001okay Mike we're live wherever he went welcome everyone please sh for United States of America stands all right everyone thanks for coming in tonight we have a lot of people on the line here for consideration of visitors we're going to have two and a half minutes tonight for a visitation again at the 32nd Mark you'll see a a card held up over here at that point you have 30 seconds left to speak uh when you done speaking we don't have engagement with the people who are speaking so you can just go and sit down if we had misinformation put out falsified information put out myself or the superintendent will speak up to correct any false information that's put out tonight uh no reading if you reading from the books from the book issues if you
002use f language in this meeting I will GA you shut and have you sit down we know F language that was try to be used at our last meeting and will not allow that to happen in our meeting tonight we have a lot of miners in our group tonight and we're not allow foul language to be used whatever you read out of your book tonight any questions about that bring it up to me other than that let's get our meeting started tonight adoption of the agenda is there motion to adopt than you Jill is there a second second thank you Amy any discussion if not again we have to do the raise of the hand because Pam is at home watching us tonight so we have to call everybody out for person to uh to
003vote Nate hi hi Rob hi Amy hi Pam hi thank you Jill and myself adoption agenda passes thank you very much next up would be the agenda for H consideration of visitors our first Speaker tonight will be Liz Fairbanks Liz good morning Liz fings 2 4360 Yukon Street St Francis um couple things I just want to add the more comments don't need any discussion of any sort first of all I want to say how disappointed in uh you guys I I I am about the last meeting um star calling out Miss Amy and telling her to hurry up my opinion through Reading from the books that um we can't say tonight or have any bad words but they're okay to have in the library doesn't make any sense what I would like to know is
004is this about power or is this actually about taking care of our kids I had to put my son back into this school which I was extremely hesitant but um he got hurt at a different school and I wasn't going to tolerate that at all so he's back here hopefully temporarily um another thing let's be fiscally financially I don't know let's take care of it look at these guys they're not getting paid right they're ticked off I don't blame them not going to have teachers if you guys don't know how to budget that's all I got thank you thank you li next up will be Jean hod Jean it's I'm resident of district 15 just basically got one thing I understand that policy 605 6065 Library materials the current one is approved there's an informal
005and a formal request to remove books so I'm just going to start the process here with one particular book as a informal understanding that there a formal process I'm ready to go on that that's what needs to be done but it's the book called out of darkness by Ashley Pier it's not meant for uh anybody under 17 basically so I'll just give a paperwork to whoever that starts that you want to follow up lottery tell me that this is the informal process thank you thank you Jean next up would be Richard if I could uh add one thing uh Mr umodel hodell uh if you could just double check the policy and I can find it here too as far as who receives that informal request yeah I was wondering about that said said principle
006yeah yeah and so I believe that book is at the um at the high school but a parent employe or student I believe needs to initiate that that um not a Community member necessarily there'll be people who would be willing to to carry that for you but I just wanted to explain that Richard good evening everyone lots of people here tonight I'm going to read from you or to you from the state statutes 120 B20 each School District shall have a procedure for a parent guardian or an adult 18 years of or a student 18 years of age or older to review the content of instructional material to be provided to the minor child to an adult student or and if the parent guardian and adult student objects to this content make reasonable arrangement of
007the school personel for alternate instruction 125 B15 internet access all computers at a school site with access to Internet available for student use must be equipped to restrict including by use of available software filtering technology and other effective methods all student access to material that is reasonbly believed to be obscene or child pornography or material harmful to miners under federal or state law 134.5 internet access to public libraries all public library libraries have the same restrictions then I have definitions from 617 292 I'll let you read that for yourself and then I have the from the Minnesota statute 6117 246 what pornographic work means and I'll let you read that for yourself this is all from the state statutes of Minnesota and then I have a testimony from uh a person on the Facebook page
008they read out of his book because books are rightfully being challenged at the St Francis School library and then I have an offer for the school board um I will arrange for Sheila Pauls make her presentation of Chaos in the schools to the school board if they want she's never given it to a school board before and you could be the first she will talk for about four minutes 40 minutes and then she you will have a question and answer period for you thank you thank you Richard next up tonight will be Darren B Darren thank you Darren I know that good evening Kimberly niichel Holly hman Jen Grant Kelly OG Jessica bosma Julie summer Sarah moer Tina St Martin Nick Huer relle Ray Stacy winter Lillian Duram Michelle failen Jen hamar Katie Olen mine
009basc corn Wyman Britney R out Dan Remis Jessica rolls Nick Keenan Michelle Keenan Britney CTS Josiah Tela Kathy W what do these 25 names have in common these are farmer St Francis area school Educators who left to go and teach in in NOA Anan this is my list and I'm sure every educator sitting in the audience tonight behind me has a similar list with names that I didn't even think of I knew I wouldn't have time tonight to list off all of our friends and co-workers we've lost to other districts besides in okah hanapin but I'm sure we can make quite a list for those districts as well we the 318 educators of St Francis area schools stand before you tonight asking for a fair contract settlement that will value the Educators we have left
010we need our Educators to want to stay in St Francis and a Fair contract is one way to make that happen thank you for your time thanks sir Christine Jeter Christine good evening my name is Christine Jeter and I'm the mother of a first grader this year at St Francis El country the parents of St Francis students want a fair settlement for our love and valued teachers furthermore we must do whatever it takes to keep those highly trained Professionals in our district while continuing to attract additional teachers throughout the unprecedented teacher shortage our teachers provide a nurturing and supportive environment for our students and they often manage the effects of situations beyond the school environment they continually go beyond what is required they wear all the hats and the parents of St Francis students want
011them to be recognized for it basically we love our teachers we feel like they genuinely care about our kids and we support a fair contract for them thank you thanks for coming in next up is Maya snki [Music] Maya hi my name is Mara sininsky and I'm the sophomore at St Francis High School I'm also the daughter of a teacher in this District growing up my sister and I spent some of our days off going to work with my mom we watched her plan work and as work with kids and as we get older we would even help out classrooms her colleagues friends friends began family then the summer of 2022 we moved here to St Francis I'd like to share with you my experiences St Francis has some amazing teachers when I first came
012to the school I joined after school strength in commissioning I fell in love with lifting because of Steven jard Amanda shuning and the other teachers and coaches they pushed me to challenge myself and discover limits I didn't know I had I was P pushed to be the best version of myself there are so many good teachers here at St Francis and I don't want Educators like Mr Gerard to leave for higher paying districts my mom's day doesn't end after the school hours are done she comes home and works most nights even on weekends to make sure her students get the best of of Education possible my dad helps her cut out laminations I help her grade worksheets and my S sister helps sort papers my whole family puts in work to make my mom's job
013a little easier the amount of work she puts in is not reflected upon in her paycheck nor is it with any teacher out there it is important for me to learn in an environment that is supportive of its teachers because when teachers are val and supported then the students are successful if you feel the teachers you feel the students thank you thank you Sylvester sh Sylvester there he is good evening board chairs School Board leaders and District administ administration hi my name is Sylvester sha my parents have been teaching at St Francis High School for 18 years parents the teachers and the students in St Francis I asked my mom and dad if I could speak to I ask you to pay teers more kids can get enough education kids need a good and get
014a job in order to help the world think about if you didn't have how would that have affected your future I think about what it would be like if I didn't have good teachers and how sad it would be if I had to move to a year school my teachers are nice they help me get a good education and they make me feel happy please help my parents and all your teachers continue to do the same for their students too thank you thank that's hard speaking from a lot of people isn't it did a good job next up will be Kathy green cath hard to go up after that good evening superintendent and school board members my name is Kathy green as a kindergarten teacher in this District not supposed to be crying I thought
015it would be fitting that I share a poem with you because I rhyme all the time regarding our current negotiations situation there once was a teacher from St Francis I'm the one at the dance party dances kindergarten is my craft watch me Teach You may laugh however my smile is fading I've been doing this 20 plus years where there once was a smile there's now tears my colleagues my friends are burning the wick at both ends but the district still keeps us waiting when you say and tell us just teach we're not counselors You Preach there's so much you don't even see kids are in trauma living in so much drama they are broken and now so are we take more data give more tests kids aren't doing their best yet our class sizes keep
016getting higher no more subs lose your prep but you seem to forget we can't keep doing more we are tired so I beg of you please I would give down on my knees if we could just get back to our classrooms now it's time you invest in the best of the best please make this happen somehow thank you for thank you next to be good evening my name is Tim sininsky and as the husband of a passionate teacher in this district and father to two daughters who are also students here in St Francis I stand before you tonight not just as a resident but as a family deeply invested in the future of our schools when we chose to move here two years ago we had options where we wanted to live and where my
017wife could get a job during the interview process She was drawn to this district and felt a connection it' be a great place for us to for place for our children to learn and to grow but tonight I'm concerned our teachers the very Foundation of Excellence are struggling they're overworked underpaid and often forced to choose between paying bills and investing in their classrooms compared to similar districts their their salaries simply do not reflect the immense value that they bring to our children's lives they entered this profession out of passion but passion shouldn't be sacrifice let's Bridge the pay Gap and offer them Fair compensation they deserve Beyond pay overcrowded classrooms create another challenge teachers are drained after working with students for 25 to 30 of them in a classroom and then have to spend nights
018and weekends working on lesson plans cutting out laminating cutting out shapes there's just simply not not enough hours in the day prep time is nonexistent due to the lack of unfilled substitute positions adding another layer of stress leaving teachers overwhelmed and students underserved we need manageable class sizes to allow for personalized attention and readily available substitutes to support both teachers and students let's make this District a beacon of educational Excellence for families know their children will Thrive show our teachers the value they deserve negotiate with Open Hearts and Minds prioritize Fair pay manageable class sizes and their well-being this is not just about contracts it's about building a better future for our community one child one teacher and a Time thank you thank you sir next will be Rachel Johnson Rachel hello I'm Rachel Johnson
019a substitute teacher for isd15 more money that's what we hear that's what everyone says but it's more than that it's about equality amongst teachers across the state it's about retaining our amazing teachers but we've heard enough about that I love isd15 so much that heading up the PTO just wasn't enough so this year I became the resident sub a teacher at Cedar Creek Elementary this was the most eye opening experience that I've had these teachers stay late and come in early they spend money out of their own Pockets to enrich their classrooms with exciting new ways to learn they've added new curriculum with no complaints they have classrooms filled with too many kids they have students that qualify for help but no help is available but you know what they keep doing they show up
020they love these kids they teach them they grow their minds these teachers make an impact on every student that comes through these doors and during these negotiations our families and students are feeling the impact the negotiations have add meetings to a day when lost prep is due to short as of substitute teachers but they still have to push ahead and make sure students are priority number one these students don't know how much these teachers struggle once they go home for the day our students are loved by the teachers in our district but we would lose um we could lose them if things don't change these are the sculptors of our future generation let's support them let's educate the community on how initiatives for is5 will impact our students not just our teachers educate them that
021the levies and the other District initiatives are worth it our students are worth it talk to the community and get them on board it's not just about bigger paycheck it's so much more than that it's about being heard and finding Solutions I challenge you if you're able to become an ISD substitute teacher and spend the day in the life of a teacher we need you thank you our last week tonight Mike St Mike my name is Mike stofle I've have coached Liv in Tod and St Francis for the last 20 years we're at a Tipping Point of teacher compensation our salary and benefits we are no longer competitive with our likee districts did you know over the first three years or teachers career in St Francis will they'll earn $1,000 less than our L districts
022pleas stay on the same path we will find more difficulty attracting and retaining staff moving forward teacher earnings have gone from the top third of those like districts to the very bottom a decade ago teachers in St Francis were in the top 10 in the state last year we ranked 130th I assume some board members right now are thinking what we just can't afford to give the teachers their proposal let's talk about some facts total revenue in the district has increased by $.3 million in the last 10 years the total teacher cost has increased just $800,000 per pupil funding has increased by $1,561 per pupil the school board has given itself raises over the last decade equal to $1650 increase about a 35% increase over that same decade the average teacher in St Francis earns
023just $2,176 additional dollars or three and a half% one tenth of what the school board has authorized for their own increases Educators in St Francis have and will continue to do an excellent job but we currently have at least 11 11 licensed staff positions with at least 30 educational assistant positions we are in a crisis of attracting and retaining staff but did you know during the 22 23 school year our students at St Francis High School outscored students from Andover Anoka Big Lake Blaine Buffalo Cambridge Champlin Park Rapids Elk River Forge Lake monel North Branch Princeton on our MCA all due to the work of our licensed staff we are doing an ex excellent job a job that she recognize with excellent pay and benefits like I tell my nth grade students don't tell me
024what you're going to do show me what you're going to do then do it thank you Mike now we look at the agenda later on tonight you will see a presentation information about a possible Levy coming out again in the fall of this year so you want to stick around L for the levy information all right at this point we go to consent agenda is there a motion to accept consent agenda thank Jill there a second second Nate thank you any discussion I consent agenda discussion there none no discussion for the vote Nate I Rob hi Amy Pam hi Jill hi Mike is I Anette hi thank you motion passes for the consent agenda our first report tonight for information items and reports of the uh student council Mr kle come on up hello School
025Board I'm Caleb shrock a senior at cityan High School that I'm made the connection I'm the son of Rob sh you can't tell I got the good looks for my mother so this week is our annual snow week your spirit days today was pjama day tomorrow would be twin day Wednesday is dressed like a teacher day Thursday is 10 years forward day and Friday is the normal Saints Day this Thursday we are having a pet Fest that will include a coronation few games of musical chairs this new game we're playing limbo and the state send off for the dance team also this week we're having an intermural volleyball tournament during Saint time and we are also selling carnations for sports dance team is going to State this weekend at the Target Center that the times
026are Friday at 3:20 and Saturday at 2:40 gymnastics has sections this week which at Thursday 500m ataga lakes and there's also a basketball double header this Friday at home with the boys will be at 5:30 and the girls are at 7:30 thank you for your any questions now you can stay the night with us or you have homework to do you can take off all right thank you sir all right next up will be overseas extended trip presentation there's de go okay hi everybody my name is De um nice to see some familiar faces here and um I put forward a proposal for our spring break of 2025 to do an art Focus trip to Paris and Barcelona um through the Educational Tours so I attached the PDF that has the itinerary um there won't
027be any miss school days it would be over the spring break and this is sort of the beginning of what I'd like to make an annual um opportunity for our students in the past um Miss Shyer who incidentally has moved to a district a different District um so we don't have a continuous opportunity for students to learn and travel abroad and I'd like to bring that back to St Francis so um this is one of the most popular trips for art students um it would have a maximum of 30 students and it has a ratio of six to one adults per um one adult for every six students and I I'm looking for your support and bringing this opportunity to our school questions Rob so this just open to our students or this open to
028anybody and how it picked as the first come first serve or just good question um it would be open to the St Francis student B so all students but an interest in art would be encouraged because that's mainly what the trip is focused around just art like physical art like music mainly visual arts and um photography and Ceramics are would be the ones that they've geared most of the tour Sports and would be fundraising or yeah they have fundraising opportunities through um Educational Tours so it would be registered on a first Comer serve basis to fill the 30 spots uh and it would start with a parent meeting in the evening um and then when students sign up we just sort of keep that tally and communicating to them how many take um has there
029been some discussion as far as the interaction with like band and choir trips to Europe there hasn't um I talked to um Dave bashard about it he gave me some input and I know they had a really big group and that was really focused on you know the travel opportunity but also performing uh and so this one I'm seeing more I think you know because I'm starting it I picked it based on what my students have sort of t uh given to me as ideas and then thinking that there could possibly in the future be a committee of students and getting their input on where they would like to go next my first time traveling abroad I was in high school and I went to Japan for a month and a half in the summer
030with our teacher s dhy and my parents were reluctant to let me go but I worked um and saved money and paid my way and it really changed my perspective on things and um I just would really like to give our students that opportunity as well have we used this um educational tour company before that's good question I I don't know that answer I do know that they have um I think it says it in here they they've been in business for over 55 years um and more than 15 million students have traveled with them so um one of my my sister-in-law is actually a teacher in the Whitebear Lakes district and she travels annually with their students they do week without walls and this is the company that she recommended she's been with them
031for about 15 years anybody from here personally back the company uh this is just started by me and so I did my research it was really Educational Tours and explor c and I've talked to both representatives and I've been thinking about this for a few years and I am the most pleased with the reviews from this um this one company yeah here you have 30 students how many chaperon and when will your first parent meeting be held so if I get the approval um Lindsay tari she works for Educational Tours uh she's our coordinator so she would help me figure out a date and time for the meeting um in the evening and what was your second question I me sh so if uh well if we get all 30 spots filled it's 6 to
032one so um I would just be asking the staff of St Francis who would want to go and who would like to be a part of it um to be a part of that you know rough estimate what the cost would be yes so the cost would be um 3,600 3,899 and they are able to do um a pay by month so if you broke that down if they ended up signing up this month it would be about $342 a month and they offer um payment plans and fundraising opportunities to that's food yes it's food lodging Hotel bus and we have a full-time tour director that's basically I'm their Shadow and we're working together and they're with us 100% of the time who are you using for chaperons do you have an idea um uh
033so far I have I've talked to with our other art teacher at the high school um that I but right now I'm just really because it's the first year I don't know I'm hoping for definitely six so then if we get 12 I'm going to ask um my colleague the other art teacher and then from there I will just put it open to our staff and see who would be interested high school and if nobody there move it to the middle school and just try to keep it local any other questions Pam go ahead yeah what is the Peace of Mind program the ef's Peace of Mind program what is that is I couldn't see anything on there maybe I just missed it no problem I see that you've got the the travel protection which
034is great yes absolutely okay so peace of mind um this is coming from Educational Tours we understand that plans can change due to unforeseen circumstances EF provides this exclusive program to account for such situations it provides grou with flexibility to change the dates and destination of their tours in uncertain times this program accounts for such circumstances and can be enacted up to 45 days prior to departure at the group level for any reason in including terrorism or other world events basically stating if there's extenuating circumstances that come up um for your group the peace of mind could be enacted up to 45 days prior to so that's different than the the travel because usually travel prot protction covers a lot of that right it does this is piece of mind is for the group itself
035um the travel protection would be for individual Travelers if let's say A student got really sick or their you know house burned out and they couldn't make it good question okay so it's more of a group okay all right thank you yeah sounds like fun thank you so go for the questions uh February 26th is our next meeting okay and that will come back as the action item so the board take a look at the information or get a hold of De you have more questions concerns between now and our next meeting we will come back as an action item in two weeks great and then that's when we vote on it say year in a okay great and after that then you start plan okay sure and if anyone has any questions please don't
036hesitate to email me or we can sit down and have a conversation and I put all the information in that file just because you know there's 10,000 things we worry about with taking kids somewhere but it's I I know it would be a really great opportunity for our students that they've been asking for so thank you for your time and consideration now you wouldn't have to be here if you are and there's more questions before we take the vote and that's up to you okay at that time okay oh and just wanted the dates that youve selected for travel are the dates of spring correct yes y all right than all right we're going to move on with Carson here coming up with the equity the topic Li book are coming up I will ask
037the board if you would just take a look there's a lot of information right here lots of discussion we could have if need be it gets too intense we could move it to a work session too let's get the information out our superintendent talk with us yet I don't want one topic to go for two hours and this could go for two hours if you wanted to this be respectful and we'll get through this thing Carson yeah thank you did you say about 20 minutes for like to keep 20 minutes per item as much as we can we'll see how it goes y yeah and uh I just want to be clear that I'm not an expert at any of these subjects uh what I'm doing is just sharing a brief introduction uh and as
038Mr star said you know we can bring back some of these topics at later time especially if there are questions so I'm the pleasure of talking about litter boxes student surveys Equity critical or Theory social emotional learning sort of circles and posters and Flags uh this is the first topic and then I'll talk about library books and then later I'll be talking about other administrative issues so first of all litter boxes uh and couple of years ago I saw a a school board meeting video When Miss Kelly was chair and uh she spoke up right away to make it very clear that we do not have litter boxes in our schools and I appreciate hearing that because it was a very direct statement that was true I still hear the rumors you know even two
039years later I hear rumors that are completely false saying that we have litter boxes in schools and so sadly I have to be here tonight to remind everyone including the public we have never put litter boxes in our restrooms ever so just to be clear um I've also heard rumors that we are putting chemicals and food so that it helps encourage people to be gay completely ridiculous okay and the reason I bring these up here tonight is that there is a lot of misinformation out there and I ask please if you think there's something crazy like that ask a building principal or ask me for information and I know board members too you know will refer people to me as well so I greatly appreciate that uh but there's a lot of stuff like that
040circulating now I say those rumors that's totally separate than everything else I'm going to be talking about okay so I want to be clear about that um second uh Point has to do with surveys uh when I first started here in fact during the interview process and then when I started here uh there were concerns expressed about the content of questions and a lot of our student surveys and I just want to use this as kind of a template to show that when we hear concerns from the public we do consider them and we do take action on that and I think we've taken a really reasonable approach we try to listen to all sides to come up with something that that makes good sense and uh so again there were numerous questions uh a
041couple years ago when I first started about uh questions with student surveys uh we have updated our policy in November of 2023 and more importantly uh we did develop a procedure related to this policy uh which is attached to the the board packet uh in December of 2023 and I think we've really addressed you know the concerns that have been expressed uh from community members and so first of all I want to thank people for expressing those concerns and thank every the board uh as well as administrators for addressing them I think in a really pragmatic way I'm really proud of that um so we make progress when we hear from community members and that's part of the uh public process uh that that we should be proud of uh the next topic totally separate
042again has to do with Equity uh one of the things that um you know I've been puzzled by oh yeah thank you can I do it for you I haven't used a PowerPoint presentation here so I'm a little bit nervous we'll see one of the things that's kind of puzzled me but now I kind of understand why is that when the word Equity is used there are really emotional reactions on all sides and I think I can understand why so it's not that anyone is right or wrong it's not anything like that um but some some people will when they hear the word Equity It's associated right away with critical race Theory or maybe it's associated with Colin Kaepernick the football player who kned for the um Pledge of Allegiance or for the national or
043maybe it has brings up memories of all the issues surrounding George Floyd and black lives matter and the violence in Downtown Minneapolis and all those other things that all happen at about the same time and I think a lot of those events and the term Equity are sometimes just kind of brought up together so I can understand why people react you know in a certain way Educators though think of equity in a different way here are some examples special education is an equity program Title One services and for those who don't know a title one is it's uh money that's uh generated for schools so that we can provide support for uh kids who need help with math and reading so you know in our school we do it um in elementary schools and uh
044now we focus on both um but that is a huge Equity initiative it's really important third bullet Americans uh with Disabilities Act I think we all know what that is it's an equity program that enables people to access buildings as they should um efforts to eliminate discrimination including harassment and buling I don't think anyone can argue against that and that's an equity thing uh because it's related to discrimination harassment and bullying lead to discrimination and so the efforts to eliminate them are Equity initiatives those are really big items and the others are important too but there's kind of a difference in terms of scope I'll give you one um ex a really easy Equity initiative that we did here doesn't cost any money but it makes things better for everyone uh we have a targeted
045Services Program after school for the Middle School it just kind of started this year it provides extra assistance for kids who need the help we get funding from the state to pay for it so we can essentially pay for the program ourselves one little thing that Miss Cally did is that instead of having kids spend two hours after school and therefore need the parents to come and pick them up uh she changed it so that the kids could ride on the Elementary buses home doesn't cost us anything but it provides better access to that after school programing you know when we think of that you know we're thinking of that in terms of fa another example would be differentiated instruction so kids get what they need um it's a kids who need extra help it
046also um is instruction that's intended to help the kids who already know the material we need to give them more information or more challenges uh so that we provide what they need uh to to fulfill their uh educational needs uh the last one you know it's off often forgotten but you know state law requires that busing is provided families who live at least two miles away from school that's because you know not every family has parents who can drop their kids off every day so it's an equity related issue so that we can get everyone in this school um so they can learn uh finally the last one uh is another example food and Coke drives that's inequity because people are hungry and they need clothing so anyway that's my naive understanding of why there
047are these huge different reactions no one's right no one's wrong I don't think we should be pitted against each other but sometimes when you hear the word equity people are thinking one way sometimes we're thinking a different way so all I ask is that people remember when we hear the word Equity please think of these things and I'm going to guess I'm not going to ask for a show of hands I don't think anyone here is opposed any of those things Pam has a question pam pam question sorry I was on mute um Carson I see you've got a PowerPoint I'm not seeing that in my package I've just got PDFs am I missing something here oh yes I'm sorry I've worked on this um PDF presentation just this afternoon so I'll post it to
048the uh Schoolboard um I can email you'll have access to that in yeah could you Vanessa just so I can see it's hard for me to see what's on there and I'm trying to track with you but it's okay y Pam my apologies that was my fault sure sure I understand yeah last minute got to get my remote here and by the way um after you know I go over a few more things you know hopefully there'll be some some time for questions and good discussion as well uh you can read the differences um in the board packet about um equity and critical race Theory there're two totally different constructs uh they're somewhat related um some really push for critical race Theory um but it's it's a different construct compared to to equity so you
049can read my chat GPT summary of the differences there I've learned to Love chat GPT um as long as you can look through it and make sure it's accurate or reasonable and I think it's important to cite that you use it uh the next topic um social emotional learning uh here's a definition of social emotional learning oral their practices that focus on emotional intelligence and interpersonal skills uh you see the main tenants of course this depends on the framework you're using um by chap GPT came up with the same tenants that are used in Castle uh self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision making um you know those are very basic uh tenants uh there are a lot of nuances in each category and um uh Amy if you don't mind I'll talk
050about that in a little bit too um you know as far as our discussion earlier that's important uh the overall aim of social emotional learning is to enhance students emotional well-being empathy and then ability to navigate social situations effectively it's not the same as critical race Theory but um as Amy and I discussed earlier uh there are some Advocates uh for uh some tenants of critical race theory for embedding it into instruction for teachers and for students so I will acknowledge that um but here are the examples that we live by in St Francis schools uh one a second step curriculum and uh we use it for Early Childhood through grade five in our classrooms and it's really focused on self-monitoring and self-management skills so I met with Adrien Lewis last week who's just really
051fun I want her to come to one of these sessions to talk about it and uh she described umal or second step curriculum is really focusing on eyes looking ears listening body still and the voice quiet those are really the basics for elementary Educators um and here's I I just glance through the curriculum that we have some examples of skills uh for Learning and you can see there kindergarten skills uh in that area uh would include something like listening and following directions in a game you know like kickball or tick or something like that so at that age you know they're learning how to how to do those things I wish I had the skills of a kindergarten teacher I can't imagine teaching 25 kids how to listen and follow Direction in the game third
052grade again in that skill for learning category uh one of the the things that they focus on is identifying classroom directions you can say the the higher thinking skills for fifth grade would be describing Cy cyber buling and how it is harmful another example ofal work in our schools would be the zones of Regulation I won't go into great detail uh but it's essentially hoping that all kids are either in the green zone which is sort of a good to go Zone things are going fine they aren't too excited they aren't depressed they you know they're they're good to go and so the goal of theal work is to teach skills how to get into that zone when they notice body cues or other things that are leading them into one of the other zones
053so it's teaching them tools so that they become good to go again that's my understanding from ad people are not in their heads but everyone in this room understands thatal work a lot better than me so it's it's really basic things uh for me um you know being out of the green zone might be my my head blushes I get tense I start talking fast and so if I recognize that hopefully I can have some tools to calm down and get back in the green zone um another example would be uh restorative circles uh you can see the bullet points there and um one thing there were some questions about restorative circles at the last meeting I'm glad they came up because then I could double check things um he crley uses them more than
054the other principles um and as you know she's the Middle School principal uh she's really uh an expert when it comes to restorative circles uh essentially people typically would be in a circle all at the same level so I'd be sitting in a chair and then as questions are posed you know people can hold something uh when they're holding it they say what's on their mind and then they pass it to the next person and so on somebody can always just pass they can just handed the next person they're not obligated to say anything there are lots of different kinds of circles um and I don't know all the nuances between them um but they're really effective what Heidi or uh Todd or Nick do is that if there's a restorative circle like there's a
055discipline problem like a fight uh they would call home uh get parent permission uh to do the circle they would also get permission from the kids to do the you got to get everyone to agree to it uh and then they have a set of questions they can ask each other and again it's to um well the goal as you see there is to restore rebuild and reconnect one example and I'm not going to I'm going to totally make up the situation but it's similar to something that happened there uh there were two kids let's say two girls who had an ongoing argument maybe some punches were thrown lots of problems s they did a circle and in that Circle practice um you know they learned about some of the interests of the other child
056and that helped them form a connection and it's really resolved a lot of the issues there so that's one example go ahead Bam Bam go ahead um try to get myself off a mute um so these circles who all is in this circle and where does it take place so I know so the question that I have with this is these are tools that are now being used my question is that versus the um classical classroom management so how many people are involved in these circles when do they take place where do they take place because here's my concern um they seem much more involved and I'm we're already hearing from our from our Educators from our teachers that their time is stretched so my concern is is how much time do they need to
057be spending in these extra tools to try to get control of certain individuals I I I guess those are kind of my questions so how how does this relate to that and I I think it would be beneficial to have some kind of a presentation where we can really dive into some of these to better understand them but I I think myself and other Schoolboard members are concerned about how are we using our classroom time and how many more skills are we expecting our Educators our teachers are already stretched thin we hear it to adopt these new skills and spend these time so uh thank you for the question and you know like you said I think it's probably best if we get at Heidi or Nick and Todd come and uh really I think
058there are some teachers who are using restorative circles in classrooms but they don't have to you know if it makes sense for them if they want to do it and if all the participants are willing to do it along with their parents that's fine um but a lot of these circles are happening happening administratively like if there's a discipline situation they're used with staff members during staff meetings and those kinds of things so um and it's completely different from claster management they're different concepts they're related so they're in addition to what's that they're in addition to classroom management then it's um it's a component or a tool and um you know classroom management might be setting up the rules of a classroom explaining the rules of the classroom secl might be working with kids they
059learn how to manage their motions and they learn how to play with each other on the playground for example within the class restorative circles are really a way to restore something uh that the kids have lost because of a conflict or because of something like that so they're they're different things and um if they're done well um the restorative circles are really effective and then that will make things better for teachers and administrators because some of those issues are resolved through the circle one last clarification but nobody else has questions I don't want to hog the time but um so then are these held are these let's see how do I word this are these taking place with the with the teacher the classroom teacher or are there um others outside the classroom that are
060taking this action with these students so where is it done is it I heard you say it's sometimes done in the classroom which I guess I have further questions about that but are the teachers having to do this work or is somebody else picking these students up and working through it with them elsewhere by far um my understanding is that by far most of them are done in the administrative offices okay so they're outside of the classroom mostly that's my understanding but some teachers have you know um have implemented sort of practices you know in their own classrooms but that's their call you know we don't expect that the ones that I've heard about are done by Heidi Nick Todd um I'm assuming the guidance counselors and those kinds kinds of support people but most
061of them were done administratively that's my understand are there any Middle School teachers here who could think I think um what you're talking about in the classroom is the community building circles not res CES okay oh thank you for that clarification so really morning meeting at in kindergarten that's Community Building Circle oh yeah yes thank you for that clarification um soe circle before you tell what that is community Circle didn't it I'm gonna have have de just Define what a community circle is yay i' love it that you're at the meetings a community building circle is literally just getting to know the peers in the classroom you sit around and you ask some silly questions like one of my favorite ones to ask a group of kids is so just so you know the zombie
062apocalypse is real and you get to have pick three people to go with you who would you pick and we just go around and you get to know a lot about people and get to know interests obviously Dwayne Johnson would be on my list so Anderson would be on your list so close but no um so it's just things like that or if an if question or a this or that like do you like waffles or pancakes it's just to break the ice to get people to know each other um and just to get to know your F fellow peers a human being that's it it's just to get the day started or to get the hour started yeah so that's a the more generic term would just be circles and one would be a
063community so thank you for that clarification I appreciate that so that's what a throw jerk circle is it's not um you know it's not something intended to differentiate people by race you know or things like that it's to restore relationships so um anyway I just thought that was important to to bring up I thinkal and restorative circles would be great presentation topics um um I think it's it's really important uh and as oh yeah if I could just make one comment Amy and then um Amy and I talked about uh the new pby standards which is the um teacher lenser standards that are issued by the state and then I added you know there's um new social study standards that are that are coming out or that have been issued and now we're going to
064have to start implementing them but in particular with the pby standards like Amy pointed out you know there's a lot of embeding um you know uh aspects of critical race Theory into those pby standards and so um and Amy I haven't looked at this but Amy mentioned that it's kind of under the the category ofal you know in some ways and so I haven't verified that but you know I believe what Amy's saying so there is that push um you know there are Advocates who who try to involve other things or push things further in a certain way um and sometimes they call ital but in our case you know oural curriculum you know the other aspects that I just described are not you know it's not an example of critical race Theory at least
065what we're doing here so p p yeah so you mentioned pby so pby again just so that everybody understands pby is is is around teacher recertification okay certification and recertification yeah certification and recertification so recertifications every two years so the key thing that I think we need all that I would like to communicate and I think others feel somewhat the same way as I have at least that I've heard just because our teachers need to be certified in all of these elements does not mean that we as a school board embra rce and say yes let's bring that into our curriculum so I think I think there needs to be a lot of discussion around that and probably because there's so many drastic changes that just came out that are rolling out this year now
066because I know that that uh you know we had a judge that I sat on an eight hour call and heard all the concerns from parents grandparents teachers legislators all kinds of people 99% of the people had concerns and didn't want what was coming this way with the psby new psby standards so I think that would be another thing that I think we should have on an agenda um that we could really dive into and really understand because I understand and and one of the concerns is we do have a teachers Academy which is an organization within our organization here in St Francis so I know that their role is to help with teacher recertification and certification okay but the concern is is just because the teachers are being certified with that does not mean
067that we want them practicing it in the classrooms without the school board being aware of and and being full on board with these new certification standards we are still an independent school district that gets to decide whether or not these are rolled into our classrooms and and utilized by our teachers in our classrooms so I just wanted to make that clear because I think that was one of the big well we did have a lot of full discussions around that two years ago a lot of discussions when the pby standards were first being introduced they did get held up for a while they got extended and then they got passed this last year so just wanted to confirm just wanted to reiterate that so everybody understands we're on the same page Amy you have a
068question no I have a comment they they were they drew overwhelmingly public opposition to the new standards we have we received national attention and according to pby the overhaul of the Teaching Standards is necessary because the teacher must have a foundation foundational understanding of how race and racism are embedded in our institutions in everyday life that is CRT yeah or at least it's Y and if you look under the examples of what effective educators will be required to demonstrate standard 2D the teacher Fosters an environment that ensures student identities including gender gender identity sexual orientation are affirmed and incorporated into a learning environment standard 24h the teacher demonstrates the ability to create opportunities for students to learn about power privilege inter seexual in intersectionality and systemic oppression in the context of various communities and empowers
069learning Learners to be agents of social change to promote Equity standard six I can go on but these are the requirements that psby wants our teachers to demonstrate in our classrooms I'm not in favor of it I'll say it right now I've done research on social emotional learning if you go to the pby the Minnesota pby they will one of their big um oh they use it as uh to go to to get additional information is Castle have you heard of CAS CLE c yeah so you can go to their website and if you're literate it's all over the website so if you go to the fundamentals of SEO what is the framework of the castle wheel this is social emotional learning for those of you who aren't familiar with Castle's um of what this
070website is they were founded I want to say in 1994 and the big changes came in 2019 and but it's all over their web page um where they talk about uh the develop the Minnesota Department of Minnesota website will push you will put you to the development of social emotional skills to form relationships and build social awareness um which will then increase the ability to connect with individuals of diverse perspective cultures languages histories identities and abilities of implementing seal we create a more Equitable and better performing school if you go to the castle wheel you will see when they describe Equity it is the key settings one of the key settings is the students families schools and communities are all part of a broader system that shaped learning development and experiences and equities based on
071race ethnicity class language gender identity sexual orientation and other factors are deeply ingrained within the vast majority of these systems and impact student and social emotional and academic learning while secl alone will not solve long-standing and deep-seated inequities in the education system it can create the conditions for needed individuals and schools to examine and interrupt inequitable policies and practices create more inclusive learning environments and reveal and nurture the interests and assets of all individuals I can go throughout this website Castle website and there are numerous other places where let us go to the fundamentals what does seal how does seal support Equity so we'll look at that word that is is the sound bite which makes some people's back of their head stand or hair stand up on the back of my of their necks
072okay stand by one second here too okay am o earlier this could be a long long discussion if I'd like to we can also stand by we can also take it to a work session there's a lot of information we don't know but you have good information we haven't seen it and are able to look at what you have y so I would encourage I did ask you Mr star that all board members do research on seal so that we could have discussion I spent all day Sunday and most of today researching SEO and that you get good information but if I would like to finish if I could because Equity according to seal what is equity why is equity and Excellence essential to queso's work again it speaks to to fully support all students
073adults need to understand their own biases and expectations develop awareness of student cultures and backgrounds and acknowledge and challenge inequitable practices or Poli policies that can limit or harm the development of children it also goes on to talk about I have it written written down again and equities are based on race ethnicity class language gender identity sexual orientation and other factors it's written throughout this website so I encourage all board members to and teachers to go to this website Castle um they were the I think they started SE and the big transformation came in 2019 when they started the transformative SEO and that's when people started to have resistance ofcl in our schools many say it is a gateway as I presented it can be a gateway to CRT but for those that say that
074CRT isn't in school it is in schools using and I've pointed it out here it may not be yet in the school district but that's why I'm very hesitant and we need to talk about seal in the school district yeah and and I fully agree and I think Workshop um sessions would be important butal and critical race Theory are different from each other and I know that there are some Advocates who are really trying to embed CRT and but that doesn't mean we should walk away from all the good things thatal does for our kids I mean it is an essential part of working with kids that will lead to better behavior and academic achievement so we're going to have to find that balance we're going to have to do this the St Francis way
075to figure out what we can and should do so if I could jump to the next we have good information so get board board look into go online check out Castle because she does have some good stuff to share with that's just one website but yeah thank you a lot of stuff out there we type I have other information as well I have and we're gonna use that the board work session if I can just H along one more comment no we're going to cut it off at this point we're moving on the next subject okay so can I just ask that the psby standards also I think I already said that though psby standards need to be reviewed too and if we do them at the same time you can see that interlinkage yeah
076we can do that um the one thing pby standards are required I mean for us to teach uh and to serve as administrators we have to go through that so just but I think we all recognize that and then like Pam said there are you know there there all are significant issues that we need to discuss and and what how do we Implement Francis so yeah Point well take uh the last one is an important topic so um there was a complaint made about a flag hanging in one of the High School classrooms I don't want to say the high school classroom member or anything like that um I've been kind of working on this issue since my employment here and um you know trying to to work on ideas to resolve concerns expressed by
077everyone on all sides of the issue it's a lot more complicated than I ever imagined um so but um and please don't take this in a in a negative way okay but I am not g to remove that plan not going to do it um unless I'm directed by the school board to do it um you know the the policy I think is big I think it's complicated to implement I don't think it would be the right thing to do in terms of taking the flag out of the classroom I think it could lead to a charge of discrimination um and I think it would reinforce the rhetoric that's filled with hate it's hurtful to people in our district it's there's no way I'm going to reinforce that so and I know there are some
078people probably in this room that will disagree with me but I wanted to publicly state that that's that's my stance with everything that I I know right now with our policy so I know that's going to disappoint some people but I wanted to be transparent with that what flag are we talking about what what flag are we talking what what flag did you I maybe I couldn't hear you what flag are you talking about I mentioned that there's um uh well I'm not exactly sure of the the exact categories a flag but I I think it's a a trans a gay uh support flag or Pride flag or something like that it's not it's not the the gate pride flag that I usually see it's kind of a combination of two um and so that's
079the one in the in the classroom and and and as I said I I'm not planning to remove that you unless I'm directed by the board of course so that maybe is another subject we could have a discussion AOW maybe I'm sure yeah yeah okay and uh again my goal is um to be transparent just you know I I defend the district and I'm really concerned that if we take actions that would force us to remove those flags that I think we're opening ourselves up to some significant issues so I completely agree with you um I think if we're going to look at taking one item away we have to look at taking everything out every personal item that doesn't have to do with education and I think that makes the classroom very um impersonal
080cold and it's not how we go into your office there's pictures of your family in there it would have to be districtwide and I think the impact that would have on our staff the morale would be horrendous people personalize everything they have in life if you go anyone's Des people call anywhere they have personal items yeah I thought of that too and someday I'll have an Air Force in signia there um and uh you know I don't want to move that either um but um and by the way I did follow up with the attorney you know about this issue um and you know because originally I thought well maybe we could come up with a statement or a policy that says content neutral or Viewpoint neutral or something like that and then try to
081apply that Worthington tried to do something like that um and you know our attorney reminded me that that's not going to cut it you know there's going to be lots of issues with that and again it could lead to a discrimination complaint um but anyway just thought I'd let you know and that needs to be a further discussion topic here is that so uh and uh Jill thanks for bringing up the last part there there was a board member who suggested taking all the noncurriculum materials down um you know with some exceptions like the American flag the first last name teachers and stuff like that but you'd be really really sterile so uh I'm assuming though that we'll continue these discussions in the policy committee to see if there's something uh that might make sense
082for everyone involved oh shoot okay that's just my one topic now I get to go to the next one library book library books all right so uh the board packet has uh the relevant information I'll touch upon a few things I'll give the outline to the public here so Pam I'll I'll talk about the outline and then kind of reference you know some other materials as we go uh first of all the timeline some people have asked about well why is it taken so long to take a look at library books uh that have been questioned and um I think we wisely waited until the uh Schoolboard Association issued a model policy it's number numbered 66.5 uh they issued that on October 19th um in early December the policy committee uh reviewed a rough draft
083of that PO policy on January 8th and the 22nd the school board reviewed and then approved that policy uh and then information was posted on the website on January 24th there's also a form that uh was also included uh on the website and that's kind of the formal uh reconsideration form and uh Mr H did reference that earlier so I appreciate that um could you go to the policy page Vanessa the one Tab and I'm sorry for taking time to go through this but I think it's really important to highlight a few of the sections Amy and Jill I'm sorry you've already heard some of this already but I think it's important and if you could scroll down to let's see it would be page three at the bottom oh no page two sorry so
084on page two uh there is a listing of uh the selection of Library materials it's pretty open-ended uh just to tell you and they factor a lot of different things uh in the selection process I think in general we have typically valued critical reviews of materials When selecting them uh and so the procedures that we're talking about would still factor that in but also emphasize age appropriateness or grade appropriateness of of the materials so we're kind of expanding that um at the bottom of page three you down there very [Music] bottom you can see that um it's really important so it's Roman numeral number six right there that's perfect uh parent or Guardian uh May request that access the specific material and libraries be restricted from their student so that's in our current policy any
085parent or Guardian can say I don't want my kids reading the typew runner so what I'm hoping we can do is take that information and put it into the destiny system we in the note section we can just say The Kite Runner is restricted I have to check with mediates to make sure that works that's what the destiny rep said um but you know I want to make sure that that all kind of falls into place uh there could be a list of 15 books that could be restricted and then the mediate could copy and paste that list into the not section of the of the destiny system P question I'll hold it for now go ahead okay Rob so they would need to know specific books and not just a range of books like
086appropriateness right yeah and um yeah so it's not a perfect thing um and it would be impossible I think to get a range uh because then the mediates would be running all these different scenarios which would change the time and so that's why it it spe it says a specific list of Library materials now one possibility let's say a Community member um has concerns about books that have have some sexually explicit language and has a list of these 20 books let's say different parents could use that same list to include on the desting software so there are ways of you know making sure that parents have that information so that we can include it in the software uh the the biggest issue will be well do we make that happen or do we make the
087students who want the material to get permission from the parents that's where it's really going to come down to so okay so I'm just gonna go through the rating system of book looks again which is the one that um Carson youd sent out to all board members and I'm just going to reiterate I'm going to read some things here um the nine books that we identified that were concern originally and I'm sure there's more out there and parents aren't going to be able to know I I hear what you're saying saying to rate them but I'm just going to read all nine of those books that we identified are rated either three four or five and I'm going to tell you what three is three is minor restricted under 18 requires guidance of parent or
088Guardian excessive excessive explicit violence extreme frequent hate excessive frequent profanity references to sexual activities not involving not involving penetration cing this fat or ejaculation and then drug and alcohol abuse okay now number four is no miners so adult content no child under 18 so again these books are in our library explicit sexual nudity depictions of sexual organs in a state of arousal obscene references to sexual activities involving anal oral or vaginal intercourse fingering anist or ejaculation okay so that's number four number five rating is a parent content and it's adult only and the explanation is explicit references to adherent sexual activities which would involve sexual assault and battery bity or satum sast I can't read it FC abuse so these are very very abusive and I do I'll let you continue on but I just
089want everybody to understand this is what we're talking about in these nine Books Okay so even if you restrict them my question again is why would we have this this these kinds of um non-age appropriate because again they are they need parent or Guardian approval they're adult content or adult only content so again we're kind of going off here where we should a little bit okay and just to give context to everyone okay book looks was started by a former member of moms for Liberty she was on the moms for Liberty review um committee moms for Liberty is a very conservative group that is um trying to change what library materials are in schools that's one of the things that they're doing so this former person from moms for Liberty started book looks and they
090have been informally supporting each other since so book looks is fine for people to to look into I mean it's a legitimate writing service one thing that that I appreciated from uh from bookl is that I will give um the um the language that they're concerned about you just list it which is really nice but when they call it a barent or aberant to say that word aent AAR yeah yeah a bar I a five that's with that lens and there are other lenses uh for example um you know Common Sense medium or media is another one and it's fairly conservative when I saw its reading or its analysis of The Kite Runner I thought oh boy you know that's a really conservative interpretation of what I read at the typ runner um you know
091there are other reading services and so I'm hoping that we can look at that and consider the whole context of the book not just those words those sexual references about everything that's included uh and I mentioned the other day that I read tricks I've also read The Kite Runner um neither one is a in in Carston's opinion neither one is appropriate for the middle school I would have no problems with my junior son reading either one he could handle it and it's real life I mean when you talk about child prostitution that's just described in tricks that is a very serious and a real thing in this County and throughout the state of Minnesota human trafficking is exploding and if we can somehow talk about what happens um to kids so that they become involved
092in child prostitution what are the symptoms of it what are ways to hopefully help them get out of that you know there's some real positives to that book compared to the verbiage in the book and I said it the last time when I read it I felt uncomfortable at times I mean I I'm not denying that you know I thought geez is the author going that far on some things and then I always brought it back you know when the when the average age of a child prostitute is in the low teenss we better do something we can't just Closs it over I mean this is a serious thing so different people um will have different opinions and that's part of the process and I love it uh one thing about tricks that I didn't
093mention last time is that one of the kids at the end of the story was I mean by the way none of the five kids were glamorizing child prostitution I mean it was very descriptive and clearly Against Child prostitution wanting to help kids get out of that cycle uh one of them went to a church um and met a priest and actually got help because of that so there are you know another child was on his deathbed I think because of the drugs and the child prostitution and that kind of thing but I mean there's some real redeeming qualities too um you know about what's in the book again I don't think it's appropriate for middle schools personally I think it's fine for the high school it's not pornographic it is not intended to arouse
094people that's not the intent of the book the intent is to crush child prostitution to get kids out of it to stop them from entering in so um you know the Kite Runner um used to be required reading in our English classes here so my guess I don't know I didn't check this but my guess is that some of your kids read The Kite Runner in class it is an unbelievably powerful book it really is um now um we have like 107 copies of it because it used to be required now it's uh an optional book and an advanced placement English class so it's it's there's an option but kids don't have to read it they can read one of the other options which I I think is is really a smart way of doing
095it B uh I I think this is so I have an email from a uh an individual that attended the last school board meeting that they wanted me to read so I think this is probably the appropriate time because it is around the books so if I could read that is there any way Pam that I could just finish this policy yeah yeah go ahead go ahead sorry go ahead inter by the way my goal with writing some procedures that I probably won't have time to to present today my goal would be to try to get a broad array of books into the media center because there are parents I've heard from who expect that for their kids they don't want to limit it too much so my goal is to try to bring in
096as many as possible as long as it's within you know an age range whenever possible or at least most of the time um but then we could do some restrictions so one thing um uh you know we can have individual kids or their parents you know identify which texts they don't want the to read uh another uh possibility related to that would be to uh give parents uh access to their students account with follow of Destiny so that they can see what the check out history is for their child if they see a book that their child has checked out they don't want the child to read that book they can just say no I can send it back to the library so that's one way to kind of help restrict or give some parents
097give parents the right um to uh at least address those situations so let's say they're in the library if someone wants to challenge the book or reconsider the book uh like Jean mentioned earlier today uh that's on page four if you could go there and it's under informal request so the first thing to do uh well first it has to be an employee student or parent or guardian of a District student may requ request reconsideration the process they follow is that the person speak with the media specialist and building principal Andor the building principles is how I would interpret that because we don't have a media specialist right now uh and so that conversation can take place Jean's a Community member but he may know some people in the district who had had those concerns
098so he will just pass it on to a parent or employee and then that person could talk to the principal um I will say that the informal requests for reconsideration that have been processed um have largely been honored we've moved the book um that happened in a uh fourth grade uh book or no it was a fifth grade book in a fourth grade classroom and so we did remove that from the fourth grade classrooms uh we've already moved uh the two books in questions about the Middle School sold in tricks uh as an FYI no one has checked out the book sold in the middle school or high school for over five years you know a lot of these books haven't been checked out so it's an easy call um tricks by the way has
099been checked out 18 times over a five years period so that was a larger circulation I want to acknowledge that as well uh so the first step is the informal request uh the procedures are kind of guidelines and uh we review VI that briefly at the policy committee I'm sure Jill and Amy will take some time to look at it uh Amy gave me a a really well done policy from another state that I want to look at as well because I think there's really good verbage in there uh that I could incorporate uh even if it's just in the procedure so that's the first step my prediction I think if everyone is reasonable about this is that 95 or 98% of the books are going to be addressed in that way I'm confident in
100that our principles um believe in the right to read and you know um you know that philosophy but they're also very they want to make sure that these books are appropriate for for the kids are reading so I think 95 or 98% of them are going to be um addressed in the informal request that made me feel a lot better when I saw that section because I know the principles and and how they think uh if that is not resolved at that level the person can submit a formal request for reconsideration that's starting at the bottom of page four uh that's where we talked about who's on that committee um and uh one thing I got to remember in the procedures is that um if we leave the the committee assignments as one uh District
101administrator one principal two teachers and then meet us of specialist when we get one if we get one uh you know I think it's important to to allow parents uh and employees to voice their concerns uh likely in writing so that that committee can not only make their own assessment but also hear from others and then you can read through the rest of that I have some work to do with procedures for that part uh Eastern Carver County um has a really good set of procedures they've been dealing with this for 5 days years uh not very many of the other districts we contacted have really comprehensive procedures there Pam so Carson are you reviewing the policy right now or do you have another presentation that you reviewing oh I'm pretty much um we have
102a policy yeah I'm I'm wrapped up talking about the policy I just wanted to make sure yeah I just wanted to make sure I was following along in the right thing I just wanted I wasn't sure if you had another presentation okay you were on the policy which I was following okay yeah and by the way I do have a first draft of procedures related to this policy I shared it with the policy committee uh I wanted them to see it before I brought to the school board so I'm G to make some changes talk to Media AIDS and then I'm hoping to just get feedback from the school board okay so I do not favor bringing it to the school board we don't manage Pol or procedures we manage policy we set policy and
103I don't think it's a good precedent to set to bring a procedure to the school board to review to review no we set policy we don't set procedures Pam you raised the hand I think it's okay for the school board to review a policy it's okay this is new we have a lot of community concern about it and discussion so I think it's okay that we would review a procedure because again we do have oversight over the entire district and what goes on so it's okay I don't know that we'll that we'll be necessary set in you know practice but we should be we it's okay for us to review it and if you want to just send it out to the school board uh to all of us individually and we can give feedback
104but it's okay for us to review policies as a school board we do have oversight over the entire district and what goes on so and I think Jill was talking about procedures procedures sorry I meant procedures procedures yes we should be able to review them well we'll work through it somehow someway my goal is come up with the best set of procedures possible and one of our training books out there for school board members the board is meant to set the direction of the district not to manage the daytoday operations if we have a policy and procedure we don't direct that what to do and how to do it the board's already discussed it we discussed it in the room here we voted on it now can there be changes sometime down the road if
105we hear more information that'd be great the fact of the matter is we do not Direct daytoday management of the organization here that's why we have full-time people working for us and we have the superintendent here so please keep that in mind all the time and also I finish up here with you when took a class here last summer on a leadership seminar for books and so forth Sandra de oano one of the comments made at our training down there was Sandra de oano Supreme Court Justice Our obligation is to define the liberty of all not Comm manded our own own moral code and that's what we're getting into is moral code out here if you all want to copy what the lawyers put out about books let me know I'll make a copy for
106the board I'll get it out to you but I want to pass it out until we had authorization I call msba they say yes Mike you can give it to your board members go ahead so keep that in mind we do not direct dayto day activity we hire these people to do our day to-day at work force thanks for fing up on the copyright that was my concern no they say we can pass that out okay Amy I do agree that we set policy as long as the procedure follows the policy um if board members would like to review it I would suggest that you contact Mr Anderson which at that point he could share with you I appreciate that he shared it with us I do you know I'm it's nice for me to
107know I don't I wouldn't demand it but I thank you for sharing that with us because it is helpful as we're um going through with the policy is moving forward that we do have a better understanding of how it will be implemented because this is a um more of a Hot Topic right now within our community I will say I'm wondering how you came up with the challenge materials and and limited it to who you did instead of just allowing someone to challenge the challenge the material yeah that was um from the template of the Minnesota school board so correct me if I'm wrong Brandon but we copied their template and so that was included in there and the one I shared with you which we may want to look at just had challenge materials
108the review of challenge materials shall be handled objectively weighing the educational value of the material as a whole right so again it didn't limit anyone and I I don't think we want to limit anyone I would be concerned that we would be by using those words but again I think we need educational um material within our librar and by the way just as an FYI the way I view employee sometimes it includes school board members and sometimes it doesn't I think in this case I would assume that school board members are considered employees so someone could go through a school board member to at the same time right now I'm up on my booklet here I'm up to seven different reading systems for books now which one you want to take 1 three four five
109or seven which one you want to go with now our libraries they do use follow it f o l w Destiny they do use that the high school and the middle school I went and talk to both of the med media EAS who work part-time do a great job for it but they're not licensed they do follow the follow it and they do track that very very heavily to check books out of who and who what level can have that book they do track that really heavy in their two media centers I'm really glad you brought that up because I forgot one important Point um I was assuming going into this that you know we would come up with a policy some procedures on selection reconsideration uh but the middle school's already taken it to
110the next level um you know mediate the middle school had you know SE several years ago marked a lot of the books with a red dot indicating more mature content uh and really glad she did because she's already starting to go through the the books shelf by Shelf she's pulling out those books checking the ratings and if there's something questionable she's already talking with Miss CR who will Who will make that decision so the mediate is is supporting that uh but miss kitler will will make the decision and you know Miss cly will will need to look at multiple reading um services in and you know book looks can be one commense media plus the ones on Destiny followed as well P got a question go yeah so I was just wondering I I know
111Amy was talking about the um who can challenge of books but I did go back and notice that the MB uh the mba's um uh original um well their their recommendation did include two members of the school district Community with no direct connection with the request for consideration for the Review Committee so I'm wondering why the policy committee decided to take community members off rather than leave them on because community members do I mean community members can also be their grandparents and neighbors and just like we heard at the last at the last meeting you know the concerns is there's other people and that the community should be able to be involved in this process even though they don't have a child in the in the in the classroom yeah and like you was the
112model policy template School Board Association here yeah as one of the policy members or members of the policy committee when we discussed this we were very clear that we did not want school board members or um residents community members on the policy on the committee because this is a hot button topic it's very politically charged um and we wanted to ensure that there was fairness and it was that the staff would be looking at certain criteria and a value and not putting a political idealism in on this topic on in reviewing the books my own personal moral code you know looking at it from a wide badage point and it was very clear that's why we decided that yeah and that was part of the discussion a couple weeks ago I think correct month ago
113that's all I have go ultimately it will if people disagree with the decision It ultimately to the school board which we represent the community is why that was our thought it's also very difficult as we all know in this room to get communities um on the isn't that we maybe didn't want them it's let's face it it's really hard to get them on on any of the Committees thank you okay well than you I'll be back in a few minutes you have more than 20 minutes yeah sorry about that okay all right so you know that Rob you're next all right I'm not going to the so facilities I've been talking about this for years kind of behind the scenes and finally getting it out to the board here um as a coach I've got
114one unique perspective and as a president of the Basketball Association I've got a different interpretation of how things are done um two weeks ago we had a youth basketball tournament one of the Hoops didn't come down this is Friday night everything is scheduled everything's ready to go Saturday morning we have three ports we tried to get the middle school but due to lack of custodial coverage we could not get that so we were forced to use a smaller Court um at the high school changing everything because we couldn't have older kids on that one so we had third fourth and fifth graders on that Court um so I'm just trying to get it looked at of why custodians need to be present at all time what is not in contract you talking to custodians during
115your tournaments um no so then second as a coach um over Christmas break and Thanksgiving break we try to have practices Saturday after Thanksgiving we were given a time slot of 8 to 10 um and that's for boys and girls because that's the time custodians was there um for two high school programs it's just not enough what else got um you said thanksg being Christmas break right and as a coach I've got codes to arm and disarm the building I just don't know why we can't be in there without custodial coverage anybody know that a policy procedure somewhow written up I don't know I don't know if it's written up or not yeah it's in the custodial contract Section 8 building coverage custodial coverage of 2our minum will be required for a non-school sponsored weekend
116or non- student day athletic practice the scheduled two-day event requires custodial coverage of three hour maximum for the first day and a two hour minimum for the second day that's in the custodial contract contract rob it says they have to have two hours to get the job done it doesn't mean that they have to be there toour minimum yes but it doesn't say that they have to be there while we there they will be required for any non-school sponsored weekend or non-student day athletic practice to clean the building not to oversee us okay well that's not specified in the language right um I disagree with you completely right uh we we have $80 million invested into our buildings and to just open those up for public use with no staff on site isn't going to
117be the answer I guess I would argue that I am staff as a coach not when you're acting as a youth basketball president sorry I'll take that hat off I'll put the coach hat on so on Saturday after Thanksgiving I don't know why we can't get into the gym because our coaches routinely mess up the alarm system and we get called and I'm entitled to have a Thanksgiving go Ahad Rob right um a coach there's no training as to how to arm disarm the system I think that if we could train our coaches that it would go a long way of alleviating call but that you acting as a coach isn't a facilties runs with question that's that's with the High School administration not facility so they are two separate things so Mr Martin has
118said that he's willing to train people that's between you and Mr Martin's coach routinely we have staff members show up as we did did last New Year's Day two Drumline instructors who thought they smelled gas called 911 and I had to drop everything on New Year's Day to go deal police and fire at so just because they're trained doesn't mean they always follow what on top of that if you're not following procedures and the teacher comes in and you didn't sign in or the teacher doesn't sign in and you leave and set the alarm the alarm goes up so we have a lot of issues that surround that but we need to separate your role as a coach and what you do for the basketball program versus what you do with the facility run because
119they're two totally different things I see that but I don't see the difference I mean just take the youth part out of it I don't see why as a coach I know that there's in contract but it doesn't say that they have to be while we it doesn't say they don't right and so my argument is that we need a staff member in our buildings when we practicing the and as a coach I just argue that I am the staff not responsible for checking all 41 doors of the high school and leave that's what I'm saying couldn't we be trained on Deal question do all activities whoever is managing an activity can they go into the buildings without a custodian there I'm non holidays correct on non holidays again non holidays or non holiday the
120holiday falls on a Friday or so are the only days that Rob you're addressing is holiday weekends or is it all the time it's not all the time because during the week There's custodial coverage there up until 10:00 yeah so we just hired a Saturday custodian in the last few months so prior to that spanning preconstruction to now we've been unable to fill that position and coaches during normal times still access the building teachers during normal times still access the building the Restriction is put in on the holiday weekend because our custodians need time off our teachers need time off Mr linis needs time off Rob I put the youth cap back on so in that emergency situation why couldn't uh custodial staff from the high school monitor building because active supervision just like in
121a classroom can't happen unless you're present but the contract language doesn't say the need to supervise it just says 3 hours or whatever it says sure but then as the facilities if you're going to put your youth hat on I can require a building Monitor and a supervis we can charge you for that I mean supervision is an active thing it has to happen right when we don't have that happen we have uh as we did two years ago with the youth basketball tournament at the high school kids running full warm-up drills in the Bridge Street room ball is hitting the wall I that's it was on video I watch so active supervision does need to happen just just like classro I don't question I can see points going both ways here Rob and L
122I just one more thing there is board policy 902 that covers this at length there's a custodial contract and then there's an addendum for the board policy in procedures that's calling on our website there's actually an updated version down at the bottom and you got to click that link to get the full updated version so how about the uh athletic Pam going be up next how about the athletic committee getting back together and just have your own discussion and then bring it back to the board what you come up with just an idea I have for you again Pam go ahead yeah yeah I have a concern because I I've got the custodial contract in front of me and I and as I look at it I mean basically a custodial job is to ensure
123that the building is back in shape right for so this is off hours right custodial coverage for a minimum of two hours minimum should require for any non-school sponsored weekend or non- student day athletic practice so the intent that I believe this is is to make sure to ensure that a custodian then at some point in time has the opportunity to make the school safe and cleaned up and ready for school again on Monday correct so here's my question um are we expecting then for our custodians to all of a sudden be safety monitors or monitors of students not you know that are behav to be behavioral behaviorally okay I mean I'm not sure that that's in a custodian I know it's not in the custodian contract I don't know I didn't look at 902
124but my question is when we have the custodial coverage so are they expected to be there at the beginning of a um a practice for example is to to Rob's concern and athletic practice how long are the athletic practices three hours two hours two hours so what is that custodian doing there then so they're going to what open the building watch your two hours and then clean up afterwards or what is the I don't understand the intent of why it's got to be a custodian I understand the contract the contract says look we're the custodians we don't want somebody else cleaning up the mess that these kids may have made in the bleachers or on the court or and you know Street shoes and all those things that can happen in a gym so we
125do want our custodial staff to clean and make sure that the building is back in shape for when school starts again on Monday but to expect them to be a monitors I just I'm not really sure how many hours do they put in when they typically come in for this and I hear that we're not always getting them when we can Pam you're mixing up two different uses okay when you're asking the questions okay okay so you asked the question about practice yes they have free reign to practice every day of the year except for District holidays okay on a district holiday then there needs to be somebody there so that that's athletic practice that's different than a youth rental or a weekend event that might happen in the building do that clear it up
126at all or no well not really because I'm not I'm not understanding where the custodial requirement is to be there I understand the custodian need two hours minimum to make sure that the building is back in shape that's typically I mean I I I've done custodial contracts before myself so I'm not really understanding now if there's some other that we need to have another a person in the building for safety reasons I understand that but we so we've just identified that that's going to be the custodian the custodian is responsible for walking the perimeter of the building making all doors are locked and setting the alarm before they go off at night is also charged that they can't leave the building till everyone's gone so just a year and a half ago we drove I
127drove by the high school late at night and saw a bunch of kids sitting in the Bridge Street room the coach had just packed up and left who's supervising the children what do we do with the coach that's not a discussion that we can have here I understand that but that would be my question is is did you know did we take care of the the violation that of the coach I can't answer that question here yeah I know I understand it's rhetorical but but but that's those are the issues that come come about so if you want to ask what what is our custodians doing for safety well our custodians not locking kids out of the building on a dark cold night that's number one our custodians walking around checking that all exterior doors
128are properly shut number two and our custodians setting the alarm number three if the fire alarm goes off if uh kid smoking in the bathroom at a weekend tournament the fire alarm goes off the custodian's on site to respond there's a there's a staff member on site train who knows what to do in building operation okay so they train in these procedures then correct okay Amy and we're talking we're not talking every Saturday of every I mean of the month if I if this is a holiday am I correct correct Saturdays in the in the winter time in our buildings especially the high school are pretty much booked the whole winter long so what we are talking about are holidays day after Thanksgiving Christmas Eve New Year day things like that well I agree with
129Chris on this that I mean our employees deserve vacation or the day off I guess if those who are um looking at the custodian contract want to negotiate whether or not they can earn extra money and get so much money paid to them if they want to not they're forced to if they want to work it and maybe it's time going a half I don't know you that's negotiation time but this table isn't here to negotiate contracts it's pretty clear in the contract of what it is and I'm not I mean if it's a holiday I want I love my days off and again custodians want to earn extra money that's something they could have a discuss negotiate in contract but they would have to be paid for a holiday and that would probably be
130more and if they wanted to do it that but I'm not sure it belongs here at this stable this Rob comic all right so I'll take full responsibility for the situation that Mr Link was brought up we came back custodial coverage I don't know if it was midnight we got back we got back late I think it was one girl walked in Bridge Street room didn't tell anybody we didn't see her go there and we all walked up and she was left inside if we had been trained properly we would know how to secure every door in the building I but she was left there yes I take responsibility for that other than that I'll move on so other schools that I talked to they just don't have this restrictive language coaches call up get
131space and it's not an issue um I we're just so restrictive in How We Do It um as far as holiday I don't know that Saturday I don't know that it that is a holiday the Saturday after Thanksgiving or during Christmas break there's limitations there as well for the whole week I don't know the exception has been made if a custodian isn't available we don't restrict then it falls on an administrator in the building to be present and open up the building it's also if they so if they chose so shoes it's also a way to protect um not only kids but our coaches as well to have a non-biased non team member there who's got supervisory capacity who's highly trained and has earned their right to be there so it's concessions have been made
132to find ways to get people in the building to practice on those holiday weekends when a custodian's not available when a custodian is not available an administrator doesn't come in yeah then then it's locked um I would say to Rob's point this is the least restrictive environment that I've been in in a school in my professional career when I was at Hopkins you didn't even have a key to the building you couldn't get in so when buildings were closed the only person that could get in was the basketball coach because he had been there long enough and had a key and he did what he wanted and nobody would fire him because he was winning State title after State title after State title he's a very good coach I as a teacher I couldn't give
133into the building at any time if there was no if the building wasn't open so this is a very very um free environment from what I what I've seen both at St Louis Park Hopkins and the Blake school this is the least restrictive environment that I've ever seen hey Rob this take again how about the committee get together you guys talk it out the committee bring it back to the board later on again look at all the goes and G we're talking about tonight and can you be trained up can you be licensed bonded I don't know how it work the coaches let's try it out Rob last comment sure so in Mississippi a it's we are one of the most restricted in people that I talked to and we have a custodial coverage shortage
134and administration is over I just don't want to more on them when we can train our coaches to secure building what's more on me is when I get a call January 1 what's more on me is when the alarms keep going off what's more on me is when police and fire are calling me every second of the day when there's a problem uh I don't think training solves it because I don't think coaches understand at a large scale what it takes to look after the entire building and what it takes to be secure when we were in construction and the doors were left open and kids came in and empty every fire extinguisher in that gym that is a major issue and that is what happens when you leave buildings open that's what happens when
135there's no supervision if you're in there teaching you can't supervise the building and you're in the gym coaching you can't supervise the commons I mean the high school is 600,000 square feet your practice space is limited to just the gymnasium if a kid lives east of the gym and decides I'm it's cold outside and I'm walking home I'm going to cut through and go outdoor 41 if door 41 doesn't close properly and somebody doesn't check it to make sure the alarm gets set that alarm could go off on its own because the door is not closed number one number two you have a way for anybody to get into the building and those are the issues that happen when we don't have somebody dedicated to that role okay Ben last comment you got hand up
136no okay all right thank you at Le your committee get together talk it out bring it back to the board okay next up will be the ly information just information pass out to you uh we are looking at we have talked about in the past board i' bring it back to you again take a look at the levy uh I know the Luth is going back out for their Levy again uh this well matter of fact coming up pretty quick this may but uh we need as a board really need to come together and find out we want to pull a levy together again I believe we have to put a levy together we talked about all of our teachers have left me tonight our St and everything all of our staff deserve pay raises
137we don't have a levy for it again we're at0 for voter approved Levy we have uh Noah hin at 1,099 we have El River at 1421 14 first student that's first student they have look what they can do why do we lose our staff all the time I know we lose our staff uh Mr B ver Vera had a great I knew where he was going all those names I remember those teachers 25 plus why because down here in and henan and O River they can take our people because they have big dollar we have zero we're talking about our librarian have licensed Librarians into our media centers to track our books but we have people that say take the book out but don't pass the levy to hire the licensed person to put in
138the in the position so it's like a catch 22 how do you hire someone if we have zero dollar and they have4 $0000 why do we lose our staff all the time so folks I think we need to look at our Levy here find out truly between our next meeting what do you think about the levy how do you feel about it truly truly the economics you know the impact on people I agree it's out there but we need to really talk about our Levy we need to do something to retain and keep our good staff here people come in here all the time take care of our staff take care of our staff take care of of our teachers how do you do it when we're zero and other people are $1,400 so when
139they came in and talked about our staff and our and our books in the library how do we hire a licensed uh uh librarian we don't have the money we had licensed Library we had two of them middle school high school they were cut five six years ago because we didn't have the money we moved them back into language arts we had a cut teacher positions now we have good EAS in there working part time to take care of our books and to try to reclassify our books to make sure the age appropriate they're doing a good job for us but where do we get a licensed person again fulltime that knows the job you get them by having a levy Pathways to have programs for our people we have Pathways we've been talking about
140we need to do something for pathway we cannot hire a aut of mechanic teacher because we can't pay him enough that's why they go to other schools all the time we need to get auto mechanics back in that's one of our Pathways plus any other programs we're working on to bring people in here we need more dollars so I hate the H hypocrisy of people saying that we can't do it but take care of your media center Pathways get a teacher in there how do we do it we don't have the money to equalize ourselves to the other District so please between now and next meeting folks on the board think about it what do you think about a good to put on for this uh November presidential if it fails it fails or it
141passes it passes you know what you got to try got it tce so we can have some equity in our school district like all these other school districts who are above and beyond our district Miss Amy um I agree we should have a discussion during that discussion I think it's also vitally important that this board and our community also um have a presentation of what schools were actually given as far as new money because I continually see record year of funding and we all know that there were 65 new mandates so about half of the additional the new money the 2.2 billion that was spent on education funding was spent on 65 new mandates we need to talk about um that at first they wanted to reduce the education Gap special ed they that was
142the big push we're going to do this and by the time they started adding all the new little things they wanted to do 75 million for a new law requiring science back literacy 45 million for school libraries the problem is is that there aren't any Librarians out there it isn't they gave us money for librarians new program get them 15 million for um ethnic studies we'll talk about that but a lot of money was supposed to go for the cross subsidy of special ed and it didn't it went through the 65 new mandates there was 338 million over two years that they gave for the free meals and everybody says well the meals were free they're free we all know okay they're free but it was funding used by the taxpayers of the state of
143Minnesota is paying for all free lunches so they're not free they chose instead of possibly putting it giving it to schools that we could use against the cross subsidy or use to increase salaries they used it as the meal so I think we as even I mean I've looked into this myself because I want to say my gosh I'm hearing Rec could do your funding where could do your funding and yet I'm here what they gave us what was it five or four and four and two four and two for for to actually on the basic on the basic and the basic formula guys isn't the whole formula I mean it isn't every it isn't when you look at our whole budget there's a there's a sliver that is education funding so I think we
144as a board need to educate ourselves and our public because right now all they're hearing is schools got record amounts of funding and you see across the board that school districts are are slashing they're they're cutting they don't have the money because of the mandates because of how they spent the money whether you agree with it or not I disagree with that I think we could have done things much better but that's the fact of the matter is is that and there's still the $750 million special ed Gap you know that's Statewide that's the Gap in special ed that they promised that they would I shouldn't say they promised they were talking about filling that Gap and the truth of the matter is they didn't they chose to use the money on other things so
145um that needs to be part of the conversation so we as a board understand how the money was spent all the new money and education it wasn't where everybody thinks it went well we get get to do whatever we want with it it's tight and we all sit here in this room and we know that that's why we're looking at an operating level but yet you know here on the other side oh there's all this new money there all show me the money so anyways I think that needs to happen and then we need to also have a conversation to understand that the economy is really it's tough out there we got about 40 50% buying power than we do four to six years four years ago so people don't have the additional money I
146hear about it when they come in and talk to me they're strapped they having a hard time buying groceries and people don't have the extra money they did a number of years ago so will they even be if they want to do it can they afford to do that that's the conversation we need to have because things have even changed since we did the survey um a year ago that things are tighter not and they won't admit it at some levels of government everything's great every everything's hunky dory but when you go out and talk to people they don't have any expended money and so I would like that talked about as we move forward to discuss the possible level because everyone says there's lots of money in education and I disagree so last comment
147Rob so last time we did have a survey done I thought there was some sort of I don't want to say guarantee but I thought they had something if we went with the number they said they almost they felt comfortable yeah was there any anything with that we could run do we want to run another one would there be a discount if since we did use their number I I don't have a I I don't recommend doing another survey um you know survey companies you know give good data dat but it's really who goes the polls and there are a lot more people who voted no than who voted yes so for whatever reasons um you know one thing I'm well we're going to be talking about this at an upcoming I'll make it really
148short but no one has come to the podium over the last several months to say you need to run another referendum so I'm I'm just concerned that if there aren't parents and community members and employees who are really advocating for it I I'm just not sure if it's possible now if we had dozens of people saying you know we want that career Readiness programming we want the auto mechanics you know Pathways we want school resource officers and media center people and they were really pushing it you know then maybe you know it would make it more compelling to me you know but I I just don't hear it out there right now well we need discussion on it so board please think about it do your homework look around and come back at our next
149meeting and let have discussion the short one in due time we have to have it on the agenda for an action item so all right question yes' than honestly I think some of it was a little rushed last time yeah there there was an element so I think I'm I'm not sure where we're going to go if we're going to have them but we need to have plenty of time to um to talk about it I think we need to be you know prepared of of which way we want to go and get it out there early enough that this isn't about you know it needs to we need to have a conversation with our the ones who will vote yes or no on it and they get the ultimate decisions and by the way
150in March or April hopefully March originally the plan was April but we could move it up uh Mr Austin and possibly some others will come and talk about the work with career Pathways and what they envision uh for the future and if that's done really well I think people would be would be feeling really good about spending a little bit extra per month for that kind of programming but I feel like we have to prove it first you know or just have a really specific plan um so he'll be here hopefully in early March and and at least share their progress so far it's it's been good work they're looking at some other schools and coming up with some some good ideas okay we'll move on here thank you for your information on the love
151you there everybody well look ahead uh admin report anything to report tonight there Mr superintendent oh shoot um yeah you have the uh report there could you just scroll there real quick I'll keep it two minutes and under I promise at least my part will be and I can let me grab my notebook I left it up here Vanessa take it all your time yeah exactly that's okay Vanessa I got it really [Music] quick uh there's an attachment there uh that's uh bragging up our Miss Mississippi 81 act play results uh and also participation in Minnesota thespian conference so please take a look at that we ought to be really proud of our drama Department I know we are but I just love bragging about it whenever I possibly can uh as you may know
152the city of Francis St Francis did not approve the amendment that we need to purchase the Oakland's building on Bridge Street so uh they'll they'd consider uh reviewing it again in a year uh but I don't think that's in the cards cards for us so we're going to look at other options and uh hopefully the city will be able to come up with some really good um businesses or you know something for for that particular building but we've got to look elsewhere now uh we have new uh software for food services and transportation really excited about both of them and want to thank uh Wendy uh and uh Peggy for their work on making the selections and for implementing it I think that's uh fantastic uh mental health therapy contracts maybe we should um I'll
153I'll spend more time at the next meeting talking about that uh because there are some questions at the last board meeting so but I know it's almost nine o'clock so maybe I can come back with that um District advisory committee in the ACT uh we did include uh some notes from the January 8th meeting and uh you'll see more notes about some of these committies uh attached to a Schoolboard packet um you know just so that you can prove them at your leisure it's good not only for the board members but also for the public it won't be with all committees but we'll start adding them and in particular the teaching and learning uh or the curriculum instruction Department would be a a good place to start so uh thank you Stacy for including those
154notes uh and then finally um uh Annette brought up a question about American flags in classrooms do we have them in all classrooms was a question right away said well I think so but I'll double check thankfully I double check uh because we have a lot of classrooms that need the American flags and so Chris is GNA work with h Chris warts and come up with a plan on you know identifying which classroom still need those American flags purchasing purchasing them and then of course um installing them uh so we want to do it and I'm glad that that the question was raised so thank you Anette for for bringing that up that's all I got question oh question with the regards to the building there on brid street do we have a um reason
155given why was it because we wouldn't be paying taxes there do they want a building there well I mean what was the reasoning to turn down the yeah I was at a different meeting that night so I wasn't part of the conversation but you know my hunch is that uh it's well it's zoned differently and one of expectations was that 70% of the front of the building uh needed to be available to the public you know for something like a a business or something like that and maybe we could have met that somehow some way um you know especially with our T15 kids who can you know provide services but you know we couldn't we could not guarantee it so my guess is that that was a big part of it and you know they're
156trying to it's not it's not going to be easy in St Francis just with the layout but I think they're trying to bring more businesses to to Bridge Street keep commercial so it was 70% of the building would need to be how much 70% of the first 30 feet of the entire Frontage of the building that faces Bridge Street needs to be accessible for pedestrian traffic thank you Lindy was so that so how much how many feet is that I don't know I didn't do the calculations um here the the issue for us which is why we do the calculations is the front of the building is parceled off into different rooms yeah and so that would have been extensive remodeling that had happened for us to be able to get in there because there's
157that one room when you walk in there's did they to the side or was it either side the entire facade of the building on okay of the first 30 ft so if the building was you know 100t long which I'm not saying it is yeah then the first 70% of the first 30 feet going deep into the building is what we would have had to% accommodate you didn't think it was I'm not questioning you because my mind is going and I'm thinking wow what a perfect facility to put in a coffee shop slash that's what they want to do um cre store ice cream store or just a store because you're teaching these kids how to do things how to um sell things it's all things that could be in what what they need to
158do so I mean is this for sure Dad to one year from because we did propose the coffee shop we had somebody looking at partnering with us to do an ice cream parlor in there and it just the kids would love it on each side and and it could have been a really good thing me I voted yes in pnz okay the vote from from Planning and Zoning was unanimous 70 it got to the council um the first council meeting didn't have all the members would have needed to pass four to one so instead of sending forward a vote that was doomed to fail the council was was uh gracious enough to extend it to the next meeting so that all five council members could be present um and it that that meeting did pass
159and I have the utmost respect for the city of St Francis council members and their and their decision what they did I'm not going to question it that's not what we do here but I'll be honest I just think oh my gosh the possibilities could have been tremendous on both sides that that could have I'm just really bummed so but thank you for for telling us all right we'll move on here then and it's still being looked at we talked about facilities the other day we're still having discussion on a new building or a building all right move on to action items number one approved teacher sority list is there a motion to accept thank you rob there a second thank you Jill second approval of teacher sority list any discussion problem just why do
160we approve the teacher seniority list and no others why is that Mr uhon so the um the reason this is approved is there is statutory and contractual requirements for how you would reduce sta if we were in in a situation where we're reducing and other groups do not have that that type of formality as many formalities for that and um we we produce um seniority lists for most of our groups but um this is the only one that we bring because there is such formal some of it's all the statue thank yeah one cut are being made who has what license here and what position all right uh all in favor say uh Nate all in favor hi Anette hi Rob Amy hi Pam hi Jill hi Mike I all right passes 61 62 approve
161of mechanics agreement is there a motion to accept thank you Jill is there a second second Thank you Pam discussion questions just Rob thank you to all those involved that got this a lot of work thank you okay thank you any other question concern but mechanic contract if not Jill hi Mike is I Pam hi Amy hi Rob hi Anette hi and Nate hi Mo who made the motion and who second it again uh motion made by Jill okay thank you approval Understanding Nutrition manager motion to accept so motion Rob thank you who seconds Nate does Nate second question concerns about 6.3 6.3 any questions concerns okay all in favor Nate I andette I Rob hi Amy hi Pam hi Jill hi and Mike is I approval of 6.3 approval policy revision now last time
162around we had a policy pulled so it made me learn something from last go around too we have multiple policies out in the future if one should be pulled for discussion which is follow like a consent item we'll just pull it pass the other one and then we'll come back to that one and discuss it the last time I was caught off guard what I never had that happen to me what do we do we learn we talk we had some discussion now we'll fix it no problem so approval of policy revisions policy 416 515 motion to accept thank you Jill second Thank you Pam I heard you first track there Pam all right discussion policy 416 515 discussion questions all in favor Jill hi Pam hi Amy hi Rob hi Anette hi Nate hi
163and Mike is I approval of policy upcoming meetings topics we have some stuff coming forward here you see it on your schedule out there you have more information bring it to us we have it out there we have now remember in March is one one meeting in March the first meeting in March look on my calendar now there uh Brandon do did you check to see if we have two meeting one or two meetings in I'm pretty sure we have two yeah there are two and I have a bad V in March 11 the5th I made a mistake I was looking somewhere else then it's a paper copy that's causing problems okay my mistake I was looking something else and that paper Stu either way get a hold of us we get on the paper
164copy so we're good to go all right uh School Board member report start with uh Mr perfect uh so I've been quiet most of the night yes you have been and so I'm going to say just a quick statement I typed it because I'm a little frustrated with all of us tonight so I'm type it so it doesn't come across with too much emotion uh reminder to all of us that we are a public school district we don't choose our students but we do get to choose is how we engage and support all of our students and communities we represent we can live up to our mission to equip all students with the Knowledge and Skills to empower them to achieve their dreams not ours and and their full potential while becoming responsible citizens in
165a dynamic world we can argue every meeting about opinions on definitions on things like social emotional learning which currently what our staff is doing in regards to that directly supports our district goals of ensuring responsibility and accountability are essential for profession or personal growth it's on our walls it's on our website it's something that we all do we can argue about opinions on appropriateness on what the specific website may or may not say on licensure requirements on personal items in a classroom that allow students to connect with our teaching staff we can argue on opinions on what books mean to students and we can argue as a board um making decisions for parents of our students or we can have discussions on how to advance this district for not only our students but for our
166staff and our community we can discuss how we responsibly and appropriately spend our taxpayer dollars we can discuss the issues that have long lasting effects on this District Carson I want to thank you for your time um your immensely valuable time that you put in to providing us updates on some of these issues and providing facts on uh what our district is doing with some of these issues uh for my report I attended the Early Childhood advisory Council um I am pleasantly uh surprised that the participation from our Early Education families uh with that advisory Council great attendance great ideas great involvement um we are for next year offering 19 classes in our early Dead uh we started a new process this year for the district using an online registration it's used to been a
167paper uh we did an online for the first time and in the first four days we had 145 registrations uh that is a huge number really looking good for the district going forward with our early Ed and that online process went smooth um they're still taking paper ones uh for some individuals so Mike if you need to enroll anyone a paper one but that process uh you know kudos to our staff on making that process seamless and it's it's really benefiting the community uh and then they've got a A list of multiple events upcoming that engage our community members our parents our grandparents uh over the next couple months uh and they're conducting conferences tonight so thank them for that uh and then the last thing for me is teacher negotiations um we have covered
168a lot in our last uh 13 14 sessions um but we still have a lot of work to do um and that is going to take place uh in 10 days here we have our first mediation session and then a second one scheduled 17 days from now so again I am hopeful that uh we can get through that work that we need to going forward that's all got thank you um I just wanted to mention the Lake Superior Regional robotics competition St Francis will be um attending that I'm going to go it's in Lake in duth and Lake Superior so I'm going to go and I'm gonna take notes and watch our kids have you been to one before no I tried to go last year and say when they were here at the U
169ofm but I got snowed in so I couldn't it's awesome I've been there yep and I bet you there are some community members who'd really appreciate it too you know because of their mechanical engineering and math backgrounds and that kind of stuff so aome Rob uh I attended the office of Technology negotiations and those are progressing don't really we set a new meeting yet but we get a contract settled there um got this in the mail Community yet spring and winter catalog there's so many offerings that we have um this this this goes out to everybody that has mailbox right so hopefully kep it and look through it there's so much in here that you can do so if you have time look through it in fin class Amy I attended teacher negotiations and mediation
170is in 10 days so and I am requesting that we have a work session onal I believe we do need to talk about how much time is spent onal versus math reading and and English in our classrooms um that's yeah so that's how I'll end it but I have done my research and I do feel very strongly that we do set which direction that we set the the the which way the ship is going to sail and um I am concerned about and if we do need to discuss the standards I think our public needs to hear what the new standards are and as well as all of you to hear what the new standards are we need to discuss the standards I would like to discuss the pby requirements for Teacher lure because as
171I read we need to discuss what is in our classrooms and what is not this is important stuff I'm not going to gloss over and say that it isn't this isn't arguing this is about having discussions and um sometimes we agree to disagree but it's important that everyone is heard and have their concerns heard not be squashed that it is or isn't because someone disagrees with another board's member concerned and by the way I have all three on on my list here yes that would be awesome I do appreciate that so and that is all I have B you you don't get out too much but what's happening I'm starting to get out a little bit more so that's feeling good good um I I just want to Echo what uh what Amy just talked
172about I want to make sure that this work session is not full of a bunch of other stuff I think it needs to be a real strong conversation amongst all of us around the pby standards and seal so I don't hopefully you know let's keep it gets to those couple of items so that we can really have a full full discussion and then I just I need to read this uh because I had a Community member send this to me in expectations that I would read it and I know the library book thing got long thanks to me sorry but um I'm just going to read this real quick so I am against this is from a a Community member that came to the last meeting and spoke I am against the Banning of books
173I believe that censorship of any kind leads down a dark path it is critical for society to have the freedom to share ideas and differing opinions however it is also imperative that we protect our children and their developing Minds in the last session superintend Anderson referenced a book in our library saying the book had some passages that made him feel uncomfortable but in totality thought the book was totally well actually well done it had language that maybe we don't feel good about but the book is about the reasons why child prostitution and you already elaborate on this Caron prostitutes happens to some um of the reasons why kids become involved in it and it talks about the nature of child prostitution while I appreciate the premise of of the argument this is contrary to re
174search that has been conducted unfortunately describing undesired acts and behaviors in details has the effect of increasing these behaviors despite how negatively a topic is presented and portray introducing such a topic to immature undeveloped Minds will cause some to actually pursue this behavior that they would desire that they would that they would that they avoid in the his 2004 book the copycat effect author Lauren Coleman gives numerous examples of all the promotion of tragic events in news actually spurns additional such events coverage of school shootings beg get additional school shootings coverage of child abductions lead to more child abductions and this is um there's the copycat you can look that up a study conducted in 2019 and posted in the NIH website descri describes the statistical correlation between the Netflix 13 Reasons Why and the
175increase of suicide rates following its release and I'm just going to read here real quick from P PubMed I'm going to read the the conclusion of the reason the release of 13 Reasons Why was associated with a significant increase in monthly suicide rates among us youth age 10 to 17 caution regarding the exposure of children and adolescence to the series is warranted the the the uh results also talked about that these associations were restricted to boys but among 18 to 19 year olds and 30 to 64 year olds we found no significant change in level or trend of suicide after the show is released again that's because it depends on the development of the particular minds and the age okay let me finish this real quick introducing sexual behaviors or violent acts which all these
176books do portray very explicitly in media increases the frequency of these behaviors for this reason books promoting and introducing these subjects should be removed from our libraries it is up to parents to talk about these issues to their children as they feel appropriate and necessary so I just wanted to read that because that was the expectation of this individual when they sent it to me that the whole board heard that um other than that I don't have anything thank you thanks guys so I want to thank um everyone for the presentations tonight and the discussions but and I also want to thank everyone who spoke during consideration of visitors um I really wish I would have type exactly what Nathan said um during his report because that's exactly how I feel um I do not
177support a work session on the two topics is po policy standards oral um and I want that taken into consideration when we talk about having that work session because I I don't feel we need a work session on either of those topics um in the last couple weeks I've attended the level three grievance a level three grievance and also meet and confer in meet and confer the the topic that will probably be of everyone's interest is the 25 26 school there um there isn't a finalized version at this point it's still being considered by staff but just to put it out there it is our discussed so we will have a calendar for two years out hopefully approved in the next next couple months and that's all I have all right thank you again Rob
178and I went to a facilities meeting here just recently about facilities what happen in our in our district I am J to the G stre meeting here just recently also for a paper copy that I can get my paper copy for all the time again Lan Union did a great story on the on the military two soldiers that died from St Francis because of the story now have up the two more uh high school graduates of St Francis Philip Donald Waters class of 58 died in Vietnam and Raymond Baker class of 61 died in Vietnam so now we have four of our high school graduates who passed away in desert St Desert Storm of Vietnam days because of the article he wrote here Ian did about our what we're doing here for the memorial I
179wanted to come out and do a story on our welding class we made the front page and off the paper also on our welding class and and great story he put together about what the kids are doing at the welding class what they're learning what they're doing great P he gave us like two and a half pages of stories in here for the welding class so Ian did a great job on our soldiers and on this one here St Francis here again paper from the no Herald here our dance class here again uh runner up and Jazz third place for kick and they're going to state competition our our kickers here our dance class and of course a lot of you have already heard about uh Dakota uh Lor class n 2017 took third Minneapolis
180story here about her taking third for the Olympic representing the women's and I was watching her race on my son's phone ice fish in tournament last Saturday and we're watching her and national news they said Dakota St Francis Minnesota now in third place so St Francis made the uh national news with her running and she's a heck of a runner uh again uh a lot of our St Francis graduates are making the paper good work that they're doing along with our other group uh someone mentioned tonight who was that you're going somewhere robotics it's tring up north there so it's going to be great to see that's all I have right now Folks at is 910 912 I call this meeting in thank you