001is not here yet that is correct okay chair holland it's six o'clock would you like me to start with the zoom instructions or would you like to get started first no go ahead with the um instructions oh it's trusty wake is the one person we're looking for so i'll try to keep an eye out for her but yeah just entered trusty wake just entered okay good evening uh this is hatton littman the communications director speaking welcome to the board meeting i'm just going to give you a few tips and tricks for using zoom and then we'll get started with the official meeting if it's your first time joining zoom there's a couple important controls if you take your cursor to the bottom of the screen you'll notice on the far left there's a icon that
002looks like a microphone and it says mute that's how you'll control what we see and hear from you tonight if you could keep yourself muted until you're speaking for public comment that would be very helpful and if you accidentally unmute yourself i can mute you again and you can turn your video on and off as well with a little camera icon or stop video in the center of the screen you'll notice that there's an icon that looks like a comic book thought bubble and it says chat you'll be able to chat me as the host in case you have questions or technical support chat is not a place for public comment the trustees will not see your comment if you place it there so please just only chat if you need help with something in
003the meeting tonight if you'd like to raise your hand to make public comment there are two possible ways you could do that zoom just went through a little bit of a software update so depending upon what version of zoom you are running on the bottom right hand side of your screen you might see a little happy face and it says reactions if you click on that happy face you'll notice that there are a wide variety of reactions and one of them says ray's hand that's how you'll raise your hand to be called on for public comment if you're on an old version of zoom you might need to click on the button that says participants and it'll open a big white window and list all the people that are in the meeting at the bottom
004of that white window is a little button that says raise hand if you're joining from the phone you're going to press star 9 to raise your hand and then when we call on you you'll press star 6 to unmute yourself uh with that i will turn it over to chair holland to start the meeting thank you and just to to let everyone know at a certain point i'll probably be turning off my video to save some bandwidth tonight but it doesn't mean i've left the meeting it just means i want to be able to make sure i can participate through the whole meeting and so with that i'll call the meeting to order i will welcome everyone i will take roll call but i see on the screen that we have all 11 trustees present
005so i won't do individual roll call because we're all here and then we'll go on to number two which is the pledge of allegiance i'm not sure if we have a plague available oh there's the plague so rob um dr watson would you mind leading us in the pledge of allegiance can you hear me okay yes yes i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you and number three on the agenda is to review revise and approve the agenda as it's been set is there any requests from any trustee to modify the agenda as it's been set just go ahead and raise a hand visually or electronically i'll look for any
006hands being raised so seeing none we'll go ahead and follow the agenda as it's been set the next item item number four is to approve the minutes it is from the regular board meeting of january 12 2021 is there any request from any trustee to make any modification to the minutes as they appear as an attachment to our agenda again i'm looking for your hands raised visually or virtually not seeing any hands raised then is there a motion to approve the minutes from the january 12th board meeting at garrison seconded by trustee mcdonald all trustees in favor of approving the minutes from january 12th coordinating please indicate by raising your hand and trustee vogel if you don't mind um unmuting it electronically or on the phone yep vogel is yes so those minutes are approved
007unanimously then we move on to public comment on non-agenda items those are the items that we will not be discussing tonight we offer opportunities at the beginning and end of our board meetings for public comment on non-agenda items for anything that members of the public would like to bring to the board's attention the basic ground rules are please identify yourself with your first and last name and spell your first or last name or both if either of them have an unusual spelling if you represent an organization please identify that organization and we ask you to keep your comments to three minutes and so hatton will assist us all in letting everyone know when those three minutes are passing by and to let you know as you raise your hand to make public comment on non-agenda
008items you appear in the participants list in a queue which indicates the first person raise their hand would be the one i'd call on first and so on and so we'll just go through the queue on public comment on non-agenda items and with that is there any public comment on non-agenda items i'll be looking for virtual hands raised manhattan will be helping me so far i am not seeing anyone virtually raising their hand i'm just going to page through in case somebody is raising their hand visually don't spend if anyone on the phone who wants to make public comment on an agenda item i i think the process would be you'd have to unmute yourself oh it looks like uh kelly mcdonald wants to make public comment on the non-agenda item go ahead kelly mcdonald
009go ahead and unmute good evening my name is kelly mcdonald my last name is spelled m-c-d-o-n-a-l-d and i want to first acknowledge that in missoula um mozilla schools missoula city is in the traditional homelands of the salish people and i would like to acknowledge the land and i would like to acknowledge that um pay my respect and humility to all of the indigenous people in this state that we now call montana um i listened to the last meeting and i wanted to inform that i've read an article that is entitled the reopened schools now debate is rooted in racism and this is by rachelle chase i read this article and i thought it was very well written and i wanted to say that i think we need to read articles like this and listen to
010people who are talking about systemic racism um the article said quote we see white and affluent parents leveraging the plight of historically underserved children as justification to reopen schools now while actively excluding the communities they claim to be advocating for from the conversation and i was particularly i took particular note that there was no bypoc people on the um covet task force and i thought that was a problem um i listened to trusty old person talking about othering that was happening i listened to dr belcourt talking about the higher chances of native americans dying from covid and she said you don't want to lose someone to this virus she said she already lost someone an aunt who was an educator i have a lot to say i don't know i'll try to i'll try to
011stop but um i was troubled by the increased risk of harm to teachers being something that is worth doing don't think that that's right um i think that the health and safety of teachers is the utmost importance right now and i don't think that's fair of a trust a trustee to say that we're asking teachers to go in harm's way but we should do it i wanted to say that the first thing i'd very the very first thing that i did and i've done at previous meetings called a landing acknowledgement is something that you should look into and possibly do it for your meetings um it's respectful i think there's different opinions but i think it's respectful and i don't think it should be a checkbox that you check off i think you should understand
012what it is and consider starting to do it thank you thank you any other public comment on any non-agenda item i'll look for hands raised and again if you're on the phone you'd have to unmute yourself and let us know you'd like to make public comment patent i don't think i see any hands raised at least according to the participants list that's correct okay then we'll move on there's correspondence in the um attached to the agenda and the next item is six which is our community connection and so dr watson do you want to introduce the two presenters about this in informative presentation and then we'll turn it over to them i will yes thank you chair holland and thanks for those that are on the uh zoom this evening i know there's a lot
013of members of our i value working group that are on the zoom this evening so appreciate you being here um this is a a project that was actually started pre-covered um and it's sometimes it's hard to think about you know what what's really critically important in the middle of this pandemic and i understand that um but this uh this is a topic that's of utmost importance not only to me as the superintendent of uh of the school district but also for for our community um within the district what i really appreciate about this work is it involves quite a few different uh stakeholders within our community and i know hatton will talk about that um patton and dacia um both will be leading the presentation to you this evening both are serving as co-leaders or
014co-facilitators for this group and they're doing some great work but they also have several other members of the group that are on the call so hatton i think i'll just turn it over you if that's okay or maybe dasha either one thank you i think dasia is gonna take it from here thank you i'm deja griego i'm a native american education specialist with mcps native american student services department formerly the indian education department and i'm happy to be here this evening to share with you about the work that our group is doing so i'm going to present my screen okay so um first i value is the name of our working group um and it is an acronym it stands for inclusion validation action and appreciation learning understanding and equity the working group's purpose is
015to help mcps move forward with creating a more inclusive workplace and school setting we recognize that our community needs to learn skills in order to be aware of and interrupt bias whether that's related to race national origin sex gender identity sexual orientation religion creed citizenship status ability economic or social conditions or marital or parental status specifically we want all staff and students to help make mcps a safe respectful and responsible learning environment for all of our staff and students we know that when one person or group is oppressed we're all harmed equity is about improving everyone's lives and not just those who are marginalized so by dismantling oppression in our community we lift oppressive expectations from everyone providing safe and inclusive learning environments where young people are able to explore and develop their identities leadership
016skills and critical thinking around issues of oppression and societal change is critical in helping to prepare them to be lifelong advocates for equity which is a goal that we should all have research has shown that most people are drawn to what's familiar to them what's comfortable and without positive intervention environments are unlikely to become diverse or at least unlikely to evolve at a reasonable pace a reasonable pace in that direction without a little nudge um so yeah a little bit of background um as rob stated the group did start um last year so um we've been receiving students and families feedback for years about experiences of discrimination and concerns about diversity equity and inclusion um and so we're grateful for a superintendent who prioritizes this work and asks for this group to be formed members
017of the group include professionals in the field of anti-bias and racial justice work and many more were recruited to represent the mcps community as a whole the group worked for about three months to brainstorm and plan action that would be made by the group and then of course the pandemic hit and that work was paused um this fall we resumed uh with hatton and i uh being co-leaders um co-facilitators of the group and we have created the following priorities for this school year um that i'll share so priority one all future work should have a primary focus on centering the experience and growing the leadership of specific groups within the district including black indigenous and people of color members of the lgbtqia plus community members of various religious communities individuals who speak a language other
018than english or who come from other countries and individuals who experience economic physical or developmental hardships priority two is that a leadership team should be established that includes those with experience and expertise and anti-racism diversity equity inclusion um and inclusion training and work um so while hatton and i are helping to kind of lead and organize um i value is really a team of experts that are helping all of this come to be um so number three is uh to create a cohort of allies and supporters that will be the first group to go through anti-bias training and then they would act as leaders within our mcps community and implementing social change within our community um within the district and within their home schools and then for and take action on known issues while concurrently
019planning training and research so while we understand that planning and research are a vital part of this work we also want to identify and take action on known issues within the district and not wait for years and years for action to happen so one idea that we've had is to create a district-wide response to reports of discrimination or oppression at this time when a report is made the outcome is in the hands of administration at that school and this leads to inconsistent response to really serious issues um our hope is to create a system that is both transparent and consistent across the district um and then last i'd like to share our timeline so um we have been working hard all fall and we're really excited to roll out the first series of anti-bias trainings
020this spring so this week we'll be confirming with some presenters and are really excited to start a training um in march or april with that first group of allies within the district and then they will at the end of that training be hopefully um able to take action within their schools our organizations and the district um and then we're also along the same time frame march or april um we are doing research so katy koster of rattlesnake elementary school is reading the is leading the data and research team um and so while we want to take action um and the district's call to action started around climate and culture issues we also have to look deeply at issues of equity that may occur in our academic outcomes our discipline attendance and behavioral trends so those
021are all things that are being gathered at this time and then in the march or april um time frame is when we hope to have an initial review of all that data that's been gathered um the last few months of this school year we will be spending time to create an action plan for next school year um so this is going to be an ongoing process it's not going to be just a one-time thing that we consider it's going to be each school year and um in the 2021-2022 um school year our goal is to train 150 staff faculty and board members um in this anti-bias training so this is our goal overall but one of the most important things that we need is an enabling context and what we mean by that is we
022need readiness among staff board and community members to undertake these topics we need funding and we need accountability measures to keep us on track with this work so with that we'd like to take questions from the board um and then we would also like to take a minute to um introduce the members of our eye value team a lot of them are here today so if you want to introduce the members first then i'll see if any trustees have any questions for you or community members or including han yeah hatton do you want to start yeah i sure will i want to say thank you so much not only for their participation here tonight but for all of these folks participation since last year and they're just deep deep commitment to our work so i'm
023going to go in order of where i can see you on my screen jenny excuse me rabbi lori franklin from harshalom jenny malloy a teacher at russell elementary school katie coster a teacher at rattlesnake elementary school natalie jaeger principal at meadow hill crystal thompson a counselor at the missoula online academy this year but previously at um russell i think nope i got that wrong sorry franklin um barbara frank principal at lowell elementary school and i'm gonna page over because i think we have jamar galbraith and heidi somewhere in here from empower montana heidi wallace and jamar galbraith and walina uh old person who is a trustee but who is also participating on the i value working group dasha do you think i caught everyone i think that's everyone who is in attendance and then just
024a few people who are not on the call um right now that we also would like to acknowledge as being part of our um group is crystal white shield um who is with missoula food bank um judson miller was hellgate high school and then jonathan neff who is a community member oh thank you so there are just two more things i wanted to say if i may chair holland sure i want to highlight that one of the things that i have loved being a part of missoula county public schools for the past eight years is that we find opportunities for teacher leadership and staff leadership and i value is no different there so i want to really acknowledge our teachers who are really putting themselves front and center and especially the work of daesha from
025our native american student services department and growing all of their leadership and their voices thank you and i also want to acknowledge our context in the community and how grateful i am many of the people that just got introduced are part of these but to recognize that there are efforts underway within the city of missoula the county of missoula the missoula interfaith collaborative us with regard to public education i think it's a it's a great time to be a part of an awakening and especially concerted effort in missoula around diversity equity and inclusion so we are not alone and there are a lot of interconnected webs and i appreciate that we can be a part of that thank you and with that are there any comments from any trustee or any questions to the committee
026and it looks like trusty old person has her hand up so go ahead trusty old person thank you chair holland um and i just want to thank everybody on the i value team i know we started before covid and it's really personal to me and if i get a little emotional is because it's very personal to me and that's where my passion comes from um some people know the story of how i be how i chose to run and be elected for the school board um it first started off with the elementary attendance boundary study that happened back in january 2019 so i was the wrestle parent rep with mrs c asked me to be the wrestle parent rep so i joined the committee and throughout the four four five month process i noticed the
027lack of involvement from communities of color here in missoula at the open houses at the meetings anything like that i was the only person of color and that really stuck in my head and i this and this is something important obviously it's important but even just being in these in that space i saw a lot of misinformation going around about our neighborhood schools about certain neighborhoods and that really bothered me as a parent i my my three little boys are russell bears um and i think that really because that's one thing i really work for my work history my the work i've done in this community has been to have the impact of one to make an impact on someone because i got a lot of public comments back to me from the last school
028board meeting so i swear i'm gonna get emotional about i was bringing up race you're the only one talking about bipac but it's in everything i do if people look at me i'm in the community and this is what they see they see a brown person even if they don't see me they see my last name and so it's in everything i do and it impacts my children that's why i do the work i do and to say to see that we're doing this is really important because i have children in our school district and my children have experienced discrimination as a mother you can't imagine having your child be told they don't belong to have your child told by another mcps student to go back to the res that is not okay so this
029work is important in the fact that people came at me and i know it's an elected officials people came at you but to come at me about race is not okay and so i'm very excited and i knew i was gonna cry apologize that don't take this as weakness this is just my passion and so i just want to thank everybody on this team and i really encourage everybody in our community to do the work do the work and not think of it always being about race because if you live in our shoes you know the work needs to be done thank you thanks for those comments trust the old person is there any other comment or question from a trustee either a comment or a question to any of the um committee members i'm
030just looking for hands up chair holland i don't see any hands up but if we do have a moment and there's time there may be a one or two members of our leadership team who may want to just give you a very brief statement about their commitment to this work and why they joined sure so if we want any members of the public which of course includes the members of the committee if you want to raise your hand um and provide a brief comment that would be really great and i'll look to see oh okay um i don't want to mispronounce a name rabbi lori franklin has their hand up so go ahead thank you i was not planning to speak tonight but um i was at a legislative hearing this morning where i was
031shut down twice by the chair of the meeting because i dared to speak the words white supremacy and racism and it's such a relief to be in this space where we think this is a priority and when walina old person trustee per old person was speaking i was in tears too so i just want to share that and i want to share that we can do wonders together if we work together and my dream is that the children in this school district can be successful but they can feel empowered they can learn they can grow they can feel whole and that's something that we can do together so thank you so much for a moment to speak this thank you any other um public comment or committee member comment i'll just go check it looks
032like crystal thompson is raising her hand okay um crystal thompson go ahead and unmute and provide a comment um three minutes is typically the max but we love hearing from you so go ahead thank you um neither was i planning on on speaking um i'm a counselor in the district as was mentioned i've also been an mcps parent for 21 years we have seven children three of our kids are black all of our children have experienced quality teachers quality learning at mcps all of our children have also either experienced or observed prejudice prejudicial treatment as mcps students the work of this committee is timely it is critical we have to talk about uncomfortable things or it does not get better i'm fortunate to be included in the work of the i value team and i
033look forward to the support and engagement of the board and our mcps stakeholders and walina thank you for your brave words thank you for those comments are there any other public comment uh looks i can't get the whole last name hi yeah that's my first name actually um you could see me maki i've never actually attended one of these but i heard about what the topic would be and i went to mcps schools kindergarten through 12th grade and i'm just really glad to see that there are some changes being made i can say that there are lifelong effects of discrimination in schools and that i have had to spend a lot of my adulthood um going to therapy and working through some of the things that i experienced in the ncps school system as an
034indigenous person um so i just wanted to thank walina and um yeah just thank you all for finally coming up and doing this subject thank you thanks for those comments i'm looking to see if anyone else has raised a hand would like to make a comment at this point i don't see any other hands okay well thank you for that community connection thank you especially to to hatton and basia and thank you to trustee old person for being such an integral part of this i don't know if the right word is movement but the fact that we recognize as a district that there's a lot of work to be done in this area and that you are willing to be the leaders helping us all to begin this journey i really appreciate hearing from you
035all so thank you very much and so with that we'll go back to the agenda and apologies i'm just turning my page so we're on to item seven which are three reports the first is the health insurance trust fund report the second one is the high school activities report from the fall of 2020 i believe that we will see winter sports and then spring sports so we'll see two additional reports connected with high school activities over the course of this academic year and then the last item is announcements from dr watson so go ahead dr watson okay well thank you chair holland once again uh just two announcements this evening something that i started at the last meeting to tell you about was our assessment procedure for this spring so in addition to the assessments
036that um dr gast works on and and amy shattuck works on we have district assessments dr guest does the work around erla and um and our other math assessment those are district assessments and then um we also have another district assessment called the star which we've talked to you about before so those are those are local assessments that we find very valuable in our work but there's also another assessment that happens at the state level and that that happens each spring it's the smarter balanced assessment or some people call it s back for short it is a assessment that traditionally happens in the spring grades three through eight and then in high school they do the act as the state assessment as i said last meeting the a.c.t will happen this year for high school
037juniors um i believe it's the second week or the first week of april but the other one that we're still sort of waiting word on is the state assessment the assessment for grades three through eight um it's an assessment that's given in reading and math every spring uh obviously last spring we did not give the assessment the state received a waiver so we didn't have to give that assessment we are in the process of planning for that assessment this spring the state however is applying for another waiver from the federal government we don't know if that will be approved yet or not if it is then we would have the option of not doing that assessment however in the absence of that waiver we do have to plan for this assessment the state has made
038some changes that i just want the board to be aware of they've expanded the testing window which helps us they also will provide medical exemptions for covid reasons so if a family can't be in the school setting for whatever reason related to covet then there could be an exemption from the assessment they've also shortened the assessment because the assessment usually takes several days and so they've shortened the assessment just um for time's sake uh what i do want the board to be aware of though is that the state is not allowing any remote participation in this assessment so those students that are in the online academy wouldn't be able to participate in the state assessment unless we set up a time during the school day when they could come in the building to do the
039assessment which is something we could consider as well i just want to keep you all informed of that um and as soon as we know if the state has received a waiver for that assessment i'll let you know that as well but just want to keep you in the loop on the state assessment and then the second thing i just wanted to talk briefly about is now that we've entered the legislative session i think it is important to to for the board to be kept in the loop or up up to speed on various legislative issues i talked with chair holland today at perhaps about setting a time on our agenda when we could discuss legislative issues i do have one update that's legislative related that i wanted to just make sure the board was
040aware of it doesn't require any current action by the board but i want you to be aware of this issue and and likely will be talking about in the future you will recall that the csct program is an important program for us it's a school-based mental health program that we partner with western montana mental health to provide in our schools the csct program is is a program under the um state department the department of public health and human services for the state of montana um and so i i want you to be aware that the funding for this program is a little bit tenuous um montana i'll just read a statement here from the montana school boards association currently montana is the only state in the nation that reimburses uh title one title three or
041tier three services um through medicaid making csct a unique program designed to allow our behavior initiatives to be fully operational in montana schools that unique circumstance could be coming to an end dphs has run into some difficulty with the fed federal government in terms of using underlying school district spending to qualify for matching federal funds so dphs has made the announcement that they may not have any more federal funds for this program they are seeking an increased appropriation from the state general fund to continue this program into the future but it's quite a bit of money 9.6 million in 2022 and 11.8 million in 2023 from the state general fund that means that it may or may not be approved with the with the legislative session coming up that we're in right now so i
042just want you to be aware of that i will keep you posted on this if this becomes a legislative discussion i'll make sure that the board is aware of that i do think it would be healthy for all of us to stay attuned to the legislative issues i'll do my best to keep you apprised if you see bills that come up during the legislature that you have questions on please by all means reach out to myself or or pat mchugh but i also think it's probably at least one of our meetings either the first meeting or the second meeting of every month we should have a standing item for legislative issues thank you chair holland thank you and with that we'll continue on the agenda the next item is eight a one which is to
043approve the second reading of revised board policy 1512 which made some changes to the conflict of interest board policy as is indicated in the background information in the agenda it was presented for review and discussion by the board on december 15th of last year and it was approved for first reading and posted for public comment although the agenda doesn't indicate it tracy i believe we did not receive any public comment on this proposed revision is that correct that is correct okay and so a copy of the policy is it included as an attachment and the recommendation is that the trustees adopt the revised board policy 1512 which is titled conflict of interest first is there any questions not seen any hands up jer holland this is matt i i'm sorry to interrupt i uh i
044just noticed this in the policy i'm reading the bolded language on page 38 and i'm uh um i'm not sure that's reading correctly um the language and the statute is perform an official act directly and substantially affecting to its economic benefit of business or other undertaking in which the trustee is a substantial personal interest um i apologize for just catching it now but i'm not thinking that's reading correctly okay well how about this as a suggestion then if do the trust are the trustees okay with tabling this so we can confirm that additional language so that we're um making sure that our policy reads legally correctly so is there a motion to table this emotions a table okay and is there a second it looked like trustee algeria had seconded it so any board discussion
045other than to allow pat to clarify what he just had noted in the policy any public comment all those in favor of tabling the motion until the next board meeting please indicate by raising your hand or in trustee vogel's case by indicating by a verbal vote vocal is yes and it looks like it was unanimous as to old misty's presence so we'll revisit that after pat has an opportunity to make sure that our policy reads accurately so then we move on to 9 a1 which is under teaching and learning and the topic is network improvement communities pre-k 12 new faculty program i don't know dr watson are you going to introduce dr guest our director of curriculum curriculum and instruction and then this is an information item that she will be presenting on yes thank
046you chair holland um a a another great program um that that the board should um have some knowledge of and be aware of i'm gonna let actually let assistant superintendent russ lodge um introduce the team here because uh he plays a pretty important role with this team as well mr lodge yeah good evening everybody thank you for the opportunity to talk about this you know as someone who i've spent a lot of years in schools and school districts watching people try and develop programs to train new teachers and when i came on board this summer and became aware of the quality of the program that we have here in missoula how it was developed and all the people that were involved it's really kind of a best kept secret and i don't think it should
047be it's really honestly quite quite impressive so uh my it's my pleasure to introduce dr elise guest and elise is gonna uh take us down the road here a little bit with some of the integral parts but it's really a quality program above and beyond what you're going to see almost anywhere else so elise it's all yours thank you dr watson thank you russ it's really exciting to be able to have an opportunity to talk about this with you um when we talk about this program it really started back in 2016-17 and i'm excited to see melanie charleston and jenny malloy here um who were a part of that initial group we were invited as a district to join a network of community of districts across the nation to to start to begin to address
048the issue around teacher retention and job satisfaction and the reason why we're invited to join this network networked community is because of the great partnership and strong relationship we have between district leadership and union leadership and i think that's a huge testament to to our district and all that we try to do to better support our kids and teachers and so with that this notion of a networked improvement community is all around coming together with like-minded districts to attack the the problem around teacher retention and figure out the best ways to support our teachers and to use best practices in the field and so from that moment we have been able to really just hold true to those goals around how do we best support teachers so that we retain them in our district and
049then more importantly how do we ensure that they have the job satisfaction that we want that when a teacher is in the classroom and they're working with their colleagues and their students that they feel like they have a great impact on that student achievement and thus we have a really strong community and so it's really exciting to to be able to talk about this with you and to introduce the rest of the community so with that i'm going to pass it over to casey balu who is also a really integral part of this as she supports um our two instructional coaches who are new faculty instructional coaches yeah and this is actually one of my favorite parts of being union president and it's all thanks to the work like elise said of those that came
050before me um we definitely you know value our new and non-tenured faculty and it's one of the most important things we can do because supporting those teachers has the effects of you know that scene 30-fold you know it ripples into their classroom as they are able to better support um students in learning and we definitely see you know mentees who have better experiences and better connections with mentors and we definitely have those relationships that that last um which is important as we face a national teacher shortage we want missoula to be one of those places where teachers want to come and they want to stay so um melanie charleston started this work we definitely had a lot of data collecting to do she wrote some great grants to get us started um brittany kyleman and
051greg imhoff worked together to write this grant that we're in our second of three years in um over five hundred thousand dollars worth of grant money has come into this program it's funded by the nea and there's an mou signed of course by mark thane and greg imhoff that ensures that mcps takes over the funding as that funding starts to trickle away and one of the big strengths of this program is absolutely seen not just in this pandemic year but as we've transitioned through a new superintendent a new union president and brand new coaches um so you know thanks to the amazing and brave uh katie lapoint and brandy thrasher o'neal we've got a great program to share with you and i'm going to turn it over to them to talk through some of the
052details elise and casey um thank you chair holland for inviting us and dr watson russ um and gosh i feel like i could just i'm like i'm at the oscars i could just keep thanking people um but we are um aware that your time is very precious so i'm going to start my screen share here um my name is katie lapoint this is my 12th year in education and my eighth year working here at missoula county public schools and i am joined by the fantastic brandy thank you o'neal hi good evening thank you for your time tonight we just want to give you a brief overview of the network improvement community's new faculty program that so many fabulous people just before us told you a little bit about but i just want to reiterate again
053that this is really a collaborative partnership among our national and local teacher union and missoula county public schools and administration which is really a forceful collaboration as you'll hear about tonight this program is really going to highlight some of the amazing and positive things going on in mcps even amidst the pandemic and so much uncertainty that these times seem to be bringing us and again how this partnership between administration and the union is really helping ensure we have well-trained and supported teachers that in turn have a direct positive effect on learning for all of our mcps students so the first thing we want to start with is just talking a little bit about where the need for these new faculty program programs began on a national level we can see that about 10 of teachers
054leave after one year in the field and that more than 40 percent leave within the first five years when we dig into why so many educators are leaving the field we're finding that family and personal reasons coupled with dissatisfaction accounts for about 85 of this attrition rate this makes sense when we really think about the difficult balance between time spent meeting the rigorous demands of teaching with family and personal needs as well sort of a lack of overall support for the steep learning curve in the education profession i think especially in those first years in the classroom when everything is so new it became essential and critical for mcps administration and the union to work together in tandem to address this issue again of hiring and retaining high quality educators so our data shows that
055employing and retaining high quality educators does have a direct impact on student learning which we know is really always at the heart and soul of what we're trying to focus on um and and improve so this new faculty program is designed to offer more support during these critical years and specifically address those main factors that often lead to educators leaving the field so katie's going to talk a little bit more about why this high rate of turnover matters so when we think about this high overrated preferencing um it does as brandy mentioned show that there is a directive impact on students academic achievement it inhibits learning and we can all agree that students are the why behind all that we do as educators another reason why turnover matters is that it compounds any undersupply of
056staff in an underrepresented or high-risk group um additionally hiring is really expensive um and training is time consuming having to repeat these issues over and over repeat these actions over and over again it really puts a strain on districts and it could signal that there are larger issues within a school system and with those national trends in mind we'd like to share a little bit of how that translates to our work here in missoula so as you've heard from elise and casey um this is a story that starts long before um us it starts long before um even the pandemic um this has been on the nea's mind the national education association's mind since about 2015 and the work really began with the fantastic melanie charleston and mark bain and the nea reached out to
057them and about 10 school districts across the nation to really dig into teacher retention um as mentioned we were selected because of our strong relationship between our labor and our management here at mcps um and then we received grant funding as mentioned to kick this off um in 2018 we hired new faculty coaches we hired brandi kyleman and lindsey morris to dig in do the research and start finding best practices on creating a new faculty retention program here in missoula um they used listening sessions empathy interviews and feedback loops with all of our mcps employees in their first couple of years here and that ties right into what has become a cornerstone for our program here at mcps called improvement science and um it it's a fascinating um approach and i'd love to explain a
058little bit more about that so improvement science it is truly the foundation of our program it is the premise that we are continually working to improve regardless of our experience we are never perfect we are always growing um and one way to implement this practice is through a feedback loop called a plan do study act cycle or a pdsa as we lovingly call it um and so in order to kick start that loop we are able to identify a need for us here in missoula it was ways to better support our educators so that we can retain the right teachers once we identified the need we created the plan we initiated the development of our program and we put that plan into action we decided to do it um once we had our program up
059and running we then collected um data we studied and reviewed performance indicators through um through quarterly interviews and surveys and then once we had that data we were able to analyze it and then act on what the results were so we either adjusted what we were doing we kept it going because it was working well or we scrapped the whole thing and said we need to go back to the drawing board we're not supporting teachers in the way that they need so given the unique nature of this year we have really put this concept to the test um and we've been very adaptive and brandy if you would love to share some background information on how we've been adapted this year that would be great sounds great so a little bit about who does the
060new faculty program actually support within mcps so we again support all new faculty and their first three years with mcps is our main focus so again all of our non-tenured faculty a little bit of historic data there's been an average of 64 new certified faculty hired each year since this program began which is about nine percent of our mcps total staff in addition about 40 44 of our certified staff are in their first five years with mcps so we have a really large percentage early on in their career this data does exclude the current school year which is an outlier in so many ways as we know um this school year we've more than doubled the number of new hires pushing upwards of 140 new faculty members to mcps about 60 of those have been
061in our brick and mortar schools and about 40 moa um so now that you have sort of a sense of how many and who we support katie's going to talk a little bit uh about how we support these faculty members so um in the summer of 2020 um we created a plan knowing that we were in the midst of a pandemic for how we would support our new faculty members in august we hold an orientation where we onboard them to the district we set up time with their one-on-one mentor and we provide them a little bit of curriculum training and so we put precautions in place we felt that we could manage social distancing we had a great estimate of who um being hired and um we felt incredibly confident that we ran off um
062given the parameters that we were working with um pandemics however never work the way you think they're going to and um the decision for us to go fully remote with our orientation was made um one week before um we were set to orient um 50 staff members so um we we were very flexible and brandy is going to share some of the ways that we got creative and we're able to support these staff members so uh we included a little screenshot here of what seems to be our most familiar world these days uh our virtual get together here for orientation so we shifted from our small group format to an entirely virtual format for covid safety unfortunately we did have to cancel our union sponsored luncheon due to covid we found some new creative ways
063to celebrate this year though which has been fun we had excellent attendance at our initial orientation with 93 of the new faculty that were hired as of august 17th attending but the biggest unique and continually continual challenge we face the school year is how to support more than 73 additional new hires after we already had gone through our initial august orientation so we want to talk about what actually happened in august and beyond um we to support the staff that were hired after our august orientation again which ended up being a bit more than half of our total new hires we continue to offer intense onboarding support for at least the first seven weeks of school and this onboarding support included an moa specific orientation in mid-september and for those new hires that were brought
064on after september we provided just a multitude of one-on-one orientations between katie and i and it really still continues to be an ongoing process that we're refining as we're looking at a bump again increase in hiring here as we start second semester so we know that mcps needed the ability to be extra nimble and flexible this year with all the curveballs we've encountered to try to meet the needs of all of our students and staff and the compe the community and the new faculty program was one cornerstone that really did help make that possible onboarding support however is just one component of our new faculty program and it's really the continued support throughout the school year that is really at the heart and soul of what we do on a day-to-day basis and what our
065mentors and mentees really count on us for the most so we offer this ongoing support for all faculty again in their first three years with mcps and this year that includes over just almost 250 mcps faculty right now and it's really a number that just continues to grow so how do we offer this other continuous support throughout the school year we offer the opportunity for faculty to attend optional work sessions these sessions are offered twice a month and they provide a place to connect newer faculty with guest speakers and a variety of breakout room topics for continued support and learning and you can see some of that listed here survey data from previous school year had indicated that work sessions were incredibly valuable and so this year the new faculty program we're offering twice as
066many work sessions for a total of 16 of them over the course of the school year so far we've had an average of over 40 new non-tenured faculty attending each of our optional work sessions and we're about halfway through those 16. these work sessions are a great way for new faculty to connect with us as instructional coaches and with each other as they're really navigating the education profession and mcps work sessions i'll pro also provide another way for our program to collect data to continue to inform what we can do to continue to adjust and improve that support that we offer through that improvement science and those pdsa surveys that katie was talking about so katie's going to share a bit of the data that we have collected so far this year from the work
067sessions that we've hosted yeah so um after each work session we do have a brief um survey that we send out um and we ask three questions about the session and how we can improve the events moving forward it is the study and act portion of our cycle and um 98 of the exit tickets so far this year have indicated that um these work sessions provide value in supporting our non-tenured faculty over 93 report that the information they got at a work session would continue to be helpful moving forward whether that is information from patent on district communication or um from one of our fantastic teachers at porter providing information on trauma informed practices to um you know hiring um and health benefits from our fantastic folks over at human resources additionally um 95 have
068shared that having these guest speakers come in is an efficient and helpful way to gain knowledge about various district initiatives and topics um there is so much to onboard our staff with and previously we were having kind of a crash course day we called it um or it was the orientation part two um induction day and um we found that in shifting to having these guest speakers come in during work sessions it's actually a beneficial way for them to get a small bite take in the information process it have a contact to follow up with and just synthesize that district information in a more meaningful way so that's some of the ways that our work sessions are supporting our non-tenured property but the program also benefits our experienced faculty members as well as brandy will
069explain as you can probably tell we really like to dig into data and really do use it to drive and inform how we can offer this this program and excellent support with all the people that help collaborate so we also gather quarterly data about the new faculty program from our mentors from our more veteran teachers that are helping support the newer faculty and we i would i just want to note that these survey questions they're really short like four questions that they're open-ended questions they aren't given a preset choices to select but here you can see that over 50 percent of our mentors report that they're learning new instructional practices from their mentee um just those reminders of positivity and grace myself included i think sometimes when you've been down in the trenches for a
070while it's refreshing to see some of the new things that our new faculty bring to mcps so i this data just really emphasizes the program not only positively impacts our new faculty but also many of our veteran teachers and all of those students combined that are touched by all of these faculty and all those academic ways so katie is going to talk now a little bit about some of the increased support we offer for specifically our first year new hires in mcps yeah so while we offer support for all of our non-tenured through work sessions and coaching we do offer increased support for our year one new faculty which would be people who are in their first year with our district and that starts with providing a one-to-one mentor match based on key criteria whether
071that is um being close to their grade level assignment or their content area and um even more importantly it's someone who is if possible in their physical building and those specific criteria allow these mentors to be in the trench's go-to point people they're able to provide daily check-ins with their mentees or at least weekly check-ins um they also are able to work through a quarterly action item checklist um it gives them a kind of the key points that they're going to want to watch out for during the quarter whether that is prepping for parent conferences or um making sure that they are doing lesson planning or doing some um gearing up for assists that are coming um and then these mentors also provide crucial emotional and institutional support um on a regular basis people right
072there um in the building with them so in addition then to orientation and onboarding that we talked about those optional work sessions and the one-on-one mentoring specifically for year one we also offer a menu of other coaching options for all year one two and three faculty so you can see a list of some of these coaching supports that we offer this really again is the meat of our program the day in day out stuff one of those is learning walks this really does take professional learning right to the classroom so during a learning walk teachers will visit several other classrooms with a coach to observe student learning and the cool part is that they get to self-identify some instructional practices that they want to incorporate into their own classrooms so for example i recently went
073on a learning walk with several moa teachers who were wanting to gather some ideas on how to just better engage students in those virtual classrooms and we were able to observe students engaging in paradox and breakout room discussions and a variety of other collaborative activities and virtual classrooms we visited and now these teachers are able to see those activities in action watching students engaging in them and now they will have that opportunity to take those back to their own classroom and students for some implementation to continue to improve their own instructional practices and often these learning walks will then lead to a one-on-one coaching cycle where we can continue to work with faculty to help them just fine-tune their new practices and and it really has a very positive direct impact on student learning so
074all of these professional learning opportunities and and others you see listed here focus on again that improvement science and the pdsa cycle that katie talked about and drive our mission of continual improvement regardless of the amount of experience we may or may not have an education uh so in the next league he just can talk about a couple other resources that we also have for our faculty yeah so we we provide orientation we provide mentors we act as coaches and then this is kind of the hidden gem of the program um it's our new faculty website so um we have created a um in a very extensive faculty website which is not only useful for our newest faculty members but we have gotten feedback that it's useful for veteran teachers as well um i'm not
075gonna lie i used it before i was part of the program um it is a one-stop shop full of resources including the new faculty program guide both for our mentors and our new faculty members it has the checklist that i mentioned for quarterly action items it has video tutorials on everything from how to set up your voicemail to creating a staff web page we hold all of our new faculty monthly newsletters on this website for them to reference and there's so much more and it is a public public-facing website you're welcome to go check it out um this spring our staff members both new and tenured have reported that this page was their go-to for remote learning the department was able to create screencasts and tutorials step-by-step written guides and so much more to help
076the transition to remote learning and to vet resources to support our our move to tech heavy instruction um so this is something that we're really proud of and we love that we're able to support all of our mcps teachers this way um but because it is public-facing it does get some other hits as well so um we have shared and developed this specifically for missoula county public schools but we also are able to connect our new program our new faculty program with both people across montana and across the country the carnegie foundation is a leading organization for improvement science practices across the united states and our new faculty coaches and our network improvement community we were able to attend the summit in 2018 and then they were invited back to present both in april of
0772019 and then again during the virtual summit that was held in april of then this past fall we were selected to present three three sessions at the montana federation of public employees educator conference so we were we are super proud to support our fellow missoula educators but we also get to share our improvement journey on a much broader scale and continuing to keep that improvement journey in mind brandi's going to share some of the most recent feedback that we've received about our program and our ability to be responsive thanks katie so to kind of wrap up what our program is all about we thought we'd share a little more data from our most recent survey on the left from mentors and on the right from our mentees and to just really reiterate that our goal
078is always to give people what they want and what they need and again here's our most recent pdsa data asking both mentors and mentees to give us feedback on the new faculty program and what they need coming up moving forward into semester two and this data really overwhelmingly shows the need for continued support and again these are open-ended questions that we dig through to find patterns and data so um we can see that that is definitely something that they need with a few other very specific needs as well so we're just always working to be agile and adapting to meet the specific needs of mcps faculty so that we can support and again retain the right teachers so that being said we just like to leave you with a quote that really does encompass the
079big focus again of our new faculty program and how it directly impacts the learning of all of our mcps students you so much for your time tonight um we are happy to answer any questions you may have um and just thanks for for listening yeah thank you for your time thanks um i'm looking to see if any trustees have any questions i just want to thank you for that thorough presentation it's always so valuable in knowing when i was on the school board when this um i don't know what the right term is when this came up with um melanie and mark baine and people traveling to various places for training that we now get to see that mcps has really made it robust you know you hear about these training programs that they were
080going off to but we got to hear tonight what it's become so i really appreciate hearing about the fact that it's a living breathing protocol in our district so thank you so much and with that i'll look to see if any trustees have any hands up for any comments or questions i'm just gonna i don't see any i don't see any either right now chair holland okay and i think that's because of the fact that it was it was very well prepared so thank you so much and then it's information only but i didn't know if there's any public comment on this information item i'll look for hands up there too there's a person um jamar galbra who has a hand up go ahead and unmute and provide public comment again we ask the comments
081be limited to three minutes to be respectful of everybody's time so go ahead hi good evening thank you so much um thank you for uh this project and for your work on this i mean i'm just curious um in terms of your data uh collection and usage and things like that um just wondering about um how your information or how you receive your information regarded to like demographic information phrase ethnicity and utilizing that both um for recruitment and retention purposes um as well as for uh pairing with uh like mentor mentoring and just to let everyone know public comment is the opportunity for members of the public to make comment but if you wanted to have a one-on-one conversation i would suggest you start with dr watson and then he might refer you to an
082appropriate person to have a deeper conversation but thank you for your comments and then i see melanie charleston has her hand up go ahead ms carlson and yourself thanks so much chair holland um melanie charlson here i'm with mfpe i'm thrilled to see the updates um i had a smile on my face the entire time throughout the process uh this was really um such a project near and dear to my heart in my time with mcps and it's just wonderful to see it continuing and thriving and growing and having such a vast impact yes across the state and across our region i did attend those three sessions during mfpe's educator conference in october uh mcps was well represented thank you so much for those presentations and then i've received in my position as a field
083consultant a substantial amount of inquiry so i know once we get to a little bit more normal times um we can have maybe some broader conversations with mcps leading the way into feeder schools and other areas schools in our region so bravo and thank you so very much for this continued work much appreciated thanks any other public comment i'm just looking for hands up i'm not seeing any at this time okay well again thank you for taking time to um present to us because it really is nice to see since i was on the board in the initial stages to just see what it's become so thank you thank you to everyone who's been involved with this from the beginning to now so thanks so much and with that we'll go back to agenda item
084um 9b which is under new business which is business and operations and pat i know the background information in the agenda is pretty complicated so i understand we're presenting this as an information item tonight so the trustees can get some background information and it will probably come forward as an action item at a a later date but it's it's a an interesting partnership so if you want to take it away and explain what um the city's grant application to the land and water conservancy fund program for improvements to lowell playground at westside park is all about i'll turn it over to you all right thank you chair holland so as mentioned there's there's quite a bit of background in the attached to the agenda i will sort of summarize some of the the basic background
085information um lowell school and the adjacent west side park sit on property that's owned by the school district the westside park property is leased to the city and has been leased to the city to operate the playground as a park and so essentially under the terms of the 30-year lease with the city we use the uh the playground adjacent to lowell uh school for playground purposes uh during the the school day and uh parts of the park are are fenced off for available um uh community to use during the school day but otherwise its first use is for our students and then um and then the playground is available for use by the neighborhood and the community uh in the evening and i understand it's it's extensively used the um the playground was originally the
086current playground structure was originally built in 1998 it was largely built out of the efforts of the neighborhood and fundraising efforts within the community it's a wooden structure that has exceeded its original useful life of of 20 years and so a an effort is underway to to replace the playground with more up-to-date equipment and hopefully you have had an opportunity to look at the westside park project website it's linked in the uh the background to this agenda item but there's there's quite an undertaking by various uh groups uh including the north missoula community development corporation uh friends of missoula parks the the lowell uh neighborhood association uh to as well as the city and mcps to fundraise in support of playground improvements as the the lessee of the of the of the playground of the
087park the city is proposing um application for a grant as chair holland mentioned this is a a grant that's through the department of in of the interior through the land water conservation fund program grant these grants have been around since the nineteen 1960s they provide funding to support outdoor space and outdoor recreation picnic areas playgrounds any outdoor recreation space and so the the timing here is is such that the the grant runs november to november but it's it's sort of a first come first serve basis the first application deadline is march 1st the city is hoping to get in in front of that application it's a very detailed um very detailed application and um part of the application requirement for us and for you as trustees as owner of the property is to adopt a
088resolution in support of the grant application if that's if that's the direction you want to go and um the the significance here is that the uh the fundraising effort has available um about five hundred thousand dollars that could be used as matching funds this includes funds that have been set aside by our district a hundred thousand from our bond proceeds to support playground improvements uh the city has set aside 350 000 dollars and then we've the the fundraising group has um obtained a significant grant and so there are funds that are available as matching funds um uh the application for the grant could would be between four hundred and five hundred thousand dollars um as as reflected in the grant application summary as well as the resolution part of this grant requires that the own
089that the property that's subject to the improvement um be maintained in perpetuity for outdoor recreation space and that's reflected in the the grant summary it also requires that in perpetuity the space be be maintained without encroachment except for encroachments that further the park so you could have maybe the addition of a um of a of a picnic shelter or that type of thing but but you couldn't um encroach the property with with roads or with other buildings or structures um i didn't include this in the background section but but we'll mention it that the the law the federal law requires the ability to convert the property um and what that means is that um that restriction the perpetuity um the the maintaining it in perpetuity could be lifted if you're able to offer replacement property
090that's that's of equal value that is of a corresponding benefit and it doesn't have to exactly be the same size but the equal value is important and the location would also be important so that it's in close proximity to where this this space was at i i'm just learning about these grants the city is much more familiar with these grants having applied for and received a number of them in talking with with the city they have converted a number of of properties that were benefited uh by grant proceeds um but i i don't think you go into this type of grant application with the idea that that conversion is is available certainly it is available but but i think given the restrictions you want to go in knowing that that property is going to be
091set aside for this purpose as outlined in in the grant in terms of the attachments to the agenda page 40 you have a grant application summary it provides some of the information i just went through page 41 is is an older depiction of of our property and and you can't really see it because it's black and white but the upper half of the diagram is the portion that's part of west side park and you have kind of an odd jag around a building on the right side about in the in the middle of that boundary and that's partnership health center so that that that building would be excluded from the from the boundary map that would be used as part of this grant application summary or grant application by the city the bottom half of
092the diagram on page 41 is is the old lowell building so you'll notice it doesn't doesn't look like it does today but uh it it reflects the space that wouldn't be subject to the grant so the portion the upper half of about a two acre partial of property is what would be subject to the the grant for improvement purposes and restriction purposes then then there's a draft resolution that's attached beginning on page 42. it also includes some of the same background i just went through page 43 it reflects a resolution the uh um and there's a mistake there it says that the board acknowledges the contract placed against the leased property that actually should be the constraints and this constraints would be the the restrictions uh on use um in perpetuity then page 45 this
093is something that you've seen when we when we went over the lease agreement um this is the master plan um there's actually an excellent um depiction of this on the website under westside park projects uh you can go into this master plan and and see the various improvements that are that are proposed um it's it's it's pretty impressive um the plan if you look at the on page 45 about looking at lowell school and heading this would actually be heading east but going going up on the page you'll see the sport courts which would be an improvement these would be a basketball court pickleball courts um and the like up to a one full court and a couple of half court basketballs basketball courts plus the availability availability of pickleball um continuing that direction there's
094a also a preschool playground area a splash deck there's an area for lowell mountain in the middle of the of the playground and then a uh climber um uh structure so they if you look at that link on that website the the planned improvements are in the 2 million range uh the fundraising to this point is as well as the government contributions are in the 740 750 000 range with ongoing work continuing um it's an it's an impressive um planned improvement um it's uh it's a it's an impressive effort um by these groups to to raise funds and to look to the community to support the this neighborhood playground so um with that i would i would try and answer any questions that i could um i do have one question first and then i'll
095check with other trustees you indicated there's some federal law that would be applicable to substituting comparable land use and moderately the same size would that be something that would be prudent to include in the resolution or because it's in i don't know if it's a state or federal statute that since that is by i mean since that impacts it this would there just need to be a resolution or a reference to the statute or do you think that's unnecessary yeah it's a it's a good question i i gave that some some thought it uh and did talk to the city about uh briefly the uh the inclusion wouldn't um do anything more than acknowledge it but it we certainly could and i don't think it's um a bad idea to do so they acknowledge that
096that that um conversion requirement does exist um and as you'll note in the resolution i also include the ability of the board to reserve the right to to approve the the award and i think that's important um and it's important because the the way that the grant works it doesn't matter what the amount of the award is the entire property that's identified as subject to the grant would also be subject to the restrictions the limitations on on development of the property and um use beyond the outdoor recreational use so a i'm making up these numbers a five thousand dollar grant you would have a restriction that would apply to that whole west side playground and so it's important to be able to reserve the ability with the city to approve the grant now in talking
097with the city that it's not going to be a it's a grant of that of that of that amount if awarded it's going to be a pretty sizable grant and the request will be sizeable it'll be 450 to 500 000 but on your point marsha i would think or fair holland i think it would be worthwhile to just add it as an acknowledgement and i'll make a note to that okay and then trustee mercer has his hand up go ahead trustee mercer yeah thank you i mean this is the uh playground where my son first slid and where he still goes to school so it's i'm glad to see all this effort um i guess my question is about the maintaining outdoor in perpetuity i know the prince of principal frank has desired to have
098some controlled access to the playground during school hours that doesn't conflict is that we can we don't have to allow access all the time just as use yeah excellent question and i have to think the same thought our lease agreement though which includes that restrictive ass access is going to be attached to the grant application so in instances where a school district is is partnering with a city like here you either file an interlocal agreement or in this case we would file a 30-year lease agreement so those restrictions would be part of the grant application but but great point any other questions trustee avgaris thank you uh pat i'm curious uh there's a few parts to this and the topic support for cities the city's grant application um obviously this isn't something we're voting on
099it's just kind of an informational but the part where it talks about funds committed by mcps from the bond proceeds to support the match the grant from lwcf is that something that we would be voting on as well is that something that we've committed already how much is that what is that part so so that amount is has been committed and it's a hundred thousand dollars and uh it it's comparable to uh investments that we've made in playground equipment and other schools if you look at site work at other schools there's been examples with bond proceeds that we've invested more i've put a bug in in burley's ear about increasing that if if we're able to and we can talk a little bit about where we're at with the bond proceeds later but um but
100at this point that's the amount we have committed is is the 100 000. so trustee mercer let me see if any other trustee has a question and if not i'll come back to you for your for a question not seeing other hands up so go ahead trustee mercer i suppose a little bit in the form of a comment just as a parent at the time we when we had the bond remodeling which was all great none of that went to the playground we're the only school we're in this unique thing where our school playground is on a city lot and so and it didn't get anything out of the city parks bond and it kind of just fell through both cracks and so that's i think why i'm hoping there's this this efforts being made
101to kind of i think fix some of that falling through the cracks that happened and just to clarify let me ask had a question we actually own the land it's the city that leases the land so it's it's still our land it's just um you know the city's operating under the lease and so that's the reason at some point we the board would probably need to make a decision about any other commitments that bind the use of the property is that right pat yeah that's exactly right any other trusty questions not seeing any hands up and this is information only so we won't be taking any action on it tonight any um public comment heidi west has her hand up miss west go ahead and unmute and we again ask to keep your comments to
102three minutes uh hi thank you um so i'm heidi west i'm the project west side park coordinator for the north missoula community development corporation i also represent ward one which includes about half of the lowell service area on the missoula city council and most importantly i'm a mom of two and a lol parent so all of my roles converge on this project and i want to acknowledge the hard work and funding commitments that have already been put towards this effort of rebuilding the west side park um so to date we have 770 000 committed to this project and the preschool playground is currently under construction and will be opening this spring and that playground is going to be open to the public um all of the time uh not just uh when lowell's out of
103session so um the land and water conservation funds are a significant potential funding source for this park and the land and water conservation fund also guarantees that this much-loved park remains a public space into perpetuity access to this spot space is vital to the neighborhood which is already characterized by less than desired park land density it is also seeing strong development pressure with two low-income housing tax credits projects that are going to be constructed in the lowell service area and the neighborhood overall is characterized by poor health outcomes so securing this park as an active outdoor space into perpetuity is to the benefit of current and future future lowell students neighborhood residents and the community as a whole so thank you for considering this item thanks any other public comment and again we'll be taking
104public comment when it comes back as an agenda item i'm not seeing any other hands up happen is that correct correct okay well thank you for that information and now we'll move on to two which is to approve an inner cap loan um and we discussed this back in november about buying a replacement vehicle for saily's swan because their vehicle wasn't really serving its purpose so pat there's a resolution that we now need to adopt to help fund um the purchase of the vehicle which i assume already has happened uh thank you chair holland yes that's exactly right this is the uh the final the final step um we we can schedule a closing with the department of commerce um once this resolution is is approved by the board and the resolution is on page
10546 it it looks a lot like the resolutions that that you all uh looked at approved and and signed when we were going through the bond process um it's it's uh it's authorizing um uh marcia is a school district official to to execute the the resolution which authorizes the signature of the loan documents um the the loan amount is outlined in the background section it's twenty five thousand dollars the the terms are very good um there it's a variable rate loan which adjusts with uh inflation but right now it's it's at two percent or just over two percent and what uh um what i anticipate is that the uh the sealy budget will will be able to support um that that servicing and and also with support from the the district budget but um this
106is uh something that that timing wise worked out fairly well from seeley's standpoint because uh last budget year they were not expending um much of their allocation of budget and we were able to preserve that through the multi-district agreement at the end of the year and that's the the funds that they had available here to apply against this purchase so we've made half of the purchase price already and we'd look to to fund 25 000 with this inner capital any questions for pat not seeing any hands up i don't see any hands either so um the recommendation is that there is a motion to adopt resolution 2021-4s is there such a motion moved by trustee vogel is there a second second by trustee apgaris i saw his hand first sorry trustee happens and so we
107have a second in motion is there any board comment or discussion i will just offer that i'm glad we were able to do this because as we heard at the earlier meeting the number of uses that that vehicle will be put to in silly swan so it's it's a very valuable asset to that high school so thanks for helping work on this gap chair holland i think um trustee vogel would like to make a comment great trustee but we'll go ahead and unmute um thank you i um actually i just hit the wrong button and so i'm sorry i don't have a comment thank you okay any other trusty comments not seen hands up any public comment on this item on the motion i mean don't see any seeing any hands up so all trustees
108in favor of approving the intercap loan please indicate by raising your hand or trustee vogel if you would unmute and express your vote vogel is a yes so that motion passes unanimously and then we move on to three which is the lowell elementary school as a community center which is an elementary action item so pat if you want to explain what's going on at element at lowell elementary in terms of serving as a community center all right thank you chair holland and uh um unintentional that there are two lol items but just happened to work out that way and this is um an intra-local agreement that we're asking the board to approve and an inter-local agreement is a unique statutory arrangement between two government entities whereby they bring together their separate resources for the collective
109good and here the collective good would be for the benefit of our our students and the neighborhood and the community of lowell and um this this follows um really a a long standing and and successful relationship with the city in terms of the operation of westside park and also the uh the efforts of the parks and rec departments in working with old school in providing some some excellent programming uh and uh and the interest of the community and the neighbors in having um a space for for families for neighbors um in in a variety of ways uh support for job applications support from a food delivery and availability standpoint the this effort was includes a variety of partners they're actually listed at the bottom of the page on page 50 under that whereas clause and
110you'll see uh just the number of organizations that have that have come to bear in terms of supporting the uh this uh this effort and and this is really the beginning this is just the start um we're not able to really offer the the school for community programming uh at the present time we we offer after school programming for for students but uh in midst of the covid uh era we haven't opened up really any of our schools for for much in the terms of evening programming so this will that delay i guess will provide the uh the advisory group that would also be formed under this inner local agreement the opportunity to to develop their bylaws to identify their members and to come up with um some of the background efforts that they would
111make to ensure the success of of this of this arrangement um the the agreement that's uh attached as mentioned begins on page 50 i'll just maybe point out a few things um um so so the first recital the first whereas clause talks a bit about the interlocal agreement and and really captures it verbatim from the statute the the the uh intent of the of the agreement is to provide an experienced qualified department in the in the parks and rec department the opportunity to provide the the oversight and the coordination the program coordination and they're particularly skilled and and um and funded in that area so um unlike um uses that that happen in a variety of our facilities and not meant to disparage any of those uses but uh but here the the effort would
112be under uh real specific site supervision and um real specific programming efforts and uh and uh to that end i would have you look to the uh to the end of the agreement i'm kind of jumping from the front to the end but you'll see uh exhibit exhibit b um or excuse me exhibit a reflects the mission and guiding principles um that really was the spearhead toward this this effort and uh these uh the mission and guiding principle is is sort of foundational to how this local agreement and arrangement was put together the agreement itself if you look through it calls for for the city and for mcps to work together to coordinate custodial services maintenance scheduling of programming and um and the like the first and fundamental priority is is for our school to
113operate as a school so that'll be incorporated within the agreement that is that is the first priority and and must be um but their uh their after-school programming will um will continue to take place and then additional community programming would would then be offered beyond the hours of the after school programming um the term of the agreement is is for five years um subject to the ability of the parties to review and and provide feedback um as mentioned we've worked with the city and with the parts department and and based upon that past relationship really believe that that we'll be able to cooperate and work together to um to address any um any and all issues that might arise i i think um there's just so many unknowns with this venture and and i think
114uh um there'll be a lot of of working through the details of the venture as as it progresses but i think uh the opportunity and the intent is is service to our students to the neighbors and to the community and and to our students families so um i i expect to see some real positive outcomes um and uh i think there has been just with uh the involvement of parks and rec and after school programming um so i would be happy to answer any additional questions that you may have pat i'll ask the first question then i'll check with trustees about other questions so if i understand it it's for a term of five years but the governing rules and etc haven't been fleshed out yet so does the time start now if we pass
115the resolution and even though understanding that some of the details may take a while um yes good question i'm sorry i meant to mention that so this this agreement still has to go through city council okay um we still have some some minor edits that aren't reflected in the document that you're looking at um uh that that we've been working through one with both our respective insurance carriers on the insurance language but then also just some minor language about custodial support and i think in talking with uh the director of the parks and recs department it sounds like they have plans to have this in front of council uh in february and so um once we approve um you know with the board's permission we could make some minor editing changes to the agreement and
116then then it could be presented to the city council by the city parks department thanks and so just one quick follow-up question so if anything came up that you perceived and dr watson perceived as substantial as opposed to minor it would come back to the board absolutely yes any other trustee questions of pat not oh trustee abgarris yeah just a quick question just clarity here so this is obviously an excellent program and an excellent idea but this is inviting community members into our building while we're still in phase two is that correct it's not so no we we wouldn't initiate any programming until we're we're opening up the schools for community uh use for volunteers and that and the like so it it's uh um i think that the real interest by the city is
117that they've budgeted a significant amount in support of this program and so they they want to make sure that an agreement with mcps exists behind that budget and uh and so it's it's important for that purpose and then for for the group that's that's working this to feel like uh it's gonna happen so they can start developing programming and and start putting the pieces together but no they there wouldn't be actual community programming happening any other trusty questions i'm not seeing any hands up so the recommendation is that um that k-12 trustees approved the inter-local agreement that's found as an attachment to our agenda is there such a motion so moved by trustee decker is there a second seconded by trustee abgarris is there any board discussion trustee decker and then i think it must
118be and then trustee mercer um so i want to just share that um i've in in the capacity of my day job i've had the opportunity to participate in some of the working group discussions that have brought this project to this um spot and i just want to make sure that people understand that this is um this is the foundation that will allow a community center to continue to take shape with the involvement first and foremost of course of the principle of lowell and the lowell school staff and community and mcps administration but also with the involvement and guidance of neighbors of community members of people who live on the north side west side and of community organizations and non-profits beyond parks and recreation that lots of different voices including the food bank garden city
119harvest many other really valuable community partners have been part of that conversation it's incredibly encouraging to see so many organizations come together to support the north side west side neighborhood and lowell school community specifically that's been just a really fantastic process and i can't say enough about how enthusiastic um barb frank the principal at lowell has been about this process in fact she's really been in the lead on um on encouraging this process to happen it's been more than a year in development and of course kovid has thrown a wrench into the works for for everything um but with the investment on the part of the city to make this um sort of building this foundation um there's really a lot that could happen and the hope of folks that i've heard talking is that
120this could also serve as a model for other parts of our district or parts of our community where this kind of support to kids and families is really needed um it's an intergenerational model it's a um it's a it's a 21st century model of thinking about schools um and so i just have to express my gratitude that this project has come to this point it's taken tremendous work on the part of everyone pat not the least of which um i know pat has put in a tremendous amount of time with donna gauckler and others to get this together and i just want to um express strongly how enthusiastic i am about the project thanks and trustee mercer then trustee lorenzen excuse me yeah so i just want to steal all that and double down on
121that as well um just a couple particular things i think uh parks rex has uh i don't know they've really been there for little families this year so i appreciate that and and principal frank's just shows that someone with a lot of energy and drive and passion to make things can change the world so jesse lorenzo yeah i think this is a wonderful partnership between the school district and the schools i think it's a it's very important to see us focusing within our community i think covet changes things and i think we all noticed that when the world came to a standstill it was great to be in missoula montana and a lot of people are trying to be here and so i'm hoping this model i'm sure this model will also be considered for
122places like the 6th street administration building where instead of just locking it up into private ownership and you know possibly even corporate ownership we'll keep it and talk to the city and figure out how to use it as a community um in all a lot of similar ways so thank you everyone for that work any other trustee want to make comments not seeing any hands up um i'll jump in here although i won't be voting on it because i'm a high school trustee but wearing a different hat i'm in a kiwanis club in missoula and i've been working with barbara frank to help support lowell school it's a school that my iquanas group really supports and i've i heard about this project and i just want to echo what everyone has said about her energy
123her vision and her drive and that of her staff because you know i was in conversations with her oh quite a while ago about this was a vision that she had for this um partnership with the neighborhood and with the city and so i just another shout out to this um principal and the staff at lowell and just know that there are other entities other nonprofits in town who want to support this as well so thank you and not seeing any other trusty hands up is there any public comment and it looks like heidi west has her hand up so go ahead miss west um thank you so i am speaking on behalf of myself um and i introduced myself during my earlier comment but also on behalf of my co-counsel member for ward one
124brian von losberg we are both lol parents and barbara invited us um i guess it was uh just over a year ago into a room along with many other people to start this conversation as of lowell as a community center and i we are both so incredibly grateful for her vision and her leadership uh the support of mcps thus far as well as the many many community members that have brought this project to where it is today and while i can't say how city council will vote on it in february i do want to point out that during the last budget season the city council allocated thousand dollars to the local lowell community center project and that is not one-time funding that is built into our base budget and will be funded into the future
125so this moa sets the foundation for the city allocated funds to be spent um essentially allowing this project to transition from the really hard work and planning that has been happening to implementation so i hope that you support this effort thank you thanks any other members of the public who would like to make comment just raise your hand and looking to see if there's any hands up i don't see any other hands up so a second in motion and board common public comment have occurred so all k-12 trustees in favor of the motion to approve the interlocal agreement in the form that's attached to our agenda please indicate by raising your hand thanks i'm sorry trustee lorenzen's hand blended into the background color of her wall so i needed to make sure her hand was
126really up there so you're saying i'm beige yeah you were for a moment at least so the motion does pass unanimously so thank you to everyone for considering that agenda item and then we move on to two information items first is the bond expenditure update as trustees and perhaps the public will recall we try to look back on how we have spent our bond proceeds to make sure that we've been good stewards of the trust that our community had in passing those two bonds and so i think we're getting toward the end of bond expenditure updates but i appreciate you um coming forward pat to give us at least one more if not a few more updates i'll turn it over to you uh thank you chair holland and i i believe you're right um
127it's uh it's pretty amazing um that we're at this point we were in november of 2015 when the election happened and then the first bond issue in january of 2016 and the second one in september of 2017 so pretty much right on top of each other and part of our obligation under the tax laws are to expend at least 85 percent within three years and that's 85 percent of the the uh par proceeds and um we've easily done that which is uh you know pretty amazing when you look at the the dollars that we were talking about the the bond issue was 88 million in the elementary and 70 million in the high school and and you'll see from the report that that we've expended more than that and and part of that is is
128bond premium and part of it is is interest um on those bond proceeds and um we are really winding down um and so uh you know save for uh some projects that burley and his team and the whole thing is going back to to tackle um um we uh um and then including the the lowell playground um investment we're uh we're really at the at the end so um it's it's good to be here and it's good to be inside that uh bond uh window that's it's imposed by the uh the irs code and and um and so we look forward to sort of finishing these up and and uh maybe make uh one or two at most reports and that'll be it that's all i have thanks any trustee questions for pat not seeing
129any hands up any public comment not seeing any hands up so the next topic is the summary of expenditures of the montana coronavirus relief funds and cares act funds and so pat this is again re information reported by you yes thank you so page 65 has a expenditure recap and um i'll be brief that the top column headings um you'll see under the elementary there's a cares project code 12080 and those are that's the cares act that was the actual first allocation of funds in april that's the total allocation less the portion for the private schools next to that is elementary crf that's coronavirus relief funds that came through the governor's office that's 2.8 million in the elementary and those funds were unique in that they had an expenditure deadline of december 30th and they
130were they're sort of allocated shoot i want to say in the summertime so um if they were uh um a later allocation than the cares act funds the high school cares cares act funds 780 000 and then the crf dollars in the high school the 1.8 million so between the crf elementary and crf high school um you're looking at over four million dollars that works was expended um um early summer through december 30th and and you'll see that the expenditure of cares act funds which had a later expenditure deadline have been very minimal and that's intentional we were trying to save those funds and expend the crf dollars first with the expenditure deadline the categorical expenditures this is broken down by object code i'll just point out one mistake if you look at the numbers
131that are in the second column just next to the description of the expenses 117 should be para educators salaries and not athletic trainers equipment managers we didn't spend 98 000 on equipment manager athletic training services um and then the 120 object code is substitute salaries so with that one correction you'll see the bulk of the expenditures were in salaries and benefits and then near the bottom or really at the bottom you'll see an encumbrances outstanding and that represents some chromebooks still so we even though there's a december 30 deadline to to expand um we got some relief for the state did because of all the difficulty that all the districts in the state had getting chromebooks so um we've gotten quite a few but we still have some more that are coming in and that
132encumbrance will become an expenditure and and you'll see the total expenditures um through 12 30 the the full amount of the crf funds expended and then just a small amount of cares act expended and you'll see there's a budget remaining of of two million dollars there uh that's that's being expended right now to support moa and and then there's a summary that sort of broke it down in broader categories that maybe hatton could throw up on the screen um it didn't make it in the agenda but i'm happy to share it it's it's kind of an easier document to look at and follow breaking down the the crf expenditures um by type and so um you'll see that the custodial ppe expenditure was 587 000 significant and that expenditure was was um 158 000 for
133those plasma filters that was the hvac system filters that that we've talked a little bit about uh thanks happen for putting that up um then um the the big one certainly p p and e and that's a broad category that includes a lot of uh uh personal protective equipment um that was that was purchased both districts um the um the technology expenditure um you'll see again the chromebooks um and this is just for december that number will go up when we include the encumbrances but um the apex learning uh the school pace these are all software items intended to support students um and then dropping down the sh the the screen you'll see the uh miscellaneous staffing so we separated out staffing for the online academy from miscellaneous staffing and and i think you'll recall
134the addition of some three art teachers um the emergency covet leave which which we covered for staff to ensure that they didn't that they did stay home when they showed symptoms or when they were in in quarantine and uh the child care that was supported by our partners the the parks and rec the ymca and and uh campfire and uh they they stepped up and provided child care for our staff and then finally the the online academy staffing and and uh certainly that was a a significant investment um that we made as a district and that the board supported and and really is um been extremely i'd say well received by those those students and families who wanted to remain in online education so you'll just you'll kind of see there what what those expenditures
135look like the um certainly the the bulk of the expenditures so um i'm happy to share that that sheet with with you all and and um it was just a an easier to follow summary of some of the expenditures we've talked about that's all i have um trustee mercer has a hand up for a question i believe and then i'll check to see if other trustees have questions as well we're going coming out of general funds so to speak i would say probably uh we uh um but we tried to code as many things as expenditures as we could to the crf dollars so we set up a supply budget for moa to use we set up any expenditure that we that we learned of that we could support um through the crf dollars than
136than we did and uh and it was a um um it's but i can't say that there weren't some general fund dollars that were that were used i would say the same for our schools i know that uh that we tried to to move expenditures um to the crf dollars given the deadline to expend those funds but at the end of the day there may have been some expenditures that remained in the school budgets but but not many we we captured we captured uh for sure most of those any other um questions from trustees not seeing any hands up so this is information only any public comment again not seeing any hands up so we'll continue on the agenda item c personnel negotiations and policy the first item is to approve a wage increase for
137defined employees dave do you want to explain um what is being requested of the board by the administration absolutely you may recall back in december we did uh kind of an out of uh timeline or custodial raise because of recruitment issues for substitutes what you have before you tonight on page 66 is we revamped all of our substitute rates of pay um most significant would be the substitute teacher rate from 11 43 to 12.50 an hour the point in doing this mid-year is to whatever we can help do to facilitate recruitment and getting subs in our buildings to help support us as we real so um this rate increase would be to carry us into the next year what we're doing a bit early again to help us with recruitment dave can you also talk
138about the incentive for substitute teachers after 15 days um yes what we were looking to do is adding 50 cents an hour to raising from 1250 to 13 an hour after they accepted 15 uh substitute jobs moving forward from february first the idea being again to try to incentivize people to to take more jobs questions for dave christian garris dave or rob either one i'm just curious is this enough is this something that we looked at competition or was there some backing to this is this going to move the needle for us a buck an hour um i'm happy to answer that uh hopefully it will um i can tell you that within our market this makes us very competitive it puts us at the top end of with the local the other districts so
139we'll be offering more than others also within that it doesn't show it but for our certified teachers i mean our substitute teachers right now we're guaranteeing eight hours a day um so that means they're getting uh usually a little bit more than the 12 15 an hour would be um we hope that this will increase and help with it um but you know if we can imagine some of the difficulty recruiting such at this point is the willingness to go into the buildings so any other questions for trustee deckard for either dr watson or dave go ahead thanks um i will say that i was glad to see this come up i know that several of our child care community partners who are planning to step down some of their service um as we move
140back into the buildings um had indicated that some of their staff would be taking a pay cut to substitute or work for the district without increases so this is important it does make me wonder whether we how this lines up with some of our regular staff that we rely on and depend on and actually move around in the buildings to fill um sort of pseudo-substitute roles now especially our paras i'm mindful of comments from our janitorial staff in the past and i'm curious about how we're doing in terms of parity for people who might already be in similar roles and um so i just want to ask about that um it's a great question we this moves us closer to but still not at the starting wages of course that we have with people within
141those positions um the other thing that is not showing up in here but uh with our classified unit the mm ceo there's actually provisions written in there so for example if a para educator fills in for a teacher or does additional subbing issues there's actually a two dollar add-ons an hour for those people from their regular salary so their incentives written within the mmco contract to use more classified people that he'll help fill classroom positions they're qualified interesting mercer has a question go ahead trustee mercer and i guess following up on that i don't know which way this cuts but also these are just flat wages with no benefits right that's that's correct but i would note that though that our permanent subs substitutes that we've been put in our buildings this year are receiving
142benefits including health insurance any other trustee questions for either dr watson or dave not seeing any hands up so the recommendation is um that there is a motion to approve the new hourly rates for the select group of district substitutes that are identified in the attachment to our agenda is there such a motion moved by trustee of garris and second like um i think it was trying to see hobbins have her hand up so any board discussion any i'm not saying hands any public comment not seeing any so no is that correct ken that's correct okay so all trustees in favor of the motion to approve the new hourly rates for the identified district substitutes please indicate by either a muting and voting yes or no or raising your hand vogel is yes so that
143passes unanimously and all trustees are continue to be present so then we move on to the regular personnel report and that's found on page 67. is there anything of note that you'd like to um point out on the personal report well i guess i would just point out that we are uh normally we you see this the first board meeting of the month we're now doing two this month the reason being we wanted to ensure that some of the great resistance would in effect by february first so that's why you're seeing a somewhat smaller report um on a second meeting we'll of course have another report for you as well thanks and so unless there's any questions for dave is there a motion to approve um the items on the personnel report moved by trustee
144hobbins and seconded by trustee wake is there any board discussion and again as everyone is cautioned we don't comment on individuals in the personnel report seeing no hands up is there any public comment and again with the same caution that there there would not be any public comment on individuals in the personnel report see no hands up and i'll trust these in favor of the motion to approve the items on the personnel report please indicate by raising your hand or voting yes or no vogel is yes so that motion passes unanimously then we reach the penultimate item on the agenda which is to remind us about the strategic planning that we started pretty pandemic that ended up on hold after two meetings and now we're hoping to continue to move back into that planning process
145so there is a schedule on page 72 and dr watson if you want to walk us through what that plan is at this point yes thank you chair holland it's hard to believe that it was a year ago that we had started this process in january of uh 2020 and um we actually had three meetings scheduled we had one in january one in february one in march unfortunately we couldn't complete the march meeting but the first two meetings we had were very well attended um by lots of different stakeholders in the community including um uh many of our certified and classified staff so that that was nice to have folks interested in the process the process is being led by the montana school boards association i do think it's important for you all to note
146that the strategic plan sets the direction for our school district which is definitely the role of a school board and so it's critically important that you're involved in this process i'm excited that it's being led by the school boards association they've done this with a number of school boards across the state they have a very good process to to arrive at a a strategic plan that's uh that that can be considered by the public and eventually approved by the board so we will pick this up again in march hatton has done a great job in discussing with the school boards association deborah silk is our lead facilitator regarding these these dates um they they may change just because of the nature of covet and everything else you know they may change slightly but we'll try
147to stick to these we want to have an a few more public meetings to re-engage the public and get to a point where we feel like we've got a pretty good draft of the strategic plan and then that that draft would come before the board for consideration and and for public comment um before before it's approved uh sort of starting with the end in mind what what i'd like to see is to have an an approved plan by june which would give us time to start thinking about uh specific goals and objectives and strategies that we can put in place not only next fall but also throughout the school year next year so that's sort of the process we're heading towards and starting with that end in mind shooting for that june final approval date
148by the board so that we can start working on the plans thanks i don't know if you'd add anything to that i know hatton's been in communication with the with the school boards association directly i don't think i would add a ton except to just articulate that those meetings will be held virtually because of our covet 19 precautions if something amazing happens and the sky opens up and the entire state of montana is vaccinated i'm sure we would love to be together but i think it's really exciting we're all looking forward to it and just stay tuned for outreach that helps people know when the meetings occur to re-engage any questions for hatton or dr watson i don't see any hands up i'll just add you know even though it was pre-zoom and pre-covered the
149amount of public interest and public engagement at the first two meetings we had overwhelmed me yo missoula is a community who cares about public education and wants to have a say in how we're moving forward as mcps and so it really was great we had people around the side of the room who were brought into discussions and i think that's how we might have gotten trustee mercer involved in the board which is super awesome and so i just want to say i really appreciate all the work that happened did and and everyone in the administration to make those first two groups so robust so that we hope that that will continue to take place and maybe we'll even blow out the 300 person limit on some of our virtual meetings and so i think trustee
150mercer has his hand up then trustee deckard has her hand up so go ahead trustee mercer and then trustee decker yeah i think i mean it was it was a great experience and i'm glad it's reoccurring um i guess i had a couple questions i assume you're confident that um this is enough of the meeting i mean not needing to start over from scratch i guess memorialized what was said before i guess i would say that i heard a lot of big ideas and big thoughts and i guess i would hope in sort of in the may time of this that if needed um i totally understand i need to get done by june and get moving but i hope there's time for big discussions if this is a big discussion moment and it looks
151like that's may and so i just hope we make room for that thanks and then i think it was trustee decker and then i'll check for other trustee hands up too trustee i could go ahead yeah i guess just tagging on what um trustee mercer just said and given the presentation that we heard from the i value committee earlier tonight with some very significant goals around how we approach big discussions as a district i would be concerned about picking the process right up as if we aren't in a different place i think the question of who was part of that 300 person meeting before or who was in the room before i think should for sure be addressed and if it means that we have to go slow in order to go fast and go
152deep i think we need to be willing to do that like evaluation of who was a part of that process so far and what ideas or voices have not been before we just continue moving and i i'm really glad to see this coming back it feels like we haven't been able to to move forward because we've been in reactive mode so much and so please don't hear that as anything other than gratitude that we're going to but also really recognizing that if we're gonna if we're gonna walk our talk we can't undertake a big effort like this without doing the actions that the i value group is uplifting for us any other trustee comments i'll i'll just add in one which is somewhat responsive to trustee mercer and trustee decker um hatton has been amazing
153at capturing information about who was there what comments were made she has been an incredible i don't know what the right word is there's a word to describe a record keeper a historian but she really has done remarkable um she has made remarkable efforts to capture everything that has happened so that we know who was at the table who wasn't at the table and what ideas ideas came forward so i just want to do a shout out to hatton because i've seen i've been part of the pre-planning process on this and it's pretty impressive what information is available to all of us so thank you happen any other trustee comments it's an information item see none any public comment on this item i'll look for hands up something just to say none then as we
154do um mcps's practice is to have public comment at the beginning and end of every meeting in case someone wasn't able to get there at the beginning so i see that mr shearer has his hand up for public comment and then i'll after he's made public comment i'll double check to see if other people would like to make public comment so mr shearer go ahead and unmute yourself thank you my name is azaresh here e-z-r-a-s-h-e-a-r-e-r thank you all for your time and your service on the board of trustees um today's the first day that our elementary as well or some elementary and middle school teachers are bringing every student back a through z so i think we should acknowledge and thank them for that i know it's part of their job and everything but many
155of them are doing so in an apprehensive way and some are very nervous about the consequences of that there's still real problems regarding a full reopening plan that we have yet to solve for and i'm looking forward to finding solutions that everybody can live with um i also just want to point out just out of obligation um the harvard global health institute gave us all a lot of hope because it set out some very clear parameters for how we could reopen safely and have an operation that exists in the long run because kovid's going to be with us for quite a bit longer and then recently today jama released another set of data and guidelines for schools that are also very optimistic looking at the data for school reopenings and low transmission rates for teachers
156and students these are optimistic data points for us to look at but they come with caveats and i feel like we're ignoring some of those caveats and i feel like we're doing so at our own peril um and so when you hear from teachers it's because we're ignoring the if then part of this statement and so i think we really need to pay attention for that um the jama recommendations that came out today have very clear expectations regarding indoor sports kind of upending the system to have safe in-person schooling and the harvard global health institute has clearly laid out guidelines on their faq page about how the document should be used and the document is clearly discussed as not to be used as a justification for reopening schools it's a set of guidelines for having
157an ops operational framework to reopen schools and maintain those schools being open safely and i feel like it's especially important for the board of trustees to know that we cannot and are not able to meet um all of the the mitigation strategies that are outlined there specifically social distance within our classrooms at many many of our levels so saying we're maintaining three feet of social distance is not true and it's just not happening in all of our classrooms and we need to be upfront and frank about that with our community members so they can weigh those risks um because otherwise we're not acting as public um trustees and and so we have to just be forthright we're making this recommendation to reopen our schools with every student every day using the harvard global health institute
158guidelines that set out how to do so safely but we're ignoring some of the aspects that say this is how you do it safely and i think that should give us all pause um thank you i'm really excited to get back with every student every day and many of us are um but we just want to do what the data says is safest so anyway thank you for your time and have a great night thank you for that public comment is there anyone else out there someone who oh casey blue uh miss blue go ahead and um mute yourself and make public comment i think uh ezra put so many things so well i just want to echo that we've got that mixture of apprehension and hopefulness within our staff and uh just a reminder
159to you that teachers like to be perfect but we know no one's perfect um and that reminder to keep um at the forefront of your mind that you know safety comes first for all of us and it's not just safety for ourselves um we talk about my classroom my classroom but what we're really trying to say is my kids um so just a reminder that our work conditions are students learning conditions and we're trying to make those the best that we can thanks thank you any other people still in the meeting who would like to make a public comment on a non-agenda item patton i don't think i see any hands up that's correct okay so with that being said we'll adjourn the meeting and i want to thank the public the trustees the members
160of the administration staff and teachers for all participating tonight thank you so much thanks chair holland for leading the meeting thank you