09-08-20 ASD School Board Meeting

001Madam President, we are live. Thank you. We are going to go ahead and call to order the Tuesday, September 8, 2020, regular school board meeting of the Anchorage School District. At this time, we do have all board members in attendance virtually, Dr. Bishop and several members of the administration. I'm going to ask Board Member Holloman if he would please do our flag salute tonight. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Member Holloman. The Board is honored to acknowledge that our community resides on the traditional land of the Dena'ina people, both past and present. It is with gratitude that we honor the land itself and the people who have cared

002for it throughout the generations. We want to welcome you to our virtual meeting during this COVID-19 crisis and thank you for supporting the work of the Anchorage School District. The mission of this district is educating all students for success in life. At this time, I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda. I move to approve the agenda as presented. I second that. I have a first by Member Hallman and a second by Member Mitchell. And I believe there was a proposed amendment to the agenda. Yes, Madam Chair. Yes. I move to remove non-agenda item H4, placeholder for the resolution in support of the state's use of estimated student count data to fund K-12 public education for the fiscal year 2021. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. All right thank you. All in favor

003of the amendment um go about this the other way. Is there anybody opposed to this amendment? Seeing and hearing none. Is there any opposition to the agenda as amended? Seeing and hearing none we do have an amended agenda to move forward. Next up on the agenda under a newly titled section called community engagement. We have the first item is our board conference and committee reports. First one up is member Marcet with the finance committee. We have not met since the last finance committee that I gave a report on. Our next meeting is on the 22nd, which is our next school board meeting. And it'll be just prior to that. Perfect. Thank you. I have member Bellamy with the communications committee. Yes, Madam Chair, we have not met since our last meeting either. Our next meeting

004will be next week on the 15th at 4.30. And during that meeting, we will look at, continue with our legislative priorities, as well as begin to look at the ASBA, Alaska School Board Association resolutions. Thank you. And Member Hildy, the Chair of the Governance Committee. Thank you. We met on August 21st and we went through the superintendent evaluation and timeline. So the board should be seeing that at the next board meeting. We will have at our next meeting, Marcelle presenting on community invitation and purchase tickets. Members Mitchell and Bellamy presenting on a proposed anti-racism policy. And then we'll be reviewing the 5000 series from our June meeting that kind of went through it in cold. just questions. So I'll be going on our next meeting is September 15th at 3.30 p.m. Thank you. We also

005have an ad hoc committee, the strategic planning committee. Member Marced, did you want to just touch on that one real quick? On the meeting that we just had? Yeah. Basically, we're looking at our three goals and the timelines on our goals. It's been suggested that we move our five-year goal out one more year because of the pandemic, and we'll be looking at our baselines for those goals. Also, we have our four guardrails that we are going to move forward on. item will be for the superintendent to come back with baselines and dates and how those are going to be met and she'll present that to the board and then we'll move that out to the public for comments. Thank you very much. I don't believe we've had any conferences any time recently. We do have

006coming up is the fall conference, the fall AASV conference. It will be virtual, and I believe there are several members and administration signed up for that. and so looking forward to you know hearing what everybody's feedback is from that and how that works out and if I can just miss mckayless if I could just state also at that time we may be introducing our new executive director we are accepting applications for that currently thank you so next up on our agenda it's a new item it's community outreach and When we met as a board for our July retreat, and we talked about how we want to evaluate ourselves as a board and that, you know, we are supposed to be working with the community to, you know, be there, you know, hear the vision and

007the values and, you know, connect all of this together. One of the things that we wanted to do as part of our meetings is talk about things that we've done out in the community and how we're it's kind of a new place for this and so I understand if between school starting and community councils a lot of them don't even you know traditionally start until September. So I understand there's a lot going on, but that's the purpose of this section right here for community outreach is to talk about what we're hearing and different places that we're going to in a way that, you know, if somebody has other ideas of what's out there that we might be missing, it's a good time to have that so that we are truly getting out as broadly as

008we can. And so if anybody had anything that they wanted to offer for our community outreach session, I see your hand, but only because I got really lucky. Member Marcek, go ahead. I have attended several community council meetings. Of course, the question is that I keep hearing is when, you know, will we have students back in school? Not that they want us to be unsafe, but. You know, they were looking at the reduction in cases, but I know we just had 126 the other day. So that brought it back up. But those are questions I'm hearing. And then I did attend the Black Lives Matters rally yesterday. So I did hear from students that attend our schools and what they're talking about is systemic racism. And of course, within our schools. we are very much

009aware um and um and are advocating for equity um for all of our students at all times so that is something that we work on consistently but that's uh the only uh two community councils i have another one tomorrow and that's the things that i'm hearing currently Thank you. Next up, I see member Bellamy's hand raised. Yes, thank you. I did join member Marcet for the panel on youth athletes and racism. That was a great community conversation, very insightful. They were not just ASD kids, they were also private school kids. And then other activities I engaged in, I participated as a panelist on a conversation on culturally responsive teaching in the age of Black Lives Matter. That was sponsored by the Alaska Black Caucus. And I was one of six panelists, I believe, from various

010agencies. One was the Oh, ESL, I forget, and McKay Bryson. She works with Castles. And so she was on the panel. We had a couple of professors from UAA. We also had a couple of people from the ASD also on that panel. It was a great panel. I attended the Alaska Native Advisory Committee. Those are live streamed. And I was lucky to get in on that. I didn't realize it was live streamed until I found it. But it was great. And on the state level, I participated in several AASB webinars. One on school safety. Safe school opening or reopening. And of course, on the resolutions that we're going to talk about next week. Most of my community councils were on hiatus for a few months. Last week, I had one with university area. And this

011week, I don't have any this week, actually. Then next week, I'll have five more. So thank you. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I don't see any other hands raised in the queue, but this is the point of this. So as we move forward, as board members just want to bring some of the things they're doing and hearing about, I think hopefully we'll have a good positive impact as we move forward. So next up, we're going to do goal monitoring, and we've got a lot under that. I'm going to go ahead and turn this over to Dr. Bishop. The first item is the enrollment update. And Dr. Bishop, the floor is yours. Thank you, Madam President. School board is as requested. This time in our agenda is generally used for student data updates towards our goals.

012However, as we're getting those strategic plans situated, we have other data to share with the board. As with other meetings over the last two months, we've shared enrollment data. During the superintendent report today, the chief financial officer, Jim Anderson, will review these data as well and move into the financial impact of them. However, to begin, We wanted to take a look at the trend over the last three years in regard to the date of today as in relation to those similar school days in prior years. And as you can see, the past few years of September 8th have been much higher than the present number in regard to enrollment. Next slide. The next question that generally comes from looking at those data is where are the students and where have they landed in regard to

013our state? And so if you take a look at other Alaska school districts, the places that have put in for records requests that do come from the institution itself, the school district. The schools within those school districts are different places in Alaska. You can see 443 students did move to other districts. In-state correspondence, Raven and IDEA are the primary largest traditional correspondence schools in Alaska. However, newer ones also picked up some of ASD students. 425 out of state and then of course the private schools are listed there as well. Of the 5,000 students who have unenrolled, three records requests have been filled. And to give a picture of the remaining students who are in ASD. These are the data that breaks them down in the different areas of schooling for which parents have chosen. The

014neighborhood schools, which presently is in the high-risk status learning online, is a little over 36,000. The virtual program has studied at about 3,300. And again, this is a virtual homeschool. uh where parents lead and then of course uh 2600 are in our three different home schools which again are traditional homeschools some using electronic means some not using electronic means which are family partnership frontier and and padea so these are the data and i did want to share in conversations with the other large five school districts all Our increasing reduced from projection for the five districts are reduction not only from projections, but from enrollment last year and in conversation, just so you know, our enrollment decreases about 9% Fairbank shared 10%. Kenai very similar about 10 as we are as well as Juneau. Mat-Su was

015only about 300 perhaps under just from their enrollment but not from their enrollment last year they had projected an increase. So all of the large school districts have had a change or a transition in enrollment in Alaska. And we'll go into again the understanding and the implications for that enrollment change in the superintendent report when we discuss the revenue and the finances behind that. Another request from the school board in regard to data and monitoring, which we thought would be of interest. And I'm going to ask for the assistance of our Mike Fleckenstein, chief information officer, and he will review the technology update. And I encourage you, if you have any questions while he is live with us, to please be sure to ask. Mike? Hi, good evening, board. My name is Mike Fleggenstein. I'm

016the district's chief information officer. And quickly in front of you, what you see is really what we've distributed so far from both a Chromebook and a connectivity perspective. And so as of this morning, we had about 21,675 Chromebooks out in the hands of kids. And we had about 3,195 connections created for kids to the Internet. Of that, there are a few outstanding connections that are working through the process so that they get installed. by GCI. And then we have about 700 additional requests for Chromebooks that will be done by the end of the day tomorrow. And then we're really only looking at a small number of folks that we're trying to re-deliver to because they were not available as we came around the first time. And so that's sort of the status of where we're

017at from a device and connectivity standpoint. And I would be happy to answer any questions that you might have. Thank you. I've got member Marcet with her hand raised. So, Ann, this might not be a question for you, Mike, but have we exceeded the dollar amount that we had set aside for Chromebooks? Are we looking at purchasing more Chromebooks? Where are we at in that? At this point, we have not exceeded any dollar amounts that either the board or the budget allotted for Chromebooks. We do have an additional about 10,000 Chromebooks that are on their way in, and that's still all within the initial budget. About 6,000 of those have started to make their way to Alaska right now from initial configuration of level 48. And we expect to have the rest of that probably

018by the end of the month. uh with those then uh you know we're almost out of the chromebooks we've had at schools that we've kind of distributed almost everything and so the next uh the next step in that process is to look at um where where we look to distribute additional to support the one-to-one effort and where we hold back some of those devices where there's not a need to try to support any in-school activities that may happen in small groups and that sort of thing thank you Next up in the queue, I have Board Member Bellamy. Yes. Thank you, Mike. So if a family at this point does not have a Chromebook, the reason for that in your experience is what? That we were just not able to deliver it or they did not

019request it? What do you think? I hear from people that they have requested and have not received. So it takes about three days for us to turn around a request right now. And so that's the average time frame for someone to get a Chromebook. You know, there's been onesies, twosies here that I've looked into where there was some miscommunication where maybe they made a request to the school and the school didn't finalize the request and it get to us or they made a request somewhere else and it just didn't get in the queue. Those are fairly small numbers, and then we troubleshoot those and move them forward. I think what I would say at this point is that if anybody... has for a Chromebook and they feel like they've been stuck or they're waiting that

020they can call their school and we will get them one right out. We've been hand delivering one-offs in any of those instances where there's an issue. You know, today there was an issue around connectivity and when we looked into it, you know, the person had had some problems with the connectivity they were provided and then in fact even had a device that was sent to them in the mail that likely was stolen off their front porch. And so And so we hand delivered a device to that person and made sure that they were successful today so that they didn't have any additional issues. And so I would say that we have the ability to meet the need for anybody that has that need. Okay. Thank you. All right. I'm not seeing any other hands up

021at this time. So I appreciate the monitoring numbers and we will continue to get more as we go through the conversation. Moving on, on our agenda. Madam President, I did see Member Holloman with his hand up. I did just want to clarify because some people are asking and it's in relation to a radio interview. Are there any plans for a start back date? I think I know the answer to this, but I am asking just so it's out there in public. Do we have a plan for a start back date for any of the grade levels at this point? Yes. Member Holloman, if I could do that in the superintendent update to share some information. That would be fine. Thank you. All right. Perfect. Moving on in our agenda. We are doing public testimony, so

022I'm going to read a brief statement. The board welcomes public comment on non-agenda and non-action items. We value public comment as it ensures that we bring thoughts, ideas, and concerns and informs our decision-making process. The school board encourages anyone wishing to provide public testimony to sign up in advance for telephonic testimony or to email written comments by 2 p.m. the day of the meeting. These comments will become part of the meeting record. There is a one-hour time slot at the beginning of the meeting, and testimony in excess of one hour will be heard at the end of the meeting or may be submitted in writing. If you have signed up in advance for telephonic testimony and received directions on how to connect, you will be called on to testify in the order that you signed

023up. You will have three minutes to testify. When 30 seconds remain, a chime will ring to inform you so that you can finish your sentence. Additionally, it is not our practice that board members answer questions or engage in discussion with members of the public. This is your time to speak and our time to listen. The board will consider all information shared by the public and when deemed necessary issues raised in testimony will be referred to administration for follow-up. So first. Madam President. Yes. I do want to share with the board that while we have been doing the goal monitoring, the IT department is troubleshooting the call-in number. So many folks who are calling in, I'm sure, might be also watching on YouTube. uh you previously may have received a 1-800 number there seems to be

024difficulty not just with our 1-800 number but with all 1-800 numbers as we're tracking this down an alternate number has been sent out so if you initially cannot get in please look at your email for that additional number just wanted to announce that thank you thank you very much and i'm going through and i've got them checked and so if i miss them or if i don't see them in the queue i will come back up to them as well thank you for that heads up So first up in the queue is Daniel Kemp. Daniel, are you with us tonight? Okay. Can you hear me? I sure can. You've got three minutes and the floor is yours. Okay. Thank you. Good evening, school board and Dr. Bishop. My name is Daniel Kemp. I am a

025retired Army combat officer. and a current teacher here in the Anchorage School District. I have a few issues I would like to discuss with you and hope not to take too much time today. My first issue is the renaming of East High School after the late great Senator Bertie Davis. Now, co-joins, I know that East High School has not been decided yet. But I want to be as forceful as I can to try to move this conversation forward in an expeditious manner. Because I think that East High School is the perfect and most logical location to name a facility after one of Alaska's most beloved stateswomen. So, yeah, we need to get this moving. There should be no delays. We can walk and chew gum at the same time. All right. Everybody's smart enough to

026do this. Okay. So let's not delay and hem and haw on Senator Davis anymore. My second issue is with school resource officers. As you know, well, this school board and lots of folks know my opinion on this, but I'll state it here today that I believe that we need to remove school resource officers from. from our school. You know, parents, I know a lot of parents that don't feel safe with school resource officers in our school. And it, just the presence, not to discourage police officers, but it is just... You know, we're all too familiar with the school-to-prison pipeline, and that just does nothing but exacerbate the problem. And I just think that it is high time for SROs to go from our schools. The last issue is inequity in schools, in particular the lack

027of diversity in our certified teacher ranks. Black folks are roughly... 3%, maybe 4% of Alaska's population and 15% of the United States population, but only 1% of all ASD certified teachers. Indigenous people, about 20% of the state's population, but only 1% of all certified teachers. These teacher disparities... are pretty much constant and consistent across the board for black indigenous people of color. So we need to do something. I can tell you right now, I am working with the AEA to come up with a new contract negotiation and bargaining agreement for 21 through 24 so that we will have more diversity in our teacher ranks. Thank you very much for your time and have a good night. Thank you very much for your testimony tonight. Next up in the queue, I have Rihanna Gay. Rihanna, are

028you with us tonight? I see her, but I see her on mute. Is there, Rihanna, are you with us tonight? Yes, I'm here. I had to, I'm here. I had to unmute. Can you hear me? I sure can. Thank you. You've got three minutes and the floor is yours. My name is Rihanna and I am speaking on behalf of myself and a friend named Donna Bozeman. Now wanted me to share that as a 62 year resident of Anchorage, I know Miss Davis's reputation to be beyond reproach. I assume we all are in agreement or there would be no discussion on how we should honor her legacy. I was brought up to give flowers to the living. The discussion is how are we going to honor Ms. Davis's legacy? Her legacy is very much alive. You

029will find in the memory of every student, parent, person she connected with, every graduation she attended. Give her her honors she so richly deserves. Name the school the Betty Davis High School. To do less is to give her a legacy of the Ferns instead of a full bouquet. Honor her fully or don't do it at all. Respectfully, Donna Bozeman. And now I am speaking on behalf of myself. Understand it comes with a cost. Don't fret thinking all is lost. Local organizations can help raise money for such positive name change. Some name changes are needed to grow and to show others who have past exceeded. Adjustments to logos, signage, and scoreboards, a huge token to honor her legacy. Yes, like some sort of award. Definition of her name. Betty, Betty, a lovely day. Betty means pledge

030to God. She took it upon herself to pledge to her community, God's people. Let's not put a price on Betty's past words of advice. Her passion for our Alaska community, specifically devoted to education, children's issues, women's rights, and healthcare relations. What benefits will a new name bring? Growth, opportunity, and confidence is what some may think. Let's be strategic. I have several SMART goals that I will share. S, specific, modify East into Betty Davis East High School. M, measurable, external and internal surveyors. Some, I'm guessing, are already done. A, attainable, a team of stakeholders and local organizations to help. R, yes, it is relevant to include local public representation. T, timeframe, one to two years. As our leaders, this is a move to share to the community that you hear us. Understand and we'll do something

031about it. If not us, then who? If not now, then when? ASB, you have been very helpful. Let's continue to get into good trouble. Thank you. I am done. Thank you. Next up in the queue, wait for the timer to turn off there. There we go. Next up in the queue is Patrick Freeman. Patrick, are you with us this evening? Patrick? Hi. Yeah, this is Patrick Freeman. Hi, thank you. You have three minutes and the floor is yours. Good evening, Anchorage School Board and ASD leadership. I am Patrick Freeman, principal of Willard Bowman Elementary, president of the Anchorage Principal Association. I'm a product of the Anchorage School District and have been a 23-year educator in the Anchorage School District as a principal and teacher at a number of different schools and very proud of it.

032I come from a family of educators who taught for the Anchorage School District. My children attend our public schools. My wife is also a product of this district, educator of many years and leads an elementary school in Anchorage. All of this history and knowledge brings great perspective of where we were a couple of years ago, where we are today, and where we need to be. For the last couple of days, through emails and written and verbal testimony tonight, you will hear from a number of school leaders in Anchorage. I hope their words resonate with you all. Many of them are nervous to speak out due to retaliation, but they now understand it's time to stand up for themselves. Your principals are fed up with a lack of respect and appreciation for what they do. We

033have began another year without a percentage raised, which marks the fourth straight year. Despite this, we have continued to lead through some of the toughest times for schools that include a devastating earthquake and an ongoing worldwide pandemic. Our job has increased significantly in stress and responsibility due to these events and ongoing changing community educational demands. The Anchorage School Board and ASD leadership have minimalized what principals do to the point that the trust that we have had with administration is null and void. When I have personally asked fellow school board members and ASD leadership on separate important district decisions if they spoke with principals, the common answer is no or maybe we should have done that. Blame for poor decisions in the district is constantly shifted from the school board to different members of ASD leadership.

034No one wants to take ownership of these decisions and probably all will blame all the other person. A top-down style of leadership is driving our district down a path where shared leadership is a distant memory. The lack of effective communication, overall trust, principal involvement, and a backwards way of getting principal input has made school leaders feel like the school board members and ASD leadership have no idea what we do or care about what we do these days. Because if you really knew the level of leadership needed to lead our schools during these times, your appreciation would be shown through your actions, not words. Similar to what principals do for own staffs. principals know without their own staff's trust and buy-in on school decisions student success can't happen the principal voice should be the one the

035districts listen to because we know our communities like no one else with 140 principals the district has a plethora of knowledge that they can continue to ignore all the initiatives protocols policies set forth by the school board and asd leadership are only successful if you have principals Principals will keep the focus on our schools and students that can continue to move forward. We will model professionalism, positivity, and shared leadership with our communities in spite of the lack of good faith we have received over the course of the expired contract that we continue to work on. It's time for the Anchorage School Board and ASD leadership to hear our voices and make things right with principals. Making things right includes settling a fair contract that owns past leadership decisions and words spoken to principals and rethinks

036how we are involved in the decision-making process in this district. I appreciate your time. Madam President, you're muted. Sorry. Next up is Frank Hauser. Frank, are you with us tonight? I am. Can you hear me? Yes, I sure can. You've got three minutes and the floor is yours. Thank you. My name is Frank Hauser. I've been a teacher and principal with ASD for 22 years and was the 2019 High School Principal of the Year for the state of Alaska. I'm going to talk to you today about the bottom line. Here's the bottom line from the Seminole Leadership Matters study. Quote, investments in good principles are a particularly cost-effective way to improve teaching and learning, end quote. Principals and ASD are especially cost effective because some principals earn less pay than the teachers we supervise. Research

037shows the two most important factors in educational improvement are teachers and principals. Quote, we know that the principal and the teacher are so powerful, it's not the administrator, end quote. Yet for the last few years, ASD has charted a different course, cutting principals so that ASD high schools now have the highest ratio. of students to principals in the state, adding expensive administrators at the district office in historically unprecedented numbers and excluding principals from decisions that affect our schools and the communities they know best. Let's look at how this impacts the bottom line. Let's look at ASD Virtual. That program is being run out of the district office, not out of schools, and it's taking more teachers, nearly twice as many as the high school level, to teach fewer students than when principals ran an Apex-based

038program out of their schools. Without school-based principal expertise in scheduling teachers, classes, and students, ASD Virtual is costing the district more teachers to teach fewer students. Some students in ASD Virtual didn't even have their schedules for the first week of school. Some virtual teachers had an entirely new batch of students enrolled in their classes last Friday. What did that cost the district? Here's two moms on the ASD Facebook page. One writes, is it too late to switch out of the virtual program? I'm beyond frustrated and just let my kids go play. She was almost in frustrated tears. This is not how she wants to learn. Another mom responded, I hear you. My little guy was in tears and was very confused. Little kids weren't the only ones in frustrated tears. Teachers were too. That didn't

039have to happen. Over 100 principals, 83% of all principals in the district expressed concerns in early August about the start of school, including this program. Principals could have fixed all the problems with scheduling, staffing, and communication problems before the first day of school if you had only let us for listen. Look on Facebook and see what moms had to say about the first day of school on ASD's other online offering, the one run by principals. Quote, great day for us, one of the moms said, but we're not doing ASD virtual, we're doing our school's online offering. It was great to see my son smile. From frustrated tears to smiles, it wasn't the teachers that were different in these two online programs, but the school-based leadership. Here's another mom quote, I'm very glad that you were

040the principal during my kids high school years and especially while we have to navigate all the changes. Know that what you do and how you do it matters. This is exactly what researchers say, leadership matters. I hope ASD again recognizes what it seems to have forgotten. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up in the queue, I have Robin Harris. Robin, are you with us tonight? Yes, I am. Thank you so much. You have three minutes. The floor is yours. Thank you. Good evening, Dr. Bishop and school board members. My name is Robin Harris. Thank you for allowing me to speak tonight and tell my story as principal of Whaley School, an administrator for the Anchorage School District, and president-elect for the Anchorage Principals Association tonight. Not many people know about Whaley School, our supportive

041staff, and the success of many of our students. My story, however, is not unlike many administrators within the district, just more intensified at times. I'll have to admit, more intensified most of the time. On any given day, I'm up and moving from class to class, the cafeteria, the gym, the halls, or our Whaley Way hallway. Building strong relationships is key in the success of not only our students, but the way in which we interact with our staff. And of course, those strong relationships help to create bonds with our parents and guardians. I've followed students on foot, in my car, and when they've left the building. I've driven to find students after school when parents were unable to find them or the student simply did not get off the bus and go home. I've taken many

042distressed phone calls at eight, nine, and beyond from parents and staff as well. When a nickel text comes across our cell phone and it's one of our students, our staff starts to touch base with us to give us information that they might think help us to find our students. We are a community of caring adults working with the most at-risk students in the district at Whaley School. When I first became a principal, my mentor told me that the first three years would be full of late nights and weekends. Now, after 12 years as an administrator, I spend most of my weekends preparing for the week ahead. I'm figuring out what teachers need in order to create a successful environment for students. I'm researching professional development, new and innovative resources to offer staff and students, including

043the advocacy of self-care for all, not to mention all the other duties involved as an administrator. Our job does not end at 5 p.m. I have been up very late night and into the morning on the phone with either SROs or police dispatch about students who are sending messages about possibly taking their own lives, running away, and more. This alone does not encompass what we do as principals. Our staff rely on us for stability, to listen when they are going through tough times, including a death in the family or a divorce, a long-term illness, and more. Now more than ever, we as principals are working hard to make sure our staff and families are doing well in isolation in this unprecedented time in our history. We are updating our staff on a regular basis in

044real time during this pandemic, all the while knowing that we don't want to overwhelm them. These are just a few of the things that come to mind when I tell my story about what I do at Whaley School. And these things are the other duties as assigned. And I know that my colleagues are doing much of the same work on a larger scale. Thank you very much for your time and have a great evening. Thank you. Next up in the queue, I have Kelly Parsons. Kelly, are you with us tonight? Yes. Yes, I am. Can you hear me? I sure can. Thank you very much. You've got three minutes and the floor is yours. Thank you so much. My name is Kelly Parsons. I'm the assistant principal at Green Middle School. I'm a 24-year employee

045of the Anchorage School District, and this is my 13th year as a principal. Principals and ASD responded to an Anchorage Principals Association survey over the weekend, and here are some of what the 140 principals and ASD had to say right now in no particular order. One, we are on call 24 seven to work through a variety of situations. The newest being gaggle reports. We are expected to use our personal cell phones for district work. We should be provided with some type of compensation for the use of personal cell phones and personal phone service. Two, we have been leaders in our buildings during three years of crises, starting with the earthquake followed by this pandemic. This is required steady, flexible and adaptive principles in every building. We do it because we love our school communities and

046want the best for them. We are dedicated to our work. Three, the pandemic has hurled us into a new world. We as an educational community have just begun to navigate the waters. Stress levels are high and I feel waves of overwhelming frustration from staff and students on a daily basis. Students, parents, and staff are rising to the need of providing high-quality learning for our children. Please give us some consistency. Continue to let the science be the basis of decisions. Let us set the risk level for a quarter at a time. Safety and professionalism need time to adapt with thought and care. Number four, Dr. Bishop talked about how she changed ASD from a political to a professional organization. ASD has never been more political. Retribution is taken on good people doing good work whose only

047offense is disagreeing with favorites. Respect the courage principles showed by speaking out and listen. Five. In this time of adaptation, it is even more critical for principals and district administrators to keep the lines of communication open, collaborate, and seek feedback. In the last six months, principals have experienced last-minute communication, limited communication, and no communication. Collaboration and feedback have come after the failure of structures and systems created by the district, putting burden and an overload on the system to react. Principals are purveyors for informed and strong school communities, as well as positive relationships with family and staff. We have the ability to provide clarity to our community, especially during times of uncertainty. Our community looks to us for assurance and direction. Face and point and being disrespected. Friday, the superintendent created panic and instability when she

048said K-3 students will be coming back to school by the end of the month. Five days a week, no cohorts. This is a prime example of principals being blindsided by administration. Why not bring your leaders into the conversation? Why are we shut out? Why do we have to hear what is happening in ASD on KTUU or 98.9? Disrespectful to the leaders who you want to carry out the mission. And unfortunately, I was not able to finish all of these. There are more if you would like to have these. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Next up in the queue, I have Lynn Mayberry. Lynn, are you with us this evening? Lynn, I see you're on mute. Are you able to testify? Yes. Can you hear me now? Yes, I sure can. Thank

049you very much. Okay. You have three minutes and the floor is yours. Good evening. Thank you for this opportunity this evening. I'm Lynne Berry Burke. I'm the proud principal of Lake Otis Elementary. The voice of the principal is a critical one as it represents the voice of the school being served. Principals serve as the conduit for sharing the needs and stories from our school. In that spirit, I would like to read principal feedback recently given to our EPA board. Here is a sampling of the sentiments shared by elementary and secondary principals. Principals need meaningful opportunities to provide input and feedback about issues that directly impact our work with our school communities. I didn't realize how stressed I was as an ASD elementary principal until I fractured a tooth from grinding in my sleep, a tooth

050that was just fine a month earlier during my normal bi-yearly checkup and cleaning. The level of stress that I and my fellow colleagues are under is immense. Just keep us up to date on the ever-changing mandates and possible changes in the future. Safety first. Communicate with principals as they are an important stakeholder in the decision making. Use our knowledge and expertise to help make district-wide decisions. I want AS to know that all ASC principals are a group of professionals committed to their students, staff, and communities. Principals in ASD work hard to ensure students receive the best educational experience possible. We love our jobs and want to be part of moving ASD forward and supporting the ASD vision and mission. It doesn't do any good to leave ASD principals out of the equation when decisions need

051to be made. Let's work together. We are a team. Let us do our part. Stop isolating ASD principals. In doing so, we all win. Families win and the community wins. communicate with them and seek ideas opinions from principals before it airs for public I've been learning information on the news the success or failure of a school is not attributed to the upper administration research shows again and again that the success of the school is based on the effectiveness of that building leader we put our more respect resources and time into making sure that every building principal has the tools and resources needed I would like to know that I'm not going to lose staff and funding this year based on families who may have chosen homeschool models based on early lack of information on what

052ASD virtual attaches to neighborhood schools. And lastly, building better communication, valuing our work and respecting who we are as professionals. We work tirelessly to support our students, families and staff. And again, this is just a sampling. Thank you again for this opportunity to share with you this evening. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you very much. Next up in the queue is Roger Beal. I don't see his name in the queue. I just wanted to verify. Yes. He is not online. I did email him and leave him a message about the new phone number. Would you like me to call out from the meeting for him or circle back? I'll go ahead and circle back if we don't hear back from him by the time we get through the rest of the callers. Okay. So next

053up in the queue, I have Pamela Gilden. Pamela, are you with us this evening? I am here. Can you hear me? I sure can. Thank you. You have three minutes and the floor is yours. Hi, my name is Pamela Gilden. I'm a fifth grade teacher at Fairview Elementary. I'm calling in today because I am disturbed by the class sizes at my Title I school. I work in a Title I school because I relate heavily to the student population my school represents, and I love giving back to the Fairview community. Our school is a welcoming community-based neighborhood school serving a diverse group of students and their families. With over 20 different languages represented in our building, we are proud of our population. Our students are some of the most kind, loving, and generous students you will

054ever meet, despite the backgrounds in which they come from. These students deal with... with many issues at home. They overcome poverty, language, and cultural barriers on a daily basis. Many of my students have moved to the United States in order to have a better life. Their stories they tell me about their homelands and their experiences hurt my heart. As a school community, the staff is all it can to support our students and show them the love they deserve. Lately, it has been harder to show our love to our students and the attention that they need because we are busting at the seams in some of our classes, and members in other classes aren't doing so well. We have 31 in the sixth grade class, 31 in the fifth grade combo, 33 in the fifth grade,

05526 in both of our fourth grades, 32 in third grade, 26 in one second, and 25 in another second grade class. We have 23 in the first grade classroom, 28 in the K-first combo, and 27 in a kindergarten class. These are numbers as of 9-3. However, they have gone up since then and continue to go up. There needs to be a reasonable cap in class sizes within Title I. Having two children in one class does not do this population justice. We are failing our students. Our teachers strive to do their best and love our kids so much. With many behavior problems due to trauma and upbringing at home, a teacher can only do so much. Having a lower class size would benefit these students in so many ways and give them the individual attention they

056deserve. Our district needs to focus resources on keeping class sizes at... classes at reasonable sizes and providing the resources necessary to educate all students instead of hiring more positions at the district office, which do not directly impact our students. Overcrowded classes, even with the extra paraeducators to provide extra help in the class, is not what's best for our kids. Having large class sizes is unacceptable for our students. We need to tell ASD that we care about class sizes in our schools. We need to make sure that the district knows that we expect them to spend funds on classroom teachers so that our kids get the education and support they deserve. Research shows that lower class sizes are beneficial to students. When you put 32 children in a classroom, provide the quality education they are entitled

057to receive. Our students need to learn social skills and build relationships, which is nearly impossible to do with so many children in one small room with one teacher. These students need extra support from us. Our class numbers go up and down due to many of our community members being in transition. Starting the year with 31 or 32 children in the classroom is a disservice to our students and is unacceptable. I love Fairview Elementary, I love my students, and I love working in Title I. My heart is in Title I and with this population of students. Please do what's right for these children. The education they are receiving isn't equitable and it won't be until something is done about this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up in the queue, I'm going to do my

058best on this, Jennifer Gregorich. Jennifer, are you with us this evening? Yes. Can you hear me? I sure can. Thank you so much. You have three minutes and the floor is yours. Okay. Thank you. My name is Jennifer Gregorczyk. I'm an assistant principal at West High School. As you know, principals took a survey in late July. The Anchored Principals Association asked principals, how can ASD help you start the school year successfully? Here are some of the comments that the principal said. Each of these comments is the voice of one principal in no particular order. Number one, the district needs to value principal input and timely sharing of information before it is public. Number two, give us information ahead of time instead of getting the information at the same time as the public. Number three, make

059a decision on what we are doing. Number four, there is so much information it is hard to keep track of it all. Very concerned about staffing and then scheduling specials where students and teachers are safe. Number five, develop an atmosphere of trust. Number six, So many staff members are in fear of their lives. They are stressed out about returning to work. Change is hard and my staff is not embracing the upcoming changes. Instead, they are on the fence with resigning for the year, meeting with their union reps and trying to wrap their head around what might happen. Scheduling is another huge concern. Number seven, student late start for adequate training for staff. Number eight, timely information. Number nine, communicate. Number 10, concise communication with teacher expectations in both face-to-face and virtual settings. Opportunity to count

060work days over the weekend, which will be required with a condensed timeline. Number 11, help me figure out lunch and make maintenance wear masks in my building. Number 12, think about how to provide equitable education for all students and take staff health and safety into consideration when making decisions about opening schools. Number 13, more communication, clear, consistent expectations. Number 14, honor the immense work ahead of us with what looks like definite online learning for all. Number 15, involving principals in the planning stage before making a final decision would be ideal. We have frequently learned of details related to school start from the news and indirectly through other outlets. The challenges are complex enough that more heads up needs to be in the room who know how each decision will impact schools. Number 16, don't take

061APA members for granted, also realistic workloads. Number 17, respect the dedication and commitment that we collectively have. Respect and value what we do. And finally, we are the link to be sure our staff is following district initiatives and practices. We are the onsite role model for board policies, ethics, and professional practices. We are the trained instructional leaders to help and guide our teachers. We are the link to help parents and families know how to navigate the complexities of the 92nd largest district. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up in the queue, I have Dana Derr. Dana, are you with us this evening? Yes, I'm here. Thank you. Can you hear me? We sure can. Thank you very much. You've got three minutes and the floor is yours. Okay. Thank you. Good evening. My name

062is Dana Derr. I'm celebrating my 20th year as an educator in ASD and I'm currently the principal of Ocean View Elementary School. As Jennifer stated, principals took a survey in late July when the Anchorage Principals Association asked principals, how can ASD help you start the school year successfully? Here are some more of the 140 principals' comments that were relayed. Each of these comments is the voice of one principal, but in no particular order. Include principals in discussions on what is best for schools and students. Consider health and safety of staff. Consider timelines after decisions have been made. Please train a pool of qualified subs. Empower principals. We need succinct and clear communication. Daily long emails of ever-changing information are not helpful. Ensure properly staffed buildings. Value what confusing work this is for principals. What is

063the process for closing down a school or a classroom pod? How does ASD get school information and how will it be communicated with families and the community? Prior to disseminating information to the public and ending with the statement, quote, if you have questions, please contact your school, end quote. Please communicate with principals the anticipated questions and answers before making this statement. As a new assistant principal, some training provided by the district would be very beneficial. I believe better and timely communication is needed. Unfortunately, I do not feel any more confident about implementation than last spring. Yet again, principals are not included in the decision making. In addition, principals are the last to be informed about critical information. Outline a plan for parental requirements to ensure students are available for teachers to educate them. We are

064passing students on to the next higher grade that do not meet basic grade level skills because they are not available to be educated via online for various reasons. Better communication with dates and expectations. It is very confusing to follow. Outline an explicit and clear message. Communicate with ASD staff and any information that is sent to families so we are able to support our families when they have questions. Communicate. Involve principals in making decisions. Strong communication. Get staff and students to school as soon as safely possible with appropriate and well-planned precautions. Have a plan, communicate the plan in advance so we can prepare staff, families, and the school as needed. More communication with answers, make a solid plan decision so principals can start preparing school staff. And keep the focus on what is best for kids,

065their health, their safety, and their educational decisions. And finally, please value and acknowledge the enormity and importance of what principals do every day. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up in the queue, I have Jim Bell. Jim, are you with us tonight? Yes, I'm here. You have three minutes and the floor is yours. All right. Thank you. My name is Jim Bell. I'm an assistant principal at Service High School with 18 years as an administrator with ASD. As we all know, educating students through COVID-19 has been very challenging. at all levels from the top members of the ASE leadership team to every support members throughout the district. We all seem to be working harder, but I wonder if we're working smarter. We certainly are able to work smarter when communication is efficiently presented to

066school level administration in a timely fashion prior to public notification. Sometimes it feels as if we get our information secondhand. Many times we'll get a message anywhere between 30 minutes to five minutes before it's released to the public. Decisions are being made quickly at times, but it will make us all look better if we get the message as soon as possible and have time to understand how that will have an impact in our school community. It was just a few years ago we heard that we were moving away from political to professional in the district. Therefore, it was very disappointing to hear that our APA negotiating team presentation was denied by the district team. at the latest negotiation session presentation that would have only lasted 10 minutes. This neither shows professionalism nor effective communication. I

067expect differences of opinions on both sides of the table, but I also expect our voices to be heard. We are expected to communicate effectively with our staff and with our community. We would expect the same at the district level. We take tough decisions and situations the district has directed us to address and make it work within our schools and community we represent. Over the years, I've found the district does not utilize the resourcefulness and the knowledge of the APA members in making district-level decisions. I find it ironic that the group of people who know the students, parents, and community have relatively little to say in the decisions that the district makes. The news media seemed to use the word virtual regularly in describing online learning. This has confused parents when registering fall with ASD virtual

068school versus the site-based school. This confusion has caused an inordinate amount of time by staff members explaining the difference between ASD virtual and the program at the home school. Input from the principals may have helped with this transition. There is a place for ASD virtual, but virtual might have been a tough word to use during this time. As a whole, APA members want to be treated fairly, professionally be heard, and we want to be part of a decision-making process with ASD. When we are not heard and not treated professionally, this is when we feel the lack of appreciation the most. I know we can effectively work together with the district. As Helen Keller once said, alone we can do so little, together we can do so much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up

069in the queue, I have Adrienne Grenier. Adrienne, are you with us tonight? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, we sure can. You have three minutes and the floor is yours. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Adrienne Grunier and I've been an elementary school administrator in ASC for eight years and taught for eight years before that. I'm testifying today to provide perspective on what it's like to be an elementary school principal in the Anchorage School District. When I became a principal, my friends and family were taken back by the duties that encumbered my day. As a child, I remember very little about my elementary school principals. I very rarely saw them and I never saw them out on the playground or in the lunchroom. You could always find the principal in his or her

070office. The only time I ever connected with my principal was when I refused the teacher's direction or when I received an award in an assembly. The job of the principal was running a business. After my first year as principal, my father asked me what I enjoy about being a principal. And even though it took me some time to reply, I finally said, the kids, dad, it's all about the kids. He then asked me what my least favorite part of my job is. And right away I said, I know too much. I know too much about the trauma that kids experience. I know too much about the abuse, neglect, and being shuttled from foster home to foster home. The balance of the business side and the operations side of the job are next to impossible. Waiting

071after school until OCS decides where a child needs to go. Working with the community and our SROs to ensure student safety. My day is run by everything but the business side of things. I'm never off duty. I don't have a contract day. I eat lunch while supervising students on the playground. I respond to anywhere from five, ten, or more radio calls per day to support teachers and students. Our clientele has changed, but we in ASD have not. More and more gets put on principles and the duties that are expected of us do mesh with our reality. In order to manage the business side of things, I work six to eight hours on Sunday, and most of the week I'm up between 4 and 5 a.m. to get ready for my day. And this was all

072pre-COVID times. The metaphor of building a plane while flying it is a gross understatement of what happens on a daily basis. I'm building a rocket ship at the same time while trying to fly it. The stress of processing all the information alone is daunting. I feel like I'm the last to know important things that impact my teachers. In conclusion, I chose to testify today because the public and the school board need to understand the understated value of what principals do every day in our schools. We are a dedicated group of professionals who need to be treated as such. I yield my time. Thank you very much for your testimony tonight. Next up in the queue, I have Sean Prince. Sean, are you with us? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yes, we sure can. Thank

073you. You've got three minutes and the floor is yours. Good evening, school board members, the bishop. My name is Sean Prince and I'm the principal of Barlow High School. Our school's mission statement is a family of inspired lifelong learners. Lately, it seems that we are missing that mark. We're in danger of disenfranchising our students as lifelong learners forever, losing the trust of our community, and it is our fault. the totality of our global pandemic and the huge adaptive change for all of our stakeholders, not to mention the monumental technical challenge of going online education weighs on us all. For the last few years, I have been led to believe that we are in a district that believed in radical candor and extreme ownership. With radical candor, you build trust in your organization by demonstrating that

074you care personally while challenging directly to perform and be at our best. We take extreme ownership of our work because we feel responsible for everything that happens or fails to happen. Because we care personally for the success of the Anchorage School District and we take responsibility for what happens or fails to happen, we find ourselves here giving testimony about our shortcomings. It is in an effort to live up to the ideal of being open and transparent to the public that we must be vocal today. In July, we were told as principals that we are standing up a new program, ASD Virtual, in addition to recreating our master schedules for most of our schools, which normally takes two months, and our new timeline is roughly two weeks. We were also told that the new ASD Virtual

075would take the place of an already viable online program in ASDI school. ASD Virtual would be giving our students an option to attend school completely online, and then we were not even told why. We had ASDI school and it was working. It was providing an online education to many students across the district successfully and it was now gone. Principals were then told to encourage our parents to explore this option as ASD virtual as an asynchronous option for those who had to work and had other family obligations. We were told to ask our teachers about their interest in teaching this new program and that it would basically be doing the same thing as the blended model, except it was going to be at the student's pace. that the virtual teacher would have a comparable class load

076of students and teach three classes like their peers. The reality is far different than we expected. ASD virtual teachers have had many classes to keep track of, some as many as 15 different courses in various subjects, subjects that did not match their expertise, experience, or grade level for that matter, as advertised in the virtual frequently asked questions page. To further add insult to injury, communication between ASD virtual teachers, students, and parents is deplorable. It is either misleading information or no information at all. Login information looks like what can only be described as spam in an already growing parental inbox of email. As we try to support teachers and students and parents, I'm afraid that we are not creating a family of lifelong learners, but rather creating a group of people that have a bad taste

077in their mouth for education, learning, and our district. Here's a small example of what our students and parents are facing. Last Thursday, we were still trying to get students to be in classes like AAP Chemistry Calculus. This looks like 70 pages of reading, 17-page reading guides, and 70 questions. before you can access your quiz. Yes. I'm sorry, your three minutes is up, but we would welcome your testimony, the rest of it in writing if you have the opportunity. I will forward that on. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next up in the queue is Reagan Brooks. Reagan, are you with us tonight? Can you hear me? Yes, we sure can. Thank you. Can you hear me? We can now. Thank you. You've got three minutes and the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you all

078for your service on the school board. And thank you to all the educators who are here today and who are currently working so hard to support students in these incredibly challenging times. I'm testifying today to advocate for your support of three key issues. One, the renaming of the school in honor of Senator Betty Davis. Two, the development of alternative methods to support students without the use of law enforcement personnel. And three, the importance of addressing inequity in our schools. But I also want to underscore the importance of all that the educators who've spoken have said. I speak to these three issues as a former educator and as a community member who has volunteered hundreds of hours in several different schools in our district over the past six years. Regarding the renaming of the school in

079honor of Senator Betty Davis, I urge you to honor the process and recommendations set in action by the Alaska Black Caucus. As a result of a process orchestrated by the Alaska Black Caucus, a municipal renaming committee recommended the renaming of East High School, Airport Heights, or Fairview Elementary with East as the priority recommendation and Betty Davis East High School as a name option should the school community wish to keep East in the name. Honoring Senator Betty Davis is an important step towards representing the importance of Black leaders in our community's history. Regarding the development of alternative methods to support students without the use of law enforcement personnel, I wish to underscore the importance of this issue after listening in on other testimony during a late July meeting. Please recognize that the young adults who testified

080to you about the negative impact of police officers in schools, the negative impact of police officers in schools on students of color, we're speaking to you as young adults with incredibly valuable insight into this issue. Please listen to what these young people have shared with you, and please make sure that more black indigenous students and recent graduates of color are included and listened to in your conversations about this important issue. Additionally, please know that removing police from our schools is a step that will increase safety. Yes, the school resource officers came to be in schools because of concerns about school shootings, but nationwide data has shown us that despite the good intentions of school resource officer programs, they do not make schools safer, not for any students. So please work with the assembly to reallocate

081the funds spent on the SRO program. You're a creative and caring group of educators and community members. I know that change takes work and it can be uncomfortable, but please step into the growth mindset that you encourage in our students. Please work together to find healthy alternatives to support students without the use of law enforcement personnel. And regarding addressing inequity in our schools, please invest in positive changes in your teacher recruitment and curriculum choices to better support students, all students in our schools. As Mr. Kemp shared earlier, black, indigenous and students of color deserve more support. You can make that possible with meaningful changes to curriculum and recruitment. Please listen to and involve current and recent students and teachers of color in your work on these efforts. This is important work that must happen so

082that our schools can celebrate not only their diversity, but also their commitment to equity. Thank you again for your service to our community and thank you for your work towards positive change. Thank you very much. Next up in the queue, I have Misty Nelson. Misty, are you with us this evening? I am. Hi, can you hear me? We sure can. Thank you. The floor is yours. Good evening, Dr. Bishop and school board members. Oftentimes I bring forth questions to you all when I'm sensing a theme and teacher concerns throughout our district. Your time, ear and feedback are much appreciated and help more than you might realize. What an interesting start the school year has been, no doubt. It is one that none of us could have fully prepared for. I just finished my last meeting

083of the day not too long ago, which was our PTA meeting. Super thankful we still have an active PTA as some of those have been dismantled due to families choosing other avenues of learning during these uncertain times. I wanted to take this opportunity to share some things that maybe aren't seen. While teachers may not be in Zooms with students all day long, while they may not have students in their physical presence from 9 a.m. to 3.30 p.m., your teachers and principals sure are working hard. While I know this is not the ideal situation for anyone, I have chosen to share some positives as I think that might be needed. Some things that have been shared with me or that I've witnessed or experienced have been one-on-one Zooms. Teachers are able to meet with students one-on-one

084and provide some quality low teacher-student ratio devoted time and attention. One teacher shared that she's been able to do reading analysis with her kiddos due to the unique situation we are finding ourselves in. I've seen an abundance of collaboration and communication between departments, grade levels, and teachers. Folks are stepping up to help each other out. They're making video tutorials to share. They're walking each other through some of the asynchronous tech trainings that were rolled out. They're sharing sunshine on days where it seems a little cloudy. They're exhausted. They're daily picking each other up as they buckle their boots and hang on for the ride. A couple of things to note. When you hear the word supply distribution, I want to shed light on the time, labor, literal man hours that went into preparing these items

085for students and families. And I want to acknowledge the amazing teamwork that has made that happen. While teachers and principals are not with students full-time physically right now, one classroom teacher asked this of me today. Please tell them, Miss D, that we are not off. Tell them that this is new and different and not ideal, that there are hard parts, that we aren't ever really off. Our Remind app is going off, our emails are dinging, seesaw comments are exploding. The teachers and principals are connected to their work in a very different way right now. They are working so hard on the front lines. Finally, I'll share one of my own personal stories. A few weeks ago, a colleague asked for me to do a ride along to help connect one of our families with internet,

086devices, food delivery, and school registration. We literally sat in the parking lot in the back of the vehicle to make sure that we met this family where they were, quite literally. This has been a challenging start for students, staff, and families. I hope that as we have a conversations of students being back in the buildings, that we do this with innovation and kindness and that we do it together. Most importantly, that we do this with student and staff safety at the forefront. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful evening. Thank you very much. Next up in the queue is Kerr Moore. Kerr, are you with us this evening? Kerr, I see the caller on mute. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hi, thank you so much. Good

087evening and thanks for allowing me to speak. Thank you all so much for your hard work and time. My name is Kier Moore and I'm a stepmom to an ASD eighth grader. I only want to share a small thought here. It's in our schools that our future leaders learn how to treat others with respect and kindness. In recent months, you've heard some testimonies about the lack of racial equity in our schools. I echo the concerns about the problematic nature of the school resource officer program and urge the school board to consider how curriculum choices, hiring and recruitment tendencies, and the naming of schools might make students who are black, indigenous, and people of color feel disenfranchised under the best circumstances and lead to broad injustices in the worst. I want to call on each school

088board member to demand and support dialogue and action about these issues in every school board meeting, not just today, not just the next time around or through the fall. The school board should prioritize racial equity until the day we all agree, all of us, that our students don't experience racial inequities through our school system. This conversation must be ongoing and inclusive in all of our institutions, with our schools and education being the starting point for everything. Listening is just the beginning and I encourage you to keep listening and asking, how can we make our schools equitable for all students? Thank you. Thank you very much. I would like to circle back around and see if the caller Roger Beal made it on the line tonight. President McHale, I did leave him two messages and also

089followed up with an email, but they went straight to voicemail when I called. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. That does conclude our public testimony for everybody that was signed up tonight. I encourage board members and members of the public to go out. There is several written public testimonies that are also attached to our agenda as well for the record. Next up in the agenda is the superintendent update. And at this time, I would like to turn it over to Dr. Dina Bishop. Thank you, Madam President. There's several updates to provide the board and some mentioned during the work session and monitoring by Member Holloman as well as others. And so I did want to share just a brief update while we're getting the slides called up. Equity Senior Director is lead now on

090the naming of the schools. Just wanted to let everyone know and publicly state that we were brought forward a request actually by Celeste Hodge. She wasn't the leader of the Black Caucus yet. She was running the Betty Davis. conference and there was a request to actually name the district office after the late Betty Davis and the board at that time thought a school that would be standing that the community owned rather than the building is a private building that the district office is in was more suitable. We waited for the assembly to finish their process. us because our idea was that it should be a school as well and the assembly was asked to have something named a park a street and they came up with the school as well and the three names that

091were forwarded from the assembly's group that they had put together uh are the three names that asd is working through uh the naming of a school is actually in policy and has some very deliberate steps that involve the community uh as well as the the school the principal there and uh we we had just heard lots of testimony on involvement and so we are going through uh those steps now and i know it seems like a long process because they were stopped and um startled a little bit in regard to last spring's pandemic shutdown as well as waiting for the suggestions from the assembly but to let you know we have surveys out to the communities engaging the principals talking with folks and hopefully we can bring that recommendation to the board as soon as

092possible as has been asked because it has been a little bit of a time and we'd like to celebrate I know that the Betty Davis Leadership and Student Conference is I believe held in February so it would be nice to to present that to them there so and have something for them so without further ado I just wanted to provide that mini update and also just really share other updates requested by the board and please know that the School Start Task Force remains on the agenda for discussion that occurs during the non-action. So if there's additional questions or specifics, Dr. Stock is ready and willing to answer more detail of the specific work of those groups, the School Start Task Force, and Tom Roth can mention any kind of community updates. you need them so

093with that uh those were the topics that were up on the screen and and this actually was school start decision guidance and i want to start with a question that uh member holloman asked about and you had heard on the radio and and in response to a question uh that actually stemmed around um sports starting uh we had made the announcement last thursday about sports starting and there was a question uh to me about uh what's next when school's starting second semester and uh certainly i responded with no i hope it's sooner than that in fact i would like you know we uh the mayor has said the first quarter i would certainly like to start uh if we could in september uh but did share as well that we are looking into starting in

094september as well a reading program even if we couldn't start schools uh due to the understanding of the way the task force works. We do base the information off of the community spread of the virus as well as other factors and so in my excitement My belief that really moving back into school face to face is the best thing for kids. I've read over and over different states, different countries, understanding about learning and especially for our little ones, face to face is paramount for us. And so we've been watching tightly and closely those case studies or case. confirmations, if you will, in Anchorage. And member Marcet brought up, we did have in the state of Alaska over 100 recently in Anchorage. Just yesterday, I think it was less than 15. And so they're quite sporadic

095right now, but hopefully as we trend down. which we have been trending down since July. We can get students back as quickly as possible. And if I could move mountains, I would certainly start school in September if I could. And so with that, the statements were made were in general, and I always leave and always have left the door open back to the decision-making process that we set in stone, not in stone rather, but. on the website. So with that, operating schools and considerations. And this was brought up. uh by member donnelly in request of what other decisions and what other uh opportunities do we have to make decisions in regard to schooling and the latest cdc research brought up and updated on september 1st really looks at that and again it does point back

096to the community spread of the virus that we always have to look at community conditions which are paramount and then looking at the ability of school officials really to keep people safe, students and staff, and the capacity in which we can keep people safe back in school, which really includes the mitigating factors and the behaviors around how do we live with this virus in our society prior to a vaccination. And so They asserted that the following should happen, promoting behaviors that reduce COVID-19 spread. maintaining healthy environments and operations, which are those protocols and what do we do when, what do we do if, and being prepared for when someone gets sick and what are our actions thereof. And we have outlined those as well as studied other places that have gone first in getting students

097back, not only in our state, but around the nation and the world. And they didn't leave it there, though. They did talk about other considerations. And we updated the public on this. And certainly some members of the public emailed the board as well as emailed me in regard to if you can start sports, why can't you start schools? And really allowing sports to come back. And Dr. Kirsten Strumpler really shared about. not only the idea of this being voluntary that sports are voluntary those that coach it are volunteering saying yes I want to go out there it's a paid position but they're saying yes I want to participate I want to be the coach this year and being able to provide a safe environment, following the protocols, following safety, as well as those social distancing,

098wearing masks, really holding students to that standard. And it was shared in our meetings with them that we will shut down a team if we're not behaving in that manner. Because of course, from the CDC, promoting behaviors that reduce COVID-19 spread is paramount to any group meeting together. And so we did start there. And the next level, again, would be planning for what we are looking at is a reading tutoring program to bring in our youngest students. We're starting a pilot at the end of September. Principals. our volunteer schools in it that we've selected some that really do significantly have the need through demonstrated through data and the outcomes for their students and spoken with those principals to really get started and seeing again and allowing parents to see we can come into schools in

099small groups and meet the academic need because we know that our youngest are the most vulnerable. Those fundamental building blocks and learning are at a critical time right now and bringing us students back in and staff back into schools is a high priority for me as well as I know for the board has commented that we understand that school is best done face to face. So we are planning that and more details will be shared with the board as well. A lot of the details are being presented to the school start task force. And that is a group that has been meeting all summer, providing feedback in regard to the different measures and operations that we have presently. And so we do have representation at this time from APA as well as AEA and Totem.

100Those three groups are internal associations or unions that actually have direct access to schools when students are present. And so that work with them will continue. And tomorrow is a major meeting. in regard to that to share that information. There still are some undecided, the cabinet itself and some other people that have had input. There's lots of different opinions about how things should be done in elementary, middle and high. But again, the plans actually. that are on the internet that we've shared for time again I want to state they're not set in stone because the CDC also recommends that school districts plans should be revised as well as adapted to any kind of science and new learning and information that we have. But the other considerations and why we're moving in this direction are strictly

101because schools should also consider other aspects of students at risk. And the Association of Pediatrics, as well as the CDC, have all spoken to this, in addition to our own parents and teachers who have sent many, many emails in regard to the well-being of students of having in-person classes. There are several emails that we receive weekly in regard to just struggles. that coping with work, home, computers, attention, Spann's ability to actually do the homeschool teaching, all those that up to a difficult time and really inequitable access for this great belief and great public education that's really a cornerstone of our democracy. So we are moving in that direction. And I regret that being excited and letting them know that, no, I don't want to wait till second semester for students to be brought back. I'd

102rather do it. sooner than later. But of course it would pertain to looking at cases as well as what is best for kids. This information from CDC, I would like to specifically let Mr. Donnelly know we will get that up on the website so that we can share just like with the sports that it is really this abundance of information and weighing the risks and weighing the protocols and weighing our ability to mitigate. uh any kind of instance of a positive case in the school we have to understand the community has to understand that school districts are not responsible for eradicating covet 19 however we are responsible for the health and safety of our employees and our students and visitors that do enter our buildings and so we will do this again tomorrow some ideas

103shared with the school start task force moving forward uh to response from the board and what you have to share with us this evening and putting that package together and by September 15th having an announcement to our community about the plans moving forward for elementary, middle school, high school, how special education fits into this as well as some special services for our youngest students in reading and continuation with our sports programs. And so that is in a nutshell kind of that September 15th idea as well as where in the world did coming back to school in September come from? It was in response to a question that it was difficult for me to wait till second semester because I do believe strongly that kids should be back in school as soon as possible. So with

104that, I wanted to share some additional information. And we're going to also place this on our website. It was shared by Dr. Zink. And this is just one graph that is in the British Medical Journal. And for our parents and staff, as well as anyone else out there in the city of Anchorage that may not be associated with schools, but understanding the science behind what we know about COVID and its spread is that masks empirically do matter. We do know by research that wearing a mask does... impede the spread of the virus, in fact, does a really great job. And this is just a chart from the British Medical Association just sharing about the low occupancy of a building, high occupancy of a building, wearing a mask both indoors and outdoors. It shares some very

105insightful information. Hence, ASD, when we return to school, we'll ask, similar to how we have teachers in our buildings now, wear masks. We will wear masks and it's for our safety and that our germs stay with us and they don't move anywhere else, especially for people who are asymptomatic. Of course, if there are symptoms, we're asking students and staff don't even enter the school. But as we know through understanding about COVID-19. team that much of the spread is through asymptomatic people and we want to ensure especially young people that masks are worn and it is my belief that our kindergarten five-year-olds can learn and I encourage our parents knowing that school might be in the future in the distance to start practicing 15 minutes a day child wearing a mask move up to 30 minutes

106a day provide some incentives certainly In the summertime, when I began work back at the district office wearing a mask in all the public areas, except for when I was by myself, I hated it. I thought it was, you know, just odd. It was not comfortable. And I don't think twice about it now because it's so much of my life in being out in the public. And I believe our children are better learners and better. I guess better at adjusting and creating habits than we adults are. That old saying, old dog, difficult to learn new tricks is probably has a little truth, but five years. Girls in their lifespan can and will learn. I want you to know that kindergarten teachers and everybody, preschool teachers, they have, although parents sometimes like to, you know, put

107kids snowsuits on and put their boots on, in schools they learn to do that themselves and they do it quite well. So our kids can learn. So this is one piece that we will communicate, communicate, communicate, is going to be a big part of ASD going back to school. And at this time, I would like, I'll jump back in in a minute, but I would like Kirsten Johnson-Strumpler to just share a little bit of update about the sports. Again, this was the catalyst that started the discussion about what's next in school. And certainly, again, primary schools, getting our youngest students back is next based on our mind. But without further ado, Kirsten, if you could please comment on these next couple slides for the board. All right. Thank you, Dr. Bishop. through the president to

108the school board um i am happy to report that we opened our sports and activities for high school students on friday um so practices uh started friday and continued over over the weekend and will continue through this week um we will uh commence some um socially distanced and uh very well named managed uh events um for competition later this week starting on thursday night And so we're pretty confident at this point that we can provide a safe experience for students. As Dr. Bishop mentioned, it is an optional activity that we offer in the district. So students definitely don't have to participate. And if they're not comfortable, families can choose to not have them participate in their athletic events this year. But there are many, many student athletes and parents that are. are ready to get

109going and they're willing to go through all of the hoops necessary to make it a safe event. So just to highlight a couple of the things that we're doing to ensure that safety at our events. Each athlete is allowed to have two spectators and they will get two spectator tickets that we will issue them ahead of events. There are some special restrictions beyond that, given certain athletic events and coaches are communicating those, such as tennis matches at the Alaska clubs are not able to have spectators given the venue. And so. But we're in general allowing two spectators per athlete to limit our crowd control. And then we also have installed pixel cameras at most of our gyms and about half of our football field so that we can manage additional attendance via online streaming ways

110for people to still participate and support kids. So that's just one way we have developed individual safety mitigation plans for every single athletic sport or if. you will kind of event so that volleyball has a specific set of safety measures in place, football has a specific set of safety measures in place, and so on and so forth. So we're pretty confident given our experience this summer through our out of season contact and not having any secondary transmission that we'll be able to move forward in a productive and safe way. What you're seeing here is if we do in the event have a particular positive case or multiple positive cases, this is how we'll proceed in working through those situations. And rather than a one-size-fits-all kind of metric and response, we've gauged it based on the

111number of potential positive cases that might come forward. as we proceed through the fall sports season. So if it's, you'll see as the, I'll kind of walk you through this matrix. If it's one particular individual case, and we've evaluated that there could have been community transmission, or maybe that case had low or no risk of transmission, there would be different responses. And as you walk, if you walk through the matrix here, you'll see that For just one case, we'll probably look at quarantining that one individual. We'll notify teams. We'll do all of those necessary steps and work with our health officials. But there's no guarantee that we would actually quarantine a whole team in that particular case. If you go all the way down to the bottom, if we have one or more cases. on

112multiple teams say they played each other and we had multiple students who were positive in that particular scenario then you would look at the different ways that we would respond and that would warrant a more larger response from us and we would look at the 14 day in quarantine and and look at all of the players that were exposed in that particular situation but We don't want to have a one size fits all model. We want it to be a measured response and respond appropriately. So that's our sports matrix. So between our safety mitigation, our sports matrix, confirmed case response plan, and just all of the interaction that we've had with health officials and working with the Alaska Activities Association, we're ready to move forward, I believe, and have a great opportunity for our kids

113to get back out there with our athletic events. So with that, I'd like to turn it back over to Dr. Bishop. All right, thank you. And again, any additional questions are, if you think about them before the School Start Task Force update, we can share them as well. This evening you've heard in regard to staffing needs and wanted to share that staffing needs are related to the enrollment, major changes and fluctuations that ASC has experienced. And primarily we did see a loss again of about 9% of students in our district. At the same time, really balancing the kind of a new way to do education and a new program that was just mentioned several times this evening in asd virtual asd virtual actually is very different than i school i school operated with individual courses

114and asd virtual is is supplying and supporting a wrap around so for the 3 200 students uh that chose virtual uh we really had to staff understanding the staffing that we already have given that new additional staffing couldn't be hired which was and has been our traditional go-to for ASD virtual that when we set up a new course or Ravidus D.I. School, we were able to hire an addenda just for a portion of a time. Knowing that we were about 4,000 students under projection and knowing that a deficit is coming soon, we had to figure out quickly how do we utilize the staff we had. Tying into the homeschool was one of those reasons, again, so that the board understands, so that after the pandemic, if students chose and really wanted to and families wanted

115to stay with their schools, but they just weren't sure about in-schooling, because remember when we designed all these, in-schooling might have a partial day in and out, and we wanted our families who weren't sure about coming back to school. that shared with us in a survey that we did this summer that we've reported on in July about what do ASD families and students desire. They really, about a third, a third, a third desired only in school, only face-to-face. There was about a third who wanted a hybrid and about a third who were not going to come back. They wanted to do it at home just because they were very unsure or perhaps had family conditions that would make it difficult if a child became sick. And so in understanding this and not wanting to lose

116additional students, we set up ASD Virtual to be wrap around a brand new service. Now, again, the teachers for that, as well as other schools, were coming from our traditional own staff. ASD Virtual, as well as just our general enrollment, for instance, changed very dramatically because I believe that our families were waiting to see what was going to happen. Our families too are following the case counts. And we went from the middle of July at 400 in ASD virtual thinking it was just this smaller program to over 3,200. And so the staffing changes have been high when parents are selecting even the week right before school selecting a program. We are balancing that out and you heard tonight about some pretty high class sizes and those adjustments will be made internally with our staffing again.

117In years past, we had a fund balance. We had holdover teachers. We had an ability to adjust without impacting what was. Because if you add, you're just hiring new and there's only a change at that school. When you have to adjust with inside, wherever you're taking from. is impacted as well as where you're going to creating a new class. So we're leveling off with our enrollment as we speak. Generally, it continues to grow a little bit through September. So we're making those decisions, allowing for the settle down and then readjusting staffing again. It is highly disruptive. I make no problems about it. Adjusting staff after school starts is disruptive. However, due to the lack of resources that we're finding ourselves in, Jim Anderson, our chief financial officer, will share the deficit as a result of

118the enrollment changes, not only internally within our district, but also externally. It's going to really impact what we budgeted for this year in different schools. Our goal will be to support the needs first, especially focusing on equity at the time that we're settled down. So some of the concerns you had about growth in classes, higher at some title schools than others, those are going to be addressed and will be addressed and have been heard and recorded. At this time, we're really taking a balance and looking at course loads and courses of what we can do for our student population who have chosen. We will try to make it the best for students as we can, students and parents, as well as support our staffing in these changes. But short of... immediately removing all staff from

119buildings by if we came under enrollment and then reassessing and repositioning them. This was the model that was chosen to leave staff at schools and then try to adjust the enrollment rather than pulling them before school started because we again still see fluctuations in enrollment. So without further ado, I just wanted to bring this slide up again. It kind of references where our uh folks that have enrolled with us have landed and then how do we support them and what does that look like on the financial side uh jim anderson thank you dr bishop next slide please um dr bishop covered this uh real quickly at the beginning of the school board meeting you can see the year-over-year comparison And you see about a 4,000 student drop between last year at this time and the

120year prior. On top of the 4,000 drop, we did have about a thousand move from neighborhood schools into Family Frontier and Paideia, which shifts additional funds over to those programs. Next slide. So real quick at the top, I'll just hover on a couple things. The 906 intensive needs students, when you have less intensive needs than what you budgeted. you lose about $95,000 per intensive needs student. About 77,000 of that would be state funding and then the remainder of that would be the local funding that you miss. Although we had a slow start in getting testing done, testing is occurring. Special Ed Department is working very hard with the principals and the families and the students. That is increasing slowly. Tough to know where it will play out during the October timeframe, but we'll keep looking

121at that. You already we've talked about the students that just enrolled from ASD. Once schools open up certainly a good portion of those may very well come back to the district and it could be before or after the OASIS count. When you look at the funding impact at the current set And it could certainly change. We would lose about $14 million in state and local revenue. We need to shift $10 million that was budgeted in other places in the district to family and frontier to cover their increased student counts. And then there's potentially a $2 million shortfall in transportation revenue. because it's a certain amount per student. And of course, our routes won't change, the number of buses won't change, but that $2 million shortfall would come as a result of the state's metric. There

122will be some savings and some much lower expenses, fuel, maintenance, other items, workers' comp, certainly not enough to cover a $26 million shortfall. As we talked about at the last finance meeting, there's a lot of unknowns. There's the second round of stimulus that's currently being held up in D.C. It doesn't have a whole lot of forward movement. And I've been talking to one of our senators, lead staffers, about some language in the next bill. But really, the dollar amounts are pretty unknown at this point. If today were the end of October and if all the numbers were today's numbers, then we would be looking at a $26 million shortfall. So we will be tracking this daily, weekly, and we'll provide updates to the board every Friday on enrollment changes and projections as it becomes clearer.

123If there are no questions, I will be followed by Dr. Bishop. All right, in this last section that concludes the superintendent update, I regret that it was so long. There's lots of information to share. Jim Anderson doesn't know about this, but he did receive, he doesn't know that I'm sharing it with you and with the public. But at... We received notice from Ashburn, Virginia, that in June, Jim Anderson, our chief financial officer for the Anchorage School District, he is being honored by the Association of School Business Officials. This is a national organization outside of Alaska with its pinnacle award of achievement. And it was in regard to... to the two duration that provides housing for all high school students to attend academic and career technical classes in Anchorage, our partnership. So that was entered. It

124was entered by not our school district, but a lower Yukon. They felt as though the ability for their students to really have the high quality education offered here at King Career, King Tech is. was outstanding and they really appreciated our district working with them and they submitted Jim's name and he was awarded this national award. So congratulations, Mr. Anderson. Thank you so much. And you're a humble man, but I just wanted to share my personal gratitude for all that you do for the Anchor School District as well. Thank you. And the end. Thank you. Thank you. I'm happy to answer any questions if needed. Thank you. And congratulations, Jim. First up in the queue, I have Andy Holliman. Thank you. This goes back to activities. And I suspect this all kind of relates to secondary

125much more than elementary. But I'm wondering if there's any effort to kind of reform clubs and groups using virtual meetings and if there's any restriction or impediment to that. That's part one of the question. The follow-up is for our teams and sports and everything, are they able to utilize non-contact methods of meeting freely? If, say, a coach wanted to call their team together in a Zoom meeting, is there any restriction on that or any prohibition? Are they able to do things like that safely without any kind of inhibition? Dr. Johnson, do you want to speak to activities? Primarily these are secondary. Yeah, so right now we have only effectively put into place what's in season right now. So if a club or an activity is not technically in the fall season, we haven't activated those

126yet. So in terms of like your general clubs that run during a school day that typically meet during lunchtime, those types of activities, those are not necessarily all up and running quite yet. There are definitely opportunities for Zoom meetings and things of that nature. There's no prohibition on that that I'm aware of. And we're just trying to get things kind of back into motion here. Any other unanswered questions, we'll go ahead and find the answers out in regard to, you know, teams meeting and whatnot, if that will do. Thank you. Next up in the queue, I have Board Member Marcet. Thank you. Question, you know, we have looked at the possible reduction in funding. We've looked to see, I mean, based on the projections, I mean, we're hopeful that students will come back. and hopefully

127we'll have a different way of counting our students but in the meantime have we looked at how this will impact our funding for our schools what we may have to do I guess what is the impact to what we're looking at that's a great question Miss Marset We have looked at the bottom line of the numbers from that point on in regard to planning for the future. That would involve just larger groups and discussions from the board about what we see moving into the future. But we have not made any determination as to what it would look like in the future, given a reduction of close to $30 million. So we don't have an answer for that. We have a past history of large cuts and what we tried to do before funding came through,

128but nothing at this point. When would that? I mean, would we wait until we actually do our count? Would we wait to see if, you know, because I know we start looking at our budget in December. Would we, I don't know, I'm trying to remember from past years, but. What would be the timeline for looking at that and what we might have to do and how that will affect our budget? That's a great point. So the count is the first part of that just to see from this year. But by November, we begin to come up with a number of our belief of students enrolled next year and then begin to build a budget then. And so once we get through this count period. budgeting really never ends for those folks in the budgeting and

129in Jim's world. However, right now the focus is on, you know, standing up this year, identifying the shortfalls this year, which would influence and really assist in predicting what it might look like in the future and then bringing that back to the board. Thank you. Thank you. Next up in the queue, I have board member Hilde. Thank you. I just have a question and then a comment. One is on the metric we use for deciding which level we're at. I know that was built with a lot of input from medical professionals kind of at the beginning of summer, but I know a lot of those treatments have changed. And then when we're looking at outbreaks in our community, 20 people spread across the community seems different than 20 people in a more isolated. or closed

130community like NYC or Brother Francis or Pioneer Home. So is there any work on changing or modifying the metric based on merging information? Is that kind of an ongoing review process? That's what I'm wondering. Thank you. That's a great question. And it actually is an ongoing process. And for the sports even, we brought up that model. Dr. Johnson and I actually did speak. I talked to a couple of doctors on the state's education planning team. And while they acknowledged that in certain areas, the ability to mitigate The cases in a particular area is much easier. It's not community widespread. They basically eliminating those numbers or taking them into account separately. They did not recommend. However, what was presented today is a bit of that adjustment of taking a look at not only case numbers. but

131what can we do and what will education look like if we can mitigate those and what are the needs? Some ideas, again, to update our medium risk categories are being brought back to the task force to work around and see what the thoughts are in that regard. But once we do that and have some ideas to bring them back, we will be, again, meeting with... Dr. Zink, Commissioner Crum, those that are in the medical field. So every step of the way, especially in the last movement towards sports, it was inclusive. of medical professionals. The change that we're adding to that specific question is really that in addition to the community spread of the virus, which is paramount in the CDC, also following right thereafter are the needs and the general needs of young people and

132schooling. And so we're articulating those, going to put those statements up on the website to say that those really are those other mitigating circumstances that are considered. If we do have any updates in regard to numbers and counting and moving in risk levels, we'll bring those right back to the board. Some ideas again are being shared tomorrow to the school start task force. And then just my comment on that, you know, I appreciate all the efforts the sports people are putting into making everything safe during practices. But I want our athletes to understand that their choices outside of practices impact all the other students. So if there's going to be a large gathering like I observed last week of athletes that aren't practicing social distancing or wearing masks in their personal time. That impacts other

133kids not being able to get to school to read or advance in their school work or get their social interaction. So I just hope that message is, you know, as a board member sharing that with the community, our collective responsibility to keep those numbers down so that we can get kids back into the class. Thank you. Next up in the queue is board member Bellamy. Yes, thank you. I just have a couple of questions. I love the idea of the reading program. Can you refresh my memory? Where did we get that money? Was that part of what was left over from the state or was it, I don't know, I think it was a gift or something from the state. What was that? Where did we get that money? Thank you, Member Bellamy. I will.

134So at the close of last year, the unspent monies in different categories for. you know, development for other initiatives that we couldn't do in the spring. We pulled that money and put that money towards the board's goals. And the paramount goal that came through in June was reading. And so we had set aside some funds to be able to work on reading. And right now, the biggest issue and support needed, the feeling is, is with the K2. So it was unspent funds from last year's initiatives in regard to instruction during the pandemic shutdown that occurred last spring. Okay, awesome. My next question has to do with the sports matrix. Are we still work? We will be working with the public health to do any tracing if we have to do any contact tracing. Is that

135we don't have our own contact tracers, do we? It's funny that their contract tracers are really worse in the summer. But I'll let Mr. Roth speak to that or Jen Petronas if she's on. Thank you, Dr. Bishop. Through the President to Board Member Bellamy. So the municipality of the Anchorage Health Department does have proponency for the call tracing mission in the municipality. However, we recognize that if we have a confirmed case, there are a couple ways that information will come to the district. You know, one could be from the health department itself, but we think the primary source is going to come through either a coach or an assistant principal to a school director, and then that will get propagated up through the district leadership. So being that that... is the most likely situation where

136it's coming from the school, we recognize that we're going to do some internal call or contact tracing ourselves, but that that mission would eventually move over to the health department. And I think we would probably continue to work side by side with them. So that, that hopefully that, that kind of provides a response to your question. And it does. Thank you. And the other question, along with the sports, has to do with, I know that we're not doing any, we're not requiring that kids be tested prior to participating. But since testing, COVID testing is free, are we suggesting it? Through the president, to member Bellamy, to my knowledge, and I don't have a direct Direct view of what's happening in the high schools where these activities are occurring. To be sure, if kids are demonstrating

137symptoms, they're not going to practice, but they're also in those circumstances recommended to go down to one of the sites in the municipality to get a COVID test. But I think just in terms of a general recommendation, I'm not aware of that activity. Maybe Dr. Johnson could address that in more detail. Also, just some news has been provided by the federal government that perhaps part of getting schools back into school would be what they call pool testing. And again, that's support at the federal government level to our state to provide testing to schools in what they call pool testing, which would be basically in small groups in different places to really take a look at any positive cases to be able to. asymptomatic people to be able to look at that. At this time, the

138last update that I attended last Friday, the Commissioner Johnson did not have additional information on that, but that might be something that will come into the future in regard to students and staff having the ability to be tested as desired, as well as a very deliberate attempt to really take a look at different areas of our community. Thank you. And my final question has to do with the, you said that the naming of the Betty Davis, the work for that has been transferred to compliance and equity. And I'm just curious as to why. Sure. So it was originally given as a task to Dan Barker last spring, and his plate has become full in regard to setting up education in the elementary schools with a blended as well as virtual model in turning that up.

139And so in discussion about. Not letting that fall to the wayside and getting it started, not putting it off anymore. Sonia Hunt, the Senior Director of Equity and Compliance, could fit it into her schedule in order to make those communications with schools. And so she picked it up strictly in an abundance of caution to make sure we... get it on target and move it forward because the instruction department who generally are assigned these school naming mascot naming things like that with schools plates were full with standing up school for this year okay I just don't want the public thinking that it's a compliance issue possibly an equity issue but not a compliance issue thank you that that's a great point just uh another hand on deck actually um it's it's only at our point in

140time it is a policy issue in regard to naming schools but certainly uh not compliance good thank you next step in the queue is board member donnelly Thank you, Madam President. I have two questions, but since Member Hildy called a point of order on me at the last meeting for asking two, I will only ask one and then wait my turn to ask the second question. Dr. Bishop, do you know of any data that indicates the Anchorage School District has a school-to-prison pipeline problem? You know, I've read that term through the research and it's specifically in regard to restorative justice. And I don't, I would have to look further into the details of the data that they pulled to determine that. It's been a few years since I specifically read an article in regard to

141that. So I would have to follow up at a later meeting in regard to any indicators of ASD. has that were provided from this research project that is literally titled School to Prison Pipeline. Thank you. Member Donnelly, you had another question. Please go ahead. Thank you, Madam President. Dr. Bishop, has there been any consideration to adding into the threat matrix consideration of the factors that many other states are using, and that's the overall infection rate and not the case count? And of course, there's two ways to measure the infection rate, the number of tests, the ratio of tests that come back positive, and or the overall population projection for infection. Those have been in discussions. Again, we have not taken any actions into changing them, simply reviewing, asking questions. And that's where we landed with

142the additional CDC guidelines. guidelines in regard to other factors that were outside of a kind of a metric, if you will, outside of a number. We can, you know, continue to have conversations about that and bring that to that state guidance for education folks that set out from the state of Alaska in DEEDS guidelines for their Smart Start. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. I am not seeing any other hands up in the queue. And just to remind board members, we will have the task force update as an on action item that will continue to recur. And so at this time, we will go ahead, if there are no other comments from Dr. Bishop, move on to the consent agenda. Madam President, I move to approve the consent. Consent agenda consisting of ASD

143memorandum number 017, the personnel report, minutes from June 25th, 2020 executive session, minutes from July 10th, special meeting minutes, and minutes from our executive and work session on July 21st, 2020. Welcome. Thank you. I have a first and a second. Katie, would you please do roll call? Certainly. Member Mitchell? Yes. Member Marcet? Yes. Member Holloman? Yes. Member Hilde? Yes. Member Donnelly? Yes. Member Bellamy? Yes. And President McAuliffe? Yes. Okay. I'm going to continue. Just one quick second. Waiting for the screen to pop up. And the consent agenda passes with seven yays and zero nays. Next up, we have our action items. And just to confirm with Katie that there is no public testimony for any of the action items at this time. That is correct. I do not have anyone signed up for action item

144testimony. All right. Thank you. And Member Bell, maybe if you could kick us off with the first action item. Yeah. Madam President, I move to approve ASD Memorandum Number 021, budget transfers of up to $220,820 for the Special Education Department's Elementary Education Division to provide qualified teachers for students enrolled in the school-based behavior support programs. Second. Thank you. Do any board members have any questions on ASD memorandum 021? Not seeing any. Katie, if you could please do a roll call vote. Member Hildy? Yes. Member Donnelly? Yes. Member Bellamy? Yes. President McAuliffe? Yes. Member Mitchell? Yes. Member Marcet? Yes. Member Holloman? Yes. Thank you. ASD memorandum number 021 passes with seven yays and zero nays. Next up. I move to approve ASD memorandum number 009 and authorize the superintendent to submit the following projects in priority

145order to the State of Alaska Department of Education and Early Development. by September 1st, 2020 for the fiscal year 2022 Capital Improvement Project School Construction and Major Maintenance Grant Program. Second. Thank you. I'm a first and a second. Are there any questions by board members on ASD Memorandum 009? Not seeing any. Katie, if you could please do a roll call vote. President McAleese. Yes. Member Bellamy. Yes. member donnelly yes remember hilde yes remember holloman yes remember marset yes and remember mitchell yes asd memorandum number zero zero nine passes with seven yeas and zero names next step i move to approve asd memorandum number zero two six and authorize the superintendent to accept a grant from the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development in the amount of $269,982.97 for the second year of a five-year

146comprehensive literacy instruction project to improve literacy outcomes for students at Service High School. Second. I have a first and a second. Are there any board members with questions on ASD memorandum number 026? Not seeing any. Katie, if you could please do a roll call vote. Member Donnelly? Yes. Member Mitchell? Yes. President McAuliffe? Yes. Member Bellamy? Yes. Member Marcet? Yes. Member Hilde? Yes. Member Holliman? Yes. ASD memorandum number 026 passes with seven yeas and zero nays. And last one, please. Last one. I move to approve ASD memorandum 023 and authorize the superintendent to execute an amendment to the professional services agreement with Envision Architecture Incorporated in the amount of $2,611,069 to continue design development through project closeout. Inlet View Elementary School replacement and increase authority to execute future contract amendments to 3.25 million. Second. Are there

147any board members with questions on ASD Memorandum 023? Not seeing any. Katie, if you could please do a roll call vote. Member Holloman. Yes. Member Marcet. Yes. Member Mitchell. Yes. Member Hilde. Yes. President McHale. Yes. Member Bellamy. Yes. And Member Donnelly. No. ASD memorandum number 023 passes with six yays and one nay. And that concludes our action items for this evening. The next section on our agenda is the non-action items, of which there are still three items that remain. Are there any board members that wish to pull any of them for discussion? Yes. Member Marsette? And I can't see the number, but I'd like to pull the one on the update for school start. Of course. I have some questions. Were there any other items to be pulled? All right. Not seeing any. We will

148go ahead and... bring up the task force update and I will hand this over to Dr. Bishop. I don't know if you had any updates specifically or if you just wanted to open the floor for board member comments or questions. Thank you, Madam President. That's what we had planned. And if Dr. Stock could enter the meeting and we'll put him on as the chair of the school start task force and Tom Roth as the chair of the community, if there's any questions, I'll turn it over to these gentlemen, as well as I can assist. We're here to assist with anything. I know I went ultra long on the superintendent report trying to bring the board up to date. that's quite all right and board member marcelle yes um i have been asked several times um

149about our apa or i think that's right our ap classes and our uh gifted students um that they don't feel like they're being challenged enough or is there another avenue or another way that they can enroll in something that would provide them with more challenging content. And on that same note, how are we working with our students that are underachieving? And maybe not underachieving, but need that extra, you know, they need some extra help. Dr. Stock, do you want to share the updates on those as well as your team? He's on mute. To the president, thank you. So as far as the underachieving students, there's a variety of things that we're looking at. Of course, Dr. Bishop has alluded to the reading tutoring piece that's coming forward, but that's only very limited to meeting the

150reading goals in the grades kindergarten through second. So the other areas with regards to remediation. Some of the testimony tonight from one of the teachers alluded to the one-on-one Zoom sessions that people are doing. So there's that piece of it. In addition to that, Tarlesha Wayne may be able to speak to some of the other supports that are coming into tier three with regards to special needs students. In addition to that, Dr. Knutson may be able to respond as well to the supports that are going in around ELL. and around our migrant students as well and the Indian Ed. So all of those programs are providing additional support both virtually through the blended program and also we're providing some of those similar supports with the ASD virtual. So I think I'd like to first look

151to Dr. Stock as well. The question stemmed from AP and advanced placement for honors courses as well. Okay. And so on the AP side of that, we did get a slow start, as you know, for those who are taking the advanced placement through ASD virtual. And so we have all those materials coming in now. And so that is there. But as far as additional tutoring supports, I would have to look to. Dr. Knudson or someone to talk about how that's coming out as far as in the classroom. And then Dr. Stock, I'm sorry, also on our gifted students, which would be, you know, elementary, particularly hearing from students from Rogers Park, if there is not something else that they can supplement with the virtual or is there, are we offering something for those students? As

152far as, oh, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, as far as the differentiation piece of that, all of the teachers, of course, who have those students at Rogers Park would be trying to offer additional supports through the way they did even in their actual programming there as far as Rogers Park through differentiation. But as far as special programs, I know we have our... speak to that i know the training that um our gifted ignite teachers and others have received training and they've been some of the teachers most interested in the training for apex in that virtual learning whereby if it's decided to meet the needs of students some students are having that met by advancing in coursework or having extended coursework through apex I'm not sure the exact name Dr. Knutson maybe

153you have that the Similar to what we used last year, the extensions for Apex as well as actual courses for Apex. If that is part of that, Dr. Stock, not sure. That was part of the question. So let's turn to Dr. Knudsen and share a little bit about the remedial piece. And then also, if in your contacts with Peter Ljubicek with the gifted programs, perhaps you have some information from Peter's division on that. Yes, through the president to member Marcelle. I will start with gifted at the elementary. And if you have more questions specifically, because we have K through 12 gifted and highly gifted. So there's a lot of variables in there. But elementary for Ignite, we have kind of a we have a blended approach. And so we have an asynchronous Canvas course. for

154all our Ignite students, our Ignite teachers, kind of customized depending on the school they serve and then the needs they have at those schools. And then on Wednesdays, they do synchronous sessions with those students as well. And our students who are in ASD virtual program also have access to that. In the highly gifted program, they have created for ASD in school. courses that mirror what they were being provided in the school and then through virtual as Dr. Bishop, they can take higher level courses through Apex or the Apex tutorials with that to provide some more advancement. So that kind of gives you in a nutshell what's happening. And then at the secondary level, same thing there. They can take advanced classes if they need to in ASD virtual. And our teachers have created Canvas courses

155for highly gifted at that middle school level as well. As far as... intervention, looking at our ELL program, Migrant Ed, they have really looked at shifting services to a blending of different things. One of the first priorities, I think it's about 45% of the time, is around family engagement and really ensuring kids are having access. um to instruction and and problem solving when they don't or if there's some issues that are going on and really engaging the family as they did work over the summer through summer school they were really able to connect when they send out what they needed and wanted to continue doing that in this online environment. They also provide one-on-one tutoring and work with teachers to provide those supports as they need additional supports in their classes. So they're working on

156that right now and as kids get going they're going to have a better idea working with teachers what this specific needs are for students and will be able to provide more targeted support as they as they go through that and they are ELL department is working with Diane or around the after school reading intervention program that we're going to be starting at the end of September so that we can also ensure that we're looking at all kids needs and targeting some kids that need that extra support. Of course, my fears are, you know, those kids that sometimes get lost through the cracks. It would be, I mean, I'm certainly not criticizing or anything, but I just think in this day and time, it would be easy to do being online and not in person. So,

157and I'm sure you guys are looking at that, but just that due diligence and how we can make sure that we're. identifying all those students I know you guys are working hard next up in the queue I have board member Holloman and this was about Apex and secondary supports are all the supporting people involved in that from ASD staff I've heard a report that some of the Apex teachers were actually from out of state I was just curious if that was true we can request if Kathy Moffitt or IS CLOSE TO THAT AS WELL AS MIKE FLECKENSTEIN. NEW SPEAKER I CAN ANSWER THAT. WE HAVE HAD SEVERAL COURSES FOR WHICH WE DID NOT HAVE STAFF AVAILABLE WITHIN ASD. AND FOR THOSE STUDENTS WE HAVE ENROLLED THEM IN A VIRTUAL SCHOOL. And some of the ironically,

158one of the staff members in this school lives in Willow, Alaska. So they're from all over the place and they're teaching some foreign language that we didn't have available and as well as some AP courses. But everything that we have staff for, we staff within our district. Do we have any other board members with questions for the task force leads? or Dr. Bishop. Member Donnelly. Thank you, Madam President. My question is, the World Health Organization has utilized, as I mentioned earlier, a percentage of the population infection standard for recommending whether schools are in person or remote. And different states have adopted variations of that standard. Why is the case count per 100,000 standard that we are currently using a superior standard to that recommended by the World Health Organization? I'll take that. I'm not exactly

159sure that I would consider our standard superior. I believe that Alaska, the Department of Education and Early Development, as well as our commissioner, put out information early and we built plans around it. They're being updated as we speak. As of late, some of our testing positive case counts have... I believe they use under a 4%. We've had as much as 6% and 13% throughout this time, looking at lowering that percentage as well. But I wouldn't necessarily that what we are using is superior. I believe it's just significantly, it's just different. And we will, to your prior question, take that back to those health professionals and educational professionals at the state level. uh for whom we're working all right not seeing any other board member comments or questions in the queue uh we'll go ahead and

160move on in our agenda uh next up is a second opportunity for public testimony uh i keep looking to see if uh the it doesn't appear that he did so hopefully we can get some feedback from him in a written form Next up is school board and administration comments. Did any other board members or administration have any thoughts that they wanted to share before we adjourn for the evening? Madam president, I would like to also offer if any administration besides me would also like to share as I've taken up a lot of airtime this evening. Thank you. But I don't have anything further to add. Okay. Thank you so much. Board member Holloman. I was just going to offer generally that my feeling from being out in the community and listening to people, obviously there's

161a raging debate about masks. There's a raging debate about whether or not we should be opening up, whether or not we should be shutting down more. And it's never going to be unanimous. But I do have a feeling that the vast majority of our families in Anchorage feel like we're on a safe route and they support. what we're going through. Nobody enjoys it. We're all sick of it. We're all tired of it. But I think that the feedback is indicating that most people want us to continue to endure it until we do have some way to really control this virus and whether or not we're healthy. And partly I say that to say that while there are bits and pieces about everything we've done that I'm sure I would have done differently and much better

162if I were the superintendent. Generally, I do support the superintendent in those fundamental decisions that have kept our staff safe, have kept our kids safe. It's also obvious that if you interface with ASD to the limited degree that anyone is able to, we're going through a lot of procedures to keep this virus out of our building and out of our staff and not let the school district be a vector for spreading it through the community. Those things are hard. It's not pleasant. It's not a fun situation for anybody, but I do think it's the right one. and we just have to continue on with it. You want to say I think so many educators that I know really believe in planning in a huge way and you really can't frustrate them much more than by

163giving them a future where they can't make any plans. Everybody's kind of accustomed to making plans and then having them be disrupted that's kind of the sign of a top-notch educator but in this case they had a very hard time making plans to begin with and then have had to continue to change and adjust. My heart goes out to them but huge thank yous as well as they try to deal with all of it. Thank you. Thank you. Next up in the queue is Board Member Bellany. Yes, thank you. Just another shout out to Jim for his award. I love it when good people have good things happen. And I'd also like to give a shout out to, I forget her first name, I think it's Siobhan O'Hara. She, one of our teachers, she taught

164herself origami so that she could engage with that during these COVID times with her kids. And I'm so excited. I want to do those. When she gets it all done, she's going to be posting those. I've never met her. I only know of her story from, I think it was on our website or on our Facebook page or both. I just, and, you know, there's just so many stories out there from handing out Chromebooks dressed up as a character. I can't remember the character. To, you know, handing out Chromebooks. Just trying to engage with our kids and families in unique kinds of ways, I just think it's wonderful. And so I just want to give a shout out to all our teachers and our principals for trying to make lemonade out of all these lemons

165that we have. And together we will get through it. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Board Member Marcette. Okay, I have to have a shout out to Jim also. Jim, you're amazing. You do a wonderful job. I appreciate you and apparently so do a lot of other people. So thank you. I also too, I agree with Andy. You know, we hear questions and people are wanting to know what are their other alternatives as far as not moving from the district, but how can they supplement? But overall, I think that we've received that our community, our parents support the decisions that have been made. Dr. Bishop has made hard decisions from the very beginning when we stopped our international travel. I think back to that initial decision and what foresight she had. And although it was

166hard, it was definitely the right decision and many followed in suit. So I do think that we are going along the right path. You know, we jumped from one thing from the earthquake into the pandemic. We barely had any breathing room. It's been hard for administrators, principals, custodians, bus drivers, teachers. I mean, there's not one person, board members. There hasn't been one person this hasn't affected. And I think I would just add as stressful as you are, I have to remember something Dr. Bishop said, because sometimes I get up and I think, oh, where's my mask? I have to do this. I have to do that. But you know, you can choose to get up and put a smile on your face. And that is what so many of our uh teachers staff principals have

167done please um I know we're asking a lot of you. It's for the kids. And you guys are doing your best. And I just want you to know how much you are appreciated. And this too will pass. And we're not in it alone. It's across the world. And so I know that's no consolation. But everybody's going through the same thing. So a little bit of tolerance. A little bit of do something to make yourself happy. be kind to each other. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. And I'll just, you know, close with a couple of comments. Between our last meeting and this one, school started. Kids are going back. They are, you know, connecting with their schools and their teachers and their learning. And I know my email box, you know, whether it is

168from the teachers or from Canvas or from the principals, it is full. but it's full of activity and it's full of excitement and enthusiasm. And there's no doubt, you know, the struggles are real, but so are the successes. And I just want folks to make sure that they recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate all of them because they are there. I can't think of a specific shout out that, you know, wouldn't be a little bit biased as a mom, but I am watching a lot of great things happen out there and a lot of perseverance and patience with each other and the programs and everything. And just very appreciative of the district, you know, that my kids go to school in and that, you know, I work to represent. And so just thank you to everybody involved.

169to the public. We have a joint assembly and school board meeting this Friday. I believe it's from 10 to 12. I'm sure links can be found on their website. Our next regular meeting of the school board is September 22nd. And we look forward to continuing down this path together. So just thank you to everybody. And if there are no objections and I don't see any, then we'll go ahead and adjourn this meeting. Thank you.