001first off i'd like to thank everybody being here i appreciate this giving you we're grateful that we have the opportunity to hear your voice tonight we appreciate you being here we've asked you to limit your comments to three minutes so more people can see there's a volleyball game going on and we're hopefully going to get those people out that would like to stick would like to go to the bottom first we're going to begin this meeting with chuck waldo leading us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the fight of the united states of america and to the republic for to stand one nation where are we going to have folks come right to this stand all right oh right down there at the front of this aisle right here is where we
002will have everybody speak please limit your comments to uh three minutes uh the items you can talk about anything you want to brother-in-law if i ask you how much you would eat for breakfast it takes me five minutes to tell you what to eat for breakfast so hopefully you can get what you would like to say done in three minutes so more people can see we appreciate y'all being here i'd ask for kindness uh if if any of the comments are in a very uh hurtful or demeaning way to any member of the board or staff we would ask those two please don't happen we won't have to prospect bridge we respect your rights to speak to us on anything you'd like to speak to at this time so the first one on the list
003is that i believe it's today and if when you come up you would state your name and then fills in with your passion excuse me one thing we this is not a debate with the public the board can't actually sit here and make a conversation with the public uh we're just here to gather information so we can make good informed decisions in the future you down and sneak right into it there you go okay quote most students have struggled to keep current with assignments and activities needed for academic success once students were brought back on campus we started seeing grades improve end quote by your administrator's own admission students do better while learning in person if our students are your main concern this should carry heavy weight he continues quote unfortunately many students continue to
004struggle with completing assignments on the days they are not on campus why is this my 15 year old daughter was off campus yesterday and i would like to share her day she started with a zoom class at 8 30 where the teacher asked her a non academic related question she didn't even respond because that would be awkward online for her next two core classes there was no teaching but assignments were given to students at home these assignments often take several hours to complete around noon i asked her she would like some lunch or a change of scenery she declined both of those because she was stressed about finishing assignments so she stayed in her room for another couple of hours i have talked to many parents and this is their experience as well but there
005is the opposite extreme scenario where there is absolutely no teaching and no assignment and those students are on their phones all day doing nothing finally by two o'clock in the afternoon my daughter came out of her room she had a headache she was moody and cranky and aside from my one question that day she had zero human contact from 8 30 to 2 pm her statement to me was i am so tired of staring at screens and her homework was still incomplete now you tell me is this scenario academically socially or physically healthy for our children no and this is a typical off-campus day it is clear to see why mr webb stated that once students were brought back on campus we started to see improvement in academic performance but i have also witnessed improvement
006in my daughter's mental and emotional well-being on day she is in class she is more engaged with me when she gets home and she is more confident and optimistic about school and homework according to the cdc in 2018 there were 2500 deaths due to motor vehicle accidents in high school students in the us so why do we let high schoolers drive because as a society we have felt the benefits of driving outweigh the low risk of injury in 2020 there have been 34 deaths due to coven 19 and high school students in the u.s that means there are nearly 100 deaths from motor vehicles to everyone from copen 19 and high school children aid in our high school school-aged children i know many of you are thinking that the covet deaths in high school students
007are low because we have not had kids in person in school however based on the current mortality rate if every single high school student in the united states got coven 19 this year there would still be significantly less deaths from covet than for motor vehicle accidents if society believes that benefit of driving out raise the risk we should also realize the benefits of in-person education outweigh the much lower risk of coca-19 i know this is a very polarizing topic and there are many people who feel strongly that our students should not be in school for very various reasons i respect that view and i don't want them to feel marginalized however in july our school was slated to offer an all online option and an all-in-person option i feel very strongly that the all-in-person option
008should be reinstated if you are concerned about a student's health then let them return to full-time in-person learning like our neighboring school districts thank you thank you next next would be brian yorkson thank you good evening i'd like to uh thank the board and all the staff that's here this evening um thank you for all that you've been doing uh to be proactive during this time i know it's very difficult i myself am a principal of a catholic school in chilo and i know what you're going through um very difficult time difficult for the staff the options that you choose to provide education for our kids um i totally understand and i appreciate all the you know the work that you guys are doing um i would like to address you though tonight as a
009parent and uh i too uh and my wife karen uh we're both from the area we lived here most of our lives graduated you know both of us i've had alumni students we have current students i got future students coming up um blue ridge is a big part of our lives and we as parents see [Music] what this pandemic has done to education just like a lot of you um and we feel kind of like mrs burgess we feel like the cost is of not attending school in person not having that option you know full-time option is more of a detriment than the risk so i would like you to just you know consider um especially like she said what a lot of the districts are doing up here offering that full-time option for our
010kids to get back to school um at least having that option i understand that many people in our community have been impacted deeply by coming families have lost loved ones and i totally understand that um but for the most part if you look at the statistics um like mrs burgess said you know kids not really impacted too much you've got to protect your staff you know and that's an important piece of you know you making your decisions but i think you can probably come up with some ways to offer that full-time in-person option for our kids you know socially mentally academically it's important that we get back to in-person learning um you know and i can give lots of examples like mrs burgess did about what we've seen with our own kids and i understand
011everybody's doing their best to offer the best that we can during this time but i think there may be some options if we really plan it out and be careful and still have some options for those that are concerned about you know sending kids or exposing their kids um but everybody's different and we and we have we need to have multiple options i think and so i'd like to just give that input to you guys again and i'd like to again thank you uh for everyone that's working hard during all this and god bless us thanks thank you individual would be is it caleb lake kaylee yeah just for people if you're going to say the same thing the person in front of you said maybe might want to pass so you know i know
012it's passionate that everybody's name is variable especially those that would like to leave go ahead hello my name is katie blake and i'm 14 years old and i'm in eighth grade i started school online in august and we would get on our laptop at 7 30 or all day until sometimes five or six of our wednesday i missed being in class with my friends and my teachers i had a hard time reading the lesson and understanding that i was supposed to do my teachers tried to answer questions but i was but it was really hard to understand what they were trying to say over the computer i started getting my dreams migraine headaches almost every day in my my stomach after a few weeks i also wanted to change me to a different school that
013met in person she tried to help me instead i should try to finish the quarter i kept hoping that i could bring that i could hold on until we met in person that that i would be okay and we started the hybrid schedule when we started the hybrid then we started the hybrid schedule but everything was still online and i was so sad and frustrated i knew some of my friends were doing okay but others were struggling just like me at the end of the first quarter i was telling two classes i told my mom i wanted to change goals i had been at my new school for about a month and i have straight a's and i haven't had any migraine headaches or stomachaches i miss my school teachers and friends but i cannot
014go back to on and staring at the computer all day is not good for students i don't need a lot of i need to be in class daily with my teachers and i need to be able to do well in school next hello my name is ricky blake i am 16 year old 16 years old and i'm a junior in all my classes before this year i always got and i told that like um i'm a national home society student i'm in ambassador's club i workshop and i play soccer this year um when we started this online learning it was hard for me and i struggled a lot in my grades um i know my junior year is critical for scholarships and i'm worried after this sister that i won't be able to get any
015of those scholarships i've been planning on getting i feel like i have more assignments and just want to figure out what i'm supposed to do my teachers have been wonderful and i've tried to answer questions but i still have to try to figure out a lot on my own i have to go i'm not on contract because i was filming honestly after just the first quarter i've never received a c in a class let alone a failing grade i could have switched to uos class but i didn't want to miss my chance at learning as much as possible and receiving college credit college credit i feel a lot of anxiety and frustration where with where my grades are at i don't understand why this whole district and in our area gets to have a person
016in traditional education and that we don't i also know that there are a lot of experts that say that too much same time is not good and that our brains are still developing and that many of us don't have the skills that are needed to be successful with online learning um uh my mother she did online college and she's really smart she's very good at school um but when she had online classes she struggled as well and she's like twice my age um so i personally feel like i don't have a disappointment that was necessary to be successful and i know that online education has been really hard for me and foreign thank you uh yeah my name is rodney ringham i'm here as a long-time community member leader and parent of four former blue
017ridge students and four current blue ridge students and it's been hard and i probably don't do this enough but i just wanted to step up and thank you guys for all that you guys do um as being a person who leads a lot of people in our community um i know the fog associated with trying to make decisions in these times of code and i try i'd like to be more of an encouragement to you guys i don't i'm not an expert in education so i'm not here to offer any ideas to you but i will just suggest that the qualities that i judge each of you on as elected officials and as leaders in our community are qualities like this um do you have honest honesty and integrity are you confident do you have
018the ability to inspire others are you committed and passionate are you good communicators um do you possess good decision-making capabilities are you accountable do you delegate do you empower um are you creative and innovative and especially during these times i can say yes for that one for sure um do you have empathy and resilience emotional intelligence humility transparent transparency and vision and purpose and so like i mentioned i'm not here to offer any ideas because you guys are the experts um i'm here to give you guys my support um i'm trusting that you guys each of you are hard working uh researching this thing out dreaming and planning you guys are passionate and smart you're capable of leading this great school and i'm here to express my support and thanks for each there's no easy
019answers um you know and come up here and act like covet has been your fault or something um it's left us all kind of um with our access to the wall trying to figure out answers and i acknowledge that i understand that we're all fighting this pandemic together i believe you're doing more than your due diligence you have my support thanks for all you do thank you [Music] don't get brittany confused with one of our kids thank you i just wanted to start off by saying i can't imagine what decision i would have made many months ago when all of this craziness hit i don't view the position you are in and i believe the choice you made was with our kids best interest in mind that being said hindsight is 2020. while we can't
020predict the future i hope we can look at the current situation and make a choice to change knowing that our kids are suffering we need to do all we can to move forward while we still might make some mistakes we can always correct our course and get back on track that is all we are asking while it's helpful to hear both sides of the argument it's not the same the other side has what they want all we are asking for is the option if the situation was reversed and we only offered full-time in-person instruction and hybrid but no online learning you would have the same frustration on your hands parents desperately wanting what's best for their children and the school denying them the option offering full-time instruction doesn't change the online and hybrid option for
021the other party it simply provides the best option for all of our currently struggling kids we can't predict the future but we can already see the damage this has done and continues to do on a daily basis this doesn't have to be a war we just need to be willing to work together and brainstorm possible solutions we will be much more successful as a team than competitors please open your minds and hearts to parents and children desperately pleading for you to listen and give them what they need thank you next with the service strollers hello my name is sarah i have a son at blue ridge elementary sarah could we get you to hold the mic a little closer this weekend yep hello my name is sarah i have a son at blue ridge elementary
022school i have sacrificed multiple employment opportunities so that i can help my child with his online learning my family has suffered financial awesome disappointment and the lack of normalcy through these pandemic precautions however i am not here to belittle these precautions but to express my gratitude for them i want to remind everyone here today that you don't know all of our community's stories and neither do i honestly like me you most likely know your own story and the story's most similar to yours sorry how many of our blue ridge students live with at-risk or elderly household members how many of our blue ridge staff and faculty members are fighting secret or even public health battles should these students staff and faculty be cut off from our education system how would we account for the loss
023of their participation do not assume that because your battle is hard that it is the only battle being fought my son has a classmate that i know through his doing meetings lives with his 80 year old grandmother how do we protect her we cannot continue to fight when we aren't even in the same battle your battle may be social and emotional health for your children this and similar battles are valid and honorable battles do not think for a moment that every single person employed by the blue ridge school district has been agonized over these battles they have they want what's best for your child you are your child's best advocate and that's why you're here tonight but the blue ridge team in front of us must be the best advocate for all of our community
024members they must learn everybody's story and then make the impossible decisions of how to help best when winning one battle means losing the other with 57 covid cases reported in our county within the last 24 hours per the arizona department of health services this morning victories for your battles may look different than what is typical or desired i believe that our greatest gift is our agency to choose our actions and today even though my son mourns the losses of his typical educational experiences i choose to teach him empathy i choose to teach him that we are not the only ones with stories and battles i choose to be grateful that our school district continues to find solutions that are not perfect but strive to help everyone just a little bit with their battle i choose
025to be grateful because with an attitude of gratitude even my loss of income and lack of normalcy can feel lighter knowing that someone else's battle has been made a little easier because of it and their story a little brighter thank you thank you [Applause] jessica peters would be nice my name is jessica peters um i don't currently have children enrolled in blue ridge because i didn't like the way the district was going but i have two sixth graders and a um i have a four-year-old that has chronic lung disease in 2016 she was born in 28 weeks even though 2020 sucks lockdowns are nothing new to my family every winter we walk down my kids don't get to have friends over because when they bring home even my kids as soon as they walk through
026the door they're washing their hands they're changing their clothes because if they have a cold guess what the baby's in the hospital yes everyone is affected differently but we have a choice as parents what we do with our family if we have risks in our family we stay home like we have done for the past four years um opening the school parents still have that right it is my belief that it is the parents choice what type of education they receive and i feel like blue ridge took that away from us yes people have risks covered numbers have gone up testing has gone up guess what deaths have gone down and i don't mean to be not empathetic to those with issues because like i said i'm living with a four-year-old that has those issues
027we take precautions as a family we make the choice for what is best for our family and i feel like the school has taken those choices away from us [Applause] dwayne carlson hello i'm dwayne carlson um i'm i'm somewhat connected almost everywhere on the board one of my favorite teachers is up here my phone's ringing um i i know normally come to these meetings and and i agree with what sadet said and i don't want to reintegrate any of that but for me living here born in mcnary 1963 went to this school and had all my kids over here is it we gotta look at the big picture if we save one kid from drugs one kid from turning the wrong way because they're at home by themselves got two parents they're working that's they're
028raising themselves we have to look at that i think that's a big big issue and that you have a chronic step or something then maybe your kid should stay home or maybe if somebody has an 80 year old person that has to live with a kid the kid probably should stay home but if they if there's no other way i would pay for that person to live in a motel for a while but we got to come together and make this stuff happen right because all this i'm not as scared of the code as i am our freedom to get taken away because i believe in god [Applause] none of us all of us can make more money live in a big city we live here in a small town small community so that we
029can work together and most of us have traditional conservative youth and that's kind of where i'm coming from same way i don't i believe for anybody that that needs help and if anybody needs a personal help and i can do it if any of these board members they all know my number or i can get it thank you [Applause] next on the list would be uh is it pat lopez [Music] mr chairman versus the board dr wright good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak my name is pat lopez and i come to you this evening in three capacities as the parent of a blue ridge high school student as a community member and as a science instructor at the local community college cocon19 is an infectious disease that is transmitted from person to
030person through the air via small droplets or aerosols as an infected person breathes coughs sneezes sings or speaks pre-symptomatic of asymptomatic individuals can infect others because of how this infectious disease spreads people coming together for any reason increases the likelihood of transmission of the disease therefore any person who chooses to come in contact with other persons assumes a degree of risk of contracting the disease what we have learned since the disease first emerged nearly a year ago is that six things contribute to the degree of risk one the number of people a person comes in contact with two the proximity meaning how close a person comes to other people three how long a person spends in contact with other people four how many individuals in the gathering are wearing masks or a cloth face covering
031five how good the ventilation is six the current local levels of infection in a small setting mitigating these risk factors is a tall order school is conducted indoors where ventilation is generally poor and airborne pathogen transmission is likely aided by the hvac system students spend over seven hours at school each day which qualifies as prolonged exposure by any measure even operating on a hybrid schedule any given student comes into contact with an estimated 50 plus individuals each day they are at school current local levels of infection particularly in navajo county are sharply on the rise as today's article in the independent reports this leaves us with physical distancing and mass wearing the current hybrid instruction plan at junior high school and high school allow for physical distancing between students a school-wide mass wearing policy is
032in effect although the evidence shows that it is unevenly enforced even among frontline office staff out of the six factors therefore only the physical distancing one is reasonably and consistently being mitigated by the hybrid schedule to suggest a return to daily in-person instruction at this juncture runs against all state and local recommendations and frankly against all common sense the risk is not limited to students teachers and their families again because of how the disease is transmitted when people come together the risk increases for the entire community people who are in favor of a return to full daily and personal instruction will frame their argument in terms of the risk being a matter of personal choice this is a false argument risk of personal choice only applies when we're talking about risky behavior like skydiving or
033wearing a seat belt wherein a person's choice not to wear a seat belt has no impact on the health of the community however if a group of people choose to come together for whatever reason at this particular point in time it increases risk for the entire community including those who did not make the choice to be around others when they didn't absolutely have to be ladies and gentlemen you were elected by this community to oversee and safeguard the interests of the community which includes the education of our children many of you have generously served for a long time and have endured criticism for your service to what must at times seem like a thankless job your dedication is noteworthy and much appreciated and although as a school board you have weathered crises in the past
034i would guess that like everyone else you have not had to face one where the consequences of a bad decision have the potential to result in the death or permanent disability of community members such as the decision you are facing this evening i entreat you to make the life-saving decision of supporting the instructional plans set forth by your superintendent and his staff excuse me thank you thank you very much [Music] our next person speaking to us would be um austin evans austin um as you said my name is austin evans i'm a junior here at blue ridge and i've been a straight a ap honors student um my whole life and um i've noticed that through this online hybrid schedule and online in general i find it extremely difficult to stay on top of my
035grades as i am a more visual learner as when i'm in school i'm able to raise my hand and ask questions i'm able to see what the teacher is doing and as ms burgess said a lot of the time we're just being assigned things and it's more teaching yourself looking up how to do certain things and it's not really being taught um as for the faculty i understand that there is concerns there but if you look at the bigger picture there have been fast food workers store workers and doctors who have all been working through this whole entire pandemic even when it started when there was all that fear going around and my dad has worked uh as a doctor in direct contact with those um with the coveted virus and he has not contracted
036it as their precautions that can be taken in order to prevent it um um i'm working very hard to get the lumberjack scholarship um and it's been really difficult for me now to maintain those grades as it is so easily it is so easy to get sidetracked when you're at home and um yeah and i want to thank all of you guys i appreciate the difficultness of this decision um but i would also like to say that i feel like there should be an option to come back to school full-time and if you are not comfortable with that then you should have the option in order to stay home and uh thank you [Applause] brown hey guys thank you just want to start like so many others thank you you guys do a job that
037is tough and i realize that i have two children here at blue ridge my wife and i moved up here seven years ago dream come true we came from the bale school district which is one of the top rated school districts in arizona uh they're blessed with children who are very bright i don't know how they came from my wife and i but they were very bright um and uh and they've done very well and i would say i'd recommend blue ridge school district over mail any day of the week um the your teachers are amazing they find ways of making science and math real to these kids and i think that although it wasn't planned by anybody covet has made it to where it's harder to do that so my kids who have always
038been grade a students in ap classes are struggling i was home with my son the other day uh he was on the zoom class with his biology ap biology teacher and i was just blown away by what the teacher started saying at the beginning of zoom meeting i'm actually intriguing the background in medicine so i was listening to it and it was awesome and it lasted for about seven minutes and they said okay now it's time to do your work online and i talked my son after he said man that's too bad he seemed like he's really cool he said oh i love him i love when he talks but he can only do that for about seven minutes then we have to go to the online stuff so i i would just like so
039many others here like to say 100 i understand the cost of this um i still work for medical field my extended family has been touched by we had one person who passed away from public i've got two others who have been seriously they'll never be the same they were innovated for for two months they are still on auction daily i understand there's risks i don't want to take that away from anybody however we do have a way of getting around that by offering in person school to those who are healthy if there's people who live with the grandparents or older have comorbidities absolutely let them stay online but i feel like we need to allow our children back in school [Applause] next person on the list would be whitney [Music] whiting i hope i can
040make sense i have a lot of things going through my brain i am mom for from kindergarten up to blue junior i'm also a former educator and i firmly believe that the primary purpose of public education is to create good citizens we teach kids how to become citizens by teaching them how to learn when they learn how to read when they learn how to math then they become good citizens but also part of being a good citizen is understanding your community and meeting each other where they are um i know that as a district we have had so many variations and so many options as this quarter has progressed and i thought i will have so many more but i wanted to express my support of the district and the way that they have tried
041to proceed with caution um i had the unfortunate experience a year ago before copied of watching my mom pass away in a way where she couldn't breathe and that's how she died and i was with her remember she died and i wouldn't wish that upon anyone to watch her only struggle for air was horrific and scar me and so if we can make efforts to prevent that from even one person i think as a community we can do that i know it's a sacrifice my kids have struggled our grades have been a rollercoaster of ups and downs and ins and outs but i feel like as a family we've found a ways to rally and to support one another i think that as a district we can work on supporting the mental health of our
042students i support whatever choices need to be made to take care of our community thank you next in individual would be uh ken mathgate kim [Music] and i have grandchildren i've gone to this school since whenever when they have consolidated fine top and lakeside consolidated when i was in seventh grade when it came and came here and i had all my children in school i am not pleased with it now i was very happy with it when i was going to school because of certain things and i know that you are striving very hard to deal with a situation that is hard but as a grandparent i've seen my grandchildren struggle when they were online and now that when they've been back they're doing so much better one granddaughter was out of school and even
043online she was funky and came back into class and now she's very on top of things um i just heard on the radio about the many suicides that are happening happening with the children because they're staying home and not being with other not socializing this concerns me and children are not going having problems myself long time ago i know that children and even adults do not tell you when they're not dead when they're having problems they not do not face effort and this is a very big concern for me i think you're taking the choice away from the parents if you are not giving them the opportunity to make the choice if they want to let their children go to school or not and that will thank you next question on our list is uh
044angie all right can you hear me okay i'm trying is that can you hear me okay good evening my name is angie granillo and i'm coming to talk to you guys as a teacher i'm in seventh grade and eighth grade math teacher here and so um i thought it might be helpful to give you a perspective what i'm seeing in the classroom as a teacher and as a school we're actually responsible for teaching four facets of a student there's four facets of education and if you think about what those four are you might think the most important one is academic but actually all four of those are equally important um one is social one is their civic duty that we're teaching in-house you know to be citizens um and one is creating a workforce right
045they can go into the workforce and be adequate i feel like our current hybrid schedule is really only aiming at one of those four quarters the academic one and i have to say it's failing currently um when you run a report of our students of my students i'll just speak for myself and for a couple other of the math department teachers when you run a report of what our students are doing five days a week the two days a week that they are in school they are actually completing their work the three days a week that they are at home and supposed to be completing their work 50 of our students are doing nothing so we're failing we're failing them because they cannot show up the other travesty is that we are only allowing our
046kids with special needs and our kids that are failing to show up what is that showing our kids that have worked hard and get these bees and seeds it's telling them you're on your own i have kids every day ask me how can i come to school every single day honestly on the inside i want to tell them start failing your classes because as soon as you start failing your taxes you think that's cool but obviously i don't want to tell them that right i mean i do but i don't tell them that um the other thing i want to tell you that we are teaching our children is how to cheat because when they're at home they're using all kinds of apps to change the system so we are using cheaters lazy heaters i
047just i just want us to think about what we want yours to represent and what we're producing and i think we can do better i think we can do better i know we can do better and so i am expecting that um of you thank you uh james thousand hi i'm james skelson i have two children um age 13 who is in seventh grade who's going on a hybrid schedule and bronson my eighth grader who i pulled out of school um he struggled immensely with online could not learn could not figure out what he needs one-on-one attention so i had to pull him out of school my wife and i both worked full time and so we're we're hiring we're trying to find people to be at the house to help bronson with his school
048work i understand that now they are going back full time that happened as soon as i pulled him out of school so the hope in the future is after the new year to be able to send him back however he will not go back until it is full time and as a person who had a father and my wife we all worked until 5 30 i will sit every single day so my 13 year old when we are at home he becomes the babysitter the teacher the cook he does it all for my eight-year-old and so it takes away from his studies because he's having to babysit and help my younger child with his score i understand your job of heart and i understand there's a lot of there's a lot of back and forth
049and everybody has an opinion and i understand that it's very difficult to wait for all those opinions and make the correct one a correct decision i want you to know that there are a lot of people in this community that all the parents work and it is a little nightmare trying to jumble babysitters let alone have them be able to complete their work complete it well and to thrive neither of my boys are doing that i think they need to be in school full-time both of them for not only for my wife and my state but for their sake and i appreciate you taking the time to listen to him thank you very much [Applause] [Music] dr ray um president merrill and other board members hello my name is dylan baca i'm a senior here
050at blue ridge high school and uh i'm in support of saying online and here's the reason why i've seen kobe touch our lives in ways that we don't want it to we recently lost a family member last week um and we're at this burial and that's one of the saddest things you can see um you don't get the assurance that they're there um closed casket we don't we didn't get any of that that's one of the saddest thing i've i've seen another thing is we're all struggling through this as students my friends quite a few of them are still fully online but we use each other as a support group to help one another work together to emotionally support each other uh and work as students on where we are struggling and where we need
051support so i'm proud and i'm sorry to hear that people are struggling um but i'm very proud of the fact that i'm still a straight a student so thank you thank you next one on our list is uh jeff norman butcher named krauska thank you [Music] jeff hi my name is jeff krauskopf i'm a registered nurse i've been registered for about 25 years and i take care of patients who've covered it i've seen the problems i've witnessed deaths i've gone through all of that and it's very heartbreaking but i'm also a single dad with a son who is in ninth grade and is struggling to uh to do the online program quite often the problem is the interface between our system and the school system it can look perfect on our end but on your
052end it looks like he's failing and uh even down to the seventh percentile of the class are the horses so we've had to find workarounds for that there have been times when i've gone home early and to check on him and he's still in bed sleeping at one o'clock in the afternoon so i know that he's finding workarounds to get the assignments done i know that he's missing some of the uh online classes when they're due and his excuses usually come to the fact that he didn't feel well um what i expect from uh the system is i would like him to go back full time knowing what i know about koben seeing what i've seen with kobit i would still prefer that he'd be back in school full time i would want blue ridge
053to take full mitigation measures to prevent cross contamination i want to assure that the school is assurance that the school is actually doing its best to make sure that kids are following compliance uh with the cdc standards so that when my son comes home he doesn't transfer it to me i honestly feel safer going to a hospital than having my son come to school if uh if they're not going to follow the standard and that's pretty much what i have to say thank you thank you jim next uh individual him is wendy kenner hi guys my biggest fear is speaking and i'm breathing in to be able to speak it's apparent the community needs or not met that is obvious with how many comments we've had tonight my concern is the quality of the community
054we're going to have if we don't see a change that's my biggest thing is we live in pine stock we love pine top my kids and my husband are wearing the theater trees so we're staying in times up but we want to see good family stay tuned and i know personally some families that have left and i know a lot of families are unhappy with the district and if we don't see a change they're going to lead you i think that's a big thing that we need to take into consideration is that if you're having this much upset parent this many upset families that that need to be taken into consideration so we can continue to have a great community and the majority of these families are begging for a full in-person option and i
055think that's something that with with considering them leaving or i know as the disease spreads it's going to be a harder decision and my second grader has gone back to school and i have seen her just flourish she comes home she's happy she's talking to me she's not crying every day and life is just so so much better personally if we don't um see the full in-person option continue we will be a family that has baby that's how severe if it has affected our family is that we cannot continue i will pull my kid out the day whenever it shuts down again and i leave her home silver or i will move up and i know that i'm not the only person and i'm telling you all these families are good families because they showed
056up to talk to you we love the bridge we all want to stay at blue ridge these are your good families you need them to stay so i think you really need to consider that not only now but throughout the week i know you're taking into consideration the cdc and all this stuff already but as we see because nobody knows what's gonna happen this winter what's gonna happen in january what's gonna happen in february and if you shut down the in person all these families are going to be affected and if shoulder and snowflake are still and going to school these families are going to go there so that's my concern is the community we want to see these families safe thank you [Music] calls i'm so glad i'm not up in your chair i'm
057sorry that you have to make these hard decisions um i admire you for making the decisions um i know there have been sleepless nights over figuring out what to do sorry i just feel bad for you i feel bad for all of us i feel bad for those of you who have lost family members to this and those in the crowd we have also um i just want to know that i support you all um what wendy said does concern me i know that there's a lot of families um who will be leaving like are tolerable for a semester but not tolerable for two and so it concerns me what will happen to blue ridge moving forward if we don't go in person um i do have children in the school and i see like
058my kids since we had a snow day monday we don't have school wednesday my daughter was so heartbroken that she didn't get to go to school this week and just seeing them i'm at work during the day and so as my husband we're blessed to have some college kids home that can help them but i just can't i don't know what i'm gonna do if we don't go back to school um in the you know in january um because i can't leave my kids home all day and i know a lot of parents struggle with that i also was on the reservation visiting families last week and it was heartbreaking to see signs everyone say no visitors i mean i totally understand both sides i know i don't totally understand but i sure try to
059i hope that you will continue to make a matter of prayer and figure out what will be the best for our community i know the teachers have done an amazing job going online so those families who are concerned the options now of staying home are better than they've ever been ideal um because of the technology and just the work that the school has done and the teachers um anyway i know that we are very concerned in our office um if we get covered we have to shut down again and we can afford to and um that's just the financial so i don't know what the right answer is even for my family to help them go to school or not because we can't have it but anyway thank you for all of your hard work
060and consideration [Applause] here's one more [Music] and speak but my daughter who couldn't be here just sent me her um her thoughts and and i've been thinking of some of my own so i thought i'd better come up and share what she told me um i have four kids my oldest is a senior um and what she just texted me um she said okay so online school for educational purposes is not good nobody pays attention in zoom anymore even when we used to we still didn't learn anything it's hard to ask questions and get help from teachers kids don't think they have to do anything also we should go back in january because it's not um it's not good to only be able to see half of the school but it doesn't really do anything
061to help cope with some people go both days so there's still lots of people and that was those are her thoughts and i agree with this hybrid only works if it's half and half and we already have elementary kids in school which i'm so glad it's so good for the for my second or my third grader and but so we already have kids who have siblings who are around many people so that's so having only half to stop the spread i don't think it's the answer it doesn't work when we have we have to have some people full time um so that's one argument against keeping and hybrid because we're already not complete hybrid and okay and then we have amazing teachers at blue ridge i have one in this group this is romeo's class
062who we just heard from she's awesome my kids love their teachers and they do not love the online program the general consensus that our house is online is that they learn nothing they figure out what they need to do to get the assignments in but they all tell me that they learn nothing from it they enjoy the time that they're able to be in class where the teachers can make the subject rather mean something be more interesting and exciting and have the lessons stick with them the online program may be a good online program but it's not the answer it's not easy for teachers to have to teach kids at home who are not engaged in zoom and probably doing something else and kids in the classroom at the same time and i wish coven
063would just go away i don't know i'm coping and i know that there are so many factors that you have to look into and i'm grateful for each of you for doing your job and for considering all of these things and thank you for listening to us tonight [Applause] [Music] only um with the agenda items as they are posted and they just explain a little bit the next islamic agenda is a consent consent agenda it can it's comprised of vouchers we have to approve [Music] just business items that really don't need to be voted on independently with the exception of mr waldo has asked that we remove item 2.6 recommendation to approve sports posting coaching extracurricular stipends because he would like to vote on that individually because he has individuals in that coaching program their
064membership family after that the items 3.3.1 we will as a board discuss what we've heard ask questions of the administration it won't be a debate with the crowd here but you're welcome to stand listen to what we have to say what we would like to say we will not be voting on that tonight uh we're just here gathering information at this time so uh next item on the agenda is item two point zero through two point eight with the exception and we're removing two point six and the motion accepted [Music] unanimous okay item 2.6 dr right you want to explain that to everyone here and the reason mr waldo was recusing himself 2.6 approval the sports attendance [Music] okay so can we have a motion to vote on item 2.8 that would be with the
065exception of mr waldo okay item 3.1 a return to face-to-face instruction discussion only this is for the board to determine for a safe return for face face instruction for all grades district-wide and you know i have some questions and i really don't know how to start this first thing i'm going to do is take my mask off because my eyes are up i can't see anything my uh i would just like to say thank you for everybody that's participating this evening that's why we came here that's why we asked you that's why we had the republic at the beginning of the meeting so we could hear what he had to say so we can take that and we value your opinions we want to hear from you uh i have i personally received probably 20
066letters written from members of the community they're kind of taking the other side of the fence so you know there are how many people in this school industry citizens citizens and school districts around 2 500 around 4 500 so in reality this school board is representing 4 500 people in the community and that i don't think lightly um so there are other stories to be heard here too i had years ago i i praise houses early and years ago i had a request come in for a house and before i recognized the address and the owners and everything it was a friend of mine well i didn't i accepted the appraisal normally i won't do the appraisal for friend because i like to keep him as a friend but i went ahead and did the
067appraisal you know and you can probably see with this uh i didn't appraise the photo for well instantly i have a phone call now i got a face to face chewing out by that person and all i could do was justify my decisions as he was leaving he said well i thought you were my friend so regardless what goes on tonight i hope that everybody here we can say after this is all done we're still friends i hope you don't turn your backs on everybody and say i thought we were friends and i thought because you were friends you would listen to me and act on what i wanted appreciate your information so members of the board any questions or comments that you'd like to bring up right now i know i saw people taking
068notes so just speak up okay thank you i've listened to what everybody has said and believe me i understand totally where you're coming from i raised three children and i have 12 grandchildren and my children are dealing with this issue like you are as parents and it is very very difficult but as a school board member unfortunately we have to look at the bigger picture and you're coming from the standpoint as parents and grandparents but we have to look at it and make a decision on what's best in the best interest of the school district in total and that makes it an even bigger decision one of those factors is the fact that if i recall dr wright you told us in a survey to the staff that uh i believe it was one-third of
069the staff is either in the high-risk category for the pope of 19 or they have a member of their immediate family that is and that concerns me um because if one of those people gets the virus then they can pass it on to students but also they can pass it on to their own family members they can get sick with it and unfortunately there are fatalities so that is something we have to be concerned about also we have to be concerned of the legal aspect and that would have been covered by the state legislature and they were looking at as i understand they were looking at doing something about the legal aspect and unfortunately they had to shut down the legislature before they did anything about it so we have to consider those things and
070also we've had i believe a number of very close calls of having almost having to shut down for two weeks luckily we haven't had to yet but we've had some close calls and that concerns me the fact that the numbers are going back up again concerns me um so we're coming up on thanksgiving vacation the experts are saying they're anticipating a huge uh increase in the number of cases after thanksgiving that concerns me as well and i realized that the education that our students are getting online is not as good as it is in person there's no doubt about we have tried to institute the hybrid system as soon as we felt it was safe to do that we've also started going to full in person with the elementary school working our way up and
071so far we've been successful but we're trying to go cautiously so we need to take all this into consideration and i don't know it's a it's a very tough decision but i feel like we've been very proven and trying to move forward and dr wright and the administrators have been very carefully watching all the data and reports and so forth and advising us to go forward and i think we have to rely on their recommendations they're in tune with the data with the county health department state health department and so forth and they've outlined recommendations and basically triggered triggers that we have to follow and if we don't then we leave the school district liable and so anyway those are my concerns and i think i'm interested in hearing what other concerns are from the
072board ready i have a question just dr wright um you know we are always in competition with other school districts how have they been able to go around the city and the arizona i mean uh i i don't know how they're going around it's just a decision any idea how they're doing what they're doing i i've had a couple of uh superintendents say the parents are not having their kids tested they're not releasing the results it's a private matter um i bet i can't speak for those school boards or superintendents i have a brother-in-law and he retired last year the guy who lives two doors down from him is 30 years old he died a month ago two kids in school old kids daughter he says nobody reported it brought it home and he's dead
073now he's 30 years old i never heard that that's not reported anywhere or anything other than my brother-in-law telling you the story because he's a neighbor how do they get around doing that it is it's the prerogative of the district to move forward or to and ignore the data or to follow the debt that's given by the county and state level and that's what we've been to we've been doing i've been looking at our county health numbers and they're going in the wrong direction quickly the state has said if you are not in if you're in red in one of the three areas you should be either right now in red and two the third one lags that's hostilization and so we may this may not be a choice because we may all arizona schools
074may be online but it is it is the choice of that community and that school board uh what they do not know are the long-term effects efficiencies and no one can pretend to understand that what we do know is that it's a lot less risky for children and youth but it does present problems for community members extended family members and we have a number of kids living in multi-generational families the one thing i want to point out is we do not have the capacity i misspoke right from the get-go i put myself in all by saying online hybrid or in person we have lost seven teachers at the high school because of budget cuts we cannot afford and we just did not have the capacity we can't that's not a practical solution what we could
075entertain is to say you need to make a choice you're online only or your other person but in order to do that we need to understand what our risks are associated in total with going to in person with how many how many kids does that mean is it going to be half was it 80 we would need to figure out what that looked like to determine the risk if we were to go in person say next week do we have a capacity even in the elementary school to do that at social business and keep as we get to make sure we mitigate everything as good as possible we even have the physical ability to do that the physical distancing is not possible at any grade level with all kids in class we've set that all
076up what we're measuring with the younger kids is they are not independent learners like this mr skeleton i think said many of the parents have to work and those kids can't be left alone and so we're taking a risk and we understand that but the kids at the seventh and twelfth grade levels do have the maturity to not as effectively i won't argue that this is just effective but in many instances they can monitor themselves and they are better independent learners than the younger kids doesn't mean that it's an optimal solution it's a dilemma if you're presented with two undesirable options okay also in one of the letters that gave me the names of four individuals the football coach is no longer alive he's 40 years old a man in gilbert who's a teacher he's
077no longer alive two i.t individuals in the chandler school district one of them said before he passed away the other one his still suffering the effects of it so you know it just made it real to me that you know regardless of what you do you're still hazardous and it's hard to justify that if even i don't want that to be on my shoulders i can't imagine anybody that would want to take someone else's life away just because of their own personal circumstances situation i think there's a broader view it's not so narrow you know i appreciate those that spoke tonight i really do and there's passion and everyone that spoke tonight is it's very very personal to them he's very very personal and it is the most important thing in their lives right now
078and i appreciate that i can understand that i have four daughters and all of their kids out of school right now they thought they were gonna go back to school they went to school for about a quarter and they were kicked back out again and uh they saw their kids struggle and they saw corrupt now they see them brought back down right now they hate it they call me and say what can we do so anyway i'm dominating here somebody else needs to speak i'd just like to add a couple more things i thought about number one is the reservation has just started into lockdown again and we're right next door to that every day on the news now i'm hearing of schools that are having to close because of the virus close down temporarily
079and now they have to shut down and go back to online um so i think that is even worse than doing the a b continuously to go open and then have to shut down completely is even worse but the other thing is that i think we have a real advantage here at blue ridge because of the foresight of our superintendent and our principals they came to us back in april i believe and asked us to spend a half a million dollars buying computers and hot spots and we did that and then they came and said we need to have a substantial rigorous academic curriculum that meets all the state standards for online in case we are not able to open in august as we're supposed to and they were correct and we were not able
080to open but i'm very confident that we have probably the best situation of any school in the state as far as having computers for every student having a rigorous curriculum for them online and so for that reason i feel more comfortable with the position that we have and going forward and we are moving in the direction of opening up but we're doing it cautiously so we don't have to close part way through it so when will the elementary compete completely that's where at beginning of next week they'll be all in person oh okay through six k through 6 [Music] am i on okay i just wanted to let those of you that are still here know that you have a lot of empathy up here um all of us either have children in the district
081or have children in the district three of us are educators or administrators coaches so it's not like we're making decisions half-heartedly i'd like to share with you two though that i have grandchildren that are still not in school have not been back to school since march uh in a state that is not open uh for any of their schools and i know which i know the frustrations i know what's going on with these kids i have one grandson that is just starting to blossom and they're really concerned about all the time that he spends alone even in a house with four people in it i have one that's a senior and yes he thinks he'll probably miss his entire senior year he's a good athlete and like a lot of your children he's worried about
082scholarships he's worried about his ap classes i have a son in the military who has been quarantined probably three times because of exposure any time they have someone in their [Music] unit or anyone they've come into contact with uh test positive they all have according so that it goes on and on and on and then another son that's a pulmonologist and critical care doctor that i see the other side of it constantly um i have fears for him and his family um once they test positive they're out for a month until they test negative and you can test positive without showing any symptoms i lost a um during this time um not due to covet but i think because of cobit because of the restrictions in in um homes for the elderly they saw no
083one so i think of all of us up here we all have people that we know that either passed away were extremely sick affected our family members we have family dealing with this every day so just because we don't have kids in school some of us right now we still deal with it and i'm dealing with the parents and my grandchildren that are struggling because their kids are not in school and they want them to be there at least what we have they don't have that yet so we're a step above that and i also have two friends in the showa district who are teachers they are frustrated they are so frustrated because of the lack of protocol for dealing with um staff members that show symptoms one of these people have to helper assistant
084to stay home i'll be back if i don't if i don't have a temperature on my back no you won't you're gonna go get tested before you come back and stand beside me and and in the same room as these kids i also have a good friend that's a teacher in the buckeye history third grade teacher they were out as long as we were and recently went back to full end time school and she said 90 to 50 of her kids were it was not working out for them online her good students could make it anywhere and now she said it's just a matter of time probably before they'll be sent home but she's enjoying it while she has it she also has underlying health risks so i know that teachers face that even if
085they don't tell anybody we have people that have things they did have dealt with all their lives and now it puts them in the high risk category so there's so many things to try to understand and i don't know what well i do know what i would feel like if this were happening with my son being a senior or my son is struggling as a as a really good student struggling to keep up with his classes or as a student that needed more help and needed face to face i have kimises in college that we're doing online and one of them they're both very very good students one of them said i was not meant to take math online she was struggling as as a sophomore in college um you know so i've seen just
086about every age group struggle with this i've seen um so many people struggling i've known people that got sick and died at the very beginning of this i've known people that have struggled with family members having this i'm not being able to be with them i just had a good friend that lost her brother he was doing great in the hospital a short time ready to come home and the next day he was gone so it's it it's a horrible thing that doesn't point a finger at any age group it just points out everybody um i have a husband that has worked through this whole thing face to face with patients he has underlying questionable things he should probably not be near people that might walk in having it people walking without mass i've just
087seen all sides of it i think all of us sitting here are very lucky that we that we have not come in real close contact with us but it can happen anytime and like chuck said we're making decisions for everybody and we have to keep our staff safe we have to keep our children safe and our administrators and our technology people have been here from the very beginning and our maintenance staff from the very beginning they can't do anything from home so they're dealing with it every day i just want you to know that we all empathize with you um i can't imagine what i would have done as a senior being told well sorry no sports no music no anything so i think we all can see where you're coming from and we hope
088to make decisions that will be the best that we can for everybody so we're trying and we probably won't make any more decisions tonight but we're certainly glad that you came and we listened to you because we need to hear that so [Music] how did that make you feel as an educator what does that do to you because you're working in love when you're trying to get these kids educated because someone gets upset they pull the kids out of school what does that say to you as a teacher i'm just curious i think there are several things that it says to us but one of the things that i think all of us need to recognize as we're dealing with this is that these decisions are not easy ones it would be nice if we
089just had hard facts that are going to stay the same tomorrow that we have today they're changing every day it could be any one of us tomorrow everything gets culpit and ends up possibly not even alive i think when i think about kids i work with my and i feel like i could not stand to think that a decision that i made was the cause of any of those children losing their lives those adults today losing their lives i think we have to be careful when we make a decision that is changing constantly and i recognize that all of us would probably be better off if we had kids in school and have been there all the time but i'm not willing to risk those students maybe there are those of you that would feel
090like it's it's important to think of the majority but i think each one matters i think we need to remember that we are looking at changing times and it doesn't look like they're going to stop singing i think one thing that we can do is try to make sure that the online teaching is as good as it can be um things have pointed out tonight that i'm sure we need to follow up on um i wasn't satisfied with everything that i heard at all and um those are things that we can fix or we can urge people to fix them and online is difficult yes i i also have taken classes online and i'm not an online learner i don't think anybody's all of us up here probably would say the same thing because we
091enjoy being together we talk before the meeting like we don't like to be so far spread out because we don't discuss things very well that way and even in the other room in the other building we're still spread out but we also have people here that are very close to this and it you know rips your heart out having to make decisions never going to make everybody happy and you try to help as many as you can and do what's best for the kids but we're usually faced with doing what's best for the kids but we have to keep our staff safe too yes i think we owe great debt of gratitude for the maintenance staff that has been here constantly since since march dealing with this every day and our technology people they have
092worked and worked and worked and nobody says like i have to work from home they just aren't they're here all the time um i think that we can do our best to make sure that the teachers are providing as good of an education as as possible um i don't like to hear that there's too much on your own stuff i don't think kids learn them a little even like even the kids that you think can learn under any circumstances they don't they don't learn like that they missed the challenge they missed the discussions they missed challenging the teacher and having that one-on-one where they you know where they learn more than just sitting there trying to soak all this in and it is not good to be behind the screen all day long i mean
093before all this started we were urging kids get away from your screens don't do screens before bedtime um put your phones away and now they depend on that to get through school so you know that that's as educators and as board members that's another thing to keep constantly having to deal with and the mental health is a big concern we have talked about that just about every time we get together as a mental health kids and teachers i mean the coaches have a physical outlet the other teachers know him so much and a lot of kids don't have a physical outlet during the day jennifer i don't heard from you yet because i don't know what to say um but i'll i have a couple of questions and things are moving around first it seemed
094as if that even if it's an online or a hybrid environment we need to do better and we don't know how to do better at this time that we probably need to go ahead and address the better interesting of this if we go ahead and address those issues because if we go to the point where everyone is open and full-time and then immediately we have to go back to an online environment we need to ensure that our students are successful in that environment and maybe we need to look at universities that have significantly more time energy and money but they have they've been involved with this type of hybrid based learning for a long time i used to be a teacher of an online and hybrid environment in the university setting and i think that
095there's some things that we can pattern if we can afford it another thing that i think that we need to be very clear of is that our situation would be different if we had a larger capacity for example if we could go back into the elementary school and be able to funnel through all of those classrooms however our community decided to not pass an override that has really caused a significant problem for our budget so if we had 800 000 or 2 million dollars in the next three years maybe we could have branched out two other opportunities so our numbers would stay lower because it isn't concerning that we don't have we have older buildings we're not from the phoenix area that have exits that go exterior and they don't have and they're more of
096a pod base so we have a lot of mixing of air which is also a concern so those are some things that i have a question but one question um i do like a lot of the i wrote um pretty significant notes with horrible handwriting and these glasses are horrible too so um i think it's really important britney hanlon mentioned that we need to start brainstorming maybe it's time the community starts to where we have holes the community can get together and develop opportunities for kids to be successful i am a small business owner and as a small business owner maybe i can open up facilities that i have where people can have on off days opportunities to bring kids together to work on larger projects and smaller groups maybe we can start working on
097something like that so i don't think that it's a yes no situation i think it's a let's have an open mind and figure out how we can work in a difficult situation i think all of us really want to um teach children to not cheat and to work hard but if you're 12 you do what's easier because sometimes watching and being mesmerized by a tv program is a lot easier than going to school but another concern that i have and i don't have an answer to this question so feel free as community members to approach me afterwards is we have a very which i think is the reason why we moved to this area is i love our diverse community and i love that we have two different governing bodies that come to our community
098so we have a um a regular town that and then we also have a um reservation white mountain apache tribe that as our neighbors and those kids are part of our school district i do not believe in segregation of individuals based on their location i did not believe in segregation of individuals based on their um living in white river versus living in blue ridge those are our students no matter what i will never make a decision that will actually exclude individuals because they live in a different region than my children do that is something that i will always stand by no matter what now these individuals and we have people that live in our communities that do not have access to running water and these are people that live even in pine top and lakeside
099so most of the people that are here tonight have an opportunity to live in a home that has running water and can practice safe hygiene but we have a large percentage of our population in our school whether our residents of pines on the lakeside or also residents of the white mountain apache tribe area that do not have running water how do we handle that situation maybe it's something that we can go out for our grant and get some more of those washing issues that they've been doing throughout the reservation so those are the things that are very difficult questions that we need to figure out in order to make appropriate decisions do we have a lot of work to do as a board and as a school and as a community absolutely do we want
100people to leave our community because they're mad no but we also need a lot of compassion and understanding and we need their help to be better because i feel fortunate i feel fortunate that my kids can come to a school that's very diverse i also feel fortunate that my kids have parents that have a college education that understand the importance of hand washing and appropriate hygiene and that they live in a house that has random water that is very fortunate for us but there's a lot of people that don't have that my children are also fortunate that they have two parents in the home that one of their parents has flexibility with their work schedule that's huge so i love that one of our community members said that they would be willing to help fund
101um opportunities for kids maybe we need to think of that because imagine if you were a single parent that needs your kids to go to school every single day but also doesn't have rain and water what do we do i have no idea i would like to be able to come up with a solution but i don't have that at that time so that's the reason why i'm not really sure because i don't know what the right answer is but i know the right answer is patience i know the right answer is that we will not segregate people based on where they live and i also know that the right answer is we have great people to live in this community that are doing the best they can with what they have so i don't
102know that's my answer thank you for that because i was going too much but you don't know no i said i was going to say something like you were next that there are people that are struggling even to deal with this because of no running water some of them no heat except wood burning stoves you know so is that it's hard i mean that's hard that's or they can't afford a mask or we live in another community that's our neighboring community that doesn't have the same demographics that we have most of the communities in the white mountains do not have the same demographics that we have and as a result we have to do something a little bit different but it doesn't mean that the answer is no that we it means let's brainstorm and
103figure out how to make it a yes so that's the thing is we can figure it out i know we're smart we have lots of smart people that are in this room that have a lot of experience now it's time to figure out how we can make it work because we have a lot of questions that we haven't vetted yet thank you jeremy you always made me something i appreciate it i had written down a note about emotional health and you know it's my understanding we've already lost one teenage individual this year due to [Music] depression [Music] we've had three children died by suicide and the last three years has been one and as one of the gentlemen referenced suicide is a concern that we have and we've opened our schools for small group counseling
104the teachers are aware of kids not all of them but many of them that are struggling have invited those kids in thank you montoya since march has been working with small groups of kids the teachers do know their students and uh our family just suffered death by suicide in my young athletes i know what that feels like and not all of them show signs and in many cases despite all of our efforts some kids are going to make that decision but we're not throwing our hands up we're organizing training for all of our staff members to try to recognize signs provide support and we recognize that is an issue we also understand that the family is under immense pressure we're probably going to see in addition to turnover and all those things a high number
105of divorce we're already seeing a high number of domestic violence there are a lot of social wills that are being aggravated by this condition and we accept all that and understand it it just further adds to this development what i think we might be able to do is to see we need to get the numbers and we've been sending down surveys and trying to get actual data is to say how many of you want face-to-face how many of you want online only there's no way my administrators have taken me through the math and the staffing there's no way to say we're going to provide all three in fact she's still here but pat lopez cautioned me to offering the high red inside she picked one of the other because you're not going to go to
106and she was right and so we we're still going to have to make tough choices and i don't have any illusions please and we can still listen and disagree uh what i appreciate is that we've done so respectfully that's not the case with every district it hasn't been respectable it's been default to name calling and other problems and by the way all districts have the challenges just like every family they're no perfect family no perfect district we do have though a vast majority of our staff members including teachers and administrators that are fully engaged and they're working tirelessly to meet the very needs of our families and students we're not getting it done and that falls on me that's my home i i can and must do better and so we will not throw overhand
107the same as jennifer is reference we're not going to just say no we can't do it we're going to say let us see what we can do i can tell you we cannot go to person person until at least and it looks like we're headed the right direction we're prepared to go face-to-face junior high-end high school if things are worse than they were in march we won't do that um we won't unless the board of course directs i won't direct that if the numbers get worse and people are dying all around us the hospital capacity i won't recommend we go i understand i do not have that ultimate authority i will do as i'm directed but i would strongly and strenuously object to doing that and putting people at risk what we will continue to
108do as we have been and before this thing started we had a vision committee many of these folks participated in that it was our intention to continue to improve to continue to listen and get better i don't want to create the impressions at any level but i have all the answers i'm going to have some of the answers many of the times and i admit that and it's that it's it's the things that i don't know by the way headers about they keep getting back i don't know i do know i think the numbers closer to of our 275 people have a serious underlying condition i have about 18 to 20 percent of my teachers that are in that category at the high school it's a little higher percentage at the elementary slower some despite
109all that are coaching and teaching and they're right in the middle of it because they'd rather die than give it up when she got a buyer for it but i don't want to create the impression that teachers are hiding behind anything and i'm not trying to create the impression that i would say 85 to 90 of our teachers want to go back in person immediately i would say that's true if you did the entire support staff it might be more like 75 80 despite all of the other um rhetoric and despite all the other things that have said one of them once which november 4th this whole thing's going away it's not it's still here this is not going away but it has been said we need to learn a little bit which is true
110we must learn how to operate and live with it because by the way it's going to be here next fall as well we have there's a great hope of vaccination and hopefully we'll make progress in the country but it doesn't need to completely divide us i was born and raised in a small town and i know how small small problems end up being really big problems if it starts dividing communities and eventually it seeps into the schools and i do not want to be part of that divisive device of course and i will do my best not to be but when it comes to uh standing up for people even if it's only a handful that it would put their life at risk i'm not going to do that and i'm still not willing to
111do that but i do appreciate that there are real concerns and they're working families and there are others that have kids that are learning i will tell you your kids that are going to university half of their schools will be online half of the classes will be online just about wherever you go i have got kids in both universities at byu at asu university phoenix which of course is love online all of my nephews and nieces before this hit and half of their programs online it's cheaper universities to go in that direction we need to learn how to do that our kids are not college students they're not emotionally prepared and they're not mature enough to benefit as a college student so i'm not suggesting that i'm just saying there is some good in some
112of the experiences there are some good experiences coming out of this the other thing is make no mistake we want to return to face to face as soon as it to do so there is no motivation to stay online there's none none 100 if you ask our teachers they 100 want to be face to face there are some that want to be face to face but also are afraid of dying and that's a reasonable fear given their conditions and so i'm not talking about clothes i'm talking about people that are battling cancer diabetes and sometimes both and so these are serious underlying conditions it's not just like one or two they're very serious and so i appreciate the position of our better boards and i appreciate our community and i again i'm thankful for the
113um civility decorum the being frank but also being kind uh i i'm friends with the vast majority of the people that spoke and nothing they said will harm and damage our friendship for the love i have for them they're good people we see things differently sometimes with different people we'll we will redouble our efforts to try to incorporate some of the feedback that we've heard tonight including working redouble our efforts to improve the online we'll look for an opportunity in january to see can we go provide an option or there is a do we have enough teachers to say break it in in half it is not realistic to tell the teachers you gotta do face to face and have to do online it's just not realistic and so i've made many of those mistakes
114in setting this up because we haven't experienced it before but i love mentos and i'll get better anyone else have anything you'd like to say a question or maybe a direction that we could ask our administration to look into perhaps i can forbid any question any uh any ideas that we could improve on can we just go over and be very clear about like in the future not tonight the capacity what is recommended like per classroom per teacher because i think that's one of the questions like what if we only had five kids that were coming to robotics class every single day it could be you know and i know that i you have those statistics for us already but i know that some of our classes like the photography teacher just telling me she
115has 80 kids in her classes so every class she has 80 kids so i i just don't know how to handle something and that's why we'll schedule that differently and not have as many sections and those kids will have to go in the open learning lab or elsewhere but right now we couldn't do it we made a determination upfront we're going to go online and then we'll transition to hybrid and if we had to go to face-to-face we would figure something out but there's no way going face-to-face that we will be able to incorporate the cdc title piece as they are outlined it's not possible our physical facilities and the constraints that we have don't allow that we can't do it and so uh so we'll recognize that and the parents that are sending their
116kids will understand that and frankly i don't think they're worried about it and the teachers that are willing to teach if we have the core subjects covered and they're willing to do that they'll probably likely accept that as well and if our teachers are okay with it and their parents are okay with it and students are okay with it and we can make it work without endangering people then we're certainly open to that so there's room for creativity absolutely i think we can all agree too that um it all has to do with the responsibilities that we have if i weren't a board member and i had children in school i'd probably be one of the ones sitting out there questioning decisions um i've been out there oh yeah but as board members the responsibility
117is what keeps us discussing this dr wright has even more responsibility so it's not like it's not like we don't share your concerns at all if there were an easy answer to this we wouldn't even be here tonight that's true any other questions or comments not that we'll move to the next item on the board now this is a recommendation to review and approve the 2021 proposition 304 301 performance plan we received some information on that every year dr wright you want to just briefly go over that for those over here absolutely this is an annual requirement every year the principals work uh jointly to create goals for teachers 75 of the teachers have to agree to the goals in this case we're putting an emphasis on online education and training and the work that
118they've already invested in countless hours early and also that which will be invested in teacher development professional development in the spring months as well and so uh we in order to be able to pay out any of this first the board [Music] or are you ready to vote we're ready to go can i have a motion to accept item uh three point two on the motion by check i have a second by margaret all in favor and then this okay next item on the agenda london 3.3 recommendations to improve the school level report for fiscal year 19 and 20. dr wright from alberta would you like to explain that to us i know you probably have a presentation for us let me just go over the report really quickly this is this is the school
119level report it's a new requirement as part of the annual financial report it's due to the state on november 20th and what it is is it basically breaks out all of the expenditures for the entire edition it includes mmo it includes the classroom site fund it includes all of the grants and it breaks it out by by canvas that's what it's doing and it breaks it down by cost per student and it also does the same thing for all of the revenues it takes all of your revenues for the entire district and this is a new requirement and it's part of the national center for education statistics we have to report all of these numbers to the state and i was telling dr wright that the file that's sent over from the auditor general's office
120is 18x when we prepare and start inputting all of this data it increases the size of the file and right now ade is only accepting files that was 24 makes and when i started inputting all this data the data is now up to 36 mix and i don't know how rule 80 is going to start accepting these files being that the max is only 24 x but anyway what it does is it creates all of these um these pockets of how we did each district is spinning all of our files and we have to send this file back it goes this data the state turns around and submits it to the national center for education statistics and it's also going to go on the school report which is going to come out basically in february
121or march and each school district is going to have a website um where the public and you know anybody can go on to determine how districts are spending their money based upon expenditure and revenue and basically this is what this report represents it's similar to a little bit similar to apply each other that we all looked at it is but this breaks it down by bicycle exactly by expenditure by the different compartments and expenditure instructions support services administration by food service by transportation by the different components for expenditure and also from revenue right something different than that [Music] quickly our boys won the state championship for the second year running and that was an outstanding effort to beat chino in the finals and they did it decisively four to zero and that's a big win
122and i'm very proud of our kids and our coach coach elk in his first year nice start and coach crane should be giving credit for all the years he put in he coached many of those kids since they were they recovered it was a great job our girls are playing winslow tonight they're in first round playoffs and they call them play-ins it's a longer it's a bigger tournament they're doing well and we hope to get over there before this is over and then our boys will face off and uh playing for us here at the conference championship this friday at home against round valley and so there's four or five tickets per athlete that will be there we will practice social businesses and masquerading and we're going to accommodate about 150 fans on the site
123for groundhog as well and that concludes my report no further questions you have questions we're good then all right so the final item on the agenda is that we will have a regular scheduled board meeting december 8th at 5 pm and this board meeting will be over where the district offices are i have a motion to adjourn a motion from chuck have a second combined favorite return [Music] thank you so much thank you for being here this evening we appreciate your input it's valuable thank you very much