Batavia Public School District 101 Board of Education Meeting for July 23, 2024

001e e e it is now 7 p.m. Tuesday July 23rd 2024 and I called this meeting of the Board of Education order Cindy would you please call the role here present mat here sler present Meadow present Gonzalez Thomas present all right the next the Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Tom I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thanks Tom thank you and are there any items to add or remove from the agenda uh no no cover the speakers yeah right Holly do we have any public comment for today we do not we do not so I will spare everybody from me reading from that section cut 10 minutes off the

002meeting right there all right and I do not believe we have any BPS Partners today so we wish them on whatever they're enjoying their summer break on and then board leaz on committee reports does anybody have any to do share today summer not all that surprising though I got every invite on Earth from Josh buac yesterday so time of the year yeah um so for the CAC team I was they had it today I think 1M I was unable to attend but I Brad if you you want to mind a couple highlights sure we had a a summer curriculum and assessment advisory council meeting today we talked about um the work that was done June 3rd 4th and 5th which is our summer curriculum league so we had over 90 people 90 teachers who did

003the quick turnaround from ending school to come back to work for three days on curriculum a lot lot of middle school and high school groups so that communication will go out to staff here in a week about all the updates to the curriculum um and what those teams worked on we talked about the board policy on instructional materials about operationally defining anchor supplemental and responsive materials and then giving teachers a way to work that process so that's in the works uh we talked about our subject area leadership teams which you might hear called salt teams and um there there are some spice to them sometimes but um they are we're going to work this year on um a K5 social studies pilot so we had teachers opt into that um for this year there are

00442 elementary teachers who are going to be participating in that pilot which we think is super exciting um it's really based on inquiry and getting kids to ask great questions about the community they live in the state they live in and really recognizing um how social studies can really impact them we'll have a K12 science team that's working and then a K5 and a 68 team working on English Language Art so those will be kind of our major curriculum projects for this year and our conversation centered around how do we get people involved in this work so that they feel empowered to to lend their voice to this work and then we spent some time talking with Tom about our our structure so we set up C about 12 years ago and things have changed

005in 12 years so we wanted to make sure we were having conversations about are we as effective as we need to be how can we maybe transform ourselves a little bit to meet the the greater needs there's so much curriculum work that's going on in the district due to changing standards and our ability our desire to get better so really looking at are we the team set up in the right way for that success so really good conversations today happy to have Tom be a part of those conversations we a good group so I was very happy with the conversation today I just a couple I just um because I'm taking I just don't the science the K through 12 um H how many is all grade L like how many teachers are I didn't

006know if you said that how many teachers were participating in that one we don't know yet so like we just approved like these are the ones we're going to offer so we'll now put this out to the staff okay and see who wants to participate but our our conversation was like how do we get more people to participate and I think that you know we ran a science leadership team last year and we had very few people from the elementary want to be a part of that but we have a lot of work to do in that area because the standards are pretty complex we had more secondary people but like we were discussing today how do we get more people involved in that process and the same with Ela is that K through 12

007we're going to do it's K through 12 but we're going to do a K5 group because their needs are pretty defined and then a 68 group because their needs are a little bit different anything I missed to no I think that's actually to what Brad was highlighting earlier that was actually a natural product of the conversation about how do we differentiate the needs instead of trying to treat it always as prek through2 as conversation you know based on the feedback and trying to be responsive to where different needs are uh I think Brad absolutely highlighted we talked about maybe it's time to kind of divide and conquer some of the areas of priority and that's that's kind of hard for us sometimes right because we're a a prek through 12 district and we like that's

008in a huge Advantage for us here in bavia is like we get kids for a long time right and we can do great things with their education but things in needs are different developmentally kids are different so how do we respond to those needs the needs of the teachers are different because at the secondary level they're more specialized within their discipline elementary teachers they teach it all so how do we balance those needs so today was a good example of like just trying to balance continuity versus needs of staff and students and then just two other questions because I'm just curious the salt team are those the members on CAC or is that totally separate it's separate so it's like bringing in a farm team to help work on that and our goals are to

009get a lot of classroom teachers involved in that process and then one member of CAC will be the liaison and sit on that subject area leadership team and then does the salt team is it like voluntary handpicked and does it ever like rotate like do like you know someone sits on it for two years and then they are off and somebody else we talked about that today because we kind of want continuity of like the work it's hard to restart every year but but it's also hard to ask people to do like a 2-year commitment too so we that was part of our discussion and we haven't finalized what that's going to look like we do like to get as many people involved as possible one of the challenges at the elementary is you have

010six buildings and if you don't have a like somebody on one of those committees within your building to kind of share that communication sometimes the communication gets lost and then when decisions are made people feel blindsided by that which is like a very natural thing because they haven't heard about it for a year because they don't have a representative the best thing for communication at our elementaries is word of mouth right they're really good about talking to one another here's what's coming up here are the decisions that we're making and when they have that building based rep or that grade level rep communication's a lot smoother and people feel less blindsided which is our goal thanks all right any others no Okay I uh I just want to call out that Fox Valley career center

011is open for course requests that they're uh it's not registration because you have the request to be in the courses but so if anyone out there has students interested in it Now's the Time to start looking into it oh thank you all right consent agenda so according to our board policy we designate a portion of the agenda as consent for those items that do not usually require extensive discussion before board action these items are generally routine recurring and can be grouped together for efficiency Steve I assume you'd like to share what we're going to be absolutely reviewing today 4.1 through 4.3 is the approval of our June 25th 2024 meeting minutes and our two close session meeting minutes from that same date 4.4 is the Personnel report 4.5 is our payrolls and bills uh 4.6

012is the instruction of our Clos session recordings from January 24th 2023 uh 4.7 is our donations uh we have one donation sizable from bavia youth Athletics for BHS basketball which is appreciated and 4.8 is the approval of the consent agenda anyone have any questions I do so um I know that we've hired a lot the past few months so I'm just curious um is our BPS website is that up to date with what all the positions are open it's close there's a lot happening right now but yeah it's close okay yeah we try to do like a reset every few days at this time of the year because things are changing right that's why I was just curious if it's but yes these people have been reflected on our website for the most part yes

013okay anything else okay all right well thank you uh hearing any no other questions I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent to agenda as presented so moved so moved by Danielle second by a a on Cindy please lead us in a roll call vote AR yes Meadows yeser yes ma yes gilber yes Gonzalez Thomas yes motion passes all right next is reports Tom anything you'd like to share under reports our foa reports for the board are presented and were granted as presented to you in the report book okay treasure report can I presume that's you sir it is me yeah nothing out of the ordinary to report anyone have any questions on anything no okay all right so a first set of actions um action 6.1 authorization to hire contract PA professionals Steve I

014understand you'll be leading this discussion yeah I mean I don't know that it's a massive discussion unless there's lots of questions but uh we're just seeking authorization to hire um based on the agreement that was approved last month uh additional par professionals um I think our count as of few hours ago and speaking with uh Natalie um who coordinates a lot of that of our par professional hires were short around 17 18 paros as of today um I have some good news we I saw two um AC Personnel action requests come through today for a parpro at BHS and a Paro at Grace mcain so that's good but we certainly need more um the authorization here is to approve uh up to8 um as of again a couple hours ago um Natalie had identified uh

015through a series of interviews um with a lot of candidates from the contract agencies uh seven uh PA Pros that we are prepared um to uh move forward with with and and hiring with the uh different uh contract agencies um she noted with me that uh she's been very happy with the candidates that have come through and uh they've actually been uh very very diverse um in terms of uh who they are in their experiences so uh we're glad about that but obviously our preference would be to hire our own people and hire people that would be our full-time employees but we're not quite there yet um so this is authorizing us to work through our our different contract agencies and uh continue to work on hiring those to full have staff our special ed

016classrooms properly okay any questions from any of the board members okay hearing none I will entertain a motion to authorize BPS 101 adiz Contract Services with the between Besa and BPS 101 Boe that was approved at the June 25th 2024 meeting so moved moved by RJ second second by Aaron cdy please lead us in a roll call vote CER yes Meadows yes yes yes Thomas yes yes passes thank you uh second action item is item 6.2 authorize memorandum of agreement with the baa who's speaking on this one that would be me uhy uh in the bargain that we with the Bea for the current collective bargaining agreement that we have with them those negotiations were completed and the CBA was approved last summer one of the components in that was a topic that we were

017not able to get to in those negotiations and that was compensation for drivers of activity buses and for those who may not be aware the activity buses are the the white te passenger buses that we use for after school activities we don't use clubs and we use them for athletics primarily and some other things but um they're generally driven by our own staff uh we had a memorandum of agreement in our CBA that basically stated we would convene a committee of the administration representing the board and the Bea to talk about this in detail and figure out what if anything we would do about this and given the state of those conversations we came to the conclusion that we recommend to you adoption of this MOA that would approve a flat rate of $25 per

018driver per trip so there would only be one designated driver per bus per trip for the pre and post activities related to driving that would be getting the vehicle in position to pick up the students it's gassing the vehicle it's cleaning vehicle making sure it's ready for the next trip uh administrative paperwork related to that you know all those sorts of things that go into making sure that vehicle is prepared for travel including in some cases depending on the time of year warming up the bus or cleaning off the snow Etc um we felt this was a Arrangement that we wanted to try on a one-year basis and so that's why it's a one-year agreement and at the conclusion of this agreement with the board's authorization uh um we would discuss whether or not we

019would want to continue doing this in the future um what else is there to say about it I think that's about that's about it yeah how are we handling this before was so primarily it's used by coaches and sponsors and they have the option to either take a yellow bus which is a charter through our uh transportation company or they can choose to use one of the activity buses if they're available there are five total in the district generally there are three at the high school and two at the middle school but depending on the time of year sometimes the high school will use all five depending on what sports are going on and whatnot so um if they're available and sometimes they're not available and sometimes they're all available it depends on what happens

020to be going on in a given day but the sponsor and or the coach has that the ability to make that choice of course if they're driving the yellow bus they're actually generally they're driving the yellow bus excuse me the white bus the activity bus they're D they're actually doing the driving whereas if they do the charter of course there's a a an employee driver of the transportation company they're not driving a yellow bus they have to be light is this an amount they asked for yeah where are we suggesting it this is an this is an amount we negotiated okay that we felt was a apprpriate given the nature of the duties and again the compensation isn't for the driving per se the compensation is for the work related to the preamp poost and

021it gets tricky we talked about the logistics administrative Logistics just people for that time you know and you know it's not necessarily work that we're accustomed to like there's not necessarily a direct supervisor of of time you know coaches work on a on a stien basis they don't work on an hourly basis and so that some days you might be taking a y bus and some days you might be taking an activity bus and there's a whole host of considerations to go through so the reason why this is a temporary Mo MOA is because we're not quite sure how this is going to work yet both from a logistic standpoint and whether or not this can change like you know we might need more activity buses or maybe we'll be using more yellow buses that's

022not entirely clear one concern we do have that's adjacent to this is the cost of these activity bu buses post pandemic is going up significantly we expect our lease on these buses will expire in the next year and we'll have to renew that lease and if those expenses continue as they we expect them to it's going to go up significantly much more expensive than what we're currently paying so that's one concern we also have is the longterm uh viability of using the activity buses given their increasing costs so that's another Factor consider previous we were not paying them for driving or cleaning up or doing anything it was just that was your stien and if you need to drive the bus you drive the bus if you don't you don't that's where we were before

023I think that's the question you were kind of getting to right that is what I was getting at yeah and then to drive those smaller buses activity buses do you need like a CDL or is that just a normal driver's license for that normal driver's license yeah we do train folks before they right okay take them out for a spin but uh yeah there's no you do the training is that happen I I do not do the training no no good idea did you should not he's a pretty good driver actually he is yeah any other questions from anyone else okay hearing none I will entertain a motion let me skip to the right page so I say it right I will entertain a motion to authorize a memorandum of agreement with bavia education associate

024to provide flat rate of $25 per trip as compensated for Designated Drivers of Student Activity buses move so moved by RJ second second by Rob Cindy please leave us lead us in a roll call vote Thomas uh I'm gonna abstain due to my husband being a baa member that drives activity bus okay that's fair yes yes mat yeser yes Meadows yes thank you Mo passes all right item 7.1 is board matters board matters is a time set aside for board members to discuss important topics and allow for the board to have a dialogue on these topics this item may be used um at every board meeting as required so we have two topics today that were requested to be discussed one of them is about buling hate speech and and the second one is about

025employee exit interviews so this is our opportunity and time to kind of flesh out these thoughts see if we want they Co kind of coalescent to being able to give the staff and Tom Direction on some information we want to get back or recommendations that we request that they would move forward with or for us just to be able to have a discussion and Open Session about these matters in a way that allows us to kind of get to the root of the matter so the first item on the list is bullying and hate and or hate speech would anyone like to kick us off so I have something I'd like to start so first of all I want to say I think this is a great discussion to be having and Tom and I

026talked about this but I would love for him or the team to walk through our uh process when uh someone submits that they've been bullying and then also when someone gets accused of bullying what that process looks from their side can we before we start that really quick that's a great place I think for us to start I just wanted to put out there that um in reviewing the policy and I I don't know enough about this um I think we're supposed to be reviewing this every two years based on the policy um and based on the last time that it was reviewed I I think we are past du that so this is a great conversation to have what exactly does that mean for us what do we need to do during the to

027have happened during this conversation to kind of fulfill our policy duties requirement that's a fair question I don't know the answer to that okay so you want me to if you don't mind sure the we take a lot of Direction because the that policy in particular there's a lot of legal action that has taken place whether it's court cases or action by the legislature around bullying so the iasb policy service that you are members of came out in the spring late spring with their policy recommendations for this policy so you will see probably starting next month that policy revision for your consideration um and we would need to get you know this this is a great start to it but I have to get teachers parents and others who are interested in participating in a

028feedback session around that policy that's part of the requirement together uh before you could approve that policy so you'll start to see it next month we'll engage people and then we would bring it back for a second reading an approval after you've received that feedback so that's underway because that just came out and we'll be digesting that policy so you're right we're nearing the end of our two years we're going to have to renew with the state but there's a more specific set of actions that we have to go through now with this most recent draft that they've given us does that happen every two years the requirement to have a group of people review that other than the Board of of education is different so that's a new requirement that they put in the

029the law is that you have to have a group to give feedback on that so I would need parents teachers and staff and then that feedback from that session would come to the Board of Education as a part of your consideration and Adoption of that policy for clarification in our policy the two years is that something that have previous board came up with or is that a state mandate the two-year thing is the state mandate okay so that's in the law that we have the board has to look at that every year and then I submit our board's policy to the State Board of Education on an annual basis they actually keep a list online of like who's non- compliant there was like three on there that I noticed this time because as soon as

030I saw there was a list I'm like let me go check to make sure that we're on it list we don't want to be checking the obituary you want to make sure you're not on so yeah so that that is coming up for the board's consideration which is good and timely for this conversation as a kick off to that process okay because yeah that's I'm reading through the policy the state law policy and it list through and there's the various process that should it should include but without limitation and they go through several different key things the frequency of victim victimization uh student staff and family obser obervation of safety at school identification of areas of a school where bullying occurs the types of bullying utilized and bystandard intervention or participation so I was just

031curious if all of you guys that who have been on the board have you guys been part of that process or is that something that the board does not get it can work any way that you want it where a board member could be a person to kind of observe that process that feedback process or that feedback can be brought to you so either way would work for that what have we done in the past well the feedback process is new the feedback process is more new in this renewal it's a requirement before you can approve of that policy renewal but I don't think that's new if this is a policy that's been the last time the policy was updated was January of 2022 I think what he's saying is feedback requirement no but this

032is part of what is already expected of US based on this isn't it is that something and those things have not changed so when that group meets those are the types of things that we'll be talking about for but in the past I don't think you guys did any of this correct I don't remember specifically I mean we probably should do something to make sure that we are doing it I think from here forward absolutely yeah and it sounds like that that's in process and I think a lot of that data at least I would be interested in seeing and I think it sounds like because you'll be presenting that information to the feedback group it would by virtue of the process come back to us I guess it's a valid question what does everybody

033feel feel about do we want to have a board representative at that group and that feedback process to kind of see and watch it happen and understand what was going on but I think the feedback loop could be board member and kind of directly from kind of consolidating that information because there's probably a lot to work through what does that look like will it be like uh scheduled meetings or um yeah I'll probably do probably like a during the day one and then a night one so different People based on their schedule can participate and my role is just to facilitate so I'm just there to kind of present some information so that they understand what the purpose of that is and then like a focus group Style just to kind of hear them and

034look for themes that I would share back with you and I'm very clear with people in those focus groups like if one person says something it won't necessarily make the report but if I'm hearing the same things over and over again those are the types of things that I would share with the board of education but if you want to do it a different way that we can do that too so as a matter of policy governance which is one of the charges of a board of education you know there there's obviously a whole slew of different policies that the board is responsible for in the board book right it's a pretty intense document right um and you've probably seen in my weekly updates that I've kind of highlighted how many new legislative bills have

035gone through that impact public education in the state of Illinois a lot of times that lands into board policy development uh updates and reviews so um you know one consideration could be that the board may want to consider uh a more regularly scheduled visitation to board policies whether you want to do that collectively at board meetings or if you want to do that as a sidetable uh group work you know with a couple of board members and May it as a board committee off to the side that would bring back recommendations to the board as a whole you know you as a peer of colleagues doing that with each other um typically board policy work is something of the board and it it's again what we as the employees of this District have to adhere

036to um it's your governance structure I guess is the best way to put it so that is one thing I've noticed we do not have in this district and so maybe to uh Danielle's point it could be a good structure to put in place so that it's not just this particular policy but if there's finan fiscal respon you know policies that have to be reviewed and maintained HR policies curriculum policies I mean that's a good opportunity as a board to also be really aware very acutely aware of legal updates that Springfield pushes forward or ISB pushes forward so just a thought just to give you some background on that particular topic for a minute is um when I first got on the board there was I guess a slew of more than usual of press

037updates information and I probably had I was one of the two people that said shoot the superintendent at the time said hey I might need some help going through all of this and so myself and one other person I was like this is a great way to figure out how to read policy and go through so I volunteered and then basically gave a report an update of the changes and what we like and didn't like and that sort of thing it wasn't a group work it was we just split it and individually gave their update so there's a mechanism for that so um that does not have to be kind of decided right now since it's the first we're all kind of hearing of it but um I think I kind of like that because

038there is a lot there to digest and so if we were getting updates and kind of digging into it in pieces it would be easier to okay have discussions I think about it I mean I think there is if it's if it's a small group a board committee there two or three people but couldn't be three without open meetings just to be clear um that if that person is also the one that kind of ties in with this feedback group because that's part of the policy right and then um Tom and I've been talking a little bit about policy review as it relates to the Strategic plan as well is that is there a formalized process of going through and looking at the Strategic plan compared to our policies to be able to make recommendations

039to us as to how to update or adjust all of our policies effectively so that they're reinforcing the Strategic plan or at least not acting against it yeah I think we need to put something in place because of that Mr plan and then just to help out with the press all right whether we want it we can mull it over and just see how do we want to do it we want to do it together as a board or is there only a couple people that really right well you know how big a ask is it too like you're right if it's a lot for two people three people I think what I'd like to do is um if this is okay with you guys is if you're interested in being a part of that

040feel free to email me so we all don't have to put it out there whether we're interested or not interested I'll work with Tom to kind of coess that information and then I think this may be partially a bit of a collaborative structure between us and the admin as they educate some of us on what the policies actually say and how they enact and everything else and then we can then work with them to bring back whomever those are kind of the recommended revisions updates and whatever else and that's not only on the bullly bullying component that we're talking about for that policy but others in general does that make sense Tom M okay got it all right so look at that look at us moving making decisions yeah no action items but making decisions

041yes all right so back to the bullying topic so if you're specifically interested in that one just so we kind of move on something is before we try to set this other framework in place if you're interested in that specifically if you email me and we'll kind of talk about it and figure and make sure someone's not overtaxed with the other committees we looking at potentially adjusting representation on okay anything else on the policy component you want to review on your part before we get to this process I'm still I'm honestly I'm not clear what the answer is with this but I what I'm so are I know what Brad is saying where they're going to do focus groups so is that gonna that's separate though from what we need to fulfill here on the

042board policy yes it's a separate cuz on board is component a right word for what that is it's a component of that process of this process of renewing that policy but we still would need to hit like the frequency of VI victimization like visiting that the student staff and family observations although that would probably tie with that so we're still going to need to hit those marks as well as that okay okay I just wanted to no we need to hit those things and I can't answer whether we did it in the past but I want to make sure we do it in the future yes absolutely at least I do personally absolutely okay okay thank you all right how do we want to do this process next since that was asked yeah I I

043mean that was my initial question was okay to walk through the process okay I'm not sure who would do that but that's Brad or Tom or sure so the general process when uh a complaint comes in and a kid can report a complaint in a number of different ways or a parent can can do that as well so uh his saf to helpl line reporting to a teacher reporting directly to an administrator the middle school has a separate process where kids can fill out a form those all trigger that process to start so it starts with taking the report in any form so we take that report uh within 24 hours our requirement is to communicate with the the known parties involved so um that would be both the victim and the aggressor in that

044situation and again that's prior to any formal investigation starting but that's a newer requirement in the law is that the parties that we know that are involved are notified within 24 hours which can be challenging we then go through a process of investigating on that whether that includes interviewing other students looking at social media there's a variety of of pieces depending on the situation um each of these investigations is new right there's no like set formula or questions that you have to ask it's really there are some general guidelines but we have to investigate that situation we make a determination whether that is bullying because there is a formal definition of that bullying or it's some other form of disruption to our school environment and then we determine supports consequences and intervention that might be

045needed in that situation um we communicate that to to parents students and families that are involved in that and then there is followup that's required as well so that followup can look in a number of different ways depending on the situation there's no one set piece for how that looks there any time frames Brad on those like you said the 24 hours to respond to the initial what about those other the investigations the follow up do we have any guidelines 10 days is our our window for that which is a very good question so 10 days now sometimes that's difficult because you have like kids that you need to talk to that are sick or gone or sometimes when you get into these investigations they tend to Snowball right like it's like opening a can

046of worms like they just start to oh and now I have to talk to these five kids and then there's a a complaint against the person who reported and it can sometimes be very messy in that situation which can expand that timeline but our goal is 10 days 10 days after the 24 hours or 10 days in 10 days total 10 days total then after after um I don't I didn't tell me if this is the wrong word to use but resolution or communication has been given related to the incident um is there any other followup after that so meaning I'm just thinking the situation where okay you've communicated maybe uh punishment or you know uh to the appropriate parties and in an outcome to uh other individuals uh maybe two weeks down the road

047do we follow up and say are you has you know are you feeling better about this situation is the is the environment changed and I don't know if two weeks is the right time frame but I'm just saying some other followup after after the you know closure of the incident or you know that is definitely the best practice is to do that followup um sometimes they'll set up as a part of their communication like you're going to do a regular check-in with your counselor to see how things are going or your social worker um sometimes the the Deans themselves will do that followup but that is the best practice is to do that followup there were some questions by the board about um restorative practices so like how do we heal those wounds right because

048that's that's a real thing that's often difficult to do right sometimes they're like I never want to talk to that person again or I don't even want to see them I don't want to be in classes with them restorative practices have to be like a mutual party thing I think that is always our goal is to get kids to heal some of those wounds if that's possible but sometimes that is not possible so I think that each case in kind of the hurt that's caused in those cases has to be assessed whether those restorative practices can be enacted or whether we just have to set very clear parameters for how those students will interact in the future when we're doing the investigation look at the grade school is that the principal doing that work or

049who's doing the typically it's the principal yes sometimes I'm called in to to do some of that like if a principal's out or something or it's a case that they dealt with or you know there's a lack of trust in that process then an outside person like myself would step in but it's mostly the principle at the elementary school can people if they're you know I'm just these are theoreticals but like uh could parties request someone else to come in and do the investigation I'm they could request it is that available to them if they want okay I don't know to grant that all the time but right it's a request that parents could make do you have any visual for this what's that do you have a visual is there like a step-by-step process

050flow something like that no no not that I know of so how did the faculty know how to follow this practice our our administrative staff has been trained on it so we had the district's attorney come in and do training for us last fall on that it was really helpful for us to get some updates on the law see where we stood um talk about best practices and investigations talk about um how do we kind of process through those things in ter making a determination whether something is bullying or not where it might need to go with one of the board's other policies so that and then we had a group work to develop a teacher training that we're going to launch this year that kind of explain some of these policies and procedures is

051there anything that is done I so I hear like for legality is it like the actual policy and procedure what about training as far as handling a victim or even an aggressor while it is happening to ensure that more trauma um is not put on them are we training admin and staff on that part of it the actual emotional part and you know as far as what one person might seem as that that's you know again like a student wrote in that's not a nice word versus like this is you know this is very biased hate speech so are we training our staff to know the differences so they can handle things appropriately when they're reported to them do you want yeah and that's uh that's a great point and so that's where our student

052services teams do come in to assist in those situations and sit in as part of that conversation process um so as Brad alluded to like counselors and social workers um while they may be involved in the followup but also can be very much involved in the front end too for every incident uh I think it depends it just it depends on the nature of the situation what's occurred who's sometimes it could be to Danielle like who's available um who the student might be comfortable with and I'm just trying to think of some of the things through this year alone uh but yeah the they the student services personnel are definitely kind of equipped to handle those kinds of things I mean we talk about those issues Danielle we don't have any like training on them

053but like that is something that our team talks about very few of these you know processes happen in isolation so we are constantly communicating about them and they can be really hurtful and you know horrible situations that kids are experiencing so like we want to make sure that we're getting that right for those kids so we do process a lot together about that but uh on the administrative side there's not been like formal therapeutic type training on how to handle that and I have a question so when um if someone submits that they're being bullied during that investigation time like what's the protocall like well we're kind of doing that Discovery I mean are the kids like are we telling well you guys stay away from each other I mean how does that work what

054does that look like yeah every incident is a little bit different in that respect but you know we talk about like retaliation will be taken really seriously during that time we try and do this pretty quickly because we do know that like people put together stories and there's just like we don't want these things like hanging out there for these kids CU sometimes they won't come to school until it's like there's some resolution like there's a lot of trust issues that will come up during these investigations trust issues as far as the students not trusting that the school is safe or that they're safe or that they're being listened to um there's a lot of issues that will come up like social emotional issues that I think are really impactful to learning so we want

055to make sure that we're dealing with these things so kids can access their learning so without like like with RJ asking about like a flowchart or I don't know if that's what we call it but so there is no what I'm hearing is that there is no uniformity exactly it's kind of people can handle it differently but there's not like a set that every school every level like so six different elementary schools is a possible six different principles are handling the same incident differently is that possible because there's not a one flow chart type of thing to follow I mean is that fair to say or are we all on the same page age I think training helps right get like more consistency and like I was an English teacher and we aim for inator

056reliability right so that that training part does help in the getting a more consistent response the policy itself and the procedures give guide post but it doesn't dictate like here's what you do first second third fourth so it's not fully laid out because every circumstance is different but there are definite guide posts within the administrative procedure and the policy so one of the things you mentioned earlier like restorative practices but you talked a lot of it about being restorative to between like the aggressor and the victim right trying to either restore that relationship or restore their trust with those around them I guess one of my questions is part of your followup kind of question earlier is is there kind of touching base with both sides independently to either through a counselor or someone to

057kind of touch base and say how are you feeling are these things that like individually restorative not collectively restorative yeah I think that's always the best practice we try and do that okay can I say it happens in every circumstance I canot I mean people you got I understand you got to walk the line between kind of ret traumatizing someone balancing them if they're willing and accepting but I think like you the attempt needs to be made in my opinion you know to go through that and best practice yes and then whether they accept it or or willing is a different matter so okay and I'm sure we can always get better at that too right I think I think that followup is always so I mean to me it sounds like this followup is

058you you're saying BR it's best practice and I get it but it's not required or mandated and I'm wondering if we should make a recommendation that that is part of this process and the flow that it does happen every time I I I I agree with that I think that's a good idea I think I I I know personally I have some more questions I'd like to understand certain parts of it I think that might be a good idea based on what I've heard just watching different board meetings before my time on the board listening to everyone it may kind of bridge some of the gaps that we're seeing as far as everyone comes from a different background right right different I mean even through a little bit of trainings but we're not going to

059all see one incident the same way necessarily I think it it could center our victims a bit better if we do have something in place that's a little bit easier no matter whose hands are on it we're going to go through and and I mean be mindful that every event is different but there still should be something that we can kind of organize for sure yeah so kind of a request on that would be to kind of look at that practice what would the um how would that kind of materialize or what would that look like kind of in a parlance and then what if any since we have limited staff limited time and limited availability what does that mean if there's any kind of financial implications of of being able to do that and

060I'm not putting price tags on thing I'm just saying we need to be aware of what the impli well and this is one of definitely so but this is one of our biggest things and when we look at our strategic plan so much of this ties in like I look at the very first opening statement of our policy bullying intimidation harassment diminish the students ability to learn and a school's ability to educate preventing students from engaging in these disruptive behaviors and providing all students with equal access to a safe non-hostile learning environment are important District goals I would even be say that should probably be updated because those are our main goals right when we look at these things so I think it would be we voted on the Strategic plan this is part of

061it so whatever money it we know if once this goes in I mean I think that you'll see a lot of other gaps this is a huge part right kids being safe feeling safe um being able to go to school and being able to be part of an environment is going to really really uh improve in a lot of areas and maybe Brad we could make sure that we include that as part of a uh maybe like the feeler with our with our stakeholder committees that we meet with prior to this coming back to the board I think that'd be good to hear you know I mean the the idea about the follow-up protocol you could kind of drop that for some feedback and see what what the stakeholders feel yeah I would really like

062to know from kids like what kind of followup do they want or would they feel is most important to them yeah I mean I don't think you're right you can't uh make every you know if they don't want to engage in it then that's their right to do that but I do think I I mean for me I do think it would be good to have a protocol where we are touching back with them two or three weeks or whatever it is to see just to see you know how they're doing and uh because you're right I mean if they if they go through the process and then it's completely unsatisfactory they might not report future incidence because they feel like well what was the point I went through all that and nothing happened or

063it's just as bad and and so there might be some kids falling through the gaps that are suffering again maybe maybe not but maybe there will be I have a hunch or there probably is some we've been told that there that has happened we we've had kids stand up there and say exactly that is what has happened if you listen to their different stories that is exactly what many have said um and so the question that goes along with that is what do we do to follow up with the kids that do come and speak you know do we follow up with Lizzie do we follow up with her sister Alexis do we follow up with the people that we know are experiencing the bullying and follow through with them or they coming and even

064speaking in public reliving that trauma and getting no response and to my knowledge those kids have not received a followup so what are we doing with I I will provide you with the answer um and this is apologies on my part for not maybe coming back to the boore on this but uh our administrators did follow up with the students that spoke at I heard directly from two them what they were not followed up with so that's I I'm not saying like I'm not like a back and forth but that was my question that I had is so do we shouldn't we be following up with them to say how is this working when we know that you've come and actually brought it to our attention so like are you doing better right and I

065directly asked for a followup on it and was provided an executive summary of the follow-up meetings that took place and this is part of the reason why I know we do involve our student services team members because we had other people in those meetings and conversations to support any social emotional needs that might have come up from that okay so are we talking about you know people who came and said that I I care for kids and groups and kids I have one who's sitting right here that I am familiar with who um deals with children with in the lgbtq plus Community who said that their kids those kids and their kids and behavior is suffering so those are perfect people for us to follow up with right to say yeah they're still so so

066the people who have come and spoken to us at meetings right are you talking about the agencies or the specific student stories all of the above I think anyone that we should we should find that information valuable okay I would if I was looking to say is is this working is this bowling policy working I think the first place I would think of starting are with the people who have come to publicly speak and say hey and like a lot of these people are representing not just themselves but other students I'll call one out specifically is Martin burn who is now graduated they are a voice of many students and so that one person alone can give you a wealth of information on what works what doesn't work not just for them but for other

067kids who may be in similar situations um but so that was my wondering is like you know why are we following up with them and if we aren't shouldn't we be and is that should be part of the policy of our loop back around you know making sure that our policies that are in place are actually working for people I'm clear you're saying that you talk to people that said that spoke that they weren't there was no followup and Tom you're saying there was I mean it's not just this meeting and we go back to the one I remember I mean again it's not the May was it may of 2022 where we the rally had happened and it was at the um RMS I mean there were I don't think I don't think people

068for the most part were followed up then people Le said I know you know so they're coming and speaking so what comes of that what does the board or what does admin then do what do they do after someone is coming and reporting that you know hey I had this bullying incident I did this but there was no follow through or this failed me so is that not part of this you know information that we should be reviewing and evaluating our policy on and if we're not following back up with them or having those open conversations then I don't know how we're doing I'm just a little confused here well so I I I think I understand because there was like I'm just so I wasn't here for 2022 I wasn't I wasn't here right

069so I'm not 100% sure about that situation I mean I'm I'm 100% sure I'm not sure about that situation that makes sense right uh this past May board meeting you're absolutely right we had various representatives from different agencies in our County or our region speak on behalf of some of the voices of students that they've had come through their agency right and then we had a couple of our own uh speak up what I was referencing were those that were internal to us that okay I into your point I I don't I'm not aware of any Administration and I can speak about myself I did not reach out to some of those agency groups that came and spoke I'd like to think about that I'm taking this feedback in right now and talk to some

070of my team about that and process that is it clear to those people because I'm just a little surprised that hearing from them knowing some personally like um were they confused that this was not a followup related to is could there where's the conf I I guess I'm where's that disconnect and we don't need talk about yeah I'm not sure and that would definitely be a conversation I'd like to take offline because we're getting into like student record student stuff but I'm defin you know I'm I'm definitely open to having that conversation and would like to follow up on that yeah and we I mean no specifics I guess my whole point is is you know talking about you know as far as how do we know if things are working and we do know

071that people are saying that it's not working and so how do we get those voices well we have different voices that are available to us and do we need to change our policy we do make sure that those kids are followed up with or those individuals I think you're I'm going to word Smith a little bit I potentially change our practice like our policy says we need to do these things okay right and our practice is how we kind of enact that policy and the things we do to support that policy okay so like does our practice need to a shift to be able to help support that policy so um I think I think got Tom's basically saying let's go back let's look I and and I I recognize the fact that for my

072position the I don't think people were I mean I've talked to the previous superintendent in the past and said hey if somebody comes to me and said to the board and says something I want to know what happened afterwards like I need a feedback loop that if someone said something happened on a bus then then they came here to talk at least tell me whether that was supported that was investigative what were the things that kind of occurred to that yeah it's and and that really didn't generally happen right and so I think that's something that we as a board can say that's important to us as a board that there is that now whether it how it what I think Tom wants to do is like when we start having organizations that come individually

073making sure that we figure out a way to engage them in the process as a part of the practice is what you need to work on I'm interested in what other districts do because historically most of the people that come speak at boards are listened to but I'm not sure how much is there's actually a real feedback glute there and I'm not saying it shouldn't be yeah I'm just saying I'm curious as to how other districts might handle that as a way of of of understanding it because in a lot of ways it's advice given to us to take to say okay if it's important to us then we'll give it to that these are things we need to follow through clearly something's from varying people's opinions is not working right yeah yeah I mean

074just that I think that would help us as the board to know you know is is this something that needs to be you know Revisited revised but we're not going to know if we don't know exactly what ever happened right so I think that's like a just for me that's like a really easy place to start because those people are local they are reflecting and reliving their traumas and I think we at least that's the bare minimum that we can do at that point don't we'll let Tom digest that information a little bit go for it yeah figure it out okay I just want to be clear on one point though is there were if I remember correctly two active students that came to the May board meeting am I correct about that that gave

075feedback and experience shared experience or active students active students okay okay four active students wait is there more hold on I'm trying I remember four specifically they were all active at the time okay so two or four let's say four okay okay four active Tom did we follow up with those active student situations I'm aware of two so I I need to take a look and go back though the intent was to follow up with any student and you will verify that they were yeah and if not we'll take a reasonable action associated with that okay good point so I know that going this our policy is kind of with sp00 kind of aligns with s sp00 is that fair say so I guess my question because I read SP 100 um and so they

076talk about the out of school suspensions of 3 days or less um may be used only if the students continuing presence in school would pose a threat to school safety or disruption to the students learning opportunities um and it says the threat to school safety or disruption of the student's learning opportunity shall be determined on a case-by casee basis by the school board or its design and the design says you know it's the principal Dean all that good stuff so that one and then also the one about suspensions longer than three days expulsions and disciplinary removals to alternative schools basically says the same thing it to be a POS a threat to the safety of other students staff members of the school Community substantially disrupt impede and interfere with the operation of the school um

077threat to the safety of the student staff members of the school community and subst disrupt impede interfere with the operation of the school shall determined by Case by case basis by school officials um so I guess my question is so that's what they say right it's if they Cause A disruption threat safety and all that stuff and so says the bullying may take various forms including one of the following harassment threats intimidation stalking physical violence sexual harassment sexual violence death public humilation destruction of property retaliation for asserting and alleging the act of bullying so I understand that we have to do certain requirements from s sp00 but if it says so that's what I'm I guess I'm it says on a case-by casee basis this is how I'm reading it is like um we don't

078necessarily have to do all of those if it poses a threat to the safety of other students staff members School Community disrupts impedes and interferes with operation of school and you know like their uh students learning opportunities so it's kind of like okay um if I'm being bullied and they're threatening me and if we can do this as a case by case basis and I understand we shouldn't have a zero tolerance but do we ever take that into consideration like hey we investigated this is a serious threat we do not have to go through the um um the inter uh the interventions you know does do we ever do that yes the board took action on something this year Brad correct on a student that resulted in in an assessment that there was an eminent

079harm and deposed danger to the entire building based on the activities that were being done the misconduct and the board took action on that particular recommendation there was also a second recommendation that was conducted about a student situation um that unfortunately in the end uh we recommended an expulsion that was held in advance um of a young student and that also fell in line but a part of that was again best practice trying to remediate trying to educate trying to support the situation before we got to that point so yeah so I'm just the reason why I bring that up is I guess I'm just trying to uh remind the board we have unfortunately even in my first year here resorted to that level of consequence has that ever been done relating to bullying like

080uh it was not yeah I know the ones that we did but has it ever has it ever is that I don't know I'm sorry I can't answer that I I'm not sure so this I'm just kind of curious you know that's what I mean so it's like it's kind of a casee by so that I know the S SP 100 you know I know what people think of s SP 100 so that's what I'm just kind of saying is like hey should somebody you know after the investigation look at it by a case by casee basis and say I think we need to go this route and not this route I'm just you know because that's I to me I'm not a lawyer I'm not I don't write this policy here I'm not a

081politician um but just like I think that kind of gave them a little wiggle room on it because it lets the school board or School District determine on a Case by case basis if that makes any sense so one of those cases I guess as your question is is one of those cases to the point where the S the the the ramifications are so kind of exent and important and and critical that you effectively say we're going to suspend the student for 3 days or longer or whatever because of the kind of criticality or nature of the situation right right and then kind of follow up with the investigation I guess if need be but I would presume at that point you almost have to like prove inocent like you're affecting punishment before you've necessarily

082gone through the right steps so I imagine a harder lens is pushed on that to do something like that because now I'm sorry I'm asking a question more than anything yeah I so I I do think think just so the board understands the spirit of how sp00 got introduced in the state of Illinois Chic it was a it was a measure used actually from the state of Michigan I believe is where it was the the philosophy behind this uh came from but reason why I got adopted was to slow down and make districts really analyze who right you were expelling and punishing from school because there was a very specific demograph set of demographics that the data was starting to show were being over punished or overidentified so the the state um moved sp00 through

083and that's part of the reason so I hear what you're saying but that that I just want to remember that the spirit of this was actually intended to do something else right to level the I don't want to say playing field but I you're saying it's like to make sure that we are Equitable in all of our punishment it asks districts to be reflective on on your disciplinary policies and what you as an organization might have as a blind spot and how you're handling student discipline um CU I I remember going to the king uh to Cal County Roe trainings on this when this was getting pushed as a building principle and we were as it was moving forward and and that was absolutely the intended Spirit of what they were asking us to do

084yeah I I we had to revisit everything right yeah so I guess maybe it is an option it could happen it may has maybe has happened probably can't get too specific about that but I think you would you got to really take a very careful lens because of that spirit that you're talking about as to whether the nature that you put yourself and the other students in that if that's a snap decision in the end more than a thoughtful decision I guess is the danger of it I don't have an answer to I think it's a great question yeah I mean I I'm just curious I mean I guess I'll add to that is and also we're talking about expulsions that's a pretty extreme like as a district obviously want to protect all our students

085but exposion is a very extreme right measure of discipline which it's been explained to me that it's changed in education that you know I think they've studied the outcomes of students that are expelled they really set some up for failure throughout their life so if we can somehow uh mediate that or uh provide them therapy or treat I mean that's not really what we're going to we don't never really want to go down that path unless it's like the last resort right like you said it's imminent danger and students so I think in the vast majority of cases we're looking for Less Extreme Measures and I think what we're trying as a board to do is get consistency and policy from building to building and make sure that whatever our policy is it's giving us

086the outcomes where we want to get for both parties I think for the people that are getting bullied that they start they feel safe uh they can learn in a safe environment and for the kids that are the offenders um that they understand the extent of what they've done the damage they've done and that they can learn that this behavior is not acceptable and that they can learn more productive Behavior so they can intermin with their classmates and the faculty and a positive way I me that's I mean I don't want to speak for the board but that's kind of what I'm thinking right I mean I don't want to always exp I'm not s but that was just on their SP and I was talking actually I mean they also again I don't want

087to expel anybody but it says like the out of school suspensions of three days or less too which I know I don't even know if we still do ISS I don't know if we do it yeah we have we do ISS doesn't usually rise to us though right for they could appeal it yes so if they appeal it it could but generally speaking it doesn't always get up to us at that which is actually a really good reminder why sometimes Bo if you're wondering why why weren't we given some details or things of that nature ahead of time and we're really careful about what we try and expose you to and not expose you to is because sometimes in our policies you are the appeal and as the appeal you have to kind of hit

088it hit your eyes for the first time with with those appeals and not have already some kind of uh Prejudice lensed by information that we may have provided you in a different meeting or something that fact it's the same thing with me they don't bring something to me if I'm the next appeal step and then I kind of hear it out okay other questions comments yes yes I I don't uh this is for Brad I believe or if you want to prer to someone else year-over-year year-over year for years you've been in this position um how do you know if you're doing better at helping students or reducing bullying or harassment we look at our data So within our data warehouse there's what data is that so we look at all disciplined data that goes

089into Power School which is your student record system that we have access to so um we look at that data on a monthly basis to see like are we seeing more incidents are we seeing more incidents in one particular area one particular School we're try and problem solve that with principles if that is occurring um it helps clue us into where we need more training maybe for our staff so that is something that we regularly review are we doing better year-over-year I would say the pandemic through we were seeing some progress and then behaviorally the wheels kind of came off during the pandemic just to be very honest and we saw a lot lot of extreme behaviors that we weren't seen before and we're just starting to see I guess I personally underestimated the the

090Ripple effects that that would have on our school community in terms of student behaviors and we're just starting to see those kind of even out and making some progress again in that area what data can we have access to we don't need that answered here mhm but I think that will help us all sure especially when trying to set goals and level set and find a base um I think I said this before I would love to call out that just because the reports go down doesn't mean that the problem's being resolved so there needs to be another measure whether it's surveys or whatever um my other question on or my other thought on or my other question first before thought is what is the strategy that you all have to make sure students are

091aware of how to submit bowling reports is it the same at each school is it handled by the principal that's handled by the principals and a lot of that happens like front loaded in the beginning of the year where they'll go over the student handbook and how to do those things so uh they review the student handbook with with students um and a lot of times those will come up during that time okay because I know like going through different schools I've seen different signage some have things about and some of them don't um I don't think it would be a bad idea to do an audit walk through the school look for that specifically to see if it's there if that's something we could do um and I'll just say one comment that is

092not an easy comment to say but I think think that I think we need this is just for me and obviously we'll figure this out as a team but I think that we need a lot more written down and visuals of what everything looks like from start to finish for a student from start to finish for a parent for a faculty all the ins and outs I understand there's a lot of abs and flows in it I understand that there's nothing follows a straight line but there's a start and there's a middle and there's an end end or maybe there's not an end like we were saying continuous followup but for us to be here and be like what is these questions I feel like there's a lot of questions that we've asked that we

093as school parents should have known the answers to not just as Schoolboard members like what's the practice what's the policy how do we get to this um it seems like there should be pages and pages of information on all the different outcomes all the different resources at faculty have all the different resources that students have um tied up in a nice little bow and a nice little bow that's all and I'm not solving the problem I'm just saying what I think so if you could do that that'd be great do oh you pointed me yeah so you did say that was there a h line that they can report it to a hotline or um do you want to talk about that Tony or yeah there is to answer your question briefly yes there is

094okay through 12 available for K2 to anybody it's a Statewide hotline so then just a qu thought is I I don't know how difficult or easy this would be but maybe we just print that hotline on the ID cards so kids have it available with all the time you know I again I don't know how easy or hard it is I don't know who does our ID cards but just make it like on the template you know bullan hotline or whatever the hotline's called um that way it's all available even and I don't know if they have a website they do they have codes say you can even put like phone number QR code right on there kids always have their phones idea so I'd be kind of curious as a part of your kind

095of feedback loop process of finding out like people's ease of access or how they feel like are they even aware that there's a phone number or a QR code or whatever else is mebody else I mean probably you would feel about the same if hearing from people externally students and teachers and others to find out what they're aware of that options and resources even are out there yeah sure if you're not having a problem would you know what to do if you did right like I wouldn't have you know yeah there's a lot of signage that we posted and we adopted the safe to help hotline I would say maybe two years ago and there's yeah I see that around a lot of areas we post them most often if you're in the school restrooms

096they're they and there because usually when when a when a student is despondent that's typically where they I've ever been in a restroom in a school think I've ever yeah think a difficult so I have a question um so you know we just approved the Strategic plan and a big part of that was having measurable data so we can measure how we're doing so I think for me with this it's kind of twofold like obviously we want to reduce the incidents of bullying or be able to identify if there's like problematic buildings like the middle school or certain grade school but then I would think we'd want some component I'm not sure how you do this again I don't have the answer but like once people go through the process like was it did it

097work for them I guess is what we have like how do we how do we evaluate if our process is working I mean I don't I don't know the answer to that cuz I imagine whenever something like this happens there's one party that's always probably to satisfied because either you you put in a submission for bullying and nothing happened to the person or I didn't think I was bullying and I got punished I mean it's I know it's pretty complex I mean you're not going to have everybody say Yep this was fair usually uh I'm just trying to figure out how how do you measure the effectiveness of our policy if it's working or not I I think part of it is is coming back to something we talked about earlier is is um the

098idea about how are we checking in on our students on our on our the kids that are part of the situation I I really do agree with that sentiment I also want to Aon in response to something you just raised we have to be careful too when we're measuring the data um if we see a spike in reported incidences over the next two years as a board is that a good thing or a bad thing for you because well rical question more people are aware of the policy now I going to say the more awareness you raise it is it is very possible you will actually see a spike in reported incidences now to someone who's got that mindset of well now you got a really big issue in bavia or are we really actually

099just providing an outlet for people to seek help and feel com and now the number has gone up because we have made a different type of intentional campaign to put them on IDs and and get parent awareness Etc right so I just want to be careful that as we talk about where Improvement and success is being made I do think on a this particular topic just this I'm that student voice might be really important right you know because how how do PE parties feel after it's been resolved or I don't know why there's such an echo on this microphone but there there there you know what what yeah where where have people landed are they better what has happened were both parties open to going through kind some kind of process to heal that relationship

100and what's happened you know again as Brad pointed out that is ideal and I've gone through restorative uh practices training and restorative justice training and you know in my previous District when we did that it was always very clear by the by the trainers when you have both parties not willing to sit together you still want to find ways to educate and support right um but the most ideal situation is is that they're able to kind of sit together and understand what happened and and kind of work through that and then they may not become friends but at the very least they've learned and grown from that experience and and can move forward right one of the things you brought up that's always kind of raised the point with me a bit is you know

101people come to us and talk and there's it's difficult for us sitting up here with the level of information that we get right to know are those individual problems or is this endemic like is it all over the place because we probably won't make everyone happy all the time we won't resolve everyone all the time and so it's hard for us to know the people that came to speak is that just it wasn't resolved to their liking and yes there will people that happens and that doesn't mean we don't go Reach Out And Touch talk and everything else to them to try to continue that discussion and that resolution but are we making progress on other things and are we trying to do to because it's difficult to know if something's broken by three or

102four voices now these organizations that come talk that's a bigger hint to me right you know that something is truly a Miss I think if you're having someone come and speak to you you should have a pretty to me it's an indication that there's a systemic issue um more than likely they're not unhappy with your victim is not going to come up and relive their trauma just because they got to answer they I agree that they have a separate they have a higher level of let's say credibility for lack of a better term right now because they were brave enough to come up and talk and they feel it's an important enough issue and that there's enough support below them that I'm not saying it's like an individualized issue per se but it's to help

103us understand a bit of the breadth of it is okay we had 472 of these items we feel we successfully resolved 389 you know we're making progress toward these that kind of thing might help us understand the extent of the issue is all I'm kind of saying it also keeps the tendency for people to excuse those that come talk to the board MERS oh that's just one person you know it it gives some Credence to them if if that is in fact a bigger issue because we really know well it would be or not so any other items on this topic for discussion yes okay I I real quick I comment just to follow up in something Tom was just saying is um and this is something I thought about is we we have these

104incidents that occur and yes we have to we're talking about you know how we deal with and what the process is uh but I'd like us to think about more about um how we as a community learn from that from these and I know it's once I'm G to Echo I don't have an answer to this this this issue or this question but um but when we have these incidents in order to know prevention you know to to learn as a community how do we how do we take these negative situations ations learn from them and hopefully that will help to prevent it from happening by getting education awareness out there so and I know we may we may already do some stuff I'm I'm sure but uh just um how to turn these these

105negative incidents into positive learning opportunities for the community I was going to stay with the educational piece that talking about more scena optic possibly in our in data the more educated you are as a community the more able we are to identify things we have kids who have no idea they're not and I mean every family should do their process the only the way that they you know see fat not everyone's going to talk about racism not everyone's going to talk to talk about you know homop homophobic slurs and stuff like that so I I mean if we don't know about them necessarily or know that they're happening we may not have the tools ready to actually identify those things kids are going to school not understanding necessarily I'm hearing this and this isn't okay

106and so we ask for by standards to report incidents but if we're not educating our community our kids our parents actually to what is harmful what is bullying um you know what is bias behavior then you know we probably aren't going to see everything reported as it should be so if we are educating more which is a great thing we may we may definitely see those numbers go up um and to Rob to your point I know it's been talked about previous to even us being on the board is do we reach out to community so when we have incidents that happen let's say I'm going to use one that is nonvictim specific so a swastika let's say is drawn on a wall and whether or not it's 50 students at seat or 10 students

107do we notify the community of that and say because then maybe there should be education that goes out or if we are seeing an uptick in racism do we send out something to grade levels to schools um specific schools or is it districtwide um related to that or as hot topics come up in the world you know that we politics or other heated things and and we know that things are happening like Tom had sent out some information regarding some of the conflicts and I think that's always great so that you have the education so I don't think it was ever decided what does that look like and do we do it do we all agree with educating our community with age appropriate resources and what does that look like I don't think there's ever

108a downfall to that and yes it will probably bring up some discussions and some fears but I I always think that's better than it being misinformation out in the community people making assumptions um the story variant it doesn't mean that you have to give details or private information I think there's ways to go about that so that we are educating and people are knowing that it is happening in bavia and we can have a community- based approach about it to it is that do we do that like is there something that actually are there steps we follow I guess or is it just is that something that we do on a regular basis do we have anything in place there's conversations that we do have about that and then we have again some like criteria

109so we look at what is the nature and reach of the event right like how many people saw that what what was going on confidentiality is a big piece that you have to take into consideration when communicating more widely um sometimes you're in the middle of that investigation about who did it riew in video so is the investigation ongoing and then sometimes we need like to drum up Witnesses too right like same thing like the police I'm sure they have somewh guy posts about like if they communicate about a crime so like do we need people to step up and tell us what they saw those are some of the guide post that we use for whether we're going to communicate more broadly about an incident that's happened within the schools to me it seems

110like this is just anecdotal it seems like we shared that when there is like a police report generated and then that that usually seems like there is something shared by the district and if it doesn't rise to that level I mean there might have been instances where we shared by I can't really remember a lot where I police report though we have to be mindful of the fact that that's dealing with adults you know we're dealing with students and minors so in that respect or that regard it's we have to be a little more careful right because even the police reports don't include minors um they don't report on that so um I I get what you're saying I I just I just think um I'm not advocating I'm just saying it seems like when

111we have done it it's kind of been that level of uh trespass or mhm so is there no if we're seeing like if we if we're data we have our part of our you know strategic strategic plan is to have um our dashboard and let's say we are we are definitely backed by some data and we're just we're noticing that there is an uprise in certain hate speech or or just behaviors could we not say like hey this is a great time for an email to go out say hey this is a reminder community that we um take a strong hand Against Racism whatever our we need a strong stance and here are some educational resources and age appropriate so it's not necessarily this is what happened D if that's not something we're all comfortable

112with um I mean at the very least can what about something like that I just think giving parents resources and the knowledge that things are happening is much more powerful than than not I think more of our community have voice that they would rather understand understand that things are happening I mean as a parent I'd rather know like do I need to have different conversations with my kids not everyone wants that and you don't have to have those conversations but to have that ability are you talking about like a specific communication that that is the sole topic of the communication I don't know I mean I don't know what it needs to look like I mean I'm just kind of throwing see and I think that's a perfect case of like it's hard to Define

113it right it's hard to draw the picture right now because every situation could be somewhat different we we don't know what would happen right and sometimes and um if like this is where I sometimes I lean on Holly's expertise right and and you know I I will lean on her and say hey what would be really appropriate or you know we had a very unfortunate situation happen in the first semester at one of our buildings and we did send out broader communication with age appropriate resources and asking parents if you're don't know how to tackle this conversation at home and you're you notice your child is struggling with this here's some links that you can consider using we also had set up on-site support um for families and for students and for staff and you

114know Holly worked with our admin building Administration to support what the con communication should look like right so I think it it also dep depends on the degree yeah because we've done that when we've had uh faculty uh pass away I know we've done that before it was traumatic to the I think I think it's a reasonable lens to put on kind of like every incident right is there an Vue an aspect here that is either Rises up to a level of of kind of a consistent issue we're having or that there's a consistent problem or it's severe enough that it requires of that you know that that I think I think that would be a reasonable kind of a lens to take a look at to say okay is based on our judgment is

115this trending in a wrong direction is this important enough and is is can we frame it it away to be an educational component as an issuance to the community at large that's kind of where the data piece comes in it for me a little bit Yeah is so that we're not so we can kind of see how things are trending so if it was really getting to be a signif like okay we're seeing a certain uptick and one sort of type of thing then that would give us a lever to kind of like recognize it first of all and then we have a different kind of discussion to even know what you're addressing even know what we're addressing right yeah I think um I think one of the frustrating things um parents is like is

116when there is something that happens at the school where like you know there's a you know racial slur or hate speech written on the bathroom wall and then you get the email from the school saying hey there was an incident this that that um we are currently investigating and I a I just always was like okay well I don't need to know specifics but did you guys come up with an outcome was there an outcome so a follow-up email yeah and I understand we due to Privacy Law is like I don't want to know students names I just want to make sure like that you actually did do the investigation and if you couldn't resolve it because of you know if it's in the bathroom you know obviously you're not going to have cameras in

117there but just like hey we did look into it unfortunately we you know we can't express we can't say what was happened but we did look into it and continuing or something that was I always felt to be honest one of the um frustrating Parts it's like what you how do I know you guys did it the other kind challenge is kind of a message game right a bit so like when those don't go out they get out on Facebook they have those things and then then the cult of misinformation right on every side pops up and nobody knows what to believe anymore and facts get misrepresentative so that's the other component to think about as these things you know sometimes getting out to State the facts is better than not stating them at all

118right so I think that's where a lot of the feedback comes like I would just rather know that you're aware of this and that it's it's not the image that it's just being swept under the rug like that's not what's happening you know it's it's we're acknowledging that this happened um and you know you don't have to give specifics I don't think people are necessarily asking like what did you do who was it but they I think people just generally want to know like you you are addressing this and with that with that knowledge I mean that again that that allows education um at the home level that allows education that's needed from other students again if if students are understanding that this was not okay um you know this is something that is not

119accepted a lot of things do happen out of pure ignorance and not knowing that using the n-word has an effect on people the way it does and so I think with having that there I just I don't see a downfall to informing our community and maybe I just I'm missing something but I think that's where lot of that goes wrong and you have a lot of misinformation when we don't communicate so when we're talking about data I do have questions about data is I know we can't necessarily like spill it out out but um you know one of my concerns when you talk about the dashboard and data is that I guess the confidence and the fact that we are getting reports in and I I guess a better understanding of what the data is

120so like does it track you know this is a racist incident this is a homophobic incident this is um an incident and and in the aggressor this is a multi you know instant aggressor um is this something that is not victim specific do we keep data on that and it counts towards different incidents yes yes um I don't know if it's broken down specifically by the type of what's right way to codify this uh like category yeah like we we have it um we have the data broken down by also disaggregated by race and Brad gender as well right as we reported to the state status by who's reporting and who's we uh Brad would you mind uh explain that data component a little bit further so we like so again so like we have

121like a demographic data so are we over reporting certain students as bullies or uh is that what we're talking about so we can track that certain populations are getting overidentified possibly but not necessarily based on a categorization of like what was said what was the incident so how do we know there's like a homophobia comment is this a racist comment is this like not to talk politics but we know that there's going to be an uptick in like coming November right and so are we going to see more sexist you know incidents are we going to see more you know whatever I mean so how do we know so that's the part I think is Brad Craig M we don't codify it to that level of specificity correct in power school can we or we

122shouldn't no we we don't have that but we do have like anecdotally the administrators and student services teams that are working on those kinds of situations when those inces occur you how handling it um it's kind of anecdotal I I guess is the best way to put it like we you know um because we don't specifically say like to your example hate speech surrounding politics or you know we don't have those categorical systems cuz the the student data collection system isn't uh like an open text Field Box in how we collect our data because part of that collection has to go to the state right right so and they don't collect it um to that degree of categorization not to M I know we AOS school suspension time race and gender are some of the

123data fields Brad am I missing any of the big ones so like when I was looking at is it hb3 the one that it says that we have 24 hours to notify families um shoot let me see if I've written down really quick hang on are we tracking just a th that time do we actually track that Brad like what's that we we re we notified within 24 hours we completed within 10 days it's HB 3425 just to put it out there so we do collect so I have like the report we share with board and close session we do have a data chart that showed you the buling incidences that were occurred based on the protected classes so race gender sex religion um and so we broke it down by buildings the in infractions

124that were reported so for example in 23 24 that was 47 um and it was broken down by also uh language language proficiency low income special education status and race so they're tracking like the people who are victims and the people who are doing are they I'm still confused are they tracking the type of incident yes yes okay okay because that's what I my understanding of that bill is so that people so a parent Guardian can contact isbe and pro ask for the data on a district and that's part of that bill so I wasn't sure through that I didn't look into it more but like what does that include is that going to tell each person that there was this many racist incidents and this many um you know against religion and this many

125against that so it sounds like yes okay thank just not individually broken down within those pre protected classes I think we would have to hand filter oh so that particular part so it's a collection of anything that's been identified as an incident regarding religion race disability sex gender uh ident identification and sexual orientation but not specifically but then not not disaggregate within their now that so that's that's the aggregated number under those protected classes of incidences that were reported that makes sense so how would we know if things are getting out of hand in a specific area datawise would we can we well that I mean that is still though a a totality of the report from those protected groups classes I guess the I guess the question is right is the but is there

126a value right in knowing what type that is and I guess from your perspective yes there may be because then you can kind of Target your educational campaign yeah directed toward one specific right section that seems to be right like if we're Tak off a bit higher than one would expect right then we need to educate people on you know gender identity or whatever else okay let me have time to process with my team then okay take a look at I was just I was curious so yeah I'm not giving action cuz we are not deciding on that I think we've all agreed this is kind of a conversation right yeah so we'll go okay and with that data question um just to elaborate on is is does that include our instance of again like

127an edword written on the atrient brick or swastika or just in general it's not specific to a person but we're having someone you know spewing hate speech which may affect students are we keeping track of those incidents and how is that tracked like are you talking about nonvictim specific like someone to faces something someone to faces something see this this is the hard part it's not like student a called student B this name it's student a yeah maybe they wrote um a slur on the wall maybe they were screaming out like a a student head said um I think that they were calling Muslim Students bombers in the hallway and so I mean that could and really leak down to a number of students but it's not specific student against this one student do we

128track that and and is it track the same way are we doing a report on it because it's not one person reporting it as bullying necessarily yeah most of our data collection is student specific so like if a student involved that situation whe a consequence for that that's the type of data collection we do maybe not as not as so it's hard for me to visualize that but probably like if something like there was no victim but it was like an impact on school culture or something like that so like if you I don't know if they would track that necessarily okay in our student information system because everything's very student specific so as a district do we do we not track that do we not know how many times students have defaced like a

129bathroom wall writing this word or that word do we just do we not know I don't know but okay I have to ask I'm looking at all of the data just really quickly and I'm not going to give out any numbers or anything discipline incidence by type is reported okay um each I'm looking here and there's probably what Steve 40 different answers of what that type is from cafeteria violation bus violation computer violation uh dress or grooming drug violation um there's a large and including uh property damage property misuse and vandalism are all listed as options then you can click on any one of those types and drill down by school by grade by type by individ like it's you can it's all very available like a bus let's say a bus one it can

130be down to so the student you know what school they go to and that is it saying that this was a racist racist incident so I may or may not I click on that and then it will show us how many by school by grade level by Race by week of the month um how action counts which is the consequences after school detention so how those incidents were handled if it was a conference in school suspension after school detention then on a bus um if they were low income or non low income all like Broken Out by demographic do we have anything that that you collect on that so I hear by discipline but do we do it by victim as well no I guess where I'm following I'm I'm like I feel like there's

131like a gap so then how are we serving the needs or knowing what the needs are if we're not able to see the big picture of everything I don't know if I'm verbalizing that correctly you say don't don't know the big picture well the big picture being so I um we have more discipline right let's say bus issues but are we knowing that these are um I'm just going to go to that let's say the nword because it's just like the easiest example but using that um and acknowledg that we are seeing more and more of it or the I don't think that we have I think that's tracking the actual number of times that's happening on a bus that is reported and then you can narrow it down to like Elementary or middle school

132whatever you want to do but we're not able to say this was racist This was um against someone's identity this was against the religion we don't have that data so when people are saying that they are being bullied for various reasons we don't truly understand if we have if we don't have the data to actually process that I'm confus okay I think that's what that Tom was saying he was going to kind of go back and digest with the team okay because I think that's that is that something we can potentially split out right or or it's arduous to split out and what does the implications or what does it take to do that I just don't think we can understand without it I mean so to other districts not go without it right like

133I'm not arguing whether I'm not stating at this point whether I think it is isn't yeah how do we handle that and how do we progress through that right I see your point right like how do you like we're not we don't we have no idea then we have no idea of the number of incidents that happened I'm just going to use Rolo that involve hate speech that involve like a bias to the degree of really harming fellow student members we have no measurement of that in our district at this point is what I'm hearing so that's worrisome in the fact that how do we can't control bullying if we don't even understand what the problem is we can't address it and have Solutions I mean we can definitely put a policy in place to

134to maybe start that way but I guess I maybe that's what's it's a missing piece I don't know okay I think for one thing for me I'm hearing all this this is a lot we're having a pretty broad discussion but like one thing I'm not really clear on is like how do we find if we're doing well or not like I I'm not naive to think I mean I guess the goal is that there's you you never have a like everyone's aware of the bullying policy and no one chooses to exercise it because we never have it in that's probably not reality so kind of what I'm trying to figure out is like how like we have report cards that kind of measure like how we're doing and I'm trying to figure out like I

135mean it's pretty complex like Tom said like if we increase awareness of how to report then we probably will see a spike yeah and so like I'm trying to figure out like how we as a board can measure you know if how if we're improving if we're doing better because technically like next year we could raise awareness have a more clear policy we're doing better cuz more people are getting reporting and getting uh needs addressed but at the same time if you just look at it in isolation the numbers are going up I think then we don't look at an isolation I think if we have the data that can specifically be a little bit more specific perhaps or a little bit more helpful for those needs but we're also checking in and maybe that

136is through our discussions of the follow through you know I don't know what the time frame is but the check in students did this work for you are you do you feel safer do you whatever the case might be which were not necessarily following through every time you know so that follow through along with the data along with like you know the things that we're already supposed to be doing every two years I think would give us a really good understanding of how we're doing and like people are saying I'm safe but they're then instance going up then and I think um you know part of the reason why I'm saying I want to digest is to kind of circle back to some of our teams is because as you've heard um we were're adopting

137Panorama as our new self reporting umal mechanism survey right where students will now report on where they feel they are uh in terms of school safety their own well-being Etc and if you recall Bo that was being self-reported only by our high school age students students who were younger than that was being reported by the teachers completing it on their behalf so I think we're going to see a pretty Dynamic shift in some of the reporting data but I want to get this is where I want to come back to uh Brad and I connecting with some of our teams that have done this work and and that student services team to understand specifically any of these components that might actually fit what you get all are talking about because there could be already I'm

138trying to we used panor in my last District I'm sorry I it's not the work that I was directly touching but I I would always see the the end product survey and results of that work because it would get reported out of cabinet then you ET so I I'm just trying to recall if we had some specific indicators there that were part of that but we you know again this is something that I've taken some notes on that we can take a look at here um because it might actually give you that point of of uh references to whether or not improvements are being made because if we can take a look at what students literally are saying to us that might actually be what you are looking for right I mean because that's what

139we were talking about earlier where it's it's really coming down down to the students voice on on how we understand whether or not we've been making some gains for for kids who are in these situations so okay I mean I would also be interested in data on the kids that are accused of bullying if they be if we're doing restorative practices so their behaviors are improving as well rather than you know only the kids that are getting bullied like that would that's the other component of I think because we want on you know both sides of it I think we want to every kid safety and wellbeing is a priority I think we just need to make sure we're focusing on centering the victims and I think when you do that it's going to bleed

140outwards to ensure that we're touching on that because in essence I mean most bullies their needs are not being met for sure and maybe through that educational piece having more open discussions and and different practices are helpful for that as well but right yeah I mean every student needs to be taken care of it just doesn't seem right now that it's centering the victim when we're not looping back or we're not collecting data on them to just kind of like see our uh what is the word I'm looking for like a I don't know my brain's fried right now to see like a our our how things are like progressing yeah reg SM I don't know yes yes that we're heading in the right direction thank you yeah yeah no I'm thinking about I'm thinking

141of a lot of different things at one time so sorry all right Daniel do you have anything I yeah I I let me I so what are we I guess I don't know how much I want to take up more time and this is very important so are we coming back let me go through my questions because maybe that I just we might have already gone through a lot of them one of the things I don't think that we've talked about is um regarding have a zero tolerance stand on policy I know we've talked about that with school well 100 and I'm not talking about zero tolerance like you're out of school but do we have do we feel like we have an effective statement to our community to our students to our parents whether

142it's in the student handbook that specifically spells out like this is not going to be tolerated or I don't know that we can have specifics like you know one two three strikes are out I don't I don't think we can do that right so do we feel that our policy is very very clear that this isn't just like oh this is bad behavior I mean this is like a nogo this is zero tolerance we do not allow this in our schools and I don't know now that we do I feel like it's like tiptoed you know it's like oh that might be bad right but like no this is this is saying Zero Tolerance without it actually being Zero Tolerance I guess I guess a very clear stance AG like the issues surrounding that and

143the luggage that that statement brings yeah a negative side don't get me wrong you know so I think that's a good question as it results kind of from the Strategic plan reviewing our policies yeah to say does that is that supported enough in that question for that group that might be looking at that I think it's a very reasonable question to say is it a is the statement affirming enough within that initial kind of inclusive statement you read from the from the strateg plan at the beginning of this discussion right I mean because I mean it gives a definition of bullying which I think there might be a couple P people pieces missing but it's very specific on like you know what that includes um and where you it can't be H it can't happen

144like what's considered school property and all of that I don't know that it's like super clear that it's something that is going to be called out let's say I mean we ask kids to report it and what I hear from kids is like they're afraid of that retaliation in our policy it talks about students not receiving retaliation but I mean I've heard from students and staff that they feel retaliation when they do report things and so often times when kids are hearing things or people are hearing things they're not reporting it because of that and I think that if we have a stronger stance and it's very clear and we have that type of community language and that education maybe that falls together but right now it's kind of like people like oh maybe that

145is bad I don't know but it's not super clear from my understanding especially again you're not going to have a culture of people standing up against it if it's not super strong and they're afraid of that retaliation and I don't know how we address that piece either because more often than not students are not reporting what they're hearing and what they're seen because they're afraid that their peers are going to retaliate or they're going to report it and then nothing's going to be done and so maybe that's a different topic I don't know but I think that kind of goes into having a very clear policy and stance so that people know what the expectations are okay um I don't know if that's so much a policy thing I think that's a culture thing that

146shouldn't we have it as a statement that trust I mean yeah yeah given you have the right statement and their effective statement but I even with that unless you have the right culture where they feel safe yeah then it won't the statement won't matter do you think if we effectively are able to adopt some very like you know some more improved procedure and kids are feeling like they are reporting things that's being heard things are being done do you think that that would improve over time that's that's a culture got I think that's a culture thing you're talking about is if this Touchback feedback loop that we're talking about creates an environment that they feel better won't matter what we write in the the Strategic plan or in our policies or mission statement well and

147that goes back to something th said where that relationship's got to be there between the students and somebody at the school with an adult but there's trust yeah that they they could go there and that's a safe space and that it will be followed up on it I think like the one I think about specifically is like a student did go to a teacher but that teacher wasn't in charge of the investigation and we heard about that from a board email and I obviously for privacy reasons I won't see what the student is but it brought more trauma than the actual incident because the member of Faculty that handled the investigation was like I can see where that can kind of be like not so good words to use very much minimized the incident so

148when we talk about that we perhaps need to ensure that it's the follow-through is done by that trusted individual right I think that's what Brad was also talking about earlier there was a component of Staff training that's going to potentially go on to help make that a little bit more effective than it seemingly has been in the past yeah so see those strategies play out a little bit and see what that does m so seems like a step is being taken that's yeah that's great okay discussion on um you walked us through I think these are asking what we do so is there usually education for the aggressor and their family when incidents happen did anyone ask that I'm sorry if that's repetitive but do we educate the aggressor and family in any sort of

149way I would say we absolutely tried to I know I know that our teams try to okay and is there any recourse for the victim or aggressor if they are unsatisfied with how things are handled or what the outcome is repeat that last one are there is there recourse so like if the victim is not the victim or the aggressor is not happy with how something is handled are they able to what happens at that point they're like an appeal process I think that's when uh the appeal process will start to occur so from the aggressive there's an appeal process right I think this feedback we've been talking about is a better route potentially of addressing from the victim side their continued kind of care after the event there's nothing in place though specific like

150I sound like there is but it was like a best practice thing and we're talking about kind of codifying that a bit more potentially okay okay um I don't know if we can get into this because it might be too specific but how and what discipline is decided do we base this on type of events or whether or not this is a repeat aggressor so I'm guessing yes that we handle things different based on that mhm okay okay okay well this is not the last time we will ever talk about this I'm sure that so um and I think that's a good thing I mean I'm not saying is so the conversation will be ongoing and I think there's a lot of things related to other components of the treat strategic plan and policies that

151need to be kind of have this lens so I appreciate everybody's time and effort to just so I know some time I know you were taking a lot of notes so like what are the follow-up that's fair like what's the next action steps after this discussion that you wrote down I don't mean to put you on the spot well I mean I have collected I think the entire list of questions and follow-up discussion items that have come through our conversation here so I like I said I'd like to kind of just sit down and unpack that a little bit with the administrative team there are some specific questions that were asked and I think that are kind of like the technical aspects of our operations you know like some specific questions were discussed about what

152what can we do with about data collection and the type of data and how do we can we disaggregate that right so that's really technical stuff that I'd like to get with building leaders and and Brad and I and talk and then we talked about like the Panorama survey I I raised actually that and as a response to some of the discussion the board had about um uh you know how do we how do we chart a road map of success you know like what how how do we determine that right so I i' I'd like to see us follow up and talk a little bit about that what kind of data are we're going to be collecting because it is important we're going to be um you know as a board there is going

153to be a conversation coming about our data dashboard um there's actually some decision- making that I'll need you to give me guidance on um um Holly and I have had some conversations and and she's done some great work on putting together um some options for the board to consider and we'll bring that to you when it's an appropriate time for you to have that conversation with with us as Administration and make that decision so I think these are really good talking points uh helps us kind of think about what we're looking at uh what we're looking for excuse me um so yeah for accountability of the board you know again if we're we're in breach of this policy in my opinion and maybe that's not correct technically but if January 22 was the last time

154and we're supposed to do this every two years and update things we're past that point so what does the time frame look like for us as a board you know to have another discussion on this I don't necessarily just want to table it and see what happens I mean so what does our plan of action look like at this point because I'm not I I think out of I think we do be good Brad to know what your timeline is for being able to do the feedback loop that is required we need to find the board member that would be working with you or being a witness to that process let's say just like as an advisory level that we have on our other committies I don't know that timeline yet and I don't know

155whether you don't know are we actually in fact in delinquent on that yet or not not that you're aware of maybe I don't okay I think we need to continue that process regardless of the current state however keep in mind the the new updates in the legislation on bullying just went into effect right now like two weeks ago so okay I don't want you it's important and I appreciate the sense of urgency we need to have around it but you have to understand this work takes time I mean he's got to create some feedback loops as part of the process that needs to happen before you're even allowed to start kind of weighing in as a board yourself on on this particular policy so for us to have conversations as far as to you know

156whether we wrote down some of the items you know as far as um a flowchart um you know um protocol Touchback you know and the check-ins with students and how we communicate to community can we not do that until this point happens I'm not saying that I think that's so then why are we I don't know understand why say we were I said that's part of what I think we need to do to figure that out when to tooth it in it sounds like for the voice of the student staff family and all that to be done on the part that we're supposed to be doing that would be a smart way to utilize that but I mean this is urgent I don't I I I can't here anticipating a conversation but I I'm are

157you guys comfortable with not just putting off on the back burner or should we ensure that we're going to um make movement on some of these issues doesn't feel like it's on the back burner to me feels like they have a plan what's the plan I guess I don't understand I know that there going to be con conversation with Community yeah uhhuh is that not the plan that's not going to I don't think that's we're I my understand is we're incorporating that feedback to help us refining policy right and there's some things that Tom needs to digest so to figure that out that's that's component number two is all of the item that were part of this discuss so what is the timeline for this that's a that's I don't know the Tom are you

158able to kind of establish like at the next meeting could you come back we can bring an update back to the next board meeting I I mean this it's G to take time right it's going to take time we need a first reading second reading yeah and I'm not even sure at that point we'll get to a policy yet I don't know that yet but I think an update at the next we entirely reasonable to say okay these are the things we can act now these are the things we need to do and these are the next steps yes that reasonable yes I wasn't hearing that part yeah I would like to bring some answers back to the questions that I we can try address I understand things will take time but I just want

159to make sure how much time things keep moving well that we're progressing yeah yeah things keep moving that's fair when you look at what we have here it's we need to make sure that we are swiftly doing things in a careful manner the yeah the presumption from at least my part was I wanted to give Tom a chance to be able to figure out how long he needed to respond to because there was a lot discussed today that absolutely potentially and and it's in my opinion it's okay to say these are the things I do and these at the next meeting and these are the things I need more time on so okay Tom okay makes sense I'm good to go all right the second topic of conversation was um exit interviews so that's something

160that was brought up a while ago um as we were working through with people kind of resigning retiring leaving whatever they case may be but if there's a kind of a a formalized process for understanding why people leave is that a reasonable summary of what the discussion was at one point in time so I think there was some questions to what that might look like what the ra ramifications are because there's three people or so that deal with that work with how many employees that we have in the district 400 was it 800 700 yeah 800 that's what I thought yeah so how do we fit that within the capabilities and are there additional resources needed to be able to manage that dependent on what we would be looking at so Tom you had looked

161at other options of how to do how does that look like exit interviews is it purely interviews is there yeah know um Steve and I have actually had some of these conversations along the way because the Glide path on this is it actually fits one of our strategic plans components right as one of the priority areas um we've talked talked about uh finding a good model of some form of a a survey that can be pushed to people when there's a notification and that that would then collect a data warehouse for us to use um bless you Steve yeah I mean that captures what we've discussed that may not be the best thing but that captures what we've discussed as maybe the most doable practical with what we have I think if we can Center

162the form form around um some form of a quantitative metric on response to certain things you know as a prompt that people are being asked about um as they leave our organization that would be consistent over time then to give us that kind of feedback that I think we're looking for like consistency kind of in the question for example were you leaving because um benefits were an issue in this District were you leaving because your salary was not competitive where you there's ways we can take a look at that but I also want to make sure that we identify a model that's got some uh's okay I'm struggling with words um like research based best ways to ask those kinds of questions right so that uh when people leave we're getting the clearest answer and

163response from them and the reason why a survey would probably be the best tool if I've remember uh what the board's questions and discussion points were in the past this past semester was that it's surrounded around if we can collect it and see some Trends so then we would want that in a digital format I would imagine because the more anecdotal and qualitative kind of feedback you get it gets really skewed very quickly uh so having like a consistent tool we're using and being able to push out would be really helpful well then you get consistency in how it's asked as opposed to a sit-down discussion interpretations of questions but also sometimes people a in a personto person interview you might not be forthcoming with a situation and they can it's at their option of

164responding to an online survey so you protect their rights to be able to respond accordingly and potentially Infuse some anonymity into the process if you needed to you know that sort of thing if need be that's one of the reasons I kind of like the thought process of a survey more than and it's it's minimally resource dependent from a staffing perspective a survey from the standpoint you would like send it in the mail to them or you would someone would sit and talk to them be electronic email or okay I'm just wondering about the response rate on something like that yeah if you if you look if you do a little dive into this kind of a process the response rate is very hit and miss you get a better respon rate response rate what

165the research says if you do it in person because you're doing person to person but people can also refuse to do that yeah there's also questions if you dive into this whole kind of concept of do you do it when they're still employed do you do it after they've left does that impact response rates like there's there's from what I've seen and I'm not like the uh expert on this binding stretch the imagination but just looking at what um researches out there with exit surveys is there's a lot of different Pathways and avenues and there's pros and cons and one of the champ biggest challenges with it whatever way you do it is just basic reliability yeah which makes sense yeah it's fairly logical they ALS a lot of the research too says at least

166some some would advocate for this and maybe these are people who are looking to make a buck but they would say that a third party is always better because the person who's getting interviewed feels a little safer because it's going somewhere else and not right to your employer or your former employer who you maybe don't want to burn Bridges with so like again there's a lot of ways that this can go um but if we're going to do this I think we just need to probably determine a starting Place start somewhere because right now it's anecdotal so I'm think real quick this you know I took my car into the dealership for a repair here recently and afterwards the advisor ask says you know ask me a couple questions and you know I responded to

167him and then he said by the way you're going to get a survey please mark a five all of on that Sur every time and um okay and I was like yeah okay and uh I have yet to fill out one of those surveys right just don't do it so well that's a question right like regardless of whatever Sur survey you're going to get like I mean people don't usually go out of their way to say really positive things unless they're really really positive but people will be more than happy to fill out a survey for a complaint so yeah and my my point there is when we were talking as as I was leaving I was happy to answer his question you know I was like yeah you did you know fantastic job or

168maybe I need to follow up on this you know like that but then getting a survey in the mail once you're moved on once you moved on you're done yeah so that's why I answer the surveil I just want you to know regret h i answer their surveys but uh did you give all he wasn't happy I do I [Music] do service my friend used to do it when you get the free oil change if you answer the survey but we you have to incentivize it right but um so my exper previously my district as as the HR leader there um we did have the practice of exit interviews the turnout was really low uh actually I'm going to challenge your research I I we did them in person and it was not as strong

169um the union leadership had asked if there was a way I could create a Google survey and make it a little more convenient because one of the things they were getting as a feedback they didn't want to take the time to come and sit down and take 45 minutes when especially because typically the resignations when they were coming in that process with me started towards the end of the school year and people wanted to get and or during the summer so people actually liked that I would we were just my team was just pushing the Google form to them and we were able to start collecting a little bit more data through that methodology um um I think there is a little bit of a reality we just have to be aware of well I

170don't think either methodology is going to ever hit 100% of of your exit rate in response to those surveys whether it's in person or in a Google form but I do because of what we've approved as part of our plan I do think it's a great idea of collecting some of this Baseline data just to at least get a temperature feel uh of where we're at right um I mean the example I give I can give is like we just approved uh on my first year uh the district had a new teachers contract so as we've had some teachers moving on and I know otally like Steve was able to get and assess where some of these folks were going and why um but it would be nice to know hey was the new contract

171fair you know H how would you rate it do we want to use a lyer scale one through five um you know and that would be nice to know as a board and as an Administration to say like okay we're not missing the mark on salary but maybe maybe we men we're maybe we're a little off on health insurance right I'm making this up by the way this is not coming from any feedback um you know you could I don't know there's a myriad of things that we can collect the feedback on and what people might say but I know that was one of the things we asked at Niles because it was very important to our board that they stay financially competitive with that region and of course that's a you know from a

172comp compensatory standpoint it's it's a pretty competitive area with money and so they were being closer to the city you know that was uh sometimes a deal breaker when you were comparing our district to another District straight up the uh 94 and so our board wanted to know that data because then we would report that when we were talking about certain things so then did you for Niles did you have a third party survey and then the union was like yeah can you do a Google or was it always like how how was it you know how did the process start we did not use a third party for the exit survey component however we used Panorama and we paid extra to use the employee um what do you call it the climate component of

173that but you had to pay extra for some of that so always have to pay extra to use more but um that's what we were doing to try and keep a temperature on how things were going uh with the district's employees and then after that you did the Google do or was that part of no no no I when I walked in we were already doing exit interviews but they were in person and then we SW and then I we switched it over to a Google form because of the challenges that you were hearing from the Education Association and what you were seeing as just some internal data we were looking at and participation whatever else to me it was like yeah let's give it a try because again you know I was getting about

174one out of every three maybe one out of every four resignations say I saw like 30 to 40% is like a yeah you know and and you know as they were leaving I was just getting more of the specific specifics but you know really to Steve's point I think he shared this typically because of the role I was in and the role Steve's in they kind of share with you why they're leaving and what's happening um I think one of the things that shows value and what we're going to try and do with our dashboard though is is establish some baseline so that we have Trend data that we can build off of moving forward right so the inperson didn't work for you guys in N like that inperson interview no no no I people

175took me up on it I'm just saying that the uh the rate of like taking that offer was probably like one out of four to talk with you in person okay yeah but Steve like do you hear or do you talk to everyone that like puts in a resignation not everyone um some people I know like I got an email today if somebody it's not in the board book yet it'll be in their next month and laid out exactly why yeah well and that's that's kind of what I was thinking I I you know when we first talked about this is you know you were sharing the the list of people or whatever and and I was I I guess I was envisioning that you you had talked to these people and then maybe in

176that conversation they shared the reason why they were leaving sometimes that happens document that right so but maybe um I guess I'm wrong on the participation rate on that but yeah and we have the other issue that you probably are aware of is Ju Just from a capacity standpoint we have we would have I would have a major I don't know how I could do it in May and June when a lot of this stuff happens we don't have the capacity we're the smallest HR department in King County if we yeah and that's another reason why I'm encouraging that we consider the form component I think it gives us a data warehouse it allows us to have it it gives us consistency we can give it a shot give you know give the feedback Trends

177whatever and if it's meeting the need great if it's not we can twek and try something different I mean again I think anything we start with is is a start because right now we don't have anything beyond anecdotal would it be beneficial to get stakeholders involved in that process like hey you said their Union reached out so maybe we should go to the Desa and Bea and say what would be the best form of communication you guys want right yeah they reached out but they were they just said can you do a form instead people don't want to meet take time to meet that was the only feedback they gave abely we can me because yeah like we meet regularly with the leadership teams so I met with one today you I mean I just

178C like if your that Union was like yeah give us Google doc I don't want the surve know maybe they'll be the same yeah well in my challenge right is like three months out of the year a lot of staff is not in the buildings they're not work they're not working here so getting access to get them to come back in or a phone might be really really challenging to to do that and that's a big component because like you said May June and then from what I've heard you know there's sometimes an uptick in July August as well it can happen yes I think the survey is way to go it seems like our partners prefer that method so I think for me that's like the no brain like let's start there and U

179you know see what we get a year from now I guess yeah and what I I would what I would want um I mean we we can do it a couple different ways I number one if there's specific data questions themes that you want to know I would time when I would like to know that I mean that was a question like why are we doing this for for me it's personally like okay so identifying like okay like Tom was saying people leaving because compensation work environment is hostile or you know you're could be you know I don't know you figure out five or six categories of why most people are going to leave and then again for me it's like about Trends you know or like if it pops like hey 75% of the

180people say their pay is not competitive you know then that would be something like actionable like okay now we know like okay this is the situation we need to reexamine this or that like that's why I would think we're doing it I mean I could be wrong if that's what other board members don't think but like I'm trying to figure like why are we collecting the data that's why I think so we can just see the Trends on why people are leaving yeah right exactly exactly my only statement is to like what's actually crafted in it is I'm always asking like what are What in in our kind of group like large unit whatever what are they what are they doing and what questions are they asking and if there's like okay here's five of

181them what what information in this that you board find would be good to know from your perspective and these are the ones we would recommend anyway because it'd be good for us then I think that gives us the foundation to kind of work from because then we can learn from other people's trials and tribulations yeah for sure I can yeah get that and we may find out you're like nope nobody else is doing this well some are some aren't yeah yeah and so just it'd be good to understand what they're asking because then potentially if we pick similar questions or we work through it that might be good data that you could correlate between other districts in ours to find out if they're experiencing the same trends that we are which we kind of anecdotally

182know but not necessarily know okay so anything else on that so I'm hearing provide information and if there's board action needed related to that let us know and we'll consider it further all right that concludes both board matters elements um next is the public hearing on the 2025 budget budget and fund transfer Tony would you like to follow up I would so the purpose of this item this evening is to hold a public hearing on our 2025 budget and the fund transfers the interfund transfers that are incorporated into it it's a requirement that we do this before we adopt um this year as you recall we're going to be adopting the budget in August which is a month earlier than we typically do and that is a new Cadence for us uh that we would

183hope to continue in future years so that we can better allocate our resources in terms of the timing of of our of our calendar uh so what we'll be bringing you a month from today would be a final budget for adoption pending any feedback that we get from the board or uh any feedback that the board wants to consider from the community so I'm going to give a brief update of what's in this budget and then if there's anybody here that would like to address the board this evening they may do so on on the budget and the budget and the fund transfers uh first uh want to give a high level overview of the budget itself it includes $133 million in revenues and 134.5 million in expenses so that is a overall deficit of

184almost $1.5 million closer to 1.4 depending on how you round the numbers uh and initially at first blust that does cause some heart palpitations uh we do expect this expected this to be the case however the overage is in what we call the non-operating funds and that is because we're spending money out of fund balance for capital projects primarily almost exclusively actually uh in our operating funds we have an excess we have a surplus of 1.6 manag our operating funds are the funds that we use to to run the district on a dayto basis they exclude special purpose funds like Debt Service for paying for our bonds and our capital projects um among others one no interesting note here is that this budget does include some $23 million for what are called on behalf payments

185that the state of Illinois makes for our teachers pensions that money does not come into our coffers per se they're included here for budgetary purposes that we have to estimate and report to the state and they're in our financial reports and so I include them in the budget as the bottom line number but really what's moving through our coffers is some $110 million of actual money we'll see come in and go out of of our accounts over the course of the fiscal year another important thing to note is that uh our property tax revenues we're going to see an increase in those receipts of just under 1% this year it doesn't mean that tax bills will go up 1% that's just what we'll get in terms of total revenues and the reason why that appears

186lower than we're we're accustomed to this year is because our bond payments are going to go down or we're they're going to start going down and it gets a little complicated here because how Levy years and tax years and all that stuff works essentially when we when tax years and Levy years come in they get split between two fiscal years but we're going to start to see the first part of the upcoming Levy where our bond payments will go down for many years we had a stable Bond payment of nine 9ish million dollars that's going to almost be cut in half about four and a half five million do and so we'll see the tax rate going down accordingly and we'll provide some degree of tax rate relief evidence-based funding which is formerly known as

187general state aid will not change we're a tier four District which according to the state of Illinois we have adequate um revenues that come from a local standpoint from our local taxpayers to pay for our expenses and so we cannot expect to receive any more money from the state of Illinois unfortunately uh overall State reimbursements um will be down 6% and federal funding will go down um considerably too because uh the pandemic relief funds will be completely spent fact they've already been spent in totality we're done with those we won't see any of those in this upcoming fiscal year we'll see increases in just about everywhere else in terms of our expenditures but as I noted what's important to note here is that we'll be spending fund balance for capital projects which we anticipate they

188do not include any of the improvements to storman Louise in this fiscal year but they will be coming in the following fiscal year and and those will be some rather large numbers and we will spend down significant fund balance in the next couple of years to to be able to fund those projects um overall Staffing up right now by all accounts 6.7 FTE that's despite enrollment declining estimated decline of about 1.7% to just over 5,100 students maybe closer to 5,200 uh as we finalize those enrollments for August an improvement however in the pupil to staff ratio keep close eye on that um right now at present we estimate our P of Staff reg as being 7.9 so that means there are 7.9 students for every staff member we expect that to be 7.6 so that's

189a rather large decrease for in a given fiscal year that would be a three three T of a point is uh is is large um for one second how can can you explain why there could be a seven like how can full-time employees be like a fraction so that's why we do it in FTE I gloss over that thank you for asking that question FTE stands for full-time equivalency and we do have many part-time employees we have many part-time campus monitors we have some part-time par professionals we have other people who work throughout the district and a part-time status and so RN yeah exactly so we try so that we can compare apples to apples and just instead of heads we do it in terms of FTE years ago we used to do it in

190heads and in some cases one head is not all heads are the same unfortunately yeah when you're talking about fractions of an FTE like some people work 02 FTE and you count them as one head it's not a very good comparison we don't count um any of the contracted employees to that right the contracted people we don't that's not well no we do not so these are people who work directly for us and who are paid salaries and in some cases if they're eligible benefits in most cases if they're full if they're full-time they're receiving benefits um but the like for instance the authorization that you gave to Steve this evening for those Contra they are not included in those numbers but that does bring up a really good point thank you for asking that

191question what you see in this budget are Staffing salaries and benefits for those positions that the board has authorized and that includes the 6 74.9 FTE but in this case we're going to Outsource essentially eight of up to eight of those positions if we need to so that those eight people will not would not necessarily be included in that 6749 FTE and those salaries and benefits would be moved over to purchase services to pay for those contracts but for the purposes of comparing Apples to Apples we've included them here up front because our desire and intent is to hire these positions and that is what we're going to angle to do and we'll attempt to do if we can does that make sense m good question all right I won't belabor this anymore but I

192would be happy to answer any questions that you may have or any questions from the public any questions we have I had um a note and I apologize I didn't ask you this separately I believe there was an expense called tuition and other those around 1.7 million I don't know if it was for special education um off the top of my head I don't know exactly what that would be but it would have to be tuition for special education so it could be overall tuition and so not all tuition is special education for example we pay tuition for the Fox Valley uh career program that would be a tuition number that's included in that overall line item but yeah we do spend a lot of money on tuition for special education and other services that

193we cannot provide directly to our students that's what okay that's what you had explained it is before these are these are situations where it's not something that we could move in house exactly okay we're paying another organization generally is going to be another public institution and in some cases for special education will be a private institution we're paying to for them to provide services to our stud Mid Valley would also be to yes then there's some specialized programs that are within the state or outside of our state that we have to did I get that right Josh thank you appreciate that other questions love that he's checking with Josh all right one more thing I obligated to cover before we move on to asking if anybody else wants to ask questions are the the fund

194transfers and I'll cover those very briefly and Holly those are in the budget memo you could go back to that please we're transferring $56,950 from the education fund to The Debt Service fund that's to pay for Capital leases and specifically that's to pay for the activi buses that we lease so we can't spend that money according to our accountants directly out of the education fund we have to transfer to The Debt Service fund before we pay those bills it's right in the memo it's in the agenda in the agenda 7 transferring $48,000 from the operations and maintenance fund to The Debt Service fund to pay for the lease of the maintenance building and for the same reason we cannot pay for those that debt out of those funds we have to transfer it so we're

195see seeking um your authorization to do that and then lastly the $3.5 million that's how we're funding our capital projects and so this is the the annual allocation that we have for capital projects and we move that money in capital projects funds because it gets really tricky as to when sometimes those bills come to oftentimes that work as Craig knows well as an architect it's very challenging to know exactly when you're going to get the bill from some contractors because of the way that that work happens and the schedule our fiscal year ends on June 30th and sometimes the bills show up in June sometimes the bills show up in August and so anyway we use the the capital projects fund as more or less like a piggy bank we're transferring funds out of our

196on M fund to to pay for our capital projects and this year we're spending more out of that fund than we are putting into it but we put more in Prior years into that fund so it's not as though we're running a negative balance and Tony can we just make sure we're clear um the work that that we're doing and the work that you alluded to that will be happening next year this was all approved through our warm safe and dry plan last December yes that's a very good point just want to make sure that everybody understands that we are trying to do our best to stay on top of Maintenance Cycles Mark and his team are are doing everything they can to stay on top of this and we're working diligently on our health

197Life Safety plan it's taking longer to complete we've got some other aspects of it that we have to work through but it does appear that some of those expenses are larger than we anticipated we're going to have to incorporate those into this work as well so we'll process that this coming fall and and probably into the winter so just to clarify and you hinted at it earlier like these are not being transfers because there was some sort of weirdo shortage and the other one it's almost like an accounting requirement of the state that you expend dollars on certain things under certain fund categories yes yes there there are acconting requirements and funds that you know money is taken in for a specific purpose must be spent on that purpose and there are of course exceptions

198and a long-term debt has to be paid out of the The Debt Service fund that's you know our accountants and lawyers interpretation and so in some cases we have to move money out of certain funds even though we you know Into The Debt Service fund to pay for it so Tony sorry is a balanced budget required by law for this you would think but no it's not uh and for all intents and purposes we do have a balanced budget from an operating standpoint we're spending funding balance on capital projects okay so and sorry if you said this but the 1.4 million shortfall how are are we how do we make that up or where is that money coming from so in Prior years um we had transferred money from omm and in one year from

199the Ed fund but from on andm to capital projects and we didn't spend all of it and we knew this was going to happen because we treat the capital projects fund as as a piggy bank sometime we move more money there we can't necessarily spend all the money in a given year for all the projects because some of the projects together perfectly so we treat that as a piggy bank and there's more money in that fund that will cover the deficit but we're just spending more money overall this year than we happen to be taking in but we knew we were going to do that so you would put money in the piggy bank for this quote unquote rainy day right okay does that make sense kind of we saved for it before yeah I

200agree it's it's so this is the first time expenses out strip the revenues again that fund balance is in a I don't want to put words in your mouth but we're in a healthy position compared to we were like a decade ago oh yeah very much so you know the piggy bank was pretty empty the best you're ever going to get from Tony's we're in a comfortable position right so uh wouldn't say that okay we had a discussion so that fund balance you know we can it there's room to operate but it's you know we have to be very careful because um fin we're gonna start we're gonna start using that fund balance we are be very strategic in how we're utilizing it right and these numbers are going to get much bigger so to

201do the work at storm and Louise that we plan for in this warm safe dry plan this deficit is going to be tens of millions of dollars next year we have accounted for that with our fund balance can you remind me what our fiscal year is our fiscal year starts on July 1 it is okay and ends on June 30th and we have to adopt the budget by the end of the first quarter so that would be September 30th maybe I'm just confused with the capital projects list showing HCS work in FY 2025 yeah I have some some of that work is actually has come to yes I do have some of that work noted like we'll we'll pay some of those bills in 25 okay okay but the real work we we'll start working

202our plan right now is to let bids on storm and Louise simultaneously and what's likely to happen there is that we'll start the interior work on storm this coming June so almost a year from now okay probably late May and do all the interior work that summer and then do the interior work at Louise White the following year and the exterior work at storm the following year so some of those bills are going to come in this year appreciate it yeah but the real work in terms of letting the bids and whatnot and the real costs won't come until 26 it's a real challenge when you're trying to do construction work and your fiscal year ends right at the beginning of it so kind of I've had clients and others talk about like just can

203you not have me a contract or send me a bill until augus you know first because of the challenges associated with funding things over years over year but it's really important that the board have an understanding and so we can even if we this doesn't have to be the end of the conversation we can talk more about it next month and we can talk about it as much as you like so that you feel comfortable with how these things are ebbing and flowing because it's important that you have a solid understanding of it um and that you feel comfortable with and you have an understanding of what's going to come next because I don't want you to feel as though like you don't know what's going to happen in 26 or 27 but to your

204point earlier Craig about us being in a comfortable position I would say we are on glide path where we have in those operating funds some Surplus but we do have expectations for increasing needs both for Staffing for staff pay um for the costs of benefits and making sure that we constrain those that inflation um we can't necessarily count on some of our revenues that we're receiving right now right now we have a lot of money invested with our fund balance and we're earning considerable interest on that earn those earnings it's not something we've had in the past uh and but as we spend fund balance that will go away of course and recall just a few years ago we were issuing what we called tax anticipation warrants because we didn't have enough cash to get

205through the fiscal year was kind of like a payday loan I have to mention this every year wasn't that long ago we were we basically bwing money to get through the fiscal year so that we could make payrolls and pay our bills and so we've come a long way in these last few years um but as I like to say we're on glide path we just need to make sure that we stay on that Glide path so that we don't our expenditures don't exceed what we can anticipate our revenues to be otherwise things get really painful very quickly all right open to other questions from the community or other okay hearing none anything else from the board on this topic all right we don't need any no action on this at this point in time

206so but there will be action next month the next month okay thank you all right next item 8.1 is administrative comments Tom anything you'd like to add yeah so uh as we sit here on July 23rd the next time we meet together uh officially uh we will been five days into the school year so I just want to kind of bring that up so Bor I do invite you to join us on August 12th for opening day I'm sure our staff and administration would love to see you there if you're available uh we we will be kicking off our uh in opening Institute day there at the BAC um at 8:00 a.m. so again I I I'll make sure you get reminders don't worry but uh we'll remind you of that um we're really excited

207about the programming for that day and then the week prior to that we'll be bringing in all of our new teachers into the district um our team has done a great job of of building a really robust agenda to help support them coming into the district and I know um they'll have time to work with their mentors as well so um a lot to kind of Sprint in to get this uh opening of the Year ready to go uh we're really excited also uh I you know happy to report over the last few weeks there's been a lot of meetings and discussions with administrative teams with the Bea and Besa about the new strategic plan how we're going to continue to work towards capturing this work uh collaboratively and move it forward you know I

208I I really appreciate the conversation we had here tonight it's a huge component as well of this you know the as a reminder the Strategic plan is all of our plan it it's the District's uh framework for how we're going to approach our work and as Brad alluded to today um our CAC meeting today already had some great conversations and centered around that was our strategic plan and how do we address some of the components there uh so I'm really excited about that um I want I do want to thank all of our administrators the Bea reps and basma Reps who have been able to take time to meet throughout this summer to continue this work on the collaboration that we're doing um and Bard I'm I'm looking forward to having conversations with you about

209some of the things we'll bring to you because we're all in this and we're all we all have a component I guess is the best way to put that and then the last thing is I'm mentioning you know um we're getting near the end of the summer and bringing students back and today I had my final uh daughter and dad breakfast birthday breakfast um I like to take my girls out one-on-one breakfast with me when they have their birthdays and they're all summer birthdays and so today was my last one she's my youngest one and um it was it was just a pretty I don't know it was a heartbreaking reminder of how much older my kids are getting year by year and it's tough and Steve and I I mean I actually everybody on

210our admin team we kind of talk about this our kids are aging and so um the thing is though that makes me excited and I'm looking forward to seeing is our kids back in our buildings you know the summertime is really quiet and uh even though we're busy with work but now we get to do the the stuff with kids in the in the buildings and the staff back in the buildings so excited about that but I do hope that all of our parents and Guardians in the district are soaking up what remains of the summer and and time together as a family and um yeah just looking forward to our next meeting because we'll get to report in a successful opening of the year are you saying you're not going to have breakfast with

211your daughters anymore ever yes apparently maybe not oneon-one okay this is a very intentional thing they've actually started to look forward to this and I hope that stays do it the same way you'll have more final one for this year oh good that's all I got all right thank you all right uh next is board comments so would you like to start since you're at that end or sure okay sure I don't have much just um enjoy the last weeks of Summer be safe and thank you to all of our amazing staff that are working hard to welcome everyone back in August um me okay so I will say thank you to everybody that came to the board meeting tonight everyone that reached out to us again that feedback is very important we appreciate everyone

212who wants to raise their voice and share their opinions on things um I want to wish everyone a happy summer I do want to point out the two channen in the back I'll this is off the top of my head but I want to thank David everyone's sort of aware of that uh crowd strike Incident That's sort of paralyzed a lot of organizations I'm sure uh David had a few anxious moments there initially but we survived it so thank you for that and then uh I will I want to thank Tom and Josh uh before the board meeting tonight we got a little sneak peek of some of the new uh menu options are going to be available at the high school uh I think there's going to be a lot of very happy students

213uh what's waiting for them so it's really exciting it's kind of good chance to see that so thank you for that and uh yeah everyone have a safe summer and I look forward to everyone getting back to it in about 3 weeks just enjoy the last weeks of Summer be healthy and be safe um yes uh looking forward to the start of the school year but uh just want to say I appreciate the fellow board members here thought we had a good conversation here and as well as the administration so um thank you you're welcome would you like to add anything Tony's looking at his watch I just got my bedtime reminder actually no I got mine too we have the same bedtime remind I would like to thank Tony Brad Steve I know it's

214not easy it kind of felt like we had you guys up on the hot seat today so I really appreciate you're willing us to have an open discussion about all your practices and everything that we've been doing because I have no doubt that you have the best interests in minds of our students and faculty so um I think you guys have done great work over the years and I know we're only going to get better so so I appreciate your um willingness to to listen to us and then um I did I did want to call out one of the things that we had talked about a lot was how we're going to be how we're going to I guess own or or make sure that people that uh Tom and Company are being um

215responsible and and how we're going to make sure that they're owning the responsibilities of the Strategic plan so the one thing that um I just want to call is that we get up we get updates from weekly and the the change that you made to the last update where you're putting in parentheses at the end of the different bullet point items where you're showing this is related to this portion of the Strategic plan I think shows great ownership it shows that you've got it on mind at all time when you're doing things um I believe you said faculty you're going to start doing this as well uh our the leadership team since we do a lot ofun your cabinet yeah and and the buildings yeah so I think that's great I I think it's a

216great way to show ownership and that it's on your mind at all times that you're each action that you're taking is reflective of a different one of our priorities or strategies so I really appreciate that um and that's it and yeah thank you I appreciate it um and I'd like to thank my wife for just being my wife that's all solid uh I won't U belabor anything thank you everybody for coming today for those of you that came and a good discussion today with the board we have much more to do on all of those topics but I feel like we're mov in the right direction at least for right now thank you to the administration and to Tom for all the hard work they do throughout the entire summer and look forward to first

217day of school um for the teachers and the staff that come back and the their perspective maybe the very unfortunately very very near future so as I have one at home who's counting down the days little positive a little negative so yeah thank you everybody all right thank you I will entertain a motion to move very quickly by Rael second by RJ all right um all in favor I I opposed nope I heard a nope so I don't think that counts it is now 9:46 the meeting is adjourned I said no thank you everyone don't oppose it is that the wrong way to vote