001foreign thank you good evening the February 13 2023 Board of Education meeting for the Cedar Rapids Community School District is called to order do we have a motion to approve the agenda I move that the agenda of Monday February 13 2023 Board of Education meeting be approved as set forth and that each item is considered ready for discussion and or action is there a second this is a roll call vote director humbles excuse me president taminski aye tonight's public hearing is regarding a permanent easement for Pierce Elementary School Board Secretary Day have we received any written correspondence related to the public hearing we have not received any written correspondence do we have anyone who has requested to address the board regarding the published hearing we have no one who has public hearing is officially closed
002superintendent zathoff I'll turn the meeting over to you for your report great okay this first slide that's coming up here uh is one of a variety of Black History Month activities in crcsd this morning was the fifth annual black Excellence assembly at Washington High School students staff and community members heard life lessons and music numbers from local musical artists listen to special guest speakers and enjoyed entertainment from many Washington student groups and I heard that that was a very nice event here are some pictures of the Jefferson High School adaptive music program a shout out to the co-directors of vocal music Jonathan neswick and Jesse bungee they are providing a weekly adaptive music program to special education students and students are learning all aspects of music during that Weekly session and are really learning a
003lot and loving it and a bonus shout out to Jefferson as well Jefferson show choir won all of the awards at their last competition this past weekend they won best band best choreography best vocals best male soloist best female soloist the West Side delegation was the grand champion and Ovation was fifth so very very successful day for them uh here we have Taft's future cities team that's a team from Taft Middle School that took top honors at the Iowa region future city competition and students of Team marigna put together a winning presentation and the best essay about a city that exists 100 years in the future and it incorporates futuristic solutions to climate change so team arigna will compete later this week at an international competition in Washington D.C so congratulations to them here we
004have Kennedy High School's Aaron Stecker being honored the national interscholastic athletic administrators Association has honored Kennedy's activities director Aaron Stecker with the Bruce D Whitehead distinguished service award Stecker is one of just 11 members honored from across the United States so congratulations to him Feast snow makeup days there you see the calendar just a reminder about those makeup days crcsd students and staff will now report to school on Monday February 27th as the makeup date for January 4th and then we had a snow day February 9th and that day will be made up on May 31st last day of school will be June 1st and if there are additional no school basements going on those backup days as well that's a wrap up for tonight uh yes I have a brief legislative report so we
005know that the SSA has been set at three percent so that will allow Carla to start working on a budget probably late into the night trying to figure out how to make that all work for us obviously three percent is much less than we were hoping for but better than we've gotten in previous years so I guess positive there are there are a number of uh bills in the capital that will have an impact on public schools as you've been reading about in the media there are a lot of um pieces of legislation around parental notification of gender identity in instruction on gender identity sexual orientation what sort of name we can use in the classroom there's a bill that that prohibits the use of any name other than what's on a birth certificate so
006lots of pieces of legislation around those issues we also there there's a bill um taking a look at he's teaching teaching licenses one of the aspects of that that's currently under consideration is to allow teaching certificate via online study without any student teaching or classroom experience So that obviously is quite concerning we want our teachers to be highly prepared before they come to us uh there was a rollback in private school testing the voucher plan that passed earlier in the session uh there's a bill now that would allow private school parents to opt out of state mandated testing so again we see that that playing field is pretty uneven between public and private schools so that also is a concern so there's a lot to a lot to be watching the first funnel I believe
007comes up the first part of March and that will start winnowing out some of these bills to see what what stays alive and what goes on just a reminder that ISB day on the hill is tomorrow and I think some of us plan to be there and we'll be talking to our area legislators about many of these issues so um we'll keep you posted on how that goes thank you thanks for the report are there any other board reports because we will hear from those who have requested to address the board Laurel do we have any members of the public that have requested to address the board yes we do how many speakers do we have signed up for public comment four four with four speakers this evening each will be given up to five
008minutes for their remarks please respect the time limit allotted to each speaker board Secretary Day will serve as your timer and indicate when your time has expired the time is yours to use it may not be yielded to another speaker if you have requests if you have submitted a request to address the board and choose not to speak in the interest of equity and fairness your time may not be yielded to another speaker in order to abide by the open meetings law there will be no dialogue between board members and the public during this time except to clarify the nature of questions or comments from the individual speaking we ask that the audience and speakers refrain from using inappropriate language and outbursts as a matter of respect for all the all those in attendance the
009sport has zero tolerance for profanity vulgarity demeaning language or threats of any kind lastly I'd like to remind our speakers that the board is unable to address personnel and student matters there is a process outlined in board policy which provides guidance on how to address and resolve concerns we ask that speakers refrain from using any personal names and information during public comment now before we begin I'd like to remind our speakers to please state your name and address for the record when called to the podium Laurel will you please call our first speaker Mary is here from Cedar Rapids and she's representing herself and co-workers across the district Mary McHenry I live at 2615 Buchanan Drive Southeast I'm here to talk about what's going on in our buildings with us having mandated 30-minute lunches um
010according to the agreement that I fall under it says that we should have a duty-free lunch provided I feel like the language doesn't say that that 30 minutes is mandated and the language does technically say that we should get two 15-minute paid breaks but nobody's making sure that I get my paid breaks um all of this is taking admin away from things that they should be doing they should be dealing with students they should spend an hour on Monday going over payroll and that should be done um and now they're getting things pushed back at them now are we all I uh we like having our lunches but there are times when we are staffed as we are that a 30-minute lunch is neither advisable or how do you make it happen um if you
011are with a medically sensitive child and you are on your lunch break and that child has an issue and you get called back out of your lunch or or do you just say nope I'm on my 30-minute lunch I think that clocking back in is is the correct thing to do but are we going to now be penalized and have this put in our HR file which a lot of us are worried that like that is going to happen I'm on the naughty list I did not take a lunch on Friday because we were short to secretaries and I'm one of the other I'm one of the people that's trained to give out medication so I gave lunch to the health secretary and by the time the day was done I didn't get my lunch
012now no big deal I can just leave 30 minutes early no we can't do that anymore we've been told I've heard from people in my building that it feels dehumanizing to be micromanaged when as adults if it was working for us why not let it stay that way in our current World jobs should really becoming more flexible that is the way of the world you know jobs that offer Flex time or um that take into consideration emergencies and family things hey you know what I'm going to be a half an hour late every Tuesday because my kid has a club that I need to take them to maybe I'll take my lunch early no we cannot do that so I have a lot of unhappy people that I hear from in our building and unhappy
013employees look for other jobs we can go to Clear Creek Amana we can go to Prairie we can go to linmar and get paid more than we do at Cedar Rapids um if you look out on our website how many Paras are we short right now and are we trying to drive away the ones that we have you need us we are important but a lot of us have had careers before this and we can figure something else out if we are unhappy or it feels toxic so what what I guess what I'm asked by a lot of my co-workers is what is the end game from having a lacks of flexibility when needed two cover a family emergency to cover a student emergency you know um there are times when the health secretary and
014the nurse are called out they've got to go to a classroom yes I have to run down and take I have to take their place so I feel like just sticking sorry and lose it's not a great it's not an All or Nothing thing there should be some Room For Gray in our days and I am worried that you are going to drive away some of your great employees by micromanaging them and making them feel like they aren't important or valued thank you our next speaker this evening is Kristen pardovsky Kristen is here representing the Cedar Rapids School foundation with their spring update thanks Laurel I'm Kristen pardupsky I live at 4911 Millbrook Court Northeast I'm the chair of the Cedar Rapids Community Schools Foundation thanks for the opportunity to update you on the foundation's
015work for anyone who's new to this we are a non-profit with a mission to provide financial support and promote excellence in the Cedar Rapids schools we have an all-volunteer board and since our last report we've welcomed three new trustees Claudia Lindemann and De Giacomo and Aaron loan as of January 1 I'm the new chair and I'll be around for two years our last Foundation report to you was in August at which time we shared with you our fiscal year financials end of year which were strong and showed the 13th year of positive growth since that last update we've been honored to have been chosen by superintendent Bush as the recipient of her Memorial funds dedicated to the safe program fund which were her wishes as background safe stands for sports academics Fine Arts and enrichment
016fund and it provides financial assistance to at-risk and low-income students who want to participate in school-sponsored extracurriculars but who would otherwise lack the financial ability to do so in addition to that we have been celebrating our 40th anniversary with an updated logo a variety of social media postings and an annual fund appeal we're also doing professional development grants which will be awarded to eight Cedar Rapids Educators to who are seeking to advance their own education our alumni relations coordinator resigned this year due to personal reasons and we are reevaluating that position our much-loved tradition of senior walks for each of the four high schools will be taking place during May and last of all we are prepping for scholarship season the foundation will award more than 60 scholarships totaling over fifty thousand dollars to post
017for post-secondary plans for both academics and the trades um this spring this past summer most of our high schools chose to bring their in-school scholarships to us at the foundation for donor and staff efficiencies so that's my update I thank you for your time unless you have any questions thanks our next speaker is Kate Hogue Kate is here representing Cedar Rapids education of organizational professional Associates para educator Associates she's here to talk about mandatory lunges secretaries secretaries thank you office professionals Kate Hogue Cedar Rapid 2750 Otis Road Southeast dignity respect belonging and team building these are the attributes of the positive culture we strive to have in every building these are the attributes that are the goals of our diversity equity and inclusion work and even the doj work that we'll hear about today these
018are the goals of our employee agreements that state that a 30-minute break for lunch should be offered these are the attributes of our staff when they show support in the building by working through their lunch break when other staff are not available to meet student needs these attributes are even supported when the district allows Flex time the autocratic communication strategy and the hounding that has followed up to the district mandated lunch break is undermining belonging team building respect and dignity we can do better thank you our last speaker this evening is Joey Assi Joe is here from Cedar Rapids to speak about solar panels and climate changes my name is Joe Aussie 2245 Birchwood Drive Northeast Cedar Rapids we have an organization called Veterans for peace and our interest is working on climate change global
019warming Etc we think the school board should have solar panels in the new issue in the new what are you call it the uh solar panels are educational for the uh for the students it's good for our climate uh etc etc and as you look around town you can see solar panels in all kinds of industrial locations as well as residential locations the school board should be leading leading not following um second issue Wilson High School it should be looked at twice it looks like a very good building to a lot of people electric vehicles should be on your agenda and thank you very much for your time that was all the speakers a motion to approve the consent agenda oh sorry let me back up one second move on moving on to our consent
020agenda are there any items that a board member would like to pull for a comment question or separate vote I thought I missed something yeah uh director humbles yep it's ba 23011 on student discipline uh my question is I'm looking at the various levels and wanting to know what type of training will be provided to staff so everyone is on the same page this is under the policy manual review currently is the board policies that we send out to staff and they review after they're updated so it's kind of backwards of what would be normal protocol but that's the way the doj wants it to have the board policies approved and then the training to follow we're working on what those pieces look like regarding de-escalation student discipline what suspension changes are we'll start with
021the administrative team and then start and build down capacity through our buildings as well but still creating the details of that plan so when when will we know when your plans be finalized for that I know you're working on it but do you have a timeline Mike's death So Lisa and I and the team have been meeting yes if this gets approved tonight we will roll out and start probably the next admin meeting that we have do the training with them and the next pieces but there's a lot of different pieces and details to this and there's some changes after we we move forward that they're making changes too so we're also trying to be cautious not to train people and then have to retrain people because we have a case of that going on
022now too so trying to really get that confirmation for them from the doj but really being intentional as well about we can't just put out new policies and expect people to have new behaviors that follow without training and providing them the the tools to be able to utilize so I would say within the next couple weeks will for sure be step one of that and we can share the details and the breakdown because there'll be quite a few pieces to that as well with the board thank you who's want to be pulled for comment question or separate vote do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved is there a second further discussion now this is a roll call vote due to the Personnel report humbles aye director Newman aye director marshbrock
023aye director Roundtree aye director board Trading Minsky aye next is the summary update of the doj agreement yeah I will turn the meeting and presentation over to Lisa Glenn good evening okay the purpose of this presentation is to provide a mid-year report you will be receiving a report twice per year um as just a status update on how we're doing with regard to the Department of Justice settlement so this is your first update um so following an extensive investigation just of allegations of um by the doj and the U.S attorney's office for the Northern District on September 12th of 2022 the Cedar Rapids Community School District entered into an agreement with the U.S attorney's office and the doj to improve delivery of services with student of cert of services for students with disabilities um the
024district fully cooperated in good faith with that investigation and our have entered into the agreement in good faith and all of the work that we're doing now in our buildings with all of our good people is also in good faith I'd just like to point out too that our as summary of the settlement agreement and also the fully executed settlement agreement are still available on the website under those students and families tab if anyone wants to go there so the requirements of that settlement agreement one of the big things probably the biggest thing so far that has been done you all are aware of and that's policy updates um and so Nicole kind of spoke a little bit to this also that the policy updates were required and specifically most of them were required uh
025well originally required within the first 30 days of the settlement agreement being put into place some of those were delayed just a little bit from revisions from the doj so they've kind of been trickling in a little bit but as you can see they're just a whole lot of policies that have been updated or procedures at least regulations um but they've all they've all come in front of you and are available also on the on the website um so these policy uh revisions are very extensive um and so those policies uh revisions Drive practice revisions basically in our buildings and and will kind of transform practice and how we you know train originally how we train those changes is that we have sent out policy notifications to all staff and we've asked them to just
026be aware that there's been a policy change first even doing that I think you know has has been initial notification but we know that's not enough telling people that something has changed and even providing initial training depending on how big a change is saying that we've trained it depending on what that change is sometimes isn't enough so we know that good training happens over time and we loop back around and make sure that um there's good understanding and that everything that we're doing supports those changes and so that just kind of maybe speaks to a little bit of the question that you just had so we can change a policy but that won't necessarily change all the practice yet that will happen as we get people understanding um you know more and more over time
027and I think that is a probably a little bit more what what Nicole was speaking to that that requires more of a comprehensive plan and that is more about our professional learning that should and will happen over time for all of our staff and specifically with the discipline changes because all of our staff are you know involved in supporting students and you know really when we when it comes down to discipline that's really what it's about is providing support for students um so all of our staff are involved in supporting students so we just need to think about over time how we help staff know more and more about how to support the students that we have so that's not it that's not a simple answer it's a grand plan that we just have to
028keep revisiting all the time that's a long answer to a short question so one of the key policy changes though has been about Crisis Prevention and actually the uh the the um this presentation um really the requirement for this presentation really is around Crisis Prevention and so that our public really understands the role of Crisis Prevention in the schools and that really the key to the settlement agreement really is about Crisis Prevention and that what we're really trying to do is prevent crisis from happening in our schools and that you know a lot of the requirements in the settlement agreement really is to in order to get to the point of Crisis Prevention um so policy 613 drives a lot of those processes um that that hopefully will get to Crisis Prevention so uh we
029we know that Crisis Prevention is a lot better than intervention later uh you know that we would rather prevent a crisis from happening than respond to a crisis um but we need to have protocols um available in every single building that tells our uh that guides our staff to understand what should happen if a crisis were to transpire and so um so we do have those protocols available in every building and they are communicated to all staff members and it really guides in following those policies one of which was for physical restraint um guides what what to do for team members if a physical restraint would be necessary and even before that like um how to that you know we need to try to de-escalate students before we would ever physical physically restrain them um
030and those you know who should be doing physical restraints if that would become necessary those are people that should have received specific and intensive training to safely do such a thing um and the parents and public receive communication about this the names of Crisis Prevention team members are available on our website um and so policy 613 just drives all of this that is just a new policy and I don't think anything like this existed before so as I said uh one of the things that we've worked on a lot would be the policy updates and dissemination um you know in an organization this large just getting the policies out when there's been so many policy revisions and then following up on that information and making sure that new employees Subs people coming into the schools
031all the time have that information because honestly our policies are different than other schools so just making sure that people have the right basic information is one thing that professional learning and communication just all the time and those processes that should maintain all of that professional learning and communication from here on out are those basic systems that we have set up and that we are that we're working on maintaining now um clarification uh you know we've had a lot of questions um and you would think something so explicitly written would be easy to interpret and that's just not the case you know there have been a lot of questions um that have come up from our buildings uh we've had a lot of questions even just as the um you know what initial people who
032needed to initially interpret the settlement agreement and to give guidance so we've had to go back with questions a lot just clarification around what some of the things mean what some of the exact language mean so some of that ongoing clarification Alternatives because we can't just say to people don't do this we have to say we're not doing exists but instead we're going to do this what alternatives are there um and and what what do we do instead what what are the other things going to be um and you know as I said that's a process over time coaching conversations and support because again um I don't you know we we really need to make sure that that people are feeling supported um coached uh because our our folks working in our buildings have hard
033jobs um and they you know uh they need to know what am I supposed to do and how how do I do it and have the tools that they that they need in order to serve our students um so that ongoing coaching and support um we know that that we owe that to them so we're we're trying to do that uh reporting and record keeping just the systems for um the reporting and record keeping that are uh required for monitoring of the agreement are incredibly extensive there's extensive reporting requirements um and just setting up those processes has been a lot um and then meeting require meeting just meeting requirements um of the agreement I just I want to and I know I share the uh when I say this I know I'm speaking for our
034entire team here that's based out of this building that all of these requirements and actions that we've done so far has just been um when I say we I really mean that our our staff in buildings um they've just I know every all all of the people in buildings that have been directly serving students I know that they've they've just done so much work and we really really really appreciate it um and and it's been hard work there's nothing easy about it um so uh we just I just really want to take this opportunity you know to tell to tell people our staff just how much we really appreciate them and that we know it's hard and um that that we just recognized the the amount and workload that they have and I really mean
035that so our next steps to continue to refine our processes just get better and better and have them be more automatic so that people don't have to be thinking so hard all the time to to keep all these processes going and underway um building tools to assist our staff and buildings to implement the requirements to help them you know remember what there's what they need to be able to do um all the time to meet the timelines to get the next steps in place so forth um so that they will be as free as possible to think about the students and not um our processes um build to uh sorry continue to support through ongoing coaching and professional learning and I just can't possibly say enough about that and revisiting that professional learning plan all
036the time okay what are people needing now and how are we doing at that and now what are people needing now and what are we seeing now and Gathering input on components of the work and making needed needed modifications because that really is what good professional learning requires and continuing to build the preventative strategies through implementation of the HRS and PBIS framework and again that prevention uh being so much better than than intervention um and our our students with significant needs really do benefit the most from the strategies that all kids benefit from and any of those those high quality practices that we're building in every classroom um will benefit students with the most need the most thank you for the presentation I'll defer to my fellow board members for questions Direct abortioning staff with
037I know it's a heavy lift and there's a lot going on so thanks so much for the dedication and the time that's being used um I do have a question about if we are sharing our process and strategies with any before or after school programs where these students may be going just to have that consistency there for the students and and how um behaviors or issues or interactions are going to be addressed um and I think so Nicole is our contact for our before and after school programs and maybe you can speak a little bit more to the training that they've received also because I'm not sure if I I don't know all the training that they've received but I I think there are some so whether it's our training before and after school or
038even people that are in the buildings we've tried to make sure they know about the changes in the policies we've also for example did a training with some of our staff and some of the before and after schools Care staff all together on PBIS probably about a month ago it was since the holiday time so we're trying to make sure there's that alignment and we're using the same language and verbiage and people are actually responding in the same way so everybody has those trainings and really that's part of the doj agreement as well so even conversations with crpd and how can we partner together and what does this look like to make sure it's consistent practices across our system excellent thank you director Newman did you have a question I want to say thank you
039not only for the the work that you're doing but to all our staff that are are bearing the brunt of this work I know it'll make us stronger um but I just my heart goes out to everybody who's who's doing this work so thank you so much another question Partners like the ark or grantwood aea that are involved in this work and either supporting or supplementing yes um grantwood aea is a critical partner for us in the work um they they partner with us on pretty much everything in involved in um in the settlement agreement but particularly the training pieces and Performing functional functional Behavior assessments and behavior intervention planning and then of course they have their team representatives in every building supporting the work their critical Partners they have been amazing at mobilizing resources
040for us grantwood Ada has been critical for us yes excellent thank you any additional questions I just wanted to get your opinion real quick when it comes to the idea of Crisis Prevention and the new policy around it would you say it would be easier for the staff in the buildings you know if there was smaller staff to student ratios is that something where the more people are in the building are we going to do better preventing crisis in the first place foreign I'm not sure if I can just say that you know categorically across the board I mean I I think sometimes that that could play could play a factor um that could play a role um I mean it really would depend on the situation you know um the group what group we're
041talking about uh I mean it it definitely could play a role um at times if a group is too too large you know maybe uh that could be a situation where and maybe more likely that a crisis would occur but not always thank you these challenges coming up over the next few months and what are some things that you think this board could do to be more supportive or the most supportive possible for the work that needs to be done there's always resources and particularly staff just finding staff um you know we there's a teacher shortage um and even just being able to you know what you were talking about sometimes with even like the group size and so forth well we've had um like for instance special ed teacher posting We have every single
042specialist teacher position posted that we've tried to hire all year long and and haven't had applicants for um those positions so there are times where we would hire but we don't have you know qualified or certified applicants there are just some barriers that I'm I'm not saying I think the board necessarily um you know has control over uh sometimes the board does have control over resources and sometimes not um but we always need coaching for the people that we have good professional learning really which is going to involve things like you know coaching and support um uh for teachers because you know the people in the building are they're the most important people and but unless we can support them they're really there really really are left hanging out there which is not what we
043want we do not want that so I think just making sure that we have the resources to get um people you know the good structures available for people and then the support to them that that is that's our biggest that's my biggest concern I appreciate that directory Garlock yes um thank you for all of your work on this and and as director Newman said thanks to all the staff this has been a heavy lift for all of you I am curious about the Crisis Prevention teams and if you're getting any feedback from them specifically about how it's going for them are there improvements that they would like to see and you know piggybacking on President taminski's ask is there anything we can do to help those teams be better equipped because like if my understanding
044is correct there's sort of the front line in the building and are we doing everything we can to support them yeah um really the only feedback I've honestly the people asleep this is you know for people who don't know this is my first year in the district I I think people are incredibly hard working here and amazing um honestly I really can say that um and I I really have you know we're asking um them to do a lot um and and some you know I feel like crisis teams and buildings have have I've really received very little feedback from teams saying that you know uh that they need a whole lot more except that sometimes time there just isn't enough enough time um in in days you know we're taking people who are already
045busy and and asking them to do one more thing and I I really do realize that so we're trying to figure out you know what what are ways that we can offset that time um and you know this this agreement was you know signed in September um so we didn't have lead time to try to uh figure that out you know before a school year got started which is one of the hard things um so I hope you know maybe we'll have some strategies for that um going into a school year too um where we have a little bit of an opportunity to plan some of those things because time is a real barrier for for most people sure yeah everyone and everyone in education wants more time yes if only we could do that
046right thank you any additional questions uh the meeting is now adjourned and the board will meet and exempt me uh is that meetings you can send an email