001is to bring some work that suits better to the board this week. I think it's I think it's long enough. So instead of instead of moving forward, you're just pass on the red line. Good evening. My name is and I am in Mula second grade class. My friends Mary, Jessica, Cameron, Landon, Marshall, and I would like to share the history of every day. We will also talk about why Plus State British state day was Paris Day was called Army State until 1954. Paris Day was started by President Woodro Wilson in 1819. Day was started as a day to create lasting peace by honoring the sacrifices made by the United States military in World War I. Veterans Day was and is a celebration to honor America's veterans for their patriotism, love of country, and willingness to
002serve and sacrifice for the common good. Veterans Day is Veterans Day is always observed on November 11. Veterans Day is a day to especially honor all living military veterans. Veterans Day Veterans Day is celebrated with season and pray. Veterans Day is a national holiday. Veterans Day is celebrated on November 11th because World War I is declared over 11:00 in the morning on November 11, 198. Our field of puppies. The poppy is a red that floats all over Europe. World War II American were buried in red. Artificial countries such as this are veterans on November 11th. Our class created in honor of the right there. A little little decor. We celebrate the people who worked hard and made sacrifices to keep our country safe. To me, Veterans Day means a day to celebrate the people that
003made us through the war. To me, Veterans Day means the veterans who saved our country will brave and strong. To me, Veteran Day makes me feel happy when I think about my grandpa, Art and Sine, who fought for our country. Veterans Day means remembers and honors the people who fought in wars. May Veterans Day means a day to celebrate the soldiers and protect our country. A first thank you to all the veterans who might be in and audience especially my uncle Brian G. All veterans please stand up to be recognized. Uncle [Applause] Brian, you guys [Applause] wondering I thought you were in fifth grade for the That was amazing. Really nice job. Thank you. And I appreciate it. My son was in the army for eight years. I'm so glad that you know veterans days
004and you always remember how important it is. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Yes, absolutely. [Music] Good. Seems to be [Music] Jackie, you didn't get that. All right. So, we are entering into session. 7:15. So, um, we'll be back. Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't put that in there. [Laughter] Yes, it was. All right. So, motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing possible appointments at Oxford High School and inviting in Dr. Robert Miller and Mr. That's Let me say yes motion to go into executive session for the purpose of discussing the possible assistant principal at Oxford High School and inviting in Dr. Robert Miller and Anthony Hibbert second death. All those in favor we'll be back soon. Thank you. just use the facility. That's fine. Sorry.
005Jackie back is Jackie. Yes. Can you hear us? Yes. As principal at our school. Any further discussion? All those in favor? I opposed abstain. Motion carries and we will Oxford high [Music] school minutes to approve the minutes from the October 12th board of education meeting. Any changes to those minutes? All those in favor? Opposing? Oppos? Motion carries. Motion to approve the minute of October 26, 2021 board of education. Any changes in those minutes? Thank you. All in favor? [Music] I motion carries. And now we have audience. So, if you would like to address the board, you can come up and please um just give us your name and address. You can either write it down for you and we like to hear if you have [Music] anything on 33 housekeeping item. I know you guys
006have updated your website. The um agenda for tonight, nothing persisted through. I see you have another link. So, I just wanted to let you know that where I was looking, I couldn't find what I was looking for. Okay. Thank you. Um, I'm interested in curriculum and I know that there is an initiative to revisit the curriculum. So, I went out into the website and I started to look and see what was out there and it was a wealth of information. I can say that what's out there is very helpful and I came away with concerns on some of the mapping that I was seeing. Um, so I have some points to go through and I'd really like to hear what the board um your thoughts, feedback if I'm misinterpreting what I'm seeing, but there are
007definitely some things that set up some red flags for me. Um, so I started at the high school level because there is not mapping for all of the grades. So I just basically tool around to see what I could find. And in the high school curriculum, right, under under sociology for grades 11 and 12. All right. Uh we go in and this is the unit overview. All right. The unit serves as an introduction to the semester course stu students learn so what sociology is and how it differs from other sciences. Great. So I'm looking through the unit overview in the different sections. And um that's week one to three. And then it goes into um and I'm just picking out some bullet points. I know there's a lot work here. So, I'm not trying to
008extract anything and make it sound biased. I just want to hit some high points because there's so much here. Culture is a main component of social structure. Students learn how difficult it is to see our own culture from the inside. What seems normal to us may not seem normal to one outside our culture. Okay. And then we look at the content under essential questions. What is the relationship between race, ethnicity, and crime? Now that it's the what portion of it if we're trying to develop critical thinkers, it's the what portion of it that I feel is disturbing. Right? Because if you want people to give feedback, then the way to approach the question is to talk about whether there is a relationship. What I feel here is happening is it's a pre it's a decision
009that's been made and somebody's making a statement of fact rather than having a discussion within the classroom. So the question is put to the student that this is a fact. Now tell me what the relationship is. Then going on into another section unit concentrates on social inequity and sociological causes of inequality. Minorities and elderly are disproportionately represented in lower classes. Sociology causes for the sociological causes for these inequalities are discussed including origins of prejudice, discrimination, institutional dist um discrimination and again we come to the essential questions. How are race and ethnicity related to to poverty? How are gender and age related to poverty? Is there a scientific basis for race? I don't even know what that means. Why are ethnic minorities seen as inferior? What are the barriers to African-American assimilation? So again, and I'm
010on the outside looking in. I've understood, but these are not the kind the phrasing of the question to me is a predetermined fact. And now you're looking at students to support those facts rather than to introduce them to critical thinking to either embrace or dispute them. Moving on, this unit covers the various social institutions. Students will learn to distinguish between power, authority, and coercion. Now we move to the uh to the essential questions. Are marriages happier with or without children? I don't know how a high school student even can think about that. How do schools transmit culture? Okay. Do schools provide education equality? And again, I'm interested to know how on how a high schooler would even begin to have a discussion on that. How is socialism thought to benefit society? Okay, moving on. The
011unit will cover an understanding of demographics and the tool demographers used to forecast population growth and composition. I didn't write any other notes here. And I promise I'm not going to suck up the whole night. Just a few more points. Then I move into again high school social studies, ethnic and gender studies. The the introductory unit to this course will begin with the understanding of why this course is necessary. We will look at the root of racism, nivism and patriarchy and the specific ways it has had an effect on our modern society. And right under the essential questions, what is white privilege? Uh, moving on. Why does society continue to systematically discriminate against groups in our society? Why is the single story dangerous to our society? How does society make up for past mistakes? Why
012has progress been so slow in the United States? Again, where's the critical thinking? The unit will focus on themes of social justice, social responsibility, and social change. How can we be active citizens and participants in enacting social justice for all? Um, personal comments here and I'll just say, you know, I've been around long enough to see that actually white middle class males are probably one of the most highly discriminated groups in our society right now. Um, and it also takes me back to a time in our nation's history when our ethnicity didn't really matter. you know, we held on to our ethnic heritage and we celebrated and we celebrated with and for each other. But when we walked out the front door, we were all Americans. It didn't matter if I was Polish, if I
013was Jewish, if I was Catholic. We all united as Americans. And I feel that when we approach topics like this and we're not careful how we do it that they become more divisive than they do unifying. So again, and this this is the last um point that I'll hit on, but I wanted to see how we get there from here, right? Because this is high school. Again, there's a lot of content that's missing for the grades in between, but I went back to kindergarten and found what I found to be very interesting. And it's the kindergarteners writer workshop. And this from what I could discern by the uh lengthy unit, this is a whole year. So, we're looking at in kindergarteners and we're trying to groom them to be good writers and persuasive writers. Great.
014When I was in kindergarten, my kids went through it wasn't quite that sophisticated, but you know, times change. Um, and we're asking the students to do an abundance of Okay, we did pushes the students to do an abundance of persuasive writing including letters, songs, petitions. This is kindergarten and science addressing problems they see in their classroom and then extending into world problems. This is kindergarten. Hold up one minute. Sure. Oh, no. I know. Here we go. I'm sorry. No, that's fine. Um, all right. um push students to think about how to make things better than the classroom and school. Ben two of this unit expands children's thinking to include neighborhood problems and really dives into the idea of who can help me fix that problem. Students work to write lots of persuasive letters. The third
015end of the unit revolves around the children all joining in a whole class endeavor to tackle a global problem using a variety of writing genres to pate to persuade others to convince their readers to help cause change and improvement. What essential questions? What problems do I see and encounter in the world? How can I convince others to make the problem better? So if I start in kindergarten and I fast forward to high school, the question that comes to my mind is are we really trying to develop critical thinkers or are we grooming we need grooming activists? What's the role of the school? I'm really interested to hear what the board has to say about this and if they share any concerns or any anything. Well, actually thank you for for doing all that research and
016Dr. we have our great director with us here and I'm sure that they'll have a discussion on your points and and they will get back to you or we will get back to you but you know for for right now we need to obviously um you know process what what your concerns are and and we'll respond to so this is news right so and and I'm not saying that in an adversarial way what I'm bringing here it feels like that there is a thought that the board may not be fully immersed into what's actually out there. the same back to um I know that you know Stephanie says discussion back to that is I just want to tell you that as chair of the curriculum subcommittee that um there are many of these areas that
017we're working on and we're very very familiar with um the uh that's up on the website and um All right. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] Sne um I just wanted to come up. I had uh I was a little outraged this week at the content my daughter received in school. I didn't hear from anyone from the board. Um I did reach out to the teacher and I'm sure you all had heard about it through grade five. Um but she was given an assignment that was not um appropriate for a 10-year-old to read. So my question to the teacher was where did this come from and how did this happen and you know how do we prevent it from happening again and you know do you still think it's appropriate and the assignment was taken down.
018Um but from my understanding the curriculum for social studies fifth grade isn't finished due to co you know I understand everything's due to co nowadays when we fail but um I don't want to be failed so I don't know who is the curriculum right where is the curriculum coming from exactly so okay great so fifth grade social science is something to take a look at sure um I just wanted to mention that I'm also concern concerned about things that are happening. Um I understand that we need to protect um our community and our children, but things seem to be going a little too far. Okay, we're testing in the schools now instead of in medical facilities. I'm not I'm not okay with that. Um you know, it was more, you know, opt in or opt
019out. I mean, are these vaccines going to be mandated? And then if I choose not to vaccinate my child, is there going to be weekly testing like they're doing in colleges? I just want to know, are we being desensitized? Are we being conditioned? Is this what's going to happen? Because why are we why are we doing this? How bad was the outbreak that we needed to send medical people to my child's elementary school to test them? And how can I ensure that my daughter doesn't get tested? I need to be able to trust my daughter's school. And based on the curriculum that she received last week that no one seemed to know about that lack of trust is failing quickly. And it's not just me. There's a lot of parents that don't feel that we
020can trust our school. And we are very divided country. We need we need to know that we're not all on the same page with COVID and mass and mass um mandates and vaccines. But I think they need to do some more surveys on what we want. What do the parents want for our children? Do we want testing being done in our schools and our kids called down to class to get tested? Some people might not think it's a big deal. To me, it's a huge deal and I'm not comfortable with it. And I'm very, very close to pulling my daughter out of public school as many parents around this country are. And that's terrible. I pay taxes in this town. I've been here my whole life. I'm very, very discouraged and I think a lot
021of parents are. really hope I know a lot of you on the board are on the same page, but I really we need that trust brought back and we need to have a plan what's going to happen now that they've approved the 5 to 11 because we're not all for the vaccine. So, thank you for your time. Thank you so much. Hello. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Katie Brook. So, we're here in regards and I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name. Bro, it's a tape. So, we're we're here in regards to the third grade quarantine. Um, it did not just affect the smallest of smallest of teachers or or kids or whatever. It affected 15 girls immensely. Um, our children were not in any of the classes that were quarantined. Um, this is in regards to
022uh, popcorner cheerleading. And our girls had a chance to go to regionals. They won first place at their locals. They were second place at their states or third place at their states. They came back to locals. They got first place. They were now brought to regionals. Regionals was this Saturday. Wednesday, we got a phone call. Now, they were not in school on Tuesday. Wednesday, we got a phone call. Immediately, come and pick up your kids. They are going home. They're quarantined. I called Dr. Miller on Thursday to find out because we had hotel reservations. These kids need to know if they're going because my child came out of that school so it knew that she was she her class was not affected and she was being sent home. She didn't know why she was being
023sent home. She was just told she's going home. Here's all your stuff. Get out of here. That was it. And she had a substitute. And that's what the substitute basically told her. Like, and she told my daughter, "Well, you can count your competition out." That's what she said. Okay. So, my kid came home. So, I'm sorry. It's emotional. Yeah. So, Dr. Miller and he told me that technically our kids were not quarantined but they cannot come to school because of an outbreak. I understand that. What outbreaks were in the classrooms was not affecting any of our children besides one? I said can we still go? He said board of education the board of ed said that we can't go. Period. We're quarantined. We can't go. So he said technically board of education doesn't have anything
024to do with an outside group but outside group is park and wreck. That's pop corner. We can't say the school says we're quarantined. We're just going to go without them knowing because then you can ruin our protocol with parks. So that's our understanding. So of course I said you need to know by 2 p.m. today. Nobody called me back at 2 p.m. I said to him a video of my child hysterically crying. And I said, "What are you going to tell these girls? What are we going to tell the girls? Because your board of ed just told us that we cannot go." And he said, "We technically can't tell you not to go. We're having a meeting at 12:00 tomorrow. We'll let you know." Now, we were supposed to be leaving at 12:40. We were
025going to all pick up our girls because it's a 2 and a half hour ride up there and we didn't want to get stuck in traffic. We wanted them to have a good night's rest before practice before competition Monday. So now they had no practice because they weren't there on Tuesday because of election day. Um Wednesday was their practice day, but they got quarantined. Thursday we had zero answers. And then Friday zero zero answers until I called him and I said, "What is the decision?" Like our families are bleeding. We these kids are like on their toes because they see our their parents halfpacked ready to go. If the answer is yes, one child who hadn't been in school since the following Friday, previous Friday tested positive. So that quarantined a class that had four
026cheerleaders in it, but yet they were quarantined on Friday. And then we get an email on Sunday night that says, "Oh no, you all can go to school and your kids can get tested in school." So, how was that fair? You literally stripped I asked if we could test. Can we test? Can we PCR test on Thursday? I would have figured out how to get a way to get all those girls PCR test on Thursday. And to come to find out, most of our girls ones that did get tested, they were negative. No, like nobody had COVID, nobody had symptoms, nobody had anything. These girls were healthy, healthy, healthy. Seven, eight, and nine year olds. Um, why did they have to miss the biggest competition that could have brought them to nationals, which we just
027got to know? What's plan for this uh stay in spring and stay? Like, what the heck? Our kids are totally fine. They could have gone. And then how how do we stop this from happening to the junior punies who are now their fourth fifth graders who are now qualified to go to nationals December right after Thanksgiving. What what are we going to do for them? That's not just $150 that we lost from not being able to go. That's total for a family of four for four days in Disney with their park pass, whatever. It's $2,800 without food, without flights, but they'll lose $2,800 because something like this can happen again. It's not us. We can handle it. It's our kids. And they could have obviously our kids could have gone like our kids could have
028won. I'm sorry that happened to your child and no one wants to see their child that upset. Um, what I can say is that I know that and it's doesn't make it any easier that it's crazy for everyone. But I do know that there are procedures and protocols and Dr. Brown and you know and Dr. And then I have done face to uh FaceTime Facebook sessions with parents who have questions. Um and DPH is very involved and um you know I don't think anyone has answer for it. I understand that you guys have all of that and that's wonderful. It's great. I get a quarantine freaking text every other day or a COVID test every other day. I get it. I'm actually sick of it. I'm done with it. I don't mind. But when it
029came down to this particular situation, it was uh this one said this, this one said that, this one said this, this one said that. There was no clear communication. None. Like I mean I just I don't know how many football players there were. Is cheer. Um is cheer from park and it's popcorn. go through park and wreck for all of our gymnasium space. All of our right but dad's popcorn or goes through park and parks and wreck were the ones who going to make the decision about that correct? No, that's the question. That's the question. Nobody could tell us who said we can't that was the answer that we were given quarantined. Well, from our end, then we need to just get a little clear when parks and made their own decision. Park was select
030on the call with DK help on Friday when they were the advice that we were told to continue. They made their decision to continue to quarantine. So, I have a question. If contact tracing is being done, sorry. There was no contact tracing to the one kid that had the the co the positive case to our children with the four girls that were in that classroom. We get an email for every single case contact trac to that class. They did not contact trace to that class. that kept us back from going to Boston. And the reason I'm upset is I emailed multiple administration about this yesterday fall apart just like I am right now. Nobody replied. I did call you and I got your voice in your voice last Friday. Thank you Dr. I appreciate that.
031They can't get this out. This is not a softball a local softball team local softball team. is not a local soccer game that they could have their part pizza party next weekend instead of this weekend. This is something that they totally forfeited, it might not ever be able to get back. And the reason that we're standing here is because we don't want other moms to ever feel this way again or other kids feels good. Interesting. Somebody has to take responsibility so that this does not happen again. I do plan on addressing this in report and and I will say that I've already conversed. So, we're looking at how Thank you so much. Hi. Hello. I'm Shannon. Gravity is not my strong point, so I'm gonna try to keep it real short. UT. U TE CD
032T. Um I just want to reiterate, you know, kind of piggyback on what I've said past couple times. I my issue with the, you know, the over quarantining and the over testing with the children is from my background. Now I'm getting emotional cry makes me want to cry. Um I you know being among our five children in the district and you know having a masters in school psychology and having been you know a former first grade teacher I'm seeing the undue stress that the children are being caused by all of this in my opinion and it's my opinion because everybody's very heated about this over testing and them going to school and feeling like you know I've had my kindergartner say to me you Am I got p pulled out midday? And that is that's
033a fearful place to be coming from a psycho psychological background knowing that the one place you put your children in is school. And for those eight hours, those are the people they go to. Then they feel comfortable and they get to let me tell you, I've taught in Bridgeport. I've been in Westport. I've been all across the board, you know, in, you know, in in in inner city and, you know, suburban and and no matter where you go, kids walk all lines of life. And and when they are comfortable and they feel safe with the teacher, they will talk to that teacher about anything. And I feel like these children feel so cold with COVID. They feel like they're in and out. You know, I've had my kindergarteners say to me, "Am am I gonna
034make it through the school day or are they gonna are they gonna fall and I'm gonna and you're gonna pick me up again?" And that's heartbreaking to me. And that is, you know, that's the cold hard reality of the world that we're living in right now. I just feel like if we could re-evaluate as a district and I don't know how that happens. I'm not I'm so far removed because like I said, I have five kids so I'm not teaching anymore and I don't know policies as well as I used to. But I just the the need to like walk off for testing in the school systems um I feel like presents an undue stress on children that they don't need. We're all testing them every time we have to that they get pulled out
035and and you know and the the contact tracing that's happening that is at such a level I'm hoping that changes now with you know Lamont's new mandates and all of that. I hope we can re-evaluate as a district how to make that more comfortable at an emotional level for the children that they don't feel like they're ticking time box because if we've learned anything from this virus, we've learned they are not they're not spreading it the way that they we thought they were and they're not and and they don't need to feel like that. They don't need to feel like the air that they breathe is is toxic. And I get it. There's a lot on, you know, on the level that we can't do with mask mandates and all of that, but I just
036hope we can maybe come together and um do something even if it even if it's like a monthly I've mentioned this before to some some of the teachers that I talk to, even if it's a monthly um like the a psychologist comes in and talks to the kids about, you know, comfort and safety and not and just not making them feel like they're Yeah, they're nervous. Yeah, that's I I can't think of a better word for it, but that's it. I I told you is not my strong point. And thank you. And I think you brought up some good points that I think that could be implemented. I would love like a school psychologist, especially these babies, these K through two babies. They are so confused. And it'd be great if they could just have
037like a, you know, a a monthly meeting of life confused, but here's what she heard. Yeah. And I like her. I like Well, y'all, you know, and you know what the other thing is? You know, I it might sound cliche, but you know, I feel for your stress. I feel for your children. Um, you know, I just will share with you that I'm so glad that mine are older and I don't have to deal with So I understand it and you know just that you know we truly in our heart of hearts are trying to do the best thing for everyone and I know Dr. Miller and Mr. Gibber and if you ever knew the hours of time that they spent you know talking to DPH you know from Harford Dr. talk to me speak
038quite a bit too. So, so I understand and I'm I'm a huge you know advocate and you know a cheerleader for this town. I came in here kicking and screaming saying I you know there's there's no restaurants. It's all cows. I'll never you know I'll never stay here and I love it here. The community is wonderful and I know everybody's traveling to do their best, but you know, there are some things that are at this point, you know, I just I'm just concerned for the for the kids for their emotional living. I just want it to be, you know, I I just don't want everything to be about policy and not about their, you know, their their wellbe. Hi, my name is Alicia Lovski. I am a resident of Oxford. I've been here for about
03930 years. I think there's a huge overreach going on with kids and their parents. I am so against this. I wasn't going to speak tonight, but after I listen to these parents, I am outraged by everything that is going on in this town. I have adult children. I say, "Thank you, God, every day that I don't have kids in the school system because I think I would be running at all of your offices every day screaming about what is going on." They're telling us to follow the science. I don't see it. It doesn't make sense. When something doesn't make sense, it's not true. I do know that much. I hear tonight the anxiety of the parents with their children. I am beside myself because I don't know what that's like, but I do know I
040did have children and they were small at one time and I feel like we're doing our kids a big disservice of what is happening. Um I don't have all the answers and I know everybody here doesn't have all the answers. I do think maybe um everybody got some COVID money. Um maybe we should run a a pilot program here in Oxford with parents and school boards. I think we need to start listening to our parents. They are in total control of their children. I know one thing I they birth these kids. They do have control over their children. And I think a lot of people are rebelling because this is not right. And I know we're trying to follow the science and I know there's a lot of doctors. Just because you have a doctor
041or a PhD doesn't mean you know it all either. And I work with a lot of them just so you know. I want to see the data come back. I actually work for a huge place and we're waiting for the data. I want to see it. Data takes many years before it comes back. We all know how this is a clinical trial that we're in. Okay? And we all know all the years it takes to go from bench to bedside. We're talking 20 and 30 years. This is one year, one and a half years. And they want us to make these decisions for the children. I don't know. I'm just hoping that you guys can put something together because I hear the anxiety. And I feel really bad for the kids today. And I just
042hope that maybe you guys can work something out with these parents. I just have to let you know that I will be showing up because I think all of this needs to be held accountable for all the decisions that are being made here and I think it's something that can be worked out because Oxford's a beautiful town and I don't want to see it wrecked like a lot of other places are getting wrecked and it's being divided over a lot of political things too. So, thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, my name is Maresa. Yes, I live in Oxford. My daughter was up here reading the whole room. Fantastic. Um, so I just I have some questions. I'm not sure you know who um I feel like there's a lot I
043don't know. I pulled um my daughter does best with structure. Uh we pulled her out of Oxford last year. I spent two hours a day driving her back and forth to private school. Um she was in school full-time, five days a week all year. Um and I want to say maybe three, four times at most uh for no no more than two or three days at a time. Um they did remote learning if there was a case or two in the school. Um, but we knew exactly what to expect. We knew that they would um go home. We um they would log in. Sometimes it was an entire class home. Other times it was a couple of kits with the positive case and the primary contact. Um my daughter was um you know home for
044both of those times and when she was a primary contact she logged in the teacher had you know taught the rest of the class as usual but had the computer set up so my daughter was still in class um without you know physically being there. She participated all day. Um here I have you know we it was the commuting was a lot on her on us and we brought her back to Oxford hoping that there would be some sort of um you know structure and consistency here and it's like I feel like every day I'm waiting for the call like come pick her up. she, you know, we had COVID. I like, you know, it went to her house. I've got the vaccine. Like, it's not something that we worry about in our house. Um,
045but still, and just like these girls, I mean, they were quarantined for no reason, for nothing. Like, they lost out for nothing. Um, and I just like I don't know like I feel like I'm always waiting for that call or for that email. Um, my daughter had a cold one day and I had to pick her up and the nurse was like, "Well, maybe you should have her tested. You might want to." Like, "Well, do I have to?" You know, "Well, did you see her pediatrician?" And I said, "No, her pediatrician would not see her." And their their response to me was, "Well, if your school's not requiring it, no, this is something we treat at home with fluids and maybe some Tylenol and let her watch TV." Um, I've been hearing from other parents
046that their kids are at home. Um, I've seen emails that kids were expected to log in for remote learning. I've spoken to parents who their younger children seem to get sent home with a packet of busy work when they're quarantined. Um, I have like I I feel like there's no clear communication as to what the um requirements are, what the procedures are. I know like for me it was a suggestion that I get my daughter tested for COVID. Um, but then you know I have a neighbor who kept her son home and she said she was required to get him tested for COVID. So I I just like I I just came back into the school district this year and I have I don't know. I just it's not very clear and I I get
047the emails. I don't have Facebook so I'm not on those chats um with Dr. Brown. I don't you know. So for parents who are not on social media, like I feel like we're, you know, I don't know. I don't know what what to do. It just seems like everyone's like, "Well, he said this and she said that and he said she like it's just a lot of it. It feels very messy to me coming from, you know, last year when it was very well organized and very well done and it just seems two things. One, our live sessions are both on Facebook and so you don't need up to 500 people. So you never Okay. Um, two, give me your number any questions related to quarantining and testing and all that stuff. Thank you so
048much. Um number five on the agenda state of schools very very patient [Music] um so I believe that's perfect good evening everyone know that you all have received a copy of my report hopefully you had a chance to kind of go through it I'll just touch on a few areas and Feel free to ask questions. The first part of the report, student enrollment. We currently have 383 kiddos attending K Farms grades preK to two. Class size, as you can see, um averages around between 18 and 20 depending on the grade level, kindergarten being the highest um even with our seventh section of kindergarten. Some of our exciting happenings, you can I'm sure that you read through them. Um, our most latest was our uh K2 preK2 pumpkin patch which again special thank you to the
049Oxford PTO. Um, thank you to the PTO for funding the pumpkins. It was wonderful to see the kiddos get out of off the bus and see 400 pumpkins at the front of the school. So, the kids were super excited. It was finally um bringing back a little bit of normaly to our kiddos. So, they were super excited. The next day was our Halloween parade which obviously we did not have last year. So, as you all know, if you've been in O Search for a long time, it's the staple to Quaker Farms. Everyone questions and asks about the Halloween parade. So, to not have it last year was very, very disappointing and upsetting to the kiddos. And this year, I think we probably had the most parents that I've ever seen in my 24 years here.
050So, it was really exciting for the kiddos to be able to um walk around. I think the parents were maybe more excited than the kids and the staff were super excited. Right. I I agree. Um, it just brought this sense of when the kids got off the bus and they were in their costumes, it was like finally like despite the masks, because the masks just sort of fit the costumes, too. So, it was really great. Um, they were just like just so different. I just felt like they just had this aura about them. They just came in so thrilled and there was music and they were just super excited. So, it just I don't know, it just melted my heart a little bit and and just seeing all the families like that was probably the
051most people I've seen in the same time. Um, and just walking through it just was really a wonderful experience. So again, the parents, the lack of parents in the building is really what I miss the most. Um, again, being there for 24 years, we had parents in all the time. Um, all the time. So again, bringing that back just felt normal and it was wonderful for those kiddos as well as the staff. I think it boosted the morale. I think parents were excited to come to Quaker Farms because again, like I said, I miss seeing all of that interaction. Um just a couple things that we're doing in November. Um we have our picture we take day. We have our pajama drive which um is for the pajama program which just collects um pajamas and
052books for those children who are in foster care. We are participating in the districtwide Thanksgiving food drive. And our current monthly Quaker Farms window pane art gallery is if you've been to Quaker Farms or if you take a walk outside the window panes in the front foyer are filled with student artwork. Parents can't come in to the building. So, we want to obviously post things and there are families that have commented. Oh, during our walk around the building on Saturday, we stopped and we saw all the beautiful artwork. So, I'm just trying to keep that updated as much as possible. I've also presented the student activity report, which um obviously is pretty self-explanatory. And I'm just touching on a couple of things based on our strategic priorities. There are those four buckets that I had
053talked about um the last time I was here. The first priority being implementing high impact instructional strategies. Teachers are continuing to use those high impact instructional strategies on a daily basis. So you'll walk in, you'll see learning targets, you'll see kids talking about the target. Success criteria. You'll see self- assessment going on. Really, really great strategies that are being implemented daily. Professional development has been offered as well to all staff in regards to those areas. We continue to have our grade level meetings and monthly staff meetings to discuss and share examples. I think the best thing is we can talk to staff about what these instructional strategies are and how to implement them and what to do. But really coming away with examples. So again, just just brought a couple just walking in and talking
054about questions and higher order thinking. We can talk to teachers about that, but for teachers to actually just be able to leave a meeting and say, "Oh, I can go implement this in my classroom tomorrow." is really the key to to teacher success. And as we know, they have lots on their plates um and they want what's best for kiddos. So just even giving them something and talking about the highle questioning and having something already done for them. They were like oh my god it just elicits a lot of conversation and a lot of great things came out of just a simple sample like this. So really providing them with those samples whether it's myself providing I found these for them really talk about what can they use because again you could talk about the
055textbook theory behind it but it's really about how they're implementing in the classroom. So again, um teachers commented how it was awesome to leave our grade level meetings or our meetings with stuff to do that they can just go and try. Um so that's been really successful. We also had our first non-evaluative walkthrough which took place at Quaker Farms as well as Oxford Center School in October 28th. And really we um at our first admin meeting in November, we talked about that data and all of the information that we had gathered based on those instructional strategies such as learning targets, success criteria, self- assessment. I included some of that information. I'm not going to read it through, but again, our percentages were really, really high. Teachers were phenomenal. Again, I'm not biased because they're Quaker
056Farm teachers, but the teachers that I got to observe over at Oxford Center School, it was really great instructional strategies taking place and the data supports that for our very first walk through. Um, the numbers are very reflective of the things that we saw and a lot of great teaching that was in fact going on. Our second bucket, our priority number two, um, is really talking about student learning outcomes. And I went into great depth in regards to that at our last meeting when we went over our strategic um our school improvement plan. In that area falls our I Ready assessment. And as I had talked about earlier, we had um we had given it to grades one and two. We started the week of October 18th. So we did um it did take about
057two weeks. So last week was really our first week of looking at the data and really diving into it. We didn't want to rush the kiddos because again it's a little bit longer than the STAR assessment. So really providing them with that time to to take the test. We obviously had to make, you know, do um makeups and get all that information. So last week we really started looking at that data. So I did print out some of the the scores that came directly from my ready. Um some of the graphs I know that they were a little bit smaller to read. It looked much larger when I was doing it in my document. Um so basically it's a fiveleveled tier level and there's mid above early on one grade level below two grade levels
058below and that fifth tier was three grade levels below but because farms only goes up to grade two we don't have that fifth level so you see five levels where that's kind of what that means um and again first grade sure that um those color so red is more than one grade always in a year, right? Blue is accurate. I don't have a blue, right? Is your white blue? My white is technically I wanted to stick with what I already uses because otherwise for me it gets a little bit confusing. So the white is really green with black lines to it, but I couldn't figure out how to make that on there. So um could it could the headings just be so when you say could they be consistent or are they consistent with I
059read these headings are consistent with so two below means two grades two level one below means one below obviously early on what does that mean early on in the school year so that's actually where we want kiddos to be so early on means early on first grade if we're talking about the first grade score so beginning of the year okay beginning of year and mid or above you're talking about time frame mid mid school year. So it would be like mid first grade level or above. Okay. Gota and I took the language directly from I read. Okay. Yeah. I mean and and I tried to look up I read to see what it was either and it was a different h report. So that's why I was trying correct and it's very tiny at the
060top. So that graph literally came from the I Ready and then I the second graph was which is placement by domain. when you're using I Ready, you can just scroll over that line, that bar graph, and the percentages pop up. Okay. But I wasn't able to print that out. So that's why I just kind of made it bigger at the bottom. Yeah. Just so that we understand when you're comparing. So thank you. Um what's really nice with I Ready is that it breaks it down in domains. So where we had STAR previous or NWA, it just sort of categorized ELA just as ELA. This really breaks it down. So it breaks it down to the five domains. awareness, phonics, high frequency words, vocabulary, literature, both fiction and non-fiction. So, it really breaks it down to
061see where the kids the kiddos strengths and weaknesses are specifically. Um, and then obviously for math, it does the same thing. So, it gives an overall placement, but again, I'm looking at it as well as my SRVI teams, the classroom teachers. We're really looking at it by domains because that's where we're really getting most of our information from. Um, and overall, it's great, but we really want to break it down to specifics. Um, basically what we found is that our students taking this one, this is one assessment. Um, we're currently doing additional assessments. We have our curriculum based assessments. This is a one-time snapshot. Overall, it looks like our kiddos are currently one grade level behind in the majority of the areas. Am I surprised at that? No. I I'm working in a school with
062almost 400 little ones and I've never had a normal school year. You think about it. Every child in my building has never had a normal school year. So for me to look at these results and say it's typically that they're one grade level below. That was my expectation when they took this test. Obviously our goal is for them to to show growth and improvement over time. Um things that we are doing currently again we just started looking at the data last week. Um again the data is being used to help students you know address very specific needs. We can a teacher can pull up their class roster that they can scroll on a child's name and they're going to get a very specific breakdown of the child's strengths, the child's weaknesses in in every single
063domain. And then as you as you continue on, there's specific paragraphs about cans and what the child can do and what the child needs. And there's paragraphs as to what the child has been able to show, what they can do, and then very specific areas of what the next steps are. And literally it lists very specific objectives. In order for that child to show growth, you need to work on A, B, C, and D. And then it also provides resources. So you can click on those resources and lesson plans come up. I have never seen that in NWA. I've never seen that in STAR. It's very tailored to very specific kids needs. Um, it aligns lessons. So when we start on the um student pathways on those learning pathways for kiddos, we can assign specific
064lessons to those kids as well. Um, and we're obviously looking at a plan to start rolling out kiddos working on I already whether it's, you know, maybe after lunch and recess when kids are coming in and they're, you know, using the bathroom and they're getting a drink, providing some time for them to work on their learning pathways in the classroom as well as looking at it at home. Lots of parents are asking for some resources at home. This will give them experience using the I Ready. And again, our hope is for us to show growth over time. Our special ed teachers are also using it. Again, they get their case loads of kiddos. they get to, you know, look at their score, see those areas that they're really doing well in, those areas that they
065need some extra help in, um, and personalizing their learning paths as well. Um, it's just going to be about I know that you know they also do I know platform just questions about presentation of you know the average number they do give a students when you go and you scroll into each student's um profile they will give a student's scale score and then they will also give a target growth so right now this is simple baseline and if you look at each student's CCS student scored a 380 they'll say based on that scaled score the child's expected target growth is to regain 42 points so they do specifically give that for the classroom teachers as well so yes that's another way of looking at the data yes they do give that very specifically questions that
066was a great question I didn't know are you done or you going I was just gonna go on to number three well we can also We all read it. We can also ask if anyone has any questions. That's perfect. That's even better. Or any anything that Rachel's talked to us about today or not? Yeah, just a quick question on when we talk about social emotional or professional development. So the ruler system we purchased, are we following it true to the system, choosing your programs you want to use and putting them into system and that's the standard that teachers are using or are they allowed to do their own stuff? With ruler, it's a very it's a very prescribed program. So, it's different teaching tools. So, creating the class charter, all classrooms have the class charter,
067we have the school charter. Um, it's just how you want to feel at school. Um, how do you want to act, how do you want to see others acting in regards to behavior, how we're feeling in the classrooms. Um, it's very specific. So, we are utilizing all the ruler lessons that are in that. Um if certainly if teachers want to expand on something, we do have lots of books that were purchased by Tracy Hussing for social emotional learning that are also in our book room. So teachers can certainly go to that. Those books maybe that aren't necessarily listed in ruler, but they are wonderful resources for our little ones. They're very engaging. They're they're child appropriate. Um so again, we do follow all the ruler lessons and actually our school psychologist and our social worker
068are going into classrooms um teaching a variety of lessons in regards to ruler ruler or assisting the teacher in certain aspects. So the our school psychologist and social worker are helping as needed. Um they were also trained um in ruler. So they have that background as well as myself and one first grade teacher. So typically we kind of buddy up. So we did some ruler training just again just kind of seeing where everybody's at. So um we had our staff meeting today. So my school psychologist went to one grade level just to kind of make sure everybody was on the same page. One of my first grade teachers, she met with the first grade team about ruler. My social worker met with the second grade team. Um, so again, we're just trying to be very
069consistent with how we approach Ruler and the kids are phenomenal. You ask them, you know, how are you feeling today? Obviously, we're using the mood meter um a lot and the kids are very expressive in how they're feeling and they'll they're very confident and they feel very comfortable coming to us with any questions or concerns they have and again they're little so they just want to share everything with us whether it's good, bad, positive, negative um and really encourage that in all the classrooms. So I am slightly different level. Yeah. this maybe not question into um existing curriculum. So there are there are ruler lessons um because we obviously have to have to teach the children how to use the mood meter. So maybe it's the wrong wording, but you have to teach them how
070to use the blueprint or what is the blueprint? What does that even mean to to a 5-year-old? Um how do you look at the mood meter like what quadrant are you on? So it really talks about um those types of how do you use tools in ruler? So maybe that's maybe a better word, but there are also some activities to do. It's not a very prescribed I I don't want to say it's a very prescribed program, but there are lessons um to do and how to use that mood meter at any point in the day, which necessarily isn't a rule or lesson. It's just maybe the afternoon the child comes in and they're having a really really difficult time. And you might say, you know, how are you feeling? And they might say, I feel
071like I'm in the red today. Um and you know, even staff are using it as well. So I wouldn't say that that's a specific lesson. It's more of how they're using it and how they're feeling. Um, but I'm happy to obviously the the website at ruler that we use certainly we print out some of those activities and kind of share them. That's what you're saying is that it sounds like social and our kindergarters will be taking the ready for their baseline in January. God bless. Thanks, Rachel. So, now are we going on Zoom [Music] with the audio? We're not see I don't have a big screen. Oh, there it is. Can you Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Looks like everybody's walking out. Was it something I said? [Music] Wow. Uh, number one,
072thank you for accommodating. I'm getting a lot of feedback uh on my machine because it's going through our machine and coming back out. So, I'm not sure how we do that. Um, let me try that again. Number one, I just want to say thank you very much for accommodating my personal needs tonight. Um, I'm going to do two things. One is Stephanie, uh, hear what you said earlier about you read my report. Uh, so I'm not going to go through it in too much detail. I don't think I could if I had to. Um, and then secondly, Rachel, as always, does a gracious and thorough job um, when it comes to her presentation. So, because we're basing um these reports off of our school improvement plans, uh probably 75% of them have a lot of
073similarities or sameness. So, um that being said, I'd like to uh highlight uh a couple of things. Number one, I'd like to jump to strategic priority number two where the data graphs are are presented. Uh Oxford Center School is in a little different boat in the sense that you know we're dealing with um ESPback uh annually. Uh we are administering things like STAR or I Ready the same way in all three grade levels. There's no differentiate differentiation like there is at Quaker for kindergarten, first grade or second grade. Um, and I just uh wanted to give you the baseline data for the information that we have on this group of kiddos that goes back to last spring. Uh, their uh star scores, their um ESPback scores. Uh, and then I also wanted to give you
074that side by side with this fall's data when it comes to the I Ready scores and PAS particularly in grade three. So just I'm sure you can understand that in future reports we'll be taking this baseline data and looking for comparisons when it comes to student achievement and uh student growth so that we can monitor that across time and obviously this is new data or new data sets to us and it's data in a new world in the sense that we are you know looking at this data as COVID data as opposed to pre-COVID data. So, um, there'll be we'll we'll refer back to this data many times between now and the end of the school year. Um, the next thing I'd like to just mention is, um, our use of I Ready. Uh number
075one, I just want to kind of put a disclaimer out there that uh I Ready is not a replacement for high quality instruction in our classrooms, in our special ed classrooms, and our early intervention programs. Uh there is no substitute for teacher student live learning. Uh this I Ready program does help us uh guide our instruction. It helps us monitor student progress and it provides supports uh that we wouldn't have otherwise. So just to give you a couple of examples, um we can look at this I Ready data in large group. For example, we could look at a whole grade level and look where our strengths and weaknesses are at. an individual classroom teacher can look at her or his uh entire classroom to determine uh you know what the overall needs are with strengths
076and weaknesses for the instruction that needs to happen in that classroom. But we can also break this down uh into small groups. We can look for groups of students in a particular classroom that uh have some deficits or strengths because we can use it for enrichment and curriculum compacting purposes as well. Uh so we can identify targeted areas of instruction uh for small groups in the classroom. Uh we can also use those groupings in a special ed classroom, early intervention classroom uh etc. And when we're talking about use of I Ready in those small groups, it's not a technology based use. It's a here's suggested activities, here's a sample lesson plan, here's resources and materials that you might want to think about in order to uh teach and help students learn particular concepts. And then
077the the third layer of this uh goes down to the individual layer. And I think Rachel mentioned the fact that every student based upon their diagnostic assessment uh has an individual pathway that's automatically set up for them uh once they complete the assessment and we're using that to the recommendation uh to the level of recommendation for I Ready in the sense that if I say if students utilize on their own uh the learning pathways the technology part of this uh 45 minutes in math and 45 minutes in reading each week uh that we'll see the desired results. So, we're making a very concerted effort right now to find creative ways to work the individual learning pathways into each student's learning day and week. Uh but again, going to circle back around. It's not instead of
078the high quality instruction that's happening in the classroom and it's not in, you know, it's not in place of that. So we'll be able to, you know, again, think about this. We we just had professional development on this on November 2nd. So teachers are exploring use of all this stuff right now. Uh as we learn more and gain more experience and expertise, we'll be able to share uh more information, more specific information, and uh you know, ultimately evaluate uh what is successful with regard to this program and what uh what may not be successful. So that's as um that's as much as I want to embellish things right now. I'm open to any questions that people may have. I have kind of the same. Can you hear me? Yeah, you can hear me. Okay. Can
079you hear me? I can hear you. Oh, good. Thank you. Um so yeah, I'm just because I know this is I mean we're new to this, too. So it's something that you guys are obviously going to be using. um to um you know inform your the teachers to inform their instruction. So for your legend you are red, yellow, blue, green, right? So you do have a blue level. Rachel said she didn't. I'm just trying to coordinate this so that I can understand when we look at these. So your level one, your red level is more than one grade below. Your yellow is grade level within the year. Is this correct or Yeah, Steph, I always start at the blue um and basically say that the blue is at grade level and and then and then
080if students are above grade level, they go to the green and if they're slightly below grade level, which is basically within a year, uh they're in the yellow. And if they're more than a a grade level below, uh they fall into the red. doesn't matter whether it's, you know, two grade levels below or four grade levels below. But what I'm what I'm attempting to do there is you mentioned apples to apples earlier. This is not apples to apples because the thresholds for all these assessments are different, but it does allow us to in kind of general terms in a fruit category, you know, uh basically be able to say, you know, how many kids are at, above, slightly below, or significantly below grade level. and it mirrors the ESPback. Uh, right. So then just my
081other my other question is like I said just for for my understanding. So we look at the grade four grade four fall data. So when we have ESAC of spring of 20 that was grade three is that correct or that's correct. In other words, how All right. So, so this is so this is not comparing um the same cohort of kids. So, this would be just kind of a a comparison of how uh I'm not sure I understand your not sure question, but yeah, I I formulating it properly, but I mean is there a way in other words? So if we look at you know that's the third grade um SVAC math uh 21 and then it's third grade E SVAT reading 21 and then we look at the star math those are all third
082the the are their third grade scores or those were the kids so we are comparing the same cohort is my question very humbled general question yes so that grade four fall data graph is data all data on the same group of kids and that same group of kids as our current fourth graders. So those ESPback scores are are last spring. Those star scores are last spring. The I Ready scores are this fall. I understand that. But so what we're saying is that so it's the same. So these are the third grader scores for SAP and Star Math and then now that same group of kids are now in the fall of fourth grade and that's where they are now. Yeah. Ready? Yes. Right. that makes sense. Okay. So then so like I said so in
083then in looking star and I know star and I ready are not compatible that would be kind of obvious in the way that um the numbers are so different um in high than in star. So I I do believe that you said that is not that's just it's going to be now a new level of how you are going to um see where kids strengths and weaknesses are and move forward. So there's really no comparison within the star round and the hybrid. Is that correct? No, it's it's just to kind of take a look at and see where we were where where we were at and where we're, you know, figure out where we're going. Right. Okay. But from now from this point forward, we'll just be comparing I to we're not going to be
084including and then Sback is different. We're not including correct. That's this is the last time you hear me talk about the and we will make sure moving forward that is more consistent 44 voting is all the same. Yeah. Just so that you know we're not we're not in this anymore. So I mean it makes a lot of sense to you guys but then you know it's the first time we're presenting to you. So it's all good. We appreciate it. Um so that's it. Were you done? Are you ready for questions? I'm I'm done. All right, quick question already asked Rachel data is presented. What would be helpful is to see the scale scores presentations so that if we have the average scale score for each grade level and previously was also presented for disagregated um
085special education etc. um is much more quantifiable to compare. Um and we all understand that the last year was difficult. So there's no intent to judge or evaluate on the basis of that. But if we want to see say back to the 2020 scores and um how they were presented and um then compare them to um how students finish here. We really like to see those quantifiable scale scores on average grade level actual harder that we can um see for areas of difficulty um again if the teachers and administrators are seeing those hard scores and they're just then we can just see the progress that's coming you know from the levels that I gives us. I mean, if I can get the fourth level, that's just, you know, that's how they're presenting. Yeah. Again, let's
086just keep in mind we just we just implemented this thing within the past month or so. So we still have a lot of learning to do and a lot of playing around to do on this uh with this data to figure out what most meaningful aspects of it to to to kind of call out. So we'll definitely be working on that and if scale scores become something that says yeah let's let's monitor scale scores, let's monitor growth scores. Uh you know we'll we'll do all of it. We just need some time to figure it out. Does I already give you an average scale score? Is that something you have to disagreate? And you might not even know that because you're just starting with this. If possible, if it doesn't directly something that you guys can
087decide on the administrative level, which is for for our for our purposes, what is the best way to report because like I said, what we're interested in is student growth. I mean, what goes down on the ground level? And I thought Rachel's explanation was great that at that level the teachers see the scale scores and they see the score and they see where the child needs to go and they see what needs to happen to learn again at the at the classic level the teachers use that data to their what that individual student needs to move that standard in the area that they need to describe the um the assessment gives targeted set of skills and that those students teachers pull out that coach and have targeted lessons to those students. The teachers are using
088that data. Yeah. At the board level, we need to understand there's 30% of our students that are below grade level by two grades. Exactly. And we're going to see that number go down. That's correct. That's what you want to see, right? Down to zero, right? And just just one other thing too that I had I had comments which I didn't talk about but when teachers scroll on to each of the domains sorry but each of the when they talk about each of the domains the teachers get like this phenomenal graph which there's so much in I ready that when you explore it you could just be on this thing for ever like there's just links and links and like he said it's it's taken us this long and I am not an expert at it
089at all because every time I go on it there's something new to see. So, there's a lot of information, but for teachers just to see their student name and then all of the domains broken out and as it's colorcoded and it literally tells each of the domains and it says if it's an emerging if I'm a first grade teacher, I might say emerging kindergarten, grade K, early first, mid first, late first, or maxed out. So, it is so specific. It's it's it's really amazing to see that. And teachers are like, "Wow, I've never seen something that looks like this." And you click on each one and it says the the areas of growth that are needed. It's already there for teachers, but to see something so specific for every child of parents that they're going
090to be able to see their kids improving. So I think that's how stress that have been talking to teacher is that ease of access data that recording the the system of getting able to see what the students need very easily and efficiently. I'm hearing that over and over again from teachers. Yes. the teachers that used to have to try to figure that out and then plug something and try to find something to address that. So it takes it's a lot of um takes a lot of labor right and I think that we as a school district will mature in how we're using the data system. 12 months from now our conversation. Um, anybody else questions? Thank you. Hope you feel better. Thank you for doing this on um your sick day. Thank you. Has anybody
091seen Jackie? She said she did. She's still on Jackie. Thumbs up. Two thumbs up to give us. Okay, good. She said she got Thank you, Rachel. Um, Robert, are you doing Veterans Day celebration or I'm going to be very brief considering the time we are right now. As we remind our veterans at high school is being celebrated at 8:00 Thursday morning. The high school collected um veterans that would like to participate as we drive through breakfast. The honorary program has baked um various food with veterans. There'll be music outside various high school musicians. George Temple will be there. Any of you that would like to be there, you're welcome to be there for our full time. I will be there. It's just a really nice way to interact with veterans who are supposed to call
092and it is open to the public. So, you're welcome to be there 8 o'clock Thursday morning. Looks great. We're all invited and also like to mention first lieutenant my son serached out to me and said you mentioned that your son in Afghanistan. So, it was very touching that they wanted to really appreciate it. Um, Are you good with that? I am good. And I will um update in my Friday notes what each school is doing. I think we earlier today earlier yesterday. Um great. So, in this in this next section, I'm gonna um ask you guys to just indulge me for tell me what you think about this. Um these are the board goals that we all agree and then um myself and Deb and Shelly put the metrics in. Oops. And the metrics are
093what's important for Rob to then see what the board where we're going in our goals and for him to create his goals. So I'm thinking that um I know this is said but could we could we make a I meant to give this to you guys earlier and I apologize I don't think that I did. Um, so could we make a motion to tentatively approve these with, you know, the possibility of some changes so that and then we can revisit it or visit it the next meeting in case any board members have any question. I don't want you to have to wait two weeks. Actually, I have a second to that. I have for you in support is my draft version of my goals that align with this. So I was going to give that
094to you. So at the next meeting we could see the alignment between the two changes that we need to make between yours and mine. That could be the opportunity to revisit this. Okay. Wonderful. So then it sounds like we don't even need to make a motion for this. And we'll just confirm. We'll see if there is everybody. Yeah. So you guys get to choose who is there might be something that you want to add a question or whatever and then it'll be meshed in Robert. So we get Robert and just so that you know this was Thank you. Okay. Um that this was um you know will be done earlier last year. We just got Jason we just got off track. So this ideally will be in place, you know, in September so that we
095can hit the ground running. You know, I'm really proud of these goals and I'm proud of the metrics and this is one of the first times that I ever go aboard even having this. So I thank everyone for your participation and I think it's going to help us. So all right for that next question. Um so now Dr. Okay, I I I wrote a lot of stuff I can talk about, but an interesting time I'll go as fast as possible. It is obviously the big topic of the evening was what took place at center school last week. And just to revisit two weeks ago, it started seeing emergency cases in one particular third grade classroom. over the course that that weekend. So this is a good weekend. Um these um as did come down, it
096was um determined that the only place that he would have gotten was in a classic observation previous that Tuesday. Monday morning rolled around. By that point, we had um close to 67 students that had tested positive from that classroom out of 18. The teacher had also tested positive from that classroom. Both adults that had tested positive were fully vaccinated. So, we had a set of students that were um sick and we had two vaccinated adults that were sick. At that point, I needed to get I thought I had to give them an update where we stood with the current situation. As the day progressed, as I communicated with them, we had additional cases that came in. Um, they immediately said I needed to quarantine that third grade classroom. They were concerned that this third grade
097class would be outreaching to other classes in the building decision that the professional learning on Tuesday would be revoked for that school. So, we ask all staff to stay home. We engage all custodians in a deep thorough theme of the building. to try and be in our building. On Wednesday rolled around, additional cases. By that point, we had six adults in the building that were sick for various CO related symptoms that were waiting waiting test all people but all symptoms in the house. Um we got number and they said that we were moments away from the full outbreak in the building. Um they were um that we did not shut down the third grade again and there are some students at home that we could have it operate across the entire building across across the
098county. How many of those adults tested positive still you said six were sick right? six were sick. We ended up with um later that night we had another person that was un had no symptoms that tested positive um and we're still waiting test result from that went home sick on Wednesday that were tested on Wednesday and we had tested back. So this was last week right? So that's how of those how many were positive of those we ended up with four adults in the building at this pos and we had 15 ended up being 15 all together students and staff that were connected to this there were two students one at a middle school and one at that siblings but the third graders were also um we in consultation with compact they did shut down
099the entire third grade which is when they sent them all on Wednesday. On Friday, on Wednesday afternoon, they actually consulted with the Department of Public Health. They advised us that they were going to hire testing in the entire building. We pushed back on that. We asked them to wait 24 hours. We had a conference call from the company Friday afternoon. At that point, they agreed that the third graders could return on Monday. If the if tests that were waiting for from the adult yet, we're still waiting for five results. At that point, if they came in during the weekend as negative, the third grade classes could return. We got the final results on the middle of the afternoon and Sunday around noon. At that point, we made the determination that two of the six third
100grade classrooms would need to stay in quarantine because there's cases in both those classrooms now and four of the six could return on Monday. We did and you and you I I think that it was kind of a miserception that you can cheer. I did not cancel cheer. Um I was I received a phone call from corner on Wednesday and Thursday got phone calls from Paul was on the phone with concern on Friday they heard what the decision was helping quarantine for the school they made the decision that they were going to follow the quarantine on the state level right so again when everyone says Dr. Miller didn't allow the cheerleaders to go. That that's not that's not the case. That's not the case. Um I also every time I received an email from my
101parents rather than emailing the parents backwards calling me backation with them multiple times over the phone and email that we could get questions answered. Anytime I have this conversation is very positive. I had conversations with 80 um people that run hot water locally um and they were in consultation. I called them back um after the department on Friday where we stood. So they were in um in communication with me the entire time. Um I made the decision as soon as we had all the information on Sunday we wanted to get earlier. Um, I kept the community informed over the course of the week to give you almost daily updates to not only the center schools, parents, but staff and all stakeholders, even students that are not in our schools that are not above and I
102mean all parents districtwide receive communication anything out. That's what I'm saying. So, I mean, I think that that's one of your strengths. So, but these parents are standing up there and they're so upset. They're saying they didn't know anything. So, is there some is there something that um is there a possibility that their emails are not improved or that I mean why are they thinking that they're not looking at the stress of everything else to think that nobody's communicating with them and I know that you are is could it be something with them like going into spam I spoke to on the whole situation it's so stressful it's very stressful told that these girls missed out on a once a month opportunity. I feel awful that hopefully they'll this will give a bill to another
103state. Once again, this was a decision that was not made though. This was decision that was made by health district. It was seconded on Thursday by health. Pop was concerned that we knew the governor's release of screening Thursday at 11:30. Tom Bark was concerned that our decision vocally was coming out a day and hours before the parents were hearing about the screen today 11:30 for the governor. So Lisa Mor call department health on Thursday morning and said this is what she did the day before. She's been the one that made the call to senator. Her response to her was even if previously was in place right now your case doesn't qualify department of public health was so concerned that this was an outbreak in a cluster case they had to fill out data of all
104cases they were concerned what we're seeing here was going to have outreach to other towns so it was a when when and Lisa Mory spoke about this when when she addressed you last month when when this department health has a concern that is of this nature, they have seconds to to respond. And when they don't respond quickly, sometimes that can result in an outbreak that results in hundreds and hundreds of cases. So she based the data that she had made the call that the traditional contact tracing that we typically would be doing doesn't apply for this because we didn't understand how it was being transmitted it was. I had adults in the classroom that never took their mask off that were getting sick that were fully vaccinated. And I had eight out of 18 students
105in class that were sick. So this was not just small contact. This was a full outbreak with us. They made a decision that for the public health it was necessary. Now on Friday they said this is something that is standard across the state when this happens instead of cluster case outbreak. They advised that we offer free testing. I agreed to do that for the parent and staff that said yes, I would like to do that. We did not call students out by name. It was done in a very confident discrete way. It was done in the library. Parents have the option of signing up for if they wanted to. This consent form staff also responded. There were 108 people that signed up for testing. This was not required of them. That's over a quarter of
106the school population said, "I'd like to participate in this." The results came in midnight last night. There's no um So do you feel pretty confident that it's been mitigated at this point? At this point I feel um say that it's mitigated the last few students that are out tested out today that should have not returned on the 12th. There are a handful of those four students the original case because they were sick. Their return dates are slightly different as well as the return dates of those adults that sick. Right. So this the staff who went home sick but do not have co are they back yet? There are a couple that are still sick for birth but not yet. Um and then just last on this um is there any update because I know it
107just came down on whatever Thursday or Friday on the screen and stay. So what the screen and stay is and it's very um misunderstood. [Music] People think that screen means that if I came in contact with somebody with CO I need back to school. That's not what it is. So in a case like right now where I'm sitting here without my mask if Joe came down it doesn't apply because I don't have mask on screen only applies in the classrooms when students are wearing face mask fidelity. So if if we're contact tracing in the classroom and we're wearing masks the entire day there there's no need for Anthony to quarantine if I'm sick now. But at lunch, if Anthony is sick and I am sitting next to him without mask for 15 minutes, I now
108need to quarantine because I don't call back. How is that helping? Then if I am in athletics, how is it? It's only it's it's a portion of contact. So in athletics, that's quick activities, plays, sleepovers, anything outside of school. Screening state doesn't apply. only applies when you're on a bus, transportation, or in the school wearing mask and you have proven that you wear a mask. Well, that's going to be in addition to that, if you're in screen and stay, you can come back to school under certain criteria, but you're not allowed to participate in extra activities. So, screen and stay means that you're still in quarantine for sports and plays and clubs and stuff like that. In addition to that, screening requires that parents for 14 days um check symptoms with their children and adults
109check their symptoms before they're school and also implies and it say specifically in the instructions that if I am coming into physical education I need to have an alternative education setting physical education I'm not performing tournament I can't sing higher and I can't do any sort of public speaking because of activities that could be aerosol generating so screen and state has civic strict guidelines on what it applies to. There's more stuff that does not apply to and there are strict restrictions where students can participate in the 14 days of all their history all this where did it start teachers got together kids then all of a sudden you that up 19 25 peopleffected from one child all the tracking all the stuff we did know who was the main cause a student was initially sick
110student got other students sick and they're sick on that how do we stop this kid came to the school sick and the parents didn't know that how do we not know that he's sick there are some students that and adults that are asymptomatic that don't know that they're sick and they're passing the virus on that day. There are some parents that decide to send their children to school sick. We hear that all times that choose to come to school sick as well. We need people here to stay home. So, so what when is your next are you when is your next information session with Dr. Brown estabus and the screen and say really is not something that Dr. to be able to be a ton of guidelines but I'm planning to meet one day the
111guidelines discuss what needs to put into place I'm planning to I wanted to have this conversation with you tonight send a letter to parents either tomorrow or Thursday explaining what the guidelines are and offering information session Monday evening and this placement beginning of Wednesday next week but it it is commonly misunderstood right have people here scream and say that we could everything it doesn't it's not he made an army to to do all this did you have a mask on don't you test this test 15 people to and the nurses across the state are upset by this they don't think this is going to work in a case like experienced in third grade it wouldn't have made a difference anyway would it actually increase my tax so it is very confusing parents are getting very
112confused. Staff are getting very confused. However, as I'm talking to superintendent out there, most school districts at some point in the next month are going to be implementing. And if we don't implement this or the one district that says we're not going to do it, they're going to have a lot of pressure to implement this. So, I think we need to do it. Our community heard that they want to keep students out students. We're going to try this. We're going to implement it. If this falls in our face, the state says it doesn't work that we take a step back. But this is something that we have been recommended to do. So we are going to move forward in that way beginning next Wednesday. In terms of my goals now, this is aligned to your
113board of I call them superintendent district goals. Some metrics are almost identical to what your metrics were and I had additional because we are so good or you looked at ours first because they should be mine. Because my work is your work. Can you send it to us? I will send it [Music] to the general population, right? Their lunches are about 20 minutes, right? So we in theory from a school setting general school setting we should not see anybody not get this program if you're in 15 let's be honest right no one really right so again back to the science where we just talk about teachers with vaccines and masks getting I mean so what I'm trying to get at is general school population in class 15 to 20 minutes for lunch guidance is 15
114minutes in the school setting. We should not have any problems, right? It's 15 to 20. It's 15 minutes over 24 hours. students have lunch two days in a row child that is sick that counts 24 hours in the state of the department. You know what the response was? Students should be sitting there eating lunch with their face mask on and when they take a bite, take their face mask off. Take a bite. You guys listen, everyone needs to be safe. God, there's got to be a little You were exposed for 16 minutes. Quarantine the break. No. people who came up with the 15inut arbitrary number like if they know that lunch is 20 minutes they make 20 minutes it is frustrating they put out like animations all the time they should do the mask thing
115in an animated thing they have you know the crosswalker waiters so you can stop they put out a window it's ridiculous it's I live this every day. I feel bad with kids. Parents, they have to work. I know kids in or out of school. I don't know how much you can see. You can see the stress in that. Yes. And I hear the voice that talk about getting their emails. find us informed and some of these decisions like the quarantine activity was not made on our not made by us. It was by very quickly a few other updates on board docs. Um we are almost ready to implement. I do need to figure out a date before to training. It'd be great to have that training before the next board meeting that I've got in
116the system training just before the meeting starts. You can actually have that and is it possible to via Zoom? It would be remote session. [Music] No. Um okay. So we're basically ready to implement that. The agendas from this point forward will be through four dos tonight. The committee on Thursday will be through four dots as well. the agenda. The policies have been provided to board.t another four to five weeks before the policies online. In the meantime, the link on the website is to Google folder that contain all the policies that have been approved by the board in June. Though the old policy is now the new policies are online. I thought when I clicked on the policy took me to the cake. It did. Yes. A couple more quick things first advisory committee last week
117communication looking for some more consistency across the district that I had my first meeting with that. I'm setting up my first teacher advisor you go back to I know I did really um so when you have that advisory is that something that you're I mean just bullet points this is what the concerns are just so that we know what yeah I I'll include my Friday after this week I was going to talk more depth about tonight but I put it right yeah faster now I'm meeting with the high school um student government students Thursday morning to talk about creating a student advisory committee and I'll be doing the same thing at the middle school shortly to get students involved. I've also pulled teachers and I have a list of about 15 teachers that are interested
118in being on the teacher advisor committee. So just a way to create more opportunities for conversations. I'm also going to be setting up either two or three times a month um in their school or office hours. So in the spot some teachers want to come in and talk to me I go I'm class every day but if they want to come and talk to me they can before school during lunch or afternoon I figure out the school is going to work the best that I'm just trying to create new opportunities and for teachers have direct conversations with communities the more I can learn from teachers students parents the better we're decisions that we're have so I'm working on that um I have A this is the budget calendar that was discussed at the finance committee
119and I'm not going to go into detail feedback another time and just a reminder here in the room right here left is this much art from the high school and in the case behind in the hallway is additional our working students that was put in display today will be in display for next month. So, please take a look. And one final thing, you should receive an email from Jim, our this is Alex. I know, but I've only met it once and I can't see behind us. And I um we want to get all the board members on our email system for FOI information. So once you're on your email setting you got to confirm that you're on the new system to confirm that and I do not realize that is still here probably going to
120thank him for facilitating the artwork that we have here for me. I have to clap for those kids. No, they're great. You have guys talked about co and and I there's one out there with co and I think everybody here should really be read what the student wrote to me. I didn't write the students names on there initials because students had to write the deeper meaning behind their drawings and I didn't really want to put it out there. But um I think parents are stressed, teachers are stressed, kids are stressed. Um I I have I just don't know how to learn anymore. I don't know how to be in school and But that quote up there, um, I know it had me in tears, um, when I was reading it because with all my troubles
121in the world, um, or or challenges that we have every day, this is a high school kid that, um, just lost everything. So we all have to put you have to follow rules. So that's that's not update. Great. Thank you. Um so I have 72 pages in my report but I'm gonna narrow it down to Welcome Vinnie. that was back there. I don't know if you just take your mask off for a second. Hi. Hi. And how do you pronounce your last name? Canadell. Canadell. This is our soon to be our newly elected board member who will be sworn in next week and he will be joining us at the table. And we hope this doesn't scare you too much because it's never this late. Please don't scream down 67, but we're we just highly
122unusual to have such fun meeting. But if you were here for the audience of citizens, you know, I mean, people need to see you. We have no idea how long that's going to take so long. I can imagine that that's something that could definitely repeat itself. I would expect to hear those things. Okay, good. So, um, so once again, welcome, we look forward to working with you and answer any questions that you have along the way. Um so that's that. So now I I would also um you know in the next one are there any committee reports that so instead of going through each one is are there any reports I can't talk um that need to be addressed tonight or any things in those communities that need to work Thursday and then our I'm
123sorry I don't know I know my middle name right now um and and then our you know once we um oh and also congratulations to other people now four more years on the board Steve Nicole um and so okay Just started the middle school baseball field. Excellent. Dr. Excellent. Um so and and our we're going to have some shift in our policies which will take place after we have our organizational meeting on the 23rd and then our our policy I mean our um our sub committees are going to be shifting. So, you know, same people but different spots and um so on Thursday everything's Thursday tomorrow night and Thursday. Um so the last thing on here is our member understanding and um this is not timely. So I would like to make a motion to
124table this till our next meeting because it's not anything that need like I said it's not timely. Um I can um yeah so we can talk about it for next unless anybody wants to gohead. I make a motion to table for the next agenda item number. Any further discussion? I agree that table. However, I do want us to make sure that we're not signing any or we have a gentleman. Yeah. Yeah. Motion to adjourn at 9:49. All those in favor. Thank you so much. I just hit the wall.