001I know Amy and Aon are here and getting set up so if everybody's okay we'll give them a minute to get connected okay she did Shar did you get a copy of the um amended or Jim Jim I think I'm sorry you stop in and get one right d Shar did you get a copy of the Personnel I I did okay and and the salaries yes okay desar did you I don't know if she can hear me yeah I see Amy yes yes know where that little um thing that I have for oh I got it is Aaron on yep I see him okay I see one three I'm counting as I go okay I think I've got everybody is everybody ready yep all right fantastic yes ma'am who mammed me okay uh call to
002order can I have a motion to approve and accept this agenda with the amendment of item 6C Personnel report and with the addition of item 8e updated covid-19 plan motion second yes that was Jim okay um any questions all in favor yes yes yes yes yes all right you we'll do Pledge of Allegiance Pledge of Allegiance to to the flag of the United States of America the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all okay everyone I do not have any recognitions um Samantha are we ready for our communication from the public yes um Sarah I am unmuting you now okay Sarah can you hear me yes we can hear you yes okay Sarah I'm just going to read a little statement that I have to do before
003we have any communication from the public um on that behalf of the board I would like to invite Sarah barthol hope I pronounce that correctly uh to step to the microphone with comments about items of Interest or concern please Begin by stating your name and address thank you for limiting your comments to three minutes so we can keep the meeting moving in a timely fashion we ask that you remember Iowa law prohibits us from discussing specific employees there job performance or individual students and thank you for your support of our school district awesome thank you for the time okay I am I messed up my time here to make sure I keep myself honest here um my name is Sarah barthle I'm at 141 Northwest 27th Court in anony um greetings school board and superintendent
004um thank you for the time for to share my comments I come before you this afternoon not as a scientist not as a pediatrician or doctor doctor not as an infectious disease specialist not as a public health official nor a journalist I don't have any of those titles I come to you today as a mom a working mom of two Elementary boys one that will be going into third grade and another kindergarten I come before you today to give you my ask and supportive kids particularly those in elementary to go back to school fulltime five days a week this August yes five days a week just like we have always been doing not going not the solution and just going to cause more long-term damage than the virus itself ever will when 19 cases were
005first reported in the US and then Iowa I never in my wildest of Dreams could have imagined the extreme reactions and Swift precautions that would be taken during this unprecedented time our lives were literally turned upside down in a matter of days schools dismissed for some break and then that very week I transitioned to work from home and schools were initially delayed two and then four weeks at first I thought I had it all figured out I had a plan for an 8-year-old son a schedule of activity um for him to do every day new chapter books and of course summerbridge and Math workbooks we even got a whiteboard and hung it in our kitchen we were all set but here's the reality my husband still went into the office for work every day and
006while I was working from home and have an incredibly flexible employer I am still busy during the day on calls and running meetings my work didn't slow down this during this time so that I could homeschool my son um more it only got busier and I was not always able to give him the much needed time and attention he should and would have been getting at school during the day my mom get was high and I didn't want him to fall behind but getting him to sit and do school work and teach it like teachers do during the day was an impossible task one of which I don't desire to do again it was incredibly stressful and anxious time for all of this if there's one thing I realize loud and clear I do not
007want to be a homeschool mom nor am I any good at it I work with adults all day and I'm far more productive with them than I ever would be with my own son thankfully my son's teacher was absolutely incredible and supportive and would have sons calls with my son regularly to help keep him engaged we're so grateful for her I mentioned I have another son too we kept him home for 2 weeks when everything started but then it was decided for him to keep his normal and sent him back to daycare yes my son was at a daycare in anony fulltime and he was just fine he was at a center he spent his days learning playing with his buddies hugging and doing all the things and no mask either kids need to be
008kids and rest assured there was lots of extra handwashing cleaning and no parents allowed in the building um but my son was still getting in the curriculum and social ation he needed during the peak of the virus and he would just fine remind you to that dayes weren't required to close during this time dayc carees were and have been open not all requiring Mass unless they choose to taking kids in teaching them letting them play giving them structure and daily activities to keep them busy why daycare should be open during this time and not schools is something I could speculate all day fast four to three months later and all things are opening back up in Iowa and starting to come back to life again our family cannot be more excited and we're excited to
009move forward but being smart about our interaction doing all the things of course like most of us we're washing our hands more and using hand sanitizer even more with everything opening back up it would only be logical and of common sense that prepared to do so in August as well kids need to be back in school learning together sharing lunch and about their days playing with their classmates at recess just as they always have been doing my own personal personal rationale for this is simple children are the least affected by the virus according to the state of Iowa case information only 4% of the population that is tested positive is adolescent 0 to 17 and there have been no deaths in this age group and also remind you daycares have been open that entire time
010throughout the pandemic the risk to students learning social emotional development and mental health needs to be better balanced with this risk of spreading covid-19 we must learn to live with covid-19 in our society and move forward we need to be smart and responsible about it life has to go on I know we're not out the woods with it yet and still have so much to learn and navigate about the virus but there's one that I believe to be true is that closing schools and isolating kids is not the answer experts can hardly get on the same page with the recommendations and guidance and they seem to change daily if not weekly sometimes I'm sorry to interrupt but um our our timer went off are you I'm almost done okay I didn't realize there was a
011three minute limit so I apologize for that okay um I'm just about done here um so we know that each district in Iowa including Andy must have submit the three return to learn plans to the Ia Department of Ed for the different scenarios that we're all aware of they required continuous learning the hybrid and traditional in addition to these plans I'd be curious to hear how the school district plans to address the covid-19 slide as some are calling it kids get back to school in August it will have been nearly five months and they were since they were most were in a classroom and formal learning environment parents should also be involved in the conversation and should there should be the utmost transparency to the process and what we should expect I know the district
012is climing to survey parents throughout the summer some key questions you should consider asking to parents and Guardians the following how effective did parents feel about the homeschooling and resources students received last year were how many parents work in or out of the home ask for open-ended responses if you are not going to engage parents in your forums and steering committees ask them for their feedback through the surveys we all know the traditional instruction method works and has been tried and true for many gener generations of Learners including many of those here at anky and with more cleaning more handwashing and hand sanitizing I'm confident our schools can develop a plan for the kids to be back in the classroom homeschooling and virtual learning is not for every and every family it should be a
013personal choice to decide for themselves Mama done here as parents we're supposed to protect our children and be their Advocates our kids don't need to tell us they want to go back to school we Con seeed in the way they act out and their emotions we Con seeed in the excitement of their eyes to meet their friends for Long awaited play date at the park we can see it in the way they get excited to be in a zoom call once a week with their class we're in this together and we will get through this together I don't envy the position any of you are in during this time no matter what decision you make there will be opinions about it need to think about what's best for their students long-term mental social and academic
014development let's not forget those kids where school is their safe place or where they count on getting two meals a day we can't let fear define the choices we make we must use common sense logic rationale with the information and data we have in hand to make decisions we know what principles and tried are tried and true for successful student learning and I can show you from my own experience that forc homeschooling is certainly not one of them closing the answer to what to do about school in the fall should not be a hard one let those that want to go back go back to the classroom there are plenty of learning opportunities and programs for those families that don't feel comfortable setting their student back to a traditional learning atmosphere thank you so much
015for your time and for all the doing to get our kids back to school um if there's any feedback or any more that I can do to help support and advocate for them to get back in the classroom please let me know thank you yes thank you Sarah any questions for me or anything um I guess I would kind of just double check with Dr kimst the superintendent um the whether or not kids go back to school iners online hybrid that decision is made at the state level correct that's not that's not a local decision no we will be given in hopefully as soon in August um versus halfway through August um the parameters in which we can operate and so uh the school is hoping that we can have every child come back and
016um and be part because uh the teachers have gone into teaching uh to to be in front of of kids and teaching in front of a computer is not the same thing um but what happens is the governor Guided by the Department of Public Health will set parameters about how many students can be in a class classroom and other constrictions which or restrictions which then will require us which we have three plans um and then we will have to uh consult and uh we will bring the public along as um that final plan will be due August one and uh uh the public will know uh what the plans are and um we just hope that we get we as the community of anony and actually the state of Iowa and 327 schools we want
017to know as soon as possible um what school's going to look like um to you know the baseball started uh today or very soon and um uh it's it's it's going to be different and so um I don't think you'll find anybody disagreeing that we want kids in school but people there's a misperception that we get to make that decision and the decision lies with the Iowa Department of Public health and it lies with the governor and the her mandate that she puts on schools Dr kimpston uh we have a one plan that's due July 1 with all three scenarios right that's correct Mr and then we get to do revisions if they coach us on it by August 1 is there something about that uh yes um basically basically the outlines are due uh
018on July 1st uh we have 120 people that are currently working and we just got off a zoom meeting on that um but there are so many factors to consider as far as the number if they say we can only have 50% of the kids in school or 50% of the 25% of the kids in school um and we're not even talking about things like masks taking temperatures we and we'll get that instruction from probably the of Public Health thanks is there any opportunity to influence though if we're one of the largest school districts in the state of Iowa do we have engage you know can we influence obviously you're going to be surveying parents sharing that feedback back I would I would contact your representative and your Senator and um You can call um
019they're always looking for feedback and I'm sure that that feedback will be gain um they're out of session now but um when they the is going to be something that uh will be a very hot topic um starting I would even say mid it's it's a topic now um I never thought I'd see the Iowa State Fair cancelled um and so when you start to see those types of changes happening I'm curious what's next and so uh the board of directors uh are supportive of keeping kids safe but they also want learning to occur for all 12,000 and whatever students we have and so my recommendation would be to call and to write your legislators and let them know that you would like to see uh students in class um and your experience with uh
020last uh year thank you Sarah thank you Sarah thank you okay that was our only um scheduled communication from the public um moving on to the consent agenda I need a motion to approve and accept the consent agenda items as recommended motion uh does anyone have any questions on the consent agenda I don't hear any um all in favor yes yes yes yes opposed none great okay information only um item on the agenda is an equity update from Mr Ken Morris let me know when you ready to go s are you able to see yeah I'm ready to go Ken all right let's do it um well I'm excited to be here uh it's been a long time coming and um I'm looking forward to highlighting some of the courageous work and act and conversations
021we've embarked upon um in regards to the district uh being more inclusive and living out Dr kinston's charge of all means all but before I go into it got got a couple of housekeeping things because because I know from previous board meetings um y'all are a talkative bunch and that's cool I like that but what I'm I'm gonna ask you to do though I'm going to just kindly ask just request you save all your questions for the end so make certain put your pins out your notepads your devices whatever you're doing to capture your notes I'm just going to ask you um to record them and and and I'm going to just invite you to just be in the moment you know I I have a lot to share with you all and and I
022just want you to be in a moment it's just like when you go to a concert and you hold your phone up and you record the artist and you're missing everything right you're missing all the goodies and so I just want you all I'm going to make certain you all are going to get a slide deck so for all my type A folks there's going to be a slide deck that's going to be presented to you um in addition to the other materials and data points that that I'm going to reference is that okay I see some thumbs up excellent excellent excellent um what I plan to do is just you know add some clarity um in terms of educational Equity across um Across the Nation um one issue facing 21st century schools is equity
023social justice and how we close the multitude of gaps in our system um I'm coming to you as a a practitioner and a lifelong learner my experiences um span throughout uh higher education K12 I've been at this for 20 years and I got an insatiable appetite for Learning and so um I I don't see myself as a expert I see myself having some expertise as I'm always learning and developing and um and and and I'm excited to be in this to provide some leadership in that regard um also um you know my focus is on improving leadership and instructional practice you can advance the slide so I mean there know we we right where we want to be you you anticipated me let's go back Samantha you're too you're too efficient thank you um but
024before we get started uh I want to bring you greetings from my families of Cedar Rapids um I also um bring you greetings from my ancesters those that came before me um is on their work and is on their dedication upon whose shoulders I stand okay and you can advance the next slide Samantha and before we um get into it I always want to do a land acknowledgement okay um this one uh was created by my uh colleague at the University of Iowa um Dr Nicholas cre um and I like to you know just start by acknowledging the indigenous culture of Iowa the the traditional ancestral land on which we are all learning and working today okay so at the onset I want to acknowledge that we are on land that belong to the ioway
025Ho Chunk kapoo Muk Oto pami indigenous Nations until it was stolen from them during the military conquest perpetuated by the Armed Forces of the United States and that their cultures were irrevocably altered by sustain the ongoing colonialist contact with the US government and the illegal immigrants it allowed to settle on these occupied lands we remain a solidarity with the Iowa H kikapu Mishi Oto patami peoples and support their struggle for Freedom self-determination and the rightful return to their lands let us hear the stories of the marginalized and oppressed and consider the ways in which we as people and as institutions have benefited from the legacies of imperialism colonialism and force this de possession I ask that you examine Your Privilege learn to understand the history of exploitation of people of color and spoilation of their
026land and labor and discern how you can best support the cause for justice for these people all right moving on all right so um many of you all have not had opportunity to um get to um know me and know a little bit about my background so I'm G to do that um real quick um easy with the slide um I know I'm in um you know Iowa but I I am I was born and raised in Illinois uh puia Illinois specifically Richard prior country um a large part of my identity um in addition to you know being a black man which is a Salient part of my identity with some additional Salient parts of my identity is that of being a former athlete both high school and college um I come from the tradition
027of of the black church so that is where um I learned and refine public speaking um and and so that also is a is a large part of my um identity and and uh I also I'm I'm I'm a a Big Nerd and hipop head and so in addition to all those things um probably the newest aspect of my identity is that of being a father and um and and and you know having um an opportunity to have been uh raised and and and nurtured um in a two parent home and you know that's my my my pops in the background you know the the afro was tight you know he's kind of I'm suffering from his disease now we we don't we don't have the hair anymore but you know I like I like
028these pictures as a reminder so um if you want to advance it one more Samantha so that's that's a little bit about who I am and why I do this work one more time Samantha so um growing up um I upon going into High School uh when I was in eighth grade and a counselor came over from the local high school to sign me up for classes and he asked me what educational track I wanted to be on and and my parents you know encouraged me to pursue college prep so I told them that and immediately he said you know you're not College material you should consider going into the trades of the military and that really impact me um because you know I come from a predominantly black neighborhood and you know we didn't
029have a lot of you know white folk especially you know this is a white guy in the suit so I just you know assumed that you know he knew what he was talking about but you know that advice just did did not register with me and I struggled I didn't have the articulation at the time um to you know one not speak up for myself but to two two to realize that I was a victim of educational malpractice and so it has been part of my life's Mission my core value um to make certain that I see the vision for a student um and not let it be solely defined by who they are um and their circumstances that are in front of me at that time but see a vision of them um to
030be uh better um and equipped to be able to navigate this world um in a in a in a high capacity and and and and equip them with the skills to be Visionary global leaders so that's that's that's the driving force of my work and and it's something I take very seriously as as a child um who who suffered from from you know having racism and bias leveraged against against him and not being allowed to really have someone Embrace and bring out my full potential until much later in life and so you know that's that's just wanted to share a little bit about me and why I do this work so we can advance the side so um upon um when I found that uh Ankeny had created this position I was really excited um
031but but but also I had a lot of questions because um I didn't know much about anany I knew that it was a suburb of De Mo um but I I immediately thought and I asked several of my colleagues in the area like hey you know uh I see that they created this position um are are they um you know we live in a litigious Society so I thought that you know one um you were uh uh being sued for discrimination um um or o OCR had had had given you a descent decree and so I was looking for you know the you know some news that would um confir confirm some of my you know initial thoughts and I was pleasantly surprised that that wasn't the case and I couldn't find anything and unfortunately
032the way I I say that because in highered and K 12 these positions um are come about usually as a in a response to something um it like I said um uh in response to uh uh a lawsuit or um you know unrest from student groups and activists or what have you and and these positions are created to pacify those students or what have you and so I thought similarly you know that was the case so I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the district was proactive in excuse me recognizing the the landscape of the country and how it's changing you know and and education has been slow to meet the needs of Learners who span the dimensions of diversity uh moreover linguistic and cultural diversity in classrooms has the potential to Enlighten and
033expand our understanding of ourselves and each other without question the demographic changes in the United States will necess necessitate some Paradigm ships in how we educate our children children uh classrooms have to become more diverse creating a need for educators to be cognizant of different practices beliefs and needs of individual students and so I've arranged the responsibilities of my position in three different buckets um compliance professional development and systems and so just wanted to I won't I won't read everything but just wanted to give you a sense of some of my Focus areas and um you know the things that um you know keep me busy uh throughout my time here so excuse me pardon me in essence um we do Equity work because inequities exist we do Equity work because inequities exist and so
034I want to do some level setting because we hear the term Equity Ed quite a bit and I don't think that we really have a firm understanding of what um educational equity means and so I've taken a a crack at uh crafting um a definition for educational Equity um that I hope to um refine and adapt and and and use for our system but as it states uh educational Equity when educational policies practices interactions and resources are representative of constructed by and responsive to all people so that each individual has access to meaningfully meaningfully participate in and has positive outcomes from high quality learning experiences regardless of individual characteristics and group membership it is also not equality or same treatment which doesn't take differing needs or despair outcomes into account so in essence Equity is
035applying different or additional resources be it human fiscal or intellectual so and as one of my U mentors who um is no longer with us um had a quote that that that um is just ingrained in me and that Equity is not a strategy it's a mindset okay we can move forward some all right so you all are probably wondering uh you've been in and around ankony for going on a year now now so what what are some of the things you you've observed and so uh right from the gate uh I've um been impressed with the courageous conversations I love that folks here are really comfortable with um identifying and sharing all the ways in which they could be vulnerable and their willingness to learn and get better every time um since since upon
036joining the staff you know I I from previous experience I thought that um folks would be uh have some reservations about me would have some um you know uh uh you know questions about the role or or misunderstand the role often times I think folks um would you know be fearful um thinking that I had an agenda um and that's uh further complicated being um a black man and being an Unapologetic black man and having a strong racial identity uh you know I've had colleagues you know just be nervous about thinking that I was going to call him out as a racist and so on and so forth and that's not efficient and effective to me I'm really here to help uh one to learn the culture and the climate of our system and how
037I can support their leadership and so I've been um really taking a back in which you know the the the invitations from principls um to you know to come visit their buildings uh several members of their staff had reached out um you know so much so it even Advanced um where I thought I would be personally in building relationships and connecting with folks um in the school district and in the surrounding community so we can go forward I'm going to share with you and I mentioned that um I had opportunity I've met with all the building um principles and programs um um even including the the programs here um at Nevin and you know I had some um you some real honest and and and and um you know just just some really good conversations
038with principles and learning about them um learning about their why what brings them joy in doing this work and and so I had you know I I was taking some notes and these are some things that I found to be consistent throughout the system so I I'm going to categorize them as glows and grows okay so one thing that that immediately resonated with me just walking all the buildings is is the respect and that respect is from student to teacher teacher to student and student to student um I was impressed with the warm demeanor of the staff um often times the front office you know that's where you really can to get the post of a building and and I was uh warmly greeted by you know all the the the the front office staff
039um helped me you know navigate some of these confusing buildings here and um I when I when I walked around and and and looked at some of the instruction that was going on um with the principles you know I saw that there was great use of Technology um various forms of of learning um students and teacher were were ha they seemed happy and focused and it was evident to me that students know the rituals and routines of the classroom and why I say that is because I come from large urban districts and uh it was not uncommon to to to see students wonder the Halls all day um have very you know loud and boisterous passing times which I don't see there's nothing wrong with that and I was like wow we have some of
040the quietest passing times in anony now again it's relative to your experience because I come from the city right and so it was it was you know and that's not to say that our students were were were were not um that they weren't quiet but you know as soon as the bell rang you know you heard them being active being engaged laughing and when the bell you know ring you know for them signal to be in class everyone was in class Books open doing the thing and you know I just see no wonders at least the days that I went I just see no hallway Walkers you know that's not to say you don't have them but I was just impressed by that so that leads me to the second I had a wondering and
041and and I I classify this as a grow and so knowing that you know seeing how well from from um the various ear level all the way through you know High School seeing how our students know the rituals and routines of the classroom it made me wonder how could we leverage the rich diversity of our students and families and staff to displace student work and culturally relevant materials throughout the classrooms in the building and I also wondered you know what would our learning environment look like if students were allowed to bring their cultures into the classroom because I I got to Iden identify with a lot of teachers like I told yall I was a nerd right so I seen a lot of teachers with you know their their their their uh parelia you know
042whether it was their the college that they went to penet Vacation Family Photos you know um I I once upon a time I used to be an art major so I connected with one one of the art teachers and then he you know not only that I connect with him just being a fellow artist but then I seen in the background he had Castle Grull from hean those y who do don't know and and other 80s kind of nerd paraphernalia and I was like oh me and him are people um I think I was in the Centennial library and I said oh somebody in here like Star Wars right because there was Star Wars paraphernalia my point is you know these folks were bringing their culture into their workspaces and it got me to think
043what would it look like if students were allowed to bring their cultures into the classroom okay so again that was just the wondering but I thought I'd share that with you all because um I was just you know really excited to to to see some of those themes that I mentioned all throughout our system and so as I mentioned um you know I was able to advance you know uh quite a bit I I really had the intention of my my first year being one in which I just was quiet and I just learned and understood the culture and the climate but you know anony is a you know highly effective district and they just you know wouldn't allow me to be quiet and so um you know I engaged in in some work and
044uh this list is not meant to be exhaustive but just wanted to share with you so you know this is what this King guy has been up to since you know he's been to an right and so I had an opportunity um if those of you know who aren't familiar um I am a qualified administrator of an assessment tool called the Intercultural development inventory or the IDI for short um this tool is a valid and reliable instrument that measures the level of cultural competence or Intercultural competence within um organizations individuals groups of people um designed um um through by Dr Mitchell Hammer um informed um by uh Dr Milton Bennett work on the developmental model Intercultural sensitivity and and um you know I've been fortunate to be able to use this work um when I
045was at the University of Iowa when I was at Cedar Rapid Community School District um to be able to assess again uh leadership groups to just to provide them some feedback on where they are operating um on the Intercultural development Continuum and then followup have a um a debrief where where I interpret their own individual um assessment and then follow up with the individual development plan that will help them to grow and move um and become more efficient in operating across differences and so moving from a lesser level of complexity to a greater level of complexity and um you know and and and again as I mentioned this tool is um valid and reliable has been you know cited in over 80 PhD dissertations and used you know in the uh the private public sector
046um you know Fortune 500 companies to um Corrections facilities churches um nonprofits you name it and so seeing is that I already have you know I'm certified as an administrator I thought you know this will be a great way to assess or do a benchmark to see where we're at um as a leadership you know um group or cohort to better understand how as a collective how we approach difference and what would be some great um professional development that meets people developmentally where they are and that's the that's that's the most exciting thing about this tool is because it it it you can Custom Design work that meets you where you are developmentally right and so that's um uh activity or action that I've been engaging in with um our our leadership team and so
047these are um district office folk principls um directors um you what have you um I've also had an opportunity to get in front of our teachers and so um Dr lindaman um during her time at Centennial um invited me to um to a morning professional development with her staff um they received it you know seemed they received it really well uh provided a lot of great feedback and several of the teachers um instructors who um I I you know for many of which it was my first time meeting have you know reached out to me and have um you know asked for uh more you know leadership and support um and just helping them to become more effective and operating across differences um I I've uh worked with the uh Ankeny Community Network and um
048we' uh hosted um a series of community conversations community dialogues and and had the um was was was U able to offer the district office as a a site uh to host one of those Community dialogues um this work was um already in was already U I'm speaking to uh Miss Kelsey Goodman um over at uh anony high school she um was already planning prior to beginning here um a cultur linguistic Spanish speaking night um and and uh I was able to support her leadership in that program as been seever several of our board members were a part of that and and several teachers and other folk that were a part um of that and and that was just an incredible event um we had several you had we had a good number of folks
049from our community um primarily um latinxt backgrounds and uh many of which spoke uh uh you know Spanish and other languages and just had a time for them to be able to speak in their mother tongue and for us to hear um about their experience and anchoring some of the gaps in our school system and so that's something that I hope that we can do again for that population and other groups um i s we signed um a memorandum of understanding with the Midwest and plains Equity Assistance Center this is a federally funded uh resource and so uh you know I'm always thinking about how to be you know fiscally responsible so I found a a a resource center um that functions very much like our area education agencies but it's solely focused on educational
050equity and supporting um school districts and and and and um some corporations and and colleges um and helping you know increasing the district's capacity and leveraging um equity and and supporting my role and and and this being a new role with resources and and and and Technical Support so um they are not uh Consulting um firm um but but they they provide technical assistance um primarily at at no cost to us um as a federally funded resource and then um lastly and again this me list is not meant to be exhaust Ive um and this is anecdotal too I want to say this I want to preface this that this is anecdotal but um and again I I might highlight I don't I'm not never one to brag but I I think this is noteworthy
051so so I think this is speaks to the impact of having a kin in your district and so I I've I I have um a dynamic colleague in and Josie Graham who is our HR director and just in the short time that I've been here again this is this is anecdotal I've already um experienced um you know being able to be critical friends and and and partners and colleagues and how that impact is even starting to see how our candidate pools are slowly starting to become more diverse and um and I think we've even made um you know um a few diverse hires that that you know when we start back um some of our um buildings whether it's you know administ ation uh teaching counseling or what have you um you know we're going
052to have a little bit more representation by Race by culture language what have you so I'm excited about that um it also exposed the area that we need to you know become more better in in terms of collecting data because right now we don't have a A system that can quickly easily tell us you know the numbers of self-identified uh staff like like we can with our students but I just thought i' share some of that with you because um with everything that's going on we don't often hear about some of the good work that's taking place and so and while again it's anecdotal at least with this last part it's it's starting to it's it's it's starting to take shape and I think certainly having someone like myself here um being able to Advocate
053uh to other folks um you know of of color and and other areas of um that bring different diversity um to our district um I think it certainly helps um to be able to you know speak honestly about you know my experience and how they can help provide additional lens and Leadership um so that you know we can be more reflective of our student population um I'm going to um they don't know this but I I wanted to share a little story um you know just with regard to my impact um you know I I had a a a really great conversation with the leadership over at uh parkw Middle School um Mr Schumacher uh uh Jeff Schumacher um Emily um and and and Ben um the principle and Associate principles um you know they
054they they you know they invited me over like a lot of principles have been and you know we was just having some really honest conversation about you know um race in their school and and uh what what came out of that conversation you know I say a lot of things that I don't always remember right but apparently something struck them and it it uh LED them to review their building data through a disaggregated lens looking at some of their building discipline data and they were um astonished to find that the disproportionality of of of students of color more specifically black students being over represented compared to their you know their the size of the relatively small size and so um that was something they did on their own that that was something that you know
055I didn't you know push them or make them do it just you know based on the conversation the rich dialogue um they came back to me with you know um sharing with me the research that they done but not just being moved to the research so now they now you know it's like what I used to get told when I was younger you know better you do better right and so they they they see where some of the gaps are at least with this discipline data through this disaggregated lens and again you know having some um action planning meetings and conversations amongst themselves with me on how they can get better um you know in their own practice personally but you know also you know shared with me um different uh things that they can
056you know thoughts and considerations they can make in moving forward and in um building relationship um with their babies and and and so I was just really delighted uh to see that and um I was so moved by that conversation um it got me to wondering about about so what do we look like as a district what's some of our district data in terms of um you know our uh major you know uh referrals and behaviors and such okay and so I I'll let you all you know look at that for for um a bit here but uh um what and looking at at at at our data um is clear that you know we have some you know throughout our system there's some disproportionality um especially if you look at uh black students um
057Hispanic students and um um students of of with more than one race and uh I see that you know they face greater rates um of referrals than their uh White classmates and and this is the trend that we're seeing nationally so according to Federal data these disparities have widened despite efforts to fix them the findings drawn from civil rights data collection come as Department of Education is considering curbing the Department's role in investigating racial disparities and discipline and as I mention I'm going to provide all this to you at the end but I just want you to just kind of look and and then you know come up with some wonderings for yourself um you know and and and the great thing is um not so much about the data but the way in which
058we have you know really user friendly access I I want to Big up Jen rman and her leader ship I I strongly encourage you all if you have a chance to you know do um a workshop or um you know close session um you know to to invite her to show you how to navigate our systems and be able to um pull data like this to help um you all craft policies or or or CRA you know um um you know provide some direction um for for Dr kimpston and Visa V you know our system uh to begin to um understand what the Ania is to um why we are seeing these disparities understanding the root cause and the interrupting okay so next slide Samantha so it got me looking at some other areas that
059I I be I'm an interculturalist by nature and so an interculturalist by nature is is one that's very inquisitive and so as as I was thinking you know looking at the data um at at the major you know behaviors I wanted to know like okay so where are we at with special education or IEPs and so Decades of research have documented that students of color particularly black children are disproportionately classified by schools as having disabilities Black and Hispanic students May stand out in schools comprised of mostly white students making their perceived disabilities more readily noticed this is not this is a particular concern to me as the school to prison pipeline refers to the practice of pushing students out of school into Criminal Justice System research findings document that students with disabilities especially students of
060color with disabilities are at the greatest risk of be of being thrust into the school with the prison pipeline this is especially concerning to me because Iowa as a state um black folks make up 3% of the state but we represent 21% of the incarcerations and there is a lot a great body of data that shows the correlation of you know the school to prison pipeline especially for black and brown boys black and brown girls um who who are not proficient um at reading at by third grade I mean prisons are being built with precision based on these numbers and that's frightening to me um because as you can see we don't have that many babies of color students of color in anony to begin with relatively speaking about 20% and and um you know
061my fear is that they may be um overidentified for special education and so that that's something that um I I this is the ti of type of data that I want us to be looking at through a critical um diversity equity and inclusion lens so next slide please Samantha and again because I was curious it got me wonder so okay I see our black and brown babies are represented in you know referrals and special education how are we doing in our advanced placement courses right so nationally black high school students are significantly underrepresented in AP courses that provide students with a jump start on College and serve as a early predictor of college success according to this the college board's advanced placement report of the nation experts say checking teachers bias an improving identification of
062qualified black students can help um as you can see where we're underrepresented um when I say we I'm I'm speaking of um our our students of color specifically black Latino and um our students who identify with um more than one race and and you know looking at this data it it you know it left it left me wondering you know how are we encouraging or tracking um our students of color into taking um you know AP and and I'm and you know and this doesn't start at high school you know we have to start early in elementary identifying them making certain that they're part of some of these study groups I mean you know making certain that we're connecting them with um Lego league and and and and and you know Robotics and and all
063these type of exploratory band you know a strong correlation of of of music and and and and you know um you know High academic achievement or what have you I think we really need to make some concerted efforts and you know again understanding what the aneded the the root cause and then you know developing some plans to disrupt some of you know these data points that we're seeing and I'm not sharing this to make people feel bad I'm not sharing this to throw Educators um and administrators under the bus we just have to do um a really hard look at ourselves and our practices uh to see where these gaps exist and then come up with plans uh to to to eliminate these gaps all together next slide sth thank you for helping me um
064and and similar to AP I was wondering about um Alp or or talented and gifted um nationally Black and Hispanic students are under rep underrepresented in gifted programs um which provide specialized instruction or other services to meet the needs of especially brighter talented students students there's a growing body of research that suggests black students are less likely than white students to attend schools that offer gifted programs the second point is black students assigned to White classroom teachers are most likely to be assigned um I'm sorry I'm sorry that the SEC my second point is that black students assigned to a white classroom teacher are much less likely to be assigned to gifted programs than those assigned to a black teacher uh some study have showed that gifted youth benefit from gifted programs um and such
065outcomes as achievement and motivation and gifted youth from marginalized group benefit even more than other students and so gifted students of color deserve the same opportunities as gifted white students to reach their academic potential whether the strategy is universal screening or better training of teachers to recognize giftedness among all students or another approach um the research suggests that school districts need to get serious about making sure that gifted services are accessible to all students and so um and again this is just I'm just looking um at some of our data points through uh Dei um diversity Equity inclusion lens and so the last data point um is uh with regard to um proficiency data okay and so if you look at that and and and comparatively you know a black Latino Hawaiian students or students
066who identify um as as as multi-racial um you know they're not meeting um the proficiency standards in comparison to to you know some of our other subgroups okay um and that's an Ela and if you look at math similarly you know black latino Hawaiian students have um you know there there's even more students that are not meeting proficiency standards um and if you look at science um this one really blew me away because half of our our our black babies um are are not proficient in science and and then if you also look at some of our subgroups you know there's in in some of these um areas that we have more students that are not proficient we don't see any um representation with Advanced course or being advanced in their proficiency so you know
067it again it got me wondering you know how can we push our top kids and accelerate our bottom kids right I I think that we need to really you know unpack this data and we can also not just you know by race but by gender um you know uh uh and and and just other ways uh to really you know social economic status uh and see the Rapids um we we we slice the data in such a way that we we found that our poor white kids were outperforming our affluent black kids at all these per performance areas our poor white kids were outperforming our affluent black kids in ela Math and Science and so when I asked the teachers where you know why they said bias and this is coming from the teachers you
068know they they said you know they theorized with the data that was presented to them that you know implicit bias may be having and and we're we're finding that you know with the research Nationwide that that's having an impact um in in in these data areas and again not meant to throw anybody under the bus or saying that we're doing something bad but to me I do think that this is a matter of urgency and and that you know next year uh we we should develop you know um uh include in our sip plan some Equity goals that that speak to um identifying where some of the gaps may be in some of the buildings to help support um some initiatives to disrupt some of these patterns so you know we can have a different
069outcome and and and really start measuring for this um so that um our students have a better experience okay overall so next slide Samantha please I got this quote from ASA hiler do we have the will to educate all children the Knowledge and Skills to educate all children already exist there are no pedological barriers to teaching and learning when willing people are prepared and made available to Children if we Embrace uh a will to Excellence we can deeply restructure education and ways that will enable teachers to release the full potential of all our children um many Educators believe that the reason that we have these gaps is due to income single parent homes and and parent parental apathy and some believe it's genetics um vast majority of school districts believe that these indicators are responsible
070for the multitude of perace of gaps however I believe that none of this is the case um none of these Educators uh control you know have control um you know for some of these factors that they mention and yet they love to give these reasons because it it it takes the them off the hook um race does does not impact student achievement I'm going to say that again race does not impact student achieve it it's how we it's how educators View and react to race that impacts student achievement it's how educators View and react to race that impact student achievement okay next slide so again I I mentioned to you how I had an opportunity to you know have some um you know courageous conversations with our principls and many of the admins and teachers
071and such throughout the district uh uh convers ly I had um similar meetings with with our students and families and community members and um you know I was really some of the things I heard was not shocking but it was it was disturbing all the same okay um I was invited to meet with a couple of kiddos um at at Lura Ryan's building and uh Miss Miss Ryan had had set up a opportunity to meet with um um and these are Elementary babies and uh a fourth grader and a fifth grader and these are children of color and um boy and a girl and and and and the little boy um he came to that meeting prepared I mean he was sharp he had his notes um spoke clearly eloquently and and Miss Ryan shared
072with me that you know he's had a a difficult upbringing you know more even even compared to you know by some of our adult standards he's had a difficult upbringing which I think unfortunately you know that he you know had those experiences but as a result um he just did operate and move like your typical fifth grader and so I was thinking after our meeting I was like you know how are we tracking students like him into you know our talented and gifted or Advanced programs but nonetheless the point of the story is that these students they shared with me some of their concerns because they were really scared of transitioning to middle school and and and and the little guy he asked me he he he got a list of questions so I asked
073permission if I could copy them and he said one our teachers respectful to black people as they are to white people are are there places to sit where only certain people are allowed to sit at lunch will friendships change because of my skin color um do teachers help sixth grade make friends with new students um my sister said kids listen to inappropriate music at school well I hear this and and so he he reiterated his worries places to sit how St how teachers will treat people um friendships based on color and and hearing music and and um the little girl she's a transracial adopte and so um I I don't know specifically what what uh country in Africa that she's coming from um so you know there's a lot of you know trauma and and
074and and that just goes along with that experience and she opened up to me and and Miss Ryan had shared with me she said you know not only did she share some things with you that she I never heard from but she never even shared these things with her counselor and that just goes to show the representation matter so she she shared with me she started she was quiet but then she opened up and then in her words she said I just I started talking and I just couldn't shut up she she was sharing with me though um her experience as a black girl being in our school system um she shared with me um how you know students and I've heard this from several of our our black babies how how other students you
075know call their skin dirty say you know say that their skin that their skin color is is is comparable to dirt right and and she even said that um and I think I suspect she may have just been going through some self-hatred because she's not seeing her reflected and she's not hearing affirmations about her and her skin and her hair so she took it upon herself to cut her hair so she could wear a hood and and and just and she said she wanted to be invisible um and this is a fifth grader she wanted to be invisible you know cut her hair um because she just did not want to inter interact and engage with students because she was um you know essentially being you know bullied and isolated and such and so I
076had a conversation with with her mother um outside of that and and her mom even regarded even spoke of you know um she shared some things with me that I wasn't even aware of that she told you and and um you know I'm worried about her so much so just you know that Mom was you know considering you know homeschooling and so that that led me to you know and then you know we I couldn't follow through because um you know we were interrupted with u my resp you know the Corona virus and um you know got me asking some questions about transition programs and and and and you know with culturally specific being you know cutely um attuned to the needs of our black and brown babies um that that that go beyond just
077you know getting them prepared for for school um I I I've heard these same stories from our high school students and um the way that they cope and adapt is really troubling to me um you know they they've H these things so much from the time that you know they've they they uh uh you know matriculated into ankony that um you know they they've become desensitized and for some of them which is disturbing um their coping techniques because they really value wanting to have a peer group they allow their friends to to to use racial epitet and call them the n-words and and their white peers will then be defensive of that behavior and say well this kid gave me permission right and not really understanding the depth and complexity that goes along with that
078um and and some of our our our babies quite frankly they're so detached from their own history they don't understand how troubling traumatic and problematic you know that is okay and and and so um and again these are our high school students you know who don't have any affirmation of their identities um there's a feeling of hopelessness some of them treat anony School District like doing their time they they almost refer to it like jail like I'm just G to keep my head down I'm not going to make any commotion and I'm going to graduate and I'm gonna leave and never come back and that that's and this is from conversation um we have a really bold and courageous student at anony high school that decided she was going to actively take her experience erience
079and and leverage that so she created a student film called culture block which by the way was nominated for a student Emy um you know I was I was happy that she um received some really good um instruction and and and and and from her uh teacher in this process but I the the the the reason and the content and the stories that was shared from some of her family fellow classmates were disturbing and and and and and um you know I could relate to it right but um the difference was you know I came from a predominantly black um experience and and and you know it really got me wondering will this be the experience for my son who's be coming to anony at some point you know will will will these experiences shut
080him out and shut him down and and will there be administrators and teachers that will see his vision and affirm his racial identity and see that as asset and see see that and and leverage that asset and not see it um you know as as and not see it as as um something you know other than that uh and again um I I've talked to parents and and some of their conversations have about our school system about our community is that you know they don't feel always feel equal access to programs like dual enrollment courses or other co-curricular opportunities um you know they they uh a lot of them spoke about um you know participation in sports and feel like our Sports systems are biased based on race socioeconomic and Social Capital right and I
081I'm just telling you what the parents have shared with me because I I think this is important in in in the work that we do because um schools uh like it or not you know our schools um our our school houses are are are For Better or Worse the community centers and so everything that's going on in the community um shows up in the school and and and so it's not just our students that are having these um um experiences but our parents have communicated some of that um some of you may have saw um a local barber um you know just frustrated and fed up and and and made a video that's you know been circulating you know um around you know our community um about his daughter's experience and and just and just
082really you know um not just calling us out but calling us in and and and him wanting to also be a uh a partner and and supporting in um our areas of discrepancy and and you know he shared his frustration and and talked about how and this is not you know he talked about wanting to provide um you know uh vouchers for free haircuts for students and and and this is not uncommon in in black and urban communities I mean you know there's a lot of Partnerships with local Barbers whether um you know they are providing in free haircuts for students to read to them or another thing you know I talked about identity and and and um you know just the importance of um you know feeling confident and for many especially for our
083students who may not have the means um to get a haircut you know that that's an area where they they're ridiculed and talked about by their peers and so you know being able to look good feel good and and you know that it all correlates with performing in the classroom and so you know he was just sharing his frustration and I think we you know we're you know there's some policies that maybe we need to review that's creating some barriers but you know he was just sharing his frustration about how he was unable to uh support and provide um these resources to ankony students but then he was contacted by De Mo school district and you know invited in and and and and so on and so forth and again this is not to throw
084anyone under the bus but I'm just doing the job that I was brought here to do to just you know share um you know what the experiences and the reality of some of our families of color um and marginalized families in our district and lastly um this week especially I was really um or last week rather um I was contacted by several alumni of anony school district in white alumni and they were telling me how they had a wonderful um experience but many of them are now working in large Urban centers uh Houston Texas um we one of them is a teacher in Minneapolis and just right at the heart of you know uh the social unrest with um the killing of George Floyd and they both share independent of each other how our school
085system failed them and helping them to become culturally competent culturally conscious um and that they had to learn some hard lessons um after they left here and they cited that they had a great education but they were ill prepared um and did not have um a racial conscience or um you know be exposed to uh ethnic studies or uh African-American Studies classes that that could help them to um be have some skills some 21st century diversity skills and and having to lavate our larger world so so that resonated with me you know these were alumni who were calling the school district wanting to know where we at and sharing their experiences so that we can um improve and get better for all of our kids so we move forward Samantha so I I presented um
086you know sort of overview of of of the things that that I've that I've observed um the things that I think that we are doing well um you know the the the you know some hard truth um and experiences from um our students and Families for underrepresented communities as well as some data and So based on all those things um you know I I I developed a a few actions that I I believe that we should consider um in moving forward to to address some of the things that I shared and and and um and this is not sequential I was just kind of I was trying my best you know uh to order in sequence but you know being to be honest with you I I I'm not married to it but but here
087it is all the same and so um one action I thought would be to develop um a systemwide definition for for Equity um assess a level of Intercultural competence of you know our school district leadership and then um be able to also do that with um our teaching Corp um assess you know develop a campus climate survey related to diversity Equity inclusion that we can administer to staff and students um facilitate some listening sessions to Sol ideas and S suggestions of how we can improve um establish a cross departmental system for assessing developing and deploying resources to support um explicit practices focused on diversity equity and inclusion so VV you know maybe developing uh internal um Equity committee that that you know is charged for doing some of this heavy lifting developing um you know
088a goal and and a plan um you know looking at our data and being informed by um you know if we do a climate study um what are what are um the experiences um embed A diversity Equity inclusion strategic you know diversity Equity inclusion into our strategic plan um analyze District data through de lens um develop District a district and a uh Dei a site plan so develop um a Dei plan for our district and then also develop uh a Dei plan for um our our buildings um develop uh Equity goals for each building um that could be included in their sit plans or their school Improvement plans um you know that speak to you know our all the gaps our achievement Gap opportunity gaps um instruction uh curriculum and co-curriculum um intentionally dedicate time
089and space to engage in personal and team growth by examining implicit bias and privilege making connections between personal and systems work um I I I see my my role primarily as supporting um our principles and in and uh helping them and de and and develop them so they can be they could lead equity in their building and so you know I strongly believe in in in in in um you know professional learning and making certain that principles um are supported and trained to lead Equity work in their buildings and and build their own capacity um develop School site Dei teams and so it's not solely on the principle but we are building capacity for leading this work throughout our system and it's not just Ken um you know who could be you know um unfortunately
090some of my colleagues are like the living embodiment of their school's Equity plan you know we want to spread the work and and and make certain that everybody is responsible for for for carrying this bucket of water um and lastly um you know something I did and see the rapid that was really um I think helpful for our principal was we developed the semiannual uh Equity Summit so we did it twice a year um for principles to pres progress on their building Equity goals and share best practices across the system and resources you know we have some one thing that that that I've heard and I I've experienced since I've been here is that we have some very um bright and sharp cream of the cop um principles and administrators and and I think it
091would be you know really advantageous for us to create time and space for them to be able to learn from each other iron sharpens iron so how can we learn and share best practices each of our buildings have different culture have have different needs you know how can we you know share um as an accountability measure too some of the good work that we're doing um and and learn from each other at the same time so that our system um gets better so as I as I as I'm coming close to closing here Samantha if you can thank you um um we need to educate um our children on Race racism um its history its effect and its origin um you know this is something that we can ill afford to just uh be complicit
092and and quiet and just you know act like you know it doesn't happen um you know integrating a mandatory history course for K12 uh to educate our youth on these topics is vital you know as I heard from our alumni and and and to obtain awareness and understanding of each other's experiences um we have to support Educators and becoming more culturally aware of their students and the community they serve and how that awareness supports culturally conscious and I also say culturally confident schools and classroom instruction um and and what I want to leave with you you know I I I I want to pose this you know this this thought you know are we interested or are we committed um improving the quality instruction is a committed action and if we are close the multitude
093of gaps in our system we have to display a level of commitment um you know how are you interested and committed to closing the opportunity gaps um ensuring equity in all our classrooms you know and and I just want to leave that with you um you know I like to think that we're committed but you know reviewing our data and hearing our experiences you know I I think we're probably more in interested and and and and I think that's okay to say that because why else would we create you know this role and this responsibility um I think effective organizations um whether it's K12 or or corporate um one thing that they do um is they self they do a lot of self assessment right right they they they they're you know are willing to
094hold that mirror up and take that reflection um to see where they're at and plan for where they want to go okay so I I just want to leave that with you I want that to resonate are we interested are we committed what does interested look like and what does committed look like and so um as you can see I I I stole a couple of pictures from the um Unity for black lives rally um that was a very uh powerful event and uh at the end um calling all of the babies in the audience as you can see from the pictures just just a sample of all the babies that was in the audience in our school system um you know that's we we have to do better for them and and we have
095to do better for our society so with that I'm going to end and as I promised you all um I am happy to um take any questions that you may have and mind you I know that there's other items on the agenda and and um I I'm I'm here in the office and so I don't want to take up you know um time from others but I do want to entertain questions but I don't want us to feel like we have to problem solve right now too so I just want to put that out there I know how y'all get down well I just want to start by thanking you Ken for being here I know we've been so excited to hear from you and just to hear everything you're doing and and the work
096Collective that's going on is just wonderful and it's and it's inspirational and it's hopeful and um I I think we definitely want and strive to fall in that committed role and you've got us we're you know work us in our role how we can support this effort how we can support this work make us work make us work on you know we we want to work on ourselves as well because you know supporting this kind of effort in the district you know every every piece of the dis has to work together and that's you know starts at the tiniest of kindergarten classes and it goes all the way up to the board and we absolutely believe that um I'm looking forward to getting a workshop set up where we can do the IDI and we
097can we can do those things together and like you said iron sharpens iron you know we're going to learn better and we're going to do better and um who else on the board needs needs to ask a question Aon put his hand up first but we'll work around yeah no I agreed thank you Ken for the presentation and I think I do think um that as we recruit into anony we have to remind everybody that a and anony stands for type a totally you there that's thing I have heard Aaron right right um we're we're we're all impatient and want to see things change fast um those of you who've been around me a while know uh that I I work in manufacturing and can you actually use the phrase and I love it it
098talks about root cause um I think in order for us to want to change we have to know what we're changing from so I think You' got a good start on understanding where we're coming from um one of my questions I think you mentioned uh has to do more with the H the the HR side of of who we are as organization I'll be curious and we'll save that for the next conversation about how we're going to learn that because I I am interested in understanding how we how we reflect um from a staffing standpoint but for me I think to really just add on to what Lori said I think the most important next step for me is actually adding it to our strategic plan so that Bona it puts it in uh the
099committed stage not just the interest stage and so um you know I was jotting some things down and my head swirling around you know you know what are those goals that we want to have that are measurable and how do we measure them um you know the data points give us some indicators but um when you were looking at the the the why why is it the way it is the root cause what is underneath there that um that we can change away from in order to get to where we want to go so I don't really have a question other than just an affirmation of uh exciting opportunities here uh want to figure out how to capitalize um the momentum that we we have and uh just again thank you so you're welcome okay
100Jim thank you Ken I'm also uh echoing what Aon and Lori had to say my thoughts were we definitely want to do that profile as a board at least I do yes sir and U what I really liked heard at the end of your presentation was the whole building capacity with your principles and then having building teams so that there's ownership uh throughout the organization on um building that capacity to be aware of uh the learning about being diverse and Equitable uh and I think it takes all of us to do it well because bottom line is it's every relationship built by every person in every school with all the students and so I mean that's that's a huge undertaking but it's about attitudes and how we think uh so I I'm excited about trying
101to be accountable having building goals to match your data that makes total sense and assessing that U the things that break my heart were the stories you were telling about the kids uh that have shared things with you and and uh being a former educator when I hear that stuff just makes me just want to cry so that in itself makes me highly committed uh because I don't want stories like that about any of our kids and I know our board doesn't either and so I'm totally committed uh and I loved your presentation you gave us so much I wrote down so many things well I'm not going to ask you 15 20 Questions uh I just appreciate the work uh and all the things you've done and and what you're planning to do in
102our future because your first year you were assessing building relationships figuring things out and now you can help guide many people so it's a group it's a system thing and that's what we need to do so uh I appreciate your leadership and guidance in this area and hopefully we can do great things with all of us working together I dig it and just remember doc Hope's not a strategy okay I'm with [Laughter] you did anybody Amy sorry I had to unmute myself um first of all thank you so so much that was informative um from several different directions on several different levels um and somebody mentioned about capitalizing on the momentum we have and I don't know if your action plan said this and I didn't pick it up but do we have a list
103of things that can be done quickly and things that will take a longer time um you know just something to think about because I I don't want these kids to think oh yeah here we go again another another plan and nothing's going to happen and so I don't know if you have things divided like these are things we can do before school starts and these are things that are going to take a year or six months or whatever I appreciate that question Amy I I um I I I have not had a a chance to attack that collectively I have some thoughts and if you know we think about quick wins we know that we have and I've heard this from several students and several parents you know that um we have celebration months right
104and so that's a quick and easy way to get some quick wins and to affirm identities and and there's a lot of you know uh free resources where we could do active and passive programs you know you think about you know the first month um when we're back I think that's that's and and it spans two months and that's that's uh you know uh know latinx Heritage Month you know and and then you know every corresponding month you know the women's history you know lgbtq black history month and and and and and we're not limited to just the months but I think we can celebrate and and intentionally um tie in curriculum and co-curriculum programming to to celebrate I mean I mean and some some of those things are taking place I want to say
105over at um I think it was ter building um her PBIS team it was parents and and and the um some staff there teachers and the uh uh counselor you know they did a um they invited me for this this Multicultural fair and every classroom um took over uh they they were they took over the identity of a different country in the world and the students in that classroom did research and every station um they they they uh you know provided a presentation of different aspects of that particular country and so you had some of our our uh you know fourth to fifth graders um for doing presentations and then some of the younger grades it was really cute the teachers had them forming in line and say hey we're about to go on the
106airplane they had little passports I mean it was the cutest thing right and and so I was thinking you know you know you know this is something that you know maybe we should be able to formalize in other buildings and and come up with um uh ways to to Really explore culture that are culturally appropriate they're honest they're affirming at every level and so those are just some things that you know quick and easy things that I just came off with that on the top of my head there's so many other things that you know we can directions that we could develop in quick wins but that also speaks to why I think it's important to you know being able to form a internal committee to determine what some of the priorities are what's the
107lwh hanging fruit and what are some of those systemic pieces that we're going to have to um you know address uh through you know our um our policies and and you know and and and you know that you got me thinking you know that that's something that I I I really want to be um clear on and and and you know make no mistake about it that you know we're not going to program our way out of you know the the the experiences and and the reality know that we in you know I um you know racial inequities we are seeing in our district you know we're going to have to policy our way out push through plow through unapologetically about the work um you know policy beliefs instruction and pedagogy will be you know
108that's where that work is and and and you know the goal of identifying inequities identifying the policies that create and maintain those inequities and propose corrective um corrective plans and AC thank you hey I can you all hear me yes yes I like some of the things I liked a lot of the things that you said Ken but you made um a reference to being able to find there are lots of free resources and opportunities that we can use to get our quick wins but I also think that this is an area that we need to put our finances behind agree um you know the statement show me your checkbook or where you spend your money and I'll show you your priorities no argument from that perspective yeah there's some free stuff we can do
109and that's great and I believe that we'll do that you know I was even thinking about having um more book readings within our schools of African-American authors and just all those things but I I want us to make this a priority as we have the other areas that we are excellent in so as a school board y'all certainly have that prerogative and find no arguments with me here um because I would love to be able I hear people talking about all the time where you can't throw money at a problem well I want to experien that one time in my career you know I want to be able to throw some money at a problem yeah I think so and I I mean I've heard some of your ideas that I don't know how quick
110they would be but some of them seem quicker than others and you know hopefully we'll get an opportunity to sh to hear more about that plan as we strategically Define those goals and what it looks like well can can I would have to say that you've got a group of people here who might have some focus on policy and finance and so use us you know in our roles to to support what needs to be done because and and I and I hope that those readings that I I sent you also you know I I wasn't going to do a um you know HK work but I I really I sent those to you all just to be able to ground you and really um help to understand your role as a school board and
111how you can lead Equity from where you're at did anyone else have any questions or anything for Ken Katie did you have your hand up yeah I just again I wanted to thank Ken I appreciate um a nice balance of um data and then just personal stories you know um not everybody in this community is on board with this and so I think it's helpful for us to be armed with that that those that types of information as we um take our role uh very seriously um in advocating for our mission which is each and every child um so I really look forward to this work and um this is this is a great start so thank you for your time tonight thank Brian yeah yeah I just Echo everything that was said thanks for
112being here Ken and presenting just a few take ways that I had that hadn't been mentioned yet um that I'll just throw out there and we can probably revisit when we talk more but um in the slide where you showed the the different um categories and how they performed one of the things that stood out to me was that the Asian students actually outperformed everybody in all categories and so I think there's probably a story there as well we probably look at too um agree I think you know um you know erid made the comment about the data I personally tend to go on the side of like data can tell a lot of stories that um a lot of people don't think that it can tell data that's there data that's not there and
113so you had asked the question like of one of the children that you met with how how are we tracking these kids into the talented and gifted programs and I really think we need to get to that microscopic level of data and so you know just really asking the questions of what are the things that we want to track right now that five and 10 years down the road we're going to be I'm so glad we started tracking that because now we can see and then the last thing was I can appreciate the focus on principles um I think we all agree that it probably need it needs to start higher in the organizational chart you know with the board and the superintendent and all the administrative cabinet members as well um if it doesn't
114start there it's never going to trickle down to the rest of the organization and so I really um wanted to uh make sure that we are on the same page that it needs to be a top down not a bottom up um effort agree agree agree that was it thank you Ken you were you were so powerful in sharing that you know so much of this cross- pollinates across the district where it's you talking with HR it's HR you know working with the buildings and and hiring but it's also the academic Services team and curriculum and and all of those things are so interconnected that I think you know to Ryan's point it absolutely has to be in all hands on on Deck because you can't have you know showing kids in buildings cultural awareness
115if you don't have an academic Services team that supports bringing that into the curriculum and you don't have you know HR that understands that representation matters and all of those things and so I just love how everything is nothing happens in a silo with this with this work and I think it's just fantastic that that it's all coming together like this I appreciate that thank you anyone else I don't wantan to I don't want to miss anyone and and I'm here too if if you all have some other thoughts I'm I'll be around for the whole meeting so you you get sick of us Ken I'm in the office I'm in the office thank you so much Ken welcome thank you okay we're g to move on to um letter B of the G items
116on the information only I love you guys okay um a hiring process update from Jesse Dirks that would be me actually I don't know how Jesse's name got on it but I just do it mine says the same thing and I'm watching Jesse's face um um panic but this relates to one of the goals that the board and I have talked about and so Samantha um like Ken has my PowerPoint so okay and instead of hiring practices it really comes down to what we're trying to achieve and in anony what we're trying to achieve is an equitable and inclusive approach to building a high performing Workforce and just hiring isn't enough it needs to be inclusive and so when you look at the core values the we've taken the core values and what the HR
117department and we really have three very very good people in HR um we've got Jody we have Jesse and we have Ken and they all bring something different in a different perspective and so and our values when you take these and form them into hiring practices and what the values are you talk about community is our hiring process inclusive and reflective of many voices or is it just one voice that is coming through as far as challenge do we hold a high bar for the candidates we consider and I would say yes and and do we have that same high bar for Cultural Literacy are we hiring people who are willing to take the extra steps beyond the pedagogical things that Ken talked about and the relationship building but also getting to know students that
118from different races different cultures different backgrounds and do we have the bar set high enough for that and we need to be able as a community to articulate what are those things as we screen and go through the process and then Excellence is a word that every but it's probably a word that's overused um and are we regularly that's a good word for me regularly reflecting and pushing ourselves to grow I think the board and the community should see different benchmarks of things and that would be things that we would decide together but also the accountability of the board and the administration and then inspiration does our process allow diverse application to demonstrate success diverse applicants to demonstrate success and so one of the things that our process has to include is to be able
119to show somebody that may not be like the rest of the team and so that's why there needs to be multiple layers in the hiring process and then finally leadership is our process aligned to our strategic plan and a tool for driving towards long-term goals my first year I said that I cannot lead a district without a strategic plan and it's been revised once and it needs to continue be revised now every year I think there needs to be tweaks but when you look at leadership does the process of the plan and a tool for driving towards long-term goals some of those things that Ken has talked about and he's talked to me about I've I've thought wow it it would be great to have that and some of the things I'm like let's go
120on that but that may be one of the stages in two or three he and I had a very good [Music] conversation along with some others with the great lak Center that we have a partnership with and they will be coming out at two different times this year and they will be helping with they can help us with staff development they can help us with curriculum and they can help us with focus groups and really they're here to serve and was so impressed in that meeting and so we have literally a whole year planned out now as a university they're grounded because of Co and so it would have to be a zoom meeting at this point but I'm hoping that the universities will start to loosen the rain since it seems like everything is
121loosening up but I don't know about the university and and their stance on that Samantha so a highlevel overview in our current process is we review the board approved Staffing plan and that's what we did this year we brought you three plans and we revisit the job descriptions and then we recruit and it's a district driven communication with external postings and Outreach and I'm using very short words here which I'm going to extend out and become more in the weeds and then select using a mult MTI stakeholder process and a competency based selection and then bring that recommendation after they've met those hurdles with lots of steps in between for higher next but let's take a closer look the principle is in red and that's what the school does so anything in I'll call it
122maroon um the pr principle initiates the process and either through a new position or through a resignation or a retirement says I need a position and this is where district office gets involved where HR in the business office review the request and at that point it's not an automatic that we fill because sometimes they don't have the numbers that we do and sometimes they may need more than what they even think they do but according to contracts we post a job on multiple sites for internal and external candidates and what's exciting this year is we're seeing different candidates from different places apply and in my years in anony we are going to see some diversity some different cultures in not only teaching but also an Administration and there's more to come um so it could
123be more than I even know yet and then the candidates complete a competency based application and the principal reviews the successful applications and we have a pre-screening and then we have finalist the principal leads multiple stakeholder Competency Based selection process within HR parameters and this is things that you learn in 101 but a lot of people forget of illegal things you can't ask and then the hiring team holistically reviews the candidates we don't rank them we ask more questions of what do you see the strengths and we may get a different answer from the parent group then we do the teacher group then we do the administrator group and we do the cabinet group usually that's not the case sometimes it's right down to two the tough part is when it's down to three and
124then principles once we decide they can they can offer and tell the person in HR this is the person that we're going to land on and only HR and I found this to be a problem when I first got here and I found it inwa and Weston only HR can make the job offer and only HR can make the dollar offer because all of a sudden in these three districts people said well this one person that gave me a tour said I was going to make or you know people who have no Authority no role or no responsibility to be making those decisions and they're hanging tight knowing they may have a job and so but the principal extends we want the principal to extend the offer because we want them to have a part
125in that but HR and it's probably usually Jodie um we'll extend the offer and then talk about onboarding and keys and you know sometimes we buy some days so that they can talk to the former principal some days we sometimes we don't um it just depends on the situation and then this is the administrating hiring so if you go back Samantha that first one is the teacher hiring that's how we hire teachers and we get them in front of parents we get them in front of different groups of people if you go to the administration hiring the supervisor inter again inter initiates the process and then HR reviews the request HR posts the job on multiple sites and internal and external candidates and again we're learning a lot about that um I think it was
126Samantha that shed to me that one of the most a site that gets a lot of hits is Craigslist um but it's extremely expensive and I don't see anony advertising on Craigslist so um for those of you shaking your head you can you can stop um but the applicants completed an application and then HR reviews successful applicants and identifies semifinalists and then HR and the supervis conduct screening interviews with semifinalists and I got to be part of one of those and uh this week or last week and then HR and the supervisor identify finalists and then again back to that multi-stakeholder team we conduct Competency Based selection with HR parameters we'll have them write we'll have them do a presentation for the parents for example or it could be to the teachers um one question
127could be How would for the teachers how would you lead a team a building team when there are no students in the school and you're closed due to the covid crisis how do you move the needle hiring team holistically reviews the candidates and then the supervisor extends the job offer and coordinates with HR on next steps so they're very similar if you go back to the teacher our semifinalists that part went away when we quit doing the HR Fair because we kept we found out that we were getting the same people and a lot of them are our student teachers and the student teachers that we hired as Subs paid off tremendously so I would say that you can see that teaching and administration are very similar um there are more people probably that will
128sit in on an administrator [Music] hire and then the next one uh Jody and and Jesse when you review something I don't know how you review something and not want to get better at different things and so what I did was looked at my goal this year was to review the process and to improve and before we get to this next part I would ask the board if there are any questions because the HR team and I have talked a little bit but mostly HR about how they're going to have different priorities for the coming year which I think ties directly into to some of Ken's work so are there any questions for me regarding the hiring process I have one I don't know if it's the right time for it I guess um you
129talked a little bit about the different kind of groups that are part of the interview is it uh always the same parent group is making sure that parent group has a diversity reflection in it as well a priority um we try to impress upon the parent to the principles to get different people don't get your PTO group and keep getting your PTO group I mean there that's the easy way out and so um one of the priorities is to get different people on different things okay and you're going to hear that this year okay um um same thing with uh Sak same thing with just about everything is um if if we were to do a frequency distribution and wrote a list of everybody every parent out of however many parents we have 30,000 probably
130and listed their race and we could do this fast and if we had the information um and you could figure out what's the total and how many are active what's your guess I mean my guess is under represented under represented under represented so a goal should be to for the board principles superintendent all of us to get underrepresented groups involved in their children's rep um and you know um some parents can't swing the times well then is changes the times um not everybody can get off at and be here at 4 o'clock or 4:30 and one committee meets I want to say noon or maybe that group doesn't exist anymore but um he used to policy was one of them yeah it's at it's at 4:30 so it's but I mean so the key is
131for the district to find out what are the barriers for people to become part of the dis to become part of us and then remove the barriers and that's incumbent upon us and US mean meaning the administration okay thank you any other questions be happy I also had a handout in there because part of the goal was to show how our current employees are showing that they are staying quote good enough and if they're if you didn't get it you can get it when you go back into close session uh And We Gather Bruce do you have a copy of this presentation I mean so I don't take so many notes because I like everything you're showing us but I just I don't want to write it I do thanks and Samantha if you would
132remember to send it to the whole board thanks um so I want to leave the rest of it to Josie and Jody and Ken if you want to chime back in um because I think you're G to like the next part and the next part even ramps it up so I'm excited about it I think it's really long do I have a question Bruce go for it Amy sorry I'm sorry this is desara I'm sorry oh so um you know what there was a suggestion about building a pipeline from HBCU historically black colleges and universities to meet that Gap that we have regarding um blacks and minorities is that something we are considering doing as an option to start building those relationships it is and uh there's also um a group that reached out to
133us and for employment and one of the things we were in a chuckling about is by the time we join all of the different all of the different under represented races what's not that cost is a factor but what would that be so what we're finding out is just like at the rally when uh I apologize I don't remember her name from John Deere rosn I sat by her at the under 40 uh Gayla [Music] um the um there are places that we're not tapping and the bottom line is we just have to tap um and get them on campus but we have to also create the environment that we don't hear because I'm getting the same feedback that Ken is I'm a whatever graduate I'm a last year graduate I'm a whatever graduate and
134I just thought I want you to know and I've always said all means all but I don't think people have thought I met academically and I think the social emotional learning of a child the whole child is what we're going to have to deal with and if anybody thinks that kids coming back into school are not going to have some issues and and teachers coming back into school are not going to have any issues they have another thing coming so the answer is yes we are okay thank you Ryan did you have a question yes thank you um you you had mentioned that we will we're not going to pay for advertising on craigslist do we do we pay for advertising when it comes to hiring and if we do do we tap you know
135what types of resources are we are we going on indeed are we using LinkedIn are we doing you know social media like what do we do we know that yes yes and what we try to stay away from is an add in the register costs us thousands of dollars and what we found is we've we've done a study of where where are you getting it and the information that we're getting back is it's not from the Divine register it's from other sites it's it's not from the traditional newspaper that when I got out that's the only place you really got it that's how I got long time ago yep there was and usually there was one column or if you're lucky so if Jody and Jessica and could you bring that last slide up because
136I think this is this is really important all right um I can get us started and then jod and Ken the three of us have really been working really closely it's hard to believe it's been three weeks and a day um that I've been I've been here but we've had many many conversations um including a long conversation today was really focused on how we take what you see on this slide and start thinking about um how we structure our team and our work um and the way we are spending our time given the multitude of things that you know are part of um of any job to really have the time and resources to spend on these which really feel to us like game changers in the way that the human resources team operates in
137service of the work happening all across the district um it is no secret to anybody in this call that our district is growing and changing and we see I think the three of us and the rest of our team every one of them are are exceptional um a real opportunity to think boldly and differently about um how we go about recruitment selection onboarding evaluation and development and retention we sort of think about kind of like the life cycle of an employee and really started today a process of what should we be doing how should we be spending our time at each sort of piece of that employee timeline for lack of a better word to really try to make the change that I think we've heard you all um say tonight the end of Ken's
138presentation felt really important to you so we also heard you say um come to us for uh financial support and resources to make that happen so um I was listening I was listening closely during during that part um I'll share a little bit with you about what is uh what's sort of on our mind as Topline priorities I'll start with this first one and then um Jody I might hand it over to you I know you've been doing a lot of thinking about standardization and training and how we make sure that everyone at the campus level has a really inclusive experience and what we need to be doing from our shop to support that um and then we can figure out who takes the maintaining the commitment to Excellence so very quickly like one thing
139that hopefully I can bring um given how I've been spending the last decade or so of my life supporting school districts across the country to make sure that their Human Resources uh operations were structured in a way to really build diverse Equitable and inclusive workforces primarily teacher and administrator workforces um is to really sort of embed diversity equity and inclusion into everything we do for us I think that starts with probably in the next few weeks really getting into the data and what the diversity looks like in every step of that kind of employee process that I described for you um we have started to dig into that data we know we uh we have access to it um but I would say in response to some of the questions about are we going to
140try this strategy are we going to try this strategy I really want to know what gaps exist throughout that process there might not be any there might be some I want to know do we have a problem recruiting a large enough and diverse enough field or are we really bringing in a diverse pool of talent and then somewhere along the way um people are filtered out of the process if that's happening why is it happening are we asking the right questions are we structuring our hiring process in as inclusive a way as possible um so real priority for us feels like digging into that um and then when we sort of find those gaps um looking at what has worked nationally um thinking about how we would apply that here in anony to try to
141directly address those gaps so I'm a little hesitant to say here is like the one magic thing we're going to do until we've had a chance to really unpack all of that data um the good news is I've done a whole bunch of national research on this as have uh as has Ken you just heard all of his excitement and um and great ideas and and Jody has so much deep context and has presented on this stuff nationally so I think we're ready to try some new things once we have a sense of of what those gaps might look like um and where we have those challenges or where we really have strengths in the system and then I think to make sure that we are well positioned to continue this is not just a
142oneandone we'll look at our Equity once we'll fix something and then we won't think about it again we want to make sure we have systems in place to be capturing what we think is the most essential data connected to our human resources practices and that we as an administrative team could do this with the board I know the three of us sort of the human resources leadership team will do this at least quarterly look at that data dig in and try to identify any gaps and proactively work to address them um so I've got some very long probably not super interesting to people other than me plans in mind for how we go about doing that um that I've seen really be effective in other places and we're excited to get to work on that
143so Jody I'll let you um talk a little bit about the ideas you have in mind for the standardization and and training piece thank you um so to start off with I would like to share just a little bit of History um I've been in this position for I think seven years now and um I came into this position as a building administrator so had that lens when I um came over to HR one of the observations I had early on was um we were doing a lot of really great things but they were very separate from each other every building principal had different hiring processes and procedures and um at that point we had started having a job fair because we were opening the second high school and one of the things I often
144heard from principles is how smooth that job fair process was and how it brought building administrators together in a more collaborative um mindset where they were agreeing on the type of candidates we wanted to hire so over the last couple years we' really worked together as a an administrative team to really balance a decentralized and a centralized hiring approach to where we were starting to create processes and procedures to align what we wanted within our system and what we agreed to um and we started this with our elementary principles and have worked up through our secondary principles but what we agreed to is when we hire we hire for anony we're not hiring for East we're not hiring for um ashin Ridge we're not hiring for Westwood but we're hiring for our district for anony
145and no matter who we hire they need to be able to fit into our system across um the board we looked at a lot of um really interesting data from our teachers and the amount of teachers that are either reassigned due to the numbers and our growth or that are um elect to take a transfer to another building and we wanted to a to agree that when I hired as one building principal that teacher would meet another building principal's um needs across the district so we have done some trainings together we have had lots of conversation together um two years ago we had Jeff kman walk us through a bias and unbiased training um and then this last year we started putting together a process and procedure guideline um and that was the slides that
146You' seen that Bruce went through on the hiring of a teacher or administrator um a couple other things that we've done to really standardize our process is um in our new hris system we have moved to an electronic process and what that has allowed us to do is have an internal system that captures all of our resources all of our questions for each category of employee we hire are within that system and that eliminates principles or hiring managers from creating their own question s or going off script um and we've really worked hard on sticking to those we've um made no exception in hiring certified or administrative um hires to Veer from the questions that were built in the system the questions are tied to um both some Gallup related research as well as Danielson
147and they really um provide that comprehensive overview of talent that we're looking for um the other pieces that we've done is that we have agreed that every teacher goes through a teaching segment um that's a non-negotiable that's part of that process um and we're working on developing um a little bit more of a concrete rubric we've done that with our job fairs um but we've not moved that way totally just due to the work that we're we're really prioritizing um so this next year we hope to kind of work with our principles and build a rubric for evaluating that teaching piece um and then as Bruce mentioned with our administrators every one of them does some type of problem solving or task analysis and it's really related to their position so if it's a finance
148position it's related to something within that area if it's a principal it's related within something within um that principal realm or something that's specific to that building we also um have really worked to both have the Q&A sessions um as well as presentations and some interactive pieces in our interview processes so as we move um into this next year our hope is to be able to get in front of our principles and our hiring managers and provide some more training um some topics that we've kind of talked about is um that that going back to the bias and unbias thinking through that lens a little bit more um we've kind of said in our department we don't think you can get too much training on that piece and we've hired a lot of new administrators
149in the last couple years so it's time to revisit that we also want to really think about um Ken and I've specifically partnering with our teachers our teachers have not had um any type of hiring training but yet we use them to sit in on our committees and so we think that it's time that we really start working with teachers on um those hiring principles practices um research based principles and so we plan to do that as well um and then as Jesse and Ken both alluded really always grounding back and coming back to the priorities of the district and embedding that within that standardization and training so that's just a little bit of where we've been where we're currently at and how we want to move forward in terms of the standardization and training
150awesome I'll just real quickly wrap us up here with this last one which is to say it remains I think critically important to everybody who's on this WebEx um that we do all of these things without taking our eye off of the the critical sort of primary charge that we have which is we want our kids interacting with the best people possible so I think part of our data analysis and and sort of exploration this coming year is are we measuring the right things um when we are hiring folks I we have an exceptional staff I think we probably largely are but let's look at the let's look at um the process and make sure that we are really when we're hiring looking for the right things to make sure the best folks are in
151front of our kids are leading our buildings or supporting our students inot all sorts of ways across the district um and then we know that um getting to do all of these sort of uh enhancements isn't the only thing that we do right so we do all of this while maintaining a real commitment to making sure that we're serving the folks um in the district that people feel like they can get reliable transparent accurate um helpful information from our team um on things that they're facing real time as we work to make sure that we're thinking about what the future could look like um with our human resource practices so that's it we're happy to answer any questions now or of course at any other time I got one okay eron okay um uh again
152thank you for the presentation um and kind of what I was U mentioning when when Ken is going about understanding our current state I think that's extremely important and will be helpful with us moving forward but one of the things you know in in root cause analysis and looking at cause and effect is is you know sometimes we theorize about what is the cause and we do our data and we do our research and so we'll make some changes and we don't always like the outcome it doesn't change what we want doesn't change what we expect so I think it's going to be important whether it's um on your work or even in Ken's work is that we keep track of it maybe in a more granular way than we're used to what we are
153doing so that we know that you know what levers we've already pulled and and and to see those outcomes so that we because you know we don't control all the variables in the equation um and we want to make sure that the ones we do control um that we are uh doing the best we can to make the the processes in place the most um advantageous as we can as well I'm not smart enough to unmute myself I I think that's absolutely right and I think there are some um you know I know everybody gets a little bit of survey fatigue but one strategy that I've used with you know some other districts that I have found particularly helpful is to do some surveys connected to completion of the um completion of the application at
154the end of the interview process they're not overly onerous but it really helps us pinpoint not only hey we advertised an indeed on ideal list and you know on LinkedIn whatever and we learn from people how they found out about us um but then we also keep that and then we can look over time at performance and say which site is um not only is helping us build our pool build a diverse pool but what is the actual like long-term return on investment from those folks um and if we're continuing to ask questions of our people and tracking it once in some sort of consistent way think we can look longitudinally and understand are we putting our money towards the places that are giving us our best folks if not quarterly how do we shake
155that up um to to get the get more to get stronger outcomes well and I think you need to have multiple points of data uh otherwise you can write the book know it's already been written about people who jump to the wrong conclusion and then they make these big wholesale changes just to find out that they're wrong um so I I think a mix of qualitative and quantitative data um and try to root out and um some things you can change fast and sometimes you got to go slow to go fast and Ken taught me that um that you know um I'm excited about the partnership I I'm uh I think that that will be a tremendous asset to us I think um I just think talking quite frankly about what's happening in the world
156and not making it such taboo um is I'm sorry Bruce what what I'm what is that noise yeah somebody typing somebody typing or on a calculator or good question me okay it's stop Amy I heard the same thing it did stop though I want to know what kind of calculator am that sound like somebody was eating chocolate chip cookies to me thought somebody was crunching sorry sorry we interrupted Bruce go ahead go ahead Bruce no I just think it's ex exciting to have this team rowing you know I I can't guess what and 1913 what was anony schools but I'm sure in the recent future you have not seen an effort I'm excited that you've not seen an effort to all be rowing at the same direction and at the same pace and trying to
157I mean Jody had had workshops for substitutes now how many people have workshops for substitutes well that makes them want to come back to us and so however we treat people whether the substitutes or cooks or secretaries or any type of training we give our employees or our seasonal help or whatever um it's just all the better and it's all how you treat people so I'm very proud of them the work they've done in a very short time and I'm excited about the the equity the the work for Equity um yeah I was gonna ask if Ken had any thoughts in this section you know since we didn't let him talk about it in his section he had a lot to cover and yeah I I don't I don't um I just I Echo everything
158that was shared by by Bruce Jody and Jesse um I am here to you know support the leadership and and and and taking some bold steps and and asking hard questions and and reflecting on um you know outdated practices that aren't in line or or um considerate of uh experi iences of of of you know the dominant group and and I'm I'm someone um that's just going to always speak truth to power um and and you know that could be good or bad but um I I'm you know fully invested in um change and transformation and because ultimately it's our babies it's our students who are impacted we we have to constantly remind ourselves we don't do this work for the you know for the sake of of you know the adults we we really
159have to be firmly committed and being student focused and and so that that's you know um it doesn't you know add a a great deal but just you know lets you know you know just um my agenda and and and you know my you know what what you know I'm I'm firmly committed to um and and supporting uh these bold steps and in this new Direction um you know so that we can be a transformational district and you know we can all be heralded and and go around and do uh uh you know um um talk about in the good work nationally um you know that we're doing um and and uh yeah I'm I'm I'm just excited to be a part of the team and um you know do good work so thank you
160Amy did I see you had something yeah I'm gonna kind of be a downer I I want push back on something and make sure I understood it um so you said through the process that you're hiring for anony I get that and everyone is in love with their data and that's part of the anony way is we're kind of all robotic and we do the same thing and we say the same thing um I'm a little concerned about every principal asks every applicant the same questions because let's not kid our El the needs at Terrace are different than the needs at Prairie Trail okay and I know Terrace that's where my daughter went so I will always refer to it as Terrace as in elementary school so I'm a little concerned that a principal doesn't
161have flexibility to ask a questions that meet the immediate needs of the kids in his or her school that's an excellent point Amy I I would love to respond to that Amy um so the questions are like I said earlier they're grounded in both gallup's research and Charlotte danielson's rubrics that we use um here in ay and so a question might be something like share a recent lesson in which you differentiated to meet the needs of students and so the principal is looking and thinking through the lens of the needs that they're building but the question is such that it would fit the needs of every building um one of the things that we've worked hard to move away from is is having our principles um hire for a specific position at that building and
162then um what we had seen happening is we might change the sections and we might hire for a for a fit if you will we really tried to move away from the word fit um and so we don't want them to hire for a specific grade level a specific PLC a specific um group of students that's coming through that year we want them to hire for Talent um I've been using the words um this year they're it's um through battel for kids but that research says high potential employees have three strong attributes and that's ability social skills and drive so we're constantly coaching our administrators to look for talent and then our job as administrators is to build and Coach that Talent um and um so that's that's the reason we do that if we
163I think we would really run the risk of being um having some inequities in our system if we allowed every person to build their own interview questions or to build their own process and our goal was to really shake out the um any any area of an equity so that we were providing that consistent hiring process the other thing that our principles have gotten really great at is when they um hire or when they interview a group of candidates um for example we had um a couple principles who are interviewing um for a couple teachers in their in their building that the really neat thing that's happening now is that principles are sharing out um the results of those interviews so that we're not having to start those processes clear over or to make candidates
164jump through those hoops and reinie every time instead they're able to have that one-on-one with the administrator or just come in and do that teaching segment um but we're really working hard to not duplicate those interiew questions um so that we um are being efficient and are really look at hiring um broad scopes of talent for our district I I I hear that and I understand it and I appreciate everybody's love of data but all I hear in that those responses are data data data I don't hear human I don't hear kids I don't hear so M Maybe I'm missing something um that's very possible I quite often do but that just all sounds very robotic to me and I just don't want the The Human Side and the kids side to get lost in
165all of this data dive and data search and you know the very best best person is different in every situation can I yeah go ahead help maybe a little bit I'm I'm assuming and I could be wrong that maybe some of these questions we asked that are systems questions which I kind of like that because I think sometimes we get too different in every building as far as expectations for curriculum or anything but when we ask questions I I've got to guess there's stuff in there that are questions about relationships and the things you're concerned about Amy which I would be also concerned about as far as finding people that um have the aective piece about nurturing and caring about kids and building relationships with kids but I'm guessing that Jody would tell us and
166or Jesse or or Ken that our questions there are questions that gear to finding that out I I'm assuming they are because I remember doing the hiring too but I know it's it's the things that tell me are I guess improvements from when I did it when I was here eight years ago and I'm kind of excited hearing that they're trying to be a systematic so we can get the best talent and then we can coach them to be the best they can be yeah I'll let Jody add some um like specific examples here but I think that's exactly right Jim and and that's my fault Amy for um I will admit I love data I do also love people but I probably talk about data more than than I should but it it's a
167good it's a good sort of caution right we have to make sure that if we're saying like look at the data we're talking about that in service of our children right so I think what we are trying what we have tried to do under Jody's leadership what we've done and what I think we'll we'll try to do moving forward is understand sort of what are the categories of questions about children and about relationships and about the way we interact with each other that are likely to give us really helpful information it's not asking like um it's not asking candidates uh exclusively to analyze data and not think about the children that they will be in front of We're just trying to make smart Equitable Fair um decisions about the kinds of questions that we think
168are going to help us um learn the most about the things we care about the most and and the like at the Forefront of that are can you you build strong relationships with the children in your building and the families that you serve so jod probably has some specific examples she could share but that's okay I don't I don't need that I guess I would like to just add a couple of things so um when we were asked to kind of help with this we were really asked to look at it through the lens of our process um which doesn't lens itself very well to the human side of it Amy um if we had an opportunity to have you listen to principles or teachers or our candidates I think you would hear that um
169the other part that I'm um leading is our onboarding and I would tell you that that is the number one Focus I have instructional coaches calling every single one of our candidates um we have a committee that um Ken is on as well as other administrators teachers um instructional coaches that is 100% teacher driven teacher-led um we have connected every day to a theme that connects back to what we believe and stand for in the district we have a social emotional committee um that is um has a group of new teachers that check in with them on a regular and routine basis and then on top of that we're building our mentoring program so th I would love an opportunity to share about all of those things that are really focused on people um unfortunately
170the topic that we were asked to really focus on is process procedure which doesn't come across always as humanistic as what we would want okay thank you Jody um just kind of make sure that I'm getting to um part of your interview process for those um final candidates you said you actually did like a teaching little vignette so to speak and you were working on making a rubric on how you evaluate them in a snapshot of how they teach is part of that R rubric not just checking off a box of you covered all the subject matter you needed to cover but also did you connect with your students did you engage with them did you have conversations with them that kind of thing is all of that kind of built into that we're going
171to watch you teach kind of part of the interview yes so we've had some principles pilot um using some of our Danielson rubrics that really focus on connection to students um and that's one of the things as we've um really work to standardize our process one of the next steps is the measurement piece and what we're looking at and so that's one of our next steps to work on with principles is when we are in the interviews how are we consistently measuring what we're hearing and seeing of each candidate okay cool can I jump in again um I really appreciate again I remember being maybe on an island or we were all independent contractors when I was a principle and systemizing the whole thing as far as how we even do a rubric when watching
172the teacher teach uh I think can be really critical because we do want to see how they connect with the kids how they build relationships and you can do a great job of teaching but be kind of robotic uh and so uh if we can uh systematically have a rubric where we all kind of across train so we're all seeing the same kinds of things I think that can make us better um but we definitely want the most uh the people that are relationship Builders because if you build relationships you can do so much with those kids we to our hiring managers quite a bit um you can't teach people to like kids but you can teach them how to teach a good lesson and that we talk about that in that terms of that
173coachability so as we hire candidates what's our role and responsibility as principles and administrators to coach and build our candidates and Jesse kind of mentioned this there's a it's called the life cycle of an employee and the biggest part of that life cycle is the development of the employee and we spent a great deal of time at that on that this last year as an administrative team and we really took that as an offset of evaluation and rather than looking at evaluation as just an event how are we focusing on the development and what does that mean to us as um as principles and administrators and and real quick I I'll just add um just with um the the the focus and changing our process even with it being in development again anecdotally we are
174already starting to see changes in our candidate pools that that I think is not worthy that that again through Jody's leadership it it's already starting to you know demonstrate that you know this process is is allowing us to take other um factors people experiences into consideration to bring them into the system and often times I would hear at educational circles well you know are we lowering the standards no we're expanding the standards right and so I again I don't want to say too much and and and get any any we got too many lawyers on the phone and I don't want to get put the district in any legal you know problems whatever but it's just exciting to be on this end just to see how um the the work that's taking place is already
175starting to yield bu some very uh positive um results that are are going to bring some different faces and experiences into our system Bruce was that your your presentation is there anything else that we need to to hear or to cover or does anyone have any additional questions or Jesse or Jody or Ken maybe just where we're at with our Centennial High School principal uh how far we're down that road let you know in couple weeks we're um this the high school principal is an endangered species uh no one wants to go stand in a gym um it's um I remember when I was in West Mo they had 12 at one point for the largest High School um and Walky didn't even have that at one point so um we we did get some
176good candidates some and very good candidates and uh we will go through that exercise uh this week and um uh be bringing back a recommendation for uh three positions uh either at our next board meeting or maybe at a special board meeting uh I got to figure out timelines thank you all right um if if that's no one has any additional questions um we'll move on um next is a presentation on professional learning by Sharon ingrand do I have the right person on that one Bruce that's not mine uh Sharon oh there she is alrighty thank you good evening and um I hope this isn't a case of uh last but least orever how that saying goes oh you're not last Sharon Best For Last is how it goes right and you're not the least
177thanks Jim all right well I'm just going to give you the kind of the annual update on professional learning and what's been going on in the schools this year and so I believe you already have the PowerPoint for this one for tonight so the quick agenda for tonight is really looking at the threee professional learning plan just the overview of that and how we connect it to our Mission Vision strategic plan in the standard work and then talking a little bit about how we measure both the alignment of professional learning to those things and how we measure the quality of professional learning and then I really want to give an update on the work of the professional development or the PD um committee you get those reports several times a year so I want to
178tell you about the work of that team and the importance of that team in determining professional learning in the district so the first part then in our strategic plan as you know one of the if then statements is we engage our staff in high quality professional learning then every learner will be prepared to achieve a lifetime of personal success and if you read through that whole strategic plan that's really important and professional learning is listed in the plan over 13 times and so we do value that and recognize the importance of it and it and it's just visible and um always in play in the buildings at various levels so I'll talk a little bit about that too so this next slide is the professional learning plan in each spring we have conversation and we
179look at what's our professional learning plan for the next three years are there things in our plan that need to be modified and changed based on the work underway and of course this year was just a unique year with the ending that we had and as we had to with many things we kept really most of this plan remained the same we didn't make a lot of changes we bumped everything down a year and left it all the main change that you would see on this plan is for next school year we added that online remote learning because we know uh when we're planning our return to learn plan it's likely that teachers are going to need more time in specific professional learning for that distance online component depending if we have to go with
180the hybrid Pro approach or all the way to distance learning so that's really the only change on this from last year otherwise it's it'll be similar to what we were really planning to do for this school year so when looking at our professional learning there's really three primary focuses that we look at the first one again is to ensure that alignment to really some of the things you've heard talked about tonight the Strategic plan the Danielson rubrics and that professional growth model and our district standard work and so the district standard work as a reminder is that puzzle piece poster that you've seen and our primary focus is PBIS um which is positive behavior um support systems mtss and um professional learning communities standards reference grading and a um guaranteed and viable curriculum those are
181the main pieces of standard work that we focus on for our professional learning on Wednesday mornings and those school day professional learning days so the next the last one then I mentioned both those first two in in that little part but the third thing there is meeting the adult learning needs in a variety of ways and that that that's multi-layered so we know that at times we have to provide District support and District learning and we also know that buildings do have specific learning needs for their building and professional learning that they want to make um just more Focus to what is occurring in their building so most of our professional learning is planned and delivered at the building level and even at that professional Learning Community or Team level and then of course we
182also have to plan for opportunities for individual level depending where the teacher is in their Learning Journey and in their um part of their career path I guess so in this strategic plan there are are two measurements that we look at um one is that quality of professional learning piece and the other is the alignment to the standard work so last year when I shared this chart with you we were only looking at the alignment piece and at that time we had 92.5% alignment so when we walked around the district on Wednesday mornings and we looked to see what people were doing on their plans 92.5% of all professional learning was was aligned to our standard work this year we um did not put the Stars on here in the percentages again because we missed
183a third of the year and we we just didn't feel like that was an accurate representation so it would probably be about similar for the alignment piece and for the quality of professional learning this was our first year that we were starting to measure that and we didn't start that until the end of October so we really only had about 18 pieces of evidence so Samantha go ahead and go to the next slide um here's what we had with those 18 buildings that we looked at for this now um this data again it wasn't complete and the other disclaimer is with this year with um Dr dimar serving as a principal and um Dr Menard being on um leave in just different situations that occurred we didn't have the number of people that we usually
184have to observe professional learning in the building so we we needed that's one of the recommendations I have down here is that we have to figure out a more effective way to collect this data in the buildings and that could be that we have principles or teachers help collect the data and it's important that we're looking at this and and this is an area that we're definitely going to have to improve and look at in the future so on the slide it's going to show just a few examples I could probably fill three pages so I just picked a few examples of what you would see if you go to buildings on Wednesday mornings or during those full day professional learnings probably the main one that you would have seen this spring again is that
185online remote learning and the focus that we were really forced into in a very short period of time standards reference grading you've heard a lot about that and you heard Ken talk about the equity diversity inclusion a lot of buildings access Tim this year or uh had their staff participate in book studies around that topic the other big one is that very bottom one the social emotional mental and Behavioral Health that's another topic that several buildings have focused on and if we had been able to have Summer Academy that was a very large focus of Summer Academy also so now I want to talk to you about this professional development committee that you see the reports on this committee is a unique Committee in the district it's a legislative guided committee there's a house file
186564 that requires us to have this committee and there are you know several guidelines and criterias that we have to follow because of that one of the main ones is that there's equal representation of Administrators and teachers on this committee so we want all voices in there and fully realize and appreciate the teachers voice in determining what are their learning needs and how are we going to best meet the needs of the teachers what ways do they like to receive that training and how can that look and so the committee has two primary responsibilities and again this is um laid out for us in code the first one is to collaborate with the District staff to determine professional needs and the second one is to assist in the monitoring of the professional development activities so
187it could be that this could be a group we tap to somehow help us collect some of that data about the quality of professional learning in the future that was what I was just going to ask you is have we gotten feedback from all the staff on quality of the uh PD so that you can change or grow or whatever yeah we do well that happens in multiple ways Jim that's a great question you know of course the buildings are always collecting data about the professional learning and are we meeting your needs and what can we do different how are you implementing are you implementing what we're talking about in professional learning so the most valuable data we collect for that would be what occurs in the building level after right immediately after and during
188that professional learning but we do have questions on our district survey as well related to professional learning as well as the two measurements I've already talked about all right so the first responsibility was looking at in determining professional learning needs in this committee again because repr there's representation from every building they're a huge asset in determining what are the needs what are the things that teachers are wanting to learn about they need to learn about to provide the most effective instruction and then that helps guide like for Summer Academy for example that guides the topic selection for the Academy as well as Speaker recommendations and so that that process usually happens in the fall and then from there we can determine who to call to come speak and that kind of thing so we were
189really disappointed Summer Academy had to be cancelled this year because we just we had an outstanding lineup especially for that social emotional Behavior Health and Ken was doing some work with Equity during the during the summer Academy so hopefully we'll be able to tap all those same um another portion this gets at the small group learning and individual learning that teachers may have we call it PD projects or professional development projects and teachers have that opportunity to really write their own plan and they self- select their learning and their timeline and the topic and they get paid to do small group independent projects and that's a very popular option for teachers and many teachers take advantage of that throughout the school year um most recently this committee has have had an active role in the
190distant learn distance learning opportunities so that first round we had this spring when we were were doing the the voluntary plan there was this teamm made was a large part of the team that looked at what kind of resources do teachers need right now to help with this need and we developed a a covid-19 resources website and well we had lots of information on that site but there was a page dedicated to the professional learning and this group gathered and collected and provided webinars and all kinds of things we had 102 offerings up there at the height of that in over over 994 views that was at the end of I believe May when we were at 994 so that group was instrumental in that and you know teachers that took the time to really
191go to that site uh loved it and we got a lot of positive feedback for that however going forward we knew that we can't just have this site that teachers go to on a voluntary basis that we have to be able to provide more systemic and probably a deeper quality of professional learning to help prepare teachers for that online digital learning and so for next school year instead of having the Summer Academy samanth go ahead and go to the next slide there was a course that uh we put out in take five called going digital and within five days we had 250 teachers sign up for this course and at that time it was just a generic course that uh Harland had put out and I threw it in take five because it it was
192all about the pedagogy of teaching online and I knew that we were having that need and so we put it out there and Harland called and said we ankony people are taking up all the spaces for this course and so I was able to pull that committee back and we had the conversation about you know I shared with them how many have signed up and this is obviously a high need of our teachers and that committee had a lot of conversation and we had originally decided that we wanted to support um learning around a possible common platform and the timeline for that wasn't going to quite work out that we could do it for this summer so the committee decided to support this alternative opportunity to platform learning in the Summer Academy and we opened
193it up again to the teachers in anony and offered compensation for the class that they would have typically received during the summer Academy and we also set up sessions where you're learning with your building colleagues and there's a building based facilitator and so on the next slide it it says we have over 500 but as of today we have 570 teachers signed up for those sessions and so one started last Monday another one started today and we have one that will go from mid July until about mid August so it's 100% online teachers work through it at their own page Cas they have to respond to discussion questions and respond to each other and do a project where they put together lessons and units for online learning and so people are obviously very excited about
194that and taking advantage of that opportunity and again that comes as a result of that professional development committee um their voice knowing what the needs are and then supporting the work across the district so the second responsibility we talked about was that monitoring PD data and so that was on that slide before too but that committee during their meetings we've examined the projects that teachers are doing we started this work and we didn't get to finish it but I know it'll continue so we look at the professional development projects teams of teachers turn in and we were starting to analyze to look at each of those projects to are they aligned to the standard work and some of those other things we've talked about tonight is it of high quality is the plan detailed enough
195and that's some work that came the idea came from the committee and that's valuable work that we need to continue so if we are letting teachers plan their projects and we want to that's very valuable work then we need to start looking at um you know are we making that as robust as possible all right so the last thing here then our next steps Samantha you're one slide ahead of me she's like Samantha you're rushing me all right so the next steps then is academic services will continue to support principles and coaches in the building instructional leadership teams to ensure high quality professional learning and that occurs in many different ways we have directors at district office and the chief of as that will meet with principles and provide that coaching and support part a
196large part of my role is to provide coaching to our instructional coaches and provide professional learning weekly on Friday afternoons for them and we are always available and called out to different buildings for you know different um support they need and then again the PD committee will continue to be a huge play a huge role in determining determining those PR professional learning needs and in supporting remote online learning throughout the 2021 year as needed because we know that's still probably going to be something we have to think about um so that's kind of the next steps for this group um any questions or comments or thoughts that you have about the professional learning piece yeah go ahead Jim uh a question I would have is is striking the balance between individual teachers picking their personal
197learning which I know all teachers are in different places on their Journey uh in their career and we have to support them in those ways as uh Co coaches and principles and everyone else and yet also the whole idea of making sure let's say for instance all the elementaries are teaching this content area in the same way so that if you change boundaries we don't have gaps or issues that make it anxiety for kids or parents or staff so how do you strike that balance with the systems thinking so we know all of our kids are getting the same instruction and content and yet developing our teachers and buildings per say as far as some of these great topics that you shared yeah it it's complex and multi-layered which had that one slide head so
198it's both multi-layered in terms of sometimes the district does have to say all buildings are doing this so an example from this past year would be the science professional learning all elementary buildings engaged in professional learning around the new science curriculum and so that does occur that we have to do that for those same reasons all the reasons you just mentioned but then we also have to have those layers that allow buildings to differentiate because of the needs like Amy had talked about earlier and so it is about balancing that and having the conversation and seeing what the needs are at the different time and then that professional development committee is really that group that gets at how can we per how can we support this learning in a different way and there's funding that
199comes with that so the learning that comes from the Summer Academy or those PD projects or the going digital that's that's supplemental or um compensation for the teachers on top of what they're getting in the building so it's layered and it's complex we try to connect it all back to that standard work the puzzle pieces so that we can have that continuity and consistency across the district that's the purpose of that one more thing the social emotional I know there was a lot of people wanted to take that class and to be really honest with you I think um kids are going to come back a little messed up I think uh I think the covid five months or longer whatever it's going to be it's been really hard on kids uh they're isolated that
200whole bit and just adjusting to coming back to school uh so I'm thinking that might be something we really focus on in some of our early uh PD at the beginning of the year because I think uh we're going to have to be armed with some supports there for kids absolutely and I know in the return to learn committee meetings that one comes up every time and I think teachers will need social emotional support absolutely I agree yeah thank you yes did anyone else have questions for Sharon or thanks for the update thank you all right next up covid-19 discussion that's still a thing that's over we can skip it that's usually our longest topic I I have a question I don't know if there's a formal presentation there is few things to share with
201everybody at all I promise I'll make it go real quick okay so um is it all right uh Erin if I just oh yeah absolutely yeah yeah your question when we get back um just a a brief update on return to learn um there was a lot of information shared in in the board update but um uh the subgroups met for the second time last week um last Tuesday and we meet again for the third time uh tomorrow cabinet spent an extended uh session last Wednesday talking about return to learn and then our stering committee met for the first time uh this afternoon uh to toh discuss how all the teams are are coming together on return Lear plan uh if you're a parent you saw a technology survey that was released um that those
202questions came from the state and are going to advise our our work going forward um and we have another survey that will go out soon uh with a lot of questions developed by the state uh that I'm going to ask about health and safety instructional support professional learning and social emotional behavior of Health um and so the results of that survey will provide really important feedback for for the teams as they continue to to plan um as you know the the initial um report to the state that outlines the plan for the continuous learning so if no students come back that's due on July 1 in the state all of the subgroups are going to have a rough draft of of all three options uh by July 22nd um that will go to seman Communications
203um and they those teams will then review saman's work on the 28th of July um and we will me work on then how to best communicate that to all stakeholders at the beginning part of August um there are there's another steering committee meeting in the middle of July and another one at the beginning of August as well and then uh real briefly just some reopening planning uh we've got discussion of of the use by curricular co-curricular and extracurricular as well as Community engagement coming up a little bit later tonight in the board plan so we can talk about that when we get there um just want to report that district office and main office at all the schools open to the public today uh we're encouraging the community to use phone and email um to
204conduct business as much as possible we're also asking that people call and make an appointment ahead of time rather than than just showing up we just don't want to have people waiting in the lobby any longer than they have to and we have limited the hours that we're open to the public still open to the public every day but limited those hours again attempt to still reduce the the traffic in in the offices you saw the signs I hope uh hosted when you came in tonight um uh alerting the community that mass should be warned by anyone uh coming into the facility um reminding them about social distancing and then we are installing an aone um at the front uh entrance to the district office which is the same process that we use in all
205of our other schools so that uh at the front desk will have a little bit more control as far as the traffic coming into the office um which will help us with the social distancing also so so that's a a a very brief report on Co um happy to answer any questions tonight so I have two I'll start with maybe the quick one but more complex one um I ran into one of our state legislators last week and they were kind of um excited to tell me about the bill they passed regarding indemnification for liability type of things specifically for public building like schools and whatnot what consideration or do we feel that that that's going to play into what we'll be able to do moving forward I don't know if you have an opinion
206on that but um um I'm anxious to get us open as much as we can within you know what's reasonable but make sure that we take advantage of what the state is uh uh given us yeah I will be honest that I have not had an opportunity to to read that in detail that would be reir for me to comment specifically on that uh but uh again I think uh the biggest thing for us is to make sure that we have what we need in order to support reopening buildings and and still follow the guidelines that thinking as far as cleaning and and social distancing so I think we have um I think we have plan to to do that and again I think we'll we'll talk a little bit more about that later tonight
207but I think we're ready to begin that process for sure and obviously started baseball softball games um here today right um the second covid related question has to do with the graduation um uh first of all I'm extremely excited that we get to have the some semblance of something normal um and to be one of the few districts to to do that um to be honest I was a little disappointed I was hearing some of the details about numbers of parents that or number of tickets that were available and some of the things that we're normally used to like speeches and um certainly the band in choir missing components and so my goal or my hopes were that as much of that we could do uh as possible I don't know if if uh if
208you if if tonight's the night or if there's a way to walk through a what are actually are we doing for graduation because obviously this is the one event that I love to participate in um that we get to as a board me uh member and I and I'll be sorely disappointed not to shake 400 hands um but uh you know it is what it is but you know how much of our decision- making was dictated by Iowa State or Story County or our own kind of processes um uh you know I had just done some Butch of paper math last week and thought well if we did this we did this you know maybe 3,000 tickets would be something we could give out which would give everybody six instead of four um but then
209I saw the data afterwards and you know I again I don't know how they're all being sliced and diced and and was just trying to um help some of the families that were talking to me about uh you know again everybody's grateful we get to do something and and just want to make sure that we could um have the best experience possible well um what I can say is that that Iowa State I think said this at the the virtual board table here several times over over the spring but but the folks up at Iowa State have been truly wonderful to work with um and so this is a process that as you as many of you know is usually months of planning in advance for something that we do basically the same way every
210year that we we literally didn't have the okay state that that their bosses that control the Iowa State Center we going to allow this to happen until a couple of weeks ago and so we we are obviously living in a in a time where where decisions are being made often that are that are significantly changing the approach to a lot of things but this is an event of the size and scope that doesn't move quickly so we we basically as soon as the Iowa State said it was okay they sent us several Maps as to how we might do this um how they how their Usher staff was going to be able to operate and it's it's more than where people sit it's a lot more about how to get that many people into the
211building and out of the building and into the restrooms and out of the restrooms and and getting that many graduates to the floor and and back out um that that put some constraints on on what we could do um and I think that when the initial map it had seating all the way around I don't think that while I understand there are people who are concerned that there about the number of tickets I guarantee you there would be people who were very concerned on the day of if they got there and found out was the only place for them to sit behind everything that was happening and so I I applaud the the teams of the high schools that that made that decision that we were going to make sure that the seating was in
212a place where people had uh the line of sight um are I think use the over overused phrase abundance and caution doing everything we can to make sure that that's a safe experience for for the graduates and for our families so yes it's different um but yes it's also uh more than most are are doing and and it has come a tremendous amount of time and effort by a lot of people to to try to plan very best experience with University no I appreciate that explanation I knew you know it those are sometimes the things that we don't always uh understand and again it's different so people are asking lots of questions about how did we come to this know and you look at a 14,000 seat Arena and we're only putting 2,800 people in
213it and just yeah um thinking about restrooms by itself adds an interesting layer of complexity do we have the order of operation yet in terms of what actually we're going to do um what is it going to look like um what what is our involvement the process cu's you're right I know what we've always done so um I again I I'm sorry Erin I I have big ideas and details but not to the degree where I think I'm the best person to answer that um principles and their their teams at the schools have have put together a pretty detailed plan that was sent out to to parents um I assure you that we'll get you the details that you all need to know as far as how it goes but really afraid that I'm going
214to say something wrong no you're you're fine I appreciate that we'll watch for further details but no I just want fist bumps or elbow bumps or as long as we know the details are coming that that is will probably alleviate some stress especially for our four new members Gotta Do The Irregular way right all right thanks Darren sure any other questions about Co I do have one Darren um I was at the return to learn committee meeting with you earlier and one thing that um kind of developed after the meeting ended in my brain was um at some point the board's going to have to approve the return to learn plan correct am am I correct in thinking that or is that just going to be something you present to us because if I'm wrong
215that's fine um that's a good question and I don't know that that there's been a specific discussion as how that process was going to work certainly ging input and having conversations around it but I'm probably not the right person to answer that I'm sorry I just wasn't sure because now we're we're actually voting to approve this updated plan um maybe Bruce you're the one to ask is the board going to have to approve the return to learn plan oh you're still muted oh there we go I have not heard that question asked in all the meetings that I've attended it's been the focus of just getting the plan done for July and getting it done for August and communicating it to the public um I can't imagine that such a seminal piece of work that
216involves the whole district and all its employees and all of its students wouldn't require the blessing of the head governing body of the district but I've been wrong before I'm not holding it out as as a hostage I just want to make sure that I'm just so um I will look through I have a 5inch notebook of all the questions um but I will just consult um the de and say really bottom line will the board be required to pass the final project product uh before it's um disseminated to the community well my only thought with that was if we're if we're gonna vote on it um I mean I just know we've voted I have no anticipation of not I mean and there's board representation on the committee but it was just more we
217might need whether it's a a work session or just like an expanded informational session before we vote on it to make sure that we just understand it I don't think we're going to have necessarily any technical expertise to add to it but it's a hybrid you'll need a yeah you'll need a permer on and I I think you know if for the board to board to vote on something that is so substantial um we might need to just like build a work session or something into a meeting in that window between when we have to vote on it and when you guys have it finalized does that make sense it does and and there's a real misconception that anony is going to decide what we're going to do well we are but it's within the
218confines of what the Iowa Department of Health and the governor decides it's just like if they say 50% or 25% that automatically throws you into a hybrid mode for example um and you had a parent speak this evening um who wants her child to go every day and I hope we can accommodate her wish because that's what our teachers want um so um but I will find that out and um hopefully I won't get the well you need to ask the sometimes I ask what I think is a simple question and I get shoved around the government um in chasing the answer so I will try to promise the answer by Friday if not I'll just write government won't tell me first the first uh plan has to be in July one so our next
219board meeting is scheduled for July 6 so sounds like we might have another meeting yeah I and Jim I don't think that would be the one okay fin one I think it's going to be the August one that lays everything out this is this is just a framework okay cool yeah I we just we just want to make sure we're we're understanding it and because we're gonna get emails I guarantee you got emails and we're getting them now oh yeah uh Ryan oh yeah I was just curious um there's just so much going around you know states are opening back up you know numbers are going back up is there any has there been any further discussion in the meetings you know that you're privy to about what numbers going up means or you know
220is that not even being talked about what no discussions no discussion on that um great started with 57 58 superintendents is down to in the 20s now um because we just keep hearing there's no news and people are tired of logging on and not getting answers and um and with the with the legislature out I mean they're virtually done and so it's really up to the governor and some of the legislators say that the governor doesn't have the authority to do X Y and Z so um it's kind of who you believe and and who you don't um I think that um it still it still comes down to the population of our the number of cases that we have and how many beds are available and um and there are parents that have already
221made up their minds that they're not sending their kids to school um and there are you know parents that want their kids in school and everything in between so um I think it's important for the administration and um to keep the board informed of what we know and um I know that um if AI has any secrets up in Ballard uh he can share them but I he asks the same questions that everybody's frustrated about and so um and a lot of people are frustrated about even the platform it's gone to three different platforms of what they might buy no they're not going to buy it but they may support it so uh technology and it's one that we're looking at seriously which is called canvas it was Ingenuity and before that that it was
222Moodle Darren I just had a question and uh again forgive me if I should have known this and this is not leading but are we live streaming graduation no we um have developed a a virtual commencement video for people um and Iowa State historically has provided a video that we then put um on the website of the ceremony after the fact but I don't believe it's it's going to be live stre and Darren just uh that's where the the video that you guys are working on putting together now and you'll kind of merge with the I was the Hilton ceremony that's where they're going to have like the student speakers have their recordings and all of that put into those correct because all the students like The usually there's two or three student speakers no
223one cares so much if they hear from me but I yeah so all all of the speeches um and Samantha's been working really hard on on putting together that product for for our students okay so that'll that'll just like get will that get like a copy get mailed out to students like on a DVD will it just be accessible on the internet I am going to ask Samantha to answer that because I do not know it'll be accessible on the internet so for those of us who are parents we can download it to our computers and keep them that way uh yes thank you and this parent might appreciate the the ability to not have to worry about crying during her spee speech so I I might be thankful about that thank you um oh
224eron uh Melissa you had a question about or a comment about the immunity or the of the liability um Melissa could address that if you would like to yeah yeah can you hear me from here can you can you hear her from where she's sitting otherwise I can try to put a mic on don't do that um so the the co immunity Li liability law would protect the school district unless the school district um intends to cause harm with someone or is recklessly um disregards putting someone in harm um essentially it's going to require malice or intent or Reckless disregard but that doesn't mean we can't just forget what the Department of Education is telling us to do or CDC or OSHA or whatever it may be we still need to follow there guidance um
225we also don't know if Reynolds will allow school to do in the fall but that's just to answer your question and at least gives us some um protection when we if we open up our facilities in the summertime okay thank you thank you Melissa does anyone else have um any covid related questions or looking for [Music] hands okay moving on uh thank you Darren so much you guys have been working like absolute workhorses and we're very appreciative of what you're doing um construction project summary um is that Tim Tim just a second sorry okay that's me and it's in your packet and I would entertain any questions if there is any that it looked good anybody else all right thank you Tim uh finance and facility committee um the minutes are in your packet and
226I'd be glad to answer any questions any questions for Jennifer I would just say Jennifer did a really nice job managing running that meeting as like the facilitator and running the like doing all of it she did a very good job thank alrighty uh Revenue expenditure report yes so that is in your packet as well um I wanted to bring to your attention that on the expenditure side of things we are U starting to show a little um slower expenditures coming in um than what we've experienced in the previous year um I did do some um checking of some budgets and it looks like um we will be uh probably between three and4 million less in expenditures than we had originally budgeted um that's for a various reasons um we had some savings uh for
227substitute costs um not having substitutes in the building the last quarter of the year um we had about $500,000 in building budgets that were unexpended um some of that will be carried over into the next fiscal year about 400,000 of that so the buildings will get to take advantage of that next year um Transportation um because we didn't have activity trips and overages um we had some savings there as well as we had anticipated having the furniture fixtures and equipment coming out this fiscal year uh we had budgeted for that but um I think just due to the construction and and some of the delays in manufacturing of those items we'll be getting those after July 1 um we'll be talking a little bit more about that later when we talk about committee balance um
228we did um see some um not as many textbooks being purchased than was originally budgeted and I think that was just probably um some of the quotes that we got in for our adoption came in a little less than anticipated um our Chromebook order for the K3 one:1 Chromebooks um I'm being told by Brad who's not expecting to see that before July 1 so again that's part of our committed balance discussion that we'll talk about later um but that is almost a million dollars um that we had budgeted for and well we had budgeted for technology um and and we were using it for K3 Chromebooks so again that's not coming in and then um a Sharon was mentioning some of the PD funds um for that teacher Academy um not taking place as originally
229anticipated we'll have some are um going forward into next year for that as well so um overall I'm anticipating that our expenditure budget again will be about um$ 3 to4 million um less our revenues um are coming in about as expected um we I I did want to bring to your attention under other local Revenue I discovered uh an error there I will need to adjust the other loc income down by about 900,000 um that was a just a error encoding um that should be going to a different fund so um that will uh adjust that other local that total local sources um down a bit so we will be more at more like 87% % of our budget um year to date which is a little bit less than last year um I am
230anticipating also our revenues to be um short in uh federal revenue um largely due to the Medicaid U reporting again without having school in session that last quarter of the year we weren't able to offer Medicaid services on to our eligible students and therefore unable to bill for that um that is a large source of Revenue to the district um we had planned about 200 sorry two million for the year and um with that last quarter not being able to Bill I'm anticipating about a $500,000 shortage there so um between the expenditure reductions and a little bit less Revenue um I think we are going to come in um as far as fund balance about a million and a half more um than we ended last year in total fund balance and then when we
231do the committed and we have the reservations for some of those carryovers that that we talked about um I believe our solvy should be fairly stable so we'll be looking at somewhere right around that um 10% Mark going into the fal year 21 so I did want to update you on some of that as well as on the last page where we talk about some of our other funds um I wanted to bring to your attention um we are keep in mind we're about 83% of the way through the fisal year um when you take a look at activity funds um we're only showing we're at 50 % of revenues and expenditures to budget um I'm not I'm not concerned about that that just means that because we weren't able to have um spring Sports
232we didn't have Revenue coming in we didn't have expenses going out either um so we're you know ultimately going to be about the same fund balance wise um hopefully than we were at the end of last year um but the other part that I wanted to kind of um Spotlight is on our Enterprise funds um as you are aware we were continuing to pay our staff during the time of the closure um we were uh able to still get some revenues in through the cares act funding for a meals however that does not cover um all of our expend expenses for salaries and overhead and things like that um so at this time our revenues are running about $1.4 million short of our um budget and expenditures are um staying pretty stable so um as
233you can imagine that's going to cut into um into some of that fund balance um the good news is that fund balance was relatively healthy um so we we'll just kind of have to wait and see how that all turns out with um contining to get some of the cares act funding through the summer um and how we end up for the fiscal un and then it's kind of similar story um for the before and after school program uh I am showing them running about 600,000 short of what was budgeted in Revenue um and again expenditures are are coming in about us anticipated so with those closures that has definitely affected those Enterprise funds um as expenditures continue but um lack of Revenue so wanted to give you that update on the financials and I'm
234glad to answer any questions that you have yeah looks like Erin has one yeah um I was gonna ask about the Enterprise fund so I'm glad you added that in there and and maybe it's just not jumping out to me as simply as it should but um is there a OT line if you take out the delay uh expenditures meaning crossing the fiscal year what what you know so is they're going to happen somewhere else whatever is there a bottom line of where we are in terms of ahead or behind or um uh or what that number is in order to maybe backfill some of these categories or put them into the the the um unspent fund balance project or whatever uh well I think overall we're going to be a little bit ahead of
235where we anticipated like I said even with all the carryover and expenses moving forward kind of pushing those forward to the next year I was trying to do the math in my head and it was I wasn't able to compute it fast enough I wasn't sure you know with carryover out of there what it looked like yeah it's about a $3 million swing so we had anticipated being about $1.5 million overspent with all those things that I had spoke about earlier that had planned on spending and now we're talking about being about1 and half million doll to the good so okay okay if that helps at all and then some of those carryovers obviously they they will bring down the solvency ratio um so uh and then I guess my concern is going into next
236year um that our revenues will be able to continue coming in at what we had originally planned for um knowing that we'll have to push some of those expenses forward definitely going to have Staffing for Heritage we're definitely going to have f f um so we'll just have to kind of keep a close watch on uh on everything going into next F schal year but our solvency ratio is still on the high end of our zone right yeah for this year yes we had anticipated solvency going down this year but because of that $3 million swing to the other direction um I think we're going to end up about where we were okay fair enough thank you any other questions for Jennifer fantastic thank you so much we're moving on to Old business okay I
237need a motion to approve the contracts and agreements as presented motion second there's a lot of contracts does anyone have any questions about those I oh Jim you're muted you're muted Jim I couldn't hear you he wants to talk about grease traps I'm sure no I don't I don't know anything about that um we change uh photographers that was a recommendation and uh are they gonna do twice a year or once a year I have a lot of people I say why they do that in the spring just a question we we talked at length about this at the finance committee meeting the other night um I think HR Imaging is willing to do pretty much whatever we ask of them um there are advantages to having them come in the spring um we use
238those pictures for ID badges for the next fall for um for our younger kids and um like Lorie mentioned she had really good points about families since we are growing District we have families moving in at various points in the year and they might have missed that fall picture opportunity um and so they're very happy to have the spring pictures but you know I like I said I sounds good I just was curious to do whatever and however I think they will do it differently they're not going to just take pictures and print them out and send them out no matter what it's going to be on an order basis so um answer good yeah that's better yeah I think one of the things that was was a good point for this new company was
239that um the the cost to the parents the cost to the people who order the pictures was going to be less but they were still every criteria that was checked off was pretty much the same and so they had Jennifer said they had great quality they the pictures looked really good and so it was kind of felt like a good win for our families sounds great thanks sure that's my question I okay okay so I had a motion in a second um all in favor yes yes yes yes yes poos great okay committed fund balance that Jennifer had just spoke about I'm going to read the motion may I have a motion to approve establishing a committed general fund balance for 3,576 1800 with 900,000 committed for Heritage Elementary furniture furniture fixture and Equipment 1.7
240million committed for initial Staffing of Heritage Elementary and an additional committed balance this year 1 76,800 for K through3 Chromebooks motion second anyone have any questions that did not get answered previously by Jennifer I do not see any all in favor yes yes yes yes opposed none fantastic okay um next is the public hearing on additions to anony high school and anony Centennial High School I will ask the public are there any written or oral comments regarding this public hearing Samantha if there are do you see those are none okay thank you so now may I have a motion to approve the additions to anony high school and anony Centennial High School plans specifications forms of contract and estimated costs as presented motion second H did we have any questions on those nope all in
241favor yes yes yes opposed great thank you um updated covid-19 plan um may I have a motion to approve the updated covid-19 plan as presented motion second second um any questions that did not get addressed earlier in the meeting we don't like we're not publish a new plan are we I mean it's was just an update wasn't it yeah right okay okay okay um all in favor yes yes yes yes opposed all right we flying now I'm sorry what we're flying now boom all right um Administration managers and confidential staff Sal salary packages did everyone get a chance to um pick up the packet that had that information all right um I have three three motions with that I need a motion to approve the administration 2021 salary packages presented motion second okay I know
242we had talked about this Jennifer had presented on it at the last meeting um any questions on that nope okay all in favor yes yes yes opposed all right next I have a motion may I have a motion to approve the manager's 2021 salary package as presented motion second any questions on that great um all in favor yes yes yes you opposed all right uh last one may I have a motion to approve confidential staff 2021 salary package as presented motion second did I have a second yes okay thank you um any questions on that all in favor yes yes yes opposed all right I do not see any new business uh board member reports I'm just going to start at the top and work my way around to your little pictures here Ain um
243just thanks to desar for the invitation to La last week's rally it was uh great to see everyone out awesome Amy just reiterate what Aon said it was a great night and uh I'm so proud of toara I'm so proud she's on the board with me and I get to serve with her learn from her grow um under her guidance thank you Ryan same all right Jim he and uh I I loved all the speakers um some kids did a great job was kind of helps you be proud of kids getting up and speaking in front of a big crowd that's not an easy thing to do so kudos to all the speakers and uh obviously the planning for that event it was it was very uh enlightening great Katie ditto I enjoyed being there
244um so thank you for the invitation and you know thank you for all the work that you're doing onal of that Network um that's about it D um same I'm glad that everybody was able to come out and I'm really excited for I'm excited that we're all on the board together that we're on the same page and that we're ready to activ at the conversations and not leave it at just a conversation um that Unity rally was spectacular it was raw and emotional and powerful and seeing those students up there was just incredible and seeing you know staff there and administration there and he just it was wonderful and it was galvanizing and I am so proud to be on the board with desera and so proud to hear from Ken and what they're working
245on and and what they're you know committing getting us to activate and commit to is is where we need to be with that and it is just so wonderful and I'm so proud of everyone who's been involved with this because it's it's only going to make our students experience an anony better and and I know we all that's what we're all here for and so it was it was wonderful and and it is just a sign of the good things to come I think from the work that's going to happen and we won't have another board meeting before graduation so we're all going to get through that as a parent and as board members we will get through it um Direction on that maybe when it gets closer about yeah I'm I'm hoping we have
246a very specific play byplay okay my my emotional capacity is going to be pretty maxed out on that day so I I would very very gently ask that we have some letter bylet guidance I'll make sure that you have all that information in Friday's report my my my mental state thanks you Darren because yeah um I don't think I have anything else uh Bruce superintendent report on June 27 we will finally celebrate the commencement of nearly 800 graduates from anony and anony Centennial these students are set up for great success and next Ventures and we certainly close out this school year with great confidence in the class of 2020 I also want to share our congratulations with Northview 8th grader Kylie Kinsey who won two of the top five spots in the Iowa Lung Association
247Raad on contest test the contest had 252 entries and I want to say another thank you to the team of people who've been working on our return to learn plans for the coming school year to have 120 people engaged in this work over the summer is truly remarkable not to mention they're still accomplishing their quote unquote normal summer work thank you and if I'm correct we have a closed session correct Bruce yes okay I will read um I move that we hold a closed session as provided in section 21.51 I of the open meetings law to evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment hiring performance or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual's reputation and that individual requests a closed session um we'll take a
248roll call vote and then we will take a fiveish minute break for anything people might need oh I need a motion to second first I'm sorry I will get this one of these days motion second now we need a roll call vote okay director Johnson yes director golden yes director talini yes director yes director Banna Yes Ford yes director yes okay we are in closed session um Samantha will turn off the WebEx I will remember to let Samantha know when we are done bye everyone thank you I have been the worst at texting Sam so we just are we supposed to come in there yes sorry I was muted yes Amy thank [Music] you I need the rest I think it's just yeah yeah all of a sudden I was like [Music] much Samantha are
249we back online yep yay all right okay do I have a motion so I'd make the motion to amend the superintendent's contract by increasing his salary for the 2021 school year by 2.5 do I have a second for that motion second okay all in favor yes yes yes opposed doly noted uh okay and now I need a motion to adjourn second all in favor yes yes we are adjourned thank you all turn oh