community Services we haris sped Behavioral Health coordinator some additional counselors a math tosa some other licensed staff uh many of those were in the area of English language development support we hired a bilingual help desk technician and we were able to uh purchase about 2 200 Chromebooks which was part of our uh sort of standard uh inventory life cycle processes and then of course we had some dollars

155that were uh put aside for indirect costs as well part of the report uh asks us to uh reflect on some questions that are posed by OD and so uh I the full report is included in your board packet uh where I walked through uh our Reflections on these things the slides I'm just giving you some paraphrased responses here um but when we think about what the positive effects at least so far have been uh certainly hiring additional therapists and counselors and other mental and Behavioral Health needs uh supports has been really critical um especially given what we went through uh last year with basically having almost an entire year of distance learning and all of the difficulties that that come along with that um hiring the additional licensed staff particularly in the area to

156support our English Learners has been really powerful and important in our schools and then of course uh focusing again on our bilingual help desk technician who's been in place now for a year supporting our Spanish speaking families and those have been um really powerful um um parts of this plan and we're excited about being able to continue those uh barriers uh like any other school district Co has created lots of challenges for us um we know that distance learning um uh is not the most effective mode of learning um and so we've done our best with that I think we've done our teachers and other staff have done a really amazing job of trying to make distance learning as powerful as it can be last year um and although it's been a challenge um I

157think every body on our school district gain some new uh technology skills which will continue to build a leverage moving forward as well um with all of this you know missing the social component um of school has been um really difficult I think for students and Educators and anybody that's been involved so uh as Dr Joe mentioned and others have mentioned being back to in-person learning this year has been really exciting for us to get back into that particular mode of learning and we know that our SI s related Investments uh will become even more powerful uh while in person learning there we go one of the questions that they ask us at the state is to reflect on how we've been able to do our community engagement uh so I just wanted to point

158out that uh even though last year we were doing most of our work in a distance kind of dynamic that we did continue to use surveys uh and occasional online forums as ways of collecting feedback both from the community and from staff um fortunately for us in Newber we put a really high priority on uh understanding uh what the community uh thinks and what they're experiencing uh with uh with education uh so regardless of SIA we're always going to be looking for opportunities to um engage with our community and engage with staff engage with students to know um what they're thinking what they're experiencing and then how uh how we can move forward and improve we've uh even through the pandemic we've received pretty high response rates from folks who I think um you know

159we're excited about the fact that people do want to weigh in uh on on things and we we use that information to try to help improve um our work um there's a question about how we prioritize uh our decisions in terms of you know how do how do we select these uh particular positions or functions to add to our team and add to our schools uh and so I just wanted to point out that all of our decisions are datadriven so taking a look at core content achievement and growth taking a look at graduation rate taking a look at attendance rates taking a look at discipline data taking a look at climate survey information from our teachers uh asking staff about their professional development needs all of those things um come together uh as we

160take a look at our data and try to identify where are we doing well where do we have some gaps and how can we use siia uh resources to address those gaps um so we start with our data and then we take a look at the feedback and in this case we also created uh kind of a a tiered hiring plan so we had a sense uh in conversations with the state that allocations uh over the next couple of years might go up or down I think uh so we wanted to be able to respond quickly if we found out that our allocation had increased or decreased uh so that was uh something that we we did and it helped us because we did see some fluctuation during that first year again uh this year

161and next year our allocation is uh closer to $3 million which is uh about 75% of what we think our full allocation will be in terms of next steps again the annual report is a requirement for the board to review and to approve and once uh once you do that then we will uh post it on our website and it will be submitted to OD by no later than September 30th of this year and so with that I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have Derek are we still on the home books or is that like uh as many as we need in a year and we still have old older ones out there that are like one year old or two years old was that I'm sorry there was some ruffling going

162on around the microphone was that around the Chromebooks yeah how many total do we have out there is this replace all of them or just like half of them or no it doesn't replace all of them I'd have to ask Dr nef what percentage that replaces my guess is that it's probably around a third or a fourth typically you know we work in cycles of three or four years to to cycle things in and out and do preventative maintenance and things like that but I would have to ask uh Dr nef for the exact percentage on that got it thank you anybody else have any questions for uh for Derek there Derek sorry to make you wait so long in the evening to it's okay there was one other thing I I forgot to point

163out I just wanted to mention um that there are uh metrics associated with our SAA plan uh last year as we were uh entering the school year and uh basically Statewide we were in you know the distance model for the most part the state came out and said that they were going to suspend the first year of metrics meaning um we have set goals around growth and achievement and graduation rates and a few other areas that are defined by the grant U but the reason that I didn't put any of that into the report for you this year is that the the state basically gave us a year of Grace knowing that everybody was doing distance learning so um what you'll see in the future as this annual report comes up is we'll show you

164the data um we'll show you the state test scores we'll show you attendance we'll show you all of those things and we'll show you how we're doing in those areas relative to the goals that we set when we built our plan A couple of years ago so um I just wanted to make sure that especially for our new board members that have only been involved in this conversation a couple times that we do have um some very clear uh goals and me data that be tracking relative to the Sia work and DK are we looking at how we would have done how they not wav that requirement well as soon as we have some some data to look at you know we have at least a year and a halfs worth of void in terms

165of those state test results so we'll use other classroom derived information for sure um we'll have we have some quarterly diagnostic assessments we do have other data that we can look at um to evaluate how we're doing and we we would be doing that regardless of SAA for sure um but we do look forward to getting back to a place where we have a full uh set of data uh that we can use to evaluate systems health and then you're looking for a motion on this tonight is that correct uh that's correct it does have to be approved by the board before I can submit it to the state I move that the Newberg School District Board of Directors approve the 2021 student investment annual account annual report as presented for submission to the Oran

166Department of Education I second hey Derek again thank you uh all those in favor um I'm still on uh point point of order Mr chair you should ask for a discussion okay I thought we did um is there any more discussion on that okay I can only see Brian on my screen I'm still in the contact information let me stop sharing so you can thanks D yep sorry about that go ahead appreciate that so we have a motion in a second all in favor of what Derek just presented please raise your hand and I see us at 70 so again thank you very much on that vote appreciate that um thanks for the time thanks Derek for your presentation I know that we're running a little behind schedule but we had a a break and

167I hoping we can take one now well we're stopping at 10 J aren't we uh 10 o'clock is our or end time tonight I don't know I I was asking Jen and this sorry Jen are you still there I don't know if you can hear me can you hear me I can hear you do we have our translators till 10:00 tonight um I actually believe they are scheduled until 11: like I was requested okay uh then we will uh take a break in this I appreciate you asking uh we'll go five minutes and we'll be right back it is 1050 so 10 or 9:55 we'll be back e o for hey we're getting close here we got five of us six seven I'm not sure about uh Dr Morlock are you here with us he's

168here anybody else need to be here on this one okay how many how many public members do we have I do not know Jen can you answer that question uh can it looks like we have 197 at the moment great thank you well thanks for staying up late you7 people out there um next up is policies um this is uh ensuring safe environments to learn policy first read uh Vice chair Brian Shannon can you comment yes this is the language that thec committee and is recommending to the board uh for approval at our next meeting this is only first read uh so we don't need any motions or anything tonight but hopefully folks it over and come back uh at the next meeting with any amendments that they Brian I heard nothing of that hopefully

169I don't know if your audio cutting off yeah Brian I missed some of that too it was kind of uh kind ofar sorry my internet's having trouble I think that sounds better right there okay sorry my internet's seems to be cutting in and out this evening in the last few minutes uh so this is I'll be quick this is the language that the policy committee uh devised and is recommending for approval this is just a first read uh so we don't need to take any action on it tonight uh but I'd recommend folks read it and uh come back with any amendments they'd like to put in uh at our next meeting discussion there I I would like to make a motion to refer this policy to a superintendent standing committee to allow students staff

170Administration and community members to really look through the policy and see does it address the issues what what is the problem we're trying to solve and to set a time limit to six months for them to refer back to to give us better verbiage that will meet everyone's needs so Rebecca you just made a a request or a motion I made a motion to refer this to a standing a superintendent standing committee to move to to not to table it but to move it to a different um group okay I would need a second I'll second so Brandy second that any further discussion on that I feel that it's important that we listen to to our constituents but especially to our students and staff who this personally affects we've we've heard tonight we haven't heard

171much from students we didn't we heard one staff member tonight we need to know the administrators who are going to um uphold the the policy and we have a lot of passionate community members on both sides and I think if we if we if we turn over this it to a standing committee by the superintendent that we can actually address this without taking up so much board time that that they they would have the the um the wherewith all to to look at it to to see what the problem is and to try to affect um a solution that but every side would be satisfied I agree the reason I seconded this motion is because I feel like this is clearly an incredibly divisive issue and if we are able to create a community approach

172in which voices are heard and people are able to add input constructively creating a policy that can then be reviewed to ensure that it's meeting all legal standards I think that that could be a really good way for this specific issue to help the community come together and to hopefully stop further uh contention and Division okay thank you any other uh comments in there discussion uh I would oppose the motion you know we've been told that it's very urgent that we replace the August motion um with policy language so that we diffuse any potential litigation coming out of that motion and the way to do that is to replace it with official policy which this is it was drafted by the the policy committee as this board requested uh so I see no reason to

173refer it to some un to be determined select committee uh for further review we're having a special the board chair already announced we're having a special listening session next week devoted entirely to public comment that folks can come to and express their concerns and we can certainly integrate uh what we hear at the next board meeting with amendments so I don't see any reason to delay this six months I think that would needlessly um delay the process and would not um address the legal issues that we're currently facing as this policy in the place of the August 10th motion would do well I think the the reason to delay it is exactly that we're trying to to solve a a problem that if we s the directive that would take care of the the various

174legal and ethical complaints that are against the board so if we could resend that that directive and then allow the this this superintendent standing committee to work through the issues in a collaborative measure and we could show good faith to our citizens and to our our students that we do want to listen to them not and not just throw things together just to get to solve a problem solve a legal problem we've created I would also disagree with the one thing you said Brian about it being crafted by the policy committee because anybody who watched that committee meeting could tell that it was certainly not language crafted by the committee it was language crafted I'm assuming by Tyler Smith I'm kind of Uncertain on that because it certainly wasn't osba and it certainly wasn't the

175community or the committee so it was not a collaborative approach as far as I'm concerned unless there was working between Mr Smith and board members behind the scenes um this would help ensure that it was collaborative and if in fact we're having community members and students say I don't feel safe when I see these symbols that needs to be part of a larger conversation and creating a policy and a a committee around creating this policy would enable people from varying viewpoints to come together to help draft something that again could help potentially address some of the issues uncomfortableness on both sides and create some Community cohesion so this policy was built by the policy committee using language from osba as as well as language recommended by our board attorney so I would uh disagree that

176we did not I'm sorry that we didn't rise to your standard of crafting the language but we did work on this and and it was Final it was not it was a two to one decision to bring this to the PO to the board just so so everyone is aware it was not a United policy committee meeting it was not a collaborative meeting it was more run like a board meeting I have a question about that why was it even voted on as a committee I was uncertain that I was uncertain that there was even supposed to be voting I mean the two plus years almost three that I've been on the board committees have worked collaboratively as an area of um discussion so that then we together bring a proposal to the board did

177that change and if so where is the requirement for committee um like where's the language because I'm not sure that I'm aware of how committees function anymore we operate under Robert's Rules as dict for our policies can we have um if Tyler Smith is still here can we have him talk about the Le if this is all legal and I do believe that he discussed the issue with the attorney that we had with Karen um Vickers and they work together um on the the wording I'm not sure is that correct or or not Tyler you're still here uh director Powell so the first um thing you said is correct um I did take a look at this and recommend some of this language to solve some of the uh complaints by the um unions and

178um some of the complainants and then secondly um with regards Miss Vickers no I've talked with her as the ire board has about the um litigation things that were covered in executive session but not about the wording of this particular policy this particular policy was um was created prior to um the well I don't prior I think after I'd have to check the dates on that um after the executive session and before the last meeting I think so that this to be clear oh um Vickers did not help craft this policy uh no no this she didn't craft this policy she's the insurance I think uh one of the things that's important to note obviously you guys are inundated with attorneys there's osba attorneys who are employees of osba not the district you have ESD

179attorneys who are employees of the ESD you have Pace attorneys who are Insurance defense attorneys um none of those whom you actually select so none of those are selected nor hired by the board they're all hired for you by other people um so you know it's superintendent probably talks to lots of attorneys in the course of a month um and that's his choice who he wants to talk to to get legal advice I know you guys have lots of legal advice I'm here just simply to do what I'm asked to do and so I was asked to come up with a policy that yeah I don't want to get into some of the stuff that should be covered in ex excutive session but to come up with a policy that's legal legitimate and covers the

180concerns and I recommended some language that all of you were copied on long before the last meetings um and then I think there's been a number of changes since then and did you also have uh who was the the gentleman from sboa came in and and help you guys uh put this together Spencer Lewis okay who sent us an email today I think it was today maybe yesterday saying that uh they still have grave concerns around the legality of this current warning M director PA I didn't quite fully answer some of your questions but this does have the the language that was proposed takes care of the Union concerns that they wouldn't be able to wear uh pins or display Union paraphernalia this covers that um this also Al covers um the concerns that were

181addressed I think I think that the directive was addressed that which was teachers um displaying materials that might make um a student feel uncomfortable um that may might make them feel um that they can't speak freely on their particular issues and so it represents everyone uh this also takes in effect there was a lot of um conversation during the last month over uh free speech and students free speech and I think the original motion and directive didn't really wasn't I don't think intended for that and this does not govern nor regulate student speech in any way shape or form and so those those are some of the legal issues that had been presented by the public by some of the board members by other legal council and I believe those are all addressed and satisfied

182um with the proposed policy it can always be changed and policies do continually change so um that's I think that's on the table for all of you to change it between now and next meeting if you choose or even after that point in time so the policy we have right now is that legal in in would in every areas or is there could there still be a problem legally with the wording it was um to to talk go into the sausage making a little bit here description of how sausage is made each time there were complaints or concerns addressed by unions or potential plaintiffs or folks this had changes made to address what their concerns were over the course of the time between that first motion and when we were engaged and then the Pres

183presentation of it at your last board meeting Renee to answer your question per Spencer's email there are still legal concerns that this is illegal and what are those concerns you we can ask Spencer Lewis that okay maybe that's something we can discuss and and um before we do our second reading and then we can discuss it and see if we need to reward some of it so it if he has an issue with it he can let us know then maybe in that in the meantime I'm sure if we reach out maybe okay director Shannon do you want to reach out to him as being part of the policy committee or do you want me to do that as board chair uh I'll defer to the board chair okay I will call him tomorrow I'm

184dealing with him anyway and uh I will get his take on that and then U as my promise to Rebecca I will get that uh in an email to you guys right as soon as I get that information um but we still have a motion and we have a second on what Rebecca said if we don't have any further discussion if we do keep talking appreciate all I really I really want to to vote for a standing committee I I feel it's imperative that we turn this over to the students and the staff the admin and the community members who this impacts and it will help relieve the pressure on the board to to be able to do other things than um than then deal with this divisive issue that's it's been become so much

185I think we need to listen to our to our um constituents and and you ask them to to come up with with um with Solutions well this is a solution that they could come work on and we could get people from both sides to work together collaborative and to show show show the the community and show show them that that Newberg is a welcoming Community we our Chamber of Commerce has written to us how many people are are not coming to do for personal um for personal reasons and and our city council member has has asked us to reconsider let us take this chance to reconsider our actions and and and make it possible for our students staff and admin and community members to work together on this problem Rebecca I just have to comment

186on that too I I've heard that same thing I've talked to to Mayor Rogers and different people on the community and I've also talked to business owners who have had and say they're coming here because of of uh some of the actions we've taken so again it's a divisive subject but there are people on both sides of this um so it's not just a you know we've lost you know business here lost business there we gain it You Know It uh people say a lot of stuff about you know bringing their business or taking their business away uh so that's not a a real good barometer of of where the whole Community is at but uh if we still have discussion go ahead you guys keep going just another reminder I have said that my

187pronouns are a yes she her um just to make that the record okay all right well we are at uh that point where we still have a motion and a second on that so if we're ready to to vote on uh director Pyro's uh motion uh all those in favor of uh the motion to uh send it to superintendent committee uh for six months please raise your hand we have three votes for yes could you could you read them out please Rebecca pyros ANZ Pena Eli her and Brandy Penner voted yes uh those voting no please raise your hand uh we have no votes from Dave Brown Trevor de Hart Renee pal and Brian Shannon so motion fails so we uh keep moving forward here um again there's I think I read 17 Pages there

188um I would say uh just like uh director pal said let's go through this thing with your fine home and be ready on the meeting with a session to to look at this and have lot discussion and are we going are we going to to um we're having a work session on the 28th when will this when will this be put forth we'll do it at the start of the meeting all right at the start of the meeting and then uh again go through it let's keep having a discussion uh good points all the way there um uh and again uh you know let people know the 22nd is a is a big night remember it's two minutes though we're trying to get as many people in to speak as we possibly can I know

189that's been a point of contention uh but guys we haven't had very many meetings and and not a lot of time slots and it's you know we're pushing you know four and half hours tonight so uh as we move forward uh you know if people uh want to speak tell them to call in you know make sure they're that 7 pm on the 21st and then when we get into that meeting we will if Rebecca if you're okay with it we'll do the the Pledge of Allegiance and we'll go right into public comments Jen and I talked about that so we won't be making normal board comments we won't be discussing as normal in public comments we'll get as many people through the process as we can uh Jen thank you so much for uh

190putting the timer on there tonight that was a big help you worked really hard appreciate your uh your help on that so again try to get to people for the 2 second so we can get uh uh it'd be fun to get over 50 people uh we go two minutes we stay right on track if we if we fine-tune it we can we get 55 or 60 um last thing is is uh I will be getting back to you guys I'll get to Spencer Lewis and uh a request from all the board members I'll be contacting you tomorrow uh sorry again for uh getting sick but um any agenda items that Rebecca uh inz Brandy Trevor Renee Brian you guys have uh be ready to to let me know those and we'll get them on

191for that next agenda uh so we can get talking about things it would be fun to get back to education so would you like that emailed I I'll I'll email you if it's okay and then uh or you can email me that would be great inz I do have a question for you uh you want me to say inz Pena Ella she her every time or tell me what what what's proper no and I guess that's why I asked um if we emailed the suggested agenda items because I do want to talk about pronouns um and why they are important so good that's perfect uh that's kind of stuff we I know we all kind of want to move towards so that's a great one to start with uh I'll write that one down uh

192and is and uh you know again uh things that uh we can get talking about and uh I know it's tough we're still frustrated with each other but uh I did mean what I said when I started meeting I think each and every one of us really do care for kids we definitely have our different uh viewpoints and I know we frustrate each other but I do know you really care I I honestly do know that uh and so uh I I I think that gives us a really good starting point to move forward uh it won't be easy but I think 28 will be fun uh if we if we can make it fun that night let's do it and uh let's keep moving forward are we going to are we going to talk

193about future agenda items because I have two items I want to bring up good night if you want to tell me go ahead yes I would like to to suggest that the the 22nd is changed from a two-hour meeting to at least a three-hour meeting and that we use we dedicate one hour or at least 45 minutes to students 45 minutes to staff and 45 minutes to par parents because the we haven't heard from students and staff we've heard a lot from community members but not and and and we need to hear from parents but we need to hear from commun from students staff and parents I will get that email to all you guys give me your uh your honest feedback on that and uh definitely would like to hear from more students uh

194so I got that one Rebecca and as I have yours on that one I I also have a a request if my nomination for um my cont continuing my position on the asba legislative policy committee could be addressed at the 28th board meeting um before before we go into the work session um because I need to have my my paper in by October first if that won't work I'll need to go to a different District to ask for the their nomination yeah Rebecca I got that uh email from the osba uh director on that and uh again I'll send that out to everybody so you kind of get in the loop on what that is I know bry's on I think Brandy you're part of the main board aren't you for for osba yeah and

195you're not up but and Rebecca is on uh you know there's a every year there's rotation uh for for the different jobs so I'll send that out to all the board members and get your feedback and uh yes Rebecca I got both those so thank you thank you um for uh chair I'm sorry I need to interrupt for just one moment um if we could please if we are going to email can we not have board members emailing back um because we do run the risk of creating a quorum online through our emails by discussing things through emails so if you want to push that information out to them um and they can if anybody has an individual question but we can't really pull them on what they would like to see or what their

196feedback is we just run the risk of having an electronic meeting online by emailing to all the board members and then having them reply all I was just thinking one on one email okay then that well yes um okay we just might need to discuss that further okay I'll call you tomorrow morning Jen is that okay that sounds great thank you well we're right here I know it's really late anybody else have just a quick agenda thing if not you want to sleep on it uh I am contacting you tomorrow so you can do do we know what we're going to be doing during the work session 12-step governance uh you know process so uh you know our our time isn't all night long but uh hopefully we'll get through part of that yeah okay

197with with Steve Kelly yes okay great you guys I know it's been a long meeting uh again I appreciate uh the the executive session for me I found that super super helpful uh I thought it was really well done and uh that was the best one yet on the bond stuff for me so I hope you guys got something out of that and with that we're adjourned thank you very much you guys good night good night