MCPS School Board Jun 22 2021

001then um the the issue goes to the county superintendent so that's why we are have these timelines scheduled as such so july 6 would be the deadline for anyone to apply for that open seat we're asking you to hold on your calendars a placeholder for a special board meeting at 6 00 pm on july 8th probably a virtual meeting just because it could be that you know with that being the sort of the week of july 4th there might be a lot of people traveling so we would ask for you just to hold that as a placeholder if we have some applicants we will know by july 6th if we have any applicants then we would move forward with that special board meeting if we did not have any applicants on july 6th then we

002would cancel that meeting on july 8th we are asking that you schedule one regular july board meeting i know that in most months we have two board meetings but just with the way the summer schedules work out and with people being out and about during this time we are asking to have one regular board meeting in july that would be july 20th at 6 pm then the august board meetings always get a little bit messed up because of the budget calendar so by state law we have to adopt a budget no later than august 20th and so we'd like to have our regular board meeting on august 10th that's the second tuesday of the month but rather than having our second board meeting on the fourth tuesday we want to move it up to the

003thursday before that so rather than having an august 24th board meeting we would have it on august 19th same time six o'clock it's a thursday that would be a special meeting a special board meeting for the adoption of our our budget for the next school year that's all i have oh thank you rob are there any questions for rob from the trustees okay um our next item then is the we have yeah we've dropped the announcement vice chair we'll pick that up next time um the next agenda item seven is the consent agenda these are items that appear routinely and so we just pass them kind of as a group uh any trustee can pull these off at the beginning of the meeting and you could do it now if you wanted just because we're

004not used to this but so we have um we're going to acknowledge mcps student attendance agreements for students that are attending other districts or attending our district we're going to approve the revenue and expenditure reports for the elementary and approve the revenue and expenditure ports for the secondary which is the high school just a second okay so we're going to vote consent agenda items a one and two together all trustees supporting the agenda items a1 and 2 please signify by raising your hand and let's see yeah those are elementary action items so you're not in on this one mike okay and then the second agenda item a3 is a secondary agenda item to approve the revenue and expenditure reports for the high school district so all trustees favor of item three please signify by raising

005your hand and i assume mike's on that one yeah there you go okay thanks um then we're moving on to old business uh this is the second part of our review of the international baccalaureate program and uh that will be presented by russ lodge and elise guest yes and just by way of introduction of this item just remind the trustees that we started this review process at the last meeting and we did mention it was a two-part process we wanted to explain first of all sort of the process that was used to research this topic and then the second part of this is it was really quite short we wanted to talk about some of the insights that came out of the task force and so dr guest and assistant superintendent lodge will discuss some

006of the insights that came from the task force i want the board to know that using these insights and talking with dr guests and assistant superintendent lodge we formulated some recommendations for boards consideration i split the recommendations into two separate items because we believe that um there is um rationale to um have sort of a different recommendation for the two different districts the elementary district and the high school district so you can see those recommendations that i've outlined there and as always with our recommendations um that's all they are simply recommendations we we're looking for board direction regarding this issue and so the recommendations that i crafted are are fairly specific but it gives us some some direction as we move into the next school year so assistant superintendent lodge you ready yeah thank you

007dr guest and i are glad to be back so we can kind of finish up our presentation to you and have the opportunity to present county's findings i'm going to begin though by asking dr guess elise to do a very quick wrap-up on the process just to bring it back into your memory bank with our task force and just a little quick reminder here we won't be long about how we got to this point and then we're going to jump into the slide that you see on the screen and and you might have in front of you so dr guest yeah i think as we just reconnect back to the process that we used um to remind everyone that we really feel proud of the fact that it was an evidence-based um process used to

008really evaluate an implementation of an initiative and so after nine ten years of implementing ib and really looking at the past strategic plan for achievement for out was a great opportunity to see how we're doing and really get some information to inform next steps so the data we used throughout the process was first the empathy interviews and we had over 52 individual one-on-one 30-minute conversations with a wide variety of stakeholders we had focus groups with parents and students at all of our buildings that are currently actively implementing ib we also look to our colleagues and experts at international baccalaureate organization university of montana and the washington foundation and together we brought all of that information in addition to the financial records to a task force a group of teachers from across our district who came

009together they opted in and said we're really interested in helping to provide a recommendation and answer those three main questions whether or not our students were engaged through an innovative initiative whether or not we were promoting those 21st century skills and knowledge and and looking at then how are we supporting that notion of equity and access for all students across our district and so with that task force we use the hexagon tool which you guys kind of heard about in the last presentation and i think the things that i'd want to really resonate with you is that there was six main components that we looked at in evaluating the initiative and so some were specific to the actual program like whether or not ib is good for mcps and we looked at evidence for that

010whether or not there was a sense of usability for it here and whether or not we had supports to really implement it with quality and fidelity and then there's also other indicators just around um mcps like whether or not there was the need do we present a need for something like a program like ib um is it a good fit for our community and then also do we have the capacity to implement it and implement it well and then sustain it so those are the six indicators we came to look deeper into and so up on this screen and i apologize for the tiny tiny font but what you can see is the specific statements that the task force came to agree upon in their writing and when i say agree upon we went through

011a really robust consensus building protocol that hatton littmann helped to facilitate to ensure that the words here really represent the work of the task force and that it really represents our thoughts in our our day's work in evaluating that data so with the consensus process we went around and every time people had to give a thumbs up sideways or down and if there was ever even a sideways we stopped we talked we re-evaluated we amended we modified until we could get that full consensus and the result of that full consensus was something that i'm really proud of in sharing is that as we went around the room and talked about the process and and how people felt about it and how they connected with it this was one of the first times in a in

012a year of a pandemic just hear teachers say this was an amazing process i feel really good about it this was something that i feel really engaged in professionally and feel satisfied about that this is the first time i'm able to connect with my colleagues again in person and and really honor like all of the expertise in the room and so i share that with you because the task force members really walked away feeling proud of their involvement and um their contributions and that's then what you see up on the screen so i want to come in the test course members and their names are written in the previous um presentation we shared last time and dr guest i know it's small on the screen but it's also repeated on page 28 of the of

013for the board members yeah exactly so we're happy to um dig into this to answer questions to to carry that conversation and process forward so what i'd like to do is just quickly go through the highlights and then maybe we can engage in some conversation if people have questions so the first one the need ib does meet the needs of the school communities but is not accessible to all students in k-12 another small group talked about evidence it does develop 21st century skills the pedagogy approaches to learning the profile the ib curriculum and the units of inquiry there has been demonstrated student engagement which was good to see under fit it is embedded in our district it aligns culturally philosophically within our community it's inquiry based and it intersects with other district initiatives usability it's

014well defined and allows adaptations for context in all populations under capacity we do have the capacity to sustain current ib programming because our leadership our staff are highly knowledgeable about the program and under support ongoing funding is necessary to sustain it the pd the new staff orientation the fees the materials but of course you know that our shape 21st grant is sun setting so we're as we sit here we're a little unsure where some funding will come from in the future so quickly because you can all read can i can i'm sorry to interrupt you certainly one thing for the trustees at the top where it's old business teaching and learning item i it says it's information only but in fact we will be directing the administration we will be voting tonight so if if

015you know if you have any questions at all or anything you want to know be sure and ask yeah so that that is the insights after all that work and that time and this is what our task force came up with i know we had a conversation it's been a month ago because we missed a meeting but if you want to engage in any conversation it could be about that it could be about the recommendations whatever whatever you choose oh thank you uh dr guest and mr lodge i guess before we start with the open or the board conversation can you kind of tell us what are we looking at financially what what do these numbers mean to us well basically um on that front page that you're looking at um you've got about over

016the ten over the seven to eight years that are there about two-thirds of the funding came out of the general fund and about one-third of funding came out of the grant it changed year to year um but i think you're going to see if i did my math right 700 000 and then the total funding was 2.7 million so maybe a little more than two-thirds probably in the 75 percent range um and the grant of course always paid for professional development and uh i think some of the fees and then the general fund paid basically for staffing so and dr guest if i could add to that the the intent of the the shape grant or now known as 21st century grant is to was to start up and seed the innovation that came out

017of achievement for all and so any time that we initiated a new class say at hell gator big sky then the grant would help purchase the textbooks and the curriculum materials as well as ensure that the teacher was trained when we looked to washington middle school to connect the elementary in high school they were in candidacy fees so the grant helps to pay that candidacy fee until it gets accredited and upon which then the general fund takes over the accreditation so there's always that startup kind of seed money to the innovation and the the startup of the the coursework or training that was needed for becoming an ivy school okay thanks um do any trustees have any questions they'd like to ask or at this time uh trustee mercer almost always so is that 60

018000 shortfall that in august you're going to want to be filling in to continue this program if we recommend continuing it correct and i guess the second question um two questions i serve together ap costs money two why does helga get two things and the others get one why are we spending more money for ib at hellgate than at big sky and hellgate also has ap i think it's historical is the answer i can answer that because i was the principal at hillgate high school when ib was initiated and the decision at that time was to keep both advanced placement programs and it has just stayed and i think that's probably the bottom line answer ib has grown at hell gate but some ap classes have been added too in the meantime sentinel was ap

019and of course big sky is moving to be entirely ib but that's just what hellgate has had over the last 10 years and i don't think there's any specific reason other than the idea that they wanted both programs to be there that's how it took off and i think it's continued over the last eight nine ten years and i guess it's my understanding there aren't fees associated with ap there's not a coordinator position so it actually isn't an additional cost is it like can i can i answer that so jeff i want to step back too and talk briefly about trustee mercer's question so proportionally trustee mercer and we could actually look at the course offerings i think what you'd find is the course offerings are about the same that is to say we're not

020duplicating ap and ib courses at big sky so i think the direction of ib at hellgate is more in the humanities area where the science and math offerings at hellgate are in the ap area so that would be one thing we can look into but it's my understanding we're not duplicating that those courses um and then to answer uh chair lorenzen's question so there the costs related to ap we haven't studied that yet and i think to be fair i think we need to do that i think we need to come back to the board at some time this next year and and talk about the costs associated to ap there are costs i don't know how much they compare or don't compare to the ib costs while we don't need a coordinator for for

021ib or i'm sorry for ap we do have we do have a lot of tests that are now given at sentinel because of the growth of their ap program all of those tests require proctors and a court coordination that currently happens with sentinel staff and so there is some there is some human cost to to run an ap pro program especially the one that as large as the one is at sentinel yeah i think trustee mcdonald had a question so what is the basic difference between ap and ip ib well i i think that's a a large conversation but in essence um with ib there's definitely a promotion to interdisciplinary approach there's an essence of critical thinking and application at a global level people will then compare that to ap and say it's more of

022a traditional application of that learning rather than the kind of interdisciplinary approach to it there could be a lot more said but i'll wait and leave it at that for now and what's interesting about the two programs is as as they've grown over the years they're starting to look a lot more alike than they are different so ap has now integrated um you know that theory of knowledge class and that capstone project so the two programs actually are looking a lot more similar than they are different so it is really it comes down to to a little bit about preference at the school level which direction a school wants to go and i guess i'll call him trustee hobbins but i guess we need to remember there is no ap in elementary um so when

023we're talking ap versus ib we're strictly talking high school there so go ahead nancy thanks guys um well i just i guess my broad concern is it seems like the schools that have the ib program really like the ib program there's a lot of buy-in from parents staff etc but the accessibility to all is what i keep like underlining and my question is kind of like stepping back do all the schools that want to have the ib program have the ib program that's a tough question to answer i mean the um equity piece is there at the high school level because between eighth and ninth grade kids can apply to go to a different high school then the ability to have it at different elementary buildings over the last six seven eight years uh each

024elementary building has kind of taken its own path so whether whether the board ever said seven years ago if anybody wants it raise your hand i don't know and i don't think that occurred so i think it depends a little bit on the path of each school at the time and that's one of the things we talked about a few weeks ago is coming back to you perhaps with the story of each elementary building or even having better yet having the board go to the elementary building and talk to the people and the principles and get a really good understanding of what's there and why it's there so you know i don't know if i answer your questions just follow up real quick go ahead well so i i guess it was so apparent that

025you know like franklin elementary was really you know invested in this you know um and i just wonder if it hasn't been kind of put out there to other schools at this point and we're talking about you know funding the the current programming that we have is that enough or do we want to be expanding it and offering it to more schools that might be interested in it i think what resonates with me with that question is when we heard from a teacher from lewis and clark and she spoke about how proud she is that back when the achievement for all plan was being written there was a request for for teachers to look into different innovative initiatives ib being one of them and at lewis and clark a teacher was interested and wound up

026sharing with their colleagues and thus it became a grassroots essence at lewis and clark a very similar process happened then fast forward a few years at big sky that they're very proud of how it was a grassroots group of teachers who began to be invited to go look at ib and to join in some professional development brought it back to their peers and like this is some great stuff and then from there it grew and um we heard that resoundingly in our empathy interviews and then in some public comment in the last board meeting um the process wasn't as similar to that at hellgate and i think we heard that in our empathy interviews um and then for washington it was a little bit of both but there was also the um the the stress

027point of knowing that students from the dual language school were coming in and so ib was a way to kind of encapsu encapsulate the lewis and clark students the pacs and students and then join in with the rattlesnake students so how does that happen is waving her head oh thank you for telling him elise expanded effectively on that and i just wanted to add that when we brought the task force together those members that were identified they all affirmed how much staff buy-in was essential to this because it is um you know it's a lift to implement any program this is not unique to ib so our other schools as as russ alluded to that have implemented other themes or programs in their schools especially at the elementary level there's a lot of staff buy-in

028for that and our task force did acknowledge that's essential in this case we were looking at ib but i think that has been a narrative of all of the different programs that have been implemented under the achievement for all plan is that staff buy-in is really critical thanks hatton um i think trustee decker what's up thanks um it's it's such a complex issue and it it like people have so many questions and honestly so many misperceptions about the whole thing i be at high school is an entirely different beast than what i be in the elementary years even is the goals of what it's about how people participate all of that so it's really it's difficult to even have a conversation about ib just generally across our district because it means something very different at

029all the different levels and i really hear what trustee hobbins is saying that for the most part staff who are involved in ib programs feel that they are huge value adds to their work it takes their professionalism their ability to engage kids to the next level which is awesome i feel like as a board and i'm wondering i'm sort of getting to this i think i'm wondering if what we should be paying attention to is the investments that we're making in that kind of engagement and professionalism and whether we feel like every school would say with as much enthusiasm that that is true of what happens every single day in their school and i feel like what we need to be paying attention to is what we spend per student across our district and how

030that plays out in the kinds of supports and opportunities that those students are are getting and i don't know in these in the financial breakdowns that you've made available if we're able to understand how this differs from what is spent in other schools or at other schools how how many of these schools are title schools and and whether that that need to get kids to the ground floor through title funding and then look at what this looks like in terms of a supplement from our general fund over and above this is what we're spending out of our general fund how that all connects the dots together i'm curious about whether um and that that all makes me makes me want to just take this conversation deeper sorry that was more of a comment i guess

031no no i i think it's fine and i think russ do you have something to help well i i agree with you and that's the engagement piece that kind of heard from you at the last board meeting that we need to investigate next year is what's the story at the other schools and what's their professional engagement and what is leading the charge and where's their investments and then we can without that it's hard to compare if you haven't taken a pretty good look at it so i agree with the comments thanks russ i'm trustee old person thanks chair lorenzen um one of the things i see when we're talking about this is the inequities that trustee decker and hobbins were pointing that across and i do see that it was staff buy-in but it was

032also the administration and the board who allowed it to go forward in creating this and not seeing the need for other schools at tidal schools or how it impacted by poc or underserved students and that's what i see is i think that's one thing i want to see is how much money we're spending on a student at franklin at lewis and clark versus russell and lowell i want to make sure that we're equal in how we are presenting education opportunities to our students and i think that's some that should be because i know at the last meeting you talked about will give us direction and i think that's where we really stepped up and we wanted we have the ad hoc committee going because we we see the inequity and that's what it is is

033inequity on how we're serving some of our students and we would be glad to do that work i think it's going to take next year to do it but i think that's a great direction for us to go and give you a broader perspective okay go ahead thanks for the quick follow-up and one other thing i wanted to see is barriers i don't see that really in this form and i in terms of like task force 2 i would want to see that opened up more because in public comment the last meeting we heard that certain fact certain people were not invited other families that it was very limited and i would like to see that opened up more and include more people from different backgrounds and i want to see more of it what

034the barriers are saying i'm trustee mercer so what i was over talking about pat during the break is what the plausibility of so i guess i would want us to make a specific number request i would like to know the average per student general fund not title broken down by school and maybe it turns out it's really even i mean i have no idea it seems like a baseline transparent number to see what the resources we are choosing to distribute um so i guess that's i don't know if that's a formal request my other this i guess sort of a comment too i certainly appreciate the way trustee hobbins put it about what other schools might want this but i think there's also a question does every school that we want to have it have

035it and i think yes staff buy-in is important but at some point it is not acceptable i'm not saying any school in this district would do that but it would not be acceptable for a school just to say no we don't want anything peace out and the administration just to say that's okay you can just underperform right so i get the buy-in but buy-in is also something that needs to be generated right and i'm not saying ib is for everyone but it is i think the district's obligation to get every school excited about something that fits for them so not a question sorry um trustee of gareth thank you yeah so so i hear what you're saying uh cohen and i i agree on a certain level um and i guess it's kind of a

036comment not a question but the each school takes it differently not every school wants to be ib um there's schools that are that focus on stem or steam there's you know so there's different focuses that are gonna have uh different teachers doing different things and that goes back to what the original plan was as few schools are doing ib a few schools are doing other programs it just sounds like we've kind of lost the way with some other schools so i agree with you the first half of what you said 100 percent we need to figure out how these programs are working what programs are still working how our funds are being distributed per student across the board and i i have confidence that we probably are doing a pretty good job with that i

037each school probably has its own budget so we probably see that fairly closely but we'd love to i think it was a great idea to see that and have an idea of that without completely micromanaging our administration mr did you want to respond i just want to respond to one statement and i am trying to be general on purpose but we have elementary schools performing quite well without any specific kind of programming other than kind of baseline stuff so the program itself whether it's this one or something else or something else doesn't necessarily lead to that performance-based outcome it can it can be it can be enhanced and they all provide good things we've got a couple of schools doing quite well without any specific programming so it's in trustee decker put it well it's

038a very complicated picture you know we can do our best to give you what we got that's why i really would like to invite the board this coming year to come to each elementary school and and hear the story because i think it's it's really educational for you i just want to say that the idea about staff raising their hand or not raising a hand at different schools i think when we're considering enhancements to programs it's so important that we remember that schools where there is not a daily need to address trauma in a broad way are more likely to take on something that feels extra right so that and certainly um there have has been there have been times in several of our very low income schools where things have been very challenging in

039terms of behavior and referrals and on like lots of stress in school like this is these are not secrets and they're they're things that we need to be addressing um i think with a lot of empathy and grace and also with a lot of clarity around the fact that some schools need more resources and support to get where another school whose kids have more resources the day they walk in to start kindergarten have already had so when we talk a lot about equity it isn't about everyone getting the same program or even everyone having the access to ib it's about making sure that everyone can succeed get that that we give them all the resources that they need to succeed and that means that some kids literally need more and it's probably not the kids

040who come from more who need more in the first place thanks trustee decker trustee olderson i think one of the things in this conversation that keeps coming up is i think it's not micro management it's the direction of our district and if we don't say anything the thing that always sticks out to me is the one school that doesn't have an actual lunchroom when we had funding or the something should happen because that's how it went like this i think that school should have came up with the other schools and had their own lunchroom and that's just something that's just really similar to this if that school is doing okay without any special programming they should be getting funding that's equal to this other school if they don't because they don't have that special funding

041i want to see that i want to make sure all of our schools are equal in terms of the funding and i think that's important to see where the students the student number but also the schools to see how that funding is for each school in terms of ibap anything like that stem stream i think it's important for us to see that that we are equal here and that we have that oversight so that we don't miss having a middle school not have a lunchroom and i guess i guess i'm gonna step in i agree with both what i think you guys are saying so i've been on the board since this kind of began and it began with regions and anyone could see that from missoula could see the regions were socioeconomic groups and

042i think we're look we're looking at is the remnants of this regionalization and i think that um we need to the board needs to lead we need to lead we need to give the administration direction and i think we are and i don't think the administration is being defensive which i really appreciate that this is a different group of people and we live on different parts of town than the people that set up the region's way back when and so in a sense we're kind of de-regionalizing mcps and bringing us back to a hole so i think we're all correct i don't think it's out of line for this board to try to give direction and if we use specific examples i don't think we're micromanaging we're simply trying to say trying to say something

043that resonates that gets gets it across to what we're saying so anybody else any jeff yeah i'll just clarify when i said micromanagement i didn't even mean that i thought we were micromanaging um i i think that i agree with exactly what both of you just said it's a direction we give a direction but i think that we also know that we the administration's way more educated than we are in actual implementation of educational services so i think that us giving a direction is what we're meant to be that's what we should do we should have these lively debates and then they execute for us so i agree um trustee mercer and i don't want to say we should have something at every school just to have something at every school just to like check

044off a box but i do think community perception matters and i think it's toxic for a community for some members of the community to look around and right or wrong but the perception is the haves have more and i think that's toxic and where these programs are at least the visible ones and maybe there'll be more but the visible ones are in the schools that are heavily resourced anyways if spanish immersion and ib were in other places it would not give me the heartache it gives me that they are in the most heavily resourced socio-economic schools so that's that's part of where i come from on it and so and yes there's other school the school i'm most familiar with is doing heroic things right now to deal with some of the things that grace

045talked about and then they need us to come in and say okay you've done that we need to go beyond more than competency we need you to succeed as well as as really achieving so trustee decker i guess what i want to say and i hope that all the administrators and and any staff that are giving up a summer evening to listen to this i hope they hear that it's so exciting that people love their ib programs that they are part of that is awesome and it has taken a lot of work to get there like a lot of work and a lot of commitment and a lot of effort and a lot of change and a lot of growth and it's really great that there are people who feel so passionately about how they

046get up and do what they do every day and we love that and that we as a board it feels like and this is so exciting to me are like standing like arm in arm with the administration to like face the hard problems that we have as a community and get more of that to more of the kids that's what this is about right because we live in the community with like the 33rd highest income inequality of any community in our nation that's like insane that's not what it was like here 30 years ago and yet we're like we are seeing that playing out in how things are in our schools we're like on the front lines of pushing back against that income inequality with these kind of conversations and that's really important and so

047celebrating this great work that's happening in some of the schools and saying we want that same level of excellence to be what all of our kids experience that's kind of what i hope that people are hearing from this push that you're getting and i guess i kind of shut down the high school conversation because it's been my experience that once high school's in the room elementary doesn't get the talk so i really appreciate that we've had the the talk about elementary we can talk some more are again it's an action item and we're looking at two separate recommendations um and so if if people feel confident we've talked about elementary long enough we could address that and then we could move back to the secondary program and and have some more discussion about that um

048trustee mercer on the high school i said a question the the adjectives of robust and thriving and my recollection from a month ago was i remember hearing some talk that hellgate was more stumped was maybe not thriving did i and so robust to me is less than thriving and so i just i don't know what i'm just trying to how is ib at hellgate doing i guess is my question yeah we struggled with the adjectives as well when we wrote it so i'll just be upfront with you but quite honestly when you look at the three high schools and look at the number of kids involved in the programs that's where i came up with robust and i would say the same thing even at sentinel although we haven't talked about ap a whole lot

049but we can give you some hard stats on the number of kids that take at least one ap class over the four years we can give you those stats for both big sky and hell gate as well big sky has their entire correct me if i'm wrong entire junior class taking an ib english there's eighty percent eighty percent of their junior class taking an idea one energy course so i think what um what would be really interesting to look at with hellgate is they struggled quite a bit with the two programs and now that they feel i feel like they're more on in line with what the direction they're heading with those two programs but that would be a worthy discussion topic and you'll notice in the recommendation item that i'm recommending we come back

050to you this year and talk about some of these issues but that would be a worthy discussion is like what percentage of kids actually engage in either an ap or an ib class or both at hellgate we think the percentage is pretty high but and it's definitely higher than it was you know 10 years ago the percentage at hillgate is high i hesitate to tell you what it is because i haven't looked it up in a bit but it's a it's a pretty good number in the ib world and the ap world so uh dr watson's correct the humanities has kind of taken over their ib program but they have uh they have ib in science and math as well but they've recently added some more ap courses that their department leaders were advocating so

051i think it's pretty healthy and we can get you specific numbers it's not hard to do okay oh there we go trusty upgrades uh just out of curiosity uh if we did and nobody throw any pitchforks here but um if if the bridge between ap and ib has shortened if we got rid of ib in high school and just focus on ap what are the pluses and minuses and honestly what are the revenue pluses and minuses well i want to be really careful with your question ap is generally less expensive just across the board trainings that kind of thing but i don't really want to talk about getting rid of ib because we've got parents in our both high schools heavily invested in those programs so i think that would be a loss and that

052road that we shouldn't go down i mean that's my general response to i wish i could be more articulate and i guess my i get comment i'm so impressed with big sky and how ib is universal at big sky and it's really a good fit for all people if they're interested in ag or health or the other specialty programs it doesn't seem to be a separate program there it seems to be the whole school we even saw some of our native american graduates one of those was ib diploma graduate um so i'm really impressed how it's come at big sky and big sigh i in my knowledge has not really had a big ap program so it seems to be a really good fit over there so i guess that what we want to do

053today then is we want to approach each of these recommendations separately if you look at agenda item 8 a i and the first one is elementary recommendation and so the recommendation is that the board direct the administration to continue the ib review process in 2122 but broaden the review to include the various academic programming that exists at all eight schools with the goal of better understanding how all schools are meeting the learning engagement goal it is further recommended that throughout the 2021-22 school year the administration will periodically report back to the board regarding this review process with the goal of having final k-8 program recommendations in the spring of 2022. during the review process all existing program will remain status quo uh do we have such a motion from a move by trustee hobbins is

054there a second by trustee decker so now is there any board discussion on the motion uh welena what is periodically at least at least every other month because we probably need at least four meetings throughout the year so that i i look at it as at least every other month and if we want more how would we gain access to more information yeah that's a that's a great question and i guess what i would encourage you to consider is after we've given you uh the first report and you decide you know we want more information in this particular area and we talk about structuring the elementary school visits i mean there might be a number of different ways to get all the information you need throughout the year so i wouldn't necessarily dictate the process

055right here right now trustee mercer what is status quo as to franklin i mean so franklin is um the the spanish program is is alive and well at franklin um i think what i think what you need to understand is that we have to figure out if spanish continues on its own or if spanish continues with ib that's something we we haven't decided yet that's going to take some time i want an opportunity to talk with the staff and the parents at that school to decide to help have them help decide what the next steps are for franklin but for status quo for next year franklin remains exactly as it was this year with with spanish intact any other trustee comments seeing none um there's a motion on the table and second uh do we

056do public comment public comment at this point do you see anything happen okay seeing no public comment all trustees in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand and these are just the k-8 trustees which is and that's unanimous as to all k-8 trustees present um the second part of this agenda item then is the the secondary recommendation um and it's again i'll start it therefore therefore it is recommended that the board direct the administration to continue to monitor these academic programs meaning ap and ib at the high schools and allow these programs to grow based on student needs available staffing and adequate budget resources it is further recommended that the administration at least annually report the growth and development of these trustees of these programs to the board of trustees is that

057a motion go ahead you can state motion or your adjustment to it um i would make the motion that we adopt this recommendation with one uh one tweak which is to request that student input be gathered during the course of the year because we heard that student input at the high school level was somewhat limited during the focus group process that took place earlier and so we would request that student input around ib and high school be part of our updates that we receive okay so is that the motion is as stated with your caveat i think yeah is there a second trustee hobbins is seconded is there any board discussion around the motion i i guess the same question on we're looking at report annually is uh maybe consider reporting a little more frequently

058on that one um so uh say no public or a trustee comment is there any public comment on the motion all right all trustees support the motion as stated by trustee decker please signify by raising your hand and mike this does include you and do you see mike's vote oh or he lost his connection okay well that's unanimous as to all trustees present um okay well thank you for that that's been really helpful it's good to feel the board so engaged so now we have new business beginning with finance and operations and the multi-district year-end funding from pat mchugh all right thank you so this is an item that's similar to one that was presented last year around this time and uh it really involves uh uh two pieces so um and both pieces are

059directed at creating or taking advantage of some flexibilities and efficiencies that are available in state law and and so within our general fund which is our main operating fund we have uh essentially an obligation to expend that fund entirely by the end of the year and the flexibilities and efficiencies that i'm talking about would involve some transfer of expenditures to the general fund to in order in order to preserve those expenditures and other or those those funds and other funds where they can be carried forward and then to transfer cash balances into the multi-district cooperative that's that's also in place and uh what we saw last year and and have seen this year is is um it is lower expenditures in areas uh really related to to covet and uh and so um so what

060what's being um proposed here is under the recommendation is really two things is the the the transfer of funds uh expenditures between funds and then the transfer of balances uh to the multi-district cooperative and the benefit there is our preservation of resources that'll allow for more efficient and and uh effective use of those funds down the road and uh as an example um last year and this is something that we'll report out when we report out our year-end expenditures but last year well i'm sorry last year we were able to move some expenditures uh from our uh medicaid direct billing to the general fund and what that did is allow us to preserve those funds to continue to cover expenditures for staff and we pay for some special education staff with those direct billing funds

061and then we are able to preserve about 640 000 in the multi-district cooperative agreement and the multi-district agreement is is the the the equivalent of the interlocal agreement that we entered into with the uh the city for the west for the lowell playground uh and westside park and this multi-district agreement is between two districts the elementary and the high school district but both are intended for public agencies to use an interlocal fund to create these efficiencies and operations and and so that's what we're talking about with both the elementary and the secondary recommendation happy to answer any questions are there any trusty questions for pat jesse mercer is it clear yet which way the funds are going to flow and is all of this going to be transferred out in august or will some of

062it potentially sit in the inner local agreement fund when we do the budgeting in august will this be put somewhere i guess is better put yeah so it we won't we won't re-budget these funds um but we will and can report out these funds and so i i want to say last year we were able to do a uh a year-end report out in that august time frame maybe not as part of the budget adoption but but it takes a it takes a little bit of time to wind down our year end which ends at the end of june and then we can show all of the expenditures within the general fund and identify where these specific transfers occurred the funds that that benefited last year include the compensated absences fund so that fund is

063only created by transfers with year-end funds from the general fund and those funds can be used to cover severance obligations for um first staff and and it it creates really savings accounts where they didn't exist before within the general fund it was one of the ongoing complaints by school districts and part of the legislative effort at addressing that was was well the multi-district cooperative and then here utilizing these expenditure transfers to preserve funds um but we will be able to report out exactly where they all those funds went go ahead and just give us a tiny bit of twos i guess i'm wondering last year i thought money was transferred through the multi-district agreement from the elementary to the high school which way does it look like it was flowing this year all right thank

064you i didn't understand that question so that's that's correct so last year when we budgeted we knew going into the year that the ill the high school district was in a short fall situation and so we did use um we had um i'd say about uh about 500 000 of those of funds interlocal funds that helped balance the high school budget and that did happen and uh this year and then we were still able to preserve 640 000 of funds uh in the multi-district i don't have a good sense this year um i would i would venture to guess that it's um a little more equal between the two districts than it was because we didn't go into this budget year with a with a large expectation that the elementary would support the high school

065any other questions for pat is there any uh seeing none on i guess questions or discussions if you have a okay so then the recommendation is that the the board authorized administration to transfer transfer fiscal year 2021 cash balances and expenditures between elementary funds as it deems necessary to ensure the efficient use of school district resources in accordance with board policy and the district's multi-district agreement with the high school um is there a motion moved by trustee decker second second by trusty old person is there any board discussion on the motion any public comment seeing none i'll trust all the elementary trustees in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand and that's unanimous says that uh all trust is present and i think pat we can just move ahead with secondary as

066well so the uh recommendation is that the board authorized administration to transfer fiscal year 2021 cash balances in the same manner as before from the secondary side is there such a motion moved by trustee apgaris is there a second second by trustee hobbins so all trustees in favor of this motion please signify by raising your hand and that is unanimous as to all trustees present next agenda item is award bid for the fire system upgrades i guess that chief charlotte jefferson and paxson pat right so uh thank you the the back in march the the board um approved a resolution which uh um identified permissive levies uh within a number of categories the transportation fund didn't didn't approve them but but the resolution recognized these estimates and they were in the transportation fund the tuition

067fund adult ed and building reserve within the building reserve there's a permissive levy to address priority maintenance projects and within the resolution we identified the projects that are at chief charlo paxson and jefferson these fire system upgrades and so what we're we would adopt we will or the board will adopt budgets in august and before we adopt those budgets in august what we're asking the board for is permission to use building reserve carryover to to initiate the funding of these projects and then when the board adopts the budgets and the permissive levy for the elementary district in august those funds will be able to restore the carryover funds used from the building reserve this is something that that our auditors have you know authorized and recommended as our approach and it's really necessary to complete

068the projects over the summer and that's when we can uh when when the o m office can can do the bids and you'll see the bids are already here in place and and put the contractors in place to perform the work um the actual work that would be done here is to replace the panels for our fire systems at these three schools what the other elementary schools have is is the a voice evac system and what that system is is it it it operates um through our lockdown system and instead of through our bills and paging system and so it's got the fail-safe protection uh in the event of an emergency to continue operations and the bells and paging use works but it's susceptible to software upgrades and so this would be a way to

069uh upgrade these systems at these schools which which were not upgraded to this degree during the bond projects uh to keep them consistent with the other elementary schools uh in terms of their fire systems and i'd be happy to answer any questions uh trust the old person what is the carryover amount the 381 that is not the carry over or is that the carryover amount that's not the carryover amount and i apologize i didn't bring that number with me tonight um but we uh the the board through this efforts that were part of the previous agenda item restored about 400 000 last year of carryover so um i can get that for you next time but it's in excess of 400 000 hobbins did you have a question are there any other trustee questions so

070do we have a motion on the recommendation as printed in the packet moved by trustee of garris is there a second second by trustee hobbins any board discussion on the motion any public comment now we're only voting on a recommendation a so all trustees in favor please signify by raising your hand and that's unanimous says all trustees present uh recommendation b is really part of the same project that the the trustees grant permission to award the fire system upgrade work at t charlotte jefferson and paxson is there a motion vote by trustee of garris is there a second second by trustee old person any board comment any public comment i'll trust these in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand and that is unanimous as dole trustee's present the next agenda item

071is to approval to fund the construction and design of the hellgate high school partial re-roof um pat all right thank you and this is a similar agenda item um on the high school side we plan to use permissive levy dollars to repair a part of the roofing system at hillgate high school and what similar to the previous recommendation but without the actual uh bids to award we're looking to um use some building reserve carryover in the high school to fund some of the design work for this uh reroof project it's uh we would come back to the board for approval to award the the bid to the final contractor but this would just authorize a funding source to get the uh the design work um moving forward for this this this piece of construction also

072funded with permissive levy dollars under the the resolution adopted in march okay thanks any trustee questions for pat trustee decker this may be a silly question and it's probably way above my pay grade um to try to even approach this but i'm wondering when we're talking about facilities improvements and especially anything related to safety aren't there a lot of federal dollars coming to our district that could be potentially used around some of those needs and could potentially save our local taxpayers some of this that's possible a lot of the the um dollars that i've seen have been earmarked for water and sewer projects and and then some for fiber projects uh it's not to say that they they won't be um and this uh this funding source uh you're correct it's it's part of a

073permissive levy with matching dollars from the state so last year we levied 200 000 in the high school and then the state kicked in 60 000 and then the elementary we levied 380 and then the state kicked in about 200 000 so it's part of those priority projects that we have in place i think there are other projects that would that would fit these projects back in march were the priority projects that fit within those dollar amounts and so if grant funding is available that would meet the need i know we have projects that we could fit within those that are that are boilers um really lots of hvac projects that would fit really within the same same realm any other trusty questions uh trustee mcdonald okay i was just wondering why like the new

074roof was not included in when we were doing all the remodeling yeah so um this the roof replacements with the bond projects were the ones that fit within that that time frame so what you'll see really in the next five to ten years is as is roof replacements that'll still come come up and they're gonna be the ones we did through the bond projects were the ones that were due to be replaced and it didn't mean that some wouldn't fall due in the next five years so the hellgate project was one of the first well the first high school project out of the shoot so back in 2016 and 17 we're now five years into or past those original bond projects and we're uh we'll we'll we'll want to see staggered roof projects we don't

075want to have them all due at the same time and and so we were careful when we planned those roof replacements not to just do them all so we did the ones that were due and and we'll see more of these roof projects come down the pike thanks any other trusty questions okay uh seeing none the administration recommends that until the permissive building reserve levy is realized trustees grant permission to use the building reserve carryover to fund the partial re-roof at hellgate high school is there a motion moved by trustee hobbins second by trustee agaris any board discussion any public comment all trustees in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand and that's unanimous as to all trustees present um now we move into the uh personnel report and again we we

076just this is a routine report we don't make specific comments though we can't ask questions so um dave do you want to go ahead it's a monthly routine monthly report that carried over from our last board meeting any trusty questions for dave can the administration recommend trustee approval of the items on the provided personnel report do we have a motion moved by trusty old person second by trustee hovinds all trustees in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand and that's unanimous not unanimous i abstain my wife's on the report oh gracious okay trustee of gareth has abstained so that is unanimous as the ultras he's present except trustee abgarus um our next agenda item is to prove the cooperative sponsorship between big sky high school and loyola sacred heart high school for

077wrestling uh mr lodge yeah big sky and loyola have been in a cooperative wrestling agreement for the past number of years so this is kind of a routine thing for us there's usually three to four to five kids from loyola who joined big sky and it's a great opportunity and a and it's been a very good relationship so i called jennifer courtney at big sky and she said it's been a very positive experience and so i recommend that we continue with this agreement any trustee questions for mr lodge um seeing none the administration recommends trustee approval of the cooperative sponsorship agreement application with loyola sacred heart high school for wrestling we have a motion moved by trusty old person second by trustee of garris any board discussion any public comment all trustees in favor of

078the motion say please signify by raising your hand and that's unanimous that's all trustees present and finally under teaching and learning we have one topic which is the mcps i value working group it's an information on the item and hat littmann and dakia cruzio are going to present sorry about that that's okay if i could just add a couple of comments before they start so just to recall for the board's recollection we started i values actually pre-covet it's a project that that was really important to all of us as we start talking more and more about diversity equity and inclusion and hatton pulled together a group of staff members and community members dasia was very much involved early on in in that role as you may or may not know dasha is a member of

079our native american student services department and she has taken on a leadership role with hatton and facilitating this group and it culminated um this past year i shouldn't say culminated it because it's not over it's never over but it it definitely um was a culminating event where we had a staff training for nearly um i think it was nearly 60 staff members involved in that training hatton will correct me if i'm wrong on that but pretty exciting stuff i think it fits directly with several components of our strategic plan as as the board were was starting to outline our core values and our core purpose i think this sort of strategy this i value strategy and working group definitely fits with our new strategic plan it will be carried over as a strategy i know

080into our future with hatton leaving i know daesha has agreed to help continue this work amy shattuck who's not on the call tonight but amy shattuck who serves as our federal programs director and central office administrator administrator will also be involved in the i values work to help shepherd it forward so with that i i wanted hatton and dasha just to kind of give you an update with where we're out with this important work thanks so much superintendent watson and i am going to turn it over to dasha for the majority of this presentation we collaborated on it but i really want to first thank her for her leadership in the district this year and i'm really excited that she's going to continue with this work and will both be available for questions at the

081end thank you everyone um yeah i want to start with gratitude too i'm really appreciative of being able to do this work this year we did accomplish a lot um and today wanted to share an update on the work that we were able um to accomplish this year and then some of our goals moving forward um let me see i want to make sure can you guys see my screen and presenting the slide deck okay awesome um so again i value is an acronym um i value stands for inclusion validation action learning understanding and equity um as dr watson talked about this work began in the 2019-20 school year with the intention of creating um and leading mcps and becoming more inclusive of all of our community members the core purpose of the working group

082is to establish a leadership group that can help drive some of those decisions and um yeah we had we put together a leadership group um that i'll talk about in a little bit but the the purpose of the group was to come together so that we can specifically have all of our staff and students have a safe respectful responsible work and school learning environment where everyone feels welcome um that equity is part of our everyday learning and that we're providing safe and inclusive learning environments um this year some of our pro progress was that we um in march and april launched our inaugural training so it was an anti-bias training series um that i'll definitely go into some detail about we also put together a data team that looked at specific um data points including

083attendance academic data and discipline and behavior we have an action plan moving forward for what we would like to see next year including training 150 more staff members faculty and board in our i value anti-bias training series so first the leadership team was formed with the intention to include those with expertise and anti-racism diversity equity and inclusion work and with experience lived experience we also wanted to make sure that the mcps teaching and administrative community was also included we wanted to make sure that it was a very inclusive and well uh a really knowledgeable group doing this work so we were very intentional on who um we invited to set up the leadership team we wanted to make sure that our group was committed to creating um experience and growing the leadership of specific groups

084within the the district including bipac people and members of the lgbtq community members of various religious communities and individuals who speak different languages other than english or who have come from different countries we have made a lot of progress this year like i mentioned we work to identify and take action on known issues um while also planning for the future so we kind of took our work um and recognize all the long-term things that we want to work on but then i have a really awesome eager group that wanted to just get started and continues to want to be actionable and do the work as as we go so members of our i value leadership team include principal barbara frank rabbi lori franklin jamar galbraith dr elise guess natalie jagger katie coster hatton lipman judson

085miller jenny malloy jonathan naff trusty old person amy shattuck crystal thompson heidi wallace jessica weltman and myself um the group has been led by um co-led by hatton and myself and then for the 2021-22 school year it will be co-led by amy shattuck and myself and then the leadership team has three subcommittees so those members from the leadership team most of them are involved in one other subcommittee um that we'll talk about those committees focus on research and data training and policy so the data team is led by katie coster of rotten snake elementary school she gathered academic data and started working through data summary statements to understand where discrepancies are occurring um that data was then shared with principals and cabinet members who were committed to using that data to help inform decision in

086long-term action planning the one thing to keep in mind um is that certain measures like standardized testing are inherently biased and so it's really difficult to be able to take this data and say like 100 this is what's happening and a lot of what we've found is that um there are a lot of gaps a lot of what we have to collect at it isn't sufficient to actually make like really specific statements about our school community so we at this point are looking at a lot of the data and finding what we need um or being able to identify what we need in order to make those types of statements um the data team has been really careful to present fightings with findings with no judgment so we're recognizing our own bias as we look

087at these things and just being intentional about how we are looking at it analyzing it and presenting it um katie koster and dr guest were able to work through a fish bone protocol with a cabinet to look at some of those data points and try to um come up with possible causes for outcomes um that was a really awesome process a lot of really like critical thinking and um just creative thinking too that i think that we all appreciate being able to look at it in that way um and then yeah katie will continue to lead that work and she's looking at attendance and behavior data at this time and they're hoping to gather more more information that'll help inform decisions our training team organized a four-part anti-bias training series this spring so those sessions

088were held between march and april um of the year and there were a total of 65 participants who completed the series um and they included teachers principals um our superintendent and other cabinet members trusty old person um a couple parents and community members who are um closely involved in the mcps community um the series topics included there's four sessions and each session had a different trainer we were really focused on local trainers with expertise in diversity equity and inclusion but who also have the advantage of understanding our missoula community so we're really fortunate to have experts in our community and our trainers were in power montana the indigenous community collaborative and montana racial equity project um so empower montana led us through individual identity and perspective where we were able to learn and recognize and

089understand bias our own bias and what that looks like and how to recognize that in ourselves the second session we talked about more like knowledge building and historical information um creating culturally safe community where um we also learned about the impacts of historical trauma and how how marginalized groups are impacted by that today um the third session about interrupting oppression we were able to um practice strategies to employ when confronted with oppressive behavior so we actually were able to take some do some practice and get some example real life examples on how to interrupt racism and oppression and then our fourth session making a plan i feel like we could have gone on and on at that session each session was two hours um but there was just so much content and really rich dialogue

090that i think we could have definitely kept going past those two hours each time um but then making the plan was where we worked in grade level teams so elementary were in breakout sessions together middle school and high school and we talked about how we could take all of the information we just learned all the skills we just learned and bring that back to our school communities and what that might look like in practice the training team is currently working on getting a foundational series scheduled for next year um so our goal is to continue training all of our mcbs staff and definitely one owned by all of the board members to participate in our training as well um and we are also working on like what we're calling the 2.0 series so with this

091foundational series it's really that groundwork um of locating like the common language and understanding um of issues of oppression and inclusivity and then the 2.0 series would be diving deeper and the more specific topics um so it could go into like working with native american students or diving deeper into historical trauma or working with the black community the lgbt community religion there's just so many so many other sub categories that we can continue um and just lots of expertise that we can tap into as well um and then finally the the third committee is our policy team so the policy team has really been focused on identifying short-term action items and the one that came up right away was the need for a incident procedure protocol response i think we're calling it um so basically

092when an incidence of oppression racism or harassment um comes up what we've heard from students and families is that there's an inconsistency or the feeling that those situations are swept under the rug or nothing happens and just feeling like there isn't an actual protocol so this team worked together with the protocols that we already have and then was informed by best practices from the adl and other school districts and we created the incident response protocol that is a step-by-step process that we've shared with principals um that that they can take in dealing with an incident so that there is consistency one of the first steps up front is getting advocates involved with the students so there's that feeling of somebody walking through this process with them whether they're the target of whatever happened or the

093oppressor or uh yeah on either side there's an advocate um attached to them right away and then there's communication throughout the hellgate high school has piloted the protocol with success and then there were a couple of incidents at the end of the school year where um this protocol was used and then the i value team was able to kind of help guide the administrators through that process um and it went pretty well not without kinks for sure um but yeah it did go very well and then from the parent perspective having those advocates throughout the process was really helpful and then having communication throughout the process of what's happening and part of the advocate's role is explaining privacy issues and that that's one of the things is that we can't share every detail with the

094families and so having an advocate i think having that comfort of knowing that somebody is on their side sitting through this process and um i think it just gives a level of comfort um that wasn't necessarily there before through these experiences that can be really traumatic um yeah so that is our big thing that we worked on last year we are looking at updating our language in the school handbooks for the fall part of the process also is really focused on restorative justice restorative practice so there's a training on restorative practices over the summer for administrators and then for the 2021-2022 school year the policy team plans to look at dress code language through the i-value lens as well and then finally we launched an eye value webpage on our mcps website and you can

095find information about our mission and goals our plan and timeline and links to resources the website is www.mcps.org i value and it's also you can find it from our main page under the initiatives menu and it's linked from the staff links curriculum and instruction and the native american student services pages on our website and again i'd just like to thank everybody for allowing us to come today and share an update i've been really grateful to do this work this past year and really appreciative of having the support from our administrators to to move forward with this work and um know that it's important for our school district so hat and i don't know if you'd like to add anything or if we can open it up to questions i don't think i have anything else

096to add um i'm both dasha and i are open to any questions or ideas and we'll take it from there i just the only thing i would add is just would like to um thank trustee old person for being part of this process not only the on the leadership team but also in the trainings that we had with staff i think it it it means a lot when the leadership of our district when the staff can see that the leadership in our district is participating in these events and it's important to us as leaders i think i just think it means a lot for our staff so i just wanted to say thank you to trustee old person for giving up her time this year to be part of that process thank you are there

097any forward comments or questions i trustee hobbins um first i just want to say thanks for all this the tremendous work geisha and hatton and everyone involved and wellina um i just wanted to um also thanks thank you all for the opportunity for the board to participate in the trainings next year that you have an anti-bias and anti-racism because i think it is incredibly important for us as we're making decisions for the district to check ourselves and make sure that we're doing what we can to educate ourselves in those realms so appreciate that and trustee mercer when you said advocates who who are those people yeah so that part hasn't been completely fleshed out yet but what naturally happened this last time is that um one of the incidents that happened was with a native

098american student and so what naturally happened is that the native american specialists that that student was already connected with stepped up as the advocates in that situation um we have talked about um identifying advocates in the schools who've gone through the i value training and the need for more training for those advocates to understand the process and kind of and boundaries and things like that um and then we also talked about students self-identifying their own advocates that they have people in the schools that they feel safe and connected with and that it would make sense that they um connect with those adults and identify them themselves thank you annie or trusty decker i'll add my thanks for all of the incredible work and for really helping our district start to move in a really positive

099direction this is all really exciting i have a couple of questions around two things one is from where are you learning as your team like has put all this work together like are there school districts around the country that you really look at as a great shining examples of this work being done and how um how these concepts and um and actions are integrated and so who who are we learning from in addition to the really great experts about bias and and so on but but implementing these things in a diverse public school system is its own challenge and i'm wondering where we're learning about that and then the other piece that i would wonder about is i really was glad to hear about some of the things that are being looked at that are

100not optional and are not internal so when we talk about like a protocol that will be followed when there's an incident that to me is really really important in addition to the kind of interpersonal like inside work about recognizing implicit bias like it matters how we work on ourselves and it matters how we set up systems and structures so i guess a question i have is how people are being identified to participate in trainings at this point and if it's like who those early adopters are and who's raising their hands and and how the expectation will really roll forward for universal um involvement in these conversations by by everyone in our district yeah so the first part there are a lot of school districts across the country that are taking a stance as anti-racist school

101districts or anti-racist educators so we've definitely done research on what those school districts are doing a lot of them have public information on their websites um and procedures and things like that that we've been able to look at the adl does a lot of has a lot of literature that we've looked at there's trainings through the adl western states um that we've also looked at and then of course our we've kind of taken all of that and then used our own expert local experts and mcps experts to kind of take that information and think about how that would work in our school district and what that looks like here um and then as far as identifying who has gone to the training that has mostly been self-identified at this point there was at the very

102beginning of i value there was a pretty big um i value cohort is what we call it there was probably um 45 of the allies that went through this first training who were part of that big i value planning at the very beginning and then we saw the need to scale back and have a smaller leadership team but then we invited those members to be part of our first cohort to go through the training then we also wanted to make sure that there were representatives from each school in the district so we invited each principal in the school um or in each school and then asked them to um bring along two staff members um so there were teachers counselors it was up to the principal to identify there were more people who self-identified and

103wanted to participate then we were able to include in the first time so that was a good problem to have that people were really um eager and interested in in taking part in the training um and manhattan i saw your hand race i don't know if you want to add to that we're so simplatico you already said all the things um but i would add beach transportation also participated [Music] bob mitchell who everyone affectionately knows as mitch their operations director participated and he's been a member of the i value cohort since the beginning which has been really amazing as well members of our cohort also identified this was last year but we'll see how it rolls out a desire to have school resource officers and athletic directors especially um participate in training um so those

104are two other areas and i also just want to clarify too we we had certified and classified members participate in the training thanks tasha i actually i have a question how have you included the seeley lakes community celie had a team participate this training occurred on zoom which really enabled them to be on a level level playing field excuse me with our colleagues so that they weren't the only virtual attendees i think that's something that we've learned and we'll have to continue to refine especially now with our new principal sean holmes about how he'd like to see members of his staff participate in trainings that occur in missoula okay thanks any other trustee questions well thank you very much for the presentation um and and please let us know kind of in advance what opportunities

105are available to trustees to join the trainings because be real you know don't be subtle we need to be told so thank you and then our final our final agenda item then is a board item and it is uh information and action and this is uh the board will review and uh take action on dr watson's contract um so the contract term is attached and it contains all the terms and conditions in the contract and i i hope you've all had a chance to read that this contract has been in place since dr watson started with this and see i'm being intentionally vague um and we've it's been reviewed by our attorneys and his own um he's also had another attorney look at it so we were confident in the content of it um i

106think at the top it should say entered into this 22nd day of june 2021 and that i guess will get added after we vote um so the terms and conditions are here it's not the superintendent's contract is a public document um the superintendent's evaluation is not it's a a private evaluation so if anyone has any questions um and rob if you're not comfortable with the question just let us know so does anyone have any questions or did you want anything rob okay um seeing none uh so we'll have a motion i see we do public comment after the motion right okay so do we have a motion um from and rob is the trustee of both districts so we'll just we just have one contract so um i'm sorry i'm lost okay do we have

107a motion to approve dr watson's contract and terms moved by trustee garris everybody we're all moving for that one good job second by trustee hobbins um any board discussion we did everyone completed an evaluation in the winter and marsha gathered those up and so they're on file again it's not public but we'll go through that each year so if there's no board discussion is there any public comment okay seeing none all trustees in favor of the motion please signify by raising your hand and that is unanimous as to all trustees present thank you dr watson thank you for the opportunity to continue i appreciate it all right and then we're adjourned