Phoenix-Talent School Board meeting 01-13-2022

001[Music] um so this is the second board meeting i've been to um first time i've spoke so i just have i've written something down so i want you all to think about when we all were in high school i'm sure we all had some tough times but in today's world it is much different i want to share a personal story about a situation that happened with my son from a teacher at this high school background we all had coveted last year we all recovered but my son had some lingering lung issues he was prescribed two different inhalers to use one a rescue inhaler and another steroid inhaler for lung inflammation during this time i gave him i gave him permission that if he was having trouble breathing at school he could pull his mask below

002his nose if needed he came home from school one day and told me he had been having some trouble breathing in one class and had pulled his mask below his nose one of the assistant teachers in one of his classes stated hey pull your mask up over your nose because i don't want my family or other people sick they might die she told him if he didn't pull it up he would be sent to the office my son told me he pulled it up because he didn't want to deal with it one week later he came home from school he was having the same issue that day with his breathing in the same class again the assistant teacher told him you can't do that you need to go if you keep your mask below your

003nose my son got up and walked out of the class his regular teacher came out and asked what happened she told him he was having lung issues and was having a hard time breathing the assistant teacher then came out and said to my son all right we're going to the office as they were walking to the office she was talking about people in her family having compromised immune systems and she didn't want them dying she then stated for not keeping your mask above your nose you could get people sick and kill them my son talked to the office staff and told them what was going on they said he needed a note for mask breaks all this being said i emailed the principal and told him exactly what had happened i stated that no teacher

004would ever talk to my son this way again my son has a heart of gold he will help anyone in need and is the kid that will always try to include someone into a group if he senses that they're being left out how have we gotten to a place in our society where a teacher feels it is okay to tell a student if they don't have a mask above their nose they might kill someone this is disgraceful our kids are bombarded as it is their mental health has suffered with all that is going on and for a teacher to tell my kind-hearted son that they might kill someone will never happen again where are the consequences for the teachers this mama bear will always protect her child i have my eyes wide open to what

005is going on in our schools and we aren't going away may god bless and protect our country thank you [Applause] jen sosa hi i'm jen sousa and i have a childhood talent and a child here at phoenix and first off i just want to say happy new year and thank you guys so much for doing all you can to keep our kids in person um and you guys from the high school i really appreciate your input because ultimately that's what we're all here for is to try to just really really make sure that the kids are feeling good um i just wanted to take a moment and um just say just really again i know it's already been said but how thankful we are to have our sporting events and extracurricular activities going on and

006um you know i know there's a few schools ashland being one that has canceled everything and just the harm it's doing on our kids is just really sad to me um and as far as the regulations i took a minute to read through all of the new stuff and i know it's really overwhelming uh for the most part i feel like um it's pretty common sense and maybe it's even a little bit more lenient which is great um personally i'd love to see like a asymptomatic versus symptomatic thing but maybe that's coming down the pipes um i would like to say that i really wish we would stop treating the quarantine for exposed students differently depending on whether they've gotten a shot or not i don't know how many of you are aware but there

007was you know a few outbreaks in sports uh one of which on a team and it was actually a student who was fully vast with a booster who had symptoms and then exposed everybody else so um you know obviously at this point we know we can all get it we can all spread it no matter so i would like to see a little bit more equality there because i feel like we're putting all students at risk if we're letting some kids stay and some kids not so um really that's it as far as i'd also like to say i'm really excited about the resolution for local control i think that um that's kind of where our nation's going and um you know hopefully we can get more people involved thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] aaron

008parent and then next would be melissa moody hi i'm erin parent and i have two kiddos at orchard hill elementary i just wanted to say thank you so much for doing this in person tonight i know that i appreciate just being able to be here face to face with you guys and i also appreciate each board member and your volunteer work because obviously we couldn't do it the school couldn't do it without you so thank you i just um only have a question i realized that you can't respond right now but my question is i know that a lot of our parents in the past several months and community members have asked questions and i just know that there hasn't been a lot of or any really response to any of those questions specifically the

009listening session there was a lot of good questions and comments made there along with a survey taken and i have haven't heard anything regarding the survey or the listening session and so i would just love to hear responses from the board as a whole to some questions that have been asked including the listening session so that's all that i wanted to say thank you thank you melissa moody and then zach moody would be next hi thank you again so much for doing this in person um this is really an answer to prayer and so i'm just very thankful to be here [Music] so my name is melissa moody and i'm speaking today as a concerned parent and community member i have twin boys that are sophomores at this high school um as we are approaching

010the two-year mark with coven i'm beginning to feel like this is never going to end as many of us are i am deeply concerned with the policies that are coming down the pipeline from oha oda executing ode and osba i'd want to trust that the school district has my kids best interest in mind and that they're that's their priority but i also know that money is a powerful persuader when establishing policies after the fire i know that there are still many students that have not returned to the district and may never there have been families that have been removed that have removed their kids from the district due to curriculum masks and other code type mandates and consistent inconsistencies with the ever changing cdc oha guidelines here is my question we all know that the

011schools have received covet esser money from the government to the tune of roughly 9 million dollars i am aware that the phoenix talent school district has deferred using this money until next year as they are anticipating an even bigger decrease in enrollment and less government funding i'd like to know what the district has decided to do with this 9 million in coveted funds and i'd like assurance that new policies aren't being created simply to comply with the state's covet guidelines after reading and reviewing the resolution 21-9 i am encouraged that the district is moving in the right direction but as a parent i want to be more than encouraged but rather confident that the school district is on board to fight for local control our kids have been through so much we have an entire

012generation that will be forever changed by the unintended consequences of the many coveted mandates and protocols while kids are extremely resilient the cdc has noted that there is a 31 increase 31 percent increase in teen suicides compared to 2019 in addition teen suicide to the teen suicide the national center for drug abuse has documented a 500 percent increase in opioid abuse among 15 to 24 year olds since 1999 creating a public health emergency depression anxiety behavior disorders have all increased since the pandemic it began talk to any teacher and they will tell you there have been numerous instances in the past two years where they have witnessed a child have a meltdown break out in class or even notice that some have been withdrawn and no longer want to participate in class i believe enforcing

013more rules and policies and mandates on our kids only hurts them and continues to put a band-aid on a wound that needs a tourniquet never truly fixing the problem i don't know how many of you currently have kids in the district but i urge you to think with your think about your own children and grandchildren when you make decisions in the name of coded safety thank you zach moody and then mark lachlan i believe thank you my name is zach moody and um as my wife said we have two kids here at the high school um i'm here just to really briefly just support the letter that the school district submitted the legislature about house bill 2630 i think it's a positive thing of being a civil servant myself and knowing uh the tragedies of

014the alameda fire and um you know the the everything's all the kids that have been displaced and uh the money that the school is lost as as a result of those students not being here that house bill is definitely beneficial for school districts like the phoenix school to supplement the loss of revenue that they've had my concern is is that there's a lot of money coming there's a lot of money coming to the school district there's a lot of money coming to the school districts and the states and cities from all different sources and i think it's prudent that the school district be very transparent in how they're spending that money not everybody knows how to read a budget and i think as you start going into your budget year and you start allocating how

015you're going to spend the nine million dollars in esser funds and whatever you get from house bill i think it's necessary for you to put all the cards on the table so that we can see what it's going to nine million dollars is a lot of money to spend on covid uh whether it's coveted protections or covert programs whatever it is a lot of money and we just wanna make sure that it's being used responsibly so um that's all i have to say thank you thank you [Applause] we have mark and then next would be lisa jennings all right well regardless of the specific reason that any of us are here tonight especially around covetings we do all have at least one thing in common and that is that we want the best for our

016children and we want to prevent unnecessary risks we love our kids we want the best for them for the record my name is mark laflin i have two children one and one in the elementary school and one in the middle school so three years ago or so all of us would have disagreed about various medical things and we wouldn't have really minded it wouldn't have been a big deal what is it that has gone on with us what is the world that we are creating for our children there's a great quote that says tyranny is the deliberate removal of nuance and i think that's an important observation tyranny demands uniformity tyranny can only accept the kinds of inclusive diversity that it can manipulate for its own purposes nuance provides provides room for debate for healthy

017disagreement and for taking responsibility for yourself because others are under no obligation to think the way that you do or the way that i do nevertheless our federal and state governments have put our local schools and thus our communities in a difficult position it's like there's a requirement to draw a clear line that the way not a way but the way be safe and care for your neighbor is to get the shot the rhetoric is specifically chosen to silence nuance and create an untouchable other never mind that over 16 000 doctors and scientists have reached consensus and signed a global covid summit you can find at doctorsandscientistsdeclarations.org where they outline just three things three things that actually support nuance one healthy children should not be subject to mandated vaccination two natural immunity should be recognized

018and three health agency agencies should stop interfering with physicians treating their own patients also never mind that these medical products are new and it is impossible to know the long-term consequences think of that specifically for our children and never mind that healthy children have a statistically zero percent that's point zero zero zero zero three percent which of course is no comfort to those parents that lost children but they have a thus a statist a statistically significant risk from the shot is a serious consideration those nuances are dismissed but data did not watch my children being born and data did not lose all of that sleep and data did not and does not worry and data doesn't have to do the difficult but extremely human job of deciding between which unknowns you're willing to face we

019the parents of children who tuck them in at night and are regularly at a loss for what to do we have to accept the results of our actions we can do better as a community we do not have to follow these things thank you lisa jennings and then lindsey rusher my name is lisa jennings and i have two children that attend one of the middle school and one orchard hill and i really appreciate you guys getting back to in-person meetings it feels like we may get listened to a bit more um we all i think are just concerned parents and seeing the directions our schools are going is concerning um i was talking to a parent yesterday at the gym that has a daughter that attends talent middle school or talent elementary she's little and

020she said her daughter got sick the beginning of october didn't test her she said it was a flu cold but her daughter started having panic attacks and worrying because she had been told by teachers at the school fearful things and she was afraid to go back to school because she thought she was going to die if she had covered so i talked to the parent i wanted her to come speak but she said she's just had enough i guess she's emailed um but she just said she's had enough of the district not with with what's going on allowing teachers to scare our kids because obviously we know it doesn't kill children [Music] i've been made aware of each school district has given almost 9 million dollars to follow cohood mask protocol and we as a

021district received an email stating we will be following the guidelines regarding vaccines when the cdc releases those i can tell you that if the district goes along with any attempt of a vaccine mandate the district is going to lose many many children when schools are threatened by our government that the school will lose their extra bonus for funding on covid if that district chooses to not follow the cdc or oha guidelines by implementing and following masking children crazy six-foot rules even when eating etc have any of you spoke to a child psychologist or doctor regarding children's mental and emotional health or even the suicide rate for 16 and under i have briefly spoken to both to a few er and my hope is that i can get one of each to come in here and

022talk to you about what this is doing to our children it's devastating what is happening to this generation and is unprecedented again what are we doing to our children with this insanity my wish and it would only take one strong school district to have the courage to stand up and say no take your 9 million we don't want it our children's mental emotional and physical well-being is more important than money they can take away the money they can't take away the money for the children attending this school district i have one question tell me one good thing that has ever happened in history when leaders have been persuaded by money to do what they know is wrong and unjust it has never been positive or a good thing for we the people ever and now

023this money is being held over school districts heads is affecting our poor children and i see it as a parent every day time [Music] thank you [Applause] lindsay hello i'm speaking tonight as a concerned parent of children and the school district and as a concerned citizen in this community the covet shots that have been pushed as a solution to this now endemic are injections unlike any vaccines have been required in the public school system unlike traditional vaccines the shot is not weakened or a dead virus these injections have your body's cells specifically the ribosomes within your cells make the spike protein from the virus although mrna and viral vector technology has been around for years and studying a few animals this method has not been done in humans before many studies since the rollout of

024these shots have seen evidence of the spike itself being toxic that it breaks off the cells once it protrudes from the cell's surface damaging endothelial cells like the cells that around your lying your whole vascular system and can cross the blood-brain barrier studies have been released showing that the lipid nanoparticles that carry the mrna therapy concentrate in organs like the ovaries the heart the kidney or in the brain filtering organs like the kidneys that are aligned with the endothelial cells and those cells are making the shot i lost my spot sorry guys these coveted shots were given about a year ago i think it's important to recognize that there have been no long-term studies of the shot's possible side effects according to the cdc the fatality rate for children from clova 19 nationwide is zero

025.000 three percent many studies have been published recently showing there are higher risks of having severe side effects from the shot in younger people such as the peer review peer-reviewed study out of hong kong where one in every 2 680 boys between the ages of 12 and 17 developed myocarditis or pericarditis and were hospitalized following vaccinations according to the fda the vaccine manufacturers and the 16 thousand scientists and doctors worldwide who have signed the rome covid declaration these vaccines pose risks such as severe myocarditis blood clotting and neurological damage damage in adolescence as such the risks of taking the vaccine strongly is significantly outweigh the benefits since there have been no long-term studies and considering the low fatality rate for children why is the school district sending emails and letters encouraging vaccinations and boosters for

026children if the shot does not prevent transmission infection then why is the school district sending emails and letters encouraging vaccination and stating that the vaccination reduces the spread of the disease why is a district encouraging families to find out at the vaccination status of friends and loved ones considering that before gathering socially if the shot does not prevent transmission or infection then why is the school district allowing vaccinated to volunteer and not the unvaccinated or those with natural immunity it is difficult for schools to be in a position where they are asked to help uphold these policies i imagine it's uncomfortable but i ask these questions to be addressed thank you thank you [Applause] i believe that is all the public comments that i have um so i'm closing the public comments section thank you

027all for being here and participating those that did we are moving on to the superintendent report thank you madam chair i do echo the uh having an in-person meeting and appreciate the following the safety protocols in order to do that so thank you guys for enjoying this amazing space this theater is absolutely beautiful i echoed chairman watson's comments about the staff setting this up and uh chris thank you for behind the scenes literally the wizard of oz back there uh doing the sound so and the video so thank you i also want to echo the thoughts of many about the appreciation of the school board just we have an extremely engaged school board and involved in our schools and and just know it's a lot of hard work and time and taking on um a

028lot of things such as a policy rewrite review of all of our policies and so that's something that you know not all boards are willing to take on so thank you for taking that time to do that um also want to give you an update we with the help of dave earhart and joe zavala put together a package to appeal to the osa to request to play down to a 3a classification that appeal was denied uh by the uh classification committee in december um which is disappointing uh because we know we have a long road ahead uh in in recovering and rebuilding from the almighty fire something that we wanted to request for a temporary basis but it it was denied and um you know our kids and coaches are resilient so we'll make do

029with with what we have and compete the best we can also in your uh folders is a ugb amendment letter uh from our consultant from csa planning to talent as we uh discussed at our last meeting with the little league and boys and girls club wanting to come on board with that culver road facility and a lot of land we've looked at bringing the whole uh property into the ugb and that letter states that uh desire for the city of talent pretty exciting i know many are involved in that project and we're hoping to get some meetings on record in the city of talent to move forward with adopting that into the ugb also want to invite you we do have negotiations with our licensed staff and classified staff for financials this spring we're going

030to start that early and would invite a board member to sit in on those uh interest-based bargaining sessions if you haven't done that i think it's a good way to see how we work with our associations and and work through um common interest and so this is just a reopener for financials and so it should be a little bit shorter than our last negotiation so if that's something that you're interested in if you're new to the board or if you're experienced we start that the first one is january 25th and then there's we have some tentative dates in february and march and they're typically late afternoon from three to five three to six um in the afternoon so if you are interested in that reach out to me if it comes closer i'll reach out

031to you as well because we'd love to have board representation on that also i met with a parent about the desire to have a parent advisory group to the board and i shared that i'd bring that to the board and after that meeting it kind of made me think that we could probably do a better good job a better job of sharing on how parents can get involved i know we have many parents on the student investment account we have site councils and so we when we adopt curriculum we have uh parents involved in that to come review the curriculum as well so um i think we can work with our team to share with our community on how parents can get involved in their schools and then finally um i want to echo kind

032of toby's comments about the student staffing community about really coming back from a two-week break and in the midst of um you know the the increasing rates of covet and just the um you know importance of remaining in person and our staff is doing a great job um i know we all have coveted fatigue at times and you know being out in building kids are happy to be in the building staff are persistent and uh dedicated to making sure we keep our doors open and our administrators are just uh juggling the balls every day to make sure it works so i really just want to give a shout out to everybody in our whole district for you know ensuring that we do that and that's my report thank you very much any questions for brent

033hearing none we will move on to the consent agenda involving the approval of the agenda approval of the minutes for 12 921 board meeting personnel report and the board policy review rewrite sections a and b do i have a motion thank you rick a second thank you rick thank you michael any discussion hearing none because then agenda is approved we will move on to the first and only action item which is letter to the legislature brent would you like to start us off yeah you asked staff to draft a letter based on some um you know information we had at the last meeting and uh take some information also from the other uh districts that are impacted by wildfire and um this is the draft that we've come up with that hits the points and

034um i think it's good timing heading into the february session we do know that speaker kotek are probably not going to be the leader speaker of the house and so um we can certainly send this if the board approves that and then make sure we send another one when the new leader our speaker is announced thank you any questions or discussion anyone has sarah sorry i just have a question about the first sentence it just feels a little awkwardly worded so just maybe some tensing or something september your letter regarding hb 2630 give us hope that we would receive stable funding over the next few years for those districts that were impacted by the wildfires and i just feel like we need to tweet something in there so that it reads a little clear and

035it's just a couple of words so we want to wordsmith that first sentence a little bit other than that i'm i like the letter and i'm thankful for um whoever put it together do you have any suggestions so in september your letter gave us how we would receive stable funding over the next few years as one of those districts who were impacted you know one of the three districts one of the um you know three districts impacted i mean i might even i might even um play it up a little bit you know the worst wildfire in the state in the state of oregon so um just something along just something to tweak that a little bit to claim it as um as our district than that i might suggest if we just put a

036period after a few years i mean they understand that we're a district that was impacted so if we just if if that reads awkwardly and then unfortunately yeah i agree that's fine yeah any other did you have other things any other um questions suggestions i agree i think those edits that's good i thought it was a little unclear denise did you get okay i just wanted to make sure okay anything else so this is an action item just before um you take it to vote i do want to say that i did reach out to laurie um satchensfield at lsba and said hey with um sugarcoat tech resigning and she said they are her and morgan um from uh from the cosa have been working hard talking to going to each legislator in the building

037and spending time telling them the importance it seems like it's they're getting a lot of support from both sides of the leadership they feel positive but again will help us and did suggest like brent suggested to send the letter twice that it didn't it didn't hurt sending it twice so i just wanted to put that in there yeah once it's approved we'll get signatures from all the board members any other suggestion or a motion i'll move that we approve the sending of this letter with the small change to the first sentence i'll take it thank you sarah thank you rebecca we'll put this out to a vote before i do any discussion paulie i wanted to make sure i think you're online i wanted to make sure that you had a chance to speak if

038you needed to before vote i'm good thank you sorry didn't mean to yell at you that's okay we're we're just working out thank you guys all for being patient we're just working out the sound um nuances of this new meeting space okay um we'll take it to a vote nancy oh i thought we did i'm sorry did we not get a second yeah oh yeah rebecca's second i was like nancy yes rick michael yes sarah yes rebecca yes paulie yes i vote yes the um action item passes thank you so much staff for putting that together it's so super important to our families we have a brief recess should we take one in case members of the audience want to leave and get a little break if they want to stay they can use the

039restroom real quick or do you want to forge on five minutes six minutes okay so we're on break for about six minutes okay thank you everybody for the brief um break admin i am so sorry i forgot to give you the option to leave the meeting so if you would like to sign off for the rest of night thank you all for your hard work we appreciate you and we will let you have the rest of the night off enjoy next item on information discussion is fertility and bond updates dawn you don't get the night off quite yet [Music] good evening madam chair and the board um i want to echo all of the the admin staff um about how grateful we are for all of your hard work we wouldn't be standing in this

040space the way it is right now without several of you that worked on the bond worked on the design helped with outlining how important the design of this space was john can i ask you to be a little bit closer to the mic so oh is it not okay here i know some people had some hard time earlier i have to adjust up it's way too [Music] low i apologize for interrupting is that better yes sorry about that no uh as i said i wanted to echo everybody else's what they said about how appreciative we are and uh just standing in this space um how grateful we are that uh so many of you worked on the bond and worked on the designs for this space um it is a great testament to the dedication

041and all the hard work that it takes to be a board member so thank you very much um i wanted to just i had included a memo in your blue folders about our accomplishments in 2021 and our goals for 2022 and i just wanted to briefly cover some of those obviously the opening of the school at the beginning of the year the high school brand new and then uh in december we wrapped up construction on this space and the gyms and the seismic upgrade and i think it's a beautiful school and uh very grateful for everything the uh the other one is pes we did a big remodel there a seismic upgrade and that space has also turned out to be just great um and then odp we tackled that building in the original 30-year

042plan we were planning on surplusing that property at some point and instead we used dessert funds put a new roof on it new hvac paint interior and out flooring and now that building is set to last for years to come so um and then facilities department moved into their new building in december and it's incredible and we actually hope to have an open house when the covid uh spike dies down and we can have all of you there to show you some of our new capabilities and what we've added to the district by keeping that building as far as 2022 i'm not going to go line item by line item but what i wanted to say is that over the last five years we have increased our efficiency with the maintenance ticket system and with

043construction just in just putting in simpler things to maintain polished concrete floors things like that our goal this year since we don't actually have any bond projects this summer since we're holding off on seismic for pe tes and tms until 2023 we're going to learn how to polish concrete on our own because we can do it for less than a tenth the price once we have the equipment and the training so we actually hope to learn it this spring and tackle tms hallways next summer we're also planning on upgrading our maintenance ticket system and an event planning for like the spaces like the theater the gyms things like that basically to make everything more efficient uh keep the communication level with the schools and maintenance and custodial all on the same page and then also

044it'll have a public aspect the events thing so if you want to request a gym it gives you an avenue to do that online and it automates that process so really 2022 is about making improvements to a system that is pretty good now and by the end of the year is going to be incredible so thank you thank you very much sean and thank you for always looking to save us money or get us money or whatever it seems like you're always either saving money or finding money somewhere out of the air so thank you so much any questions for john thank you yes thank you john yes did you get everything out of the old maintenance building yeah i thought that was a beast that's a beast isn't it how many decades of maintenance

045stuff yeah i'm sorry there was a lot of hoarders so we are going to be cleaning it out for a little while um we are working on eventually uh taking that building down so that it doesn't become a safety hazard thank you john next is the financial update yeah you have your uh financial update in your blue folders i know jasmine was trying to get on but she texted me during break saying she's having a tough time so um if she's not on i'll just uh kind of highlight some things we are sitting pretty well at this time we're still uh being a little bit conservative just because we do not know about adm security yet hopefully we find that out in february and um you know then we'll have some adjustments on here uh

046you'll see on salaries and um some some other uh benefits were were a little lower than we've we uh were expected um some of that is due to um you know having a tough time finding uh qualified applicants to fill our uh positions at the beginning of the year and it's also once we did the budget process remember we do this in april and may when we had some late retirees we found out that we didn't necessarily have to fill those positions at the elementary level so that that accounts for some of that difference and then when we do have retirees that we do fill remember that they're at the top of the salary schedule and benefit level and sometimes we fill those with younger um that that aren't as uh quite as high highest

047salary so those are some of the differences there but i'm still projecting a pretty good ending from balance um i'll let you know any as you know you just gave kudos to john on how he finds and utilizes the funds he has the construction excise tax that is coming in we really use those to help continue to manage our update our buildings and you know john's really intentional about that so and that that's looking uh pretty good at this point with some building going on and some excise tax coming in so uh i know sarah came in and worked with jasmine on reading this uh financial report so we always offer that hopefully that was a good experience and in understanding for that sometimes when you're looking at these and you're not a cpa it

048could be a little bit challenging but we always uh jasmine's always willing to go through this with any of the board members if they want to so that's your financial report thank you very much i actually forgot to give yasmin a shout out for taking the time to meet with me and her explanation was helpful and i will continue to learn that's my goal for the year learn new things and one of it will be to look at this report and continue to understand it more fully brent if if a member of the community has a question about the budget or the financials or allocation of funds what's the best way for should they just call or email your office yeah just just call my office i mean i i know we you know we

049we have our budgets posted but again our budgets to go through are not easy to uh really navigate through but just calling our office would be great great thank you and then hi hi nancy another question that i have is it possible for us to create some sort of a budget that is really easy and digestible for just folks to just see very high level nothing too intense i think that would really benefit um the communication and the trust between schools and um community yeah and if if we have some suggestions on what that might look like we would we could do that but maybe i can have jasmine work on that okay thank you any other questions or suggestions or comments thank you those are all great ideas i appreciate it next is legislation

050and osba update first of all congratulations again in person to sarah she is our new lpc um regional representative for southern oregon um unfortunately um our first meeting was supposed to be in person and it's virtual now sadly i think my priority for legislation i'm sure the whole entire district is our adm security so um i will be hounding osba about that all the time and please hound me if you have questions and um we'll be working with bori on how to best support them to get this passed as we just did the letter so that's great um osba and legislation policy will be talking about um we'll still be doing our goals for the year for osba and then policy will be talking about this is the time we start to get our goals

051and priorities of policy so that the um lobbyists can support us best do you have any anything you want to add about that sarah no not right now you will she will next time um and then osba board of directors did have a zoom call with the governor earlier this month and we were able to speak with our challenges in our district and of course i spoke up and stated some challenges and wanted to make sure that local control and my concern she had mentioned that jackson county was not the best with covid right now and i wanted to um to tell her our importance is having kids in the building and thanked her for giving us letting us have activities that um local control and having our children in the buildings and also talked

052a little bit about um goal posts and um that would be nice to to know for the mind of parents and for the district of you know when a shutdown would occur and when we could open up and that there's a lot of stress in not knowing what's going to happen next week and that we really that puts a lot of toll on our families so she appreciated the input and everybody else spoke too and hopefully we see i don't know but um i think it was well recepted and she really was um listening i feel like um i think that's it for legislation and osba updates does anyone have any questions okay hearing none we will go to the almeida fire update i don't have much just uh we continue to work with families

053to move into the gateway and tracy koa is really uh working on that and um working with rogue retreat to process those applications to get families in there so what percentage of capacity [Music] so there's 53 units um and i think most of them are already already set up and we're we're approximately 20 families that have already moved in um with many on uh we've we've streamlined that a little bit for the sake of uh everybody's time and and we have wednesdays as our move-in days and so really kind of gearing people up for that we still have some communication and dhs is working with families that are in hotels and how long that support will last in hotels before they have to move from that emergency housing so still working through that but any

054other questions or comments michael i wasn't sure if you were going to speak or not i i don't really have anything to add i mean i think the the gateway project is kind of the big deal right now but you know one of the things that i'll just share with the board that's on my mind is just continuing to work with you know there's this um [Music] sort of county-based regional meeting and fema is involved in that and it's kind of transitioned to more of a long-term thing and it's once a month and it's kind of a big meeting and i'm i'm thinking about how can we as a school district just bring that in a little bit and work with our local municipalities on ways that we can all support um the rebuild effort

055and what that looks like so just something that's on my mind nothing official yet but um definitely want to make sure we stay involved in that and you know any opportunities we have to uh just share the voice of our families and community and advocate for uh bringing our families back so um and rebuilding our community i know there's a lot of growth that's happened and um in that area and um as you you just see it when you drive around town um but uh there's still a lot to be done of course so i might just add on that note we've reached out to the school district in colorado that had their fires uh ripped through their region as well and and haven't connected with the superintendent there but we'll be sending our um

056you know thoughts and and saying that we know what they're going through and and just reach out if they they need anything i know we relied on some people in the first few weeks and months but as you can imagine right now they're pretty busy with you know thousands of homes uh that have been lost in that fire as well well so we'll send that from the board in the district um probably uh tomorrow or later early next week thank you for doing that um [Music] anything else moving on we'll go to diversity equity and inclusion i'm not sure if nancy or polly or bryant want to speak there's been meetings i can i can speak we had a meeting last week or might have been earlier this week no last week um and kind

057of kind of set some priorities um we're going to some of us uh last year uh were in a book book study leading for all it's about inclusion and with special education students in west lin is a leader in that and it's right here in our own state and uh it was really eye-opening we have a lot of parts to the foundation but i think it is something that um to raise awareness on how important that is and so the elementaries are going to be leading the book study with general ed staff and seeing how we can move forward we know that's not a one year or two year that that takes time and intention to set up so i'm excited about that and then for the middle school in high school uh working with

058dl richardson who is with the soesd and and working with our staff on some tools on how to make sure we're addressing some behaviors and some whether it be racial comments or derogatory comments and making sure the staff feels comfortable to make sure they're addressing that on the spot and and it's fair and they're comfortable doing that so that's what we're doing at the secondary level and that'll be happening over the next few months anybody else have anything to add on this before i move on okay thank you all for doing all the great work on that um strategy for legislation session adm did you want to start us off sprint sure um we need a strategy to make sure we uh i think we have done a lot already i mean this letter is

059one thing um you know we pam marsh wrote the bill so and it has a lot of support and bipartisan support which is good i still don't feel i don't think we can be comfortable with that um so i think you know i'd welcome any other strategy or making when these bills come up for public comment or encouraging our you know families to write in on how important it is i might say joe zavala hire it was amazing he's our communication specialist and he's amazing so whatever the board wants to do as far as communication to the legislature on how important this is i think he can put something together um to get families to do that and make sure we're communicating with our families as this process goes along well that's all i have

060thank you michael did you have yeah you know they have i was thinking about this the other day they have those um we we get them a lot actually the emails where you you know it has you choose your area and then it narrows it down to who your representative is i wonder if we could look into that and have something for and i you know we heard it tonight from families we have a lot of community support as well and um just continuing to build the awareness in a way that we can direct people to a resource like that where they can get in touch with our legislators or whomever they want to send a message to in support of of that i think that's something that any entity can sign up for and

061direct people to on like a template format or something like that so that might be something worth exploring that kind of breaks the barrier of how do i email my representative or how do i comment on on a bill so i don't know where to start with that but i think it's fairly fairly simple so thank you that might be something that joe can help yeah any other suggestions or comments i i feel like i'm yelling at you and you jump every time i speak and i'm sorry um i feel like we i'm hoping that when they schedule these hearings and things that denise will be putting out to us when those are happening i mean because of my work i have my eye on some of this but it'd be really helpful to make

062sure that it's coming through so we can attend those different meetings so that's what i had to say about that and um i think denise will i just want to say that i may find out about it first because i've kind of hounded osba daily to tell me so sometimes i will get a um email i know when we had some issues brent and i would get emails before it was even um or texts or calls before it was even public out so um as soon as any one of us get him i see brent shaking his head we will make sure the board is aware of that and um let you know um as soon as possible and i do have a lot of alerts that i do check um but sometimes we can

063miss it so i think if we all just kind of work together and figure that out that's great any other specific time of day you know i don't i don't think they have that set but i i think it's a top priority and i think an easy one for them so i'm hoping that it starts off right away until it gets moving so i know that's the desire of the district so i guess if i was in the legislature i'd like a quick win for everybody's agreeing on bipartisan support so hopefully that's the case and i don't even know if there's going to be a hearing i don't know if france heard last time i heard it was this is a shoe-in there's not going to be a hearing they're just going to sign it

064but i don't know that and i don't trust that so um checking all the time but they that's the last time i said there might not even be a hearing but i do want to be ready for if there is one and support on on one and some ideas um i did talk to janet at osba about i think it would be now or sometime in the future a way to educate our public and our board on how to um contact our legislators now that it's you can't go in person anymore it's a little awkward i know um a year or so ago uh the lpc committee the legislation policy committee for osba did like these sample um trainings that they gave and then we gave feedback and um so i'm looking into that like

065okay if you have because they were going to work on a training to educate board members and then maybe community members could then use that same education or we could help the community members learn so i'm looking into that on how if it's already made like let's get it out there so um i have been looking into that and um wanted to check an in before we went any further to see if that's something that um the board would want to explore any other questions or comments okay brent and denise do you have clear direction okay i just wanted to make sure before i moved on um next is resolution 21-9 and it should be in our packets does anyone have any comments concerns questions modifications i think for me um you know this this

066might mean a lot of different things to a lot of people there's two two major things that stick out to me and one is um [Music] i think one thing we've all had to learn the hard way is it's difficult to have predictability in the midst of you know what the last two years has brought us and especially our district with the fire added to the mix of the pandemic but um we are a district that practices trauma-informed care and practices and [Music] just understanding the importance of whatever predictability we can provide in unpredictable times is super super important for our families so that's one thing that stands out to me and the other thing is that i think a lot of people have expressed over these last few months in particular is having some

067sort of goal post what what are the metrics that give us a runway to be able to um be able to make our own decisions and um you know i think for me as we knew that the omicron surge was coming i was really concerned about the heavy hand of the government again coming down and telling us whether we couldn't or couldn't we could or couldn't hold in person school and thankfully so far that seems to um not be the case and we have been able to make those decisions but i think if we've learned anything uh that isn't always the case so um so that's what it means to me um you know this might mean different things to different people but um i also think it's appropriate to just commend the effort of

068the staff of what's happening in our schools to be able to still have in-person school and and be able to still have extracurriculars and um you know it's tough but we are getting through it and we just want the ability to continue to to have that um local decision-making so um that's what it means to me and um i don't know how much weight it will carry um but i think it does it does show our community too that we do value the ability to create to make our own decisions and and that we are more than capable of protecting kids and making sure that they have what they need thank you anyone else i want to chime in but i don't want to hurt your ears um i didn't hear what sarah said because

069her mic was not on so if she could repeat what she said i would love that and then i maybe can share after that sorry paulie that's okay i just said that i thought it was well written and um just appreciated whoever from the staff um or dawn put together um this um because just on the piggyback of what michael said it really does uh target those things like trauma informed care and um uh that anyway so i just commended whoever put it together okay um i because i'm a newer member i don't really know what the function of a resolution is so it's like okay resolute resolution 101. i kind of spoke with denise today and we kind of went over what the last resolutions that were passed in july what those looked like

070and what they were about um it seems like the first part of this is all contained in what we have in our policies that it's already existing um those bullet points that are before like what is to be resolved um so that was my take away from that um i didn't i don't know if that's part of it or if that's necessary um and then i also had a question about like what do we feel maybe as a board um and also hearing from our community what are we trying to remedy with this resolution i'm looking for some clarity and understanding on that i think that's a good question and i'll try to answer it and i think it means a little bit different to everybody a little bit when i first brought this at

071the last meeting it was something that's being discussed by other schools and the public and talked if we wanted to have something for me um it just shows our stance on what we believe and i feel again i feel i think staff are for really reflecting our school and showing that um trauma informed and the challenges we have um i know being on for me being on um statewide every school is is advocating for something different and i think it's really important for the governor and ode and osba to see what is important to each district so that when they're also advocating um in these statewide meetings that they can go oh this is what phoenix talent is advocating for this is what medford is or portland excuse me and so i i think it's

072for me it's important to have a stance on paper so when people are helping us advocate for our district they know what will can help us and having something in writing and being able to refer so for me that's my take on it but there's probably other takes in the room so i can open it up and i did see a few head shakes by the way paulie if you didn't nancy did you have i do um and i was trying to find a wording so can you help me clarify what is the distinction i appreciate the what you shared and i think that that's really valuable to have that local control or um yeah local control of our district in our in policies that really reflect the needs of our community and our families

073that we serve and i think in my head i just need a little bit of clarity on the distinction between if we're following the guidelines from jackson county public health they're following the guidelines from oregon health authority which tell me how that is different between like local control and not local control i suppose that's a great question because michael and i have had this discussion and michael can um jump in but it seems like local control has so many meanings now right and that was our discussion as some people say well local control and then it's kind of like well it's we're listening to the health department in my mind that's why i'm asking for a goal post so that we and that was one of my concerns with the governor is the jackson county

074numbers are really high i want to be able of course work with the public but have you know be nice to say what is the safe number of cases what's the safe i mean let's have some [Music] goal posts so that we like what's the threshold between that will differentiate us from a different county right okay well and maybe and maybe it wouldn't even be county maybe we could it i mean i've seen articles in the mail tribune about schools and coveted cases maybe it could be up to the school i know and brent correct me if i'm wrong we got an exception or exemption to have school because of the fires and we were open the most days of all the schools in the rogue valley but had the least amount of coba cases

075so i think data like that should support schools to stay open not just data of this is my own personal thing so i'm sorry but um and not just data of what the county is doing yeah so that's kind of what i'm thinking that's really helpful and i do appreciate this time to have this discussion because there's like a lot of um lack of clarity in my own head um and maybe maybe those are the pieces that need to be included into this like explicitly written into this right that we're looking at local data to make determinations based on the decisions that are going to be taken because as you're saying local control can mean a lot of different things and then it's up into up for interpretation of various numbers of individuals and and

076for me that was a piece that was a little bit um unclear also with oed or oregon department of education goodness i have way too many acronyms in my brain um you know like our role is to uphold those policies and how does it differentiate or how does it look different between the things that are being written and i do also believe strongly believe that it's really important that we listen to um the families that we do get to serve and then how is there that opportunity for that input to be taken into consideration when making decisions for the people that are present in the peaceful that are not present voicing their concerns and needs and questions i think i think that is a very good point and something that has been brought up like

077what are the opportunities for our community to give input on this and maybe that is something that i can work on and joe or can let people i haven't seen any opportunities that are open to the public um ode they were sending out surveys at the beginning of this and um but i in oha was and there were some other opportunities but i haven't seen those opportunities in a while and so um thank you for telling me that that's next time i have a chance to advocate i can add that that's very helpful information thank you yeah and this is complex and it is not it's not an either or it's not at this or that it's it's so much more um complex than we you know then then i can fully understand right away

078so i appreciate the time and energy in making it a little bit more clear because i'm sure other people have a ton of other questions as well don what was the district that had like 17 kids at their high school or something and um you don't have to name them but what was the situation where they do you remember so michael and i had were in this regional meeting um and me also being the regional osba representative pinehurst who is up um by lake of the woods up the mountains right um i'm blanking on the exact location but um they have 17 kids in their district and i also spoke to the governor about this and five of them have uh have unenrolled due to mass so at least 12 but then if each family

079has two or three kids you're talking about four families that are actually in the district so quarantine precautions when they all live in a rural small community and go to community gatherings and they all go to birthday parties and football games it's a different situation than a school with more people um and again that's where local control would be nice because what works for us does not work for them and vice versa and again that's something i don't know if that's something we need to advocate for but it's something important to know and talk about that each district has their nuances and that's one that that pinehurst has yeah i think it was a good example of how one size does not always fit every district so yeah and just fyi pine horses in ashland

080pardon what did you say oh yeah it's outside of ashland i'm so blanking what's that resort is that yeah the green springs thank you sarah any polly did did we answer your questions or are you still more confused i i it does help to talk about this for me um i guess i just have um from my own personal work for the state of oregon and data that's there and seeing what's happening it's just interesting to me to see this type of discussion and imagining how they could figure out this for each individual place i don't know how they would do that so that being said i just i feel like whatever um happens i feel like we have to have a balanced decision that's equitable to like all the families staff and students the

081whole group in our district and listening to all of those people and you talked about surveys and i saw it mentioned in the letter that we received that it mentioned a survey and i think it might be helpful if we understood the population i don't know because we've been in covid and i haven't been out in the public hear what their take is on this i hear who the people who share at the board meetings but beyond that i don't really know how the population of our community feels about this and i would love to see something about that because i feel like for me to make a decision about that i need to know kind of what people are feeling about it i don't feel like we have that information right now available to

082us um i do agree with nancy that if we state in here that we are looking at the jackson county public health department for guidance but they are guided by the oha it's like it's like that doesn't make any sense to me because it's just the same as what we're already doing right now i guess this this whole document looks to be like reiterating what we're already doing i guess except the piece where it says that we're asking for clear metrics um and like you said that might be like pulling eye teeth to get that type of clarification um like what do those numbers look like um so i just i feel like we need to be representing and knowing what our population would like and what that looks like so are you are you

083suggesting like a survey on um local control or keeping the schools open or i'm kind of i feel like we've been keeping the schools open i feel like toby would sit at the pirate ship helm and not be the last man standing he's going to do everything he can to keep it going i saw it with me i have a daughter who's actively working there and i know that they were all covering everything in an incredible way and showed up in in ways that they haven't pre in previous times so um i feel like we were allowed to open before other places we showed that we could do that we've navigated through this in such an amazing way despite all of the obstacles that we've been given so um i don't feel that it's a

084matter of us i feel like we're we're open for business and we're going to keep doing that until we're told otherwise um so yeah and that and i think that's the exact point i was trying to make is that we have stayed open and we have staff that would stay until they were the last man standing on the pirate ship and we want to be able to still have that choice when it comes if the governor changes her mind and says all schools are shut tomorrow that choice is gone i get that you want this the survey and i think that might be a good idea but um right now i feel like we do have a little choice um so i don't know i think we we sent out some surveys to families at

085the end of last year yeah we we've done some surveys and i i might want to just uh uh clarify too just you know we've um this resolution is about local decision making and and i don't think that i think people get may uh get confused like if there's local control or local decision making that all mitigation measures are going to be you know eliminated or something like that and i i think that's something that um gets wrapped up in this i think i think there's it's deeper than that and really having um you know look local decision making at the helm and making sure that we're working with our county health department i'll give you an example that there was a lot of confusion from cdc to state to local um you know quarantine

086the new quarantining and we worked right away with our local jackson county health department and felt like we had a good plan and it was actually put on pause a little bit until we got you know some state guidance but we felt like we could do some safety measures and do that from what we heard uh at the end of december and um it just paused us a little bit so that that's kind of an example with that so it's definitely working in conjunction with our health experts as well and uh kind of navigating forward so just wanted to make that clear thank you so much for clearing out a little bit michael did you have something to say no i think um i don't think i have much to add other than just logistics

087of where we go from here i think um i think this item's already on an action item for the next agenda and so um i just appreciate the process and this is how i think this is supposed to work right we have time to discuss it and then um when it's up for an action item there can be um more discussion anyone can make a motion to make any amendments they wish to make to it and we can go from there and let the democratic process um play out but i i just appreciate this board and the thoughtfulness that everybody approaches their role and in decision making and um paul's probably to a lot of extent i agree with you i mean i'd be fine with two lines um you know regarding some sort of

088guidance on specific metrics and the importance of the trauma-informed practices and predictability for our families so um but yeah i just appreciate the discussion and have thought a lot about this over the last couple weeks so and i might just remind the board our discussion last time about really spending our quarters our adm is first and foremost i think i you know we talked about that last time um and and this resolution is something that you wanted the staff to draft as well you know that's important but um i think as we move forward in the next few weeks that adm is really really vital for us yes that's and even if it is on action item next um board meeting and we're not satisfied with it or we feel like we need to form

089spend more time on adm we can always suspend it and have it on the next item that is fine because i want to make sure that everybody's comfortable and that we do concentrate on adm and who knows maybe we won't have any news to move forward or maybe we'll be like spending 20 minutes on a plan of action and starting the next day to for adm so anything further before i move on okay thank you all that was a great discussion um criteria for excuse me for evaluating the superintendent that is in your packet i know some of you this might be the first time you've ever seen this brent uses this to form his goals um and his work during the year so if we did change it it would not go in effect

090until it would we would use this as the metrics for his evaluation um and then the next time but um if you have any questions um or brent do you want to speak a little bit before i open it to the board yeah i'll just share um we've been using this for many years in this district and um i'm comfortable with it um and know it and like you said i've set the goals um around this so um yeah i feel like this is a good tool does winning the superintendent of the years at an automatic pass or how does that factor i can i can i mean i have something yes paulie um i um would you talk a little bit about the process because i feel like i'm oh i'm saying this because

091i've been informed um about today because i asked denise about this and i think maybe we ought to talk about how this happens in the next couple of meetings and how we need to come prepared uh to do this process i learned about from denise but maybe you could share what that process is we normally talk that about that at the next meeting when we set up on the information discussion about evaluating this is um the criteria and then the next time we usually talk about the evaluation um so i guess like i can answer some of the questions but normally we decide the criteria and then the next meeting we talk about the evaluation process but um i guess i can briefly talk about it now during executive session we evaluate the superintendent on

092the criteria listed you can ask questions from board i can go over it with you if you want and then it is presented to um brent we all have our input and then the chair records it and then does a report at a board meeting i don't know if they answered your questions or not yeah i just know from talking to her today that it all kind of happens rapidly because it's those two meetings that are closer together than we've been having right um so yeah and i'm looking for the draft agenda um we're not meeting to evaluate at the next meeting it's the meeting after that right i think at the next meeting it was a dis i thought it was going to be discussion but [Music] i'm not seeing that no we just

093the next meeting is to pass if we want to continue using the criteria and then we go on to the evaluation process the criteria is for for the next year it's kind of awkward i know it took me a couple years so we do the criteria we pass it for the criteria starting the next year as soon as the evaluation process you know we do the evaluation and that if we pass the new criteria then that criteria would be the next year because we would want brent to be able to form his goals and and make a plan and all that strategy um to give him a little bit of time so that's why they do the criteria we pass it then we do the evaluation so it gives him a little bit of transition

094time if we were to change it that make sense brent did you want to add anything no it's just uh talking about if that's a discussion that the board wants to do with the board calendar to make it a little more streamlined and maybe have some criteria in july and august to set goals on to kind of make it a little more uniform but that would be a board decision so and and i think it's important you know we we've talked about it many times over the last couple years you know we haven't had a summer board retreat we haven't had an annual board and i think that a lot of those types of things that there's always the valuation of a superintendent uh um session multiple i think um and where you can get

095a lot of information too and um you know it's unfortunate we've never had that opportunity for some new board members but yeah that's all i have to say i do think osba has some online trainings on superintendent and they're having and one that isn't quite in that line but it's how to support your superintendent um so you you might there might be i think there is an evaluation um about a workshop or online osba 45-minute thing about evaluating your superintendent that might be helpful and give you some information or i can help you look for maybe like a quick um evaluating your superintendent notes or something yeah i think it's great and i'll look for that thank you for that um suggestion i just feel like we have a lot of policies plus this and

096a lot to cover so i'm just getting myself prepped so i can be ready when we have to talk about those things coming up so i guess that's my feeling of urgency in this right um that we have a whole stack that we have to pass again those policies so that we don't i mean we have to discuss i should say in the next meeting so that's what i'm feeling yeah and i think uh one important thing to point out too is the time frame [Music] of submitting and completing the evaluation is dictated by statute the calendar of that we have to have it in by a certain time there's statute involved in that so that's why it always falls around i think it has to be done by march 15 or something yeah by

097march so that's why we have to do it now okay any other questions or comments okay okay moving on to a community listening session um we had one and um we talked about at when we started the first one to maybe have them quarterly or a certain time and we were going to discuss having more at this time so it's on the agenda so i'm opening up any discussion on that you had some suggestions about potentially some different formats for future community listening sessions i did if you want me to go first i can i have notes um i kind of i kicked you because you had no um i've been watching what other people are doing and kind of been looking um a couple of things i think that it's important um it's hard

098now to for me to decide how we're going to do it in person or virtual because i want people to um feel comfortable um both ways and so like i think that puts a little wrench in it but um i think going out to the community as well as expecting them to come in so um like to brainstorm some ideas of different community groups or parent groups that we could approach and brent and i talked about this a little bit and also see if if we need the if we're going to reach out to different groups if we need the entire board to reach out or do we feel comfortable having a few board members reach out to several groups so that we can have more input during a smaller session so um i don't

099know that's one idea another idea is if we're going to reach out to our community groups to where they're at what about work reaching out to our staff at maybe an in-service day or when they have like a monthly staff building meeting or something excuse me and um reaching out to staff and not expecting them because i know right now they are covering way more than their normal duties and so um how could we listen to them and and have their time mindful is a kind of a question so these are more like ideas than solutions um and then i've seen different virtual meetings some of them were small group breakouts and one school district had it where the members of the community could have like five to seven minutes with two board members in

100a virtual room and a staff member to take notes um it wasn't really a conversation back and forth but it was them feeling comfortable to be able to tell their story or to be able to um express their feelings because sometimes people don't feel comfortable um saying it in a room full of people or online so those are all kind of um another concern this is my last one i think um is that if we had a facilitator osba announced today that they are putting everything back virtual so if we did the osba facilitator um like we did last time going non-virtual might be a challenge and i know that we've used other facilitators in the past and i believe they are all only doing virtual facilitating so i think in person is awesome i

101am glad that we got this in person but i think a challenge of in-person community listening would be finding a facilitator to do that and i think it's important to have a facilitator um but that's just my two cents so i'm open to what everybody else thinks i like the possibility of doing doing a hybrid model i mean this this works right we have people in person and then it gives people the opportunity to make a choice that feels best for them um and it i mean we we've done it we continue to do it every time we have a board meeting so i think that that can be a simple solution and then um um another possibility is going to the individual schools to do the the listening sessions i know that the boy

102i mean i wasn't here when that used to happen when the board used to go to the different schools and hold meetings there that might be nice just um to create and um foster that comfort and um connection to that school already so that that might be an idea but i think that um i would hope that we can move forward and that we can provide a hybrid model to um support the community and whatever they feel most comfortable whether it's in person or whether it's um virtual because we've been able to make it work really well i think i'm happy to support oh and i'm happy to um support the planning and and the logistics pieces of this thank you nancy paulie i think it's important for it to be accessible to where those

103meeting them where the bring those people where they're at and also having the language addressed i haven't heard that mentioned and you know we have a huge population of spanish-speaking people that we need to make this accessible to and those people were strongly affected by the fires and i don't hear those groups like i would like to um and i think that's really important for us to address that i i can't believe i said it before nancy but i did because i feel strongly that way thank you paulie and it was suggested and i'm going to give kudos to tiffany lambert that um they did a session one time with um spanish speaking community and they got the interpretation so um maybe if we did something like that it would be in their language and

104we would get the interpretation i think that would be a great for me a great learning experience for me of how our interpretation works how um just kind of give me an experience to understand more of how that process works and maybe understand a little bit more about the challenges and barriers and and um so i thought that was a great suggestion thank you tiffany and we have we have the um i get excited because i think that we have all the necessary pieces to make this happen we have interpretation um equipment we have the technology i mean you know we've been doing this for quite some time so i'm excited i'm excited to start planning and bringing some um solid options for people to choose from okay um brent and i'm gonna kind of

105put you on the spot i apologize um what would be helpful what other information would be helpful um would a com small committee be helpful would a would what would be helpful for you and staff to help us achieve this next step yeah i think that'd be great to get a few board members to really consolidate what was said here and have some options uh heading into the spring about um you know doing some outreach so that'd be fantastic okay yes michael one of the things that i think would be beneficial you know i i love opportunities to hear from the community um i think those exist at every board meeting also so i like the idea of very specific goals in mind that we want to accomplish with with a a a community listening

106session type event one of the things that we heard tonight is just helping the under the community understand the financials and the budget and how that works and spring happens to coincide with budget season as well so i wonder if there might be an opportunity there in particular with um with uh you know relief money and things like that as we move towards adopting the budget and helping the community understand some of them you know break down some of the more complexities and simplify some things related to budgetary and financial things if that might be something or just to hear you know some priorities maybe a less formal way than the budget process would be something i'm certainly interested in so just a thought so i have a question just for clarification um and whoever's

107on this committee right um so are you looking are you thinking of like a two-part like maybe an education type part and then a part where um community members could ask questions um and if so is my only thing is if they have um like particular questions like how do i read this line that's one thing but particular of explain this um i would want staff to be able to be prepared um so i think that had to be thought out maybe they could re they could send their questions ahead of time or something and then or maybe we could have a two-part um i don't know but that would be my only concern is some of these are you have to do a lot of research not research but you know how it's not

108a two-minute answer it's maybe a 15-minute answer yeah um yeah i mean we can certainly discuss work out the details and logistics um but you know i think we attempted to have a listening session and then i've heard people express frustration that they don't feel like their questions were answered or you know so i i also think it's good to be thoughtful of that of how we can make sure that people feel like um there was benefit to it so um yeah i think we could discuss those logistics maybe it looks like a learning and give people an opportunity to formulate thoughts and questions and then whether it's in the same session or a follow-up or something like that but just to help um clarify some things so um i mean we certainly want the

109budgetary process and financials to be clear to as many people are interested in understanding it and so that seems like appropriate of course so yeah but i i don't have all the answers on logistics and specifics now it's just a just spitballing i didn't expect you to i was just throwing some things out i think that's a great suggestion to do it before the board before the budget committee normally we don't have or in the past we haven't had a lot of audience members or anyone speak public comment of the budget and it might be because they don't understand or are able to ask no questions to ask so um i think those are really good ideas and thank you for bringing that up um any other discussion i think i heard paulie and nancy

110wanted to be involved in this is that correct yeah i do have something that i feel like we've been talking about these dates for a while and we have this virtual way of meeting with people right now um we need to just set a date and let's decide what that topic is and run from there you know let's get something on the board that we can work toward and decide what that is and not spend too much time trying to figure out what maybe the first one is to follow up on the last one and answer questions that were brought up you know maybe those are the topics the highlights for the first one okay just a suggestion so you're suggesting a commu a community listening session answering their previous questions um would you answer

111the previous question and they're different if if the public um in general is not feeling that we answered the questions that were at the first or they were never addressed then maybe you know hammering down what those are and have those be the topics of that listening session i don't know just a suggestion i just think we need to put something on the board and go for it and i i agree with that i think that it can be frustrating as a community member to ask a question or get some clarification and and then feel like you're speaking just into a vacuum and i know that staff has answered questions that came up and have posted faqs on the website i think during that last it you know as a board we said we want

112to hear from you and then um to just leave those unanswered is really um just not respectful of of having that space so um i love the budget idea of um going over that and and helping to be more transparent in that and there was a suggestion one year at osba of like um what is board service type of like thing where you give a little bit and it almost seems like a board 101 type of thing or school district 101 type of you know this is the information and so um somewhere maybe along those lines of what a board role looks like and the responsibilities and things that we can and can't do tying along in with a budget kind of conversation but um i agree with paulie on let's let's answer the questions

113that came up the first time and and maybe offer some sort of presentation or cheat sheet like nancy recommended for budget and also agreed let's get some dates on the calendar so that the community recognizes that this is important to us so i just want to be clear because i actually feel like a lot of questions that were raised at the community session were answered in various forms i just don't think that everyone who attended that knows where those answers happen so a good example i think is um there was an faq developed after that listening session and posted to the website right it's just it's not a traditional exchange of question and answer that i think most people are used to because of the manner in which a board has to operate as you

114know we don't have any individual authority the only authority we have is when we gather as a quorum to make decisions right so just to clarify that so i think it's just important maybe one thing we could do is just continue to clarify and set expectations for how people can get their questions answered and i think one of the things that's often underutilized is working with the local people at your neighborhood school because i know these staff i mean we are we are in a state of crisis right now so we all need to give we need to give each other grace and patience um i mean we're just trying to make do what we can to cover classes and and keep keep school in session but um i know that principals want to answer

115your questions um brent's here to help you know there's there's ways to resolve questions and issues without having to wait for a board meeting to come and and ask a question that then is you know just logistically it's just a different method of communication right so usually if you have a question or concern hopefully you can get that resolved with your with your neighborhood school so but i just want to be clear i i i do feel like we we tried in earnest to um to provide clarity and and learning for people based on questions that came up but it just the nature of how those events work it's not it's not a traditional type of i ask a question you answer it right there and we have this exchange it's it's a little different

116so anyway that's why that's why i'm in favor of things that have specific purposes um so that it's clear going into it what we're here to talk about and that there's some kind of outcome that we can point to to say this is what we accomplished by having this time and it was valuable you know that people feel like it was a valuable use of the community's time of staff time of our time um and that everybody can for the most part walk away feeling good about it i think it was a very general last time and that's good you know and we did talk about a lot of the board 101 here's the board's role and here's how things work you know um i don't know if that purpose was clear to everyone going

117into that so i think that's one thing we can do this next time and i think those are good and good points i just want to make sure maybe that as we look back through the surveys that came through after and look back maybe through the questions too because we're hearing concerns from the community that they're not feeling like so just maybe a quick glance back through to make sure that those you know were addressed or communicated in a way where then those answers can then be found so i agree michael you're absolutely you know we're bored of seven voice seven people that speak with one voice and you know getting individual answers like that is really not appropriate um i just want to make sure that the communication is uh is clear and understood

118where to get the answers and i agree that we could do better on showing the survey results and um what the output is and my concern also was that if we did answer those questions what if people have new questions it's a long process if we're only doing this every quarter and i really don't i really want to stop the frustration if i can so i like to mainstream it where we answer their questions but also take in new questions or they can clarify questions if there was questions that they weren't understanding so um i would like to get something on the calendar i agree with that but do we wanna i mean i guess i'm confused on the um for me and i don't know about brent and denise but do we want to

119have three people do a meeting and come up with a plan and then do a date or do we want to do a date because i'm still kind of confused on a few of the logistics well and i i think we have some very important things that we're working on right now we have this adm security stuff that's happening we've got this resolution happening and we're in the middle of another covet search so it's to me it's hard to put a date out there because we don't know what's what that date's going to mean to us right now so um and we're going to have superintendent evaluation we're going to have um policy rewrite so to me it's difficult to put a date when we don't know what we're meeting about so i actually feel

120the opposite i would like to know what we're what we would like to have the event be about before we choose a date because for instance if it's going to be related to budget and financials then it should probably be in alignment with the budget calendar right maybe it happens a week or two before we go into the budgetary process for example so um i guess that's i think we need to figure out what we what we want to do first and then the date can happen from there this is my thought i actually have the opposite i think i think it's great to set up a date and then you can start discussing what will be presented discussed um shared you know you can then plan it out but it it might be really

121helpful because i think otherwise we'll just continue to spin on this idea of what are we doing when are we doing it and i and i i'd like to get something set up and then start to work towards that um and it doesn't mean that we have to have anything like super specific like tonight um but by having something that we can start to work towards i think that'll be really beneficial and it'll also give us some direction too um you know we can be very strategic about what what gets discussed based on the particular dates that get chosen to be presented or to host meetings so i hate to to drag this on and do more confusion but just for clarifying we talked about a fee or i talked about a few suggestions about

122going out to the public and and doing virtual and so i guess i'm not clear like if we're going to go out to a um pto meeting or i know we have i think unite has a meeting here and and um if we're going to go out to that we need to align a date with that group if that's what we are choosing to do and so i'm kind of like i still am not clear on what our plan is so i'm not clear on how to close a date because if we're going out to staff and we're going out to some other populations we feel feel like we need to hear their voice that's different than having a date for a virtual not virtual in-person meeting do you see so i'm kind of confused

123on what our next step is yeah that's fair done and um i guess i was thinking uh that we're doing both okay that that we are setting up some um like on a quarterly basis we might be setting up um listening sessions but also i think for recruitment purposes it'd be really beneficial to go out to our community-based organizations to wherever wherever people are at doing invitations there and that would also augment it would be um an add-on not an exclusion so it isn't like an either or but it's a both and okay that's how i was envisioning it but maybe maybe it's different no i can see it being an and i just don't want to have a date and then be like well we haven't yet we're having it and then yeah we

124drop um some of our intentions because yeah and i think that by um setting up some dates and then you know upon further um information gathering you know we realized oh this i'm just going to make updates but on the second quarter it's really close to this community that works this community group that meets then we can leverage that relationship have a meeting at that time so that the time and the date it isn't quite solidified quite yet but but we're working to to really not work harder but work smarter by tapping into the organizations that are already meeting but also setting some like potential dates and maybe i'm saying the opposite of what i initially said um does that make sense it does do so i guess our next step would be do we

125want to discuss maybe look at the calendar get some staff guidance on some dates and then have that conversation later in the meantime do we want to set up a side committee for i know two we can have up to three board members to discuss a little bit to kind of work out some clarity and then um have like a path that we can tweak or agree on for the next meeting i'm seeing non-heads am i on the right track yes i do i like the idea of the hybrid and going to the people i just don't see that that is in in the cards right now with ospa not being in person that would be really hard for i think for the the person running the meeting if we were all there and they

126were on the computer i've seen it done successfully so in my head i'm like oh it works but it's a fair point okay can we move on well right now we have paulie and nancy and then is there anyone else that wants to be on the committee [Music] i'd like to be on the committee as well unless there was someone else who wanted i didn't i don't want to take a third spot if someone else was interested in doing that um and i agree with me i'd like to get a day on the calendar because i feel like if we just say um we're just going to keep doing it then we kind of need a line in the sand and i agree with you on and there's opportunities to sit in on a meeting

127and just listen and then bring a report back to work similar to what uh nancy and polly are doing with the dei committee and bringing back reports similar to what you do with osba and what we'll do with lpc it's just an opportunity for us to be in the community and then share those you know um the fire updates i mean we have this regularly anyway so it's just another opportunity for us to get a fuller picture and see what the community is thinking about and talking about in relation to you know what is local control needs them and and just having those conversations so um i agree with and and um i would like us to try to see if a hybrid date you know what is osb looking at where they're scheduling and

128getting a date because if we're going to ask for a facilitator we need to find out what dates work for them and then start having the conversation based on that correct so i think that be something that we would work on for next meeting yeah i was going to suggest that um because we we we have a lot going on the next few months that so we're going to need to really look at what obligations we already have on the calendar and um we're not going to be able to do that tonight so it's going to have to be my suggestion is we we look at the next three months or something at the next meeting and see when we could add it to the calendar agreed and just a reminder that we have negotiations

129open for two board members to join as well if they want so we don't want to overwhelm them with all the board policy and all of that so i think it's important we'll we'll just um i think we're we've talked enough enough not let me know and then we'll just discuss it with some dates and a little bit more research at the next meeting okay i've seen head nods very important stuff um and so now is review of the next agenda it is in your blue folders um the regular if you want as always if you um have any suggestions or changes you can let brent or i know we meet the week before the meeting to discuss the agenda anything else of importance before i close this meeting going once going twice hearing then

130thank you paulie for joining us virtually and everyone else for in person and virtually have a good night i am impressed with that whoever got