June 9, 2020 -Board of Education Meeting

001that's the agenda do we have any revisions to the agenda okay and we have to prove the minutes we have minutes from our zoom meeting dated May 12 do we have any Corrections or revisions to those minutes no so they will be entered as presented that brings us to the public comment so please remember that public comment is time to address the board as a body and not to address individual members board members may ask questions for clarification purposes but this is not a time when we will engage with the speakers in conversation before addressing the board individuals are urged to seek a satisfactory solution to their concerns by following the proper staff and administrative channels as a reminder speakers may offer objective praise and criticisms operations and programs the comments about specific personnel students

002or other individuals connected with the district are typically not appropriate other channels such as individual meetings or email are available and provide the more appropriate forum for such comments the in today individual speakers will be allowed of three minutes each speakers are encouraged to monitor their time which I understand will be posted on the screen and to limit their to the time allotted I'll add that I know that we have a lot to talk about today including some very sensitive subjects because of the general parameters that we've set and have always set for public comment I would ask the speakers to bear with us and honor those requirements if we have a question then we might pause the comment in order to have a discussion with the board about whether the comments are crossing a

003line if that happens I'd ask you just to get us a minute to talk and figure it out and in and will follows your time while that's going on so that nobody will be penalized we know that you've got a lot to say and we know that we need to hear it and so let's proceed and we'll see how this goes David how many speakers do we have we have 11 speakers today and speakers just so you know when I call your name I will can allow you to talk I think you'll get me prompted on your screen so you can unmute yourself and you'll have your your time to talk we will put a timer on the screen although our our intrepid tech person's computer just crashed literally as we're about to do this

004and so we will not have a timer on the screen for the first part I will do a timer on my phone temporarily and I'll give you a warning if you get really close to those three minutes but oh here he's back in hopefully he'll be able to he'll be able to do that okay and just so you know the order so you can be ready it's Kevin Elaine Davina Keisha Laura manse Claire Pam Oh dupa Carmen and Molly so those are the people that I never signed up for public comment right now so if you can just try to be ready when it comes to your turn so you can see the time or up on the screen there Kevin I'm going find try to find your name here all right Kevin I am

005clicking for you to allow to talk as the board chair was saying if there's a need for the the chair to ask you to pause your comments we will pause the timer as well so that we don't use up your time while the board is making any kind of a discussion so um Kevin if you can go ahead and unmute I believe and start when you're ready everybody hear me we got it okay great great good afternoon school board I'm not gonna take up the whole three minutes but just wanted to bring you guys just in I guess some information that's just been on my mind I wanted to bring forward to the to the group come to you all this afternoon is one of a group of concern after American parents of an incoming

006high school chil and one recent graduate graduating child city schools of Decatur has in in the eyes and ears of many african-american parents filled our students April acts by school-age children and tending our schools dangerous disturbing and disruptive well one thing is clear how the school system has a whole response to these instances it's a testament to the district's culture and climate how are you respond is a true measure of the district's character they're sponsored by the school board and district as a whole to all of these incidents has been poor substance school leaders to sexpectations everyone from staff everyone on staff excuse me from the bus driver stole IANS classroom teachers all the way down to the IT department must know that hate disrespect and intimidation has no place on campus on all of

007our campuses and that every student should feel welcome and why can't the school district be more open to what these actions are most parents want to know exactly what's going on the other racial incidents that happened in our in our state the districts have been for right without come loud and clear case in point kids being spelled at Carrollton city schools and in closing please start including those that are affected in your decisions that affect us statements that you made don't really ring true because it sounds like the same rhetoric will not let disks be swept under the rug thank you thank you Kevin appreciate that I am disabling you're talking just so you know now thank you for your comment our next speaker is Elaine and I see you here Elaine I am giving

008you access to make your panic which um you good afternoon um I would just like to comment that if you're happy with what you all have contributed individually and collectively to support our black students after these incidents that we also be deeply concerned we need you to share with us what you're planning to do so that we can make preparations for what we need to do a generic email each time one of these incidents occurs is not enough is it too much to ask board members and the administration to call the black families to say I stand against racism I stand with you your emails feel I'm inauthentic ears because each time after an email another video comes out organized a calling tree we're not asking you to figure out how to build a rocket

009we're asking you to be human and your leadership like families deserve response to what is going on I also like to know what is going on and what are the plans as it relates to miss Thomas in her role as I be coordinator and if her role continues at I be coordinator what alternatives are there for student since that may not feel comfortable under her direction thank you Thank You Elena I appreciate it and our next speaker is I'm Davina but before we go to Davina I would ask that you jet we don't have the benefit of seeing folks ordinarily we ask that people provide a full name but also sort of let us know your connection to the district and it just helps us put your comets in context not that I had any

010difficulty understanding the context but if you just please remember that we we can't see you so if you'd give us your name and tell us how it connected me only David know what Devon you sent an email to the board I'm saying that she's gonna put her comments in a formal communication so oh very good thanks Tasha um okay so our person after Davina is Keisha let me look you after a quick here okay one Keisha the last names don't match but I'm gonna say allow to talk so you can fill us in if you're the same person Keisha Keisha I given you permission to unmute I believe I can yes did we get the right Keisha hi I'm just here as a parent of an incoming student that will be new to the district

011and I was made aware of certain incidents and just to kind of piggyback off of what he Liang was saying I just wanted to know what actions were going to be taken and I just want to know that my children will will fit in this community and I just want to know you know will they be comfortable and know that they matter and that they that anyone that affected them or not necessarily offends them but that does something in such a manner then that it will be taken care of and how will it be taken care of okay Thank You Keisha I appreciate your comments all right in just to the folks there are a couple folks who have signed up since I said the names of those are appearing so don't worry I am

012getting your signups it it updates life our next person is Laura let's see I see a Laura and manse Irvin so I'm going to unmute that one and hopefully it's the correct one Laura are you there Eddie here yes we can hear you okay I'm gonna let my son go first cuz it's more appropriate awesome bullying by my classmates but because of some teachers didn't help me and make this stop the teachers wouldn't make fun of me almost as much as the students something would happen to them if I said something or never to the counselor's office I was once in the office coming in constantly asking to call my parents I was accused of pulling the girl's hair I did not ask them to look at security government I always ask them look at

013the security cameras but they never did that cry out for my parents the assistant principal holder police officer not will allow them to use the police phone I mean the office from they unplugged it I knew better than to respawn home with the police there because what would happen to me I cried even more one teacher was sending me my foot is broken my Spanish teacher would bring up the glass makers go outside cleaned up in teams she didn't help me up but she told me to try I struggled in the office and called my mother she was confused as to why I was painful class a rough horn a wheelchair in which to the emergency room and about 20 other boys I was easy in the robot Thank You mats we had a little

014trouble hearing you but I think I wasn't attached at all can you hear us okay Laura I'm sorry we can hear I can't I can hear you okay good we were able to hear most of manses comments it was a little quiet but I think we were able to hear it and then so Laura you're also signed up did you want your three minutes yes yes please please good okay my name is Laura and the young man that you just heard from is my son nothing about my son said is new to the board so I'll ask my questions as many as here are parents are you okay with teachers and administration not allowing your child to call you when they are distressed are you okay with teachers sending your child to in-school suspension or

015special class specific specific class period to do their work after having committed no infraction thereby missing countless hours of valuable instruction time are you okay with the principal telling you that it's not a problem because the kids like the ISS teacher are you okay with your child playing sports doing core course courses that you did not sign a permission slip for for them to participate in are you okay with your child being injured in school and not a single adult employed by the district contacted you not even days later are you okay with the principal telling you that it's it if you did not want your child to play you should have told them not to senior citizens and homeowners in particular are you okay with the steady rises and taxes because of the lawsuit

016settlement make no mistake the residents pay those settlements not though not those who have committed the infractions and if CSD doesn't have the money to pay they'll borrow it form of bonds leaving the residents to pay the bond as well as the interest charged on that bond that's how it works Google police brutality bonds is the same difference are you okay with teachers calling your elementary age kids stupid and your child are so upset they leave the building to sit outside and cry for several minutes only to be found by a different teacher who just happen to see them through the doors and no one notified you are you okay with seeing on video that your teacher that the teacher did not didn't go look for your child nor notify anyone that they were missing

017and is still employed by CSD are you okay with the administration telling police officers to physically remove your child from the library if they don't come willingly after the child snuck into the library to try to reach their parents are you okay with your child never wanting to go to their gifted classes because of racism and disparity are you okay with your child pulling your child are you okay with the school pulling your child out of class for counseling sessions regularly without your knowledge are you okay with administration and teachers put my children out of class and instruction instructing children should change the information they submitted on an Internet report are you okay with teachers and administrators writing letters for children and meeting their ills and having them copy those letters in their own handwriting

018what about disabled kids are you okay with your child testing of grade and a half above their peers but never receiving and eat are you okay with having a reading and math goal for black students that is a third of what it is for everyone other nationality in a district not the scores the actual goal there's a lot to talk about with the child waving the gun in the recent video if he picked it up the behavior from home I can't speak to that because I don't know that child or those parents what I can say is if a child felt empowered by the by the teachers while he sat next to his peers thank you thank you Laura Thank You mats appreciate your comments okay our next speaker is Clare and Clare you should

019be able to unmute yourself now okay hi can you hear me yes great um thanks for having me so um I'd like to ask the school board to consider the same question I posed before the City Commission last week will you put in place a mission statement that says that racism is unacceptable in the city schools of Decatur we need it to be clear that here in the city in the school system that racist behavior is not acceptable and there are clear repercussions if you break that rule we really need to I would implore the school system to enact anti-racist classes that are mandatory for school-aged children at all levels from college Heights all the way up to Decatur high school and classes should be delivered by trained faculty and staff and perhaps small group

020counseling can occur as well so that further peer-to-peer discussion can happen as a second step require that all staff administration and teachers are taken beyond diversity of courageous conversations PBIS and restorative justice training and I know that this is already in action but it needs to be completed as soon as possible and rolled out and the community needs to know how that works in the system but I also like to ask that restorative justice be put in place as soon as possible again I know the training has been going on ironically even in the last couple of weeks but it's past time to get that going and then I think one of the most important things that can happen and I know that this is under discussion and in committee right now too is to

021clarify the code of conduct for CSD I don't know that it needs to be changed necessarily but it reads like criminal conduct code in the sense like the no parent student teacher really knows what the outcome is going to be if a rule is broken what the penalty is going to be and if it's going to be enforced and um even with this most recent example of the video the student waving a gun some people who know the code think that it could be just two days of in-school suspension or ten days out-of-school suspension but it's not clear what the penalty is because it's not really clear what the response would be we don't know what the penalty is and so we don't know if it'll be enforced and it should be clear to everyone

022what the rules are in a real language that we can understand when they're broken what the penalty is and that we all know that it's going to be enforced accordingly even if there are privacy rules we would all know if the rule was broken that it's going to be enforced through restorative justice or something else I'd love to be a part of that thank you very much for hearing me all right thank you clear our next speaker is pan B Lindgren all right I see you here Pam you should be able to unmute not great thank you can you hear me yes we can great good afternoon members of the board and dr. duty for the record my name is Pam B Lindgren and I have three kids two of whom are at Decatur high

023I live at 115 Coventry Road here in Decatur I am incredibly humbled by the courage of the other speakers and I appreciate the time and energy it took I'm here to show my support for Beacon Hill black Alliance for human rights especially with regard to the racial achievement gap and important revisions to the Kohl code of conduct for students I also have an additional idea that I hope could contribute to a better safer climate for all students in Decatur my ideas with regard to parents especially white parents like myself I can tell you that as a white person I have been aware of some things regarding race in America but I have had the luxury of staying uninformed about others like many of us I'm trying to fix that now and I'm wondering if CSD

024could take a leadership role in this area specifically regarding expectations we already set expectations for parents backed up by law like sending kids to school and CST policy like expecting good behavior as a fan at a football or volley so this is my idea what if CSD could set the expectation from the moment they enroll their children in school the parents and guardians not lived the experience of race inequity in America but take a pledge to both at least learn about it themselves and to support their children and learning about it as well I will take such a pledge and I would hope that parents like me would have the humility to real wise that there are some things we don't know and never will about the lives of people who don't look like us

025and that there is more that we don't know about how the systems that we take for granted systems that start at birth with the shocking differences that black and white mothers have in child births and go on to education employment law enforcement health care families this is only an idea and I leave it up to people with more expertise and eye to figure out the implementation I hope that the board and parents in the district will consider this thank you all right Thank You Pam all right our next speaker is Oh all right I see you here you should be able to unmute now good afternoon everyone my name is I do for a Behrman I live on Sycamore Drive I stood before this board this two years ago to express dismay at CSDs handling

026of a white student boy punching my second grader in the privates and a girl punching him doing an after-school activity on school premises I'm a parent of one current upper elementary student and two girls one of whom my husband and I have chosen to hold back in private school to not subject her to the climate at CSD that does not seem to value the humanity of black students I believe if CSD devises a clear cut discipline policy with input from the affected group we send several messages one it's clear to everyone on the consequences to black students know they matter white students learn to treat black students with humanity in this learning environment not doing above teaches black students one that they do not matter to this district white students learn to dehumanize black people

027via an indelible print left on their psyche that they can do this each and every time with little to no penalty is this what the district is choosing to teach his students to raise the Amy Cooper's and Derrick children's of tomorrow this should not and cannot be acceptable the shroud of secrecy permits and perpetuate this are we more concerned about the perpetrators or the victims thank you Thank You ado all right our next speaker is Carmen Caballero and ok I see you here you should be able to unmute yourself and then are you there [Music] okay Carmen I think we're gonna try the the next speaker the next speaker is Molly Davis all right now oh yeah I see you here you should not be able to unmute yourself good afternoon I'm Molly Davis mr.

028Davis we heard the first part we can't hear you right now I don't have any I am the coach here don't everybody be okay I think you give me now yes you are breaking up a little bit okay I am Molly Davis I'm a co-chair of Beacon Hill black Alliance for human rights and we are again reaching out following up we as we have for the last couple of years now about equity racial issues in city schools of Decatur and I'd like to share we shared last Friday or two Fridays ago as we stood on the City Hall steps we were concerned that our white citizens did not understand of anger a frustration that many African Americans and black people in America generally but in Decatur in particular really feel in this moment and we

029said that and about black [Music] baby morning Bob yep try our very best to continue to sound the alarm that we are fed up as a community and that people are ready to explode and I will echo that same sentiment again as it relates to the issues that are occurring in city schools of Decatur if there is no action taken again I can only imagine what the response will be from those who are fed up to the point of frustration and it will then be an attempt to blame the victim and the victim is not to blame when we've worked and questioned and raised issues and still we have these blatant acts of racism and white supremacy so current occurring by students that go to Decatur High School I again urge action anti-racist work rooting

030out white supremacy by the students and the faculty and the investment that the City of Decatur made is only it's only the beginning and there needs to be that same kind of investment in anti racism white supremacy work that is where we are we ask that everything be as transparent as possible as soon as possible so that we can avoid any further issues and an attempt to blame the victims in this issue thank you Thank You Molly all right our next speaker is audrey move all right audrey you should be able to unmute now thank you and thank you to the board and my name is audrey Maloof I have a lifelong resident of the City of Decatur I am a 2015 graduate of Decatur high school and former student body president I am here

031today to speak about the racial inequity that is so apparent in our school system and has been for such a long time I hope to bring some concrete solutions to the table that can be helpful for us to move forward and actually put action into our words first I would like to address the code of conduct I would like to see a very clear provision that addresses hate speech specifically with a zero-tolerance policy put in place behind it there is currently a line about discriminatory slurs that has a punishment of up to two days of ISS and I believe that there needs to be a much stronger punishment put in place for discriminatory slurs and for hate speech in general I also believe in the city of Decatur's efforts to implement restorative justice practices in

032our code of conduct and I believe that there needs to be a restorative justice piece what follows along with those punishments as well I would also like to see regular reporting of discipline or disciplinary records within the city of Decatur specifically broken down by race so that teachers and administrators can be held accountable and remain accountable for any racial disparities and inequity coming through our district we have a lot of work to do this is not an exhaustive list of every necessary action but we need action now for our schools and words are great but they are not enough and we really need to work for the people of our district and specifically for the black community in Decatur that has been unheard for so long thank you Thank You Audrey all right our next

033speaker is [Music] Adam Lawrence hey Adam you should be able to talk now yes hi thank you I am my name's Adam Horowitz I'm the parent of two students at Fay's who the fifth-graders next year and I'm here in solidarity with the Beacon Hill black Alliance for Human Rights I just want to say that while I appreciate the plans that the district has announced regarding anti-racist training and education what is most important to see is meaningful accountability for racism and white supremacy within the CSD community because while education is always important I don't think that the racist videos that we've seen recently has been expressions of ignorance but they've been expressions of power they were not innocent mistakes a reflective confusion as to what those terms meant but they were intentionally meant to intimidate and

034terrorize other students in the community at large there needs to be meaningful accountability to show that racism and white supremacy is not acceptable in our community until there is accountability I think whatever education or training we do we'll simply ring hollow thank you thank you Adam okay and our final speaker is a Jana Robinson a CNA Jana here so I'm hoping it's the right one Jana you should be able to unmute no yes I too just wanted to just say that I think it's really important that that the school system really understands the impact of what the decisions that are being made now will do for the students that are currently in the school but then also for the students that are coming behind them and I think it's important that we are very intentional

035about the messages that were sending around what is acceptable behavior and consistency because our children are watching and so I'm just asking that as decisions are made and we are working to protect the students were involved because they're their identity is and is important and we also need to think of them as minors but also realizing that they are making very adult statements and taking very intentional action and so we can't always be quick to to ignore the ramifications of those actions for the sake of you know protecting children when they themselves are putting them in these places and in these positions so I do ask that we are very intentional about the actions that we have moving forward and what those statements are making to our students who are in high schools and school

036systems now but also those who are coming up and watching the actions that are you know that we're making today okay thank you oh yeah um mr. chairman that was our final speaker so you can take it away from here okay well the next item on the agenda is looks like it's our consent time did you have a stiff grant tendance report no we haven't been putting those on because we're doing the updates okay well then let's move to consent items the first item on the consent agenda is the approval of a contract for additional student devices haven't you I guess we need to discuss this we have a motion to approve the consent items I saw lets me but you're muted move to approve all in favor aye I said a consent items asked

037unanimously and next we have it looks like free items action items on the agenda and the first is rural yeah we have we have one action item into discussion items and the first one is about the budget so you may recall so lenita if you want to go ahead I'm gonna actually make you a co-host do you want to share your screen or do you want me to share your presentation mmm you can share a presentation okay I will get the presentation up here but just a reminder that back in March we did approve the general fund tentative budget obviously a lot has happened between March and now and so the reason you're seeing another tentative budget is because in addition to general fund we also have other funds here that we need your soul

038Anita is going to walk us through that and what has changed between March and now as well as the two other funds that I did not attempt to dive into in my little bit of knowledge that I had of budgeting I didn't attempt to dive into the other budgets at the time so I'm Anita I'm gonna try I'll pull this up and try sharing it and then you can go ahead and start any time great least I think I'm gonna hold on kaylynn yeah go ahead I wonder if we we might pause and with apologies to Anita take a minute to comment on what we just heard and our reaction to it and as we said in our as I said in the beginning of the comments it's not typical we generally don't address public

039comments and try not to engage in an exchange and all the rest of it but you know things are different today and I think it would be appropriate to to make a response and so I thought that we might open the floor I'm happy to kick it off with a couple thoughts just so folks know this is this is work that we are very deep in I hope you have read our updates and I do understand the feelings of words or one thing actions are another I think if you look carefully you'll see we have taken significant actions and we continue to take significant actions and this has just helped even further the resolve to do so and so we what we are doing our best to keep this work moving forward we do appreciate

040the collaboration with Beacon Hill they push us hard and that's what that's a great thing and a lot of the things we've done have been accelerated because of that pressure and we welcome that it keeps us aligned and keeps us working hard on the issues of equity I think folks know but I'll share it anyway we have invested very significant funds and personnel in this work to the tunes of hundreds of thousands of dollars that we commit every year to our equity work including positions and trainings and things like that so we're very serious about this we take it extremely seriously we are not just doing this at some levels we're not just doing this with a just a cursory overview we are deep in this work you you all some of you were on

041the board when I first brought this up shortly after I came here and and shared some of the discipline data that I had seen and my concerns with that and that we've been moving forward full steam ahead ever since that time so we will continue to do that we will continue to have really in-depth trainings with our cabinet with our principals with our teachers with all of our staff and so we're very committed to this work and we appreciate the input it's very important to us one of our latest activities that you may have noticed in their last update is updating the code of conduct that's actually been underway for a couple months now and we're getting close to the point of gathering input from others there were quite a few people involved parents teachers

042community members in those changes to the code and so we'll be sharing our draft of that I think as soon as the the mid-june board meeting we'll see if we have it ready to go by that or not for that input but that's coming we hear you we appreciate all the input and there are a lot of efforts behind doing this work and we're going to continue with those efforts just wanted to address the community to just first thank you for speaking today I know that it isn't always easy to do so and I wrote everything down I heard everything that you said and I and I hear you and we won't be happy with what we're doing until our community is happy and we know we can't please every single person but we know

043that we have more work to do and we're going to dig deeper to do that work this is not something that's going to get swept under the rug by any means and I think starting with the code of conduct and having clear a clear definition of what we stand for is very important so that was definitely heard and already in process I just want to recognize and let you all know that I feel the same pain that you feel I don't I am not immune to it because I'm sitting on the board and I feel your anger I feel your pain I feel your frustration and as long as I'm sitting in my board seats then as I said the day that I sat here for the first time five years ago that the equity

044that we seek for all black children in our school will be my number one priority as a former as a former parent l'm still a parent my children were in this district graduated out of the city school educator as a staff member I've experienced the system of racism that exists you know I recognize it because I've experienced it firsthand and which is one of the reasons why I ran for a seat on the board because I'm committed to trying to dismantle that system this is a wonderful district it could be better and I'm committed to doing what I need to do to make sure that other families other staff members don't have to experience some of those things and so I appreciate the community members that came and expressed their feelings I have I have

045been there and I'm there now and so just to you know reiterate what you know Portman batata said and mr. burr intended dr. duty that I'm here to to get the job done and so we're gonna we're gonna work hard that's it and and I don't I see people posting things and I see people saying things and I don't trust them and I can't imagine what people whose children's lives feel threatened they don't have any reason to trust people who look like me and I get that and as I hear the parents of people Kevin my neighbor speaking about his child you know I just want to I want to do and as we commit with this code of conduct and this real commitment representation and the people that are on this board sitting around

046and and having real push about what it means for that code of conduct to be meaningful what it means for these acts of Ray sysm these acts of violence towards members of our community to be dealt with appropriately will be dealt with appropriately I get that there's not a lot of faith in that and that as white people in the system built on white supremacy we've given no faith that they'll be dealt with that way and but I do believe as a city and as a school system we're committed to working on that have we solved it well now is jana johnson davis - Lewis Heather - Lewis Jones dr. duty and his staff committed to working on that yes was I excited about a school board meeting and listening to people in their pain

047honestly yeah because I want to do something about it and when we get off this I'm gonna have a meeting with some Glenwood PTA parents we're going to talk about getting some dads together where we talk about dismantling yet amongst our five-year-olds because it's got to start somewhere and I'm tired of updating my Facebook and my Twitter's and doing stuff that doesn't mean anything and I wish my Woolies connection had been better because he's much better than that connection gave him service for and I don't the anger needs to keep up because it's doing a lot of work a lot of good all over this country right now and I don't blame him and I think that anger makes sense thanks for the opportunity to speak to the community and I want to thank every

048single person who showed up today and is attending and especially those people who took the time and energy to speak it takes some guts and we have to be brave and I feel like as a community we we have to work together and it is the schools and it's also the greater community and as a school board we are committed to working with City of Decatur and we have done a lot of great things so far but we have a lot more work to do I'm proud that we had already begun our courageous conversations and our beyond diversity training with all of our teachers and all of our staff and every one of our school would members and we need to continue that through that I have learned a lot and I've learned that these

049conversations are really difficult and we have to be okay with being uncomfortable because none of this is easy and none of this is comfortable and only when we can have those conversations are we going to make any sort of progress whatsoever but I feel grateful that I'm serving with a school board that can have very difficult conversations we are able to speak our truth and we do not always agree and sometimes those conversations get very heated but we have respect for one another and I feel that the people who showed up today and spoke to us rightfully are angry rightfully feel like things take too long but I also very much appreciate the respect and the opportunity to work together on this because I do not feel that we are adversarial I feel that we

050are one team and have the same goal in mind as a parent I want to encourage everyone to speak to their children I know as the school board and the system we are committed to having more of these conversations and some formal education in the school regarding anti racism and regarding trying to improve our equity in our approach in the school system but I think it also needs to come from the home and so I loved the idea that we heard about encouraging parents to have those conversations with our students at home that's really where it starts so thank you to everyone for your commitment and for working with us for your faith and thank you for pushing us harder the most difficult thing about this job is that it's never done and we can

051always do more so thank you for being there and for holding us accountable I'll just add my thanks to everybody for coming forward I can tell you that there is no greater priority in this district and there hasn't been for several years now than trying to fix the systemic problems of racism and inequality that are all too apparent and that are in fact difficult to tackle I'm proud of the work that we're doing I completely understand why I should back up I cannot completely understand the anger the parents subjected to this would feel I can but I'm trying to get it and I and I think I do to some extent I understand the urgency I understand the anger I understand the impatience and the only thing I can say is that we are trying

052we're trying hard and I don't mean one thing it's never going to go down well to say you know trust us we've got it under control we obviously don't we obviously need to do more but we are trying hard and I'm proud of many of the things that we've done in place that we've already put in place I mean we we are already working hard on revising the discipline code we're already working hard on instituting the courageous conversations training with staff and rolling that out to the broader community the restorative justice was a big effort that we have largely put in place over the course of the past year these are long-term sorts of commitments you don't just snap your finger and they're done I mean these things require lots of training lots of staff

053time lots of work lots of buy-in from the community and lots of experience to sort of implement it and then fine tune and adjust it we just undertook a major revision to the discipline code last year with these very issues in that it needed to be clear that we needed to have more of a restorative focus that we needed to eliminate the opportunities for disparate treatment of black and white kids based on discretion of administrators all of those things are things that we recognize and are working very hard to correct it's just that we we haven't gotten it right yet when we just need y'all to keep pushing we're going to keep working and sooner or later eventually you know we're gonna we're going to make progress I was pleased to I'm most excited and

054the current response we're going to talk more about what the district is doing at a systemic level to address these things and you know the explicit anti-racist anti racism curriculum that that we're going to talk about I think really excited that that's what we're going to do and I like to see that this is going to be mandatory for every kid at least that's my understanding there because of David barricade graduating from from Decatur high school graduating from our system it's going to have gone through that course but also not just a one time course and we're talking about anti-racist curriculum throughout the curriculum these are the kind of efforts that we need to be doing and that I'm proud that we're doing I know that it's not enough but we're going to keep trying

055I also wanted to say thank you too I mean I did appreciate very much we had a good meeting with loli Davis and the Beacon Hill Alliance I wasn't able to make the Wednesday meeting but we had a follow up I think on Friday with the mayor and the police chief and I think that this is exactly what we need to be doing and we had some direct courageous students who came forward to to let us know how these incidents affect them and I appreciate that I appreciate all the people who came to speak it's public during our public comment session and right now can only promise you that we're listening that we're listening hard and that we're going to keep working at it Thank You Lewis for making this opportunity for everyone to share

056I do want to add one more thing because I hear people when they say they they want to know what's happening they want to know what consequences are and things like that right and so do know first we are working very hard to figure out how we can be as transparent as possible and we do have some laws we have to work within for employee privacy and for student privacy but I think hopefully you heard them from the five folks you just heard from they take this very seriously and they are your watchdogs they are here they know what's happening they paid very close attention to the actions of the school district they listen to the community and they make sure that I and my administrative team and everyone that we work with are doing

057the best things that we can be doing and and they know they know things that we're not allowed to share publicly and they do a very good job of representing you as a community and so I hope you heard that in their comments tonight and I hope you take them up on their offers to talk to them and continue talking to them because that is something they take very seriously and so you do have five people who are see this work as important as it is and support it and represent you so just want to emphasize that as well all right unless there's something further we'll move on with the budget presentation all right so lenita I think I figured out how to share it so I'm not going to get back to that screen

058there we go okay I think I'm sharing it can you see it yes we can see it okay okay neat slap oh you need me to do a slide no I'm just kidding well good evening members of the board dr. Dooley colleagues and community at the March 10th board meeting the board approved particular to budget the general fund today the board is asked to improve our funds including updates to the general fund although the district did not increase the millage rate which is currently 20.25 that was a small growth of 3% in the tax digest due to a reassessment and therefore we will hold three public hearings to discuss a millage rate the first and second hearings are scheduled for June 16th at noon and 3:45 a public hearing of the tentative budget will follow

059at 4:00 p.m. and the final approval of the fiscal year 21 budget an tentative millage rate is scheduled by June 16 at 4:15 the third public millage hearing and final approval of the property tax millage rate is scheduled for July 14th general fun again the board approved the general fund for the tentative budget on March 10 since that time the economy has experienced the current pandemic related to Kovac 19 which has and may continue to have a financial impact on the district's revenue in preparation of revenue decline the request is that the five million and designated funds be undesignated and utilized to cover the 3.5 million reduction and state revenue due to the eleven percent cut and QBE from the governor and we are also anticipating Main Aur tax commission initially projected expenditures in additional

0601.8 million of the initiatives discussed in the March budget presentation did not convert over to the final numbers and those have been added so basically in the system in the computer system that we have the numbers did not convert over to that March tenth statement our budget that dr. Dooley presented so we need to add those back in let be very nice I didn't put in some of the things correctly in the budget software just like I warned you might happen and she found it and fixed it just like we hope she would when she came on board yes and also the supplement the district provides for pre-k has also increased due primarily to a reduction in funds from the state in their preliminary budget so this is your new proposed fiscal year 2021 budget

061local revenue projection is conservative and represents a five percent increase from fiscal year twenty two B II was reduced by eleven percent of the midterm allocation after the reductions in revenue and increases in expenses the NFL balance is nine point six percent of expenditures which is within the four to fifteen percent fund balance range that we strive to stay within special revenue funds are made up of reimbursable grant funding received from the state and the federal resources the budget is based on preliminary estimates from the grantor so next we'll have a breakdown of the special revenue funds we have received the preliminary estimates on budgets from all of our special revenue funds however you'll be mindful that the budgeted accounts are estimates and may decrease our increase not likely to increase at this point so

062it's likely that it may decrease the total budget at special revenue funds equates to 2.8 million in this budget consists a pre-k title 1 title 6b special air preschool JROTC and purchase capital the average monthly collection of splice funds prior to March was approximately four hundred thirty six thousand five hundred and thirty five dollars since March collisions have declined progressively at a rate of approximately fifteen percent we are continuing to make this services payment and Rickon towards the completion of referendum approved projects this is your capital balance officially you're 21 like local sales tax anticipated splice proceeds have been reduced a little more drastically whereas the local sales discuss and general fund is primarily generated from property tax the splice proceeds are generated from sales tax from anyone that shops in the city during this

063pandemic many of the stores in the city have been closed or operating under limited hours a 40% reduction is projected from this new year 2000 seats based on anticipated revenue shortfalls from the temporary closure of many business in the city and the uncertainty about how the pandemic will in future months so in case you're doing the math I did the five hundred thousand a month times 12 is six million and this says three million and that's why because of the decreased proceeds that were anticipating getting from the county school nutrition is pretty consistent with previous school nutrition merges with funds coming from a variety of sources including local state and federal these are the anticipated revenues received from the various sources this slide presents the breakdown of school school nutrition expenditures with the largest expense

064man personnel and of course unpurchased food this budget season is unique because we really do not know how the pandemic will affect school operations in the fall and the financial impact that the pandemic will actually have on revenue the budgets submitted today are based on projection and it may be necessary to amend the budgets during the new fiscal year thank you and our any questions or clarification that you may need some board members know I'm gonna stop sharing just for a second oh wait there's Lois okay I couldn't see you Lois so I wanted to make sure you're still connected okay any questions so what is our projected fund balance at the end of this cost coming so it's nine point six percent and so that's right about what you may recall our previous conversations

065I'd like to shoot for around ten percent unspent fund balance and that's that's right about where we are so all things considered I I'm pretty pleased with that and we're supposed to say between four and fifteen percent correct I just have a comment I mean I think that this looks very much like what we saw before with the exception of the budget reductions and the impact of the the quarantine and the shutting down of businesses so I think it will be I mean we a lot of this is for us to wait and see how we recover and what what effects of this are lasting in which or not and we don't know you know whether this would be a one-year hit or if this will have a continuing impact so I just want to

066also say it's that I'm in favor of keeping a fund balance a healthy fund balance so that we can make good decisions and not desperate decisions I'm grateful that we had a healthy fund balance so that we were able to continue with a lot of what we felt were essential things this year including one of our largest expenditures which is salaries and being able to pay our teachers well and that is something that we continue to strive to do and to improve and I think it's been a priority of the board and one of our biggest expenses so I'm pleased that we are able to stick by the budgets that we proposed and just also move forward with the same level of conservatism there are so many unknowns going forward I'm glad you brought that

067up Heather - because I think it's worth reiterating that unlock a lot of our unlike a lot of our pure districts we are very fortunate that we are able because of that fundamental it's money that we have there we are able to still give our teachers the $2,000 raise that has evaporated everywhere else and we are able to still give our lowest paid employees an average of about a 25 percent pay increase we did a lot of analysis over the last several years of our competitiveness and we knew that we were following behind other districts and so we planned carefully to try to correct that and that's reflected in this budget and hopefully like you said we'll be able to continue that moving forward and but it is something we'll have to monitor of course

068because situations can change but this is a great opportunity for us to catch up to some of the other school districts in the area that we compete with for staff to make sure we're as competitive as possible so I just think that's important to mention I appreciate you bringing it up doctor did the other things that we talked about funding as part of that discussion including the you know the cultural center for african-american and black students and the new counselors from you know mental health counselor that suite of things those were included and all those things are still here that's correct okay and I do have another question but I wanted to thank lenita for she said that it's it's a interesting time and I can't wait to actually meet her face-to-face lenita thank you

069her hitting the ground running and just doing a great job is your third presentation and really appreciate it can you orally need to talk about so we're taking money I you know we're not taking it from nowhere you know what is that we had set that aside for a beginning a conversation about capital improvement projects on the 2030 plan and kind of correct and dealing with long-term stuff can we talk about that and then yeah yeah no that's a great great point so that line says undesigning funds from fund balance five million so you may recall last year that we had funds in excess of fifteen percent which you are not allowed to have right so we also simultaneously we're working on our facility master plan and a big part of that is a future

070potential of an early childhood center that's expanded and located right down here next to Wilson Center and so we designated that five million dollars as a start to that process and trying to have some fun set aside that would allow us to start projects like that without having to do bonds for them clearly at the time we did it we did not know what was coming we did not know but there was a worldwide pandemic on the horizon okay and none of us could have predicted this but we did talk at the time that if for some reason something happens and if only we had known how mad it was going to be but if if something happens you can undesignated fund and use them for something else so you're not tied in forever um

071once you've designated them so that five million dollars was designated for future capital projects last year and we're now undesignated it will do that as a formal vote and when we adopt the budget so you'll see that in the June 16th meeting we'll have Lee go to undesignated fund then also to approve the budget so yeah that's an important point thank you for bringing it up okay the other thing I'll point out just because it always comes up this line for tuition people always say I thought we don't take new students and that's true that is almost all through because of College Heights and the Fraser Center we do have something like maybe ten students who are grandfather being who still pay tuition that are outside those areas but it's mostly our early childhood program

072Dana or Tasha don't have any comments or questions any comments okay my one question I mean I also am very happy that we're in such a good position because if you're good stewardship that we were able to weather this and we had some money that we could use to apply to the budget it does I mean that's a big trade-off and in that early childhood center is important to us and it's an important part long-term of our equity initiative too because the idea is to expand to the greatest extent possible access to early childhood education and you know we're still going to still got to be on a priority it just means that we might have to finance it more than having the money in the pocket it's not really my comment my comment though

073is that you know let's hope that this is a v-shaped recovery that this is a one-time hit and that we can come back and we're going to come back strong next year and we're going to get back on on track but we have to plan assuming it's not going to be and we don't yet know what it's going to look like and so I assume I hope that you guys will be looking very actively with some agency planning like starting now and the same way that we're doing to figure out what's going to happen come August with our school environment and a lot of a pandemic we also need to be saying okay we're gonna have hard choices we might have hard choices to make next year what are we going to do how are

074we going to get through this with the least pain possible and you know we don't want to be cutting staff and salaries but we're gonna have to cut something I don't know what we're gonna cut and so I hope the job will be starting now to start figuring that now so that we've got a plan and as I said that we're not reacting an emergency yeah totally totally agree and lenita and I have already talked about the need to project further out as well and look into future years I haven't had a chance to tell her yet social here right with you right now but I did reach out to some folks I've worked with in the past to help do budget purge actions like five-year forecasts of budgets and so we're gonna talk with

075them early in the fall late summer to kind of see if that would help us or not and we will still be working on that same advanced timeline like we did this year so you will we probably will be talking about budget before you would think that we need to be talking about it because we will be doing that again this coming year like we did this year so it's definitely top of our minds for sure and I know for lenita especially it's something that she thinks a lot about it so I'm sure this Thanks yeah any other questions on the budget okay so if we can have a vote to approve this version of the tentative budget then we'll bring you a final version at the our next meeting motion all right okay next

076up we have our update on district operations let me work on sharing this as well we have various administrators on the line right now administrators if you can hear me I have made you all participants so I will bring up the presentation hopefully in a size that is legible and when we get to your section you can jump in and start talking about it so there we go all right so this is an update much like you've seen recently we've tried to hit on the high points I'll start off by talking about some of our retirees you know we talked about our seniors leaving and having to have their last year at school within the midst of a pandemic and I think it's important to remember we have some of our staff who are in

077that same boat and so take a moment if you know these people reach out to them there's a lot of awesome people in this list some of whom have been with us for a long long time and so we're very thankful for all of them we're going to miss them terribly and we just really wish them all the best in the future and we hope that we can do something with them in person at some point so we can celebrate a little bit more properly our retirees but when and make sure folks knew them about those folks who are who are leaving us and moving on to other things we are going to talk about our first item here which is about racial equity lily are you gonna jump in and do this cause I'm

078to let in sure sure um good afternoon board members and dr. duty I'd like to start off just by echoing the sentiments that board members expressed the equity and the student support department is committed to addressing racial inequities within our district and especially in light of the devastating local and national incidents of racism we've experienced so the first thing you see on this is a link to the district equity action plan we are continuing to implement the plan during closure some of the items that are included on the equity action plan are being being implemented virtually and then others have been postponed until the fall when we can travel and congregate in larger groups and that particularly pertains to the culturally relevant teaching training and implementation that was slated for the end of this school

079year so all of those things have have been maintained and are being addressed in different ways but you can click there to learn more about what's going on with the equity Action Plan I'm the next thing I have here is a list of several steps that we are taking to redouble our efforts some of these are ongoing but some of these are new things that our department is working on and Lewis talked a little bit about the educational opportunities we have planned for our students and some of those consists of going through our current curriculum and examining what is there in terms of how we are teaching our students about the history of this country and the things that they need to know to to be anti-racist citizens and then there are other things that

080are specifically designed to address racism head-on like a four section anti racism course for all secondary students our equity coordinator married dr. Mary banks and and I are working with consultants to develop that and have that ready up and running for the fall semester and with that we'll be addressing we'll be addressing the history of race and American really drilling down on the different ways that white supremacy has been deeply ingrained in our country and has been institutionalized and in various ways we'll also talk about how students can become anti-racist and work together in their schools and their communities to to move the work forward as well we'll look at microaggressions we'll look at it'll be an opportunity to process some of the things that are coming up and what students have experienced and to

081be able to learn from those things you can look through that list and I'm happy to talk about anything that you would like to know more about we've already touched on a little bit how we're going to continue to revise and refine the code of conduct and pause for just a moment in case board members have questions about what's listed here before going into the next session section I had a couple questions dr. Huddleston in terms of what is some of the examples of some of the ways that you plan to partner with families black families and that let's do in the district sure so I'll tell you a little bit about some of the things that have already taken place over the last few weeks or so before school was out we gave two

082listening opportunities to students at at the high school and it was an opportunity for students to to come online and to talk about the things that were coming up in response to some of the the videos that have been posted so we worked with the counselors and dr. banks and we all were there to allow students to have chance to give voice to to what they were experiencing and to talk about what they wanted to see happen in response to that there have also been opportunities for staff members to come on now all of these things we would have preferred to be able to do them in person but we couldn't do - Kovach 19 but we did provide those opportunities online for staff members to come on and to discuss that and it's we

083planned before the closure to have racial affinity groups and we're still planning to move forward with that when school resumes to be able to have those groups so to come together and talk as a school community and then to provide separate meetings for people to be able to talk about what's coming up for them and then to be able to bring that back to the whole group so there are plans to continue with that with the racial affinity groups so that people can give voice to what's going on and we can connect that information with all of the relevant cabinet members and and with the board as well if there are certain action items that are outside of what we've already started working on to address the climate and the culture in our schools and

084then my second question was in terms of the anti racism programming is there where you all join that content firm for that curriculum is there national program there standard sure so we are partnering with one of the facilitators of from Pacific educational group so the same individuals who developed our beyond diversity work and have been doing this work in schools for years one one member of that team who worked with students particularly and the soar program students organized for anti-racism has has developed a multi session curriculum based on working with these districts in the years as well as best practices and and the literature that that we have to date on anti-racist work in schools and so we're partnering with her to develop this and we wanted to make sure that we had four to

085six sessions that are ready to go as soon as we come back so this is not the extensive year-long curriculum but given the things that have come up we wanted to make sure that as soon as school starts we are able to jump in with some evidence-based work for our students is that Lori Watson you're talking about Lily uh-huh just so you all know Lori Watson is like the rock star of the country when it comes to this work I shared with her when she got announced at one of the national conferences and she got this standing ovation that lasted for like I don't know it felt like ten minutes um because she is just the way she can connect with kids is just um it's unimaginable she is so good at it and so

086she is just a super rock star so exciting to hear she's the one working on that so okay all right if there are no other questions in this moment we'll go down to the next section here I I did have one question Dyson yeah um I didn't see it on there but the previous meeting you talked about some of the work you were doing with that answered her questions earlier about community there it is right there about a repository of resources for community members and PTA groups and reaching out and providing some of the stuff that you all have done and I know in the past couple of weeks as people have asked me for stuff CSD has such a great set of resources for things do we have any plans a lot of this

087is I'm just skimming our high school middle school etc for making some of the curriculum and our younger schools a little more publicly aware to kind of reinforce what parents and be TAS are doing at home I've seen it on some of your lists before and I just wanted to know if you could talk to that because it's on the front of my mind sure absolutely so over the past year dr. banks has been attending many different PTSA meetings working on our school groups and sharing the information that we have on our website as well as other resources for parents and we we are constantly updating the information that's on the website there's a wealth of things in terms of what parents can be reading with their children and links to lessons that that parents

088can do at home so it is our goal to make sure that we are looking across the across the district and really implementing these things at a developmentally appropriate level throughout so we will continue to partner and attend those PTA meetings and to make sure parents know exactly what we're doing so that they can complement that in their homes some of the schools I'll just highlight for a moment some of the work that's happened at West Chester Elementary last year they have a very active equity committee their media specialist has really looked at making sure that the materials in the in the media center are reflective of the work we're doing and many of the media specialists across the district have done that kind of thing some in partnership with the parent organizations so you

089may recall the readin that happened your parents were able to come to the school and read you know material that spoke to all of the diversity of the City of Decatur so those kinds of events are happening and we want to redouble our efforts with that and part of that is really getting the school-based equity teams to get on board with that as well so that we can get the message out and so that we can have a consistent presence in all aspects of the school and particularly at lower lower elementary and and the younger ages and grade levels thank you I just wanted to thank you dr. Huddleston for your work and I wanted to also just highlight that you're sort of the where it all comes to a focus but that you've also

090challenged the rest of your co-workers and dr. duty has challenged the cabinet and the teachers and staff with making equity a lens that they used to look through for all of the decisions that we make and since we just talked about the budget I just thought it would be interesting to point out that as a as a school system as a cabinet as a board we've reviewed every single budget request and rated it and one of the criteria was whether or not that item was likely to advance equity in the district and so I think it's just important to note that we are trying to permeate this emphasis on equity through all of the decisions that we make and it's not just the standalone things that we're doing that are called out here but that

091it's really our mindset and we've really been working hard to shift our mindset to keep it in mind in everything that we do so thank you for for your work here and I just wanted to say that there's more there's more work going on you'd then even you've put in bullets here absolutely thank you question listening in which is that all of this information you can find on the on the website I sometimes have troubles navigating it's an excellent website but the key is that you have to scroll down all right when I go to our home page it looks like a self-contained page and I've never realized a little science bottom to scroll down I don't see it and so I think that I can't find what I'm looking for if you scroll down

092you'll find an entire section devoted to our equity initiatives including a link to the equity action plan and I would encourage those with an interest in this work to do that scroll down and click the link and follow and I mean follow the link to the to the very detailed equity action plan so that you can get a sense of all the work that's going on this is a lot of work coordinated by dr. Holliston and it's it's good work and you know take a look but I also have a question that sort of is similar to James question and this is just in I know that to some extent there's an effort to do this for instance through the Decatur dinners but to broaden the conversation to the wider community and you know the

093Decatur dinners is a great institution but we're dependent on volunteer moderators who you know do not necessarily have the same training and level of expertise as the Pacific group is that the name of the group is education for the Pacific education group and you know one of the you know when we're talking about systemic racism one of the one of the most important things that I think we could do is to get the leaders in our community you have the ability to change systems you know the open pupils eyes so that we can understand the lens that we need to view these problems through and the impacts the unintentional impacts that many of the things when we do things the way that we've always done it you know there's you say there's racism built into

094that that we're not cognizant of and so I think it's very important that we broaden it because we're we're a school system we're a part of it but we're not all of it and we need everybody in our community to be a part of it and be very nice to if we could somehow bring the pacific education group to Decatur and somehow be the catalyst so that we could bring community leaders into that and actually get the benefit of of that training which is really sort of a different order of good and it's just very effective it'd be nice if we could we could and presumably you know we could partner with the city make sure that the city officials are get the same benefit make sure that other community leaders make sure that our

095SL team members our PTA is you know really throughout the system I know there's an expense but we can ask people to contribute and and pay the tuition as you can we told it's actually something that's it's it has started thanks to Decatur Education Foundation they have offered I think two maybe more beyond diversity sessions specifically for that reason so that community leaders who may not even have a connection to the school district could come and experience that and it was very well received and people really are hoping to for that to continue so we are definitely working on that and with thanks from folks like the EF we've been able to offer some of those opportunities and I do think we all were on the same page we would love to see that expand

096and so that it we continue to incorporate folks throughout the city that may have no connection to the school district even good absolutely I've had a recent conversation with Gail and and the plans are in the works do that again well now I'll do the hashtag scroll down that Lois gave us kind of an expert okay sure other people wouldn't have that problem but I could it's a hash tag now Lewis forever all right so next I highlighted a little bit of information about the restorative practices training that we just completed with all staff members and that was a part of our PBIS work and overall the the feedback from that was very positive teachers have indicated that they want to know more about restorative practices and toward that end we have a restorative practices

097committee that's working over the summer to ensure that we are ready with next steps for training and restorative practices when we return in addition to the work that's being to make sure that it is solidified within our code of conduct and that everybody understands what those steps are related to the restorative part of our code of conduct the next thing I wanted to share with the board was just to give you a little info about social-emotional learning we recognize that when students and teachers come back they are going to be bringing back a lot of emotional concerns may have experienced different things during this closure that they need to process and need to unpack and need to really work on skills to be able to cope with that when we re-enter so one of the

098things we're doing is partnering with Emory University and their C learning program and this program is a social-emotional curriculum that's designed to really address some of those issues to foster their social emotional and ethical intelligence so we've highlighted a little bit there it focuses on attention training and compassion and resilience and really building those skills so that students are ready to address really able to to address their emotional issues before they can tackle anything related to academics or the other things that are coming up and we have to make sure that they have that foundation and that they're able to do those things so we've started with trainings and we had one right before the end of the school year we'll have some over the summer and this will be implemented by our mental health

099professionals as well as our new behavior interventionist who has joined our school district dr. Rhonda Pugh so we are very excited about that and being able to offer this in our schools it's our hope that down the line all teachers will get an opportunity to be trained and seen learning and will be able to have more opportunities but again given kovat 19 we wanted to make sure that we have our mental health professionals on the ground as soon as we reopen school to address these issues are there any questions no well I can't say enough about the leadership of dr. Huddleston and dr. banks and this work it's phenomenal I think none of you are surprised how awesome it is and it's just it keeps going um and they are doing a really great job

100and I really appreciate that so alright so we're going to move on to teaching and learning Christie are you going to take this one okay so I will also just say any decisions that we make in teaching and learning in the area of curriculum and instruction is also ran through the lens of racial equity we have a racial equity tool used to make decisions we have equitable practices checklists I know the schools are looking at you know diversifying their materials but also this goes much deeper it's much more complex into the effect that we use with students with their instructional practices etc as we were planning today with our new teaching and learning task force I'm very excited about we have put together a team of excellent teachers to help us basically debrief and look

101forward into what online instruction looks like and the best practices that go along with that you get 87 staff members apply to be on the team and we just made our final selection of 18 today so we're very excited about that and as I said part of that work does include running it through a racial equity lens and looking at the practices how equitable practices look online etc any questions on that area okay the second thing I'd like to update you about is we did receive our IB program evaluation for our middle years diploma program and our career program just to give you a little bit of background IB does so they do authorization and towie Street is currently in the process of receiving their authorization you did an evaluation three years post authorization and

102then every five years thereafter starts with a self-study and then there is a visit and based on those there's interviews with teachers there is about a hundred and forty six practices related to philosophy organization and curriculum that are assessed through the International Baccalaureate Organization and based on that they give feedback to the schools the feedback comes in the form of recommendations commendations and then matters to be addressed just as a reminder babe had their evaluation in 2018 their results for exemplary they had a number of commendations a few recommendations but no matters to be addressed our middle years program which is the program that spans grades six through ten so all of our students in grades six through ten so all the students in Renfro and then our ninth and tenth graders at Decatur High

103School participate in this program historically middle years program is a the most challenging of the IB programs to facilitate simply because it's split across two schools the way most systems are set up in the United States we did have a number of matters to be addressed seven from the middle years program these will be will provide evidence to IB that we are working towards or meeting these expectations by March a lot of them have to do with training and as I mentioned previously we have created a partnership with KC they will be doing a training hopefully in person at Decatur high school over the fall break and we are sending approximately 50 teachers to be trained this year I felt it was a top priority so we in curriculum and instruction partnered with schools to

104make sure that that happened and then some there are some other areas that we are looking at provide support for the school so that we can meet the expectations of IBO our diploma program and career program there was only one matter to be addressed and that also had to do with the training which as I said we will have that met through our partnership with KC as well as some training to make sure that all of the teachers are certified the way that they should be according to IB and have that training that they need to meet those expectations so we didn't get into the specific details it's all there in the report and for anybody who's watching and listening to this meeting I'm just go to our website and go to the board agendas

105and it's all right there if you want to see the details of the outcomes from those reports any questions for Christy on that alright I'm moving on a quick update on legislature Courtney are you doing this update yes I'm having trouble with my headphones can you hear me yes which I do okay um I have to keep it really quick because it's not much here other than the legislature will return on Monday for their 30th legislative day so they'll have ten legislative days to pass the budget because it has to be passed by July 1st that's really the all I have for the update so far they haven't really discussed much about what they're going to do when they come back other than the budget and I heard the lieutenant governor yesterday say that the

106other priority for at least for the Senate was to pass the hate crimes legislation so that's that's all I have for them updates on that Courtney just to be clear so is June 15th the first of ten more days that they can meet so if there's not yes so well they can think they can take those ten days for the rest of the month they don't have to be consecutive correct yeah yes all right any questions for Courtney alright thanks Courtney no problem the budget staff it's really you've already heard most of this already we put it in the update just so it's all together if you have any more questions about that we'd be happy to answer them otherwise we'll move on to the next part all right I'm staff support Edina are you

107gonna do this part there she is all right take it away Tina good afternoon to the board and dr. duty just a quick update for our our staffing we are definitely pleased to announce that Sergio Perez our own Sergio Perez has been selected as the executive director of operations during this process we had over 42 candidates that applied to this position and out of those 42 percent candidates for those events and were selected to participate in interviews and a performance task so our own like I said for Sergio Perez he rose to the top and we are definitely pleased to have him in that position he is coming to this position as our former director of facility so we congratulate him in that new role and if you look in your videos you can see

108Sergio there hi Sergio good to see you to have you in your new role moving on in the vein of staffing as of date the staff support department hasn't received in process over 85 recommendations for hire and of course this number is ever-changing as we continue to fill vacancies throughout the district with internal transfers and external candidates for the upcoming year right now we are working to and options that before we were looking at options for virtual and in-person onboarding our new new hires but right now we are moving in the vein of just virtual options moving to closer to the beginning of the year also making sure that we are compiling a schedule for our our criminal background checks just to adhere to the CDC safety guidelines and also we are in the process

109of compiling our curriculum agenda for our new hire orientation days which will also be virtual for our certified and classified employees other major projects that our department has been working on while we are working remotely we have renewed over 150 certifications for our certified staff and we continue to work with a new hire new hires to obtain their Georgia certificates also especially if they're seeking reciprocity from other states and if they are seeking their initial Georgia certification and then last but definitely not least we are working with the College Heights administrative team for the reopening on June 15th and this includes us complying with the family first corona corona virus response act and this went into effect April 1st 2020 so as HR professionals we are immersing ourselves into this act and really getting an

110understanding and to interpret and manage the law so we are working closely with the equity and student support team so we can compile a workflow probe process in order for us to manage these staff leaves and compliance to the act awesome thanks for dinner any questions for Adina go in just just a little deeper on some of the things um this act entails and what what kind of changes will we'll be seeing in this in college Heights exactly so with this with the reopening of college Heights it actually is giving us a pilot of what we will do for the fall when we were reopening the entire district so two main components of this act is the expansion act which deals with the care your childcare and so if you're unable to return back to

111work or work remotely and you your childcare facility it's not open then you have the ability to apply for this lead and we have different criteria for it for you to meet to receive this act I'm gonna see believe I'm sorry and then be paid emergency leave is for anyone that has directly been affected vyckhoven if you have symptoms if you're caring for someone they have symptoms things like that that is the emergency care act and so that effort she two weeks paid emergency league and if once you are cleared to come back to work then you will you'll will not have to use your crew leave and just so you all know with the College Heights opening the team at College Heights has done such an awesome job working with others around the district

112to come up with how we could even do this right and so it has been a full team effort there's HR implications there's operations implications there's health implications there's just all kinds of different things and they have really done an awesome job like they always do helping get those things figured out and like a demon said it is kind of a trial run to see how things go and how do all these processes work and whatnot so it's awesome any other questions for Deena alright moving on to operations Sergio you're gonna do this patient yes all right take away so good afternoon board member dr. duty thank you for having me in my first board meeting the operations department will keep working to support all activity 4i stakeholders we are accelerating the renovations and construction

113of tear projects the Korea Student Center construction projects ahead of schedule we are almost 85% completely at this time we very important for the partition wall at this at this time and we are working to provide ideas for the FF&E order or what coordinate are going to be placed in those areas we are upgrading the technology in the air-conditioning pumps were istil in vibration sensor controllers through the district that will help us to prevent breakdowns and reduce and expand expected body expenses we also reduce in a cold plasma air purification system inside the air condition for college high early childhood Learning Center to ensure the building will be safe for our staff students and community these devices will kill mold bacteria and viruses he's been used by the by the Navy by the hospitals in

114and is really providing really good results and we see in a lot of other school districts try to install this this system to prevent the cabinetry we are also working to determine a scenarios in logistics associated with the needs and requirements for the study of the new school year we have a scheduler removal replacement of the modulars over the ECL C we are working with the vendors to ensure completion as expected there's gonna be a tight schedule but we believe we're gonna be able to complete it before school starts in a traditional coast-to-coast oil department are preparing and training a staff for the opening of our PLC the Transportation Department is working on routing determine needs and logistic requirements for the Ford school open e and we are working with the other departments and directors

115make sure we are prepared for these opening in have every every logistics in place to provide a safe and Baroque thanks urging any questions for Sergio a question about the pure air plasma air purification system is that something that the other buildings have that is that something that's going to be installed and all the other buildings as we prepare to reopen yes so we don't have that system in the other schools this is a new device then we our goal is to be able to install in and all this comes through the district so we start with ECL C and we are exploring to install these devices all over these entities - any other questions waiting to see I have a kind of off point question but if any other board members have one out

116they should go first all right then um I asked David but I'm guessing that many people if we have any left watching this meeting are very curious why all of our school buses are at the high school parking lot thank you can you do first so we are working on a repayment some will be a back parking lot so in order to do that we have to relocate the bosses so you can have right time in striping time and all that kind of stuff it's pretty impressive if you haven't driven by it's kind of cool to see them all in one spot and helps kind of bring to a tangible understanding of the logistics behind the busing system and how many buses they're hard to operate when you see them all sitting there together so

117it's interesting our operations folks obviously often do their work behind the scenes and they're really doing a great job and and I know that Sergio is going to carry that tradition on and move it forward even even further so it's they're really doing great work there's a lot to do this year with all this enough with coronavirus and whatnot and they're stepping up and doing a great job all right technology Meston I see you there hey everyone got a litany of projects and whatnot listed out for you and the report I've got one really substantial correction to make and that is at the beginning of the second paragraph that's not ninety nine point three six parents and guardians that's ninety nine point three six percent of parents and guardians so sorry I missed that I

118did want to meet that thirty six hundredths of a person but there you go we have been splitting our time between sort of looking back and what has and hasn't worked on the technology front of remote learning and really taking a close look at the technology aspects of the remote learning survey that went out to grades 6 through 12 students and the small staff members and to all parents we've been happy to see that our families have overwhelmingly reported that they have been connected and they did not want for access to a device but we did see a higher rate of people pointing out that they had less than reliable Internet can internet connectivity and so we have a bit of a stockpile of additional hotspots so that if the need presents itself going into

119next school years opening we have more on hand to more readily meet our family's needs to get their children online I also wanna give a shout out to the DIA we they for the last couple of months have really leaned on the major telecoms and we've seen the telecoms directly reaching out so many of their customers around the area of internet connectivity to families but we also have coming out really any day now a series of state contracts instruments that can drive down the price to school districts of putting a hotspot into the hands of family or an employee because we've given actually quite a few of these hotspots to staff members who are just missing you don't have that that connectivity piece so that is very heavily on our mind and perhaps to the

120do EE because they've really been a great partner in applying pressure in a way that a district like ours can't we also have just the usual bevy of it's summertime and we have few people in buildings and so this is a good time to get things done I won't rattle off all the work that we have going on but we're all we're pretty busy we're excited to bring some substantial improvements not only to building physical security through some substantial work on surveillance cameras but also ensuring that our network infrastructure as the best-in-class security and those are two major areas of focus for us over the next couple of months before school reopens along with ensuring that ECL C has a smooth reopening as possible we are very excited to see the new modulars going into

121place students will be ready to get those equips as soon as possible afterward and the the whole team at ECL see not just our tech but the whole team that I don't think we had asked for a better opening pilot site for our district the staff and the principal and everyone in that number that roof is is I think well situated to be our first at-bat at getting us back up to speed so to speak so I'm happy to field any questions you have about any of the particulars here or anything else is on your mind any questions for Aston I have a question if I wait and see if anyone else does as - my question is whether to what extent are we providing not only the hot spots but IT help you know

122as I've had to move my work to my home mm-hmm I've spent a lot of time on my own IT and I imagine other folks might might need some help I've made so what we did as part of rolling out the option for any student with that question to take a device home we gave about 1400 of those part of the follow up systems keep them in in good condition was a chain of how can family how families can request IT help with with the equipment and so from the get-go the communication chain was for if a student had a difficulty with their district own device to let their teacher know so that the teacher would be aware that the student might not be able to fully participate as much as they had and then

123the teacher would use our internal tools to submit a ticket on behalf of on behalf of that student we have a very strong ticketing platform in fact our colleagues and facilities are about to transition over its using it themselves - and so we've been using our intern tools with a lot more help from our teachers to surface and to responds to technology issues from kids I'm happy to share this might have been in a board report last month that our service level agreements for closing out break fix repair tickets our repair rate if if it wasn't steady I think it actually went up our compliance rate for that SLA for staff members staff members have always had access to the ticketing platform and so at the end of the day are really throughout the day

124our techs have areas that they're responsible for when they've had to go deal with their own lives during this pandemic we've had coverage to have each other's back and so in some ways is the break fix component of technology support has continued the same as it has during the day just the delivery mechanism might change a little bit a little bit more remote support on the device for example then then hands-on great Astin's done a great job not only just building a great team but also building a culture of support and that team and not only supporting each other but supporting all the folks that they're designated to support and making sure that we get in there so it was a natural extension when we went fully online like this they just jumped right in

125and it you you would think it wasn't a big undertaking it really was but they didn't make it look that way it was it just meant really well anything else Reston alright thanks Justin um I'm not sure who is running this part Maggie are you are you talking through this part okay take it away everyone all right so just a couple of concluding things here graduation for our high schoolers what went very well I want to thank Rochelle and mr. Hatfield and all the team at Decatur high school for making sure that happened we've caught out a couple people in our comments here to thank them for the extra work and talent that they put forth to recognize our seniors for very first and hopefully never having to do again virtual graduation but if I

126think it went as well as it could be we do remain committed you try to do an in-person ceremony on August 1st as much as possible and we'll be updating as we go along also many of our elementary schools and did fun little end-of-the-year parades or events with their students are trying to commemorate the end of the school year hopefully giving them some sense of finishing this school year and taking some time and then being ready to start back in the fall and that takes us to our last section opening for next year we are underway with lots of different models we're looking at where we're really looking at three different models and working through all the different logistics and scenarios and contingency plans for three of these and the one yeah not that we're

127leading one way or another but we are definitely trying to flesh out these details I know we would all love to come back 100% in person not sure if that's going to be the best plan based on where we are with this pandemic but we are definitely getting things in place for that is the choice that we are ready to do that also looking at a hybrid model which would be some kind of mix between students doing some online learning and some face-to-face learning as well as if it's just if there's a second wave or there's an increase outbreak and that the governor puts us again at a shelter at home order that we are ready to put full digital learning back in place and hopefully much upgraded from where we were when we jumped

128into that model and the fall I think we've learned a lot from that I think we've been able to make several improvement so if we have to go back to that we do have some improvements ready to go we leave that topic Maggie some of you may have seen I put on a call for any experts in the community who might want to help us from like the epidemiological perspective of the medical perspective things like that and we got quite a few folks volunteered so I'll be reaching out to them in the coming days to set up a meeting through from their perspective as experts in their various fields what their input is on our plans for for reopening I have a call with metro area superintendents either tomorrow or Thursday I can't remember and

129so the superintendent's are all talking about what their plans are some have gotten a little further than others and so we're just kind of discussing what we're seeing and what we're thinking and so we will be communicating a lot more about that in the in the near future as well so no that's good and then I'm like dr. duty mentioned earlier we are way well underway in significant revisions to our code of conduct for the upcoming year I did convene a committee earlier this year I think in January I started putting out a call for participants in the community as well as parents and staff to participate in the revisions committee I have about 45 people staff and parents that have agreed to participate and we were gonna have our first meeting right after I

130think mid-june mid-march and then we were closed so we had to move the whole provisioning process to do all of this virtually and but I'm happy to say I think it's going along well we sent out a survey to all the members of the committee to read through the code of conduct and send their feedback to me I am in the process of well I've gone through all of their feedback I've made the major revisions from their recommendations so they the committee will be getting a second survey to provide input on how we have updated the code of conduct to provide input on did they see their suggestive revisions did we take it far enough where they were hoping that we did so that we can finalize the code and have it hopefully ready well

131definitely ready when students come back but hopefully a little earlier so people can process my goal is to get the finalized code of conduct posted to our website by July 8th that way parents as they're starting to register will have an opportunity to review and read that and sign off on on that code I want to just share real quickly and in that regards to if any good can come of situations like what we're in now it's that it can get people fired up right and it can get people interested in making change and what we've noticed as a school district is there's a lot of times we'll put out calls for help and won't get main responses and so when we see folks fire it up and getting involved with things we really appreciate

132that and we really ask stay involved write respond when those things come out and say we want your input give us your input right and so don't just do it as a one-off deal that just because it's in the news or just because you're fired up about it right now done do it all the time right and so when we reach out and say hey we need help getting input on this we mean it we really want your input and we really want you to be a part of what we're working on so I hope that passion can continue and I hope people can will continue wanting to be parts of the solutions and volunteering for teams just like what Maggie was describing as those calls come out for that that support and that assistance

133so just want to reiterate that and please be on the lookout for those opportunities and and step up and help the whole community in the school district when we get to that work any questions for Maggie all right very good thank you so that concludes our our board update and then the final thing we have is the senior exemption James I don't know if you want to give a quick update on where we are with the homestead exemption committee see I emailed our chair Paul Collins today I'm waiting to hear back from her we should have another meeting Peter was pushing for the 23rd or the 30th neither of those are set in stone we're waiting on some data doctor duty I'll touch base with you tomorrow or Thursday they just pour a test for

134some data about the number of households that were impacted by each of the levers both the income lever and the you know total house exemption to move that and then I'd asked Paul to just sort of reach out outside of the you know the committee the members of the school board about what they wanted to see what they wanted research on in terms of creating subcommittees to move forward so I was very pleased with how far the the committee had come between the first and the second meeting and if that's any indication and I think that where they get in September I'm excited to see clarification I know that we last time we talked about the homestead exemption committee that we go to the next meeting and be available to answer questions and just to

135get clarification up now we're gonna let the committee kind of do their thing and take questions that come through you and back to duty I just wanted clarification of the board's engagement with the committee for that is that is my understanding we're using the the FAQ page that has been created it's on the website on the scene homestead exemption committee and I'll submit questions there and I even checked myself Jana you would have been proud today that I was gonna email out the board and I stopped and send it to Paula and trying to do my best to let them kind of steer it and then if they have questions that are data-driven I'm pushing them towards dr. duty and if they have questions about what the charge of the the actual committee is than

136me and then I'll push him out towards us and I know that Paula mentioned some data but if she was waiting on you can answer this question have you been able to provide some of that information they were looking for there is only later that's we're still working on and because we're gonna have to get it from Georgia State I know that for sure okay are you talking to Georgia State yet so are they expecting the request I have not talked to Georgia State yet I wanted to make sure we had all the questions so we could ask them once and not pepper them we just wanted to mention that there's you know I think we've all seen a lot of the postings around community groups and I wanted to make sure that we were

137able to direct community members to our FAQ which we all worked very hard to contribute to and I think it answers a lot of questions so I I wanted to just reiterate that I think we need to add that to the homestead exemption page and I also think that it's a little bit buried and I wonder if we could possibly add a quick link for the senior homestead exemption to direct people to that page since it's such a prominent topic right now in our community and I think it will make it a little bit easier for people to find that information yeah I think it's a good idea and and just so we're clear is is the desire of the board then that we not call them to the next call that we just stay

138away we'd be just painted I mean I don't care what we do but we need to not make the call in the middle of the meeting right till it is that what we want is that nobody dial in except James that did my recommendation opinion in pain I would say either that or have the board be welcome to attend since it is the public meeting and just have us on mute so we could observe or if we feel strongly that we not be present quote-unquote present in the meeting I suppose we could watch the recording but I for one am very interested in listening to the deliberations of the committee because I think it will inform us on the reasons why decisions are made and therefore it'll help guide us when we try to either

139completely agree and approve their recommendation or follow their their desired direction and their intent and so I just think it's it's really helpful to help them for my son what the priorities of the committee are and what's important to them so I'll definitely watch the recordings and you know I'm fine with unflexible on how we do that I just think that as the board all of us shouldn't at least watch the recordings so that we can be informed on what the deliberations are and what the sticking points might be and what might be the you know most importantly aspects of the text assumption that's fine with me so so the agreement then is that either we will be silent observers or watch it later but only James will actually participate as a talking number yes

140all right anything else on the homestead exemption nope alright the I'm gonna share real quick our future dates see if I can do this or not as you see me trying to make it the size that I need it to be there we go hopefully now you can see the future dates so those are the meetings that are coming up you'll notice the July ones are marked as possibly virtually because we just don't know yet if it will be allowed to come back together in person I know we all want to do that as soon as possible but I think we'll probably wait a little while to make a call on that but those are those hearings and things that you heard about from Lomita earlier in the meeting about the budget that's all in

141the year 2020 I suppose yes turn me off earlier so I had that yep all right I think that's it well I think we're adjourned then unless there's any other business I don't have it all right well thanks everybody books see you soon all right thanks everybody all right thank you you