August 10, 2020 – Workshop/Special Board Meeting

001good evening everyone welcome to the august 10th board workshop special meeting of the board of trustees of goose creek consolidated independent school district at this time i would like to declare that we are having a telephone and video conference meeting held under suspended oma laws a version might be on march 16th governor greg abbott granted a request by attorney general ken paxton to temporarily suspend a limited number of open meeting laws to the extent necessary to allow telephonic and or video conference meetings in response to the coronavirus covet 19. for more information about the suspension see tasby legal services article texas governor suspends certain provisions of open meetings act due to coronavirus covet 19 pdf in accordance with those suspended rules we certify the following secretary sampson was this meeting properly posted yes it was

002and at this time although members of the board are not gathered in a central physical location or may we do have a quorum in attendance at this meeting by video conference can you certify such secretary sampson yes there is thank you we are meeting by use of cisco webex software application which allows two-way communication for members of the public as we would at any in-person meeting members of the public who have followed the instructions on the meeting notice for registering to speak during the public comment portion will be unmuted for up to three minutes to speak if the speaker submitted written comments in advance the board secretary will read the comments into record before or during the board's consideration of that item if you would like to provide comment at a future meeting conducted by

003video conference or telephone call please follow the instructions on the posted meeting notice all other meeting procedures will adhere to board adopted procedures to the extent practicable an audio recording of this meeting is being made and will be available to the public at a later date this software application allows for one thousand people to view and interact at a time we apologize in advance for any unforeseeable difficulties and ask for your patience as we navigate unprecedented conditions and finally if you have questions about these suspended laws please call the office of the attorney general at or 888-672-6787 email at t o m a at oag.texas.gov at this time i would like to turn it over to dr o'brien to introduce our board workshop on diversity training dr madam presidents thank you very much board members

004those joining us virtually we're pleased to have with us tonight dr roger cleveland he'll be presenting a workshop tonight on equity and excellence dr cleveland has been at the forefront of equity inclusion for over a decade now his expertise lies in such areas as cultural proficiency instructional equity implicit bias closing the achievement gaps learning styles transforming school culture conducting culture audits and school improvement improvement planning he's conducting training sessions addressing equity and culture issues from alaska to mississippi including his presence here at goose creek this past fall in october in which he presented to all principals and district directors in which in the spring semester early on i believe january february we turned around and presented his presentation in the trainer of trainer models to all faculty members throughout goose creek dr cleveland is a

005native of middlebury's middlesborough kentucky currently we're residing in lexington kentucky and has taught at morehead state university university of kentucky middle tennessee state university eastern kentucky the school of education at kentucky state university where he is now a full professor and he serves as the director for the center for research and eradication of educational disparities he has been recognized as professor of the year and in 2013 received the pg people's equity and excellence achievement award he is a member of the fayette county public schools equity council and the millennium learning concepts consulting company we are proud to have with us this evening dr roger cleveland are you with us dr cleveland yes sir can you hear me okay yes sir you may begin thank you all right thanks uh dr o'brien i just want to

006thank you all for inviting me this evening uh to have this conversation i prefer to call a a conversational facilitation versus training because the person who has the uh the access to the powerpoint the clicker the the assumption is they know everything but there's a knowledge base um in different rooms for tonight for obvious reasons and so i'm just facilitating the conversation i would like to talk about uh equity and excellence and uh throughout the uh conversation i will pose a few questions that are not rhetorical and want to just have a response back for some of the board members and other uh district staff who's uh uh in attendance so let's get started all right the purpose to establish a common understanding of education equity make sure we're all on the same page about

007education equity uh such a common understanding of racial equity and create a systemic focus on education equity so we're going to make sure we have common language i think that's really important uh in in doing that and so you can move forward and have some good conversations about educating uh all children when we have common language in education so that's the three things we're going to talk about uh this evening and so just at a glance we're on top of education equity equity literacy equity literary educators uh talk about opportunity gaps and then the biggest piece i want to talk about is really a a pathway uh to equity to ensure equity uh in the district and make sure we're all on the same page looks like a lot but it won't take that long

008you know we'll be all right so setting the context of our conversation i'm going to give out about three or four assumptions that we can make about education all students uh deserve the best possible education they can provide regards to social status class gender identity religion citizenship status ability disability race ethnicity sexual orientation or etcetera so regardless of your your background or whatever is going on with that you every child deserves uh an equitable education you agree to that all right assumption two education is not politically mostly neutral educators decide what to teach educators decide how to teach and educators decide how we assess so even though we like to think that our our thinkings are pure and things like that in reference to educating children they are but our biases do seep into our

009decisions and what to teach how to teach and how we assess students so the assumption is that we're not this is not politically neutral in education as much as we would like for it to be assumption three the achievement gap is a lot more it's really more of an opportunity gap and what that means is the children in baytown and goose creek school district is not getting what they need some are and some are not some students will have the opportunity when they leave transition from school into life they have more opportunities than others that's what i mean the achievement gap yes it's an achievement gap but we're looking at what kind of opportunities do students have once they leave your school district and this is a little designed to show you that everybody doesn't

010start out equal and the fourth one is that every single teacher administrator all these issues systemic inequities in the entire school system society you know all these equities come in these inequities come into our school district some things that we can't control so we cannot as teachers and social workers and principals and administer administrators central office staff some things we cannot control to seep into our dis but the one thing we at least we should not do is be complicit in those inequities in our own space and our influence so we don't want to perpetuate those inequities once they come into the schools our schools are like microcosms of what's going on in society whatever happens to society is happening in our schools and so uh there's sexism in our in our society of sexism

011in our schools if there's racism in our society it's racism in our schools if there's classism in our society there's classism in our schools and make sure that we're not as educators are being complicit in those inequities so those are assumptions that we can make as we move forward all right and i asked you all a question and you anybody can chime in okay image imagine that a peer district decided to visit your district review your equity practices okay keep that in mind will your visitors consider the schools and central office as very equitable and why why not so that's a question for any of you all in the room or not in the room that's on the on the web x that would like to respond to that if you have a neighboring district

012that came and just reviewed and visit your school district would a visitor say that our schools and central office are pretty equitable anyone can respond are you referring to how it looks when you come in or are you referring to just how uh everything operates everything operates you can talk you can look at it from perspective uh student achievement you can look at it from access you can look at that data discipline uh you can look at hiring practices who gets stretch assignments if they came to visit what would they say about your district how equitable if they're they're just visiting uh they wouldn't know right off hand what exactly the district would be unless they look at numbers if you look at the numbers then we may fall behind some of the other districts

013and even the state or some of the things that we need to be doing for is equity practices especially for us hiring and promotions and things of that nature okay so if they stayed long enough to assess some data and things of that nature you all may not be where you need to be in reference particularly around hiring practices and things of that nature right okay anyone else i may not be answering your question but i find the graphic the the photograph here very um truth truth to what we see in ourselves verse what other people see us sometimes okay that's fine i i think maybe it's it's a little bit telling that nobody's just jumping in and saying oh yeah it's great um maybe we we feel deep down that it's really not that

014equitable in some cases okay and maybe we just don't know maybe so and you know that's the interesting point that maybe we just don't know and or we're not ready to say we are we're not which is an issue and it's also an issue if we don't know uh so let's we're going to define equity and after we define it see if we're on the same page about that we can revisit that question and we also look at some data also and then you you can also maybe chime in later say yes maybe we are maybe we're not we're doing well in these areas in this area we need to work on okay which is usually the case for most school districts anyway so ben we can we can't hear you i don't know you're

015unmuted check your button we're dealing with can you hear me okay yes yeah okay perfect you can go back it talked about equitable being like opportunities yes i think i think we try i don't think we're equitable but i think we try to provide opportunities across the board the best we can district-wide there's some vast improvement we need to make and like mr sampson talked about the the data closing gaps things like that i don't i don't know if the opportunities that we try to create different opportunities that could actually translate to actually seeing the data because there are still the gaps there so we're trying to for me to connect these are the opportunities and how do we tran translate that and actually show it into the data and the scores and closing those

016gaps how do we see it all the way through i think that's something for me to figure out i'd like to also add a couple of comments as far as equity we don't have um we have we're missing some equity as far as buildings go we have some older buildings in the area of town that uh we had recently we got one elementary's being rebuilt but because of this age we had issues with the infrastructure plumbing things of that nature but we also have other schools that are that are missing those kind of things because of their their age and their size um i would also agree with mr samson as far as not being equitable in the employees um it doesn't anywhere near reflect uh our student population as far as people with professional

017degrees and finally also with our our scores i think there's a lot of room to close the gap um in that regard as well okay and while we're having this uh while we have this conversation and uh and you're making your comments why don't we do a a mental assessment of the district as we as we talk about this because some of you are raising some good uh points so just think about it reflect about the why uh some of those things are in place and we can discuss that skip along to education equity okay this is how there's a number of different ways how to define this but i want to define it this way education equity means that educational practices policies and i'm going to pause right there that policies are critical particularly

018for at the board level that's when the primary responsibilities uh comes the primary responsibility of a school board and board of trustees is to create policies that will support the work that the superintendent and other people in the district are in the schools are doing so the policies are really important and an equitable policy is really important facilities academic support curriculum instruction school resource school climate and culture expectations that these facts are such that all students have an equitable opportunity not equal but equitable fairness and access to reach academic excellence regardless of race social learning status gender disabilities language giftedness national origin religion and other characteristics so i want to pull a couple things out of this that's it's really important one of the number one issues around ensuring uh we address equity is access

019is access and making sure every student who walks into the classroom receives access to a rigorous instruction and rigorous curriculum and rigorous content and so this is a rhetorical question you know what are all students receiving rigorous content and rigorous instruction because if if we believe that the i think you all's assessment status substance is called a star if the state assessment is considered rigorous and all your students are not getting access to rigor why we expect them to be proficient when they take the state assessment and so those you know those things have to be aligned if that makes sense um in fairness and so equal everybody gets the exact same thing equitable everyone gets what they need in other words um title one is an equity issue because based on the number of

020students who are on free and do such and things of that nature in your school or your district you don't get the same amount of money as a leaf or aldine but different reasons because of the amount of students who are on free news lunch so we don't just give a blanket amount of money to every district that's in houston area is based on need and so key things remember about equity is not equal okay it's equitable and access is critical for instance and you'll see later in the presentation that i'll pull some data from uh us district and one of the most lowest performing group of students is students with disabilities i'm a firm believer that most students with disabilities can do really well in the classroom with the right accommodations research tells us

021that most students who are in special education have an average iq so with the right accommodations and good teaching those students confess just as well as anyone else but a lot of times because we uh they don't get access to rigorous content and then we assess them on rigorous content they don't do well and so we have to make sure all students are getting access um to the content at their appropriate times and so we pull anything out of this equity piece it's about access it's about uh making sure things are equitable not equal and it's also about fairness and providing opportunities to all children in the district let's look at racial equity the racial equal is pretty much kind of the same concept but a real short definition the condition where one's race identity

022has no influence on how one fares in society so in other words in this case it shouldn't make a difference who walks into the classroom they should be have an opportunity to do well in school their race should not be a reason or a barrier for them to be successful in the race equity culture one that is focused on proactively countering race inequities inside and outside of an organization or in schools for that matter and so i'm really a person that's really big on organizational culture or school culture and that culture eats strategies for breakfast and what i mean by that if you don't have an environment that's conducive for learning and where we understand that students get everything that they need and we create that kind of culture then putting strategies in a culture

023that's not toxic and are ready for it's like putting gas in a car that doesn't run so you got to create a culture of high expectations uh academic expectations and behavior expectations uh within the school but race equity is that to ensure that race is not the reason why students not been successful is not a barrier uh in that situation and so let's look at building a ratio uh race equity culture race agriculture one is one that focuses on proactive counteraction of race and equities inside and outside of a school building race equity culture is the foundational work when school districts seek to advance racial equity it creates the conditions the culture that helps us adopt anti-racist mindsets and actions so race equity once again is to make sure that our race and ethnicity is

024not the reason why our students have not been successful in our classrooms this one's really important uh educational leaders i think every teacher in this country and since we're talking about goose creek this evening every teacher needs to be able to understand what we mean by educational literacy or equity literacy equity literacy is comprised of the skills and dispositions that enable educators to do these three things one in the classroom we need able to recognize inequities in the classroom we need to be able to respond to those inequities and be able to redress or eradicate those conditions that deny some students access to educational opportunities enjoyed by their peers so with one first we gotta even recognize first of all we gotta know what equity means and then once we know what equity means we

025need to be able to recognize the inequities in our classrooms because we don't recognize the next in our classroom you're not going to close opportunity gaps because you're not giving students what they need then so we have to recognize and to respond to it in an appropriate way in a very culturally responsive way and then eradicate and change those conditions of the situation that's what we mean by equity literacy and equity literary educators not only they recognize and draw upon the resiliency and other funds of knowledge accumulated by poor students of color and reject deficit views that focus on this is an important part reject deficit views that focus on fixing disenfranchised students rather than fixing the things that disenfranchise in other words our students are not broke they don't need to be fixed they

026don't need to be repaired every student comes in to all your schools okay with a knowledge base and i just want to pull what that means funds of knowledge out there for a second funds of knowledge is what students bring to school every day so even though teachers are trying to teach them certain content and areas like that they may not know that content that knowledge base but they have a knowledge base when they come to school and they get that funds of knowledge from their families their communities and other places so they bring that knowledge into the community i'll give you example uh in my neighborhood where i live they're they're building a lot of homes and and i see on the weekends and even during the weekdays i see a number of uh

027latino men doing construction and some of the men they own their own companies and things like that they're doing construction in my neighborhood so on the weekends they they bring their sons with them to help them do some construction and the the the children they bring with them live like maybe a half a mile from my neighborhood they attend this middle school and the middle school's about uh 40 percent flat next about 45 african-american and the remaining students are white students and it's about 89 free induced lunch so when these these uh men are doing construction in my neighborhood they bring their sons with them on the weekends my question before i go forward is there any math in construction somebody answer that question for me absolutely quite a bit of math right so these

028young men who come with their fathers who work help them with construction every weekend they will go back to school on that monday and sometimes not having the ability to do fractions or even basic measurements even though they were doing them all weekend because we don't tap into their funds of knowledge and so it's not the way that they you know it's not the way we teach math then they don't tap into that knowledge base so funds and knowledge is what students bring to school and they bring to their own their homes and their families and communities and things like that but a lot of times because some students are poor or have these other things they bring to school with them we approach it from a deficit mindset versus a difference mindset and so

029especially working with children who are poor we need to have a difference orientation not a deficit orientation a depth of orientation is that our mindset is these students are so poor are you know we can't help them we're gonna you know water down the instruction they probably can't get it you know there's no support at home where that's not how we should approach it we should approach it from a different orientation they have knowledge they bring it to school every day if you don't think they know nothing just sit in a cafeteria one day they know quite a bit so we should have a different orientation that what that means is they have a different knowledge base and what good teachers do they connect with connect to students what they don't know to what they

030do know okay and that's called prior knowledge and so we have to tap into their funds of knowledge but students are not broken they may not have the content and the knowledge base that we're trying to teach them but they don't need to be repaired and they all need to be fixed okay we need to fix the things that actually disenfranchise our students which means we remove barriers and that's an equitable practice all right equity does not mean that every student should receive identical instruction instead it demands that reasonable and appropriate accommodations be made as needed to promote access and attain for all students so we might equity and then fair equity is a is the process equality is the outcome what does that mean somebody tell me what that means after this conversation without

031that equity what do i mean by equity is the process equality is the outcome well i think you're referring back to uh like the achievement gaps um when you're talking about i believe you said it was achievement gaps are more related to opportunity gap and the opportunity gap comes at the end of their education cycle if equity is the process then they're all going to have an equal opportunity at the end of the course of their education in public education system exactly exactly so jessica if you and i were start out in kindergarten together or preschool and i received an equitable education which means from the time i started preschool i received everything i needed to be successful now i also have some skin in the game also so i had to do my part

032you know i did that but if you receive an equal education that means you got the exact same thing everybody's received okay even how we even you know present the content okay even though you have different kind of learning styles where you receive information you still got the same way everybody else then we get to the 12th grade you may not be able to uh apply all the information that you learned for 13 years well i can apply that because i received everything i need so basically what you're just saying that when you refinish i'm probably have more opportunities because i've been better prepared because i received everything i needed that's the equity so this is a rhetorical question not just for jessica for anyone are the children in goose creek receiving an equitable education

033or equal education i just want to park that right there for a second let you all think about it okay and uh i know that it's board members here and then other people on the leadership team that's in that's listening and interacting but you know every now you know we can go in the classroom and see what's going on right right board members we can see so think about that rhetorical question are the children in the district receiving equitable education or equal education or and if i go too far it's jessica's fault because you got me on the road now ask this other question are the children there are they being schooled or they've been educated schooling is going to school for 13 years okay and receiving knowledge okay education is going through school 13

034years and receiving knowledge but being able to apply that knowledge that's being educated schooling you're just getting information but you can't apply it okay you wouldn't really educate it and there's a big difference between knowledge and wisdom okay wisdom can apply that knowledge the different knowledge and wisdom knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit the wisdom knows you don't put tomatoes in fruit salad okay distinct difference okay so what kind of are we getting an equivalent uh education or equal education just keep that in mind opportunity gaps all right uh since i see richard on the screen richard will you scribe for me sure what i'm gonna ask you to do is i'm gonna ask people to just call out some reasons and you'll understand what i'm talking about in a second um

035and just when they yell out some of the reasons it's called call and response is what we do you just catch them okay just write them down all right all right so before we get to that here's some data and i'm not gonna spend a lot of time on this you all probably seen it before so all i'm saying is that the reason why i'm gonna do this exercise is because in some places particularly around special education is probably the most alarming uh gaps that i saw with these data where you know 17 of the students are you know at a grade level uh this is star reading okay and so uh those are there's some opportunity gaps in different places here where different groups of people particularly the lowest performing groups the students are

036african-american and those who are in special education so imagine richard if you are afro-american male and poor and in special education okay so this evening we're not even disaggregating until we're getting gender specific or even the overlap so so if you're supposed that you're white and in special ed annual and free interest lunch or economic disadvantage you all call it they may not be at 18 in reference to meeting grade level and so these uh these are already talking about the opportunity this is the why we're having this conversation about equity this is the why right here and how we plan to get our students where they need to be and this is just another look uh this is third grade math scores and you all set some goals which is good but we have

037to have a you know i used to work for the kentucky department of education and school district has some great goals and great strategic plans and school improvement plans and the dust was just stickers of plans because once we it was because what we what the districts did sometimes they did the plans out of compliance and not commitment and so as we go through you all have set goals and things like this we want to make sure we have a commitment culture and not a compliance culture in other words if um the folks in austin didn't say we had to do these things will we do it anyway that's a commitment culture if we're doing certain things around closing operating gaps because they're saying it that's the compliance yeah but anyway let's get to my

038exercise okay i want some people to call out why do some students struggle academically in your district just yell it out and richard will capture it why do some students struggle academically in your district low socioeconomic okay can we put poverty poverty okay um what else uh do because of um it kind of in the same vein but not the same necessarily but a lot of the kids in certain situations have to work and help provide okay i i think also the digital divide okay other reasons attendance okay richard tell me when you get about seven or eight we'll stop all right not the sometimes the parents or whoever's at home doesn't have the academic knowledge to help them out to to reinforce what they've learned in the during the day can we say uh

039home life and family engagement something like that yes not a lack of family care just simply they don't have the tools okay all right but you can all say lack of family care because a lot of kids are one family uh households are either living with grandparents or something okay so richard how many do i have right now we're up to five oh is it okay give me two more give me two more language barrier okay language barrier give me one more emotional poverty emotional uh poverty you said yes okay some trauma issues and things of that nature yes okay thank you so we have seven anyone else going once going twice all right richard read them off to me all right poverty work work to provide uh the digital divide attendance home life and

040family engagement language barriers and emotional poverty okay great thank you sir now i'm going to talk about opportunity gaps through the lens of stephen covey i know y'all probably like he's lost his mind but bear with me in his book seven have his of highly effective people he talks about the circle of concern versus the circle of influence and basically what he says is that in his book that people who are constantly focused on things that they have little influence over okay they get tired they get worn and after a while when they are not making an impact they come with reasons or excuses why things are not working out well okay on the other hand the circle of influence he says people who focus on things they have a lot of influence over tend

041to be more successful than those who focus in the circle of concern which they have little influence over things circle concern they focus on things they have little control over or little influence over circle influence they have a lot of control over a lot of influence okay now richard read off the reasons why some students do not do well in your district academically and this is usually the reasons why not it i didn't ask you all beforehand did i i didn't know y'all didn't know i was gonna ask you know students cultural background peer pressure attendance neighborhood home life family involvement and then most of the ones that you all mentioned these are all areas of circle of concern now all these things matter don't get me wrong they are really important you need to

042be in school if you're going to learn right okay you need to have some things in at home that will help support what you do at school families need to be involved um peer pressure is an issue i don't think cultural background is an issue but i put that on there because that's why i hear a lot um the neighborhood the zip code you live in could be a problem things of that nature all these are concerns or issues that could you know could impact whether a student is going to be successful or not but you think about it most of these things do not have anything to do with pretty much teaching and learning is that a fair statement no okay and so the things on richard's list how much do those have to

043do with directly with teaching and learning richard maybe the digital divide maybe exactly which is crucial right now right so whoever said that you're right on point but all these don't get me wrong i'm not saying these things don't matter they matter but it really these are these things right here like for school social workers school psychologists you know folk their job they've been trained to do a lot of these things right here but teaching and learning takes place in the classroom now let me show you that things that we have influence over campus administrators classroom teachers we have influence over inequities whether we create them or not culturally responsive teaching rigor instructional support academic behavior expectations relationships don't we have a lot of influence over that at the building level ellen richardson said yes

044yes okay yes okay so based on this exercise we may spend more time in the circle of concern versus the circle of influence okay because these are the things that we have a lot of influence over even though the families a lot of families may not come to school and they're not necessarily engaged we don't teach family we don't teach parents we teach students we love for them to be engaged we know it's important but if we spend more time on this okay i guarantee you some of those opportunity gaps will close versus spending time on that for classroom teachers because there's other people who have been hired to deal with some of these things right here so both things in both circles are important but we're teaching learning and instruction happens in the classroom

045these are things that we have little influence over but we have a lot of influence over these things we want to make sure we're putting our time in particularly for classroom teachers and they've been supported to do these kinds of things right here because if not yeah we're going to struggle those numbers are probably not going to change much and and now another fact we rely on teachers to do all this you know that's a lot for a classroom teacher even a lot of them do it won't they do this you that makes sense so we got to make sure our priorities are straight for everybody who's been trained to different things both circles matter but our classroom teachers can do all that in the circle of concern and then also the circle of influence

046okay they will struggle so where do we go from here we talked about equity we talked about racial equity we looked at opportunity gaps and things of that nature so i believe that in order for us to actually have a major impact um the skill is actually the probably the easy part is the will that we have to work on you know when i say we i mean the entire district not we usually just talk about classroom teachers and that's where the rubber meets the road but at the same time it's everybody uh has to be accountable and have to be supportive of those teachers so in order to make this systemic and focused we have to create a pathway to education and create an equity plan and here are three things that you know

047you ought to consider one review your policies and practices to make sure that we're not creating barriers they're learning for students and and look at our policies i remember my daughter she's out of school now and uh she was a middle school cheerleader and to be a cheerleader it cost 780 dollars in middle school and so there was probably a lot of other girls was better than she was her daddy just had to have the check okay so that policy and in kentucky schools create their own policy at the school level and that was a pay or play pay to play policy well we left out a lot of kids because they didn't have the resources and so you know some students got you know not because they were the the best in this particular

048whether it's basketball sports or theater band you know whatever it was it was paid you know pay to play and that's an inequity it created a barrier to you know some students been um engaged in extracurricular activities so reviewing our policies and practitioners to make sure there's no uh barriers to um success there and then a comprehensive equity assessment and what that basically is uh is that we do a very comprehensive look at the district and so through the lens of equity and organizational culture and so there's a quantitative side where it's called a desk audit and we look at all you all data discipline data achievement data uh past surveys and things of that nature that's the quantitative part we look at student work and seeing what's proficient work looks like and things like

049that in the district the second part is the qualitative part where you interview students teachers central office staff board members support staff family members and community folks and what we're trying to see is get people's perceptions and perspectives of the school district with the other side we're also looking at how the school is performing and what could be uh creating these opportunity gaps the desk guys call it red flag analysis for instance now i haven't looked at any discipline data okay at goose creek you know even though i've been there and i'll talk to the principals and things like that we're going to talk about discipline but i can guarantee you this in some schools not all the schools and because i haven't been in the schools in this group but i just know it's

050all over the country many times particularly young men and young men of color and particularly young men of color who are poor they tend to get suspended for more discretionary or subjective reasons than other students in other words i can go to a middle school and see a student get written up for an infraction it's like for fail to follow rules um disrespect insubordination which a lot of some of those are questionable based on the perception of the adult who's writing the student up but then a lot of times white students will be written up for very clear objective reasons fights drugs weapons crystal clear and so what i ask school districts to look at look at the percentage look at all their infractions okay the students are being written up for and suspended and

051things of that nature and then look at the percentage of those suspensions that are very subjective or discretionary versus their crystal clear okay and you'll see the same group of students who are struggling academically are the same group of students who have been suspended more okay now i have a look at you all discipline data but does it look like that that is a question i was looking for response yes it does i think this is pretty accurate pretty accurate now i and i promise you i have not looked at any so it's not just a gooseberry but since we're talking about goose creek today um so and what happens is what creeps in is our biases which we all have our implicit biases which are usually unconscious we're not aware of unintentional but impactful

052and so if our if our teachers and administrators are not getting training on implicit bias i think we are considered also so it's not like you know jessica is a teacher at one of the middle schools and she's just lying in bed on sunday like oh i can't wait to wait to get to work and suspend some latino kid she's not thinking like that but she may get to school that day because of her unknown biases say something that would trigger some kind of people from that kid that kid acts out then they're suspected so that's just one example our biases may play out in our schools which we don't have them most of our biases are implicit and unconscious so we're not aware we're doing them until it brings them um and our biases

053come from our lived experiences and our perspectives in the past so i just use discipline because you all said that's pretty accurate and i actually looked at any data just when data is like that we just know i know it's probably happening so my question is and dr o'brien this is not for you or any of your staff this is strictly for the board members okay so our question is how often do you all examine that data the discipline data board members discipline or achievement data once a year once a year okay could i be so bold to say we probably need to do it minimum quarterly and because all i say that is uh how are you pronouncing it is it augustine how you pronounce your name augustine augustine yesterday okay uh thanks so

054think about like think about achievement data if we test our kids and then the following year we look at the results we talk about whatever and we don't look at it again you know we all we go to the doctor right to get checkups we get checkers and we get that one annual physical right well if we don't do checkups throughout the year we're not gonna know what's ailing us and so we really don't fix it until we don't fix it so we get the same results the following year um and so that's called academic autopsy i mean our students died academically okay because we only checked them one time a year we have to now i i suspect talking to the principals that they look at it more often um than you all do

055but i think i would suggest that they bring this one data and achievement data to you all minimum quarterly because remember now you all making policy and the only way you can really make equitable policies but i have good information correct and so that's something you ought to consider uh is doing okay so i talked about the conference assessment i got uh veered off about discipline and the other one is equity policy equity plan equity scorecard i know you have a strategic plan and a district plan and things like that do you have equitable strategies embedded in that plan that you're aware of because because the strategic plan drives the work correct i would like to believe so but i have to read it again now okay and so uh you want to make sure

056that you have equitable strategies and what you can do is you have your strategic plan because you don't want to have two plans okay then everybody's going which one's priority right so what you want to do is have your strategic plan but you also want to have an equity plan but your equity strategies and goals are embedded into the strategic plan to make sure it gets the attention that it needs but also the community member or parent or whatever just says you have an equity plan you can pull that out by itself and show you here's the things we're doing to address equity that makes sense richard yes yep okay so you embed that in there to make sure it gets done because strategic plan that way you're not having principals and assistant superintendents and

057things like this trying to go off two or three plans but you embed that work in there you have to go all the way back from an hour you have to assess where you are first before you actually can start doing the planning i i think that if i may yes realize that i think part of the issue is sometimes we get boggled down in the idea of equality and i think that's a big earlier we're talking about assessing uh what what is stopping kids from learning well we didn't talk about what's stopping kids from you were correct about what stopping kids learning in the classroom and i do think that a big part of that is is uh empathy i think a lot of our people and as far as employees uh have an

058issue with empathy in fact i can tell you that probably there's a lot of kids that are probably have more are more influenced by people that are either paraprofessionals or people that are working not necessarily as professionals as teachers administrators that connect more with kids just because they know where the kids are coming from i can give you several examples of kids of teachers kids people that i've met that were influenced by people that were not teachers and and i say that as a teacher myself and and that's one of the things that i think is important in creating plans like this is we have to build uh some sort of uh toolkit for empathy and just because you don't you didn't live like i did or i don't live like you did doesn't mean

059that i don't feel or shouldn't be able to try to understand what what you're going through and why it's hard for you to learn you know there's things such as i as a teacher i teach high school a lot of our kids don't want to go home they they complain about school but it's you know five o'clock in the afternoon they're still hanging out you know there's a reason for that and it's hard when you're kicking the kids out of school and say hey i need to get out of here where are they going where are you sending them to um and i think that comes with trying to create a culture of trying to fulfill that need um you know we have complaints such as kids aren't allowed to speak spanish in class during

060non-instructional time or even at lunch time and you ask you know is this happening we don't get any feedback over what the end result was at was it addressed was not addressed meanwhile we have to go back to those people making those um allegations and say well they're gonna address it well how do we know you know and i think that's another thing as a board is something important for us because we want to make sure that if people are telling us that they don't feel like they're being treated i'll use the word equally even if they're not treated equally not even equity not even with equity but equally how can we how can those kids have have faith in the system if they're seeing that it's not treating them correctly even even at an

061equal level okay you made a very very good point um now did you say that the students are not allowed to speak spanish during non-academic terms i i've heard that from two different campuses yes okay that's all another conversation about it i agree i'm just what i was trying to say was i'm not trying to out anybody what i'm trying to say that these are dif very important issues in order for our kids to to uh to be able to perform academically they have to be invested it's it's our job to get them invested and we can sit there and say well you know what it starts at home well i i served on the board a long time ago we used to have a board member that straight up told me he goes it's

062not our our fault but it is our problem to try to get these kids at a level of education and part of that is making sure that they feel welcome in the schools that they go to a school that that looks just as good as anyone else that they're treated with the same amount of of fairness as anybody else because the kids if if we're looking at it from a strictly numbers game where we're seeing okay what you just said earlier about which kids get in trouble and and why and how they get in trouble the kids are keen to that they know exactly which teacher or which administrator or which campus is is going to treat them a certain way and and uh i think that one of our biggest follies as adults is

063we don't understand that kids are very much aware of their surroundings and how people act and react to them i mean if you talk to to students or if we treat students as human beings instead of what we perceive that children should be treated as then that's part of the problem well honestly you just mentioned a couple of things that are part of like some facilitations while you're mentioning you're talking about uh implicit bias um i don't think most and i'm sure you'll agree being a teacher most teachers don't get out set out get in their car and drive across houston to suspend kids right but regardless whether they intend to or not as i said before we're focused on impact before intention correct so we're going to see what the impact is having on

064that student so most teachers are not doing anything intentionally to students but regardless of the fact we still have to address the issue and um i would love if i had a lot of time next time we show you a video that talks about empathy and uh and bias and um the way you were talking i thought you'd seen it before maybe but anyway uh yeah i think you're right that we have to uh the culture of the school is critical i mean i can't explain i mean equities and is important and all this stuff but the culture and the climate of the school is critical it has to be conducive for learning for each and every single child it has to be and you have to create that culture for that that to happen

065and each building it starts at leadership the culture of any school is shaped by the worst behavior leadership is willing to tolerate right and i'm not talking about the students yeah students basically just allow what they're allowed to do really you know so i'll watch the adult behavior and things of that nature all right blame it on augustine he got me off he got me off path now it's just fun uh but uh the other thing is the equity policy and if you uh you are the currently you have an equity policy right now because augustine that would take care of some of those things because if you want equitable practices you need to anchor it in an equity policy well the fact that i don't know i don't that's my fault or or we

066just don't have one so okay um that's all right you're doing a mental assessment right now right exactly and and then with that equity policy you can anchor the equity plan and that policy and equity scorecard is basically said this is what we're going to do is relates to equity and it's a live document anybody can go on the website and see it and we say we're going to uh re reduce the number of suspensions for latinx boys this percent by this time will people go and see what you are doing on that you know again we're gonna we're gonna hire you know 10 more administrators of color by this time and so somebody can just say okay you all said that you're gonna do this in what are we looking like well we only

067hired like three percent okay so you know so they can look at this live data that's what the equity score card is and so all this is part of you know just part of the work to get there and then different types of professional development like understanding equity culturally responsive teaching uh augustine cultural constitution will go to some of those things around empathy that you talked about if you know as you know the students can respond to those students you know then you can make that connection with them uh you can empathize more trauma-informed care i just want to stop right here and just mention this to you i don't know what you all are doing in in texas reference to uh school i don't know if you're going face to face virtual hybrid or

068whatever but um you know i think the one the one i think the toughest job is the classroom teacher you know followed by a principal and superintendent a classroom teacher and when school starts whether you're in houston or louisville or wherever you are in los angeles students are experiencing two pandemics coveted 19 and they've all experienced many of them experiencing trauma through um covet 19 where they know family members relatives friends and things of that nature and so there's there's going to be some trauma students bring in trump and teachers and administrators and other people are coming also and then the whole issue around social justice and students are going to bring that into the school also and so one of the things we're doing in lexington and louisville here in kentucky is that we

069are helping teachers navigate and negotiate those conversations when kids come into school and want to talk about what's happening in the streets because i live like 45 minutes from one of the hottest places louisville kentucky and so every day it's hot in downtown louisville um and so those kids are they're coming to school and they're not gonna just leave all that you know so we're going through this we're going through a coveted 19 pandemic social injustice pandemic and economic strain pandemic but the interesting is to really understand equity we're all going through the storm together richard but we're going through the storm in different ways okay so some people are going through the storm and they're in the ocean line some people are going through the storm and they're on a yacht some people are

070going through the storm on a row boat some people are going through the storm in a life lifeboat and some people are barely hanging on a light preserver and you cannot use universal strategies to meet those individual needs we are all situated differently and that's going to impact public schools all schools when students start coming back they're not leaving that at home and so the trauma-informed care responding responses to the students all that's going to be important before they may look at that algebra equation and so i just want to make us think about that with that said uh i'm not going to go through that some of the things you know we already talked about that and so i'll just leave it up for um questions this is a book called despite the best

071intentions how racial inequality thrives in good schools but anyway um thoughts comments observations dr cleveland just to answer your question about do we have a current policy for equity we do not but we have pulled down the tasby proposed uh local policy equity as ae local and uh it will be up for the board's review in the near future okay all right great and i have if you want to look at some other ones uh we have one here in louisville we have seattle has one cincinnati has one austin has a racial equity policy but that's about the district so dr brian you want to see some other ones that's fine too i can send them to you absolutely thank you other thoughts comments uh i just wanted to point out that while we may

072not have a equity policy in writing that it is part of our mission vision and goals that we are reaching out to students where they meet us where they come to school with their fund of knowledge we have programs in place i've been thinking about what your question was earlier if someone came in from the outside how would we look to them and of course that's a perspective that's difficult to to come at but i i would say that we do a really good job of moving in that direction are we there are we perfect no but we have a great special ed department that is throughout the district on i can remember when my children first came into the system here that for example aside from special ed because i don't know how how

073developed it was across the district i'm sure it was only limited to a few campuses but i know that we've expanded the number of campuses that have those departments but for example our bilingual department when my children began kindergarten there were maybe four elementary schools in the district that had bilingual programs and that's where those children would go now it's on everly elementary campus in the district so we're more focused on community schools going to school where you live and getting the tools getting the education whether it's a special education uh bilingual education uh maybe a gifted uh program but that those have been expanded over the past few years and are evident on all of our campuses i would also point out our move in the last several years to expand our high school

074programs we have three traditional high schools that offer special academy programs and endorsements but we also have a campus that's a early college impact high school and we also have stewart careertech high school where students who are not looking to go to maybe the four-year university at the end but they're looking to go into a certain field can take classes that lead them to certifications that enable them to be employable when they leave and we have a very high number of students that are military ready by the time you graduate high school so i feel like we have a very diverse program that we're constantly looking at ways to expand um so i think from the outside perspective someone just coming in from a neighboring um district and having a look at us on the

075surface now when you dig in is there room for improvement always and that is of course why we're here but uh um i think that we look pretty good on the outside okay yeah and jessica the um i think you said something really important the mission is critical uh the mission and vision is critical and i didn't read your mission of vision anything like that but um the the one of the reasons why equity policy is good is because um one it anchors best practices you know so and that's you know you want to formalize something that's really good in your district put it in the policy that way you formalize it the other thing is unfortunately in place we gotta legislate behavior sometimes because everybody's not going to do it right or do it

076at all but when you say because it's in policy you know that gives the board leverage because you uh that's one of the main things that you all have uh influences through your policy so uh but i do hear them and understand what you're saying too um if i can also i think that that despite that we do have a bunch of we do have a few things that that i have personally um some issues with for example are african-american males you know there's a post-secondary there that's probably the the area that we suffer in the most as a community is that they're not signing up for for post-secondary ready or post-secondary um schools that's the one that that's the group that's most lowest right after them as latino males i know that while it's

077important for other people to look at us and see what we're trying to do i think it's also very important to see how the community perceives us as far as equity and uh and i think that sometimes it's difficult for people to understand what equity means i think that we have a little bit of an issue within our our our district bounds of how the how people view us in terms of educating their children or how children view themselves being educated by our school district and that affects our community as well because if you don't feel that you you're a part of this you tend not to be as successful in it um the one question i do have is in developing i know that dr bryant said he was pulling down the tasby policy

078i guess just took as a as a basis or something because i'm assuming that we as a school district should probably develop one that would cater to our our community in our area is would should the community have representation in development is this equity policy with us are you asking me yes oh i think you all have all stakeholders because then you would have enlisted buy-in from everyone at the end of the day the board will have to make the decision but if you get buy-in and input from all stakeholders then we all own the policies just not the board's policy you know that everyone and including students would have some say so in that conversation one of the things that i would like to see in our district is is it creating uh um

079maybe a committee you know i know that i serve on a couple of city committees but um it would be i think maybe a positive and i'm not necessarily talking to you dr cleveland at this point but just thinking out loud i think i would it would be a great opportunity for us to create a um equity community committee where we invite members of the community leadership as well as parents and even kids to come in and help us understand what they're feeling you know unfortunately those those conversations bring some things that we don't like to hear but those are the things that help us grow i think yeah i think you um and when dr brian was reading my uh bio i've served on we have a what is called the equity council here

080our district is about close to 50 000 students uh very similar in demographics latino students close but not as many but pretty diverse school district but we've had an equity council uh probably since maybe 2001 and it's made up by community members and so you apply some of them apply for the the role on the council and then the board each board member appoints one person and so the whole purpose is that for the equity council or the committee that you're talking about is to make recommendations and an advisory role they can't tell the board what to do but they can you know advise and make recommendations and they really should work hand in hand with the board and support and coordination but not you know at war with each other but that's what the

081council is for to really to keep equity on the radar and so i can send you information how those councils are started how they develop things like that but something we're doing differently some people uh the board picks all of them some people have uh community community people in school uh personnel committees yeah so you can do it in other different ways i'm gonna talk about maybe the elephant in the room but a little bit with that problem and i'm not you know i'm not questioning anybody's acquaintances or friends or anything um the problem is we have two people of color on the school board of seven and and i think that if we create something like that it's gonna have to be more than that because um i'm not doubting that everybody has friends

082that are that are people of color but i picking the right people that are gonna be champions in discussing the needs of kids that that are not that are needing that i think is a big part of it yeah and that's what you have to think about those things internal issues that i don't i'm not aware of right before you do that immediately right council if you yes but i want to let you know that those those councils or committees exist a lot of a lot of school districts have them um anything else conversation thoughts comments i do want to say why you are thinking that um just in all the things we're going through right now that really keep in mind of our our families and our students uh around the country is going

083through all what they're going through and really keep in mind our classroom teachers uh it's already tough enough to be a classroom teacher and then to do it in this environment that uh and i always tell teachers this so if there's any teachers listening in bay town i want you all to hear this so a student asked me last semester said dr cleveland why did you go into education and i said well i could have became a lawyer and made a hundred thousand dollars but i became an educator and made a hundred thousand lawyers that's how impactful classroom teachers are yeah i just want to make sure we support them and things of that nature i know you all will anything else for me dr oh we good so very much dr cleveland we appreciate

084your facilitating this training and uh we will be in touch with you in the near future all right thanks for you all inviting me you all have a good evening okay thank you thank you thank you with that miss woods we turn it back over to you all right um so at this time i wanted to enter into the minutes i did not announce the start time of our board meeting when we called for our quorum miss garcia if you will note that the meeting began at 604 pm sorry now i'd like to move on to agenda item number three uh mr flood are you ready this will be our time for citizens participation in this section of the agenda can everyone hear me i'm speaking okay um in this section of the agenda for

085this meeting the board permits public comments on agenda items posted with notice of the meeting individuals who have signed up registered prior to the beginning of the board meeting shall be recognized in providing provided an opportunity to speak other individuals who have provided email submissions to the board for consideration will also be noted when addressing the board i encourage you to note your topic issue and to please please refrain from attacking the personal character of any individual student staff member or board member in this section of the agenda board members may only listen to the individual statement and may not discuss the item with the with the patron or take action on any matter during this portion of the agenda normally public participation time on the agenda is limited to a total of 30 minutes

086and each individual herd is allotted no more than three minutes however mr flood how many do you have signed up to speak um live i'm sorry i didn't count them okay okay so a lot and then do we have do you know how many we have email submitted okay due to the uh number that we have received for citizen participation speakers and submissions and the board's desire to hear from all of the citizens that we reasonably can tonight as board president under the local authority provided by goose creek cisd board policy bed local i'm going to extend the overall time limit for public comment past the standard 30 minutes excuse me 30 seconds or 30 30 minutes overall the overall time limit which is typically 30 minutes i am going to extend the overall time

087limit past the standard 30 minutes and i am also adjusting the time allotted for each speaker to one minute each uh board secretary sampson will be the timekeeper and we'll give you a 30 second warning during your time your cooperation and your patience with me and the board and the webex technology is appreciated so uh we'll begin with the live portion mr flood if you want to begin yes ma'am so my first speaker let me find it's gonna be kevin craven you're now unmuted good evening my name is kevin craven i'm a graduate class of 88 of robert e lee um i want to first of all dive into [Music] some sentiments that were shared in the last uh meeting where the individuals spoke about the background black crime in our community the single-parent homes

088that were in our community and the educational gap that exists in our community i don't think there's anything that epitomizes robert e lee more than those issues that he addressed because in robert e lee we know that he slaughtered many black slaves on the battlefield we knew we knew through we know through the actions of slavery we know that men would trip from their homes leaving single-parent homes and we know that his sentiment on education was one where he felt that black slaves were inferior to whites so i'm a little confused as to why point knowing that what we know about robert e lee and with the and with the veil of slavery of in the veil of revisionist history being stripped back in this conversation craven thank you for your comments but your time

089is expired we need to move to our next speaker our next speaker is victoria marin you're now unmuted uh thank you good evening board i'll rush through this 60 seconds i'm speaking to you tonight as an alum of the district of lee college as a resident of baytown for over 41 years and a family that's been here since 1912 today i ask you to vote no on your action item of creating a committee to investigate the need for renaming district facilities after august third board meeting you based a powerpoint on investigating many schools their names their history their mascots you skipped over high school so later in the evening you reported on robert e lee you provided an executive summary so there's obviously already a need and we know there's a need the plea to

090change lee has occurred at least three occasions 1980 as the board of trustees according to the website seven member board of trustees acts as the school district's policy making body and is the official representative of the people for all education and goose creek consolidated independent school district thank you miss marin my next person is susan cummings you're now unmuted [Music] thank you as a product of goose creek independent school district a current resident and a member of a family who came to goose creek in 1917 i'm asking the board of trustees to lead our school district and community into a new era of understanding intolerance by removing from buildings any name that heart that honors slave holders the confederacy or white supremacists eliminating these names will reflect more accurately the ideals of education doing so

091means looking unflinchingly into the incomplete and biased history of goose creek it also means recognizing the decades-long influence of the united daughters of confederacy on all public school books we cannot have that false history continuing to be taught racism can be subtle it can be blatant and it causes psychological and physical damages to all communities so i'm asking the board to understand that education in most 20th century public schools was meant to comfort whites not educate them and in doing so to oppress communities of color demonstrate thank you mrs cummings your time has expired thank you my next speaker cecilia nichols herds [Music] you're now muted thank you thanks for the opportunity think again all right i'm a proud member of rel class of 1984 and i want to speak to you guys about the

092committee that's being proposed there's already a very robust record upon which you can make a decision i do not believe that a committee is necessary and i'm very much against the creation of sane sometimes people forget um that racism is a system and they are a man adored by the kkk 40 seconds it was constructed in 1928 as part of must be taken down it should be part of the equity plan dr cleveland just described especially if the district actually has two campuses not allowing students to speak spanish during their free time as trustees you guys are charged with promoting the interests of the school and that's really a key point this should not be a contest for which side can get the most letters or signatures on a petition i leave you with the

093words of amelia earhart the most effective way to do it is to do it thank you thanks thank you miss heard mr fled all right my next speaker is jenny grimsley you're now unmuted hi yes i'm jenny grimsley i was a graduate of our robert e lee high school in 1985 and i bring to you the quote from maya angelou who says do the best you can until you know better then when you know better do better i think dr cleveland brought us some really good information this evening about equity and especially when he asks the question do they when someone comes from outside to look into your school district to see if there's equity then do they have equity and of course what here what appears up at the door in the one of

094the major high schools is robert e lee high school and and that is not that the name over the door says that there's not equity in the district and that can be easily remedied by knowing now what you know which is to do better and that you have the power to do better um and i think that could easily be start um to begin to have equity in the district overall thank you ms grimsley mr flood our next speaker my next speaker is kim kostek you're now unmuted good evening members of the board and dr o'brien i come to you as an active community member and friend of the district and right now i am very sad i am sad that we are discussing the importance of a committee when a short 14 months ago

095i stood in front of you of the same board and you supported committees as an appropriate route to gather accurate local data before making lasting change my 100 attendance rate of these multiple committees that were formed to focus on safety security mental health and well-being of our students allowed me to receive data that conflicts with the claims of racial oppression at lee high school imagine my surprise seeing hashtag community for a committee and i am urging you to support a new committee or an existing or add one to the existing subcommittee for the school safety committee that is designed to recommend appropriate changes and timelines to ensure safe and nurturing learning environments i am also very concerned of another hashtag mine's already made that was just made aware of me made aware to me and

096i hope that it is not true it is something a responsible choice thank you miss kostek [Music] mr flood my next speaker is lillian sockwell you're now unmuted good evening dr o'brien and trustees i'm a former pto board member mom of a gcc isd student and a tax paying resident of 30 years i'm here to urge you to vote for a committee representative of baytown's diversity to investigate the resident's wishes of renaming district facilities many in the community including myself are very concerned about the lack of financial transparency in a hurried emotional decision in 2016 hisd hurriedly voted to rename seven houston schools honoring confederate leaders and were sued by taxpayers which revealed that the cost of changes would start at over one million dollars we have teachers in our schools using personal money for

097basic classroom supplies and a few trustees want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars renaming schools while disregarding baytown's taxpayers use those funds instead to help students pursue academic excellence and college readiness we need an accurate financial accounting and conversation regarding use of our taxpayers dollars please vote for a democratic committee of community members who investigate the need for renaming district facilities thank you so much for your time thank you miss sockwell our next speaker is margaret matthews you've now admitted good evening members of the board and dr o'brien i come to you as a baytown resident taxpayer and goose creek alumni to urge you to develop a committee of community members to investigate the need for renaming district facilities to be clear oppression is systemic and institutional abuse of power by one group at

098the expense of others and the use of force to maintain this dynamic if you do not recall the school safety and security committee is a result of senate bill 11. our district has gone above and beyond by creating multiple diverse subcommittees that would have identified and address the results of the mental abuse that is claimed school board members were in agreement with having committees then so why not now please do not disregard this community you're elected to represent we want you to vote in favor a community committee thank you very much thank you miss matthews my next speaker is dina southall you're now immuted good evening members of the board and dr o'brien i am coming to you as a baytown resident and goose creek parent to urge you to develop a committee to investigate

099the need for renaming district facilities according to the tasby social media guidelines for school board members social media posts by a board member expressing an opinion on pending matters may be considered evidence of bias or prejudgment on the issue it is it also states that evidence of bias may be used to exclude the individual board member or call into question the validity of board action one board member spoke to a public talk radio podcast as a representative of the gcc isd school board he did not correct his introduction as a school board president and clearly advocated on a decision about renaming the district facility before any decision had been made there are at least two school board members that are actively advocating and are or donating funds to renaming a district facility on social media

100it is apparent these individuals are not impartial decision makers and i feel these facts should be noted by the entire board we want in favor of a community committee thank you thank you miss south hall [Music] my next speaker is rhonda lopez you're not unmuted miss lopez good evening can you hear me yes ma'am okay a dear board and dr o'brien thank you for this opportunity my name is rhonda lopez i'm a lifelong resident of baseball and a proud gander alumna of the class of 1982 and i support the changing the name of robert e lee high school this idea of changing the name in baytown is not a new one students of color and their allies have wanted this change for many many years the whitewashing of the man robert e lee and what

101he fought for has been brought to bear most recently current real students sought for the removal of a portrait of mr lee on campus thousands of current students and alumni no longer wish to be part of this charade it is time for the board to move forward and rid our community of this vestige of oppression developing a committee investigate the need to rename lee is the stalling task tactic and a way to avoid responsibility there have been numerous outcries as the great dr martin luther king jr articulated the time is always right to do what is right the students of gcc isd and bay town need this board to choose courage over comfort and move us toward a more equitable environment by naming robert thank you thank you miss lopez mr flood my next person

102is nicholas rice you are now unmuted good evening i come to you as a maytown resident and urge you to develop a committee to investigate the need for renaming district facilities following gccisd's guidelines for committee selections we request this particular committee be overseen by district administration and include a diverse group comprising community members to include students parents teachers alumni business owners and no more than two board members it is disheartening to know that in the current school safety committee of the two board members selected only one attended any meetings and his attendance was limited to the first meeting on august 29 2019 if there are truly concerns about the mental health of students in recent claims of oppression where were they when this committee was meeting whomever is chosen i urge their active participation please

103do not dismiss this community you are elected to represent we want your vote in favor of a community committee thank you [Music] thank you mr rice [Music] my next speaker is rebecca boudreau you're now unmuted good evening members of the board and dr o'brien i come to you as a current resident of baytown and a parent of gcc isd student to urge you to develop a committee of community members to investigate the need for renaming district facilities i would ask you if there is many or any claims of oppression and racial injustice why are we not actively investigating them or doing something about it two current board members are listed on our school safety and security committee booklet as members they could have presented emails and letters claims of so many of these things they

104claim there are so many questions to be addressed and answered instead they have only opted to change the name of our schools please do not dismiss this community committee idea you're elected to represent our people and we want your vote in favor of community committee thank you for your time thank you miss boudreau mr flood my next speaker is angel brazil you're now admitted good evening members of the board and dr o'brien i'm coming to you as a baytown resident goose creek alum and wife of a former goose creek teacher to urge you to develop a committee to investigate the need for renaming district facilities gccisd has numerous committees that allow constituents to have a conversation about what is best for the students it's no secret that public trust in government institutions is low but

105boards that engage their communities are involving the public in decisions and re-engaging citizens with their representative voice in public education governance the decision on reporting a district facility should be based on the findings of the committee that the weight of the decision will affect we cannot only consider emotions of one side over the other because all members of the community have strong emotions about the civil force we find ourselves in today please do not disregard the community you are elected to represent we want your favor to come in favor of a community committee thank you [Music] thank you miss brazil [Music] my next speaker is gerard martier you're now a muted to all members of the board with open hearts and open minds let us all do good be good part of the real work

106of change happens when we advocate for the youth and future generations whether it is tonight or september 9th will you be doing something that your future self would be proud of think about how avoidance perpetuates pain we cannot fix the harshness we do not face but when we address issues we grow to live better lives maya angelou put it best my mission in life is not merely to certify thrive and to do so with some passion some compassion some humor and some style follow motion tonight to address the culture inequalities and broken racial relationships and erase the systemic implicit bias invoke the procedures for the seven district trustees to place a vote tonight to cultivate the commitment culture and change the name of baytown lee thank you mr martier our next speaker mr flood our

107next speaker is emma pumerga you are now immunity hi this is emmy pumarega thank you for taking my call this evening i'm an real graduate class of 1991 gander band top 10 national merit finalist and i was admitted to yale university on the basis of my education at lee high school i had a wonderful time as a ali alum and in my high school time there and i'm calling to say that i don't believe that 30 seconds any of my happy any of my happy memories are going to be erased by renaming the school i urge the school board to vote to rename lee high school and end the legacy of jim crow which is reflected in the name it won't hurt any of us grads of it once a gander always a gander thank

108you for taking my call sorry i was muted thank you miss puma rega next speaker mr fled our next speaker is samuel woodard you're now muted hello uh god bless you all my name is samuel wood i have been a taxpaying baytown resident for the past 30 years it remains the arena of lee high school is the moral and right thing to do during my education from gccisd i was blessed to have some of the best teachers and coaches that taught me some amazing lifelong lessons but i also have some teachers and coaches teaching us under the jim crow racist era the time is now for those that want to keep the r e l name to please know and understand that you are condoning the past evils of 30 seconds changing the name will

109not erase history or the evils of slavery but the new name will help develop brighter younger amazing minds for the better of our loving world jesus christ is love to god be the glory thank you thank you time thank you mr woodard my next speaker is steve cybeck you're now unmuted good evening dr o'brien and members of the board i come to you as a gcc isd alum and grandfather of two students who urge you to develop a committee to investigate the need for remain renaming district facilities we the community employ you to follow the core values and ethical standards you promise to adhere to when taking public office if there are claims by students teachers and administrators of oppression and racial injustice then we ask for the opportunity to investigate and the time to

110make sound wise decisions are athletically motivated but relevant to our district of the 565 members of the unity group on facebook only 20 percent are listed as current baytown residents compared to our save lee page with 3093 members of which 50 are gcc isd residents that should say something please do not disregard this community you were elected to represent we want your vote in favor of a community committee thank you very much thank you mr cybeck all right my next speaker is cindy foster but you're logged in multiple times so i'm not sure which one i'm gonna unmute cindy can you hear me yes ma'am okay yeah before you start you might want to mute one of your devices other devices i don't think i have anything else [Music] yeah you've got multiple devices in

111the same room connected because we're getting feedback okay is that better yes ma'am okay i'm sorry thank you okay good evening members of the board and dr o'brien i come to you as a 1976 graduate of robert e lee high school and urge you to develop a committee to investigate the need for renaming the district facilities [Applause] i'm sorry studying for a community committee is formed does not mean you as a board are not doing your job and that you are willing to pulling for the delay tactic it means you are abiding by the tech ethical standards you agreed to when you accepted your seats it is what is right and what is responsible for should always be the community engagement as a strategic proactive opportunity to strengthen their school systems please do not dismiss

112deprived disregard the community you are elected to represent we want your vote in favor of the community committee thank you miss foster our next speaker my next speaker is virginia rogers you're now unmuted [Music] good evening members of the board and dr o'brien i come to you as a baytown resident and taxpayer to urge you to develop a committee to investigate the need for renaming district facilities a gcc isd board member stated our core values at gccisd include providing a nurturing environment for all students with integrity respect humility and transparency in an environment where divisive diversity is respected but also included in the board's core values is collaborative community and parental involvement both of which are being denied when depriving the community and parents a voice in support of our opposition to renaming this facilities

113and the use of taxpayer money the district needs to be transparent and open to community input please do not disregard this community you're elected to represent we want your vote in favor of a community committee thank you miss rogers all right my next speaker is celia cravery you're now amazing good evening i come to you as a baytown resident to urge you to develop a committee to investigate the need for renaming district facilities forming a district a diverse community to investigate the need will enable us to address desires of the community financial impact if grants would be available underlying concerns of oppression in our community historical landmark impact reducing the public and private attacks against our school board and administration allowing proper investigation to ensure that all actions taken by this board are legal unethical

114please do not dismiss this community you are elected to represent we want your vote in favor of a community committee thank you thank you miss craby mr flood our next speaker please the next speaker is kendrick griffith you're now unmuted yes can you hear me yes sir yes thank you i come to you as a member of robbery league class of 99 and a concerned baytown resident some individuals feel changing a school's name that has ties to confederacy is a current crisis when the real crisis is is this pandemic and trying to feed and raise and educate our children there is a mound of evidence in data that proves this pandemic emotionally financially and physically affects our children having hurt feelings over the name of a school is not second it's not a crisis that

115is not to say it is important and a valid topic of concern but it's a topic that can can and should wait until we can get better better figure out how to handle the current situation since this is not a crisis on par with the current pandemic there is no need to bypass a formation of a of a community committee thank you thank you mr griffith my next speaker is blake stanford you're now in muted good evening my name is blake stanford i'm a citizen of texas i'm a sixth generation texan my ancestors fought in the civil war for the confederacy in lee is a name that has been bestowed upon many of my family members i'm also a graduate of robert e lee high school in midland texas as you may know the board

116of midland independent school district recently voted to change the name of my alma mater 30 seconds uh from robert e lee to a name to be decided this is called progress and i think there are many things that may have looked fine two months ago but seem different now i would urge you to change your name as certainly you realize that robert e lee high school in baytown is the last high school named after robert e lee probably in the country thank you very much for your time thank you mr stanford my next speaker is david ryland you're now unmuted or rhythm mr ridlen can you hear us we can't hear you all right i'll go to the next speaker [Music] my next speaker is brian patterson you're now unmuted thank you to the gcc

117isd school board my name is brian patterson robert e lee class of 1999 i'd like to thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address you this is truly an important time for our school district our community and our country we're fighting global academic and in the same regard another battle continues for the equality of all americans just like this adversity workshop a dialogue in exchange needs to continue about what's wrong in our country it's time to do what's right and i fully support the renaming of robert e lee high school in addition i vehemently oppose agenda item 4b and encourage the board to take full responsibility instead of a committee for this decision as elected officials should it would only delay a decision in spite of the affirmation making it obvious that the choice

118to rename to be so clear to act upon it's time to eliminate the name thank you and i yield my time to the next speaker thank you mr patterson my next speaker is kindle merit you're now unmuted okay hello can you guys hear me yes okay good evening members of the board and dr o'brien i come to you as a former student to urge you to develop a committee to investigate the need for renaming district facilities on november 7 2019 a member of district administration requested the attendees of the school safety and security committee to provide questions relating to school and safety concerns gcc isd sent anonymous surveys to multiple junior highs and high schools including robert e lee to be completed by students campus administration and district administration the data was complied and presented

119at the february 6 2020 meeting and showed no mention of feelings or oppression of racial injustice we question when active board members receiving emails claimed recent oppression as it is apparent this request to rename is politically motivated and not due to specific instances within our district please do not dismiss deprive disregard this community you're elected to represent we want your vote in favor of a community committee thank you for your time thank you miss merritt i'm going to try david reedlin again mr elaine are you there yes i'm there can you hear me yes sir go ahead good evening members of the uh of the board and dr o'brien i come to you this evening to urge you to develop a committee to investigate the need for renaming district facilities a committee is aboard a

120person's delegated consider investigate and take action on tasks that require an assembly it is an ongoing collaborative process which the district works with the public to build understanding guidance and active involvement and education 36 creating a diverse community committee will determine the boundaries of which facilities need to be changed which do not and the best way to go about implementing change please do not dismiss disregard this community you're elected to represent we want your vote in favor of a community committee i'm a lifelong resident of baytown and a product of goose creek independence school district grades 1 through 12. thank you for listening thank you hi thank you mr riedlin my next speaker is kadia smith you're now unmuted baby members of the board and dr ryan i'll come to you as a sophomore at

121robert e lee high school that walks the halls individuals claim are full of racial oppression to tell you that this is not true i feel confident you can vote for forming a diverse community committee to investigate the needs that we'll be able to address when desires of the community two financial impacts three if grants would be available four underlying needs of oppression in our community five historical landmark impacts six reducing the public and private attacks of our school 36 administration seven allowing proper investigation to ensure that all actions taken by this board are legal and ethical i beg of you to please do not deprive this community community you are elected to represent we want your vote in favor of a community a community committee to investigate if the names of district facilities need to

122be changed thank you for your time thank you thank you miss smith [Music] my next speaker is adrian tanner you are now unmuted yes can you hear me yes ma'am thank you and good evening for your time i am a gcc alum a 1990 graduate of lee and i was senior class secretary for my class i am encouraging the members of this board not to place the consideration investigation regarding the renaming of lee high school on the shoulders of the committee the com of the community the community was not elected to uphold and actualize the mission and core values of gccisd you all were the mission of gccisd states that it is committed to developing the whole child and core values reference things like children first in a safe and nurturing educational environment and diversity

123respected but how much respect are you showing children when you place them in the name of a school that bears the name of a man who didn't even believe that black children deserve to be treated as human beings it is not lost on me that renaming the school the sensitive subject but it doesn't mean that the conversation and corrective action should be ignored no one wants to erase a fond memory or a clash accomplishment of a classmate good times or camaraderie experience that is called being a gander but make no mistake the name robert does in fact taint the experience for black students thank you miss tanner my next speaker is danielle devore you're now on muted hi yes my name is danielle devore i am a resident of baytown and also a graduate of

124lee high school class of 2001 i asked the board member to take the recommendations made by dr cleveland in which he stated that leadership shaped the climate and culture at a school i know that this is not an ideal time to discuss changing the name but if not now then when so i ask you to vote in favor for a committee to investigate a name change for district facilities thank you for listening thank you miss devore my next speaker is janet harrelson it looks like you're connected a couple of times so i'm going to unmute one and see if it works yes yes yeah you may want to disconnect one of your other ones see i don't have anything else are you still there pictures that when i try to disconnect one it disconnects both

125okay nope you're good go ahead okay uh good evening members of the board i'm dr o'brien thank you for your service i come to you as a long time and still current baytonian proud gander class of 70 homeowner taxpayer you're you're breaking up miss harrelson we can't hear you we're losing you process as i've listened this evening to you tonight it has become clear that it's not the name it's the problem there was no racism when i was a student at robert e lee changing the name will not change the thoughts and attitudes of those practicing racism today please do not choose to disregard this community you're elected to represent too many voices have said leave our schools alone we want your vote in favor of a community committee to identify all questions and concerns

126prior to facing the unknown thank you so much thank you miss harrelson [Music] my next speaker is cynthia pizana you're now unmuted hello um i just want to speak about this committee that's on the agenda um i'm here really to encourage you all to vote no on this committee i really do feel that this committee is really just a way for you guys to stall on this decision uh you guys were elected to make this decision you already know it's time to d name and rename robert e lee high school um from the last meeting it seems to me y'all have to rename another building and i really would like to make you guys aware of a gofundme uh that was created by the community to offset these costs um that will incur for this

127project um a wise woman once told me that there are some things whose worth cannot be measured in dollars and cents and this is one of those aspects thank you miss pizana my next speaker is felicia young you're now immune um good evening thank you for letting me speak tonight i'm a lifelong resident of highlands and a graduate of goose creek from 2008 you know we know that the the name of robert elise high school was pushed by jim crow era laws and sentiment including um the kkk uh huge at the time in baytown and we know that we had the last high school in the country that still bears this name the time is uh now for white beetonians to stop pretending that racism doesn't exist to stop talking over black and brown people

128who have spoke on their experience and i ask you to move forward in as as your authority as the elected board to change the name without delay without the need for a committee and do what is right and correct and not to delay or defu justice uh you have heard from our community you know that this is what we we want um and and i ask you to consider uh changing the names of other offending schools as well including ross sterling which was uh a member of the kkk thank you again and uh uh please move forward to change the traditions as we have in the past with the brigadiers thank you thank you miss young my next speaker is joe theory can you hear me yes sir okay good evening dr o'brien and the

129board members my name is joe theory i'm a 1988 graduate of robert e lee a resident of baytown for 50 years i do support the change of the name of robert e lee for 92 years robert e lee has existed under a distorted history district members please do your elected duty and make a decision regarding renaming robert e lee there's no need to develop a committee as a man of color racism is felt in many ways and i'm reluctant to believe anybody that says different the doctor cleveland just mentioned racism in society is racism in school thank you for your time and i appreciate you considering renaming robert e lee thank you mr theory my next speaker is herman hopson you're now unmuted hello can you hear me yes okay good evening board members and

130dr o'brien my name is herman hopson i'm a gander alumni class of 2015. as you know the issue before us is a historical issue a heritage issue a financial issue a demographics issue a numbers issue and a memories issue but most importantly it's a morality issue tonight i implore you to do about one thing look within yourselves and see what kinds of human beings you want to be remembered as the facts are that lee fought to maintain slavery to keep black people in bondage to ensure the black minds and soul to have the right to rape and impregnate black women to sell black families and keep them apart and to keep black americans illiterate so that we cannot fight battles just like the one we stand here fighting today the moral issue is this will

131you continue to honor a man of oppression and have a blight on the gcc isd name by having a school with an offensive morally decadent name i implore you to change the name now because remember this what you don't change you choose and do you really want to sense the side of a slaver um thank you mr hopson the next speaker is daisy moses you're now unmuted hello hello we can hear you okay good evening my name is daisy moses and i am a 2017 graduate from lee instead of speaking on my various accolades or memories from the four years i was there i will be directing your attention to the agenda action item 4b the same power that was voted on invested in every board member for example cutting the citizens speaking time from

132three minutes to one minute in la in the meeting should be the very same power that votes on the denaming of the school a system cannot fail those that it was never designed to protect and the powerpoint presentation on the history of robert e lee high school left out exactly which community voted on the name and who it was built to serve the non-black community this is a fact that does not need a committee and was failed to be presented accurately i support changing the name of robert e lee high school and ask that you do the same may the quote injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere from martin luther king jr remind you of the core principles of your duties thank you thank you miss moses my next speaker is neil hernandez

133you're now unmuted thank you good evening to all remember i had a diversity workshop today you have to pay attention to the lack of diversity from those calling for this sham committee agenda item 4b should be rejected it was never discussed in last week's meeting we already have a citizens committee it's you the school board we elect you for these very reasons and i trust that each and every one of you are capable of executing your duties diligently and honorably besides students parents community members and alumni have already investigated this issue and made their desires to rename the school public there's a petition with nearly 4 000 signatures on change.org and just this year lee students actual students organize the startup petition to remove the portraits of generally from campus what more do you need

134members 42 miles away from beethoven is the home of juneteenth galveston texas 42 miles away and 155 years later we're debating if we should honor a general who tried to enslave the our neighbors ancestors you know what the right thing is to do you don't need me to tell you that thank you and i yield my time thank you mr hernandez my next speaker is takalisha blanchard you're now unmuted [Music] miss blanchard can you hear us we're not hearing you [Music] here yes ma'am okay i'm sorry evening i'll be utilizing my time to address agenda item 4b a committee by definition is a group of people appointed for a specific function typically consisting of members of a larger group community members are not a larger group of trustees rather they are constituents who have already

135played their role by electing those voices who they felt correlated with their ideologies according to the district website the board acts officially as a committee of the whole it begs the question as to what need is therefore to form an additional committee to form a committee of community members leaves open much ambiguity who will authorize the appointment of these members will there be representation how much weight does the committee hold in the decision-making process given this factually based information i ask that no community formed rather simply a vote from the seven elected officials whose job description details this is their role we have a committee that is you thank you i yield my time thank you miss blanchard my next speaker is randy dunn you're now unmuted thank you and good evening i'm randy dunn

136robert e lee high school class of 1976. just as steps have been taken to minimize threats from the coronavirus pandemic so much also so must steps be taken to minimize threats from this ongoing pandemic of systemic racism and social injustice there is an urgent need to rename robert e lee high school as an important first step in protecting students from this long-running pandemic i support the school name change which is what is best 30 seconds for all of the students and it is morally the right thing to do we need to remove things that disenfranchise our students as dr cleveland said tonight there has been plenty of public input and discussion regarding renaming lee high school so the school board should be ready to act on this matter now i encourage the school board to

137take responsibility of acting on this decision as elected as elected officials should so i oppose the agenda item 4b this name change is needed immediately to improve safety well-being and success of all the district students thank you mr dunn my next speaker is charles cruz you're now defeated [Music] mike check yep 1807 robert e lee born in virginia attended military academy at west point new york china is a lieutenant in the corps of engineers 1866-1848 captain lee's first combat duty in the mexican-american war robert e lee participated in scott's campaign from veracruz mexico to mexico mexico city this is a war in which lee fought and won in 52 to 1859 robert e lee serves as superintendent of west point 1860 lieutenant colonel lee sent to fort near current day brownsville texas 1860 lincoln president

138november south carolina first to secede in december 1861 january mississippi florida alabama georgia louisiana siege february texas seeds lee returns to virginia rather than serve in the confederacy 1861 march lee appointed colonel of u.s first cavalry regiment by president lincoln's square the united states of america april 20th colonel robert e lee resigns from the united states army to become a traitor change the name we do not honor traders thank you mr cruz [Music] madam president we are down to um we tried to contact everybody i do have on here sarah graham but i have multiple people that are just signed in with just sarah on their first name so if you want to start with the letters and we'll try to reach out to her or how do you want to proceed or what do

139you want to do um i would take a recommendation for a five-minute break before we start the letters okay and that'll give you a minute to try to contact those in us a minute too you second that recommendation okay yes we'll be back five minutes don't go away my apologies to everyone for the delay in return we had some technical and legal issues so we are prepared to hear another citizen's participation live mr fled i leave it to you yes ma'am sarah graham you uh your immunity can now start your talk mr sampson if you'll keep time got you miss graham we're not hearing you um are you are you there are you unmuted on your end still not hearing you miss graham hello can you all hear me oh there you are yes ma'am

140i'm here that was like the longest break on record so sorry all right are y'all ready for me to speak yes ma'am you begin when you're ready hello board dr o'brien baytown former students and everybody in between this is sarah graham and i come to you as a vested citizen for all ethnic backgrounds but i also come to you as a scientist seeking facts not opinion i am urging you to develop a committee and vote yes for 4b guys you do need to do what is morally ethically and quite frankly legally right for this town to quote bullet points that i pulled from the gccisd board member ethical standards number one i will base my decisions on fact rather than supposition opinion or public favor i will make no personal promises or take private action

141that may compromise my performance or my responsibilities i will consistently uphold all applicable laws rules policies and governance guys do not dismiss deprived disregard this community your elected officials we want you to vote in favor of that community committee do what is right i love you guys y'all are working hard on this but listen hashtag community for a committee mind already made what's right your time's up thank you miss graham fled did we have any others on the video conference submission no ma'am i think that completes our list okay at this point in time we have heard from all who wish to be heard live on video telecommunications due to the overwhelming number of written submissions i defer to our public participation information which states that you may submit your written comment provided by email

142sub written comments submitted to the board for consideration on enter on any general item or any agenda item via email by 3 pm of the day of respected board meeting board meeting i'm sorry i've had coffee um we at this time are not going to read all 160 emails that we received we let it be known that receiving and reviewing these emails by each board member from the public before or during the board's consideration of the item constitutes hearing public comment because of the number of emails that we've received we will each be given a copy of the ones that were sent through publicparticipation.com so that we may further review them and consider them before any action would be taken on a agenda item related to said emails at this time i move us on

143to agenda item number four action items dr o'brien you're muted we're sit yeah we're still not hearing you you're unmuted but you're not vocal hang on thank you there you are yes sir thank you at this time administration recommends the consideration of the foreign trade zone agreement with a and r logistics incorporated in its approval a second i have a motion from mr laredo on agenda item 4a consideration a foreign trade zone agreement with a r logistics do i have a second i check it i'm sorry was that mr poppy okay so a motion for mr laredo a second from mr poppy do we have any discussion or questions concerning the consideration of a foreign trade zone agreement no questions no comment at this time all board members in favor of this motion please raise

144your right hand or say i uh we have seven four that would leave zero against and zero abstaining motion passes on agenda item four b the consideration to develop a committee of community members to investigate the need for renaming district facilities i would entertain a motion to move this to a future agenda so that public participation comments submitted in written form can be considered before any action on this item agenda item is taken do i need to make them do i need a motion to move that i think it's my discretion just in case i would move that we hear or move that action item 4b to the september 8th meeting now september 9th september next meeting september x meeting okay yes i'll second that yeah so we have a motion from mr klim and

145a second from mrs guy to defer okay continue this agenda item to a later meeting providing for expanded opportunity for public comment all right um any my emotions discussions okay specifically the next meeting yes specifically to september 9th all right september x okay is there any questions or further comments on the agenda the motion made by mr clem question yes sir mr sampson aren't we uh don't we have a standing procedure for uh naming schools and stuff that's already in our uh board pack i mean board uh book forming committees is part of that policy no yeah no yeah no um we are okay so that's not relevant to the motion that's on the floor so why is it not relevant that we have a policy already of name in school of naming but we're

146discussing renaming and those do not fall under the same purview well it has renaming and naming but they um we have separate policies for naming and and renaming um didn't find one that's uh that's under our cw local and our uh board policy okay whatever you say okay so i have a motion on the floor from mr klim and i had a second from this guy so at this time all members in favor of motion on the floor please raise your right hand that's one two three four okay so they're i'm counting on the screen here one okay raise your right hand i'm sorry all all in favor one two three four four on any opposed raise your right hand we have two opposed and one abstention so motion passes as presented all right that

147is all of number four on the agenda we would move to number five i would understand mrs woods i have one one thing to share okay uh it'll be on the september 9th board meeting uh formally but i did want to give a shout out to one of our business partners who has made a donation to goose creek cisd to the covid relief fund uh exxonmobil's made a donation pallets of sanitizer and financial contributions that will assist the school district as we move into the start of the new school year and i wanted to give them a shout out and appreciation for their thoughtfulness during a time in which we're all struggling they're focused on our children and what we can do to keep our children and our faculty safe and i wanted to thank

148them for their business partnership thank you thank you exxonmobil all right so i will entertain a motion for agenda item number five are you serious mutiny on the bounty thank you mr laredo we have a motion to adjourn do we have a second second by mr cotter all in favor raise your right hand any opposed meeting adjourned 902 pm